First, Happy Birthday to my beloved grandmother who celebrates another year of life today. Cheers to Dr. Gladys Hope Franklin White... hopefully we'll have many more!
Second, thanks to all the people who offered encouragement and input on the essay from the last blog. I won the award, so all's well that ends well.
Third, I found out today that I am not as fabulous as I tend to think that I am. Now that might not come as a shock to some of you who know me (and some of you who don't!), but it was a BLOWER for me. Today was "Match Day," the day where pharmacy and medical students find out which residency program they matched with. Some of you may remember that I have been interviewing for the last few months, and I finally decided that my first choice was Johns Hopkins University. Well.... I didn't get it. I got my second choice (Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan, New York) which isn't anything to sneeze at, but.... DAMMIT!!! I feel so ungrateful for saying this, but I really expected to match at Hopkins, and I don't quite know what to do with myself now that I haven't. Some people didn't match at all, and I realize the significance of actually having a job to go to in one of the biggest cities in the world. BUT I WANTED HOPKINS!!!!!! (that was me throwing a tantrum, in case you couldn't figure that one out) I'm trying to understand that maybe this is where I am meant to be and not question the reasons behind not getting selected to go to Baltimore. It's just so hard because I thought I was long overdue for some good news.
And as if my professional life being in shambles isn't enough to keep me busy, I have managed to screw up my personal life as well.... GREAT! There was a guy (we'll keep the PYT label for now) I was seeing for a few months, and I really started to like him. It was funny, though, because it was never supposed to turn out that way. We met through a mututal acquaintance and went out for dinner one night. He seemed to be really interested in me and I was pleasantly surprised to feel the same way. But as fate would have it (and per my usual pattern), I found a way to screw the whole thing up. I knew that I was starting to have feelings for him, and I made the age old mistake of introducing the "where are we going? What are we doing?" conversation. Well, you can imagine how that turned out. He made it pretty clear that he only sees me as a friend (GASP IN HORROR!!!) with whom he shares occasional benefits, and he left it up to me as to whether I wanted to continue that way or scrap the whole thing. Now I'm a pretty strong girl. I figured that even though I really liked him (and yes, I REALLY did like him), I could manage to maintain a platonic friendship and learn to get past my one-sided desires. I was wrong. Every time I see him, I remember what it was like to have him hug me. Every time I get near him, I want him to kiss me. IT SUCKS. And it sucks even more because he isn't the kind of guy that I normally fall for. PYT is the most casual, nonchalant, "whatever, whenever" man I have ever met in my life. While we were dating, I spent all my time trying to figure out if he really didn't give a damn, or if he was just really good at masking his feelings. I thought if I could just crack through that shell, then we might have a shot at something beyond friendship. But I was wrong. Girl likes boy, boy doesn't like girl. What do I do guys? I know, I know... HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO ME. But my question then becomes: why not? Did he ever really like me the way that I liked him or was it just something I cooked up because I was looking for a boyfriend and not a friend with benefits? I wasn't honest with myself and I wasn't honest with him. I've never really been the girl who could be okay with "playing it day by day" or just "spending time together," and so the minute I realized that I felt something, I should have said so and given him the chance to get out. That way, I could've spared myself the grief of sitting at home crying over some man who isn't giving me the time of day. But I didn't, and now here we are. Sex complicates even the strongest of friendships, and if I wasn't sure of that before, I am now. I'm afraid that I made a bad choice today, and that I might have ruined the very friendship that I was trying to protect. I don't want to walk away, but I don't see how I can stay and not keep hurting myself. PYT is a really good guy, and I know that he doesn't want to intentionally hurt me. I just feel like I am creating the type of situation where he is only sticking around because he feels guilty.
These are my issues of the week... feel free to chime in as you see fit. I know that the chances of the subject of this blog reading my words is pretty strong, so if you're out there, know this: when I met you, I thought that you were cute. When we went out to dinner, I thought that you were funny. When we kissed, I thought that I was attracted to you. When it went beyond that, I thought that we had good chemistry. When I woke up four months later and realized that I really liked you, I knew that I was in trouble. And now I don't know what to do. Our chemistry never went away, but you want me to pretend that my feelings have. You said that we made a "mistake," and then you called it a "mutual decision." I call it inevitable. So what do you want to do?
