Kiss

A kiss is such an amazing action. But what makes it so intense? Well there's the obvious closeness of bodies, the extra sensitivity of the skin around your lips, the feel of another's living breath on your cheek, the instant sexual responses a kiss can bring with it... And then there's something I like to think about when I think about kisses. This. When you talk to anybody, at all, unless of course you are using ASL, you communicate with your mouth. Every word you say, be it heartfelt, silly, or highly important, travels through your lips. Your lips become the passageway of every belief and idea you hold dear as they enter the universe outside your body. They shape us in the eyes of others almost as much as our actions do. Allowing another pair of lips to touch yours, bringing the thoughts of two souls together, is such an intimate expression of trust and acceptance that it becomes one of the most intense and basic actions we can use to communicate something as complicated as love.

The first time you kiss someone, people ask if you felt a "spark"... A special stirring in the pit of your stomach that is brought on by that new connection you've just boldly made. With J. and I, the first time we kissed, he was dozing in the pleasant June sunshine, and we were listening to our playlist, and I was staring at him, and I leaned down to kiss him, finally, after waiting a whole week of wanting to. Funny story, I kind of caught him off guard, as he was dozing off and wasn't expecting a kiss, but he eventually realized what I was doing and kissed me back. But there was no spark. Nada. Zip. And I was so sad and worried that maybe our relationship wasn't what I had hoped it could be. But the next time we saw each other, after the awkwardness of a first date had dispelled a bit, and we felt a little more comfortable... Not only was there a "spark", but I was thrown off my feet by the intensity of our kiss. It felt like an amazing connection between me and a soul perfectly molded to work with mine, and my stomach filled with warmth, and my toes curled, and my hands reached out for his face, and my heart started running triple time and my whole body screamed that yes, this was the right kind of kiss indeed.

As our relationship continued, kisses became more and more common, as habits do, and I was always afraid I would lose the intensity of that initial spark. But, with J., it never has. Every time I kiss him, the universe spins around me in a dizzying sensation, and he's the only thing keeping me on the ground. My body screams that I am doing something right, and that I should continue. Our kisses don't fade and we struggle to pull away nine times out of ten. The feeling of his lips on mine is probably the only thing in my life I've ever felt this confident in, that it is so right and perfect.

Have you ever felt this way every time you kissed someone? Were they / are they the one?? How does it feel when you kiss them after time apart? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Resolution

Last year on New Year's Eve, I questioned how much I "loved" the man I was with. The year before, I had said "I love you" to him the first time. So much changed in that year, and in this one. In this year, I left someone, became a new person, found the love of my life, developed a rock solid relationship with him, fucked something up, but pushed through and confirmed the strength of our relationship. Last year, my resolutions were to lose weight,  find a job, and be a good girlfriend for a man who didn't deserve me. This year, I don't need to change, at least not to please the man I love. This year, my only "resolution" is to be happy. Simply, completely, Happy. To change the things I can and to accept the things I can't. To smile when I want to cry and to find good traits and wellness where others only see despair and hatred. To never hate. To explore and explore and explore and explore and be content to know that I know absolutely nothing. To be, and be content. To be, and to search, and to laugh and love and give and live. Last year, I changed, and found the capacity to be this person of happiness. This year, I will find this happiness.

According to this amazing man on this video, we are, by our own perspective, the scientific exact center of the universe. At every moment. I am the center of the universe that surrounds me. I react and feel and think in a way totally unique to myself, and the rest of the universe goes on around me. No matter what I do, the universe will continue to grow and think and react and BE in a different way than me, and I cannot ever change that. So, I sit in my center and I observe and I explore and I learn and I contemplate, and I take away the fact that nothing is the same, and I am the center, able to observe everything around me.

Another thing to think about: the future just happened. And again. And again. Now. And now. And now. The "future" is happening every single second, but we waste it's potential and fullness with plans for big things to do. Nobody plans to breathe and eat and drink and sleep and live in their "future". People plan college and marriage and kids and a house and the mortgage and other peoples' funerals, and they breathe and they live right through the little moments. The little moments, wasted. Gone. The future? The present, the past, the long forgotten. Imagine all of the breaths you've ever taken in your life... and do we remember a single one? I'm not saying I'm about to start counting, come 2013. But I'm going to start contemplating.

Why would I ever waste a single second being worried or mad or sad? What is there to be sad about, really? Besides large events, life is precious and wonderful, and five minutes of happiness and appreciation of being alive and doing something outweighs five years of petty, shallow sadness.

I'm not turning my back on the importance of passion and the potency of amazing ranging emotions. But when I say being alive, I'm including all of these emotional considerations. I've said before what I think it means to be a person, and to think and feel and love and learn. Being happy about being alive might just be shadowed over by a shitty day or a crappy event. But in the seconds and breaths between the darkness, I'm going to find light in being alive. And that's that.

Happy New Years, everyone. What's your resolution?

See you when I see you.
A

Abandoned

Do you ever find that one friend who decides they get tired of you and leaves your life, thinking they can just waltz back in when they feel like it? Yeah. 

"I will not be brutally abandoned only so I can sit patiently and wait until you decide you need me. I have always been here and I have always been me. It's not my fault if it took you too long to realize that."

Sometimes I think I've pushed people away recently because I have changed so much this whole year of 2012. I've grown into myself, and realized what I believe and stand by in my life. Through this change, some of my friends have realized that I'm no longer the best match for them, and have moved on, which is ok. Other friends have come into my life, and I've formed great bonds with people who think along the same lines as I do. Still others, people I used to be friends with who decided I was too annoying in the past, have noticed my new maturity and have tried to come back into my life as if they had never left. But for me, it doesn't really work like that.

I'm all for forgiveness, I really am. I believe people really can change (lord knows I have) and I think that people fuck up sometimes, and that that is just to be expected. But when people purposefully leave your life, even when you need them, and then come back hoping you'll do everything for them you always had as if they had never left... That's a little hard for me to stomach. I don't deal well with being left for "better things" and when I'm hurt, I'm hurt, and it's hard for me to forget that hurt feeling. Even though I have changed, I have always been basically me (caring, willing to help, listening, and supportive) and those are the qualities you cannot give up on just to come back to when you decide you need them.

I'm not mad. I'm a little disappointed that the person causing me this angst thinks that I love and care shallowly enough to accept that they "miss me" and that they want me "back in their life" after they didn't answer my messages for six months straight. I'm a little disappointed they think so lowly of me that I wouldn't be hurt by their actions, and that I don't deserve an apology. I'm a little disappointed they left in the first place, when I was only trying to grow closer to them in the first place. But I'm not mad. And I will forgive them. But I may not forget.

Have you been abandoned? Have you been the person on the other end, and what did you do? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Parents

This is a blog about relationships, and I know I definitely stick to pretty much the same topic- my heterosexual, romantic relationship with my lovely partner, J.. However, there are other relationships on my mind today, namely my relationship with my parents. Oh boy. Where do I even begin?

I've never had a perfect relationship with either of my parents, more like fleeting moments of "good" in which I seem to be on the same page as them and everybody is happy. But outside of those moments, not only are all of our wavelengths totally different, but they also violently crash and cancel out in a frightful scene every so often. While my dad is an aggressive and very lazy hypocrite, my mom is incredibly judgmental and two-faced. I don't think I could subjectively describe myself well enough for fairness sake, but to be as critical as I can be, I'm fairly arrogant and attention-loving, and I take sides really easily, especially since I'm argumentative. So, that's our jolly fun-time family dynamic that lays the base for all of our... adventures.

My dad has always been a yeller, even when he was just engaged to my mom 27 years ago. She always tells me about their first fight, and that she was shocked at his behavior, and how now it is pretty much his go-to "angry man" behavior. He screams and yells and curses and throws stuff, hits walls, stomps feet, slams doors... He really goes the nine yards. What's worse is that usually he puts words in peoples' mouths and makes mountains out of mole hills, and so his arguments are not only pointless, stupid, and inefficient, but often childish and wasteful, as well as incredibly hurtful. He would sooner yell at you until you cried, and then continue to bitch because he felt guilty, than calmly ask you to re-explain yourself so he knew what you were actually trying to say. This is also the same man who, when given ONE chore for the day from his wife (who is also the only one working, the only one who shops and cooks, and the only one who helps me with school) doesn't JUST sleep all day and not do it, but also scream at said wife when she asks if he did the chore, asking "how dare she force him to do something when he already does so much?" Yeah. That kind of man.

