I have been loved so well all my life

Maybe if I put this out into the world I can stop thinking about it so damn much. 

I recently stepped outside of my comfort zone and took a chance and dated a friend of mine (something I generally avoid doing at all costs, but I really thought it could work out this time... it didn't) for a few months this summer. It was the most complicated and messy and frustrating relationship I've been in. I suppose I should follow that up by saying I haven't been in many relationships (I spent nearly three of the last six years in one relationship, then a while later five months in another), but that I have had plenty of little flings and have never felt so thoroughly exhausted, used, etc. by anybody before. But all that is not the point of this post. 

At the end of our whirlwind of a relationship, he told me he was afraid that everything he'd done to break my trust and to hurt me had ruined me forever. Ruined. This and a few other things, I'll spare you the details on those because they're far worse, I haven't been able to get out of my head. On the one hand, it's insulting because it feels like he wants to have me marked as his territory even after the fact, branded by pain. On the other hand it's insulting because I would never let me being "ruined" even be a possibility. I am far too resilient for that and it's insulting that he disregards that entirely. I do not feel stupid for having trusted him because I took the things he told me at face value and made the best decisions I could with what he showed me about himself. None of it is or was about me. I have been loved so well all my life by my friends and by my family and I have always known what it is to be cared for and supported. Anybody would have to do infinitely more harm than he has to destabilize me. 

That is not to say that I am not hurt by what he did. Of course I am and of course it will take me time to recover from it and it will take me time to trust somebody wholly again but I am not ruined and I can never be ruined. I have been heartbroken before in an all consuming way that this cannot hold a candle to and, though I hadn't been wronged then in the way I have now, that didn't ruin me so I know this can't either.

I love to have old friends and sometimes it gets me in a pensive mood

I definitely do not have a hard time being friends with people my own age, but I do find it difficult to find people my own age to be friends with. I don't know where the hip young people hang out and, even if I did, I wouldn't know how to approach them. But that's okay. Not everybody needs to have a sitcom-style close knit group of friends their own age who all frequent the same bar and play specific roles in the group and say quippy little one liners. A lot of my friends here are people I know through dancing, most of whom are ten or more years older than I am, or through my early morning skinny dipping group, most of whom are thirty or more years older than I am. 

This morning, after swimming, I was at a friend's house for breakfast and to help give some guidance on lighting and decorating. As a sixty-four year old, she's experienced all sorts of things I can't even imagine. Her sons are my age, almost. I think I'm nearly a year older than her eldest. Regardless, what I mean to say is that she is quite a bit older than I am. On this particular morning, she finally told me a bit more about her soon-to-be ex-husband and how he just up and left one day, about a year ago. They had been together for more than half of her life and he just left. I can't even begin to imagine what that feels like. She said they've had only minimal contact because he told her that when he sees her face he can't function for an entire week afterward because he loves her so much, but that they need to get divorced. She told me sometimes she understands and sometimes she doesn't. On a very conceptual level and, oddly enough, on a deeply instinctual and emotional level, I kind of get it. But in every way in between those two, I don't. And I think that's kind of where I tend to operate. On the border between logical and emotional, but trying to make everything make sense in a very concrete way. 

The heartbreak that comes with somebody up and leaving after thirty-five years of marriage is something I can't even begin to imagine. How do you go one? When my college boyfriend and I broke up after about two and a half, nearly three years, I was completely useless for months. I couldn't eat. I became so weak that I needed two friends to help me move from my college town into the apartment I'm in now. I am only just now, two years later, feeling like I might be ready to really be with somebody again, romantically, in a meaningful capacity. At sixty-four, do you ever decide to try again? Do you wait for him to come back, knowing he loves you and wishes he could be with you but says he just can't, not now, maybe not ever?

My brake light came on today. I'm bringing my car to her mechanic tomorrow.

All Hallows' Eve

Though I'd like to think I have a pretty good grasp of grammar, I still had to look up All Hallows' Eve just to make sure I'd put the apostrophe in the right spot. Anyway, today's the day! I've got a zoom call with my best friends from college scheduled for a few hours from now and a little party I'm going to miss because it was planned after the zoom was. Oh well. I can't have it all. 

