All about the firsts...

It's spring time finally here in El Paso.  And I say the term spring time very loosely because in El Paso that can mean almost 90 degree weather or blowing sand that will literally slap you in the face and your allergies start to flair up big time.  With it being spring time, it always reminds of new beginnings.  Whether it might be new flowers in bloom or a new you, spring is a great time to do things you might have been putting off, or never tried before.  I have a friend, and I won't mention her name because she reads my blog (sorry lol) that has her favorite...everything.  Favorite foods.  Favorite treadmill at the gym.  Favorite restaurants.  Etc.  Like she says, she knows what she likes, and she sticks to what she knows.  I agree with her, but only to an extent.  I am always one to try something new.  I love trying new restaurants, but I will only get items off the menu that I know would be a good choice and not easily screwed up (like it's hard to mess up a grilled chicken salad, right).  I like to try new foods, but if it doesn't sound good or appealing I am definitely not trying it.  I like to go new places, but only if I know how to get there and can really have a good backup strategy if I need to leave. 

My friend that I am speaking of and I went to Sam's Club this past weekend, and as they do all the time, their sample carts where out in full swing.  Of course neither of us had lunch, and we were starved.  Not good if you are trying to stay on plan and not indulge in the not so good choices (like muffins and bagel bites).  We went to one stand and she handed me this creamy substance on a cracker and I tried it and OMG it was amazing.  I asked her what it was and she said it was Hummus.  I have never wanted to try hummus in my life, but I had to say that stuff was the bomb!  So I bought some.  It's very good.  In fact I was talking to one of my coworkers about it yesterday because I was day dreaming about how good it was..lol.  Thinking about this, I really want to open myself up a little more.  I want to pledge to try new things, to be open to new ideas.

So, my best friend from college, his name is Jayson, just moved to El Paso recently.  I have absolutely loved it.  It's been almost 10 years since we have lived in the same city, and probably that long since we have hung out too, excluding the occasional hi/bye text or visit every year.  I never realized how much I actually missed him, and I also didn't realize how many emotions and blasts from the past would be brought up.  Let me give you the run down on how Jayson and I met.

My very very very first boyfriend, John and I met online my senior year in high school, his freshman year in college.  We began talking and getting to know each other.  When I moved away for college, we actually met in person, and began our relationship.  He introduced me to his two friends, Jayson and Jose.  John was the type of guy that was your go with the flow, not easily angered, would do anything for the people he loves in his life, type of guy.  He was like a gentle giant.  (He was super tall and husky).  I liked John a lot, I didn't love him though.  John loved me a lot, and would do anything for me.  If it hadn't been for John my first semester in college, I think I would have failed.  He did my homework for me.  When I got sick on my 18th birthday, he was the first person to show up to see if I needed anything, and went and bought me ice cream and a teddy bear to make me feel better.  The first day of my new job at a hotel, I walked outside to my car, and he was standing there waiting for me with flowers and took me to dinner to celebrate my first day at work.  For our one month anniversary, and you must realize we were extremely broke college students at this point, he went and sold plasma to be able to get me something for our anniversary.  I know, he was sweet.  Tooooo sweet for my liking.  I felt like I walked all over him.  I have a very strong opinion and emotion base.  I need someone in my life who is willing to call me on that, and not be afraid or intimidated by me.  Most of the time these type of people turn out to be jerks because they are to strong minded or to into themselves.  It's a double edged sword. 

