So whether you are watching this on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, in between Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve,
or if it is completely after the holidays in general, I welcome you here and I really thank you so much for tuning in for another episode.
If it is Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas Eve, Happy Holidays to you.
Today I thought I'd do a little bit of a fusion episode and when I say fusion episode, I mean a fusion of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve.
This story today is going to be about a guy who I more or less broke up with on Christmas Eve via text in 2018.
There's a reason for why this happened and I'll get into that briefly very soon.
It was a very short-lived relationship, but I do think that the significance of breaking up on Christmas Eve,
one of the most romantic times of the year, plays a huge role in this because I think that many of us don't want to spoil such a big holiday with such a tragic breakup or event.
But sometimes it's really the right thing to do.
I just hope that with this episode that you feel more fueled or encouraged in some sort of way to really really think about what you want for the New Year
and to decide whether or not to let those toxic friendship situationships, whatever, to let them go and to start on a clean slate.
So without further ado, let's go ahead and jump right into the episode.
This specific story is going to be about somebody I once dated from Romania.
I'm referring to him in this story as Mario.
I will give a little bit of background as to how Mario and I first met in the first place.
Mario and I met actually in Ohio, super random.
I was visiting friends in Cleveland for a weekend one summer afternoon in 2018.
Met Mario at a restaurant since he was doing a work and travel program from Romania.
We got in touch.
We stayed in touch, but there was something always very weird and recurring about Mario that I somehow just never picked up on.
And it's something that I think a lot of us really struggle with when we really like somebody.
Mario had a habit of constantly ghosting me out of nowhere and disappearing for weeks, not sending me a message, not checking in.
He would just disappear and I wouldn't know what would happen to him.
So the first time this happened, I ignored it.
This was the same year I went to France.
He randomly got back in touch with me.
He had gone back to Romania at that point and then we really started to date.
Well, we would talk regularly.
There was a point in time when I was in France when I wanted to go and see Mario in Romania.
And so my friend and I at the time, my friend who was working in a French middle school teaching English like I was,
we decided to go to Romania as part of our vacation that we had this fall.
I saw Mario again and he was really weird.
My friend did not like him.
My friend found him to be very offensive.
He had made fascist jokes.
I had overlooked and really ignored that because I really was into him and I really was thinking,
Oh, well, my friend is just sensitive.
My friend is American.
Americans are so sensitive to everything.
He's just joking.
He's not being serious.
But oh, little did I know.
So after that visit, it was very brief.
It was for one day went back to France.
We kept in touch and then he disappears again.
And I'm really just thinking why do you keep disappearing?
Come December.
It's the beginning of the Christmas season.
Mario had just come back from ghosting me for I don't know how long and I really wanted to make an effort
to see him in person again this time without my friend.
So I really was persistent and I told Mario I really want to come see you in Bucharest again since he was living in Bucharest
with his sister.
I really want to see you.
Let's do something for the beginning of the Christmas season.
So I bought a ticket to Romania went to Romania and he was weird again.
There was this one moment and I have to say there are not
necessarily limitations on this podcast.
So what you're about to hear is something that I recommend you come in with an open mind in listening to.
So you've been warned when Mario and I were together.
There was this one intimate moment where let's just say in the bedroom.
He was very awkward and you're probably thinking what what what did he do?
What made him awkward?
There was this one moment when we were intimate and out of nowhere Mario goes yee haw.
Yee haw like what is that?
Who the fuck does that when you are being intimate?
So I knew something was really kind of very eccentric about him when he went yee haw and his little chihuahua was in the room
watching the whole damn thing.
I really thought I was in a really crazy movie.
Yee haw moment happens his sister who was very nice gave me these like toxically strong
rum filled cherry chocolates, which I just I felt like I had tasted poison when I took a bite out of one of those.
She had every good intention, but yikes that was strong.
The time with Mario was good.
I go back to France again and it's after that trip that I wanted to start planning our Christmas Eve
and New Year's.
I had texted Mario and I told him I would love to spend Christmas and New Year's with you,
especially New Year's because at that point in time I had never had a New Year's kiss.
In the beginning he's on board and he says yes come to Romania.
We'll go see my parents and spend Christmas and New Year's on the border of Moldova where my parents have a cabin.
And of course, I was really in love with this idea and I really wanted to book tickets.
I tried to book tickets, but unfortunately it was very difficult to book those tickets because somebody wouldn't confirm the schedule
wouldn't confirm that it was okay for me to come.
So this is a couple of weeks before Christmas Eve.
I'm trying so hard to get in touch with Mario.
I'm trying to get him to confirm plans so I can buy a damn plane ticket and he went radio silent again.
Radio silent.
No word. No nothing.
I tried calling him on WhatsApp.
