Does it pay to be a pack-rat?

Happy New Year!

I didn't make a New Years resolution this year, did you? I don't think I have kept one resolution yet, so I decided this year to change things up a bit.

I've spent the last few weeks getting ready to move. I have to do it by January 31st but I'm stalling hardcore...While putting things in boxes, and going through boxes I haven't opened since my last move 2 years ago, I started thinking about what I really wanted to bring with me when I start this next part of my life. I made two piles of all my stuff...the pile that I knew I wanted and the pile I wasn't sure about.

The pile I'm not sure about is kind of like the jumble of saved text messages in my phone. Or like the memories in my mind I bring up now and then when I want to feel something I really enjoyed once. It's a risky pile, one that I could probably get rid of all together, and yet I'm too stuck on it to really want to let it go.

And so I wonder...am I a pack-rat? I know I'm not as extreme as some people. I don't collect things and I try to keep everything neat and organized. But when I stumble on a bin filled with schedules from my job in college, newspaper articles I haven't read in years, clothes that belonged to exes, little photo albums with notes and pictures that I haven't thought about in years, I start to realize that I'm not sure if keeping these things was a good idea.

So I threw away what I could, but I have a bag of things my body physically will not let me throw away. It locks up. I just can't do it. And then I think, so what? They are just memories. When I'm 95, going into a retirement home and sorting through the things I've collected over my life I will love to look back on that photo album and read those post cards Jameson sent me when he was in Texas that month and I was missing him, bawling my eyes out in Pennsylvania.

I made my way to my phone. To the handful of text messages I have saved from 2007, the first full year I had this phone. And I decided that in lieu of a new years resolution, a promise to fix something in myself, I would just delete the text messages so I could never go back and sulk on memories that I refuse to let go. That last cute text message from the boy before he decided he was suddenly madly in love with someone else. That message from the boy who was too afraid to tell me that he just "didn't feel it" but had the balls to text me in 60 words or less. Or the picture of the "bad boy" cuddling in my bed...months before he was cuddling in jail. What about the seemingly simple compliment from the really hot boy from the bar?

I feel like I need to erase some of the things from my past if I really want to grow up and try to make a great life for myself. Some things will just hold me back. But how do I decide what to let go of and what to let myself hang on to? I got halfway through the text messages (it was so easy to erase the harsh ones, but the sweet ones? I still have them...) and emptied my closets a little, but now I have to really just let myself let go.

2008 will be a year of sorting through my life. Moving on from what I need to leave behind and holding on to the things that I love.

I hope it's the same for you...full of health and happiness for you and the people you care about the most.

It's the end already...

So I developed this work crush.

No big deal. You can't "shit where you eat" (or where you sit, whichever you prefer) so it didn't really matter anyways. But...since I got somewhat, sort of, kind of promoted, I see this person a lot more than I ever had and I Notice him more too. Do you know what I mean? Constantly wondering if you are somewhere where he can see you, what he thinks, when you will see him again, how you can manage to talk to him, if you will find something good to say so that he wants to talk to you again, if he will like the way you look when you walk away from him, how does your hair look, does your top look right with the pants you are wearing, do you look like you are trying too hard, are you trying enough, does he see you looking at him, does he care or even notice that you are looking at him, does he try to be around you on purpose, does he want to get to know you better....

I'm so busy at work now I hardly have time to think about anything but what I'm doing (refreshing, since I usually overanalyze EVERYTHING) and yet I still find time to go into the bathroom every time I'm about to cross by where he works. Just to make sure no hair is out of place, my shirt is sitting on me right, my makeup is still on enough to hide the circles under my eyes from staying up way too late and getting up way too early...

the other night...

snow...in massachusetts, what they call a noreaster? is that even how you spell it? no matter what, it is about 2 feet short of what people in Pennsylvania call a snow storm, but it is enough up here to make the world stop. everything gets a little crazier. they cancel school way too early, people get stuck on the roads, and by 6 o'clock the traffic is thicker than it would be in new york city if there was only one lane. it gets crazy up here.

