Talks with My Twenties: April 9, 2005 - Age 24

Preface: An apology

Hey lovely FLAD followers! I know I haven't updated on my usual days (Sunday or Tuesday), since the whole Pinterest amazingness happened on Thursday (my other regular update day). I had some family stuff that came up and wasn't able to get back to FLAD to update. Needed to just kind of take the week off to take care of all that.

So without further ado, let's get back to the business of Talks with my Twenties, shall we?

Girls’ Night Out, Sixty Sausages, Substance Abuse, and the after effects of Binge Drinking

So my friend Chester Copperpot came into town yesterday. Caught up with her a little. Got a bit intoxicated and reverted to some 7^th grade tendencies that, although were a bit immature, really made me laugh.
 Sixty Sausages. That’s all I gotta say.

Went to Woodhollow for about 2 hours after leaving McTavern’s We wanted to try a new place, but we weren’t feeling the vibe there. Of course Woodhollow wasn’t much better, but the music was a bit more conducive to shaking our asses. Which is difficult to do when people get up on your shit and won’t get the hint that you just want to dance with your friends. And I hate being mean, so we would just shimmy to a different part of the dance floor.

And how do you tell someone you’re friends with that their drinking is too much for you, so you don’t want to hang out anymore? I have a friend, and he was so much fun to hang out with, but he drinks quite a but and it’s something I’ve realized I don’t like to deal with.

Three times it has affected his treatment of me in a negative way. I’m mature enough to know that I can’t change him…that’s something he has to want to do for himself, but I don’t want to make him feel like crap.

I think he knows something’s up since I haven’t been going out to see him, but when I called to explain, he wasn’t home…most likely at his friends’ apartment having a drink.
  

I dunno. It’s a bummer. He and I were on the same wavelength…or so I thought. 

I am drinking orange Gatorade. Dehydration’s a bitch. 

Love,
Tiff

I struggled to come up with a response to this one.

For one, I can’t stop listening to Thrift Shop and dancing in my seat (because I’ve started doing Zumba and learned a fun routine to it…)

I'm sure this is how I look while doing said routine...

For two, I already covered the “friend” in question in a previous post.

But here goes…

24-year-old Tiff: it is okay to be “mean” to people who are invading you physically or emotionally, or verbally. That’s not being “mean” – it’s honoring and respecting yourself.

I wish I could go back and tell you that, because it has taken until now to realize this – and you had to go through a pretty toxic relationship in the past year in order to finally “get it.”

So the takeaway here is that, at 32, you get it. You finally get it.

And at 33 you start living it. Legit.

It took almost losing yourself – all those things that make you “you.” The good, the bad, the interesting, the boring, the beautiful, the ugly, the sad, the hilarious…etc.

And why? Because you didn’t want to be “mean” to someone who was consistently disrespecting and dishonoring you.

And I’m sure you, 24-year-old me, would be like, “That guy sounds like a jerk!” but the truth is, the very hard truth of it all is: you and I allowed it.

I was just as responsible for all the hurt and the pain and anxiety and darkness that happened as a result. That’s not to say I deserved it – no one does – but I allowed it to continue almost to a point of no return.

The absolutely beautiful thing is that we needed that experience to become strong enough and smart enough to stand up to it, leave it, heal from it, and go on to start living a life that’s nothing short of fabulous and amazing.

Yes, 24-year old me, we totally did.
We stood our ground, ended something that did not serve us, 
 and we moved forward. 

Of course, things aren’t perfect (what fun would that be, anyways?), but these days we don’t require the approval of others to dictate what we do or don’t do.

Nowadays, I don’t try to please everyone to the point of risking losing myself.

I also work harder to forgive.

Was that guy I dated a jerk?
I mean, kind of. But I’m sure he was also fighting his own battles. I know he was…is? (We’ve since lost touch.)

Am I still angry about it?

No. Not angry. I think about it still, but in different ways.

• I think about the happy times and I’m grateful for them.
• I think about the things we laughed about and I’m grateful for them too.
• I think about the people I met: grateful.
• I think about the fights: still grateful.
• I think about the confusion: yep, grateful for that, too.
• I think about the pain: You guessed it – grateful.
• I think about what I’ve learned: grateful.
• I think about all the things that came about during and after that time in my life, and I realize that without it all, there's no way I could be where I am today. So: SUPER grateful. 

And I think about him sometimes and just hope that he’s happy. That the new woman he's dating makes him laugh and they “get each other.” That they’re creating more happy memories and moments than not happy ones.

That he’s going after the things he’s always wanted to go after. That he’s taking the risks he always talked about taking. That he’s thinking less about what the people around him think about him, and more about making sure he’s staying true to himself.

And that if he feels like dancing like an idiot, he dances like an idiot. (Especially this one. [See? I told you there are still good memories.]) 

But most of all: that whatever battles he was fighting, or is fighting, he’s won them or is winning them.

Because to be honest, if he wouldn’t have been the way he was when we were together? If that relationship didn't play out exactly the way it did? 

