demons

so much has happened since i last wrote.

we won a battle on election day, for starters.  and i actually feel like i brought some good to the world.

i wrote a book.  i've sent it to some friends and family for feedback, and so far have heard good things.  and some constructive criticism, which i appreciate.  but mostly encouraging things.  i'm thinking of trying to get published.  how crazy is that?

i met someone.  i got a new apartment to myself in the city.  i started a math class that has been driving me bonkers ever since.  i'm happy.  life is good.

i haven't written in a while.  i've always found that i have the tendency to write more when i am unhappy, when life isn't going as i wanted it to go.  i guess that isn't necessarily true.  i write all the time.  but i blog more when i get low.  just before writing this, i reread a post from back in april.  when i took a hiatus, because i wasn't getting treated like i deserved to be treated.  i couldn't help but feel for the person who wrote that, because it's not me anymore.  i've grown a lot since then.

i don't know if my skin is necessarily thicker, but i think i'm just more content in my life.  i like where things are going.  and i can see very clearly that some things are the exact opposite of what i thought they were.  i've always been a people-pleaser.  it's who i am.  but i know now that i can't do it anymore.  why put up with people who don't deserve you when there are people out there who do?  that's what i've discovered.  i'm not a mean person, by any means.  but communication is a two-way street.

in that post from april, i was very caught up on whether or not i allowed people to treat me badly.  i was adamant in the post that i didn't.  because who would allow that?  but looking back... i think i did.  just not in the literal way that i had been thinking about when i wrote it.

here's the thing about life that took me a while to realize.  you can't control how people treat you.  that's up to them and to their morals and conscience.  but you can control how you respond.  i used to just ignore the nasty remarks and treat these people like i would everyone else.  but i don't do that anymore.  unconsciously, i started putting up walls.  now, the people who don't respect me don't receive something in return - me.  they don't get the real me.  they get a fake version, a nice version who doesn't actually tell them anything about what's going on in my life or what things are really like.  they get a ghost, a shell.

my best friend and i have been communicating by email since we both graduated from college and moved to our respective homes in different states.  and to keep things interesting, we have been exchanging questions back and forth, so we are constantly learning about the other.  it's fun, and it appeals to that part of both of us that wants to know people in a deeper way than just what is presented on the surface.  well, one of my questions was "if a movie was made about your life, who would you want to play you and the people close to you?"  when he answered it, he cheesed up the entire thing by saying that he thought i could only play myself.  probably because i'm admittedly weird, and there's probably no one out there like me.  i took it as a cheesy compliment, haha.  but lately, i've been thinking about it more.  i laughed because i can't act worth a damn, or so i thought.  i think i was wrong.  i think i'm acting most of the time, pretending to be the me that the people i'm with want to see.  who am i, really?  when am i truly myself?

when i'm with my sister, and my family, and my best friends, and the guy i'm seeing.  when i'm with the people i trust.  a person can't act all the time.  that would be exhausting.  but i get it now.  i understand why actors are so often typecast.  because it's hard to not slip in little glimpses of who you really are when you're acting.

and if you really want to know who i am, read what i write.  that's where i express everything.

there's a song that i recently discovered by imagine dragons called "demons."  the chorus says it all:

when you feel my heat, look into my eyes.
it's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide.
don't get too close, it's dark inside.
it's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide.

i'm really happy with where my life is right now.  i'm not sure if this post has expressed it like i intended, but i truly am.  but everyone who has some demons will understand what i mean when i say that you can never completely outrun them.  i have my share, even when it's something as insignificant as people who have treated me like a doormat for years.  you learn to cope.  i've taken up acting as a side occupation.  and writing.  and it was through my writing that i discovered that you can't run forever.  you might as well stand up on your own two feet and face it.  so i act.  because i have high standards.  and if you don't deserve me, you're not going to get me.  it's as simple as that.

