Hey, I like You. Do You Still Like Me?

How do you tell someone you like them? Particularly a person who has reached out before, when you only wanted to be friends, and after a year, you’ve just begun to realize that that person was the one you’ve been looking for all along? I have been asking myself this same question for over a month now, and it makes me so nervous, that I have thrown my advice of just telling the person up front and honestly, to everyone I have known who has been in the same situation, out the window. A little backstory might be a little helpful.

A year ago I met this guy in a college class. If I remember correctly, he was already seated when I entered the room on the first day that spring semester. I wasn’t planning on getting to know anyone in the class, as I had mastered the art of being a loner. It was fun, and I liked going from class to class all on my own, finding a spot in the library to read, all on my own, and going home without having to worry about keeping up a friendship. I can barely remember the first words I spoke to this guy, other than the usual greeting people give before they make eye contact with one another. What I do remember, is that over that semester, this guy became a very fast friend of mine, and a very sweet gesture, lead me to the obvious conclusion that he liked me a bit more than I thought I liked him.

I had told him my birthday was coming up, and I discussed it with a former classmate of the previous semester who sat nearby as well. The week after my birthday, when we returned to class, this guy surprised me with a very sweet gift. It was a beautiful bangle bracelet, with butterfly charms dangling from it. I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to say but thank you, as I slid it over my wrist. No one outside my family had ever done something that sweet for me before. Not long after than he asked if he could take me out. He met my parents, and we went to a little diner for dinner. I had a great time, but I felt after that night, that I only wanted to be his friend, with no real problem on his part that lead me to feel that way.

Since then, we have still stayed in contact with one another, took a history class together, and shared our thoughts on many different historical time periods in America. I have found that he is basically like another version of me, minus the coffee addiction–that is something that belongs to me, ha. Over the year, we have gone out together weekly after out classes, traveled to a few historical sites, and visited many bookstores and libraries in search for more books to a growing pile of books we both keep at our homes, knowing we would never have enough bookshelf space to hold them all. Since then, I have spoken to maybe two other guys, met them, and compared them all day long to my friend I met in that class last spring. He’s the only one I’ve told almost everything to, shared my interests with, and my fears. He’s even stuck by me through the times where I have been moody due to my ever growing impatience with other people–something I have to work on, but I am my father’s daughter!

Though we have only been friends, he has been the perfect gentleman in opening every door, and insisting on paying for every meal we have gone out to together. There is a town twenty minutes from my house and school that I currently attend, and each time I visit a restaurant, no matter who I am with, I think about the times I spent at those places with him, and whenever a text notification pops up on my phone, I secretly hope it’s from him.  Funny how a person seems to creep up on your mind so often when it didn’t before. I guess it is the time you’re forced to spend without them–through summer break and miles apart–that you realize how you truly felt about them all along, and how every second you’ve spent with them has been the best time ever. But what if this guy doesn’t still want more than my friendship? I wouldn’t know where to begin laying out my feelings…but if I don’t do it, I will never stop thinking about what could have been.

It just isn’t as simple as saying: “Hey, I like you. Do you still like me?” Then again, maybe something that awkward could open the door to a more serious conversation about the topic with him. I am at loss for words, and still as nervous about the whole situation as I was when first beginning this post. Lord help me, I have never asked out a guy before.

 

 

With God, You Will Always Come Out Winning.

It’s going to be one heck of a day. I believe, a day that will have me sobbing by the end of the night. I’m saying this at 6:45 in the morning after receiving a call from the kitchen manager at work. Apparently, I have forgotten to make a carry out order last night, and it was due by 6:00 a.m. I receive a call just minutes before with my manager in a panic, and then when I bolt up from my pillow, and recall that I forgot to make it, my manager replies with, “Oh my gosh! What is going on?!” and then before I could stammer out that I didn’t know, that I was sorry–he hangs up. Since then, I have been staring in the darkness of my bedroom, in complete panic. Complete worry for what would possibly be coming my way later when I have to go in. Allow me to give a little bit of my work history there.

I have been an employee at the fast food restaurant since we opened three years ago. Let me say, that it has been an amazing three years. This job has taught me things I’ll be able to use in any other job, or whichever career I go into: Communications skills; hard, dedicated work, problem solving skills, the list goes on! This place really brought me out of my shell, and though there have been times where I was at my wits end and couldn’t possibly bear it anymore, the thought of quitting flickered through my mind, but vanished just as quickly. The place I work is like family: no matter how crazy there are, no matter how much they them to constantly be on your back, you still love them. The thought of giving up on my work family paralyzed me with fear. How would I function without being around them? These passed…six months has begged a different question though. “How much more of me can they take before they let me go?” And that is an even scarier thought.

These past few months have been stressful. Sometimes I don’t even know where I stand anymore, or that I’m even a part of things I used to be a part of. There are times I feel like I’m a walking target and everyone is out to get me, just waiting for me to do something wrong.

