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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Internet!

Here comes the second part of my rambling update where I talk about ordinary things that happened in excruciating detail!

So first. My birthday. My odd, exhausting but also mostly uneventful 22nd birthday.

Now. I had planned what I wanted to do on my birthday months in advance. Not down to the very smallest detail of course, but I'm a meticulous person. I like lists, I like organization (except for in some places in my room), and I very much like planning far far ahead. I planned from the beginning that I wanted, during the day on my birthday, to go shopping at some fun stores. Then, for later on in the evening, I wanted to eat at a yummy restaurant and have yummy wine with family and at least my one friend (since Jazz and I weren't really talking around the time of my birthday last year.) and have a generally nice day.

Well. That...didn't exactly happen.

The way things tend to go wrong when you need them to go right, that is what happened on this day. I mean...pretty much everything went wrong. It would've been hilarious if it were on a sitcom and it weren't my life.

One important detail--in my family, we have one car. Let me repeat. One car. As we have had issues with several times before. When your family can only afford one car, let me tell you, it creates lots of problems. For instance, if one family member works full time (my dad) and needs the car pretty much 80% of the time, then going out and getting activities done while they're hogging the car is pretty much impossible (and since we live in the suburbs, walking to places is time consuming and would be like trekking to Mordor and back).

We had arranged ahead with my dad to let us drop him off at work, borrow the car for the day, and go shopping like I had planned. And said plans got pretty much beaten to a pulp and thrown in the trash. As our plans got pushed back, pushed back, and pushed back, and I had begun to lose hope in them even coming around at all, I started to get ready anyway.

The night before, I put my hair up in sock curlers--which I'd done at least 20 times for nights before school, and it had always turned out adorable and neat and super easy to take out and make my hair look like I'd spent 2 hours working on it. Imagine my horror when I take them out of my hair and--lo and behold--my hair turns out AWFUL. Just the frizziest, matted, greasiest-looking mess you could ever imagine.

I had seldom ever had hair as terrible as this before in my life. And it was my BIRTHDAY.

So, a frustrated, frizzy mess, I went upstairs to my mom to complain, all like, "LOOK AT MY HAIR!" And so as she calms me down, she suggests that I use heat (something I rarely do these days anymore) to fix the problem. Reluctantly, I agree, because at that point there was nothing else I could do to fix it.

So I go back down to my basement, go to my bathroom, and as I try to comb through the knots, it seemingly makes the frizziness worse. And I look at the clock and realize how much of my birthday has gone by, and that it's almost dinner time, and I was trying to salvage my hair. Then I start to panic.

Not just any old panic, however. Nope. I just had to pick my birthday to have my first panic attack in a while.

Yup. I hyperventilate. My heart feels like it's trying to beat its' way out of my ribcage. I get dizzy. I sit down on the bathroom floor. I begin to sob hysterically.

Even though part of me knows it's ridiculous and really freaking sad that I'm having a panic attack on my birthday of all days, as always, it's not something I can help. I sit there and try to fix my breathing and cry and think of how it's so fucking sad that I was turning 22 and I couldn't even get out of the house of my own choice on my birthday.

20 minutes later, the attack subsided and I pulled myself together. I flat ironed my hair, did my makeup decently enough but not the way I'd planned to do it originally because I didn't have time now, put on my birthday outfit (a cute black birthday dress I'd bought a month before, my black platform combat boots, and pink Minnie Mouse ears--but I forgot my sweater, and it was windy and chilly outside) and finally it was time to leave.

Throughout all of this mess was also the restaurant mess. My dad failed to tell me before this day that the restaurant I had chosen was too expensive, so I literally had to pull some other restaurant off the top of my head to go to instead. (Red Robin. Yeah. Not so exciting. But my only requirements at this point were 1. food that I liked and 2. alcohol. Which they have. And I needed, especially the second one, after the day I'd had.) And then I had to keep texting Jazz to let her know of all these changes and reschedulings.

