Thought Catalog Copycat: What Happens When You're 26

It's about that time again where I recreate one of my favorite Thought Catalog reads! YAY! I love these. This one in particular, What Happens When You're 26 by Jessica Blankenship, is one of my faves because, well, obviously, I am 26. And I'd be the first to tell you that a mid-life crisis is fucking real, man. Anyone that says differently is lying straight to your face and putting on a brave face for you (isn't that nice?) At 26, as well as with almost any age besides the first few months of being 21, I feel no different than when I was 25, than when I was 24, 23, aaaaaaaaand you catch my drift. With that said, I've found myself facing obstacles and coming to realizations that I wouldn't change even if I had the chance. And just to put the icing on the cake, it's in song titles. Because that's how this bitch rolls.

You're the One That I Want

Twenty-six year olds have, for the most part, had the amazing pleasure of having their hearts shattered, put back together, and broken all over again. Not to mention, by this time, you've probably broken a heart or two, or three, yourself. As shitty as it is at the time, none of this has gone to waste. Every single heartbreak teaches us things. It makes us stronger. It allows us to see our breaking points; what you can handle and what you absolutely won't stand for in a relationship. Most of all, each heartbreak teaches us what we want. What we want and need in a significant other, and who can measure up to those wants and needs and who cannot. Finally, we can have standards and expectations that someone, somewhere, somehow might actually be okay with and exceed because we are, as a generation, slowly but hopefully, moving past our immature years where "sowing our wild oats" is the only goal in sight.

You Find Out Who Your Friends Are
It started Freshman year of college, at least for me, and even though I'm afraid it's a repeat process for the rest of one's life, I feel like at 26, I am finally completely capable of picking and choosing my friends. You realize that even through going away to school, to the weddings, to the babies (or even just the dogs for some), and to anything else that life brings, your friends are there and they are making it known to you. They try to make an effort, and they make time for you in their life. Your friends will do these things. If they aren't doing these things, I'm happy to tell you that you are now in your midtwentiesalmostthirties and you can kick those lame ass friend-wannabe's to the curb. I promise that once you do, once you finally let go, you will be an even better friend to those that deserve you.

Money, Money, Money
It's no secret that money doesn't grow on trees. Nor does it grow anywhere else. Money comes from a paycheck, that comes from a job, that comes from hard fucking work. I mean, unless you are a drug dealer, prefer to live on welfare and other miscellaneous government funding, or you have a significant other that rolls in the dough, you have to work hard and long (That's what she said! Sorry, I couldn't resist) to make money. I probably should have realized this when I got my first job at 15.5 (Taco Bell... impressive, IKR!) but I was a little slow on the uptake. I didn't realize the value of the dollar until my student loans were no longer deferred, I racked up my LOFT credit card, and I bought my own home. All things that have taught me, that no matter how excellent my taste may be, I can't be living a life of luxury on a 20somethings salary. Hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work I go!

Wild Ones/Single Ladies (What? It's a fucking mash up!)
Maybe it's the idea that my thirties are creeping up on me, or the mere fact that I'm single and trying to keep myself as booked up as possible, but I can honestly say that I have lived. it. fucking. up. in my mid twenties! Don't get me wrong, it's been amazing being single and doing me. But it makes me look forward to what's to come in my (hopefully) near future. I've been single long enough to get to know myself, and now I'm roughly about 78.2% prepared to share myself with someone else (EEEEEEEEK. As long as they do what I want to do at least SOMETIMES...). Before we get ahead of ourselves, first, please refer to "You're the One That I Want" above. :D

How Do You Like Me Now 

Not that you are done changing for the rest of your life or something cray cray like that, but at 26, I personally feel like I've really come into my own. This is me. I am who I am, I do what I want to do. I'm free to make my own choices about with whom I spend my time, what it is I do with my time, where I take my next trip, how I spend my money, etc. All of those things that make me who I am have always been there, but I've never felt more comfortable with them, or so certain of them until now. So, how do you like me now? 