I left work late that day. No point in rushing to get home since everyone in the world was already doing that. When I left it was dark and quiet and the snow was falling still and the world just felt so peaceful. I was cleaning off my car when he walked out, and my heart started to race. What are the chances that out of anyone, my work crush comes outside when I am about to go home. It has never happened before but it couldn't have happened at a better time. It was just us. And the snow. He tried to throw a snowball at me (we had hardly even had one conversation before) and then helped me clear my car off. Looking for whatever chance I could to spend more time with him and get to know him better, I helped him clean off his car too. Eventually it was time to go but...

Today it was different. Like we had always been friends. Constantly running into each other and finding things to learn about each other. He's pretty cute, but he shaves his facial hair a little crooked. I noticed that right away. Maybe I'll get him a ruler for Christmas.

Then tonight I found him on myspace. Didn't really think he would be there, but he was. And doesn't myspace tell it all. Homeboy has a girlfriend. 7 years going strong.

Looks like work crush is a done crush.

Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted. A great 2 days.

A Question

What do you think about drugs?

If you ever ask anyone that question, I think they will probably respond with another question. Well, what do you consider a drug? Today the only legal substance that can really alter your state is alcohol, and some people consider that a drug. Others think that pot is a drug but even though it is illegal, it doesn't really count. And from that point on the slope get slippery.

I feel like your answer to this question can really show what kind of person you are. Not necessarily your morals or how good of a person you may or may not be, but what kind of ideas you have about life and how it should be lived.

Tonight after work, I went to Unos, with about 10 other people I work with. And the average person had 3-4 20+ ounce beers or a few glasses of wine within about 3 hours. The idea that many Outback employees unwind after a long day like this could either lead one to believe that the Outback employees are alcoholics (considering after these drinks all of them drive home and honestly believe they are sober) or just people who really need a lot to unwind.

While we were there tonight many things were happening. Just like always, several boys ( I purposely call them boys because of their strangely limited maturity even though they are over the age of 20 and most even over the age of 25) did their best to pick up certain girls in the group. But there was more.

In many restaurant situations you will find drug use. Not even limiting themselves to pot or drinking, many people do ecstasy or mushrooms or cocaine and prescription pills. Maybe even crack, but I am so naive I hardly have even heard of the substance. Even though people do those things pretty regularly, they hide the names and pretend that when they are messed up they have either had too much to drink or have smoked a little too much of that natural substance that even I believe should probably be legal.

But tonight, there were a few too many situations where I was wondering why these people were acting so bizarrely. (I think I spelled that totally wrong.) I tried to pay attention to what they were doing and I really didn't understand. Some people think that I say random things sometimes and act a little weird, but my behavior is never altered by any other substance but alcohol, so sometimes I am honestly confused by what is going on around me.

What makes people so outgoing and honest that they will talk to every girl as though they are the only one in the room? They will hit on each one and move to the next as though the previous one is not right there to hear what is going on?

What makes people so easily agitated that they are willing to threaten strangers?

What makes people say random and almost crazy things and not worry about who is around them to judge them?

What kind of substances are so ridiculously amazing that people will drive for hours late into the night just to get a little bit more?

And why do people feel like life cannot fully be lived without something to enhance it?

I'm sure there is a reason for everything, there are different limits for different people, and there are times where the every day life just isn't quite satisfying enough. But doesn't it get scary to think that you can't go through the day without depending on something?

Help!

I think I made the biggest mistake of my life.

But I made it 2 years ago, so is it too late to take it back?

Lets start at the beginning...

When I was a junior in college (so the end of 2002) I went to Canada with a group of my friends. My birthday is in August, so I'm a late bloomer of sorts and wasn't going to turn 21 until right before my senior year. Most of my friends were already 21 and this trip was a chance for us to all hang out and drink together. Cheaply:) Plus Canada had casinos and Niagara Falls and Molson XXX (which, for those of you who don't know, is a pretty ok beer with a very large alcohol content...you can find it at most liquor stores these days).

