I Should Have Just Listened to Solomon

As it approaches the one-year-to-the-day mark on which my first "dating relationship" ended, I'm thinking a bit more about that whole thing.  Because of reasons, I had basically blocked out the entire relationship and tucked those memories away in a dark box in the back of the dusty closet in my brain, hoping never to dwell on them again.  However, I'm gradually finding that to truly let go of things, thoughts have to be thought and feelings have to be felt, no matter how much one would prefer to suppress and ignore them.

I felt the feelings and thought the thoughts, and it lead me to contemplate how I have viewed dating in the past.  Most importantly, I have realized how realized how much I have allowed myself to be disrespected, and how I will never, never ever, settle. Never again.

When I was about thirteen, I was the chubby homeschooler that just wanted to be normal. From all that I had witnessed on Disney Channel TV and in youth group and girl scouts, it was "normal" for girls to be dating at my age.  It was normal for twelve year olds to be having their first kisses and for 8th graders to bounce from boyfriend to boyfriend every other week.  And so, to conform to the name of normality, I wanted so horribly to have a boyfriend...or just a boy to notice me.  Unfortunately, when you're an overweight 8th grader who doesn't go to public school and hasn't figured out makeup or clothes or hair or anything else, that's much easier said than done.

Because I was a little skank   totally stupid   idiotic and naive   innocent and misinformed by the ways of my peers, I chased after a boy.  Long story short, I lost weight, I got prettier, he strung me along and used me and had a great ole time kissing me and hugging me and telling me I meant something to him before I finally woke up and realized that I was nothing to him.  He was him, I was me, and there were other girls.  It tore me apart for quite a while, but I moved on.

Little crushes came and went - the worst of all on a boy from church that I Facebook-messaged relentlessly, because my friend told me it would "get his attention"! I'm quite sure it did. It took me far, far too long to realize that he was ignoring me. Wow, go figure.

Finally, I found who I thought was the perfect guy - he had a good sense of humor, was smart and serious about his studies, had great career aspirations, admirable character, always looked out for his mother and sister, greatly cared about his family, was polite and kind and talkative, and - so I thought - treated me well.  It lasted a while, then degenerated, then dissipated.  Of course, since it ended, I've told myself that it was my own fault.  I didn't see the signs and I was stupid for trusting him.

I've come to find that I only thought I loved him so much because I thought, this is as good as it will get.  Before meeting him, I never believed that any boy would think I was pretty or care for me the way he did (or the way I thought he did.) I never believed that I was worthy of love, that it was possible for me to be loved -- I thought, this must be the boy God made for me, because it's impossible that there will be anyone else.

Truth be told, I wasn't treated well.  He cancelled plans a lot, ditched me for his family (which, although should happen from time to time, should not have happened as often as it did), told me I was stupid and always acted smarter than me, pushed me into going farther physically than I wanted to (then blamed me and told his friends "all she ever wanted to do was make out!" after we broke up), failed to be there for me when I needed him most, and - above all - lied to me utterly, wholly, and completely for the duration of our entire relationship.
And of course, it was pinned on me! Me! "Do you know how much I love you? How much I want you to accept me for who I am?" yada yada yada, enabling enabling enabling, lies lies and B.S.
I'm pretty sure that relationship waded into the waters of emotional abuse, and I'm realizing that now.

Dr. McSteamy 

And then, of course, as a "rebound" from this one, I allowed a "Dr. McSteamy" to enter my life. *Cue fellow Grey's Anatomy fans swooning*  Dr. Mark Sloan "McSteamy" essentially dates a lot of women and makes them all feel special when he really just wants One Thing (And I'm guessing it's not the same One Thing that One Direction was singing about.) ... That's right.  THAT thing.

Luckily, things didn't get very far, but it did affect me. I thought, why can't boys just be nice? 

            











Looking back on all of the instances that I was used, manipulated, strung-along, ignored, and came to believe that I was totally ugly, invaluable, and worthless in the eyes of the male sex - Why did I sit there and take it? Why wasn't I strong, why didn't I demand respect? Above all ... Why did I care?

