Last night after he left

Carly: Who was that?
Me: My exboyfriend.
Carly: The exboyfriend?
Me: The exboyfriend.
Carly: What's going on? You were so happy.
Me: I don't know.

Listening to my mix formerly known as "Best of the Best to Get Me Depressed." I thought the title was clever (and appropriate) but Brenden had me rename it "Nostalgia" which doesn't work quite as well as the original title but I'll deal with it.

I wish I was more than who I am.

Yeah.

My upper body is sore and burned. My left arm itches like crazy. But I'm still alive. Hope you're happy.

Monday while I was sobbing on the phone to my father, a friend called and took me to Seven Peaks for free and then to his family's house for hamburgers and hot dogs. It was a good distraction. Hopefully things like that will be more than distractions soon. Hopefully they'll actually be enjoyable.

Yesterday for my birthday I woke up around 7:30, walked to school, ate an english muffin for breakfast, read for my research class, did my office hour, tried to go to devotional but it was packed already, read for abnormal psych class, tried to go see Larita about my work hours and failed since it was her lunch break, read for abnormal psych class, ate a hot pocket (yes, a hot pocket) and sour gummy worms and drank an orange soda, thank you BYU vending, went to the Human Development lecture (it's strange sitting in a class and not actually having to pay attention), got on a bus and went home. At home I tried to do more reading for my research class but ended up taking a nap instead. Hey look guys! I'm still functioning!

I went bowling last night. With Lucinda, George, Adam, Scott, Audrey, Sarah, and Matt. It was good. My roommates and I are going on a road trip to Las Vegas sometime. We're also going country dancing (WHAT?!). Tomorrow I'm cooking for twelve people. I stole some free pizza for cinnamon tree residents yesterday.

Not sure what's going on. I'm not going to write him anymore. At least until he actually gets out or until I can manage to write something that doesn't say, ohgoshineedyousomuchrightnow. I still know his classes and where he's going and when some of his performances are. But I have to ignore that knowledge. Well most of it at least. I cannot see him at all until I have gotten this under control. I don't want to even run into him on campus anymore.

School seems slightly more doable than it did on Sunday. Slightly. I'll try not to fail all of my classes.

My dad is coming up to see me.

Hey Look! It's September!

Today was day one of TA madness. I got to school around 8:30 and went to the office in the JSFB to turn in my TA form. The lady explained a million different things at once and handed me a little booklet and said thank you which I assumed meant we were done and it was time for me to leave. I took it and was incredibly grateful to realize that the booklet covered everything that she had quickly tried explaining to me. I still had to get another form filled out before I could officially start working. I went to the Student Employment office to fill that out and they told me I needed my Social Security card, Passport, or Birth Certificate before I could fill it out. Thankfully my mother gave me my Birth Certificate before I left for school this semester because I need to get a Passport sometime soon. I called Audrey, my roommate, who was still at the apartment and she got it for me and brought it when she came to campus. I got back in line at the Student Employment office. This line was way longer than when I had gone earlier in the morning. This line was so long that I was in it for an hour and the people working there set up a movie (Tale of Despereaux, to be exact) for the people in line to watch while they waited. I got it filled out though, just in time to grab lunch with Nielson and then head over to the SFL TA Office so I could do my first office hour of the semester. I met the Head TA, Jessi, whose inbox I've been flooding with questions ever since she sent out the first email to all TAs. She seems really nice and I'm excited to work with her. I met another TA who is also brand new, Hannah from Fort Worth. She and I will be TA-ing for the same lecture. I went to the first lecture today and got to stand in the front at the podium and talk into a microphone to 300 students about myself. I really hope I won't have to do too much of that but I guess it's good to have to step outside my comfort zone every now and then. Still, I'd like to avoid that as much as possible.

I have to get a TB test before I can volunteer at Utah State Hospital. I just arranged that for 9:50 AM on my BIRTHDAY. Why? Because that is the soonest I can have one done and the sooner I get one done, the sooner I can volunteer. I wanted to get one this Friday but I can't because the clinic won't be open on Monday so they wouldn't be able to check it. Booooooo. I want to get everything done as soon as I can so I can get my schedule all worked out. I need to know what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. I'm still in a frenzy trying to figure out my schedule and work out homework time, sleeping time, eating time, working time, etc. Oh, and social time, too. If it fits.

I walked to Chadder's with Sarah, one of my roommates, tonight for a burger and fries. It was good and I really enjoyed just sitting and talking with her. She can get me into rock climbing for free anytime and she even said we could get our whole FHE group to go rock climbing sometime for FHE. She works at Color me mine and she could get us major discounts if we wanted to go there for FHE also. Also for one of Audrey's classes she needs to plan parties (kinda cool, right?) so I'm totally giving her free reign for FHE sometime this semester.

