I Don't Have Roses in the Closet, but I've Got Pictures in a Drawer

A couple weeks ago when I was in bed with M, the subject of nostalgia came up. I don't miss people, he said and then proceeded to tell me that he's only ever missed one person. God, I said. Not me. I miss every single person I've ever met in my life. 

I haven't really thought about that conversation since we had it, but two days ago while I was walking off a lemon bar, a caramel apple square, and a salad drenched in enough honey mustard for me to have taken a bath in--okay, fine, plus the two mini chocolate pretzel bars my roommate gave me and the two Reese's Peanut Butter cups and  mini mr. Goodbar I pilfered from her stash of table leader candy--on the boardwalk behind my hotel, I passed a family that made it come back. The family consisted of a mom, a dad with a little boy who looked to be somewhere around three on his shoulders, and another little boy who seemed to be about the same age walking next to the mom and a stroller. I can't be sure if there was another sibling in the stroller, maybe a baby asleep, or if the stroller belonged to one of the little boys; I could, however, be sure that after a few seconds of looking at what appeared to be a family of four but could have been five, the family I saw wasn't that one in front of me comprised of strangers, but the one that used to be mine.

That used to be us, I thought. I thought it, and I saw it: Glenn, young, hair short and spiky--and dark, way darker than his norm because his hair looks so much darker when it's short and hasn't been lightened by the sun--with G on his shoulders and Kiwi by my side. G had short straight hair and a blue Spider-Man shirt, and Kiwi's shirt was striped, the same shirt he's wearing in a photo I have of him walking Christopher, our beloved Swedish Vallhund, while he holds his brother's hand. My hair is long and dark, pulled back in a ponytail, and I'm wearing Glenn's FSU shirt, the one I wore so much it's now threadbare, really a shirt barely there. I saw it and I felt it and I missed it and then I thought of that conversation I had in bed, and I realized I was wrong. It's not that I miss everyone I've ever met, it's that I miss different versions of people I've known--still know--throughout my life. I miss people who aren't even gone.

Let's take G, for instance. There's absolutely no logical reason for me to miss him one little bit, and I don't, or at least not the G of present time. He lives in Orlando, yes, but I think I talk to him more now than I did when he lived at home. To say we're close would be the underest understatement I ever did make. Still, when I think of G at various stages of little boy, I do--miss him, I mean--and it's not because I don't like who he's become and wish he were that little boy again. G is everything I could ever want him to be. He's just not the G he at different times has been.

Things are admittedly a little different with Ki, who also no longer lives at home, but who, unlike G, I don't talk to nearly as much as I did when we were in the same house. Him, I miss very much, not only the version of him from Kiwi past but also the version of him who exists on this plane. (That's not nostalgia, though, so it's the kind of relevance to this post that's not.)

***

Because I'm in Tampa scoring AP essays this week and far busier than I am in my normal life, this is my third day writing this post. Every night I write a tiny bit more, and during the day I kind of think about it a little, a combination which has resulted in my realizing that I was wrong in the point I set out to make, in what I originally thought. Originally, I was thinking that what I miss is specific versions of people from specific times, but it's not--or well, maybe it partially is because I'm thinking of a very specific instance of G-K interaction I would go back to if I could--but it's mainly the interactions I had with those people at those times, and when I say interactions, that's exactly what I mean, and not necessarily anything more. I remember certain moments, certain conversations, certain places, and honestly, I miss them so much, and I don't miss them because things are now worse, I just miss them because they no longer are.

When I was in bed with M, he said if he were nostalgic, he couldn't be there with me, which obviously isn't true. More likely he meant he couldn't be present, the way I couldn't be present with the guy I went out with a couple weeks ago because every second he was kissing me at the beach, I was thinking about someone else spitting in my mouth (yes, I'm a horrific person, can we please move along?). Nostalgia isn't like that for me, though--something that keeps me from the present. When I was thinking about M spitting in my mouth (can I just take a minute to longingly sigh?), it obviously wasn't because I was nostalgic for it because how could someone be nostalgic for someone or something that just happened the prior week?