Image credit: fueldabook.com

I care because, as humans, we're delicate and desire to be loved - but we need to allow God to fill that hole, so that we know that He will give us the right person at the right time.  Sadly, for the first few years of my adolescent and teen life, I neglected one of Solomon's most striking proverbs:  "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Proverbs 4:23



Only just recently have I come to realize that boys aren't all greedy, hormonal parasites.  This realization has finally settled in my heart, thanks to some of my best friends, who are, in fact, male.
God has blessed me with good friends -- like my friend Christopher, whom I've known since Freshman year.  We were sitting outside, chatting at a cookout once, when I said: "You know, sometimes I just feel like I need to do something scandalous.  So that I feel like a regular person."
But he shook his head and assured me: "You really don't need to do that.  Plenty of people like you just the way you are, you're cool."

When I went to the summer program, I met plenty of boys who just wanted to talk to me - not use me, not take advantage of me, not ignore me like some annoying pet or inanimate object - just talk and get to know me, to appreciate me as a person.  One boy that I had hardly talked to brought me dessert, and then was willing to go and inquire if it contained any nuts after I had mentioned that I was allergic.  He did this just out of the sake of being kind, and out of being a gentleman.

My friend Francis (HOLLAAAA SUCH SHOUTOUT WOW) who has the same name as the Pope, has further helped me to realize that not all guys are the enemy; he has threatened to beat up guys who treat me improperly, and encourages me to stand up for myself...and doesn't blackmail me with all the embarrassing selfies and childhood photos I've shared with him.  Thanks, man.

If there are boys treat me properly in friendship, then there are boys who will treat me properly in a dating relationship, whether it come about suddenly, or blossoms from a friendship. (whoa, no pressure my bros.)
I'm not going to allow myself to be treated poorly anymore.  I'm coming to realize that I don't deserve it; I deserve to be treated well, and so I will demand respect for myself.  Most importantly, I need to remember that good things await; my past experiences do not define me.  So long as I move forward, fill that hole in my heart with God and the friendships He has blessed me with, I will come to understand the true meaning of love, and from there, meet the right person for me...In God's time, not mine.

Image credit: newlife.id.au

That's it. This is rock bottom.

I have a friend who is a sophomore.  She barely turned 16; since she was 14, she has wanted to go to Oxford University, and has stressed over grades since 7th grade.  She has a 4.5 GPA or something amazing like that, but she is stressed.  She cries over low A's out of fear that she won't be able to achieve her dreams.

I have a friend who is in the same grade as me.  Her parents are pressuring her to choose a college; but she isn't ready. She wants to enjoy life.  She wants to slow down, to figure things out.  But no: Scholarships come straight out of high school, you're less likely to go to college if you wait a year. And so she cries on my shoulder out of fear of the future, and will make an impulse decision just for the sake of progress.

I have a friend who graduated early. She got a scholarship and went to college and it was the worst year of her life.  She had just learned to drive; she was younger than I am now.  And she started a major in biochemistry and it was too hard and she lost her scholarship at no fault of her own.

The world is broken.
Everyone needs to slow. The hell. Down.

I'm sick of everyone feeling as if the world will fall apart if they don't know what to do with their lives when they first come out of the womb.  Frankly, that's the government's goal: scare us into submission.  Scare us into a "successful" occupation just so that we can earn money to support ourselves, when in reality, they're merely training a workforce to carry on the economy and make this country "great."

America the beautiful everybody.
The land of the free and the home of the stressed, overworked, and depressed.

Every one of these people feels responsible for their "failures" when really, the problem is not with them. The problem is with this "system" that is driving us into debt, drowning us, suffocating us, keeping us from being the people we were truly meant to be.
Stressing us to "live up to our full potential" when we never have the time to discover it.

Retaliate. Go against the grain. They don't define you.

Personality

My dearest friend Nikki has peaked my interest in personality types.  She had told me that discovering that she was an INTJ really improved the way she looked at life, and helped her to understand herself more fully.  So, I decided to give a little more thought to my own personality type.

After taking several quizzes and reading about each of the personality traits and what they mean, I've discovered that I am an INFJ.  Introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging.  This seems about right.
Although I think there are no absolutes and it's hard to fit EXACTLY with ALL the traits of a given personality type (certain situations may call you to be a sensor, for instance, when normally you would be intuitive; or a perceiver as opposed to a judger, a thinker as opposed to a feeler, etc.)
Knowing that I'm an INFJ has helped me to understand a little more why I react to certain situations in certain ways, why I tend to be very sensitive and compassionate (and yet can't STAND touchy-feely things), why I love to be with people but need the time to process it, why I'm always looking deeper and not merely at the surface, etc.

