To tell you the truth, I am rediscovering love and happiness and all of the emotions that accompany that roller coaster. It is been a difficult six months, and knowing that a significant other has been absent in my life during some of my biggest changes and challenges has been a struggle. I have turned to friends and family to help mend a broken heart. Complications have occurred because I sensed that in my hour of need, I was being “abandoned” by those close to me as they pursued their own happiness and just assumed that I would be okay. I struggled to find a sense of acceptance, and I know that certain friends were definitely there for me to talk to me as I let other things go in order to heal myself, even though I was committed to ensuring that several projects and tasks were successfully completed.
Heading into finals week in the fall trimester as a newly single woman was interesting. Changing various financial aspects of my life, resetting all of my passwords, and striding into the world again as a truly independent unit in all senses was a bit scary. For the bulk of my college experience, I had a significant other who I had pledged to spend the rest of my life with as a married woman. I honestly had started to plan a wedding and we’d talked about all of the things a couple thinking about spending the rest of their lives together would talk about. The most demanding week of the year intellectually was also one that really stretched my emotional and psychological well-being as well, and I turned to a counselor because I was dealing with a lot of confusion and was afraid of slipping into a depression with all of the negative things that were becoming commonplace in my life.
The ending of the fall trimester became official with my dad coming to Maryville for the second-time ever to pick me up along with whatever it was I thought essential to take home for a month. My new van, Jack-Jack, was the man in my life. We bonded over gravel roads, some slick icy conditions, and a bit of a snowstorm, as well as a shopping spree [okay, I should mention that I am not the biggest fan of shopping 99.9% of the time] and a few other educational experiences made the holiday break quite interesting. Being surrounded by my family who is highly supportive of me and knew that I was struggling to maintain a calm and constructed attitude, my parents started to urge me to look for something to delve further into and become more involved – not as an effort for me to forget the past relationship, but rather to give me something new to get excited about. Their intentions were good, and I had been strongly considering bidding for a Regional Board of Directors position within MACURH. After reading the list of positions and their responsibilities to my mom, she immediately said that I should go for the recruitment and retention position. It was an interesting choice, because I was not sure that I was a strong enough candidate given the few shortcomings that I knew would be brought up in a boardroom situation, but she convinced me to push my concerns aside and let the region make the choice after watching me present the strong side of myself that she knew simply needed to come out from hibernation. In January, I packed everything back up within Jack-Jack [so much room! It honestly looked like I had nothing!] and drove the trek back to Northwest Missouri State determined to get the ball rolling on the bidding process and procuring institutional support. As with every time that I drive to Maryville, I drive directly past Independence, and I always struggle when I see the exit signs that are oh-so-familiar after several trips to see his family and several other experiences of getting lost within KC.
I eventually made it to Maryville as the snow really started coming down. The last 30 miles [as always, the longest part of the drive since you always really really have to pee and there is nowhere to stop that is not absolutely creepy] seemed to be never-ending as it was one-lane cleared and the fastest anyone was willing to go was 30mph. As I parked the van, I did not care whether or not I was in my lines…regardless, I could not see them anyway because of all of the snow on the ground. The bitter cold temperatures [yes, I went to school in the Arctic Circle] and the warnings playing over the radio to minimize the amount of time one spent outside due to extreme wind chills played through my head as Jack-Jack came to a rest in the smallest, most crowded parking lot possible prior to the return of everyone else to Northwest. I am pretty sure that this is what broke the spirit of Jack-Jack, for he never ran the same again. [Yes, I know. 1989 is NOT a new vehicle, and I should have expected a few problems. I just did not expect the epic level of problems that I had throughout the spring semester.]
As an honest person, I went immediately and purchased a parking permit even though the snow would not uncover my windshield until spring break and no one would have been any wiser as to whether or not a sticker was affixed to the lower passenger corner of my windshield. The wind chills of -45 did not stop my trek to the Administration Building to take care of this immediately, nor did it stop me from choosing to unload all of my belongings immediately upon return to Jack-Jack with his new Bearcat green bling. The last of his belongings were left in Jack-Jack, simply because I could not bear to look at them within my room. I tore down each and every reminder of him, completely rearranged my room again [since that was one of the last things we did together was move my room around] and threw away trash bags of items that held too strong of memories to keep around. I kept a few things, simply because you cannot just throw away one of the biggest mistakes of your life, but also because I still value them and know that I cannot cut myself off completely from the past.
I poured a lot of energy into school, work, and extracurricular activities. Building a bid suitable for presentation at a regional conference took up a lot of the time that I would have probably otherwise spent pining for the past or doing something else equally foolish. Making sure that my last trimester as RHA president was successful as well as encouraging individuals to run for the position also took up quite a chunk of time as I wanted to make sure that I left a positive lasting legacy for the next group of executive officers to adopt and adapt to their own goals, aspirations, and hopes for RHA. I picked up all sorts of shifts at work simply because I did not want to think about what else could have been done over the weekends – like going out to dinner, or cuddling up and watching a movie, or simply spending time together with a significant other. I clearly was not ready to spend time with anyone else, and I know that while it probably also was not the best choice to sequester myself, I needed to heal in my own time as an individual unit rather than by relying solely upon others to help me through the rough times. I grew nervous as I was running opposed for the position I was fortunately elected to, and began to get super-excited for the future.
