I Didn't Realize We Were Twelve.

So remember how I dated the Captain for almost three years? How we were engaged for an entire summer?

Apparently he unfriended me on Facebook. Because we're freaking twelve, I guess.

Like, I didn't really want to see him or hang out with him or be best friends, but I wasn't going to shun him in public. While I've been honest, I haven't just gone and talked shit about him to all of my friends. I don't think he's a horrible person. He's just a very immature person.

And apparently he already has a new girlfriend.

I still haven't gotten over being dumped by him. I still can't imagine trusting my feelings for another guy ever. How do I know I'm not just trying to replace an old boyfriend? How do I know I actually care about this person as a person and not just a replacement?

These are things I've been worried about, but apparently the Captain has no such qualms. Not that I expected him to. He's always been a bit flirty. A very loving person. Likes to convince himself he's in love.

Okay okay, I don't want to sound bitter. But I am a little bit. Like, I was fine with us going our separate ways. I knew he'd get a new girl eventually. But two weeks later? It's a little hurtful. Honestly makes me want to cry.

I could go into the whole depression side of it, talk about how it just reinforces the idea that I wasn't good enough for him, and that he just couldn't wait to get rid of me so he could find someone better. But I'm not really in the mood for that right now.

I'm not super sad right now. Just super pissed. I'll be super sad in about an hour probably, but right now I'm just mad.

It's just infantile to unfriend your ex on facebook, as well as all her friends and family (because apparently he did that too).

Ugh. I just had to write about it because I got so upset. I was skyping a friend at the time, and told her about it, and she gave an appropriately shocked response. That made me feel better. But I also write to compute things, so there you go.

I do feel a little better now. Honestly this makes it easier for me to be okay with our breakup. I was blind to a lot of problems we had, and a lot of problems the Captain had in particular. I'm still not saying he's an awful person. He's a very nice person, and a very good person to have as a friend. But I can't say I'd recommend him as a boyfriend.

Or a fiancé.

--Dexter

Jilted

In my last post, I talked a lot about all the crap that has happened to me. I also described the moment when The Captain showed up out of nowhere and asked me to marry him.

Well, one week from today, he broke up with me. Told me he didn't love me anymore. That he probably hasn't for quite a while.

This is a difficult thing to write about, because he will probably read this, and I don't want it to sound like a letter to him. I need to write this for myself, and it's hard to do so knowing that certain people are going to read it.

I am very upset with him, because I loved (still do, probably) him with all my heart and planned on growing old with him. I was willing to sacrifice a lot for him, because I loved him more than anything else in my life. He talked about how he didn't want me to give up my dreams for him, and I would try to convince him that he was my dream. And he was.

But there is no denying that he and I had gone through some problems over the past six months are so, even before we got engaged. He would comment on how much I'd changed since I'd gone to college, and that it was hard to get used to. Yes, I have changed. I know I have. But it's for the better. I'm a little more independent, a little more capable of taking care of myself, a little more functional. He found that odd. He wanted to take care of me more than he thought I wanted, which wasn't necessarily true. Yes, he nagged about a lot of inconsequential things, and yes, he never realized how much I was actually accomplishing without his help. He didn't realize how much I'd grown up, which caused tension between us.

But ultimately he was my stronghold. He helped me learn all those things. He helped me learn how to love myself, how to function. He gave me a lot of my self-esteem. He built up my trust over two and half years and he knew practically everything about me. Everything that doesn't get on this blog, everything that doesn't get told to my other friends. And in one morning, he broke all of that down.

I feel like I'm starting back at the beginning. I don't like leaving my room, I'm afraid to go out, I have no self-esteem, I'm too depressed to even get up. And this happened right before school started. His timing has never been great.

I have so many friends here and back in Birmingham. So many people who care about me and ask how I'm doing and make sure I'm okay. My best friend from high school came and stayed with me for a few days, and if not for her I don't know what would've happened during those hours. Another friend brought me coffee and then continued to come over just about every day when I asked. Others have banded together to go after the Captain (but I told them not to). They make me laugh.

