Musing: Keys Revisited

I remember a few months ago writing about lost keys. How no matter how hard you seemed to look for that one thing that eluded you, as long as you kept searching so doggedly for it, you rarely find it. I promised myself to stop looking, to stop putting myself through the let down of hearing that familiar jingle only to find it was just pocket change or hair pins. I stopped stressing so much about the keys, and lo and behold, they ended up coming to me.

I could tell you about all the times I thought I was in love, only to find it was just infatuation mixed with a bitter, large dose of desperation. I could tell you about all the times my kind heart was taken advantage of in the name of lust masquerading as love. I could tell you about the guy who broke my heart and kick started this whole inner peace journey that I find myself steadfastly and easily walking. Or I could tell you about now, the time where love snuck up on me.

Those guys in the past put me in que to be who and how I am, and so I don't regret them, or what they've taught me. I don't regret the heartache, I don't regret the headache, as they've lead me to now, where I can show and tell how much I appreciate and admire the guy in my life. 

I'll be honest and say that I don't really know what this kind of love is. I love my parents. I love W and Soul Brotha. I love sitting in the sun with my iPod blasting Dwele G and a sketch pad. But this? I've never felt this before. It's a calmness injected with an underlying giddiness. A closeness that doesn't need to smother to be intimate. A playfulness that I've never really let anyone see in me. It's all these little things about me, not him, that have changed that make me think this is the real deal.

The main change I think is that I feel like a woman no Shania. I forget what exactly he'd said but after he said it the thought that made me smile and raise my eyebrow was "Oh, he's gonna be the man..." Not to say I've never felt like a woman before but I've always felt like a woman among dudes, guys, and boys, never a woman to a man. I've never been evenly yoked with the guys who were interested in me, or vice versa. There never seemed to be this even flowing of energy where, my energy so easily complimented theirs. I was always the one putting in work, always the one being there for them, always on a grown woman stance while they could never really be the man I needed. 

The feeling that I'm in now is shaking me to my core. I've always hoped but never really thought I would find a person who saw me as I am and not who I pretended to be, not who they wanted me to be. He knows about my insecurities and hang-ups, he knows some of the annoying things I tend to do or say, and here he goes, coming to see me and sh*t. I guess the truth is nobody ever proved to me I was worth that much; I was worth weak game, a trip to the dollar theater (that I had to pay for), but never worth getting to know really. And whereas I'm the one who emotes and expresses more with my words what and how I feel, he tends to want to show more than tell, and man is he showing me.

I suppose the reason I'm so shook is a mixture of not knowing really what being in love with a person is like as most of my tentative relationships with guys, dudes and boys tended to be one-sided. I'm shook because he's proving that he wants ME, not me in a couple months, not me in a couple years, but me right now, as I am. I'm shook because falling has never felt so right before. I'm shook because I'm entirely into this person and would really rather not mess everything up with being so high-strung. 

I can't really explain how I know this man is the one who's worth it. I can't really explain how I fell in love so quickly and easily after guarding my heart with such vicious seriousness. And the truth is, I don't have or want to explain it. I don't want to rationalize and suck the fun out of finding out if, indeed, it goes as deep as I think it does. I've found my keys, and no doubt I have a destination in mind, but who's to say it can't be fun getting there? 

Musing: Marilyns and Jaynes

While watching a clip from one of my favorite movies "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" a thought struck me a few weeks ago. I couldn't really place it so I shrugged it off, knowing it would come back later and today, while listening to a song from Kill Bill Vol. 1 ("I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield" by the 5, 6, 7, 8's) the thought struck again. I'm about to wax philosophic, pop culture style.

The world is full of women wanting to be Marilyn Monroes. They study her mannerisms, her quotes, her way of speaking and strive for that same uniqueness that make up the iconic and enigmatic woman. More often than not though, these women striving to be Marilyns become Jayne Mansfields.

Now back when Marilyn was Thee Woman, there were a lot of women trying to find their stride in the world of moving pictures and with the blonde bombshell on the scene, very few had an actual shot unless they were a "Marilyn Monroe type." And there you have Jayne Mansfield. See, Jayne Mansfield wasn't deeply and importantly talented nor really deeply or importantly interesting, but she had a body for days, blonde hair, and a sometimes crass personality a la, "The Marilyn Monroe Type."