I felt awful for putting through all of this, especially the day of, and when it was getting near the time to meet her at the restaurant, I could tell she was getting exasperated and I wondered if she still wanted to come at all--a thought which upset me even more because after not having a friend with me there to celebrate my 21st birthday, having a friend with me on my 22nd birthday meant a lot more than I realized. As soon as we arrived at the restaurant (after making a quick run to a store downtown to get a dress I'd seen there a week earlier, which will be the dress I wear to Jazz's wedding btw) I apologized profusely, telling her that I was embarrassed and would understand if she didn't want to be there.

She took it all in stride, though, and the dinner went mostly okay, especially after I began drinking my sangria and all the edginess and upset melted off.

As we finished dinner, I asked Jazz if she wanted to come over and have some cake, and she agreed. I rode with her in her car on the way over, and during the ride, I vented to her about the woes of that day--excepting the attack I'd had. She doesn't know that I struggle with them, and it's not something I tell people about easily. (I even refrained from writing about them on here for a while. I'll save that for another entry, though.) She understood why I was frustrated, and said I didn't have to apologize. And at that moment, I was so relieved she was there.

When we arrived at our house, we sliced into my delicious birthday cake (chocolate, with light pink and white frosting, strawberry halves on the sides, and 'Happy 22nd Birthday, Sarah!' written in red frosting). We chatted for a bit about different things, planned to go to our favorite pottery painting place soon, and then she left.

Thus was my odd, exhausting but mostly uneventful 22nd birthday.

Thinking about it now just exhausted me mentally all over again, and I'd rather not think about it any more, to be honest. Thank God it's over, Hah.

So now here comes the last big part I need to update on: Jazz.

About a week or a week and a half after my weird birthday, Jazz picked me up and we zipped on over to our hole-in-the-wall cute pottery painting place. She introduced me to the place, and going there is the most relaxing, peaceful experience. (Except for the country music the owner plays. But hey, it's not my business.) If I could, I would spend all my time between there and the library and my favorite bubble tea cafe.

So I painted a cool bowl-mug type thing, and she made a glass jewelry necklace type thing, and enjoyed each other's company without feeling like we need to talk, which I've always liked about Jazz.

Afterwards we drove by Starbucks so I could get a panini and a frappe, because I hadn't eaten and I was starved (also, in a weird moment, inside the cafe, I thought for a moment that I saw Rose there out of the corner of my eye--I'm pretty sure it wasn't her, but it was pretty weird). Then she had a customer's appointment to get to, so she dropped me off back home. It was an overall fun day.

The thing I need to talk about though is this: the wedding.

The impending date seems like it's coming faster and faster. Now it's in approximately a month, when it seems like they just got engaged yesterday. They sent out invitations already, with a prim and neat engagement photo on the inside of it.

On the day we hung out, she confided in me that after the wedding, they might move out-of-state for a job opportunity for her now-fiancee-but-soon-to-be-husband.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm happy for Jazz. I am. It really seems like she's found something real, and I'm happy for her.

But there's a teeny, tiny, very self centered and selfish part of me that feels like marriage might just force us to grow further apart than we already have. That my last friend here in town is going to have this whole new big married life without me in it, and she'll forget all about me.

So feeling this way, that's probably why the littlest things have bothered me lately--like her not following me back on Instagram when I've been following her for 2 whole months now, and her posts on Facebook about wedding planning and her and her fiancee signing a lease for a house together. Not going to lie, seeing those posts makes me feel...strange.

It's selfish, I know. It has nothing to do with me. It's not my business. She's starting a whole new life now, and it's not that I expect her to stay the same just for me.

But the further into my 20's I get, the more I feel like this big, clueless kid whose old friends are all growing up at the speed of light and my old life is breaking down and fading away faster than I could have ever imagined it would have.

It's scary, you guys. It's scary, uncertain, and it's left me feeling alone and like I've accomplished nothing.

But it's not my place to place those feelings on her. I have to be the happy, supportive friend. Because that's what she needs me to be now.

Maybe she will forget about me. Maybe we will drift further apart. But I don't want to be the bitter bitch who ruined her special day.

I will be here for her as long as she needs me to be.

xo Hopeless Romantic

Labels: babies and marriage?!?, birthday, bitterness, growing up, jazz, sarah flipping a shit but what else is new, updates

All right, Internet.

