That Kind Of Woman

What I know to be true…

1. I know that I would rather have wooden floors than any other.
2. I know netflix has changed my way of watching series/films I would have never watched before.
3. Companionship and camaraderie are essential to my interactions.
4. I enjoy dipping lemon slices into sugar as a late night treat.
5. The spelling of my name was after Katharine Hepburn.
6. I like mattresses that walk the line of soft and oh-too-firm. 
7. I like to dance, or shimmy or shake. I like to move when I can.
8. I am very good at pool, i just need to relax and trust myself. 
9. I make a damn good breakfast.
10. I get scared and lonely sometimes. 

I think we realize a little more something about ourselves each time we extend ourselves to others. It may be at the bus stop, with a smile and a hello. It may be a presentation at work or for school. It may be putting yourself out there to meet someone who lives a thousand miles away.

I am me. I don’t have to be the same person I was yesterday, or two years before that. That is such a blessed thing to realize. It’s so hard being accountable for other people’s feelings when things are out of your control. Distance, timing, or situation. 

We gave it a try, we met. Things were tough. Things were amazing. But, at the end of the day if I am not truthful to myself then what good am I to another person, especially another person who deserves me to be the fullest person I can to my fullest potential, then I am taking advantage of what they are willing to give.

I am not in a position to be in a relationship with anyone.

There. I said it. Actually, I dodged around that…

I do not want to be in a relationship right now.

Damn. That’s it. 

This I realize. It’s amazing to realize that, especially after years of not understanding why I couldn’t find “the one” to be with.

Because, (past me), you were and are so young. You are a baby in the world, your experiences are yours, not to happen once someone finds something worthy in you. I thought a lot of my potential as a person was wasted on the fact I was single. I mean, how messed up is that, to think that way as a 19, 20, 21 year old. My worth was determined in my eyes by the fact that someone wanted me.

Not to say I settled. I could have. I think everyone could settle. For someone who doesn’t treat you right, or who doesn’t make you feel happy, or any other reason. I was waiting for another person to affirm what I already understood about myself, but until they showed up I would half ass my relationship with myself.

Damn. When and where did that happen? 

What can I say? It was self doubt, insecurity and the overall feeling of being left out. You feel left out when you can’t find someone, especially when those around you seem to find a perfect equivalent. As I become more and more sure of the person I am, of what I am giving to the world as a whole, I realize that it was long overdue that I spend time cultivating myself. Doing things I like, getting better at activities I liked, doing things I wanted to. 

That leads to a different path, one that asks the question “What do I like doing?” and “Why?”. Then there is the whole “graduating college and spending a year in a topsy turvy world of possibilities” not that there is anything wrong with that. I have learned my strength, and weaknesses.

However, just because you know those things doesn’t mean you are suddenly complete. God, it sure doesn’t. I am a mess. I weep in the arms of my friends, I yell and laugh and dance in the company of kindreds. I make bad decisions. But, it’s how I handle the consequences. It’s okay to do bad things. It is, as long as you realize they were bad and you advance and adjust. 

So, I sit here. Realizing that I cannot be accountable for anyone but myself. I can’t. Not until I make a very conscious choice to merge my life with someone who also has realized that it takes a whole lot of self growth before you can grow as a pair. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

I once met a guy via tumblr. I was young, and hadn’t ever really been in a relationship. It was long distance, and because he and I weren’t very well suited for each other, things got difficult. It wasn’t as clean cut as I made it. It hurt a lot, especially when all i felt like was a passing fancy. I wanted grand romantic gestures and words. This guy, he just wasn’t that guy. I learned a lot. I also lied to myself. I told myself that I wouldn’t date from the internet. Casual flirtations… okay, yeah. 

But I told myself that boys from the internet were that. Just boys, a distraction. What me as a 20/21 year old thought she wanted out of a 25 year old boyfriend…. it was ridiculous.

