You remember E and P? The two glorious girls who unknowingly breathed self-love back into my life? Well, they have done it yet again! If you haven't fallen completely and totally in love with their blog, then you haven't visited it yet (link at the end of the post, as per usual). P posted a TED video with a woman talking about vulnerability and how it breeds both feelings of excruciating fear and shame and disappoint, and those of joy and love and comfort and, most importantly, courage. I am, admittedly, an extremely vulnerable person, I am not afraid of my past mistakes and heartaches. I am a firm believer in letting yourself feel everything, no matter what well-meaning advice your mother or father or sister or friend gives you. But I am also very susceptible to the not-so-pretty side of vulnerability. I open myself up to people extremely easily and expect every guy to be a nice one and every girl to want to connect with me the way I would love to. So, as a result, I get hurt, very easily. I allow myself to feel it and then tell myself it's okay after I've cried myself to sleep. But if I'm being honest, even months after a big event, I can sometimes be reminded of it and still be hit with a pang of sadness or hurt or guilt or whatever horrible feeling that memory is coupled with. So! This post, inspired by P, E and that lovely researcher/story teller from the TED video. It is a post that I think I knew was coming subconsciously, and it is going to be very cathartic and, prepare yourselves, extremely dramatic. So. Here we go!
Gabriel N. This is a name that used to immediately bring a smile to my face and wonderful memories flying into my head beginning from age seven. He was my best friend since second grade and boy I'd had a massive crush on since we were ten, but of course never said anything because I didn't want to ruin our friendship. Well, I dated other boys of course and was smitten over others, but always came back to him. He was always the person I could talk to about literally anything. We were the only two really liberal people I knew of and agreed on most things, and had very fun debates when we didn't. I could tell him about my insecurities and the boys I liked and my troubles at home when things, thankfully rarely, got bad. Best friend. In every sense of the word. A person I knew 100 percent would remain my friend through college, no matter how far away we got from each other. Now, Gabriel was always shorter than the other boys and was the guy my friends and I would always remind ourselves of when we complained about all the jerks we went to school with. I was the only one who ever legitimately thought about dating him, but never really let myself like him. Until fall semester of Junior year. It was right around this time last year, I realized that my massive crush for my best friend had turned into something I could not control. I started analyzing everything he did and said and I had absolutely no idea how to act around him anymore. I flirt. With everyone. It's how I interact. But when I start trying to get a guy's attention, I have zero game. I say really cheesy and silly things and try to seem aloof one day while being overly accessible the next. It seems the only time I can't be myself is when I'm trying my hardest to be. And around Gabe I had never had to try before. So, before I could talk myself out of it, I asked him to prom. He said yes, he'd love to go and I was very surprised at how unsurprised he seemed. That's when I realized he didn't understand that I was telling him I liked him. So I had another battle I had to prepare for. And one day, we riding in his car after lunch or something, and I told him I liked him. And he told me he liked me too. Ding dong, the bells chime, best friends date and live happily ever after, fairy tale yay! THE END! Except not. After two weeks of not talking, he came over and apologized but said he didn't actually like me, he was just so impressed with how vulnerable (cough cough) I allowed myself to be that he couldn't bear the thought of telling me then. Understandable. Kind of. Anyway, my biggest fear came true and it was wayyyy awkward with us until one day he said he didn't think it'd be best if we went to prom together either. Awesome. Well, fast forward through two months of hella awkwardness and it's our birthday month (he's March 5th, me March 10th). I'm over it and ready to be friends and then it's one more month later and we have an absolute blast at prom, and dance together while our dates are off getting punch or something. Back to normal :] Then. Summer starts, we get to hang out more since our souls return after the school doors close. One night, after a movie we went to with a few of our friends, he drops me off at home and we start in on one of our long talks that range from politics to petty friend drama. Somehow something comes up about our friends are a little wary of him since the prom debacle and somewhere in between defending himself and half-way apologizing, the words "..because I like you..." slip out of his mouth. Of course, I have to ask which exact definition of the word "like" he's referring to. So we talk about what happened the last time we tried this and my fears and he promises never to hurt me like that again because he cares