But they're not around all the time and all it takes is one moment of silence to make me feel alone.

What do you do when the person who taught you how to love yourself doesn't love you anymore?

What have you done to become unlovable?

These are dumb questions, and I know the right answers to them. The right answer is that I have done nothing wrong, that I am still the same person as before, that my self-esteem should not hinge on one person, that a person who can break me into so many pieces doesn't deserve my love anyway. That I am a strong independent woman, that I am a pretty girl, that I am a pretty good dancer, that I get good grades, that I have a lot of friends who love me, that I'm capable of doing something with myself after college besides marrying the Captain. That God has made all this happen for a reason, and that I have learned a lot from this experience and have not wasted the past three years of my life on a boy who promised me everything and then took it all back.

Those are the right answers. But those aren't the answers I tell myself.

I have done something wrong. I shouldn't be so independent. I shouldn't have left for school. I shouldn't have been so vocal about my dislike of Birmingham and my dreams of going somewhere else. I changed for the worse. I should have relied on him more, not tried to be myself. I am a needy nuisance, an annoying person to be around. I am not pretty enough, I'm not even a good dancer, my grades are only adequate, and people only hang around me because I ask them to. I wasn't physical enough, I don't like sex. I'm not romantic enough.

I'm mentally incapable of holding a full-time job, so I will end up living in my mother's house in Birmingham and hate myself for it. I will never stop cutting myself, never beat it. I will probably become an alcoholic. And one day I will take my own life because that last straw will fall and break and my feeble world I've built will shatter for the last time.

Those are lies, but they sound like truth in my ears. They play on repeat constantly, no matter how much I try to drown them out with music, TV, school, friends. I can't block them out.

The right thing to do is to make this sound inspirational and talk about God and maybe quote a Bible verse and talk about how I don't know what will happen in my future but that it's for the best and maybe that I can't wait to find out what God has in store.

But I'm not there yet. I'm not as strong or good as my blog makes me appear. I know how to manipulate my life to make it sound inspiring. I don't lie. I just sit down and write until I feel better.

But I still don't feel better. Nothing has changed. Sometimes I really don't know if it ever will.

The Best Year Yet...So Many Thoughts.

So I was doing the typical bored internet junkie thing and stalking myself on Facebook... You know the drill. You accept a friend request and then go scan your own profile to see what your new buddy will see when they do the inevitable new friend stalking. It's okay, we all do it.

I turned 21 a week ago, so lots of the stuff on my profile was birthday wishes. The most recent one, and therefore the first one I saw just now, ran along the lines of, "I hope this is your best year yet!"

Which of course got me thinking just like everything does.

My best year yet. Being human and prone to violent bouts of depression, when I think back on my life, I usually remember the bad more than the good. In fact, I have thus far categorized my college experience by what tragedy has befallen me in each semester.

Semester 1: Concussion and sexual assault.
Semester 2: Admitted to a psych ward for suicidal tendencies.
Semester 3: Parents divorce is announced.
Semester 4: I take 23 hours and contract extreme exhaustion.

But honestly, we could categorize my entire life that way.

Senior year of high school: My best friend attempts suicide multiple times. Completely unrelated, I begin to cut myself on a regular basis.
Junior year: I get an extreme ankle sprain which causes me to completely reevaluate the rest of my life.
Sophomore year; I attempt to cut for the first time.
Freshman year: My guinea pig, who has sadly been my best friend for five years, dies after a few months of insanity.

Shall we go back even further?

Middle school/junior high: I realize something is wrong with me, but don't label it as depression, anxiety, or PTSD. What middle schooler does?
Some time before 3rd grade: I am sexually abused and tell no one, because I do not understand.

When laid out like this, my life looks like total shit.

