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Quarter 3 begins with my summer with Kennely coming to an end and no job in sight. I’ll speak more on this in another post. Just know, I was majorly stressed! Around the time I was figuring out the job stuff and wrapping up with Kennely, a guy entered the picture. Totally unexpected and really bad timing. I felt like my life was falling apart and I had this incredible time with this guy…crazy. I experienced true unemployment for all of one week and decided that was enough for me. I was very blessed to get hired at my current job so quickly. That process was expedited because my friend worked there before me and my application was seen quicker due to the referral process. It was all done in like a week and a half. Shortly after being hired, I had some car issues. Randomly, on the way to Sonic, a piece of someone’s car flew out from underneath their car and hit my windshield. We were on the highway and it was so scary. The object hit right where the rearview mirror is and thank God it did because had it not hit that spot, it would’ve come through the windshield and hit one of us. Whoever it hit would not have been ok. This object was small but very heavy and at high speed, it would’ve done damage. I had to have my windshield replaced. In the pattern of ups and downs that life is prone to, September was a month of ups and downs. I was still struggling with some things internally. Physically, I was not feeling the best. Emotionally, I was experiencing guilt and confusion. The desire to isolate was strong and at this point, I was still able to fight it a little bit. I got Boo-ed at work and my basket was cute! We had a department outing to Scene 75 and while I was reluctant to attend, I actually had so much fun. Then it was Black Alumni Weekend at UD. I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to attend because I wasn’t feeling so hot, but I did go and had the best time! I ended up in some random place where he was frying chicken and I was eating a little something off everybody's plate lol Here are some photos from quarter 3: Quarter 4 was the most eventful time of the year, in mostly good ways.I won’t go into detail about everything, but the pictures should help fill in the gaps. October is my favorite month and this year, I was it’s favorite person. We opened the month with a team outing to the bowling alley. It was a good time. Nice bonding experience with members of my team that I didn’t initially connect with. And to make it even better, I was the captain of the winning team!!! Shocker, but not. My teams are always full of winners! Three of the weekends were spent with 3 different sets of friends. I enjoyed a bonfire with one set, a girls night in with another set, and a trip to the pumpkin patch with the 3rd set. Good times were had. I started embracing pink as my favorite color. I denied it for so long because I just didn’t want to be THAT girl…But I am that girl and so? My friend had her baby boy, giving me a total of THREE babies for 2024!!! I went back to school to help throw the kids a Halloween party and it was so much fun! I was definitely reminded about why I needed to step away, but I enjoyed being there for the fun part lol Now what I wasn’t prepared for was the holidays in the office. I won’t go into too much detail, but it was a totally new experience. The holidays at work for the grown ups! I didn’t expect to experience so much holiday magic. I volunteered to help with our version of Secret Santa. My Secret Santa got me a Lego Advent Calendar and a time was had! The biggest shock was being “peer pressured” into entering the “Ugly Sweater Contest”, winning, and having it renamed “The Most Festive Sweater Contest” because no one thought my sweater was ugly lol I may or may not have a trophy on my desk. I ended 2024 on my couch after taking a nap. Yall, I woke up at 11:59pm…WILD! It had been a great unpredictable day with friends. Yall saw the reel lol me and Tej had a time at Cooper’s Hawk! Here are a few pictures from quarter 4: 2024 was such a turning point of a year. I experienced some high highs and low lows. I hope you enjoyed recapping such a big year with me!
