Hello blogging world and friends and people who actually are inclined to read this, its been some minutes... Somehow it is November already, and I am not sure when that happened.
I have left you all with a very long absence, and to be totally honest, I am not sure why. That isn't true. I just lied so hard. Not even for a second. I know why. It is because I have been afraid to write, even if it is just a blog, a stream of consciousness which I will try extremely hard not to edit. (Sometimes I wonder if you read this and think, "Brittni, honey, you are not a writer, if you were, your posts would be eloquent and well-worded, punctuated correctly, grammatical... You went to college for crying out loud!" My answer to which is this, "Blog writing is something completely different for me. It is almost like a therapy session. A space that I can just type and type, and I don't have to worry about the end result. And if you don't like that, click the next button on your reader. XOXOXOXOXO.")
Back to the truth.
I just deleted an entire paragraph, I feel like you need to know this, cause you know, truth. I need you to understand that this is not about a boy. These feelings I have been having, they are more than a single boy, though, he instigated this. I wish I could tell you how frustrated I am at myself for that sentence. I wish I could say this time in my life, this time where I have been feeling this way are because of my own accord, but alas. But please understand that it hasn't been about a boy for months now. I am trying to be, thinking I am, beyond the place in my life where I let a boy dictate who I am and how I feel about myself. But, and this is a big but, it was the catalyst into things I have not wanted to think about for a long, long time. Or maybe a combination of many things all at once. It is hard to say.
I have also been avoiding the writing, the blogging, those parts of myself, because I have decided I want to put good into the world, not spend time with pity parties. In the words of one brave bunny, "If you can't say nothin nice, don't say it at all." So I haven't. But I have been sitting on this one thought for a few days now: Maybe to get to that place, the place of good things and good thoughts, I need to be honest about the dark bits. And, really, I have had so many darker bits than this.
I have had massive feelings of indifference. With everything. I have been struggling with some very deep parts of my identity, things and traits that I once held dear. Cryptic? Maybe. But here is an example... One of the things I love about myself the most is my ability to love. I am not trying to say this in toot my own horn type of way or a look at me type of way, but I truly, truly feel like the gift to love and to be patient is something I have been given. But it is also something that is really hard for me to accept right now. Because to love people, I feel it is important to strive to see the good bits, to hold out hope that they will turn around, they will see the hurt they are causing and they will change. I want to fight for you as a person, as my friend, as my coworker, as my family member, as my __________, until the cows come home. But there comes a time when I have to stop fighting for you because if I don't, I will lose myself. So, to combat all of these situations where I feel so utterly defeated, deflated, and disappointed in people, I have turned to indifference. And so much of that makes me hate everything about me. Because that used to be the one thing I truly liked.
My parents have always told me stories about my younger self. When I was three, I cried and cried and cried because someone shot Bambi's mom, and I could not understand, would not understand, how anyone could take another's mom away. I know you are thinking that sounds exaggerated, but it is 100% true. When I was eight, my parents took me with them to see The Fugitive. Let's not get into a dispute of whether this was appropriate for an eight year-old or not, it happened, move on. I remember sobbing, bawling, screaming, because I could not understand how someone could physically beat someone that way, I still remember the look on my dad's face when I asked him that question. What I am trying to say, is that my level of empathy is ridiculous. I am tender. I want to apologize for that, because I am afraid it sounds weak. And there in lies my contradiction. How can my greatest strength be such a weakness?