Nostalgia for me is just something that's there--that's often there--an intrinsic part of my life. Even if I don't actively miss it every second of the day, I always miss when I used to call Keifer my dolly just like I always miss the Glenn-G-K-Kelly-Christopher family bed and the five years of coffee on Friday afternoons with G and my Crystal-Jeffrey-Adrian-Jordan seventh period planning in 2014-15 and the time I had the nerve to ask a customer at Denny's if he'd call me if I gave him my phone number and he ended up being my boyfriend for a year and going to Louie's house on days off of school and Buddy being a part of our house and finally meeting Geoff for the first time after making up stories and fake scenarios about him for five years and going to that Led Zeppelin laser light show with Chris that time when we weren't in our right minds and a car full of boys almost tipped my Fiat while we laughed like fools and pretty literally everything that's ever happened in my life. I don't miss them because I want them to happen again, I just miss them because they once were but no longer are.

Except

I don't exactly believe that's true.

(The part about no longer are)

It's my personal belief that time isn't straight. It's my personal belief that everything that's ever happened to everybody everywhere is happening to everybody everywhere all the time. Right here where I'm sitting at the Marriott Waterside in Tampa? Right under my chair? Cuban fishermen are hanging out smoking cigars; Hernando de Soto is slaughtering Native Americans; Andrew Jackson, in typical Andrew Jackson style, is starting the First Seminole War. It's all happening, over and over and over again, and it doesn't stop. I believe that of everything (one day I'll tell you about when I used to think Keifer from 2017 was living in his room, crossing over to now), which means all those memories that mean so much? They're not memories so much as happening on a different plane.

Someplane (can we make that a word?), I'm laughing hysterically on the playground with my high school boyfriend after having gotten something questionable in my eye; someplane, I'm standing with Adam Shoji having a conversation about how he remembers meeting me the last time Seaway played; someplane I'm at Urbis Orbis in Chicago with Chris meeting the cutest boy we had ever met; someplane, my dolly and my doggie and my Griffy and, yes, even my Glennjamin are lying under a yellow comforter with blue flowers ready to wake up and live the rest of our lives.

And somehow, that makes me much happier than it makes me sad. 

It Was Just How He Looked in the Light

Recent events in my life--and when I say recent, I'm talking since around January, but really some of these events go back to last summer--have forced me to be even more introspective than I usually am, and I think I've finally figured something out, or at least if I didn't figure something out, I'm on my way to figuring it out, and, well, what better place is there to explore something deeply personal than right here in a public forum?

It's about sex (I know, you guys are utterly shocked).

Well, maybe it's not about sex. Maybe it's about love.

Okay, actually it's about both sex and love and what the intersection of the two means to me.  Wait, no, that's wrong--you know what? Since I need practice with this, let's not label it. Let's just see what happens and let it play out.

I'm trying to decide where to start. Despite the fact that I could probably make this a multivolume series, I'm pretty sure that's not what you want. I'm just going to write under the assumption everyone here has been reading my blog for years and knows absolutely everything about me. but, fine, in case you don't, here's a super quick cheat sheet because I'm considerate like that.

The first thing I'm going to tell you is that despite my professions in the past, I did not, in fact, love La Dispute Guy, and I swear that's not sour grapes. It turns out now that I've had actual distance from him instead of just pretend distance during which we still messaged and talked about super hot things like desecration and pain, I'm realizing what I really was in love with was our sex. La Dispute Guy? Not so much.

The second thing I'm going to tell you is that absolutely, positively, unequivocally, the best sex I've had in my life was with three of the four last people I slept with which is bringing us back to when La Dispute Guy and I met in July (and not that it matters or to be overly exact, especially since I don't owe an explanation about the people I've slept with to anyone, but one of those four people is someone I've been sleeping with for a few years, so really it's like I've slept with three people in the last 10 months because old people don't count*). I know that's kind of--maybe?--too much information, but it's what brought me to the realization(s) I'm writing about now.

