A Year to be a Prude

So to those of you who know me, I'm a self proclaimed prude.  However, now I'm going to take it to another level.  As of 12 AM this morning I have committed to staying single for a year.  For the purposes of this commitment, single is being defined as any romantic relationship, or any relations with anyone that could be deemed inappropriate between myself and a female friend.

So why the year to be a prude?  Well as much as I swear up and down that I don't want to get married, it's a lie.  I've spent my teenage years searching with my heart on my sleeve for Mr. Right.  It wasn't until this year I realized I'm not ready to meet him.  I mean even if I were to meet the man God designed for me, I'm too much of a wreck to handle a relationship with him.  Not to say that Mr. Right wouldn't be able to handle me, I'm not ready to handle him.  The prime example of this is my relationship with God.  When I'm single and not distracted by a boy, I read my Bible and talk to Him everyday.  When a boy comes along I stop looking up at God and start looking at the boy.  That's a problem.

The other big issue is something a friend pointed out to me.  We were having coffee and I was discussing some of the problems with an ex-boyfriend, and she was being a saint and lending me a sympathetic ear.  After I'd gotten everything out there and was staring miserably into my coffee cup, she reaches across the table and grabs my hand.  I look up at her and she quietly asks if I love myself.  I (being the sarcastic person I sometimes am) laughed hollowly and shook my head.  What's to love about me?  My size twenty pants?  The thin scars from cutting?  My inability to navigate?  All my flaws start bubbling to the top of my mind.  Now I don't have particularly high self-esteem anyway, so after a recent breakup I was a wreck.  So I'm thinking all this while she's watching me (I'm pretty sure she can read my mind sometimes), and she says, "Well that explains so much!".  At this point I'm super confused.  She goes on to explain that as long as I dislike myself, and have no respect for myself, I'm only going to attract guys who also have no respect for me.  The example she used to clarify this was the funniest, "If you're 20 feet tall would you look for your spouse in a midget convention?".  So this year is the chance for me to stop focusing on looking for Mr. Right and start looking for me, and how to like me.

So some of you will think I'm crazy, but I'm hoping you can help me.  I'm not particularly boy-crazy, but this is going to be hard.  I mean I get lonely just like every other single person, just like I have nights where I want nothing more then to cuddle on the couch with a guy.  Temptation itself is going to be hard to conquer, so I'm going to need all the friend support I can get!

Brianna

May 22

So it's been a while since my last actual blog post, been a little caught up in posting my dirty little secrets.  So a quick overview on life.  It's starting to get hot, but by the same token, I walked to my car at nine PM the other day and it was light!  It's been raining like crazy for the last week, and is set to keep raining this week.  I got my FAFSA filled out, and got some of the results back, thus far I can sort of afford college next semester.  The world, obviously, didn't end yesterday, I must confess I'm a tiny bit little disappointed, and a lot less worried about December 21, 2012 (not that I was worried, but it was a random thought).

So this weekend my mother went to her boyfriend's, and I went to my grandmother's to finish my quilt.  Friday and Saturday were two days to just relax, take in nature, and savor the hummingbirds buzzing around my head.  Something you need to learn about me, I adore hummingbirds.  If I could domesticate them I would in a heartbeat.  I mean so much energy in something so tiny is so mind blowing.  The beauty they possess is also very mind boggling, they are amazing creatures.  My tattoo will probably either feature a hummingbird or a dragonfly.

Well being that my house was empty I had to stay somewhere else Saturday night.  So I called on my best friend and agreed to help her paint part of her house if she let me stay the night.  So we painted, and we didn't start until late evening.  Well she's never painted a wall in her life, never used a roller, no idea what I meant when I said I was cutting in the wall, it was kind of amusing actually.  Well I'm not a professional painter, but I've been around the block a lot.  So I taught her everything and we started.  I just finished the one wall when she asked if it was bad she was light headed.  I said it was so we packed up the paint stuff and decided it was bed-time.  Sort of.  On the way to bed we got the munchies, so we had to rustle up a snack.  Then she points out a bag of movies that she just got.  Right on top was Miss Congeniality.  Another thing you need to know about me, that's one of my favorite movies of all time, and I really like Sandra Bullock, she's like Chuck Norris in woman form!  Well I couldn't pass up that opportunity.  So even though it was late, we watched this movie, about a beauty pageant, the FBI, and bombs, and boys think we have pillow fights... silly boys!  So were watching the movie and all the sudden my boyfriend texts me.  Let me tell, I have the sweetest guy on the planet.  He's in Hungary visiting his dad and is six hours ahead of me.  He gets up around 2 AM in the morning his time, to text me goodnight in my time.  So last night we talked for a couple hours at 4 AM his time, and the bad girlfriend award goes to me for keeping him awake!  So eventually we all pass out, and I bounce out of bed at 6 AM, it's what I do.  Erin and I had decided to continue painting in the morning, so she gets up, rolls over, and says, "Not painting today, no way in hell".  So I'm laying on her floor reading a book I found and snickering to myself.  I was going to make her paint, then my mother called.  She needed a recipe, well said recipe was at the house.  So I get home and call her to ask for the recipe again and get, "Well we had to start so forget it, are you still at Erin's?".  Well mom I called about the recipe (my mother is very blonde sometimes, ok, all the time).  So I look around and might as well start the lawn, because hey, I'm not a bad daughter... always.

