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a tenth. a first. and a goodbye.}
Sunday, December 2, 2018 | 9:19 PM | 2Comment




To my beloved Internet,

It has been long. Much too long. How I've missed you.

I have started and stopped several entries before this one. I never posted them because they didn't feel quite right. And just as well, I've been so swamped with my fiction writing this year (a revision on one of my novels that resulted in axing 50k words from it, work on another novel I started in '16, and finishing a whole novella!) that I felt like I couldn't dedicate enough time to writing a nice update for you all.

Also, at some point, there was so much happening that I didn't feel like I could adequately write about it all. But, as always, there is the ever-famous bulletpoint entry. So let me sum it up for you:


  • In March of this year, I entered my 25th year around the sun. Many confusing, exciting things have happened in my 25th year, but I've enjoyed 25. 25 is nice, and so far, much nicer than being 24.
  • In May of this year, this blog turned 10 years old. An entire decade of being your ridiculous, overly-sensitive, one-and-only Hopeless Romantic.
  • I continued working at my job, and I continued loving it, as well as being able to experience wonderful opportunities for my resume, as well as wonderful life experiences.
  • I started going to the movies by myself, and it turned into one of my favorite new hobbies. Turns out I'm a bit of a movie junkie, and I enjoy watching them the most when I'm alone, but with a group of other movie junkies who watch movies the same way I do--silently. Ahh, sweet silence.
  • I started seeing someone, who then became my very first boyfriend.


Huh. Sooo...where to begin?

Kidding. I know you guys are DYING to hear me dish on this guy who became my first ever boyfriend. Me. Hopeless Romantic, in the year of 2018, AND A FIRST BOYFRIEND. 

FINALLY.










Now, before you all celebrate, let me stop you right there: it's not Brennan. And it didn't end well.

But, well, seeing as he was my first boyfriend, and most people have their first boyfriend/girlfriend in like...middle school, sometimes high school? Yeah. Usually that does not work out so well. And in this case, it didn't.

But let me start at the beginning. Let's call him Jon.

Now, after the whole Brennan ordeal of late last year, I ended up confronting him. I told him up front that I had felt taken advantage of, and used, and that it didn't fly with me. I told him I take my own feelings very seriously, and that I need someone who takes me seriously as well. I told him that I'll be his friend, but if he can't handle being JUST straight-forward, platonic friends, then he needed to stay away from me.

He ended up responding with this whole rant about how sorry he was for treating me that way, and how he didn't even know what he wanted or what he was doing with his life, and honestly it was pretty sad. It was through this that I realized how hard this breakup of his had been on him, way more than he had initially made it seem.

Frankly, after all of that, it put me off of Brennan for good, and I left him alone. Aside from him sending me Merry Christmas and Happy New Year texts, we mostly stopped speaking--which, after the way he had treated me, I was glad for. Immediately following, I signed up for Bumble, wanting to move on ASAP.

Nothing came of Bumble for several weeks afterward. For a little bit, I was talking to this guy from there who Super Liked me, who ended up coming on WAY TOO STRONG and made me super uncomfortable 95% of the time. 

Nothing came of it for months, and I was feeling so weary of the whole dating scene that I was planning on deleting the app.

But when I sat down to delete my account in June, I decided I might take one last swipe-through, just in case. 

So I was swiping. Swiping, and swiping, and swiping. Losing my faith in humanity and swiping. Feeling my soul die and swiping.

Then finally, miracle of miracles, I find a guy's profile that interests me. Just to see, I swipe right. We immediately match.

The guy? Jon.

I send the opening message, telling him he's handsome and making a comment about something he'd written on his profile. He immediately messages back, super friendly, we talk for a bit. He asks me out to a movie for the next weekend, I say yes. Success.










Now, when we meet in person for the first time, it's a little weird. He's kind of quiet, he's obviously very nervous. I was nervous too, but after seeing him, he was much more nervous than I was. I try my best to be friendly to make him feel at ease, and we go in for the movie.