And what is that realization? Well, we have to go back way further than July. Not long after C and I started having sex, one of the trillion times that we stopped seeing each other, I mentioned something about it to a coworker, something about how good our sex was and how I didn't know how he could just so easily stop having sex with someone he liked having it with so much. She basically told me that was ridiculous, that people can have good sex with anyone, an assertion at which I balked. I also, in my now-defunct secret blog that I've been kicking around the idea of starting again now that I have secret things I want to write, wrote about how I didn't understand how someone could just throw the kind of sex we had away. In my experience up until that point, which you know if you've studied my cheat sheet, good sex was pretty rare. Louie and I had it, so I knew it existed, but up until C, I never really had it again.

I'm not blaming the people I slept with. I want to make that clear. I dated Louie for two years in high school, from fifteen to seventeen, and started dating Glenn when I was nineteen. The majority of other people I had sex with up to the point of C when I was 34 were people I'd slept with mostly once, maybe twice, and first and second time sex usually isn't the best. Also, I, myself wasn't entirely comfortable, something that, especially for a girl, is pretty important. And regarding Glenn, well, a couple things: one, it's not like we never had good sex (he did get a combination of two and three hearts!). It's just that having good sex--and sex at all--was pretty infrequent. Also, that thing about not being comfortable with the people pre-Glenn? That includes Glenn, actually. Some people just don't mesh. I'm not blaming him (not for everything anyway). It's just the way it was.

So going back to the original point--I think? To be honest, I've been writing this post for a while, and I don't even remember the original point--until a few years after I was divorced, I labored under the belief that good sex was an anomaly, and it was because of that "anomalous" good sex that I held onto C for so long. After I got divorced, I had lovers here and there, but none of them was anything special--yet C still was. He could make me feel things that besides Louie in high school, nobody else could until La Dispute Guy came along, and it made me look at him--at both hims, actually--with dopamine eyes. Now, I won't purport that I was never in love with C and it was all because of sex like with La Dispute Guy because that's obviously ludicrous, but I will say sex was a big part in my not wanting to let my feelings go even though they had so obviously surpassed their expiration date, and the fact that it had devolved to nothing but sex is a big part of why once I did start having the kind of sex I recently started having, I was finally able to let go of whatever lingered. I hate to say it like this, but he was replaced. And, well, I guess La Dispute Guy was, too, because omg, don't even get me started with the sex I've had post-La Dispute Guy (even though I really want to start. Or better yet, can you say sing from the rooftops? Because that's what I really want to do), sex that's totally made me all like, La Dispute Guy who? but that totally didn't make me all like, omg, I'm so in love because lessons!

Lessons, people, lessons! Realizations! Epiphanies!

I'm learning!

And what have I learned? Well, I hate to be heavy handed here, but I learned that good sex, amazing sex, even fuck-me-every-second-for-the-rest-of-my-life sex comes along more than I thought, and I also learned that I don't have to get all starry eyed when it does. I've always been aware that sex doesn't equal love, and for the most part that's never been a problem for me, but fuck-me-every-second-for-the-rest-of-my-life sex? That's harder for me to differentiate if for no other reason than that I want that person to be around all the time for reasons that should be obvious, but in case it's not obvious, it's because when you want someone to fuck you every second, that person being around is kind of a necessity.

I also learned I need to listen to myself more and let go of things when it's time even though in actuality I totally already knew that, but you know, knowing and doing are way different things and plus the listen to myself more part of it is really is new. Real Friends has this lyric, you're still in my mind but not in my chest, and I have to tell you, if ever something encapsulates my feelings for C over the past year and a half or so, it's that line. Despite not feeling the feelings, longing the longings, experiencing the pangs, despite knowing what I felt was over, I convinced myself he was still relevant, but that was only in my head, a vestige of a love I didn't want to leave. To a much lesser extent, that happened with La Dispute Guy, too. Even after I knew I didn't feel what I (misguidedly thought I) felt anymore, I convinced myself I felt it.

