I give so much of me up
To those who don’t deserve it
(So much kindness to ones
Who end up selfish and shitty)
Knowing that they won’t change.
Yet I continue breaking off little bits of myself,
Handing off the smallest slivers,
Trying to fix their problems,
Agonizing over things I cannot control,
Hoping that one day
Someone will appreciate me
Instead of using me up.
–08/14/2018
So I am still talking to said guy, who still does not have a nom de plume. I really need to give him one. The fact that I am talking to him still is actually kind of a miracle–not a walking-on-water-in-the-middle-of-a-crazy-storm kind of miracle, but more like a I-ate-like-crap-all-week-and-ran-once-and-somehow-didn’t-gain-weight kind of miracle–simply because I am not good at this. At what, you may ask? Talking? Well…no. I am rather good at talking. I am not good at talking to guys that I like. Or know how to successfully flirt. Or nab a guy…see how I used the word nab? I make it sound like I am a police officer who successfully caught a bank robber. I should twirl my mustache too, while I’m at it.
*twirls mustache*
When I’m not busy nabbing guys, I like to tie young maidens to train tracks. I’m very early 20th century mustache twirler.
But anyway, I am still talking to him. He is still pretty damn hot and funny and delish…and I haven’t done anything too crazy to make him think maybe he shouldn’t continue to talk to me. So…miracle. I actually think that he finds me hilarious, which is a win. When in doubt, let my sense of humor cancel out my awkwardness like FOX cancelled American Idol (too soon?). I’ve gotten pretty close a few times to doing something completely batshit but I somehow talked myself out of it. Google is a life saver. My search engine is full of random keywords that make me sound like a fourteen year old girl. Who knew that there were so many articles out there in the Interwebs dedicated to making loons like me feel less cray?
Because there is a lot of stuff on the Interwebs to make me feel less cray.
This girl is apparently stressed because she has multiple texts/crucial conversations/potential drug deals all going on at once?
14 Year Old Me is obviously Angelina because bad bangs and Sun-In.
Let’s be completely honest…your hair never once actually looked like this.
Two friends of mine got married today. I didn’t go to the wedding because I had to work, but also because weddings give me anxiety.
I know, I’m an asshole.
I’ve always been averse to marriage. I guess I just rebelled against the idea that good little girls grew up and got married and had babies and were good wives and mothers and that’s all that society wanted from them. I was always the girl who was the nonconformist, the one who marched to the beat of her own drum. I wanted to be respected and to be known for more than being just some guy’s wife. Mrs. So-And-So, like my own name didn’t matter anymore. The idea of being a Mr. and Mrs. Blahblahblah and losing the ability to be identified by my own last name freaked me out.
Disney, however, gave me the inner confliction of being someone’s happily-ever-after and so in a way I wanted all that marriage crap. I wanted to be loved and have someone who wanted to spend the rest of their life with me. In fact, all the way up until I was 20 I thought that I would fall hopelessly in love with the first guy I fell in love with and he would be The One and I would get married and BAM, happily ever after achieved. End level, character power up and max score bonus. Easy peasy, right?
WRONG.
Got my heart broken by my first “love”. Got knocked up and left to be a single mom. Got up after a few years of inner healing and got back in the game. I’ve never been a huge dater and can count my boyfriends on a single hand. Dating and all the shit that comes with it just never appealed to me. I guess I’m not the average girl. I don’t know. But I do know that I hadn’t found anyone that I wanted to spend the rest of my time on this planet with–and that I wasn’t buying into society’s shit about finding “The One” because it seemed like they thought they found The One and it turned out that they were The One Right Now But Not Really. You married someone and then got divorced and got married again and repeated the cycle as many times as you fell in love, thought you found your soul mate, fucked up, and started again. It seemed like a very expensive and painful way to date. Like a really unnecessary iOS.
And for some reason, I’ve always tended to gravitate towards older guys. Maybe it’s because my mom and dad are twenty years apart and made it work for the past thirty. Maybe it’s because I thought perhaps older guys had their shit together. I’m starting to think that maybe I’m wrong and maybe they’re as impossibly fucked up as the 28 and 29 year old guys that surround me on a daily basis. Maybe the older guys I dated are just out of the norm and are fucked up–like a defected version of an adult…or maybe as I’m getting older I’m seeing that we never leave behind our younger selves with all our quirks and fucked up-ness and immaturity. Maybe. I mean, I dated a guy fifteen years older than me and he’s as fucked up as my friend who just turned 29 last month. Maybe.
