"A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else."
-Bette Davis
Alas, I am now two decades old! (and yes, I realize how I am writing this little over a month after hitting this milestone) I guess you could say it was a good one but to be honest, it didn't feel like much. If anything it was just an ordinary day (except I got to wear a tiara)
I celebrated my 20th birthday among my closest friends, wore a dress and a tiara (and got chocolate cake in it too) and made it home at the wee hours of 4 AM. But now alas, March has come and gone.
I am two decades old. But that's not the only thing I got to celebrate this past month
I celebrated the one year anniversary of my tattoo, the three year anniversary of no longer being with David and my three year anniversary of The Dumpee Diaries.
But among the most important things I rejoiced in March, it's hitting the 5 month marker of my relationship with JJ. March means one less month apart, one more month together and many things. Maybe this time, I'm going to get things right this time.
At this point in my relationship and the journey of having a long distance relationship, things are bittersweet right now. Some days are great. We get closer because every text message and phone call is a reaffirmation that I love him and he loves me. Other days, when life gets a little messy and people take their relationships for granted, I just want to cave in. I'm certain one day, skeptical the next and always unsure if he will change his mind about me.
As uncertain as I am sometimes and as hard as the nights get, I can't say I don't have the relationship people spend their lives dreaming about.
Before JJ came into my life, I was let down by the little things. No one ever worked hard on a cute proposal to ask me to Prom. Hell, no one asked me to Prom period! I never got anything from a straight guy for Valentine's Day (Brian, I love everything you ever got me. I just wished you were STRAIGHT) I walked myself home, never getting courted. I missed the sticky sweet nostalgia of a teenage relationship: no breaking curfew, no celebrating with someone their passing their driver's test, no photobooth pictures from the mall... I missed all that. And I know people who missed that too but others who didn't see it as important. I just felt sometimes like everyone else got to at least have a well rounded experience.
If there's one thing I regret about my past it's this: I wish I had stood my ground harder and been more proud of myself. If I had spent less time biting my tongue in silent rebellion and more time affirming silently that I'm fine, just the way I am, maybe things would have been easier.
Not much has changed about me but seeing things through different eyes (and accepting more about myself has given me the relationship of a lifetime).
I may have not gone to my Senior Prom, but I have a boyfriend who knew that and gave me a second chance by recreating those moments for me, tuxedo and all. I never got to walk around wearing my high school sweetheart's varsity Letterman jacket; my boyfriend knew he had a girl who was proud to earn her own accolades. I have a boyfriend who's not afraid to be dorky, who loves to eat Applebee's buffalo wings, who thinks it's adorable that my back pops when I'm asleep and has managed to woo me off my feet from across the globe. I'm blessed. Believe me, no one realizes how blessed I am than me.
I suppose this is why I worry so much. What do you do when for 18 years, you're made to believe you're not worthy of anything and end up getting what you're told you are not worth? I am having the time of my life in college, and by simply being me. No one can take away the solace I've found being on my own but at the same time, having gotten this kind of comfort has made me scared about losing everything. I'm scared of losing everything I so desperately prayed for.
If fear isn't enough, my patience is wearing thin. As bad as this sounds, JJ leaving to London for the semester has become the biggest tests of love and friendship I have ever faced in my life thus far. I'm at the point where I don't want to get out of bed because it hurts too much, where days can pass by and literally no one in the continental US will call me the entire day. I'm tired of feeling so empty and hearing the words "He's coming home soon." Words don't begin to fill the void of being abandoned for months. I can feel myself growing impatient and difficult because he's gone and the very people I'm supposed to lean on haven't the slightest clue.
This might be the relationship where I've given it everything I have, literally to the point where all I do is cry when I wake up, cry at work, cry after class and most definitely cry myself to sleep. This may be the point where I finally cave, drop everything and permanently run. I've gotten to the point where I see people and faces but none are exactly the one I need; everything has become a facade. I'm sick of everyone and everything around me.
I'd like to think that if he were here, I wouldn't be going insane. If he were here, I wouldn't feel so empty. I'm giving so much power to just one person and the idea of drowning in my own isolation.
There are times where I spend hours thinking... if I'm really cut out for this.
I'm not myself whatsoever. I forget things, or wake up and don't want to get out of bed because I just don't want to deal with the world. And today my apartment almost caught fire because I forgot to turn off the stove when I went to go study. This isn't the first time, either.
I'd like to think that it'll all just magically go away when he gets her and that my sanity (along with cooking) will get better. But I don't know that for sure. And he swears he loves me, professing undying devotion and claiming that there is no other possible way for him to further express how much he loves me beyond everything that he's done.
The least I can do for him is smile, and keep positive. I can't stay in this haze forever, nor can I dwell on being lonely because the only one suffering is me. I may have never gotten the Prom proposal or the Letterman jacket or any of that. But I get to hang my sorority Line jacket in the closet next to his. And we get to debate Hello Kitty kitchen appliances in our apartment (which I am TOTALLY going to have btw) and I guess I get to make my mistakes and my decisions.
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