I just had a conversation with this girl I work with at the axe bar I work at on Saturday nights--didn't know I work at an axe bar on Saturday nights? Now you do! Come have a beer with the cutest blogger you know--and it fit so perfectly into this post and my life, it was kind of eerie. Pain is inevitable, she said, but suffering isn't.

Classroom-learning-into-real-life-application-mode engage:

I guess we'll see.

*Official Kismetism

Match & Tinder

A few weeks ago I matched with this guy on bumble date who was not at all my type. Not only was he not particularly cute, but also he looked much more straightlaced and clean cut (read: bland) than the guys I'm attracted to and was way more professional that what I like. You know the best way to put it? He was a normie, and normies are totally not my thing. I know, you're wondering, probably, why I matched with this not-particularly-cute, professional-looking, normie guy at all. Well, behold, readers, the following screenshot, and you'll see:

Three lines down, did you see?

The lure of anything Chicago related is just impossible for me to resist. 

Since there's no point in my making up a fake name for this guy as is my usual thing seeing as it's right there for you to see, we'll just call him by his real name. Darren and I talked minimally for a couple weeks, probably ten messages between the two of us in all, maybe fifteen, mainly about Chicago and what would possess him to leave the greatest city on Earth to come to this nightmare of a place. A week or so into the conversation, he asked me if I wanted to grab lunch one day, and a few days after that, he asked if I wanted a relationship or just a friend to which I said yes and yes, that if a relationship happens, that's fine, but I could always use more friends (I'd provide a screenshot but we're not matched anymore; luckily I had the foresight to screenshot his little bio last week). Days went by after my response, and then one day I got a message from him that, again I wish I could provide word for word, but went something like this:

I'm trying to make the biggest network of young working professionals and would personally like to invite you to join. Click here. And then a link was provided, which out of annoyance I didn't open for a few days, but when I did, I found led to this:

After looking around a little, I clicked on his profile picture, which led to what right this second I'm finding is a now-deleted photo of, I believe it said his queen but maybe it was his reason for being, and what I'll call his longtime, live-in girlfriend. For your viewing pleasure, this is a still-remaining photo of the million-dollar couple here:

(See what I mean about the bland?)

Now, before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I don't think Darren was trying to cheat (but of course, I have terrible judgment and am often so far off, it's-almost-comical wrong). He never said anything remotely suggestive, and other than asking me to a lunch which we never had, he never expressed any desire to meet. What I think instead is that Darren is turning something into a platform that's not meant to be a platform at all. I think he's an opportunist who, while not quite preying on women, is absolutely playing with women, manipulating a system and hope and trust and, oftentimes, naïvete´, and to be honest, I think that's much worse than your garden-variety cheat or at least, for whatever reason we're not going to unpack in this specific post, it is to me. 

I don't want to use the term conmanning because that's way too strong, but there should definitely be a term for what Darren is doing; in fact, I suspect that in the day and age of ghosting, breadcrumbing, zombieing, submarining, and benching, there probably is a term because he can't be the only one, he's just the only one I've seen, and if there isn't yet a term, I'm sure there's soon going to be. For now, though, since either there's no official term or I don't know what it is, we'll just go with asshole.

I'm pretty sure that one works. 

It's All Love Now

Today is my birthday, and before I say anything about that, if you've been sitting on the edge of your seat since my last post wondering whether I'm somebody's girlfriend or not, let me just put your mind at ease and tell you that I'm not. I am now, and for the foreseeable, and to be honest, probably also the unforeseeable, future--like I'm talking the forever future--as single as they come.

