On Being Happy.

For the first time in a long time, I feel genuinely happy. For the past two months or so, I’ve just felt… content.

And it’s weirding me out. I’ve spent so much of my life being unhappy, I don’t know how to behave when I’m not.

I just feel like there’s nothing weighing me down right now. I dropped out of school, work is great, my family life is fairly stable, and I think that I’ve changed and grown a lot in the past year. Thanks in large part to the ridiculously flawed relationship I had with my ex-boyfriend. I really hope our relationship didn’t have a negative effect on him, because I think on many levels I spent a good chunk of it subconsciously taking advantage of his good nature to better myself. I used to have this terrible attachment problem, but in being with someone that a lot of the time I wasn’t all that attached to, I learned how to be with someone without losing myself. I still have miles to go before I can have an open, honest, and level relationship with anyone - but Brian was a big stepping stone for me. I know I should feel bad about how I treated him, and in many ways I do, but I can’t dwell on it. It’s not as though I cheated on him, or betrayed him in any way, I just don’t think I CARED as much as he did.

And I’m not going to beat myself up about it. There’s nothing I can do about it now. And that’s how I’m trying to view more things in my life - if it’s in the past, there’s nothing I can do about it now. There’s no sense in holding a grudge, or crying over spilt milk. I’ve put so much time and energy into negativity that just a few months of trying to be a generally positive person have completely changed me. Sure, I still complain too much, talk too much, and worry too much - but I can’t expect to change everything overnight. What I can expect is to know myself better, understand why I react certain ways, understand how to reign myself in, and learn what I want out of life and my future.

So, I’m taking baby steps. Baby steps towards happiness and the rest of my life.

Being Sarah Marshall

To start, I feel something of a prelude is necessary. I’ve only had one romantic relationship in my life that lasted over three months. This, of course, not counting any unrequited obsessions with celebrities. The relationship in question lasted for a little over a year, and ended a little over a month ago. Anyone who has ever broken up with someone knows that your feelings don’t just turn off, and you can never be completely confident in your decision. Despite this and quite few bouts with tears and an unnecessary amount of whining to my dad and best friends, I’m doing a good job of moving on. Except for the unnecessary amount of cyber-stalking. I’ll blame being raised in the information age for that.

Due to said cyber-stalking, I am under the impression that my ex, Brian, has begun to see me as a Sarah Marshall. Normally I would accept any comparison to the beautiful and talented Kristen Bell with open arms, but under the circumstances I’m understandably unflattered. After all, I didn’t carry on a second relationship with a creepy British rock star for 20% of our relationship, and I absolutely didn’t leave him for someone else.

Admittedly, I was kissed by two other men during our relationship, although both instances were over eight months ago, and involved a shocking amount of liquor. Neither instance was followed by anything other than me shouting and leaving, so they were never mentioned to my ex. If he happens to be reading this, he should know that neither of the aforementioned men are named Scott. And anyway, being kissed and being adulterous are two very different things.

Through tumblr, Brian has said things that anyone who knows him could easily see were aimed at me. Or, I could be a paranoid schizophrenic. We won’t rule that out. Some of them were reactions to things I had posted, tweeted, and texted. Okay, most of them.

I guess that does make me a bit of a Sarah Marshall. While I don’t have a new relationship to flaunt in front of him, I have been flaunting my newfound freedom. Although I haven’t done anything as low as faking it with Aldous Snow just to put on a show, I have probably been overly affectionate with him in public.

I’m not innocent. I left him, and I’m sure it seemed fairly out of the blue at the time. But, much like Sarah Marshall, I had my reasons. I’m not going to list them here, and as much as I would like to say it was really all his fault, it wasn’t. So, if I need to be Sarah Marshall so he can get over it, I’ll be Sarah Marshall. If he gets a puppeteering career out of it, I’ll expect to see my name on the credits.

In My Dreams

This morning, I first woke a little after 6am. I believe it was a text message that woke me, but I also had a voicemail. This beautiful boy with a voice made of hot coffee and caramel recited lyrics to Wasted Loaf by Meatloaf as if they were meant to be a sweet Shakespearean sonnet. I listened and smiled, before falling swiftly back to sleep.

In my dream, I was in New York City, in a tight room filled with people, cigarette smoke, and music that I don’t remember. There was a boy sitting on a sunken-in couch with a mohawk worn down, light blonde with shocks of faded pink dye. He wore a green army surplus jacket, and a plain white tee-shirt underneath. I don’t remember the pants, or the shoes. We made quick eye contact as I clutched my keg cup.

“I hate places like this, don’t you?” I asked, and he nodded up at me. “I feel like I’ve been to a million and one.” Sounds from the room filled the silence and space separating us. “I think I’ll walk home now.” I looked at him once more, and slipped away.

In my dream, I couldn’t see myself any more. I had left the building but my vision stayed on the boy being swallowed by the couch. I watched him shake his head, and look around as if emerging from a patch of fog. He rose, swiftly, and made his way outside.

In the alleyway where I was walking, he jogged to catch up. I smiled when I saw him, and he walked me home.

Belushi Approves

The ultimate collegiate experience: The Toga Party.

This extravagantly simple college tradition was immortalized by Animal House in 1978. Animal House is the iconic frat film, the college movie to birth all college movies. Growing up, I watched such screen gems as American Pie 2, Old School, Sorority Boys, Legally Blonde, Van Wilder, and other goofball flicks that amped up the sexual tension and promoted binge drinking more than academics. This is the image of college that I conjured up when envisioning my four years away from home.

Unfortunately, my frat party dreams were crushed when it became clear that my family could not afford to send me to college, and my grades weren’t good enough to warrant any real help from scholarships (even though my SAT scores certainly were). I tried my hand at a local private university, but after a year it was obvious that it was the wrong choice for me.

Since I now attend community college and live at home, I have long-since come to terms with the fact that I will never attend a toga party; unless someone through an ironic gathering over the summer where most the people would participate in the ‘toga’ half of the equation. Or, maybe even as an adult, for as-yet unforeseen reasons. Quite a few of my friends are ‘characters’ in their own right, I wouldn’t be shocked if one of them insisted on a toga party for their 50th.

However, this all changed when I made the somewhat odd decision to spend my spring break on another college campus. Specifically, Mary Washington in Virginia. My best friend goes to school there, and claims that it is considerably warmer in Virginia than Connecticut.

Right off the bat, I told my her that I was only bringing “party clothes” with me, because I’m fresh out of a year-long relationship, recently lost 14lbs, and don’t get to let loose very often at home. She assured me there were going to be plenty of opportunities, including a bar that is often full of young men in Marine training.

While sipping my daily hazelnut/soy/splenda coffee, I received a text from that same very same BFF which read

Just got invited by a friend of mine to a toga party friday night, so I guess you’re going to get the true college experience visiting me!

So it looks like I will actually get to fulfill my American Youth dream of attending a college toga party. Here’s hoping no farm animals are wounded in the process.