Nobody puts baillee in the corner

I never thought I’d write something quite like this. 2014 was a rough year for my love life. There were a lot of nights spent watching the Casino Night and wedding episodes of The Office. There was a lot of 2AM chain smoking on my front porch. There was a lot of first post-Blake breakup Amy Winehouse.

So I made a promise for 2015. I swore I wouldn’t make any moves for fear of falling on my face. I said I had been on my own for this long, so I didn’t need any help. That’s why I spent 2015 as a perpetual, self-proclaimed ice queen. I refused to flirt. I didn’t let myself have a fall boy. Put simply, I just didn’t.

I already have a knack for shutting down when things get serious. I’m the master of pushing people away. I decided I’d cut out the middle man and shut everyone out. It should be an easy transition, right?

For a while, it worked. I didn’t date a single person in 2015. I kept telling myself I would stay forever independent. I repeated it until I believed it. It became my morning mantra and evening prayer. I was a free spirit, lone wolf, and every other stereotypical phrase for being alone you could think of.

But that’s just it. I was still alone.

I recently realized the full implications of my actions. I realize all of my friends are moving on to the next phases of life, and I’m stationary. They were completely flourishing with someone while I was wilting over in the corner (but by God, I had my own soil, right?). I was putting a bandaid on a gunshot. Sure, it worked for a little bit, but it wasn’t sustainable.

So now, I’m stuck in a weird sort of limbo. I’m trapped between being a total ice queen and a melted puddle (so I guess that makes me a slushie?). I want to put myself out there again. I want to be able to write something to tell someone how I feel, but I can’t. This is the closest I can come.

I can tell you I’ve been broken too many times, so the pieces don’t fit quite right anymore. I can tell you I want to text you more than I do. I can tell you I’m scared shitless. But that’s as far as I can go. So here I am, sandwiched between the clowns to the left of me and the jokers to the right.

Yeah, I may like you, but I can’t tell you. Not yet, at least. For now, I’ll have to keep sitting in the way back and let my stubbornness do the driving.