That's rhetorical, by the way...

No, really. No need to answer.

5 Defining Moments & the Words that Define Them

"I think I'm in love with you."

Some of the things we catch ourselves saying take us off-guard. We didn't even know how to explain the way that we felt until we were blurting it out for the most important people in our lives to hear it. If this was some awful infomercial, and if every word you've ever spoken, or had spoken to you, was translatable in monetary form, I would make you a money-back guarantee. I can guarantee that those same things that we remember so vividly saying to people at one point in our lives, are also remembered by the people we said them to.

However, just as some of the people that come through your life will disappear, some of the things that were said to you may also go easily forgotten. No matter how big or small those words were at the time, not everything can remain. But even if you've only ever been in one single relationship, whether it's true or false, positive or negative, or it's completely rude or it's so nice it melts you, there's bound to be things you can't forget. Your head, your heart, and your soul just won't let you forget them. The memories remain for multiple reasons: some linger in your life just to remind you that there will be some bad times, and to keep you in check; even more so, though, some memories are simply there to remind you of the good (or great, or amazing) times, to make you feel giddy, and to put a beautiful smile on your face.

So, without further adieu, here the just a few of the defining moments in my life:

"I wanted to wait for you to try it." Granted, the entire context of this conversation involved trying sushi for the first time at the Drunken Fish, the idea that someone wanted so much to try this new food with me that they put off trying it with a group of friends made me smile. Not that I want to stop someone from doing what they want with who they want, but this person decided completely on their own that they wanted to share that experience with ME as opposed to someone else. Less than a week later, we went to the Drunken Fish and ate sushi together for the first time. While this sounds utterly ridiculous, in retrospect, this situation taught me what it meant to want to do new things with the one you love.

"Why are you being so dense?" Okay, so not the best thing to remember, but like I said, some shit just sticks with you, positive or negative, rude or nice. You can't help what you can remember. To put the icing on the cake, the best part about remembering this situation is that I don't remember a single thing about what caused someone to say such a thing. Unfortunately, I can supply you with no contextual information on this one. To this day, I couldn't tell you what "dense" thing I said, or what "dense" thing I did. All I can recall is that someone thought I was being dense, and it fucking hurt. All I can remember is them asking me "why are you being so dense?" I guess the dense part overshadowed the entire conversation prior to. That's how much it stuck out in my mind.

"Awww, I can see your laugh through the phone!" Again, with the context. This person was totally wasted and drunk-dialed my ass while I was passing out early (AKA being lame) on a work night. However, in their drunken stammer, they let it slip that they could picture me laughing through the phone to whatever wasted nonsense they had just said. It gave me butterflies, and made me realize that maybe this person wasn't just drunk-dialing me. Maybe they were thinking of me, and they really could picture me in their head. And if they were going to picture me, I'd much prefer to be laughing in the image, other than doing something idiotic like I am doing the other 98 percent of the time.

"Are you happy now?" Picture this: Me balling my eyes out, just having discovered some shitty information that would, in turn, put an end to one of the most important relationships in my life as a twentysomething. Instead of an apology or an attempt at fixing the situation, one of the most closed-up people I know began to cry in front of me for the what seemed like the first time ever. As tears streamed down her face, she asked me if I was happy now. The truth is, I was happy. I was happy that she could finally cry and show some sort of remorse. Most of all, I was happy to finally know that I meant enough to her that the things she had done, that impacted me so hugely, made her cry.

"No." It might be just one word, but depending on the context, this word can speak volumes. If I happen to ask you (in my mushy, cheesy, romantic way) if you think you need to date anyone else just to know if I'm the person you want to be with, and you quickly respond with "no," I'm going to remember it, regardless of whether or not it's the truth. Because, well, how am I to know what's the truth or what's a lie? Guess I just have to trust you. :)

The things that have stuck with me over time are, by far, some of the most defining moments in my life. They were said to me by people I think highly of, by people that I love dearly, and by people that I am, to this day, not able to define my feelings for, but in the least, I know a part of me was just crazy about them.