His laughter during the movie is high-pitched and it alarms me, but it's kind of hilarious. The unashamed, loud way that he laughs is disarming, and shows me that he doesn't care what others think. It warms me to him.

After the movie, I ask if he would like to get coffee at my favorite cafe by the movie theater that plays k-pop videos. He says yes.

He pays for my coffee, and we get to know each other a bit. He seems to have trouble looking directly at me, but he still seems nervous, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. (I found out later that he spent our entire first date absolutely terrified. Poor guy.) He lived in Japan for much of his adolescent years, but he says he likes it in America better. He complains about the trains in Japan, and it endears me to him. He lived a whole life growing up that I could never even imagine, and I want to know more.









So I say yes to date two, brunch at a hole-in-the-wall place downtown. He's a bit warmer this time, more comfortable. We talk about all our favorite movies, and our favorite music. I notice the tattoo on his forearm: the solar system. I love space. And now I like him even more.

Date three: Watching Harry Potter movies at his place. I was hesitant about going over to his apartment--I had never been to a man's apartment before. But I said yes, trying to take a step outside of my comfort zone.

He sensed that I was uncomfortable, and as we watched Chamber of Secrets, he only holds my hand. Fingers laced. I'm on cloud nine.






After date 5--a day trip to the mall, where he bought some things for me as a gift--when we watched a Japanese reality show on Netflix, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I cried, and I said yes. And when we left his place a couple of hours later so that he could drive me home, there was a double rainbow across the sky.

It felt like a sign. A wonderful gift just for me, from the universe.

That day made me so happy. It was wonderful, now knowing that these things could happen to me. I thought I was defective. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I was the only one who would never experience that kind of happiness.

I now know that it's possible.






Unfortunately, after that, things steadily went downhill.

We still did fun things. We went to movies, talked on the phone, went out to eat, sat in his car for hours just talking and watching funny videos on each other's phones. Those parts were great. Those were the things I had always wanted, and never thought I deserved. 

I'll cherish those firsts for a long time. Maybe forever.

But sometimes he would ignore my boundaries--my personal boundaries as well as my relationship boundaries. At first I thought it was a mistake, and made excuses for him. I would restate them again and again, reminding him. He would say 'okay' and nod like he understood, and then he would bulldoze past them all over again. This happened so many times that it felt like I was losing my mind.

It happened so many times that when he told me that he loved me, it didn't feel like he meant it.

He said 'I love you' to me after 1 month of being official, after changing our relationship statuses on Facebook.

He said it right after I told him, repeatedly, that I wasn't ready for sex, and tried to force me to do it anyway.

I didn't say it back, Internet. Because the moment he said this to me, after the way he had treated me before in that confusing, unsettling moment, I knew I didn't love him.

Because I could never love someone who wouldn't treat me with the utmost respect. I thought he respected me--he opened doors for me, held hands with me in public, drove me home, and he told me he respected me. I thought that was enough. 

But other times he would shove his tongue down my throat like he was getting paid $200 a minute to do it. Other times, when I told him I was having a bad depression or anxiety day, he would ignore my need for space. And he would whine and guilt trip me when I said I wasn't ready to sleep with him. And when he wasn't whining and guilting me, he was groping me. 

At first it just began to annoy me. Then it began to anger and sicken me. We even began fighting about it. One of the last times I called him out on it, I got really angry. I thought we had settled this discussion the time before, and I was tired of feeling unheard. He swore up and down that he wouldn't do it again, and that he was sorry, and that he'd do better. He blamed his stress on it, and that he didn't mean to upset me. Little did he know, that final time we fought over it, I decided it would be the last time.

A lack of respect is not love.

We spent so much time angsting over this in the end that he barely know who I was.

Maybe Jon truly did love me, or who he wanted me to be. Maybe he still does. Or maybe he just said it so I'd sleep with him.

Either way, my mental health was suffering. The moment I realized I wasn't happy anymore, I wanted out. I needed to end it.