Weddings make me sad because they make me realize that I can’t keep it together in the way that society expects me to. I can’t keep a boyfriend, and the last guy I dated had me over the moon and completely and totally head-over-heels…like I finally saw myself maybe marrying someone. And what happens? Oh, you know…he just goes back to the ex-wife he was never really over who really really resembles me–and she lives a state away and he lives eight streets from me. I make them want someone six hundred miles away. Just the typical, usual, fucked up shit that happens in my life. If it wasn’t so comical, I think I would be really sad a lot of the time. Weddings make me think that maybe I’m just not capable of finding someone who wants to be with me and doesn’t use me as a pale imitation of The One that they never fully let go of. I think I make them want to go back to the The One They Never Fully Let Go Of. And then they put a ring on it again and spend the rest of their lives with that stupid person, while I sit around pretending I’m okay even though I’m secretly, quietly wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Le sigh.
I had a player at the casino today say, “You’re so nice. Why don’t you have a ring on your finger?” Well, Random Nice Player Guy, I am nice. I’m pretty damn awesome. But being nice and being awesome doesn’t mean that I need to enter into an expensive and potentially lifetime agreement with a guy, you know? I don’t think a band of precious metal and a rock measures my worth as a human being. I’d like to have a guy come up to me and be like, “You are pretty and funny and smart and awesome and wonderful and quirky and you are perfect just the way you are and I would be honored if you would like to share your awesome life with me.” Just. Like. That. No crazy baggage or brokenness or hangups or issues or fucked up-ness. Just a great awesome guy who is hot and funny and smart and isn’t hung up on their last girlfriend or ex-wife or someone they dated ten years ago. Maybe that guy doesn’t exist. He sounds a lot like a unicorn. Covered in hot pink glitter.
Yup.
Congrats to my two friends. I wish them many years of happiness and that this is the only marriage they participate in. Have tons of kids and cookies and anniversaries and grow old together and all that sappy wonderful jazz that they talk about a lot in greeting cards. Good luck!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I made a list of things that I wanted to accomplish as a single lady. A badass single lady.
But nowhere near as badass as this.
But anyway, the first thing I decided to tackle (mainly because it seemed quite possibly the easiest thing to get accomplished) was #4 on the list.
4. Be moderately successful or even slightly successful at this online dating stuff.
Exactly.
Anyway, I have always felt that online dating (such as Match and eHarmony and Plenty of Fish) is for life losers. I personally do not think that I am a life loser, but hell, those people in those commercials look so happy and what the hell, I should get to be happy. Right? Right.
So I decided to try this online dating shit back in November because I obviously suck something terrible at the normal route of dating. I made a profile on Match and on eHarmony, and I learned something about myself right off the bat.
I am incredibly shallow. Yes, my last boyfriend was overweight, but he carried it well and had a good looking face. That offset the chubbiness. But you can’t have a jacked up face or be plain or be fat or awkward looking or any/all of that in various possible combinations/at the same time. I can’t be having any of that. I mean, I think I’m pretty.
That face.
I totally deserve a hot guy who is almost as awesome as me. And that man has to exist somewhere in the annals of online dating.
Or so I thought.
Well…optimistically talked myself into thinking. Because I am a bit of a realist and I think that online dating is just strange. But whatever. My friends told me that it’s not weird anymore and that people do it because they have hectic schedules and life is all digital and interconnected in the fucking global village and all that technobabble. I decided to keep an open mind and try to talk to some guys who seemed cute. So I tried the free shit first, but you can’t read messages or look at people’s pictures when it’s free, and as I brought up in the previous paragraphs, I am pretty fucking shallow. So I paid the stupid but cheapest possible fee that I could. Match offers a month to month option for like $36 (or something–I don’t feel like looking it up) and that’s kind of less desperate feeling than eHarmony, who only lets you get a full year for different payment options. That made me feel lame in all sorts of ways. Paying to look at people who probably either felt as awkward and lame as I did or were actually excited and optimistic about online dating because they had exhausted every other possible option. Ugh.
I should have listened to you, Lemon.
