This year, 2015, has been the year of gray. Not gray in the sense of gloominess or sadness; gray in the sense of inbetweeness. The definition of gray is an intermediate color between white and black, which is NOT where I prefer to live my life. I would rather pick a side, come to a conclusion, and just make a decision rather than ride the fence of uncertainty. But no matter how many times I tried to live in my preferred black and white arena, life consistently forced me to deal with the gray in 2015.

It’s ironic that Gray is probably my second favorite color, after teal, which I talked about here. I paint a lot of shit gray, it’s my go-to color. My kitchen is gray; my bedroom is gray; I’ve painted two different dressers in various shades of gray, and this year I ended up painting my kitchen chairs gray after staining them didn’t work out for me (which was chronicled here). As they say “Art mirrors life.” Now I’m not saying that living in the gray has been a bad thing. It’s just not exactly been in my comfort zone (shocker!).

I use to log my running mileage and pace every time I worked out. But this year, I couldn’t even give you an estimate of either of these figures. That’s okay, though. Not everything that can be counted should be counted. I run for fun now and I don’t need an app to give me gratification about my run.

I started crossfit this past year. My perfectionistic tendencies got the best of me. I wanted to be a legit crossfitter. I wanted to do pull-ups, lift heavy shit, and participate in competitions. I pushed my body to do these things, but got burnt out. I almost decided that I wanted to quit and that crossfit wasn’t for me. After a 6 week break I decided I still wanted to keep my crossfit membership, but I would only do it on my terms. Which means I don’t want to lift heavy shit. I think that lifting weights is good for your bones and good to incorporate into your workout routine. It has been hard to “half ass” crossfit (in my honest opinion) because I feel like I’m cheating myself. BUT I know that this approach is going to allow me to be happier with crossfit in the long run.

This year has been consumed with more dates than any of the previous years combined. In total there were 20 first dates. Yes that’s right, I went out with 20 unique men. That’s a date every 2.5 weeks. That doesn’t count the second dates, third dates, and the occasional fourth and fifth dates. No two guys were alike…….

Some were younger….24 to be exact…..which taught me the difference in age between men and women can only be counted similar to dog years…..which means 24 is definitely way too young for me.

I met guys from match.com, tinder, hinge, coffee meets bagel, okcupid, and IRL (in real life).

There were two teachers, another was in the coastguard. There was Sheldon Cooper (I didn’t get a picture of this guy before the date, he literally looked like and acted like Sheldon). There was Mr. Ego, the attorney published in the NY Times. There was Mr. Sports Announcer; Mr. I take 30 minutes to respond to EVERY text message. I went out with another CPA; good grief, that was awful. I really don’t think I’m that boring as a CPA. There was Mr. Over The Top who was emotionally unavailable. I was also friendzoned on multiple occasions. BUT I talked about in my Annual Thanksgiving list, here, that I’ve learned something from every experience.

So as almost any part of my life can be summed up in a country song, I will leave you with one of my favorite songs from this year. Dustin Lynch’s “Middle of Nowhere” which describes the grayness of the friendzone (and my journey for 2015).

Is that a green light? Is that a stop sign?
I don’t know which way that you want me to go
Trying to look deep in your blue eyes
Do I lean on in or just leave it alone?
It’s like I’m lost in a hundred acre field
No map and I’ve got no lights
Wondering what kind of friends you wanna be
I’m wishing I could read your mind