Optimism and giraffes.

April 30, 2005

I had me a nifty day today, complete with a fun trip to see a giraffe bend his neck at a very unusual and painful looking angle.

For a long time, I went without really good female companionship. I was good with the male companionship, with Matt and Scott and others like that, but.. it's just really nice. There are just so many things you can talk about and do with a chick that you just can't talk about or do with a guy. You should all have a friend like Ali-Kat, who will go on a 400 mile, 6 hour long road trip and listen to you talk INCESSANTLY about where you think it went wrong, why it's going to be okay, and what you're most angry about.

Anyway, we decided to take ourselves on a trip to Oklahoma City, which is about 200 miles from Dallas. We drove there, went to the zoo (the third largest in the country!) and rode the tram, and then drove 200 miles back, with a random trip to see my mom involved somewhere in there. It was really a good time, and we will be doing it more often.

One of the many things I acquired from Matt was the love of road trips. He's extremely diligent and hardcore about his famous road trips, and I'm not nearly as hardcore. But I do love to drive to new places and familiarize myself with them. Yay for that.

Driving for long periods of time when there's nothing much to look at except really pretty wildflowers... well, you start thinking about stuff. A lot. I got a little down in the dumps for a while, but through various moms and best friends, I snapped out of it.

Basically: It's all good. I am going to try not to discredit the whole relationship just because it didn't turn out the way I thought it would. We had some really good times together and I learned so much from him, so instead of being sad that it's over, I should be happy that it was there in the first place.

Or, you know.. something like that.

We still haven't talked since Monday. It's quite.. unsettling.

What isn't unsettling is the new apartment I'm going to move into in less than a month. When my roommate told me that we had to be out in a month, I freaked out. But now I'm really excited, and I've already found an apartment in a great location with a pretty good price. I'm actually pretty excited about living by myself again.

The future looks pretty good, actually. It doesn't have Matt in it, which scares me in some kind of way... but that's okay. I used him as a crutch for far too long, and we both know that. But I am very optimistic, and I know when I look back at this year in December, I'll finally be able to be proud of myself.

Oh, man. I love me some Johnny Damon.

Also, I seem to be sitting here and watching show after show of America's Funniest Home Videos from 10 years ago. It's making me laugh, so that's good.

Here is part of an entry from 3 years ago. I'm sharing it because it's stupid, and it's basically me saying "I want to marry Matt because I've invested so much time, it would suck if we didn't get married.

You know, today I was talking to a friend of mine and after I told her me and BB have been together for 4 1/2 years, she asked the requisite question of "So, are yall going to get married?"

I've thought about this over the past couple of days. Sometimes, I used to think that we'd break up eventually and then I'd get to have my wild and crazy sex and alcohol phase and then I'd get over it and I'd be ready to settle down.

I don't want that to happen anymore. If we were going to break up, it should have been when I tried to during my freshmen year in college. We were broken up for a month, but we still saw each other all the time and I realized it wasn't what I really wanted. And I don't want to break up with him. Sometimes I regret that I spent my last year in high school and all my college years with him, missing out on a lot of stuff.

But if I broke up with him now, or when I get out of college, I would have wasted all 4 years that I missed out on things, you know? I haven't had sex in 4 1/2 years, people. I want to know that all this time I'm putting in means something, and if we get married, I will.

This probably sounds very ignorant when I write it down here, but it makes sense in my head. I just don't want to think that I wasted 4 years of college, and I like to think that I didn't waste it. I love him, and while I have doubts now, I know it's the right thing. I love him, and I wouldn't feel right with anyone else.