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"This song is talking to the person you haven't even met yet. Maybe they're rolling around in the hay with someone else, but they're not as good as you're gonna be. You just have to wait your turn. He's out there, she's out there. They're just learning what to contrast you against."






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leaves change, seasons change, i change.}
Saturday, September 23, 2017 | 10:28 PM | 1Comment

Internet. Long time no see. The year has gone by and the seasons have changed, and it's fall once again.



2017 has been a ride. And it's still not over with yet--still three whole months to go.

So much has changed. So much has changed in 9 months that when I stop to think about it, I can't believe it's only been 9 months and not years.

I don't know where to start except to start at the beginning. So why don't we start with January?

January. A black hole in my memory.

I lost my dog. After a whole holiday season of her condition improving, and us hoping that she would continue to remain stable as long as possible, she worsened. She, the gluttonous queen of snacks and begging for more snacks, had stopped eating.

She only ate when persuaded, and a switch from dog food to mushy, homemade rotisserie chicken food only staved it off for a few weeks. That was one of the hardest parts for me--seeing everything she used to be disappearing.

We made the difficult decision to put her to sleep. And I lost my best friend in the entire world.

January, for me, is one large hole of emptiness whenever I look back on it--all I can remember is obsessively watching a show on Netflix, eating cereal and instant ramen on the rare occasions that I even had an appetite, and crying in my bed. Vaguely, I remember numbly going on a huge Amazon shopping binge the day after she left me. I spent close to a hundred dollars, and received packages for two weeks straight.

I also remember going to my first real doctor's appointment in 9 years and getting an x-ray on my knee. Then I returned to my bedroom, returned to my bed, and disappeared again. The x-rays came back fine.

February was more of the same. My dad went on a business trip right before Valentine's Day, brought me back a teddy bear on the 14th as a souvenir. I watched more Netflix, obsessively watched figure skating competitions, and ate more cereal and ramen. Lost a ton of weight even though I didn't mean to. Deleted my dog sitting profile for good.

March was lighter, better. My birth month was tinged with light here and there--I watched Moana about a million times, cried every single time. I even watched it on my birthday, after getting some delicious takeout at home and some great wine.

April, though. Things began to happen. I began to come back to life again.

I went to my first concert in 8 years. Cried and sang and screamed my lungs out the entire time. Traveled outside of my city for the first time in 5 years. Got a breakfast platter at a diner 1 in the morning before coming home from the concert and crashing and not waking up until 2 PM the next day.

This concert revitalized me. For the first time in months, my pulse raced. For the first time in months, I felt things I had forgotten. I was alive.

After my concert adventure, I was myself again.

I was still mourning, but I used all my emotions and wrote everything I had into my April Camp NaNoWriMo project, the first serious novel I had ever started when I was 16, which I worked on last July too. I wrote and wrote and wrote.

May, I continued to write. I applied for a volunteer position at the library--something I had thought of the month before. I realized I needed to be somewhere, do something. And this was something I could do, and do well.

June, I followed up my application with emails to the right people. One week later, I had an interview. And at that interview, I was offered the job. ON THE SPOT. And just like that, although after years and years of applying for jobs and never getting a bite, I had a job.

The rest of June, I got used to my new place of work, once a week. Got to know everyone and got to figuring out how everything worked there. Not without anxiety, though, of course. But I did it all willingly, because I was amazed by this chance that I was being given, and I didn't want to chicken out.

July, I continued getting used to things at my job. I also continued to write, on a separate book from what I'd been working on in April and May. I learned that having a 2 or 3 drinks still affects me two days afterwards, and to not do that right before my work days anymore. Heh. Thanks alot, fourth of July. I also watch fireworks in the candlelit backyard with Mom.

August, I finally feel like I'm fitting in at work and that I'm getting the hang of things. But best of all--no, BIGGEST of all: I finish my book, the one I'd started when I was 16. I finally, finally finish it. I cry and cry and cry with relief and happiness. And then I send it out to beta readers and critique partners alike, trying my best to swallow the nerves at other people reading and critiquing my pride and joy. Still working on that.

So, here we are now. September. And what a month it's been.



Mostly, I've been working, and reading, and watching lots of Gilmore Girls, and waiting on responses from all of my readers. None yet. I may have crumbled in panic over this a couple of times so far. But at the moment, I'm holding it together pretty well!

But.

There's a reason I've come on here today to update you all about this devastating, crazy, and exciting and strange and new year.

For a long time, I didn't think I could come on here and talk about things. Because for a while, I thought that what I faced early this year was my life from now on. When you're buried in grief, it's hard to imagine life ever feeling any other way ever again.