So my official work hours are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have an office hour at 12-1 on Tuesday and go to the Human Development lecture at 1:35- 2:50 that day. Then I have a TA meeting on Thursday at 11 and another office hour at 1-2. My Tuesday hours kinda suck because I don't think I'll have time to go to devotional at the Marriott Center and get back in time to work. I'll probably just watch it at the Varsity Theater again this semester.

I decided that I really miss the HFAC. I don't have any classes there this semester and though I didn't have any classes there this whole summer, I still went there a lot with Brenden. I miss sitting on the benches outside and waiting for Brenden to come pick me up after class. So I went there today. I was actually walking through the HFAC to get to the MOA and sit outside there but I stopped and walked out onto the area towards the JKB and ASB and read scriptures there until Audrey came with my stuff for my I-9 form. It was really nice. It was still in the morning around 9ish so it wasn't hot and there weren't a lot of people walking in and out at that entrance. I don't know if I'll make reading there a regular thing though because that increases the likelihood of running into Brenden and I almost feel like that's cheating somehow. .. Yeah, I don't know. I'm weird.

Audrey, Carly (another of my roommates) and I joined a dinner group. !!! I'm feeling very wary of this whole thing just because it's kinda a commitment and I don't really like commitments on top of other commitments. Plus I'll have to provide dinner for people. Which means I'll have to cook and other people will have to eat it. Eleven other people to be exact. AND it's Monday- Thursday. Am I psycho? I want to be more social. Is this a good way to do it? I really hope this doesn't end up being insanely stressful or crappy or anything. I at least know three people in it- Audrey, Carly, and Darrell (the dude that invited us to do it). Oh man, I hope this doesn't suck. Haha

This Right Now

It hasn't been like this in a long time. Mornings are the hardest now. It's getting harder to fight that desire to just spend the entire day in bed. Waking up in the morning used to be the easier part of my day. How am I supposed to start a new semester when I'm already dreading getting out of bed? At least while I'm at home I have to do things with my family. When I get back to school who's going to force me to get up?

Plus, I'm changing my schedule around and there really aren't any classes I'm that interested in taking. It's probably just the whole being bummed about life thing I'm going through right now. Hopefully things will start to look up when I get back to Utah. This is me doing that thing again. Hoping that the next thing will be better, just trying to get through this right now.

These are the classes I'm taking this fall. I'm going to drop either Civ Lit or Abnormal Psych. I don't want to take 17 hrs while TA-ing for Human Development. On one hand I think keeping insanely busy could be good for me but on the other hand I know I won't be able to handle it.
SFL260- Family Finance MWF 9-9:50
SFL290- Crit. Inquiry and Research Meth. MWF 10-10:50
RELA211- New Testament MW 12-12:50
RELC393R- LDS in Wartime MW 3-3:50
PSYCH342- Abnormal Psychology M 4-6:30
CMLIT201- Civilization: Literature 1 TTH 4-5:15
RELC355- Judaism & the Gospel F 2-2:50

I don't really have any classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays which is really annoying. I wish my schedule was more spread out but I guess that means those days can be for my TA office hours. Hopefully that works out okay.

(4)

Today is a slightly better day than yesterday.

I cannot count the number of times I just stopped what I was doing yesterday and started crying. I was so stressed out, it was ridiculous. I climbed into bed around 11 o'clock and started crying again. I wasn't finished cleaning, I wasn't nearly done studying, I hadn't started packing, and I missed Brenden so much. I couldn't sleep and I knew I was going to wake up at 6 AM so I could continue studying so the fact that I couldn't sleep only stressed me out more and made it even more difficult for me to sleep. And once I finally fell asleep, it was one of those restless kinds of sleep where I was still thinking of the things I needed to do but was halfway asleep. And then my alarm went off at 6 and I was exhausted and reset it for 6:30 but the whole 30 minutes between 6 and 6:30 I kept thinking about all the studying and things I needed to be doing so I didn't get any extra rest then either.

I woke up and started studying. I decided I was hungry so I left my apartment and walked to school where I got a donut and continued doing practice problems except that I left my calculator at home so I was trying to do all the computations on my cell phone and then I got to a problem that needed me to do a square root. I skipped it, read through the rest of the problems, and walked to the testing center. I thought surely I was going to fail this thing. I didn't do ANY of the reading for the last eight lectures (actually only 4 lecture periods but during the summer, you have two lectures in one period). Even though the final was comprehensive, we were told that 60% of it was new material (you know, the stuff I didn't read). I wanted more time to study but my professor said to plan about four hours for the exam and if I spent any more time studying then I might not be back at my apartment in time to finish cleaning for my cleaning check. So I walked into the testing center around 8:30 and took the stupid exam. I finished around 10 (2.5 hours earlier than I had anticipated) and was amazed to see on the screen that I made a 91%. I actually walked out the door and then back in to check it again and make sure I read the right ID number. I did. It was quite exciting.

I'm home now. I finished cleaning about an hour ago. My cleaning check isn't for at least another hour. I don't know what to do. I think I might try reading something that isn't about statistics now. Or maybe I'll try a nap. I'm pretty tired.

Gah, I wish I had friends here right now. You have no idea how lonely I am.

(3)

It's probably unhealthy for me to actually count the days since Brenden and I broke up. But that's how I'm measuring things now. I think back to Saturday afternoon when we were making eggrolls and playing card games. Was that really just four days ago? I want to push it back farther. I want it farther away. It doesn't make sense that day was just the day before Sunday which was the day before Monday which was the day before Tuesday which was yesterday. How is it that Saturday is so close to today and that I'm feeling so horrible today when I was laughing at him singing those Disney songs with Cameron and getting annoyed that he wasn't helping me make the eggrolls on Saturday? I'm hoping that sometime I'll reach that magic number of days away that makes everything better, that number that says, "hey you made it. now feel better." But what is that number? How many days do I have to suffer through this?

Last night I had dinner with Natalie Hansen, a returned missionary who served in Galveston. I told her that my boyfriend and I just broke up on Sunday and she offered to hook me up with some of her returned missionary friends. I really didn't know what to say. My immediate reaction was thinking this thing between Brenden and me is temporary, that I'm just waiting for him to get out on his mission so I can see him off and then I can wait some more until he comes home. My second reaction was yes please find me someone.

The way I've dealt with break ups in the past was simply by finding another boyfriend. I would ignore the pain of letting go of that person by finding someone else to replace that person. I thought more about it and realized I can't do that this time around. I want to be with Brenden; I don't want to replace him at all. Which means I'm actually going to have to deal with this pain. Which means I will need to do things for myself. I haven't actually been without a boyfriend for more than a couple months since the beginning of tenth grade (and unofficially since ninth grade). Everything I would do was for someone else. I'm so used to finding my worth in being someone's girlfriend, in caring about that person and being cared for in return, that I don't understand my true individual worth. In my case, finding another boyfriend would be easy. I'm not trying to sound like "oh I'm so wonderful I can easily find a boyfriend." What I'm saying is that trying to find someone to fill that void would be the easy thing to do. It's not the right thing to do. It would be completely selfish. I don't want to be selfish anymore. I'm just so scared about how difficult this is going to be. I know I can do it. I just really, really don't want to.

I cannot comprehend being just me.

Day 2

Today has not been as good a day as yesterday.

It's probably a mix of what happened between me and Brenden plus the fact that I didn't go to Statistics class all last week and never made up the reading and the final exam is 60% of that new material that I have yet to even glance at. Also, I forgot my wallet at home this morning so I went to school and couldn't eat breakfast or lunch. Now I'm waiting for another Natalie to pick me up so we can go have dinner. Hopefully that'll cheer me up.

It settles in after awhile that realization that all those sad break up songs can now be applied directly to your life. You would listen to them all the time and you would sing along but now, it's real. You're feeling the pain. And you're thinking, "I wish this was just a song."

You're thinking, "I wish this wasn't real."

I miss you more than you could possibly comprehend.

I want to go back to this, right now.

Pseudo-Poetry

Words flooded to mind
Prepared excuses and apologies I thought I wouldn't be using.
(Why did I prepare them then?)
Everything has a reason.
I'm accepting I cannot control this.
I won't talk to you for maybe 28 months or so.
Maybe sooner if I'm lucky.
Maybe longer if I'm not.
Who knows what will happen during that time?
(Heavenly Father)
I'll do my part
And leave the rest to the people in charge.

----------

Stronger than my desire to belt out words
Is my desire to move my body
Leaping across the pavement
Gliding along the grass
Arms flying
Hair, a muted echo of where I've been,
Sometimes covering a face beaming
With hope.

----------

I guess this is peace. This whole not necessarily understanding everything but knowing it will be okay.

I think too much about him still. I mean, of course, it's been, what, a day?

We spoke last night on the phone for awhile as he tried to explain things to me. I gave some suggestions and he said they weren't possible. This is rough. And while I still don't completely understand it, I can accept it. And I will accept it.

