Engagement and the Retired Thug

My friend Angela recently had a Netflix and Chill day date that she was very excited about. Whenever she tells me about a new beau I hold my breath, because she is a notoriously bad partner picker, primarily because she is a heavy proponent of thug love. And I have been here through all of them: the trapper, the rapper, the swinger with OCD. Before she even got started with the story, I was already preparing myself for the BS. 

Apparently, this guy is not a thug...he's a retired thug. He's gone legit everybody, making gourmet food for a laundry list of clients. She said that he opened her car door for her and was a real gentleman. He actually sounded like he may not suck until she told me that he is engaged. 

I swear, anything flies in Atlanta. How do you date someone who is engaged?! I know that people are grown and that they are going to do what they are going to do, but Angela's baby daddy was a cheater. She has been cheated on before. I brought this to her attention and her response was, "Yeah, I felt some type of way about it. But I'm bored."

?

She assures me that the retired thug is nothing serious. She says he has proven that he can't be taken seriously because he is engaged and dating. That's the understatement of the season! As I continued to listen to the deets about the day date, I thought about his fiancé who was possibly snuggled with him at that very moment. I also thought about the boulder of karma that could be rolling full speed at my friend's face. Listen, when I was younger and did something stupid that was karma-able, I would dedicate some months to the universe for forgiveness. These days, I try to stay on the straight and narrow. I don't have months to give away! And neither does Angela. I see this going nowhere fast, hopefully. It's hard to watch friends you loved do dumb ish. 

The 20 Year Itch pt 2: Merch

So, yesterday I logged on to Facebook, minding my own business, when I came across a post from a Toni, a woman that went to high school with me. She's on the planning committee for our 20-year reunion. She did a post to let us know that the Target closest to our old high school sells the high school's merchandise, and we would also be able to purchase high school merch (t-shirts, hoodies, etc.), at the reunion! Yay! 

I stared at this post blankly for like five minutes. It astounds me how different other people's high school experience was from mine. When I think of high school, I think of bullying and being immensely unhappy. I think of how this high school was one of the last ones in Georgia to take down the Confederate Flag from the flapping proudly in its lawn...I think. Well, I assume it's down now. Back in the 99s and 2000s when I was there, the parents had voted to keep it. Can you imagine being 15 and Black trying to explain to a 55-year-old White teacher why the Confederate Flag is problematic?! There are no memories from this place that make me want to put on a tank top with the high school's mascot plastered on it, believe me. 

Oddly enough, Toni had reached out to me a few weeks earlier via Facebook message, asking me directly if I was coming to the reunion. She and the committee were trying to figure out how much food to get and what venue to book. Toni was always cool with me. We were in remedial math together. But my instinct to reading that message, which was very sweet by the way, was to tell her to kiss my ass! I wanted to ask her why she was so eager to celebrate this nightmare? Could my poor Black experience had been that much different than her middle class Asian one? I guess so. If it had not been, she would have known to not even waste her time reaching out to me at all. 

Merch. Incredible! 

Oh, and I didn't tell you the best part: Bradley Barker is on the committee too! This for me is truly unbelievable. Bradley was then what he is now: a fat, Anime-loving, horribly dressed weirdo. This boy was made fun of so badly for being himself that I used to wonder if the student body was in cahoots to make him lose his mind! He was socially rejected and lost every SGA office race you could possibly run for! I should know, I was his campaign manager for his race for Regional President of a club we were in together. I guess 20 years has erased these memories for him, because he is now posting on social media posting about reunion ticket sales. What?! The boy had been so hurt about losing the Regional President race that he literally cried in my lap! 

I can't wait until the reunion goes down so that the publicizing for it will end and I can stop being traumatized whenever I go online. I try to pretend like high school didn't happen, and I'm eager to do that for the next 20 years. 

COVID Brain

Question: has society become completely inept?

I only ask this because, as I go through life trying to handle business and participate in adulting, I notice that those that I am communicating with seem to have no idea what is going on. They never know what I am talking about. They can never find the email. Everyone at the call center has different info on their screens. Nothing is being shot with troubleshooting. All the agents are giving is the verbal equivalent of a shrug, whether your warranty is up or not. WHAT IS GOING ON? There can't be something in the water because there has been something in the water. I have noticed that there has been a significant lag in humanness since COVID. 

A long time ago, a breast cancer survivor came and spoke to the organization I volunteer with. She said that, because of the chemo she had gotten, she was very forgetful. She said that people would walk up to her, tell her about times when they'd gone out together and hung out, and she could not remember them. This is called Chemo Brain. I think that working America is suffering from COVID Brain. A mixture of being allowed to chill too hard for too long mixed with the nostalgia of receiving stimulus checks has made those required to be even mildly produce completely unproductive, and let me tell you something, I CAN'T! 

Sadly, I do not have the temperament for the neverending runaround that has become trying to get something done in the post-COVID world. This means that I have a frustration-induced anxiety attack whenever I need to contact the bank or anyone's customer service line. It's like walking on eggshells! I hope that the flow of life straightens this...situation out naturally. Every professional interaction I have can not continue to end with me screaming. 

