I haven't written anything in a while, so I thought why not? I don't really have much to say, I'm kind of just bored and trying to distract myself. I always get a little mopey right after Jon leaves, and he just left. I feel like I've been getting spoiled because throughout the summer we've actually been able to spend most Mondays together. I'm not subbing or coaching, he has Mondays off anyway, so it works. I always love getting to see him more and he does too. And I love days like today when I thought he was going to be leaving so much earlier, and he stayed until 8pm.

I am still in awe everyday that I found him. I don't know how I could ever truly thank Summer for being so damn persistent that we date haha. I'm so head over heels for this boy. I feel like this summer has only made me love him more. Because we've spent more time together, we've definitely become a lot closer. Not to sound so rude and gross, but we've gotten to the "comfortable enough to fart in front of each other" stage haha. I can be completely honest and open about things, which is not really something I can say about past relationships.

Speaking of which, we were eating dinner with my dad, who had been drinking a bit, and my dad said "I hope you know she's had like 10 boyfriends before you." (which is not true, for the record) Apparently I was extremely red, and I did use that as my exit to go serve dessert to everyone haha. Jon and I have started talking a little bit about past relationships. Not in extreme detail, but enough. Like I kind of told him about asshat, and he told me how he dated a girl 7 or 8 years younger than him. Which I'm still a little shocked about, mostly because this had to have been in the last few years. I didn't realize how upset-ish/jealous it would make me to even hear little things about his exes, but it kind of does. I've always been a jealous person, and I don't even like thinking about him with someone else. I know that's silly, and I've been good about not dwelling on it. I'm not so upset to the point where I don't let him say things about his past and we both rarely ever say things about past relationships, so it's not even an issue.

I'm also not as bothered as I think I could be because I know he loves me. This is where I feel like a hypocrite because I don't like hearing about his past but I'm going to talk about mine. In my past experiences, I can't say that I always knew that I was loved. To be honest I'm still a little afraid to let myself believe Jon loves me. I've been hurt a lot. We've all been hurt by a past love, that's life, but I have a hard time letting things go. So even though I know in my heart that Jon loves me and that I have no reason to think otherwise, part of me still gets scared, like I'm just letting myself be naive. But this "fear" is little. I don't really feel that paranoid about it. Only sometimes when I'm already anxious or paranoid about something else and my mind just wants to make everything into something to fear.

But I feel like I'm getting off on a tangent. So boyfriend and I have been growing so much closer. He has been nothing but supportive and compassionate and loving through so much. This summer has been a lot of ups and downs. I've had several great job interviews that sadly did no end with a job. And he was there and supportive through all of that. He was even literally there for one of the interviews. He has kept me the most optimistic because he's my little cheer leader. Even when I didn't think I had a chance at something or that something had gone terribly wrong, he's told me how he believes in me and know I can do it. I had some health stuff happen, and he was about ready to call off work to take me to the doctor and take care of me. He is my weirdo, we do and say inappropriate things together all the time. I am just so in love.

Like I said, just thought I'd write some stuff. I have more I could talk about but it's getting late and I need to take care of some other things, so I guess this is all for now.

Final days

This is my final week of being 26 years old.

It's kind of crazy to think that I only have 3 more years in my 20s (to which my boyfriend has reminded me that he only has 10 more months of being in his 20s haha.) I don't feel that much older. It's weird how we don't really perceive age as it's happening. In a lot of ways I still feel like I'm in my teens. Or even my early 20s. But, alas, that's not how time works. In about a week (well, technically a little less than a week) I will be another year older. Closer to 30, closer to death... I'm not saying that in a morbid sense, just being honest.

I know that I've already done something like this at New Years, but I kind of wanted to reflect on this year. My year. The entirety of age 26 for me. I feel like this has been a year of great growth.

While I would say that 26 started out as crap, it turned out to be one of the best years of my life so far. I can say that with complete honesty. I'm not going to lie, a HUGE part of it is Jon, but he's not the only good thing about this year.