I have frantically searched my brain for reasons I have messed up in areas, asking myself what I could possibly do to make it better. When I came up with things to help me in my situations, they worked a little while and then I found myself messing up, again. I’ve been up all morning thinking and thinking, and thinking! I finally have come to one conclusion. God is testing me; He must be! For months, I’ve been trying to search myself for answers to problems, for ways to do better in areas where I’m slacking, and everything I try just never seems to work. I was absolutely made certain of this fact when I logged onto Facebook this morning and saw Bible quotes on my timeline that just seemed to scream at me. What a reminder that God is always in control. He’ll always be there for me and I should never forget it, or worse, try to work outside His will.
As long I know in my heart that God is in complete control, I don’t need to fret. I’m not fighting a losing battle as long as He’s fighting it with me. I’ll always come out winning with God.

Thinking About The Future

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. This seems to be my only thought since fall semester ended last week. Instead of the semester ending with me knowing how good (or bad) I did in my classes, I was left hanging in one of them. None of the grades I made mattered much to me, except for that dreadful C I earned in British Literature. For a week I have only thought about those last two papers that determined my final grade. I have done nothing but replay the whole semester in my head, and let the stream of questions I’ve had time to come up with since then, consume me. Right now, I think if I replay the semester through writing, I can answer some of these questions on my own. Some of the most pressing questions are: Does writing really fit into my life? If so, what type of writing? Do I still love it enough to make a career of it? I’ll begin at the moment I decided I was going to have a two-week period of major freaking out.

I was sitting in the library, pulling research from books and academic journals for the annotated bibliography that would be due in a couple of weeks (before I knew we would get a rolling due date). While sifting through the gigantic piles of notes I jotted down over the last few days, I began to panic from the realization that I had no clue what I was doing. Before that day, I went through a stage of self-doubt for two weeks after my first paper in British Literature. I received a C on a closed reading paper – C meaning, catastrophe. The whole paper, starting with sentence structure, choice in words, poor choice in quotes…the list goes on. The truth is, I panicked. It didn’t help much that my instructor looked like a terrifyingly tall man, with strict facial features and a strong accent that wasn’t from around here. He looked like he stepped right out of Germany, and later my thoughts were validated when he soon described his German descent.

Okay, so I wasn’t 100% correct. He’s not from Germany, his family is. Close enough though. From the first day of class, I was afraid to approach him, but knowing it was inevitable that I’d need his help, I stopped at the bottom of the stairs after class one day until the heavy clump…clump…clump of those heavy boots drew nearer. Then appeared my instructor. I took a deep breath and called his name. I set up an appointment during his office hours and decided I was getting ahead this semester. I was getting all the advice I needed, and I was going to ace this class.

Surprisingly, the man wasn’t as hard to talk to as I thought he would be. He looked terrifying and mean on the outside, but as the first weeks of the semester raced by, I learned that he was one of the instructors that was truly there to help. He was interested in his students’ gripes and concerns, as well as doubts, and was determined to do all that he could to wipe all that negativity out, but he never left out the harsh reality. He never sugar-coated the truth, but he did offer any solutions to problems we students were facing in our writing processes. I always went into the English department nervous. I would sit down across from my instructor, let him read over my first (of many) drafts, and bite my nails, my bottom lip, or the inside of my jaw. I would watch in horror as he marked up the page and spewed out suggestions, or tried to guess where I wanted to go with my paper. That’s what always broke me down – going to meet him with no clear thesis, or no idea where I wanted to go at all with my paper.

With that C in mind, and the sheer realization that I had just spent two weeks wallowing in self-doubt, I began to panic that I would also make the same catastrophic grade on the annotated bibliography. With that, I gathered all my notes, along with the sources I printed off, and stuffed them away in my bag. I would think about this again the next day. Two weeks later, I have four days until it is due, and I’m pulling all nighters just to get the thing knocked out. Right after I turn it in, I have a research paper and a final paper to plan. I couldn’t believe I spent a month and a half wasting time, and with little over two weeks to write two papers. I didn’t have time to go through the proper writing process for either paper, and on the day of the final exam, I turn the papers in, both of them the first and final drafts. I leave class knowing I won’t pass British Literature with anything above a C. My heart feels heavy, but I know it’s my own fault.

The next day, I take my last exam, head to the library to sign onto my account, and check my final grades. My final grade for British Literature was what I expected, and even though it didn’t come as a surprise, I felt tears gathering in my eyes. The grade in any other class wouldn’t hurt me so much, but receiving it in a subject I felt was so dear to me, broke my heart into a million pieces. I logged off the computer, went outside to a secluded spot and thought about what this final grade meant to me. Clearly, I could no longer consider making a career out of writing, especially in a teaching career, which I have thought about for years.

That doesn’t mean writing no longer fits into my life, which is the answer to my first question. I will always love it, but to be perfectly honest with myself, I do not think I’ll make a career of it, meaning: journalism, teaching, writing books, etc. The type of writing I will more than likely ever commit to, is blogging and personal journal writing. That does not mean I will give up majoring in English or even maybe mastering in it as well. I love the subject too much to stop at the basic understanding of the subject. My career of choice (whatever it may be), will most definitely center around English. I’ve probably dreamed of becoming a librarian more than dreamed of becoming a successful writer. I love the college setting, especially in a small community such as the one I’m in now. If I could work in a college library for the rest of my life, I’d be extremely happy.