I'd like to follow that statement up with something like, and that's just fine, and while sometimes it totally is, it's also sometimes totally not. But I've been over this subject a million and two times and feel like it's pretty much done. Like, do people who read my blog even care about that? Is my dating life even something people are interested in? (That's a rhetorical question, but if you are, you should totally follow me on Snapchat where almost all I do is talk about boys.)

What I do want to talk about, which coincidentally I'm texting about right now with a boy I just went on a date with on Tuesday night, is my birthday and how I thought it was going to be a sad disaster of a day but was totally wrong. As you know, G is in Orlando; as you don't know, Kiwi is out of town with his girlfriend; and my sister is out of town, too, and those three are pretty much my go-to's. Because my go-to's are gone, in the days leading up to my birthday, I was completely distraught, and not just in my typical I'm-getting-older type of way but in the way of I have nobody and have to spend my birthday all alone.

Only I didn't and I do.

I mean, I'm alone right now, like in a physical way, but despite my negative-Nelly expectations and pessimistic take on the fiasco that is my life, I have to admit I'm not really alone at all.

I went into today preparing for the worst, and seriously--it was the opposite of that. As much as I feel like I have nobody, I have people who love me--good, amazing, caring people--and who I love back, people who did everything they could to make me feel happy--I'm talking cooking! And cake! Cake!--because they knew how down I felt about being home alone, and on top of that, once I was home, I wasn't even alone. I mean, again, physically, sure, but people haven't left me alone all afternoon and night, and I actually feel how much they care, and I'm realizing that contrary to the staunch belief I've held onto for so long, I'm not alone just because nobody is here.

Is it the not kind of alone I was used to after being married for over fifteen years? Of course not, but that had a different kind of aloneness in itself, a kind of aloneness that if you were to ask me if it was better or worse, my answer would depend on the day. Is it the not kind of alone I ever imagined I'd have the day I turned 44? No husband or significant other and no kids, just an empty house? Of course not to that, too, but what I'm learning in my ever-increasing age is that sometimes we have to learn to let go of what we thought would be in order to be happy with what actually is,

which is

me.

After the Party

I know. I know! I told you I'd tell you about the night I kind of got dumped and never did. The truth is, there's not very much to tell. The day before Thanksgiving I sent La Dispute Guy a sort of dramatic, extremely long message pretty much telling him everything that was wrong with us--or more specifically, him--and at the end of his very patient, very thorough response, he said he thought it would be best if we made a conscious decision to stop doing whatever it is we were doing. There's been debate among people who have read the messages whether he ended things or I did since I sent the initial message, but it doesn't matter because either way the result is the same: he's my noyfriend no more.

To say I didn't take it well would be a gross understatement. I moped; I wallowed; I went on and on about it to everyone I know; I, um, for reasons that make no sense at all, even to me, stalked all of his ex-wife's social media which did nothing but make me feel worse than ever because, omg, the woman is perfect. She's smart and gorgeous, a good person and a good mom; she's a writer (she even published a fucking book); she runs. I'll tell you what she is, people who read my blog: she's a better version of me. No wonder LDG didn't love me. If I were him, I'd probably never love anybody else ever again. I know my limitations, and let me tell you, I am no competition for that. It was silly of me to even try.

But, Silly, well, that's my middle name. So is Tenacious... and Obtuse...and Doesn't Know When to Stop (my full name is extremely long).

I'm finally coming to my senses, though, finally making my way to the other side, and shock of all shocks, lying on the other side, waiting for me to finish my journey is something I totally didn't foresee:

somebody wants me to be his girlfriend.

You're shocked, right? Like completely blown the fuck away, all, How did that even happen? and Where did this guy even come from? I completely understand because I, too, was pretty fucking shocked, and while I don't know if I feel comfortable telling you who he is just yet--okay, I do know, and I don't--it's somebody you've heard of, one of the guys I dated post divorce, one of the few who I didn't lose interest in at all. We stayed friends, and well, I guess he finally came to his senses and realized how awesome I am--as most people eventually do--because last week he extended a "formal proposal" for me to be his girlfriend.

