They're velvet and an astonishingly dark turquoise blue, quite heavy in fact, but those are the curtains. Just so y'all know.
It's mid October and I'm a full week late publishing this, my apologies. A week ago today we were getting ready for snow and almost freezing temperatures in Minneapolis, today it's 63 degrees and I'm sitting outside on the deck of a new favorite coffee shop (Dogwood Coffee in North East) enjoying an iced latte and the beaming sunlight. To say I'm in a different place from where I was last year is an understatement. Am I happier? That depends through what filter I'm looking at my life with. Have things gotten better? That depends too.
Do I feel like I've taken a few giant steps forward in my life and in doing so have shed the past like it was something to be lost while also welcoming the present with open arms? Absolutely. That all being said, here we find ourselves:
The Eight Year Anniversary For
Musings of a
Self-Proclaimed Author
You've been here with me before; me, saying I've got nothing to write about. That's not new information and if you're taking it as something fresh then unfortunately that's on you my dear reader. Is it my intent to write more? Absolutely. Am I more that abundantly aware of how cathartic a thing it is that gets me out of my head and helps draw conclusions to the problems I'm facing? Certainly. But, here we are!
Me waxing poetic and you shaking your head.
But really, after the last iteration I went into my typical winter hibernation mode. Briefly dated someone, continued to work on the house, and in a lot of ways tried finding inspiration in something. Or maybe someone? I don't know. I had a sort of mid-life crisis when the relationship came to a quick end and figured it was time to chop my hair all off. Not that I regret that part, but in hindsight, maaaaybe I should have just lobbed off five inches or so and given that a try.
::shrugs::
In May I was sprinting for the finish line on my house before the blogs were written. Actually, scratch that from the record, I was writing the blogs AS I was racing for the finish line, simultaneously... and losing my mind but what the hell else is new? Compiling the information for those four blogs meant hunting down pictures I'd sent my sister, parents and friends of house progress that I subsequently did not save on my phone for whatever reason. It was putting everything in a cohesive order even if it didn't necessarily happen in the tidy order being presented.
The morning of May 31st meant it had been once year since I signed the paperwork for the house, and so I published the blogs. I had a 'lil meeting downtown, so I got myself dressed up and headed down on a Friday around 11am. I was sitting in the parking garage of a hotel, early (as usual), when my phone dinged with a Facebook messenger notification.
A funny thing had happened.
There was a little waving hand in the message, sent by a guy named Andrew that I was friends with. He proceeded to compliment me on the blog, and the house, and added that if I was ever in Northern Wisconsin, he'd love the opportunity to not ghost me (as I had mentioned in the blog, I'd been ghosted last summer). I got excited for the attention, admittedly, and we struck up a conversation. Albeit one with some HEAVY hesitation on my part.
You see, this "Andrew," in my opinion, was not a real person. A weird and vague Facebook history, no Instagram history, and just... well honestly, just too attractive to be real. You can ask my friend, Todd, whom I had reached out to a few months earlier when Andrew added me on Facebook and I saw that we were mutual friends. I literally asked him if this guy was real or not, and Todd told me he probably wasn't, and we both collectively sighed.
So when he messaged me I thought "well here's this guy, whatever."
We chatted throughout the day, and I had the weekend off so we chatted all through the next day as well. I sent him a few selfies, assuming he'd send one back (to prove his realness), but that didn't happen. By Sunday morning I was annoyed with this, wanting to prove he was a fake person, and resigned to doing yard work. I was starting to get the feels for this guy. Our conversation was going so well and was just so fun and interesting that it got me thinking "man, it would truly be great if this turned out to be real." So I kept up with my yard work to distract myself, I suggested he could send some selfies if he wanted or call, and he told me that the speaker on his phone was a little on the fritz and I sorta rolled my eyes thinking "yeah sure it is."
And then when I was good and sweaty and dirty and red in the face from the heat, my Facetime started ringing. I looked at the screen and saw that it was Andrew, causing me to literally say out loud "time to find out who this guy is," and then lo and behold... it was him, the guy in the photos. It was "my" Andrew.
He wasn't my Andrew at that point, of course, but he is now. And in the Facetime call I felt myself completely losing control of my thoughts because here was this guy that I had tricked myself into believing was some four foot five, 600 pound troll, hiding behind the pictures of someone else. A lying loser who tricked me with his great conversational skills and insight into movies and music and books and all the things.
Who made me (in hindsight) start falling in love with the words of an individual before anything else.