Getting back into the swing of things, let's talk about some things that I haven't talked about in a while (or just touched on briefly). Since we have so much to catch up on, I'm going to split all these updates into separate entries over the next week or so, so I don't end up with one giant update post the size of Webster's English dictionary.

First things first: Rose. (Formerly Best Friend Rose.)

As I briefly mentioned before, we don't speak anymore. Or, more accurately, I don't speak to her anymore.

She's reached out to me several times on Facebook (albeit shallowly--it's never been anything more than something to the effect of "Hope you're well, I miss you!" and maybe a compliment if she's commenting on a picture), and the most I've done is liked the comment or post.

The last time I responded to something she sent me was last year, on the 4th of July, when she texted me for the first time in 7 months to ask if I wanted to go to the Renaissance Festival, just me and her.

It would've been the first time we'd gone together since the wonderful summer of 2011, when we'd gone twice (once in costume) and obsessively got feather extensions.

It felt significant, because it was her first real attempt to hang out with me since the time we hung out after the disaster that was my 20th birthday. I politely declined, because the day she suggested was when we would have out-of-state relatives here, but suggested that maybe we could do something else another time soon, and I would let her know when I was free. She replied, saying she'd wait for when I was free.

For me to even offer to hang out some other time was huge, because before this, I had basically made up my mind to never see her again. But a conversation I'd had with Kenneth on our date had somewhat inspired me. I'd told him about the situation I had with her, and how long we had been friends.

He'd suggested to me that I try to talk with her and explain why I felt so upset with her--and he'd told me that it's hard to reconcile with people, especially after you've been hurt, but sometimes those people that you go to school with will end up being some of your closest friends later on in life. There was a lot of truth in what he said, and needless to say, that conversation made me wonder if maybe breaking away from Rose was a mistake. And when Rose texted me not too long after that date, I wondered if it was some sort of sign that maybe I should talk to her face to face.

On the day that she originally suggested we hang out, she ended up going to the Renaissance Festival anyway, with another girl named Sarah that she worked with, as if I needed anything else to make me feel lousy.

It took me a long time to muster up the courage, but two and a half weeks later, I texted her first, asking her if she maybe wanted to have lunch later on that week (just to give me a few days to prepare emotionally for what would probably make or break our reconcile).

I received no response.

After wondering if maybe she'd gotten a new phone and cleared her contacts, I checked her Facebook to see if she'd mentioned anything like that happening. Nope. She still had the same number. I checked my phone, double checking to see that the message had really been sent. It had.

I don't know why, but this blow was just...devastating.

In a way, I couldn't help but feel like she was trying to punish me. For not immediately saying yes to her original plan to hang out, and for not talking to her. Because that's something that she used to do to me, and it made me miserable.

This was the last effort I was putting in to rescue our friendship from the shambles it had crumbled into, after months of anger and sadness and loss, the last hope that I had to get my best friend back. And it went completely ignored, not even dignified with a reply.

After this, I knew that I couldn't afford suffering through any more heartbreak caused by this person who used to be like a sister to me. This was the final straw. After this, I stopped trying altogether. After this, I knew that living a life without her in it in the future would make me a happier and stronger person.

A few months after this happened, a weird period of time passed where she and her sisters and mom started liking and commenting on everything I posted on Facebook. Her mom even posted this really old picture of me and Rose on my wall for Throwback Thursday, from freshman year of high school (which immediately horrified me because I was making a duck face and my hair looked awful and I didn't know what good makeup looked like yet and UGH). This sort of thing probably would have worked on Past Sarah, who was insecure and craved any sort of positive attention at all, even if it was just stupid likes on Facebook.

But not me now. If anything, it just weirded me out and confused me. In these comments, they all acted as if everything was normal and we were all still close. That's the exact sort of phony shit that I cannot stand, from anybody. And they just kept doing it.

The only ones I'd respond to would be from one of her sisters and her mom, because to be honest I have no issue with them. They didn't do anything to me, and they were there for me like my own family at times, so I can't bring myself to avoid them still.