And, yeah. I'm pretty scared.

Like I told him, I haven't been anybody's significant other in over four years. For more than four years, I've done whatever I want with whomever I want without giving my actions a second thought, and I'm not just talking stuff that has to do with sex. I haven't had to check in with anyone when I'm out, tell someone where I'm going, make up excuses for staying out late; I could plan road trips across the country and not have to run it by anyone, fly out on a whim. I could live absolutely, completely, utterly for me.

Being someone's girlfriend? I don't know if I remember how--for example, this post? Probably a faux pas--but suddenly it seems plausible that I'm--we're all--going to find out.  

Happy Holiday, You Bastard! 2018

It's time once again for my annual what-I'm-thankful-for-on-Thanksgiving post--or in the case of last year's post, what I'm not thankful for--and I have to tell you, this is going to be hard, and when I say hard, I mean it's going to be nearly impossible to write. Things haven't exactly been going swimmingly for me lately which is something I could have probably worked with because, let's face it, when does my life consistently swim?, but if we factor into the equation that equals my life that I kind of got dumped at 1:30 in the morning last night, well, nothing is looking very good (I say kind of for reasons I could explain, but break up talk definitely doesn't belong in a what-I'm-thankful-for post, so maybe look out for that another day?). Still, I'm enmeshed in my routines and so this post will persevere.

(And then for my next trick, watch as I get blood from a stone)

Things That I'm Thankful For, 2018

1. Friends. I have some really shitty friends, but I have some amazing ones, too. Between my friend Mike driving down from Lake Worth to look at cars with me for G, Brian offering his blacksmith and welding services to make me a new gate, Danielle flying in from Oregon to take care of me when I had surgery, Curt calling to check up on me all the time, and Katie (who's technically my cousin, but I have a lot of cousins I'd never call friends) hearing about my relationship with La Dispute Guy so much, she's practically in it with us--or was--this has to be number one.

2. My hair. It was super short for so long--since 2008!--and then so unhealthy from being repeatedly bleached, I forgot what my natural grown out hair looks like, and I have to say, it's fucking amazing.
It's this silky, shiny, super soft mass of wild, untamed big loopy curls and perfect banana curls, and I really have to say, I kind of feel like nobody has hair prettier than mine. I totally lucked out when the hair gene was encoded in my DNA.

3. Kelen Capener, @kelenkeller38, bassist for The Story So Far, who I've fallen in love with on Twitter. There's little better than a boy who's cute, funny, and smart, but a boy who's cute, funny, and smart and happens to be in one of the best pop punk bands of all time and plays my favorite instrument, too? How does he even exist?

4. Finally having the nerve to go through with getting a tummy tuck. I swelled horribly both times I was pregnant, the first time gaining almost 80 pounds in 35 weeks--thank God G was premature--and 70 the second time around; as a result, my stomach, while not fat, had loose skin and was a mushy mess. I wanted a tummy tuck for so long and last year finally had the nerve to get it, and I have to say, despite the pain of recovery and immense amount of money I spent, I have zero regrets.

5. Eggs, oatmeal, and avocados, which make up for about 75% of what I eat which now that I think about it brings me to

6. Chocolate Covered Katie, the vegan blogger who turned me onto oatmeal (and vegan pancakes, of course) at some point in the last five or six years and also brings me to

7. Sriracha which has to be in a category all its own. Jesus Christ, I love Sriracha so fucking much.

8. All the sunscreen I've worn since I was seventeen along with my almost total avoidance of the sun. As I get older and older, I'm really starting to see the reward.