My most important discovery is that I am a feeler.  I've always been ashamed of showing emotions and feeling emotions and allowing emotion to influence my reactions and decisions...but now, understanding that feeling is just a part of my personality is helping me to accept this.
I used to believe that if you were a feeler, you were weak and vulnerable.  In a sense, that is true if you allow your emotions to be manipulated.  But on the contrary, when you are a feeler, you have to develop a hard outer shell.  There are times when you do have to contain your emotions, times when you have to push them aside, times when you have to deal with emotional situations.  And when you are a feeler, this is hard.  I still struggle with the aftermaths of feelings from things that happened over a year ago -- but you know what? Dealing with feelings when you are a feeler makes you a badass. It's not easy, and it requires temperance and warrior-like strength.
There are some times when something will happen - we'll watch a sad movie in youth group, someone snaps at me, I face a disappointment - and I have to hold it in.  And I do.  Until I get home.  Then I sit on my floor and cry for a bit, wipe off my face, and move on.  It's easy for me to say, "Wow, I'm such a wimp.  I need to learn to not feel as much," when in reality, I'm doing all that a feeler can do: wait to express their feelings at the appropriate time.  And it's difficult!

Second to realizing that I'm not a wimp is the fact that closure is imperative.  Whenever I get in an argument or have a falling-out with someone, I never feel completely secure until I have forgiven them and/or reconciled with them in some way.  Even if the friendship is not restored, just to know that they don't hate me and to let them know that I still care for them as a fellow child of God means the world to me.  I believe that has something to do with the mix of feeling/judging in my personality, but I'm not entirely sure.

The thing with desiring closure is that, sometimes, I have to risk my feelings for the sake of closure.  But I'm willing to do so.  Whether it's striking up a conversation with a guy I'm attracted to, sending the first message to an ex after a while just to make sure their life is going alright, approaching a friend to apologize when I've wronged them; these instances require putting my feelings on the line.  Perhaps they don't have to, but with my feeling personality, it basically feels like I'm setting my heart on the track in front of a train.  The other person is the train, and they have the opportunity to run over my heart if they wish (whether they realize it or not.)
Maybe it doesn't have to be this way, and I need to somehow figure out a way to separate the feeling part of my personality at times.  But for now, if I can embrace it, it's a step in the right direction.

What's your personality type?

A Post About Everything and Nothing

As I sit here attempting to edit my super-intense paper and trying to decide whether or not the Constitution should have been ratified (as anti-patriotic as that sounds, it's really not), my thoughts are jumbled and bouncing all over the place.  And so, I shall come and type and attempt to de-jumble them, in hopes of procuring a decent blog post.
Is procuring the right word?

Isn't it odd how certain words that you only hear once in a while sometimes pop back into your head, and you think, "wow, I would sound really educated if I were to utilize that word!" But then you kind of try too hard and end up sounding uneducated because you didn't use it correctly?
Yeah.
It's like that t-shirt that says: "Sometimes I use big words so as to sound photosynthesis." That's me.

This little stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a struggle, because although I know that I positively adore learning and enjoy reading and studying, trying to push through the assignments with the knowledge that, in two weeks, I can lay on my bed and crochet and watch endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy to my heart's content...yeah i lost where that sentence was going.
In conclusion, it's difficult.
I like to be deep and read stuff.  On Thanksgiving I picked up my copy of Greek Tragedies I from the TAC Summer Program and re-read Oedipus Rex, then rambled passionately to my mom about fate and prophecy over some delicious appetizers...Namely, pretzels, herb chips, and jalapeno cream cheese, because we're classy.

Jalepeno cream cheese is really good.  I don't know whether it comes from living in the Southwest where we're heavily influenced by the hispanic culture, whether it's something to do with the desert heat, or whether I inherited my dad's love for spicy food, but I love jalapenos. Jalapeño cream cheese...Jalapeños in sandwiches...Jalapeño mac and cheese... Mmm. Jalapeños.

I wonder how chopped jalapeños would be in scrambled eggs.. I bet they're good.