"when the days are cold, and the cards all fold, and the saints we see are all made of gold.  when your dreams all fail, and the ones we held are the worst of all, and the blood's run stale.  i want to hide the truth.  i want to shelter you.  but with the beast inside, there's nowhere we can hide.  no matter what we breed, we still are made of greed.  this is my kingdom come.  this is my kingdom come."
- imagine dragons, "demons"

Straight But Not Narrow

Some stories are just waiting to be told.  I didn’t realize that I had one of them until it was sitting right in front of me.  There is nothing left for me to do but tell it.  The world (or at least those of you who read this blog) needs to hear it.

Last week, I went on a Hunger Games binge.  I reread the books in less than a week, watched the movie several times, creeped on Hunger Games themed blogs on Tumblr, and memorized quotes from the books.  I just love everything about it.  After all of that, I started looking up interviews with the cast on YouTube.  That’s when I stumbled across an interview with Josh Hutcherson, after he became the youngest winner of the Vanguard Award for his work with the organization Straight But Not Narrow, presented by GLAAD.  Now, I already loved and respected Josh as an actor – no one could have embodied Peeta like he did.  But this raised my level of respect by about a million percent.  And it made me see that I have a story to tell, too.

Let’s back up two decades.

My family and I moved to a new house when I was three years old.  I distinctly remember peeking out from behind my dad in our garage, talking to the neighbor across the street about his son, who was also three.  But he was taking a nap, so he couldn’t play right then.  From that day forward, we were basically inseparable.  He got me into trouble, and I tried to get him out of trouble.  He explored every inch of our neighborhood together.  We laughed, we cried, we fought.  He was the brother I never had.  And I loved him the way only a child can love a friend. 

Certain memories stick with me more than others.  The day we got detention for leaving school grounds and straying into someone’s yard to pick violets at recess.  Singing the Power Ranger theme song while riding in the bed of his dad’s blue truck.  Making snow forts for our Beanie Babies for hours.  Sledding down the small hill in our neighbor’s yard.  I smile, because no one will ever be able to take those from me.

As we got older, we didn’t stay as close.  But there was something about our bond that couldn’t be broken.  I remember crying when I didn’t get asked to prom, and he told me that he would go with me.  I remember long conversations about people we both hated, because you just can’t face hating someone alone.  He was there for me when people were mean.  He was my first line of defense, always standing up for me.  He was selfless, really.  My friends didn’t really care for him, but I always told them that it didn’t matter what they said – he would always be my neighbor, my childhood companion.

Flash forward to high school graduation.  Our moms teared up as we stood next to each other in our gowns.  We were obviously going to share that moment together, and his name actually happened to be directly after mine in the alphabet.  We walked across the stage and got our diplomas back to back.  I don’t think it could have happened any other way.  I was reading the cards I received at my open house about a week after that, and I saw that I had one from him.  It was hand-written in his sloppy script, and I think I would have been the only one to ever understand what he was talking about in that card.  I just remember laying on my bed and sobbing.  Because what I didn’t think about when I picked an out-of-state school and left our sleepy town behind was that I would be leaving him behind, too.  I couldn’t picture it. 

Jump another two or three years ahead.  I was home from school on a break, and he came over to have lunch with me.  We talked, caught up, and laughed like nothing had changed, like no time had passed.  I remember needing to get ready to go somewhere, so I went upstairs to brush my teeth.  He followed me and leaned on the door frame of the bathroom and watched me for a while.  Then he said, “There’s something I want to tell you.”  I said, “Ok,” as best I could with toothpaste in my mouth.

“I’m gay,” he said slowly, quietly. 

I remember spitting the toothpaste out.  I remember looking him in the eye.  But I don’t remember what I said in response.  I imagine it was something simple, like “ok,” or “cool.”  Something to make him see that it didn’t matter to me.  What he didn’t know is that I already knew.  At that point, I had known him for almost twenty years.  I knew him forward and backward, inside and out.  He was my childhood best friend, my playmate, my confidant.  My brother.  He didn’t need to tell me.  But I am so glad he did.

