College Kids

I set out for college not really knowing what I wanted to do, but college was the next logical step after High School. I was doing what everyone was doing and so I was doing what I was supposed to.

I had visited a particular Christian college that my youth minister was a grad from while on trips with our church group. I had been surrounded all summer with nothing familiar, but I knew if I went to that college I would be closer to "home" again. "Home is where the heart is."

I knew a few friends from the youth group would also end up there and that was comforting. However, I did NOT know that Rosa was making last minute plans to enroll as well.

I had spent all this time wishing and day dreaming about us going to college together, but NOW that it was becoming a reality.....

The lump in my stomach didn't dissipate till half way through the first year. I was anxious and embarrassed of myself. It was not simply nervousness. I didn't want to mix up the realities inside my head. Sometimes the truth would get smeared. Kind of like after you have told a lie to several people but forgot to take notes on who you've told it to and what parts you lied about. It can get confusing and ugly if you're not careful.
I couldn't even be around her like that. I didn't know what to do where to even put my hands sometimes (my pockets? should I cross my arms? etc). Everything was a guessing game. I would question my motivations for wanting to even acknowledge her existence. I wasn't wanting my fantasies to come true by this point...They scared me.
I wanted to be functional as a normal human being.

I wanted to erase all the scenarios that I had written inside my head.

I wanted to be able to say hello without questioning "why?".

Avoiding her seemed difficult the first year. All of us from youth group were always doing things together.

Rosa and I lived in the same dorm although not the same floor. I would sometimes dare myself to stop by once in awhile. I did this just to prove to myself that I was capable of moving past it. I still had a lot of unanswered questions about things she had said to me from our previous life together, but I knew that now was certainly not the time to address those - if ever!

One night that I stopped in to say, "hello" and I started a conversation, not about OUR past but about mine. I spent around half an hour explaining my screwed up family life at home that I had kept secret all these years. I had only told probably two other people before talking to her about it. But I knew a little of her families history and their struggles. I thought it might help to open up a new avenue of conversation for her to know that mine was positioned below the perfection line as well. I spilled my family's juicy secrets and many of my horrible run in stories with my Father. I was hoping for a connection (not just sympathy) but on a new level, thus I could finally get away from my delusional relationship with her.

Rosa's reaction...........

........

Huh?! Are you still there? Yeah, well I'm still waiting for it too. She didn't have any reaction. Nothing. A blank stare is all I got. Yet she wasn't staring at me. No, she was staring at everything and anything NOT me.
Frustrated and confused I said "goodnight" and walked out of the room. It wasn't till close to the time of her graduation from college did I ever enter her room again.



Ok, I'm gonna quit here...To be continued on or before next Monday (the 5th)

Comment please - Thanks =]

Footnote

More about the boys in my life ...Well, hmm I should have made a footnote to myself because I have no idea what else I was gonna say about that.


I guess I could start with my life goals and dreams that I had developed by this point.

I wanted a family of my own. That meant a husband who would be by simple definition, a man who loved God and put Him first. After that my only other expectation was that we would be the best of friends. Still stuck on the husband part: I had heard so many times, both from people I knew and from those on TV, women marry and seek out men with the same characteristics as their father. I assure you that if I were to witness anything remotely resembling my Dad, I would run the other way.

Family to me also meant having children.

Remember way back at the beginning of this blog? I'd said that I hated playing with dolls of any kind. Children to me meant more than holding a baby or making a duplicate of myself. Even though I didn't put it to words then even inside my own head, I always knew that the reason I wanted a family of my own with children was to make things right. I wanted to rewrite the story of my life. I didn't want a "mini me" or to recreate a scenario of a family to reenact specific scenes - No. I wanted to start fresh and brand spank'n new. But in seeing things done right for my children and within my new family, my childhood might be vindicated.

I also had one more expectation for this dream family of mine.
I would have at least one daughter.

It makes sense, doesn't it?

I needed to view the world through her eyes, I didn't want her to see the world through mine. With no other goals in mind -as for as career (because my first and second choice were not panning out: professional singer/songwriter or Olympic soccer star) I had this family idea as an absolute MUST for my life. I almost believed in it as if God had promised it to me. As if He owed it to me.

After High School graduation...

My Dad got a job in Illinois. This was after we had lost our house due to him being unable to work well with people and tolerate their differences. My senior year was spent living out of moving boxes in our small apartment and to top it off his new truck got repossessed so guess which car he took...Yep, that's right. (I'm not bitter)
*Sigh* Moving on...

Naturally, I immediately sought after a summer job for the sole purpose of working my butt off to buy another car before heading off to college.

