Old Fashioned W/ Sourdough

It's 12:45 on a Saturday morning, I am alone at The Horseshoe Cafe.

I am sipping coffee, with cream and two sugars. I have a mimosa on hand, because I can.

When I woke up this morning and when I woke up yesterday morning and the morning before that, I didn't think to myself "Today I need to be alone, very alone." 

It just happens that way, I wake up and I choose myself. 

It hasn't always been that way, I haven't always chose myself because I haven't always wanted to. 

Choosing myself means loving myself and valuing every ounce of alone time I have, just me and me and me.

It's 1:00pm now and I am still here, I finished my breakfast.

I am a simple person when it comes to breakfast foods. 

I like eggs and bacon and potatoes and toast. 

So I choose that every time. 

I don't know if many people know that about me, I can't recall a time when someone has asked how I like my eggs. But I am okay with that.

Talking about breakfast food with someone is so very unimportant, but it is also very real and when I can find a person who can order for me, extra crispy hash browns and no yolk, I will take it. 

It is 1:15 at The Shoe, I am still in a one person booth, but really it's meant for two.

I would choose this spot every time because I like having a rhythm and I like having a plan.

I like being at a restaurant alone, I like knowing that I am here with no one but myself.

As I do with many and most aspects in my life. 

I drive a truck, with no reverse. It's messy and I can't drive with more than one person in the passenger seat, so I often end up alone and I know I didn't, but it feels like I chose this. 

I lost my job about a week ago and I didn't choose that, but I feel like I never would have chose it if the universe hadn't done it for me.

But who really, really chooses to lose their job.

Okay so a year ago, I did. 

But this year I didn't. 

And that is the difference. 

There is a difference between wishing every day you could get away from a place and unwillingly being forced out of a place.

Out of laziness or out of pure choice, I have given myself a few days to allow myself space from the working world. 

I have not looked for a job because I can't bring myself to jump straight back into a retail job that I don't even want. 

I did that one year ago, I dove back into a job because I thought that my life was deemed successful by where I worked and how much I made and that was the only thing I knew would make me happy.

It is not. I was wrong.

It is almost 1:30 now and I keep thinking about what I want from this life, I keep reevaluating who I should be and where I should work and who I should be and where I should work.

I do this daily and I also try to figure out how to say that, to myself and to other people and on this blog or on the pages of my journal. 

I don't know how to say it, I just don't. I have a million and one words in my head and in my heart and aching at my fingertips, but nothing comes out. 

If I could choose, I would choose to say it loud and know it proud.

But I don't. I just don't.

It is the end of January and the very end of the first month of the new year. 

It is 2000 fucking 16.

I don't know how I got to be here, 22.

I mean, yes I know that time goes fast when you're older and I know that is just how it works,

But it is still not 1:30 yet and I have written all of this and I have thought about all of this so much more.

I am not sure what impelled me to choose this pattern today, the wake up and get ready for my day and aimlessly move into whatever my mind wanted in that one specific moment when I could take a right or a left at the stop sign on E. Illinois.

But I like it, I would choose this kind of life every day.

I would choose myself over anyone else who didn't know how I take my breakfast or that I like two sugars in my coffee or that I like to blast Jackie Wilson and Etta James while I drive. 

I would choose myself for this because I don't know anyone else who knows me better. 

I work from the inside out, I work hard at working on myself.

There is never a moment where I am not wondering why my life is this way, why I am this way. 

It is still only 1:35pm and I have no surefire sign of what I want out of this life and that is okay.

The one thing I do want is to always choose myself.

I never want to not choose myself. 

It almost hurts to think about a moment in my future where I pick the wrong thing over the right thing, but I have done that before. 

I have always done that because the wrong way has always seemed like the simple way.

I want to choose differently this time around, I want to always enjoy eating alone and driving alone and being alone. 

Because when 2:00 tomorrow rolls around and when 2:00 Monday rolls around, I will have myself.

Nothing else is certain, but I am certain.

I am certain that no matter how many times I feel rejected by life and men and jobs, I will always have myself.

I cannot reject myself because I deserve more, I deserve me.