As for my mom, she is ridiculously judgmental. She will go to church, pay her dues, "pray" reverently, and then bitch incessantly about anybody who didn't please her on the way home. Even people who are just being who they are can't hide from my mom's hell-fire. She calls people out for being "strange" or not "normal" enough like it was her job. All my life she's slipped me snarky little comments about my weight or appearance, never agreeing with my sense of fashion, always criticizing anything she didn't like (down to something as simple as blue nail polish or yellow eye shadow). My sneakers, though comfortable, functional, and worn down, are an "embarrassment" to her, and so she insists I throw them out. God forbid I suggest we shop at Sears because "people like us don't shop somewhere like that", even though I've seen her count pennies and cut coupons for toilet paper more times than you would care to know. She thinks her way is the best way, and that is that.

Something both my parents share is an inability to think outside the box, or to search for meaning in their lives. My mom is convinced there is a heaven, and that she is going there because she is religious, and that that is all she needs to do. Sure, she helps homeless people at a shelter every couple of months. Sure, she helps out at church. But does she make the world a better place mentally and intellectually, ever? Not really. In fact, her judgment taints others and her view of the world, and while luckily only clouding her own vision, still gets in the way of others if it changes her actions because of it. As for my dad, he's open to new ideas, but only if he agrees with them. The man won't argue against gay marriage because he thinks that people should have equal rights... But he will argue against it because it's "not natural" in his eyes.

I didn't come on here tonight to complain about my parents. Everybody could do that if they wanted. I came on here to talk about relationships. So, here is what results from these crazy parents in my life. Obviously, I'm nothing like them, or I would never notice these atrocities the way I do. But I never say a single thing about it. Because, truthfully, the pair of them are too thick to realize that I am different and that I look down on them. And if I ever tried to tell them, or make an argument that I was their intellectual equal, or superior, I would be quickly discouraged, not listened to, and dismissed to my room while I learned my "place". So, our relationship has developed into that quiet thing that turns it's head when intelligent conversation comes dancing into possibility. Our differing views and personalities make it impossible for us to talk above the trivial and inconspicuous, and so our relationship has stunted while I have grown, and I can no longer meet them eye to eye. Whether or not they see that, I'm not sure, but it has happened in the past year so quickly it's slapped me in the face at every conversation with it's harsh newness.

Although it's perhaps a shame that I will continue to let my parents live in the blissful ignorance that I am their faithful, willing daughter, it's best for them. They have functioned for 26 years without me throwing in my stubborn thoughts and opinions that belong in this century into their workings. Now the oil is thinner and my seemingly outlandish behavior does not help. I see the question "how is this our daughter" in their minds at every left turn, and so I always veer right. Little do they know I'm only traveling further and further away.

Have you drifted from your parents, or are you similar to them? Do you have a good or bad relationship with your parents? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

New

Every time J. and I hang out and have the opportunity to have a little fun, we generally take it shamelessly and quickly (because we are, deep down inside, simply horny teenagers), and tonight was no different. We probably pissed off a couple of movie-goers who happened to look the wrong way while we were smooching, but we tried to be discreet while sneaking kisses during the film. But whether it was the suspense and secretive sense added by the public setting, or the precious time together after a little while of not having a chance to be together, every single time J. kissed or touched or caressed me, it felt brand new. Every breath I took felt like a gasp of fresh air and every breath he took mirrored the intensity and emotion of my own. All of his skin, his face, his eyes, his lips, his mouth, all of it felt new. His voice sounded new and beautiful in my ear and his hand on my face and in my hair sent new tingles and shivers down my back.

I don't know if anything was different tonight than it ever has been before... But it all felt new and wonderful, and pretty much magical.

There's something about J. that only shines through in moments where we are absolutely together and seemingly undisturbed by anyone around us. He gets a certain way when he feels comfortably alone with me that he never gets any other time. He becomes more intimate, both gentler and more urgent at the same time. He pulls my face close to his and reaches for my hands to hold him as well, and he breathes deeper and quicker, and he kisses harder and softer at the same time, and it's all really incredible. The first time he kissed me when we were alone in the car, I was shocked (pleasantly) at this new sensation, but that was months ago, and that couldn't have been the newness I felt tonight. So, while all of that was there tonight, the newness was something different.

J. and I also have this thing where we say "I do" instead of "I love you" sometimes, because it holds more of a promise than the intent of "I love you" and resonates deeper with both of us. It's still a new thing in our relationship, and we definitely don't over use it, but tonight at one point I told James I loved him, and when he said "I love you more" I simply replied "I do"... To which he promptly whispered back "I do, I love you baby". This sent chills down my spine and all over my body and filled me with an amazing warmth because the love of my life was promising me something special and whispering it in my ear and I felt simply incredible. But, that wasn't what the newness was from either.

I don't know about anybody else, but when I date people, I tend to fall into a pattern of kissing with them pretty quickly, and I usually don't venture far off that path with them. However, with J., we both like to switch things up and try different techniques and pressures, etc, and it keeps things fun and exciting and we discover new ways to spice up our simple kisses. Tonight we were all about that. For nearly 2 straight hours, we kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and every single one was different. But that wasn't it either.

It was mostly, I think, the thrill of being loved through all the shitty things that have happened recently. I made a bad decision a week ago; a decision that could have ruined us if I or J. had chosen to let it. But we didn't, and we pushed through, and we celebrated Christmas, and we kissed in a movie theatre, and we whispered I do in the darkness, while 100 people around us were oblivious to the beautiful nascent loving thing that was being created in the back row amidst teenage lust and love and forgiveness and the relief of moving on. And that new level of connection, of love and total happiness was that feeling I experienced in my partner's arms tonight. And I loved every second of it.

Do you have moments of new? Do you ever feel that incredible sensation of becoming stronger, of forging another link in the chain of a relationship? Do you think they stick out as much as I feel they do? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Options

J. and I had originally decided that we didn't want to have sex until I was on borth control, just to be on the safe side. Recently we have learned and figured out that I probably won't be able to be on the pill until about a year from now, and while we're in no hurry to have sex, the wait seems a little daunting and annoying and nearly pointless. So, lately we have changed our policy a bit... Not to just say fuck it and have unprotected sex, but to have condoms around and available as options with us in case we decide we are ready to have sex and want to have sex so that if that is the case, we can do so safely and without too much worry. It's not that we are going to immediately rush out to do it, butthat if we decide we are both ready, we can indeed have sex.

I think options like this in a relationship are really important, for some obvious and not so simple reasons. Firstly, the one that seems obvious; unprotected sex is not a good idea, especially not for the first time, and it is a much better plan to have back up than to have no plan at all. Secondly, with an easy plan that doesn't have a set time limit, J. and I are free to decide the exact circumstances of the first time we have sex. We don't need to plan around anything other than our normal plans and as long as he always has a condom in his wallet, we also have the freedom of spontaneity, which is a good thing for us personally because we are very spontaneous people.

The less in-your-face reason i think it's good to have options of any kind in a relationship is that there is simply more freedom for both partners to make the relationship more personal and tailored in respect to individual wishes and needs. There should never be ultimatums in relationships revolving around important issues. It should not be "sex now or no sex ever" or "marry me or never speak to me again". People do not work robotically, and compromise is necessary for a healthy relationship. Without compromise there is dominance and loss of expression of individual beliefs and feelings, as well as an unhealthy feeling of pressure that can lead to regret or hurt feelings. Options lead to compromise and relaxed decisions in love and those are essential for healthy relationships.

Whatever happens in the sex department between J. and I will happen; all I know now is that we have the ability to decide when where and how we lose our virginities, and I'm really happy and grateful for that.

