Falling for nice guys

I started writing this nearly nine months ago. Things have changed considerably since then. That said, this one took a turn I did not expect, but a turn I seriously hoped for when I got the notion to write it out.

I've fallen for a nice guy, maybe for the first time ever. And he's the single greatest, kindest and most interesting man I've met in a very, very long time. If not ever.

I fell for him a little out of nowhere. One second I was the token single girl who was adamantly and happily independent, the next I had fallen head over heels for this guy who made me laugh and was a little bit awkward and incredibly cool all at the same time.

Not only that, but he was sweet in the most sincere way. He remembered things about me that I hadn't even realized I had told him. He swept me off my feet without needing to pull any tricks from a playbook. He didn't drop any lines or make any attempted smooth moves. He had no romantic agenda. He was simply himself in the most honest way and I couldn't help but find that refreshing.

He intrigued me with his eccentricities. He floored me with his candor. He wooed me with his humility. He comforted me with his earnestness.

He was passionate about music, books, and art in such a purist way. He shared my appreciation for the vintage, timeless, and quaint. He had a spirit that drew me in and made me feel effortlessly and instantly connected. He had a presence that calmed my near constant anxiety. He was simple in the most attractive way, but also fiercely interesting. He was a book I couldn't stop reading.

And he still is. After eight months (and then some... And, yes, I realize that isn't very long at all) of having the great blessing of being able to call him mine, he is still all of these things and so very much more. His kindness and pure adoration for me fill my world with so much love and disgustingly blissful joy daily. His presence calms and comforts me more than anything I've ever experienced.

He knows that I'm messy, erratic, chronically anxious, insecure, and made of 100% chaos and he still loves and accepts me for all of those things. He never suppresses an opportunity to tell me that he thinks I'm beautiful, especially when I'm barefaced and wild haired. He tells me that I'm impressive and smart and talented and admirable, even when I feel as though I am the complete opposite of all of these things.

He melts into my world so perfectly. He likes my crazy, sometimes dysfunctional, but oh-so-fun family. And they really like him, too. I adore his parents and can play with the boys (at least, I've been able to keep up, so far). We've spent time with each other's friends and have yet to find any real speed bumps in that department. And (I never in a million years thought I would ever find myself saying this) I love his cat, and she seems to be a pretty big fan of me, too. And if you know this man of mine, you know how big of a deal this is.

He's a perfect gentleman, a brilliant musician, a hyper-supportive ally, a steadfast confidant, a reliable copilot, a diligent sous chef. But most of all, he's a faithful partner.

My life is fuller and brighter and more exciting because he's a part of it. He has, without even trying I'm sure, brought out the most lively and vibrant parts of me. He draws out the things that make me feel the most alive. I don't know how, but he does it. And I'm so glad he has because I have never felt more myself and more comfortable and uninhibited being as such. Furthermore, he makes me a better person, by osmosis it seems. His utter concern and consideration for others inspires and challenges me to alter my own attitude toward the people around me. And that's something I desperately need.

He's not perfect and neither am I. We understand that neither of us will ever be perfect and we will have our own quirks and rough edges. But we know that those are beautiful, too. And, so far, he's done an unbelievable job of loving all of my insufferable flaws.

When I stop to realize this—all of this—it blows me away and I can't help but think how insanely glad I am that I was finally smart enough to fall for the nice guy.

I don't know where this is going or how things will play out. All I know is this man stole my heart and I'm obsessed with loving him. This is one book I don't ever want to put down.

So, if I can offer any piece of advice, it's this: Fall for the nice guy. He'll love you better than anyone ever could.

Growing different.

"Change" isn't a state. It can't be called that. It's perpetual, not episodic. It's not a shiny, clean elevator with controllable buttons that allow you to stop on whatever floor you please, walk around a bit, enjoy the view and then hop back on and resume your trip at your leisure.

It's a tree with spreading roots that you're blind to and constant growth that you wouldn't notice if you just stood there and stared at it for a moment or two. But if you paid close enough attention, you'd realize that it keeps getting taller, the trunk grows wider, the leaves grow thicker, fall off and then grow anew all over again. You'd realize that it is not the same this moment as it was the last, although it's nearly impossible to see it growing and changing with a naked eye.

This is how I believe human change occurs. And it happens differently in every individual human being. We grow up. We grow out of things. We grow into things. But each and every one of us grows differently. We learn life differently. We see the world differently. We feel emotions differently, experience trials and triumphs differently, form ideas and beliefs differently.

