I think I may start a new theme of making my blog titles the names of songs that fit the blog's motif. I've always felt a deep connection with music and that sometimes it speaks for us when we can't find the right words. Anyway, hopefully the songs mentioned are at least something you can recognize as the reader, otherwise it'll be another homework assignment for you;)
This week, I had another "big experience" as I say, and normally I don't really talk about a lot of truly personal things on my blog- in part because I don't know who actually reads these besides the TA for the class which assigns these weekly blogs, and also because I've never been that person who's willing to share sad things over the Internet. But somehow I guess today I felt like opening up.
So I was in a relationship with a guy- I'll call him Jacob- for a little over a month until last Wednesday. We jumped into a serious relationship after dating for literally only a week, and we even came to the point halfway through that month when he said "I love you" and later that night I said "I love you, too." To be truly honest, I do feel like we both meant it- at least I know I did. We did love each other, but just as quickly as that love came it left. For a little over a week now I felt like something was off; I thought that maybe it was just the fact that we'd made a conscious effort to lay off of each other (literally) and not be quite so physically passionate. We never did anything crazy, but it was kind of a focus of our relationship for a little while. So I thought that maybe things felt off because there was a lack of physical passion, for good reason. But even though I did notice that I just wasn't feeling right about something, I chose to ignore my gut feelings(or what we members of the Church also refer to as "the Spirit") and keep my rose-colored glasses fastened to my eyes. I figured since we'd worked out other things before then we could work them out again and we were just going through a phase. Then after I had a very uplifting spiritual experience last Wednesday evening after spending a few hours in the Rexburg temple, Jacob took me out to dinner after he'd finished with his extracurricular clubs and philosophy societies. While we ate, Jacob surprised me by unleashing all the thoughts and feelings he'd been holding for some time, and frankly he hurt my feelings in the way he went about doing it. I felt like this was coming out of nowhere, I was beyond flabbergasted. There was some truth to some of what he said, but I just felt so distraught by what he said that I asked him to take me home. I asked him just to drop me off instead of walking me to the door and he got mad at me, so while he was saying some last words before seeing me off I asked-through many tears- if we could go somewhere instead. I hated crying in front of him; I'd already felt so vulnerable in the beginning of our relationship and this was like the third time he'd seen me cry. I was so tired of feeling so guilty around him. We pulled into a church parking lot and I ended up apologizing for some of the things he'd mentioned, and after a moment he said, "I feel impressed that we should take a break." Somehow I surprised myself by responding, without a moment's pause, "I think so, too."
And just like that, we were done. He dropped me off after we finished talking and I stayed up until 2am that night eating a soppy Hallmark romance and eating my dinner leftovers and some ice cream that one of my sweet roommates insisted on buying for me. The day after that I felt fine, but it wasn't until Friday and Saturday (today) that I've finally registered what happened; it took a bit for the breakup to hit me. I knew even though he'd said we need a "break", I knew in that moment I was never getting back together with him. Our breakup is something we both needed so we could individually work on what we each needed to work on, but I also realized once we ended things just what was wrong with the relationship (and frankly, what was wrong with him) and where we both went wrong. So, today I'm sitting in sweats and grieving with Cafe Rio and the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" movie.
Now, here's why I bring that whole shebang up on a public blog: this isn't the first time I've gone through something where I feel heartbroken and need to cope. Technically it's the second, but the point is that this event was actually pretty fitting for the lesson in this week's classes: coping. Specifically we talked about how families cope, but one of the main things I got out of it was that because families are made up of individuals, I need to decide that I'm going to cope in healthy ways myself before learning how to cope with a spouse and/or children in the future. Because this week our class was reading about healthy vs. unhealthy ways to cope, I started paying attention to what I decided to do to cope with my heartbreak. I've done some crying, I'll write in a journal later, but I've feng shui'd and organized my room so I can actually see the bottom of my desk without useless receipts and papers, I've taken a long hot bath with a bath bomb (technically Jacob gave me the bath bomb, but just because it came from him doesn't mean I can't still enjoy it for what it is), treated myself to a sweet pork salad, and talked things over with some of my trusted roommates and one or two close friends. I don't know if I can say all of my coping methods are truly healthy- like how I watched the last bit of this most recent Bachelorette season's episode when Becca is down to Blake and Garrett and chooses Garrett, I cried when Blake was sent home and when Garrett proposed. Like I wept y'all, seriously weeping and sobbing and some gnashing of teeth because I was mad at myself for being such a bawl-bag. But at least I know I'm getting my emotions out in front of a few people I trust and who support me in my decisions, and I'm letting myself spend some time- not much time but some- to reflect on what happened.
I originally was going to make this post a sort of list of all the things I've had to "cope" through- like moving to three different high schools and living in about 10 houses/apartments just within my high school career, serving a full-time mission, being made fun of for my laugh in middle school, being an introvert for way too long and feeling entirely alone, wearing braces, being diagnosed with hypothyroidism when I was 9 years old after having two ovarian cyst surgeries, adult onset acne, a whole scroll of things. But everyone can make a list of things they've had to cope with; the real test is how we all learned to do just that-cope with all those things. We're tested with various unwanted and self-induced circumstances and we only get out of those ruts when we learn how to work and deal with them in a healthy way. We need to remember that life is not out to get us; things just happen. Sometimes those things happen because of our own stupidity, but they happen. It's our job to accept that they happened, and the only way to move now is forward and not backward; it is not productive or wise to dwell on the past and live in regret. I've learned that the hard way. We CAN change, we CAN make changes and we CAN become better than we were yesterday, or even an hour or a minute ago! Change is absolutely possible, I see it in people all the time and I try to see it in myself every day! The goal is to make sure you're always trying; if you do that, no one can say you didn't. If we learn how to choose to be happy despite and even in our circumstances, then nothing that happens to us will have too drastic of an impact on us. I once heard someone say that disappointment is an occasional visitor, but it's never a permanent resident. Normal human emotions should be welcomed, but we can tap into something more than human, even divine, as we learn to let go of human impulse to stay angry or sad until we feel 'satisfied'- as if we even truly know what that would mean.
Also, one other thing I realized is that coping isn't meant to be done alone; we need each other to cope, we need our families and trusted friends to cope. We're not meant just to endure the human experience by trudging through it looking ahead at a blank sidewalk; we can look ahead to see other footprints who've already walked the path we're choosing to walk and see who else is there for the journey.
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