In my current state of semi-unemployment, I've been doing odd jobs for people. This summer, I was working part time as a gardener, and will be doing that again this Friday, but the past week I've helped an older friend of mine, A, around her house three times now. Two of the times have also been with my friend R. He and I met through twitter. Though we live in the same city currently, he lived in Scotland when we first started following one another and so we didn't realize we had this in common (he lived here before Scotland and now lives here again). It's been fun and we've been joking that we ought to start a business as handymen. So far, we've built a sauna, reorganized a living room, prepped wooden panels for painting (A is a painter), done some yard work, and insulated some windows. Another older friend has asked me to help out a bit around her house as well, now that her kids are out of the house and she's no longer married. She says she needs some "hygge" in her home. What is it with women in their 50s - 60s and being obsessed with that word? 

There's a (kind of embarrassingly large) part of me that wishes I could just stay here and keep just doing odd jobs for people. Truth be told, it's the most fun and easy and rewarding work I've ever done. I think I need a doctor wife so that I can stay home and do domestic tasks like stacking firewood and gardening and fixing things.

I really ought to start packing up my own apartment for my upcoming move. It's sort of looming over me, but I haven't dealt with it yet. I just need to put it off a little longer. I'm really doing everything but dealing with my own apartment. I don't want this entire blog to just be move updates, but that's a big thing going on in my life right now. On the bright side, I think I've got an apartment set to move into! It has four bedrooms and actually belongs to A's parents. I'll be one of two new people moving in at right around the same time. It's one of the most beautiful apartments I've ever seen (though only virtually)!! It's entirely furnished, too, so I can just sell all my furniture and not have to worry about anything. 

Since getting back a week and a half ago, I haven't really cooked at all. Like, I've cooked rice and veggies and stuff like that but I haven't planned and cooked a meal. If you have any recipes you like or ideas or inspiration of any sort, please share. I don't have any dietary restrictions and like most foods. 

Big Things are Happening

6:10 am on Wednesday, October 25th. An hour ago I accepted a job offer that will have me moving halfway around the world. There's no turning back now, full speed ahead! I have a pit in my stomach, I'm so nervous. I kind of can't believe I did it. I feel a little trapped because I've just committed to going back to a 9 to 5 job after enjoying seasonal work in the garden so much. So many of my friends work seasonal jobs that I'm a bit of an outlier for the whole graduating from college and going straight into a 9 to 5 thing. Anyway. 

It's funny, writing a blog that I know only one person is reading. It's like being penpals a little bit, but more public. And there isn't the traditional back and forth structure. I do like it, though. I think I might come back and write more later today, maybe something about things I've been making recently. I am preparing for Halloween. I have two parties I'm going to and might do one costume for both or two separate costumes. Only one of the costumes is ready so far. 

For now, I'm off to my early morning skinny dip!

Hi there :)

I'm writing this from a little apartment in Tirana, Albania. The first place I've stayed with my parents on this trip and had my own room (the first time I've had my own room in a bit over a month). I usually live alone, so I've been a little extra tired just from sharing rooms and sleeping on sofas in living rooms. There's really nothing to do about it other than to be excited to get back to my own apartment soon. I'm going to go draw myself a bath and soak until I turn into a prune.

This trip is the longest period of time I've ever been continually on the go. I flew to Berlin on the 29th or 30th of August, I don't quite remember which day, then took the train to Lübeck, where I lived with an aunt in high school, then flew to Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, then to Vienna, and then, finally, here to Tirana. I love to travel and see people, places, and things, but deep in my core I'm a bit of a homebody and I'm tired. 

