THE LOW-KEY HOLIDAY PARTY

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December is now here which means holiday parties are in full swing.  Red is a color that always makes me feel party ready and combining red with a coral shade is something I love as of late.  Throw on fabulous statement earrings with even more fabulous block heels and spritz your favorite perfume.  Good to go.

#caitlinthechristmaself

SWEATER WEATHER

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If you do not have an L.L. Bean fisherman sweater, you must go pick one up.  Seriously, run!  This specific sweater is the tunic version in beige but I am dying to get my hands on the original version.  

Thankfully, instagram friend, Meg Hall, gave me sizing advice!  The tunic version definitely runs a bit larger however, I got my usual size and it fit the way I wanted.  The original fisherman sweater fits quite snug.  I tried it on and definitely sized up to a large in the fitting room.  

outfit details:

sweater | jeans | handbag 

LET'S DO THIS

Rather than saying I have been absent from blogging for the last six months, I prefer to call it “gathering inspiration.” I have been taking my time to figure out what I love about life and what makes me happy. (Deep, I know.)  I was always holding myself to some sort of unreachable standard when I was blogging before.  I always thought I had to share more than photos or I had to be overly cool.  I forgot that I was blogging for me, to document my life, and to look back one day to see how far I have come.

This first post will be dedicated to my goals for the next year… a bucket list if you will. 

February 24, 2013

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Weeks passed and we began to see each other every day.  I started taking new routes to class just so we could walk together and he began getting to campus earlier so we could grab lunch together.  He became my white picket fence.  The perfect finishing touch to my life.  The little extra something I needed to get by.

As my gymnastics season continued, he developed an interest.  He wanted to know what I was spending the majority of my days practicing and what I spent my weekends were consumed with.  February 24th, we had a meet at Southern Connecticut.  It was a close enough drive that he could make the trip alone.  I was knock-your-socks off ecstatic for about 36 seconds and then it hit me.  My mom never misses a meet.  In fact, my aunt visiting from England is going to be there as well.  Even better, this gym is set up stadium style so I will be 20 yards away minimum as they interact for the first time.  This was going to be swell.

He walked into the meet, roses hidden inside his jacket, and smile creeping onto his face.  My chest tightened.  I was drowning in butterflies when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my own mother and aunt in a pair of cardboard crowns that you find at a fast food restaurant.  The only thing that I could do was shrug.  If he was going to be a part of my life, he would have to become a part of the crazy.

Lucky for me, he did.  I got back to the campus late at night and he was waiting with a question and more importantly, my favorite ice cream.  He was asking me to be his girlfriend.  He wanted me out of every girl he knew to be his.  I was flabbergasted.

HERE TO HELP

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There are many things in this world that people forget to tell you.  They'll forget to mention that your first heartbreak won't be the hardest and that if you happen to lose a friend unexpectedly the "what ifs" will be ingrained in your brain.  You won't be told that maybe your thought out timeline for life needs some major adjusting or better yet, it should just be thrown out.  People don't explain that it does not matter where you are or what you do, if you are not happy in your mind, you will not be happy somewhere new.  Moving from place to place to find happiness does not work.  And one of the worst things that you will not be told you ask?  Having to grieve the loss of a person who is still alive.

That is what I am here to tell you though.  All of those things, albeit painful and heart wrenching, you are still breathing.  You can shout from the mountain tops and hold your breath under a giant crashing wave.  You have a life to live and a life to love.  There is always beauty in the broken and you will come out of that broken resilient.  Now if you are any bit like I am, there is one question you have right now.  Why?

Your second heartbreak will hurt more than the first because that second person first had to put your heart back together and then re-break it.  They had to break what you took months rebuilding and you know the hard work it took to get where you did.  You will realize that you will have to build yourself up all over again and that is what will really hurt.  It won't be the boy leaving you because we can live without them, it'll be the fear that you won't be able to make yourself feel okay again.  Losing a friend is something I wish upon no one.  Death is a terrible thing and it is known for destroying childhoods and stealing futures.  It will suck the life out of loved ones and there is nothing you can say or do to make them feel better.  You just have to let them feel.  They will dehydrate their eyes and spend nights sleepless but they will get through it.  You do not get over a loss that significant but you get through it, some way or another.

