My Love Story: Part Deux

So you're back for more? Cool. If you have no idea what I am talking about and watch to catch up on Part I of my love story, click here. 

So yesterday I told you how I needed a place to watch my soccer games. So I stumbled into a Mexican restaurant that I had probably driven by hundreds of times before and just never noticed it. 

I called ahead to make sure they had GolTV for my game and little did I know that I was speaking to the future love of my life. Our first conversation on the phone was magical. It went something like this:

Me: Hi, do you guys have GolTV?

Him: Yes

Me: Can I come in and watch?

Him: Yes

Me: Ok, I'm coming. 

And I hung up. 

Were there butterflies? Not really. But I was really hungry so there was definitely some tummy rumbling. 

Anyways, I walk into the restaurant and sit my self down at the bar. Keep in mind it's like 2pm on a Saturday so the crowd is pretty sparse. 

Pedro- my future boyfriend/furbaby daddy- was working in the bar and I asked to change the channel, I ordered a burrito, watched my game and left. 

Truthfully, it took me awhile to even notice him. At this time in my life, I was preparing to move across the world. I was organizing paperwork, researching grad schools in Israel, closing my bank accounts... I was ready to go. 

But as I was waiting forever for my passport to get processed- which should have taken under 2 months- I was still heading to this bar every week for my games. And every week, Pedro would work up a nerve to come and talk to me a little bit. 

Truthfully at first I was kind of confused. I was so out of touch that I couldn't fathom him being interested in me. I thought he was just being nice because I am horrible at math and always leave like 50% tips because I just can't bother to calculate anything in the double digits. 

It was actually my mother who noticed Pedro and thought he was the cutest thing ever. I invited her to come watch a game with me and she was enamored with him. I never even really knew his name and everyone at the restaurant called me "Barcelona girl". She pushed me to ask him out (yes I am a modern woman and my mother wanted me out of the house because I spent every single night watching Lifetime and eating brownies) and we ended up going to a bar and just talking. He was super nervous and I thought it was adorable. At this point, I was not looking for anything serious because mentally I was already gone. 

But we kept going out and then after three more dates we had our first kiss and eventually we just sort of ended up together. 

But it was tough because I was open with him from the beginning about my decision to move. And my imminent move was always in the back of both of our minds. We knew our budding relationship had an expiration date. 

But a funny thing happened. No matter how many times I called, e-mailed or stalked the Israeli Consulate in Boston my passport never arrived. 

In fact, to this day two full years later, my passport is still not here. 

I never got it. 

And eventually I decided to take a chance and fall in love and make my life with Pedro. 

I do believe in fate. I believe everything works out for a reason. And I know that if I had gotten that passport, I would be a world away and Pedro would be a distant memory. But for some reason- whether it be God, lazy bureaucratic consulate workers or someone losing my application 17 times- life worked out this way and I cannot imagine it being any other way. 

About a year ago I ended up traveling back to Israel to see friends and I was so curious. Would I have this epiphany there and realize I made the wrong decision? I was scared but I knew I needed to go and see how I felt. And I am so glad I did. 

While I was glad to see my friends and be back in my 'ole stomping grounds, I did have a sort of epiphany. This place was no longer home to me. 

Home was with Pedro (awwwwww). Cheesy, but true. 

So while the whole story of us falling in love is pretty generic; girl walks into bar, boy sees girl, girl's Mom makes girl ask boy out, boy and girl go out, boy and girl fall in love, move in together, adopt a puppy, become recluse shut-ins who order Domino's and watch documentaries, my dramatic life made our romance so much more... dramatic.

Today our lives are much less drama-filled. Once I made the commitment to stay, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of our shoulders and we could finally move forward. And move forward we did and still are.

How the Hell Did I End Up Here? / A Love Story

If our love story was a Lifetime movie, I believe the title would be something like "Love at First Taco". But that may confuse viewers. Is the girl in love with the boy... or the taco?

In my case, the answer would be both. 

But let me go back a bit. In this post, on this balmy Saturday afternoon in which I am still in the same clothes from the previous day, have moved maybe thirty feet in total and have not changed the channel from MSBNC's "Caught on Camera" for the last 4 hours, I thought it would be the ideal time to finally share with the world how my boyfriend and I came to fall in love and whatnot. 

Before I can get to the love story, I have to rewind to a break up.

The "break up" was with my best friend. We had survived four years of college together and I loved her like a sister. We partied together, lounged together, studied together... we did everything together. We may have been co-dependent, but in the fun, slightly less pathetic way. 

We knew after we graduated that we wanted to have one final 'hurrah' together. I wanted to travel and backpack around the world but she had strict parents who thought that she needed to do something a bit more 'productive'. We ended up compromising and deciding to spend a year in Chile teaching English and saving up enough money to travel to South America. 

We both spent the Summer saving up on money and I spent those three months frantically learning Spanish. By the time August rolled around and I was about 2 weeks before the trip, I was proud to say my Spanish was basically at Dora level. I was good. 

A week before the trip my friend called me and told me she would not be going with me. She said she had decided to stay behind for reasons I will not go into here and basically that was it. 

