How to: Learn to Love Again

I’m participating in The Scintilla Project for the second year. It’s pretty much amazing.

Prompt: Tell a story about something interesting (anything!) that happened to you, but tell it in the form of an instruction manual.

 

 

1. Realize your only required class to graduate college is third level Spanish. Know your chances of passing are minimal without some serious tutoring. Ask a slightly intimidating but gorgeous Spanish major friend for help.

2. Spend a summer in a college town drinking cheap wine, watching Buffy, and having amazing sex with a friend-turned-girlfriend-turned-uhaul.

3. Move into a cute studio when the girlfriend leaves for Spain to study abroad for a year. Take 20 credit hours to graduate in December, and to try and not pay attention to how terribly sad you are.

4. Graduate, move to Colorado, realize that skiing doesn’t replace human contact. Find a cheap (round trip) plane ticket to Spain and feel very adult about going to Europe without asking anyone for permission.

5. Spend 10 hours in a cramped coach seat. Arrive in Spain, kiss the girl, realize nothing has changed. Revel in holding hands in the sunshine and walking along the water.

6. Tell the girl that you love her. Watch her face fall as she turns away from you. Hear nothing but silence for the next two days.

7. Call your brother while pacing in front of a hostel. Hear brother tell you go to the train station and book an overnight train to   anywhere, else. Go back to the apartment, ask the girl for directions to the train station. Be shocked as she actually accompanies you and acts enthusiastic about your leaving.

8. Book a train ticket to Paris. Get a glorious night of sleep in a second class sleeper car. Find a Dominican church in Paris. Walk through the abandoned cloister and spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Go out to dinner with an ex who knew us both and happened to be living in the 13th.

9. Board an overnight train to Lourdes. Spend the night in a cramped seat, now painfully aware of the difference between second class and second class sleeper. Sit up very straight when the French police come on and check passports the next morning.

10. Spend two hours walking around in circles after getting lost in Lourdes. Finally find the Lourdes Best Western(!) and collapse for 15 hours. Trade emails with your friends at home, finally admitting how bad things have gotten. Think about suicide for not the first or the last time.

11. Immerse your whole body in the waters of Lourdes. Walk out into the sunshine and tell yourself that you might actually survive losing her. Regain some faith in your ability to survive. Remember you came to Lourdes for healing.

12. Spend three days searching for peace and only finding calm. Gain some of your appetite back. Have a kind bartender making you hot water with lemon and honey when you start crying during lunch.

13. Go back to Paris. Remind yourself why things didn’t work with the ex, but still rely on her for friendship and comfort.

14. Get on a train to Barcelona with some dread and some hope. Realize as soon as you get back that nothing has changed and it’s still over.

15. Fly back to Colorado and try not to think about either of the women you just left in Europe.

…. realize, all these years later, why I haven’t let myself fall for another female, and that maybe it’s time to let go of the heartbreak.

Once More, With Feeling

{Source}

Over the last few weeks the ex has come up in my head a few times. Sometimes they were innocuous, happy thoughts. Reminding myself that she was pregnant in the hottest summer I can remember.

I knew she was due last week. I wasn’t obsessing over it, I only thought to check a couple of times. This is progress. All week, no baby.

I’ve been busy living my life.

My roommate leaned over to me last night to inform me that J had her baby. A girl named Amelia.

I promptly poured myself another glass of wine. And another. And then finished the bottle.

Most of the time I have a hard time naming my feelings. The numbness rules the actual feeling. I’ve heard that the difference between clinical depression and sadness is that depression is numb, and sadness requires actual feeling.

Last night I let the numbness reign. Nothing else occurred to me. I know how to deal with that calm, familiar reaction. I can sleep through just about any situation. Enough hours in bed and the sedative will wear off.

Today. Today. Today I have to face the sadness. I suppose this is progress, in general. I am more alive. The deep, terrifying sadness is here. Now I just have to dig myself out of it. Right?

This Battle Is Won

Hi, there. My name is Ashley and I blog at Writing To Reach You.  When I asked for opportunities to guest blog, Anna offered me some space here and suggested that I write about some of the challenges I’ve faced.  I had to think about it for a while, not for a lack of struggles, but because I feel like I’m currently in a transition period where so many of the battles I’ve been fighting for years are suddenly over and I don’t yet know what happens next.

For years and years, I thought things like, “Once I get through this, then everything will be okay” and “As soon I have this one thing, then it will all be perfect” and “I’m just going through a difficult time right now, but things will soon go back to normal.”  It took me a really long time to realize there was no normal, I was always going through something, and no one thing or person ever made everything okay.

The good thing about these lies is the hopefulness that’s so wrapped up in them.  I was always so sure that things were about to be amazing.  The bad thing is that you’re always delaying happiness until you have that one more thing and then the thing after that and then just one more with a cherry on top.  At a certain point, you have to look around and realize things are already pretty awesome or you will never be happy.

Several smart and happy people told me this, but either I didn’t believe them or I was scared to see what would happen if I stopped.  It’s kind of embarrassing now to look back and realize all that time I thought I was working toward something, I was really just at war with myself.  I was trying to be perfect, but mostly just succeeding at making myself miserable.  I distracted myself with all of these external challenges, but I never could internalize any of those accomplishments.

The safe thing about being super critical of yourself is that no one can ever say anything about you that even compares to the terrible things you’ve said to yourself. But, when you don’t like yourself, you don’t always make decisions in your best interest.  You punish yourself because you don’t think you deserve better.  You don’t hold yourself to a high standard, because you don’t want to deal with the disappointment of real failure. It’s easier if you sabotage yourself by not really trying.

