First Date

I have gone back and forth on posting this a little bit, in order to protect the other party involved. Forget it, there's a slim chance he'll even ever see this and this story is just too good not to share with the world.

So I started talking to this guy for a few weeks and he seemed perf. We liked a ton of the same stuff, he was also a teacher, we were the same age, and he thought I was cute...which I am...it seemed promising. Which is why I didn't hesitate for even a second when he asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner. My reaction in my head was pretty much this, "OH EM GEEEEEEE OH EM GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". My actual response was "oh yeah, sure, that would be fun." I know I know, I am so good at playing it cool. I should get an award. Anyway the date was set for a week later and I was pretty calm, until the day of. See I already had my outfit picked out and everything and then Lauren kind of swept in and was all like "are you really gonna wear blue jeans? What if he doesn't wear blue jeans, then you'll feel stupid. What are you gonna order?" Cue me lying in a ball on the floor of her classroom agonizing over the choices I suddenly had. There was also a lot of me shouting "I'M JUST GONNA CANCEL." I had finally pumped myself back up when everything started to crumble apart. I had had a plan to go home, relax, shower, do my hair....whatever. And then I ended up at work way, way later than anticipated. Then I panicked.

Eventually I made it home with enough time to plug in a hair straightener, change my clothes, and spruce up my makeup. Off I went, looking really stinking cute, to my date. Just so you have a good picture in your head of how serious I was about this let me describe my look of the night. Black long sleeve scoopneck, skinny blue jeans, black glitter flats, light pink infinity scarf, straightened hair pinned back away from my face on both sides.  This date was a big deal. Why? Because it was the first one I had actually gone on in over two years. Yep, you read that correctly, over 2 years.  I passed the restaurant three times before I actually saw where it was and was 4 minutes late. Suddenly I got a text that said "I'm inside sitting in a back booth."
I told him I was coming and was in there within 30 seconds.

So he stands up and goes "oh uhm wow, you weren't kidding you were really coming." No, I am a known liar, I was going to sit in the parking lot and watch, laughing, as you left crying. Puh-leeze. I sit down, and it's really awkward at first, but then we both start talking and it's fine for like 5 minutes until he starts cutting me off and talking over me. Rude. I swear to you this boy talks more than I do. Anyway, he asked if I wanted to split a pizza and I said that sounded good and we started looking at the list of toppings to see what we wanted. Well the waitress walks up and suddenly he's ordering the pizza with toppings we had never agreed on that I don't even like and then points at me and goes "and she'll have a salad on the side" uhm excuse me? The hell I will. I looked at her and said "no I won't" and she scratched it off the pad and walked away with a smirk on her face. He said "I just figured you would want a salad", to which I responded "you thought wrong." Do I look like the type of person who just automatically wants a salad at every meal? I know I've lost some weight and maybe you're reading this thinking "but Kayleigh loves salad!" I do love salad....but don't order me a salad! I honestly probably would have ordered a side salad, but I could not let that slide solely on principle.

I have to sit there listening to him blubber on about how he's such a wonderful teacher and about how every one of his students have told him they wish they could have him for every class (I would most likely throw myself out of a window if I had to listen to him ramble all day just sayin'). Our pizza comes and I stuff my face, not caring that he's watching me eat cause I already know this is not going past this night, and he asks "isn't this the best pizza you've ever had!?" I said, "no.", as I was stuffing the 4th slice in my mouth. I mean it really wasn't very good, and you may be wondering "so why did you eat 4 pieces?" The answer my dear friends, is I actually ate 5 pieces. And he wasn't letting me speak anyway and I had nothing else to do but eat this mediocre pizza. Eventually I fake a yawn and talk about how I really should be getting home since I've had such a long day. He pays the bill (besides getting a great story out of this outing, I also got a free meal, woop woop!) and then we head out. I was hoping he'd just walk to his car, but he decided to walk me to mine first. We get to my car and stop at the trunk and he looks in the back window and sees my UNCG umbrella. The following conversation commenced:

Guy: Is that an umbrella?
Me: Yeah.
Guy: Oh. You keep it in your car?
Me: Yeah.
Guy: Do you ever use it?
Me: Uhm, yeah. When it rains.
Guy: Oh. Weird.

Then he starts moving towards me and I get scared. He is very close and I kept thinking "oh my gosh your mouth better not end up anywhere near mine dear Lord have mercy on my soul." All I could think of was I should have eaten more garlic, I should have faked an illness. I wished I could puke on command. He was the last person on earth whose tongue I wanted down my throat. I wasn't too keen on the awkward half hug I had gotten on a date before either, so really I was just praying he would get away from me. I wasn't afraid of him. He was a harmless dork. I just didn't want him to think this had gone well and I didn't feel like having to go scrub my lips with bleach.

He shocked me instead.

Homeboy gave me a pat on the back and said "I'll be in touch". Y'all I almost didn't make it into my car fast enough to avoid laughing in his face. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my cheeks and then drove the wrong way down a one way street into oncoming traffic. Poor Little Blue is such a champ I had to throw her in reverse and back up all the way back down the street all while laughing like a maniac. Then I got ahold of my sister and laughed even harder relaying the story.

I have had worse dates...there was the guy with the cat scrapbook, the guy who kept touching my face and the one who smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in my face and then made fun of my cardigan. In a sad little way this was probably the best date I have ever been on. I'm pretty proud of myself for actually going, not gonna lie. Just showing up took a lot of courage.  So he wasn't Prince Charming, oh well. I proved to myself that I could handle it, and I'm glad I went.

However, men of America, take note. If you ever take me on a date don't you dare order me a salad.
Seriously, don't do it.
How about just don't order for me in general. Unless it's onion rings. Or bacon cheese fries. And if those two things were to show up in my face you would have to pardon the fact that I will inhale them and probably forget to offer to share.

Man, oh man dating is fun. Being a crazy cat lady sounds pretty good ;)

I Miss Her.

I miss 12 year old me so much.

How innocent and naive she was. How she thought that nothing was impossible. Depression was just a word, not a daily horror. I miss her carefree laugh, her desire to take on the world. The things that she worried about that just didn’t matter.

I miss her feeling of invincibility. She never knew what would happen to us. She had no clue, and she was able to breeze through her life happy and healthy up until the worst day of her life. 

She didn’t have to fake happiness some days. 

She didn’t have to see herself raped over and over again every time she closed her eyes. 

She didn’t have to worry every time she went on a date whether or not she needed to have pepper spray on hand. 

She told the truth, she never lied. She was honest almost to a fault, but you could tell when she wasn’t ok. Her life wasn’t perfect, but it sure as hell was a lot better than this. 

Depression sucks.

Spring time sucks.

If I could fast forward to June, when things don’t remind me of being raped every second, I would be bursting with happiness.

**I am ok, I promise. I'm both ok and not ok at the same time. I am handling things MUCH better than I was last spring, but I am having a day and just needed to get it out of my system :) *