These defining moments also prove that words really are the things that cause feelings - good and bad. And when it comes to words, some things are better left unsaid, because they might just be remembered. I also know that we aren't supposed to believe every word we hear, or (in this day and age) every word we read in a text message or in an email. But I guess in the end, all you have is your word, so we should make it an honest one at that.

On Hurting People

The things we are taught and told about hurting people, or being hurt by people, is quite contradicting when you really get down to it. It's from one extreme - "if they love you, they wouldn't hurt you" - to the other - "we hurt those that we love the most." These two stories have the possibility to drive someone like myself up a fucking wall. Regardless of my continuous cursing, and my never-ending cynicism, I'm the biggest sucker you'll ever know for romance. I've been this way for as long as I can remember (if only I knew where I got it from, so I had someone to blame for my sometimes ridiculous standards). Thus, I tend to lean toward the "if they loved you, they wouldn't hurt you," theory, because I mean, come on. Who WANTS to be hurt by someone they love just to be able to tell themselves "well, they hurt me, so they must love me most of all!"

Due to my romantic, fairy-tale believin' nature, I regrettably, by default, tend to judge people that I care about very quickly when they make mistakes and hurt the people they love, and, if I, myself, make a mistake and hurt someone, I tend to beat myself up about it for a long time (usually ending in a 'Okay, Erica, one more day of calling yourself a bitch, then you can be off the hook').

Now, when I say "hurt someone," I don't mean you dump someone and break their heart because you just aren't feeling what's between the two of you anymore, and I don't mean those little white lies we all tell like "NOOO, that dress doesn't make your ass look big..." I mean those hurts that literally hurt you just as much as the person you're hurting. When you know immediately that you've done something so stupid and careless that you don't even know what to tell yourself to make it go away. By hurting someone, I mean you've crossed a line and done something completely uncalled for. By hurting someone, I also mean that you are a cheater, or a liar, or you are constantly taking someone that you care about for granted for your own selfish reasons (*FYI, these are hypothetical examples*). Hurting someone in this manner shouldn't be the way you are "living your life." That's the life of a single person, no doubt. Not the life of a person in a 'messed up' relationship.

Because I melt to/wet my unders with the idea of monogamy, and because I have a one-track mind when it comes to who I'm buying alcoholic beverages for, and who I'm banging, I take my relationships more seriously than, maybe, most twentysomethings probably do. I also take the thought of hurting someone very seriously (don't we all?). Luckily, I haven't found myself in the situation on multiple occasions where I've felt like I completely fucked up. I've always taken pride in being loyal, honest and trustworthy. In retrospect, I must proudly admit that I have been on the receiving end of fuck ups on more occasions than I have been the one fucking up.

It's because of this little fact, however, that I've recently discovered how much like SHIT I feel when I know that I'm in the wrong. You see, for example, when you are a serial cheater, or a pathological liar (read: *again, these are just examples, I'm not attacking you, I swear*), these dishonest things become habits, and we tend to forget that not all habits are good ones. Just because it's how you've done things in the past, that doesn't mean that's how it should be. And just because something is already doomed, or not working, that doesn't give anyone a right to run it into the ground, crushing any pride and dignity that may be left. Kellie Pickler doesn't have to be right when she says "once a cheater, always a cheater," damnit. The woman CAN DO wrong.

When it comes to things like cheating, or being a "player," someone simply not being able to make up their mind, or someone crossing a line and just plain ol' effing up ROYALLY - I've, unfortunately, come to the realization that I cannot hold someone to my standards of what a relationship should look like. While I'd love everyone and their Mother to be honest, trustworthy and monogamy-loving people, some people just refuse to get down like that. Or maybe they don't refuse, but they are too scared to put all of their eggs in one basket, or maybe they just can't seem to get the fix that they are looking for. Regardless of why people do some of the things that they do that, in turn, hurt people, chances are those mistakes are not intentional.