Did you have options when you were faced with losing the v-card? Did you lack options and wish you had had them? Or was it spontaneous and optionless and amazing?et me know!!!

See you when I see you.
A

Communicate

GUYS. FEELINGS RIGHT NOW.

Ok, I've heard so many situations with my friends recently about problems in their relationships that all stem from the same exact problem: COMMUNICATION. People!!! TALK to each other!!! Why is this so difficult?!?!? Rant over, logic time...

I've always been a really open person, as you've definitely figured out by now if you've read any of my previous posts. (Literally, ANY of the previous posts. I'm an open gal ok?) So, it's really easy for me to communicate with people when I have feelings, especially if I'm even remotely close to them. Sometimes it's even easy for me to open up to complete strangers. So sure, maybe I'm an anomaly. However. Communication about my feelings and thoughts and experiences has always brought me a positive end result. I've never told somebody how I felt and regretted it afterward (or at least not for long if I did at all). For instance...

J. and I took hardly any time to start opening up to each other about small things. And our relationship was good like that. But once we really got comfortable with each other and started talking more and more about our feelings, our relationship grew into this amazing wonderful and close knit thing that we never could have achieved without talking. Telling J. how I feel now seems second nature; he knows me as well (or more than) I know myself, and not telling him how I feel feels like I'm just lying to myself about the inevitable and obvious. For instance, last night we were talking about sex, and how maybe we were ready or not, and I felt weird about it. So of course, although this seems like the obvious situation, I said I felt like I needed to wait until the situation was a certain way and I was doing it for the right reasons, etc... And he totally listened, and heard me out, and (because we're on the same level 24/7) totally agreed with me. If I hadn't told him how I felt, I could have ended up telling him I was ready for something I'm really not, and could have really fucked up our relationship. The other night, with the whole Kyle situation: if I hadn't told J. exactly how I felt about the situation, how would he know that I wasn't purposefully unfaithful, or if I would ever be worthy of his trust again? Communication in our relationship isn't just second nature, but also totally healthy and necessary.

So I never ever understand why so many other people struggle to communicate. Can't people see that telling someone how you feel can only make the situation more clear and easy to deal with? Note, I never said better or worse- that changes constantly. But if everybody involved knows how everybody else feels and thinks, won't things just go more smoothly? Communication eliminates guess work and hurt feelings and assumptions and short-comings. It does so much healthy good work in relationships, and I don't see how people can't figure that out.

Ok, maybe some people have a lot of trouble telling people how they feel. I'm no psychologist so I don't know what kind of issues this stems from, but I know that I at least have told all my friends like this the same thing... "If you feel something, feel it all the way, and then sometimes, you don't even need to tell people what you're feeling with words."

If you feel something, feel it ALL the WAY.

We are made to be sentient and emotional and sympathetic, empathetic creatures. We are wasting our lives and purposes if we cease to find feeling and emotion and experience in the huge world we're given. We cannot simply ignore our potentials to feel all we have the ability to feel and be all that we have the ability to be.

Feel it all the way, and tell people. If you can't tell people, then the whole "all the way" part should do that job for you, anyway.

Please guys. Just talk to each other. Just try it. Let me know what happens?!

See you when I see you.
A

Starting

Yesterday I was a bridesmaid for a good family friend of mine at her wedding. It was so beautiful and fun and went so well, and she was so happy that her special day went so well. J. was my plus one and we danced and had so much fun at the reception. Later on, when the groom's tie was thrown, of course J. caught it... and then I managed to stand right in the path of the bouquet... So naturally, everybody started to tease us, asking when the wedding would be, and if he had proposed yet! It was really funny, and actually really cute and romantic for J. and I. Of course we love talking about one day getting married, so it was really special that a silly little tradition like that worked in that favor for us. Whatever happened before the wedding this week seemed unimportant and was forgotten by the end of the night almost entirely; J. and I are officially back to normal :)

What I wanted to really talk about though was something the pastor said during the ceremony. He said that that moment on that day of their wedding was only the start of a lifetime of happiness and love and learning and experiencing together. It made me think a lot about perspective and time in relationships, and really life in general. While we live day to day in our little lives, a second can feel like an hour, an hour like a month... Just today at my job in a restaurant, I was talking to a little girl who was sad because she had to wait five minutes for something, and it hit me all over again. We never grow out of that feeling that five minutes can be forever, that just one second can drag itself out over lifetimes. Part of that little girl is in all of us, impatiently waiting for more, wishing for time to go faster, wanting everything to happen now.

In relationships with one another, I think sometimes it's easy to get hung up on that feeling. That intense yearning for the seconds between kisses to disappear, for the days between seeing each other to wink out of existence, for the hours between waking and dreaming to go faster, if it means we can see the love of our life more and more and more. We get immersed in impatience, content only when the seconds and minutes and hours are filled with the presence of our loved one.

But when people get married, gone are the days when that side of us is dominant. People move in together and sleep with each other every night, and suddenly the moments alone become rare and dull and absent of that impatience and yearning. The time spent together becomes less intense and perfectly imperfect and less spontaneous and wondrous. He was right when he said it was the start of a certain life together... but what kind of life?

I think it's definitely possible to maintain the impatient mentality once you're married or in a comfortable relationship, and I think that if you can do that, you're really starting a lifetime of special happiness and love. Part of love is, indeed, a comfortable secure feeling... But another (just as important) part is the life and vivacity and youthfulness of feeling like every moment is precious and worth while and rare and sparkling. The part of love that starts anew in marriage is the re-discovery of that familiar feeling in a not so familiar new life.

Do you know that feeling of impatience and wonder? How has it impacted your relationships and your life? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Screwing Up

I've talked before about how I'm a very open person, and that I believe that love and relationships are very broad and accepting (in my life at least) and so it may be easy to understand that I'm a very open, loving, comfortable, and touchy person. I kiss my friends on the cheek (half due to my amazing experiences with a french exchange student this summer, half due to my closeness with others), I usually greet people with hugs, I am such a cuddle lover, and in general I don't really hold back. I'm also really naive, and I tend to trust people really really easily, even when they don't deserve that trust. So, last night... I really screwed up.

I was at a Christmas get together with some friends, including a very close friend of mine, Kyle. Kyle and I are both very touchy, emotional people, so when the group of us popped in a movie and snuggled in, Kyle and I snuggled up. We're really comfortable with each other as friends, so this didn't feel weird at all. And then it went too far.

In the interest of my dignity and Kyle's, I'll only say that we didn't kiss, but our hands were places they shouldn't have been, and we were both at fault. The entire time we sat there, I kept telling myself, "you should stop him", "you should say something", and "J. is going to be so hurt" but for some reason we were both in a moment and didn't really stop until the movie ended... And then we both kind of snapped out of it and realized what we were doing.

Now, this sort of thing is not at all like me. I am very touchy, yes, but I am also extremely loyal. I stand by people with all I have, and I love J. so much, I know I would defend his happiness and love with my last dying breath. So the entire drive home, I was continuously cursing myself internally for what I had just allowed to happen. I could have done something, anything, to stop, but I didn't. And I regret that. But as much as I regret everything that happened, it already happened, and I can't change that. If it happened, it happened for some unknown cosmic reason and who the hell knows why. All I can do is take what happened and try to make the best out of it.

When I told J., he was really surprised. This really isn't like me and of all people to have done that with, Kyle was the last person I or J. would expect. However, because J. is pretty much the most amazing and tolerable and understanding man in the universe, he forgave me pretty much immediately, and decided he felt better if he could just move on and forget that this happened. He knows that I didn't mean for this to happen and that it was a weird freak circumstance, and it's not like I did anything with Kyle like kiss or go farther (or even close) to where I've gone with J., so he forgives me. He said he didn't want some silly accident like this to stand between us; he loves me more than all my mistakes, and despite them, too.

I still feel horrible, none the less. What I did was inexcusable, and I never ever thought I would have to say something like "I got intimate with another person" to J. in all of my life with him. It was truly out of the blue and I will never let it happen again, ever. I'm just happy that he is forgiving and understanding enough to forgive me and move on. I can definitely do that for him, at least. I would do anything for him, always, and I hope he remembers and knows that.

