This Is Where I Leave You

So this is it. I choose my words carefully because they are chalk full of meaning. I waited a few days to take the time to write this, just to make sure I fully felt everything and today I’m pretty confident that I’ve gone through most of the stages. I have one left, but that comes later.

Here I am, 5 years later. In terms of my blog it is 6 years later because I started while a senior in high school; but we’ll focus on college. The blog comes later. I started this journey naïve and intimidated. Now, I am neither. I walked wide-eyed in to Brittany Hall in August of 2010 and met people who changed my life. I took on nitty gritty New York City. Most days it won, but I had a few victories along the way. I laughed, cried, and screamed my way through 2 years of tough education only to come out what I consider a warrior on the other side. I trudged a few pieces of me back to Florida and glued myself back together in the sun.

I came back to Florida mad at myself, convinced that I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and ready to give up on school altogether. Before I had even moved home I found a job because I figured if I could have that I could at least try to be proud of something. While I continued to go to school I didn’t do very well, but I didn’t fail any classes. In work I didn’t end up finding myself, if anything I think I lost myself even more during that year. I went from an independent perfectionist to a dependent slacker. I didn’t care about much and I got walked on like a doormat. I let it go on for much too long, thinking one day I would wake up and things would be different. Fortunately, circumstance intervened because I probably wouldn’t have and the course of my life changed.

I took a job working 9-5 hours and going to school at night. While I hated that, too, I found more structure. I changed back into the independent girl I once knew – albeit a little less of a perfectionist. After a year of barely making it through class awake I changed jobs again to accommodate my school schedule because now I was in it to win it. It came to be my last year of classes and my grades had improved and I was ready to be the nerd I once was. So I threw myself into school, worked when I wasn’t at school, and focused on me. I started doing anything and everything I wanted to. I was slowly becoming the best version of myself without even realizing.

Along the way I lost my way with a lot of people, and it has both stayed that way and found its way back. The people I have right now are the people I want forever, and I want those people to know that. I will fight to the ends of the earth to protect the ones I love and will always put them before myself. It typically gets me in trouble, taken advantage of, and forgotten about but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My romantic situations are unfortunate and maybe one day I’ll find my way, but I wouldn’t give up what I’ve gained, learned, fought for, and earned for love. I may have compromised before, and sometimes I slip and do what is best for someone else versus myself but I continue to work every day to make myself happy.

Now, over the 6 years of doing this blog I’ve learned a lot about myself simply through writing. Letting people in to things that should have been private, not being able to find the words I really wanted to say, or deleting what I shouldn’t have. I’ve grown and changed in my writing, I know my voice and I’ve matched it pretty well to who I am, but I’m still convinced I’ll never find all of the words. The “thank yous” for my family who have stood by me through it all. The “I love yous” for the friends I’ve lost and found again. The “I’m sorrys” for all of the things I should have apologized for a long time ago. The “no’s” for all of the times I said yes when I shouldn’t have. I work this hard to make you all proud. I do everything I do for you. I write what I write for you. I have found my voice on the off chance that maybe you haven’t found yours. Well, I wrote.

With this, my loves, I leave you. I begin a career and a journey to the other side of my life. While you won’t have a front row seat anymore, I promise to keep you included.

With all of the love I have to give,

Gina

Lets Give Em Something to Talk About

Meeting someone at work or at school has long become a thing of the past. These days, we trade personal interactions for virtual ones to keep the world at arm's length. At least that's what I've done.

I was excited when I first heard about Tinder almost 2 years ago now. I could choose who I wanted to talk to based on some pictures and a quick profile? Very cool. I started speaking to someone almost immediately and couldn't get past how weird it would be to actually meet them so I never did it. (Fun fact, I reached out almost a year later just for kicks and he was dating someone but asked if I wanted him to "come over real quick.")

