Recently my life spiraled out of my control, and I was left with a choice to make. I could either stay where I was, with a job I loved but a life which was otherwise miserable and be living independently, which is what I thought I wanted. Or I could give up some pride and move back home and try to start fresh yet again. I chose to move home because I was a shell of a human at the time. After a dramatic falling out with my friends, a break up, and a miscarriage, I was emotionally drained and had no idea where to even start with mending my broken life. I felt like life had chewed me up and spit me out and didn’t think I could continue on my own. I knew that I could find a way to stay, but thankfully even in my dark depressed state, I saw that my best option was to just come home and try to let myself heal. I resented that choice at first, especially when I was making barely enough money to make ends meet, had no friends, and just felt like I was never going to get out of my downward spiral. 

About five weeks ago, frustrated with my inability to find a job, I decided to return to my old job at Chick-fil-A, something that I had been putting off and dreading because I saw it as the ultimate failure that I had broke away from this place and now I had to go crawling back. As it turns out, this is exactly where God had planned for me to be, and my stubborn ass just refused to get there. Maybe I needed more time to accept it. Either way, it has been made clear that I needed to be back in this place. About a week in to my return to Chick-fil-A, Stacey,  the marketing director who was like the mother hen (no pun intended) of Chick-fil-A sought me out, saying she had been in a prayer summit and had felt the Lord put my name on her heart saying that I was going through a tumultuous time and had something weighing heavily on me and needed some extra prayer. So I sat down and spoke with her about my misgivings about returning to Chick-fil-A, and through this talk realized that a lot of these emotions would be traced to a boy who had broken my heart more severely than I thought I could ever be possible the last time that I was working here. Not someone that worked with me, butI went through the initial devastation of this heartbreak while working at Chick-fil-A, and so I associated my time spent there with this hurt. She revealed to me that God had told her that it was regarding a heartbreak that somebody had betrayed my trust and I didn’t know how to open up or even trust myself or love myself anymore because I’ve been so brutal he rejected and thrown to the side. There’s no way this is something she could’ve known unless I told her her God told her, because no one else who knows this information or knows how deeply this cut me would have spoken to her about it. She prayed over me that day and I immediately felt a lightning of my spirit, and I felt for the first time as if I truly could get past this moment in my life and this devastating heartbreak that I had just assumed I would always carry. 

This weekend I went to Bakersfield for the graduation of one of my oldest friends little brothers, a friend who I’ve had a fairly tumultuous relationship with, admittedly because I was a stuck up bitch at times and made wrong friend choices and pushed her aside when she should’ve been the one that I was clinging to as she has proven to be one of my most devoted friends and honestly just one of the most wonderful people that I have been blessed to have in my life. During our many many hours of conversation she reaffirmed everything that I have been feeling over the last few weeks and between Stacey’s prayers and my conversations with Christina, it was like the light that I thought was permanently out inside of me has now been reignited. I also attended a church service this Sunday morning the sermon again reaffirmed the topics that Christina and I have been discussing the night before in terms of humility, knowing God’s purpose for you, and going where the Lord calls you and giving up your own plans for his. In that service I felt that all the haphazard prayers I had been throwing up with little expectation of response had indeed been heard and were now not only being acknowledged, but answered.