Because we're different. It's simple, really. But this process of changing and growing differently makes life difficult. Wildly interesting, but difficult. While it is caused by growth and progress, it also sometimes results in loss and pain.

You often find yourself (because, honestly, it's even difficult to notice change in yourself until you hit some sort of metaphorical life wall) suddenly falling out of old habits and looking for a new groove to settle into and becoming disinterested in formerly beloved past times and instead searching for a new outlet.

This is the paragraph in this chapter at which I find myself. And it's both a good and a bad place to be. I wouldn't say I'm unhappy, no. I couldn't possibly say that. I'm happy. I'm just at a weird spot.

My life has kind of all been falling together rather recently. I officially have a college degree. I'm newly somewhat settled in a job that is actually real and pays in currency that is not comparable to Monopoly money. I just moved into a new, much more adult-friendly apartment with my roommate. I'm in a loving, committed, healthy relationship with a man with whom I continue to grow more and more in love daily.

I am at a great place. I'm in the very beginning stages of becoming a real life grown up. And as scary (and expensive...seriously) as that may be, it's a necessary thing. But I'm not ready to stop here and settle in. That just doesn't sit right with me. I'm not ready to stand still.

I'm ready for even more change (and maybe that makes me greedy... I'll save that tangent for later). I'm aware that this may not make everyone around me happy. But I think that's a point that I've hit in this era of my existence. I've made the conscious decision to stop allowing myself to be anyone's personal doormat. I've decided that complacency isn't a good color on me and I'm not going to wear it anymore. I've decided to start making my own choices instead of letting people who are allegedly higher tier human beings than myself make them for me. I've decided to actually start utilizing my own voice, because I can't live my entire life letting other people and other forces shape my life and my future.

And I think the moment I made the decision to reject a life of complacency was the exact moment when I realized that I've, yet again, started to grow differently.

Over the past year, it feels as though I've grown into my own soul. I've formed much stronger opinions about things that are important to me. I've started defending my beliefs on things more fervently (although, that is still a giant work in progress). I've put more effort into not allowing others to dictate who I'm going to be. And it's been a challenge.

I've watched rifts form in some relationships. That's a consequence that I've found to be common in periods of apparent and transformative change. Because, as humans, we're dynamic. We have the capability and tendency to change in such a forceful way, and any kind of force causes a subsequent reaction. And sometimes it's not always a reaction you want. But it's a worthy risk.

People change. Because they're people. But they don't always grow at the same time in the same way. They grow differently. You can either embrace that change and accept them in their growth, despite your differences, or you can not. Either way, they're going to keep growing.

So, that's where I am.

The Fall of Falling Apart

Let's just take an in depth look at the hot mess that was my first semester of my senior year in college. Well, okay, maybe not THAT in depth. You don't need to know every grueling detail of my chaotic life. But allow me to give you a look inside the 4 months worth of roller coaster rides that I recently had the privilege of living out.

Historically, I have not had the best luck with senior years, so this story feels quite familiar. The story of this particular year goes something like this:

These 4 months started out a little bit cloudy, but it didn't seem like any cause for panic in the beginning. It was harmless. I would be staying with some of my closest friends for a little while until my roommate found a job, was able to move back and we found our own place. We had lived together before, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Well, this might be the case in an ideal scenario. However, this story doesn't exactly pan out that way.

I'll save you every painstaking detail of the next few months. All I will say is that I didn't want to be there. I knew I was an inconvenience and I was doing everything within my power and abilities to get out of there. But it's hard when you're vehicle-less and even the combination of your new job that came about a month into this time period and your decent existing savings won't support the rent required for even the tiniest studio apartment in Orange County.

But I had to be there. I had nowhere else to go. Nowhere that made it feasible to get to school and work without severely inconveniencing someone else or draining my bank account. So I stayed, against their desires and my own.

This period of time, which spanned two months almost exactly, was characterized by a lot of anxiety-filled, sleepless, tearful nights. I was stressed out beyond belief, I was depressed, I was terrified, I wasn't eating, and I was completely exhausted. I looked like all of those things and no amount of makeup was able to cover that up, no matter how hard I tried.

I was a mess, to put it simply. I was sleeping on a couch, living out of a suitcase, and staying in an apartment that I couldn't even call home. At this point, the only bright spots were that I had a paying job that wasn't completely horrible, I was working at a paper with a staff of people that I was actually really starting to grow fond of, and I had the dullest glimmer of hope that things would turn around soon.