As for Rose...the likes and comments have slowed down some, but she's persisted. I think she's finally understood that I'm angry at her and that she's probably lost me for good this time.

She broke up with Holly* earlier this year, and from what I could tell from passive-aggressive status updates, it wasn't an amicable split. Though, if you ask me, it never seemed like much of a healthy relationship to begin with.

Her dad eventually found out about them, by the way, and it wasn't pretty. And by that I mean he went totally nutso. I mean batshit Bible-thumping crazy. I only heard about this through my dad who talked to her mom sometime towards the end of last year, but apparently her dad went ballistic when he first found out, then for months afterwards refused to speak with her. The only form of communication he ever had with her was sending daily Bible verses and telling her how she was going to hell for being bi.

Yeah. Awful. And totally freaking insane. I don't even know if they've talked recently, or made up, but despite the situation between us, I felt bad for her. And I lost even more respect for her dad. If I ever see him again, it'll be too soon.

Also, she's a bartender now. Dropped out of college. Made a new bar-going friend who apparently has a taste for sexist and racist jokes (as I discovered upon taking a glance at her Facebook). Still is a terrible judge of character, I see.

The more days go by, the less I recognize her, and the less I miss her. The person I miss is who she was in the past, someone she can probably never be again. I don't blame her for changing, because hell, we all change. But it seems that the way she's changed and the way I've changed have completely destroyed everything we once had in common as friends. Clearing the air may be possible, but I don't think friendship is possible anymore.

I've written a letter to her to air all of my feelings out (like the ones I've written to Jazz and Ricky Bobby, twice now). I'm going to post it here after I make some edits to make it sound less...bitter and angry. Even though I kind of still am. But there are parts of the letter that are petty, so I could stand to fix it up a bit.

I may or may not send it to her, although what I've learned in the past (from sending Jazz's letter to her) is that sometimes airing out and spilling everything you feel at once doesn't always go over so well, and can get messy.

Which is the same reason that I've, for now, decided not to send Ricky Bobby the new letter.

I talked about it with a friend of mine (who has way more boy experience than me), and she strongly suggested that I don't send it. She said that guys take even the smallest emotions from girls and blow them way out of proportion, so if I unloaded all of that on him in one emotional letter, he would probably think I was crazy, and it probably wouldn't give me closure at all. And after thinking about it, I realized that she was right. I was so riled up with emotion from writing the letter that I think I didn't even stop to consider what consequences might actually come from it. I'm really glad that I decided to talk about it with someone first, because I could have really made a mistake.

I've still been thinking about everything, but my worries and regrets have eased a little since writing the letter and getting it all off my chest. It hasn't completely gone away, but I'm just trying to take it one day at a time.

So, okay! That's all I have to offer for this update.

First update entry down, at least one more to go! In the next one, I intend on talking about what I did for my birthday this year (but it wasn't all that fun, so don't get too excited).

xo Hopeless Romantic

Labels: best friend rose, facebook problems, growing up, kenneth, rose, updates

...time for another...

BULLETPOINT ENTRY!!!!!