And not through a dating app. Not through a friend, but through good 'ol Facebook.
We met in person less than a week later, because I absolutely had to drive out to Wisconsin to meet this guy that would, in some small way, change my world right away and then continue to do so as the months wore on.
I've thought about writing about Andrew before now. I've thought about sharing him with all of you and running and shouting from the roof tops that I'm in love and that it's a love unlike any I've ever felt before. But I've been burned in the past from doing so... I've somewhat been slapped in the proverbial face for sharing my excitement with the world. So I kept it mostly reserved. Concealed. Friends and family knew, pictures told a story, but the rest was to be kept under wraps. Not for fear of anything other than having to put my foot in my mouth. Could I make it to that elusive three-month mark and still feel like it was going in the right direction? After all, three months was always the "make or break" time stopper for me.
After meeting Andrew, summer just seemed to disappear before my eyes. It was spent getting to know this amazing man, bringing him into my life as much as I could and showing him what that meant. It was driving to WI a couple times a month or taking the time off for him to drive out to Minneapolis. This travel wasn't always equal, many times he came here more than I could go out there, but we were committed to it. Scratch that, we are committed to it. Neither of us was looking for a new relationship, especially one that involved the other person living five hours away.
But that dedication created this fiery drive in each of us... it created it in me. Suddenly I found myself inspired again. Maybe not to write a blog or even necessarily continue work on my books, but to fall in love.
To let essentially two years of being single slip away. To let the spurned anger and jilted sadness of two monumental failures of relationships slip away. I was inspired to allow myself to realize that just because I felt true love once before... it didn't mean I couldn't feel it again. I was inspired to realize that your first love, wether it worked out or not, didn't mean it was destined to be your best love.
Because I've found my best love now, and it's with him. A man that (this week) quite literally saw me at my absolute worst and didn't walk away. A man who wants to talk to me about everything, all the time. Who can't get enough of me, and who I can't get enough of. Who wants to work through our disagreements and figure out the best way to move forward. A man who is willing to move out here to be with me, so that the "us" we are creating can continue to bloom. A man who has seen a lot of the same shit I have, has dealt with the same shit I have, and who has shit of his very own that is quite separate from what I can even claim for myself. We are often too alike, and just as often we are tremendously different.
But that's the good of it, right? To find someone that subscribes to your own brand of crazy and is still willing to tolerate it? To deal with it, learn with it, and love you regardless? I think so, at least. And that's my Andrew. My guy.
Now we're into Fall. Soon we'll be into Winter. I've run the last Warehouse sale at Pottery Barn that I will EVER run, otherwise it's business as usual at work. I will sign paperwork in a few days on the refinance of my house at a better rate, and then next weekend we'll be dressing up for Halloween. The dominos are stacked for November and December, with a tight schedule as the days count down to Christmas and then the New Year.
Still, I feel the shift in me that came with this year. Or really, the last four and a half months. And with the thought provoking ideas that come with a new love and a new person, I myself have had my thoughts shift themselves looking forward. What does that entail?
I recently heard this song called "The Empress" by Ruby Empress, and something about it resonated with me. It was only when I read the lyrics that I felt like I actually understood why, with one verse in particular:
My body wants to take place in this world.
Capture a space here,
That matters.
Think thoughts,
That matter.
Surround myself,
With only such possessions,
And clothes,
And pictures,
And sounds,
That matter.
Everything I do now, I want to do it with intention. I want to do only the things that are going to matter, and that's such a heavy thing for me to say. It's not to intentionally dismiss everything I've said before or to go back on my word... but there it is. I don't want to do anything anymore just for the sake of doing it. Maybe that's something you only realize when you get older? I don't know.
I need to work on asking for things, specifically of people. I need to learn that it's okay to need things from people. I need to learn to accept feedback in a healthy way and not take everything as an attack on my character. Hardest of all, I need to continue letting go of parts of my past that only detract from my present. Sometimes the past is better left right there, and that's okay. I'm still trying to figure out what that means, what all of this means, but I suppose in the end that's what it is to be human, yes? Always trying to figure it out.
Sometimes I feel like the iterations aren't just new directions the blog is headed in but directions I am headed in myself. Is that silly to say? I hope not. Who knows where the ninth will ultimately lead or where I'll really be in another year. But I'm excited to find out. I'll leave you now with The Empress, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I will try to write more... it's therapeutic and cathartic and a million other things... though I can't promise I will actually do this, I'll certainly try. And who knows if my new found inspiration will instill that drive back in me.
Toodles gang (c:
