Going Away Parties Are the Worst

I capitalized all the words in my title.  It's a title and a sentence so get over it.

Before you ask (even though you've already thought it) yeah, I'm in a bad mood right now.  I'm actually blogging because I had this blog thought before the day went to hell.  Not the point of this post, moving on.

Last night I had a going away shin-dig of sorts.  It wasn't big and it wasn't a huge deal, but I'm leaving my life here presumably forever and I kind of wanted to see some people before I went.  It was by no means a perfect party.  Like, there was the awkward beginning part when people showed up and I didn't even know their names and that was strange, but whatevs.  Then it got a little later and became the best part of the week.  People from my old ward showed up (and Preston hung around and he's one of the few people from this ward that I like to tolerate even a little).  I was reminded that people liked my personality sometimes.  It was cool.

Funny but unrelated picture to break up the monotony of text. 

And then an interesting thing happened.  Someone mentioned that I had disappeared.  That it had been about a year since I hung out with any of them or went to a movie night or whatever.  It's true.  Sure I left the ward, but this is Provo and I live three blocks away.  I started thinking and consciously realized how massively depressed I've been for almost a year.  It's not cool to talk about mental illness/issues in public, but I'm doing it.  I'm not saying nothing good happened to me over the past year or that I never had moments of gladness (my mom surprised me for my birthday, remember? And I loved my job so there's that.), but overall it's been kind of a shit-hole of a year.  Probably part of me realized that which is why I'm headed home to Virginia...but that's a different story.

More lulz.

I just wanted to take this time and moment to thank those people who still showed up at my going away party even though I have been horribly absent for a year.  It's not that I didn't like you, I just didn't like anyone or something.  I don't know how it works because I haven't worked it through all the way yet.  But I wasn't forgotten.  A year later, these people still thought enough of me to come spend a few hours and eat my food (I love when people eat my food.  It's my one talent) and laugh with me. Big fat sappy thanks to all of you.  Especially the few of you who made it extra hard to leave.  Which is where the title of this post comes from.  Now I remember that I love these people and still have to leave them anyway.  Dammit.

For Reasons

The other day my roommate Megan (who I love and is the bright spot in the aforementioned desperate loneliness) blogged about things she hated and why.  While I agree with some of the things she said (I think roses are overdone too) orange is one of my most favorite colors.  In fact, I have a bright orange t-shirt that I wear about once a week.  It's not that flashy neon orange that's all over Claire's and Forever 21 right now, just a solid bright traffic cone orange shirt. And I love it.

After reading Megan's post I thought about getting offended for approximately half a second, but then I didn't.  You see, Megan is a great human.  She's a nice, quirky girl with opinions and feelings just like everyone else.  Megan just happens to hate orange. And I love orange.  And I love that shirt.  But she wasn't directly attacking it.

Just like I'm not attacking her when I say I hate skinny jeans in all colors on every person no matter their body type or leg length or gender.  Just, no.  Skinny jeans are SO awful in my opinion.  Megan loves skinny jeans.  To her, they are comfy and cute.

JUXTAPOSITION!!!

And that's what this friendship is.  I've been in friendships in the past (many) where I felt the need to like or dislike whatever my friends liked or disliked (I acknowledge this is mostly in my fault).  Oh, your favorite color is fuchsia?  Mine too.  You hate flip-flops?  Same with me. (Both of those are OBVIOUSLY hypothetical examples).  With Megan, though, it's ok that I like orange and she likes skinny jeans and she likes records and I like pop radio and she likes mustaches and I feel kind of pissed that the hipsters have made them so popular because what's the big deal with a hairy lip anyway.  We're insanely different, but we make it work.  And it's nice.

Heartbreak

You've perhaps noticed (and I'm sure it helped that I explicitly mentioned) the somber and subdued tone of my blog posts lately.  Admittedly, they're sometimes fiery and resentful, but none of that happy, silly, laughing stuff for the last few months.  I want to tell you why.  Mostly because I want to admit "out loud" to someone why.

My heart is broken.

Once upon a time I had a best friend for about five years.  I wasn't her best friend, but she was mine.  We did many things together.  It was grand. I found actual moments of happiness which is something hard for me.  Many (but not all) of our interests and ideas matched with one another.  We were the same, but different.

Then something happened.  I honest to goodness don't know what it was, but something happened.  And now, that friendship is gone.  Past.  Over.  I just looked at my text message history yesterday.  There has been zero communication since April 30th.

I suspected and feared the end might have been coming since February 25th when I ate my first birthday cake in years all alone (excepting for my mom and Megan (who didn't even know me then) singing a feeble, but well-meaning wish of happiness) and sobbed for hours.  I was afraid the end was coming, but I clung to what I could in every way I could think to do it.

At times I resorted to drastic and impulsive measures that likely made things worse.

And now, here I sit.  After more than a month with no communication, after a much longer period of pure dread, all alone.

Lonely.

Truly heartbroken.

Lincoln

I don't like to apologize for not blogging, but I will apologize now that I have no funnies to blog lately.  This post is definitely not embarrassing like the previous few, but it's not funny.

Several weeks ago I gave an assignment to my students to explain what they thought the following quote from Abraham Lincoln meant, in their own words.

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free."

Some of them did quite poorly on this assignment and didn't take it seriously at all.  I did, however, get a few that I thought were poignant and beautiful (all punctuation is theirs).

From Abbie: "What I think it means is that Americans are all ready free, but slaves live in America and are Americans and are not free.  So, if Americans all of them black and white are free, they give freedom to the real America"

From Courtney: "By giving freedom to one race, we are really giving freedom to all man kind, because we are all the same."

And my favorite, from Martin: "I think by giving freedom to the people who were slaves well for example if it was like this umm the slaves were like the ones working and the others were like inside the whole time and never did anything.  So the slaves got freedom and the people who were free had been free to go outside to do work that's is how the frees got way more free by working and not being lazy that is what I think."

Can we talk about this for a minute?  I definitely wasn't looking for this answer, but the concept is absolutely astounding.  To this kid, it's in work that we are made more free.  I'm going to leave you now to interpret as you will.

Beautiful

This is a super embarrassing post.  Apparently I'm full of awful things lately.  Brittany pointed out that I shouldn't care what other people think about my blog posts anyway, so I'm posting it.  

I like the One Direction song What Makes You Beautiful.  It's been on the radio quite a bit recently.  Yesterday I was driving home from a hike and I heard James Blunt's You're Beautiful.  I know the whole world hates that song, but I like it.  These songs made me think of a discussion I had with someone recently (probably Megan) about how it would be miserable to be in a romantic relationship where the person didn't find you more than just averagely attractive.  Even if you boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife honestly loved you it would be kind of terrible to know they only found you averagely attractive.  

My concern with this idea probably goes back to my childhood.  One of my parents' "songs" is Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen.  It's a good song, but it has the line "You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright."  As a very young child I thought that meant that my dad didn't think my mom was particularly beautiful.  I was a weird kid.  Lots of issues. 

Do you see my two jumbled paragraphs of avoiding the point of this post?  I guess I'm more ashamed of it than I even realized. Fine, here we go. 

More than I want someone to love me or to want to date me or to have a crush on me or whatever, I want someone to honestly look at me some day and tell me I'm beautiful.  There.  I said it.  And it's weird and not something you tell people or blog about.  My mom tells me I look great sometimes.  Megan tells me my hair looks good.  People say that oh, that skirt is awesome.  For me, though, there's some sort of power in that word beautiful.  I know that it's not something that just gets thrown around because it is so strong.  Nobody's casual friend is going to come in and say "Hey, you look really beautiful today" because that has the potential to create a severely uncomfortable situation (probably).  Someday, though, sometime I want to be beautiful.  I want someone to look at me and think that and to say it to me.  

Such an awkward post.  

Growing Up Country

I've found the comments of some of my friends quite perplexing as of late.  One friend on facebook was detailing her freak-out of having seen a mouse in her house.  She left the house immediately, bought traps, and had someone else handle the rest of the situation.  If I remember correctly, she even stayed with friends overnight because she was so freaked out.

Another friend blogged about seeing an enormous beetle in her house and how grateful she was that it wasn't a mouse.

Pro tip: You're more likely to get the mouse if you use peanut butter.  Occasionally mice can make off with the cheese and not get caught. 

Wait, what?  Is this real life?  I think it is.  Perhaps it's because I grew up poor and in the middle of nowhere, but we had some mice in our house.  So we just set traps (they are dirt cheap).  When we heard one snap we'd wait a few minutes for the mouse to completely die then take it outside to the trash.  Last step: set another one.  (It's not like we were dirty people, this was the country).  This is absolutely not a big deal to me.  

Bugs in the house stress me out much more because if you see one, in all likelihood there are hundreds more.  We used to have to set "fly bombs" in our house then leave for the day.  Basically they were aerosol cans of poison that you set around your house and then when you come back after a safe amount of time you have to sweep up all the bugs.  Gross.  Also, damn the fact that there were chicken farms close so we had so many flies. 

Last night at the bonfire I got a splinter in my thumb.  My fingers were too short and stubby to remove it so I asked my roommate to pull it out and she freaked.  Then I pulled out my pocket knife and asked if it would help if she cut the skin on top (it was buried pretty deep).  She was completely done after that.  Luckily Gentry manned up and got it out.  I found another this morning that's even deeper that I'll have to cut to access.  

I can clean a fish and cook like a champ.  I'm not strong enough to skin a deer, but if it's quartered I know how to break it down after that.  A mouse in the house is not a big deal.  I hate wearing shoes.  The bottoms of my feet are tough almost like a hobbit.  I love the smell of campfire.  Give me an old fashioned crank style ice cream maker and I can produce ice cream.  I've spent hours and hand ground pounds upon pounds of deer sausage.  In fact, I know all the different ways to season it depending on the intended use.  I've been squirrel hunting and eaten the result.  (Why do so many of my country tendencies have to do with food?) I don't wait on anyone to help me move furniture or boxes, I can figure out a way to do it on my own.  I say yes ma'am and yes sir on a regular basis.  Minor in home surgeries (splinters, in-grown toe nails, etc) are no big deal.  

Apparently these things aren't normal.  They come from growing up in the country (good old Luray, VA) with expectations.  Kids aren't for playing while adults work, kids are for making the work get done faster.  Maybe that means you carry the deer quarters from the tree where it's strung up to the kitchen where mostly women are cleaning and organizing the meat.  When you get older, you join the women.  Maybe you haul wood or build fires or take care of babies when you're still one.  Maybe you join your dad for a Saturday of activities (probably a trip to the dump and hopefully Tastee Freez).  Maybe you join your mom and weed the garden, pick up rocks, and make some vegetable soup.  It's all part of growing up country.  And I'm glad to have that experience. 

Call Me, Maybe

Parts of this post are probably going to be embarrassing, but I'm still posting it.  Because that's how life is.

A few weeks ago (probably four) Megan and I decided to go to institute.  What was so good to lure us there on a Thursday night?  Carrabba's was catering.  Nom.  Naturally approximately 494,000 people showed up so we were forced to watch the meeting on a television in one of the Relief Society rooms.  Written on the chalkboard were the lyrics to Call Me Maybe with a phone number. Naturally, because I am exceedingly silly and witty, I texted the number "Hey, Maybe."  (Get it?  Really, it's not that funny but it was more interesting than what was going on at institute).

Is she wearing tights or are her legs that pale?

The person on the other end was confused and thought I had the wrong number so I explained that a friend had probably written his/her number on the board with the lyrics and I was a stranger texting.  My new found text friend immediately knew the culprit and chuckled a little.  I found out this stranger's name was Chris and he lived near the chapel, but not in my stake (oh Provo, you crazy place).  

Over the next few days I heard from Chris (via text) a couple of times to tell me that two other people (both dudes) had texted him and our small talk turned into get to know you talk.  We started trying to find someone we both knew or a connection we had, but it proved nearly impossible.  When I found out Chris was a math grad student I asked if he knew my home teacher (who is a math grad student as well).  He didn't, but I realized my mistake a second too late.  Here comes the embarrassing part.  I had given a first and last name of someone I know and am facebook friends with.  And my name is unique.  Now Chris could probably easily find me and then he'd see what I look like and our text flirting would cease and it was nice to flirt with a boy because that doesn't happen in my life.  Listen, I know I'm awkward and weird and that I shouldn't be so insecure, but I am.  I also realize that boys don't do facebook stalking quite the same way as girls do (or as frequently).  

After running across my apartment screaming "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" Megan tried to console me, but that didn't work out so well.  So, we started trying to facebook stalk Chris instead.  Chris had mentioned the name of a friend with a unique spelling, so we started with that friend and then looked for friends of that person named Chris (see, girls are great at this).  Megan found one she decided was the guy: a suave looking ginger-kid with a profile picture taken by a photographer friend.  

As that night went on and Chris and I were still unsuccessful in our attempt to find a mutual acquaintance, he suggested becoming facebook friends.  I freaked out further and under Megan's direction changed my profile picture to something more attractive and less silly.  Turns out that the Chris Megan found was the Chris I had been talking to. 

To my truthful surprise, communication did not end once we became facebook friends.  I met Chris at his ward's softball game later that week and he was friendly and handsome.  Then I went all insecure as the game ended and Megan and I left.  I said something about "Well, I hope to hear from you again" and he acted like it was the most absurd thing anyone had ever said. 

This seems stupid, right?  To be that insecure about yourself that meeting someone in person makes you think they will stop communicating with you?  It's real life.  I'm not exaggerating.  

That weekend Chris and I went to Red Lobster and watched what is probably the most brilliant show on television, Duck Dynasty.  Seriously, that show is a gem.  

After writing this post I was getting a lot of unexpected negative feedback that created drama and further heartbreak in my life.  It was a painful situation.  Chris saw the post and commented that he liked it and that it showed that I was not "fluffy" as some ElEd folks tend to be.  It was a nice respite from all the awfulness.   

This post is getting excessively long so I'll try to sum up the rest quickly.  I found Chris charming and attractive.  He didn't hate me.  We hung out a few more times.  At one point he helped Megan study while I tutored her sister and it was really fun for some reason.  Chris has an amazing ward and fantastic friends that I got to meet at a barbecue and softball game (which was freezing cold despite the fact that it is now the summer).  I don't think I've ever met a more friendly and welcoming group of people.  Chris is a great (and inordinately fun) person.  So there it is.  My fairly embarrassing, but an interesting to tell the blogging world story.  Maybe it seems that I was placing too much hope? pressure? something on this situation.  Not so.  It was just awesome to go on an actual date, to flirt with some guy as not a joke, and to have a fun time.  And in the end? I'm exceedingly lucky because I got a friend out of the situation.