It is 1:45 and I am still in the same spot, sipping the last few sips of my mimosa and my coffee has gone cold. 

It has been one hour.

I was alone one hour ago and I am still alone, but in a few hours I won't be alone.

I love my friends and I love my family and I love all people, always.

But somedays it is just a bit more simple to choose yourself over everyone else, even if it means having the whole morning to you before you have an entire evening to just them.  

I have a lot to do over the next few days, but not really.

I just have a lot to think about and a lot to choose.

When I came in to The Horseshoe this morning, there was a crowd of women who walked in loudly, announcing that their friend was 60, they went into the bar and all I could hear was shouting and music and laughter and I am glad I chose to be here alone today because I could listen to the banter of an early afternoon celebration.

I want to know what she chose over those 60 years, I want to know what brought her here. 

What, in her 60 years, brought her to The Shoe to hoot and holler about the last 60 years of her life. 

I want to know, in 40 years, will I be celebrating in the same kind of way.

Will I be happy and well with my friends? Will I be bringing attention to an entire room, that YES I am here and I am 60 and I am happy?

I hope I am. 

I really hope I am.

The only thing I can tell myself is to continuously, forever, always choose myself. 

People want what they can't have, people want joy and confidence and somebody who can embrace life. 

At least I assume that is what they want, I know that's what I want.

I want to choose the thing I never thought I would have...a joyous, confident, life embracing babe. 

So I chose that, I chose that and I choose that and I will always choose that. 

It is now 2:00 on a Saturday and I am alone and I am still choosing myself.

Because when there is nothing left to lose, you choose the one thing that will give you everything. 