But then June happened. And life is so different right now. Completely different. But a good different. The kind of different that gives me hope.

And now, in September, something else huge happened.

Brennan. And his girlfriend. No longer together, as of last month--in August.

You know...it was weird. The moment I found out, I was in this sort of daze. I was almost in denial at first--I thought I was imagining it.

I'll admit it: I snooped his girlfriend's (now ex) Facebook. Oh, come on! Like you've never done that before, Internet?? Social media snooping is like an international sport at this point. Everyone does it! And by now I'm a pro at it.



And after all, that was how I found out he had a girlfriend two years ago in the first place--snooping his Facebook, then full on snooping hers because her whole profile is set to public, unlike Brennan's, which is semi-private. (Will I have the guts to actually friend him on Facebook one of these days? Time will tell.)

Now, another admission: I snooped her page way longer than I probably should have.

But there was a vibe to her recent posts that I couldn't quite put my finger on--a noticeable lack of Brennan. She's the type of person that tags everyone in random stuff on FB throughout the day, and makes regular status updates, posts pictures of where she goes and what she's doing. Not an entirely smart move to make when your social media is completely public. Especially for creeps like me. I digress.

ANYWAY. Yeah, she was always making gushing posts about him and posting pictures of the two of them together. And it went from always tagging him and posting on his wall and vice versa to...nothing. Except for lots and lots of angsty mood status updates with sad emojis and sad-but-supportive reactions from her friends, mid-August.

Then it finally occurred to me to stop being a creep and to just freakin' check her relationship status. I scrolled back up her page, eyes darting, searching for it. Then I found it.

Relationship status: Single.

Whoa. There it was, in black and white.

I ruminate over this for a few days, let it soak in. And that's when I realized that Brennan had noticeably re-appeared in my social media likes and Snapchat story views near the middle of August.

Ho.

ly.

Crap.

This realization gave me the courage, a few days later, to slide into Brennan's Instagram DMs. AGAIN.

I sent him something to the effect of, "Hey, stranger. How have you been?" Innocuous enough, right? That way, it looked friendly, and platonic. Just in case I was wrong about what my very eyes had seen for themselves. Because I'm paranoid like that.

But, lo and behold, all of my fears and paranoia were for nothing. Because when he replied, he called me 'cutie', just like he always used to. Like no time had passed at all.



Can I just say? I felt so validated. I still feel validated.

All those times that noticed all the times he would like my personal posts, and watch my Snapchat story when I had selfies in it--I'd always just had this feeling, like it meant something that he was still bothering to pay attention after all this time. All the other guys I'd been involved with fell off of my social media after a certain amount of time, stopped caring eventually. He never did.

I knew it meant something. I knew it.

And Internet. Let me tell you. Brennan started flirting with me. Started flirting with me hard.

I'm not going to lie, it felt good, really good, to have very clear proof that Brennan is still attracted to me. Especially now that I've long realized my feelings for him.



We talked for about a week, catching up.

He graduated earlier this year, and now has a great first job straight of out college, amazingly. He told me that he had decided to break up with his ex last month, and that it had been his decision. He also noted knowingly, to my mortification, that it was interesting that I had just randomly decided to text him out of the blue after he had just become single. I swear he knows that I found him on Facebook somehow--I don't know how he knows that, but he's pretty intuitive, so I guess I'm not surprised he knows. I just told him jokingly that maybe it was intuition, and he just laughed it off and changed the subject.

I told him that I had dropped out of college due to finances, but that I intend to finish my degree one day. I also told him about how much I love my new job, and that my anxiety has been much more manageable these days since I started taking some supplements (and they have helped me. They've helped a ton.). I told him I had been doing better the past few months than I have felt in years. He told me he was super happy to hear that I was feeling better, and he said it in the most genuine way. And when I read it, it gave me butterflies.

He continued to flirt throughout all of this, and the butterflies in my stomach rioted. For God's sake, I was swooning. I have not swooned since...well. Since my first kiss. But before that??? YEARS. And this was just from talking to him.

All he had to say was that he adored my lips, and that they looked luscious. And instantly I was a blushing, squealing mess, with my face buried into my pillow. And the same thing happened when he sent me a selfie, showing me his new haircut, which makes him look so effing hot. Oh my God. I think that Brennan is hot. And I want to jump his bones.



Hell. I like Brennan, Internet. I really, really like Brennan.

It terrifies me how much I like Brennan.

I have not liked anyone this way since He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, the whole reason I started this blog. I finally get what people mean when they say they feel like they're in high school again--that's exactly how I feel right now. With all of the ups and downs that goes with those feelings. I feel like I'm going crazy.

