#montherversary

[clarnahan-blog]

The more I travel the more compact I get. Three years ago I was working on keeping it under 50lb, and today I can say I've been comfortably living out of this backpack for a month as of today. #travelgirl #claratheexplorer #amonthandcounting #experience #montherversary

[itsahardrockpunk]

So it's been a month.

I've been dating this guy for, like, a month.

I do realize as I sit down to write this that I haven't actually gone into detail to explain how things went down anywhere from before my last breakup to this current relationship. I know I said I would but that isn't a real issue for me. I've talked to my therapist and everything and it's all good. And maybe it would make more sense to take the past-y sort of talk out of this post since it's mainly going to be about my current situation, but, hey, I'm already here with it so I guess you guys can handle being here with it too (mostly we would think about the current boyfriend feeling weird in this situation I guess, but .. he knows me and knows my feels for him XP).

But let's regroup, anyways.

So it's been a month.

I've been dating this guy for, like, a month.

Does it feel like a month? Does it feel longer? Or shorter? I don't really know.

It was brought to our attention by another one of my friends (pretty sure it was Bisy, actually... *shout out to you, my love*) that it has been about six weeks since winter formal. And Iz thought that was crazy. Idk. It's not the amount of time that sounds crazy to me. "Six weeks" didn't shock me in that moment as much as it did Iz. I guess it was just the thought of time passing at all and then of course thinking back to winter formal had be reaching back into a time wherein I was not dating Iz, or anyone for that matter. That night was when I first opened myself up to dating him. That was when I was first really like, well maybbeeeee..... So I told him that my crush was on a sophomore.

But I wouldn't tell him who it was. And lol I never did until after he asked me out. I refused to haha. Oh nothing just me being a stubborn butt.

So I'm still listening to Oh That I Had by Mt. Eden (it also features Ruby Frost) and it's not so much the words as the beat and the sound of the voice and the way the tune of the singing goes and the beat and it just I just really feel like that's how my brain sounds. And then it's some the words.

I have this thing going on for Iz since we've been dating a month and you know people celebrate that and stuff. It's in progress and there are a bunch of pieces lying around I just gotta put them together.

Anyways so when I was making my last text post about this song ^^, I was scrolling up through our conversation on my phone to find exactly what I had said to him about the song and how it made me feel (so I could make sure my paraphrase was close enough to my word-for-word-ness or at least that I had actually said something like that when I sent it to him). I didn't find it, but that's okay. I did find what he sent me this morning saying sweet things that I had accidentally skipped over a bit because I was writing something and then decided I would read it when I woke up again but then forget about.

And I was listening to this song, and just feels, and so when I read it I started crying ok. [The only reason I hesitate to say that is because I know he'll see this. And although part of the reason I'm posting this is because so he'll see it, that's a very small part in the grand scheme of things. It's more like a oh-this-will-be-cool-that-he-sees-this. I wouldn't have gone this long with this blog if it was for other people XD. I would have fallen out like all my girlfriends did (hehe I outlasted all you guys). But duh this is about him so it's kind of for him aka more like why not put it in a place where he can see it..]

Absolutely anyone can say those words. Anyone. And that's not why I started crying. They're simple words. Just that this month has "been an amazing" one and a thank you to me for being "the coolest" [lol whatever that means...jk ;)] and the "funniest gal in the world" and things about "butterflies". This is not hard language to come by! or even something out of the ordinary you would hear from a boyfriend to a girlfriend or vice versa or in any sort of love relationship. This isn't my first rodeo how can it be so gut wrenching still (all good gut wrenchings, don't worry). So maybe it's kind of the butterflies thing but I think that's just now that I've been thinking about it. And I could say that maybe it's the being tired that caused tears, but maybe it's just the being me and who cares if the tired has to do with it because being tired doesn't make it any more superficial or cause it to hold less weight.