about me and we agree to go on a date in a few days. He walks me to the door, and I kiss him on the cheek, and my dad warns me no to trust him too deeply. "Dad! Com on, he's Gabriel." Girls, if there is one point of advice I could not stress enough, is to trust your father wholeheartedly when it comes to boys. Especially if he was a total player the way my dad was when he was younger, because, somehow, my mom reined him in and he's been a one woman man for twenty two years. So we go on the date that can still to this day be called the best first date of my life. Super 8, late night Barnes & Noble run with hot chocolate and making fun of romance novels with chiseled men on the cover, and then our neighborhood park where we share our first kiss. Oh, and we became official of course. A week goes by and we're totally smitten, him being sweeter than I ever thought Gabriel could be and me losing myself in our very cliche and fairy tale like relationship. Then he went to Prauge for a violin camp (I fall for music nerds, it's strange) for two and half weeks. I decide to give him space, if I were at an acting camp over seas I wouldn't want to have to morph my schedule around a boy back home after all, and don't hear from him until the night he gets back. The next day he comes over so we can hang out and I can immediately tell something is off. He awkward asks me about my vacation to Florida and I ask him about Prauge. He tells me he sorta kissed someone else (also, I found out it was a lot more than "sorta kissing" from a friend who went to the same camp). I'm speechless. I ask if he understood we were exclusive, even if it had only been a month, he says yes. I say I'm his best friend, not just some random hookup he can step all over. He says he knows that, he doesn't see me like that. I tell him I think he should leave. He looks confused and just sits there. "Like now." He walks out. Now, this is a big deal. I do not, ever, ever, NEVER stand up for myself. Especially where boy are concerned. I cry. I call friends. I call him and deliver the best monologue I've ever done. More tears, lots of ice cream and a really good horror movie. A week later, I'm sick of not talking and call him, he doesn't apologize, he makes me think he didn't do anything wrong. We're friends again. Then, two days later, he went to visit the girl he cheated on me with. I kinda lost it then. We are currently somewhat coming out of the cold-shoulder phase, considering we're both student body officers and are constantly having to work together, and I am trying to put it behind me. I understand it was a short relationship, but it's not about the relationship to me. It's about the ten years of trust and friendship that he so easily threw away and how this person who I've told my deepest fears and insecurities and my biggest dreams and who I've laughed with and hung out with until at least two in the morning. The person I had a joint 16th birthday party with. The person who never told anyone when my older sister overdosed while living in his back apartment that they rented out (she's alive, by the way... and sober :D ). He has completely changed into someone I don't recognize. He's trying to impress the guys he used to hate and acts like he's God's gift. I'm trying to put it behind me. And I can't talk about it with my friends anymore because, understandably, they've gotten a little tired of discussing it. Even my sister has. But I'm still dealing with feelings of anger and hurt and loss and confusion and self-consciousness, because if I get cheated on by my best friend then what does that say about me? But it's hard, and I'm still having an internal struggle over if I should call him and tell him we can just forget about everything and be best friends again or if I should completely cut him out of my life. So I just wait to see what's going to happen. And I let go a little bit at a time. I talk to less and less people about it. I try and make my face look indifferent when someone tells a story about him. I smile at him in the hallway, even though he pretends he doesn't see me. And things like what P and E posted help me a lot. Help me to allow myself to understand that I am enough, that if he can't see that then he isn't. But that doesn't mean I have to hate him. I have forgiven him. I just haven't forgotten. But this post has really helped me to let go the biggest piece. The piece that somehow blames myself for it. Because I can't have a healthy relationship with him (surface or real) if I don't love myself. And right now I'm going to work on that. Loving myself. I've decided to put the Gabriel issue, really the whole having a boyfriend issue, to put it away for now. To focus on my Senior year and go to college and make a wonderful woman out of myself. Because I have to live with myself for the rest of my life, boyfriend or no, husband or no, best friend or no. So, once again, I owe a gigantic thank you to E and P for their amazing self-love and confidence and courage and vulnerability and ability to inspire others with it. Once again, I apologize for the drama in this post, but it was much needed and greatly appreciated.
Here's the link to my bible!!: http://eandpguidetolife.tumblr.com/
xxo taylor
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