I tried to write an introduction to this post, but I can't seem to do it justice. So without further ado, I give you my boyfriend.

Hello, boys and girls. Rob here.

I was asked to take a minute out of my time to comment on what it's like to live with the Freckled Italian herself. Although she has many adorable qualities, it can be quite creepy to sleep next to Megan sometimes.

What comes to mind when you think of a horror movie? Do you think of small, pale children murmuring nonsense coupled with maniacal laughter in the middle of the night? Well, that's just a reality for me.

Megan often laughs and murmurs in her sleep. I've learned how to take advantage of the situation, so I ask her questions about what's so funny or what she's saying. Here are a few of the most recent conversations we've had while she was deep in her dreaming. (By the way, she never remembers any of these).

Megan: It's already in it.
Rob: What is?
M: The stuff is already in it.
R: What stuff?
M: I already put the stuff in it!

M: It...it just bothers me. I don't know. I just don't get it.
R: What bothers you?
M: It's just a little button!

Perhaps a Pinterest inspired chat:
M: It's so ugly.
R: What's ugly?
M: Her pins! She just has such ugly pins!

M: Naked cats.
R: What?!
[she laughs, a lot]
M: Naked cats. Just some puppies or somethin? Like a cappucino. I remember watching the puppies.

And then, sometimes I get these one-liner beauties:

"Beans!"

"Extra energy beat!"

"The kids are buried over here."

PS from Megan:
This is just a fraction of the things that I say when I'm asleep. Rob actually writes a lot of them down when they happen. He's agreed to grace this blog every month or so with some hilarious sequel posts! Also, I am awake as I write this.

For whatever reason, I've always been a person who gets really good at something and then randomly drops it. It's an incredibly frustrating habit. When I was younger, I water-skied and wake-boarded behind my parents' boats and jet-skis like there was nothing to it. I learned tricks and never wiped out. Then, one day, I decided that I was terrified of the lake. I didn't go in again for years.

When I was in college, I was briefly a Spanish major. I had grown up with the language, so I fell into my studies with ease. I was starting to have dreams in Spanish when I dropped the major, not even considering a Spanish minor. One of my classes gave me too much anxiety and I didn't think I'd be able to go back. I've always known that pursing a degree in English was one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself, but I do regret giving up on my Spanish fluency. 

My whole life, I've been a skier. I learned as a little toddler and always felt comfortable with my boots in bindings. I took lessons and mastered my skills. And my family went to ski resorts every winter. Then I turned 17 or 18 and just stopped skiing. I hadn't been on skis in years, until Thursday.

I just got the urge to go. My mom goes twice a week and I knew she'd be there, so I called her up and asked her to bring my stuff. She actually seemed confused, and called me the next day to make sure I was still coming. I met her on the mountain and clipped my boots into my bindings and skied down the mountain.

It was a nice way to start the weekend.

--

It reminded me of a time this summer, when some of Rob's friends came to hang out with us at my parents' house on the lake. They wanted to try wake-boarding, and, as you know, I hadn't been in the water in years. I then accidentally drank half a bottle of wine, gathered some courage, traded my dress for a life jacket (luckily I still had my bikini on underneath) and jumped off the dock with my board. 

Sometimes, you just have to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and then be a little bit braver than you feel.

Looks like it might be time to break out the old Spanish books.

--

This weekend continued with almond flour pancakes stuffed with apples.

And, of course, coffee.

And then we woke up to a beautiful, quiet frost.

Wishing you a warm Monday with plenty of opportunities to tackle your fears.

Yesterday I sat at my computer and Gmail-chatted with one of my very best friends for a nice long talk. Caroline and I lived together for three of our four years at Longwood University. If you haven't read about me and Caroline and the legend that is 849, you can catch up here and then come back.

Ready?

I tried to remember the last time I had sat down to catch up with her for more than two minutes and honestly couldn't even remember it. I found myself pleasantly surprised every time we changed the subject. Neither of us had anywhere to go and we had time to actually catch each other up and make plans to see each other soon.

There was a time in our lives when we didn't even go three hours without speaking--most of the time when we did speak, it was face to face in our apartment. Text messages were exchanged constantly. Lunch together every day, dinner together every night, walking around campus together every afternoon. I had a friend with whom I was so inseparable, we'd go home and share half of an apartment together.

Where did that world go?

2006: Caroline and I at Hampden-Sydney. 

We made random freshman-year friends who lived 

in what ended up being Rob's junior year dorm room three years later. 

How's that for a coincidence?

There are times when I feel very adult. And then there are times when I am flooded with absolute panic at the thought of what "real life" must be like. It's exhausting sometimes, living life in this liminal space between undergrad years and a master's degree and, somewhere off in the distance, a career.

I have to say that while I miss the life of academia--of actually living in your studies, reading for countless hours, where your work was constantly guided and improved--I miss the life of 849 even more. I miss things like celebrating everything for any reason at all and nicknaming people we would never actually talk to.

Last month on New Year's Eve, Caroline texted me and said "I had a dream last night that we lived together with our boyfriends. It was weird but also kind of nice," to which I responded, only half-kidding, "That sounds like the dream."

Peter Pan bothers me as a character. Sometimes when I start thinking like this I'm reminded of him. He needs to grow up, you know? I'm not Peter Pan. I know I have to grow up. I think that's where the nostalgia comes from.

Hug your friends who live nearby. And call the ones who are further away. Do it today. 

Apparently we really can't all live, drink too much, and get naked in fountains together forever.