When I hugged him goodbye that day, I knew that it was going to change me somehow.  Knowing him was going to make me a better person, a stronger person.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it yet.  I spent a couple of years keeping silent about it, only defending him when someone else brought it up.  But it was always nagging me, eating at me.  I needed to DO something.

Stumbling across Straight But Not Narrow was a game-changer.

I watched all the videos on the website, I read everything I could about it.  It was perfect, exactly what I was looking for.  What I had needed was a platform that I could get behind, something that I could fight for.  And this was it.  This is it.

It’s so simple.  I like men.  I like how they move, how they smell, how they talk.  I am attracted to them.  I am straight.  But I love my friend.  I love him more than I love myself.  And he also likes men.  That’s cool.  He’s still the same person.  He will always be the little boy I met twenty years ago in my driveway.

In just over two months, the voters of Minnesota (my home state) will be faced with the decision about whether to add an amendment to the state constitution.  This amendment would officially define marriage as between a man and a woman.  Permanently.  Written in stone, as they say.  I can’t let that happen.  Not while I have the spirit to fight it.

I know that one single person can’t change the world.  I’m quiet, sometimes timid.  I’ve been known to shy away from a fight.  But this is my time to DO something.  This is my chance to try to change the game.  This is it.

I have two months to do everything I can to combine the spirit of Straight But Not Narrow with the means of Minnesotans United for all Families, an organization against the amendment.  I have two months to make some small difference.  I have two months to get my voice heard.

Tomorrow is September 1.  A new month.  A new goal.  A new beginning.

My name is Amanda Gernentz.  I am straight, but not narrow.  And I am going to fight the Minnesota Marriage Amendment with every fiber of my being.

Let’s go.

(If you are with me on this and want to help me out, please visit my fundraising page.  Thank you!)

i wrote something today.

as the title implies, i wrote something today.  i can't decide if i want to keep going with it.  i have some ideas for plot development, and if so, this would probably actually be the middle of the story.  but this is what i wrote today.  any and all comments are welcome.  

happy reading!

-----------------------

It’s hard not to notice the way he looks at me.  Like he knows me.  Even though we’ve never spoken to each other.  Even though I didn’t notice his existence until he sat in front of me in one of my English classes earlier this week.

At first, I wracked my brain.  Do I know him?  Have we met before?  No.  We don’t know each other.  His name is Connor James, I learned during roll call on that first day of class.  I looked him up on the student part of the school website.  He’s my year in school.  He’s from the area, where as I wanted nothing more than to escape my home, many states away.  And I don’t recognize anything about him.

So why does he look at me like that?

Finally, after seeing him watching me at every meal this week, pick up my tray and walk over to him.  I slam it a little too loudly on the table.  He flinches, but never breaks eye contact.  His friends all stare at me like I have two heads, and the girl sitting next to him tightens her grip on his upper arm.  They think I’m crazy.

So why does he stare at me?

“What do you want?” I ask, too harshly.  I am looking only at him, but the girl makes a noise of obvious disgust.  Like she can’t believe I think that he wants anything to do with me.

“Nothing,” he answers evenly.

“Then stop looking at me like that,” I spit out between clenched teeth.

His mouth twitches in response, but he says nothing.  I start to walk away.

“Not everyone is out to get you, you know, Isolde.”  I stop short, whipping around to face him again.  The girl is glaring at me, since she obviously didn’t know that he knew my name.

“What?” I hiss.

He smiles, which makes me madder.  “Nothing.”  He shrugs.  “I just thought you should know that it’s not just you against the world.”

I glare at him.  But my hair is standing on end.

He knows my real name.

I decide not to waste any more time on him as I stalk out of the cafeteria, leaving my half empty tray sitting in front of him at the table.

