Can I steal the name of a friend's blog for this one?

My friend Ashley has a name for her blog "The Confessions of a Quarter-life Crisis"... and I think it is fitting for this blog.... at least this entry and not be a thief (Love you Ash)!

Anyway.... this past year has been.... CRAZY! It has been full of up's and down's.... externally and internally. In this past year my heart has been broken, I felt abandonment, loss, and confusion. I moved to a city I hated (but convinced myself I was supposed to). I felt alone, and like I was failing. I was a college graduate... I was supposed to have my degree hot in one hand and be sitting in a cushy job enjoying the new life. Instead, I was working in coffee still and in a town I hated. I had gone to school and it was so easy making friends and going to lunch. I was always so used to having people always around... and I pulled myself out of all of it... I think it really was the beginning of the road I started on. I was becoming so self-destructive, but didn't know that really until I got back home. I spent months in San Diego... crying myself to sleep, and so angry and bitter at God. He took away my best friend and boyfriend, all my roommates and I were breaking off, and I had no "real" job after 6 years of school. I felt that 6 years of adulthood and I had nothing to show for it. Even graduation day I was crying and miserable, when it should have been a time feeling accomplishment and a great ending to a great time in my life-- college. I look back at the six years and wonder how much of it was my own doing. I moved out at 17 and like instantly was in a relationship everyone warned me to not get into. With someone who knew how to "wear the mask" especially in front of people of whom he really valued their opinion-- or rather how he looked. He was a Pastor's son... and yet couldn't get it right. Our relationship ended with permanent damage and scars. And I know that now. I always assumed I would recover... and while God has made it easier... and it is because of Free Will (thanks Kristi for explaining that to me months ago what it truly is).... I had entered that party scene after the relationship. I got better in time, after some close calls at being stupid and just ridiculous. I feared relationships... I didn't trust the other end, and my relationship with God was what I thought better not being in one. Then I got back into the relationship-- but I think the motives were different. I got closure. I had grown and he was the same manipulator, and I was still in his eyes not good enough to be a "Pastor's Wife". Not good enough. That's what stayed with me. I didn't measure up. I couldn't handle that. I had lack of cheerleaders when I went out on my own. People telling me I wouldn't make it, I would be moving home within a year. I would fail. How does one deal? I just screamed back louder! I moved forward swearing to not go back into a relationship... and my best friend came along... and well it had its problems, and it ended breaking my heart within the same time as moving out, graduating, and not knowing what the hell I was going in my life and what I would be doing. I knew what I didn't want to do, but not what I wanted. I felt empty, numb. I didn't care. I have never been the suicidal type-- and not just because of my fear of weapons... okay partly... just I don't know. But I think I went into social, spiritual, and emotional, and even mental suicide. Slowly, I was telling myself "I just need to remove negative energy". I was damaging relationships... and the closer you were to me, the more burned you were becoming. I moved home 4 months after moving to San Diego. I hated every moment. I thought it would be the instant fix. Then 6.5 years of my life came back before me, and I realized.... I never really deal with anything. I just move forward telling myself "crying over spilled milk" would not solve a thing, would not change anything. That phrase itself came from that boyfriend who told me I was not good enough. So, the person who helped me most, was the next in my line of fire. Reading into every single thing, making a bigger deal out of nothing. You know what they say.... misery loves company. Everyone around me was happy... and I wasn't. I got into a fight with one of my friends weeks before her wedding... and pulled out of it even. Will that relationship ever be the same? I reckon not. My proclaimed "best friend" was in my line of fire. I don't do well with criticism and I will always take on the guilt and it eats me alive. Here I am blessed with two roommates who I love so dearly, and I think I sometimes take it forgranted. I think I then began to accept I would never truly have joy no matter how much I desired it, and I would never be who I was 3 years ago without stress and life seemed so good. I was in Poly, was not in a relationship, and I was "Carpe Diem". Even in that I still had things to overcome, and I was just not dealing... pretending all was fine and dandy. And after awhile.. you boil over. Well here I am... boiled over, and now cleaning up and it's something I didn't realize. Back in November, I thought things would be perfect again.... back home with friends I love dearly, a church I connect with, and the ocean (my calm and escape). I did get those things in my return, and yet was wallowing.... from then til now now have struggled with being unemployed, being sick, and if that was not enough... the real self-sabotage and destruction was beginning.... I hold relationships dear and I began the "I will hurt you before you can hurt me. If you have made me angry-- here is my hell fire". And it started. Reading more into something than was there so I could have a reason to go off on some rant and play the derstroyer of everything in my path. A couple relationships went south, and I can't say I am the victim in the situation. While it takes two to make a relationship work, I thought that no matter what.... my friends would stick by me. I had my boundaries, but became flabbergasted when people had theirs. What it means to be a friend has changed for me this past year and who God is to me and what that relationship has as well. At least I can say my relationship with God has not been complacent. It has changed so much this past year, it is not what it was 3 years ago. I remember being so passionate and sharing him with friends, and now I can say I see what he has done, and if he were not in my life... I don't know if I would be alive, and that is the honest truth. When I am an emotional basketcase.... my first thought it.... margaritas, wine tasting... an escape. I also realize email and texting can be a dangerous weapon for me in my anger, and I have always struggled with having to have the last word in... no matter how mean I need to be. It is not something I am proud of, and I know my pride has a lot to do with it. The past few weeks have been a time of self-actualization (if that is the right term). At church we are studying who God is in our deepest hurts... and we are discussing loneliness, grief, heart break.... and each one is a bulls eye to where I have been.... this past year and especially on and off for almost 7 years. I feel like alot of these 7 years I wasted. I see how I dealt with my anger and loneliness and failures and heart break by being angry, spiteful, and negative. I attacked others instead of dealing. While I hold my opinions of situations that two people are at fault for.... it doesn't change my handlings of it. I am still in control of me... not of others. I can control the outcome with my input, and I see it. I am sorry for those I hurt, those who care, those who have prayed. I am sorry for those being in my line of fire as I battle life and seeing how God is still the foundation of my life and yet all this stuff still happens. I am fooled in my thinking that just because I am a Christian that I would be shielded from the earth's outpour of hurt, trials, pain, suffering. I feel like all I want is breathing time... to just be... to recover before something else is dropped on me. I feel like God is presenting that now. Here I am battling some allergy with food (still unknown in the confirmed sense), and have relationships that needs reconciliation and forgiveness.... and don't know how to go about it. I know I need to heal. I know I need to see God not as the judger who will shake his head at me in anger.... but as a God who loves and see how he has saved me. I feel like I went through spiritual, emotional, and mental suicide. I don't recognize who I was this past year, and I know it is changing. Two songs I have been holding dear since my time in San Diego are Mighty to Save and You Never Let Go (Matt Redman), and I have to remember those things the moment I sit in what I think is despair.