But I kept an open mind. Even through all the weird messages from the socially awkward creeper sorts who looked like they were socially awkward creepers in high school and the weird guys who “liked” my pictures and the icebreaker things that consist of random questions and stuff. I was kind of desperate to find someone wonderful to get my mind off my ex, who I still missed terribly. So I kept an open mind and told myself that I would find someone. Someone worthwhile. Someone hot and funny and not a weird creeper.
I kept up with this for two months. (I stopped the first time in December because it was a complete failure in my opinion. I started up again in January because I thought it was maybe worth another try.)
And then I found this guy on Match who was possibly the Holy Grail of online dating. He was hot. He was funny. He didn’t seem like a weirdo creeper. So I messaged him and we talked and then he said something that struck me as somewhat odd, but it was a legit question: Did I want something serious or just something casual? I chose to say that I wasn’t sure and that you couldn’t really know what you wanted until you met that person and could gauge the potential chemistry. Boom. Solid answer. Get me ready for The Bachelor now.
Actually…no. Fuck that shit. That’s like every single shitty dating site wrapped into one douchebag guy. No grazie.
He was all like “yeah that’s right, you can’t know until you meet someone” and I was like hmm…maybe this guy is legit? So I traded numbers with him and we texted and then…I get this little textular bomb: I’m just looking for a hookup.
Of course he was. Because of course. That would have tied in nicely with The Single Chick Bucket List #3: Have a random hookup/one night stand. But for some reason, that felt wrong. I didn’t want a stupid hookup situation. I very politely told him that I was past that phase of my life (because I am) and I wished him the best and that was that. I deleted his number and I stopped talking to him. I’m sure I could have kept slogging through the endless profiles and photos until I found “The One”, but shit. It’s not worth it. I don’t have the time for that and I couldn’t shake the inherent feeling that I have that it’s not really for me. It’s not. I hate dating, but I think I hate online dating even more.
So I deactivated my Match profile and cancelled my membership. I took that as a sign. I also took it as a sign that The Guy had the same name as my ex but spelled differently and he turned out to be a cretin. Shocker. I can’t delete my eHarmony one until November, so I just don’t go on it and I have all the emails from Match and eHarmony directed into my trash. I guess I will suffer through the stupid traditional way of dating…but not right now. This online dating thing reminded me that maybe I’m not ready to jump into the pool of quicksand that is dating and relationships and heartbreak. I have way too much going on for a boyfriend. I have a list of life things to get through and a dad who is super sick with cancer and a wonderfully fabulous nine year old and a brand new shift at work and a fledgling social life and I just don’t want that boyfriend aspect. I still somewhat want that boyfriend aspect with my ex, who has pretty much become less than a stranger to me and as sad and as pathetic as that seems…it’s true. And it’s not fair to anyone for me to pursue a relationship when I’m still kind of broken up over him. I will have my Netflix and my son and my family and friends and that’s fine for now.
I would much rather watch Mad Men in my sweats than deal with the awkwardness of pimping myself out per se to awkward men online.
And I had to pay for it!!!
So…
4. Be moderately successful or even slightly successful at this online dating stuff.
So I got dumped. And fell into a depressive rut.
It’s kind of weird and liberating to see that typed out. Kind of painful too. But anyway, I was dumped by someone who I thought loved me and it made me fall right on my face…and then I decided that I would much rather wallow with my face stuck in the rug of despair than to get up and face the world like the cruel bitch that she totally is. I spent all my time outside of work sleeping to avoid the sharp ache in my chest and lost weight grieving for the relationship that was no more. I was a sad and emotionally lost mess of a person for a while.
I was a sad, depressive mess. I wasn’t even witty or funny like I usually am.
Time heals wounds slowly, and even though I’m still kind of sad and still really hurt, life goes on. I have some amazing friends, and they helped me tremendously. I figure I am one awesome, badass chick and if my ex-boyfriend couldn’t see that and had to go back to his ex, then…that’s his loss. I’m still beautiful and smart and funny. It still sucks for me, though. I’m trying to keep my head above water, and I am getting there, one day at a time. It’s even harder because I have to see him every day, but when life throws you lemons you mix those bitches with vodka and simple syrup and make grownup lemonade. And then proceed to drink a lot of it.
Screw you, shitty life lemons.