It turns out, I usually have some almighty point that I intend to make with these blogs, or some ultimate "Erica believes this so this must be right" theory that I would like to thrust upon you for my own satisfaction. But lately, it doesn't seem politically correct to think that I would be capable of changing a persons way of thinking about relationships, as much as I thought I could with my, apparently unrealistic for modern relationships, logic and reasoning. In the time I've spent brainstorming about the topic of hurting someone (you know, just that little, tiny, minute thing of hurting someone), coming to an all-encompassing solution as to why we hurt people has been virtually - and intellectually - impossible. And trust me. Like everything else that's on my mind, I over-analyzed this in every way that I could in attempts to come to a conclusion.

So, instead of a clever ending to a not-so-clever blog, I'll leave you with this: I wonder how many times something has to happen before it becomes a bad habit we can't seem to break? Lessons learned from the ghosts of girlfriend's past? Trial and error? Three strikes and you're out? When does a relationship make the turning point from "hurting the people you love the most," to the point where you've hurt someone so many times, you couldn't possibly love them?

When You Need to Call Your Girlfriend

As you probably know, I'm a music junkie. Lately, I've been on this Robyn kick. Yes, I said Robyn - like from back in the day - #throwback. "Call Your Girlfriend" is the inspiration for this blog, and like all ironic things in life, I stumbled upon it at the most perfect time.

In case you don't want to watch her rockin' 90's-inspired video, which includes some Cha Cha Slide action and a brief floor humping, by the way (you're truly missing out, no doubt), the gist of this song is basically: call your girlfriend because you found someone new, and you need to buck up and do the right thing, damnit. 

For all blog intensive purposes, the glossary item for "call your girlfriend":

call your girlfriend; verb; To pay a visit to, or to telephone, a significant other (male or female regardless of 'girlfriend') and let them down easy.

Also known as: you be the bigger person, and do what no one wants to do, and break their poor heart. But it must be done. Those poor, poor bastards. And also mainly because karma is a fucking bitch. :D

So how do you know when it's time to take Robyn's advice and call your girlfriend to let them down easy? I'll tell you how.

First of all, let's say you're in a relationship, but you've met someone else that you just know is better for you for some God only knows reason. When you see this person, you see stars, and your heart turns to mush, and you wet yourself uncontrollably. Then they look at you and speak, and you tell yourself I WANT TO BANG THIS PERSON. Bingo. Call your girlfriend. 

When you are having sexual intercourse with your significant other, and someone else, that you may be slightly interested in, pops into your mind, and you later discover that, had they not appeared in your mind, you probably would have either a) had the worst sex of your entire life, or b) passed out... call your girlfriend. 

When you find yourself creepin' on a regular basis on a hot chicks Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or stalking their Pinterest account to find out what tickles their fancy (i.e. what they want to never actually cook, what clothes they want but can't afford to have, what their dream wedding will look like someday, and what movie quotes make their eyes water), you really need to call your girlfriend.

You constantly hope and pray to any God out there that your significant other never gets an Instagram or Twitter account, because then you'd have to follow them, and they'd be able to follow you, of course, and then they'd be SHOCKED at all of the inappropriateness. When this is the case, call your girlfriend.

If you are only with this person because of any of the following "Five C's of Calling Your Girlfriend": Because your relationship is just a Comfortable gig, it's very Convenient, yo' significant other got Cash flow, you are just very Confused, and/or you're too big of a Coward to be alone, call your girlfriend.

If your lover has admitted to mistakes in the past that you are constantly incapable of overcoming and getting over, and all you do is rehash what is said and done, regardless of every effort of forgiving and forgetting, call your girlfriend. If you can't accept things for what they are, and move forward, that shit won't last. You are prolonging the inevitable. Fucking get it over with already, so you can find someone that doesn't constantly leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Finally, once and for all, if you simply are not in love with your significant other, call your girlfriend. BAM!

(I don't know if I should apologize in advance for any break-ups caused by this blog, or if I should say you're welcome for saving you from your suckabagofdicks significant other).