Silver Linings

I am done with this semester. I am done! I AM DONE!! And I'm feeling pretty damn good about myself because I did well in all my classes. So today I'm going to talk about things that I am good at.

1. Making my face look absolutely, stunningly, incredibly disgusting. I'm not that girl who makes cute goofy faces like, "Oh look at me being funny, hee hee!" I look fucking GROSS, and I'm hella proud of it. Here are some examples. Gird your loins.

Looking hot at prom

A series of photos taken at formal during my undergrad in which my ugly face making was leagues above anyone else's. Just saying. 

Pretty sure this is from that same formal

Just an average dinner out

2. Drinking alcohol far too quickly. So I'm like a super impatient person (working on that...), and if I'm not feeling any effects after like 15 minutes I will get more drinks. And on and on and then suddenly WABAM, it hits me like a train. I haven't really drank just to drink in a while, so this might have improved, but I never learned my lesson in college.

3. Drinking caffeine far too quickly. I have many anxiety disorders (okay just two), so I really shouldn't drink caffeine, but I just get SO TIRED sometimes and I need a pick-me-up. But the same damn thing happens where I'll drink a cup and be like, "DAMMIT I DON'T FEEL AWAKE YET, MOAR." And so I drink moar and then I get hit with the caffeine poops and it's all downhill from there, folks.

4. Writing things. I feel like I've always been a good writer, but my lyrics and poetry improved drastically after I took a creative writing class in undergrad. I'm way too obsessed with making things sound good, and I totally have a boner for internal rhyme. 

5. Doing nothing. God, if this was a job, I would be the freaking millionaire CEO. I have a lot of friends who will say they feel stressed out and unproductive if they sit around all day. Do you know how I feel? AWESOME. If you don't know what I'm doing, it's safe to assume I'm sitting on my couch and watching netflix. 

6. Music. If I'm not netflixing, I'm musicing. Now, I feel like I'm not a particularly talented singer or guitarist, but I do feel like I write some pretty good songs, and I'm great at playing the piano. I'm also stupid good at sight reading. I don't know why, but it's always come easily to me. Fun fact: I won an award for that shit in my high school choir like three years running. 

7. Theatre things. Another fun Kelly fact: I was the recipient of two acting scholarships. I was in almost every play/musical at my high school and was on the Comedy Improv team all four years. Those were the DAYS, man. I competed in all sorts of acting, and sometimes I even won. 

8. Doom. I've been playing Doom since I was 10 years old and I just got really good at it. I don't like the newer games (idk I just like that whole crappy old graphics thing), but Ultimate Doom, Doom II, and Final Doom are my shiiiiit. 

9. Memorizing things. This definitely helped me back in my theatre days. Now it's just sort of used for useless things such as remembering all of the song lyrics and literally every conversation I've ever had with anyone ever and also probably what the other person was wearing during that conversation. My hippocampus got skillz. 

10. Makeup. You will never know how terrible my skin actually is because I have become professional at making people think it's flawless. Last fun fact: I have acne scarring like crazy and pretty ridiculous rosacea. But my mom is a makeup artist and I spent a whole lot of time just dicking around with things and figuring out how to make my skin look smooth and also skin-colored, as opposed to bumpy and red. 

That's all I have to say and I don't know how to end this so here is a picture of a cow.

The Day I Met Satan: OOTD Log

Let me tell you about an even that has occurred. And yes, we're back into the general hilarity that is my life and moving away from the deep blogs of deepness that are deep.

The date is April 23, which means that the end of the semester is approaching. I've never been so excited for something to end. I'm sick to death of these stupid grad school core classes and writing papers and doing massive projects about things that just don't fucking apply to me AT ALL.

End of the semester means two things: I'm lazy and I'm tired. I just really don't feel like doing much of anything. But some things ya gotta do. Laundry is one of those things.

So I took myself down to good ole Demun Cleaners a few days ago because I'm not about to climb down four flights of stairs every half hour to do a load of laundry in my dungeon basement when I can do it all at once at a laundromat. I parked my car out front, grabbed my basket and my detergent and whatnot, and I went inside. So far, so good. I separated colors, like you do, and I put my dark load into washer number 3.

And that, children, was a terrible mistake.

You see, on this day, washer number 3 was possessed by Actual Satan. In fact, for the purposes of this story, I will refer to washer number 3 as Beelzebub.

So I loaded my things into Beelzebub and sat down at a nearby table to work on the various projects and papers that will be of no use to me in my social work career. There I was, working away, and I looked up to see Beelzebub leaking a bit. This was concerning to me, so I got the attendant (who, thank god, was still there at 5:30 p.m.). She went to the breaker box to turn Beelzebub off, but apparently didn't know which breakers controlled which washers, and I feel like maybe that's something you should know if you work in a laundromat. Just saying.

