Adoration

Speaking of things that hit you sideways, Campbell got married a few months ago.  We'd been good friends for a few years, and then early last year he kind of fell off the planet.  He was there for me when my engagement broke up, and I was there for him when the same thing happened to him.  I always felt safe with him, safe and appreciated, so it was hard when I realized we were never going to get married.  I still wonder why, but I got some clarity talking to his cousin this past spring.  The conversation started out awkwardly but eased up as we went along; she was concerned about how I was taking the news of his engagement and I felt I could trust her, so I told her it had been a little difficult.  She said that she and her husband had wondered why Campbell had never dated me; apparently, he talked about me all the time.  In her words, he adored me.  Why, then, didn't he choose me? 

 

My silent, agonizing question was answered as his cousin went on about his fiancee:  she needed to be rescued.  Campbell's fiancee had been married before, to an abusive and manipulative man, and she needed to be rescued from that trauma.  One thing I know for sure about Campbell is that he would NEVER hurt a woman.  He is incredibly protective--protective to the point of doing violence to another person.  When he found out more details about what my ex-fiance had done, he told me that he was willing to break my ex's nose if he started bothering me again.  Another time, we were talking and when another man walked past and gave me a leer that I didn't notice, Campbell put his arm around me and glared at the guy until he stopped looking at me.  I'm not the biggest fan of violence, but it is nice to feel protected when you're with someone.

 

Campbell needs to be the hero, and Mrs. Campbell needed a hero.  I'm glad she found such a good one.  I don't need anyone to rescue me from a bad situation anymore (although it would be nice if someone out there had an extra $200K to give us), but I really want to be adored by someone.  Adored enough that he wants to be with me and no one else.  Thanks to Campbell, at least I know I'm worthy of that kind of love, loyalty, and respect.

Who does she think she is?

I wasn't planning on discussing Sk8er Boi here again, but that was before he announced on Facebook that he's in a relationship now. Not only did they go "Facebook public", but he actually posted about how it might upset people because he said he wasn't going to date anyone for awhile but he is and he cares about her.

I actually think he was talking to me.

And guess what? I was a little upset. Less than two months after he ended things with me because he wasn't ready to be in any relationship, he has an official girlfriend and they went Facebook public, which I never quite was and we never did.

I guess it was me after all.

I spent most of Friday really mad. At him. At myself, since I was mad that this still made me so mad. And, as always, at the situation. Why does she get to be his girlfriend when we could never make it that far? Why would he let an accomplished, intelligent me go in favor of whoever this girl thinks she is? Why am I judging someone I don't even know? (She came into his life during our relationship, but we never actually met.) When is it my turn?

RAWR.

I felt better on Saturday, and I've felt even better today. This development in his life changes nothing in mine. I have no reason to believe he was lying to me at any point, so I guess he really didn't think he was ready. They're a better match anyway, since we were so unlikely. He did care about me then. Eventually I'll get over the fact that he's sharing intimate things with someone new, and eventually I'll get to have some of my own intimate moments again. As I said then, it really did come down to bad timing and an unlikely match. One day I'll get those right.

In the meantime, I had a nice little chat, in person, with a new crush today. We met a few weeks ago, and even though we hadn't seen each other in almost two weeks he randomly added me on Facebook last night. He must have been thinking about me . . .

Feeling Out of Place

I have been a member of a family ward since fall 2005 when my singles ward was discontinued due to dwindling membership--apparently, most of the ward members had moved to college wards and the 57 of us left were pretty well permanently settled. Some people found the adjustment very difficult because it is hard to go from a ward where so many of your peers are actually your peers and are going through similar things, to a ward where you may be one of the only (if not the youngest) single members. It's easy to feel out of place after so long in one situation.

I was one of the lucky (optmistic?) few who was looking forward to the change. It's fun to be with young single adults, but it's also fun to be with families and retired couples and teenagers and babies. I had had enough of singles wards; while the change itself came quickly, I was ready for it and transfered my records back to the ward I grew up in and in whose boundaries I still lived.

It's been great for the last four years. It really has. I've had the opportunity to serve in wonderful and varied ways. I had a wonderful bishop who gave excellent advice when I was engaged. I had a safety net when the engagement fell apart. I've been able to interact with my former Primary and Young Women teachers as an adult on (nearly) equal footing. I've held babies, played pianos, sung in the choir, congratulated teenagers on graduation, and played the organ for funerals. I've loved nearly every moment of it.

However, I realized last weekend at a Halloween party that even though I enjoy my ward and the people in it, I still don't quite fit in. Not quite. I'm not just off my mission, I've never had children, I'm not a widow, I'm not divorced, I'm not married, I'm not engaged. I am single, working, making plans for the future, and, according to some, have all the time in the world to play. I can participate in quilt groups and Primary programs and Sunday school classes all I want, but I still won't quite fit in. While I'm 90% just fine with that, there is a little part of me that longs for a movie buddy who doesn't have to find a sitter. I would love to be in Sunday school and not hear the teacher talk about her relief that her daughter is getting married before she turns 30, as if we're in "Logan's Run" or something. I would like to never have to answer the question "so, are you dating anyone?" again. It's hard to let things slide with a joke or a clever remark, but I do it over and over again. I'll keep doing it because it's the only way I have to get through the harder times, and because it's much more polite than saying, "will you leave me alone about it?! Worry about your own life!" or "no, I don't party all night or run around all day. I'm a responsible member of society and an adult despite my single status."