So while Marilyn is somewhere being Marilyn, shying away from too many spotlights and trying to find love, happiness and meaning in her life... Jayne is traipsing about, filling in those blanks left behind while never quite hitting the mark. Is she funny? Sure, but not witty - they laugh at her more than with her. Is she sexy? Yes, but more in the shimmy "look at me!" type of way instead of a smoldering, classy sexy. In short, she's always a step behind.

In this life, there are too many women in the world claiming to be Marilyns when they are indeed Jaynes and Marilyns diminishing their light pretending to be Jaynes. The difference is this: what are you seeking in life? Who are you in life? Are you intrinsically the same in all aspects of your life or do you have different "personas" for different people, places and situations? When defining yourself do you have to use the words "like" or "as" or "I'm a (insert name here) with/without the (insert feature here)?" Simply put, are you being your true self, or who everybody else wants you to be - who everyone else is?

For the longest time I thought I was a Jayne because people treated me like a Jayne, and so I behaved like a Jayne. Only later in my relatively short life did I realize being a Jayne is a waning popularity contest; did people like me? Yes, but only because I was pretending, only because I was being a second rate version of someone else. I was a Marilyn pretending to be a Jayne trying to live up to be a Marilyn...isn't that funny?

All the time I thought I had to be extra to be noticed when in actuality all I had to be was me. I'm witty and funny, sarcastic and sweet, and so many other things that it'd be a cryin' shame for me to pretend the rest of my life to be anyone else. Am I unhappy? Sometimes. Do I sometimes wish there were a rule book entitled "Being Yourself When Everybody Wants You To Be The Same?" Definitely. But would I trade it? Not for nothing in the world. You see, Marilyn went down in history as one of if not the sexiest, coolest women ever, whereas Jayne? She went down as a Marilyn knock-off. And in the end, wouldn't it be wonderful if, by being yourself, you changed the course of history, or at least changed someone's mind? Wouldn't it be great if you went out in this world as you came into it, as yourself?

Be a Marilyn Monroe in a world full of Jayne Mansfields, but don't do it by proclaiming it or by literally being a Marilyn Monroe: do it by living your life, your way. Be someone special by just being who you are.

Tes and That One Word

I wrote a short story about my day on Twitter earlier but it seemed lacking in so much that I had to just come here and put it all in perspective.

I was taught by my father's mother that as a lady I didn't work on cars. I wanted to mind you, but I just never learned because ladies, as set in stone by my Nana, didn't do those sorts of things. So it happens that I'm 21 years old and barely know where the oil goes. Instead, my grandmother taught me that as a lady, a cunning one at that, I could coerce more knowledgeable people to help me and so far she's been right.

Tonight my car's oil light went on. I'm not surprised; Amber (that's the car's name) has a leak in the oil gasket that's getting a lot of blowback to the rest of her under carriage. It'll take approximately seven fifty to fix. I know this about Amber already. But if I have the hood up? Nobody knows that, as my face is a constant state of confusion.

So it happened tonight that a very tall, chocolatey man steps down from his Range Rover to help me and my little hoopty. I explained what I thought was going on and he proceeded to take the oil from my hand and put it in the car while I went to buy another bottle. Once those were figured out he then checked my lights, my under carriage, my brake fluid and let me know I had an oil leak. To which I replied "No? Really? That's such a shame..."

After it was all done I thanked him ever so much and started to get in my car when I saw him writing something down. Slipping his number in my hand, he gave me a giant smile and told me if I needed anything to call him; I smiled and said a polite 'thank you' and let him drive away first. All ten digits; his name was Thomas . And then I remembered something.

The guy I'm into, his name, starts with a T too. And he's taller than this Thomas dude. Probably with worse eyesight, but just thinking about him made me remember that this dude here? Couldn't compare. Sure, Thomas was sweet enough to help me with my car, and that's a lovely thing not a lot of dudes do for women anymore. But...he's not it for me.

Awhile ago, that would've been it. I would've been all over poor Thomas before his lights fully disappeared around the corner. But now? That number felt foreign in my hand, like someone had handed me a Martian monkey wrench and said "Do something." The guy I'm into means something to me to the point where this "potential" somebody? Doesn't measure up to what I feel for him right now. That's odd for me.

I'm scared of what that means for me. Does that mean me and this dude, Tarzan, are exclusive in my mind? And what are the implications of that? When I'm literally throwing ten digits of an attractive ass dude to the wind, where in my past I would've kept them as at least an option what's that really saying about who and where I am now?