So it wasn't even the words and I was shaking. It's the person behind it. It's that this relationship even exists. Idk .. I haven't exactly told it to him like this, I don't think, but I just didn't think I deserved to be happy like this again so soon. Excuse me for a second while I clear my eyes... branches and things... jk iT'S JUST FEELINGS causing me to explode all over my face.

I don't know. I guess for so long it just didn't feel like this? Nothing felt like this? And I've felt all this before. I've had this kind of love. This is not new for me. I remember feeling this way. I think for .. for so long, I had fallen out of love with Chappers and been out of romantical love towards Chappers for so, so long (exbf for those of you who haven't been around)... and for so long I didn't realize it. I convinced myself that my anti-cuddling and anti-touching and anti-beingclosetohim was "just a phase" for so long and I cared about him so, so, much that I didn't realize I actually wasn't attracted to him anymore. And we tried again, and again to make it work, and I just couldn't make myself love him like that and so it didn't work. And it fell apart in a screaming halt. And he had loved me and I had not and that's how it ended. 

I finally don't feel like I'm screwing my relationship up.

I'm not a problem anymore.

I'm not ruining someone else's life anymore. I'm not making him sad. Oh gosh I hated that. It was just fricking depressing. His whole tone of body and attitude changed he didn't know how to act around me and therefore I didn't know how to act around him. I was frustrated and I was mad at him for not feeling confident around me but I had cut him down so many times, asking him to change this and change that and not do this and try doing that. And my therapist and I had talked about these things and she was the one who suggested sometimes that I suggest he try not walking me to every class and stuff like that. Not spending every waking moment together. I was feeling smothered and my flight or fight response is flight. And so feeling smothered is just the worst for me. That may seem rough but we honestly spent so much time together because we were in the same friend group and idk I think it was a lot of other things too but if I needed alone time I didn't know how to tell him and I didn't know how to get away because he was always there and I couldn't just, separate myself for a second. 

I was going to be a great girlfriend. I was going to give him a time in his life to be really happy about. But now he's just gonna look back for a while and be sad about it I just hope one day he can be happy about it again but I know I really hurt him by going out with someone else again so soon.

I don't want to go too deeply into that. Lol like I haven't already haha, but I don't want to start speculating too much and bring it over into this relationship era. This is a new thing. And it's kind of pretty fricking cool. 

And I am so happy.

And then I start crying again (yes now as I'm writing this). And the first time I had that thought, yeah, I started crying then too. And I was like "hold up brain why are we crying???"

And that's when I realized this whole I-didn't-expect-I'd-be-happy-like-this-this-soon. And I've told Iz .. I mean, we've talked about how much neither one of us expected this to happen. Take this little scenario into your head and think about it: what are the odds that a sophomore guy and a senior girl get together the girl's second semester and start dating?? And they haven't like known each other their whole lives or even close and when she broke up with her last boyfriend maybe a month ago she was SURE that she wasn't going to start dating anyone else no matter what because that would be so STUPID and CARELESS and what was she going to do when she went to college in the fall ESPECIALLY if that person was still going to be in high school? I guess I've just heard too many "horror stories" about one person being in college and another being in high school. (ok that sounds dramatic but I just mean things where all of a sudden they were in different worlds and therefore it just didn't work out). I don't want to get into that, right now, though. I'm doing this thing where I'm living in the moment. It's been working pretty well for me. That's how I got in this relationship, after all.

So neither one of us expected this to happen, right? But it wasn't just the normal-life odds for me. And it wasn't just the "oh I don't deserve to be happy like that" because I honestly didn't even realize it was such a deep thing like that engraved in my head until a few days ago. I wondered about it, but I didn't feel it enough to truly realize it.

I just didn't expect that I would find that kind of happiness at all, that relationship happiness, or that it would be able to happen. I guess there was nothing really stopping it from happening but I just didn't think that it would, for whatever reason. It just didn't seem like it would be something that would be in "the plan".