My weekend in Canada was pretty much a drunk fest. No worries about driving or drinking underage and everyone had saved enough money to have a stress-free good time. I had a crush who had stayed behind to do something for school but I wasn't going to let me down. I talked to him throughout the trip, but I was determined to have a great time no matter what.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I didn't care whether my crush was there or not. There was someone else who had all of my attention. A friend who, up until that point, had been nothing but that...a friend. We had both just gotten out of pretty serious relationships and comforted each other through them (his girlfriend had cheated and my boyfriend and I had just been trying to force something that really wasn't there). I had never even considered the idea that this guy might actually be the guy for me...until one drunken night we spent together from beginning to end. When creepy dudes would sneak up on me at the dance clubs, he would come up and dance even closer. When my friend split her pants by accident (yeah, I guess that does actually happen sometimes...) he went behind a bush and took off his boxers so she would have a pair of shorts to cover herself on the ride home. And somehow we ended up in a bed together passed out drunk, only to find ourselves with our arms around each other in the morning. Our connection surprised both of us, and from that moment on we each considered the idea that had never crossed our minds before.

After the weekend was over, we went our separate ways like we always did. But that night, at a Canada reunion (we all had so much fun we couldn't bear a night away from each other), a party that my crush had attended so we could finally be together again, I found myself thinking about and talking about my friend more than I had expected. I knew that somehow our connection had grow so much stronger and I wanted to be with him instead.

We told each other that we didn't like the idea of spending the night alone after being together for so many nights in a row, and he came home with me for the first time. He borrowed a pair of my pajamas (the red and black plaid ones ones my grandparents bought for me that always made me feel like a lumberjack, so they were pretty appropriate for a guy to wear:)) and we got into bed together and....FINALLY...kissed for the first time. After all that time together our lips had never even touched and I can honestly say the wait was very, very worth it.

Over the course of three years we went through a lot together. He graduated a semester after that, but I still had a year to go, so we spent a lot of time apart. Our visits occurred every two weeks and they were always some of the best times of my life. He traveled for his job, so we always got to stay in nice hotels and see different cities. I went to Texas for the first time...but I didn't notice much of it because we were in the hotel room so much of the time.

When I finally graduated I followed his best friend and my best friend (the two are married now) to Massachusetts, hoping that Jameson would follow me once his travelling job ended. It seemed like the perfect situation. We would buy houses next to each other, raise our kids together, grow old together...two perfect couples. Jameson and I rarely ever fought and, if we did, it was a heated political debate when we were drunk that was forgotten about in the morning. Our temperaments were perfectly suited for each other and we had grown to enjoy every minute we were lucky enough to spend together so we never took each other for granted.

Until I panicked. Only 23 and in the second serious relationship of my life, I wondered what else was out there. He became a permanent employee of a well known governmental agency in Baltimore and bought a house thinking that I would go be with him. And I started to go, little by little. I moved a few things, bought us some dishes, thought about what I would do to the house when it became mine too.

And then I couldn't do it. Twice I tried to go, put in my notice at my job and began to pack, and twice I backed out. I really panicked. And our relationship stopped there. Where else could it go if I wasn't willing to follow it?

Two years have passed. Our friends got married and he was the best man and I was a bridesmaid. I walked down the aisle, eyes glued to my feet because I was terrified to look at the man I thought was going to be my future husband. How could I look at him, and imagine the life that I had let go, without regret? But, somehow, I managed to look up and I saw him smiling at me with the biggest smile he had ever shown me and I realized that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. And I promised myself that I would figure out a way to fix it.

But I haven't. We are still very close. We talk on the phone about once a week and there have been a few times where I have told him how I feel. But he is in another relationship now. I never ask about it because I am so afraid to hear him tell me that he is in love again. It will break my heart the second I see him with her and notice him treating her the same way he used to treat me. I want to know if he is as confident about his future with her as he once was of his future with me, but the second I find out that he is I know I will be broken forever.

Maybe I pushed him away knowing that we were never meant to work out. Maybe my life will somehow get on track and I will meet the person meant for me and everyone will live happily ever after.

Or maybe I lost the one person I was really meant to be with because I was afraid to take a chance on love.

10 More Minutes Till My Laundry's Done:)

So here are my top 6...Michelle's list got me thinking, and I couldn't pick just 5. Feel free to tell me which one I should delete because when I meet my future husband I want to be able to really commit (by contract if necessary) to my list of Celebrity-Friends-With-Benefits...

In no particular order, I have chosen...

1. THE ATHLETE. It's hard for me to look away from arm muscles, perfectly defined pecs, and an ass so firm you could literally break your hand on it if you slapped it ever so lightly. But when you add those lines around his mouth, the shapely jaw, and sexy buzz cut, I'm toast. So what if he's getting old:)

#2. THE MODEL TURNED ACTOR.