9. Being able to poop and pee. Okay, this one's tmi and maybe kind of gross, but after my surgery, I, um, couldn't go. Constipation is a side effect of general anesthesia plus I got a numbing shot directly in my stomach that lasts for three days plus I have some stupid disease called Gilbert's syndrome that makes side effects affect me more than they affect most people, and, well, I ended up in the hospital last Christmas and then the next day had one of the worst, most miserable days of my entire life during which I lay on my bathroom floor having to pee into a stockpot (just--don't ask), and I will never again take for granted the ability to be able to poop and pee for my entire life.

10. Finally having restraint. Okay, so I used to periodically check my ex-husband's Twitter, not because I cared at all about his life because believe me, I didn't and don't, but because despite our being divorced for years, it was almost completely about me, and I'd want to see what he'd write. A few months ago--two or three? Four or Five? Honestly, I have no concept of time, so I have no idea--he wrote something that bothered me so much, I took a screenshot and sent it to all my friends and we all sat and marveled about how he could be so depraved and such a horrible human being although it was really no surprise to any of us, and one person's response about his being a narcissist desperate for attention made me think, what the fuck am I doing? Why am I falling prey to his sick, twisted attempts to make me feel bad, and since that day, I never looked at his Twitter again, and I'm much happier for it. Whoever said what other people think about me is none of my business was not remotely wrong.

11. Netflix. I've needed distraction lately, and watching TV shows is a really good means of distraction. Years ago I used LOST to get over the worst pain of the end of one of my go rounds with C; last night I had a Friends Thanksgiving episode marathon to keep my mind off of LDG.

12. Spotify. Maybe I've talked about this before, but I have to say: Music is so instrumental to my happiness--or not happiness as it so happens--that the music I need when I need it is something I'll forever appreciate.

13. Finally taking the initiative to fix the back room in my house (there are a lot of finally's on this list. I'm sensing a theme). I have this back room in my house that has been falling apart. It's needed a new door, spackling, paint for so long, and I've done nothing but complain. Well, one day I was like, this room is a fucking mess, so I got a new door, I spackled the walls, I painted it, and I lamented starting the project and kveteched every step of the way, but I now have a super cute room that I love to be in, so yay for finally getting things done.

14. Alcohol. I don't want to sound like a lush, but sometimes getting drunk is great.

15. This one comes as a shock even--maybe especially--to me, but I'm thankful for my mom. I'm always going on and on about how G gets his natural writing ability from me, and I recently realized that my ability didn't just spring from nothing. While my mom isn't a writer by any means, she is a storyteller, and I'd be remiss if I didn't realize I owe her for my voice.

16. Being cute.

17. PL. He designs and does almost all of my tattoos and has made my legs works of art.

18. The I in INFP changing to E. Okay, so I know personality tests aren't the most valid thing in life, but I've taken the Myers Briggs test multiple times and always got the same result: INFP. A few days ago I retook it, and the I, which stands for introvert, became an E, which stands for extrovert, and I'm not at all surprised. I don't know what's happened, but over the last couple years, I could feel the change. I've gone from being super shy to the point of shaking over certain things to being able to do a ton of formerly uncharacteristic stuff.

19. Magic. Even though it doesn't feel like it right now, I have to admit, it's everywhere I look.

20. Lavender syrup.

21. Spicy tequila.

22. G's playlists, right now especially "A History Of." It's gotten me out of quite a few slumps.

23. Getting to take trips to all the places I need to run. This summer I crossed Wisconsin and Ohio off my list, this fall I ran in Minnesota and North Dakota, and next summer I plan to run New England. I take for granted that I get to travel so much, but I know there are a lot of people who can't.

24. Writing a poem last week for the first time in probably over a year.

25. My propensity to be vulnerable. A lot of people see vulnerability as a weakness, but I wouldn't want to be any other way. I let people know when I love them or when I care and exactly how I feel. Do I get hurt a lot? I absolutely do. Would I rather get hurt than miss an opportunity or not tell someone something important before it's too late? I absolutely would.

26. Social media. It's annoying sometimes and can be a terrible waste of time, but it's actually helped me reconnect with and make a lot of good friends.