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So we’re a couple weeks into 2025 and I haven’t posted anything since like September. I have several drafts of different things I want to post. I decided to recap 2024 first. I have tons of pictures to share more things that will help explain what 2024 was for me. I didn't write about every single thing and I don't have pictures for everything. I would say there were 3 big things that defined my year. The first one was ending my last school year and officially quitting my teaching career. The second was spending the summer with my niece, Kennely. And the third was starting a new job. There were a lot of smaller things that made my year everything that it was. So I started 2024 with a sprained ankle and sharing a car with Tej. It was the best time honestly. I got to see Tej and sometimes Luke everyday. Also, being a passenger princess in my own car is one of my favorite things. I was so sad for Christmas break to end, because I soooo enjoyed hanging out at Tej’s house everyday. And also, the second half of the school year is when things start to get real. I wasn’t ready to face 3rd and 4th quarter of school. In the midst of the madness, I turned 32. A few weeks before my birthday, I got sentenced to 6-8 weeks in a boot for my ankle. I was already struggling with some depression for the sprained ankle and how terrible my last year of school was going, but that boot was the straw that broke the camel’s back. When I left the orthopedic doctor’s office with that thing on my foot, I bawled all the way down Smithville back to school. I was bummed. And it was my driving foot, so I had to keep taking it off to drive. I had this whole plan for my birthday, even had a dress. This boot thing had me like “Fuck all that shit!”. It was about 8 days before my birthday when I decided I needed to celebrate myself. So I put on the dress, couldn’t wear the shoes, and wore that stupid ass boot to my birthday dinner. I had a great time, I was surrounded by love, and I’m so glad that I didn’t let the boot win. It was close, guys. February is an action packed month in kindergarten. We have three parties, tons of crafting, and a little extra love in the room. We have 2 Valentine’s Day parties (class party and grade band party), and then we have a class birthday party for my birthday. We have food, decorations, music, and gifts. My last class was a whole disaster, but the birthday party was so much fun! We definitely went out with several bangs… because they kept popping the balloons lol February was action packed outside of the classroom as well. My friends had a baby!! I was partying with them in college and now they’re married with a baby!! And I got to meet her when she was 2 days old all because of the Find My app. #teamiphone I was at a conference in Columbus and just happened to check the Find My app and saw that Kiera was close. They pulled up shortly after and I met my new niece. Love at first sight is real, guys! Here are some pictures from the first quarter... The next part of the year was also very eventful. I picked up a new and expensive hobby: Legos. I was looking for a new challenge and was looking into 3D puzzles. Lego sets kept popping up and I’m like nah…I’m not that level of dork. Come to find out, I am. Or Legos aren’t dorky. Whichever sounds better. You thought getting into Legos was crazy? Well I also got a freaking hamster!! Penelope is my freeloading roommate. I am not her mother. She’s a rodent. No judgement to those who feel maternal towards their rodents. I watched my friend take care of a hamster in her classroom and I was like hmmm…I can handle that. It’s been going well so far. She minds her business and I mind mine. Pretty cool. Everything is sounding good during this part of the year, well here’s the gross part…So as the kindergarten teacher, I had always been responsible for the Awards Ceremony at the end of every year. Honestly, I always dreaded it because I hate public speaking. People are always shocked when I say that because I have such a strong personality. Anyway, I had a lot of feelings at the end of the year and I think that it was difficult to figure out what to say. I was mad at everybody, honestly. The kids, their parents, administrators, myself…It was not my best work. I’m not even sure that it was outwardly bad, I just know I didn’t feel right on the inside. It’s going to get good again, guys! I attended Keenan and Roe's wedding. We've talked about that before, but it was definitely a highlight of my year! When school let out, I was nervous about the fate of my school relationships. One of my coworker friends was pregnant at the time and she had one hell of a journey to get there. I was very excited for her. She had a gender reveal that I attended and I felt like it solidified our friendship. Now she’s not my coworker friend, she’s just my friend. See, good stuff, right? My Texas bestie grew up and had a baby!! It’s always so crazy when people you once made irresponsible decisions with does something mature like finding the love of their life and having a baby. And yall this is the cutest baby boy!! That’s two babies for me this year!! Around the same time as the baby was born, school ended and it was time for me to go hang out with Kennely! I was offered the opportunity to spend time with Kennely and make some extra money while I figured out what my next steps were going to be. I bed hopped between my friends homes and got to spend a little time with my girls. It was definitely a summer for the books. Bonding and connecting with your people when you feel like your life is falling apart is unmatched and so necessary. Here are pictures from the second quarter: The other thing I didn't say was that I looked good in 2024. Did you see me lol
I am going to say some difficult things about myself in this post, but rest assured, I’M FINE! I knew that something was wrong when I found myself in the situation with Martin and still entertaining Ian when he made it clear that I didn’t really matter to him. I started questioning my decisions and what was guiding them. Therapy helped me to understand my complicated relationships with men who are unavailable physically, emotionally, and/or mentally. Having these relationships triggers my need to connect and prove that I’m worthy of connecting with. One of the many things that can happen when you have a history of the important men in your life singing your praises, but not showing up for you. You get left with a need to prove that you are worth it. If you stick it out long enough, maybe he’ll appreciate your patience and start showing up for you. When that doesn’t work, you settle for the connection you can get to ease the trigger. That is why when things went left with Ian, I was so willing to receive the attention from Martin. Oftentimes, there is a reason for why you do the things you do. Back in May, I attended Keenan and Roe’s wedding. It was beautiful! It was a nice reunion of some of my high school friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. I had a great time! I also had an epiphany. At that wedding, I realized that I do in fact want a husband. GROSS!!!!! I’ve been in and attended several weddings. Never have I walked away thinking “I want a husband!” I always walked away like “damn I want to have a wedding”...those are two different things. When I had that epiphany, I started thinking like I’m not ready to be someone’s wife. My life is not where I want it to be in order to attract what I want from my husband. Around the time of the wedding, I was reading This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan. It has a lot to do with where my mind was before the wedding and my understanding that I’m not ready to be someone’s wife. I won’t give away all the details, but in the book, Soledad had to essentially date herself and discover who she is outside of her marriage. The journey that she went on, opened my eyes to things that I was getting wrong and it also opened my mind up to me being different from who I thought I was/who I used to be.