However, other demands on my time were not about to go anywhere else anytime soon. RHA programming was picking up, tests/finals/papers/midterms/classwork/projects and everything else that could possibly be thrown at me did come my way as I was taking 18 credit hours during one of my busiest semesters thus far. I threw myself into several different projects and also crafted a campaign for the secretary position of a large student organization on campus which proved to be highly successful in bringing out the vote, questioning my level of personal integrity [I passed this test when I reported that my opponent who later did win the election by a narrow margin was not present on the initial ballot], helping students better understand their levels of representation and the abilities they have to get involved, and appointment to various cabinet positions within organizations on campus. Accomplishing all of my GPA goals for the semester was a huge sigh of relief, as I had truly been challenged and stretched to the breaking point with more projects and tasks than ever before added to a semester that featured all graduate level courses. From learning more about my views about various topics within human sexuality to expanding my knowledge of the nations of the Pacific, the spring trimester proved to challenge me. I struggled within some of my classes, but the important part is that I never gave up.
Jack-Jack left me over spring break as he lost the will to go on. He died approximately 5 miles outside of Maryville, and my mother proved her unwavering dedication to me with her 18-hour roundtrip expedition in her new car to come and get me for the week. Jack-Jack was towed back to campus by quite possibly the friendliest tow-truck driver ever, who gave me a rather steep discount considering just how awful of a day that I had and the obvious hysterics that I had pulled myself together from as I tried to keep calm and think positively about spending another 7-8 hours in Maryville. As my mom inched her way to Maryville and risked her life in the treacherous conditions, I had a rather interesting night consisting of chicken quesadillas, chocolate chip cookies that I baked for the trip home, cherry Kool-Aid, and a trip to Wal-Mart with 3 of the guys that I work with who live in Maryville. Jack-Jack sat in Maryville throughout the week until my dad hauled Ol’ Betsy [the Taurus] up to Maryville so I could swap with Jack-Jack. To my extreme frustration, my dad quickly and easily started Jack-Jack with very little effort [at least Jack-Jack ran long enough to be pulled on the trailer without using the winch so all I had to do was sit in the truck and hold the brakes]. My dad then turned to drive the six hours home with Jack-Jack in tow as I adjusted to life in Maryville with a car. I love Ol’ Betsy dearly and truly do feel at home now as I have driven back and forth a few times as well as around Maryville quite a bit.
The weeks after spring break are short, go quick, and often feel as though they do not exist as finals spring upon students who are generally underprepared and think that cramming is going to help them out enough to maintain or improve their grades. I spent the bulk of spring break working on paper and projects since I am very aware that April is a month that has absolutely no free time with all of the activities that occur in order for school to conclude by the start of May. Between elections, transitional retreat, transitioning out of the position of RHA president which I held officially for two years, programming with RHA exec for the highly successful Block Party and our annual banquet, making sure that I had everything completed, and of course all of the academic requirements that occur within courses that demand more since they are built for graduate students slammed me at a time in which I was trying to make sure that I had my summer living situation all planned out. The various stressors and struggles that take place at the end of the year to most college students definitely gave me a new direction to focus my thoughts and actions.
By the time that summer came around, I was given quite a bit of free time since I have not had any success in finding a summer job to keep me busy and create an income despite applying nearly everywhere and having several interviews that made it deep into the employment process. On the bright side, I have passed each and every single drug test that I have been subjected to as a result of interviewing with various companies and corporations. Looking forward to various things has helped make life a bit better. Knowing that I am going to be reunited with the coolest people in the nation [especially those within MACURH] for a week has helped to make everything a bit better, and I know that counting down until my 21st birthday [which also coincidentally marks the end of summer vacation] has made life interesting. I started to allow myself to start to think about things, what I am truly looking for in the future, and just how much I have grown as a woman.
Without the support of some very understanding friends, some of whom do not realize that I simply needed to talk to them in order to feel accepted and appreciated for my efforts but still did all that they could to be positive influences. Apparently I did a great job of not plastering my feelings and relationship history out there where the rest of the world could freely see and gossip about what was going on, and there are those who are still unaware of anything that has occurred within the last year of my life. The lines from the ring that I proudly wore for over a year are finally starting to disappear, although I know that the invisible weight of it still makes me feel a bit uncomfortable at times.
The morals and beliefs that I have had throughout my life have helped shape me into the responsible young woman that I am today. No one lives a life without struggles, but I tend to place my heart out there on the line to be mangled and destroyed by others far too easily, and I feel that I might have retracted myself too far from society and being able to develop bonds without worrying about the possible bad consequences, since those are out of my control unless I choose to make poor decisions, which is unlikely the majority of the time. I struggled to commit portions of this to text, because it felt a bit ridiculous to bring up the past, but without a proper understanding of the past, I cannot work to build a strong future for myself, which is something I need with all of the great opportunities to really help build a strong foundation for new opportunities. Rebuilding with a positive attitude has been a huge help. The strong friendships that have grown throughout this trimester since I have been able to dedicate more time to friends have proven to mean quite a bit to me, although I am realizing that very few of my friendships are with females. Am I condemned to a lifetime of being the friend? I am just rediscovering love, and recently had the confidence to be straightforward with the boy that has consumed my thoughts throughout the past few months. Let us just sit back and see where this roller coaster of a heart that I seem to have takes me next – I can promise you one thing, and that would be that the ride is never smooth when it comes to matters of the heart, and I do not think I would want to have it any other way given how much I have grown as a person over the past six months.
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