Yay!

Two of my friends from my year abroad are coming to visit me for the next week and a bit! I'm SO EXCITED. I haven't seen Nora since April last year, and Chris since May 2010! We're going to be visiting London then doing a roadtrip of sorts to Bath, Stonehenge, Brighton etc. I'm so looking forward to be able to spend so much time with the two of them.

I won't be blogging (not that you'd notice, since my update rate has been appalling lately!) in that time, obviously. But I'll hopefully be back with lots of fun photos, like these darlings:

Facebook nostalgia.

I'm sure you've all noticed the way that Facebook is bringing up old statuses on the right hand side of some pages, right? It doesn't seem to be for any reason other than to provoke a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia. The other day I had

On This Day In 2009
Emma is going to her first ever American football game today.

Man, that seems like a long time ago. Well, I guess it was two years ago. Still. It's odd to see the passage of time just there, at the side of my Facebook page, reminding me of how different my life was then to how it is now. Luckily (is it luckily? I'm not sure) I don't post all that many Facebook statuses so it probably won't be a problem I have all that often. Just enough to give me a quick stab at the heart every now and then. And I suppose, in a way, it's a little bit nice. I wouldn't remember these exact dates, these exact occasions without them.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on yesterday's post, by the way. They made me realise that I'm far from the only one thinking these things, and that if I want to travel and not be stuck in this job for more than a year it's entirely up to me to make it happen.

Not a forever settling down job.

I miss updating my blog almost every other day. Even though I've only been at this job two weeks, I feel as if it's dictating my life. I was supposed to have today and tomorrow as my days off, but I've got to go into work on both days - tonight because one of my colleagues has broken her finger so they're short staffed, and tomorrow morning because we have a team meeting. I'm supposed to have Friday and Sunday off, too, so now I'm worried I'm going to be asked to work on one or both of those days too. And I'm useless at lying (I never really thought about it, but Dan commented on it the other day and I realised I really am awful at it. I just can't pull it off at all) or coming up with excuses on the spot, so I know that if I'm asked I'll end up saying yes, no matter how much I don't want to.

I know this isn't a forever job. I know this is just a way to make money for the time being. I know I've only been working there for two weeks and once I settle in a bit more it might get better. But frankly, I'm a snob. I am. I'm a university graduate and working as a waitress isn't what I saw myself doing two months after I graduated with a 2:1 from a Top 10 UK University (so says the Times Higher Education Guide). My main problem there, though, is that I don't know what I saw myself doing.

If I knew what I wanted to do, I'd be doing it. Or at least, I'd like to think I'd be making steps towards doing it. The only thing that I know, that I feel, that I want to do is live in the States again. My 10 months in Colorado has tainted me forevermore. I'm 22 and I don't feel as if I'm in that 'settling down' place yet. I see people I know getting engaged, getting married, having babies and I realise how much I don't want that. Well, I do at some point. I just don't want it at the moment. And now that I'm in a full time job (in a weird sort of way. I did a little over 40 hours last week, so it qualifies. It just doesn't feel like a proper 'full time job' because it's not the standard 9 to 5 weekday job that I think of when I hear the phrase), living with a boyfriend who is also in a full time job, it makes me scared that I may never get the opportunity to go on the kind of adventures I dream about.

It's a kind of vicious circle, really. I need to work to get money to do what I want. But by working, I end up in a place that I'm not ready to be in. I guess a lot of saving is required.

Where's my BFF? (a thought process in photos)

Following on from yesterday's post (in the most vague way possible), I was thinking and I realised that, should I get married sometime in the future, I have no idea who I would choose for my Maid of Honour. Or my bridesmaids, for that matter.

That makes me sound like a bit of a billy-no-mates. Not true. I have plenty of girl friends. But half of them are in or around London, and the other half are alllll the way on the other side of the Atlantic in the US. So I don't see any of them nearly as much as I'd like.

I would consider these two to be my best friends:

But they live in Colorado, and have other friends that they're closer to than me. I have no doubt that, to both of them, I'm amongst their best friends, but like I said, other friends closer (both in distance and emotion) to them. We've got the kind of friendship where we can not talk for months, but when we talk, it's as if no time at all has passed. Which I love. It's just hard when I can't casually text them or call them, or, you know, see them.
I'd LOVE to have these two as my bridesmaids. But having them so far away makes that pretty tricky.

Also in the US is Sarah:

(sorry about the collage - there were too many great pictures to choose from!) (and yes, she is proposing to me in the last image) (in a Las Vegas wedding chapel, no less) (we were drunk, what do you want from us?) (sorry, I'll stop with the parenthesis)

Without Sarah, I probably wouldn't have had the amazing time in Colorado that I did. She was the first friend I met out there, the first one to say "Hey, come hang out with me", and who introduced me to some amazing people. We've had a lot of fun adventures together (including three times in Las Vegas - she lives there, y'see). She talks a LOT, but she has the most amazing heart, and I miss her.
Again, though, different country. Not too helpful.

Moving onto this country ...

My friend Emmy-Lou (well, her name is Emma, but I call her Emmy-Lou and she calls me Emmy-Liz. We're too cool) is getting married next April, and I'm going to be a bridesmaid for her. It's the first time I'm going be a bridesmaid (or go to a wedding, for that matter!) and I'm super excited to share her day with her.

(yes, we are massive dorks. We met on the internet, so ... yeah)

This is another case of a close friend of mine having a BFF4LYFE already. Which is fine, but it means, I don't know, I feel like I want my own BFF as my Maid of Honour. As in, that person who I am the No. 1 friend for. Is that selfish of me? Perhaps. But I don't think it's out of the realms of expectation, is it?

Now we're going down nostalgia lane ...
When I was 14/15 I had a best friend who was the stereotypical definition of a BFF.

(please excuse the hole in my mouth where teeth should be. One day I might get around to writing about the 6856378144 years of torment - I only exaggerate slightly - I went through with my teeth)

We did EVERYTHING together. When she was at her father's house, we lived a 5 minute walk away from each other, so I basically lived at her house. Both her mother and her father referred to me on more than one occasion as their extra daughter. I slept over her house almost every weekend. We told each other everything. It was the kind of best friendship that teenage books are made of.
But, as is often the way with teenage friendships, we fell out, and the rest of our friends all sided with her. It was a massive falling out that left me on the verge of depression for the two years of Sixth Form. I wish things hadn't happened that way. We were such prolific writers, both of us, that I believe our friendship could easily have lasted through university if The Argument hadn't made us fall apart. I still dream about her sometimes, and I wake up missing her every time.

And finally, there's these wonderful ladies:

It took a long time for me to be able to trust a group of girls again (see above), but this lot made it happen. I still see these girls as often as I can (I'll hopefully be seeing them next weekend!), but it isn't the same as it was when we were in university and we could see each other every day. And, once again, most (if not all) of them are closer to other girls than to me (both within that group and outside of it). Again, that probably has more to do with distance than anything else. I'm just too far away to casually go and spend an evening with them.

At the ripe old age of 22, I am BFF-less. And without school or university as a catalyst, I have no idea how to go about making friends, let alone finding me a best friend. Le sigh. I guess if it's meant to happen, it will.

(this overly long post is brought to you by loneliness as a result of Dan being away on a teaching training course, and me having NOTHING to do)