What happened last night

I wrote my “who knows what I’ll be writing about a year from now” post yesterday and I can already say I didn’t see some things that happened last night coming.

Event #1: The reception

My roommate and I were both invited to the wedding reception for two people we’ve both known forever: we learned to ballroom dance with the bride in our high school Swing Dance Club (One of those “I remember her when she was ‘this tall'” kind of things) and we taught the groom to ballroom dance in our dance club in college (I do not remember him when he was ‘this tall’. He is tall, period.) They are both the nicest people ever and their families are super-nice, etc. Lots of nice and you can’t even hate them for it because it’s genuinely who they are. Anyway, they got married in a small ceremony at Disney in July because the groom is in the Navy and they didn’t have the time to plan a big ceremony. We watched a video of the ceremony, which made me cry because it was so sweet.

Last night was the reception. My roommate is suffering from some extended form of the plague/TB and couldn’t go, so I went solo. Like I said, everyone involved is super-nice, so thankfully it wasn’t awkward. Or at least I managed to control my own social awkwardness. I was seated with a few other dance people I knew and we had a good time.

And I caught the bouquet! Maybe my spinster days are over? Perhaps. This brings me to

Event #2: The blind date

One of my work friends texted me a few days ago when I was in Houston with this: So X is asking me about my single friends

What do you say to that? It was not a question and it really wasn’t a statement either (note the lack of ‘.’ at the end). I stared at my phone for a little while debating how to answer because I wasn’t really sure where it was going. I finally asked her what she told him and she had showed him a picture of me. (Good grief, which one?)

Okay, okay, so she wanted me to hang out on Saturday and I reluctantly agreed. I’ve never been on a blind date and I guess there is a first time for everything. After the reception ended, I joined them at a local bar (aka THE only local bar, which happens to be a hub for everyone I ever went to school with). It was freezing and rainy, so the inside was packed. We got a couple of drinks and braved the cold outside because it was quieter. We all talked for a little while until the inside bar cleared out enough that we could find spots on the couches by the fire (wound up sitting across from a girl who was in my first grade class, just to set the “yes, everyone I ever went to school with ever” scene here.)

Man, blind dates are awkward. You kind of feel like you’re under cross-examination — trying to talk to the person you’re “on a date with” while the third party alternates between staring you down to determine if it looks like you’re hitting it off so they can pat themselves on the back and trying NOT to stare you down to make you feel super awkward. Luckily, the blind date-ee and I got along pretty well and had some things in common (couldn’t read all of Lord of the Rings because it was too detailed, enjoyed slightly off-base humor, and — he dances! Although we talked a lot about dubstep which I don’t really know that much about besides that it sounds like you’re feeding your computer into a shredder. But I digress.)

So it wasn’t bad. We discussed going dancing and exchanged numbers at the end of the night. (Poor guy, I missed the first subtle hint at going out dancing and he had to point-blank ask me again. Oops.) This morning, my friend was doing recon to sniff out what I thought about him and asked me if she had mentioned he lives in Colorado.

D’oh!

Her reasoning is that she figured “If y’all fall in love, you can work it out.” Haha, great, thanks for that tiny oversight. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway. It was a pretty fun night overall. My roomie and I have the exact same circle of friends so it’s rare to go out and do something by myself without a permanent wingwoman by my side. I was proud of myself for going out on a limb and being confident enough to fly solo.

It’s a Small World After All

Or: How I Wound Up Dancing with The Kid at the Coffee Shop on Saturday Night

I have one of those friends who knows EVERYBODY (seriously, we are going to start calling Mols either Kevin Bacon or Six Degrees because she knows or has met everyone in the whole world). Turns out she knows the Kid at the Coffee Shop. Are we surprised? No.

What am I even talking about?

Who is this Kid?

Well, here’s the story:

The Kid at the Coffee Shop works at the drive-through of the coffee shop that I go to all the time (I think I need points for the creative nickname I came up with.) He’s pretty much my Coffee Shop Boyfriend, although he doesn’t know it. We’ve been mentally dating for about 4 months now and are very happy, thank you.

The first time he was working, I didn’t pay him much attention besides lamenting the fact that he called me “ma’am” about 40 times and wondering where Perky Girl (the normal girl working at the drive-through) was.

The “ma’am” thing got me–how old did I look?–and I had only gotten enough of a glance at him that I thought he looked about 12.

My tweet of unhappiness about being called “ma’am.”

The next time I went through and he was there, he only called me ma’am once. Much better. I also noticed that he was not quite a “kid.”

Well that’s an interesting development…

Hmmm…

So I’m tweeting about him — PJ’s Boy as we call him around here — and my friend who knows EVERYONE is reading my tweets and favoriting them and it’s All Good Fun.

Our one-sided mental relationship was moving along nicely.

Adorable, nice and makes a mean iced mocha? Hallelujah! (I definitely didn’t try to figure out which days he was there and make sure to stop by that location, nope not me.)

WELL. My good friend Kevin Bacon (Molly) and my other friends and I went on vacation in mid-June, and I had been jokingly talking about us needing to stop by on our way out so I could see my boyfriend. My wonderfully obliging friends agreed.