So I screwed up. I'm human. Kyle and I feel horrible about what we did, but we recognize that it probably resulted from our close friendship and our low self-esteems. For him personally, he made the move because he hasn't been with anyone in such a long time and felt comfortable. For me, I truthfully didn't even totally realize what was happening until his hands started to wander.... We screwed up. We're human. It happens. I'm just glad I can accept that it happened but definitely wasn't meant to be, and that J. and I made it out ok, and probably stronger from it, too.

I love J. with all my heart, and now I will always remember what I had to put him through before I ask him for anything. He accepts me for everything I am and do, and I am so lucky to have such a special man who loves me so deeply. I'm human and I screwed up. But this time at least, both J. and I made it out ok.

Have you ever cheated on a partner? What happened? Did you tell them? Have you ever been on J.'s side of this, and if so, what did that feel like? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Future

It's incredible how easily J. and I talk about our potential future together. For us it's not something that might happen or that would be nice... It is something real and definite and amazing that we can't wait to jump into. We talk about college, not necessarily going to the same school, but being close. We talk about eventually living together and how mad our parents would be if we moved in together before being engaged. He apparently has even planned his eventual proposal, and dangles that secret in front of me just to make me wonder. We call eachother wifey ans hubby and talk about what we would even name our children... We're also comfortable enough to joke around and poke fun at each other- I probably call hum an asshile more than I do to anybody else, but we both know that I love him more than anything or anybody else in the universe. He's even watching me write this and I don't feel awkward or uncomfortable... He knows all of this as much as if he was in my head already. Sometimes when I feel like telling other people what we have in our relationship and how we talk and act, I feel silly or awkward... But not because I don't honestly believe in everything I say to him, but because I just know that nobody I talk to can really understand what we have. I've tasted fleeting love and unsteady love and I know that this is different... Others are only tasting untrue love at this point in their life, or haven't yet. How can they possibly understand what J. and I have?

I love what we have in our relationship, that we're both open and comfortable enough to talk about our lives together. I know he accepts me for everything I am and that I always will be, and I can never imagine not loving every single little thing about him. This is our forever and I would never want it to be any other way.

Have you ever been so comfortable with someone that you talked about your future often? Did it actually go as planned? Have you ever wanted to be on that level, but had a partner who wasn't ready? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Heterosexual

Obviously I've expressed before that I'm a girl and I'm dating J., and that we are both straight, but I wanted to bring up why I'm pro-lgbt.

Last post, I talked about what the word love means to me. It's a feeling deeper than other feelings and it makes me feel all sorts of ways I can't describe. Because I feel sexually attracted to males (well, J. specifically), I date and find romantic relationships with them, but I do not restrict my abilities to love to males only. So while I'm straight, I can easily put my mind in the point of view to see how it is possible for any person, if they wished, to love any other person, as fiercely and strongly as I love J..

Following that point, love is not something we can control. Love happens, and we are swept away in its currents. While we sometimes take a while to notice that we're floating and not standing on solid ground, we still get carried away. Love is not something we can turn on and off and change and manipulate. It takes control of our bodies and minds and we do crazy insane irrational things all in the name of love. Maybe it's inefficient, maybe it's reckless, or maybe it's just living to fulfill our full capacity as a thinking, feeling, breathing, human being.

My concept of what we are as humans is big and complicated, but a part of it is that we are all beings with a capacity and tendency to be loved and to give love, and to take love away when we think we deserve it more. Our instincts are old and outdated and we have vestigial organs, and while reproduction may be vital to the survival of the human race, it's not a prerequisite for personal intimate relationships, and certainly not a deciding factor.

Secondly, since every single person is different, and capable of different abilities to love, and different tendencies to love, nobody can dictate who somebody else may love. If we can not control the way we love ourselves, how can anybody else be allowed to do it for us? Nobody has a say in who, how, when, or why we love another person.

All that being said, of course I support lgbt in general... I believe that people need to make their own decisions when it comes to love (if it's possible to make decisions about love in the first place) and that nobody has power over anybody else about this. Love itself is a natural thing-- it's part of who and what we are made to be. The direction of that capacity does not matter. That's like saying everybody with skilled hands should go into making furniture... But all the chairs in the world are unnecessary if there is no art, no clothing, no surgery, no architecture... People choose the direction they go in life. That's natural.

What do you think about lgbt? No hate here :P

See you when I see you.
A

L-Word

There is a lot behind that tiny little four letter word we use: love. It comes in different forms and varieties and magnitudes and directions. Although the heart symbol we associate with it isn't so anatomically correct, it comes close to our emotional definitions. Love can be a weird concept to grasp and it can also hit us in the face when we look at someone. It can be... Just about anything, I think.

I could never begin to put a definition on love. It isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of subject, and every body finds and experiences love differently. Imposing my personal opinions on so broad a subject would be wrong. However, this is what I have, in my short little lifetime, found love to mean...

Love is seeing someone and smiling without even thinking about it.
Love is trusting someone with all the things you don't trust yourself with.
Love is laughing and having fun when the world is falling apart around you.
Love is wanting to make someone happy, and putting them before everything else if that task is endangered.
Love is looking into someone's eyes and finding the pieces of your life's puzzle you didn't know were missing.
Love is a hug, a kiss, a touch, that makes the gravity of the universe shift around that instant.

Love can be fighting, and regret, and apology, and moving on.
Love can be leaving, if it is the right thing to do.
Love can be selfish and greedy and one sided.
Love can be very, Very needy.
Love can be anxious, waiting for a call or a letter, or the right words, or that big question.

Love is friendship in it's purest form, past silliness and sleepovers, into deep talks and life decisions.
Love is an alliance that you make to help someone through their rough spots, and get the same back in return.
Love is a deep bond that lingers between gazes, sizzles between touches, and buzzes between bodies.

Love makes me the happiest woman in the universe.
Love makes me forget that there are troubles in the world and allows me to believe in a happily ever after.
Love makes me a better person for needing to recognize and appreciate others' values as well as their needs.
Love makes me get up on the mornings I can't see the sun.
Love makes me fight for things I believe in.
Love makes me all of who I can be.
Love is simply... Love.

What is love, to you?

See you when I see you.
A

Counting

J. and I started officially dating on June 9th, 2012. Today being the 9th of December means we did it: we made it through half of one year. Big whoop right? But I think it kind of is.

J. and I were talking about month-anniversaries and how there are a few big ones (like one, three, six, and twelve) but that they didn't matter as much to us in the long run since we are constantly referring to our future together. Still, six months is an important anniversary for us, and I'm willing to venture that this can be true for all couples...

The bittersweet "honeymoon" stage of a relationship, where people usually find their partners to be perfect and flawless, and where lustiness usually runs its highest, tends to last about 6 months in a healthy, mature relationship. Near the end of that phase, you really start to see where your relationship could be heading downhill or, perhaps, up hill. J. and I have definitely learned a lot about each other in the past six months. I know him very well and he knows me like the back of his hand. We handle each other's mood swings with a practiced easiness now, and we usually know what the other person wants even if they don't specifically ask for it. We're very comfortable with each other now, and never get embarrassed in front of each other about stupid things any more. The only "fights" we ever get in are hardly fights at all-- more like acknowledgements of each others flaws as they come up. And even then, we gently mention to the other that a certain trait is slightly hurtful/annoying/hard to deal with, and then we fix it and move on. I have never been so mad at J. as to not talk to him or throw a fit, and neither has he. Maybe this is just the beginning of what is to come in our relationship, but to be positive: "so far, so good".

I do think that this situation applies to all relationships as much as it does to mine. As long as there is good communication and give and take, not to mention a willingness to compromise, relationships tend to find their balance after about 6 months. After that, it's just trying to make it work after finding what you NEED to make that happen.

Anyway, J. and I didn't end up being able to see each other, or celebrate, but hopefully this will be the first milestone of many.