* * * * *

If you were to look at me, and then look at him, it’s pretty easy to see that we are not friends.  He often wears boat shoes and polos and looks like he just stepped off of a yacht.  I’m much more likely to be caught in ripped skinny jeans tucked into worn out boots.  My nose and eyebrow have metal posts through them, and even more rings line my ears.  My hair is a mousy brown color that I cut short and choppy.  And he looks like he’s about to tie a sweater around his shoulders and board a boat destined for Cape Cod.

Nevertheless, he is waiting for me outside the door when I leave English the next day.  I brush past him, but he grabs my arm, forcing me to turn.

“Can I talk to you?” he asks.

“Why?” I ask, loudly.  “Your girlfriend won’t like it.”

He chuckles.  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

I sigh, annoyed.  “What do you want?” I ask again, quieter.

He opens his mouth as though he’s going to say something, and then stops.

“Just come with me,” he asks, almost pleading.  I can’t really say no.

“Fine,” I respond, feeling defeated.

He takes my hand and leads me to the stairs.  We climb and we climb, until I know we’re at the landing to the top floor of the building.  But he turns and goes up another flight of stairs.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Somewhere we can talk,” he answers, squeezing my hand.  It is then that I feel them.  The bolts of electricity that pulse back and forth between our palms. 

Then he’s yanking on a door and pulling me into darkness.

He finds the cord that turns on the bare light bulb and pulls on it.  Light bathes the room, and I see that it’s a storage room.  We sit on an old loveseat together, mostly because he won’t let go of my hand.  It tingles, as if the current between us is palpable.

“Isolde,” he says.  I flinch, averting my eyes.

“Don’t call me that,” I say, shaking my head.

“Why?”

“I thought you had something to tell me,” I look at him pointedly, trying to change the topic.

“Why can’t I call you by your name?” he asks again.  I sigh.

Now that I look at his face, I can see why he’s always the center of a crowd.  His eyes are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen, like the sky on a sunny summer day.  His eyelashes are long and blond, the same golden color as his shaggy hair.  He’s beautiful.  It renders me momentarily speechless.

“I changed it,” I say, barely above a whisper. 

“To what?”

“Izzy.”

“Why?”

I shake my head.  “There’s too much tragedy in that name.”  I say it before I can catch myself.  I turn away from him.  “Can I go?”  I am distinctly uncomfortable.

“Izzy…”  The soft tone of his voice makes me turn back to him.  And when he kisses me, it takes me completely by surprise.

“What are you doing?” I hiss, backing away from him.  He still has a grip on my hand, so I can’t get very far.

He shakes his head.  “I’m sorry.”  His eyes are so sad.  So defeated.  “I don’t know why I did that.”

I sigh again.  “What do you want, Connor?”

His head snaps up again.  “You know my name?”

I let out a strangled laugh.  I can’t believe his question.  “You’ve been stalking me for the last week.  I looked you up.”

“Oh,” he says, sounding relieved.  “That’s all…”

My brow furrows.  What does he mean?  What’s all?  Is there more?

“Please tell me why I’m here.  I have other things to do,” I whisper, because I’m getting creeped out and I want to get as far away from him as possible.

“I know who you are,” he says quietly.

I’m glad his blue eyes aren’t trained on me.  I think my resolve would weaken even more.

“Oh, really?  Then who am I?”

He fixes those eyes on me again, and I’m frozen, captivated by his mouth as it tells me the things I’ve been hiding from everybody since I ran away from home all those years ago.

“You are Isolde O’Rourke.  Only daughter of Patrick and Cecelia O’Rourke.  After your father’s imprisonment, your mother was sent to a mental hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota.  You ran away, took her maiden name, and lived with foster parents in Boulder until you came here.”  He pauses, as if sizing me up.  “I didn’t know you legally changed your first name, though.”

I am staring at him, still as a stone.  A tear rolls down my cheek, and he gently wipes it away with the pad of his thumb.  I let him.

“How?”  It’s all I can get out.

“My mom was Jane Vander Gras.”