Now my mother has been trying to move closer to her boyfriend for the last few months.  At the very least she wants a smaller house then the one we currently live in.  Now I've been keeping this in the back of my mind on a back burner.  Things are starting to fall into place, and this move is coming up in the near future.  So I'm mowing the lawn, and every has new meaning.  I mowed around the trees we planted when we first moved here, and I realized I wasn't going to get to see them get much bigger.  I mowed around the sandpile, and realized we couldn't take that with us.  Maneuvered around the swing set/tree house and realized that wouldn't go with us either.  It was just a weird feeling.  Then I came inside and walked past so many things that also wouldn't go with us.  The boys' growth chart, the rooms I painted, the floor I spent a week putting in, things I didn't think I cared about, now come to realize I'm going to miss.

There's also things I won't miss.  The applesauce stain on the kitchen ceiling, the whole in wall from the door Scott put through it, the candle wax on the floor in the living room.  It's just an odd thing to think about.  Ever since we've moved here I've been looking for a way out.  Chose a college 2.5 hours away to get out, and now it's almost time to go, and I'm not ready anymore.  I've known I was going to miss the people here, well some of them, but I didn't realize I would miss the house too.  It's very odd. 

Dirty Little Secret #9

Dirty Little Secret #9- I really don't like odd numbers.  This isn't an OCD thing, I just think odd numbers are ugly.  Maybe it's the ex-mathematic student in me that just likes the simplicity of even numbers, I'm not sure.  I just know that I really hate odd numbers.  The only exception to that is I don't mind odd numbers that are a multiple of five.  So my radio volume is always at 15, my computer volume is 50 or 100, and my Ipod stays in the middle of the little blue volume bar.   Drives people crazy sometimes, but odd numbers are just so ugly looking.  Can't be helped!

Dirty Little Secret #8

Dirty Little Secret #8- I want what I want to a fault.  I'm the kind of person that wants something and will do almost anything to get it.  For example, I wanted the typical boy meets girl fairytale.  So I went through high school eyes wide, ready to find my soulmate.  So Sophomore year, a guy comes along, and I'm thinking he's not bad, he's not great but whatever, prince he is.  So we start dating, and things aren't bad... aren't great, aren't bad.  Then he wanted me to do something and I wouldn't do it.  So after arguing to no avail, things got physical.  After he slapped me across the face, things just kind of froze.  He's staring at me hand raised, I'm staring at him, chest heaving.  Slowly the hand came down and the shame colored his face.  "Baby, I'm so sorry." he said, taking a step back.  I leaned against the wall for a fraction of a second longer before I strode over to him to kiss away his guilt.  I held him and murmured how everything was ok, how I knew he didn't mean it, that I was still here that I'd stay, we'd work this out, on and on.  After that things went down hill.  Why wouldn't they? He knew I'd stay, and that I was more likely to give in to what he wanted after a hits.  However, I was so determined to have my meet-in-high-school-get-married-have-kids-live-happily-ever-after-ending, that I didn't care.  I wasn't even the one to decide I had to leave a friend of mine convinced me.  I've done the same type of thing with many things that I've wanted.

I'm not after material things, mostly just relationships.  I bend over backwards, doing things that cause my conscious to protest, hurt me mentally and physically, because I so desperately want what I want.  

Dirty Little Secret #7

Dirty Little Secret #7- I'm not sure I deserve to be happy.  I know that sounds like an attention whore thing to say, a trick to get someone to roll their eyes and say "Of course you deserve to be happy, everyone does", but on my honor it's not. 

I'm the girl that when asked if I deserve to be happy will put on a bright smile and say, "Why everyone deserves to be happy!" as I cross my fingers behind my back.  I want everyone to be happy, I do everything in my power to ensure others happiness, but I feel like I've done too many bad things to deserve happiness.  I used to argue with myself about it, still do sometimes.  I'd list all the things that would make me happy: a loving boyfriend/husband, a house that was more then just a shelter, a close relationship with my parents, children, etc., then I'd point out all the reasons why I didn't deserve it.  I didn't deserve a husband because I wasn't a virgin anymore, and who would want me with the baggage I come with anyway?  I didn't deserve a house because i so desperatly wanted out of my own.  I'd never be close to my parents because there's so much hurt there, I was a mistake anyway, why would I torture them with that mistake everytime I came around.  I didn't deserve children because I'd already failed at raising the ones was I already given.  Long story short I didn't deserve to be happy.