Have any fun ways to celebrate anniversaries? Do you make them a big deal, or casually mention it? Have you or your partner ever forgotten when you shouldn't have? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Ex-Files

I'm tired and ready to go take a warm bath and sleep, but I haven't written in a while and this has been a post I've been meaning to get around to for a while... Welcome to the Ex-Files.

As I've mentioned before, I have dated two other guys before J., and we'll call them S. and P., in order of who I dated first. When I first started dating S., I was going into the 8th grade and he was going into 9th. Yes, we were young, but we ended up dating for a solid year and a half, and for a while I was really into him. To be honest with myself, I know I thought it was love, but it was more of a petty obsession and happiness to be loved... Coupled with a horrible moodiness that came about whenever I felt "ignored" or under-appreciated. The poor guy was dealing with depression, and I thought I was the emotionally needy one. (Young me, why were you so selfish? Gah!) Anyway, we did have a good relationship by most standards-- we took it slow and we loved each other as best we could and he bought me jewelry and I played with his cats, and yeah. Pretty average. Besides the whole depression thing, but it didn't factor into our relationship as much as I felt it did while I was actually with him. Funny how you notice these things looking back.

Eventually we broke up for a few reasons. One... My mom snooped on my personal journal and didn't like the "sexual level" S. and I were at, seeing as I was in 9th grade at that point and apparently could not give or receive oral sex, and so we were basically forbidden to see each other for a few months. In that time, I had started high school and saw people more frequently in the past... and by people I mean P.. Oh lordie.

I started to fall hard and fast for P., mostly because he was super nice and sensitive and talkative and basically everything I felt deprived of in my relationship with S., and so I started liking him more and more as someone less and less like a friend. Either way, it all happened that I did not do anything "saucy" with P. until I told S. what was going on and we mutually split up. It was time, and we both knew that, and though I technically was the one the leave him, we both feel like this decision was mutual.

And so the era of P. began. Gah. Remember what I was saying about seeing things differently looking back on them? Yikes.

Now before I go into all of the reasons P. and I weren't good for each other, I'll defend him as much as he deserves... When I fell for him, he was everything I needed at the time- kind, willing to listen to me complain and bitch and be the emotional person I always have been. He was also close by, while S. had lived 45 minutes away and I saw him everyday. And while we were together I did indeed feel what I thought was a pretty intense love for him. Knowing now that it wasn't as strong as I thought, however, does not invalidate that at one point I did love him. Now...

P. and I are basically polar opposites. He's very vulnerable and I only show what I'm feeling to some people. He is over-confident, and I second-guess myself constantly. He sets himself up for success and is met with failure... and I do the opposite. He's very sexually oriented and I'm just not, at least not as much as he was. He's way needier than I am, and he loves to guilt-trip people. And, like most relationships, I entered into ours thinking that these differences were cute, not horribly annoying. That quickly changed.

About a year into our relationship, P. and I were part of a marching band trip to Disney World. Both of us in our sophomore year we were past the honeymoon stage, stressed with new busy schedules, and I was internally losing respect for him pretty fast. He almost never told me something good about myself, and only ever beat me down, while always building himself up, and by that Winter, I was getting tired of it. On our first year anniversary, I thought he would finally make an effort to make me feel special, as I was doing for him. Instead, a sour mood of his ruined that night that we spent in Epcot, and I was crying in Italy. Instances after this included a crappy Valentine's Day, a strange season of Science team, and his seemingly obsessive sexual drive. I slowly started to realize in this time who I really was, and what I really needed and wanted in life, and as I began to change, he not only stayed stagnant but resented the woman I was becoming. Our relationship was slipping since that night in Epcot, and I never did anything concrete about it until May this year, when pretending to love him was too difficult to continue.

Our break up was pretty brutal, but I felt so liberated afterward. One good thing came out of my relationship with P.-- I learned who I really am. I learned that I'm a strange blend of independent and needy, and that I need constant reassurance in my life for some things. I also learned that I really loved philosophy, and I developed a need to fill my life with purpose, rather than simply floating on top and ignorantly but blissfully ignoring the churning life below me. Breaking up with P. finally allowed me to become that woman, and I'm so glad I did.

What happened next, though, is a story for another night. ;D

See you when I see you.
A

Challenge

So in the beginning of our relationship, J. and I were a bit awkward. Not overly we-obviously-aren't-meant-for-each-other kind of awkward, but a fairly average new-relationship kind of awkward. He wasn't a huge talker, I was going through my crazy radical LET'S BE YOUNG phase, and we weren't the best communicators in the world about small things. This last part was the weirdest part of our nascent relationship, and I didn't even notice it too often... We had great communication when it came to deep talks and feelings and how we wanted to develop our relationship, but when it came to small talk, or talking about comfortable every day things, we weren't really clicking. So, that necessary part of our relationship didn't really develop completely until school started, and then we instantly became closer.

Well, a couple of nights ago, I came up with the (oh-so brilliant) idea of a challenge. J. and I were going to see how long we could last pretending and acting like we had just started dating, foregoing all of the comfortable everyday routines we have fallen into, and acting awkward and quiet and missing that link of day to day conversation that fills awkward pauses and times of relaxed conversation. Our safe word was "cheese" (yep, my 11 PM brain was really going that night in the intelligence department) and we decided to try it Monday morning, today.

Well. Let's just say I said 'cheese' around 3:00 PM.

I never even noticed how much J.'s quietness and non-chatty personality affected me until today!! No wonder the start of our relationship made me so insecure; I'm definitely the type of person to need constant verbal reassurance and response, and he definitely wasn't used to that in the first two months of our relationship. Obviously he has changed since then, and so have I. Now I know that he doesn't always respond to things I say, and it's not because he doesn't care, just that he is listening and doesn't have a response for every small negligible thing I let tumble out of my mouth.

I'm not sure if we'll be trying that challenge again any time soon. J. and I both thought it was hard and a little taxing and when we stopped he immediately kissed and hugged me. Stoic as he may have been in the past, he's my cuddly snugglebear now and the day of forced abstinence was hard on both of us.

What do you think? Would you ever try this in your own relationship? Are we crazy? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Jump

We all have those jumping points in life. Those moments where we don't feel totally comfortable with what our brains and hearts are screaming, where the darkness beyond the headlights terrifies us, and the future is not promising or warm, and not dark or scary either, but rather just a big blank horizon, waiting for the colors of newness to splash into it. Those moments where one word means the difference between change and staying the same, and one breath catches in your throat, snagging on the words that may or may not change our lives. The cliffs of now, the looming depths of tomorrow, and the scarred ragged roads of the past that have lead us to the edge. Do we jump?

Love is a scary thing to jump into. Any new relationship can be, and that is simply because we cannot possibly know what somebody else is thinking, exactly what they are thinking, unless they tell us. Communication in budding relationships is non-existent or feeble at best, and the shaky bridges that lead us over the cliff into the future are covered with clouds of confusion. And unfortunately, those clouds aren't going to dissipate on their own. People entering new relationships either step tepidly to the edges of their cliffs until they gently feel the bridge swinging beneath them, or they plunge face first onto it by sheer dumb luck. Or we see the brave few, who shout and scream and laugh over the edges of the cliffs until their communication clears away all of the clouds, and they run to each other without pause or fear over the bridge until they finally embrace.

Like I've said time and time again, I cannot dictate how every relationship should or will work out. But I will say this... When J. and I first got together, I did not have any romantic interest in him. At all. We were very good friends and I was recovering from a rough break up and I needed a friend to understand me more than anything else. I knew he had a crush on me, and so I finally told him (after weeks of talking 24/7 and becoming even closer with him) that we should go on a date just for fun. Really, if I'm being honest, this first date was, under my original intentions, a pity date. But, after making that small step, we talked more and more in the two weeks leading up to our date, and the inevitability of our looming relationship became bigger and bigger until we could hardly keep ourselves apart before the actual date. The clouds around our bridge took a long time to disappear... But now it seems as if every road of my life up until now has only existed to bring me here and now, to him, into his arms, and him into my heart.

