1) Eat Carbs in the form of homemade pizza.
2) Bake a ridiculous amount of cookies, brownies and/or muffins…sometimes, all three, if I’m being totally honest, which I always am with you guys.
3) Vacuum. Really…I clean like crazy, but there is something about vacuuming that really calms me down. Judge me all you want, but you’ll never come to my place, and not see those vacuum lines in my carpet.
Naturally, I thought of making the Fireman some baked goods that he can munch on while studying, and just use as a stress relieving break. Great idea, right?
I work two jobs: Job number one ends around 3pm, and job number two starts a few hours after that, and ends at about 10pm, so, let’s just say I am super tired by the end of my day. Is this winning me any sympathy points, because it better be. I decided to bake cookies and brownies, but not just one type of cookie, a full on cookie assortment, because why not turn this into a huge task that I would force myself to accomplish in a timely matter, and before the Labor Day weekend? Do you hear the violin strings being played? I do.
After work, I hightailed it to the market. I have been wanting to use hightailed in a sentence for a while now. Back to my drama, so I hightailed it to the market late Tuesday evening and bought my ingredients. Deciding to bake chocolate brownies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies and peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses in the middle.
Yup, that’s what I decided, and feeling really good about my decision, I quickly grabbed my ingredients and checked out. To make everything even harder on myself, I decided I would bake all of those things that night, because why not stay up until two o’clock in the morning baking for your ex-boyfriend/friend, when you have to be up at six am for job number one? No biggie I thought. I’m a night owl anyway and will be able to bounce back just fine.
This was the beginning of the rabbit hole I so quickly pushed myself down. Or was the beginning when I decided to put all of my pent up feelings and emotions into these freaking baked treats? After baking the last batch and injecting them with thoughts of love and affection, I added them to the new tupperware container I bought for this momentous occasion, wrapped a bow around it, and wrote out a card. Writing this out makes me realize how overboard I went with this, but I love cooking/baking, and I love to gift it, but looking back at last week, I see how this was Team Too Much.
The next morning I left early, and arrived at the post office around 6:30am to mail the goodies to the Fireman. He lives about a 45min-1hour drive away, and I wanted it to be a surprise, so of course mailing the goodies would be the best choice! And you know I had to pay for priority shipping too right? Right? Right?!!!!
He needed these cookies, and how could he pass his test without the brownies too? I mean, come on people, I know what I’m doing here. For the next two days I obsessively entered and re-entered the tracking number on the postal service website, waiting, watching, hoping. And then it happened. The box was delivered Friday, so of course I’d get a call, but nothing happened. It was pure, unadulterated, radio silence. WTF yo?
By Sunday I was kind of fuming, but then remembered it was Labor Day weekend and he could have been out of town, and calmed myself down…sorta…kinda. While working job number two on Sunday, I checked my phone on a break and saw this: ‘Thank you VERY much for the nice card and the treats!’ I sat in the break room dumbfounded. Really? That’s all I get? A lousy one sentence text message and nothing more. No phone call, no declarations of love, no nothing?! I was pissed. Irritated. Annoyed. Felt stupid, and any other adjective you may think of, but why?
Why was I so mad, and disappointed and hurt? What the hell was I even doing all of this for? He didn’t ask me to, or even allude to me doing anything, but I did anyway, and now I was mad that he didn’t respond the way I wanted him to. What need was I really trying to fill here? Was it wrong for him to not at least call and say thank you…yes, I feel it was, but am I just as wrong in this situation for having expectations beyond what he was willing to give? I think so.
Here’s the thing, the fireman is pretty dope. Cool guy, flawed as we all are, but for the most part fun, well traveled, and a great friend. Lately-especially after losing my mom so abruptly earlier this year-I have been filling as though I am ready to move onto the next phases of my life, which include, career and relationship changes. And having been single for the past six years, I think I projected those new found feelings onto the Fireman. How could I not?
We dated, I fell in love with him, we broke up, he wrote me an apology, we talked, and have been close friends ever since. So it’s clearly his fault! I kid, of course. I guess I needed to realize that if the Fireman wanted to be with me, he would. If we were meant to be back together, we would be, and there is no amount of shipped baked goods that will change that. And, let’s just be real people, if I really wanted to be with the Fireman, would I have let 10 years go by without ever attempting to make it happen? No.
If this were the movie version, I’d have mailed the sweets, and he would’ve immediately had memories of he and I together upon taking the first bite, then he’d call. No, scratch that. Then, he’d be waiting outside my apartment building, leaning against his car, and holding a bouquet of flowers as I walked up from work, disheveled and surprised. I’d say, “What are you doing here?” and he’d move closer to me, take my bags from my hands, hand me the flowers, and profess his love that he knew he had all along, but rediscovered when he ate the baked goods I mailed him. I’d shed one perfectly formed tear down my right cheek, he’d kiss me, and we’d live happily ever after.
Since, the Lifetime movie about my life has yet to be made, I’ll have to settle for real life reality, and the fact that he just didn’t care enough to make any effort, and that’s okay. I am okay. Being single in your thirties is not a curse. As a matter of fact, I feel it’s a blessing, because now, at 35 years old, I know exactly what I want, and am not willing to settle. What this was, was, a momentary lapse of sanity. An irrational need to fill a rational void that I felt at the time. Well, I can safely say I am back to my right-minded ways, and no longer using baked goods, or the Fireman as a means of filling a moment of loneliness.
Thanks for reading & don’t forget to subscribe xo Jonesie