Episode #3: boo, you whore

It's a good thing I already had this next part of our story written because I'm way too pissed off right now to think coherently. I went into work tonight for a grave shift only to find that I was put on the schedule to work 4 extra hours in the morning. No one called and asked me if that was ok or even told me that I was on the schedule...pretty much I'm at the end of my rope and I'm seriously considering quitting.

Today was pretty good overall. Drex and I watched part of the OSU v. Xavier game this morning and my buckeyes won by the skin of their teeth. I was going to be so ticked off if they failed me in another sport *shakes fist at the football team* Then I made coffee cake for brunch and it was bliss. Later we went clothes shopping with Hidden and I was reminded again of how much I *hate* shopping of all kinds...except for when I get to get new kitcheny things. After whirlwind shopping and dinner, Drex and I went to the Concert Choir/Singers concert and were pleasantly surprised at the personality that Singers showed. Usually they're completely void of facial emotion and don't really look like they're having a lot of fun but tonight they were awesome. Then we went and hung out with some friends of ours and ate cookies and had a grand old time, but alas, it had to end and I had to go to work. Mrrrrr.

Back to the story of us:
Through Drex’s cousins I found out that the other girl had been phased out in late April-early May so I decided that I could gradually start coming back around. While I had started talking to him again, I was still very guarded and I wasn’t as open with him as I had been. Not long before I started talking to him again I had been invited to a teaching interview in the county where his parents live and I really want to teach there someday. I had been talking to his brother one afternoon mulling over whether or not I should go because I couldn’t really afford lodging and a rental car and airline tickets. His brother disappeared for a while and then came back and said that his parents said I could stay with them. I was shocked! I was under the impression that I wasn’t the most popular person around their house, but I really wanted to interview out there, so I took them up on the offer. I hadn’t told Drex about my plans to go out and I will admit that decision was mildly spiteful, but what are you gonna do? His mom came out to visit a couple of weeks later and that was actually the first time I had met her. I can’t tell you how nervous I was, but I had to keep remembering that it’s not like I was “meeting the in-laws” or whatever (oh what I silly girl am I…). I had something I had to do with his cousin while Drex’s mom was in town, so I went over and was greeted at the door by her with a ginormous hug…um, not so much what I was expecting, but it was good. If nothing else, it broke the ice for me. At one point she asked me what the dates were for my visit and I told her and then realized that I still hadn’t mentioned it to Drex. Apparently he’s not the only one who can be a self-centered jerk. Oh well, such is life.

I did end up going out for the interview and staying with his family. It was a little weird at first, but I got over that pretty quickly. I had met both of his parents, individually, but I hadn’t met his brother in person yet. He answered the door when I got there and gave me a hug. I’m not sure what it is, but apparently they’re huggers (at least his mom and his brother). I felt a little awkward just kind of chilling at Drex’s house without him there, but I think it was actually really good. I was able to interact with his family and establish myself as an individual as opposed to the girlfriend, or whatever other label I might have had. His mom was hysterical—completely open and welcoming and did what she could to make me feel at home. I had my interview and afterwards she took me around to a bunch of the schools where she knows people and introduced me to administrators and teachers. It was fun to go around with her and see how she interacts with the people she has worked with. Drex’s brother and I had a ton of fun together. We went to bookstores, out to eat, to a movie, and then he and his dad took me into the city to see the night sites. It ended up being a very fun trip and I’m glad I took the opportunity to go and spend time with Drex’s family. They’re pretty incredible people.

I graduated from BYU that spring and had no idea what I was going to do with my life. That summer was spent working my brains out and trying to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life. I had no desire to stay in Utah, but I wasn’t getting any teaching offers and I REALLY didn’t want to go live in Montana with my family *gags* so I was trying to find other options. August came and I was talking to one of my friends that I had taught with and she suggested going back to school to get an English endorsement. I hadn’t really thought about that, but it would make me significantly more marketable and it would mean that I would get to go back to school. I’m a ridiculous nerd and I actually like being in school—not so much the homework part, but the learning new things part is my favorite part. So I applied to be a Post-Baccalaureate student at BYU to do the course work for the English Teaching minor and then take the test for the endorsement.