This past week I've been on a bicycle trip with my parents and other people in their 50s and 60s and maybe even 70s. It was a mix of people on e-bikes and regular bikes. Because I'm not a cyclist in the slightest (unless you call riding my bike to a friend's house cycling), I rode an e-bike. I did do a good job of keeping it turned off or turned to the lowest setting. There was one woman on the trip I didn't like. On the first day I met her, she nearly yelled at the poor kid working the front desk at the hotel we were at for that night because he told her there was only one key per room and that her roommate had already taken it. She went on to do other things like talk over me at lunch to say the exact same piece of information I was already saying, just louder and faster so she would get the credit for knowing it. I think she views conversations as an opportunity to show that she knows a lot of information rather than an opportunity to connect with other people, because she didn't ask anybody even a single question the entire week. I'm glad I'm not like that and I'm glad nobody else on the trip was like that, other than her.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads in my life. But I suppose we're always at a crossroads. I remember when I was fifteen or sixteen and my high school boyfriend (well, 8th through 10th grade boyfriend) and I both weren't sure how to break up with one another and I think both kept putting it off and then one day we went for a walk at lunchtime and he said "so I think at this point we can either keep dating or we can break up. What do you think?" and I always thought that was odd because that's every point in a relationship, but I didn't tell him that. I told him I thought we should probably do the latter and he looked relieved and then he wasn't my boyfriend anymore. 

But anyway. I'm at a crossroads because I'm not entirely sure I'm actually interested in the career I've set myself up for and I'm not sure where I want to live and I'm faced with a big decision regarding both of those things and I don't even know what to base it on. I've been at this crossroads since Friday the 13th (January, not October), when I was laid off. How's a girl supposed to know who she is and what she wants, anyway? I put off making the decision by saying I wanted to move to Germany and by finding work as a gardener and by planning this big long trip and by going to Utah for a month to dogsit, but the decision still needs to be made eventually. Oh well. I'm not going to think about it until I'm done with my trip and back at my apartment. 

I think I'm going to get a pixie cut. I had one for a bit in high school and I think I'd like to have one again now. I was growing my hair out for the longest time, but then I got into the habit of the early morning nudie swim with a group of friends, more on that later probably, and I think the saltwater was bad for my hair because I didn't always do a good job of rinsing it out and I got more and more split ends and I decided eventually that I had to part with it. I think it's been long enough that the hair that's on my head right now hasn't ever been dyed. I used to dye my hair all sorts of colors. And then, for a few years, I was dying it a darker shade of brown every fall until one year when I accidentally dyed it black and gave up dyeing my hair once and for all, telling myself it was so I could go blonde eventually. But I don't really think I'd look good as a blonde.

5.27.2022 (Friday)

My best friend from the year I spent living in Germany in high school is visiting me. She and I haven't seen one another since the summer after my first year in college (the summer after she graduated high school). Right now, she's in the shower in my little one bedroom apartment and I'm sitting at the kitchen table, working from home. Well, taking a little break from working. I woke up early to work through an issue my computer was having only to find it had miraculously solved itself during the night. I suppose I didn't actually wake up early to do that. I wake up at roughly the same time every day, regardless of whether or not I have work, often before my alarm clock. Today was a before the alarm clock day. 

I've been reading more recently. I've finished two books this week, making three this month, which in all honesty is more than I read for pleasure any given semester in college. I'm no longer on social media. Well, I'm no longer on social media on my cellphone. I found I was spending far too much time on twitter and on instagram and so I've deleted them from my phone altogether. I still use them from my laptop, but I feel far more in control over my social media usage when I'm doing it from my laptop. Something about keeping browsing the internet to a computer just feels right. I've not entirely quit instagram in the same way I've quit twitter, as I still download it to my cellphone when I want to look somebody up or post something to my story. But it feels better than being glued to it all the time. 

This past month or so, I've been irresponsible with my spending. I've entirely thrown the concepts of budgeting and moderation out the window, and so I will be trying this coming month to be more responsible. Nobody ever looked at the word 'responsible' and thought it seemed fun, but a little more responsibility is precisely what I need right now. 

My kitchen sink doesn't drain properly, and hasn't for a few months. It takes forever and I keep my toilet plunger in the kitchen, hoping that one of these times I'll magically loosen whatever the blockage is and it'll drain smoothly again. I know I should just call my property manager and ask him to send a plumber to fix it, but for whatever reason I just can't bring myself to. I have other, more pressing things to take care of. 