I'll tell you. I'm not the same girl who was running after attention from men who I didn't care for. I'm not the same girl who's rushing to be someone to someone else. I'm just a girl who's fallen in love with a guy. Am I still insecure? Very. Am I still working harder to be confident? Definitely. But now that there's this calmness in my spirit from knowing that someone, somewhere thinks something of me to wait on me to get there? Nobody's worth throwing that away for.

The romantic in me is all out and vulnerable. Be gentle, ya'll >.<

Musing: Fear, Love and Chess...?

There was once a time where I was fearless. I would get on a bike, knowing I would be almost magnetically drawn to the one pole/ditch/bench/object in the area, fall and scrap something, and yet I'd do it anyway. There was a time when I was fearless, and wrote a boy in my class a love poem, because he told me he thought it was cool that I read above our grade's reading level by at least 4 grades. I used to be fearless once.

When my Dad left my Mom, I thought I handled it well. My dad was my best friend in the world at the time, and all I knew for sure were the three of us (and my dog Lucky) and suddenly I didn't have that knowledge any more and couldn't be sure of the ground I stood on, much less the people in my life. And now that I think on it, that's when I started to become afraid, not only of doing things away from my two people but of life in general.

So between the ages of twelve and eighteen I was existing in this world; life was happening to me, and I didn't really have any feelings about it. Point of fact, all I was interested in during those years was falling in love, and being somebody's everything and having something, some love, that I felt was lacking. And I looked in all the wrong places for that validation. Once I hit nineteen, for the first time in life I lived exclusively with my Dad. I stayed with him no more than two years all together.

When I was nineteen I fell in love with this guy who could never and would never love me back. I spent the better part of my year or so knowing him trying to force myself to be what he liked, force myself thinner, prettier, funnier, anything so that he would see things the way I did, so that he would see me as a woman who could love him. And then I spent the next two years learning to trust myself again, and forgive my foolish heart for not taking the hints that were given; I spent those years undoing all the damage that he and I caused myself.

Over time I've become fearful. I fear not having things as much as I do having them. I fear making friends, as because of my nomadic past I have a tendency to pull away from people once I feel like I'm no longer needed or that I may be moving. I fear not being near either of my parents, because to me they (and W) are all I've got. I fear falling in love again because the first time was disastrous and took me so long to come back from, and I still feel like I'm missing pieces from it.

But I can't let fear govern my moves anymore. Life is scary. You fall in love and you don't know how or when or why but you do, and for someone not knowing how and not having answers that could be terrifying. You find a new job that you're not sure you're even qualified for, where it seems everyone, including you are expecting you to fail. You make a move that's so out of character for you, you question your own mind and intentions. Life is scary, but not living it would be the real nightmare.

Not taking those leaps when they present themselves is short changing yourself, psyching yourself out into believing that, for whatever reason, you don't deserve or wouldn't know what to do with those things that you crave and that you do, indeed, deserve.

I keep thinking that I confronted my fears on a snowy day in Fayetteville, that the day my heart was broken was the day I came face to face with my worse fears and overcame them. Only now do I realize that fear still hides behind my advice to others, my cautious way of living, my unusually tough walls to get behind. I give the veneer of being shy and reserved, but the fact is I'm amazingly outgoing...once I stop being afraid of you. And I'd never realized it until, once again, I got overwhelmed with feelings of missing home, and remembering that crazy dude who didn't realize that he'd broken me. I got caught up in the 'what if' game of these new things I'm attempting, this new life I'm trying to forge for myself. And I cry when I get overwhelmed which makes me feel really...girly; more than one emotion at a time and I'm pretty much putty that's another blog for another time.

Fear of rejection. Fear of pain. Fear of losing things you hold close to your heart. We've all got them, and we all process them differently. I forget that not dealing with them doesn't make them go away, rather for me they make them all the more tangible. As a woman who's going through this inner change into who I'm meant to be, I neglected working through my fears as I figured you grow out of those, right? You grow out of not being picked first for the teams, and the teasing, and whatever else made you fearful as a kid...right? No, fear is something that'll grow within you if you let it.

So my sage words for today are diminish the fear. Everything you do is going to have risks and consequences, and anything you think you deserve is going to take sweat and tears and work. Not taking those risks to avoid those consequences cheat you out of the rewards. Letting fear rule you makes you a pawn on the chess board of life when you should be the Queen (or King), the piece that makes all the moves, the most valuable piece on the board. That's not to say be hasty and just move your Queen around whilly-nilly, but recognize the good before it's too late. Don't let the fear of losing the Queen piece cost you the entire game.