27. Laughter.

28. Kissing.

29. Sex.

30. La Dispute Guy. He's been on my mind every second of this list, but I purposely saved him for last. Yes, he kind of dumped me last night, and yes, he's made me horrifically, want-to-never-get-out-of-bed-or-do-anything-ever-again sad, but over the past four months, he's made me really happy, too. He also taught me a lot. He taught me that I'm capable of loving unconditionally with no expectation of getting anything in return and that I truly can put another person's happiness before mine. He also taught me that despite thinking I know what I'm looking for and what's important to me--in short, having a list--people are so much more than lists and none of that stuff counts. He made me realize I've been shallow my entire life and thought things were important that weren't and that when you love somebody, everything about him or her is beautiful even if before you were in love those things weren't. Because of La Dispute Guy, I realize I could love a person I never thought I could love.

And that is that.

The first thing I have to tell you is this list took about three hours, and that's three continuous hours, three continuous hours of not moving from this table, staring into space, looking around the room, struggling to find good things in my life, to write. Second, I have to tell you that every word of it is true. Even if they were hard to come up with, I really am thankful for all of these things. The third and final thing I have to say is that writing this list actually put me in a better mood. Yes, things are looking pretty bleak right now, but buried in that bleakness--way down far in that deep, dark bleak reality that is my life--there's actually good. And with that acknowledgment, I'll leave you to your Thanksgiving, and for I don't know how many years in a row, I'll wish you the same thing I wish for me, and that's a life of love and peace.

So Long, Aphasia

So here's the thing. When I fall in love with someone, even if it's just a tiny little bit, I can't give up. I could tell you stories--boy, could I tell you stories--but I won't. We'll just suffice it to say that if I put half the effort into my writing that I put into loving the people that I love, I wouldn't be sitting in a kitchen in Davie blogging for you right this second (my lack of motivation says you're welcome).

And with that being said--or not said to a degree--La Dispute Guy is back.

I know what I wrote in my last post. I became LDG's on-the-way-to-Miami girl; I was an inconsequential plaything he could entertain himself with when it was convenient; our relationship--or nelationship, if I can coin a term--was a be-sad-that-I-was-having-a-relationship-via-Snapchat type of thing, and well, in regard to those things, all I have to say is yes. Fine. True. It's all true. But at the same time, I also have to say it's not.

People are complicated, and not everything is exactly what it seems.

But to explain that statement, I'd have to explain him, and that's not my place.
So instead I'll explain me and tell you how I got where I am.

The day after LDG and I stopped talking for good--or, if you want to get technical, nine days--I was reflexively swiping through Tinder like I do when I'm bored when I saw this guy Nico who I was talking to last year for almost four weeks in June and July until a combination of things made me tell him I wanted to end whatever it is we had. I've seen him several times over the past year or so and always swiped left, but this time, feeling bad about LDG, I swiped right, and of course, we matched (I say of course not to be conceited but because there'd be no story if we hadn't). He messaged me right away telling me what a surprise it was and from that second didn't leave me alone, and when I say he didn't leave me alone, I'm talking he was attentive with a capital A: in maybe the most romantic gesture anyone has ever made for me, two days after we matched, he left his job that a quick Mapquest check now tells me is 8.8 miles away just to kiss me and then went immediately back to work. I should have swooned.

I did not, in fact, swoon.

What I did was lament that he wasn't LDG, and what I did a couple days later when his messages became the stuff of serious couples was tell him I just stopped seeing someone and we were moving too fast, and what I did almost every time he messaged me after that was want to cry, and if anything was obvious to me from my experience with Nico, it was that La Dispute Guy belongs in my life and any other boy, far from being a distraction, is a mere juxtaposition highlighting all that La Dispute Guy is.

And so La Dispute Guy and I are embroiled in a nelationship via Snapchat once again. The difference is that this time around, I want nothing from him that he isn't ready to give. I just want him in my life and am happy that he is.