It's so crazy how much I've been reminded just today that people care about me and that I'm not alone up here. A friend from spring term randomly contacted me on facebook to see how I was doing, I ran into a friend from back home on my way to class, and then on my way home I saw a wonderful family friend who is teaching at BYU this fall and he invited me for dinner with his family on Sundays. A sister missionary who served in Galveston called me up to schedule dinner sometime this week (this was partly my sister's doing!). Guess what! I'm loved! Even here in Utah! Haha

I still haven't eaten though. I just have no appetite. Not too sure about what to do about that.

It's Happened...

I've become one of those people.

You know the ones I'm talking about, the kind of person who becomes so hysteric that she practically shouts over the person trying to comfort her. That was me. Just earlier. Crying and yelling over the phone while my lungs struggled for air in short, loud, shallow breaths. That was me. Cutting off my parents with shouts of "There's nothing I can do!" and "I don't understand what he meant!" as they tried consoling me.

I deleted the message. The harsh bluntness with which you wrote couldn't possibly have been what you wanted to convey. I deleted it almost immediately. Read it once, twice, three times total and deleted it. It would've been hard to remember what you said last night if I kept that message with me. It's the ending note that lingers at the end of a performance. That's the one stuck in people's heads as they exit the hall. I want to try erasing it just enough so I understand there's nothing I can do to change it while at the same time remembering your hope, your kindness.

This is it, I guess.

It's really over.

Emptying.

I am so used to trying to be the strong one.

I always pretend that I know why things are happening or if I really don't know at all then I pretend that I understand that everything happens for a reason and just pretend to accept it. People think I'm fine because I appear fine, I sound fine, I seem to understand EVERYTHING. Sometimes my act doesn't hold. I slip up and forget my lines or add extra props to help me get through it. Sometimes when I'm trying so hard to be normal or strong, people wonder about me because being so normal during certain events ISN'T normal.

Sometimes I get horrible feelings and impulses that can only be overcome through sleeping. I feel the need to destroy things and myself. I want to throw things off my shelves, snap things in half, break my own bones and hear the satisfying crack and feel a new pain flood my senses. Something that seems to have changed since freshman year about these impulses is that I am able to still remain rational throughout them. Before, I never considered the consequences. Perhaps it's not rationality that prevents me from acting on these impulses but a keener sense of, "oh look! pain for people who love you!" And even when I'm feeling these selfish impulses to destroy everything around me including myself, I still care about the people I love and I don't want to put them through the same things that I've made them experience all through high school and into college. So I remain quiet, silent, strong and fight these impulses by retreating to sleep. I fight by retreating. I'm too weak to actually FIGHT what I feel and so I retreat to sleep and hope that the mere process of not dealing with those impulses is enough to get them away.

It's interesting to me that so many of my friends seemed to think I knew all the answers to their issues throughout high school. Now I realize it's because I pretended to be strong and knowledgeable. The reason I don't have many close relationships now is because I am afraid to show my vulnerabilities. I am scared to show that I am weak and that I don't know the answers because then I don't think people will appreciate me anymore. I think that one of the big reasons Missy and I are such good friends despite our differences is because she saw me at my lowest point. She's the one who called the hospital and rode in the ambulance with me. She's the one who stayed by my side the entire time I was in the hospital even though I was mostly asleep. And then when I got home, she took care of me instead of getting rid of me. I need to stop trying to hide my weaknesses thinking that people won't like me because of them. When I only have one person to whom I confess all my pains, fears and concerns, I weigh them down and it isn't fair for them. But then I feel like I should just be able to deal with these things, like I should be stronger, like I shouldn't share anything with anyone because they're not their issues and if just maybe I was a better person I would be able to handle them and I don't want to admit that I'm not a better person to anyone.

Everyone knows I'm not perfect. No one is perfect but I still feel the need to act as though I am.

Last night I talked to my dad a little bit about what's going on, and it felt so nice to just unload some of my feelings of confusion and frustration while not pretending to be strong at all, not pretending like I was trying to do a noble thing.
I also talked to an old friend, whose relationship with me has been rather strained and somewhat awkward since freshman year, beginning the conversation with, "I don't really have any friends, can I talk to you?" And we spoke and he looked at things objectively and presented them in that way. And something he told me really stuck with me. "It is what it is." What? You mean I can't change what's happened so I have to deal with it now? You mean this is the current situation I'm in and I can't do anything to change it?
Yes.
A simple, straightforward, "It is what it is" was all I needed to hear. He told me I can make the situation however bad or good I want to.

I have to stop asking myself, what if I did this? or what if I do that? or what if we change this or that? I need to accept it.

It is what it is.