The worst part was that he was away on a trip and wouldn't be back for weeks. And I'm not some asshole who breaks up with someone over the phone. So for weeks, I stewed in misery, waiting for him to return from his trip so I could break it off.

I felt terrible about it. I knew that it would be awful for him to be dumped right after returning from a trip. But I also knew it would be worse, nay, cowardly to dump him over phone call or text while he was gone. It would've been downright cruel. So I did what I had to do.

He had told me once that one of his exes had dumped him over text, out of the blue, without even saying why. So I did the opposite of that.

When he returned from his trip, we went out. In person, sitting outside at a cafe, I told him exactly why I was breaking up with him. And I cried more than I thought I would, though admittedly I have gotten over it pretty fast, 3 months later.

Aside from the boundaries issue (which is unacceptable) and the not listening thing (he was the WORST LISTENER.), what it truly came down to was incompatibility.

He needs someone who wants to screw like bunnies all the time, and who doesn't mind someone who's a bit clingy.

I need someone who listens to me, and who respects me, first of all. But most of all, I want someone that I love.

Because when it came down to it, Jon was not right for me in several ways. I liked how attentive he was in the beginning, how sweet and thoughtful he was. But it changed so quickly, and he showed this other side of him, which I couldn't stand so much that he became unattractive to me. He became so unattractive to me that I knew I could never, under any circumstances, fall in love with him.

I need someone that I love.

And I know what love feels like because I have loved someone before.








With Ricky Bobby, I saw all of his flaws. I knew who he was, and what all of his weaknesses were. None of them mattered. Because down to my very soul, I loved him

I loved him. And as I said three years ago, I may always love him.

I swore I would never blog about him again. But on this tenth year of this blog, I can't help but bring it all back to the knucklehead that made me start this whole thing in the first place.

For years, I've wondered. Wondered if I'll even love someone else.

Thanks to Jon, I know I can.

For a little while, I thought I was on my way to loving Jon. Perhaps I was close. Before that whole incompatibility thing reared its ugly head.

And because of him, despite how it ended, I know now that someone can love me. That I'm not just this unloveable sad sack of a human, the one who cried herself to sleep in high school, thinking no one could ever love her.

I know I can be loved. I know now.









How long have you known me, Internet?

Have you been with me for all TEN years? In that case, wow. Thanks for sticking around.

Has it been a shorter time than that? Even then, wow. Thanks for being an anonymous friend in this lonely wide world.

For ten years, this blog was my sanctuary. It's been the place where I air my deepest thoughts, as loudly and as boldly as I want. I spent my formative years pouring my soul into the words on this diary, where strangers could either read them and identify, or read and be entertained.

I owe so much to this little space right here. This little corner of the Internet has meant the world.

But I'm sure that many of you, if there are much of you left, have noticed my increased absence in recent years. I would be surprised if anyone was reading this right now, in fact.

It's not that I've lost the drive to write. It's that I've channeled all of my energy and all of my soul into my fictional works. The more I gave to my characters, the less concerned I was about my love life, and the less self-absorbed I was.

And the more I've poured into my stories, the less energy I had for dissecting my own life and spreading it into words on the Internet, for the whole world to see.

My stories have grown into books. Books, plural. That I want to publish one day. And most of all, this year, I have been seeking a literary agent to represent my work. To find a publishing house so that those words might become real books one day.

This blog has been so much of my heart for so long.

And that's why I'm turning it into what I love most in this world: a book.









Of course, it won't be a memoir. I'll rearrange some things, pick better changed names, make some things more interesting (i.e.: FICTIONAL.). And of course, give it a happy ending, as my favorite kind of fiction deserves.

As for this blog, and for you all, I wish I could give you a happy ending.

I wish I could've come back with a bombastic, final blog entry in the form of AND THEN I FELL MADLY IN LOVE WITH JON AND HE PROPOSED TO ME AND WE GOT MARRIED AND BOUGHT A HOUSE AND NOW WE'RE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END.

