How NOT to Behave on Valentine's Day

I think I may be one of those rare "single people" who don't mind Valentine's Day. In fact, not only do I not mind, I have an annual tradition set in place since I was 17 years old! It started one fine Valentine's Day back in 2007 (Yikes I'm getting older O.o). My friends and I were in the local grocery store, walking in like a badass posse strutting our independence because we drove ourselves in my Mom's Mini-Van. I rocked the shit out of that van back in the day.

My friends and I had planned on going back to my house and baking a crap ton of delicious treats while watching a movie. As we were getting ready to leave the grocery store, I happened upon a rack of movies. It was there that I found THE Valentine's Day movie of a lifetime. I picked up The Departed and thought to myself "I have no clue what this movie is about, but for the sake of looking cool, I'm going to go with this one." Yes friends, I picked a violent Boston mob film to watch on Valentine's Day. The ridiculous part was, that it went well! I thoroughly enjoyed the film, as did my friends. Thus a tradition was born.

Fast forward 4 years, and I found myself carrying out my beloved tradition at college in Flagstaff. I invited my friends over for dinner, treats, and a super badass film. I was particularly excited because a certain someone I may or may not have had a crush on was going to be in attendance. Again, I stress the may or may not. It was one of those situations where you aren't terribly too sure, or at the very least you didn't want anyone to really know about it. So naturally I did the "deny deny deny" charade for some time.

As I was preparing the food and getting ready for my friends to arrive, I felt a sudden twinge of anxiety and nervousness. I began to feel pretty anxious about all of these people coming over. So naturally, like any smart 21 year old, I decided to drink the anxiety away. After all, what's the harm in getting a little buzz on before company arrives? Of course, my intelligent, self had not eaten in quite some time, so let's just say the booze did it's job.

I "came alive" as my friends piled into my house. It was quite a good sized group, so I was pretty happy with the turnout. Drinks were pouring, people were eating, then all of a sudden, he showed up. Zack entered the room casually late with desserts in hand. I think one of the things I admired most about him was his thoughtfulness. So my buzzed (errr, drunk) ass goes over to greet and look over the tasty treats he's provided.

I must preface this by saying I am a closeted picky eater. Seriously, there are only two pies that I like: apple and cherry. So looking at his selection, to my horror, Zack had purchased a peach pie. I hate peach pie. Of course, I had planned on doing the nice mature thing by saying "thank you" but my drunk brain had something else in mind. Staring down at the pie I thought to myself "Great he brought peach pie, because I f*cking hate it". All of a sudden I hear several gasps and the room got quiet.To my shock and horror, what I "thought" I had said to myself, I actually ended up saying out loud. I looked up and surveyed the room to see the stunned faces looking at me. Zack's face was bright red as I tried to fumble through a terrible retraction/apology.

Fortunately for me, he was pretty gracious about the whole thing and decided to tease me about for some time, and it later became the joke amongst our group. Later that year I made a peach pie for his birthday as a peace offering. As the hostess with the mostest, I proceeded to shove peach pie down everyone's throats as a sign of solidarity. Needless to say, that was the first desert finished that night. Even after my little debacle, it was still a great night.

Well folks, that's how not to behave on Valentine's Day. Here are a few key takeaways that I hope you've gotten from my awesome little blunder

1. Don't drink on an empty stomach
2. Make sure you're actually thinking in your head and not out loud
3. When someone hands you a gift just say "thank you" and shut up

I hope everyone had a swell Valentine's day!

When is Regret OK?

“No Regrets”

It’s a term we swing around so loosely, but, does one actually live their lives without any regrets?

This morning I was finally unpacking (I moved, more on that later), and I had Pandora blaring my “A Tribe Called Quest” station (90s Hip Hop or bust!). Bobbing my head while organizing my life, things were going swell. That is, until 93 til’ infinity started playing, and all hell broke loose. On a side note, if you don’t know who Souls of Mischief are, you must go to youtube and search the above mentioned song, it’s legit.

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Anywho, the first time I had ever heard that song was about 3-4 years ago when I was attending university in Flagstaff, AZ. I worked at the Student Tech Center on campus and had bosses who had great tastes in music. One day, Trey, my supervisor and I were going on and on about 90s hip hop and he happened to play 93 til’ infinity and I absolutely fell in love with the song. In fact, those years I really developed a stronger love for the genre which I still have to this day.

So where does the regret come to play? Well, when I first started going to NAU, I HATED it. It was a massive culture shock. Trapped in the mountains with a bunch of hippy dippy nature people, I was so out of my element. You see, I am somewhat of an escape artist. One of the perks of living in Southern California is that if you get bored of your scenery, you can escape to somewhere new within a 2 hour radius. In Flagstaff, that was not the case. Tack on a passive aggressive roommate who only communicated by post it notes, my “home life” resembled the Cold War/ Cuban Missile Crisis.

Being the persnickety person that I am, within the first few months, I already started planning my escape. I knew that I only had to be there for 2 years, I decided to keep myself at an emotional distance from others. You can’t miss anything/anyone you don’t know, right? Well after the first 6 months, things did get better. I started making friends, going out, and creating a pseudo-life, with everything still, at an arm’s length away. Hell, even my graduation was a “wham bam thank you ma’am” spectacle. I literally walked, bought chipotle, then dusted out of town with my family. My parents were pretty incredulous at my indifference and lack of emotion at this point. Seriously, I left Flagstaff a half hour after my graduation with the intention of never going back again (sidenote: I’ve been back a handful of times now).

So, what am I getting at here? Well, you know those pseudo-friends/life I was telling you about? It turns out they may have meant more to me than I initially realized. When 93 til’ infinity started playing through my speakers, I’ll be honest, I didn’t remember the title of the song or the artist. I just remembered how it made me feel. 3 years of buried feelings just started pouring out. I felt of blend of nostalgia, pain, regret, sadness, and a tinge of happiness shoot through me all at once, and rather intensely I might add. How could a song, that I vaguely remember bring back so much unresolved feelings? Music is strange in that way I suppose.

In spite of my first crappy few months away at school, I really did enjoy my time there. The people at the STC were my friends, dare I say my family. Spending my weekends at school trading music jams with my colleagues are some of my best memories ever. I fooled myself into thinking that I could just cut out that part of my life and soldier on, but that’s not the way life works. In short, I regret how I handled things. I regret that I didn’t invest more emotionally. I regret that I didn’t really say goodbye or feel the loss of leaving Flagstaff. I feel regret.

Obviously I can’t turn back the hands of time, however, I can learn from my mistakes. I struggle at letting people into my little bubble, but I have made strides of improvement. There is a bigger feeling fulfillment when I legitimately connect with others. It’s scary with the vulnerability that I am allowing, but it’s a better feeling than listening to a song that rips you to a time of unresolved feelings.

I can’t change the past, but I can change how I react in my future. My goal is to really connect and enjoy moments when they happen as they are. When you spend your time looking for the next adventure, you could be downplaying something beautiful that is happening right in front of you.