And maybe you don't believe in a plan, but I kind of do... to a degree. Like, I believe that, of course, we have control over our own lives but whatever we do will be molded into something bigger and that...that is something we don't have control over. I wasn't going to ask him out, so how was it going to happen? And we had gone this long without going out so.

But it happened.

And I'm freaking ecstatic.

"This isn't me," I try to think. But it is. It is me! This is my life! And I'm still excited and ecstatically surprised by it every day! It's not changing and that's crazy! Why is it not changing?! Why am I still excited/taken aback about it?? How?????

It's like this song. How did I find a song that feels so much like the inside of my head? More like HOW DID I FIND HIM??

How did he find me?

And then I think, "well, I guess he found me because I was ...me." And he noticed that and eventually I "found" him back when the time was right. But he found me because I was me? When I'm such a screwup? Like literally all I had to do was be me and I wasn't even trying to get him to notice me, ever. But he did and for some reason I can't get over that.

This is honestly the first guy I've ever started really liking before I thought that he might be into me. Not to discount my previously relationships, but ... that still makes it a little different in my head. I don't necessarily...question myself as much as I might have, especially for coming out of a relationship so recently, no matter how estranged it may have been.

I have had my share of feeling like a broken person. Isaac makes me feel less broken.

This isn't the entirety of why he does, bu

t I love his family. Sometimes it makes a little part of me sad because I know my family won't ever be like that again, but I think that was just once because now I'm shaking my head because all I feel is happiness when I think about them. I know they're not perfect but I just don't have that and I don't know how long ago it was that I had that... I don't know if I ever had that because of my dad's addiction problems, but that's just my fears speaking. Life was insanely good and ideal when I was a child. I had it at some point, I just don't really remember it and the stuff I remember, like, from elementary and middle school, it's got a shadow shedding on it because of the divorce and the addiction problems and the rehab stints and the fights,...., the fights. I know their family is not perfect, and I know I said that. I just want to reiterate it. But they seem to really like me. This is the first time I've really felt like a part of the family of my boyfriend in a way that a girlfriend usually might. Oh gosh he just texted me and I'm dying and now I'm dying more.

Idk and his family really likes me and you saw how excited I got last time I mentioned someone liking me for me in this post haha.

I guess he's stable. Not that nobody else was, but I've been in three relationships before him and here's what cons they kind of included (okay the first one doesn't have 100% cons listed): (1) first love, middle school, short lived because he wasn't interested enough and changed his mind, (2) older guy at a different school, his age really had nothing to do with it except maybe it unconsciously had an effect on us feeling like we were in separate worlds, also I couldn't drive so we never saw each other because, we lived on the other side of town from each other, and then he wouldn't break up with me because he was frickin scared and just ignored me so I would do it sorry for the rant (3) best friend, lived super far away although that didn't keep us from occasionally doing stuff, do you see how I said occasionally ugh I was always like "idk if I can do something this weekend" and so we never did anything, he also had family probs but more at the time than I did which had no effect on how much I loved him but now after two years it's like

woah

...

your parents aren't trying to beat each other into the ground with lawsuits almost a decade after they divorced

HECK THEY'RE EVEN LIVING HAPPILY IN THE SAME HOUSE

WHAT IS THIS

even my parents aren't like that.

...

SOORCERRYYY!

So here's one last thing that I haven't told him.

jk wait I think I have more.

Lol I've taken so long to do this.

lol is anyone surprised because y'all shouldn't be.

So I have this thing where I pretend my friends are with me and talk to them. Sometimes I use the doorframe to my closet as a solid piece of matter to represent said friends. So Isaac became one of those friends I pretended was there. And he was a recurrence. Then one night, after that winter formal night when I had told him that I did indeed like a sophomore, I

ew guys there's snot on my thumb..lol sorry XD

was standing there "with him", thinking about him and going through some sort of scenario, when I pulled back and realized. "OH. My. Gosh. This could actually happen." I had the biggest rush of relief just absolutely pour itself across my body and suck its way through my veins.