I've become a part of a group of friends here who, in my opinion, have just the right balance of mellowness to party party energy. It's been a bit difficult to find people who strike the right balance and I often find myself categorizing my friendships as daytime vs nighttime friendships or going out vs staying in friendships or one-on-one vs group friendships, but I think I've found a nice niche with these people. Most of them live a ten minute walk from me in a house nicknamed pink house. The others live in my building and in a building five minutes away by foot on my street. It's on the way on my walk to work. We go to the park together and have dinner parties and have party parties and go to shows and go to the ballet and play with nunchucks and craft and cook and go to events around town. People say you don't know you're in the good old days until they're over, but I can assure you that I'm well aware that I'm in them right now. 

Here's me, dressed as a clown, at one such party party (I made the ruffle collar myself). 

4.23.2022 (Saturday)

Since I last wrote an entry here, my life has changed quite a bit. I've ended my dating moratorium, I've started and ended relationships that didn't even last long enough to make it past this hiatus and be written about, and I've made new friends and begun feeling a bit more settled.

One thing I'd been missing thoroughly since moving here was having a girl gang. Though I have had a few women I'm friends with for most of my time in Seattle, most of my friends here are men. Specifically gay men, but we don't bother with the specifics because, no matter how much more they think they can relate to women, they are, at the end of the day, still men. 

About two months ago, I met a friend of a friend (also the former friend of a former friend, but that's another story entirely and not one I think is really important enough to tell). His birthday party lined up perfectly with a cancelled trip to LA with Mitchel, my best friend from high school, and was an extravagant, theatrical party planned by my new friend E, who really truly should be a beloved writer. 

A lot has changed since I last wrote an entry here. 

1.20.2022 (Thursday)

I've just realized that I mistakenly wrote the date for my first post of 2022 as being on January 1st, 2021. I thought about correcting my mistake, but it's funny. 

Yesterday and today I've been cooking myself proper meals. I don't remember what I had on Tuesday, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that this is the first time since my breakup eight months ago that I've cooked myself multiple proper meals, multiple days in a row. I get that it's not a huge win in the grand scheme of things, but it is a win for me, especially because I've actually wanted to cook these meals for myself rather than feeling as though I'm forcing myself to do it. That might be the biggest win of all. 
I've also been doing things just because. I've drawn (a little bit), I've read (a little bit), I've done chores (a little bit), and I've chatted with friends a whole lot. I got a haircut the other day and, though it's now shorter than I would've liked, it's probably quite a bit healthier than it was before. The hairdresser was really nice and has some of the same hobbies and interests as me, so we exchanged instagram usernames and I think I might invite her to hang out sometime soon. We both like social dancing and fantasy novels and are (relatively) new to the city. Chatting with her reminded me of the resolution I made to meet one new person every week. Seeing as I was stuck in Utah with COVID for the first bit of the new year, I think it's safe to say that resolution was put on hold until now. And I've met two new people since I got back here! The hairdresser and a friend of Jon's, who is absolutely lovely and gave me a leather jacket (yes, gave !! it fits like a glove). 

I'm a bit lonely at the moment. I think this is because Jack is in quarantine (for who knows how much longer, it's all a bit ambiguous at the moment) and because I've just come back from being with my family for a month. And because I'm reading A Man Called Ove. It's a lovely book and I feel for him. 
I don't have much else to say, not all that much is happening in my life right now. 

Until next time! 

1.1.2021 (Saturday)

Happy new year! I'm currently stranded in the middle of the country with my parents (and older sibling) rather than in my cute little apartment, like I was supposed to be. Unfortunately, I have COVID. In kind of a funny coincidence, both my siblings and I have COVID. I got it from my older sibling, who got it from living in New York City, and our little sister got it from somebody else, seeing as she's halfway across the country from us, living and working on a sailing yacht in the Atlantic Ocean, currently (or maybe soon to be) off the coast of Florida. I know, I know, she sounds far more interesting than I. That's unfortunate truth is not lost on me, and yet here you are, reading my online journal. How unfortunate. I would like to think that, although my life is far less exciting, I might still be more interesting to talk to than she is. But maybe that's wishful thinking, as I've never been a third party talking to both of us and have never been anybody but myself at all. Regardless, all this is to say that it's funny that my parents have three sick kids and may or may not be sick themselves. And that I am stranded in Utah rather than being able to get back to Seattle in any timely manner. I've got another week and a half to go. 