While she was diddling around on the breaker board, Beelzebub grew angrier and angrier and was basically just releasing a river at this point. Laundromat Lady finally figured out how to turn him off before ultimate disaster struck, but then she did something so dumb it's unbelievable.

Laundromat Lady walked over to Beelzebub and OPENED THE FREAKING WASHER DOOR.

If I could use one word to describe what happened when she unleashed Beelzebub, that word would be "Titanic." You know the scenes when the water is rushing down the stairs or down hallways and just seems utterly unstoppable? It was like that.

She flooded the whole damn laundromat. To put the cherry on top of this shit show sundae, I was stuck in the middle of this flood wearing flip flops, and the floor is tile. It was just a treat trying to transfer my clothes out of Beelzebub and into a more Godly washer while gingerly stepping through an inch of water and wearing slippery shoes.

Let it be known that I did not fall one single time. Not once.

And that's the story of the fateful afternoon when I stared the devil right in the face.

Good ole Beezy Bubs. Do not use washer number 3. 

The Bridge

This blog post is about to get hella personal. So just be ready for that. It's also not funny or lighthearted. I'm not the biggest fan of veering from my typical style of post, but this shit has been on my mind, so I'm just going to say it. Or, rather, I'm going to let Nayyirah Waheed say it, because no one has ever said it better:

"Someone can be madly in love with you and still not be ready. They can love you in a way you have never been loved and still not join you on the bridge. And whatever their reasons you must leave. Because you never ever have to inspire anyone to meet you on the bridge. You never ever have to convince someone to do the work to be ready. There is more extraordinary love, more love that you have never seen, out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready." 

--Nayyirah Waheed

My previous relationship—my only relationship—ended because he wasn't ready to join me on the bridge. That relationship was the greatest love I have ever known. It's been about three months since it ended, and I've been dating and exploring and pushing my mental and physical boundaries. Honestly, I've been pretty happy overall. But I have my moments.

No matter how quickly (relatively) I was able to pick myself back up, and despite having moved on, and regardless of my recent realization and acceptance that I actually do not want that relationship back, it still really fucking hurts to think about how the manner in which it ended. I think it will always sting a little bit.

But I was on the bridge, and he wasn't even on the other side of the bridge—he was on the ground. He was in the river. He was floating in the clouds. Wherever the hell he was, we somehow ended up on completely different pages of a book that we had been writing together for years. And boy, did I try to convince him to meet me on the bridge. I must have called him 20 times the morning after he broke up with me. I spent several hours texting him and telling him that I was wrong, and that I understood, and that if we both tried we could make it work.

But the thing is, I wasn't wrong. I don't understand. And I don't know that I could have learned to trust him again and make it work. The bottom line is that I shouldn't have sat there for hours, texting my way through my battery power trying to inspire him to want me again.

No one should ever have to do that.

Do not do that. Do you hear me?

No matter how long you have been with a person, no matter how long you have known them, no matter what level your relationship is at, you NEVER. EVER. have to convince them. In fact, the longer you've been together, the more offensive it becomes that you would have to convince them of anything.

Even in the short time that I've been dating, I'm starting to realize that I might be chillin' on this bridge by myself for awhile. I'm the type of person that truly cares about people. I want to get to know you and I want to understand you. But when I do, I tend to develop feelings faster than I should. It's a somewhat annoying trait of mine, but one that I do not want to ever change. See, feeling that intensely and connecting with people like I can is an amazing feeling when it happens, even though that trait can also tend to put me right back on that bridge alone. 

It fucking sucks to feel unwanted. To feel like you're not worth it. To feel like you're not good enough to warrant a bridge meeting. It is the most soul crushing feeling that I have ever experienced.

It's hard to recognize your own worth sometimes. It's definitely hard for me, and I tend to give people way, way too many chances. I'm here to tell the world that I'm done, and that you should be, too.

I'm confident that I'm a really awesome person. I'm fun and I'm funny and I'm a great listener. I'm a baller girlfriend and friend and the best movie watching partner you will ever come across. I generally get along well with people, and I feel like I'm good at making people feel comfortable around me. I'm very likeable—loveable, even.

And I'm done trying to convince people to see that. Sometimes I get down on myself and I think that I peaked in that relationship and that I'll never find anything that good again. Which is sad if it's true to be honest, but I don't think it is true. Even though I'm not relationship-ing again yet, I've met some pretty awesome guys. There are guys out there who are goofballs like me and have great senses of humor and who I'm unbelievably attracted to, and eventually, there will be a guy like that who will be on the bridge already. Maybe it'll take some time to find him, because it's easy to get distracted by those ground/cloud dwellers, but he exists and he'll be there.

And if I find someone who's super great and awesome and amazing and he's not on the bridge, I will just have to move on, no matter how much it hurts. My breakup was not a good breakup, but it's been a chance for me to figure out exactly what I want in a man, and exactly what I do NOT want in a man.

I'm not settling. Don't you dare settle.