And I'm drinking orange juice, sitting on my exercise ball, writing in my blog. And I am totally content.
Sorry it's been so very long since I've updated. Multiple times this week I've inner monologue-ed blog posts in my head...while riding my bike, while I should be reading articles for classes, even while showering. But for whatever reason, none of those incredibly exciting posts have actually come to transcribed fruition. So it's about time.
Remember that post that was "a whirlwind of honesty"? This will be a little like that. Now you can't say you haven't had a fair warning.
The last two weeks have been odd. Two weekends ago, on Saturday, I had the good fortune of having my boyfriend and his family visit Iowa City. And then on Sunday I had the really terrible fortune of realizing I needed to break up with him. As a general rule in my life, I avoid break ups as much as possible. This, in the past, has translated into me being in weird "fake" relationships, because it seems like the break ups just aren't as painful. Well this was a real relationship, and hence, the break up was indeed painful. It was a terribly hard decision to make because a lot of things about the relationship were irrefutably good. This charming, caring boy had been there for me during one of the hardest times in my life. He made me laugh, he choreographed a really sweet dance that I got to be in, he kept me company during some of my longest nights of studying as I tried to graduate. All in all I am incredibly grateful to him for being there.
But even good things must come to an end. And I knew that was the case when I started to not feel like myself. I felt like I was compromising what I always dreamt of having because there wasn't as much communication, mutual respect, or understanding as I wanted. And perhaps at a time when I wasn't still reeling from losing my father, I could've handled all of that. But the "what if"s aren't important. Because I am still reeling. I am discombobulated and jambled and confused and heart broken from having to learn to live without the person I got one of my X chromosomes, and so much more, from.
And so I broke up with him. And thus began the downward tail spin. I don't exactly know what happened but within the span of 36 hours after said break up, I felt like I hit rock bottom. Now, I might be exaggerating. There are plenty of other things that could go wrong in my life, and I am grateful many of them haven't, but I at least hit faux-rock bottom. I was distracted, unpleasant to be around, surprisingly nauseous, constantly suppressing tears and being annoyed with that funny feeling you get in your throat when you try to stop the tears. The future looked bleak. I felt so lonely without constantly texting him random comments and being a part of conversations that spanned whole days and yet barely said anything. It was all just so strange.
Because I felt like dealing with this breakup should have been so minuscule compared to the huge loss I experienced a few months ago, I think the utter surprise of feeling so hurt and lonely just compounded my emotional experience, which was already shaky, given my current grieving situation. And suddenly it all turned into mourning my father in a way that I had not done yet. Because before I always at least felt like I had that one person to go to. Now I know, beyond a doubt, that at any time of the day or night, I have tons of people I could call or message and they would talk, listen, sympathize and tell me comforting things. But because we, monogamous humans, are made the way we are, having that one person who has a special, romantic interest in you, is just different from all the other relationships. And I see now that I put way too much reliance on having that relationship make me feel better. This is not to say that I did not mourn this past spring, while I was at Knox. I did. But this break up just made the feelings rush out again and surround me in a way that I had not quite experienced before.
I hate the phrase "hot mess". But, man, I was a hot mess. I guess when a relationship is really worth it, the end hurts.
So here's the inevitable silver lining. I eventually picked myself up from that faux-rock bottom, dusted the faux-rock dust of my pants and gave myself a good talking to. Am I totally over it now? No. Do I want to be? No. I am lucky I had a relationship that was worth enough to be upset over its ending. However, it is time to move on in the sense of "being me." Allow me one cliche for the evening. I need to find myself. I don't know where I lost me, but in the hustle and bustle of readjusting my life, in so many domains, I did manage to somehow lose track of who I am and who I want to be. And now begins the challenging task of refiguring all of that out. I want to be a hard-worker, passionate, caring, generous, thoughtful, energetic and loving. I want to re-start waking up before the sun (multiple times this week!); I want to regain the strength I had during my first years in college; I want to stay focused and driven while working in lab and I desperately want to stay on top of my insane amounts of reading. Success in all these areas is perhaps not entirely realistic, but at the very least, it is still helpful for me to recognize them as goals of my current life.
Woah, I did not mean to spend this entire blog post being all sappy and relationship-centered, but my eyes are dozing off and I'm going to start typing really weird stuff if I do not wrap this up quickly. I promise to have another post soonish that will be way less emotional and way more "words, and other interesting tidbits, from the daily life of Rachel Clark." If you did make it this far, thanks for sticking with me :)
Oh and happy Cy-Hawk rivalry game tomorrow!! Maybe I'll post a picture in the next entry of the outfit that I have I picked out especially for tomorrow's event. My main strategy is to accessorize with yellow/gold. Can't go wrong there!