God, I wish I could've. More than anything.

But the sad fact of real life is that it's not as interesting as books. Things don't normally get happy endings. If they get endings at all, a lot of times they're anticlimactic and full of loose ends. Sometimes the endings are sad and tragic.

I think if I had eventually abandoned this blog, just up and left it without another word, that would've been the tragic ending.

So I thought: if I give this an ending, let it be like most of life: anticlimactic, same as always, and maybe a little boring. (Aside from me finally filling you in on that first boyfriend thing, months later.)

Because God forbid, Internet, that I end this epic love story with you with a tragedy.

To those left out there who have read my words, read my life, and have stuck with me, this is where we say our goodbyes. I've always been terrible at goodbyes.

This ride has been wonderful. And I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else. I may not have found love in Jon, or in anyone after Ricky Bobby (so far), but I sure found it in myself, and in you.







When I finish this book loosely based upon this hopeless romance life of mine, I'll likely delete this blog from the face of the websphere. I hope that enough of you see this final entry before I do, but don't worry, that may be awhile. (But just in case, if you wish to download an archive of my entries, or copy-and-paste or screenshot them, or what have you, I would do it ASAP.)

If 'The Life of a Hopeless Romantic' (title pending) appears on the YA shelves of a bookstore one day, I hope that some of you might recognize me there and pick me up to live on your bookshelves, so that you won't forget me.

Because I certainly won't forget any of you.

I love you. Adieu. The end.

And, for one last time: Happy Holidays, and happy New Year. Take care of yourselves, Internet. May your lives be full of love. And show love to one another, even if it's hard to find for yourself.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Forever,
Your Hopeless Romantic


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on the dangers of nostalgia.}
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 | 11:23 PM | 0Comment

So, Internet. Ricky Bobby.

It's been a little while since I posted my painfully honest, really humbling and terrifying letter.

Writing that letter, along with the totally raw post I made in January (where I basically finally admitted to myself and to you guys where my mental state was in high school when he moved back), honestly...it felt like ripping back open old wounds. It was that painful for me.

And yet, they were completely necessary. I don't know why it took me nearly 5 years to be able to do it, but I'm glad that I eventually arrived there. Late honesty is at least better than holding onto the lie.

In the months since writing it, I have very slowly began to feel better about all of these regrets. And even though in the end, I decided not to send the letter to him, just getting it there--out in existence, out of my brain--relieved some of the worries and upset about it.

So. These past few months, I've been going about my business. Taking things day by day, focusing on my health, writing my ass off (if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know what I mean).

This month, I've been preoccupied with writing a lot and also pre-friends'-wedding-jitters (why was I so nervous? It wasn't even my wedding! Sheesh!) So I had barely enough time to think about anything else.

But.

The day before Jazz's birthday, it was Ricky Bobby's birthday.

I got the notification for it, right there on Facebook. And to be honest, I already knew about it. I mean...of course I would remember his birthday.

After talking about it with one of my friends (the same friend that advised against me sending the letter), we decided an innocent birthday wall post couldn't hurt. Everyone does that, right? Even if you're not close to that person anymore, it's still nice to wish them happy birthday. I do that for some people I haven't even talked to in years. Some people I went to school with did that for me too, and I didn't find it strange or awkward, I actually thought it was nice.

So. After a small period of panic, typing, backspacing, typing, backspacing again, looking at his FB page and sweating profusely, and typing again, I finally decided to post on his wall.

It was small, unassuming, unimposing, polite. "happy birthday, ricky bobby! i hope you've been doing well."

That's all.

No, "happy birtHDAYI'M SORRY I WAS SUCH A BITCH TO YOU".

No, "happy birthday!!!! god I really miss you sometimes!!!! I've been thinking about you for months!!!!!!!! Sometimes I think about you for so long that I send myself into an absolutely miserable downward spiral!!!!!!!!!! Why the hell didn't I date you?!?! HOPE UR GOOD".

