I had ten days to be ready to go back to college, followed by an insane two weeks of peer mentor training and orientation. The semester was off to an insane start: the drama commenced before we'd even finished moving in. For the first two weeks I was scared, vulnerable and unfocused. I poured my nervous energy into my mentees. You know how it is when you can't get away from drama--especially when it's not just your own, but everyone else's, because you're so involved with your friends that their shit follows you around too? Yeah. That. That's how it felt.
And then, last Friday night, the unthinkable happened.
I am in a relationship.
I have a girlfriend. I am someone's girlfriend. I like someone, and she likes me back.
I was not expecting this. I didn't know it was coming, but apparently all my friends could see it coming a mile away, because there was practically a full-blown conspiracy to set us up. (Actually, my house leader jokingly promised me a party if I got away from my destructive former crush and dated this girl.) I didn't even realize I had feelings for her until someone pointed it out to me. Only then did I realize what an idiot I was, not to see something that was pretty much staring me in the face.
It takes me a long time to fall for someone. When I have a crush it's instantaneous, it's that instant jolt of physical or mental attraction. When I am in love it's slow-building, it takes me a long time to realize, wait a minute, I actually care about this person in a different way...WHOA...where'd that come from? And then it takes me even longer to get used to it enough to do anything about it. My friends forced me to speed up that procedure and I'm so glad they did. Because I am happier than I've been for a long time...and it's because of her.
I wrote on my Tumblr the day after we got together, Am I allowed to look at other people? Are other people allowed to look at me? I think I’ve gone through life with this idea that as soon as I was taken, people would stop looking at me. Then I realized, well, no one ever really checks me out anyway. Now, maybe it’s because she has only recently managed to convince me that I’m not hideously unattractive, but suddenly, looks that I usually would interpret as “you must be crazy” I am suddenly interpreting as “hmm, I’d scoop that.” Is this wrong of me? Am I crazy, or is this really happening?
She calls me beautiful. She calls me sweetheart. I wrote her a love letter, and she told me I have pretty handwriting (she’s wrong, but I didn’t tell her that). And every time she pushes my hair out of my eyes, or rests her forehead against mine, or kisses the back of my hand or the base of my neck or whatever part of me happens to be within kissing range, a little electric shock runs through me. How long am I allowed to be ridiculously, insanely happy about this? Is there an expiration date, or will I go through the rest of my life giggling like an idiot whenever someone mentions her name?
I wish I had the answers to my billion-and-one questions--but I clearly don't. Here is what I know: after a freaking scary start, my sophomore year is finally starting to click. And I know why. And I'm going to hold onto that.
Come at me, McDaniel. I have a new partner-in-crime.
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Most of my photography as of late has been focused on learning to take pictures "in the moment" rather than spending a ton of time trying to set up each shot. This meant learning to take better pictures of humans (one of the aspects I still struggle with) as well. Most of these are from my summer job at Interlochen Center for the Arts--but a few are from college and home as well. Take a look:
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