I’ve always been the kind of person that didn’t want to work unless I found a passion. I envy those who saw at a young age that their passion was music, or English, or, “I want to be a doctor, I want to be this, I want to be that.” I never felt that driving passion where I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without this. I never wanted to settle on a career until I had found that passion, because it seems like there’s no point in doing something for the rest of your life if it’s not something you love. Because of this, I stumbled in and out of school trying to find a major that I enjoyed but was always discouraged because I just didn’t feel that fire lit with in me. When I returned home this most recent time, I decided to go back to school full time and hit several roadblocks on my path to pursuing my education. It wasn’t what I was passionate about, but I decided that I should just go through with being a nurse because I had done so much the foundational work towards entering a nursing program, and I knew I would be good at it given my highest spiritual giftings are hospitality generosity and compassion. So I basically went into school with the mentality of fuck it I’ll be a nurse, it’s a good career I’d be stupid not to do it I can find my passion later in life, and at least be making enough money to pursue it. As it turns out, I was required to take an anthropology class as a prerequisite for this schools nursing program, and I fell in love with the subject. I was fascinated. I was watching documentaries, I was reading extra articles, reading every text book. I could not drink in enough  about  people and their culture and the basic foundation of what makes us human. This was what I had always imagined passion would feel like when I found my purpose and my calling, and so I was excited but also slightly frustrated because I had finally decided on a major and was almost there, literally I needed three classes before I could apply to a nursing program, and now I found this whole other subject that I loved and was I really about to change my major for this? I decided I would stick with nursing, but when it came time to register for my summer and fall classes I hit more roadblocks swear I was given incorrect information or misunderstood the information I was given. Either way, I could not register for the last classes that I needed for nursing. After a couple hours of wallowing in my frustrations, I decided to look into their requirements to get a degree in anthropology. As it turned out I was only four classes away from getting my Associates degree in anthropology, so I decided that rather than waste two semesters of being frustrated and feeling like I was stuck in a dead-end job with nothing else going on in my life, I would simply work on another degree while I waited to be able to take my remaining nursing classes. 

I have currently decided that I am going to pursue both degrees. I would like to get my bachelors in anthropology as well as attend nursing school and focus my passion of helping people and trying to make the world somewhat of a better place into nursing in impoverished countries and using my Anthropology degree to allow me to better immersed in these cultures and heal these people not only physically but hopefully on a spiritual field as well. 

As someone who had given up on hoping that I would find something that I was passionate about, discovering the sudden drive towards something that I never would have discovered had I not been forced to move home and attend a new school with new requirements, I can’t not see it as a God thing. It has led me to believe very firmly that everything does happen for a reason. While I wish that my life hadn’t had to spiral out of control for me to find this path, in a sense I’m grateful that it did because I now have a focus and I drive that I would not have had if I had not gone through everything that I have in the last year. My move has also brought upon me a spiritual awakening that I did not foresee in anyway shape or form. For the first time in years, I am truly open and longing for a spiritual closeness with the Lord, and I want to bottle it up because I don’t ever want to lose this taste and this drive in this joy and pure grateful heart that I have at the moment. I felt lost for my entire life, and it’s finally coming together and finally making sense and I’m sure that I will have hard years and hard times ahead of me where I feel like it’s all falling apart again, but in this moment I have such clarity and such gratefulness and just such a hunger to do more and to continue on. I’m realizing how misled I’ve been in previous friendships, and what a true blessing and resource Christina is and how everything that I’ve ever wanted in a friendship has literally been right there all along for me. She is truly an amazing spirit with such a beautiful heart that she doesn’t hold against me the less than kind ways that I have treated her over the past years. I am thankful that I was forced to return to Chick-fil-A where God placed me on a woman’s heart who’s path I would never have crossed had God not placed me directly in it. My biggest frustrations have turned into my biggest gifts. I truly feel that I have gone through spiritual awakening and change, and I feel overwhelmed but overjoyed by all the emotions that I’ve been experiencing and I want to preserve the feeling in anyway that I can.

After that visit we didn't see each other as much, it became too expensive to be constantly going back and forth to visit and he made some friends I wasn't very fond of. Nonetheless, when I moved back in with my mom in 2015, he was excited to hear it, and promised we would hang out all the time once I was back.

