Over the past couple of weeks I couldn’t help noticing that things with Josh were beginning to get weird.

Practically everyday was filled with dumb little spats–I was being too picky about where we were going to dinner or he was always on his cell phone. Spending time together felt more and more like work.

Then-it happened…the dreaded return of old Josh.

It all started during one of our date nights. For the past couple months Josh and I had been going out for dinner and drinks at the same cozy little wine bar every Thursday. While we never formally proclaimed it “date night,” it was just a given. At least that is what I thought! 

After battling an hour of traffic I rushed into my apartment to quick get cute for the night. In the middle of curling my eyelashes and taming my frizzed out hair, the phone rang. It was Josh.

“I’ll be right out,” I said, expecting that he was waiting for me in his car.

Instead-an already slurring Josh told me that he was downtown grabbing some drinks with the guys. My shock soon turned to rage, which I unloaded on him before hanging up the phone.

A little immature and dramatic? Probably, but I couldn’t stop the surge of old memories of being blow off the first time we were dating.

The next day I was still fuming and not about to call an undoubtedly hung-over Josh. Midday I finally gave into my desire to check my phone. Bad idea. Seeing no missed calls, I ended up feeling worse than ever.

I didn’t talk to Josh until he called three days later. He told me that he was going to be swamped with work during the week. If that wasn’t an excuse not to see me then it sure felt like it.  

After talking for a few minutes the conversation awkwardly ended without us making plans to see each other.

While I wasn’t sure what exactly had happened with our relationship in the last couple of weeks it seemed pretty clear that things were over.

“Kate, what are you doing here,” I heard a snippy sounding voice ask behind me.

I spun around to see Naomi standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

Taken off guard since she was late, I nervously managed to sputter out that the door to the studio was locked.

Coming to my rescue, Caden backed me up, telling Naomi that he invited me in after he saw me waiting on the curb.

“Alright, well I’ll get you a key then,” she said, sounding strangely irritated.

“What is her problem?” I thought.

While my workday was not off to the start that I expected-I still couldn’t complain. My half hour with Caden was enough to combat my boss’s newfound bitchiness. 

“Where did this guy come from?” I thought. He was not only gorgeous, but really down to earth.

Glancing around his office, I was immediately drawn to a picture of him next to a small plane.

“Do you fly?” I asked.

“Yeah, I got my pilot’s license a few years ago and absolutely love being up there,” he said.

“That is hot,” I thought to myself-keenly aware I had stooped to Paris Hilton terminology.

While it was clear he had a lot of entertaining stories, Caden seemed more interested in hearing about me–asking about how I ended up at a yoga studio and what I did when I had time off.

During the next half hour we talked about everything from our love of sushi to how ridiculous the bandanas that the yoga instructors wore were.

Needless to say by the time our conversation was interrupted by Naomi-I was smitten and was stuck with a silly smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I woke up Monday morning with that amazing feeling of excitement mixed with anxiety and spun together with a hearty dose of anticipation. I was starting my new job at the yoga studio! I couldn’t believe that it had been almost a month since I left my old job. That seemed like ages ago now – the new Kate was adventurous, she was free-spirited she was…naked.

I stared into my closet, befuddled at what to wear. Okay, so I now work at a yoga studio, but I am not teaching yoga or even participating in classes. Do I wear a suit? Some sort of leotard? Ugh, I felt the excitement and anticipation weaning and the anxiety taking over. What was I doing?

I finally settled on a black shirt dress and flats. As I struggled to put together the perfect I’m-not-trying-too-hard ponytail, Josh appeared next to me in the bathroom.

“You’re going to be so great,” he said beaming at me. “These yoga folks aren’t going to know what hit them!”

I mustered up a smile, but to be honest, I found Josh’s wide-eyed optimism and morning cheer to be…annoying. Instantly struck by a feeling of guilt, I quickly gave him an extra tight hug, downed a bowl of cereal in record speed, and dashed out the door.

On my frantic drive to the studio, I was suddenly thankful for my nerves, as they kept me from over analyzing my irrational annoyance with Josh. I pulled up to the studio, put on my most fake confident face, and walked up to the door.

Nothing. I pulled again. Locked. What the…? I cupped my hands around the glass – the studio was dark inside. I looked at my watch and saw that it read 8:00 am sharp. Yep, the hands were ticking. I was right on time.

