Very Sleepy People

It’s been a little over two weeks since Steven & I broke up.  The first week and a half after was really just a blur of emotions.  I was feeling so many different emotions, and all at once, that it was practically impossible for me to pick one out of the bunch to really focus on.  As a result, I was emotionally drained & numb.  It’s really only been in the past several days that I’ve emerged from that fog.  My mental & emotional state is still somewhat blurry, but my mind can more or less form coherent thoughts now.

Mostly, I go between feeling sad, angry and fine.  I’m still incredibly sad that it happened.  I still cry sometimes.  I miss him terribly.  I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting upon our relationship and recalling the memories we shared, both good & bad.  There were a lot of both.  The anger has definitely finally hit, though not intensely so.  I’m not so much angry at Steven as I am at his choices & his actions.  He had so much potential.  He had the capability to be really wonderful and really awful, and it seems like he frequently chose the latter towards the end of our relationship.  I feel like he not only gave up on me and our relationship, but himself as well.  A lot of disagreement between us was due in part to the way he treated me.  He thought that I was trying to change him.  That was something he never understood, and I don’t think he understands it now either.  It was never about changing him.  I loved him, and I loved who he was.  It was about changing the way he related to me.  He could still be him and just relate to me in a better way.  I’m angry, because I feel like he just made excuses to himself.  I feel like he constantly took the easy way out, because he didn’t want to put forth the effort.  I think that a lot of it ultimately comes down to him caring more about himself than he did about me, and that obviously hurts me a great deal.  He couldn’t be happy with me, because he couldn’t be happy with himself or with anything else.  He held himself back from happiness, and that was always difficult for me to stand by and watch.

Sometimes, though, I feel perfectly fine, even joyful.  I’m happy with myself and who I am, and for the most part, I’m happy with where I am in my life.  I can’t say that I’m angry with what God has done with my life.  I’m not terribly happy about everything, but it’s always been in preparation for a greater joy later.  Unto that end, I have been praying a lot for the grace of healing — with a particular stress on the intercession of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary — so that my heart will heal quickly & healthily, and so that it will grow in its capacity to love.  I figure if I pray enough, my prayers will be answered.  Harassment Persistence works.

Is anyone else getting tired of hearing about my breakup and my post-breakup emotions?  Because this is only the second post I’ve written (although, if you count IMs and emails, it’s about the 100th thing I’ve written), and even I am starting to beg myself to move on to lighter and more interesting things, like my newfound (embarrassing) television addiction.   Then again, my impatience could be due to the fact that my immune system is currently stressed.

Also, the three key on my laptop fell off.  That makes me sad.  I tried putting it back on, but it wouldn’t go.  Now I cannot less than three people.  Not that I do that.

Another post about things and how I’m doing is forthcoming, but for now, I thought I’d give us all a little break and give everyone an update on the driving lessons. I know that a couple of people had been curious as to how that’s going, and after all the encouraging comments and prayers, I felt like I should share the joy. (P.S. Thanks for those, by the way.)

Things have been going quite swimmingly. As it turns out, my fast learning also extends to driving. I honestly would not have predicted that, but it does. I learn quickly and I’ve been rather good at self-correcting when necessary. My trepidation regarding driving has waned some, though not altogether. I’ve been hesitant to move forward and try more nearly every step of the way — leaving the parking lot and trying the neighbourhood, leaving the neighbourhood and trying the open road (mostly back roads), and then leaving the back roads and trying two-lane roads that are slightly more trafficked. That’s not to say that I’ve spent a large amount of time at any particular stage — for most people, I haven’t. As I stated earlier, I just pick things up quickly, and so what I had mentally conceived as an appropriate time for each stage turned out to be much more than necessary with my current set of skills. However, when it’s been suggested (usually multiple times) that I have grasped this and I’m ready for something a little more difficult, I’ve pulled back each & every time. Even though I’m well aware that I’m doing really well, I still doubt myself. (Perhaps I should mention that Steven’s parents are the ones teaching me how to drive.) Once they gently push me into trying something more difficult, I give in. So, I am pushing myself slightly more and more each time so as to not remain stagnant.