So all the time while John and I dated, I would say probably 4 or 5 months, his friends and I became close.  So when I explain the story now to people how we met, I say when John and I broke up I got custody of Jayson.  LOL.  John was super hurt by the breakup, although he was the one who did it, it rocked him to the core.  It made him bitter, which first loves will do that to a person.  So when he would talk badly about me to his friends, they stood up for me, because even though I was very overpowering at times, I was never mean to him, I was just his first heart break and he didn't know how to deal with that.  Because his friends stood up for me, he stopped seeing them or hanging out with them.  Jose eventually found a girl that kept him from seeing any of his friends at all, so he just completely dropped out of the circle, and so that left Jayson and I.  I lived in the dorms at the time, and he lived in some apartments directly across the street from my dorms.  It was convenient.  Then summer happened, and I moved in with another friend of John's, her name is Vanessa, and Vanessa and Jayson's boyfriend Chris were super close.  So we would always hang out together.  That summer I met my ex-fiance Lee and we started dating.  Lee was really jealous of my relationship with Jayson because we were so close and tight.  Although he had nothing to be jealous of, Jayson was obviously gay, he had his ways of brainwashing me, and eventually, over time, I would fall out of friendship with not only Jayson and Vanessa, but also with Chris his boyfriend (now ex-boyfriend but still good friend of all of us), my next door dorm room mate that moved in with Jayson during the summer, Stacie, and a whole slew of other characters we all used to hang out with.  Lee was very manipulative and the end of our friendship was a slow and painful one.  It was like when a string starts to unravel on a garment, one by one and then the garment is ruined, that's how Jayson and I's friendship was. 

Lee was involved in drugs pretty badly and also got me involved, although only in weed, I became a pretty big stoner.  When that happened, I got Jayson involved, because it's no fun to get high by yourself.  To this day I feel extremely guilty for that.  After Lee and I broke up, I moved back home with my mom for a while to gather my barrings and get my life back on track.  Jayson wasn't able to do that.  Instead, he moved on to bigger and better drugs.  Talking to him about it now, I can't take responsibility for that, but I still feel so guilty for even putting him on that path.  He is still not clean completely.  I don't think he ever will be unless he really is able to open his eyes and see what it has done to his life.  I was able to do that because I had the love and respect of my mom.  I cleaned my life up, got a nice job at a bank in New Mexico, finished my degree and moved onwards and upwards.  He on the other hand continued to use drugs, had several part time jobs at fast food and retail and finally finished his degree a couple years ago after taking almost 8 years to complete.  He is working on his MBA, but he put that on hold until further notice because he moved here to El Paso.  He works at Best Buy.  Part time.  But one good thing, I guess one of the many substances he had been on got him on a healthy kick (he used to be quite overweight), and he has lost a tremendous amount of weight and eats healthy, although he still used drugs so it makes no sense to me lol. 

Jayson and I, although come from a very sorted past, are like those friends who haven't seen or talked to each other in years, but can pick up like it was just yesterday that we were hanging out.  Now thingss are a lot different, we are grown ups for one.  That's like so different for me.  We have real bills and real problems, not just the stupid college problems that we used to have.  I have a career and he is searching for his career.  we have had relationships and friendships during the past 10 years that we are now able to talk about with each other.  It's like finding your long lost soul mate.  Don't worry, I don't allow him to do drugs around me or in my house, and I definitely would not participate if he where ever do them around me.  That's not what I am about these days.  But it's nice being able to say, hey remember that time in college when we did this...  or remember this from college, etc.  It's nice. 

We have also been able to analyze various things from our past such as my relationship with John and Lee.  His relationship with Chris and others.  Our other friends that were part of the group and also, most importantly, our friendship.  We have had some very long nights of staying up late and talking forever about everything.  I love it.  It's like we never skipped a beat and we never had any bad blood between us.  A friendship that I thought I would never be able to recover, because most of the friendships from that time period I definitely won't be able to, it's nice being able to catch up.  He loves to go to zumba and the gym with me.  He loves to cook now, like I do.  So we try to have like top chef competitions in our head because we are both to tired by the end of the day and evening when we are talking about it, neither of us could cook lol.  So that explains the story of my first boyfriend, and also goes with the somewhat theme although skewed slightly and not really quite on topic anymore about trying new things.  Just when I thought a friendship between Jayson and I could never work again, I tried something new and went for it.  Normally in the past, in trying to avoid conflict, I would have ignored him so I didn't have to face my demons in my closet.  I am not proud of what happened in college.  But it has made me the person I am today because I am stronger today than I am yesterday. 

So I challenge you, to do something new.  Try something you wouldn't normally have tried before.  It's not really that bad.  Oh and tonight is weigh in.  I lost 7.8lbs last week after two weeks of gaining.  I only need to lose 1.2lbs to reach my 75lb mark.  I hope I can make it after my crazy weekend of eating.  And I only worked out four times this week and not my normal 5/6 times.  Wish me luck.