Oh, young love!

Back when I was young, things were different. Boys didn’t text you, they wrote you letters. They didn’t pick you up with their ride in the middle of the night, they walked with you hand in hand in the sunset and then showed you the moon rising. They bought you flowers, not drinks. Yeah, when I was young, things seemed so much easier. Just that they weren’t.

As time goes by and we get jaded, we forget what it was like to be in ‘can’t breath without you’ love. How we spent nights dreaming about one look or touch of the hand. How our knees went soft and suddenly we grew butterflies in our stomach that move chaotically. But how did we get jaded? Where did we cross the line where we can laugh at the guy who says ‘forever’, where writing our names in the sand is corny, where just catching a glimpse of the other doesn't tingle all of our senses anymore?

I keep saying to myself whenever I get nostalgic that things were never as complicated as they are now. And it’s never true. Let’s be honest, suffering like a dog because a boy who didn’t even know your name had a new girlfriend was just plain stupid. When you were lucky enough to have him return the feelings, neither of you knew what to say or do and most of what happened in that relationship was just in your head. Not that things have changed much in this area ever since. Oh, and when one of those blitzkrieg loves came to an end, it brought weeks of tears, guilt trips or crushed self esteem, “omg, my life is over, I will never love again”. It wasn’t easier. It just seems more exciting from where we’re standing now.

But there was this particular thing I really miss. And I sometimes feel like I don’t have it in me anymore to go there. It’s summer romances. That amazing feeling of freedom you get on vacations, the arousal brought about by the smell of salty water or pine tree resin, all that energy you’ve canned for a while burst into these wicked fireworks of passion. It’s funny how the first few times we think it’ the real deal. We’ve met the man of our dreams, “but dammit, we have to go our separate ways next week”. That can only happen to pure spirits, those who still believe that letters can patch up a real relationship, to young souls in search of love. I know people have them at all ages, but I’ve grown to like things plain and simple and summer loves are a different cup of tea.

Young love has its perks. At least for a while, you can go guns blazing into something and not fear the consequences, because you are sure that this is it. You can say the big words and not choke laughing. You can be just as crazy about somebody as you can without the risk of being considered the stalker kind or a hysterical bitch. And most of all, you can give it all. After you’ve taken a few punches in the face from lady love, you’ll never be that open again, never invest as much, never confide as much in its power.

Of course we all fall silly in love from time to time, some for years, some for days. We may not be able to sleep or eat or think of other things, we’ll itch to get it over with. But we’ll invest so much less every time, because we now know what we didn’t know then. That there is no such thing as forever, our hopes and dreams are not safe with him and we’re eventually bound to lose one way or the other. I guess the only thing left to do is remember that feeling of invincibility from time to time, to lose the grip just like we used to and to learn a little trust in love and the ways in which it makes our lives better. If it does.

The grass is greener...

In my long trip through the forests of singleness I’ve come across so many stories about relationships I can’t help wondering whether they were lessons send by the universe to learn at the right time. So I thought I’d go through some of the things I’ve learned from people from the other side of the tracks.
First of all, I’ve learned never to assume. People may hook up with someone and give it a week or think it’s the love of their lives, but you never know. Treating every relationship with the care and respect it deserves is something we owe to ourselves. Of course those first few weeks are amazing and all, but infatuation does not guarantee success on the long run, it’s a battle and we should never forget it.
Talking about battles, it’s a hell of a tough one to get to know the other. And one thing we should learn when being with someone is that we are two different views on reality that meet. And that don’t have to merge in order for the thing to work. I’m so tired of seeing people trying to tailor their partner in order to make him or her be just what they were looking for. People have a past and it might come to shatter the current relationship. Or it might just help us better understand the person next to us through the lens of their life experiences. Those we say we love deserve to be appreciated for who they are and not an image we have in our heads.
A third thing that’s always coming up in conversations is cheating. People cheat whether we like it or not and it’s not that easy to predict what leads them to that. They can cheat while holding our hand and they can cheat and we’ll never find out about it. I now believe it comes to happen when people start looking for excitement outside their relationship. It does not mean they may not still be in love with their partner. It means they want something else for a change. It sounds light, right? Well, it’s a lot more complicated than that. As I’ve noticed lately, commitment is about being able to make plans with the other person, about being able to assume they’d be there for you in certain situations. Now people say cheating wrecks trust, and I think it mostly wrecks that certainty that you can count on your partner. Of course, there’s also our ego and it would never accept other puppies eating from the same bowl. Just like in the case of having a hard time accepting the other’s romantic past, fear of cheating feeds on the ego. And it transforms people.
Another thing that transforms people is distance. Distance freaks us out because it increases this uncertainty that is incompatible with commitment. Because we feel it increases the likelihood of cheating and because we start fearing that we might become less and less relevant to the other. Distance changes people in that it makes their ego inflate and with it all those slimy parasites we call jealousy, fear and anger. I’ve known amazing couples who can fight it. It’s usually patient people who have come to terms with how they can make it work. As for the rest of us, we can barely keep the boat floating when we’re together.
And when that boat sinks, we may spend some time asking ourselves what went wrong. But breakups are a power race. And somebody gets left behind. The funny thing is some of the champs may eventually regret it. And remember taking things for granted was a retarded thing to do. I met this amazing woman who was crazy in love with her boyfriend and they eventually broke up due to some of the reasons above. And now she’s fighting to get him back, but he’s stringing her along because there is no guarantee he won’t get dumped again. One thing I’ve learned from most of my “coupled” friends is that taking things for granted is the wrong way to go. Whether you take for granted that that person’s always going to be there or the fact that you are bound to be cheated upon or left, relationships are just as complex as the people in them. I must set these words aside and read them when I’m with somebody, because we so often think in a box about our relationships, we pretend we know so much about where we stand and what we want from them that we forget we’ll always be scared little children in the face of love.
Oh, I almost forgot about love. Or what we may call ‘coup de foudre’ or at least infatuation. Now this is a lesson I want to pass on from this side of the fence. It’s an incredibly rare thing and it makes people so fragile and yet gives them this crazy strength to outdo themselves. Of course we could talk about it forever. But what I’m saying is, when you’ve lost your head, enjoy the weightlessness, because pretty soon all those other demons I’ve been writing about will come to bite you in the ass.

