There's a few things about my blog that you should know.
I go by Hopeless Romantic for many reasons, but I guess one of them would be to protect the innocent. I'm not afraid to say what I think, so that also might be another reason. Haha. So, if some person I know irl were to come here and read every single one of my entries, they probably wouldn't know it was me. That's also why I make nicknames up for people I blog about.
I'm probably a lot more different than what most people would expect someone my age to be. Sure, I love clothes and make up and I'm a huge sucker for boybands.
But, I've been told that I have an old soul (Google it). Who knows? Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But please, take me seriously. That is all I ask. I'm a girl who's never been in a relationship before, so I don't throw the word 'love' around like a hot potato.
But I'm bound to have many crushes on the way, so, please enjoy reading about my roller coaster of a life.

Name : Sarah

I'm black, age 23.

Waist length hair, baby face, social anxiety.

Likes: Daydreaming, writing, reading, learning, fashion, eating, movies, all kinds of music, the color pink, kpop/jpop, kdramas/jdramas, the hollow heart emoticon, things that are cute, making people laugh, comic books.

Hates: Spiders, clubbing and or partying, really hot weather, close minded people, bigots, extreme sports.

contact:

email : here.
[NEW]twitter: @xohplssrmntc
follow me on twitter!♡


F.A.Q.

"Where are you from?"
The United States, in the western region of the country. I used to say 'mid-west', but just so you know, I didn't actually know what it meant, and I was using it wrong. Haha.

"Who do you think you are?"
Someone who's scared of everything and who hasn't completely figured out how to live yet.

"If you're so afraid of love, why are you so obsessed with it?"
I still haven't figured that out. But aren't we all?

{ ♡ }

imboycrazy I Wrote This for You. Le Love Gala Darling Caroline Calloway Insta-Memoir
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Hey Internet!

Yes, I am alive. After my big writing challenge month, I needed some time to unwind and let the soreness leave my hands. (Seriously, I wrote 50,000 words in a month. My hands were SCREAMING.)

So! To keep things a little simpler, let me utilize some bullet points to let you know what's been going on lately.

I:

• Finished the writing challenge successfully, with 50,000 words accomplished
• Felt super jazzed and excited, then a little dumbfounded for a couple days after I finished--kinda like, "Welp. I finished this big giant thing, What now?"
• Began editing the first draft I wrote
• Thought about Jazz's wedding a little more, realized her and her hubs have been having weekend grillouts in their backyard that I knew nothing about and wasn't invited to. Oh.
• Began saving up money for my first official piece of furniture in my main/living room, which will enable me to finally use that room more than I have for the year and a half I've been in this house. (A futon. Next will be a microwave. Movie/k-drama nights will be upgraded by 1000. Can you say a comfy seat curled up with blanket, some popcorn, hot cocoa, or bowl ramen? And in my own living room! Woo!)
• Also started thinking more about the Brennan thing, then started...feeling...bad? Yep. And a little sad.
• Got some bad news about school and had to deal with the emotional aftermath.

Labels: brennan, college, disappointment, fear, jazz, okcupid, social media

And why do they come back to haunt you at the most inconvenient times?

Internet, I need to be blatantly, even bleakly honest with you. In a way that I haven't in a while.

But first, let me tell you about this book that I just finished reading called Lola and the Boy Next Door. (WARNING!!! Many many many spoilers ahead for this book, and if you haven't read it and want to read it and don't want it to be totally and completely spoiled for you, stop reading now!!)

This book is about a few things, but MAINLY it's about a girl named Lola and the guy she has a long, complicated history with, Cricket. I read this book in a few weeks, and the entire time I read it, there were a lot of things I was feeling.

You know when you read a book, and this book just gets you? Like, it brings up all of the things you needed to hear at that exact moment in time, and it takes your feelings, puts a knife in them, and twists it over and over again? That was this book for me. I loved this book, but it was excruciating for me.

You see, in the book, Cricket is the boy that Lola loves. And he lives next door sometimes, but other times, he moves around. A lot. And the biggest part of their past that's brought up in the book is the last time Cricket moves away, and right before that when Lola falls in love with him, hard. When she was 15 years old.

Sounding familiar so far? Well, at the beginning of the book is when Cricket's family moves back from somewhere far away, after she fell in love with him, an entire two years later. When she's 17.