At about this same time I went to the Temple and made a deal with God. For the record, that’s not always the smartest thing to do. I was getting really frustrated with the lack of progress in my friendship with Drex and had been praying for quite some time to be able to just let go and get over him. Now, I’m glad God didn’t answer that prayer but at the time I was getting exceedingly frustrated. I was at the Temple and had told God that I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I was sick of the emotional struggle and the mental struggle and I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I told Him that if Drex didn’t initiate any communication with me within like 3 days (or something ridiculous like that), then I was going to be done. I left the Temple feeling pretty good and knowing that I was on my way to getting over Drex. God likes to laugh at me. I make plans and God laughs. That night I fell asleep while watching a movie and woke up with a start because I had been waiting for a really important phone call and realized that I might have missed it while I was sleeping. I got my phone and found a text from Drex. Coincidence? Maybe, but I doubt it. I hadn’t talked to him for a few days and then he randomly texted me after I had told God that I was done if there was no communication from Drex. I will admit to being fairly ticked off at the time because I was all set to get over him and then God goes and tells me that I’m a fool and there will be no “getting over” going on. Here’s the rub though, I was stupid enough to go and make another deal with God. You’d have thought I would have learned my lesson, but not so much. This time, when I was in the Temple, I told God that if no move was made by the time I was done with my endorsement then I was completely done and I was going to move out of Utah regardless of whether or not I had a teaching job. I thought I was safe when nothing happened immediately, but little did I know what was in store.

A few weeks before school started, Drex started messaging a friend from home on facebook. To most other people the posts seemed fairly innocent, but I knew that he was going to try and pursue her when she came out for school. Unlike my reaction to his pursuit of another girl earlier that year, I was mildly entertained by this one. My prediction wasn’t confirmed for a few weeks until I was talking to Drex’s cousin and he told me that he had something to tell me. I knew he was going to tell me that Drex was pursuing this other girl. He gave me some good advice and let it go at that. When Drex’s brother found out, he was appalled again at the apparent insensitivity that he saw going on. I just shrugged it off because I knew it wouldn’t last. I didn’t disappear this time, rather I stuck around and continued my friendship with Drex hoping that I could at least maintain a friendship. Registration for winter classes came around and Drex, his brother, and I decided to take a class together. I was nervous for what could happen, but decided that it would be fun if I made it so.

Come December I was getting to the point where I was getting overworked (I had many jobs going on at once), burned out at school, and just super stressed out. Drex’s birthday came up and we decided that we were going to go see the MoTab Christmas concert up in SL. I was excited for that and had everything planned for his birthday. Then I found out that the girl he was kind of pursuing was going to come with us because she had some friends coming into town that night and they needed to be picked up at the airport. Let me say here and now, the girl he was pursuing is a very good person and I like her a lot. We’re actually friends and get along really well, so my frustration at her coming had nothing to do with her as a person. I was just frustrated that she was invading an event that I wanted to be able to spend with my best friend. His cousins and brother were coming up with us too, but that didn’t bother me. The fact that she came up made me extremely jealous. I ended up making a complete fool of myself that night because I was overstressed and overworked and underslept and I hadn’t eaten. Those are never good combinations for me and I just, well didn’t handle the situation as well as I could have. As a result of the spectacle I made of myself we ended up missing the concert which I felt really bad about. Drex and I were able to go up the next Sunday and see it, but it was still an overall awful experience.

Not long before this happened Hidden and I had become friends through an English class we were taking. He had mentioned where he served his mission and it happened to be the same mission that Drex served in. I thought that was kind of random, but didn’t really say anything more about it. Hidden and I were talking after class one day and he told me he was gay and how he had struggled a lot and something just clicked in my head. I told him that my best friend also was struggling with that (can I also mention that Drex and I hadn’t talked about his SSA for nearly a year. It was just an unspoken thing between us) and that I didn’t know what to do for him. He mentioned something else about his mission and I ventured to ask him if he knew Drex and lo, and behold, he did. Then I said that Drex was my best friend before I even thought about it and Hidden put two and two together. He gave me his email to give to Drex at that point so that they could communicate with each other. I was terrified to tell Drex that I had the address though because I had just broken a huge trust. I didn’t want Drex to think he couldn’t trust me anymore and that I was a terrible friend and all those things, so I sat on the address for a few months.

I know, I know...i pick the worst places to end off, but it's the best I can do at the moment. There is more coming, I promise.

S.

emotional roller coaster

I guess you all were right, to an extent.

Today was a roller coaster of emotion, but at least a roller coaster has ups. We had a panel on Black families in my cross-cultural families class, which was very insightful - we had a girl from the Ivory Coast, a girl from Uganda, and two guys from Ghana answering questions and such. Though the teacher is boring and not too adept at what he claims to specialize in (his knowledge is good, but his common sense, for lack of a better term, leaves room for improvement), the panels we organize have been immensely educational.

