So here's the thing - I'm having a randomly hard time today and I'm not sure why. I realized it was exactly a year ago that I graduated from BYU. I've blundered my way through this last year and there has been so much that has changed since then. When I realized that it had been a year - an entire year - I started feeling a little weird. Then I saw this music video and it made me feel ever weirder. Even a little bit emotional.
So here it is - I'm going to be brave. It was exactly a year ago today that I took this picture:
This person was the most important person in my life. I was so glad he was there for me to share this day. We had been apart for 4 months and it had been hard, but we'd been reunited and I felt settled again. Things were still difficult (let's be honest, they were always at least a little difficult those few months) but they were back to normal. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life and this person played a role in that - both in advice and in the desire to be close to him. A few hours after this picture was taken, he and I went to dinner with my parents, just the four of us. We spent some time together the next day, and then that evening, after he crashed my car and I went to spend time with my family, he connected with someone he would later date while lying to me about it for 2 months. Two months. Two months where he would continue to tell me how important I was and how much he cared about me. How excited he was to see me and how he wanted to share parts of his life with me and so he wished I was with him. And then to realize that he was saying the same things to someone else. That someone was making him happy in a way I had always wanted to but always felt lacking.
When I think about that now it makes me sick to my stomach. I feel betrayed and hurt and confused. Even a year later I still have this reaction. It's a confusing mix of hatred and empathy. I've come a long way since this picture. I'm living in a new city with new friends a new job and new possibilities and new people I'm interested in. I don't even talk to him anymore.
I do, however, think about him everyday. I miss how he made me laugh and how he knew me so well. I can't help but wonder what it would have been like to have dated him when he was ready to be happy with one person. If he had been completey honest with me from the beginning. If I was a little more mature and able to realize he brought out my crazy, and be able to articulate what I was feeling as opposed to simply reacting. If we were able to start again.
But I don't know if that's possible. While I've moved past much of what happened, based on my reaction I'm clearly not over it entirely. I'm sure I'll get there eventually, but until that time I'm going to be brave and say what I need to - that he hurt me. Badly. And I deserve to be with someone who won't do that. I deserve to be loved and respected by someone who both makes me laugh and challenges me to think.
But for today, I hurt. I hurt and there's nothing wrong with that. I also love him and miss him. And I'm trying to figure out if that's okay too. But maybe for today it doesn't matter.
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