I was driving in San Luis this week and got off the freeway at Madonna Rd. going towards Madonna Plaza for an interview... and I see this man with his sign "No food, please help", and it reminded me... I am blessed. I have roommates who are part of my houseing stability, I have a job, roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my stomach, and Champ (my car) runs.... and for the most part I am healthy. I am very blessed. Yet, here I was the day before jealous of the college kids who drive their Jetta's, Beamers, and don't have to work.... and like "why can't I have all that?". I feel like I have worked SO hard and have nothing much to show for it. And maybe that's it too.... I don't need material things to show my worth. And how much I have won't show my worth, or what I wear, or who I am friends with. My worth is nothing this earth can ever measure... because at the end of the day we are all people with our personal shames, battle wounds, fears, joys, pains, loves, and passions.... and in that we are the same.... and we all do need Jesus. Now, to make this thinking a constant is a battle in itself, but one I pray for and hope for.


I thank each and everyone of my friends, family, and loved ones from the bottom of my heart for sticking by me. I thank you for praying and encouraging me. This past year I have been anything but loveable, and I am blessed for the love and grace you have shown. While I see what it means to be a friend to be so different and what it means to have a friend... I know I am blessed. Sometimes that is why I have Kristi as a roommate... to bring me back to reality once in awhile. I want to go back to dreaming big, and realizing that everything I have gone through.... somehow I am still alive and I will make it through life I think. ;). I pray that there would be understanding an opportunities to make wrongs right, and to make a difference in life. I am thankful for friends and family. As this year has started off rough.... it can end smoothly... it all is about who is my focus and what I let in.

I hope this has kinda been an insight to what the past year has been like for me, and I hope you take to heart that my desire is to not hurt anyone in my life, and I value you all so much!