2015: I Did It And I Loved It

I've been meaning to write some sort of goodbye 2015, hello 2016 piece and I just haven't. I've been off of work for all of the new year and I've just been "too busy", but not really. It's hard for me to get my thoughts out sometimes because I feel everything very intensely and writing has always helped with that. Sometimes though, even writing doesn't wanna happen for me. I've always wanted to set a goal to write every single day, but that's just never going to be a thing for me and I'm cool with that. I can't force something out of me and I don't expect people to want to read what I have to say 24/7. I've tried the journal thing, write a sentence every day, but that too seems so forced and it makes me feel like I'm falling short of something.
Anyways, my thoughts - I feel them so much all the time...and I think so much all the time. So far that's what this new year has been, I've been spending the last week trying to think about what to say and how to sum up my previous year. Looking back, it doesn't seem like I had much happen, but I truly had a million and one good and bad and perfect and hectic and beautiful little something's going on.
One of my favorite moments of 2015 was skydiving, I would have never bet even five bucks on myself and my ability to jump thousands and thousands and thousands of feet out of an airplane. But I did it and I loved it. And that seems like a good way to speak about the last year of my life. I did it and I loved it. Even the things I did that scared me, I didn't love them then, but I love them now. I love that I learned from them, grew from them, became from them. The best feeling for me is the kind when it's just hitting you right in whatever moment you're in, the kind when the universe has an obvious plan for you. And when I fell from that plane, I didn't cry and I didn't scream and I didn't do anything but look around and shout "This is amazing, this is so amazing." When I write about it now, it gives me the chills and it makes me cry because leading up to that moment, I was so fucking afraid. I had the kind of feeling that I always get when I'm scared of doing something for the first time, a knotted stomach and sweaty palms and a heavy breathing pattern in hopes that it will help calm me down. Nothing and nobody could have calmed me, other than the actual jump itself. I jumped and the earth was a patchwork of green grass and blue grey streams and I could see how...not flat!!...this place really is. She was curvy and perfect and I loved it.
This brings me to myself, I am curvy and perfect. It feels funny to say that about myself because to talk about yourself in a high and mighty manner is often seen as cocky and irritating. But you guys, I AM PERFECT. Like so perfect, just the way I am. I have a chubby tummy and my body has a shape and I have little stretch marks on my sides and my breasts are small and I still get a lot of little zits. 2015 was my mirror and it didn't lie to me, it showed me these things in an honest light and I didn't cry about them. I looked and I saw myself, I saw the curve of my body and the size of my breasts and my little stretch marks and blemished face and I thought, this is who I am. I realized that this is what I am right now and over the years it will change, that my time is right now and right now this is what I look like. I decided to love what I look like because if I don't, no one else will. I looked in the mirror and I smiled at myself a lot, I smiled with red lipstick and DIY bangs and I felt so, so, so good. I left my makeup bag at home, I didn't tote it around with me and I felt free from the weight of my old worries. I was me, I am curvy and perfect and I love it.
Loving myself is not narcissistic, it's literally the best thing that has happened to me. Feeling perfect and beautiful has been like a tumbleweed in my life. I wrote so much more in this last year than I ever have and I was honest about it all, I got my first piece published because I was true to myself and everyone else. That's such a huge and honorable thing, to be so honest with yourself that you get to share it with the world. It's glorious, my feelings and my thoughts were read and related to and that in itself is enough for me. Even in this year, of immense growth and change and fine tuning the inner workings of my fucking awesome self, I had a lot of doubts and I did cry and I didn't see everything I wanted to see and I didn't check off an entire bucket list of things. But what I did do was exciting for me and it was right for me, for this point in my life I had done enough of what I needed to do. There is always going to be work that I need to do, I am always going to struggle with pieces of my identity, but 2015 was such a good tool for me. I needed it more than I needed anything else. I started a new job this year that I will make my one year at soon and then almost immediately be laid off from, I don't feel angry about this. I feel like this is what the universe needs from me, I feel like I have to start off in 2016 with something new and it's not going to be easy, not at all, but this is the test. This is where the universe says: "Alright baby, we made you in 2015 and you've put all the hours in, here's your test. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it." I can do it, I can do it and I know I'm going to love it.
I don't want to make resolutions for how I will do it, I don't want to tell myself how I will manage to make this the best year yet. I have spent so many years with expectations and it only lets me down and if I learned anything from this year, not having expectations is key. I don't expect myself to do away with all of my plans because it is important to plan, but I do expect to do away with any idea that I have it all figured out. I don't. I don't have it figured out at all and I don't want to yet, I am in the middle of something remarkable and grand. I want to let the universe show me how capable I am, it showed me beauty and confidence last year and I am ready to learn about strength and patience. The strength to know that I am capable of doing and handling whatever comes my way. It may not be in the form of skydiving or confessing my undying feelings to a guy I live with or learning to love the skin I am in, but it will be because of those things. Because when I did those things that I was afraid of, I loved them.
It's funny how a new year starts, in a not so wonderful way, but I still feel so strongly that this is going to be mine and I am going to love it. I have the tools I needed in the years past and I am so ready to look like a queen with my tool belt on. There's nothing like taking a chance and hammering the shit out of it, in a good and freeing way.
I am in 2016, I did 2015 and I loved it.

A Poet

I wanted to tell you 
In the most poetic way

But you know me, 
You know I could never be
A poet out loud

Because when I write
I am sloppy
And when I speak 
I am sloppier

My feelings require too much
Depth
To ever be a poet
With my mouth

And with fear in my heart 
Shaking palms and
Weak knees and 
Every dream of what we could be

I am no poet, in your presence
I am simply aware 
Of you
Aware of your ocean eyes
And your laugh that echoes for miles

I am aware 
That I could speak to you 
In a way that I write 
And it would not change
The motionless movements I feel 
When you tell me
Your feelings for me
Are not equal
To mine for you

I am aware 
That I will never be 
A poet with my mouth
But with my love.

A Generation of Angsty F-U's

If it wasn't almost 2016, I would call you on your house phone from my corded phone in my kitchen, we'd chat quickly as to not rack up my phone bill, we would make dinner plans and call it good.

But it is almost 2016 and I'm actually looking at your Facebook and your girlfriends Instagram and I'm laughing / crying over the gag worthy photos she has you featured in. 

If it wasn't almost 2016, I wouldn't even know you had a girlfriend and I wouldn't have tried to save the poor girl from your dirty lying ways.

But it is almost 2016, and when Snapchat helped me find out you had a girlfriend while still trying to fuck me, I DID try to save the poor girl from your dirty lying ways. You told me not to say anything more, but I had to stop this because I know the feeling of a heartbreak like the one you were about to cause her. 