To start the year, I had a shitty summer. Right around my birthday I found out the (at the time) devastating news that I did not get a job teaching at the school where I have been a substitute teacher and coach for years. It was a tough blow. Then add on some other rough patches between friends and me struggling to accept not getting that job, things were pretty low. I don't think I would say that was the lowest point of my entire life, far from it, but definitely a low point for 26.

BUT despite this, some great things happened this year. Shortly after a lot of the shitty things that happened, something amazing happened. I went to a summer party at Summer's house. Summer had been telling me for years at this point that she thought that I should date her husband's friend Jon. She had originally wanted us to meet at her wedding the year before, but her friend Rachel kind of took his attention before I had a chance to (this is what Summer tells me, Jon has never mentioned it, nor have I asked.) So, at this particular party, I decided to get out of my little bubble of self-doubt and grief to actually be a little social. I talked with Jon. About a bunch of different things. I know we talked about Skyrim, because I wanted to play up the gamer girl aspect because I thought it'd make me cool. This wasn't the first time we'd met. That was at least a year or 2 prior. He remembers that night in a lot of detail (expect for the exact date haha). But at this party, we talked for a good while. He turned out to be an interesting man. Yes, man. Because at this point I had never actually dated one, they'd all been boys. At the end of that night, I left while it was quiet and I could sneak out unnoticed, because I didn't want to have to say good bye. I told Summer she could give him my number if he wanted it. I didn't expect to actually get a response from him, but it was invigorating to do something like that. Granted I didn't have the guts to give it to him myself, but I still went out on a limb for the first time in a while... then I got a speeding ticket going home haha. But he did text me the next day :)

I've blogged a ton about Jon, so I'm not going to write every little detail right now. Like I said, he's a big reason this year has been great, but he's not the only reason.

Another thing that happened, that was probably more important than talking to Jon, or at least was helped by or was part of me having the courage to talk to him, was finally figuring out that I'm worth it. I know that sounds silly, but I don't think I really knew that completely. I hate bringing up asshat, but he's part of this. I let him basically use me for years. I know that I am partly to blame because I knew that he had no intention of ever getting back with me and I let myself start to fall for him again, but through the nature of the relationship we had, I eventually felt like I wasn't worth having real love. I felt like I wasn't worth having someone care about only me, who wanted to spend time with me and who genuinely loved me.

Some of the best and worst relationship advice I've ever heard is you must learn to love yourself before you can be loved by someone else. I know that I spent a lot more than just age 26 or even 25 learning to love myself, but I think that I've actually made progress. I know that I'm a good person, I like who I am. I didn't always like who I was before, especially around asshat. I know I'm not perfect, but I have so much more confidence in every aspect of my life now than I ever did before. I'm still super shy, but I have come out of my shell so much more. I can tell who is worth having in my life and who is not. I still dwell on things (if this blog isn't evidence enough haha), but I feel like I don't waste as much energy on people who don't deserve it. I felt like it was a huge accomplishment when I finally blocked asshat's number. I blocked him on all social media. I deleted him from my phone. I know now that he is one of those people who is not worth my time and energy. I have experienced self love, and love from friends and family, and love from someone who genuinely cares about me and wants to be with me. Those are the people worth spending my time on. I am worth spending time on. And I feel like that was a big lesson of this year.

I grew leaps and bounds as a coach. I had so little confidence in my abilities after Jen left. But thanks in part to the support of a great assistant coach and friends, I was able to help the team grow, to show that they could be great performers. I felt like I had something to prove the whole year. Like I had to prove to Jen that the team wouldn't die without her. But I think, in the end, the only person I needed to prove that to was myself. And I did. I'm still nervous as hell for this coming year, with so many new members, new staff, and new challenges, but I know I can make it all work.

I'm starting to make myself emotional, so I think I may cool it on the reflection for now. Basically, 26 has been a rollercoaster. But to quote Augustus Waters, "I'm on a rollercoaster that only goes up." (With some slight drops every now and then).

Now that I've someone managed to make myself cry, I'm going call it a night.