But anyway, I was inspired one night while on the dice table (the most random shit comes to me while I’m dealing) to make a list of shit that I can do now that I am single. Sure, I could have done it while I was in a relationship, but it wouldn’t help me heal and feel better about myself–nay, it would have just become more memories for me to cry over at 5 am. So I have jotted down little things in a numbered list (I don’t usually make lists, but when I do, they are either bulleted or numbered) in the Notes app on my handy dandy iPhone. I plan to knock these babies out as an awesomely single lady and make some amazing memories sans dude that I can look back on when I’m an old lady with no regrets.
Get it, girls.
I call it…The Single Chick Bucket List. I plan to blog about each one as I go, and hopefully I can add to the list as I go and cross off as many things as I can.
1. Go to NYC alone.
I went to New York in 2012 with my ex, and I would really like to create some new memories of my own. Plus, I had always dreamed of moving there after high school, but life kind of got in the way. I would like to spend a few days there alone just to indulge in my Girls-meets-Sex and the City fantasy.
2. Learn to drive and then get my license.
Little factoid about me: I don’t know how to drive. My parents sold their car before I started Kindergarten and they never bought a new one. I’m a boss at public transportation, but I have only driven a car two or three times, and I was kind of horrible at it.
3. Have a random hookup/one night stand.
This one makes me nervous. I keep reading that one night stands are the best way to get your mind off a breakup, and that girls should be able to have meaningless and empty sex just like guys can without feeling guilty. This one is a huge step out of my comfort zone, but I missed out on dorm life and parties and I hear that these things went down like whatever in college. And my ex is obviously having sex, so why shouldn’t I?
4. Be moderately successful or even slightly successful at this online dating stuff.
Ugh, yes I am attempting this shit again. If other people can have success with this crap, I should too. I still feel like it’s for life losers, so even if I have just a decent or funny story to come out of Match.com I feel like it won’t be a complete waste of time.
5. Take sexy photos at a professional photography studio.
So since February 2012, I lost roughly around 40 pounds. I went from 162 to about 124. I am at my post baby weight circa 2005. I have always wanted to go get those sexy little pinup boudoir shots done, but I always felt chunky and not sexy enough naked to be immortalized on film. I still catch myself stopping and staring at myself in the mirror when I get dressed because I can’t believe how amazing I look now that I lost all that weight. I feel like now I can get those pictures done and feel proud of myself.
6. Get my passport.
I have always had wanderlust, and I want to do something about it. I want to travel the world and see all kinds of wonderful things. I plan on getting my son his passport too in a few years and we can travel together.
7. Write a novel.
I always start, but I never finish.
8. Record a song in a studio.
I’m a phenomenal singer and I never did anything with it. I would love to record an EP just to have so I can say that I sang in an actual recording studio.
9. Go to Alaska/London/Ireland.
I would love to do all three, but I will definitely settle for Alaska.
10. Learn French or Italian.
I want to feel worldly. Spanish doesn’t make me feel worldly…it makes me feel like I had to learn it to graduate from high school.
11. Go back to college.
I want to get my bachelor’s, even if it takes longer than four years.
12. Be brave.
I’m non-confrontational, and I don’t like to stir up drama. I need to learn to find my voice and use it more often.
13. Learn how to finally play the guitar.
I have owned a guitar for years and never figured out how to play it. I want to sign up for lessons and be able to be that angsty-yet-cute musician girl at the coffee shop by my house.
14. Run a 5K.
I hate running. I’m clumsy and uncoordinated and I feel like I should attempt to run a 5K just so I can say that I can. Plus maybe I might turn out to get better at it and actually enjoy it.
So that is the list for now. I’m sure I will add to it, and hopefully I will achieve success to most of the things I have typed out. I feel like this is a great confidence booster for me and will help me to discover more of myself as a person. And maybe someone who went through a terrible breakup or some other horrible life experience will read this post or one of the others where I accomplish these things and be inspired to do something great too.
That would be wonderful.
So I’m going to take a moment to state the obvious.
Why thank you, Captain.
Breaking up sucks. A lot.
I mean…there’s a lot of shit that happens in a relationship that is pretty wonderful. You become best friends with your partner. You guys have cute moments together. You can do stupid stuff around them and know that they don’t find you weird because they think you are pretty. And hey, that’s nice. There’s a certain amount of comfort in a relationship. You know their quirks and even though you think it’s weird that they turn the water off when they brush their teeth and that they like to wear Crocs with socks, you don’t judge them because they could easily judge you pretty hardcore for snorting when you laugh really hard and that squirrels freak you out more than the average person. You don’t feel the need to wear pants or mascara when you are with them. You’re comfortable. And that’s nice.