No, "happy bir--did you ever actually like me, at any point?? Or were you even interested in me that way??? Did I ruin my chances with you??? Did I make you hate me forever???? Do you not even give a single shit about me anymore???????"

Nope.

Even though I strongly want to say all of those things to him, it's hit me now that I may never will. And you know what? Maybe I'll just have to live with that. Maybe I wouldn't want to know the response to those things, anyway.

So, I'm sure you want to know how he responded.

He didn't.

Looking at Ricky Bobby's history with social media websites and how he uses them, this wasn't a surprise to me. No reply, not even a like.

It stung a little bit, but you know what? Maybe in a way, that was an answer to all of the questions that plagued my mind the past half a year.

Not responding to my mild attempt at social courtesy, to which other people would probably at least respond with a like(which says yes, I see your reaching out to me, and I appreciate it)...somehow, no response said more than a polite response would have ever said.

If he had even liked that I reached out to him, he would have responded in some way, right? So maybe he didn't like that wall post of mine. Maybe he didn't like that I was speaking to him for the first time in 4 years after blocking him, unblocking him and adding him as a friend again and acting like nothing ever happened. Completely understandable and justified that he would feel that way. It's not that I was even expecting a particularly warm response, either, after the way that I acted.

It's clear that my reaching out was unwelcome. And somehow, finding out this way is easier to take.

Imagine if I actually had sent that letter to him. Imagine the response that would have gotten.
To be truthful, if it had received no response at all, like this had, it would have been like a stab in an old scar for me. It would've felt like one gigantic, final, end-all-be-all rejection of my heart and everything that I felt for him, balled up and thrown in the trash like my letter probably would have been.

So, that's it now. It's time to stop. No more.

I had my regrets, worries, and fears, and for the most part, they've all been answered now. It's time I move on for real now. For good.

He'll become a part of my past that I stop revisiting, a Facebook friend I never talk to anymore, just keep them in my friend's list for the sake of knowing how they're doing. That's enough for me now, just knowing he's doing okay.

I need to stop revisiting him, need to stop trying to bring him back into my life when it's clear that he's not meant to be there anymore. And that's perfectly all right. That's what happens when you grow up.

Maybe Ricky Bobby was my first (unrequited) love. I created this entire blog that testifies to that very possibility.

People don't always get together with or stay together with their first loves, I'd say they rarely ever do. But people do get over their first loves. Maybe it takes them years and years and years, but they do eventually. Maybe they'll always have a teeny tiny piece of their heart. Maybe Ricky Bobby will always be unknowingly carrying around a tiny piece of my heart with him. That's okay.

And that doesn't mean I need to be with him. I never will be with him. And that's okay, too. I realize that now.

These last endless months of dangerous nostalgic feelings may have partly been so severe because, with the wedding of one of my closest friends, now more than ever I have had to face the fact that my life is different now.
I am not the same girl I was in high school, though I may feel that way sometimes. I've changed in so many ways, and the people I used to know have too. Their personalities, their wants, their needs, their entire lives. And so has mine.

The Ricky Bobby I used to know, the Ricky Bobby of my lovely, cherished memories, is gone now. Living his new life. Wanting different things than 8th grade and 11th grade Ricky Bobby wanted. And the 11th grade Sarah of his memories, if he ever stops to revisit them, is gone too.

It's time to live my new life, too. Without getting dragged back by nostalgia and all my memories. I can still cherish the memories, but I need to leave them in the past for good now. Where they belong.



One more thing I want to write down, before I stop blogging about Ricky Bobby for a very long time, possibly (and hopefully) forever, is this:

During these months of self inflicted, nostalgia fueled torment, I decided to revisit Ricky Bobby's old band in high school, the one he was lead singer of before he moved back to my state and they replaced him with another singer.