What we’ve been doing, and what I really appreciate, is gauging my anxiety as we go. This has actually been remarkably helpful for me, because it’s forcing me to evaluate my anxiety with the situation each step of the way as I’m driving rather than doing so in hindsight. This helps me to understand what is making me anxious, how anxious it’s making me (whether it’s small enough to not distract me from the task at hand, thus allowing me to continue, or whether it’s overwhelming me to the point that we need to back up a step and try it later; I’ve been completely fine so far, save for one incident, and I handled it as I went along), and how I’m handling it. I’m actually really proud of myself. I’m finding that I can calmly navigate far more than I had expected. I honestly thought I’d be a basket case behind the wheel, but I’m actually fairly easygoing. This has understandably been a pleasant surprise. The only really bad habit that I need to break myself of is my verbal declarations that I am speeding. While Steven’s mother finds this to be adorable, I am dubious that the driving examiner will. Of course, it would stand to reason that I need to break the habit of speeding at all, and I am trying. Truth be told, that really isn’t an issue. If anything, I tend to go ever so slightly under the speed limit (I know, I know, I’m sorry), but I’m still trying to figure out the speed control thing. I think I’m doing well for a beginner. I just need practice.

If today is any indication, though, the drivers on the road think I need practice in bring cut off. They’re so nice, helping me work on my reaction time.

I’ve sat here for hours at a time for the past few days contemplating what exactly I wanted to say.  I am no more certain now than when I began, but I don’t foresee that changing in the next few days, so I am choosing to forgo quality in an effort to just get it out.

Steven & I broke up Monday night.

After much thought and prayer, I came to the heart-wrenching conclusion that it was time to end the relationship.  The decision was easily the most difficult one I have had to make.  Breaking up was the last thing I ever conceived would happen, particularly after nearly five years of friendship and almost three years of dating.  I had honestly believed — assumed, really — that the end result would be marriage.  I had my reasons for thinking that, as did I for ending the relationship.

The relationship really deteriorated during the last year.  I never wrote about it out of respect for Steven, though I periodically discussed it with people.  Ending it hadn’t been an option for me so long as we both loved each other and were committed to making it work.  Regrettably, I realised that those two conditions ceased being mutual some time ago.  I’d been too busy giving my all to try to make things better that I didn’t see, or rather, refused to see, that I was doing it alone.  I had been for a while, but dealing with the resultant hell of being with him had always been preferable to the resultant hell of being without him.  Eventually, enough was enough.

I’ve never had a particularly high self-esteem, and so the thought that I deserved to be treated well was not one that had ever really been present in my mind.  For most of you, that probably sounds ridiculous, but for me that was a fact of life.  That notion started to form in my mind the past few months, and I gradually recognised that I wasn’t being treated how I deserve, and I realised that I deserved better.

Steven had always treated me like a princess; that is, until the past year or so.  We went from talking hours each day to talking for a few minutes every few days.  By the end, we hadn’t spoke for a month — one month exactly, not since the morning after my graduation.  I had emailed Steven with a long letter complaining about the state of things.  I had messaged him online twice and called him once during that time period, and I never heard anything back from him until Monday.  He had always been so sweet, loving and respectful.  By the end, he got defensive over everything, snapped and yelled at me over every little thing and he was self-absorbed.  I made him a priority, and he, too, was focused on himself, so the result was that I came last and no one was looking out for me.

I was by no means perfect.  I tried my best, and I honestly believe that I was a really great girlfriend for the most part.  I’m obviously giving a slanted view of things, especially since Steven isn’t here to defend himself and give his side of the story, but Steven himself didn’t really refute anything when we talked.  I don’t intend to portray Steven as a bad person here; he’s not — he just made a lot of bad choices and did some not so great things.  I’m just trying to help people understand why this happened.  I’m not mad at him — a fact that, ironically enough, frustrates me to no end — although I suppose there’s still time for the anger to hit.  (I’m reserving the right to be angry later.)  I’m really just incredibly heartbroken over it all (because I still love him very much), and the split is made worse by the fact that he’s my best friend.

