These Grouchy Pants Make My Ass Look Big. Or Make Me Look Like an Ass.

I'm fuckin' grouchy.

I don't know what it is. I guess the stress is getting to me. This semester is positively going to be the hardest yet. I haven't had a semester with so much work. I have an average of two papers due every week, and just thinking about it is making me more irritable and angrier. I'm used to having more to do than is possible to get done, but nothing close to the amount of work facing me in the next 3 1/2 months. And it all just makes me feel less like myself. And less like anyone else.

My jaw is clenched, I'm having trouble sleeping, I think I have a permanent scowl, and I really just want to be grumpy and all alone. The bf is being, as usual, absolutely perfect, which is also for some inexplicable reason irritating. I'm so ridiculously grouchy I can only laugh at myself.

Last night, we went to dinner with his friends. In total, there were ten of us. I like his friends, I do. They're kind and always make an effort to talk to me and make me feel welcome. But I also feel hella uncomfortable around them. They've been friends for 12 years. They're all married to their college sweetheart. And they've only lived in Atlanta and nowhere else. Honestly, I find it all a bit creepy. I'm the person I am today because I left home. I'm also the person I am today because I had several years to be on my own and really get to know myself.

I feel so judgmental and awful about these feelings, but I can't help it. I just think it's all so weird. I don't know people like this, who never left home, who've spent every weekend with the same people for more than a decade straight. There's really nothing wrong with it, they're good people, but it still just creeps me the F out.

I have two friends who married their college sweethearts. They're old friends and friends I see once a year and probably talk to two or three times a year. One of them married a guy she started dating at 19. But then at 22, she moved 8 hours away from him to a city and state far from anyone familiar. Three years later, they got married and he joined her, but she still had those years of independence to explore herself and experience something challenging and new. The other friend started dating her husband at about 21, and after college, they moved across the country together and lived in California for a few years. Then they moved again, this time to Texas, and after a couple years there, they got married. Yes, they experienced these changes together, but at least they took a chance on themselves and did something out of the ordinary.

The word that comes to mind is "cute." It's cute that his friends have been with their spouses since they were 19 or 20. It's cute that they live in the same town they grew up in and will probably never live anywhere else. It's cute that their social lives still revolve around the same group of friends that they did at 18. It's like an old movie or TV show or something. It's old-fashioned and traditional and conventional...and creepy.

The worst of it all really is that every time I'm with them, it's always in a large group, and they always reminiscence about people and events that I know nothing about. After they share a few good laughs, someone will notice that I'm staring around blankly and between fits of laughter, they'll recount the "hilarious" story to me. I'm always on the outside looking in. And I always will be. Part of me doesn't care, I think to myself, "Well, I'm never going to know all these stories, I'm never going to be part of this group, and I'm never going to be as close with them as they are with each other."

Last night, out of ten people seven of them went to college together. And the other two went to nearby colleges and started dating someone in the group when they were 19. And then there's me, the ultimate outsider. They tease me for being a Tennessee fan, for going to a different college. It makes me want to scream that most people in the 21st century don't marry someone that went to their own college.

The other part of me pushes me to continue trying, to stay positive, to not let any of it get me down. Because I love him, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Which means I'll also spend it with them. Eventually, they have to stop talking about the good old college days, right? Right?

My only real consolation is that even though my special someone also never left the city in which he was raised, he knows there's something wrong with that and is eager to move somewhere new. Before we met, he tried hard to move to California because it was far away from everything familiar. And just last week, he very seriously asked me if we could live in New York. He loves it there and has been talking about moving there for awhile. My answer? "Yes, yes, yes!"

Anyone see a trash can? I need to throw away my grouchy attitude and put on a smile.