6 months after I’d moved back he finally remembered I existed and we went out to dinner, then I stayed over at his house after to get some space from my family. One of his new roommates was a guy we’d went to high school with who I had never particularly liked, but was forced to be nice to because well I wasn’t trying to be a bitch. Things seemed back to normal, until my mom made a passing comment about how he had always liked my so much. I had, probably obviously, always had feelings for him on some level, but had always ignored them, not wanting to make things awkward. But hearing that he had had feelings for me as well brought back a flood of memories of him telling me he loved me, how he was so glad to have me in his life, how he didn’t know what he’d do without me, complimenting me when he knew I’d taken time to do my hair or makeup, lingering hugs and glances, our recent conversation about hanging out New Years Eve and getting a midnight kiss, etc. Suddenly it all seemed so obvious. I pushed the feelings away, telling myself that things were finally normal again and it wasn’t worth it to shake things up. A few weeks later, I was visiting friends in Monterey and ran into a guy I had gone on a few dates with when I lived there. One thing led to another, and we wound up back at his apartment. We were making out pretty heavily, about to have sex, and suddenly it hit me that I didn't want to be there. I didn't want this cute boy who would no doubt treat be well and I could have a fun relationship with. I started to cry, and apologize, and cry some more and try to gather my clothes and explain that I had to go, and then realized I was in no state to drive and slept on his couch. I snuck out early the next morning and called my best friend to tell her what had happened and that I had decided it was time to come clean about my feelings.

I came home and asked if we could hang out, saying I needed grown up hang out time after spending too much time with my teenage chick fil a coworkers. We went on a booze run after I got there, and from there the night got fuzzy. I remember it in flashes, drinking beer, smoking hookah with his roommates, smoking cigarettes on the porch, drinking more, watching Borat, me complaining about how terrible Borat was, arguing about my idiot high school boyfriend, me yelling that I hated him for ruining my life and being told to be quiet because it was late. Somehow we end up kissing on his bed. Then more kissing. Then we're having sex. Then the next morning I look over and we’re both naked and I have no idea how it happened or what to do next. I put my dress back on and go outside to have a cigarette and call a friend, who of course doesn't answer because its 6am on a Sunday and normal people aren’t awake. I come back in and he’s in the shower, so I get my stuff together and get ready to leave. He comes back in and gets back into bed and we just lie there talking for a while and I’m so relieved because it seems like maybe everything is fine.

Two years later, and I haven’t seen him since that morning. I’ve reached out several times through call and text, and at first he would answer, but then disappear when I tried to make plans to hang out. I kept telling myself that if we could just hang out again, he would see that things could go back to normal and we could still be friends, but it just never happened. Admittedly, I could have handled things better. I texted more than I maybe should have, left at least one angry, emotional, drunken voicemail in which I professed my love for him and told him how horrible ditching me after what had happened was. But still. after so many years of being friends, I feel that we owed it to each other to at least try to fix things. Not that they necessarily even needed fixing.

Have you had your heart broken by your best friend? The one person you always thought would be there for you, no matter what? The person you opened up to and shared every single insecurity and broken piece of yourself with. The person who you looked up to and looked forward to. I began to second guess everything about our friendship, about myself, about my other friendships. I kept thinking, if I was so obviously wrong about this relationship, who's to say I’m not wrong about all my other relationships as well? Maybe nobody actually likes me, I’m just a means to an end and once they finally get what they want out of me, they’ll drop me too. I had one night stand after one night stand, telling myself that all these guys wanted me, who needed him? Thinking that if I could reject anyone who wanted anything more from me than just one night, I could even the playing field for how brutally I felt I had been rejected.

I don't know. All I know is I have been beating myself up over the last two years trying to figure out what I did wrong, why I wasn't worth answering or granting closure to. And its been long enough. I’ve cried more time than I care to admit, vented about it more times than I can count, and destroyed my self confidence trying to make sense of why I wasn’t good enough, and its time to let go.

SO. This post is me letting go. getting it all out in the open so I can finally stop obsessing over it and move on with my life.

So here's the thing. Sex has always, and I mean ALWAYS, been made into a huge deal for me. I grew up in a church, where purity was emphasized over and over and over again, to the point where I had staying away from sex engrained in my head, that sex was for marriage. To lose your virginity before being bound to your other half would be to sabotage the relationship forever. 