If you haven't seen Friday Night Lights yet, DO IT. It's free on NBC.com (and hopefully when the Writers Strike is resolved the writers will get paid a little every time I watch it.) It's a really funny, heart-felt, sports-themed drama. But besides being a great show it has a lot of GREAT looking people on it. Taylor Kitsch used to be an Abercrombie model, but I like him in this show much better because he seems way less gay. Which means I might actually have a chance. (Shh...just let me believe that, ok?:))

3. THE NEVER HAD TO BE A MODEL, HUGELY FAMOUS HOLLYWOOD ACTOR.

Ever since they modernized Romeo & Juliet I have been in love. I even bought the soundtrack to the movie just for free pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't know what it is honestly; when I was looking for pictures of him online there were actually a lot that didn't meet my approval. But sometimes (um, did you see The Departed? I have never been so jealous of an actress in my life as I was of the girl he got to do in that movie) he just makes me melt. To me he is still the little boy from Growing Pains, but with an incomparable voice and a secretive, almost dangerous smile. Yum.



4. THE GOOFBALL

Did I say this list didn't have an order? I lied. For some reason I am ridiculously attracted to guys with "The Jim Look". I like the longish (but not femininely long) hair. I like good looking guys but not over the top, unbelievably good looking guys. Some may even call them dorky, but they are definitely much higher quality than traditional dorks. And when you add that sense of humor and a good laugh, I am addicted. Check out the Gap. They have a HUGE poster of him hanging out front that would look perfect on my ceiling.

5. THE GOOFBALL (part 2)

Did I mention that is my type? Check out that new t.v. show Chuck if you want to see another dorky, funny, goofy, gorgeous guy.

Another guy with a great voice, but with dimples and innocence. It's hard for me to take my eyes off him sometimes. I have probably watched episodes of that show without absorbing anything because he captivates me so much.

6. THE GOSLING

I don't think there is a way to categorize this one, so I made him his own. A total mystery to me...I can't tell if he's a hopeless romantic or a player, a goofball or a serious professsional, a little preppy or a lot grungy. But he can sing, a quality I find so attractive in a guy...(I learned that back in the day, on the Mickey Mouse Club first, so he was too young to be sexy then) And he seems so intelligent...he was wearing Darfur t-shirts before I even knew what or where Darfur was. When you give a mystery man those qualities, he's hard to resist!

...That's what I think for now. What do you think?

What's on My Mind

I'm moving. I'm not in a huge hurry because my lease isn't done for a month, but I started taking things off my wall today. It was weird because this place has become such a safe haven for me. Weird, I don't know when I started to feel so comfortable here, but now that I am I can tell it's going to be really hard to close the door that one last time.

This is my first apartment all on my own. No roomates, no parents, no one to answer to. No one around when I want to be alone, to unwind, to be totally free to be me. No one to get mad if I talk on the phone too late or too early, no one to share hot water with, no one to share the remote with. Living alone really is one of the greatest things and I highly recommend everyone try it at least once in life.

Of course it has it's down side. It can be lonely sometimes. And my rent was sort of ridiculous considering I have two jobs and (somehow) a personal life so I really am hardly ever home. I sleep here and keep my stuff here, for the most part, but there are those random times I can actually sit down and watch a movie or catch the (very) handsome guy on The Office ((more about him later)).

The rent was never really a problem, though. I could justify paying it every month because I love being here so much. But it wasn't always that way. The closest I ever came to being an alcoholic...and there have been a lot of times I came close...was when I first moved in here. Being all alone at night terrified me. (You wouldn't believe how many noises you hear when you are on your own for the first time. The pipes, the ceiling fan, the wind blowing the blinds or leaves fluttering against the windows.) I share a building with probably 30 other people, but for some reason whenever I heard a noise I convinced myself that it was a mouse scrambling around my apartment. I would be so sure that I would look around for it. (Sometimes I think I look for what I am afraid of just to know it is there. Then I can deal with it.) When the creatures didn't appear, I would go to the refrigerator to make a "comfort drink", which was later followed by another. Never a beer or glass of wine, these comfort drinks were mostly liquor with a little bit of something to make my soother a little easier to swallow. I would have one or two, and eventually three, of these every single night, I would leave the television and the ceiling fan on and curl up in a ball and pass out drunk. I didn't ever stay awake and worry because the alcohol knocked me, perfectly contently, out.