Just friends

When I was a little girl my best friends were boys because all the chicks on my block were whiny little bitches who always ran crying to their mommy if I tried to show my infinite appreciation for them by throwing dust to their faces or tripping them and what not. Boys were always more of my kinda guys. They lived dangerously. Climbed trees, jumped off swings in motion and build forts out of carton boxes or snow. However, I knew then what I shouldn’t have forgotten now. We can’t be “just friends”. One of my closest playmates was this adorable little boy who would walk around pushing my doll’s toy stroller and talk to me about how we would get married when we grow up. Almost twenty years later, that perspective still freaks me out.
But I keep forgetting. And I start the same old creepy dance over and over again. I meet this guy who’s really cool and I could talk to him for hours. However, I have no romantic interest in him and I convince myself he doesn’t either. Which is likely to be true, but not to stay that way forever. So then I’m like hey dude let’s hang out, I love it I can do shots with you and not worry I’m gonna end up in someone’s bed the next morning, cause you’re such a good friend who’s gonna care for me. I invite him over to watch movies, share my heartaches with him and keep asking what’s wrong with guys and why don’t I have then figured out by now. He’s never going to provide an answer to that. Moreover, he’s soon going to be the reason I’m asking it.

I used to think there are barriers that can’t be crossed and that would keep things between us at the “just friends” level. Having a girlfriend or a wife does not stop your friends from eventually hitting on you. Neither does being friends to your ex-boyfriends, ex-boyfriends of your friends or being your own ex-boyfriends to whom you’ve made it perfectly clear there’s no sexual anything left between the two of you. Explaining to your friend how messed up you are or how you’ll never fall for him will only give him more reasons to become infatuated with you.
Spending a lot of time with the other sex is bound to eventually create tension. Especially when you’re hot and all of your friends are at least fairly attractive. Although, after the right amount of time, I believe the mermaid effect takes its toll on each of us. This is one of Barney “Awesome” Stinson's of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ theories and it says that no matter how uninterested you may be in someone, after the right amount of time, especially when you’re “on dry land”, they begin to look really attractive to you.

So now I’ve done it again. I think it happens to me quite often, and it’s mostly because I always remember the good times of crashing toy cars and crossing wood swords with my childhood friends and I keep forgetting what terrible tragedies my friendships to the opposite sex eventually bring along. You’d say I’m exaggerating, try explaining it to those girls whose boyfriends not only whine to me about how they’re bored in their relationships and how they cheat and how maybe they’d leave it all behind if I gave them a chance. And then to those really nice fellas who’ve waited for me to jump on board until they got rejected in a really unpleasant manner and eventually grew to hate me. Or to the ones who at least figured it out on their own, never had the balls to say anything, eventually ended up with some girl who makes them miserable and every now and then they ask themselves “what if”.
I’m not saying it never happened to me. It’s hurtful and annoying and it makes you ask yourself what’s wrong with you if that person likes you but not in that way. It’s something nobody deserves being put through and especially not someone you consider a friend. So next time I feel like I’ve been spending too much time with a guy I’m not really interested in, somebody should come over and remind me that boys and girls cannot just be friends. I give exceptions their fair “hats off”, but as far as rules go, it’s safer to stick with this one.