Tes Gets Jealous Easy

I am messy. The two rooms that are my responsibility have clothes everywhere, maybe a couple empty containers of God knows what and hair paraphernalia literally everywhere. I start off this way to say, I'm not perfect, as much as people may peg me as such, or as much as I'd like to be.

I'm also easily jealous, especially if I'm not sure of my standing with people. I learned  acknowledged this earlier in my college life where I was in the running to be this guy's potential girlfriend; he was a flirt and almost no girl was off limits. As such, I became really insecure; was I not enough for him? I wore make-up and sexed up my look, I dumbed myself down and acted a little more like those girls he was into, but yet it was like he was still searching for the next best thing, not realizing (or maybe realizing and not caring that) he had a girl who would care, love, and be there for him all in me.

It took me two years to fully get over that guy. I think it was because I wanted it so badly and it just ending up not holding, but what I never got over was that irrational jealousy when people I genuinely care about are involved. I wish I could get over it, as life would be so much sweeter for me that way.

Jealousy for me doesn't feel like "look at that b*tch, over there eating crackers like she owns the place;" jealousy grips my heart like a very vague but very biting fear. It's never just towards women on the street; if a woman's doing her thing (and doing it well) I'm the last person to hate on that. But if there's a guy involved I've been known to get a little vicious.

I mention it today tonight because there's this guy I'm interested in (not sure if you noticed...) and I fell asleep for a few hours to find some new broad all up and through his Twitter. Now, for most women I'm not sure if that would be a problem but for me? Oh, my aching little heart went all tight in my chest and I kind of wanted to ruin her life just a little...

But I took a step back (and a deep breath) and assessed not only the situation but myself. I found I was feeling this way because I, despite my cool demeanor about where he and I are going, am still unsure; he likes to credit me as being the level-headed, patient one, and this is true but not when I get all jealous. At that point,  nothing else matters but removing that source of jealousy from the picture all together. And...that's wrong; I shouldn't have to start removing people from another person's life to make me feel better - that's childish.

Me being jealous isn't because of some random girl, it's because of me. Because I'm not confident in myself and what I have to offer, any other person moving in on my person seems threatening to me. Because I don't know what this guy sees in me, it makes it seem like any girl off the street would be able to give him something he could feel (literally and figuratively) and that scares me more than I'm willing to admit; my heart is all caught up, but what if his isn't, or he doesn't feel the same? I'm back in that boat I was two years ago, pining after someone who would never, and could never feel the same for me when I promised myself I'd never go back there.

I read once that jealousy is like drinking poison and waiting for the object you're jealous of to die, and it's  been true so far, but I've never been able to see it that way until now. All the times I was jealous in my life I'd put so much energy towards disliking, and ultimately screwing around with and hurting this other person that I neglected what doing that to them would do to me. It made me feel, in the long run, like a vindictive, petty little monster who manipulated people and their nature to get what I wanted. The sad fact of it is, in doing all of that, I never ever got what I wanted.

So after assessing all this, I calmed myself down: this guy thinks I'm one of a kind and the feeling's mutual. This guy is kind and wouldn't do something to intentionally make me feel a negative way. As for the girl? I've no idea who she is or what her intentions are or if she even has any. My overactive mind was just putting doubts in a situation where there's so much room, in my eyes, for error, trying to make me fail.

Jealousy, I think, is a product of our insecurities trying to make us back down or lose focus from the things that really matter. I really matter; I've done so much fine tuning within myself that I've become comfortable with who I am as a person but I'd be kidding myself if I said I didn't have so much room to grow. And this guy matters, because he legitimately makes my heart sing and makes me feel comfortable enough to actually be myself when I talk to him. Everything else? Well, none of that matters much unless I make it matter. And for the first time, I refuse to let something like jealousy get in the way of me being happy; I refuse to make jealousy matter.

Tes is A Little high-Strung

Okay, who am I kidding? Very high-strung. I don't remember ever not being high-strung, and even now, with me trying to grow into a better person, that sad fact still hasn't changed.