Fast forward to the past year or so, I've used Tinder on multiple occasions just for fun. I got dumped a couple of times and I was ready to just let it all out and act like a 22 year old. I found South Florida to be a great place to Tinder, especially in the spring because it is all Spring Breakers and baseball players here for Spring Training. Any girls dream. I did this a couple of times, never anything serious and never with anyone I was desperate to see more than once. But even then it got really old really fast.

That's when I tried OKCupid. "Maybe the men here are more serious," I thought. You had to actually answer personality questions, there was a little more substance, and it was free. (I'm still fighting the idea of paying for a dating service at 23.) And it really was better. The guys seemed cooler, they message you constantly and I could choose who I wanted to reply to. But it was still all the same. They ask for pictures of you that "wouldn't be on your profile", they want your number because "you can't trust the messaging on the app", and it is still all about sex.

Not to say there is anything wrong with only wanting to hook up with someone you meet online. I did it for a while but eventually it just seems pointless. I know I have a lot more to offer in a relationship so that's what I'm going to look for.

Every once in a while you'll find the good ones, too. The ones who hold a conversation but don't ask you to strip for them. (Or ask if you have a snapchat because that is the exact same thing.) You can talk to them for days or weeks and be really excited about finding someone different. They're smart and a lot like you. You set a date to meet and you're actually looking forward to it. And then...you meet.

Texting and online communication ruins personal interactions. The way someone talks in a text doesn't have anything to do with their voice or their inflection. That valencia filter hides...exactly what they want it to hide. How awkward I am sitting across for you is taken away when I can just text you. So now, you meet this person you've been talking to for quite some time and it's just...different. That curiosity that propelled you forward is now quelled and there's nothing to keep you interested. They might even be just as attractive in person as they are in pictures. But now they're real and that's scary.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Are we that afraid of something real that we jump from conversation to conversation and run at the first sign of human interaction? I guess I'll never understand it, and I think my time using the internet to try and find a connection has come to an end. Best of luck to those who continue to use it and have done so effectively; you have found something most illusive.

Nobody Likes You When You're 23

Hi.

Did you know that people are crazy? Like all of them. Girls, boys, men, women, old, young, ALL OF THEM. I can tell you this is fact because I have a lot of different sources of information. Like...a lot.

First of all I work at the Ritz. So it's a lot of fun, I love it, but the people here are absolutely out of their minds. I promise I'm not exaggerating. Money makes people crazy. And the older they get and the more money they get, the crazier they get. Like my job is to seat you at a table for dinner and sometimes I get home at night emotionally drained from these people. They suck out your soul and don't give it back. Over a table. For dinner. CRAZY. I have gotten a lot better at dealing with it, I smile a lot more than I used to and most of the time I just brush it off. I'm writing about this because tonight this one lady is super crazy and when I showed her her own crazy in the mirror I think it scared her so much she freaked out on me. Like, woops...but you're crazy ma'am.

Girls and boys my age are crazy, too. And I don't think I'm crazy enough to handle it. I would consider myself pretty normal with a couple of crazy girl tendencies. But I look around at my "peers" and the lives they lead and the choices they make seem so weird to me. I know all of us are different but I find some of what people put up with in relationships or feel like sharing on social media to be mind blowing. I think some things are better kept to ourselves...and that's coming from me. I will sit here and write all about my life and all of the different aspects of it but trust me, I still have some secrets.

I think the last time I wrote it was about being 23 and acting 23 and I think I'm already over it. I just feel so beyond all of this. Most days I run around like a chicken without a head because I tend to juggle like a zillion things at once and I love it. But that leaves roughly zero time for anything else. I fit in what I want to and don't feel bad about saying no to the things that I really just don't want to do. And sometimes I feel like I forget about people or people need me and I'm not there so let this also serve as an apology to everyone I care about for being so crazy and not seeing you or not being so readily available. That's kind of my thing and I'm really sucking at it right now...so don't hate me. Trust me I still love you.

Love always,

Kinda-crazy-Gina