Why do these things have to be the first things that come to my mind when people talk about my life? When I think about the future? I look back at my finished semesters and I don't think, "Let's make the next better." I think, "What will go wrong this time?" "How much worse will it be?" "Will I make it through this one?"

Why the hell does it take so much thought to remember the good things that happened each of those years?

Semester 1: I make friends. I find a solid Christian base with RUF at my university.
Semester 2: I finally am put on medication, which is not something to be ashamed of. I start my book club.
Semester 3: I move into an apartment. I cook real food for myself for the first time, and it tastes good.
Semester 4: I get the boasting rights of having taken 23 hours and survived. I get a job as an English tutor. I finally make Repertory Dance Company at my university.
Summer semester: I become engaged to the love of my life and my best friend. I get a cat.

It is my curse that I always think of the bad things before the good, that I have to think very hard to remember all the good things that have happened to me and that I myself have accomplished. But maybe, in some twisted way, it is a blessing as well. At least, I try to see it that way.

If I'm honest, then I will admit that it has been anything but a blessing to me personally in the last few weeks. I have been practically lifeless with an overwhelming burden of depression. It has been a struggle to get out of bed every day, to make myself go to a class that I enjoy, to pick up a book and read it, to invest the slightest amount of attention in anything. This kind of behavior, if left unchecked, always leads me to something worse. If it weren't for my cat's presence, for the knowledge that if I were gone he would be completely on his own, I probably would be back in the psych ward because of some very bad ideas trickling through my head. It is incredibly sad that it is only my cat's dependence on me that has kept it from becoming as bad as it was back in freshman year.

And people say cats are useless.

For all the trouble little Palmer gives me, all the love bites and scratches and insane nightly terrorist activity, he really was sent by God. This poor little furball who arrive with his little hiney shaved after being neutered, a big mysterious wound on his neck and smaller one on his tail. A slightly crooked nose and mouth that leads to drooling and free tongue. Dirty ears. A slightly gimpy foot. Separation anxiety and a ridiculous love of eating shoes. That's my buddy Palmer.

Sorry, I got distracted by my darling little kitty cat, who just happened to have jumped up into my arms for a thirty second nap before going ballisto and trying to eat my arm. Typical.

As is often the case, I write all this to sort out thoughts that have been drifting through my head all summer. I always get bored in the summer, and boredom always leads to depression which leads me to reminiscing about the bad old days which leads me to assuming there will be nothing better in my future. Writing all this reminds me that life has not been totally craptastic to me. And even if it had been, that's no reason to assume that it will continue to be so.

I will publish this on my blog, but I doubt I will share it to Facebook and all the social media that so rules our lives these days. I have explicitly stated several things that beforehand I have only alluded to. There are maybe three people on this earth who know about a lot of this stuff. I'm all for honesty and testimonies and stuff like that. I'm not really ashamed of any of this. I know a lot of it isn't even my fault. The thing that gets me is the aftermath of a confession.

People talking to me about it. Asking questions about it.

These are perfectly normal responses. And on the average day I don't mind it. I enjoy it, even. As much as I hate attention and talking about myself, sometimes it is important. Sometimes it makes a difference.

But sometimes I just don't want to add to the misery of the world, y'know? I don't want people who have been through crap and know I've been through crap to realize I've been through more crap than I've let on. I just don't want to add to all the crap. Y'know?

You feel me?

If you're reading this, don't feel scared to talk to me about it even though I basically just said I didn't want to. The worst response you'll get is, "I don't want to talk about it right now, let's go drown our sorrows in coffee and then maybe we'll see."

But if this adds to the crap you see in the world, please oh please oh please don't let it. Don't be like me, who only remembers the bad. There is good, I promise. Don't let anything dampen your good memories and your hope and determination for the future. Even if it gets worse, it will still get better.

Now I'm going to stop this ridiculously long ramble and watch some more Star Trek and maybe sleep a bit before a filming I have tomorrow. I'm going to hug my cat and not worry about rent or homework or my student bill.

I'm just going to be okay for one night.