I can feel the blood drain from my face.  My extremities go cold.  I’ve been running from this for so long, but it caught me.  The tears are flowing freely now as I blink. 

“Why did you bring me here?”  I barely choke out the question.  I have a sudden and intense pang of fear.  Fear for my life.  Fear for my future, for my own sanity.

His lips turn up in a half smile.  A sad smile.  “I knew you were out there.  Initially, I wanted… vengeance.  I wanted you to pay for what happened to my mother.  It was hard to find you, since you dumped the scumbag’s name.”  His tone has a hard edge to it, and I can hardly look him in the eye.  “Our lawyer found you.  And you were here.  In the same place my dad and I sought refuge after the hell we went through at the trial.  In the clean air of the mountains, where you see how small you are.”  He pauses again, forcing me to meet his eyes.  Those sad, beautiful, blue eyes.  “And then I saw you.  You radiated your pain, wore it on your sleeve.  You’ve been running, too.”

My brow knits together, and he looks at our hands.

“I’ve been following you for two years, trying to get up the nerve to have this conversation with you.  And after all this time, you came to me first.”

We sit in silence until I can find my voice again.  “But your last name is different,” I whisper.  I had no idea who he was.

“James,” he answers softly.  “My mom didn’t take my dad’s name when they married.”

I shake my head, confused.  “Why did you bring me here?” I whisper again.  I can’t stop the tears from falling.  I don’t want to hurt anymore.

“Because in following you, I fell in love with you.”

His words are simple, but they have a distinct effect on me.  I yank my hand out of his grasp and stumble into the corner of the room.  Curling up into a ball on the floor, I sob.

Love is what did this to my family.  Because of what my dad chose to love.  And because my mom loved my dad. 

“Izzy…” Connor says softly.  He hasn’t left the loveseat, but he’s watching me.

“You can’t love me,” I choke out between sobs.  “You don’t know what’s inside me.”

“You’re not your parents, Izzy.”  The words are familiar, spoken to me once a week at my psychologist’s office.  But they have never sunk in.

“You don’t know that,” I respond.

“Yes, I do.  I’ve been watching you, remember?  You’re kind.  You keep to yourself.  You care about people.”  He slowly eases himself onto the floor and scoots toward me.  When he lifts my head onto his lap, I don’t object.

“You can’t love me,” I say again, my voice sounding impossibly small.  “Your family would hate you.”

“My dad already knows.”

This brings me enough out of my reverie to look him in the eyes again.

“Your dad?”

“I told him that I found you two years ago.  He told me to keep my distance, that I shouldn’t take out my anger on you.  But I just… couldn’t.  I couldn’t stay away.  Every time I saw you, I wanted to touch you, to feel you next to me.  My anger disappeared.  And then I just wanted… you.”

I sit up to look at him.  This is a lot to process. 

Love is not something I have ever been looking for.  I had vowed to never repeat my parents’ mistakes.  I don’t know what to tell him.

“You can have anyone,” I say simply, quietly.  “Why me?”

His bright blue eyes meet mine.  He shakes his head.

“You can’t tell me that you don’t see how they all look at you.  All the other girls.  Like the one at dinner yesterday, for instance?”

He gives me a wry smile.  “Someone was watching me, too, I take it?”

I elbow him in the ribs and he laughs.  The sound fills the room and makes me smile.

He shakes his head again.  “Those girls… they don’t know pain.  The worst pain they’ve ever felt is a bad hangover.”  He takes my hand in his.  “I can see your pain in the way you carry yourself.  We’re alike in that way.  There are things that the rest of the world will never feel, but we have already felt them.”

“But what if I am like my parents?  What if that madness is in my blood?” I whisper the words out of fear, the fear that I have been carrying with me for almost ten years.

“You won’t be.  I would never let you.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh.  He sounds so crazy.  “I don’t know you.  You make it sound like we have a future together.”

“Maybe we do.”  He is so sincere that I find myself looking into his eyes again.

And when he leans in to kiss me again, I meet him halfway.

