The One Where We Should Try and Start Over

Oh hello there, ladies.

Do you remember this? This blog thing we started so we could stay in contact with each other?

I still don't think Aquafresh has ever looked at it. Anyone want to take me up on that bet?

Here's the deal, bitches. Life is changing. A lot. For all of us and in incredibly different ways. We're busier than ever before. We're getting married, graduating, moving on, breaking up, challenging life plans and preconceived notions of happiness. I am personally contemplating quitting life and moving to a hippie commune (only mostly joking about this, by the way).

If there is a better time to recommit to this, I don't know what it is. And this will provide a great outlet for judgement free venting. With our schedules making it harder to talk to and see each other, this will be perfect. And I think we can all suck it up and use this as a break from the everyday mundane. Instead of a coffee break from homework or work, we take a blogging break :)

So, my lovelies. Let's have this year be the year of the blog; not random, typical molly-mormon-mommy blogs, but real stories of real women and real friends, of real heart ache and real happiness, real issues and real triumph. Even the little triumphs, because it's the little things that build on themselves to create big things. And I want us, as a group of friends, to always be one of the big things in my life, even when we're scattered all over the country. 

The One With the Quick Vent

First things first:

After I read The Rack's last post, I had to go out and find this, and it made me SO happy. She's right. It pretty much encapsulates our awesomeness.

Also, has Aquafresh ever even READ this blog? Seriously. Can someone PLEASE make her take a look before I hoof it back to the mountain west?

On a more serious note, this has been a really weird few days for me. I felt like I had been doing an okay job with my new position, ESPECIALLY because I'd been thrown into the job without any real training and the training I DID receive was from a person who they felt wasn't doing a great job. Heck. All things considered, I felt like I'd done a good job given the hand I was dealt.

And now I'm being made to feel like I'm doing everything wrong. Why the hell are you even having me help train her when I'm clearly doing everything wrong? If you're going to sit here and be like "well, I don't know why you're having her do this" then let me go home. I've got other shit I could be doing right now, like sleeping or spending time with my friends. 

I realize they're not in the best of situations either. They haven't kept a this position filled consistently for over a year now, and the job is such that there is a super steep learning curve - no one has really gotten into the rhythm of it until they'd been here at least a year. I get their frustration and that they can't necessarily spend time coddling me and holding my hand during the transition process. It would just be nice for them to acknowledge that I was doing the best I could given the situation, not that I was just doing things wrong because I was lazy or didn't care. Actually, I don't even care if they acknowledge that so much as I know they're aware of it. They don't even have to tell me. 

I think I have this fear that they really do think I'm a failure and that I was doing everything wrong on purpose and just didn't care. Which is obviously not the case.

Jeez...life as a grown-up is difficult sometimes.

PM out.

So this is still a thing

Hey guess what, I'm rediscovering blogging. And as my gift to you on the eve of my return, I present the following.

Lest you had forgotten. You're welcome.

Also, PM will be home SO SOON. I'm really excited about all of us being in the same state for a while. A good, long while, damn it.

In other news, I recently finished reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns by Mindy Kaling. I've already recommended it to PM, but it is hilarious and everyone needs to read it. Or at least find a copy and read her "Best Friend Rights and Responsibilities." They are perfect. They are us. You'll want to read the whole book after that, which would be an excellent decision. Do it. Do it now.

Much love.

- The Rack

The One With the Text and the Epiphany

So I needed to share this with someone as I had an epiphany this morning.

Yesterday was a little rough. I felt so dissatisfied with my job and so many aspects of my life. I realized I really just want to find someone to share and plan my life with and was just plagued by this fear that 1) I was going to bounce around from job to job, never feeling satisfied and always thinking it was okay because I hadn't found my career yet, and then realizing I was 40 in a job I didn't like and I had wasted any and all potential and hadn't been able to pursue my dreams and 2) that were I to follow the plan I have laid out, that it would turn out I wasn't satisfied with it. That I would feel the same way about THAT job as I do about the one I have now.

Needless to say I was feeling a little hopeless. 

Oddly enough, I decided to text The Ex. It was the kind of conversation where having him listen and give advice would actually be really helpful. Plus I felt I could do this without attaching to him too strongly, especially because part of my frustrations had to do with 2 guys that were NOT him (more on them later…)

But I knew he had finals, and I also know him well enough to know that calling him while he was stressed about finals would not be good for either of us. So I texted him and asked what his schedule looked like, and he responded by saying he would be done Thursday. I asked how he was doing and his response was simple: I HATE LAW SCHOOL.