What? What's that you say? No, nobody wrote a book about my life. This is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BOOK. I swear to God you guys, opening this book and reading it was like stepping into my own past.

So. You see why this book was hard for me to read?

And in addition to this: during the holidays, and New Years, for the first time in almost 3 years, I was thinking about Ricky Bobby. A lot.

You guys...this is so incredibly hard for me to admit. So humiliating for me to admit, in fact, that I almost didn't. I've been agonizing over whether to even write this entry. Still debating over whether or not to post it. (I probably will. I'll still be humiliated, though.)

Part of me is hoping that it's partly due to the holidays and such...I tend to get very nostalgic during this time of year. I was nostalgic and sad during Christmas 2013 too, but over entirely different people and for totally different reasons. So I was kinda hoping that it would just go away on its own.

Then I picked up this book with my giftcard I got for Christmas and started it. And got the reality ass-kicking of a lifetime.

To spoil how it ends (sorry), she and Cricket get their happy ending. And throughout their happy ending, all I could think about was how Ricky Bobby and I never had the chance for a happy ending.

This book brought up a whole mess of scary questions for me.

Lola took her chances and went for what she wanted. Why couldn't I have gone after what I wanted? Why was I not honest enough with myself to realize what I wanted in the first place? Cricket knew what he wanted, too. Did Ricky Bobby want me? And perhaps, by running away and breaking off contact with him because I was so scared of being hurt, did I hurt him? Was he going to tell me that he wanted me eventually, but I never gave him a chance? Did my own fear ruin my chances of having a first love?

The whole time I read this book, these questions consumed me. They chewed me up and spit me back out. To the point where I felt like the pressure was building up and up and up and I was going to explode.

In addition to all this, things with Brennan have come to an abrupt halt on my end. After a while of thought, I realized I definitely wasn't interested in him that way at all, and that he was really into me and I wasn't being fair. (Or that he's still into me. He still acts like he is, so...I don't know.) I'm trying to avoid the 'let's just be friends' talk with him for now, especially since we've had it before already and I don't enjoy confrontation. But I know that keeping quiet about it isn't good either.

But this entire thing has frustrated me all over again. Is the dating world supposed to be this hard? Some people make it look so easy. Dipping in and out of relationships with ease. Some being able to have nice, actual serious relationships. And here I am, me, who's never had anything work out enough to even have one single boyfriend. Is it me? Is it my fault?

So under all of this stress in my mind, I don't think I was in my right mind. And I did something.

I sent a friend request to Ricky Bobby on Facebook.

Honestly...I'm embarrassed. This is just like 5 years ago. Why am I constantly repeating myself? Going in circles?

I think I thought maybe that if I added him on Facebook, it would help calm the loud questions in my head, give me peace of mind. So I sent him a request, and he accepted the request, and for about a week afterwards, I felt better. I let it be, and I had some peace.

Until one night I made the mistake of letting curiosity get to me. And I went to look at his page.

Yep, I snooped. Like I was freaking 17 years old again. I think everyone does this on social networking sites, and I actually do this with other people too. But this time...felt different. It was like, from the beginning, I was purposely looking for something. Maybe that's why it felt wrong. (By the way...he's like...hairy. The face scruff has turned to almost a full blown beard now, and his hair on his head is super long. He's just...hairy.)

Maybe consciously, I didn't know what I was looking for. Scrolled through pics of him at his job, party pics, with almost zero emotion. But then abruptly, after I was scrolling for a while, my heart stopped and my breath caught. I'd found it.

Him and his ex. Lots and lots of pictures of him and his ex.

Pictures of them hugging, pictures of them with their faces squished together, pictures of him with his arm around her shoulders. Lots and lots of pictures.

And within all of those pictures, I found something else. Something scary. Terrifying.

I felt jealous.

I felt a jealousy so deep, so intense that my heart was pounding loud in my ears and my face was red and my hands were shaking. At the same time, I was trying to calm myself down. This reaction was crazy, I knew it. And I felt completely irrational.

And staring at those pictures, I could think of only one thing: 'That could've been me.' 

Where was this coming from suddenly? Was it just ghosts of old emotions, coming back to trick me? Or worse, were they current emotions, back strong and real and there? 

