A Life Full of Laughter

I am currently way outside my comfort zone. I am in Hawaii (5,000 miles away from home) with a guy I met in October at a wedding.

Crazy, right?

I know.

And if you know me and my history with guys (spoiler: it’s not pretty) you would understand why this is something that was way out of my comfort zone / probably not a good idea.

However.

Everything is just fine and I’m glad I made the leap.

Normally when I travel, I’m usually with family or school or a program of some kind with leaders to make sure we get to where we need to be. I have never traveled solo, let alone traveled to spend over a week with a guy I only met once.

My first challenge outside my comfort zone was taking on the airport alone. Like I said, I’m usually with other people when I travel. I know how to read and follow signs but I’ll admit when I’m with others, I usually just follow them. I may read a sign or two to double check their work but for the most part, I do not take charge for fear of messing up and getting us lost.

Well there was no one to rely on here this time. It was sink or swim.

Taking on the airport alone can seem over whelming especially when it’s a big one like JFK but I was able to break the steps down and manage just fine.

I imagined this as a linear path: How do I get from Point A to Point B?

Point A being saying goodbye to my dad who dropped me off outside the terminal, and to Point B, aboard the airplane.

I guess Point B also could have been Hawaii, but I knew once I got on that plane, the pilot would take me the rest of the way.

Or the airplane itself would take me since they basically fly themselves I hear.

I don’t know, I haven’t looked into this.

I’m not sure how much of that I want to know.

Anyways.

Thanks to previous travel experiences I knew the order of things and was able to break this down and go about it step by step rather than be overwhelmed about the airport as a whole.

So I knew the first thing I had to do was check in and then ditch my suitcase.

And luckily I had gotten to the airport with plenty of time so I didn’t have the stress of rushing which was one less thing to worry about.

And it turned out I must have gotten to the airport just in time because although there was a line at the check in, it must have tripled in length behind me after twenty minutes.

Even though you roll your suitcase, it felt like a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders once that was checked and taken care of.

Next, security.

And that was a breeze. I almost always get stopped for a “random” screen.

One time, I actually had my bag pulled because I had a two pound bag of gummy worms in my carry on and they must have melted together a little bit because the TSA woman said it looked like a dense object on their screen so that’s why they pulled it.

It totally could have looked like a brick of cocaine or something.

But this time my sour gummy candies made it through.

Also I wasn’t carrying around two pounds of it this time…

Security. Check.

Next: find the gate

And that was easy enough as well. Just read the signs.

Whenever I’m with family, everyone always seems to find the flight and gate information on those screens before me so most of the time I’m just blindly following them to the gate. But this time it was up to me. It didn’t take two seconds but I found the information I needed and followed the signs to the very last gate. So that was easy. Plus the plane was already outside so I knew I was in the right spot and since the plane was here, there wouldn’t be any delays.

Everything was actually going really well.

Usually something almost always comes up, but things were going smoothly. Suspiciously smooth…

But I took that as a sign that this was supposed to happen and I was exactly where I needed to be.

In fact things were going so well I didn’t have anybody in the seat next to me so I was able to spread out on the flight which was really nice.

Especially during peak pandemic time. I flew out December 29th and cases have been going up with everyone getting together with family over the holidays and all and since I’m not vaccinated I definitely appreciated the extra space.

I would have hated to have gotten to Hawaii only to fall ill. But I guess having Covid in Hawaii would have been better than having it at home…I mean at least I was in Hawaii, right??

Anyways, even the flight itself was smooth.

And since I am a non vaccinated traveler, I had to show proof of a negative Covid test and even though I took three test to be sure, the results I had prior to boarding weren’t accepted by Hawaii, but thankfully, my results from Quest were and I had gotten those results literally right as I was getting off the plane.

Next was to find my luggage and after that, find the guy I met once on a very blurry wedding night.

We found each other easy enough. Luckily the place wasn’t crazy crowded so I didn’t have to search a sea of faces to find the one with the dark hair and blue eyes. And I figured I’d be able to pick him out pretty easy. It’s not everyday someone catches my eye like that. He did it once, he would definitely do it again, but I was wondering if he’d recognize me. I mean, I had just gotten off a ten hour flight and the bags under my eyes were probably as big as my suitcase. I was running on two (at most, three) hours of sleep (I didn’t sleep the night before and I tried to sleep on the plane, but couldn’t because honestly I was too excited). I looked nothing like I did at the wedding. My hair was up, my eyelashes were real, and I was greasy as hell.

(Although who knows how I looked by the end of the wedding night honestly).

So now came part two of stepping outside my comfort zone.

5,000 miles away from home with a guy I met once.

I was so nervous. I clammed up (as expected) and probably said all of ten words that first night. He on the other hand, seemed totally at ease. I was thankful for this. The two of us are basically the same person so I was nervous that he too might also clam up or shut down. But in this instance, we were different, and for that, I was grateful because it made things easier for me.

There are certain things about being around guys that due to past experiences have more or less traumatized me or left me uncomfortable just being alone with guys so this trip was a big deal.

So big it’s worth noting, I have friends from town who have been trying to get together with me for over a year and I always flake or bail last minute, yet this guy who I met once, asked me out here to Hawaii and I immediately said yes and had been 100% yes since day one.

One of the things I don’t do anymore is get into a car alone with a guy for fear of being held against my will or taken somewhere unexpected. But this guy’s car dancing told me I had nothing to worry about.

Aside from the occasional hydroplaning due to all the rain, we were safe. He was safe.

A few other things I don’t do anymore is go to a guy’s house, spend nights with them or even spend any extended amount of time alone with them because of certain “expectations” a guy might have.

And the last thing is I don’t ever let a guy see me without any makeup on. I think this stems from one guy I was close with who had talked about more than one girl who he said he thought was pretty, but without makeup, she really wasn’t, and that planted the seed in my head that I too needed makeup to be pretty. And I definitely want this current guy to think I’m pretty, but I can’t keep my makeup on 24/7, that’s not good for my skin or eyes.

(So far so good though. I think. I mean he doesn’t look at me like I’m the ugliest thing he’s ever laid eyes on when I’m not wearing makeup so that’s good.)

Aside from all that, I think another reason this is so outside my comfort zone is because I actually like this guy. I have a real, genuine interest in him. And that has never happened before.

I mean I can feel my face get hot when he looks at me, I’m getting the butterflies, and my heart has been skipping all kinds of beats. This isn’t just in my head. My body is actually responding and feeling these things too.

What is happening to me.

Is this what my mother refers to as “twitter pated”?

So in addition to experiencing feelings I’ve never felt before, I actually care about what this guy thinks and how he feels about me. I like this one and I want him to like me.

I can feel myself starting to revert back to that extremely insecure girl I was in my teenage years (I just wrote about this two days ago). I feel all those insecurities resurfacing and all because I want this person to like me. I am still very much in my head and way too insecure but I hope the more time we spend together and the more we get to know each other, the more I will loosen up and maybe the more he will let his walls down.

Or not.

Who knows.

It’s still too early to tell.

I’m hopeful though.

Always will be 🙂