So after my MFHD class I typically hang out with my friend, and Salad joins us occasionally on Fridays. We checked all his normal spots, but no luck. By this point, the rather acute heartache got the better of me and I decided to skip my philosophy class. Unless I took part in a very lively discussion, my thoughts would inevitably turn to trying to figure out how to patch things up, and I'd be useless anyway. Nine text messages, 2 emails, and 2 voicemails later (I think), my friend shows up at Salad's door for our Heroes marathon. I was immensely relieved to see him, but he seemed determined to pretend like nothing was wrong/had happened and to just watch the show. I had essentially determined that if he was going to walk in with that attitude, I would have to quietly excuse myself, go upstairs, and essentially cry myself to sleep at 5PM. Luckily I'd already expressed that to Salad, and she got him talking and explaining his position. Eventually we worked things out to the point where at least it wasn't tense and we were able to enjoy the show (9 straight episodes of Heroes like what! we'll have to finish the rest, though). I don't know where on the spectrum of angry he's at right now, but it looks like time will heal the rift. I certainly hope it will. All night long I really wanted to just hug him because I still feel so awful that everything went down the way it did, but I didn't want to mess things up any more than I already had. I guess I'll just have to be more cautious in how I approach things - I honestly don't know if I could handle another bout of emotional rejection like that. I don't generally invest too much emotion into situations or relationships, but my close friends get as much of my heart as I have to give, which puts me at risk of being very hurt. I certainly contemplated cutting off all emotion, but I think that's a swing in the wrong direction as well.

On a lighter note, I think I'm going to go get me some shorts that I can enjoy wearing tomorrow. I hate shorts and Salad and I both hate shopping, but the end result might be worth it. The only shorts I have are a slew of khaki shorts that were handed down from my uncle - comfortable, but hardly stylish. We'll see if I can find anything slightly more fun.

~drex

insecurity

I'm not a very insecure person. I'm typically quite sure of myself, quite confident in my abilities, quite certain that I can handle whatever life throws my way. There are a few select circumstances under which I tend to buckle more readily. The one of which I am most keenly aware is friends. My friends are few and far between, and I haven't had a guy best friend for since I moved away from New York in 2000. The last time I added a new guy friend to my list of close friends was probably sixth grade, back in 1994-95 or whenever the heck I was in sixth grade. I share this because I thought I had a guy best friend again, and it had been nice. My insecurity comes in the fact that because I hold my friends close, make few of them, and don't like people being mad at me, I'm always afraid that I'll do something to offend a friend or chase them off.

Sorta like I did last night.

I should have been more considerate, or chosen my words more carefully, or kept my mouth shut altogether. At any rate, apparently I've chased off a friend that I think I needed, and it's left me lower than I've felt in a long time. More because I don't know what I can do to patch things up or if it's even patchable than anything else. I want to play the optimist and say that it will all work itself out in the end and we'll be closer for it or some trite drivel like that, but my insecure side won't let me process things that way.

I think that's it. Not really in the mood to say anything more.

~drex

i'm a self-centered jerk sometimes, i admit it

Can I start by saying that I'm loving the weather? Seriously, it's been so incredibly nice outside. I spent a nice hour of my afternoon basking in the sun, reading a book on Chinese women in traditional China, and I actually enjoyed myself. It's too bad I've been so incredibly exhausted recently or I'd be able to enjoy it more. And stay awake in my classes.

I sorta want to blogbarf about a few things that have been running through my head. After the two posts by Mormon Enigma, I have given additional thought to the concept of SSA as a proverbial 'talent.' I know that not everyone views things the way I do, but I honestly believe I've been blessed with the trial of SSA so that I can help others and gain a level of empathy that others can't reach. Couple that with some of the spiritual gifts that I have, and I'm fairly certain pursuing a career in counseling is a good move for me. Something that we can all work on (myself most DEFINITELY included) is making sure we see things through multiple perspectives before we decide on a course of action or where we want to anchor ourselves. To do otherwise increases the risk of misplaced faith, slipping off the path, or flat-out stupidity. I take little issue with people who disagree with me - though I may come across as self-righteous, that's never my intent, and as far as it goes in my mind, it's never reflective of my actual state of mind, either. It's hard when you see people you know deciding on the course of their lives after being swayed by one individual's life view, though. I dunno. I'm babbling.

I also want to apologize now, either after having messed things up or in advance of when I surely will mess things up. I am confident in my perspectives, I am confident in myself, and I am confident in my ability to work my gifts/talents in such a way that I can help others. That means that I come across strong sometimes, and despite my good intentions I will butt heads with people. I wish people could see into my heart when that happens, because I hate contention (that seems silly). I'm always well-intentioned, I just tend to come across wrong and mess things up periodically. I guess I need to work on balancing my life a bit more than I thought.