Well. Wouldn't you know it, Internet. They were signed to a major indie label, and they're becoming popular. Popular as in, SXSW performances two years in a row, touring worldwide, performance at a big music festival in New York this year with huge mainstream artists, interviews with Rolling Stone, along with raving Rolling Stone reviews, interviews in Interview mag, Nylon mag, performances on late night talk shows on TV--that popular.

Yeah. I KNOW. Crazy, right??

They're certainly quite the sensation (I can't name them, for the sake of protecting identities and all that), and the lead singer they replaced Ricky Bobby with is certainly talented, especially for his age. (Though he sounds just like a few other bluegrass/soul influenced rock vocalists of the same genre...just my opinion, though.) But when I was catching up on this band, upon visiting their Wikipedia page...I noticed something. You know that 'past members' section that a lot of bands have on their Wiki page, if they have any past members of the group? They had only one past member listed there, one of the original members that formed the group in high school. And no Ricky Bobby.

I also noticed that in their interviews, when they talked about the formation of the band, they never mentioned him, either. Never even mention that the band had an old singer.

I specifically remember them crediting Ricky Bobby as an old member on their (now gone) Myspace Music page and their Facebook page a while ago. Now they don't. They don't even have record of their old songs with his voice in them, no online proof that they ever even existed (though that may have something to do with copyrights and record label stuff).

Now. Honestly, Internet. If I was a part of a band at some point, even a really successful band, as they're becoming...I would want that credit. Even if it were just a couple words. An acknowledgement that I was a part of that band and I had a hand in creating it. And it seemed wrong to me that they weren't doing that for him anymore, especially when he deserved it.

So. Call me crazy, go on ahead. But I decided to do something about it.

Their official Facebook and website I couldn't do anything about, but their Wikipedia page, I could. So I did. On the spot, I made a Wikipedia account, with some random username that I would never use ever again, and I edited that Wiki page.

I added Ricky Bobby's name to that Wiki page under 'Past Members'. Where he deserved to be. And if anyone every takes it off, I'll put it back on again.

For me, it was...I don't know. The last nice thing I could do for Ricky Bobby, even though he'll never know that it was me. Something nice that I could do after the way that I treated him. A permanent mark on the Internet, symbolizing the permanent mark he left in my life.

Or even an official goodbye, the one we never got to have.

This is it, Internet. This is my goodbye to Ricky Bobby. For real this time.



Speaking of goodbyes and movings on, and non Ricky Bobby things, here's someone I haven't talked about in a while: Brennan.

So, last week, for the first time in a while, I got a snapchat from him. (Thankfully not of his cat this time. Did I talk about his cat snapchats here? I swear, there was at least 3 every week for 2 months straight.) I was surprised to see it, especially since after my icing out of him, he seemed to have finally given up.

After seeing that he also kept looking at all of my Snapchat stories, I decided to snoop around to see how he was doing lately.

We're not Facebook friends, but since we have a mutual friend (a girl I went to elementary school with), he shows up in my recommended friends all the time. So I snoop his page, and guess what?

Brennan has a girlfriend.

Yup.

He moved on pretty fast. It seems to have been pretty recent (they weren't dating earlier this year) and deciding to be creepy, I went onto her FB page to snoop. She's cute, and seems nice. Is a super anime fan like he is (cosplays and everything) and is a gamer as well. And together, they take super cute dates to the zoo and to parks and other super duper cute shit.

Not going to lie to you, Internet, I was a teeny bit jealous at first. And then I remembered that it was me who didn't want to date him in the first place, and me who wasn't even attracted to him, and me who ignored all his invitations to hang and all his friendly messages and cute (and ok, excessive) cat snapchats like an ice cold bitch.

I was just salty at first because how many freaking times does this make now that I almost date someone and then they turn around date someone else right after me?? But this time it is 100% my fault, which I acknowledge and fully own up to, so I digress.

So, getting over my petty jealousy, I decided I was happy for him for finding a nice girl. Who didn't ignore him, like me. Who clearly had more in common with him than me.

