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regrets of christmas past.}
Wednesday, December 21, 2016 | 8:31 PM | 0Comment



Internet. It's been a minute. How have you been?

As for me, I've been recovering from the Hell on Earth that was November 2016. (Thank god I stuck to my NaNoWriMo goals for the month to distract me from the Worst Election in History. Despite my emotional distress, I wrote 50k words of a draft of a weird, lovely story that I'm pretty proud of, despite its' first draft messiness.)

I've also been working tirelessly on my Christmas cards, which all got sent out earlier this week. It has served as a great distraction, and as usual, I was grateful for it.

But something happened earlier this month that I was not expecting. First, let me revisit what I had written about last Christmas: the Christmas Crazies.



As usual, I've been watching plenty of Hallmark Christmas movies (or all of them! Whatever! Don't judge!....I may have a problem.) and pretty much every other kind of Christmas movie and special that you could think of. And also as usual, I'd begun getting the yearnings.

Last year, I yearned for any possible connection at all to someone, which disastrously lead to talking to 4 guys on Tinder all at once, including that one super creep, who was super creepy even for Tinder's standards.

This year, however, like being visited by several Ghosts of Christmas' Past, I couldn't help but start to think of all the guys I had 'almosts' with...from this past year, and even before that.



I thought of Amad, who I had actually first matched with on Tinder just before last Christmas, and who had proceeded to like my Instagram pictures for a full month before finally asking me out in January. Thought of how I was so excited by the thought of going out with him at first, then was quickly disenchanted when he'd blown me off after I had turned down his (last minute) date invites for legitimate reasons.

I thought of Luke, who had given me my first, adorable kiss this year after we had watched an alien movie in the midst of the strange, beautiful late April snowstorm. Thought of how, though we lost interest in each other, how nice he was to me. I hope he's doing well now.

Thought of Jacob. Immediately stopped thinking of Jacob as I dry heaved.

Then most importantly, most relevantly, thought of a ghost from even further back, from two Christmases ago--I thought of Brennan. Thought of our Christmas Eve Eve coffee date, and how I'd intended on bringing him some of the Christmas cookies my mom and I had made, but I had forgotten them in my mad rush to get there and not be late. (Even though I still was.)



Which brings me to what happened on December 6th.

That morning, Brennan sent me a snap.

I waited a full 3 hours until opening it, because I was freaking out.

This was the first time he'd initiated conversation since last summer, I was positive. He'd still been lurking in my snap story on a regular basis, and at this point, I was used to that. He even still occasionally liked some of my Instagram pictures, and eventually I had gotten used to that, too. But he hadn't tried to talk to me in ages.

But the weird thing was, this didn't feel like when J*cob had slid into my DMs in October. I wasn't immediately filled with rage. I actually kind of felt...nervous.

Maybe I was nervous because I had already been thinking about him in the first place, and then ta-dah! Surprise! Sudden contact!

Finally, when I stopped psyching myself out, I just decided to open the damn thing. And lo and behold, what was it? A video of him, captioned, 'this is more my style' or something like that, to be honest I was sort of dazed as I watched it--with the cat face filter. Because of course cat-loving Brennan would send me that.



I wasn't thinking, only thinking that I actually wanted to respond this time. I didn't look cute, but at the same time I didn't want to look cute because I didn't actually know if he still had a girlfriend--I hadn't snooped his Facebook in forever. I didn't want it to seem flirty if he was still dating her. So just to be safe, I picked the ugliest face filter I could find--an Albert Einstein one. And then I captioned it 'this is my style, personally' and send it.

I think the motivation was just to send something disarming or funny, so I didn't seem like a total bitch, but who knows how he could have taken it. He didn't respond anyway, just opened it. And that was that.

Except he's still been watching my whole snap stories like before. And I really wonder why he sent me that snap in the first place.

Especially considering the fact that when I finally got the guts to snoop his Facebook, I saw that him and his girlfriend are still together.



Maybe it was an accident? But if he had accidentally sent it, he would've just been able to delete the snap he sent before I saw it, right? I'm pretty sure that's possible, though I've never done it personally. (So I may be totally wrong about that.)

Or perhaps he still wants to be friends with me? And if so, why? Why would he want to be friends with the girl that was a total bitch to him for no reason? (As far as he knows anyway.)

So Internet...it's like this. I've tried to let go of this, to brush this off. But the Christmas Crazies have taken over.

After a bit of introspection, I realized that it's been 2 years now since I first met Brennan in person. And I realized that on average, with friends especially, it takes roughly 2 years for me to warm up to someone new before I feel like I can trust them. Some things began to come together in my brain.

Maybe before I hadn't warmed up to Brennan, and that's one of the reasons why I was so scared to get close to him, as I often am with people. Maybe it's been long enough since I've met him that I've actually come to like him. I don't know.

Sigh. But that sucks, right? Because he has a girlfriend.



I mean, there has to be a reason that bothers me so much. If I didn't like him, at least a little bit, it wouldn't bother me that he has a girlfriend. Especially since they'll be together two years next May. If I was just feeling a little spurned, I would've gotten over it by now, surely.