Maybe not every jump will land you in perfect happiness. But how will you know until you try? And if the worst that can happen is that you fall onto a new road of life that will lead you to a new cliff, isn't it worth it anyway?

I jumped. And now, I will never ever regret that decision. I jumped, and now I am with my soul-mate.

Have you ever jumped? Maybe it's time.

See you when I see you.
A

Dreams

This is going to be an "I just woke up but I feel like talking about my feelings post". Oh boy.

Ever since J. and I started having a really serious relationship, about 4 months ago (wow it really has almost been 6 months!) I have dreamt about him almost every night since then, and in a good way. The dreams aren't usually the same... Sometimes we will just be together, like in school or the grocery store, or on a date, or in the car driving who knows where... Sometimes it will be about our future, getting married, having kids, our first house... Other times, though, it's about something bad or scary happening, and me needing him to help me fix it, or make me less scared. In any case, I dream about him a lot... Definitely more than I ever dreamt about any of my past partners.

I don't know if dreams mean anything. I don't know if they are an indicator that this man is my soul mate, or if they just mean that my hormones are crazy for him as much as I am, or if they mean absolutely nothing at all. But, I like the dreams. And naivety and false-hope be damned, I will take these dreams to mean all they possibly can. Because as long as my unconscious mind loves J. as much as I do every second I'm awake, why the hell not say that they are true and justified and that J. and I are soul-mates? I'm willing to go out on that limb for him. Because with this man, even if we don't end up together forever... I won't ever regret a millisecond of this time spent being with and dreaming of him. He is worth that, and more.

Do you dream? Do you let yourself love those dreams? Let me know.

See you when I see you.
A

Sweetheart

Recently a lot of these topics have been related to the way people see and interprate others' relationships, and this post is no different. Today I wanted to talk about the way people view high school relationships. If you haven't guessed yet that J. and I are in high school, allow me to clarify. Right now, we are both 17 and both juniors at the same high school. We are also very very in love... You know, the kind of love that makes your head spin every time you kiss and makes you dream about futures together and makes you forget that you are, indeed, not only a minor, but also not yet finished primary education. Sigh.

Several people like to bring up the following point within the context I've just given you: how important can a high school relationahip be, anyway??

Before I even answer this with my own opinions I'll tell you a few stories. One of the greatest, strongest couples I have ever had the privelage of meeting started dating in their junior year of high school, when they met in the marching band (which J. and I happen to be in). Now they have been married about eight years and have four amazing beautiful children. Another woman I know, an old teacher of mine, also married her high school sweetheart from her sophomore year- 50 odd years ago. One of my grandparents whom I never had the privelage of meeting also married their high school love.

Now obviously, these cases are not too common-- not every intense relationship that begins in high school lasts. However, the stories do prove that some relationships do indeed last through the school years and into old age.

Now my own opinion... Like most of my beliefs, I really think this entire situation depends entirely on the type of people involved and the circumstances accompanying the relationship. There is no instant 'shake n bake' recipe to guarantee that a high school relationship will last. I do think, though, that sometimes when you are with someone you really love, you can honestly feel in your heart and mind that they are the only person in the world in whom you will ever find intense happiness and completion. I also believe that you can find this person at any point in your lifetime. Why should you have to be a certain age to you find your second half, your soul mate?? I've read several stories about not only high school sweethearts, but also playmates from childhood becoming amazing married couples, and I don't think that these situations hold any less validity than "classic" marriage stories.

On that note, I accept that I cannot possibly know 100% if J. is in fact my soul-mate until the future becomes the present and eventually the past. But I do know that I would never in a million years want my soul mate and future husband to be anyone but this amazing man. I only consider myself more lucky that I have found him so early in my life.

What do you think about high school relationships? Do you have a cute high school sweethearts story?? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Slower

It's a slow night tonight. All day the weather was dreary and cold and all around disgusting, with a horrible mix of rain and snow and on and off power. Everybody was a little down in school, and J. (due to this as well as his involuntary abstinence from coffee tonight) was no exception. Around 19.00 he started to lose his energy, and with that his willingness to talk and have any semblance of intelligent conversation.

Reading this, I might sound mad or frustrated, but I'm smiling; I know J. too well to know that this moodiness is anything more than lack of caffeine, school-related-sleepiness, and the weather. He'll be back to his totally perky self by tomorrow morning. (Well, not totally perky, but at least not a zombie).

The hardest thing for me to do when J. gets moody is simply let him be. In the meantime, I'd do anything for him he needs me to do. As his partner, I immediately think that it's my job to make him totally happy and make him laugh and smile 24/7... But (and I should know this from personal experience) some people just need time to veg out and be moody, and I need to let J. do exactly that. Meh.

Do you ever struggle to let your partner have some room to be moody? Are you like me, and want to smother them when they get quiet and taciturn? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Talking

I'm one of those people that talks about my partner a LOT (as if you didn't already get that). Not only do I talk about J. a lot, but I also talk to him a lot. In fact, a little more than a lot. Kind of closer to ALL. THE. TIME. We are basically on skype chat or video calls every second we have wi-fi access and if we're not home, we text occasionally to check in on each other. Basically, we talk every free second we can spare...

Now, I know that I'm definitely not alone in this-- tons of couples talk 24/7, and even friends text or IM all the time. It's normal in today's day and age, and it's easy to justify. "Why wouldn't I talk to the person I care about if I can?" "What is the harm in talking to my friends and loved ones as much as I can?" And sometimes it's also easy to counter these arguments... "If you're talking to somebody over electronic devices all the time, you may miss what and who is around you in person." "You never have any personal space." "It's not healthy to talk to someone that much." Well.

Is it healthy to talk to someone practically 24/7? Or maybe not just one person, but to be communicating with others all the time through electronics?

It's hard to find an answer for this. Like I said earlier, there are several solid arguments on both sides. What I think-- and have come to stand by-- is that people should make their own decisions about how often they communicate electronically with others. Who is anyone to tell another person what is and isn't emotionally malevolent for him or her, if he or she is happy and healthy and safe? I'm certainly not going to impose my personal beliefs on anyone that simply wants to converse or spend time with someone they care about.

That goes for J., too: I would never force him to talk to me more than he was comfortable with, and I know he wouldn't do that either. I like that we are so close that we can discuss how much attention we need from one another without feeling demanding and without getting hurt. This kind of communication is especially important in relationships, where people are more easily damaged when, for instance, a text is ignored, or a video call dismissed. As long as feelings remain clear on the non-electronic communication lines, these muddy areas are easy to avoid.

What do you think? Is there a limit to how much you should talk to your partner in general? Or do you think it is a personal decision that everybody should make for themselves? Have you ever felt left out ((or in contrast, smothered)) by a partner because of their decisions when it came to communication, whether it was electronic or personal? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Bases

Wow. Just... Wow.

((This post will be sexual. Abort now if you won't like it!))

Today was an "us" day for J. and I, and we did a ton of stuff... Went to the movies, went grocery shopping, went to Starbucks, went home and cooked dinner, played cards with my mom, ate, played more cards, watched some TV, and then I took him for ice cream on the way home... and we ended up having some unadulterated fun in the backseat.

Wow. Have I said wow yet? WOW.

I've mentioned my insecurity and self-esteem issues enough already on this blog that I feel stupid reiterating, but knowing that I struggle with those issues is key to understanding all these wows. Because, my dear strangers, tonight was the first time I took all of my clothing off in front of someone. And not only was I not afraid or ashamed or anxious... I enjoyed it.

Now lets get some random things straight here: a) I'm still a virgin b) J. also had his clothes off (also for the first time) and c) keep in mind we were in a tiny back seat. Difficulties are ABUNDANT!

I'm pretty sure that about 30 minutes were spent making out and exploring each other's bare bodies, and about 15 minutes were spent having really hot oral. There was something so hot and exposed and intimate about running my hands and lips over his bare body. His skin felt so smooth and soft and he was so warm and strong and I could NOT keep my hands off of him. Later, he told me he felt the same way. As for the oral, I recently read this sex blog on the Cosmo website and it gave me lots of tips... Lets just say I drove J. CRAZY with new techniques! He does this funny thing when he's really horny... He'll gasp, and then he'll laugh at his own reaction... (("Gasp... haha! Gasp! hahaha!... Gaspppppp... haha GASP haha!!!")) Like really. It was so funny and cute and sexy and I felt so powerful! In any case, he was done pretty quickly. Then it was my turn and... well. Wow.

