too nice

Is there a fault to being “too nice”?

I love where I am right now. One could argue that it’s just because of the quality of the people I choose to surround myself with, and while I agree that there will always be the gems (…) that slip through the cracks, the overwhelming majority of the people here are truly amazing. During the open house, I signed up to be one of the greeters for prospective students and one of them asked me what I didn’t like about the school. I didn’t really have much of an answer for him. There are minor annoyances for sure (e.g. “I wish I’d gotten a better grade in this class”/”I wish the test had been scheduled on this day instead so I could go here”), but there will always be something to complain about, and on the whole, there are no dealbreakers. (Perhaps talk to me again about this after boards though.)

People smile at you here, ask you how your day’s going, and actually care about your answer. I’ve randomly befriended one of the guys who works at Kroger. The people I talk to in chorale remember things I told them weeks ago and remember to ask me how things went. The locals that I’ve gotten to know tell me to call them if I ever need anything at all (help with moving, food, company, anything).

When I was hanging out at a friend’s place over break and we were chipping in money to get pizza, they told me I didn’t need to pay.
F: But I eat a lot. :O
M: You have boobs, Farrah. That means you don’t need to pay. You’re gonna have to get used to that. :O
Sidenote: We had Halo night and watched Monday Night Football. (I have not watched football since I broke up with secondary ex, haha. I’m not even sure who won since I wasn’t really paying attention. :x ) We lost miserably at Halo (I got one whole kill! I’ve never played before.), and the other team eventually gave up on us and left.
T: Well, UNLIKE YOU, WE HAVE A GIRL HERE!

I’ve been looking after the cat shelter for the past week or so and what she texted me was really heartwarming. (“You are amazing and special, and you have a special place in my heart. Those people are rewarded on earth and in heaven. I’m the earth dudette.”) I think she’s an amazing lady and really admire her for everything that she does. For someone I really care about that I really look up to think so highly of me makes me feel all kinds of awesome. :]

One of the ladies at my church has offered on multiple occasions to make me food throughout the week so I wouldn’t have to worry about cooking anything, and the other day, I was meeting up with a friend to practice for special music. I mentioned that I was slightly low on gas so I was hoping we could meet downtown (less ground for me to cover on foot!) and he offered to get me gas.While I can’t bring myself to take them up on said offers because I’d feel really guilty, I am extremely appreciative of all the kindness I’ve been met with over here.

My friend was also working in the thrift store the day before I was going to head in there, so he asked me what I was looking for and scouted a bunch of awesome things in my size for me and texted me pictures with prices. I ended up getting a sweater, a really comfortable hoodie, a winter jacket, a warm vest, a genuine leather jacket, 2 pairs of black leather boots (ankle + knee-high), a pair of red heels and a pair of brown heels that I can wear to clinic. < $35. Yepyep.

Seriously, guys, what world have I stepped into?

Sometimes, I’m genuinely concerned that when I leave, I’ll be too spoiled to function in the real world. I do think karma exists and that a lot of the time, you reap what you sow. I try my absolute best to be nice to everyone, regardless of how they treat me (although if there are repeated incidents where they offend/hurt the people I care about [or me], I will generally just cut them out of my life if that’s a viable option). I think it’s worked really well and I’d love to believe that it’s how the rest of the world will operate, but I guess we’ll see. I hope I’m not in for a rude awakening once I step out of this bubble.

_{and it’s especially weird because when i talk to a lot of other people here, they do not have such experiences.}

substance

There is a very real possibility that perhaps I’m just behind the times and haven’t “gotten with the program”…but if this is where the future is has already headed, I’d much prefer living in the past. I consider myself to be pretty liberal in a number of aspects and I try to keep an open mind to most things, but there remains a part of me that’s also very traditional. It’s pretty simple–don’t force me to take on your views and we’ll probably get along.

If that article is how the world is these days, we are in for some sad times. My sham of a [7-year] facebook marriage has more substance and meaning than that.

I saw this article directly after reading the one linked above, and it filled me with all kinds of doom and gloom. It also reminded me of two years ago, which I remember with frightening clarity because I was so disturbed by it.

One fine morning, I awoke to find that I had missed a 3 a.m. phone call from an acquaintance who apparently considered me to be her best/closest friend (this was mystifying to me because I’d met her only 4 months ago and to be quite honest, we didn’t really talk much and had only interacted a handful of times, if even that). In any case, I called back to see if she was okay.

I feel rather guilty for the thoughts that ran through my head as we were talking. While I did in actuality care about her well-being, I could only be sympathetic to a certain point. She’s a nice person, but her being basically goes against everything I believe in. I actually only met her because I was friends with her boyfriend, but I admit to having wondered on [many] occasion[s] (during the couple conversations we’ve had) how it was that they were together.