I should mention here that I never once have been afraid of intruders. I'm on the first floor of an apartment building in the center of Worcester (If I walk a mile south and wait an hour I will either get abducted or witness a murder...seriously. But a mile north and the houses are worth more than 10 normal houses where I come from). I never felt like my life was at risk even though my windows have bars on them. I only worried that I would have to use a frying pan to kill a mouse and then muster up the courage to dispose of it. (I purposely never brought a jar of peanut butter into my apartment because I didn't even want to tempt those furry little buggers in here. Blocks of cheese either. I'm a big Tom and Jerry fan and I learned a lot about mice from that show. As long as my apartment didn't have the good foods and the little doorways on the floor, I was going to survive this living alone thing.)

Whether my fears were logical or not, I eventually cut the drinking and realized that the noises always made sense. Water running through a pipe stopped bothering me and I moved on. I grew to love my apartment like I do now. My big open room has been perfect for snuggling with guys (even though by now most of them have come in and out of my life), getting ready for the bars with my girls, and even playing beer pong (yeah, that's a mess to clean up in the morning). My apartment has survived drunken accidents, fights, makeups, breakups, and all the good and bad in between and has helped me grow up a little. Just a little.

(This picture is my friend Shauna and I outside my apartment earlier this year. She was going to crash at my place after a night out but our friend stopped over with sidewalk chalk...so we used it.)

So as I start to take my pictures off the wall, box up my favorite belongings and memories, I am thankful for what this apartment has brought to my life and sad to say goodbye to it. But I am hopeful too. The next one might be even better.

So I graduated college three years ago and I am finally not a sandwich maker or a temp or a receptionist.

Finally.

Somehow the path to where I am now led me from Erie, Pennsylvania to The Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania to Worcester, Massachusetts. So random, and yet somehow I feel so at home now. My adult life has really started in Mass...My first "real" job, my first apartment on my own, my first car payment. These roads are more familiar to me now than the ones I grew up on.

There are a lot of things I have to figure out up here though. I've been through a few serious relationships and now I'm 25 and single. That's a lot to think about right there. 2007 has been an off year for me in terms of man choice. I've been wrong on my picks every time. Maybe I have bad taste (Do we all have a "type"? I might need to change mine...) or maybe I am just settling because I feel like I'm at the age where I want to start settling down. (But for some reason when I get close to settling down with someone I crave my space so much I pull away from them.)

It's hard to try to make a life for myself with my family so far away, too. Some live in New Jersey, some are still in PA. Even though the distance improves our relationships in so many ways (I haven't fought with my little brother since 2002!), it also puts a gap that I don't feel comfortable with. My brother was driving for 6 months before I ever got in the car with him. My nieces crawled, walked, and talked without me there. My dad is getting older and I don't have him in my life everyday.

So I guess growing up is all about learning and sacrifice. And hopefully if I do enough of both I will be able to figure out the best way for me to fit, make a difference, and make things really count in this great big world.

First Time

I've never done this before. This blog thing. It's one of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of times in my life that I have tried something new, and I get the same exact feeling every time. A nervous excitement, whether I'm interviewing for a job or buying a new car or picking out a new kind of cereal...no matter how silly or extreme the situation, those nerves are always looking to activate.

About a month ago I caught a glimpse of a blog written by someone I went to high school with. She was going through a really rough breakup and writing about it everyday and after about a week of reading it I was hooked. Everyday when I'm at work and I have a second free I look up her blog and see what she's up to. I feel like it's a cross between reading a diary and watching a soap opera, and I could do both anytime.

Today I was reading hers and thinking to myself how great it must feel to be able to get things off your chest on such a regular basis. Like going to confession without having to be Catholic or attend church. The only problem for me is that I'm doing my confession while I'm at work...on the clock...and at a desk where anyone can sneak up behind me if their footsteps are quiet enough. (I have two other internet windows open just in case to hide my new little secret.)

So I'm going to try it. This blog thing. It sounds interesting and will hopefully give me something productive to do during my lulls during work.

We'll see how it goes.