Coming to Terms

Today is February 13th, which means tomorrow is February 14th--Valentines Day. Lets recap my last 17 Valentines Day's.

1st-15th: My big sister's birthday is Valentines Day, so my first 15 were spent celebrating with her. She moved to England for college when I was barely 16, so there goes that excuse!

16th-17th: I worked at Papa Murphy's Pizza and Valentine's Day was one of our busiest days of the year. Both years, I worked until about 8 or 9 and then went to dinner and a movie with my coworkers. None of us had dates, so we all just hung out.

So that brings us to this year. My 18th Valentines Day. I no longer have my sister or my job to hide behind. So here it goes.

I don't date and most of my friends don't talk to me anymore; therefore, I have absolutely no plans this year to celebrate Valentines Day.

I sent out a text message to a bunch of girls at the beginning of the week, wanting to plan a home cooked dinner followed by a movie. I even offered to cook! I sent that out to 8-10 people and only heard back from one. And that was about three days after I sent out the text. She said she'd have to ask her parents. I told her not to bother, that it wasn't going to happen.

Honestly, I at first wondered if something was wrong with my phone, if it wasn't receiving text messages for some reason. But every time I convinced myself that was the problem, I remembered that another person had just texted me earlier that night and we had had a conversation (this was usually my friend who lives out of state). So really, there were no excuses there.

I am pretty much giving up on my friends now. I guess I really shouldn't call them that anymore. I only really have three people from my old core group that I would still consider friends. The rest? Well, I am just trying to avoid them because I know they will act all friendly to my face and I will once again have hope that things aren't like I thought. Thats never the case, though.

So now I'm trying to branch out more, hang out with people I haven't seen or talked to in a long time. I'm going to an improv night at the high school with a girl named Rachel, who I've known since 5th grade but had a couple of falling outs with. We 'made up' a couple of years ago. She and my sister are fairly good friends and she and I are friendly with each other as well. It should be a fun night.

But really, I just can't wait to move to Bellingham and then Nashville, to meet a whole fresh new crop of people. Thats the problem with small towns like Anacortes--after a while, you've met everyone. If you can't make many friends, you're pretty much out of luck.

So there you have it. I am spending my Valentines Day alone, save for probably my guitars.

Here's to hoping that next Valentine's Day, I'll actually have friends.