Obviously, this could easily be the cynic in me speaking, but I happen to believe that I am in fact being a realist. My definition of cheating is basically anything you wouldn’t do with someone if your significant other were there with you. If I were going out with someone…
(1) I would not retell the entirety of my previous love life in front of him to a girl I’d met not so long ago. Hell, if I can help it, I barely tell even my closest friends about the shit that went down (so to speak, but those were some terrible times).
(2) I wouldn’t ever share a hotel room with a sleazy ex who still tried to hit on me despite knowing that I was his friend’s girlfriend, since it’s seriously just asking for trouble and drama and all the things I hate to start piling. (This one’s purely hypothetical since the first ex and I are definitely not on speaking terms, and the thought of even being in the same room as him puts me at a state of unease and compels my sympathetic nervous system to kick into overdrive. Sorry. No offense. But seriously, as low as CM went, even he didn’t try shit like that. Hence my further repulsion and desire to remove myself far from this situation because I am unfortunately acquainted with said sleazy ex. How’s this for unsavory characters in my life that I’d dearly love to escape?)
(3) If I knew someone else liked me even though I was going out with someone already, I wouldn’t let him drive me all the way to LA, then drive back to the bay area and then fly back once again to drive me back from LA to the bay area. (I’m not sure how that would even work, and that sure as hell goes against everything existent in my conscience.)
(4) Nor would I consent to stay if it were a co-dependent and damaging relationship.

But maybe that’s me. If he cared to know about my previous relationships, I’d give him the watered-down version, not every sordid detail. If he insulted me and meant it (because even I find my regular abuse fairly amusing–but of course, only if they don’t actually mean it), I would kick him to the curb. But I digress. What actually happened is that they broke up, and she was distraught. This I can slightly relate to only because of my second relationship, although if I recall correctly, I was in somewhat of a numb shell of denial. I didn’t pin my every hope and dream of having a meaningful existence on the guy, or bemoan all the problems in my life and dwell on it forever, because I knew it would accomplish absolutely nothing. They were supposed to get married later that year though, so that, I truly could not empathize with.

She wanted me to bring us to the jewelry shop so she could show me the engagement ring that he’d almost finished paying off (so she could see it one last time). I felt like this was a terrible idea on a multitude of levels, and managed to avoid aiding this pending catastrophic disaster because she showed up at my doorstep with her now-ex (aka my friend). I also thought that her seeing this ring would be akin to pouring salt on wounds, or twisting the knife in a little deeper, and I found what she told me to be mildly disturbing (e.g. this was “the ring she’s been dreaming of for months and she can’t stop thinking about it”).

I know there are girls out there who fantasize about their dream wedding and the perfect dress and the people they’d invite, the place where they want it to be at, where they’ll go for their honeymoon…(I could probably go on, but honestly, that vein of thinking is kinda frightening to me.) This is not me. Eight(?) years ago, one of my practice SAT essays was about refuting something I’d always been told (“Someday, you’re going to grow up and get married” was the statement I chose to refute). Apparently, I painted a vivid enough picture that the teacher was positively glowing when she gushed about how amazing my essay was. She kept me anonymous, but I was the only one to ever get full points on any of the essays she graded. Go me. Mayhaps it pays to be bitter. Except I’m really more of a cynical sap. It is a terrible combination.

Case in point, however, I feel that the actual person you’re marrying should be what you’re most concerned with–-in my case, since I’m straight–does he make me happy, does he treat me well, does he brighten up my life, + support, encourage and love me, is he someone I can depend on who I would feel excited/lucky/blessed to spend life with and would I be more than willing to do the same for him/do I make him feel the same way? Because if that isn’t the case on either end, why would you bother? Why would the wedding or its guests even matter?

Mayhaps I’m alone in this line of thinking. I feel like I’m being overly critical, considering the fact that, if my dude were okay with it, I’d rather we just elope to save ourselves from the horrors known as debt, stress, and crazy people. Then again, my definition of “elope” is also rather loosely defined, since I did promise 6F that if I were ever to tie the knot, I would indeed tell them to save some sort of date so we could hang out and celebrate together.

I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt–that she was fixating on that ring because it symbolized her relationship with him and she still wished it were salvageable. But it sounded nothing like that to me. What she told me made it sound as though she cared more about the ring than the actual person she was with. If, for whatever reason, I lost the person I wanted to spend my life with, I would be sad for all the new memories we’d never make. I’d be sad for all the things we always said we’d do but never had a chance to do, for all the things I’d never get to tell him, for all the things I came across each day that I wanted to share with him, and above all, for the loss of his place in my life as the person I wanted to be with and spend life with.

Food for thought. If those articles are any indication of what relationships nowadays are like, I am going to be perfectly fine living with 6F, my 79 cats, 2 dogs and 1 horse.

doctors-to-be

This is all I have for today.

does this mean i get to do both?

“Los músicos hijo de como los medicos… los medicos curan el cuerpo, los musicos el alma.”

tried and true

A standard cure for when I’m kinda bummed out is to throw myself into the things that I love to do and/or the things I need to be doing. It works well and it’s wildly productive, but I think it also lets my avoidance issues get worse. I’m wildly talented at running away from my problems (or acknowledging how I feel).

 
that’s all for the day. :X