It’s nice.
But then you break up, and…it’s not nice. It’s pretty fucking horrendous. You go from loving that person and wanting to spend every moment with them to hating their guts and hoping they fall off a cliff, Mayan sacrifice style. One person generally doesn’t really care about the way things ended, and the other person finds themselves underneath a desk, crying and drinking from a bottle of merlot.
And then comes the whole grieving and healing process, which inevitably leads to the moving on part. One of you typically moves on faster than the other, spurring the other one (who hates relationships and love and dating in general at the moment because their heart has been ripped out and soaked in cheap wine) to jump on the metaphorical horse.
Fuck. That. Horse.
I don’t particularly like horses anyway. I rode one once at Girl Scout camp, and I was not a fan of the experience. They are okay if I don’t have to climb up on one and ride it. But anyway…jumping on the metaphorical horse. It sucks. That person feels like they have to half ass their attempt just enough so that people don’t think that they are crazy and just enough to convince themselves that they aren’t going to grow old alone and die without anyone finding their body for weeks. So you kind of dip your foot in the shallow end of the kiddie pool. Kind of like how I wanted said horse to be a Shetland pony and was promptly told that no, the metaphorical horse of dating is a noble steed. (I can’t exactly jump up on a noble steed seeing as I’m only 5’1″. Maybe I can climb up if someone puts a step stool next to it.) You do what you have to do to shut people up. And hey, maybe you make it just weird enough so that they will quit bugging you to start dating.
Because you aren’t ready and you want to stay under that desk and cry a little bit longer, damn it.
So I tried, just to shut everyone up. I started actually doing my makeup when I went to work and smiled, because nothing makes you look like you are back on the market like eyeliner and a smile. Jesus. I tilted my head and laughed at the appropriate moments in conversations with attractive men. But I’m not particularly feeling it. So I have my moments of angst circa 1997 Dawson’s Creek and pout and feel sad because damn it, I’m sad. I’m allowed to be sad. But society wants me to get over it and there are more fish in the sea and you’re gonna make it after all because that’s life. I made an eHarmony profile. I feel embarrassed. Maybe there isn’t a social stigma attached to online dating, but I still feel like it’s for the weird lame people who can’t carry on a face to face conversation with a person.
I hate it. I suck at dating to begin with, I hate the whole process and feel incredibly awkward–I would much rather just bypass that shit and go right to being in a relationship, but it doesn’t work that way. I discovered that I am too shallow for online dating. I want a man with a pretty face. I met a guy and it seemed okay, we talked on the site’s messenger thing, but he suddenly stopped talking and I am past that point in my life where I am going to try to pursue a guy who will not initiate conversation. I’m 28. I’m too old for that shit. So I brushed it off and had a moment of oh my god I’m going to die alone and the mailman will find my body. I went out for my birthday. Seized the night and all that glamorous glitter. I posted a picture of myself from my soiree on eHarmony just because I wanted to see if there are any hot guys on there, and the non-initiater of conversations looked at my picture (because their news feed is kind of on the creepy stalker side and shows you whenever they go to your page). I don’t blame him. I looked good. Much like Ron Burgundy in a suit.
I was rocking that dress 🙂
So I was like well okay, maybe I’ll give this guy another go. We started chatting it up again and exchanged numbers and started texting. It was all good for a few days until he did the same thing as before. I refuse to chase another man. Nope. So I have decided that I am going to be single and wallow until I’m damn good and ready. Screw you society and your norms. I will eat Reese’s cups and read Girls in White Dresses over and over until I’ve had enough of witty chick lit and peanut butter paired with milk chocolate. Judge away. I don’t care.
And as for that stupid horse? I think I’ll walk.
I have been trying to figure out for weeks a suitable post to tie up all the frayed and broken ends of 2013 and usher in 2014, but I have had the worst case of writer’s block.
I blame it on 2013 itself.
It was, for the most part, a terrible year. My boyfriend finally moved here, which I thought would be awesome and fantastic, something I wanted for an entire year…but we broke up. He’s currently working things out with his ex-wife, and I’m still nursing a broken heart and how I must be Good Luck Chuck for divorced guys (this is the second time this has happened to me…the first was with my son’s dad). I’ve been having a hard time healing. I’m not going to go into it.