For a good while, I thought I was over it. But turns out I'm actually not.

But maybe it's just the holiday nostalgia talking. Maybe I'm not actually not over it. Maybe it's just the memories coming back to haunt me, twisting my emotions in some way.

Either way, Internet, I've gotten the strong urge to reach out to him. I have the strong urge to apologize to him for how I treated him.

I have no desire to break up his relationship. Absolutely not. I have never and still never want to be that girl. I have much more pride than that, and that would totally make me feel like a horrible person. (Actually, it would make me a horrible person.)



But I just feel that I owe him an apology for treating him the way I did. It would only be an apology, and nothing more than that. I would leave him alone after that if he wished. I just don't like this remaining, unresolved underlying tension between us. The fact that he even has reached out to me at all after how I treated him is truly something else. It makes me feel sad. He's so nice to me. Why?

But I would want to make sure that it would be for his sake too, not just to ease my guilt about it. I for sure want to get it off my chest, but would it really benefit him too if I apologized after nearly 2 years? Or would it be like spitting in his face? I can't shake the feeling that this doesn't feel fair to him.

I don't know, Internet. I've been trying my best to ignore this urge, but when I think about that snap he sent me out of the blue, the urge grows stronger. And maybe it would be the right thing to do.

I'll think about it a little more, maybe get some advice about it. I just don't want him to hate me. (Not to mention I don't want his girlfriend to hate me. Gulp.)

Meanwhile, another laid-back Christmas is on the way.



The only thing I asked for this Christmas was a new bed, considering I've had my current bed since I was 6 years old. (It was my first big-girl bed, and used to be a canopy. Twin sized. Now it's just cramped, and my 18 year old mattress is unbearable with my multiple joint problems as of late.)

The other thing I wished for this Christmas was one more Christmas with my dog. She's gotten old, almost 14, and last month, we had a seriously devastating health scare with her where we thought it might be the end of things. She's still hanging on like the fighter she is, and we're taking it one day at a time now, cherishing our time with her as much as we can. I'm scared to lose her, but I'm doing my best not to think of that and hug and kiss her every single day.

I also wished for snow, but...well. La Nina had different plans, and it seems that may not happen. Sigh.

But maybe, just maybe, this Christmas I could give someone a much-needed apology so we can both move past it.

I DON'T KNOW. UGH.



I'll keep you guys updated. And Happy Holidays to you all!

xo Hopeless Romantic

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the christmas crazies. (and important changes coming at me warp speed)}
Sunday, December 27, 2015 | 7:10 PM | 0Comment

Hey, Internet! Belated Happy Holidays!

I hope all of you guys had magical (or if not magical, at least decent?) holidays this month. You deserve it after the helluva year you've had.

As for me, Christmas this year was peaceful.

Financially, things have still been tight, as the
y have been all year this year. So instead of exchanging presents this year, my folks and I decided to have good food and good company for Christmas instead.

Delicious food, annual homemade cookies (which we decorated), good movies, and for me, a brand new tradition: I found an amazing mulled wine recipe and made it in the crock pot. Holy freakin' crap. Amazing. SO GOOD. I had to restrain myself from drinking all of it on my own, lest I subject myself to a merry Christmas hangover.

But before the holiday actually came, I found myself...in a slight dilemma.

Nothing too major, nothing even that big of a deal. But for me, it was pretty embarrassing.

You see, there's this phenomena that happens at this time of year that I like to call the Christmas Crazies.

I only more recently came up with this name for it, but I've written about it before. See this entry "Dodged that bullet."

Christmas couples, Christmas crazies, whatever you want to call it...it's a phenom. A phenom that I hate. And yet it affects me all the same.

Around this time of year, I get this inexplicable yearning. 

I don't know if it's the mushy corny cheesy Hallmark holiday movies I watch every year on an infinite loop (probably a huge contributing factor, not going to lie), or if it's my favorite classic Christmas songs which happen to be romantic in nature (All I Want for Christmas is You, Last Christmas, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)), or if it's the cold weather making me want to snuggle up in my pajamas with someone.

But man. Without fail. I get more sentimental, definitely. But I also yearn. For who? Anybody? I don't know. But the older I get, it's gotten worse.

Last year, unfortunately, I got the Yearnings for R*cky B*bby. (Censored because I promised I'd stop blogging about him. Hah.) But all of my nostalgia craze was just starting this time last year, so that was why. Also last year, I had my first and last date with Brennan after months of resisting meeting him in person at all. It's safe to say the Christmas Yearnings had gotten to me, and that was why I had decided to say yes to a snowy Christmas Eve Eve coffee date.

This year, I got them for...I don't know. Everybody?

I'm telling you Internet. The Christmas Crazies this year were on steroids. One minute I was feeling relaxed and unworried about any and all boys, the next minute I was talking to 4--LITERALLY 4--different guys from Tinder at once. 3 days before Christmas.

And before you guys get all Judgey McJudger at me, this is unheard of for me. When I do start talking to a guy, I just talk to that guy and that guy only. This is to keep me from feeling overwhelmed.

