There I was again tonight, forcing laughter, faking smiles. Same old tired, lonely place.

breathe when you can,

because sometimes you don't get the choice.

There's a fly in my house. I don't know where he came from, or why he didn't die or start hibernating when we got hit with three feet of snow last week. He's been buzzing around the house and slamming into mirrors and windows and lights like an idiot for the past two days. He just flew in front of my face and almost gave me a heart attack, yet I still don't have the heart to smush him and flush him down my toilet. I walked down my driveway to grab something from my car yesterday and almost caught pneumonia. After that little adventure, I also don't have the heart to capture Phillip and send him out into the cold without buying him some sort of tiny bug mittens or something. Yes, I named him. No, I'm not ashamed.

...

Until this past year, I never realized how important realness is to me. How important real people are to me. Everyone's perception of what is real is different though.

I also realized that maybe that's the problem.

Last week I put facebook to good use, and after posting 17 pictures of my brand new Gucci purse, dress, shoes, headband (just kidding - I don't even own anything Gucci. Or a headband.) I posted this status after realizing that I have a pathetically large amount of 'acquaintances'.. and a pathetically small amount of girlfriends.

...

WANTED - some close girlfriends. I don't really have many, at all, anymore, and it sucks. Must be undramatic and trustworthy and real...

...

I got more responses and acknowledgements then I expected. 33 to be exact. Everybody's comments sounded pretty similar "I know what you mean!" "I'm looking for the same thing!" "Agreed.. let's hangout asap!" I even got a couple messages to my inbox regarding it and mentioning how we should make plans together.

At first, I didn't get my hopes up too high, because let's face it, what people say and what people do are two totally different things, but I decided to try something out anyways. I invited 5 girls out for that following weekend. 5 girls that seemed genuine and like maybe they'd actually be capable of making plans and following through with them. The plan for Saturday night was drinks at a friends place and then karaoke - pretty simple. We weren't going to a club where you'd have to spending hours getting ready, we weren't going to anything that would end up costing you money you may not have. Just karaoke, a couple drinks, and some fun.

I talked to the girls throughout the day and they all said they were coming, and even sounded like they were looking forward to it. I may or may not of had a tiny bit of hope at that point that maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't be the type of people I had already pegged them to be.

I got my first text around 9:30pm from one girl saying that she couldn't come anymore. Another at around 11pm. One texted me saying she decided to make other plans instead. The other girl didn't text me until the next day. The last one I just heard from today, two days later. Now I do have to say, one of them called me the next day and explained the reasons why she didn't come out. It was completely understandable, and it was nice to get an actual phone call from someone apologizing, instead of a meaningless text.

I understand that plans get messed up. People forget, people get tired, roads are crappy, things run late, your dogs pukes up it's dinner - things happen and people just can't make it. I understand. In fact, I probably understand this more than anyone, because for my entire life I've taken on the role of the most understanding person in the world. I never hold a grudge, and although I never forget, I always forgive.

After 23 years of it, I refuse to be that girl anymore, and I'm passing the role onto some other bitch who wants it.

This is where things got real. Judging from what I've learnt from listening carefully to people when they talk, and have reconfirmation from the responses posted on my facebook, I realized that everybody really does want the same thing. Everybody is fairly similar. Everybody wants people in their life that won't let them down. Everybody's looked at people's facebook pictures and wished they had another person's life for a day or two, because in that album everything looks perfect and this person looks like the kind of person you think you want to be friends with. Everybody bitches about their friends, their life, their jobs, that the new Katy Perry song is played too much on the radio.. and when the days done, they go to sleep at night and they dream about the things they wish were different, but will never make any effort to change... and then their alarm clock goes off and they wake up to the smell of coffee and burning toast, and bitch about the same things once again.

So, it becomes a vicious cycle, because if things never change, that means people never change, and that means finding these so called real people in life are damn hard to pick out in a crowd.

So I leave you with this - if you think you're worth it, drop me a message sometime. Make plans with me with every intention of not bailing - and then don't bail. It's that easy. If we haven't talked in the past 6 months, and you don't plan on us talking in the next 6 months, please delete me from your friends list. I'm interesting, I'm real, and I'm the kind of person that asks you how your day was, because I actually give a fuck about your answer - but I promise you'll never see any of that that by just glancing through my my profile pictures and reading my updated status's.

I think this is the closest I've been to knowing what and who I want in my life, and what I don't want in my life - although I'm still a long way to fully knowing, just like everyone else. I can see the big picture, it's just all the tiny details that aren't exactly figured out yet.. but if they were, life would be boring, wouldn't it be?

I want to go back to school. I want a career - not just a job. A career where everyday I feel like I'm contributing to something in some way. I want to feel like I'm beneficial to the company that I work for, and I want my employers to feel like I have something to offer. I want a house. Not a huge house, not something unreasonable. I want something that has big windows that I can open first thing in the morning, every morning. I want to drink my decaf coffee and curl up on the couch, looking out at whatever scenery is behind these windows while getting ready and excited for the day ahead of me. I want a deck, one where I can fall asleep on a hammock on warm summer nights. I want to get woken up by birds chirping and sqwaking from the trees above me, the sun shining in my eyes, and the sound of papers rustling while my boyfriend sits at the patio table, reading and writing and sipping on his caffeinated coffee - which I'll of course sneak a sip of before I go back inside. A deck to have BBQ's and get togethers on. A firepit surrounded by close friends. I want a group of close friends who's lives don't revolve around going out to the club and themselves, people who look forward to those nights out on the deck. I want a vehicle, I don't care what kind. I don't want it to be brand new, I want it to be comfy and broken in and I want to get into it and just drive. I want it to have a sunroof. I want it to not slide all over the roads during wintertime, so that if I need to deal with snowy weather I can appreciate how pretty snow really is instead of complaining. I want to crack open the sun roof when it's sunny out, so I can have that feeling of being exactly where I want to be at that moment. I want a puppy to run around the backyard with, tossing frisbee's and balls with until I'm out of breath. I want to lay on the bed with him or her snuggled up next to me during the last few minutes before I fall asleep while I'm watching tv, but not really watching it at all. I also want Phillip to get tired from all his buzzing around my room and take a nap, because he's starting to give me a headache.

This is what I want.