So, as frustrated as I was, the day after this happened, I had a long talk with my mom. And told her everything. About the book I was reading bringing up everything again, about me thinking about him again, about the ex pictures. Everything. And mind you, me and my mom talk about everything. I tell her everything that's on my mind, and during the holidays, I'd brought up Ricky Bobby to her at least 2 different times. But this time it was different.

"I think...I think I felt jealous over his ex." I told her after explaining the request getting accepted and all the pictures to her. "I don't want to be jealous, but it was uncontrollable." I told her that I kept thinking that his ex could've been me. "I couldn't help it, it just came over me and I don't know why."

And then my mom said something that was kind of devastating. "It's because you still have feelings for him."

I sat there, mouth agape. Because she said exactly what I'd been afraid of this entire time. And then I closed my eyes, put my hands over my eyes and started crying. "But it doesn't make any sense," I said. "I haven't seen him in over 4 years."

She said softly, "Emotions aren't supposed to make sense. Sometimes they don't."

I kept crying into my hands. "I feel like I'm crazy."

All she said was, "I know."

Yeah.

Internet............to be totally honest with you, my headspace has scared me lately. And my emotions have scared me lately. My head knows this is impossible, knows that 4 years is entirely too late to think this way, and that he's likely never thought of me once in the past couple of years. My head knows that reacting this way to a book is completely irrational and insane. My head knows that people change a lot in the space of 4 years; hell, I've changed so much that some people might find me unrecognizable compared to how I was/how I looked 4 years ago. My head knows that logically I don't even know him anymore.

But the emotional side of me keeps telling me, over and over, that what I felt for Ricky Bobby was special. And rare. And the more I get older, the harder it will be for me to find it. Maybe I might never find it again.

And increasingly, I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at myself for never letting myself fully realize how I really felt about him. I'm angry at myself for being afraid of taking a freaking chance, for once in my life, and going for something even though it could've ended in utter failure.

Say the Noodles & Co scenario happened now, would I have taken the risk? Absolutely. I would have called Johnny, asked to hang out with him and Ricky Bobby soon, and taken the initiative. I would have finally, finally, told him how I felt about him. I have more confidence and self esteem now than I did then, so it makes sense. But I wish I would have back then anyway, even if he had rejected me again. At least I would have had closure.

Because that's what I think this is. I never had proper closure with Ricky Bobby.

And all this time, I was willfully pushing him to the back of my mind and distracting myself with other things instead of truly dealing with things and truly moving on. Instead of running away. When I still had time, and before it was too late. Before he got back together with the girl he almost dated in Pennsylvania before he moved back, and started a long distance relationship with her.

From what I can tell, they dated from the start of 2012 and broke up late 2013. If he dated anyone since then, I don't know. But I remember thinking how ironic it was that he almost dated someone there before he moved back here, thinking that that could've been me. And then looking at all their couple pictures now, and thinking the same thing.

What kills me the most is thinking that maybe probably the biggest difference between me and her was that she was braver. More confident. Went after what she wanted, just like Lola.

And me? Frozen by fear. Just like with everything else in my life. Letting fear and pride get in the way of what I truly wanted.

So Internet...reaching this epiphany of mine of the past couple of weeks has been truly painful.

Before any of you worry, I won't be acting on this. I definitely won't. Not like I could anyway. Even though he lives in my state still, he still lives hours away, so I won't be running into him. Johnny and I aren't friends anymore. And I have a feeling that Ricky Bobby accepted my friend request out of pity, or because he accepts every friend request, so I won't be talking to him on there either. But at least my curiosity has been cured, so there's that.

Realistically, the only thing left to do now is to try and learn from all of this. I don't know if I'll ever feel about someone else the way I did about Ricky Bobby. But when I do, I hope I'll have the courage to act. Because acting is better than running away from it, which is infinitely worse.

These questions about him and I, and all of the what ifs, will probably haunt me forever. But that's my fault, and I have to deal with it. And I will. I just need time.

So for now, my foray into the dating world may be on halt again. After all, first I need to figure out what to do about Brennan.

Part of me thinks that maybe letting things fade into casual friendship might be the best thing--you know, instead of confrontation that could lead to a big blowout and never talking again. So that may be what I'll do. But if he does ask, then I'll tell him the truth and hope for the best.