I think tonight's mentality has a lot to do with the emotional connections J. and I have with each other. This was the first time we got so intimate with each other, and while I had gotten him to third base before, tonight he got me there for the first time. Obviously this can be a tricky step in any relationship, but neither of us felt awkward or ashamed or anything bad at all-- we were having the times of our lives. We even talked and joked during all this time and there was never a lull except for us to pause and (corny as it may sound) look into each others' eyes lovingly and longingly before starting up again. And truly, I don't think I could ever feel this comfortable, and relaxed, and simply RIGHT with anyone in the world but J.. Sexual acts or none, our chemistry is ridiculous, and he makes me feel like a million bucks every time he smiles at me. I could NEVER feel this close to anyone but him, and tonight just proved that even more.

Have you ever found amazing chemistry with a partner? What happened in your relationship? Do you find that it is hard to balance your physical and emotional concerns in your relationships, or does this come naturally? Let me know!!

See you when I see you.
A

Rings

J. and I have matching rings. We got them 3 months into our relationship when we realized we wanted to try and spend the rest of our lives together. Before you jump on us for being naive, let me explain a bit.

Like I've mentioned before, I've been with two other guys before J. and neither of them worked out too well. Luckily I also maintained good friendly relationships with these guys after leaving them, and I'm not "terribly scarred" or "heartbroken", but I have definitely learned a lot from them, too. I learned that no matter how much you say you want to spend forever with someone, it's never going to happen unless 1) you actually mean it and truly enjoy spending time with your partner and 2) they feel the same way. Well, suffice it to say that I didn't exactly find that perfect combination in either of my previous relationships.

So, when I started dating J., I was still relatively young, and told myself that it was naive and stupid and pointless to "plan a forever" with someone, and that if I did this with J., I would be setting myself up for failure. So, for the first two months of our relationship, I was closed up about how I really felt about him: I told him I wasn't serious about our relationship, and I wasn't too outwardly romantic. Well finally, one night, that all changed.

He told me that I made him the happiest he'd ever been, and I realized that I felt the same exact way. All of my walls broke down and we agreed: if we make each other so ridiculously happy, why would we ever end our relationship?

So, we came to a few conclusions... 1) That we like where we are in life, being with each other, and that we won't let something small and pointless break our bonds. 2) That we know shit happens and that a promise to love each other doesn't always mean that the universe won't intervene. 3) That for however long we ARE together, we will treat each other with the utmost love and respect and that this time together will be "Our Forever".

The concept of Our Forever quickly turned into "infinity" for shorthand, especially the use of the infinity symbol, and we got rings with infinities stamped on them. These rings aren't promises that forever will be easy, or handed to us, or immediately guaranteed... Instead, they are more like a way to honor our relationship and our love for each other, however long it may last: hopefully, for the actual forever.  :)

Did you ever have a "promise ring" with someone? Did it make you feel trapped or safe? Did you ever break up with someone you had rings with (like I did in relationship #2)?? Let me know!!

See you when I see you.
A

Singing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwcSmN8Uo0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

It's not hard to be in love
For me anymore
It's as easy as an egg
Falling on the floor
You won't ever have to drive
I'll get us there
Just promise me you won't cry
When I lose my hair

I'll probably meet you as a friend
And I won't see the change
But, all of the sudden
We'll both feel something strange
You can ask me if it hurts
I'll tell you no
Just promise me you won't leave
When I'm getting older
You will be getting older too
And I'll still be there for you

With or without the hair
Just me... And you.


**siigghhss**
See you when I see you.
A

Friends

I got on facebook this morning (the bane of public forum, I know) and noticed that a friend of mine didn't realize I had my appendix out and didn't know why I had been missing so much as of late. My very close friend, 'Ginger', told her what was up and said that she missed me.

Now I know it's a normal thing for people to miss you when you've been a hermit for 10 days, but seeing Ginge, not the most open or emotional person in the world, tell everybody on facebook that she missed me... well it induced an AWWW moment and I immediately invited her over for coffee and lunch. Now seeing as I'm not sleeping in, forever grateful for the relief from school called Thanksgiving break like the rest of my friends, I'm sure she won't see this until later, but I wanted to write this before I talked to her anyhow.

It's things like this that make you really realize that not only do you need your friends, but they need you just as much. Here I was feeling lonely and basically helpless post-op, and I didn't even think that my friends might have missed my company just as much as I missed theirs. It really makes me grateful that I have such fantastic relationships with my few good friends. My other very close friend "Pixy" is exactly the same, and I love her and Ginge like sisters. We're a fantastic trio and I don't think I ever could have been luckier than to land two amazing girls who are so down to earth and beautiful as these two for friends. The relationship I have with these chicas is just as powerful as any lust-love-boyfriend-girlfriend relationship I could ever think of, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Do you have friends as close as sisters or brothers? Do you ever take them for granted, or take yourself for granted in your relationships with them? What's your favorite way to spend time with them? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

Wonderful

"I'm only as wonderful as you make me"

This phrase seems popular in conversation between J. and I, and I'm not a huge fan of it, though I probably say it as much as he does. This phrase is making me question something kind of big in relationships: Do people underestimate and undermine themselves when they think highly of their partner? And how does this affect relationships?

Personally, I definitely have some self-esteem issues, and so it's really easy for me to put J. on a pedestal above myself. I feel like this is something all couples are prone to, especially if the people involved are self-conscious. It's a trap we fall into so easily: while simply praising and appreciating our loved ones, we put ourselves below them. While this may be a conscious act or not, it definitely has some consequences.

Underestimating ourselves in relationships immediately makes it impossible to discover our full potential and all of the gifts we can uniquely bring into our relationships. By imagining that the only good part of ourselves is found in our partner, we blatantly ignore any good qualities we have totally on our own. The worst part is, this is so easy to do even with the best intentions. Who wouldn't look to the most happy or most loving part of their life for their best qualities? However, it's important to remember that there's more to us than our relationships.

In fact, if I want to get all philosophical, the theories of existentialism state that, basically, we are the sum of our actions: We become what we do and experience in life. Existentialist theories also state that because of this, we find happiness in accomplishments and in trying our hardest to be the best versions of ourselves. So, by these theories, it seems so horrible and wasteful to simply ignore our potential because we are "only what others make of us".

I'm not saying that we don't gain  a heck of a lot from relationships. J. gives me so much to learn from, and with him I've developed many personality traits that I think are beneficial... Self-confidence, trust, the ability to let go and be spontaneous, and several others. But my relationship with J. is not my defining quality and that's something that is hard to both see, accept, and implement in my daily life. When I think about how many times I describe myself with my relationship, or mention that I'm in a wonderful relationship with J., it becomes more and more apparent that I use him to help define myself.

I feel a bit hypocritical writing this: like I've said, I am probably one of the guiltiest people when it comes to underestimating myself and putting my partner on a pedestal. However, writing this helps me to see what is hard to find through muddled thoughts and warm emotions. Hopefully, I can take what I'm finding, and use it more and more in my day to day life.

What about you? Have you ever put yourself and your partner on "levels" and found them to be different? Do you usually put yourself "above" or "below" your partner? Have you ever been on the metaphorical pedestal? How did it make you feel? Let me know!!!

See you when I see you.
A

Moods

Do you ever have a really strong, really sudden mood swing you don't really know how to describe? I know, that's basically the definition of teenage emotions, or emotions in general I guess... But tonight I became a little more aware of how mood swings affect relationships.

It started when J. tried to get me to guess what he got me for Christmas, while I attempted to re-write a post I accidently lost (all 6 paragraphs of it!) earlier. He told me that we had already talked about the thing he was getting me, and guessing quickly turned into me rummaging through my memory. I was also rummaging for the emotions and words behind my earlier post and having zero luck. Lets just say I was falling very short in both departments.