If it wasn't almost 2016, I wouldn't have access to every social media platform that allows me to see every single detail of your life. I wouldn't be driving myself crazy with questions and no answers. 

But it is almost 2016, and I get to watch your life unfold with someone else and wonder why I came in last, still no answers.

If it wasn't almost 2016, forget tinder and my quirky bio with the 6 best photos I've ever taken, you'd call me on my corded phone because you actually knew IRL how fun and quirky I am and you'd already have seen me in all my green eyed, beautiful brunette glory.

It is almost 2016 and that means I am just another girl that you aren't looking for something serious with because you're a boy in his early 20s craving freedom. Instead you send me dirty text messages because you're a boy in his early 20s and you met me on Tinder. I am a girl in my early 20s and when you met me on Tinder, you assumed I wanted less than a relationship and a little more than a "hey how are you?" convo. 

If it wasn't almost 2016, you wouldn't have detailed all the ways you would make me feel good because would you ever really say those things to my fucking face? 

But it is almost 2016, and you didn't say any of those things to my fucking face, you said it beneath the unsolicited picture of you naked in your bathroom mirror and you even added that douchey emoji with the sunglasses, like what you were doing to me was actually super cool. 

If it wasn't almost 2016, I wouldn't have known that you were feeding lies to me on a silver platter, I would have gorged myself on your tasty sweet nothings. 

But it is almost 2016, and I am starving myself of something worthy and filling because I can't stop reading the tasty sweet nothings you are feeding her. 

It is almost 2016 and I wish I could have said fuck you to your two timing face instead of via text message. 

Fuck you, again and again and again. 😎

21 Things I Didn't Know Then, That I Know Now

It is now officially my birthday eve aka I am about to turn 22 in like two seconds and I'm not even freaking out about it like usual. The older I get, the more I am willing to recognize how right my parents were; time goes so, so, so fast when you grow older. Don't get me wrong, I certainly have days that feel like a million hours dragging on and I also have days that feel like if I blink I might miss it all, but as a kid I never believed that time could change, I never believed that the world would not be one block wide. But that's how this year has felt for me...21, in retrospect, felt like one blink, two blinks, gone. It also feels like the longest year of my whole entire life and it feels so cliche for me to say that this was the year of change and intense emotional growth for me, but I don't know any other way to describe it.

I have experienced some of the most magnificent days of my life and part of me feels really unsure of moving forward into 22. I know that when Sunday comes, it is just going to be another normal Sunday, but with extra Facebook notifications and texts from people I rarely hear from. That doesn't take away from all of the questions I have about the days that will follow. I have never been good at just living in total peace with what is, I question everything and I worry often and I wonder more. I have spent hours on end, each day, looking for all of the ways I could become a better me. I didn't want to change, I didn't want to be different, but I craved a change and I yearned to be different. I think back to when I first moved to Bellingham at 20 years old, too afraid to stand up for myself and too afraid to speak my mind and too afraid to try new things. Somewhere in between barely 20 and almost 22, I changed and I became different. But it was a good change and a good different, it was the kind of feeling you get when you submerge your whole self into the river for the first time on a hot summer day. A little bit cold, a lot refreshing. I was reminded of that feeling today, when I read this:

"Transition is not about becoming someone better, but about finally allowing yourself to become who you have always been."

I cannot think of anything else that wraps up this whole twenty-something experience (so far) more and if I could summarize the last year of my life in one word, I would call it a transition, Transition can also be defined as a passage or a metamorphosis. I often forget about the word metamorphosis, but it reminds me of butterflies and if I'm going to continue being cliche, then let me tell you something; I grew my fucking wings this year. I grew my wings and I painted them with shades of yellows and blues and reds. Yellows in dedication to a year of laughter and happiness, blues in honor of well deserved tears, and reds for all of the people and places I fell so deeply in love with. I grew these wings with my own two hands and I know that doesn't make much sense, but I did it and it was really, really hard and really, really worth it! I painted these wings and I am flying with these wings. And with the help of my one-of-a-kind handcrafted, sometimes janky homemade wings I did a lot of really amazing and really scary things

In honor of this last year, one of the most superfluously beautiful years of my whole existence, I've spent the last few days thinking about who I have become and how I have come to know the Shay that has always been, just in hiding.
To sum it up...