• Kay. First things first: BFR's birthday. It wasn't nearly as awkward as I'd anticipated, and honestly I think that sometimes things are so much more awkward in my imagination then they actually are. (I need a label for my mind that reads: WARNING - Objects in the future may be less terrifying then they appear. trolol *bricked*) Jerry is much nicer than I remembered, although we did have some awkward moments, though that's just because we've never been particularly in the same circles before and basically barely know each other. But other than that, it was a fun time. And the restaurant was really fun and had great food, I really don't know what the hell I was talking about before. Maybe I was confusing it with a different place? Hahaha. It was about 60 miles away from our city, but I rode in Jerry's car with Rose up there, and it was pretty fun, aside from Siri giving us the wrong directions about 3 times and getting us lost a little (although Jerry's car has a broken window in the back that won't close, and me being me I sat in the seat right next to it. Afterwards my hair looked like Ke$ha's after going through a tornado.). After dinner, Rosie jokingly suggested we go clubbing in one of the high-end inner city clubs, and I imagine that because of the look of horror on my face was so obvious that she didn't even bother bringing it up again, haha. I feel kind of bad about that, but honestly? Me in the club? In my long, bohemian maxi dress and my 14-year-old-esque face with my 11-year-old-stature? No way I'd be let in. No freaking way. And plus even if I was let in, I'd probably have a mental breakdown, or get eaten alive by regular club goers. Gulp.
• Due to some pretty intense persuasion (along with some may-or-may-not-be-rhetorical threats) from Best Friend Rose, she convinced me to reactivate my Facebook. Sigh. Yup. Well, what can I say? I lasted 10 months without a Facebook. I lasted more than some people, at least. But I decided that I shouldn't have to suffer and therefore decided on impulse to delete more than 200 people off of my friends list, only leaving people that I actually talk to, really like, appreciate, and family members. It was like freeing myself from shackles. I only have 44 friends now, but considering they're all people I love having in my life, that's all I need.
• Speaking of friends, Jazz is sort of getting on my nerves again. It's not at the point where I don't want to be her friend (you know, like all that drama last time) but it's just little things lately. Like how she's spending every waking hour with her boyfriend and honestly never stops talking about him. Ever. Which I find annoying, regardless of who it is. And I'm not just nit picking here. A few weeks ago, she decided to introduce him to my parents. So unannounced, she randomly shows up at my house with him. Yup. Just strolls on in with her bf to introduce him to MY PARENTS. Don't get me wrong, he is a cool dude, and I like him, but COME ON. And not only that, but a week ago, she brought him over again to try to sell me and my parents this vacation club membership--Which, not gonna lie here. That kinda pissed me off. Because if she had any idea of the kind of summer I had, she would realize that my family doesn't even have the money right now to send me community college (but more on that in a minute). We're still recovering finances from moving last month, so much so that we're currently living paycheck to paycheck. Where the hell would we get the money to blow on vacations?? My family has been in debt for the last decade or so, and I haven't been on a vacation since I was 7. I get her intent was good, and I get that she's just doing what the job requires (she works for this vacation company), but I just think it was a little inconsiderate. Anyway, that's that. Perhaps a tiny break from Jazz will do us some good for now.
• Last week was particularly hellish, and I'll write a separate entry for it because holy wow. Not to worry though, things are much much better now because:
• IMPORTANT THINGS COMING UP: Ballet lessons. AND POSSIBLY A JOB. And then college in the spring.
• We found this great little dance studio that only has lessons for $48 bucks a month, so we're currently scraping together money for my first month and my dance gear. But we're signing me up this weekend, and then it's official. I'll officially be taking ballet lessons. First lesson is next Friday. SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA. 
• AND AND AND. This Friday, I have my first job interview ever. EVER. It's for the pet store that's in the shopping center literally right behind our house, and they sell organic pet food and offer pet grooming. You guys have no idea how excited I am to work at this place. A few weeks ago, almost a month ago in fact, I'd walked in and asked if they were hiring. The owner told me that they weren't at the moment, but handed me a business card and told me to email her my resume and she'd contact me if there was an opening. I emailed it to her, and literally a few days ago, she emailed me back telling me they may have an opening and asked if I could come in for an interview! SO, we scheduled my interview for this Friday at 3:00pm. Guys. GUYS. I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW. A. JOB. INTERVIEW. ME. GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NECESSARY INCESSANT EXCLAMATION POINTS AND CAPSLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111
• So I've definitely 100% decided on starting college in the Spring instead of this month, if that wasn't obvious, considering I haven't even written about school and August is nearly over, haha. But do to financial reasons, and also personal reasons, I decided it would be best to start in Spring 2013. Which  gives me the break I had somewhat originally intended myself to have in the first place. It gives my family more time to get together the funds necessary for school, and I'll have some experience with a job before starting school. I think it'll be a great experience for me this way. I have to say, though, it's so weird seeing all the back-to-school commericals and thinking they apply to me...then realizing they don't. At least not right now. This is the first time in 12+ years that I haven't had to start school in August. Not gonna lie, it's pretty awesome. And I'd better not forget how awesome it feels, because I won't experience this again until I finish college, lol.

Labels: ballet, best friend rose, bulletpoint entry, jazz, summer, updates, work

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