The thing is, I have a really horrible memory. I don't remember most of my childhood... I hardly remember events from 6 months ago. I only remember *big things* or random memories that have stuck with me. Cumulatively, I think I have less than 50 memories from before the time I was in middle school. Now, I'm not sure that that's a weird number, but it feels small to me, and it really bothers me. My short-term memory is just as bad, and it shows up in things like remembering why I wanted to go to the store, studying vocab, and recalling lessons while I'm reading notes. Basically I just get really ticked off with my brain and its short-comings in memory.

So, while I was talking to J., these memory issues seemed so pertinent and so horribly inconvenient and incapacitating and for some reason I became really childishly upset. I was pouting and to be honest, I still am a little, though writing about it is helping. The weirdest part is that although these memory issues have almost nothing to do with J. and I, it made me frustrated not just at myself, but at him. Within the span of 3 minutes I went from jokingly playing '20 questions' and laughing, to moodily sulking over everything, and snapping at him (in the form of muting his sound on the call because he was making an annoying sound). He must have known something was up and he left to get coffee and I got even moodier: I felt not only frustrated, but now like a bitch. I had just snapped at the love of my life because I couldn't remember what I had written in a previous blog post, or what I had asked for for Christmas.

I feel like I could find a lot of excuses for that behavior, but I can't. Yes, it was a good blog post that I was proud of and wanted to share. Yes, I'm tired and I hate my memory issues. But he did not deserve my moodiness and I do not deserve to be so harsh on myself and others due to something out of my control.

Meh.

Do you ever have problems with your own moodiness affecting your partner, or other people you're in relationships with? Has it ever been so bad it resulted in a fight, or worse? Are the people you really love the ones who take your moods in stride and help you, or the ones who snap you out of it and back into reality? Let me know!

See you when I see you.
A

((P.S. The blog post has been resurrected from my memory, though I know it has a different spin now. Still, it is what I wanted to say, and maybe better. Who knows? Well, here it is. Enjoy!))

Seriously

I'm in a really good mood right now (I haven't had any appendix-related pain yet all day, I'm baking some delicious oatmeal fudge bars, I'm blasting Jason Mraz, etc) so I figured this would be a good time to blog about something that makes me really angry. This way I'm at least attempting a semblance of subjectivity!!

Last night I was talking to J. and I asked him why he had been a little distant recently. I know, probably not the best question to avoid prying when your partner has indeed been distant, but hey, I figured he would either tell me or not. And tell me, he did. Apparently, his parents have been really "bitchy" recently (namely, his mother) and he hasn't been getting along super well with them. On top of this, a few of his sisters have been home from college recently, and they have also been (in his words) "bitchy". So he's been really stressed about this, and he's getting frustrated that he can't really do anything about their attitudes. When I asked him why he doesn't think he can do anything about their attitudes, he shocked me:

"They mock us when you're not around"

I think I was actually stunned when he said this so bluntly. See, I thought I was forming a really nice and close relationship with his parents; I talk to them whenever I see them and we joke and I've had dinner with them once... I accidently walked in on his dad in the bathroom for goodness sakes!! And I know that his sisters are also fond of me... At least, that's what they have told me and J. when I'm not there. So to hear that his parents and sisters didn't take us as seriously as I expected-- even went so far as to mock our relationship-- kind of hit me below the belt. 

I don't really know how to react, either. Obviously this has been going on for a little while, and I've been oblivious. How do I continue to act pleasant and ignorant when I know now that J.'s parents are two-faced? I thought the relationships I was forming were strong enough to leave things on the table, and didn't ever think they would say bad things about me and J. and my relationship, but now that they have, I don't know where I really stand or what I think. 

Last night in the midst of all this I told J. that the only things we can do are learn from the situation and ignore them, which I said is all this behavior deserves. And I still believe that. But one thing I still have to figure out is what to do now? 

Have you ever dated someone whose parents didn't take your relationship seriously, or talked about you behind your back? Did you pretend not to know and try to win them over, or confront them to let you know you felt uncomfortable and betrayed? Let me know!

Insecurity

So what prompted me for this first post? Appendicitis.

Damn appendix had to go and get all swollen and angry seven days ago and soooo I've been out of commission since then-- and probably for another five days or so. LUCKILY I am healing very quickly. I've been up and about and the only thing I can't do until I have my follow up appointment is drive or go to school. Bummer.

So, back to normal with-an-appendix-life, I'm generally emotional and insecure. I'm also pretty needy and I love attention from the boo. Needless to say, this past week has been pretty taxing for me, just sitting on my couch, trying my hardest to steal any free time of J.'s and watching Netflix sitcoms. The only problem is, J. still has an appendix- and a ton of school work to do before break starts. Aaannnddd it's been hard to accept that he still only has an hour or so of free time while I have all day. The few minutes I do get to talk to him (and the precious five hours he spent at my place two days ago) have been desperate and whiny and super mushy and probably way too much for him to handle. Which is why I've been getting really insecure.

I tried to talk to him last night, and I was getting very lovey. I had just heard in church about a recent widow who will have to spend her first holiday without her husband, and it made me think of how lucky I was to be in a loving relationship. So, I wasn't just randomly dropping buckets of love on J.... but still, I was probably overwhelming him. It didn't help that he was trying to read a chapter in a textbook that I know is due today. So while I attempted to hold a heartfelt conversation, and he attempted to hold up his grades, we realized it wasn't working and he went to go work without a chat-box distraction.

I know that, especially in this instance, it's very silly of me to pine and whine about such a trivial "lack" of attention, but it highlights a problem I've encountered several times before... When am I just being over-emotional and petty, and how do I recognise and get past this??

What have you done to get past fickle feelings of loneliness and petty moments of "neglect"? I found that I was trying to reassure myself that "it's not that he doesn't want to talk to you, it's just that he's busy", and that helped because i knew it was true. But obviously it still stings, just a little, or I wouldn't be writing a post about it. How do you know when to let work be work and not let it interfere with your personal relationship?

Hopefully this feeling will go away when we get some quality time together over Thanksgiving holiday :)

See you when I see you.
A

((The morning after mini-note:

I talked to J. last night and he said if he was distant it was because of stress and a pornpem I didnt even know about! More about that subject tomorrow!))

Introduction

So today I was reading a lot of posts by an anonymous woman who blogs for Cosmopolitan magazine who goes by "S" and I was totally inspired. She writes about sex and love and relationships, and I -- being the young virgin I am -- was obviously intrigued and wanted to talk and write about my own opinions on the same subjects as I discovered them. I love to write and I have waayy too many feelings, so I figured a blog was as good a vent as any.

I feel that anonymity has a lot to do with this decision- I sometimes feel so abashed about my writing and my limited sexual knowledge and experience. But I know that I can share my thoughts without a name or face here and that inspires me; I love the concept of public forum and this is such a discovery-filled topic that I can't wait to start.

If anybody does ever read this, and it happens to be YOU, I encourage you to write responses. It would make me so happy just to hear what people have to say about things I think of during my day.

An introduction to myself... I've been in three major relationships in my life (in the middle of love #3 now) and I'm definitely the kind of girl to fall in love hard and fast. Both of my previous relationships lasted a year and a half each and my current relationship has been going on for about 5 and a half months now, with a wonderful man you'll know as J.. J. and I were really good friends when I ended my last relationship, and because of our increased contact due to his consolations and my need for an emotional partner, we ended up dating three weeks later, and becoming serious within three months, by the end of the 2012 summer. But, more on him later.

I love music and science and reading and writing and philosophy; basically anything that makes me use my noggin. I am in school and I love it- I'm a learner. I'm also, unfortunately, a fairly self-conscious girl. I struggle with self-esteem issues, but luckily I'm starting to improve with much help from J.. I'm really emotional all the time and I'm sure I'll write my fair share of super-freak-out-ish blogs that I'll regret or change my opinions on, but that's what life's all about anyway.

This is a little long for an intro, but I think I covered all the bases :)

See you when I see you-
A.