Congrats, Brennan and Girlfriend. Have a nice relationship. I promise I'll keep my bitter jealousy far away from the both of you.

So, Internet, I'll be over here, continuing to write my ass off, finishing this 31 day writing challenge, and moving on with my life. I'm very slowly starting to learn how that works.

Wish me luck.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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Trains and Goodbyes.}
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 | 7:37 PM | 1Comment

Internet, the trip was, in a word, AWESOME.

The resort we went to was in a little ski town in the mountains, and let me just say, it was gorgeous up there. Absolutely gorgeous. And when I say it was in the mountains, it was way way in the mountains. Due to traffic and an added pit stop (at Starbucks for the bathroom, and at McD's for fries because we were all STARVING.), it took about 3 hours to drive there.

But every second up there was amazing. I'd never been to that part of my state before, and it was great to be able to see how beautiful it was up there. We were so high up, that the very highest mountain peaks there still had snow on the their tops.

Which, of course, meant that it was much cooler than I was used to this time of year, and stupid me, I only packed one hoodie and one long pair of pants (the pants being white. White. Don't ask me please, I have no idea.) So while I was up there, I bought this pair of large fleece men's pajama pants from a thrift store (it was called Thrift Store. Gotta love small towns!)

They're black and white, and they have fly fishing patterns all over them, including compasses and fish and a guy holding a net, and they're ugly, but I love them for the reason that I'll always look at them and remember Best Friend Rose's 18th birthday trip.

Everybody up there is super athletic. Super super athletic. Almost everyone rides bicycles, and it's like the county-wide dress code is Nike and Adidas. And I do not recall seeing anyone even a little bit remotely overweight up there. None. It's like they all came out of the womb with 5% body fat.

We all stood out with our 'city clothes', and I guess our regular muscle mass index, and there were people staring at us all the time, but part of me liked it, because they were strangers, and we were strangers to them, and we could have been anything we wanted. Anything at all. It felt good.

We stayed in a condo, and me and BFR and I shared a room. It was a nice little condo, with cable and WiFi and a nice back porch with a great view.

...However, it was also directly next to a train track. So, every hour, it would chug on by, honking a honk that echoed throughout the entire area.
Which is kind of cute at first. Until you're trying to sleep at 3am and all of a sudden there's a wake-the-dead honk splitting your eardrums.

I swear, the entire first night we stayed, I got no sleep whatsoever. Every time the train would pass, I would have a near full blown panic attack because I wouldn't even hear it approaching that clearly until all of a sudden there would be this "CHOOOOOOOOO CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and I would jump about half a foot off of my bed.

And not only THAT, but also on that first night, there was a friendly neighborhood bear searching for some food to eat in our dumpster. Only I didn't know it was a bear. Because the first thought you have when you hear a violent clanking and banging somewhere nearby at 3:30am is that a ghost/burglar/serial killer is coming to kill you.

So I was laying there wide awake in a strange bed, my heart pounding hard in my chest, terrorized by this train, and terrorized by this bear/ghost/burglar/killer. The end result was me getting 1 hour of actual sleep and getting out of bed as soon as the sun came up. The other nights were better, though. I ended up sleeping with my iPod earbuds in my ears, and they worked decidedly well as earplugs.

All day Saturday, we were riding the alpine slides (SO fun), playing mini golf, running through a maze, and jumping on one of those bungee trampoline things. Rosie and her nephew Adam (reference point) rode one of those round-spinning-defy gravity thingers, but I preferred to watch them shriek inside it and then laugh at them both when they came out all cross-eyed and cross-legged.

We also, incidentally, spent some time at the on-site hospital they had. It turned out, on our first ride down the alpine slide, Best Friend Rose's mom went way too fast, somehow wiped out and ended up dislocating her pinkie and breaking her ring finger. We were all shocked, because apparently it's difficult to get an injury on this particular ride, but somehow she'd managed to.

We all felt terrible for her, but she was a trooper and spent the rest of the day with us all with a partial cast and sling.