As I was getting ready to go and do errands on my day off a distinct ringtone stopped me from going out the door. I have Twitter alerts sent to my phone when I'm mentioned or a certain person posts something that could interest me. Turns out it was both; the guy I enjoy...crush... like had posted a blog. I knew I should probably get going, as the places I needed to go closed earlier that day, but I was compelled back to my laptop to read the post he'd written. And I was floored.


You see, I have a hard time believing my own hype. I don't believe I'm someone inherently special and irreplaceable. I think I'm just a normal girl with a slightly off-kilter outlook on life, love and relationships. My philosophy may be different, but in my eyes, I am not different. But to me he is, and he says I am, so what does that mean?


To know someone you're developing feelings for is in the same boat is an overwhelming feeling, especially if it's the first time you've ever encountered such a thing. Most of my life all my crushes have been totally one-sided, with me pouring out my little romantic poems and expounding my feelings in very subtle ways which to me, at the time, were large but were never returned. I'm prone to being a monochromatic person externally, but inside rays of different colored light streak my heart and soul like harp strings, each one different and unique, playing a different note that adds up to the song of my being. And after reading what he said, all those emotions shot out of me.


On the one hand I was heady than a motherf*cker and happy that for once a guy actually understood what I was saying and could articulate it back to me. Then all these fears and doubts started creeping in. What if I get bored? Or what if he does? What if at the end of all these we just end up being nothing to each other? But the one that kept repeating, kept confusing me and making me doubt myself is "Why me?"


Personally, I think this dude is probably the dopest thing since...Pete Rock and C.L Smooth's "T.R.O.Y" and for him to think of me so highly makes me all...high-strung. It warms my little heart something fierce and makes me sing (internally and externally) to think that he digs me. Like legit, I've been singing "Sweet Thing" for days now. Digress. In knowing that a person I think is so cool thinks I'm so cool kind of puts my growth to the test.


I'm still wondering why. Why would he like me? I don't do or say much anything special. I try not to be overly tempting or flirty (which is really hard) or move too fast to the point he has yet to hear my voice. So how could he, why would he, like some nobody from Podunk, Texas? Someone who he's yet to hear in stereo? Someone he's yet to hold hands with (although, if I'm being honest, that would make my year)?


And then I convinced myself to stop wondering, to stop worrying; it doesn't really matter much why or how but just that he does. I mean, he wrote for me. Nobody's ever done that for me. And he's trying to get to know me as a person, where nobody's ever ventured and that's all I've ever wanted anyone to try to do with me.


So who cares why? Who cares if, months from now, he may forget me or I may forget him (though I really doubt I would)? Who can really say what's going to happen tomorrow, or next week? Right now? The good that I feel is enough. More than enough. And us being so similar, I hope he knows all that for himself as well. I hope he knows that if I'm being distant, it's just my way of not trying to crowd. If I'm being shy, it's just that he makes me nervous, not anything necessarily he's done. I hope he knows that he's a reason for me smiling and singing so. And I hope for now, that's enough for him too.

Musing: Tightropes

I had a guy tell me recently I was lucky that my flaws were physical and not inward. A million and one synapses sparked in my head, but the ones that kept circling were on differing ends of the spectrum of "Gee thanks!" and "Gee...thanks...."

I feel a lot of times that I am a philosophical person, a person of thoughts and ideas, dreams and other intangible beauties that elude a lot of people. In being that, I get real deep into myself. To people trying to look into me I'm a loner; I won't deny it and say that I don't spend a lot of time alone. Part of it is I do genuinely like to be alone with my thoughts, because only then do I feel really free to be myself and think in a way uninhibited by the needs of the outside, the people who I've let in my life. The other part is my fear, which I've spoken a bit about, that keeps me bound. I'm inert, because the object in front of me is me; it knows what moves I'll make and has counter moves already ready. It's kind of like playing a video game versus the CPU for the first time. At first, you don't know what's going on and it's beating you, but after awhile you learn. But newer games adapt, I adapt; for every positive move I make forward not only do I log it away, but my oponent, the other me does as well making sure I can't win the same way I did before.

I'm glad that a person thinks I'm unmarred inwardly. Because I'm totally not. I'm insecure and fearful. I'm really hard on myself and don't know how to let up. I worry and feel anxiety about almost everything (sans moving across the country and starting school again...weird, right?) I get jealous, and tend to be either really long-sighted or really short-sighted. A lot of times I feel like I carry too many emotions and thoughts in my person and feel heavy and plodding. But this dude? Thinks I'm respectable, sweet, funny and smart. This dude thinks I'm well put together and know where I'm going in life. On the inside, he thinks, I'm the perfect woman.