Now, I know this was a lie. I know him well enough to know what was going on in his head, so this is an abridged version of what I responded (when I finally woke up this morning and got his text):

I don’t believe it. I think you just hate finals, which is COMPLETELY legitimate. They’re challenging and they’re difficult and they force us to face the possibility of failure, which is always a terrifying thing. But this is your fourth round…and you’ve been improving so far…and you’re that much more likely to keep improving. Which is all we can hope for with challenging, difficult things that force us to face our shortcomings…

And then I realized that this was actually something that applied to me. This feeling of dissatisfaction and hating my job was coming from the same place as his hatred of finals. It was forcing me to face my shortcomings and it’s challenging and it’s difficult.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that things I dislike or drag my feet over come from 3 different places: fear of failure, not rewarding, or not challenging enough. In the case of my job, it’s the fear of failure and that it’s not rewarding. Now, it’s odd, because I know that part of why I don’t feel my job is rewarding is because I’m not fully committing to it because I’m afraid of failing. So I know they’re not mutually exclusive. And while this realization doesn't completely negate my fears, it helps me keep going through these next 3 months. I just have to recommit to the job – put all of myself into it so I will at least feel rewarded.

Happy finals week everyone!

-PM

The One Where I'm Nostolgically Depressing

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.

The One Where I Have a Meltdown

I would like to preface this by saying that I feel like I've done a good job up until now of holding my shit together. I mean, I'm in a new place, away from all my friends and family with no idea of when I will see them again, I'm in a new job with an indefinite future and indefinite professional prospects, living with a bunch of people that I can't be completely comfortable around and who are fairly transient so as to not inspire horrible amount of confiding confidence, and I'm realizing more and more that I'm also in a transient phase - in theory this if just a gap year, between when I graduated and when I go back and get my Master's degree.

So why the hell did I move out here?

One of my friends tried to say that we get a sense of fulfillment just by surviving out here, that making it day to day is a victory. But I don't feel that way. I want to go lay out by the lake and eat pineapple and get tan and run through the mountains. I want to stay up late and have stimulating conversations. I want to be the recipient of a hug that drains the unhappiness from me and makes me feel secure and like I don't have to be strong. I want to snuggle someone while I watch a movie and not worry about if they're comfortable with it or if they're reading into it more than they should or that they're not enjoying the movie. I just want to be happy with someone and be fulfilled by them. And this isn't even romantic. I just crave companionship. I have no one out here who makes me happy enough. No one that doesn't leave me feeling wanting - the missing parts are more apparent than the parts that are fulfilled.

I miss my Ex. I hate that fact and I hate admitting it. So much. I feel so weak when I say it, like one of those battered women that don't realize how poisonous their relationships are. But I miss that he and I were so comfortable together. That we had so much fun and he cared about me and my future and that he was willing to sit and listen to me and help me understand what I was thinking and feeling and that he knew me so well. He honestly knew so much about me - I showed him some of my deepest fears and insecurities and he accepted that and he loved me. Unfortunately, that last part is what allowed him to manipulate me the way I did. I realize he did it only to avoid his own guilt and to side-step the fear he was feeling. But still. I trusted him and he abused that. Yet he made me happy in ways that I didn't know I could be happy. He gave me the thought that I could be that happy with one person. Now I don't even have a conglomerate of people nearby that can make me that happy. Where I was 4 months ago, I did. In fact, the conglomerate of people I had around me made me happier than I was with the Ex.

So here I sit, financially strapped, professionally unfulfilled, and personally and emotionally starved. There's no real end in sight here. I'm just...existing. Floating. Aimless. Wandering. Torn between different possibilities and unsure of what I'm supposed to be doing or where I'm supposed to go. I'm 25 and have no discernible end goal or plan on how to get there. I vacillate between emptiness and anxiety. Sometimes with a little peppering of failure.

I don't know. I'm unsure of what my life will look like in a few months or where I'll be. I'm not even sure what I will be doing in the next 4 weeks.

I'm just trying to make it through without losing it and ruining any political ambitions I might have later on in life. I don't know. I'm just...meh

I'm done.

PM out.

The one where I waste a whole day...

So I'm watching Pitch Perfect for about the millionth time right now rather than working/studying/cleaning/showering/etc. I guess it's a good thing there's nothing on Monday so I can play catch-up. I don't anticipate any shifts in my motivational trend in the near future. If it's any excuse, I'm pretty sure I'm PMSing, because I'm majorly tearing up during the Bellas' final song.

Side note, why are the guys that sing "The Final Countdown" wearing weird bathrobes? Am I missing a joke there?

I don't honestly have that much to say, but I've been such a failure at blogging since I've been home that I felt compelled to write something. I do think I could use some advice...

I need money. I'm burning through my savings at a slightly alarming rate and I just don't work enough to bring home the bacon. It's not that I can't get research hours - there's plenty to do - it's just that when my job feels a lot like school, it's hard to prioritize my job over homework/exams that have more definite deadlines. Suggestions? Times like these I really miss being a TA, where office hours generally meant doing homework and answering the question of the occasional student.

And I know the holiday is technically over, but I thought these were pretty brilliant on the RNC's part - gopvalentine.com

Love you ladies.