The trip had its sad moments too, however.

Very shortly before this trip, Best Friend Rose's oldest sister, Ashley (reference point) had decided that she was going to move to Texas. Soon. As in, she told everyone on Friday and then she was leaving on Monday soon. And granted, she's lived here all her life with Adam, so this came as a huge surprise.
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So, seeing as she had to move down there soon to get Adam to his new school, which started on Tuesday, they had to leave early, on Sunday, instead of Monday like us. Sunday was an emotional day for everyone. Basically, from breakfast on, it was nonstop tears.

Even from me, which surprised me, because even though I've felt close to Ashley and Adam, I didn't really think I'd cry. But after we all started talking about them leaving, like actually leaving, it hit me that they weren't just my best friend's family members, they were like my family too. And that I would miss them. A lot.

When it was time for them to leave, at first Adam refused to leave with his mom, begging not to leave, crying. Have you ever seen a 10 year old boy cry? I don't recommend it. Because it's heartbreaking. Truly heartbreaking.

So we all said our goodbyes by their car, all of us still crying. I tried very hard to hold it together, because I felt like I didn't deserve to be so sad. After all, I was close to them, but for Rosie, that was her family. Adam is practically her world. I've never seen her love any child like she loves Adam. And Rosie's mom was losing a daughter and a grandson.

But I could hardly look either of them in the face as I hugged them and said goodbye, because it hit me that I really was saying goodbye. And if there was anything I learned about this trip, Internet, it was that I'm awful at goodbyes.

After they left, the three of us settled in the condo living room and watched chick flicks for the rest of the day. And it was just what the doctor ordered.

The last day, it mostly consisted of running around and packing everything up, making sure to clean this and clean that. And I took pictures of everything, because I had finally grown fond of everything, and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget it. I even wanted to take a picture of the train by the end, but ironically, the one time I wanted to hear and see it again, it didn't show up.

So after all was said and done, we drove home, and left that small ski town behind.

It was a short trip, but it was great. I don't regret any second of it, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to end my summer.

And thanks to it, I can add a few more items to my list of firsts from this summer:
  • Rode a chairlift for the first time (I was a bit nervous at first, but it wasn't bad at all. Not even the height got to me, and I thought it would. It was actually kinda fun. Now to actually go skiing one of these days, to see if I can handle it with skis on!)
  • Listened to the same song on repeat for 5 hours straight (trying to block out train noise, of course.)
  • Flirted with a cute ride operator (medium length curly black hair in a ponytail, russet skin, and the greenest eyes I've ever seen in my life. So hot.)
  • Ate creamed chipped beef (normally anything mushy and foreign looking, I wouldn't touch with a 20 foot fork, but I've been trying to broaden my food horizons lately, so I tried it. SO GOOD. It looks like melted brains on toast, but it's SO good. Trust me.)
  • Watched someone get their middle finger pierced (Rosie got hers done. Me and Ashley watched it and cringed through it. Personally, I would never pierce any part of my hands as it would get in the way a lot--as proved by Rosie bumping and snagging hers every five seconds--but that's Rosie for you. I wouldn't put it past her to turn down a skydiving lesson one of these days.)
  • Went to a public place with pj's and no makeup (previously a fear of mine. Now that I've done this, I seriously feel INVINCIBLE. I got strange looks, of course, but nothing terrible happened. The world didn't end. No one unabashedly pointed and laughed. I didn't even feel gross. The truth? I felt awesome. Because I felt okay with looking like that, and it didn't even matter what they all thought of how I looked, because I felt great. And that's all that matters.)
Summer 2011 was great, Internet. In fact, it was the best summer I've had in my recent memory. And it was great because I took charge and made it great. Summers before, I just always stayed indoors, hardly ever did anything, because I just expected something great to just happen. But you have to make great things happen if you really want them to happen. Let's hope this is a precursor to how my Senior year will be.

Goodbye, Summer 2011. You were good to me.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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