My son had a rough year too. We discovered he has ADHD and quite possibly dyslexia. Add that to the stress of the previous paragraph…and I think I’m struggling with a touch of depression. I won’t go into specifics, but yeah…I think I have depression. Just a little.
Hence the writer’s block. But I came upon this Tweet from Khloé Kardashian, not particularly known as being a wellspring of philosophical knowledge, and it was perfect.
I know that based on the hashtags, she was referring to fitness, but to me…it sums up everything. 2013 was garbage. I’m a vastly different person than I was in 2012. Broken. Cried out. Still in love with someone who doesn’t want me…Still reeling from losing someone who was my best friend and the love of my life. But 2014 shows I’m a slightly different person than 2013 left me. Am I still ravaged? Definitely. But I’m hopeful. My heart will heal eventually, even though I don’t want it to. I don’t want to say goodbye, but I have to. I have to swallow the pain and unanswered questions and bury the love that I have because it’s over. Unfortunately. And I’m sure I’ll go through this all over again. And again. And each time it will hurt just as bad as the last because life doesn’t get easier…you just get stronger. And I guess that’s life.
So fuck you, 2013.
2014…please just be better.
I miss Chicago…and everything that comes along with it 
Siiiiiigh.
I hate that it’s going to be almost October before I get to go out there again.
Time flies when you’re living life.
In Niagara Falls, Canada back in May.
I hadn’t realized that April was the last time I blogged! I suppose that in the rush of everything positive that has gone on over the past three months, I just didn’t have time to write. The casino opened May 14, and the shift I had been on up until last night made it damn near impossible to do anything but work and sleep–I worked what we call “sunrise” (a more pleasant-sounding spin on the more depressing-sounding graveyard shift), and when you work from 1 am to 9 am, you find that blogging ranks pretty low on your list of priorities 😛 But anyway, life at the casino is great. I love being a dealer, it’s pretty fun to just essentially play games and interact with people for eight hours and get paid. I’m surprised at how comfortable I have gotten dealing roulette; if you had thrown me on a roulette table back in April I probably would have burst into tears (as a matter of fact, back in April I did burst into tears on the table in class) and froze up. Now I can easily tell you how much five straight-ups (175) and 7 splits (119) are (294), all in my head. I actually enjoy dealing roulette more than blackjack, and the people that I’ve known since the original Table Games Service Academy (Dec. 2011 to Feb. 2012) can tell you how much of a 180 that is! It’s great to work with people I enjoy and actually feel appreciated, something that I never once felt at the dealership. I have no stress and I’m relaxed…I love it.
Other that, one would say that my life is wonderfully mundane. Nicky is getting so big! He’ll be in second grade in three weeks, and he’s only 11 inches shorter than me–that doesn’t say a lot for me, but 50 inches is a pretty huge achievement for him 🙂 He’s had a summer filled with climbing the tree in our front yard, swimming in his friend’s pool, playing baseball, and just being a little boy with his entire summer vacation ahead of him.
Nicky during Marine Week back in June. He has had an awesome summer so far!
My boyfriend and I are still together and are pretty happy. He went home in the middle of June, and I went out to Chicago for a few days this past month to see him, which was great because I love the city (and him, but that’s beside the point :P). We’re pretty confident that we can make this long distance thing work.
I also lost nearly 20 pounds since February, I’ve gone from 160 to roughly 145-147 pounds. I’ve joined a gym and am trying to be a lot healthier in my eating and lifestyle habits. I feel great, and I love how I feel. I was thinking about losing 20 more, but I don’t want to lose my curves, so I might drop about 10 to 15 more and build muscle.
I actually didn’t notice how much weight I’d lost until I took the picture on the right at my boyfriend’s house in Indiana.
I have every intent of being more consistent with this blog now that I am on swing shift and have more time during the day to get things done. I’m actually going to sign off now to go eat dinner and get ready to go to work…Til next time, XO!
I loved Disney movies as a child.
I loved to sing along with the songs, and I adored the princesses, especially Jasmine and Belle. As a gap-toothed, messy haired eight year old, I loved that Jasmine decided she’d run away before marrying someone she didn’t want to (I just found the idea of marriage ridiculous since you know, all boys were gross and had cooties) and I loved that Belle would rather help her kooky dad with his inventions and read books all day instead of being interested in that jerk Gaston (because, yet again, all boys were gross and had cooties). I will admit, that even at eight, I was fascinated with the idea of a happily ever after, where all your dreams came true and all the wrongs were made right by true love’s first kiss. I had no idea how unrealistic that was.