I wasn’t looking for a future.  I was just looking to escape my past. 

And maybe, with Connor, I have a shot at both.

freight trains and bug bites.

45.  keep on dreaming, even if it breaks your heart.

"oh, you hit me harder than a freight train.

right in the middle of my membrane.

driving backwards in the fast lane.

headlights off after midnight.

i saw you shining in the starlight.

oh, you got me like a bug bite.

and now you're under my skin."

-casey abrams

i am tired.  my tension headaches have returned.  i'm feeling isolated, like it's me against the world.  but i'm excited.

why?

i'm sitting here, on the couch on our front porch.  my computer is on my lap.  there is a wicker table cutting into the backs of my calves, leaving imprints.  on the table are an assortment of items.  i have been accumulating things out here for the last several days.

there is a weekly planner.  two notebooks.  a black pen and a pink pen.  three yearly calendars, from 2012, 2013, and 2014.  a small box of gre vocabulary flashcards.  and a general psychology textbook.

what does this mean?

it means i've been planning.

since i left grad school in january, i have been trying to pinpoint what i want to do with my life.  i often say that flippantly, but i have been trying very hard to get serious about it.  i need some direction.  a lot has changed in my life since january.  i started a job and ended it, because i was miserable.  i have visited friends all over the country.  i went on a road trip in a maroon gmc safari with four friends.  i've spent a lot of time searching.  but it's hard to search when you don't know what you're looking for.

but there has been something that has been nudging me since way back in february.  i thought i knew what it was getting at - i thought forensic psychology would be pretty cool.  i'm fascinated by forensic science.  but all of the law jargon, the court cases, the fact that i would have to meet with people who potentially killed or raped or injured others... i couldn't handle that.  i put it on the shelf.

then i toyed with reading and writing, two things i have loved for as long as i can remember.  my favorite stories have to do with love, obviously.  i'm a sucker for a good love story.  so when i'm writing, i always write about love, about two people meeting and falling for each other, about whirlwinds and problems and sparks flying all over the place.  i can get into characters' heads.  that's what i love, and what i'm good at.  however, the practicality of an english or creative writing degree doesn't seem very high.  i'd have to teach, since the odds of making a living off of published works isn't high either.  so i put that on the shelf, too.  i figure, i don't need a degree to write.  i can do that anyways.

so then i started looking into counseling.  that seemed like it could be a good fit.  i'd be helping people.  and i love college campuses, so i thought, why not try to do higher education counseling?  and then i thought about some of the issues i saw while i was in college - the stuff that the counseling center had to deal with.  suicide attempts.  rape.  eating disorders.  depression.  anxiety.  the list goes on.  higher ed counseling is a lifeline.  sometimes a last hope.  i want to help people, i do.  but i just don't think i have the mental and emotional strength to be someone's last hope.  i would blame myself every time.  plus, i saw a counselor during my senior year of college.  and i lied to him.  repeatedly.  i just... i don't think it was the right path for me.

that's when it hit me.  just like a freight train, as the song at the beginning of the post suggests.  i don't know why it took me so long to figure this one out.  it was all right in front of me all along.  that's called hindsight bias, by the way.  it's the feeling you get after something happens that you saw it coming all along.  i learned that by reading my psychology textbook.

falling in love fascinates me.  i've always thought it was because it is something i want and am looking for, and that's why i always write about it.  but think about this.  why are you attracted to some people and not to others?  what is this "spark" that people say needs to be there?  chemistry, sure, but what causes it?  how can you be friends with some people for years without any stronger feelings, but other times you "fall for" your friend?  can men and women just be friends?  is there such a thing as love at first sight?  can lust and physical attraction truly turn into love?  SO MANY QUESTIONS.

there is a field of research within social psychology about interpersonal relationships.  ever since i found it, it's all i can think about.  it's like a bug bite.  even when you don't think you're thinking about it, it will suddenly itch, and then it's all you can think about.  i want to answer those questions.  there are probably already answers to some of them.  but i want more.