In theory, this post is meant as a way to present to you my new year's resolutions and to try to hold myself accountable. I often come up with my new year's resolutions a bit after the first, but I've already come up with three and three feels like just about as much of a bite as I can chew, so I'm going to stick with these three for the time being. 

1. Read more. Specifically, read at least 40 pages of a book every day. This doesn't sound like all that much, but I've fallen out of the habit of reading and starting small is a good way to start getting back into it. If I read 40 pages a day, that's 1200 pages a month. Assuming that a book is somewhere between 300-600 pages long and that I mostly finish the books I start, I can safely assume I'll read 2-3 books a month. That comes out to around 25-35 books in the year and, well, that's far more than I read for pleasure when I was in college. I'm realizing right now, I might not let it apply on Thursdays, as I'm only home for about an hour between things outside of time spent getting ready for work and getting ready for bed. I'm too lazy to do all the math over, but it comes out to about 20-30 books overall. 
2. Talk to (at least) one new person every week and hang out with (at least) one new person every month. When meeting the new person, it doesn't matter if they're a friend of a friend, a person from a dating app (should I get back onto one of those), somebody I meet at a bar, or the person in front of me in line at the grocery store. I just need to talk to somebody, face to face, for at least ten minutes uninterrupted. 
3. Unlike the first two, this one's a restrictive one. No going on social media before 10 am. And I need to take at least one day a week off entirely from social media (no scrolling, if important I can respond to people's direct messages). In particular, I'm trying to use twitter less. I find that I feel like a very two-dimensional person sometimes because of all the time spend on my phone and, in particular, on twitter. Just because my online friends live in my cellphone doesn't mean I need to, too. 

That's all. Those are the three things. I've been pretty good about new year's resolutions in the past, but they need to be things I'm already leaning towards or have a bit of a head start on but probably wouldn't do without the final push of the resolution. For example, I've already read more for pleasure since graduating from college than I think I did any year (or maybe two, or three, or the entire time) I was in college. Again, I didn't do it much, but when you take into account that I didn't start until June and then read one book before spending the rest of the summer too sad to read, I think I did a decent job. Some of my previous resolutions have been to kiss one new person every month (this was in 2017 because I was afraid of going to college an inexperienced kisser, or perhaps just too nervous to ever take the opportunities when they arose... it became far less significant after I had sex for the first time that May and then the next day started dating somebody, though not the same somebody... it was quite an eventful night that prompted both of those things), to take a year off from buying any brand new clothes (I'm not sure exactly when I made this resolution, I don't think it was explicitly a new year's resolution, but it would've been sometime between the later half of 2016 and early 2018 when I discovered how bad the fashion industry is for the environment and swore I wouldn't contribute to that destruction and would buy everything secondhand, though there was of course an exception made for undergarments), and to entirely stop watching TV except on weekends with other people or during school breaks, unrestricted (I believe this one was at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, and I kept it in place for the most part until the pandemic, when TV became a more regular activity for me and my ex-boyfriend because we were living together and really didn't have all that much to do or talk about at the end of each and every long day spent together, just the two of us). And so, based on my previous successes, I trust that I'll be able to keep these ones relatively well. 

Also, a side note, I've decided it was silly of me to hide where I live on here. I still won't be using people's names without their permission because that's rude, but it's so unlikely that anybody I don't already know will find me on here that I've decided I can share more about myself. Plus, Seattle is a big enough city that anybody who finds just this blog with only my first name and a three year old blurry photo of myself likely won't ever find me. And if they were to stalk me enough to find me, they almost certainly would've been able to do that anyway. Not entirely sure why that felt like something I ought to share, but it did. 

