G and the land of cynical

Ever wake up one day and you discover that everything is a mess? Makes you wanna jump right back in bed right?
I try not to stay in bed those days. Mostly I try to think positive. But sometimes there are just some people, ahem some friends, that are so... incredibly negative. Or too realistic.

So today I'm going to share my experiences of anti-optimism from girl G to yours truly.

After being on a string of fruitless first dates (and by a string, it spans a year and a half), disappointments, and pondering over relationships that never could have worked and didn't give a chance to work, I finally committed to one.
I have a slight history of never going past the first date because I either feel like I'm in no mood to be impressed or I'm just not impressed at all.
And then one day out the blue just when I seriously was swearing off all men, I found Derek.
And as newly coupled girls should react, I was floating on cloud nine and all sense of how should one girl be so lucky to find a flawless, most thoughtful, most caring, most endearing boy I've ever met.
I was giggly and eternally smiling whenever he called or texted and pretty much whenever the thought of him breezed through my head which is very often.
We found each other talking for hours on the phone, laughing and saying silly things that were only ever so romantic in movies but I found too cheesy for real life.
But I relished in it. The "you hang-up, no YOU hang-up" conversations never got old.

I have three roommates. Two of which were very happy for me and teased me for the blushing, the giggles, and walking around like I had a balloon tied to my head for being even more bubbly than usual.
G however, told me one day that this honeymoon period only lasts so long and that I shouldn't be so clouded in to seeing that my flawless man would soon reveal his true spots, all his annoying habits and all his faults.
"It's not going to be a cloud nine for much longer," G told me in her matter-of-fact way.

When she told me this my boyfriend and I have been together a little over a month.

Maybe it doesn't really sound as harsh as I make her to be but it's not in her choice of words or even in the subtlety that she says it. It's in the tone of her voice, the soft hiss that pours out of her mouth and the pull it does on me.

I know of the flaws. His flaws and mine. It's just that I don't see them as flaws. I see them as a character.

And I know it's going to come. You know, the day I find that maybe his eating habits will annoy me, or the way he clings to me at night, or the way he's brutally honest sometimes.

But not just yet.

I know we'll have a fight and I'll probably want to break up with him. He'll probably make me I cry, and I'll probably hurt his feelings.

But not just yet.

I know this and much more are coming and I'll tackle those when the time gets here, if we're both lucky enough to sort out that kind of mess ourselves.

But what I don't get is why G would tell me something like that, why she was always the one who pulled me from the clouds, setting all my high hopes and nearly pulverizing them to something that I can't even recognize at the end.

She did the same for me for many other situations. She asked me once why I kept going on dates when I knew well that it may not work.
"He's out there somewhere," I said hopefully. "Ready to sweep me off my feet and carry me away."
"You are too romantic," G retorted. "Men like that really don't exist. You can't expect a knight in shining armor. That makes you too selective your realities are impaired. You're setting all these standards no guy can achieve. You are being way too picky."

My other roommate once told her to leave me alone and let me live out my fairytale story a little longer. She took me aside and said that my fairytale man is out there somewhere and I should keep on being picky, and being hopeful.

And while I almost always take life with a grain of salt, even fairytale aside, G never missed a beat in sharing her chunks, or blocks of salt down my way.

For G, it was almost always the worst case scenario in the midst of my hope for the best attitude and often times I am left with too much thinking time and beating myself up for "setting myself up for disappointment."

And I couldn't understand. How is it that my other roommate who just endured a most devastating break-up can have the face to tell me that my Mr. Right, the one perfect one, is out there waiting for me, while G who is in a steady relationship, whose life seem to go every which way she chooses it to be, could so easily put my life in perspective?

I remember this only because this was the beginning of my short stint in G's land of cynicism when I decided that I was better off focusing on the road to being the Alpha female, and that college men were immature disappointment, which eventually snowballed to all men being some form of immature disappointments all together.

And at the height of my time in cynical land, Derek found me and rescued me (as cheesy as that may sound).

It's been almost six months. And I'm still on cloud nine. And the honeymoon period?

We're just getting started.

Hoping for a slow day

I've been waiting for the thunderstorm to roll around all day long. It's like we're having a stand-off. I sit here waiting for an epic summer storm, and the "epic" storm spends the entire day mocking me instead by playing hot and cold. One minute you see rolls of black clouds hover above, then you hear the loud claps and thumps of thunder, then nothing.

No moisture. No sprinkles. No wind.

Just that faint smell of nature that lets you know rain is coming, and the ominous clouds permanently situated above my apartment all day long.

It finally poured at 8 o'clock this evening, ruining my plan of taking a glorious nap snuggled under a cozy bundle during an afternoon storm.

I've spent my entire day instead trying to write more feature articles to be considered for publication hoping it gets my foot somewhere, albeit it would be one toe at a time.
While I enjoy pursuing such things I wish I had a sufficient supply of something green necessary to gallivant around town so I can afford to waste gas while I look for an inspirational and breakthrough story.

Or an inspiration.

My mind is just so cluttered lately. There's so many things I'm thinking about and worrying about that sometimes I drift off to sleep thinking just that and waking up from where I left my thoughts.

I'm so distracted, so unprepared, and so on-the edge about the future. What will I be doing a year from now? Am I going to get a job somewhere? Will I even be done with school?

I'm looking out the window thinking of all of this today, and thinking how outside these windows the real world is carrying on at a pace I haven't exactly tested. Or I guess I won't test it because I'm afraid. I'm looking out from that window hoping it pours only because even if its only for a little while, I feel like the rain will slow things down and maybe snuggled up in the comfort of my warm blanket, a plan will come to me.

Sometimes I wonder

I'm about to hit a five month anniversary with my boyfriend.

I find this amusing.

Only because I distinctly remember ringing in this year with a determined, or I guess more of a resignation that I'm not a relationship person after what seems like a circus of trial and errors with the male species.

In fact, when I met Derek I thought to myself, well he's really very sweet, but a relationship of any sorts right at this moment would spell a disaster. I had planned on that one outing which was not a date but a meet and greet courtesy of my friends and his.

Nice southern gentleman, very engaging, very charming.

I just wasn't interested. In fact, I actually remember being purposefully rude because I did not feel like doing the small talk thing. I find that whenever I'm being polite doing the small talk thing most people take it instead that I'm interested when in fact I'm just being polite. So I decided with Derek, why be so pretentious. I'm in an awful mood, he's cute but I'm not interested, so therefore, I will not lead him on.

But he just kept on insisting on talking. And talking. And talking. Before I realized it, I was giving more to my one line answers and then boom! I was laughing.

He was making me laugh and talk more.

But I was adamant to not let it go past that. Told him that I had a lovely time getting to know him but it would probably be a very low chance of me and him crossing paths again since I probably won't get lost on his side of town.

It made God laugh.


One conversation led to another. Mostly fueled by my curiosity as to why he found me so interesting. I just felt like he was listening to every word I say, remembers every detail of our conversation, AND (gasp!) treats me like the ground I walk on turns to some kind of gem.

I don't know why, but I felt like no one has ever taken care of me as much as he has.

And then five months later, he's still here.

Still smiling. Still adoring. Still standing by me.