The 20 Year Itch

 As a senior in high school, I made a lot of promises to myself. I promised myself that I would be famous and an award-winning writer/editor. I promised myself that I would get skinny and marry a hot guy. I promised that my life would be full of adventure. If you know me, you know that none of these have happened. But I also promised that I would never return to my high school, and that is one promise that I plan to keep to myself. My 20-year reunion is coming up, and I absolutely have no intention of attending. 

I. Hated. High. School. And when I log in to Facebook and see updates from the reunion group and see that people are actually excited to go to the reunion, I am in disbelief. I can't believe that sat in classes with people who were having such a dramatically different experience than me! Although the reunion will not be taking place at my old high school, returning to be in the same space with my old peers would be the equivalent of returning to the scene of a crime. I am simply not here for the drama or the inevitable trauma. Maybe by my 30th year, I will be healed enough to go and peek my head in the door but not today Satan. Too soon. 

Depressed

I am depressed. 

This really shouldn't be news, because I am pretty sure that I have been functionally depressed my entire life. I remember being so, so sad all the way back in kindergarten and just being told that I was overly sensitive. I remember sitting at the club in college, wanting to cry for seemingly no reason, and being told I was just a drag and a downer. However, this depression feels different. 

I trace this surge in my unhappiess to the beginning of the New Year when I decided to go on this diet. Well, what was supposed to be a positive move to improve my health has plunged me into all day, every day negativitity. And as you have probably guessed, it is not going well. I am pretty sure that I have not lost so much as an ounce. This of course makes me feel like a failure, which is not exactly good for my already plummiting morale. Quite honestly, I am about two seconds from giving up completely. It is too much. It is a trial. And I am not good at trials that are too much. Anyway, I will never be as small as I always dreamed of' anyway; small enough to where a bikini to the grocery store or nab my dream man, so what's the point? Oh, I forgot. Life. 

Wow, I really must be depressed. I don't even feel like whining anymore. Okay then, until next time. 

Love and Middle Age 3: The Story of Stupid

In my recent conversations with TAFKAS, he told me stories of his friends and their unrequited loves. And the message that I took from these stories is that you should let people know how you feel when you have the chance. This is a very, very dangerous message for me because I just might do it which, in my case, is the easiest, quickest, safest way to embarrass myself. 

When I was in college, I had a crush on this basketball player and literally wrote him a 4-page letter and enclosed it with a kiss. Well, I didn't actually kiss it. My friend AJ did because my lips were chapped. I then doused the letter in Victoria's Secret body spray before putting the letter on this windshield. Luckily, God woke me up in a panic the next morning and I was able to run outside and retrieve it. THANK GOD! If he would have gotten that letter I have no doubt that he would have HUMILIATED ME! I would have had to move back to Atlanta and live under an alias. 

Then there was the Sigma that I wrote an erotic poem for. I read the poem to a couple of my co-workers and they gave me positive feedback which should have been my first clue that I was spearheading into a no-bueno situation. Luckily, Tortilla was there to bring me back to life, back to reality. "Don't message this to him. Don't," she said in a very stern voice which was odd, because her voice is usually so sweet that it sometimes sounds like she is singing when she talks. "If you ever get the urge to send this to him, send it to me, and I will respond like I am him, okay? Promise?" I promised, and again thanked God for having good friends. 

And then there are these two men at my church, I will call them Thing 1 and Thing 2. The Things are so nice to me and they love God and they are both hot in their own way. When I talk to them it is very, very difficult not to kiss them. This should tell you how hard I am crushin', because I think that kissing is disgusting! "Don't kiss him", my friend Ken said about one of the guys. I didn't tell her about the other one because I assumed the response would be the same. Again, thank God for good friends. 

But of late, I have been depressed, hungry, tired, sad, alone, and feeling like I am on an island. All of these things are the recipe for me doing something potentially stupid. I mean 4-page letter kind of stupid. Today I fell asleep while I was working and dreamed that I was making out with new crush (Do you see how kissing of some sort is usually the foreshadowing to these crises?) at my dead Great-Grandmother's house. It felt like I was really there! Family Matters was on the TV. Nana loved that show! This is not good because I believe that dreams have meaning...I am just not equipped to tell you what they are. If I had to guess what this dream was telling me, it would be that my deceased Great-Grandma was on board with me reaching out to this man that I don't really know and who doesn't know me. My inner me, which is consistently wrong, is telling me to reach out to him. 

Y'ALL PLEASE PRAY THAT I CAN MAKE IT TO THERAPY NEXT WEEK WITHOUT MAKING A COMPLETE ASS OF MYSELF!! If I can't get a grip, I will become one of TAFKAS's tragic stories. I am well on my way. 

Don't Speak

In most of my friendships, I feel like I am the chaser. I am the one that calls and checks in and sees how everyone is doing. I like talking on the phone and catching up, but everyone in my life is busy with their kids, relationships, and work, so they don't be having time like that to chat which, I'm going to be honest, makes me sad. I feel like I am by myself all the time, most likely because I am. But I have grown tired of being the one always reaching out. It makes me feel stupid and like a nuisance. So recently I decided to just leave folks alone until someone calls me. My biggest fear was confirmed: no one missed me. Sigh. I'm so tired of feeling like my feelings are hurt all the time. Tired of solitude. It all just makes me want to lay down someplace. Don't worry ya'll. I start therapy again next week.