--Dexter

ps. I'm not adding colors to this post. Sue me. Imagine your own colors. Whatever. I've got a cat to hug.

Change

Lately, my life has been incredibly topsy turvy. True, I made it through sophomore year, which in the dance department is well known as the roughest year ever. I made it through though, and with decent grades. But that doesn't exactly mean life has been easy since then.

As many know, my dad lost his job a year ago and since then my family has gone through a steady decrease in money. To add to it, only a few months later my dad left my mom. This has made life rough. My mom and my siblings moved to a new house that was more affordable and my mom works several jobs. They get by just fine, but I can't rely on them and I can't ask them for help when it comes to money, no matter how much they want to help. So I try not to ask or even mention my own problems.

But I'm pretty damn poor. I was going to take some classes over the summer, but had to drop out of half of them because I can't afford them. I'm still enrolled in one, but if I don't get a job soon I will be living, well, frugally, to say the least. I still have to pay rent and buy groceries and pay for my medication and a whole bunch of stuff.

So life has been pretty dismal in my eyes lately. Not only has all that stuff been going on, but since school let out, I've had nothing to do. Don't me wrong, I'm loving the break. Sleep all day, play all my games, read my books, it's great. But I'm an active creature, no matter how much I love to be stationary. If I don't have enough to do, I start to go crazy. I end up with nothing to do but think, which means I'll think about how much life sucks, because that's just what happens when you have major depression. You don't sit there contemplating sunshine and rainbows.

So, yeah. I've been majorly depressed recently. My relationship with God has been on the wayside, and even though I acknowledge that, I haven't done a whole lot to fix it. But despite this... God still cares about me. I can't believe how much He cares about me. In such a dark time of my life, He suddenly sent me such a HUGE care package of love.

The other day I was at book club (best thing ever) at T-Bones, and we were sitting around waiting for some late members. I turn to look and who should I see but THE CAPTAIN. No, he's not in book club. Yes, he lives three hours away from me. No, I was not expecting him at all.

"What are you doing here??" I started to ask, but just as the words left my mouth he was down on one knee, a little black box in hand, smiling like the sun.

"Sarah Dexter Givens," he said.

"Why are you here??" I was still asking the same question.

"Sarah Dexter Givens," he continued, "Will you marry me?"

"How did you know I was here?" I was really caught up in that. He was laughing and smiling and I'm not sure what I was doing besides asking the same damn question over and over again.

"Will you just answer my question?" He asked finally, still laughing.

"Of course!" I answered. "But how did you know I was here?"

"Will you take the ring?"

"I don't know how!" Ladies, if you feel like you're an awkward person, know that you will not magically become suave when this moment comes. "I've never done this before!"

"I'm glad!" He took the ring out of the box and started to put it on my finger.

"Wait! Which hand is it? Is it this one? I don't know!" I turned to my friends for help, who were laughing and grinning just like The Captain. One of them told us, and The Captain slid the ring on my finger.

At this point I just leaned over and buried my face in a hug, because everyone was looking at me and I was very happy but also very self conscious and I just wanted to hug him more than anything. It was awkward. It was beautiful.

That same day, I got called for a phone interview at a job that opens up in June and a friend told me about another job that would be open in just a few days, where she could probably tell me exactly what I needed to do to have a good chance. A few days later (today), I got notified of another job (my dream job) and I have an in-person interview in just a few hours (I'm crazy nervous). Then I got an email requesting another phone interview for another job I applied for a few weeks ago.

I swear, if none of these jobs work out, I'm going to scream.

But anyway. It has been a magical couple of days. God sent me blessing after blessing and joy after joy. This is a heck of a lot of change in my life, and I absolutely hate change. I don't adapt well. But sometimes change is necessary, and I'm glad it's happening. Dare I say it, I think I'm ready for it.

I don't know, we'll see.

--Dexter

PS. THE CAPTAIN IS MY BETROTHED!! :D :D :D :D