I guess the big question that everyone is wondering is, “How are you doing?”  The truth is, I don’t know.  It varies moment to moment.  It’s rough.  I have difficulty sleeping — getting to sleep, staying asleep and waking up (especially getting out of bed).  I’ve been feeling miserable physically.  I spent yesterday with the worst migraine I’ve had to date, lasting nearly all day.  I spent half the day with my head under a blanket, nauseous and dizzy.  Today, I felt like I had the flu, though I’m guessing it’s probably due to a surge of nonstop adrenaline pumping through my body.  Emotionally, I’m all over the place.  I still cry frequently when I’m alone.

I know God is with me through all of this, and that’s really what’s kept me going.  As difficult as it can be, I have to trust that God has a plan for me and that everything I’m going through has a purpose.  I’m not meant to know what that is right now, and I can accept that.  I don’t know why any of this happened.  I guess no one ever does.  I don’t know what changed for Steven — I don’t need to.  I think it’s probably easier to not know, at least right now.  I know that it wasn’t me, and I know that I did everything I could, so I can’t feel guilty about how things turned out.  Blindly trusting God is never easy, particularly when going through something like this, but I’ve already made it through the really hard part by taking the first step.  Surely, the rest is a piece of cake.  Though, by the looks of things, that cake is made of rusty, tetanus-carrying nails.

I haven’t declared the news to everyone yet, mostly because I’m not really ready to deal with everyone else yet.  I already have my hands full with just myself.  As it turns out, I’m not a robot, and also, apparently I have needs.  This week has brought all sorts of shocking news.  I say this because I have already been asked why I have not altered my relationship status on Facebook.  Really.  Beyond the fact that I use Facebook for little beyond playing Scrabulous and sending the occasional message, I’m just not ready to make that proclamation just yet.  It took me several days and attempts just to write this much.  I just needed to get something down in writing.

And, so, here I am, writing this at 2:30 in the morning because I can’t sleep.

I might have mentioned once or twice (or twelve times) that I have anxiety disorders.  I have found that anxiety and fear tend to run hand in hand, at least for me.  For about six years now, I have constantly been grappling with the anxiety and fear that come from the prospect of driving.  I do not have my driver’s license.  All throughout high school, I made up excuses.  I used to say that I was just too focused on school and studying, and that I simply did not have the time to learn.  Whenever someone would try to get me behind the wheel, I would say that I did not feel well; I’d tell them that we’d do it later.  Those were not lies.  They were very true.  They just weren’t the real reason holding me back.

Everyone has different fears and anxieties that plague them.  One of mine happens to be driving.  Most people find this fear to be completely preposterous, because for most people, it’s not really an issue.  Most people look forward to learning how to drive and having the freedom that comes with having your license.  I was not, nor am I now, one of those people.  Sure, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t care about being able to go wherever I want whenever I want.  I want that, certainly.  However, I don’t like the process one has to go through in order to attain that freedom.

I’ve been told by people countless times how surprised they are that someone so intelligent has a fear of driving, an activity which even the most intellectually challenged members of society partake in.  It is more than a little frustrating to have so many people reduce the matter down to that, because it doesn’t provide a full and accurate portrayal of the picture.  Intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with my fear.  My fear is an amalgamation of factors, too many to be listed.