And meanwhile, I'll be grudgingly preparing myself for the upcoming Single Awareness Day season. Ugh.

But I'll be all right, Internet. Just give me some time. Don't worry, okay? But for future reference, don't be like me. Be a Lola.

xo Hopeless Romantic 

Labels: books, brennan, facebook problems, fear, long posts are looong, love, past stuff, ricky bobby, sarah flipping a shit but what else is new, scary stuff

Also known as Philophobia.

I have a confession, Internet. There's been something weighing heavy on my mind lately.

It used to be something that only came to bother me every once in a while. It would come, and I'd wave it off, and all was well again. But now that I'm starting to get older, it's bothering me a lot more. I've tried to shake it off, but it's like this huge, ominous, encroaching feeling creeping up on me, and I'm starting to think that I can't help it.

I think I'm starting to develop some kind of negative complex with love.

Now, I know what you're thinking (or maybe I don't, but oh well). 'Hopeless Romantic? Having a negative complex with love? YEAH. OKAY.'

That's what I'd think, too. Heck, this whole blog is dedicated to my misadventures with likes and loves and what have you. My freakin' pen name is 'Hopeless Romantic', for crying out loud.

But it's something I've noticed more and more lately. I'll watch a romance movie, and I'll cringe during the sappy parts that are supposed to make me cry (which I never used to do). I can barely stand to listen to love ballads (which I lived for). I can feel myself starting to resent males in general (not good).

And if those weren't indicative enough, here's the doozy: Everytime I start to picture what my first relationship could be like, where I used to think about great things happening, and feeling excited for them, now I think of them and I'm completely repulsed.
I'll think about my possible first kiss, how nervous I could be when it happens, how awful it could be, and I suddenly don't want one. Ever. I don't even want to try.

Or I'll think about bringing my first boyfriend to come meet my family, and I'm horrified. I love my family, don't get me wrong, but suddenly seeing it from that perspective, it seems too scary and embarrassing and I don't even want to think about it.

And then I'll think about how I'll constantly have to worry about little annoying girl things, like keeping my legs shaven, and how I'll have to exfoliate like every freaking day because if he wants to kiss me he'll be close enough to see like every single one of my pores and it sounds RIDICULOUS, I know, but my skin isn't completely clear or perfect and it's one of my biggest insecurities. And having someone that close to me, close enough to see my pores, close enough to see that teeny little hair on my upper lip that I just happened to miss with my tweezers, close enough that they can see the lines in my irises, it freaks me the hell out.

I had a dream last night, and I remember every single moment of it. It's resonated with me the entire day. In the dream, I was out shopping with Best Friend Rose. It was just her and I, and we were downtown somewhere, somewhere with tons of shops and tall buildings and stuff. Maybe a large city. We decided to stop in this larger department store, but then Rose had to go to the bathroom, so she told me to wait while she ran out to the bathroom, somewhere. So I was standing there with my hands full of shopping bags, right? And I'm just gazing around, looking at stuff, when I see this tall blonde guy standing about 15 feet away, just staring at me. Not in a 'woooo who's that hot shawty over thurr' way, more like the 'I'm a serial killer and I just found my next victim' kind of way. Like, he just stares at me blankly. And I start to get nervous, because here is where I finally noticed that I'm suddenly alone in store, all alone, and this psycho is staring at me all creepily.

And then he starts to walk towards me. Apparently BFR is pretty much forgotten at this point (sorry Rosie) and I immediately start to make my way toward the doors. I push them open, walking fast, and after I'm about ten feet away from the store, I hear him push through the doors too. Great. Psycho is following me, and I'm all alone on the sidewalks. Because somehow, despite being in some big city, the streets and sidewalks are basically empty, except for a bunch of parked cars. No witnesses.

I start to walk even faster. And I risk one look over my shoulder to see if I'm losing him. I'm not. In fact, he's only about 15 feet away. And all of a sudden, I come to this realization that he's my ex boyfriend. In dream land he is, I suppose. I distinctly remember him having longish blonde hair, and being very, very attractive. But it didn't discount the fact that he was glaring at me like his eyes were going to pierce through me. So I break into a run, dropping my shopping bags altogether.

"Get away," I yell at him, kind of feebly.