since i have realized this, i've been working like mad to put all of my jumbled thoughts into action.  i have to take the gre general test again and get a higher score.  i have to take the psychology subject exam.  i have to earn at least 24 credits in psychology, and i currently have only 6 credits from hope.  plus, i just got a new job that i start on monday, and i'm looking for an apartment in the city where my job is, so that i won't waste time driving.  i have a lot on my plate.  but at night, after scrambling around all day trying to figure all of this stuff out, i open my 9th edition of david myer's "psychology," and i'm lost in this other world, this world where things like interpersonal relationship research and hindsight bias are everyday terms.  i haven't been this excited about learning since the first time i drew a benzene ring back in high school.  this is where i want my life to go.

"some dreams stay with you forever.

drag you around and bring you back to where you were.

some dreams keep on getting better.

you've got to keep believing if you want to know for sure."

- eli young band

a love letter

to whom it may concern:

there are some things in life that i just don't understand.

i've used this blog to talk about feelings and relationships in the past.  it was a coping mechanism, a way for me work through the emotions i was having.  i haven't written about either of those topics in quite some time, and i wasn't planning on ever doing so again.  however... something has been nagging at me, tugging at my brain.

i know what love looks like.  my parents have been married for almost 28 years and are so incredibly happy.  my aunt and uncle call each other "the love of my life."  both of my sets of grandparents have been married for 50+ years.  i've been in two of my friends' weddings, and have two more coming up in the next year.  i've been helping people plan weddings pretty consistently for the last two years.  and i recently spent two weeks with a couple who know each other completely inside and out, a comfort that i rarely see in anyone.  i know what love looks like.  that is not the question here.

i might know what love looks like... but how do people find it in the first place?

i have had some struggles with my self-esteem in the past.  i know this about myself - sometimes i just get down.  i feel like there are things wrong with me, inherent flaws that drive people away.  with the love of some really good friends, i am beginning to see that i don't need to worry so much about this.  my confidence has never been better than it is right now.  but that still begs the question of this post, doesn't it?

why am i still single?

there are things about me that make guys cringe, i know.  i read cosmo religiously.  i rarely miss the bachelor or the bachelorette.  i get lazy about shaving my legs.  things like that.  but there are so many things about me that i have been told guys love.  i can talk baseball and hockey in more detail than a lot of people.  i'd rather be outside than anywhere else.  i'm more comfortable in hiking shoes than heels, and love wearing ball caps.  i laugh at myself all the time.  i'm a generally happy person.  i don't think it's that people don't like me.  i just don't know what i'm doing, out in the real world.

i know a lot of people who found the love of their lives in high school.  sweet.  more power to you.

i know even more people who marry their college sweethearts.  awesome.  go you.

but what happens after college?  what happens when there are no more classes or organized activities that force people who are automatically connected by this one common thing together?  what then?

the semester i spent in grad school showed me that intellectuals are boring.  no, i don't want to talk about your research for the next five hours, thank you very much.

the stint i did in online dating proved that people can be compatible on paper and not in life.  oh, you want to start growing bonzai trees?  your job is to drink beer?  you're in med school and think the phrase "textually active" is legit?  no.  just... no.  check, please.

the one guy i met at work seemed to be the most promising.  but then when things didn't work out, i still had to see him at work.  and that... sucked.

now that i'm home, i've realized that i already know everyone my age in this town.  the bars here are full of washed up people i went to high school with.  and, no, i don't want to talk to you about how you used to play the cello back in 7th grade.  remember that?  i don't care.

so what am i supposed to do?  where am i supposed to meet people?

there is a plan for me.  i just haven't met the one yet.  the timing isn't right.  i've heard them all.  and you know what?  none of that makes me feel better.  i still feel like the girl who finally got out of this town, and then failed to make it out in the world, so she had to come back.  all of my best friends are getting married.  i want that.  i want to know that someone has chosen me.  just me.  that someone wants to spend their life with me and no one else.  i can't see it right now, when i look into the future.  that's what scares me.