I was heartbroken. Devastated. I remember that day so well because I literally fell to the floor crying. I had spent four months planning and envisioning this amazing year with my best friend. I had a one way ticket leaving in 10 days, had saved up all this money and with just one phone call my fantasy shattered. 

I had to lick my wounds quickly though. In that week, I made a new plan. I would still fly to Chile, meet up with my friends who were graciously hosting me and then backpack around South America. I would go where my heart would take me. Screw the world! I wanted and needed to spend some alone time. I felt betrayed and wanted to lose myself in some tequila and preferably in the arms of some Argentinian man and/or alpaca. 

I remember clearly leaving for my plane and my mom dropping me off. I was crying hysterically and my mom told me, "It's okay, we can go home now. You don't have to go". And I knew that I had to. I didn't know why, but I today I do know. I needed to prove to myself I could do it. I was strong. And I am. I knew that even if I flew to Chile, turned right back around and caught a flight straight back, it was okay. Because I did it. 

I made it to Chile and... I was miserable. I was confused. And I finally realized that I didn't want to be there. This wasn't my dream. My dream was to spend the year with my best friend and I wasn't doing that. So I made it less than two weeks before I threw in the towel and said, "screw it, I'm going home". Except home wasn't back in Massachusetts. Or even the United States. Home for me then was Israel. 

(Are you still reading? I'm impressed...)

I had spent a lot of time in college in Israel, even taking some time off to live on a kibbutz. All of my friends, my first love, my memories... all in Israel. It is where I came of age and it was an important place to me. So I decided to move there. The day I landed in the States, I applied for my Israeli passport and submitted my paperwork to make Aliyah, which in Hebrew means "to go up" and is the process of moving to Israel. 

I faced several hiccups. Firstly I was technically already a citizen of Israel since my father is Israeli, so I had to apply under special circumstances that would make me exempt for military service. Secondly, I struggled to find documentation and proof of my Judaism which is something that made me very bitter and resentful as I know I am Jewish and found it idiotic that I needed a piece of paper to prove it... But I digress. 

The point I am trying to make is... this whole process took awhile. 

And in the mean time, I needed a place to watch my weekly FC Barcelona matches. At this time, I was super obsessed with soccer and I wanted nothing more than to have a beer, watch my game and hate the world (I was still slightly bitter... But in the more humorous way and less sad and pitiful way). In DC, I would always watch my matches at the Spanish bars since they had the Spanish channels that broadcasted the games. 

This is what ultimately led me to walk into a Mexican restaurant in a little town called Plainville.

And because this post is already the same length as a Tolstoy novel, I will leave part 2 to be published for tomorrow. (I promise to finally get to the whole 'love story' part. But the preliminary information is important- I promise!)

Getting Out of My Own Head

I am lucky to have an amazing support system. 

I have my Mom who is my cheerleader/personal chauffeur/best friend/cookie maker/incredible person, my Papa who fixes everything for me and is always a good sounding board for advice, Pedro who is most likely the world's most patient and kind boyfriend, Moose (yes I am including him) who is the greatest listener (shut up) and most fun playmate and walking buddy, I have great friends who are always a Skype call or Facebook message away and always leave me the sweetest and most inspiring messages, my new bloggy friends who are so inspiring and magical and a great therapist who earns her $20 copay (thanks Tufts!) fifty times over. 

Yet sometimes I am my own worst enemy. I sabotage myself. And quite frankly, I make myself feel like shit. 

Where everyone else sees something admirable or beautiful, I sometimes see only flaws. When I slip up, I kick myself a thousand times over and find out days later that no one had even noticed my "failure". 

You would think this would totally make me snap out of it and start appreciating myself a bit more, right?

In theory... Maybe. But in reality? I have been having a tough time lately. 

Work has been kicking my ass a bit, I have been feeling a little extra pudgier lately, have had a bit of a decrease in energy and have been super stressed. All these factors together cause me to stress more, eat worse, drink more coffee, stay up late or wake up super early (hello 4am) and generally just be off my game. 

And I know that life is a roller coaster and there's ups and downs and whatnot and so forth and henceforth and whatever. That's cool, I get it. But lately, all I want to do is get back to more of a lazy river kind of ride. Like a nice, gentle float and not a plunging spiral. 

So I am going to dedicate May to celebrating myself a bit more. And appreciating myself. And not to dedicating myself to a low-carb diet or zumba classes three times a week and losing 18 pounds in a month because at the end of the day, I can fix all these "flaws" on my outside but still feel like crap on the inside. And my brilliant theory is to work on myself from the inside out. 

And that process starts one small step at a time. I know I am a beautiful, smart, talented, hilarious person but sometimes I get vulnerable and it's okay. Because part of loving and appreciating myself is also letting myself learn to accept the love I know I deserve. And the most important person that needs to love me is me. 

I feel like there should be a Lifetime movie and/or Shania Twain song about this post. Thoughts?

*Should I put a disclaimer that I am on my period and this post was written after I dramatically ate 2 chocolate chip muffins in under 7 minutes? I feel like that might be relevant...


I am also linking up today with Tiffany and Andrea because I need to find some more bloggy friends to stalk.