Until next time! 

12.6.2021 (Monday)

I don't think anything of interest has happened since I last wrote in here. To be frank, I don't quite remember what it was that I last wrote in here. I just know it's been a week. 

I've been really enjoying my own company this week. So much so that I've almost said no to or cancelled all of my plans. But I know myself better than to do that. If I don't have enough social interaction, I'll go crazy or become sad -- though, to be fair, I only need to see other people a few times a week and can spend the rest of my time in solitude. I had three social engagements this weekend and one was just a walk Jon and I took together. 

There's a part of me that's upset that I didn't move out to New York City after graduating from college. My best friend, Mitchel, is there. So is my older sibling (though I didn't know that in advance, they decided to move there on a Friday around midday and flew out that Sunday). I think I'd like to be there too. There's just so much going on in the city, so much to do. And I've got a bit of a community out there, which is something I feel as though I'm lacking here sometimes. I know I'm not actually lacking it and that I can simply work harder to build community if I am, but sometimes it's nice to have that already built in a bit. 

Right now, I'm sitting on my sofa in a pair of pants I finally took the time to take in this evening after staring at them for months, telling myself I'd take them in soon. I just finished watching maybe my favorite movie ever (God Help the Girl), which I know objectively isn't a great movie. It's extraordinarily twee and not particularly deep, but I absolutely adore it and hopefully always will. 

Last week and this weekend, I did the very brave thing that is breaking things off and tying up loose ends with people I was seeing. Not particularly many people (contrary to Jon's beliefs, when I told him what I was doing he said "wow that's a lot of people to break things off with" and when I told him it was only two, he told me he'd thought it'd be closer to twelve. I don't know how much time he thinks I have), but enough people to make it a chore. One of the people wasn't even necessarily a person who could be counted as a person I "was seeing" as it was only our second date. After the first date, I felt fairly certain that I was only interested in friendship with them rather than romance or sex, but after seeing them again, I'm a bit less sure of that. They're a very interesting person to talk to and spend time with, and I found myself attracted to them in certain moments. Regardless, I told them about the break I'm taking from dating and said that I'd like to spend time with them as friends in the meantime, if they're okay with that. They said they were fine with that, so I'm looking forward to getting to know them better. 

I leave for the holidays soon. I'm excited to see my family again, though I just saw them for Thanksgiving. 

I had a dream the other night about my mother. Well, not directly about my mother. In the dream, I met a woman who reminds me of my mother and we chatted a bit in German and she gave me a really lovely hug and she felt exactly the way my mother feels to hug. There's something very particular about her frame and her skin. And the fact that, although she's practically skin and bone, she gives those close, deep, warm hugs that people typically need a bit more body mass to manage to give. That's part of what's incredible about my mother! She can do it anyway. When I woke up from the dream, I thought to myself: "do I miss mama? Is that what I'm being told right now?" And I thought it was funny that I could possibly already miss her because I just saw her two weeks ago. Regardless, I'm excited to see her again, though I know I'll get tired of her and my father after the three weeks I'm about to spend with them. 

Until next time!

11.28.2021 (Sunday)

I got back from my trip to New York on Friday and I've been feeling a bit uninspired about documenting it in here... I think I will soon, but when I tried to write about it earlier, it felt flat and I realized I wouldn't want to read what I was writing. 

I've spent this weekend mostly by myself, which was nice and a bit odd after having spent a week and a half constantly surrounded by my friends and family while I was visiting. I do think it was much needed. Friday evening and Saturday morning I was with one of my best friends here. I haven't told her about this whole online journal thing yet, so I haven't asked if I can use her name in it. For now, we'll refer to her as B. On Friday, B and I went out for barbecue, then lazed around my apartment and watched Rupaul's Drag Race (which I'd never watched before) until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. She went home because, although it was originally intended to be a sleepover, she wasn't tired yet and I kept falling asleep, which I'll blame on jet lag. I woke up bright and early (though not very bright, we live in a dark and rainy place) and we went to a French bakery to get breakfast, which we ate at her apartment. I'd never been to her apartment before. We always hang out at my apartment because it's bigger and has more seating and also because I require more social interaction than she does so I'm usually the one to make plans and invite her over. 