Leaving behind everyone I knew in exchange for nothing familiar to me at all was very hard even for a summer.
One thing made it bearable.

I'm not sure what IL is known for besides the trees marking the houses and one heck of a boring drive. But if the department of tourism ever asked me for a billboard slogan, it might read, "Land of Lincoln and of WOWSER HOT MEN!!" (Insert the googlie eyes popping out). Yeah not really catchy but it gets the point across.

My "sex drive" for guys was awakened that summer. My dedication to my promise to wait for marriage became ridiculously blurred. None of the men I dated that summer were even close to future mate status to me but none of that seemed to matter. I was feeling incredible in ways that I never had thought possible in real life.
I was having FUN! ..... yet every night I would go to bed feeling awful about myself and wondering, "what the heck am I doing? I know better than to behave this way." Like a moth to a flame, and I was no exception.


Ok Folks, I got be honest. I have no idea what to write about tonight. This story about IL seems like a side story at best. I'm tired, I guess. But mostly I'm just living in the NOW.

It's hard to look back when you are so busy with what's going on today. Don't we all run into that trap sometimes? I'm not saying that living in the past and ignoring the present is the way to a good future. (I crack myself up) But how many times do we get wrapped up in our everyday lives and forget about those friends and/or family that helped to make it all possible for us?
Just a thought.

The NOW for me...
I just read my kids their nighttime story and tucked my son in to his "big boy bed" that I bought for him today. I gave my daughter a shower (that's right she's 3 but takes showers already) because she decided to draw all over herself with ink today.

I tucked her in and she asked me to talk to God for her. I asked her what she wanted me to say mainly because I sometimes go blank on what to say and really wanted her to do the praying tonight. She listed off a few things from her day, "laying down" Happy to just be in bed, "shower" Thankful to be clean and play in the water, "going outside" I pushed them outside to play after the sun came out and we all had a good time.
She has such simple prayers but I forget that we don't really need to say anymore than that sometimes.

My daughter was thankful for her day and she just wanted to summarize it for God before she went to sleep. I love it and I love her.

You'll notice that I have a heading over my picture on here. It says, "I am blessed".
I really am.

As much as I struggle with discontentment and worry that I will never have and never be enough, yet everyday I feel as if I come face to face with my dream family.

We are far from perfection but perfection was never a requirement or an expectation (then at least, not saying that the expectation doesn't seep through occasionally now --but then that brings me back to the issue of "discontentment").

My husband is such a great Daddy to both the kids.
I get a little teary-eyed and envious when I see how my daughter looks at her Daddy, and how they laugh and play together. She has him wrapped around her finger. (So far, she has used that privilege responsibly.) And that's the way it should be, Daddy and his princess.
All I can say is I am blessed.


Next Update...
Give me a day or so to read through my previous posts and regroup my thoughts on all this. I want it to make sense and not just be me writing for some sort of cyber spotlight.

I think my spouse was right. He told me tonight, after I let him on the problem I was having, that I probably lost some momentum by taking such a long break between posts. So I will try and not let that happen again. I want to get this stuff cranked out of my head as quickly as possible.

It's a learning experience for all of us - especially me.

Thanks again for all of the personal messages and emails.
Your insight on my life (based on what I have told you of it) is invaluable to me. Some of your observations have really helped me to see my past in a way completely new to me.

Anyway, Thanks.

Please check back in a couple of days.

Man-Eater

"Boyfriends" were not a new thing to me, but kissing had waited till my junior year of H.S.
His name was Kyle and he introduced me to "the tongue".

Kyle and I met in Drama class. He sat behind me and we became better acquainted that way. Kyle was what many people would call "goth". He wore the black combat boots with the black t-shirt (occasionally with a skull or band logo such as AC/DC or Pink Floyd) and the forever stylish jet black trench coat. He was thin with short dark hair and he had an addiction to Mt Dew like you wouldn't believe. I was not goth, but I was lost. And he took notice of me so it made me feel better. Kyle and I dated a whopping two weeks, I think. He dumped me actually and did it over the phone. I didn't really like him that much so I'm not quite sure why it made me cry. Maybe it was just the simple rejection.

Every moment that we spent together we were talking with our mouths glued to one another in some way. There was no relationship to it. We were "rebels" together. Teachers would catch us outside the school or in the hallways "making-out" and tell us that we were in violation of school rules and threaten us with detention. I knew the 'why's' of the break-up even before he tried to make some lame excuse up for it. I wouldn't "put out", it was as simple as that. He was still a virgin at that time, and I knew it. I also knew that he was a guy and we were always getting closer physically. He knew that I was a virgin too and my convictions were strong in waiting for marriage. So Kyle moved on. Still I felt like I was losing my first friend in H.S. I was finding out that "being close" to me was NOT enough to keep someone.