i can take care of myself.  that's the thing!  i don't want to have to all the time.  i want someone to have my back.

anytime now would be great to reveal yourself.  i mean, i'm cool with hanging out, being friends, whatever.  but i'm kind of over it.  i have enough friends.  i want someone to want more.

and someone who preferably wouldn't mind moving west in the future.  say, to the mountains, maybe?  that's where my heart is, after all.  but i guess i'll take what i can get for the time being.

yours, patiently waiting.  or maybe impatiently waiting.

amanda

on friendship

"these people are dumb.  file them under 'w' for 'worthless.'" - nameless friend #1

"people only treat others badly when the person on the other end allows it.  you are allowing it." - nameless friend #2

"so much of friendship is like a love affair - the novelty and sparkle wearing down at the edges to become something comfortable and predictable, like the cardigan you take out of your drawer on a rainy sunday because you need to surround yourself with something cozy and familiar."  - jodi picoult, sing you home

"dear best friend, please stay in my life forever, because you are one of the best things to ever happen to me.  love, me."  - teenager post #4742

what is friendship, exactly?  what makes a person your friend?  are you friends when you add them on facebook, or follow them on twitter?  or is it something more intimate than that?  is it when you exchange phone numbers or email addresses?  or when you hang out together on purpose, planning out a meeting to do something that you both enjoy?  where is the line?  where does friendship begin?

and more importantly, where does it end?

i think i have always valued friendships on a different level than other people do.  i care so deeply about people.  i'm the kind of person who will text a friend good luck before an exam, who will wait anxiously to hear about a first date, and who will listen for hours if that's what someone needs.  and, for some crazy reason, i have always expected that in return.  maybe i'm crazy.  maybe i need to face the reality - people don't think like me.  and, clearly, people don't feel like me.

i love my friends.  and i consider a lot of people in that category.  i go to them for advice, and patiently listen to what they all have to say.  i tell them my stories and my gossip.  i toss out one-liners that leave them laughing and take pictures of them to capture those moments forever.  but i often am left disappointed.

to use a very extreme analogy (that i borrowed from a romantic comedy), think of your life.  now, say your house/apartment started on fire.  what would you save?

i would save people.  and i think "people" would save themselves, or their things.

i have good friends who go weeks without answering text messages.  i have good friends who don't think twice about deserting me to hook up with someone they just met.  i have good friends who don't offer me a ride home, so i walk over a mile on a busy road by myself.  i have good friends who treat me like the doormat that they wipe their feet on - i.e., walk all over me, take advantage of me.  and these are the people who i love, who i trust, who i can't picture my life without.

something is wrong here.

since i moved home three months ago, i have been constantly plagued by insecurity.  i have been single for almost two years.  i have so many quirks that people can't keep track.  i don't have any distinguishing features, and don't leave enough of an impression to be remembered.  and i've been needing some love from my friends.

sometimes, during the late night/early morning hours when i'm awake and no one else is, i think about what would happen if i just disappeared for a while.  if i took a hiatus, and stopped answering texts, emails, phone calls.  if i faded into the background, got lost in the hubbub of everyone's busy lives.  would people notice?  if this blog post was the last communication i had for a while, outside of the people i physically see each day.  would anyone miss me?  it seems dramatic and immature, but i am a strong believer that sometimes, a little immaturity is cathartic.  maybe if one person loved like i did, i wouldn't have these thoughts in my head.

do i really allow people to treat me badly?  do i really just stand by and let people walk all over me?  is that possible?  i always tell myself that i'm just choosing my battles, and it's not worth fighting about these things.  but maybe a fight is what is needed.  maybe all this time, i should have been fighting for better treatment, for more love, for something equal to what i give.

i'll consider that while i'm on hiatus.

"if i treated you like you treat me, you'd hate me."  - twitter post