Growing up where I did, it was not easy being a junior or a senior in high school who didn’t have a car, much less one who didn’t have a license.  It was a fact that I was embarrassed by, and I desperately tried to hide it.  My friends knew, or at least most of them knew.  I begged rides frequently throughout my sophomore and junior year of high school.  I then became too embarrassed to do so, and I humbled and embarrassed myself further by switching to taking the bus to and from school every day.  I’d quickly walk to the bus every afternoon after school got out, and I would try to hide my face so that no one would see me, but inevitably, I would occasionally run into someone by the front office.  I always tried to pass it off as my leaving in a car that happened to be parked in the front of the school where the visitors and administrators parked.  I don’t think that anyone thought anything of it, but always in the back of my mind was the fear that they’d find out or know that I wasn’t heading to a car but to a bus.  Those that knew were constantly giving me a hard time about the fact that I didn’t have a license, including my family.  Everyone’s insensitivity was difficult for me to swallow.  No one ever seemed to understand that I wasn’t ready, and rather than realising that sixteen is an age suggestion, everyone turned it into a standard.  I honestly felt like everyone was trying to hold me to a standard that I honestly just did not fit.  Looking back, I’m glad that I didn’t get my license then, because I know that I wasn’t ready.  I just wasn’t, and I know that that is hard for a great many people to accept, especially because I’m so intelligent (a factor which I still assert has nothing to do with any of this), but it’s the truth.  I wasn’t ready.  I was afraid.  I was nervous.  Emotionally, I wasn’t ready to take that step.

Don’t take that to mean that I could not have.  I think it’s obvious that I could have if I had been forced to.  I could have learned, and I think that distinction is important.  Everyone focuses on the fact that I could have had my license when I was sixteen.  I will gladly concede that point.  However, emotionally and mentally, I wasn’t prepared for that.  I needed time.  I believe that had I gone and done what everyone else wanted me to do, it would have been disastrous.  I’m not saying that to justify waiting, but because I know myself.  I know that I’ve always been precocious, and I’ve always jumped head first into most things.  I was always ahead of the curve, but this time I wasn’t, and I think that’s what bothers people the most.  But waiting was the best thing for me.

It took me a long time to be ok with that.  Being behind the curve was difficult for me to come to grips with as well.  In fact, I think it hit me the hardest of all.  I think that’s fairly evident by the fact that I always tried to hide it–continue to try to hide it.  I don’t even hang out with friends from my town that much when I’m home because I don’t want to admit that I don’t have a license and that I need someone to pick me up.  It’s not easy to deal with the ramifications of it all, but I have at least accepted the situation.  I finally have accepted that it’s ok to have this fear and anxiety, and I’ve even accepted that they are ok reasons to hold off for a time.  I’m now ok with that.  I realise that the degree to which I feared driving and the amount of panic that it caused in me were reasons to postpone getting my license.  I didn’t realise it then, but I was smart enough to act on my instinct.  Going to school in Boston really helped with that, because I met a lot of people who do not have a license.  Not having a license doesn’t make me an outcast there, nor does it make me a freak.

Learning to drive is not something I want to do.  I have managed to delay it for six years, but with grad school around the corner and my graduation from grad school next May, I face the problem of obtaining a job and finding transportation to and from work.  Unless I live in a major city, that transportation will have to be a car.  Thus, an impetus to face my fear, however reluctantly.

I’m still afraid.  I still don’t want to do it, but I do think that I’m finally ready.  The anxiety and the fear that I feel aren’t the same kind of anxiety and fear that I used to feel.  I think that these are normal amounts of each, albeit probably slightly higher than those most people experience.  Something just feels different this time, because for once, the timing actually feels right.  And as long as the kind people teaching me are patient and understanding of my fear and can work with it, I think I’ll be just fine, or at least I hope so.  Regardless, they’re willing to take on my neuroses on top of teaching me how to drive.  That’s always a good sign.

It all starts tomorrow.  To prepare, I am going to say many prayers, followed by a tranquilliser.

…may be found here.

I know that I promised to have a graduation post with pictures up a while ago, and I have been remiss in doing so.  One is in the works.

I am currently in upstate New York.  I left Saturday night to catch a train at 1 am, arriving in New York around 1 pm on Sunday.  My father drove me up to South Bend, Indiana where the train station is.

For our listening pleasure, I brought along my 4-pack CD collection of songs from the 1950s to entertain us for the 3-hour ride to the train station.  I happen to love this CD collection, and being that my father was born in 1950, I figured he would, too.  I know that being born in 1950 meant that my father was most likely too young to have enjoyed the music.  I myself was born in 1986 and so ended out the 80s a potty trained rookie, but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the wonderful music put out during that period.  Ergo, I assumed my father would feel similarly about 50s music.  I thought it would be a nice experience for us to share together.