I told myself that I'd work on sewing projects I've been neglecting and maybe clean my apartment for the rest of the day before maybe seeing Jon in the evening, but none of those things came to fruition. There was a nice glow coming in through the kitchen window, so I took off on a walk. Whenever I set out on a walk, I decide it's going to be short and sweet and I don't bother dressing for the weather or making sure my phone has a charge before I leave. Yesterday's walk ended up being three hours long and took me almost all the way to a friend's work, but I decided about ten minutes before I would've arrived that I needed to go home because I had a momentary burst of sewing inspiration, which did not survive the hour-long walk home. I had to go to the FedEx store to pick up a package, which turned out to be a pair of fancy pajamas I ordered online when I got my second paycheck. The first paycheck was used to replenish my saving's account after I'd drained it in the process of moving. I spent a good portion of the rest of the day lounging around in my new pajamas and reading a book on my sofa, and asked Jon if he wanted to spend some time together. Jon told me he'd let me know when he was available in the evening, which he never did. Not that I particularly expected him to. 

Today was a very lazy day, though I did manage to do one or two productive things. I woke up at 7:30 but somehow didn't leave my apartment until nearly 11, despite my plans to be up and at 'em early today. I decided to drive to a part of town I'd only been in once before to take care of some errands (really just buying soap). Life is more fun when you do mundane tasks in kind of random places rather than staying around your area. I generally prefer to walk, but after yesterday's nine mile walk, I figured it was fine if I drove instead. Plus, I generally only drive once every two or three weeks for some random errand or to pick a friend up from the airport. For a moment there, I had enough friends coming and going that I could've come up with a name and started a lucrative airport shuttle business. I got breakfast near the store I was going to and got a decent breakfast sandwich. Nothing to write home about (though that makes it funny that I'm writing about it here), but satisfying nonetheless. I also went to the grocery store. Trader Joe's, to be more specific, which means that I came home with an interesting selection of frozen foods, but couldn't find sardines to put on the focaccia I bought. In hindsight, I have a hard time imagining that there wasn't a single can of sardines in the entire store, but I didn't find it and so it didn't seem to exist. 

A majority of my afternoon was spent alone. I'm not entirely certain what I did in the time after I got back from the store, but I know I didn't get most of the things on my to do list done. I did, however, end up spending time with Jon. He came over and we chatted and caught up about the last two weeks and ate some pistachios. I really love the moments we spend together, him on the little blue sofa and me on the big green one, talking about all sorts of things and also nothing at all. Today, I proclaimed to him that I've decided to stop being interested in my crush and that I may simply decide never to fall in love again because it doesn't quite seem worth it. He told me that I'm not really in charge of that and that it's all a part of being human. He's been spending a lot of time with his partner recently, as opposed to before they started dating (which makes a lot of sense), and so I try to make the most of our time together by being as obnoxious as possible. 

As I've written about in here before, I've been thinking a lot about time spent by myself and how I can make the most of it. Not in a productivity way, but in an enjoyment of human existence sort of way. I think that maybe the best way for me to do that is to take a break from dating. Again, I've gone into it a bit before, but I feel like I really lost the ability to spend time by myself during my previous relationship, which made having such an abrupt breakup more difficult for me than it already would've been. I already decided that I won't be getting into anything serious for a year after my breakup, but I jumped into dating and I'm just not sure it's serving me in the same way it was when I first got here. Recently I've had a bit of a revolving door of people I've gone on dates with, enough so that it's been possible for dating to consume me nearly as much as my previous relationship did (for scale, there was one week when I went on six dates). After spending my time in New York focused entirely on the joy of friendship and family, save for the one date I went on just for fun, I have decided to take a break and reassess and maybe resume in January. Maybe I'll never date again!

I think it might be good for me to write more at some point about how my previous relationship shaped my life and constricted me and how I want to be more intentional about not falling into a similar pattern moving forward, but I'll leave it at that for now. 

Until next time!