Now for that timeline you created of how your life is supposed to look?  Get rid of it because no one has an eraser large enough to edit it as much as you will have to.  Things will happen with no rhyme or reason and you will have to learn to adjust your sails and adapt to change.  It won't be easy if you are not a go with the flow person but it will be necessary for happiness.  This brings me to the next explanation, your happiness.  Searching for happiness anywhere other than within is not going to help you find it.  It is not hiding somewhere in a clothing rack or pair of shoes.  It is not at the top of the corporate ladder or the bottom of a bag of chips.  It is inside you.

Note that I said losing someone who is still alive is just one of the worst because, quite frankly, these are all shitty things to have to learn on your own.  They each are dreadful in their own ways and this is no different.  Losing someone who is still alive will eat at you until you bite back, which will inevitably happen.  You will be able to walk by them without cringing and you will be able to say their name without stuttering.   You will no longer care what they are thinking or if they miss you as well.  You will survive.  Just as you always have.  You will be resilient.

 

EMERGENCY ROOMS, SALADS, AND EXCEPTIONS

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So here we are, sitting in my car trying to figure out what to do about my date.  Panicked, influenced by friends, and in a hurry, I invited him to come to the Emergency Room with us and to everyone's surprise, he said okay.  I picked him up from his car and he hopped right in.  All I could think was, oh hello, it is going to be you.  You are for sure a keeper.

After a few hours in the ER and I was hooked.  Like really really hooked.  I wanted to know about his family and what his childhood was like.  I wanted to hear his laugh to be the soundtrack of my life.  I wanted to break down on the side of the road so he could be the one to rescue me.  I wanted to be chased by some creature through the woods so he could protect me.  I wanted to find my way into his heart.

We were able to make it to dinner after everything was sorted out. (No worries, my teammate's hand is perfectly fine now, my heart? Not so much.)  Have you ever heard the saying that no great story ever starts with eating a salad? Well, once again, he and I are the exception.  I, naturally, ordered buffalo chicken because that is one of my five major food groups.  He on the other hand, ordered a salad.  Yes, a salad.  He has since told me that he wanted to make a good first date impression but honestly, he could have ordered anything and I would have still been enthralled.

At the end of the date, he was a complete gentleman and walked me up to my room.  For those of you that know, you must be escorted around the building I lived in at the time so I was apprehensive about the situation.  Once he kissed me goodbye though, every worry disappeared.  A single peck and my head was exploding with fireworks. The end of the date for me was perfect however, I have come to learn that on his sneak out of my dorm he was stopped by the student at the desk.  He was questioned over and over but all he replied with was, "I just walked a girl upstairs after our first date.  You are not going to ruin it and make me go get her."  It worked.  The universe made another exception on our behalf, something that would begin to happen often.

FINDING NEMO

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The snow really began to fall once I got back from class so I thought it would be a brilliant idea to go get snowed in at my teammate's dorm.  We sat and dilly dallied for a while and came up with another brilliant idea, bunk beds.  We decided to bunk their beds because who doesn't want more room for activities?  After a long debacle of stacking the beds wrong and leaving no room for the bottom bunk, we figured it out and we were practically delirious.  Clearly, that meant it was the best time to Facebook message my crush.  That's right, you read that correctly, Facebook message.

I then sent a line to him that I have yet to live down, "So likkkeeee let's be friends."  Exact quote right there, no joke.  Thankfully, he responded in the best way saying he thought I would never ask.  The rest is history.  Haha kidding.  We both ended up snowed in because of the blizzard that hit, Nemo.  Saturday came and I found out that my meet was cancelled because, although the roads in Providence would be cleared, the other teams could not make it to Rhode Island.  At this point, we had exchanged numbers and he said that we should still meet up and go out on Sunday.  I died-then obviously said yes.

The only thing standing in between the me and going on this date was shoveling my car out of the parking lot.  Except, first, I had to find it.  My teammates and I ventured out into the waist deep snow to find my little car.  Twenty-five minutes later, we were able to locate it under a heap of snow.  With help from the girls and my RA, we were able to get it out in a little over an hour.

With the mess behind us and our bodies defrosted, we woke up Sunday morning to sunshine.  I was as happy as a seagull with a hoagie, it was date day!  For some reason though, when my teammate woke up, her body didn't completely thaw and I got a phone call that I had to take her to the emergency room.  The emergency room?  But it was date day!!