thanks a lot, mint.com

recently, i signed up for a free online personal budgeting tool. (although why i thought this was a good idea is beyond me)

my relationship with mint.com has been rocky from the start. he has a tendency to be slightly dramatic (telling me i'm "low on funds" in my checking when it's still hundreds of dollars deep is a little melodramatic, don't you think?) and it seems as though he likes to pick the days i'd like to forget my accounts exist at all (read: every day) to give me a smiley, mint-y update on just how much i suck at managing money.

however, friday morning was the last straw. mint emailed to tell me i'd gone over on my "restaurant budget" for the month by $37.

A. i don't remember setting a restaurant budget with him

B. i don't know how he can tell i've gone over on said budget unless he's got a P.I. on my tail

C. i HAVE been eating a lot of jimmy john's lately...

D. but that's none of his business

so. mint and i are officially over. (and i'm able to eat my #6 with onions in peace once again.)

here we go again....

he's so unexpected.

a couple of weeks ago, i found us actually flirting with each other as we made dinner for our friends. it was oscar night; my roommate and i decided on a mexican theme for the occasion. so while bob marley played in the background and she blended our margaritas, he and i stood side-by-side over the stove, smiling and laughing with one another.

he secured his place next to me during dinner and throughout the oscar broadcast. a couple of times, i felt his hand on the small of my back. we shared a few private smiles and when it was all over, i hugged him at the door and thanked him for a great evening.

what's so unexpected about this all is that i'm actually beginning to have feelings for him. for HIM, the quiet friend of my ex-whatever.

even though he's always along on outings with our mutual friends, i've never taken much notice of him.... until a friend's valentine's day party last month. my ex-whatever was there along with him... naturally, my ex-whatever had me in tears by the end of the night. he pulled me into a room to comfort me, to tell me i deserve so much better, to assure me that i'm beautiful and i need to move on from his friend, because he's not worth it... and i am.

i'm moving on, all right. i just didn't expect the possibility of moving on with HIM.

in my head.

i've been in my head a lot lately. mostly fighting. a lot of frustrating, exasperating arguments have taken place over the last few months. i'm starting to feel a little mental. [okay, a lot mental.]

i've been so confused as to why this is. why, for when the first time in my life, i feel as though everything is going right, am i this frustrated? i've got the wonderful friendships, the supportive family, the great career, the cute little apartment in the city and most of all, the immense lack of negativity in my life. there are no storms; life is calm.

but that's the thing.

the storms have all passed and i no longer have to focus on surviving them; now, i've got to focus on all the debris that's been left behind and force myself to start picking up the pieces.

and that is proving to be harder than the storms themselves. because now the questions start. now that i don't have anything else to focus on, it's just me. it's what i want and need, no one else. and what do i want, what do i need, who am i, really, without any storms?

standing under a clear sky, amidst all the debris, trying to find those answers is scary as hell.