And then there's the other-hand: my flaws are physical. Given all I've revealed already, you can already tell how that would wreck within me. Given my admitted awkwardness with accepting myself fully, and my insecurities with the very minor things I may or may not be doing wrong at any given moment, him saying my flaws were physical was the only thing my vicious mind could focus on. In the minutes after he said it, I began picking myself methodically apart: acne scars, bad vision, stretch marks, not enough ass, not flat enough tummy...and it just cycled and cycled until I couldn't think of anything else but fixing myself or crawling into bed and crying. In typical me fashion though, I finished the conversation as if nothing were wrong and spent the better part of the last three days trying to convince myself to see the good in what he said.

It hurts because it feels like he just confirmed every bad thing I've ever thought about myself and other people. It feels like he's saying "You're not fooling anybody, you're not beautiful," while simultaneously saying "Tes, you're beautifully put together, how do you manage to be so put together?" making me question, do they see me as I see me, or do they not see me at all?

It's a very taut tight rope I walk within myself. The littlest things can send me over on either side, can send me spilling into despair, or floating into acceptance. I know I can't possibly be perfect but the fact I keep trying is either insane or really noble depending on how you look at it. I don't want to be perfect and I don't want to be "normal," I'd rather be whatever I'm supposed to be. It's just finding what that is that's the trouble.

So instead of making this one person's opinion of me make my heart heavy, I decided to just accept a compliment as a compliment. A person thinks I'm well put together, despite me knowing differently. They think I am wonderful and heading in the right direction. But mostly, they can kiss my ass.

I am beautiful and it takes me so much strength to even look at myself and say it. I know the way I write I can make myself sound hideous but the truth is, I'm actually really cute. It's all in the eyes they tell me. In any case, my inner beauty is what makes my cuteness morph and mold into beauty. And if that's not enough for someone, then clearly they aren't enough for me.

Life Is Funny With How It Evolves You

"A clean house is note of a life unlived." -Anon.

My room is clearly evidence of said quote, as when I look around it all I see is stuff, stuff and more stuff. Kind of like an understandable version of "Racks on Racks" except with actual items; make-up, shoes, clothes, purses, and accessories litter my floor as if two super models stay here (except there are food wrappers scattered around so...).

I've been a bustling broad lately; I work 8 hours a day, five a week, and spend a lot of time at work, on my way to work, or preparing for work. The rest of the time I spend sleeping, shopping, or eating, the latter of which has gained me five pounds that I'm desperately trying to get rid of. Don't get me wrong, I love the thickness, but I'm trying to be in my normal range of 140-155...anything else means I'm running up and down my flight of stairs until it hurts me.

I didn't use to have time for make-up, nor use. I had a lot of acne scars growing up and would spend my time with different concealers and powders, bases and creams, trying to fade them and hide them when one day I realized, somebody is going to be very upset if I'm flawless in the face when they ask me out, and flawed as hell when they take me out. I figure I want people to see what I look like naturally, and to be honest, I'm not all that bad. As W tells me often, it could be much much worse on some "Oh bless your heart," type sh*t.

I'll be honest, I absolutely love clothes shopping. I never used to have the means to go out and browse and try on because I knew if I did I'd want to buy and I'd be strapped for cash. Now? Dresses and slacks, blouses and skirts, heels and wedges (oh my!); no item is safe. I love things that fit flatteringly, things that don't require "support garments." I like to look nice, but not as nice as I've been trying to look lately.

See there's this guy at work...I'm not sure what it is, but I'm just feeling him. He's not necessarily my "type" per se but I still dig him. Let's call him Johnny. Johnny is...techy. He's funny. He's got lots of stories and seems like a really nice guy. Plus he has a deep kind of voice which so sweetens my tea. He makes me blush, actually, which is really tough to do, and he does it with little gestures here or words there, maybe a look...

I'm not really myself...I mean, I'm not who I'm used to being. I'm used to being high-strung and worried. I'm used to feeling unpretty and unproductive. I'm used to not feeling like I'm capable of what I wish I were. I shouldn't say I am, but rather I was. I was that high strung wallflower girl, but now...I'm that woman stepping tentatively into her own little niche of spotlight. And I'm a woman with a crush on a guy that makes her blush.

Womanhood was sneaky, but man, is the payoff worth it.