Twenty minutes later, I sat on the sidewalk, dirtying my cute dress and weighing my options while fighting my paranoia. Did I get the time wrong? Did she mean 9:00? Should I leave? How long can I really sit here?

Just as I was biting off the last of my now nubby nails, I heard a jingle behind me. The door to the office next door swung open. It was Caden, Naomi’s tasty chiropractor brother.

“Hey there – Kate, right?” he said. I managed a nod. He was cuter than I remembered.

“Naomi just called me. She told me I might find you out here. She’s running late, as usual.” He flashed me a smile and rolled his eyes. “You’d better get used to that.”

“Oh, well, hey, those are the breaks, right?” I said idiotically. Those are the breaks?? What does that even mean? I struggled to think of something, anything to say to void my last comment. Caden’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

“My first patient isn’t going to be here for a half hour. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee with me while you wait for Naomi?”

I felt myself nodding like a puppet again. Hey, it was just coffee, right? And it beat sitting on the dirty sidewalk, that’s for sure. I got up off the ground as gracefully as you can in a dress and followed the impossibly hot doctor inside.

Dear Diary …

The week passed with a few callbacks but no good news. Bored out of my mind and becoming more and more broke everyday, I went back to the yoga studio for a tour and a second interview.

Trying in desperation to fit in, I raided my accessories until I came across a peace necklace. With giant rhinestones, it looked like I was more in touch with my inner Puff Daddy than my inner yogi. But it was all I had, so I put it on and headed out the door.

I got to the studio, only to discover a missing Naomi. Then, I saw him- a delicious Nordic-looking brute.

who was walking straight towards me. I averted my obvious ogling and pretended to check out yoga mats. It must have been pretty obvious I wasn’t a regular because he asked right away if I was Kate.

He introduced himself as Caden and said he was going to give me the tour since Naomi had to run out for a couple minutes. “Sounds good to me,” I thought, tucking my pimp chain into my shirt.

My crush was soon stymied as I thought of him in tight spandex doing a tree pose. Not to be sexist, but guys doing yoga was just something that I didn’t find appealing.

But-that turned out not to be the case. In fact, Caden owned the chiropractic office next door and was Naomi’s brother.

“I get all the over enthusiastic newbies who come in and think they can bend their body every which way,” he said.

“I could be that newbie,” I thought to myself, before remembering that- a) that would probably involve a lot of pain and b) I was dating Josh!

Before I could discover any more about him, Naomi (complete with her dependable tie-dyed headband) came back for my second interview.

The combination of job rejections and the new amazing guy candy was overwhelming. After fleeing the yoga studio a week before, this time I was leaving with a schoolgirl crush and a new job.

Dear Diary …

Overcome with anxiety about finding a new job, I immediately dove into my search. I applied for everything that even remotely related to what I was interested in.

The next few days were torture! I continued to scour countless job Web sites but was starting to feel the twinge of rejection. “Why hadn’t anyone called me yet?” I wondered.

Finally I got a phone call.

The job was doing marketing for a yoga studio. Despite an inability to even touch my toes, I liked yoga. “This will be perfect,” I thought.

I drove to the interview brimming with confidence and nervous excitement.

Following my nose, I walked into a building smelling strongly of incense. There stood four ladies with matching tie-dyed bandanas around their foreheads. “Please be in the wrong place!” I thought. But that of course was not the case.

“You must be Kate,” said one of the women, introducing herself as Naomi, the owner. Compared to the 90-pound yogi, I felt like a beached whale! Their outfits, skin-tight yoga pants and what pretty much looked like sports bras, didn’t help. We went back into Naomi’s office to talk.

She asked me the usual questions; why I would be good for the job, what I was looking for in a career. I promptly recited my well-rehearsed answers.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until she grabbed a big red ball from under her desk.

“Kate, I want to discover the real you,” she said. “Let’s do something to get us nice and loose.”

“Um, no thanks crazy face,” I thought to myself.

“Every time I ask you a question I will pass you the ball,” she said. “But the fun part is when you answer you have to make a different facial expression each time.”

After happy (which consisted of smiling) and sad (which was frowning) I pretty much exhausted my acting abilities.

“Is this really happening?” I thought. Five minutes later the creepy ball game finally ended.

Before my tour of the place could begin, one of Naomi’s students arrived early for a private class, cutting my interview short.

“Well, I hope that I will get the chance to get the tour later on,” I said in a disgustingly phony voice.

We said our goodbyes, and I had never been so happy to leave a yoga studio in my life.

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