After Kyle, my dating life went wild. I had standards but they were extremely low (as if Kyle wasn't low enough).

It became a game to me.

I would spot the easy target and then aim all my flirtatiousness in his direction. And I KNEW how to flirt extremely well. After all, I had the greatest teacher. Remember Rosa? Rosa was the expert at flirting. She got MY attention.

None of the guys (aka targets) meant anything to me, but still I would make-out with them and get close just enough that they felt like they were in love with me. They desperately wanted me. And then I was gone. Without even an explanation of why and how this tragedy in their life was happening. I enjoyed it. Not the heartbreak, but the attention and intense emotion that they felt towards me. The heartbreak was just an inevitable result to my pleasure from their longing. Because I couldn't stay after they told me that they really loved me. I didn't love them.

In the end I was very cold-hearted about it and just didn't care. All at the same time this was going on (one guy after another) I was this dynamic conservative Christian who wanted to change the world for Christ.

I don't want you to think that I didn't ever feel an attraction to guys, because I did.

But the guys I was attracted to were so far out of my league it seemed. I knew I was weird and not wonderfully feminine looking like many of other girls I knew. Even though I was prettier and had grown out of the "Tom-buy" stage ( I even wore skirts and dresses to school, just for fun), I still thought that changing myself like that was not enough to make me beautiful. Or that it even made me all that different than I was before. On the inside, I was always the same Kayt.

This is a brief glimpse at a dark side of me that I still struggle with sometimes. I think it comes down to finding my self worth from other people's praise and also just a unquenchable thirst to have power over someone else. There is no logical excuse for my actions. They were just wrong.

I want to tell you about Nick because he is the one I think of the most when I consider this part of my life. I broke his heart and humiliated him in front of the entire crowded cafeteria. He was sitting at the table where I sat with all my friends (my groupies, not his - he was only there because of me). He started talking to me across the table in the noisy lunchroom. Asking me what's wrong? Why I don't talk to him or even look at him anymore? I'm just eating and pretending to not even hear him. Then he blurts out, "I love you, Kayt" and that was the last straw to me. Everyone at the table and the surrounding tables had stopped talking and eating to turn and look at me. And I said in a very loud and stern voice, "I don't like you, ok?!"

Nick played football for the H.S. team and he was the stereo-type DUMB jock. His coach was my weight-training teacher and gave me a hard time for even dating him because he was so aloof. I was embarrassed of him. He embarrassed me that day and that was all I could think about.

This story seems totally unrelated to my struggle but there you go, I put it out there just for the heck of it. Maybe so you can know just what total hypocritical jerk I have been and still have the potential to be. I was cold-hearted and I didn't see it as contrary to anything related to my relationship with God.

I think next post will be a little more about me and the "boys" in my life but that should transition us to college. This one was very hard to write....I certainly don't like this unsympathetic and devious side of myself.

Anger Management

I recently got a personal message from a friend I have on facebook. She was responding to things I have said on facebook pages and in my blog.

She states (almost as a question), "You seem to be so at ease with your anger...".

I'm not quite sure what she meant by that.
But nothing I write here is easy EVER.
Well, maybe the mushroom part ;)

I find it easier to get by and blurt out the truth about my life and myself (even what I consider the DARK parts of me) when I present it in somewhat light-hearted manner. That means that I would like to laugh a little while I talk about the things I regret and resent within my past.

It doesn't mean that I fail to feel all those horrible emotions and relive the god-awful memories inside my head everytime I open the door to consider them. I HAVE spent a great deal of time and energy into feeling resentment and hostiality towards my Dad and even my Mom now that I know they could have done something to put a stop to all of this.
All of this that I still ...

it's like Mrs Rosevelt said..it's never over, never completly gone.

What good does it do though to spend my life hating what I am powerless to change?

One thing I have learned from watching the young and innocent die is that there is tears and heartache yet the rest of life moves on.

Whether you want it to or you are ready for it or not, doesn't matter.

I'm at "ease" with knowing that God is control of it all despite my failures and my father's failures. I can laugh and cry in the same sentence because I know that He wins. He has already won. I have been trusting in Him my whole life, I'm not about to stop now.
My friend wasn't asking me to either...

I hope she does not feel embarrassed that I wrote about her letter. It was not my intention to mock it or to make fun. I thought it was a valid point and I wanted to address it.

I'm not a stone. This stuff DOES bother me.