Relief has never hit me so hard.

And then, of course, I was taken back by how hard the relief had rammed into my whole being.

All those days and days and days of dreaming about him and thinking about him and having that be something that was simply confined to a "this is nighttime this is pretend this is imagination this is NEVER going to happen in real life and if it does it's not going to be any fricking time soon". Like, I literally had it so separated. I'm impressed that I was able to do that, honestly. Maybe, yeah, we were really aware of each other in the lunch room and everything even when I was dating my ex at the time but that was it. I was aware of him, I noticed it, I let it happen, and at the end of the day I ran away (once again being a flight girl), but then again, he didn't pursue. And so that was it. He was just a daydream. I just texted him I have to finish this soon aahhh

But then all of a sudden

he was real.

Daydreams don't come into real life like that every day.

I don't know how else to explain that rush of relief to you. I wasn't expecting to feel relief. It just came. I guess I no longer had to hold myself back?

Gah, I think it's just best described as inexplicable, really. GOSH.

So here's one last thing, excerpted (with a little tense change but I wasn't solid on that so the editor in Bisael is probably going to die at some parts) from stuff I wrote at 7:35 am this very morning when this song was taking a hold of me and jarring me like it has previously in this post.

Emotions were leaking into me this morning. It was Isabel from where we had some girl talk yesterday and how after all this time (seven years!! I haven't been this kind of closeness with anybody else for that long) we're still talking and feeling and feeling new things with each other and gosh feeling new things with other people but we still come back to each other and that's the best thing I can think of, as friends, to always do is to come back to each other.

And Isaac, like, he said "I love you a whole lot" last night and I may have been running on four hours of sleep but it's not lie that I still can't figure out how he got around here, how he got to me, except by divine interference but how him? and how me? and how why?

not that he didn't have his own choice in the matter I just don't know where he otherwise would have come from...not because of him...but because of who I am. How did you get to me how am I happy in this way after what I've done? I'm not more special than anyone else is this just my life? is this how my life works?

It must be because this is my life and I guess this is how it is working and therefore this is how it works.

And it was like calling for tears, that feeling those emotions right then, and they wouldn't come but I knew they would come back, gosh I didn't even need them right then (or now, really), but I felt them shadowing in the backs of the backs of my eyes and that brought more of this evaporated feel where I'm having feelings that I just can't quite put a finger on and therefore I can't really put a finger on what I exactly mean by "evaporated feel" and since I've been going on this post for at least an hour I'm going to just explore that later.

So, Isaac...

You were my gamble, are my evaporated feel, my relief in the doorway when your arms weren't around me yet almost cried at that one this morning haha

I don't think I've ever felt relief hit me so hard.

I guess maybe this seems like a lot to say and pour out on his head for one month? But gah whatever I am a lot dangit haha. XD. PEOPLE ARE FRICKEN A LOT. and I need to stop questioning or worrying about that kind of thing from myself. It would just make everything so much smoother...not that I'm used to that or anything. XD

So, yeah.

I'm kind of determined to do this aahhh he's sending me a ton of snaps right now because I dropped a 300 second snap bomb on him earlier tonight when I was trying to study. Another cool thing about this is that WE'VE LITERALLY DONE SOMETHING LIKE 99% OF WEEKENDS????? THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE

IT'S almost like I've never been in a relationship before. It's crAZy.

I'm so determined not to do this "idk about this weekend" thing with him. And I haven't and I'm so glad because it's so much nicer seeing him every weekend. I may not be a screw up, but I know where my faults were in my last relationship and that they led me to eventually believe I was screwing everything up. We'll talk about "our future", but not today and probably not tomorrow. He is completely my present-moment and nothing else and I am overjoyed to be with him and to be his girlfriend. I'm really not worrying about it.

I'm just really happy. Here's to one month.

[spicypotatoenoodles]

It's been 11 months with my bf already, it's crazy I haven't been with anyone this long before, and he is still the only guy I think about <3