I tweeted about doing shit for the plot and yes, I’m definitely guilty of thinking “this’ll make a good story”. That is very dangerous, guys! Don’t do that. I have felt so much inner turmoil because *sometimes* I recognize when I’m doing something that isn’t in alignment with who I am. Why would I do that? More questions. Since the wedding and finishing the book, I’ve done a deep dive into myself in an attempt to see the baseline. Where am I starting in this journey to better myself and to better understand myself? I had to get real about why I attract men who don’t treat me well. And the reality is because I don’t treat myself very well. I set the tone for how I am to be treated and what am I showing them? When you allow someone to disrespect you, you’re teaching them that you don’t respect yourself. When you allow someone to be inconsiderate of you, you’re teaching them that you don’t matter to yourself. I am the poster child for advocating for myself against most everything except my own bad decisions. Boy, that was hard to say. Bad decisions include, but are not limited to: men, diet, spending, exercise, what I make time for vs what I claim to never have time for…A lot of my bad decisions don’t have much to do with other people and everything to do with me. I don’t necessarily believe that you can’t be properly loved if you don’t properly love yourself, I just think you can’t tell good love from fake love without knowing how it feels from your experience with yourself. Hopefully that makes sense! I have things I need to work on before I feel like I’m the person I want to be when it’s time to go husband shopping. I want to make sure I’m giving myself the best before I expect that out of someone else. I’m not happy with the way that I treat myself and I have a few goals I’d like to work on to improve that. Notes: It took me months to write this because things were continuing to unfold that kept changing how I needed to word this. For example, I was unemployed when I started this, but am now working. I also had a hard time admitting some of this, even to myself. There are definitely things missing, that are just too much to share. I had to get to a place where I’ve done some of the work before I could post it. I still have one major goal to accomplish. Hopefully me and September are on the same page. Thanks for reading! .
We’re just going to jump right into it…So we left off with the gemini basically changing his mind about things and me deciding that confusion means no. Around the same time that Ian fell into my lap October/Novemberish, I was in the process of collaborating with Martin on a project. Things with Ian fell off some time in January…I know that because that’s the first time I used the Journal app on my phone. It was making journaling suggestions after I had gone out somewhere and I happened to see the entry I made about things going downhill with Ian lol.. At first, everything was very professional with Martin and then I started to notice some flirting. DMing me after I made certain posts…heart eyes, a few daaaamns, small stuff like that at first. I was a little confused and maybe a little bit in denial because this man is in a relationship!!!!! I’ve always thought of a man in a relationship as something I would never fuck with. I learned through my experience with Martin, that I can't speak on experiences and situations that I've not had or been a part of before. The intention with Martin was always pure, at least on my end. I can’t say that with certainty for Martin. At the time that the conversations started to become more flirty and sexual, Ian stopped responding to me regularly. My messages would sit for like a week. Idk if Martin had spidey senses or something, but he knew when to try it. I was in a vulnerable place and it’s like he swooped in and started providing me with some of the things that were keeping me so high on Ian. I began to flirt back. Flirting back led to Martin becoming more comfortable. He started sending pictures and videos. I couldn’t believe it!!! Because the thing about Martin is, I’m not attracted to him. Like not at all. He’s not ugly, he’s just not my type. There were two things happening at once…I was disgusted and curious. How far is this going to go? I was disgusted because I know this person in real life and always thought he was kinda sleazy. It was easy to continue to get what I needed from him, because sometimes I could forget that it was HIM that I was talking to. It’s kinda like fucking someone in the dark. Can’t see who they are so they can be anybody? I’ve never done that, but that’s what came to mind lol. So sometimes when I would talk to him, he wasn’t him. He was just the guy that was providing a need. Another component to this is that sometimes doing the wrong thing is fun. When the pictures and videos were exchanged, it was thrilling! Like I would feel this gross childlike excitement when something new was sent my way. I was learning a lot about him, he told me secrets, and he always shared his appreciation for me. My cup was getting filled…from the wrong person, obviously. If you noticed, I never mentioned anything about us seeing each other…It’s because I