It's a really interesting predicament to be in. I'm simultaneously having some of the best and hardest days recently. Things with Salad are progressing slowly but surely. I wish I could pick up the pace, but I'm a faithful realist, and I'm content 'knowing' that it will work out but not putting a timeframe on it. At the same time, school is kicking my butt from time to time, and I seem to be offending the people I love and care about, and I feel more or less inept at being able to help them. Maybe I should be less worried about helping them and more worried about shutting up. Only that tactic hasn't worked well in my relationship with my brother. Despite our proximity and recent interactions, I think I feel farther from him than ever before. And Salad assures me that I shouldn't come out to him right now due to circumstances that she's not at liberty to share with me. *sigh* Can't life ever be straightforward?

(PS I bumped Salad's very good continued post on our history down, so don't miss it!)

~drex

Episode #2: and so it continues

Before I jump back into our story I wanted to comment on today. It went fairly well until I started going to my classes and realized that while my brain was fried after Midterm-Monday, it probably wasn't terribly brilliant to take 2 days off of doing homework. That and just forgetting you have stuff due isn't ever fun either. After my classes I fell asleep on a bench on campus while I was enjoying the amazing weather and consequently my back has been growling at me since then.

American Idol was kind of disappointing tonight. I can't fathom why Sanjaya is still on there. He is not talented at all and just needs to get off the show. I'm really surprised that Haley didn't make it into the bottom 3, but oh well...it's not like either of them will make it too much further given their apparent lack of talent (in my opinion).

Ok, back to us now....
There’s not much to say about the time while Drex was gone on the mission…a lot of stuff happened that I don’t think is particularly relevant. Except I did manage to injure my back in a big way and I still suffer from it. I didn’t tell Drex about it until after I had had surgery and stuff. I did write him every week except for, like, 4…and he was pretty regular with the letters as well. There were so many times when what he wrote to me seemed like he was reading my mind and anticipating what was going on in my life. His letters got me through some pretty rough times.

When Drex got home from the mission and moved out to Utah, I’ll admit I was pretty overt in my intentions and I think I pushed him further away than I intended. I was convinced through much of his mission that he would come home and we would get married pretty quickly and that it would be happily ever after. Um, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I wanted it so badly and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t responding to me and feeling the same way. I got really frustrated and wasn’t super nice, but then I thought that if I were a bit more subtle, maybe that would help. Drex’s cousin kept trying to give me advice on how to approach the situation and what I should and shouldn’t do. It was a lot harder to follow his advice than I thought it would be and I was far from successful a lot of the time.

As I mentioned before, I screwed up my back pretty badly while Drex was on his mission and I had planned to have a second surgery the June after he got home. I was in pretty constant, excruciating pain and was looking forward to the surgery, hoping that it would eliminate that pain. I was taking classes that spring term and had arranged to take my finals early so that I could have surgery and my mom had made plans to come down and stay with me for a few days so everything was set…or so I thought. About a week before the surgery, my mom called me and told me that they (my parents) didn’t think that I should have the surgery at that point. They aren’t the biggest fans of my back surgeon given the fact that the first surgery didn’t hold. I was with Drex and his cousin when I got that phone call and I was so angry and frustrated and had a whirlwind of emotions. We were grocery shopping at the time and I had driven, so they went into the store while I tried to collect myself in the car. I was so upset that I couldn’t calm down at that point. When they came out of the store I stormed out of the car and literally chucked my keys at Drex and yelled, “YOU DRIVE HOME!” and fully intended on walking the 2+ miles back to my apartment by myself. Drex and his cousin managed to stop me on the side of the road not more than 100 yards from the store and his cousin walked with me down the street to where Drex had parked my car. When we got there, Drex put his arms around me and just let me bawl everything out for at least 10 minutes. I have no idea what was going through his head at that point, but I’m willing to bet that he was kind of worried that I was going to turn into Psycho. He has no idea how much it meant to me that he responded to my frustration and anger by just holding me and letting me cry. After that fun little incident, I was a little wary of him and I think he was trying to be really careful around me as well.

That next fall I started teaching at an Alternative High School for my internship and it was an incredibly rough experience for the first semester. I spent a lot of time venting and crying and feeling completely inadequate. Mostly I vented to Drex because his cousins avoided me. They don’t deal well with emotional beings and I needed emotional support, so I turned to Drex. That November his cousin wrote me an email telling that he couldn’t handle me and didn’t really want to be around me until I changed. That hit me really hard and completely out of the blue. I had no idea what to do because they were my best friends and they all live together and I can’t really avoid one without avoiding them all. It was difficult, but we ended up patching things up. The second semester of teaching ended up going much more smoothly with fewer emotional break downs.