I called him on Facebook Messenger.
I tried his regular phone.
I tried everything.
I texted.
I sent voice messages.
Everything that you could imagine I could really do in my capacity.
I did and I could not get in touch with him.
I told Mario Mario if you don't answer me, I'm not going to come.
I am going to go with my other plans because I can't rely on you anymore.
You keep ghosting me.
I can't have someone like this in my life.
I don't know why you keep ghosting me, but it's not polite.
I know you are busy.
I understand that but can you not send a one word text to me just say yes.
No that flight is not okay or if you don't want me to come tell me I'm making it easy.
Mario doesn't respond.
It's at that point in time that I really realized Mario is never going to change Mario is going to keep ghosting me.
He's going to keep being unreliable emotionally unavailable.
What if I buy this ticket?
What if I go to Bucharest and I'm stuck on Christmas Eve and nobody is going to pick me up from the airport and I'm stuck.
I couldn't take that risk.
I didn't want to take that risk.
I was so done.
I was so tired.
I knew that I was more valuable and I deserved so much better than that.
I didn't say anything to him.
I gave him a chance to respond.
He didn't respond.
I decided that I was going to go to Poland and subsequently I was going to go to Ukraine.
I just didn't want to keep doing it.
So I organized my plans to go to Poland and Ukraine with my friend.
We get to Poland spent a few days in Wroclaw and then before we know it.
It's Christmas Eve.
We were still in Wroclaw and out of the blue.
I get a text after two and a half weeks from Mario two and a half weeks.
Really?
I had no idea what he actually was going to say when I saw his name pop up on my phone,
but I opened this text.
He responded as if nothing had actually happened as if I hadn't tried calling him texting him
voice messaging him multiple times trying to get his attention.
He just responded as if nothing happened and he said I got a job and I've been really busy.
Mario had been unemployed for a little while since he usually taught English or languages
of some sort and didn't have work for a few months.
But the minute you get a job, you don't have time to text me a single word to have the
courtesy to tell me no don't come.
He asked me in the text also if I was still coming to Romania for Christmas and New Year's.
It is Christmas Eve.
It is Christmas Eve and you are asking if I am coming to Romania like at that moment?
No, I wasn't.
So it was then that I told him something along the lines of you have let me down so many
times.
No, I'm not coming.
No, you didn't respond when I needed you to respond.
You weren't there when I needed you to be there.
How can you expect that I come to Romania?
You have ghosted me multiple times Mario.
I can't keep doing this.
I'm not coming to Romania.
I'm sticking with my plans of going to Poland and I'm going to Ukraine.
I can't keep doing this.
And that was my Christmas Eve text ending things with Mario.
I went to Ukraine.
I met this American girl who had missed her flight to Vietnam and got stuck in Ukraine
and we kept in touch for some years.
So I gained a new friend.
At the time I had also met two other girls from Munich, Germany and I also met a girl
from California who was in my hostel.
I absolutely don't regret going to Ukraine instead of the border of Moldova and Romania
for New Year's because had I gone I think that it wouldn't have been a good one.
I would have had my very first New Year's kiss with somebody who wouldn't have lasted
into my present time.
My New Year's didn't turn out exactly the way I had planned but I think that it turned
out way better.
I think that power to recognize when to leave, whether again it's a relationship, a job,
a whatever, that is more powerful than sometimes the decision itself.
So this whole Mario, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Christmas, New Year's story is a story that
I intended to tell with the hope that it would help or encourage or motivate somebody to
some degree to really evaluate the things in your life right now that make you unhappy
that you really need and feel you need to change in order to optimize on your best self
in 2025.
This situation applies to every single year.
This story itself happened six years ago but I still really believe that this same concept
can be applied to whatever year we are going into.
Whatever goals you have for the New Year, whatever plans, whatever trips, whatever people
you hope to meet, I hope that you can do this in so much confidence and success with everything
in your power and in your control.
I believe in you.
So it's with these last words that I'm going to end this episode for today.
I hope that you took some sort of motivation out of any of the words or stories or little
moments that I have mentioned here.
And if you have certain goals or you have requests, if you have things that you're working
on that make you happy, please be sure to share them with me on Instagram, either on
the podcast account @onceuponatrip.pc or on the host account, my personal IG handle
@marygracecrawford
I look forward to hearing from you and I really do hope that you finish off 2024 with a bang.
Whatever time it is for you, I wish you happy holidays, a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year.
I really look forward to being back here very soon with you for another fun, adventurous
trip of an episode.
Next week's episode is one that I intend to release a little bit earlier than usual
simply because the following Tuesday is New Year's Eve.
So you can expect the next episode to come out just a day or two earlier than our usual
Tuesday schedule.
I hope that you have a wonderful holiday time.
I will see you next time.