Now, hold on… I have dated off the internet. I have sat back and watched my friends date, family members. I see compatibility and compassion. Understanding. Friendship. I had bad dates with good guys, I had good dates with bad guys. 

It’s a minefield. 

It’s brutal. And I thought that I was evolved. I was evolved because I didn’t settle into a relationship with someone who wasn’t right for me, and me not being right for them. I thought that I could conquer all. That I could bolding walk through the dating world, and not give any fucks. 

Boy was I wrong. Because just when you think you know exactly what you want, and exactly how to voice it. Bam. Someone falls into your lap. Virtually of course, so it’s not sunshine and rainbows. It’s like rain clouds and storms. 

Because I am telling myself repeatedly that it’s been 6 weeks. We talk everyday. Hours and hours of talking. Laughing. Teasing. Meeting parents, friends, family. It’s inside jokes. It’s liquor flavored words that spill from our lips. 

It’s not easy. Mostly because we had plans before we started talking. He’s going across the world to teach english for a year. I am straddling the city/country life. I am paying student loans and trying to establish myself as a dedicated and creative worker. He’s figuring out what do do for the next 5 years. So am I.

So when we glow at each other, it’s so great. He makes me float through things. I know he’s there for me, for little things or big things. To talk them over, to suggest and support. He is a part of my life. Day to day. And I am for him.

He’s coming to visit. In less than 2 weeks. I am terrified. My stomach leaps and jumps. I am so glad to have him in my life.

I think I lied to myself and him the first week were talking and I told him that I would never do a long distance relationship. I was too scared.

Because I realized something. I’d be a fool not to at least give this a shot. Not to give as much support and enthusiasm to him and us, as he is. Just because a version of me went through something that is vaguely similar.

It’s not even close. This time. Gosh, this time, it’s different. And I am so very excited. 

I don’t know why I am telling you this. Ah, whatever. Enjoy a little snippet into my romantic life, followers. 

We’d venture for each other to do the silliest things.
Make funny faces during serious talks,
purposely froth our beers to leave a mustache of foam.

Your deep, loud voice, and my uninhibited laughter filled up any place we’d be.

That’s the thing about us.
Everyone would notice. 

I feel like I am in that place in my life where people are either telling me “You are so , young you have so much time.” or “what are you going to do with your life?”.

I don’t need to have it all together. I don’t need to listen to the criticism of anonymous people and feel bad about myself. I don’t even need to listen to hurtful things people may say to me in day to day life. Anger is released upon me and here I am supposed to feel hurt? Betrayed? Sad? I don’t need to feel anything, my actions will not be changed because people tell me something nasty that they think about me.

I feel like it’s been years of this back and forth with people. Telling me what I should and shouldn’t do here on my blog. It hasn’t changed thus far, so I can almost guarantee it never will. I don’t care if you feel like me sleeping through yoga, and eating bread and dip in bed is going to make me fat. Newsflash, I am the way I am. I love every little bit of my body, ya know why? Because it’s mine. Mine. Not yours, not my neighbor, not my boyfriend’s, not my mother’s. Not the president’s or the pope’s. It’s mine. I can do what ever I want to it, and with it.

I can hike mountains, or lay on the beach, I can do anything I want. I am not ashamed of it. I know it is beautiful. It is. It may not be to you, but that is probably a reflection of your own imagine of what you think a beautiful body should be. Or what someone told you, and now you have to live up to that idea. 

I can go to yoga, or eat bacon and eggs every day. I can sneak off to movies and eat twizlers, or go to the gym. I can do what ever I desire, and nothing you say will change that. I can do any or all of those things. I do all of those things.

My weight has fluctuated for the past 5 years. 150-190lbs my body has changed. Guess what? My life changed. I will never be skinny, I have said this before, I have talk about all of this before. I am amazing. I am beautiful and I am full of hope that instead of calling me self absorbed, you realize that you too should accept your body, your flaws and strengths. You should really listen to the peple who tell you are beautiful and believe them. Believe yourself when you say it.