So we went in–and Mols sees him and OF COURSE she knows him. Walks right up, gives him a hug and introduces us all to him. I am just standing there like “:O”.

It’s like there are only 10 people in the world and Molly KNOWS THEM ALL.

We leave and she gives us the scoop on the way to Florida–she knows him from church and he is friends with a bunch of people I already know and she says he is the nicest person ever (duh ma’am). I am slightly embarrassed that I’ve been tweeting saucy tweets about someone who is actually a friend of hers and apparently knows through church, but she thinks it’s hilarious.

Molly is such an instigator.

Should have known she would know him.

Anyway, Kevin Bacon’s been keeping tabs on him at their church and keeping me up to date. She even bought my birthday present in cahoots with him (coffee shop gift card obviously).

So where is this going?

Well, Kevin and my other friends CONSPIRED and got my PJ’s Boyfriend to come to the last dance on Saturday.

And guess what? HE CAME. And I was there and had no idea he was coming and then I was stuck in a room with him and was once again just like “:O”

As soon as I saw him, I did the mature 25-year-old adult woman thing and ran away to the bathroom and stood there. I washed my hands to have something to do. And then I went back out and sat down and looked everywhere but him. La la la la…I made myself as awkward as possible because that’s what I tend to do when I like someone.

Molly danced with him and told him all about how I’m a great dancer and he was watching me dance and I was just like “:O” (apparently my default factory setting around him). There were a bunch of people he knew there and one of them was a girl whose default factory setting is Saucy Minx and was hanging out with him. Molly, ever the matchmaker, kept cutting in and dancing with him (bless you Mols).

I always think that the guy should ask the girl to dance. In ballroom and social dancing, this is the norm although everyone is always encouraging women to do the asking too (feminism and women’s rights and all that jazz coming into play on the dance floor). I’ve asked my fair share of guys to dance, but I like the old-school chivalry.

Molly apparently believes in grabbing the bull by the horns and spent an hour and a half trying to convince me to ask him to dance. Ugh. She is a good person, despite being a total instigator. When I was talking to my friends and waffling, she told me “I’m pushing you to talk to him because I wish someone would do the same for me if I had this chance.”

Wow. And I wound up doing just that. I was getting some water, and he came over, and we were talking, and suddenly I was asking him to dance. Easy as that. We danced, and I got 4 hugs and it was a good rest of the night.

Sometimes I can be really confident, but sometimes I am so terribly awkward around someone I like. The truth is that I wasted an hour and a half not talking to him and just wishing he would talk to me, and all I had to do was strike up the conversation. He knows who I am now outside of just what I drink in the morning. Who knows what will happen next?

Also: there’s a 99.9% you probably know my friend Molly. And she is TROUBLE.

Grateful

I have been struggling to get a grip on everything going on/going wrong in my life recently. As a result, I haven’t been much fun to be around–in a few instances I have really just been a disaster. Despite my crappy personality over the last month or so my friends and family have been there. They’ve listened to me whine about the same problems, hunted me down and made me talk when I didn’t want to and reassured me that I am worth a little more than my subconscious has led me to believe.

And I’m just grateful. As the Beatles sang, I get by with a little help from my friends. Life isn’t always sunshine but the people in my corner have really helped me see that it’s okay.

just know wherever you go, you’re never alone

(slight paraphrasing of the always wonderful Jason Mraz’s 93 million miles in the title)

Life is so much so much sometimes–so much good and some bad too.  This last week has been microcosm of everything, and I’ve felt it all very acutely. I’ve been incandescently happy, excited, confused, upset, angry, tired. It’s just been one of those weeks…and I’m just feeling the gravity of everything right now.

As confident as I want to be on my blog about my life and my hopes and dreams…finding yourself is hard! Someone at work said that as you get older, life gets better because you become more yourself. What she didn’t mention is that “becoming who you really are” is a long, emotional process that requires you to stretch and grow and remold yourself. Which, quite frankly, sucks sometimes. 

I hate feeling like a failure at anything, and I hate admitting that I’m self-conscious, confused and unsure–but I am. And how.

I’ve checked a bunch of things off on my list here, but checking them off is only half the battle. Each checkmark represents a big life change, and as exciting as change can be, living with the new reality is not always easy. My life is almost 100% different than it was this time last year…and with everyone else in my life experiencing big changes too, it’s hard to know which way to go. As much as I’m excited about the good things (there’s a boy!), I’m also a little scared (There’s a boy! Oh good grief, how do I do this?). And I’m a little unsure (how do I know that these changes and decisions are right and good?).

I’m so grateful for my friends that are really mommas/sisters to me, because when I’m struggling and it gets too much, they are always listening, always giving advice and reassuring me. Knowing that there are people in your corner no matter what, to laugh with you, cry with you, lift you up and calm you down makes it easier to be brave and keep finding myself.

A very Happy Friendiversary to my bestie, at Hot Shot Mama here on WordPress. We’ve been friends through the good, the bad and everything in between and I can’t imagine getting through any of the crazy without someone to listen, laugh and give good advice. As the card Katy gave me in high school (that I still have) says: “We used to be strangers…now we’re strange friends!” I am very glad to know my strange people–they’re the best.