What I had failed to account for was that my father was the holy terror of the 50s and a curmudgeon to boot.  By his facial expressions, you’d have thought I’m a brilliant mastermind of torture.  He was unable to endure more than 30 seconds of Rag Mop by the Ames Brothers, and he looked like he was on the verge of crying uncle during Sweet Violets by Dinah Shore.  He moaned for Led Zeppelin numerous times.  He finally resigned himself to his fate once the first CD was over and I put in the second.

I pointed out that a role reversal had taken place, because he’s supposed to be the one forcing me to listen to the bygone  music of his youth which is both nostalgic and profoundly important for him.  Instead, he was wearing a puppy dog face while I clucked my tongue at him for “not getting it.”

That was about when he tried to explain that he was the Dennis the Menace of the 50s, that he ruined the 50s and that they were a write-off for him, but that the 60s?  The 60s he could do, and when are we getting to the 60s?  I had to explain to him that the point of “100 Hits of the 50’s” was exactly that — 100 songs, each one from the 1950s.  This meant no 60s songs.  I think there’s a chance that I won’t be included in his will, and the reason will be short and concise: “3-hour torture by means of 50s songs.”  It will be added as a subsection of human rights violations.

He asked me how many friends I’ve lost by forcing them to listen to these CDs.  I told him that Steven’s sister Lisa has listened to them with me and enjoyed them.

“Was she stoned?”
“No.”
“She should’ve been.”

Welp, I made it.  After three years, I finally graduated from college.  I know that saying that makes it sound as if it took me an absurdly long time to graduate, and I’m well aware that such is not the case.  In fact, I attended the big ceremony, and this evening I attended my department’s ceremony and received my diploma, and yet I’m still having difficulty grasping the fact that I have graduated.  I am technically an alum now.  It doesn’t feel like I am, though.  I think it’s probably because I am going straight into grad school and have another year left, but this whole graduation thing has yet to sink in.  Anyway, I am much too exhausted to write about today, and I still have to finish packing so that I can move out early in the morning tomorrow.  Hopefully I will get a chance within the next week to upload some pictures and write about the experience.  If I don’t, you have my full permission to harass me.

A little over two years ago, I was shaking uncontrollably as seven years’ of joyful anticipation emanated through my entire body.  I was sitting at the very front of the church, trying to take in the readings, but losing them the instant after they reached my ears.  My glance kept going over to Br. Jason every few minutes, my face contorting into a single expression of excitement as I mouthed the words, “Now?”  He half-laughed each time as he smiled and mouthed back, “Not yet.”  Between my long-distance questioning, I would stare at the glass bowl of water before the altar.  I would get goosebumps and shake more.  I would have little recollection of the actual service prior to walking to the front of the church.  That night my entire concentration was focused on that bowl.  After what seemed to be several agonising hours, Br. Jason smiled a smile that filled his entire face and excitedly pointed in the direction of Fr. Paul.  As I walked up to the front of the church with the other catechumens, my glance never left the bowl.  My hands felt clammy, I had trouble swallowing, and my body shook more the closer I got to that glass bowl.  My eyes began to fill with water as I walked up the steps.  It was finally time.  I had difficulty standing still, or even standing at all, and I remember internally laughing when the choir began to sing more songs.  I thought to myself, “I’ve waited for such a long time, and NOW they’re going to sing some more?  When I’m literally three feet away?”  I don’t recall the songs they sang, but I remember clenching my fists and clamping my jaw tightly together in order to try to prevent the tears from flowing.  I remember the music hit me particularly hard and over and over I kept praying in my head and thanking God for bringing me that far.

I remember wondering what it would be like–whether it would be like immediate fireworks, whether it would take effect slowly, whether I’d feel anything at all.  Not a large percentage of people get to have the experience I had, and so I had no idea what it was like.  I knew that everyone would experience it differently, since everyone’s relationship with God is different and because everyone needs different graces, and so I hadn’t expected that my own experience would be like that of other people’s, but I didn’t even know what other people’s experiences had been like.  I had met a number of people who had stood there before me, but none of them had ever talked about the sacraments of initiation beyond their side effects on their faith after the fact and to mention that the chrism oil smelled wonderful.