Honestly, there are Sundays I'd rather stay home than go, but then I remember that it's the doctrine that I love, the Savior, my Heavenly Father, how I feel when I take the Sacrament, the peace the Holy Ghost brings...all those things are more important than some of the strange attitudes I've encountered.

Still, it will be nice when I have a family of my own--although I'll still feel a little out of place because I won't be a young mother having children at 22. :)

Sunday Night Reflections

There's something about Sunday nights that make them particularly hard. No matter how successful my week may have been, Sunday evenings often find me reflective and sometimes even a little sullen.

Growing up, and when I lived close to my parents, Sunday evenings were family time, even if it was just sitting around trading sections of the paper. On the nights we didn't spend entirely together, we always made an effort to at least eat Sunday dinner with one another. They were special meals, a little nicer than the rest of the week. Even during some of family's more stressful times, I don't remember arguments about whether or not we were to attend Sunday dinner, we just did. Later, we'd often play a game, watch a movie, go for a walk, or just sit around and gab. It was rarely anything spectacular, it just was. So now that I'm on my own, I miss those times. Holidays are the expected hard time for singles, but Sundays are a close second.

Last Sunday, I enjoyed the quiet of my home, as I'd been on a weekend long trip with several friends from church. I'd spent quite some time talking with my current crush (it sounds so high school, but it's apropos) on this trip, for which I was grateful, and I'd also made several new acquaintances. I just needed some time to recharge, alone, before my week, so I didn't mind coming home to an empty house.

Today, however, is a little different. I had missed all the social events of the weekend for a business trip I arrived home from late last night, so I was looking forward to seeing my friends today. I saw and visited with my ward crush before and during church, but I spied him talking to the same girl for the entirety of our monthly after church meal. Just chatting, but I couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Tonight, I had plans to watch a movie with a girlfriend, but she wasn't at church and hasn't responded to any of my attempts at contact. None of this anything to worry about just yet. It's just the standard response to any social disappointment and it just happens to be on a day I often feel a little more alone than others.

Fortunately, I took Trixie's recommendation and recently finished reading A Single Voice. If nothing else, it reminds me that I'm doing the right thing in making the most of my single time and trying to improve my attitude about life. I can't always control my social life, but I can control quite a bit of my personal life. This week, I'm going to make a better effort at that. I'm going to clean my apartment (again), exercise more, and study my scriptures.

My life is good. And, hey, at least I had complete control of the remote tonight.

Hate

I don't understand hate. It has to be one of the most illogical things in the world. And yet there are times where we all have to deal with it. For the last two years I have been hated. What makes it even more illogical is that I did not really meet the person who hates me until several months after she started hating me.

C is obsessed with HP. She has basically stalked him for several years now. Any girl that he has shown interest in she has become friends with and either convinced them that he was moving too fast or that he wasn't good enough. Someone actually admitted to me that she was afraid to talk to HP for fear of what C would do to her.

The first conversation I ever had with her she basically threatened me. And during our second conversation a month later she tried to point out what she thought were his oddities and faults as well as tried to get me to dish to her what I knew of him. What she didn't realize where that those "oddities" and "faults" were some of the things I found attractive in him and shared myself. Because HP had told me about her by then, I didn't tell her anything I knew.

Because I wouldn't give in to her tactics, she hated me more. She flat out ignored my existence. Having a conversation with her present was laughably awkward as she would freely converse with anyone else present, but would basically turn her back on me and not acknowledge me, even if the other person was talking to me. There was tension there from her, and it all came to a head towards the end of last year when she finally acknowledged me enough to disrupt a church class to yell at me and storm out and slam the door. After the class she told me to never talk to her again and I have had no problem with that as I had never really talked to her to begin with. At that point she admitted that she had hated me because of HP before but by then it wasn't because of that, but she wouldn't say why she hated me so.

By the beginning of this year I had even less involvement with her, and it worked well. The less she sees of me the less agitated she gets, it seems. And I don't want to purposefully upset her. But I'm also not going to let her dictate my life for her comfort.

The way she acts, she feels like the whole world is against her and is attacking her, and so her strategy is to attack first. And in this way she feels she's making other people miserable, but what is really happening is she's making her own life miserable and making her impossible to get close to. But explaining that to her gets you nowhere. She insists on seeing the world through her warped lenses.

And her hate just isn't going away. At the beginning of this year she told HP that she doesn't hate me, but if he were to marry me she'd hold a grudge against me for the rest of her life. I'm not entirely sure what the difference between hate and a life long grudge is, but apparently she sees one. And two weeks ago, on finding out that HP and I were engaged, she actually had the nerve to tell him that our marriage will only last five years before he'll discover how mean I am and divorce me.

Very little she does upsets me. I know she's not dealing with a full deck and so I try to give her some leeway, but this crossed the line for me. How dare she!

Fortunately, HP also sees how crazy she is. He's tried to cut her off several times. He's tried telling her how her actions are perceived by others and that she's only hurting her self. But she can't see it. In her mind she's hurting everyone else, me especially. Her actions, the rumors she starts about me, are supposedly tearing me down and building her up. It is probably very frustrating to her that I'm still enjoying my life and progressing.

This crossed the line for HP too though, and he could see how upset it made me. He's told me that if she ever starts saying things like that again that he's going to tell her that if she can't be civil towards him or his wife, then the conversation is over.

Of course it would ultimately be easiest if she realized what her hate was doing to her, that it was eating her and making her beautiful features ugly. But it doesn't look like that will happen any time soon. So I'll continue to give her the room I can, but I'm not going to let her dictate what I do with my life and how I choose to love.