He replies, "I just want to talk," in the way that the killer in a movie says to their victims, 'I'm not going to hurt you,' before they kill them.

I feel like I'm not getting away from him fast enough, and I try to run fast, but I can't. Even while knowing that this is my ex boyfriend, and not a stranger serial rapist killer, I'm still terrified to death of him. It literally feels like I'm running for my life.

Suddenly he says, in an ominous change of tone, "You can't get away from me, Sarah."

I try to run faster again, and can't. It's like I'm running in sand. "Leave me alone," I scream. "Get away from me!"

"You can try to run, but it won't work. I'll find you. I'll always find you." He says calmly. "You belong to me, Sarah. You'll always belong to me."

I scream again, something unintelligible. Suddenly, I spot a Forever 21 with tons of cars parked in front, tons of people inside. I tear toward the door, throw it open, and careen inside. I go straight to the front desk. "I'm being stalked," I say to the girl on the other side. "Is there some place I can hide?"

She immediately points to the employee door at the far end of the store, and I quickly make my way to it. I jump inside, and as I turn around to close the door behind me, I see Crazy Ex-Boyfriend run into the store, searching for me. I shut the door. The employee area is empty and quiet, and when I listen closely, I can hear everything going on inside the store.

It suddenly sounds as if the store has gone empty, and I only hear the Crazy Sauce ask the employees if they saw a girl like me(all the while still calling me his girlfriend. Hah!). All of them knowing, of course, that I was hiding from him, they all play dumb and say no. I swear for a few seconds that I hear his heavy footsteps come closer and closer to the other side of the door, but he never opens it.

Instead, I suddenly hear my mom, my dad, and Rosie come in, all sounding panicked, probably looking for me. As soon as they see Crazy Man, they call him by name in surprise. They ask him if he's seen me (because apparently they don't know about his insane tendencies of stalking?). He answers, faking worry and concern, that he'd been trying to talk to me, but that I kept running away. He tells them that he has no idea where I am, and they all respond worriedly.

For some reason I stay in the small room until I hear that all of them have left the store, and I come out finally. I look around paranoid, and then I look at the employees. "He's gone, right?" I ask to confirm. They nod slowly at me, and they're looking at me strangely, like they think that maybe I just made the whole stalking thing up.

And then suddenly I see Ex-Boyfriend walk past the store windows again, looking like he was still searching around for me. His face is pinched with worry. And then somehow the dream flips perspectives, and I see the dream through his eyes. And I understand everything perfectly, differently.

Now I was the ex-boyfriend, worried like hell for the girl he still loves, the girl who always pushes him away.

When I woke up from that dream, I was extremely unsettled. Not only because it was one heckuva dream, but because that is one of my fears.

I'm scared that someday I will fall in love with someone who loves me back, and I'll lose control. Scared that I'll get too attached too fast, and one day I'll wake up, terrified, realizing what I've gotten myself into, and I'll push them far away from me. I'm scared that they'll use me and crush my soul in their fist. I'm scared that I'll love them, and that they're actually just merely 'interested'. I'm scared that it will be love, true love, amazing love, and then an accident will happen and they'll be taken from me forever.

I think I'm so scared of love because it ends. It always seems to end. Something always happens. Someone cheats, or someone loses interest completely, or someone dies before the other. And the thought of going through that pain scares me so honestly that it makes me want to cry.

I don't want to be one of those people that never does anything because of their fear.
But lately I can honestly say that the thought of any of those happening is enough to make me question if I ever want to go through something like that. It doesn't sound worth it. And I've had no reason to personally believe that it is.

It's funny, because in Middle School, I would have killed to have a boyfriend. It was almost everything to me. But now, after I've gotten older and realized the painful repercussions of love, I cringe whenever I think of having one. I used to be afraid of being alone forever, but now I'm honestly starting to think I might be better off alone.

It sounds ridiculous and melodramatic, but maybe it's the best thing. Jane Austen never got married, and she turned out okay. Great, even. Maybe that's how it will be for me.

I'll see if this passes. Maybe this is just a weird mood I've been in with my stress lately. I suppose we'll see.

xo Hopeless Romantic

(P.S. I finally added comments for each entry and Older Posts Newer Posts links. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out!)

Labels: fear, life, love, secrets

present me past me