This is something that I still argue with all the time.  I think the other part of this secret is that I'm scared to be happy.  Everytime I was so unexplainably happy, something bad would happen to bring me back to reality.  So I live life enjoying the moment, but being afraid to see what will happen to balance out any happiness that I feel.  I am starting to see that maybe I deserve to be happy, maybe there's a good future out there for me.  I have found a guy who is so impossibly sweet, who not only accepts the baggage that comes with me, but also met me halfway and helps me carry it.  He keeps saying how much I've impacted his life, and I'm not sure he realizes how much he has impacted mine as well.  So I guess this is kind of a lukewarm secret, but it's a secret none the less!

Dirty Little Secret #6

Dirty Little Secret #6- I hold double standards.  These aren't against other people but rather against myself.  I have no problem letting other people stop when they've reached their breaking point, but I can't give myself that luxary.  I just feel like if  I don't accomplish what I'm trying to do, that I'm a failure.  Failure is something I refuse to tolerate.

I understand this can cause a lot of damage, I've experienced it for myself.  For example, when trauma survivors enter therapy, they start off in the "emergency stage.  Basically this is the stage that most survivors are likely to give up on or commit suicide.  Basically the emergency stage involves thinking back to the things you don't let yourself remember.  You go back to the moments you do remember and you remember how you felt whether it was helpless, hopeless, scared, sad, whatever the emotion is.  By going back and remembering that, it causes a switch to flip and you will remember something else.  However this process isn't like a gate where you can shut the gate and stop the memories after you've had enough.  It's more like a bursting dam, there's no "quick fix".  You basically get flooded with all these memories and the emotions that come along with it.  During the emergency stage we are told not to push ourselves, keep friends, family, and other support systems close, not to spend excessive time alone, etc., because it is a dangerous place to be in.  When I entered the emergency stage, I was given a self-help book and warned not to push it too far.  I might only be able to get through a page a day, or maybe a chapter a month.  Basically I was warned that progress would be slow and that it was ok to not have a pattern of working, or finish what I started.  Being the stubborn person I am, I refused to accept that.  To me, doing less then at least one chapter a day was failure.  So I pushed.  I pushed through the tough things, reflected on the emotions that were flooding my mind, and instead of giving myself the chance to recover before doing it again, I pushed to get more done.  That's what caused the December 2010 relapse of cutting that I mentioned in yesterday's dirty little secret blog.  I was alone in my room, my friend didn't answer her phone, I couldn't stop crying, I couldn't breathe, it wasn't a good place to be in and I turned to an old habit.

That's where I get into trouble. I refused to stop because I saw quitting as failure.  So many examples I have of this awful habit.  I've quite literally done myself physical harm because my body was stop you've had enough, and my mind was saying one more lap, one more routine, I can make it.  I hold myself accountable for things that I wouldn't expect others to.  For example, I firmly believe that what happened with the past sexual abuse was mostly my fault.  I look back and I see all the things I could've and should've done, and wonder how it could've ended differently.  However, if someone came up to me and told them my exact story with them in my place, I would be the first to say it wasn't their fault and start listing the reasons.  I would also 100% believe that it wasn't their fault, but I can't do that for myself.  I can't admit that I was naive or weak or innocent or any other excuse, because I don't believe it.

I've kept this a secret because it's hard to explain.  I know there's a saying that basically says I'm my own worst enemy/hardest critic but that doesn't make it any easier.  Secondly, I'm tired of people telling me that I'm in the wrong.  I understand that's a bad way to act, however, I don't see how to change it, how to allow myself that weakness, and until I do I won't be able to change it.

Dirty Little Secret #5

Dirty Little Secret #5- Loneliness is my worst enemy.  I hate being alone.  Now I'm not saying that I dislike having an hour to myself to do what I wish, but rather the emotional disconnect from others.  Like when everyone around you has plans and you're staying home because you don't.  Or when you have something that's eating at you and you desperately need to tell someone, to let it out, and you can't because that would bother them.

I've spent so much of my life not fitting into social norms.  I never hung out with girls my age because I didn't fit.  They were talking about cute guys and hair, and I was planning out family menus and changing diapers.  I couldn't really hang out with adults because I was a "little girl".  So I never really had someone that I could relate to, another person who was physically 14 but mentally 30.  So I spent most of my teenage years trying to convince myself that hair and nail are important (I still fail to see the reason for the amount of emphasis put on such insignificant things, but that's just me).  I never really connected on an emotional level with someone, so I always felt alone.  Even in a crowd of people, I'd feel all alone as I'd look around at the little groups people made.  I'd often wonder what would happened if I screamed in the middle of a crowded room.  Would anyone notice or care?

So I spend most of my time finding ways to not be alone.  I sit in my dorm with the door open so that I can see the people walking past, and I don't feel so alone.  I throw myself into everything, meeting as many people as I can so that maybe one of them will talk to me after the event is over.  I'm on facebook and email almost every waking moment so that I'm always available to people because I don't want to be alone.

I've kept this secret just because it's odd.  More then being odd, a lot times people wonder if I'm an attention-whore or whatever.  I'm not, I just like being close to people.  So I just toss it aside and throw myself into whatever I hear about as a social opportunity.