However, this time I just...I don't know, guys. I think I had a nervous breakdown, or something. Or maybe the romance in the air had me a little overwhelmed and I got a bit right-swipe happy.

Either way, I got four new matches 3 days before Christmas, and all 4 of them started talking to me at once.

Deciding that I was in the mood to talk to some people, I answered them all. And my dilemma began.

Thankfully, conversations with two of them tapered off after two hours or so. But the other two persisted into the next day.

1 of them asked me out right off the bat from the first day we talked, which was a red flag for me. I told him that I was busy, but I would think about it and talk to him later. So the next day, we began talking some more, and conversation was nice, so I was seriously considering maybe hanging out with him sometime.

As we talked that day, he followed me on Instagram (my IG is connected to my Tinder profile). Seeing that he did, I went to follow him back, His account was private, but that didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. I sent a follow request and went about my day, still talking to him casually.

He accepted my request about 30 mins later, so I went to look at his Instagram. I noticed a lot of travel pictures, which was cool. But then I noticed something peculiar--the pictures I saw of him throughout his feed looked NOTHING like the pictures he had on Tinder.

I even scrolled down to the bottom of his Instagram feed--the oldest pictures were from three years ago, and yet the pictures of him from then still weren't anything like his Tinder pictures.

At first I was positive this guy was a Catfish, so I got all prepared to tell him off. Then when I went back to his Tinder profile once more, I realized--the pictures on his Tinder were of him, but they were years old. Like, way older than three years old. Possibly 5 years or more. College pictures, and he very clearly was long out of college (27 years old).

And our conversation was getting increasingly creepy. He kept making sexual remarks, kept asking sexual questions, and began persisting over and over again that we should date.

Obviously, I was way creeped out at this point. So I decided to let him down easy, block him on both apps, and get the heck out of that situation.

Predictably, he took it badly, even though I had calmly made an excuse about not having the time to date anybody at the moment. I was fortunate enough not to have him call me names or harass me further than the typical 'Well, why not? Why are you even on here, then?' And then thankfully he did me the favor of blocking me on both apps instead of me having to do it.

So, yeah. Yikes.

If anything, all that experience did was remind me why I hate Tinder in the first place. I haven't been back on since.

As for the other guy, he was nice enough, at least compared to that other guy. Cute too, but way out of my league. (He plays college basketball, and he's been on ESPN. Why did he even want to talk to me in the first place? No idea.) We exchanged Snapchat usernames, snapped back and forth for 2 days (just face snaps, nothing crazy), and then stopped talking but have been passively watching each other's snap stories ever since. Ah, romance.

(He's never gonna talk to me again.)

So, in conclusion: the Christmas Crazies got to me again this year. But at least I didn't go any terrible dates, especially not with that one wacko. Two conversations were enough for me.

IN OTHER NEWS: 2016. Coming up fast as hell.

And for me, big changes are coming with the New Year.

The biggest and most important change: a job. I GOT ONE. TECHNICALLY.

After all that job applying for years, and yielding no results, I decided to do this differently. Take a different approach. Because obviously what I was doing was not working at all for me, and you know. Definition of insanity and all that.

So, I decided to do some research on modern ways to make money. And I stumbled upon this article about just that. Some things it listed were becoming an Uber driver, becoming a nanny or babysitter, and then--once I spotted it, it felt like I struck gold--becoming a pet sitter.

DING DING DING.

An important thing about me, internet: I love animals. I love animals so, so much. I connect with animals. Especially pets. Especially dogs. And so when I found a website specifically dedicated to finding dog sitters, I immediately went to their application page to become a sitter. And after a little work filling it out, getting a testimonial from a family member written for my profile, and getting a background check done, I was cleared. My application was approved.

Y'all. I have a job.

LET ME REPEAT. I HAVE A JOB.

Sure, it's a self employment job. But it's run through this website, and involves self promotion. I can do that. Hell, I'm a Millenial. I was born for the age of social media.

It'll take a lot of hard work, and a lot of cute messy pups to watch, but I can do it. I've pet sat before, and it was easy and fun. (Plus, an option like this makes way more sense for me than babysitting. Kids are too much for me to handle on my own at the moment. I prefer furbabies.)

So...come January, I'll be starting as soon as I possibly can. I'll start promoting this week, and hopefully come the first week of January, I'll have my first customer.

I'm anxious to start, because I have a very important trip to save up for in February. Said trip would probably be life changing, and be a turning point for my life. (But more on that later!)

And after that event, I would continue to work so I could save up money to go back to college, and some other very VERY important things as well that would make my 2016 a turning point in my life.

These are more than just my same old resolutions for New Years. I'm going to make absolute sure that 2016 will be a very different year for me. But in a good way. In a great way. It's in my hands. It's my life. I have to make it happen. Nobody is stopping me but me.

Change that I've needed for a long time is coming.



Internet, let's hope this self-push coming at me fast in 2016 is just what I needed to do for myself. (And let's hope that those Christmas Crazies stay away from me next year.)

Once again, Happy Holidays to all of you, and Happy New Year! See you all next year! (Ugh, I know, I'm sorry. Why did I make that joke? Why?! I'll show myself out.)

xo Hopeless Romantic

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