See, I have a thing for scrambled eggs.  They're my go-too food for when I want something that's tasty and relatively healthy.  They're just so delicious and light and fluffy and good with cheese and good with basically whatever you want to put in them.  I always make them with salt, crushed red pepper flake, onion and garlic powder, and sometimes a bit of paprika.  Then with a slice of whole-wheat toast and fresh fruit.. mm-mm-mmm!

The first month in to my first and only dating relationship, I found out that he (my ex) didn't like scrambled eggs.  That was the moment our relationship started going downhill. I knew he wasn't for me.  I wish I was kidding.
It lasted a few more months but when it ended I was like: "It was the Scrambled Eggs. I knew it."
From now on, one of the first questions on my first date with future potential husbands will be "Do you like scrambled eggs?" (It will come after 'Are you Catholic?' but before 'Do you enjoy intellectual discussion?')

I mean, scrambled eggs weren't the reason the relationship ended...or were they? Were the scrambled eggs a metaphor for the scrambled eggs in our young sixteen-year-old-hormonal brains? My eggs were scrambled.  His eggs were most certainly scrambled.
Heh. Scrambled eggs.

Scrambled eggs.
"Good in the stomach, bad in the brain."

I wonder how many times I've typed "eggs" in this post.

I am equally excited and nervous to go to college, primarily for the reason that's apparent here; although I surely enjoy deep discussions and intellectual endeavours, I'm also a sucker for good, light fun.  I like puns.  And, of course, scrambled eggs, but that's besides the point right now.  The college I'm going to will require a lot of seriousness about studies, which I know I'm capable of, and I know I have the potential to do well...But I also want to have fun! I think I will. I'm sure I will.

Sometimes I wonder why people don't take Thomas Aquinas seriously.  Because in reality, we try to figure out life, determine the truths about the world, and discover our purpose.  But Thomas Aquinas has already done that! Why reinvent the wheel?! We all take Aristotle seriously.  Why don't we take Aquinas seriously?

Society doesn't really think about Aquinas as a great philosopher.  They see him as another crazy church theologian.  But theology is truth, it's not crazy!
Although I have mixed feelings about that God's not Dead movie, my favorite part was when he says, "admitting the existence of God is not committing intellectual suicide." Because it's not!

Admitting the existence of God and following the Church is emotionally, spiritually, AND intellectually invigorating!

Do you ever get that feeling where you're driving in the car or making dinner or going for a walk or studying, then all of a sudden something pops into your head.  You have a thought, a moment of enlightenment, and your whole body just tingles and your heart feels light.  I keep getting that off and on.  It used to only happen once in a while, but now that I'm doing more studying, it seems to happen once or twice a week.  It's invigorating! I think it's little moments of the Beatific Vision on earth, which is pretty darn cool.

People in youth group think I'm crazy.

I think the most fulfilling thing one can do on earth is give to another person.  I absolutely adore making and giving gifts -- it's my favorite part of Christmas!

Do you ever look at your gifts and talents and feel like you have potential, but get scared because you don't know what to do with it? I do. Every day.  I know that I have a jumble of stuff I like, a variety of stuff I'm good at, but they all seem unrelated, and very few of them give me great joy.
There's so much pressure to figure out what you want to do at such a young age and it's overwhelming.  My mom didn't discover how much she adored teaching until she was in her 40's, and now she loves it - she teaches CCD and does tutoring in addition to teaching my brother and me.
She was talking to me the other day and said, "how much more good could I have done if I had realized this sooner?"
Then I thought of Oedipus Rex.
Fate.
Fate is not predestination, because predestination is not a thing.  But fate ... it was always going to happen because it would.  It happened because it did. Est quid est. It is what it is. 

Sometimes when I get distracted from school, I look out the window and it feels like my soul has been torn open and all of its contents are spilling out into the world around me.  I get a funny feeling in my stomach as I think of everyone who has hurt me or betrayed me in some way; yet, I don't harbor the anger at them.  It's more the frustration that I've allowed myself to be torn open.  It's not a good feeling...but it always goes away.
"Above all else, guard your heart..."

If I had to define myself with a meme, it would be the Socially Awkward Penguin meme:

Well, I think that's about it. I should get back to my paper now.  I got some of my thoughts out and now my eggs are less scrambled.