21 things I didn't know then, that I know now  //

1.) You cannot save everyone, you are not a doormat, you should not allow anyone to wash their worn and weathered boots clean upon your pure heart. But remember, just because someone wears worn and weathered boots does not mean they are not worthy, do not lose sight of what makes your heart pure.

2.) You can love yourself so much...without a man. Simple as that, you are strong and bold and perfect. 

3.)  Feminism can save you, learn from it, let it light the fire that's been there all along.

4.) Always, always drink water before you fall asleep drunk. When you wake up hungover, more water. Just keep drinking water. 

5.) Don't be afraid to ask for someone's help, be thankful when they push you to your limits, sometimes you need a little hard-shove.

6.) Believe in your dreams and don't be afraid to show the world your talents!!!!!! (Hi can we talk about how I got my first piece published - still soaking that in.) 

7.) Going up a ladder can be scary, but jumping out of an airplane will change your life and kick your fears ass.

8.) Telling someone how you feel does not make you weak.

9.) Pushing a man's hand off of your thigh and telling him to respect you, does not make you a bitch.

10.) If you want to be alone and drink red wine and order take-out and watch When Harry Met Sally, do it. It is always worth it. 

11.) Moving in with 6 people sounds insane, but once you do it - you won't regret it. It's messier, but you'll be so happy.

12.) Your car is important, saving money is important, you're going to learn the hard way and you're not done learning this yet.

13.) Dancing is wonderful. Please keep dancing.

14.) Say yes to coffee and learning about things you have always wanted to know more about. Even if you don't follow through with those beliefs, soak up the knowledge you are given. 

15.) There is no shame in writing about your experiences. You are an adult, be honest and true. 

16.) Absolutely, positively quit your job if it is filling you with sadness and stress. You might live paycheck to paycheck now, but your personality has become effervescent again.

17.) Accept the fact that you are where you're at for a reason and that reason has a purpose. Those reasons and purposes are everything that will make you, you. 

18.) Read Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed - this book is a bible, a confidant, your guide.

19.) You should go on that walk, finally. 

20.) Dye your hair, cut your own bangs, wear red lipstick and blush, and feel like a damn queen. 

21.) Don't be afraid of change. Change is so good. 

------- 

In my final hours of 21, my Birthday Eve, my buildup to 22...everything is going to be just fine and I can breath easy because I have never in my whole life loved change this much.