For me, though, it was an immediate feeling of peace–a peace that I had never felt before and only feel now when I receive the Holy Eucharist.  It’s a peace that fills me with a warmth that extends beyond perception of sensation.  It fills me with a joy that is fully penetrating that completely pushes away everything else around me, yet at the same time, puts me in touch with everything around me.  It is the most enveloping, comforting hug I’ve ever received and the sweetest kiss I’ve ever been given.  It’s a sensation that I’ve never experienced outside of my sacraments of initiation or outside of Communion, and to describe it in words seems to take away from what it is.  It is difficult to describe, because there is no comparative earthly experience with which to analogise it with.  I have been hugged, and I have been kissed, but the hug and the kiss I received then and I receive now every time I take Communion are absolutely nothing alike.  Mass is Heaven on earth, and although few people truly experience it in that way, that is what I experienced two years ago and what I (thankfully) continue to experience each time I go up to receive.  (Even now, I still frequently tear up when I receive the body and blood of Jesus and when I am praying afterwards.)

I never realised at the time how invaluable that grace would be to me.  Going into this, I had the misconception that my life would improve infinitely after I was baptised and entered the Catholic Church.  I had read so many witnesses about how becoming Catholic had changed so many people’s lives.  If you had compared those individuals’ statements with those of a methamphetamine user, you’d have taken away the exact same message: “Imagine the most pleasurable experience you have ever had.  Now multiply that times ten.”  The only real difference between the two is that the negative effects of methamphetamine are far more published and well-known.

While my life has improved tenfold in the past two years, it has also gotten infinitely worse in a number of ways.  The truth of the matter is, anyone who tells you that being a Christian (and, in particular, a Catholic) is all good all the time is LYING TO YOU.  This path is not an easy one to walk.  It has the most gorgeous scenery you will ever see in your life, but you have to climb Mount Everest first before you can see it.  Barefooted.  Of course, what God knows and most Christians have yet to figure out is that most people will stay stagnant at the level that will keep them miserable, because it’s what’s easiest.  They won’t get to see the gorgeous views.  They’ll get to see a couple of pretty flowerbeds along the way and maybe a monarch butterfly or two while they stare up at Mt. Everest and the handful of lunatics climbing it in their underwear.  One of the many paradoxes of Catholicism, though, is that it’s easy if you’re a nutcase.  If you put in the maximum amount of effort, it will be cake and you will get to see that paradise and so much more.  The bug bites and bee stings you suffer along the way don’t even bother you if you’ve reached the top.  I’d like to think that I’m about a quarter of the way up the mountain, which in my opinion pretty much stinks.  The people down on the path have their comfy shoes and the occasional pretty flowerbed, and me?  I’ve got sharp, jagged rocks cutting my hands and feet, the occasional rock slide from above and chronic fatigue from the effort.  I do occasionally get to see some neat sedimentary rock accumulations, though, and at particular angles on the way up I can see a glimpse of the beauty awaiting me at the top.  When I get to see the neat rock accumulations of that occasional glimpse of the beauty, it all seems worth it, but when I’m getting cut and sweating constantly and the fatigue kicks in I sometimes look down at that trail and wonder what I was thinking climbing this stupid rock in the first place, because down there was so much better.