Am I perfect? No, but really what the hell is perfection? Why do I have to adhere to someone else’s idea of what my body should be?

I started seeing someone who has been amazing at just communicating what he finds interesting and beautiful about me. The things he says are already things I knew and accepted about myself. I am compassionate, and caring. I am beautiful and funny. BUt hearing it said by someone else, it’s wonderful.

Does this happen with every person see? No. Will every person I meet think the same things? No. But that’s their problem and not mine.

I have worth as a person, and no matter what someone says about me, I can’t and won’t lose sight of it. Because in all honesty, that person is losing out on a great opportunity to have me in their lives. Selfish? Full of myself? No. I am sure of myself. Sure for the first time in my life that I am who I am. Am I fully developed? Have I cast aside all my flaws, and become all knowing and wonderful? No. I have sins, I have faults, I have vices. Accepting those things is just as important as the acceptance of my being and it’s aesthetic to others, and most importantly to myself. 

If my 16 year old self could see me now? Damn, that would be a sight. It would be awesome, because I know I was scared, and confused. I didn’t think I was beautiful, or that I had anything to give to other people. I know what I have, what I can give, and how I should receive as much if not more from the world and the people in it. Everyone should. 

If you tell yourself that you are ugly, or angry, or fat, it will happen. It will happen because you become what you tell yourself you are. I am beautiful. My sister, my mother and all the women in my family are stunning women. Not only on the outside, but because of the types of women they are and how they see themselves.

Anything you may try to throw at me, I can guarantee you I have heard it before, and it comes up lacking. It’s not something that I need to prove to you, because I have already proved or disproved it to myself. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

Don’t ever let anyone ruin a song for you. Sometimes people come in and out of life purely to share a good song with. Or at least, I have convinced myself of that.

They have taken some of time, maybe a little of your heart, but please I beg you don’t let the music that you at one time loved be taken away. 

It may have been your freshman year of college, in some guy’s devastatingly messy dormitory and he played Hey by Pixies every time you were together. In his car, or when you sat on his bed and stared at his hands as he stared at your mouth. Then suddenly, because you didn’t know or want to move fast, he was dating a girl with purple in her hair. 

It may have been junior year of high school when your sister got into a car accident and you were right there with her in the passenger seat suspended by your seatbelt and Billie Holiday’s I Can’t Give you Anything But Love was playing in the background, amplified by the adrenaline that was pumping.

It may have been the long distance love on that one monumental night while you lay breathless on the phone. And he told you to play This Must Be the Place by Talking Heads and you swear that every part of you was separating and colliding with the wish you were laying in bed with him, and that the distance was nothing as your hands intertwined listening to one of the most beautiful song you had ever heard. Then, only a year later to miss the best friend you had developed because you wanted and needed more and you couldn’t stay silent about it, and he couldn’t give it. And every time you hear it, you ache with a little of that hope which you felt that night.

You may have heard the song in the background of a party where you were being broken up with in the hallway. You may have cried and wept to a song after your grandfather past away. You may have been throwing up into a trash can after a roller coaster, and the park speakers played the song over your nausea and fear. You may have told secrets, or lies to a certain song, and then had your trust betrayed. 

Don’t let anyone ruin any song for you. Don’t throw away that feeling, appreciate how it felt and realize that there are so may more songs to hear, and to appreciate the ones that you loved, even if the pain is still there.

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

You looked great today.
Your skin was beautiful in the morning light,
then at that magic hour before sunset.
Your hair was casually elegant,
as you didn’t really bother with it.
You smiled,
and several people saw and smiled too.

Your style was reflected in the outfit you chose today.
You inspired someone with what you wore.
You inspired yourself.
Those casual looks at your reflection,
they made your step a little lighter.
They made your heart a little happier.

I want you to know you looked great today.
Even though you weren’t really trying.