I don’t know what happened.  I think I finally just tired myself out.  I didn’t recognize it right away. I still used all the old words, but the things I said to myself didn’t ring true anymore.  That will freak you out for a second.  Strange the way you can take comfort in even destructive habits.  Criticizing myself for everything was my way of being in the world; planning out how to be perfect next time was the way I handled disappointment.

Things are different here.  I’m nice to myself and it feels authentic. I like being me. I’ve stopped apologizing for it.  But there’s an adjustment period that comes with losing some of your strongest defenses.  When I fail, it hurts worse because I really did try.  When other people disappoint me, I have to feel that pain, because I don’t just blame myself anymore. It’s like getting stronger and yet more vulnerable at the same time.  

But that’s to say nothing of how awesome it is to be at peace with yourself.  To feel that whatever happens, you’ll be okay.  To really fight for what you want, because you’ve won that battle with yourself. I’m happier.  I’m having more fun. I think I see things more clearly.  And and and I’m excited for what happens next.

Learning to Stand on my Own.

I’m writing over at People Like Us for 10 weeks this summer. Read the rest of this post over there!

“All heavy laden acquainted with sorrow
May Christ in our marrow, carry us home
From alabaster come blessings of laughter
A fragrance of passion and joy from the truth”

- Jars of Clay “This Road”

I was really struggling with writing this post. The cursor of the Microsoft word document was blinking at me with all the frustration of every unwritten paper in college. Then my random playlist came up with this Jars of Clay song—a song I associate very strongly with a period of struggle in my life from several years ago and the friend who got me through it. I’ve been fighting with myself about writing about him and our experiences, trying to condense what I’ve learned from 10 years of friendship and love.

… Continued at PLU!

Catholic Sex Ed and Lucky Bloke

(Intro: Brother, close your browser. Do it now, don’t ask questions.)

Coming from 12 years of Catholic school and 2 years of (very) Catholic residence halls, my sex ed was… limited? lacking? fundamentally flawed?

After I came out and started getting involved in the queer organizations on campus, I was shocked at the focus placed on safe sex. Not just on sex, but on always using protection on everything. The first time I saw a strap on, it had a condom on it. We had a bowl of rainbow condoms and dental dams sitting on the bookshelf in the lgbt office. Yup, we were that cool.

Enter: Lucky Bloke. If you haven’t gotten over the (very ingrained) Catholic fear of buying condoms… they deliver! Not only that, they deliver fun and different condoms from all sorts of interesting places. Also, 10% of all sales go to charity, so there’s the whole almsgiving thing out of the way

Lucky Bloke is giving away a spot to BiSC2013, and I could really use the cash (for more sex toys to stave off the celibacy cravings!)

We’re at that Age

{I promise I’ll recap #BiSC soon. I have ALL THE FEELINGS, and I haven’t processed them yet.}

…

My best friend’s mother died this morning at approximately 5am.

I am pretty sure it hasn’t sunk in yet–the fact that J’s mother is gone. In the interests of full disclosure, this woman and I didn’t always have the best relationship. I broke up with J our freshman year of college after a year and a half together. We’ve remained friends since then, and she never forgave me for hurting him. I understand it. I feel badly that we were never able to reconcile.

My heart hurts for my dear friend. I can’t imagine how he’s feeling, and all I can come up with are the very contrived sounding “I’m so sorry” and “What can I do?” and “I’m praying for you”. I feel like I should have more to offer a person who’s been in my life for almost ten years. I also have to accept that whatever I have is enough-I can only give what I can. The best thing I can do right now is get my butt in the chapel and spend some time praying for J and his mother.

In the nine years or so that I’ve been in J’s life, we’ve had some time where we’ve been inseparable, but for the last six months or so things have been a little distant. He’s been dating someone for about a yearish and I haven’t met her yet. He’s kept us apart on purpose, and that doesn’t lead to a whole lot of hang out time with the other female, me. I understand this.

I’ve lost contact with most of our old friends. I moved away and am terrible at keeping in touch with people–the next time I expected to see them was at his wedding. Now, instead, we’ll all be brought back together at a funeral. I’m sad that it required a death to bring the old gang back together. I’m also vainly nervous about how I look compared to three or four years ago, the last time I saw most of them. I feel so shallow for admitting that, but I don’t want to look like the pathetic ex girlfriend who is still single.

Tomorrow will be an exercise in:

1. keeping my cool and not breaking down in tears

2. being very, very nice to the new girlfriend

3. trying to prove to all the old friends that I’m successful, and all that

4. survival

Stability and Las Vegas

She is my new focus:

Her name is Grace, and I’m completely smitten.

#BiSC!

I love Vegas– time is irrelevant, the lights are bright, and everything sparkles. This trip I get to spend time with 59 awesome people, only two of which I’ve met. In January BiSC seemed so very far outside my comfort zone. I was excited, but fear was winning.

I have a bit of trouble traveling.

I am very aware of my need for routine. My brain functions best when I don’t have to worry about anomalies in my schedule. My head can focus on getting through the day–on surviving and protecting itself from unnecessary stress or panic. If I have too many things outside of the norm my anxiety tends to spiral, quickly.

For the first time in a couple of years, I’m excited about going somewhere outside of my apartment. Most of the time, the outside world is nothing but anxiety ridden–now that anxiety is swirled with hope and possibility.

I think… I think this is stability. Control, in a very small way, of the depression that has been the main facet of my personality for the last 14 years. Progress.