don’t think this would translate well in real life. Yes, I know him, but I don’t hang out with him. Seeing each other in the midst of this would kill the fantasy that it became for me. Remember, he was the guy fulfilling my needs. If I saw him in person, then it would be Martin fulfilling my needs and that wouldn’t work. I ended things with him, citing being a bad person and doing bad things, to which he made no comment. Things have become normal-ish between us since ending it, but he recently told me that a picture I posted, “made my day”...so yeah. I know I participated in some minor salacious behavior, but I'm not one to live with huge regrets. I learned a lot from this experience. It was life changing. When we come back, I’ll be sharing a lot about what I figured out from these experiences with Martin and Ian, therapy, attending Keenan and Roe’s wedding, and the book This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan. Hey Fraaaans! I’m back and I have 3 back to back posts for yall. I think I will post one a week for the next few weeks. I was going to put Ian and Martin in the same post, but then it would be way too long. Let's pick up where we left off…
The last thing I posted were my love life confessions. I admitted to having a crush who I thought would be my Valentine and it didn’t turn out that way. Well I’m happy to announce *drum roll please* NOTHING HAS HAPPENED!!!! Lol no worries or hard feelings. Let me tell you how we got here. After Brendon made his grand exit, I had a brief thing with Corey, which I think I told yall about. That’s how I decided to stop using dating apps altogether. Shortly after I made this decision, Ian showed up. Imagine my surprise when this beautiful man fell into my lap…A man I’ve seen outside…with my friends. A man I’ve heard mostly good things about…A man that I didn’t meet on a dating app. In my delulu pisces brain, this was a sign. I was so caught up on this being a sign, that I missed things. He only seemed to want to text. This part isn’t his fault, as I should’ve made it clear that I prefer to be on the phone. In my delusional brain, I just knew that we were going to be seeing a lot of each other so that wasn’t the hill I wanted to die on. I made adjustments to my expectations because this person is not a stranger. I figured that meant I could change my rules and make exceptions. Let’s go back to why I was attracted to this man. He could hold a proper conversation (no “wyd” every 10 minutes), I heard good things about him before anyone even knew I was involved with him (I was enjoying getting to know him and I didn’t want to find out anything bad so it took me a while to tell anybody what was going on), he is passionate about his work (do you know how rare it is to find a single, childless man who actively invests his time and money to learn about something he cares about?), he is very physically attractive (so fine. So fucking fine), and probably one of my favorite things about him is how well he paints a picture during sexy talk (I still have dreams about the things he said to me). I was gone in the brain for a while lol The other exception I made was that despite the nature of the conversations and the plans we had for each other, we never linked and I continued pursuing this connection anyway. I made excuses instead of taking everything at face value. It wasn’t bad with him, like he was always very kind to me, which is why I didn’t expect it to turn out this way. I started overthinking and acting out a bit (more on this in the post about Martin). I’m not one to do the whole crazy thing, but I definitely tried to figure this out more than I’m proud to admit. And I also let my confusion lead me to bad behavior. I struggled with our downfall, because I know what we sent to each other and I really wanted him to do everything he said he would do lol I think maybe my vagina had the crush longer than me. My mind already had this figured out and my heart began retreating a little when he stopped sending me good morning texts. I’m pretty vocal and I spoke up as much as I could. Initially, I was like how do I keep getting this so wrong? Like how do I keep finding myself attracted to and attracting men who can’t be available for me? Every now and then I would be like did I make it up? But then I think about some of the things he said to me and I’m like nah he wanted me at one point lol Then that led to me thinking about how I must’ve turned him off…I let him in and he basically rejected me. I didn’t realize that I felt this until I was doing the final edits on this post!!! We are still cool and it didn’t really feel like rejection while it was happening. Ultimately, I made the decision that if it’s this confusing, then it can’t be right. I harbor no ill will towards this man, I just cannot handle the confusion. He’s still my crush for the moment, but I think that’s where it’ll stop. One important thing I forgot to mention…This man is a gemini. THIS IS WHY I DON’T DO GEMINIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LMAO! After next week’s post, I will circle back to what this has helped me figure out about myself. Sooooo… more on this later! Thanks for reading! |