Belle is my all-time favorite Disney princess. She was the only one who didn't care that girls who could read weren't considered cool. And she was the only girl in her town who didn't fawn over that bastard Gaston.
I had a fairly good idea that life didn’t actually work out like it did in The Little Mermaid or Aladdin. There was no magical Genie, full of jokes and goodhearted cheer, who would make all my wildest fantasies come true. I wasn’t going to rub a lamp and become a princess or marry Jonathan Taylor Thomas. It didn’t work like that. I also wasn’t going to be attacked by a crazy lady who was half octopus. I was pretty grateful for that 😛 But still, I loved the idea of finding my own Prince Charming, this amazing and beautiful and perfect guy who was going to sweep me off my feet and we’d get married and have a happily ever after of our own. I figured that I’d find him eventually, and when I did, it was going to be the greatest thing ever. I’d have the big stupid house with the white picket fence and the two kids (one girl, one boy) and the dream car and the obligatory golden retriever and life would just be friggin’ grand.
...Because in 1996, JTT was part of every girl's happy ending.
Yeah…life doesn’t work like that. And if it does, Lord have I kissed enough frogs to warrant me my freaking happy ending. My son’s father was a class act who was separated from his wife and swore he was going to get divorced, and I was stupid enough at 18 to believe him. He wound up leaving me to go back to her twice, the final time being after she had a kid exactly ten months after my son was born. There have been guys who turned out to be crazy morons who may or may not have beat their past girlfriends. There have been guys who couldn’t kiss their way out of a well-lit paper bag with the exit clearly marked. There were guys who were even worse in bed. There were guys who strung me along, guys who just wanted to be friends with benefits, and guys who turned out to be racially confused drug dealers. I’m only 26, and I have to admit that I’m tired. I feel like I deserve a happily ever after.
Frogs may be cute, but they are NOT good kissers.
And I kind of wish that Disney had put more effort into the realism of the “happily ever after”. Why not show what happened to Belle and the Prince after they got married? All we saw was them dancing at the end of the film. Why not show what would happen once they got comfortable and Belle realized that the Prince wasn’t going to be all sweet and romantic like he was when they first fell in love? Why not show Jasmine getting frustrated because Aladdin wouldn’t take that damn monkey outside to poop? Why not show Ariel laying in bed, wishing that Eric would get the hint that she wanted to have sex instead of him watching Pawn Stars again and falling asleep before midnight? I wish they had showed us girls that it’s not easy, that the idea of a happy ending takes work and patience and a healthy dose of rationality. Maybe then people wouldn’t give up on a relationship the first time you have a huge fight. Maybe then we wouldn’t rush into marriage and rush into divorce even more quickly than we rushed into the wedding. Maybe we wouldn’t be so preoccupied with the end game of our relationship…maybe then we’d focus on the now. I’m learning that the now is the best part of being in love with someone. When you focus on the end game all it does is stress you out and cause you to feel like crap.
My boyfriend is here on business; that’s how we met. I knew from the beginning that he was going home after he was all done here in Cleveland–home being roughly five and a half hours away. It’s not crazy far, but I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship before, and honestly, the Internet really hasn’t been much of a help in telling me all the fabulous ways for us to stay together (But really, is the Internet ever really helpful? Really.). I’ve had people tell me it’s not going to work, while others have said that it most certainly will, if you are willing to put the time and effort into it–I’m more than willing to try, but Jesus Christ, I wish that there was something that I could have referenced as a child that I could draw upon now to make me feel better once he leaves in June. Seriously, Disney, you need to come up with a modern princess who I can relate to. Right now, the only princess I’ve got is Emma from Once Upon A Time, and she doesn’t even know she’s a princess, damn it!
Pfft. Try telling her that there's such a thing as a happily ever after. Emma'd believe that as much as she'd believe she's really a fairy tale princess. And then she'd probably kick your ass.
All I know is that I can’t be the only one who is tired of chasing after a guy who doesn’t really exist. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon Charming when the time is right. Maybe I already have 🙂
Chasing Lala 