And so I was good. Even as I grew older and drifted away from my "Godly Upbringing," I kept my legs closed. I'd kiss the boys and nothing more. I never even hit third base until I was 19 and even then, it felt unnerving and like I was committing some mortal sin, much to the misfortune of the boy whose penis I had in my hand. And the thing is, my desire to have sex were basically nonexistent. I was truly content with just making out and calling it a night. And to a certain degree, I still am. I don't see why I should have to have sex with a boy just because he's in my bed. But what I have found to be the most ironic part of this entire realm of discovery is that the more sex I have, the more I want to have it. 

I won't go into detail and recap the full story of how I  "gave away my most treasured gift," as my old youth leader would've worded it, but I will say that my first, like many, was not what I had built it up to be. Not in the typical horror story that most stories seem to carry, but in the sense that after having something be so built up and so restricted for 20 years (yes, I lost my virginity at 20. I wanted to wait. fuck you.) Mostly I was just surprised that it wasn't more. I expected to feel... different afterwards. I expected to feel compelled in one way or another, either that I had made a massive mistake I would forever regret, or feel amazing and like I could now, finally, take life in my hands and accomplish everything. 

Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of apathy. And so, in an effort to sort my feelings, I tried it as much as I could. I stayed with my boyfriend who I knew I had emotionally outgrown just for the purpose of having someone safe to continue sleeping in hopes at some point I'd feel something change. But it never did. I never felt that missing piece click into place. I was frustrated and disappointed, as all my friends had told me that sex was best when it was with someone you loved, someone who you connected with emotionally and, if you believe in that sort of thing, spiritually. So why did it feel so empty? I had waited for someone I truly loved, someone I had been with for 5 years, someone who knew me so well it sometimes was like we were the same person.  Was this my penalty for not waiting for marriage?

And that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Believe you me, I love sex. It really is an incredible thing, especially when done right and with the right person. So then I thought maybe it was just bad sex, that it would feel different with someone else, that it would be better down the road. 

We ultimately broke up, and after a while I slept with someone else, and it was different, but only so much in the way that kissing two people is different. Different techniques, same end result. Again, nothing special. 

And then this crazy thing happened. It started off innocently enough, a night out with friends. We followed our usual routine, get drunk at the house, stumble downtown, get more drunk, engage in bar activities. But the whole night I kept stumbling across this guy. Someone I'd known years ago, never really given much thought to, but we'd existed in each other's worlds of mutual friends/having the same work place. 

Anyways, the guy. Now I'm not entirely sure this isn't mostly due to my drunken state, but it was like experiencing true chemistry with a person for the first time. It wasn't some fairy tale "everything is so magical and glorious" moment, but it was like something clicked in to place. I still can't find the words to really describe how it was, but it was like that thing I'd been searching to feel, that elusive factor that prove sex truly was meant to be something important, I found it in that night. 

And of course then proceeded to be freaked out and leave the poor guy to sleep in the room alone while I slept elsewhere and went over everything trying to evaluate how I felt. And I still am. 

And I don't really know how to bring this to a close as I still have no closure or final verdict on the experience.

to any and all who may read this, may I just say that while I'm all for being with the person you love and accepting their life how they choose to live it, when it comes to having sex, if he still lives at home and you find yourself sneaking into his house and trying to keep things quiet so as not to wake his mother...

More like my whispering twenties thus far. 

The way I've figured is this:  I spent my teen years whining and holding back and looking after everyone else and waiting for it to be my turn to live.  My twenties are mine. Mine to do with whatever I want. Why would I waste them, why not take this time to be selfish and chase stupid dreams? Why not make a loud noise and blaze a trail into the unknown.

Going on almost a year now, and I still pull the same stupid shit. When will I finally grow up enough to just leave well enough alone.

It's not even like I'm still hung up. I've moved on. Or further back. 

Whatever. 

So why am I feeling rejected when you don't ask if I want to hang out? Why should I care? Why do I even go visit? We're kind of friends, but more in the sense that we can socialize comfortably when we run into each other. We never figured out the whole "hanging out without jumping each others' bones" thing.