We, 24-year-old Tiff, wouldn’t be in the place we are now.

And I’ll tell you what: we love this place.

As for 60 sausages?

This comes to mind...

But yeah…that’s about the guy who broke my heart in January 2005.

We (you and Copperpot) repeatedly prank called him at 3am, saying only, “soixante saucisses” (that’s French for 60 sausages, guys) over and over in weird accents.

And we laughed til we cried. And it was glorious.

A glorious, drunken, healing spectacle that I’m surprised I haven’t ever repeated…


…yet?

TAINTed Love

“Oh yeah. I’ve heard of that stuff. I know sometimes cyclists use it. Do you use it for cycling too?” 

“Well yes, but mainly for my taint area.”

This was an actual conversation I had, on an actual date, with an actual human male a little over a week ago.

And I don’t know about you ladies out there, but it’s pretty much always never been my dream to hear those sweet, sweet words pouring out of my date’s mouth as I’m getting ready to put another chip, heaping with guacamole, into my mouth.

Ah…romance!

I should probably back up a little and provide some backstory, right?

Basically it’s this: I’ve started dating again and I still despise online dating as much as I ever have. More, really.

I’ve been on quite a few online dates in my adult life, two of which actually resulted in long-term relationships.

Although,  I mean, look how well those turned out.

So of course I decided to give it another go...and I ended up on a date with a guy who told me about his taint cream.

Taint cream....

TAINT.

CREAM.

And then had me pay for my dinner.

(But I mean, I wasn’t expecting dinner AND a show, so I guess it was worth it?)

My lotioned-taint Lothario was actually the second person that I went out with in the past month or so. 

The first was a 34-year-old professional pedicab driver emblazoned with a tattoo of a giant eyeball (to commemorate his recent cataract surgery...duh) and who wore a screw as an earring.

In the middle of the date he pedaled us off into an alley where he proceeded to pee and then roll and smoke a spliff. At the end of the night he left me stranded to find my own way home from Bucktown so that he could go to a late-night electronic music festival afterparty.






Needless to say, I think this all might just be the Universe's way of saying, "Stop it. Enjoy your summer."

Point taken, Universe...

...and I'm sorry you had to resort to talk of taint cream.

Why Did My Ex Hate This Shirt?

I am a MAKER OF ANGER!

About a month ago I ended a relationship with a guy who I really, really loved, but after a second attempt at being together, I realized it wasn’t going to work this time around either.

Since the breakup, I've cried a lot, enjoyed copious amounts of “therapy cake” (which is just regular cake, only more healing and delicious), played my ukulele, cried some more, eaten more cake, taken walks, signed up for a class, and been really just trying my best to remain a composed, grown-ass woman during what’s proven to be a rollercoaster of a time.

And I really fucking hate rollercoasters.

A couple weeks after things ended, I decided I needed a night out with my girlfrands. Which is also when I came across the shirt pictured above, as I tried to pick out what to wear.

My ex-boyfriend HATED that shirt. Hated it.

To the point that not only would he prefer I not wear it when we went out,  when I would change out of it he'd verbally and physically express intense relief. Relief akin to finding a bathroom at precisely 10 seconds before pissing all over oneself.

Funny enough, out of all of the people who have ever seen me wear that shirt (and I wear it a lot now, by the way), he was the only one who disliked it.

So I began to wonder: what about this particular piece of clothing could possibly cause such an adverse reaction in my ex? 

Naturally I did what any woman in this situation would do and created a speculative list with some ideas about why this shirt caused that man so much damn angst:

1. It drew attention to my boobs while at the same time covering my boobs. Too much of a conundrum.

2. If I was wearing my sequined half-top out, then how could he wear his?

3. A half shirt is not worthy of the same respect as a WHOLE SHIRT.  Obvi.*

4. Too many colors. It's hard.

5. First comes sequins, then comes marriage, then comes SO MANY BABIES! Am I right, ladies?!

6. He secretly wished he could wear it to the gym.

7. The sight of it triggered something in his brainparts that turned all of his thoughts into spiders. Actual spiders. Ugh, THOUGHTSPIDERS. The. Worst.

8. Hipsters.

9. It reminded him of a Vegas show girl he probably used to date.**

10. Because, LOW CALORIE FRUIT JUICE. (He used to buy that shit, and that shit is fucking disgusting. This needed to be said.)

11. He probably worried that more people would like this shirt on Facebook than they would one of his posts.

12. It looked like the deep space field, but it wasn't the deep space field. The shirt is a lie.

13. It was too dressy for the storage closet he let me keep my things in when I stayed over.***

14. Traumatic childhood arts and crafts accident?

15. It taunted him when I wasn't looking, like:

That's pretty much all I could come up with so far. But I think I'm pretty much on track.


*I should note, this half-top was never worn to show my midriff. It was always worn over a longer tank top. 

**Unlikely. I would have heard about her at least 50 times over the course of our relationship.

***To be fair, he eventually let me hang things up in his bedroom closet about a week before the breakup. Maybe he just couldn't handle that shirt getting that close to his button downs and cycling kits...