Miserable

"I feel like one of those people who is so miserable that they can't be around normal people, like I'll infect the happy people." Meredith Grey

Today I accidentally set my clock one hour ahead and that little thing eventually led me to learn something so obvious about myself. I'm a mean angry person. I don't miss one chance to yell at people. I swear a lot. I bash others when they're not around. And all that because I'm so miserable. Not unhappy. It's as if I even forgot about being happy. Yes, I am contempt. And I have moments of total bliss. But I'm annoyed by any tiny criticism. By any person who doesn't meet my expectations. As if I had such high standards. Truth is I have them for myself. And they're stupid and part of why I'm so miserable. I need to let go and I need to cut myself some slack. One of these days I'll bake myself some muffins. And some other day I'll assume everyone likes me and they're just as miserable as I used to be.
Maybe being nurturing and having a living soul to make me smile will do the trick. The kitty I'm adopting is coming in today. She's a little black kitten rescued from a car wash where she ended up after climbing in a car and getting stuck in the engine. I wanna name her Olga and I really hope she grows to love me. I got her toys and baby cat food and all the other stuff she'll need. I'm already thinking of a Christmas present. It's going to be some sort of hammock to put on the radiator. Oh, I can't wait to see her!

Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.

I've started watching How I Met Your Mother and it's been cheering me up a lot. I guess I kinda see myself right now in Ted. I just watched this episode where it said nothing good happens after 2 a.m. Truth is, I gotta agree with that. I used to be a chick who didn't wanna miss one night out. And the kind who doesn't wanna go home after 2 a.m. So now my memories of pretty fun nights are all perverted by memories of bad mornings. I was either sick because of the smoke and the lack of sleep, I was either at some friend's place without a toothbrush and clothes to change or I was just trying to figure out why I didn't go home earlier that night. Thinking about exceptions from the rule a night came to my mind. When this guy I liked for a long time finally met me and seemed to be swept away. Turns out I should have gone home before he shook my hand. Wasted a lot of time waiting for him to come around and make up his mind. He never did. Instead, he even enforced a string of bad after 2 a.m. decisions. Was it fun? I guess it was. But it was like a drug. I thought it was recreational and it ended up messing up a lot of things in my life.
However, I've had worse nights. I do need new memories. Memories of all the places in this city in which I'm just having innocent fun with the friends who really matter. Memories of bright colors and pretty outfits. Of music I can sing along and people who can have enriching conversation. Of waking up in my bed well-rested and toast some bread and smell the tea while smiling about the night before. I don't need wild to have fun anymore. I need cozy.

Summer's out

Here goes yet another summer. Now it's the time to think about how the next summer will be better and how I'll manage to save up to do something exciting. But the truth is I had the resources, I just didn't have anyone to go away with. Anyway. This summer sucked more than the one before, when I at least went to summer school and traveled a little around Budapest and then went up to the mountains. This summer I only got a weekend at the baths, one in Harghita and one in Sighisoara. Basically, stuff I could've done in any season anyway. My days off from work were spent helping my family - visiting my uncle when he underwent surgery and then helping my grandparents with the harvest. I spent most time doing nothing and I didn't even feel bored or lonely.
In a way, autumn is good because it pushes me to start working. I have to take my exams this week and then I have to finish the research. I'll hate the cold and I'll soon be exhausted. I'm now used to eating lots of times a day and sleeping over ten hours. I have to get to a few low carb meals and six hours of sleep. Otherwise, I'll just keep doing as little as possible and always at the last minute. I know myself, when I indulge, I do it thoroughly.
I've been spending this last year freaked out about not knowing what I want to do with my life. But now I'll just stick to creating options for myself. Being more involved with the academics, but keeping an eye on the labor market. Applying to PhDs and looking for better jobs. It may not come fast and easy and I'm ready to wait for it. I just don't want to be stuck anymore. I'm also improving my abilities to commit. I'm adopting a kitten, she should be with me in about two weeks. I feel that maybe I haven't been as nurturing towards others as I used to be and maybe I am intimidating or at least awkward to people who meet me.
So I hope I'll start writing about things more interesting than myself soon, I should start a diary and stop whining online. But for now, it feels better to catch up with myself and I guess there are people out there who'd like that too.

On the Road

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but, burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."