So onto the ups and downs.

As exciting as all of that was, the entire time I felt this low current of worry. Because I couldn't stop remembering that Brennan and his ex broke up only last month. One month ago.

In the grand scheme of things, 1 month isn't long. It isn't long at all. And I have no idea what a breakup is like.

I mean, of course I know what heartbreak is like. Hell, that's the whole reason I created this blog in the first place--because of my first broken heart.

But breakups? Breakups that are your decision? I don't know what that process is like. I have no clue how that feels, and what the consequences feel like, or how long it takes to move past a breakup that was your decision. It seems different from a mutual breakup, and different from when someone gets dumped.

So this whole time, I can't help but wonder: Am I letting myself be a rebound?

I mean. 1 month guys. That's so recent. Just a few weeks. I barely feel different from one month to another. 9 months is another story. (See above.) But 1 month? That's barely anything at all.

If I started dating Brennan now, that would make me a rebound. And I don't want to be a rebound. Not at all.

My feelings for Brennan deserve more than being a rebound. And if Brennan had feelings for me at all, even remotely, I think that deserves more than a rebound fling, too.

So. Because of these thoughts, infuriatingly, it soured me to this flirting between us. Even though two seconds ago I was so excited about it, these thoughts made me question it.

And I couldn't help but notice that every time I asked Brennan if we could switch from DMs to texting, and asking for his number because I had deleted it some time ago when I'd gotten a new phone, he had kept brushing it off and changing the subject. And so that made me see his flirtation in a different light, too: Maybe Brennan doesn't have feelings for me at all. Maybe he was just flirting with me because he felt like it, because he can now without being tied down in a relationship. Maybe that's all he wanted.

As all of these thoughts gathered in my head, meanwhile, I had sent Brennan a surprise selfie of me in my cute pajamas.

And he left me on Read for 2 days without even the smallest response.



....Internet. Am I misreading things, or is Brennan not actually interested in me at all?

 God, I feel crazy. I feel like I'm going crazy. And I feel stupid.

Why can't I figure out what he wants? Am I just misreading all of this?

After those two days, he only said that he'd been busy, and that I looked lovely. But my mind immediately skipped over the compliment and dwelled on the 'busy' comment. Because I couldn't help but wonder what had kept him so busy that he had time to open my selfie and look at it but not to type even a single word response.

Tired of feeling crazy, and tired of the ansty stomach ache I'd had for those 2 consecutive days that he'd ignored me, I decided to just take it out of my hands.

I told him that he seemed preoccupied, that it wasn't a big deal, and gave him my number, saying I was tired of DMing inside of Instagram and to text me when he was ready. And that if he didn't there wouldn't be hard feelings. (A lie. But I wanted it to seem that way, anyway.)

I just had a feeling that this may be something other than me. After all, he just went through a breakup last month. And he just got a new job. And I have no idea what's going on in his personal life other than that.

So it might not be me. It's difficult for me not to take things personally--especially because of my anxiety. The anxiety monster in my head reads into every single interaction I have throughout the day and over-analyzes it to death. Good or bad.

But I'm just trying my best to be understanding right now. Even if my first, knee-jerk reaction is to feel hurt and to push him away again.

This is a circumstance that I have never been through before. Being a potential rebound isn't a nice feeling. And I want to express that to him--but not yet. It's too soon. I don't want to assume anything, and I don't want to pressure him. No matter how much I like him. And no matter how much I'm bursting to tell him how much I like him.

Not yet. It's not the time yet. I need to be considerate of him, and to give him time and space.

So that's what I'm going to do. No matter how much it's killing me to do, I'm going to do it.

And now he has my number again. The ball is in his court. And if he never texts me at all, I'll have me answer, and I can move on.

At least I, for the very first time, won't have regrets about never doing anything. I took a chance, a risk, which I never used to do before. I put myself out there instead of running away. And that was exactly what wanted for myself this year--to take chances. To be brave.

If this doesn't work out, Internet, and he doesn't want me the way I want him, at least I know I was brave.

I'm still nervous. I still check my phone way more than is necessary. I still feel a small twinge of disappointment when I receive a new text and it's not him. It's been one week. I'll give him more time.



If after two weeks he doesn't text, I'll consider that my answer and begin to move on.

But at least this time I'll be able to move on for real, instead of running and hiding and hanging on to old memories without having any sure answers. At least now I'll know.

Stay tuned.

xo Hopeless Romantic

(PS: Happy belated Autumn equinox. Change has come. And I welcome it.)


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