I absolutely love the step I took two years ago, but I did so blindly.  I thought it was one step.  I thought that was the end, when really, it was just the beginning.  That first step provides the momentum for the second, third and fourth step, and I thank God every day for giving me that grace and momentum to keep walking, because otherwise I don’t know that I wouldn’t have just stopped and given up.  I went through a lot within the first year of my baptism.  In many ways, it was one of the most difficult years of my life.  I hit a very severe depression in the fall, and I was assaulted the spring of my one-year anniversary.  On top of that, I gained the label of being a Catholic, which was even worse than just being a Christian.  For a lot of people, that placed me outside of the realm of relatability.  It made me foreign.  When people had parties, they didn’t invite me; they automatically assumed that I “didn’t do that.”  I might as well have been a marble statue or dressed in a habit.  They didn’t realise that I was no different from them.  I was not and certainly today am not a saint.  I strive for holiness, but I am nowhere close to attaining it.  I’m on the path to do something about it, but that doesn’t mean that I spend every minute of every day in prayer or that I spend my Friday nights reading the Bible.  It never occurred to them that I have interests and hobbies that are in no way related to my faith, or that when I stay in on Friday nights sometimes it’s because I’m studying or watching movies.  (I’m a Christian, yes, but I was a nerd long before I became a Christian.)  No one ever warned me of the difficulties I would encounter going into this.  No one ever mentioned that while it was joyful and wonderful it was also sometimes not so great.  Jesus knew.  He told His disciples.  But, like most Christians, I had no idea.

Of course, then there’s the obvious–giving up sinning entirely to the best of my ability.  I stumble a lot.  I’m really, really great at stumbling.  I’ve perfected it to the point of being an art form.  Again, people will gloss over this all the time, but sinning?  It’s fun–I mean really fun.  We wouldn’t all do it if it wasn’t.  Once I took that first step, though, my path narrowed significantly.  I couldn’t walk off to explore anymore.  It’s not easy.  I still sin, a lot, in fact.  However, I’ve become far more conscious of that fact.  I’ve become more conscious of my actions.  I’ve become more conscious of myself as a person, and that’s an awesome gift.  I’ve gained a certain sense of freedom (yes, through all the “restrictions”) and I’m starting to see and become the person I am meant to be rather than who I want to be or who I am.

Knowing what I know today, if I had the option to go back, I’d still do it all over again.

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I normally would have spent my “birthday” celebrating, but I spent the entire day out helping other people.  I had class 9:30-12:30, and then I met with my Psych partner to work on our paper.  Then I had to go print out some stuff and go choose housing for my friend Whitney who took this year off and is currently in Portland.  Afterwards, I spent 5 hours with a friend helping him out on his final paper for his writing class.  This last one was a big deal, because he always makes fun of my career aspirations because they do not contribute to society (lies!), whereas engineering does.  He came to me looking for help, and I decided to spend my day helping him out.  He did poorly on his previous paper, and I thought it was an opportunity to maybe change his mind about my field by showing him how helpful it really is, even within his field of engineering.  I left my room at 9 in the morning and I got back at 10:30 in the evening.  It is not how I would have liked to spend my anniversary, but, in retrospect, it was an excellent way to spend the day.  I was able to serve God through others and to give back for all the blessings that have been given to me. I’m thankful that other opportunities (however undesirable they may have seemed at the time) came along to help lift me out of myself.  It was a nice reminder that my anniversary actually has very little to do with me, because it’s not about me.

HOWEVER, as a gift to myself (I like making it about me, can you tell?), earlier in February I splurged and spent money to procure myself a ticket to the Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium this coming Sunday!  I was hesitant to mention this before, because I didn’t want to jinx it or say anything until I actually had the actual ticket in my possession, but now I do.  I am so incredibly excited!  The Pope!  I get to see him!  Even though he will probably be the size of a speck in my vision!  (Except they’ll surely have those jumbotron things there, right?)  It is completely worth it, though.  I’m getting giddy just thinking about it!  Oh, and no worries, I promise you all I will bring my camera. 

“Pssh.  Your sins can’t be that bad.  The priest gave you a penance of 5 minutes of prayer.”
“Yeah — free-for-all prayer.  He didn’t even give me a topic, that’s how amazingly terrible & eclectic my sins were.”
“Whatever.  Admit it, you hardly do anything bad.”
“That’s not true!  The priest was distracted; he said he had to put quarters in the parking meter.  He just wasn’t focused enough to appreciate the gravity of my sins.  Trust me, they were really good.  Do you have any idea how much thought went into my sinning?”
“None?”
“No–well, ok, [laughs] there were a couple there I–that’s not the point.  A LOT of thought went into those sins.”