Christmas came and went and then February hit. Historically February is a terrible month for me. I get really sick every year (since my freshman year of high school), like nigh unto death sick. I managed to get sick at the beginning of the month and then over President’s Day weekend my back went into severe spasms and Drex’s cousin took me to the ER to get meds and general relief. We all had Monday off to observe President’s Day and Drex called me to invite me over for dinner. He and his cousin came to pick me up since I was heavily drugged for the spasms. Drex ended up driving me home later that night and as he tried to drop me off, he told me that he was going to try dating someone else and that they had gone on their first date the previous Friday. I was stunned. I had no response. Drex decided to pull into my parking garage and we sat there. I was hurt and dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say. I don’t remember saying a whole lot, but I do remember what he said. He looked at me and said, “I’ve tried so hard to fall in love with you, but I can’t. I’m not saying it will never happen, but I just can’t do it right now.” Then there was a pretty big lull in the conversation. After a few minutes I looked at him and said, “You know, I love you more than I’ve ever loved any one before. We connect on such a ridiculously deep level, sometimes it’s scary. I guess I just don’t really know what else to say.” Again there was a long pause in the conversation. He kept looking at me like he wanted to tell me something but kept chickening out. In a slightly pouty and defensive, yet still loving voice I said, “what?” He took a deep breath and said, “Most people only know about 5% of me. The other 90% I keep to myself.” I was puzzled by that statement, but pushed him for more of an explanation with, “Ok, well, what’s the other 90%?” More hemming and hawing ensued until I saw a tear escape his eye and then he said, “I’m more attracted to guys than girls.” He didn’t look at me after he said that but sat there with his eyes closed and tears streaming down his face. After a moment of contemplation (I was amazed that I didn’t feel shocked, or stunned, or appalled, or any of the feelings that I felt I should have been feeling. Rather I felt my love for him intensify exponentially. I can’t explain it and I don’t know as I would if I could. It was a very revelatory moment for me) I looked at him and said, “Do you think that changes how I feel about you?” After I told him that I reached across the seat and put my arms around him. He buried his face in my shoulder and we sat like that for a few minutes. Then he collected himself and helped me out of the car and up to my apartment (I was still in pretty intense pain from the spasms in my back). He hugged me at my door and I went into my apartment still stunned. My roommate knew something was up and came and sat by me. It was so hard not to tell her, but I couldn’t fathom how much trust it took for Drex to tell me something so personal, so I told her I would be fine and retreated to my room to ponder on the events of the night. I shed numerous tears praying for guidance and direction and finally settled on writing Drex an email. I told him that I loved him dearly and that I would support him no matter what. Then I told him that I wouldn’t be coming around much because of his decision to pursue a relationship with a different girl. I didn’t tell him at the time, but I was devastated. I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him knowing that he was with someone else. At the end of the email I quoted some lyrics from Wicked: The Musical. Pretty much it was the entirety of the song “For Good.” For those of you who haven’t heard the music I say “sssshhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnn.” You really should go check it out. Anyway, for better or worse, I chose to kind of drop off the face of the planet until the “other girl” disappeared.

The next day I got a call from Drex’s brother who I had become pretty good friends with over the previous 4 years. He said that he had heard what happened and wanted to know if I wanted to talk. I told him that I would be fine, but one of the problems with becoming really good friends with someone is that they can always tell when you’re lying, even over the phone. He started crying before I even said something and was upset that “[Drex] could do something like that to me. He’s such an idiot!” I was touched that I had made such and impression on his younger brother. It’s especially interesting when you consider that he and I hadn’t met face to face at that point. Our entire friendship had been cultivated online. Apparently the other cousins were also kind of appalled that Drex would even contemplate dating someone else. I just did my best to avoid the whole situation.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize how potentially devastating my reaction would be to Drex. I dropped off the face of the earth in an effort to protect myself from being hurt by the fact that he wasn’t dating me, but I didn’t take into account the fact that he would wonder if I dropped off because he told me about his SSA. In my defense, he hit me with both situations and I did tell him that I wasn’t going to come around because of the dating thing, nevertheless, it was still a stupid thing to do.

During my self-imposed exile I took the time to do further research on SSA. I read almost everything I could get my hands on: General Conference talks, websites, blogs (which I admit I really wasn’t impressed with at the time), The Miracle of Forgiveness, Our Search for Happiness, and myriad other things. Looking back now I realize that I had barely scratched the surface, but I was making an effort to try and better understand what my best friend was facing and how best to support him.

And as with last night, there's still more to go. I haven't gotten as far with the next installment so it might take a few days to get more.

S.