My best friend, who I had lived with for the past two years had graduated in the spring but was trying tirelessly to find a job in the area so that we could find and afford a place to live together. But it was taking longer than either of us had anticipated. She came down for interviews and each time we were hopeful, but we were usually left disappointed when the call finally came.

I would be lying if I said that none of this phased me on a social level. This wasn't something I was proud of. In fact, I was utterly ashamed and embarrassed to tell anyone I knew, especially those friends who were new to my story that I was essentially homeless and sleeping on a couch with no car and no way out.

I reached out to the few close friends who knew what was going on to see if they knew anyone looking for a temporary roommate or renting out a room that I could occupy for the time being. But every seemingly hopeful possibility came up short.

As I was growing closer to new people, I found it harder than usual to open up to them because of my "predicament." There was no way they would understand and they would be brutal with their judgments if they ever found out. I couldn't handle that. So I just kept quiet.

I was building relationships with these people based on half truths. Many of them knew where I was "living," but under what circumstances they knew nothing of.

And then, there were the new men who had come into my life. And yes, men as in plural. This was never my intention, but being as I am and having finally gotten my "groove" back after what was literally years, my flirtatious nature had been turned on full blast. Maybe I was compensating for all of the other less than enticing aspects of my life. Therefore me being nice got misconstrued as me being interested. So that made another mess for me to clean up. But I'll get back to that in a bit. 

Fortunately, things started to turn around in October. After many, many fervent prayers, I was finally getting some of them answered. God was providing exactly when and how I needed most. A car with my name on it surfaced. My best friend found that job she had been looking for and almost simultaneously we found a place of our own that was available less than a week later. Everything was finally falling into place and I might have actually cried tears of joy. Honestly, I probably did but just didn't notice through my numbness. 

So everything was turning out as it was supposed to. I was finally going to be able to live a normal life again and it genuinely felt like I was starting over. And, at that point, that was the only thing that would mend the wounds of the previous months. A fresh start. A clean slate. A chance to begin again. So I did, weird as that may be in the middle of a semester. 

I got my life back and I slowly started to put all of the tiny little pieces where they belonged and things started to feel like they had a sense of order again. I gradually started to feel less and less insane. 

But then work slowed down, and I started to panic. The bills came in, and I panicked some more. Then work sped up, and I started to stress. Then midterms. And deadlines. And closing shifts. And boys who wanted more from me than I could offer. And finals. 

I was strapped in every sense of the word: financially, mentally, psychologically, time-wise, and energy-wise. I was juggling everything, and then some. I was officially an adult, and it sure as hell felt like it. 

So, any logical person could look at my daily schedule and say "That girl is insane, she doesn't even have time to breathe." Because, yes, I was still taking a full course load and attempting to be the president of a nationally recognized organization, on top of everything else. So, obviously, relationships or anything of a committal nature were absolutely out of the question. Unfortunately, that message didn't exactly translate well to the men I was trying to steer in the opposite direction. 

So, yes. There was that. And I think anyone who has ever read any of my personal entries is tired of hearing about this part, so I will do all parties a favor and just leave it at this: It was complicated. It got messy. I probably screwed up. A lot. The end. 

I all but lost my mind in the midst of the chaos. But I survived, which is honestly a miracle worked by Jesus Himself, because I don't know how I managed to walk out of this last semester alive and fully intact. But I did. And I swear I'm better for it. 

I learned some of the hardest lessons of my life in the past several months. It was rough, but I suppose it was a series of lessons I needed to learn. 

So here I am now. I have a home and a car to call my own, both of which I am paying for with my own paycheck from a job that I don't completely despise. I get to live with my best friend again. I miraculously passed all of my classes. I became a real journalist. And, maybe most importantly, I became a real adult.

And here's a bonus: To quote myself, I once said that I would "never be a size 2." Well, guess what, kids? After a semester of nearly crippling stress, an unceasing work schedule, no breaks or downtime, combined with being the poster child for "broke college student," I accidentally lost 10 pounds. I am now a size 2. This is not something I'm proud of, but I guess I'm embracing it. I have unintentionally and reluctantly brought "Hammer pants" back from the dead. 

However, I'm a changed woman and that's all a girl can ever hope for, really. 

This has been my retrospective of my senior year thus far. I'm praying that spring will be much, much more merciful. But if not, bring it on. I'm pretty sure I can handle it.