Dear Future Boyfriend,

Please forgive me. I have my walls built up to the sky. I hope you're really here to break them down, brick by brick. Don't try to come crashing through all at once, I'll run away. I'm willing to try my hardest to get back to being the girlfriend that I know I can be, but I need you to be patient with me.

I want to trust you. I want to love you, freely and openly and without hesitation. I want to show you how much I have to offer. I want to drop my insecurities and know that you will love me for me, not just as a girl who can be a place holder until something better comes along. I want to believe you won't cheat on me, or lie to me, or lie about me. I want to believe that I deserve to be loved.

I need you to prove to me, in the face of my growing doubt, that all those wants are realistic. Please.

Love,

Me

Gratefulness Round 1

I am grateful for a job where I'm able to have a significant impact on the lives of children. I don't have them for very long each day, and I don't have them for very many days in a row, but I make sure that every half hour I have them, every week day, for two weeks, is a place where they can smile and laugh and have fun. I don't know their lives, I don't know what they go home to after. It could be a loving and caring family, or it could be a life of hardship and neglect. But neglect is not something they will ever experience in one of my classes.

Yes, I do take my job very seriously, and that is part of the reason it's so hard for me to get along with a vast majority of my co-workers. It's not just doing what's necessary to get a pay check for me. It's an experience and one that I refuse to take for granted. Even as a swim instructor for two weeks, you can have a lasting impact on a kid's life. I still remember my first swim instructors - the ones that I liked best. And I remember why I liked them best; it's the very same reason I have favorite teachers. They made it fun and they seemed like they actually cared that I was there and a valuable part of their class.

It is honestly one of the most rewarding things. To watch a kid smile and laugh during your class, or to see that light-bulb moment, when they suddenly just "get it." That's the reason I keep coming back and doing this every summer. It trumps all the drama, all the frustrations.

Absent.

I'm having a rough time this summer. I can't figure out what it is. I keep thinking I just need an attitude check, but that really isn't even cutting it for me. Something just feels off. I feel very disconnected, without an urge to really be connected. If that even makes any sense at all.

I'm not even sure why I'm blogging. I haven't been recently because I feel like nothing I have to write is of any worth or depth. I'm boring myself. I'm writing, but I don't know what about...roaming through my thoughts, and although there are plenty of them, there's not a whole lot that I'm coming up with. Maybe I got lost.

I need some sort of goal for writing. I think...I'm going to start writing what I'm thankful for every day for a while. For the rest of this month, and farther if I feel like it's beneficial. Maybe if I remember all the beauty I have, even when all I'm seeing is the blah, I'll feel a little less apathetic.

I know this isn't me. Something is missing.

Dangerous Waters

I know I'm in them. But I'm being very careful - making sure not to cross any lines, checking myself to make sure I'm sticking to my morals. And I am. I'm not doing anything that I think is wrong; and I think I have a pretty strong set of morals and values, if I do say so myself.

People are going to talk no matter what I do. People are going to assume, people are going to think they know the ins and the outs and all the details in between. I understand that. But why do I have to let that affect the way I live my life? Oh, that's right...I don't.

I refuse to stop being friends with someone just because people are going to talk. They can talk all they want. I'm not going to fight them, because they really don't know. They don't know the situation, and they don't know me. If they really don't even know me, who am I to tell them what to think about me if they aren't going to take the opportunity to really get to know me? The specific people in this situation...I really could care less what they have to say about me. I know who my friends are. And I'm comfortable enough in that.

It's not that I don't care. I still do, a lot more than I should. I probably always will care about what people say about me, unless by some miraculous turn of events I acquire unbelievable amounts of self-confidence. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt to hear people say things that I know aren't true. But I just have to stomach it; take it with a smile and move on.

At least, this is how I feel right now. With the ideal that it's not going to get any worse than it is right now. Fingers crossed.

well shoot.

this all just went from bad to worse.

i need to learn how to not give a shit about what people say or think about me.

I'm about 30 seconds away from a meltdown.

So excuse my frustrations. I'm so much less alone when I'm home from school, but I feel more lonely. Maybe I'm just tired and that's what's causing all this pent up emotion. Maybe it's the lack of people that really "get" me. Maybe it's even just the thought of having to spend all day tomorrow at a preservice meeting for work with a whole bunch of people I don't really know/can't really relate to. Maybe it's this feeling that I'm just used and needed when it's convenient. Maybe it's an accumulation of all the times I've blamed myself when I really have the right to get mad at someone else.

But I miss my roomie and my friends at school. I miss my best friend a whole lot and I don't even know when I'm going to see him again. I feel a teensy bit broken. And I'm all out of tape.

Eyes on the Future

I think sometimes, I forget that there is no rush on living. My perception between today and two months from now is easily skewed. The way I do something new now most likely will not be the same two months from now; the way I feel now may not be how I feel two months from now. If something's hard now, and I just give up and only think about how hard it is...well in that case, it will be the same in two months. Make sense? Maybe not. Let me try an example.

I just got my first car - a super cute 2001 red Honda Civic EX...manual. I don't know how to drive stick shift yet. But my thinking was, "Whatever, everyone says it's not too hard and I really want to learn anyway!" So I got in that car the first day and had SUPER high expectations...but I couldn't drive it. And I was soooo frustrated. I kept thinking, "I'm never going to be able to drive this thing. I can't even get it to go forward 50% of the time, and when I do it takes me forever. How am I supposed to drive this in traffic with other cars around and keep up to speed with everyone else? It's so jerky and I'm so slow at it and this seems pretty much impossible." Cue those sort of thoughts on repeat, over and over...

I sat down after a venting of my frustrations with my mother and she pointed out that this was my first time ever behind the wheel of a stick-shift. It wasn't supposed to be a piece of pie. But just because it sucked now didn't mean it couldn't get better. Not everything is just going to come to me like a gift, but if I keep practicing and don't give up after one crappy time, I'm never going to get better and I won't ever be able to drive out in the real world. But if I get back behind the wheel every day and practice, it's going to start getting easier and easier. Of course right now I couldn't imagine driving in typical traffic, but two months is a long time to improve. I'm already better - it's still frustrating as hell, and I still have a hard time getting started, but today was better than yesterday, and yesterday was better than the day before that.

I can't rush it. I just have to experience it. I think I can apply that in other aspects of my life too. I may feel one way about something, but if I acknowledge that it has to change, and continue to acknowledge it daily, it will change. But I'm no miracle worker, things like driving a stick shift or becoming less dependent don't happen over night. I have to remember that there is no rush. It will happen when it's meant to happen. And sometimes, I may not even notice the improvements until I look back and see how far I've come. Patience has never been one of my greater virtues, but maybe it's about time I learn some to save myself some of the frustration.