One Non-Monogamous Casserole

It was a normal Monday for me; I was doing my usual early morning-still in bed, not fully awake social media updates. Twitter - check, Facebook- check, Tinder- check. Receive a text message from my current friend with benefits letting me know that he just isn’t attracted to me anymore, check. To say that receiving a shitty text from my FWB is included in my daily routine would be a lie. But to say that this was the first partner I’ve had cut things off through text message would be a lie as well. The problem is that when you meet other twenty-somethings online, the search for a truly monogamous relationship becomes a heavy load to bear. Creating worthwhile romantic connections through the web isn’t all it cracks up to be in those e-Harmony commercials; in fact it’s far from. I speak on behalf of myself when saying this because I don’t want to say that there is little to no luck to be found in online dating, but the older I get and the more time goes on and the more texts I receive, there is little to no luck to be found in online dating.
More people than not have put me on a pedestal for being “brave and bold” when it comes to dating online, but I don’t know if that is a fitting phrase for my life. Maybe I would say that I am brave for continuing to hold on to hope when with each new endeavor the light at the end of the tunnel seems to dim. I would maybe go as far as saying that I am bold in the way that I have opened up to others about my experiences. But I would not say that going on one first date with an array of men makes me brave and bold. I can’t count how many times I have been admired with wide eyes when mentioning that I frequently date online. I find that the admiration is stemming from people in committed relationships with people they of course did not meet online.
As a 22 year old living in a college town, it is not slim pickings when swiping left and swiping right. I can set my Tinder preference at 10 miles and gap my ages from 21-28 and suddenly I have a whole world of single, available men at my fingertips.  My first experience with an FWB was about a year ago, we had swiped right on each other and that was where it all began. We didn’t do anything but hook up with each other and maybe have a cup of tea while Miles Davis lulled in the background. I tried out the pillow talk thing, but I don’t think he was as ready to commit to an entire conversation as he was to ripping my shirt off. I wrote poetry about him because I dreamed of more than an “acquaintance with benefits” situation and then one day I decided to take action. I told him I wanted to make him one of my famous casseroles; of course he accepted the offer. I was over the moon at the thought of finally becoming friends with my benefits. But again, life is no e-Harmony commercial, plans never really go as planned and after a night of dinner, wine, and benefits; he disappeared. I let it run its course, we semi-tried to rekindle whatever we were, but soon enough the infamous text came. One casserole and he thought I wanted to take his last name.
I didn’t want to take his last name, I barely knew the guy, but I think that this was another classic case of the twenty-something fearing a monogamous relationship. I get it, it’s scary and not everyone wants strings attached. Freedom is a beautiful thing, freedom means being in your twenties and texting who you please, getting drinks with who you please, dancing with who you please, and waking up the next morning and doing it all over again. Freedom and non-monogamy have always gone hand in hand, but being in a monogamous relationship does not have to be defined by getting married and settling down and feeling feelings in every part of you. You are not required to do any of the three, you can be whatever you choose with a person and when you begin to recognize and own those feelings, you are recognizing your ability to be free together.  There comes a time, now or later, that you have to give up your freedom as a single-being and in that you gain another kind of freedom, freedom as two together beings. I suggest that if you are there, you take it. I am barely into my twenties and I have spent a majority of that time looking for ways to tie myself down with whoever was ready and willing. But when I have a steady friend with benefits and the ability to talk to who I choose when I choose – I am suddenly hopping on the non-monogamy don’t try to commit with me train, too. It’s easy enough to get on, no one is stopping you, take your ticket. It’s never easy to get off though because no one is stopping you, you already have your ticket. It’s you, yourself, and a world of single available people at your fingertips. Dating online is a one way to not having to commit yourself to anyone or anything, dating online allows you to say nope-not now to anyone who you might feel is mildly ready to settle down. To be fair – after meeting people online, I have been in a real life “see ya later-you’re getting way too serious for me” position, but who hasn’t? For me, I have never thought to be the type to reject a relationship; I have never strived or even expected to be the conductor, I have always assumed that if a relationship came down my tracks, it would hit me with full force. I wanted to feel its power over me, for as long as I could remember, I wanted to be struck by it. Somewhere down the line things changed though, maybe it was last year when Miles Davis was playing or maybe it was Monday when I read and re-read the line that said, “I am just not attracted to you.”
Either way, I found myself being in control, I found myself going down the wrong side of the tracks, the tracks far too traveled by. I am afraid of monogamy just as much as the next person, but what does that say about someone’s desire? When during the course of someone’s sexual tension does it get to the point of cutting things off out of fear commitment? And why, why are we so afraid?  Committing to one person can be a nightmare to anyone. The problem, I believe, lies in our ability to access anyone, anytime. Tinder, OkCupid, Match…these sites are all readily available for us to meet the love of our life. We never asked for that, we never asked to be a Mrs., but the possibilities are endless.  I haven’t met the love of my life on any of these sites; I have not in any way felt like I want to settle down after swiping right. I didn’t make a casserole to take his last name; I made a casserole to continue my duty as his friend with benefits.  No strings, no monogamy to scare us away, just benefits.

Reminders For Her

When she thinks of love...
She thinks long term, down the road, she dreams.
When she thinks of sex...
She regrets her choices, but tries to remember that her decisions do not make her.
When she thinks of dreams...
She has trouble knowing exactly what she wants - she gets stuck on him.
When she thinks of life next year...
She hopes that she remembers herself now and feels proud of how far she has come.
When she thinks of sucesss...
She thinks that loving herself more is the key to creating it.
When she thinks of her faults...
She remembers that while yes she's made of them, she is NOT only them.
When she thinks of now...
She feels okay with where she is and where she is going from here.

She just is.