The One At the Beach
I’ve been AWOL for…too long. *gingerly blows dust off of blog* I had all these goals to do better (goals I’m still working on), and life just sort of got in the way and kicked my butt hard a few times. 2015 has been sort of funky so far, not bad in any way, just…odd. Busy. Hectic. Weird. Surprising. Inspiring. A lot of things in a few short months.
Some of the awesome things have been: getting a raise at work, slowly starting to write again (there’s a whole other post coming about the Writer’s Block From Hell), seeing my second book become a real paperback book (!!!), and recently, a Florida vacation.
My girlfriend and I have been planning this trip for about a year. She wanted to go last year, but it didn’t work out, so then I didn’t go with the friends who were going. Then we planned for her to come here in the fall, but my work wouldn’t approve the time. CURSES RETAIL JOB. CURSES. We finally set these dates, and knew come what may, it was happening.
We just spent a week together, and y’all. I can’t even find words. The ocean was beautiful. My friends got to meet my girl. We laughed, we flailed, we all made great memories together. She flew into Nashville last Saturday night and we road-tripped to Florida. The road trip included: silly faces, singing at the top of our lungs to the Pitch Perfect soundtrack, getting punchy from lack of sleep, pictures at Alabama rest stops, “Let’s do this, bitches!” and dragging our tired selves into IHOP in Florida the next morning.
I did NOT want to leave.
I’ll always remember that week. My BFFs who went with us conspired behind my back and on the third day, who should walk into our condo but my guy bff Josh? Side note: I hadn’t seen my Josh in TWO YEARS, so when he walked in the door, yes, I screamed and threw myself at him. To his credit, he didn’t even blink. 
Katie and I created the hashtag #prettygirlandhoney to keep up with our adventures. You can follow it on Twitter or on Insta if you want to see all our pictures!
The trip back to Tennessee was bittersweet. It meant we only had two days left together, and it meant some tears on my part when part of my family made it clear they still weren’t accepting. The girls talked to me about the idea I’ve had of moving to California, and for the first time in awhile, it really seems possible. Possible and like it will happen. That Kay and I can have this life we want. I can see that life when we’re together, and it’s the one I want to live all the time.
Plus I’m such a diva. I belong in the sunshine, by the ocean, wearing flip-flips and beach hair. I love Florida, I love California, I just love being near the water and in the sunshine. I love the south, because it’s where I was born, but I need to be somewhere bigger, brighter, somewhere MORE.
As my friend Jen said, “you’ve found your heart. You need to be with her.”
**Here there be GRISHA spoilers.**
Okay this is the part where I talk about Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy and spoil the ending, so LOOK AWAY. So I read SHADOW AND BONE and immediately happy sighed all over it and told Kay she HAD to read it. Then when SIEGE AND STORM came out, we both devoured it, and loved it. We went crazy over Sturmhond, didn’t trust but still flailed over the Darkling, and loved Mal more than anything. Katie read RUIN AND RISING a few days before I did; the day my copy arrived, I started it. She went to bed but I stayed up all night reading it, crying, texting her my thoughts, crying some more.
An aside. When I came back from visiting her the second time, we came up with endearments for one another. She calls me Honey and I call her lots of things. Things like Pretty Girl, my heart, lovely.
Then came RUIN AND RISING, and the ship I thought would end and leave me broken happened. If you know me, you know I ALWAYS go for the doomed couple, the long shot, the Buffy/Angel, the Gale/Katniss, the anyone who won’t ever make it. But somehow, somehow Mal and Alina, this couple that for some strange reason I’m so attached to…made it. And in the end, when the dust settled, Mal calls Alina: beauty, beloved, cherished, my heart.
It was meant to be. From then on, every time I thought of Katie as “my heart,” I thought of Mal and Alina, and would tear up. I started calling her beloved in special moments.
We exchanged promise rings on the beach in Florida. Mine is a beautiful claddagh from her. Hers? Has the engraving “For my beloved” on the inside. So a huge thank you to Leigh for writing these beautiful books that brought Kay and I closer together, made me swoon and cry and fear and laugh, and just mean so much to me. Thank you.
(Dear Leigh: I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your words. It’s only for this picture, and this post. I’ve just never found anything else that does what Katie and I have justice.)
I’ve been back for about a week now and I miss everything about us. How we can talk for hours and never get bored. How we laugh, so much. How I can hear a song that gets me in the feels, and she just holds me, because she doesn’t mind that I’m a big dork. I want it for always, and my goal over the next few months is to do everything I can to work toward our happily-ever-after. 