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

You were honey.
The way your words clung as long as they could to your tongue,
then dripped heavily onto my skin.

Like the honey sticking to the glass,
imprisoned after harvest.

I thought of all the bees that worked tirelessly for that honey.
I knew you didn’t work, you allowed that for others.

You were all unforgiving lines. The dash of your collar bones. 
The dark dusting of hair on your forearms.

You were sinfully sweet, when it suited you.
Or you held a little bite, a sting.

You were from the wildest flowers.
Your hive was feral and mean.
Never to be tamed.

Not even the honeyed stinging tones of your voice.

 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

Sometimes I write about a future love. Someone who is existing now in this world. Maybe he is loved by a girl. Maybe he loves her back. Maybe, like me he is alone. 

I write away some of the loneliness by writing to him, or about him. I don’t write because of the loneliness, mostly because the loneliness is just about being a human. There isn’t an easy cure. Some people stay busy, some people deny it. Some people stare it in the face and move on with their days. Some people acknowledge that loneliness is something that you can over come with determination. 

However, we all need someone. Someones. Plural. I have love. I have self love, I have love from wonderful amazing women. I have love from my parents, and my siblings. I have people that love me.  

I know that there is a man, as flawed as I am, that I will meet, someday, and we will give it a go. It being love. 

Until then. I will write. And, one day I will share all these rambling prose to him. Maybe he’s already reading them. Maybe he has no idea. 

Maybe. 

Until then, I write. Not for him, but for me. And, a little bit for you reading this. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

We sat, facing each other, on the almost dangerously worn roof of my apartment building. We had been staring out the window when you asked “Do you ever go out on that part of the roof.” Actually, come to think of it, you didn’t ask. You never asked for anything. You and your dark hair, sharp thick eyebrows. The consistent 5 o’clock shadow that you maintained with a casual elegance, which I knew was a product of a pair of clippers your mother had gotten you on your 22nd birthday.

You asked me if I was cold. I lied and told you I wasn’t. I wasn’t really. The Black Keys blared from the speakers we had strategically placed in my windows. I couldn’t help but sway back and forth. You kept telling me about an astronomy class you had taken and how two guys in the class always showed up high. They would stare and point up at the sky, never getting any of the technical terms right. 

You told me how you wished you had a girl to wrap up in a blanket in a field and share the constellations with. A girl just for you. One that didn’t take away too much of your soul, mostly because you didn’t have a lot of it to give.

I knew that I wasn’t the girl for you, and that you had more soul than most of the men I had ever met. You were in a stage of fucking for aesthetics. You know, where you went for the women that looked good on your arm, but at the end of the night you were giving and receiving empty promises in a beautiful shell. Pleasures were foreign. Mostly because you didn’t think you deserved them. 

I knew you needed time to muck through a lot of self deprivation before you realized what you deserved, and where it was. But, I knew that it wasn’t me, and never would be. No matter how close you held me, or the words you tried to say. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)

You should love yourself. If not for the pure pleasure of going through life loved, then for those who love you. 

We fight ourselves for a better part of our lives. At least as teenagers. We hate ourselves when we wake up, and then all through the day we lash out at those who love us. 

Maybe we just don’t like ourselves, looking in the mirror. Not at our physical presence, that we can change. We can get up early in the morning and run. We can fit into all the pretty perfect clothes we want. We can cover our flaws with makeup. We can make our eyes look bigger and prettier. We can dye our hair and wear heels that make our butt and legs look more appealing.

But your attitude won’t change. You can’t change the flaws on the inside and the ugly. You have to love it before you can get rid of it. You have to love the way you are before you can change for the better.

We weren’t born bad. We weren’t born with flawed souls. We got those marks and scars, each day we got up, each day we went out into the world. 

Love who you are now. Love who you were as a kid. Hell, even love that asshole 16 year old teenager. Just love yourself, for the sake of the people already trying to love you. 

(Source: thatkindofwoman)