In the the nearly two decades since becoming a woman or whatever, I’ve come to realize that surviving PMS sometimes means leaning into the odd slew of emotions the hits hard for one or two days each month. Melancholy, despondency, anxiety — you know, all the good ones — blend together to leave me feeling just delightful. When this happens I’ve decided it’s best to wallow in the sad. My favorite way of really languishing is to watch movies designed to make me blue.
For those of you who are not local, The Loop is (now) a Minnesota chain bar with locations in St. Louis Park, Rochester and Minneapolis. The bar borrows its name from the North Loop neighborhood where its origin story takes place. By day, you’ll find comfy booths, good food, passable drinks, and, if it’s a weekend before or after college football season, awesome breakfast. By night, it turns into a dance club not fit for anyone over the age of 27 and even then, you shall have no fewer than four shots in your system.
As growing and evolving human beings our lives are strung together by a series of lessons we’ve learned from mistakes we’ve made and sworn never to repeat again. But for some of us (hopefully there is an “us” and I’m not completely alone in my shame) there are mistakes we knowingly repeat and can never explain our motives to the satisfaction of anyone with half an ounce of common sense. The routinely revisited error is a difficult one to comprehend. There are a slew of quotes floating around the universe pontificating on the absurdity of reverting back to old missteps.
Ok I’m back from my unintentional holiday hiatus. I’m sure I was missed terribly. And in keeping with the obligatory themed posts this one is going to be about resolutions, kids. Well part of it’s due to the New Year’s resolution shtick and part of it’s because a friend of mine made some quip the other day about how I wanted a man more than the average sow (that’s a female bear). I took great offense to this statement despite the fact that he didn’t believe he was being offensive. To me he was saying, “you are desperate and in need of a boyfriend because you’re obviously no good without one.” To him he was saying, well, I’m still not clear on what he thinks he was saying.
With the holiday season comes all those warm fuzzy feelings that often lead to the more single of us to wish Santa would bring us someone with whom we can share a series of eggnog-soaked activities. I can’t lie (obviously since I’ve over-confessed much to you fine people for the past two years), I’ve had my “All I want for Christmas is you, whoever you may be, because I have only a very generic idea of you in my mind” moments. I get doubly nailed with single awareness events given the fact that my birthday is this month as well. Which means I’m just one year closer to throwing myself a wedding-themed birthday party. (Not really. That’s just frightening.)
Ok that title is unnecessarily dramatic. I’m sorry. I’m not really a mistress per se. But no one is going to read a post entitled: “Confessions of a Girl Who Maybe Flirted a Little Too Hard With Someone Who Was Unavailable.” Now that I got your attention by misleading you, let me explain my mistress-light circumstances.
Sometimes it feels damn good to have that mushy, connected-deeply-to-another-soul crap in our lives doesn’t it? So much so that you’ll go to strange (though maybe not great) lengths to get it from places and people you maybe shouldn’t. Most likely from some guy (or girl) who is there to fill in for just long enough to make you feel loveable and capable of real human emotions on occasion. Because sometimes you forget how to feel feelings when you aren’t constantly bickering with the one you love. And that’s no good, right? So what better way to deal with it than some truly unhealthy and delusional fauxmance? (See what I did there? That’s a portmanteaux kids. Pretend like nobody’s ever used that blend before.)
For the past two weeks I’ve come across a barrage of survival guides designed to help singletons make it through the ever-so-challenging holiday that is Valentine’s Day. This is the day that is supposed to make you feel miserable because you lack that special pooh bear to send loverly flowers to your work (because it doesn’t count if others don’t see it, sort of an if a bear poops in the woods kind of thing) and recreate the perfect Zales moment just for you. Alas, whatever shall I do to make it through with no one to love?
Since before I can remember, I’ve looked forward to Christmas with an over-excited anticipation rivaled only by this kid. I still love decorating my tree, baking Christmas cookies and selecting the perfect gifts for my friends and family. But after spending the Thanksgiving with my happily paired off family, a gloom has fallen over the once festive time.
Fair warning, this post is going to be unusually emo and embarrassingly honest. I may even want to beat myself up by the time it’s over, but here we go. Whenever I spend some time with a certain former Mr. Wonderful of mine, I am filled with sappy feelings of self-pity and nostalgia. It’s not nostalgia for the relationship I had with him necessarily, more for a relationship in general.