Its not. But, when I look at the big, life effecting situations of this year, I realize how toxic caring so much can be. For all of us. Do you want to know what happened with me and Adam? He cheated on me. He came to my house in the middle of the night, drunk. So drunk that he couldn't stand. So drunk that he could not keep a thought inside his head. So drunk that the dogs cowered in the corner. He kept repeating one phrase: "Now Brittni will know." I asked him what I would know, and he would look at me like I could read minds. After an hour of this nonsense, I took his phone, and I read his texts. He had been texting three separate girls. In every situation he said he had moved to Cedar City for a girl and it hadn't worked out. Which was real neat, considering he was passed out, drunk, in my bed. I called Jill and she drove me around while I tried to figure out what was going on. I called the girls and asked them what was happening and told them I existed. Because I needed to have an identity. Then I went home, got the keys to my office, went to work, and called Jo. And bawled on the phone to her for three hours. I dried my eyes, went home, and woke him up. He thought I was mad just about the coming over drunk bit, so I confronted him about the girls. He gave some excuse, it was because he was lonely. Because he didn't know anyone here. He didn't have any friends. He said it would stop. I told him I called them. He got mad and he left. He came back over later that day, explaining with some lie. A lie that we both knew was a lie. But, me being me, wanted to know that I hadn't wasted so much time pouring my love into someone who wasn't going to be there for the long haul. So, I gave him another chance. And in January, he came over and said, I am done. I asked why and I got a shrug of the shoulders. After two years, that was my answer. He left. Sheena came over. I called Trent and Rachel. And the world moved forward. He ran straight to at least one of the girls. (For those who care, he ended up cheating on her with two separate individuals... I want to say, karma. Maybe that is wrong, but how you can start a relationship and think it will last when it was based on lies and deceptions, and you knew about them all, it is hard to be surprised. Call me heartless.)
I took this whole situation and let it drift back to the other long relationship of my life. And this isn't something I talk about frequently either. Seth and I dated for a long time. It was good in the beginning. It felt like the right thing. I prayed about it. He prayed about it. Our parents prayed about it. It was the right thing. But sometimes people make choices and those answers change. We grew up and apart. He did things that weren't right. He changed. He was emotionally abusive... that was a hard sentence for me to type, I am not sure why. Maybe it is because I know some of you reading this, if you are still with me that is, know him too, and I don't want his past self to affect his now self. Things happened. Things got worse. And worse. And worse. One day it wasn't the right thing anymore. But I already had a ring on my finger. Plans were being made. Dates were set. Appointments scheduled. Families intertwined. How do you break that up? How do you walk away from all of that? How do you let go of something you were once told was the rightest thing you knew, by the rightest thing you know? How does that make sense? A really good friend. One night, after throwing up in the bathroom for three hours because he had called to tell me that he had decided I didn't need a wedding dress, that we didn't need to speak until I came home for the semester, that he had scheduled my appointment to take out my endowments, and that he had told his parents that I had been screaming at him for some stupid thing, "because it has more dramatic flair", Trent came over. I was telling him at length the whole conversation. I looked at him and asked him to tell me it would be okay. He hugged me tightly, looked at me, and simply said, "It will be okay. But, Brittni, you deserve for it to me more than okay." And those two sentences saved my life. And I am forever grateful to Trent. Because it was in that moment that I realized I could be more than just okay.
So two boys. Two crappy situations. And me feeling like I am pouring myself into people who can easily just flip a switch and change, move on, move forward, be someone else. Then I add on other things from this last year. I can name at least three people at work who have made stupid, stupid choices, followed by me sticking up for them, and then seeing a complete 180 in them. Suddenly, I wasn't ever supportive. I wasn't doing my job. I was making it harder for them. Etc. And I took these things so very personally. Because, how can you not when giving yourself to everyone in your life is such a huge part of you? Not to mention a series of events in the world of family. So add up all of these things and add in some not wanting to stare it all in the face, because it felt so overwhelming, and you get indifference. And that is where I am at.
I have tried for so long to ignore these things, to move forward, to not let it get to me. This may sound like fourth century Spanish to some, but all of these things feel like Amelia's house with six rooms, but only being able to acknowledge five, because of a perception filter. I am such a nerd. But that is how it feels. I guess what I am trying to accomplish with this post is to tell you this, I am going to start exploring these things. Talking my way though it here. Or maybe, this will be enough for now and my next posts will change the subject and move forward and we shan't speak of this until 2026. I am not really sure right now. But, at least you have some honesty. It is now three am and Zimm is pacing because he needs to go out, so I am going to take care of that. But. I wrote something. And for today, that is enough.
