Not so single

Hi. Haven't actually posted anything in awhile.

Really funny that my last post was about being single 'cause...

My life basically surrounds this amazing man now. Good thing definitely comes to those who wait :)

So incredibly grateful for this guy in my life. Never been this happy with someone before.

Aaaand that's all I'm saying for now :)

Single

November and December are notorious for being the hardest months for me. I'm guessing that's the same for a lot of people. But I've been learning a lot from the lows this time around.

I'm not going to lie, over Thanksgiving break I had a mini break down.

I drove my jeep down to Utah to spend some time with my family. As soon as I got to my house, I stepped out of my car and saw a couple from my single's ward who just got engaged drive past me. Right. Everyone's getting engaged. I kinda forgot about that while I was up in Idaho. Later the next day I'm talking with my dad about a close friend of mine who just got engaged when he says, "Oh, and by the way, I heard (girl in my home ward) is going ring shopping with her boyfriend." Great. I mean I'm super happy for them, they're adorable, but just another person who won't be around when I get home this summer. And then he says, "Yeah, Mary was saying, "Now Katie just needs to get engaged!""

Oh, I burst into tears. 'Cause if I could be engaged, you better believe I'd be engaged. I'm not one of those people that's just like, "Dating? What?" And it's not even that I don't get asked out, because I do. I do to the point that my roommates are convinced that I know everything about boys when I really don't and don't understand why I complain about being single so much.

And I'm so aware that I'm way too young to be this broken up about it. But I think the fact that I've had the opportunity to be engaged twice already and had both of those times crash and burn.....I'm getting a little fed up and bitter at my young age. I'm pretty convinced that as soon as I get away from BYU-Idaho that I'll feel a lot better about my situation, but we'll see. Maybe not.

But this weekend I ended some training things for new student orientation where we discussed a ton of general conference talks about service and what not, and there's where something awesome happened. So there's this amazing lady that I had the pleasure of working with when I was on freshmen orientation council last year who's in her thirties and still single. She's had a really rough dating life as well, so she shares some of my bitterness. Anyways, so she was speaking at one of the meetings when she decided to share a personal story with us. I guess she was at church and saw a lady walk in who just barely went through a divorce and this was going to be her first time sitting alone at church. Because this amazing lady is single, she knew exactly how it felt to sit alone at church, so she ended up going and sitting next to this sister to help her feel better. And while she was sitting there she heard a voice say, "You're the only person in this room who knows how she feels." And that moment made her realize God needed her to be single for moments like that, because she had that empathy.

I LOVED that! It made me take a step back and realize there has to be reasons I'm single as well. I know for sure there's things that I've done in the past few years that I never would have done if I was married, and that would have been so sad. Also just a few weeks back I was talking with my bishop about this too, and he reminded me that, "It may not be you. Maybe the guy you're supposed to be with is still being prepared." which was way comforting as well.

Anyways, all those realizations have been awesome! I'm so grateful for God's hand in my life.

And on a completely unrelated note: I finally tried sushi for the first time last night. Soooo weird, that's all I have to say about it.

Victory

I'm a rockstar, pretty much.

Ask me 6 months ago to eat an apple in public, I would have bawled my eyes out and begged not to.

I just finished this guy in the middle of campus. And yesterday, I ate chili for the first time in a room full of people.

Baby steps, right? I'm taking control of my life.

Self-worth

I'm not sure if anyone caught that in my last post about how I was seeing a therapist this summer, but that happened. It's not a fact I go around broadcasting. I know there's still a stigma attached to seeking help when you're going through things and I know I consciously do everything I can to avoid getting a label.

But the fact of the matter is I fit every criteria for an eating disorder besides the obsessive worrying about weight. I have all the irrational thinking, perfectionist tendencies, and sensitivity that every other girl with a disorder has. It's great. Except really not.

When you're in that mindset, you blame absolutely everything on yourself and never on others. 

The reason that boy doesn't like you? You said something stupid and are super annoying even though that's not what he said. 

What are your roommates whispering about in the other room? You. They didn't tell you about their date because they hate you, even though you've been gone all day. 

You're the reason your boss is quiet and grouchy at work. She hates you and thinks you suck at your job. And being so anxious about this makes you make a lot of mistakes at your job even though you are actually pretty good at your job.

You suck at driving and everyone on the road constantly wants to honk at you 'cause your so dumb.

And anytime anyone does anything to reinforce those thoughts, like your boss asking you to change something on a report you just submitted or a roommate ignores you, in your head you're thinking, "Yup, I was right....."

So self-esteem? What's that? I kind of talked myself into believing that I had high self-esteem and a lot of confidence in myself. I got really confused when people would say something contrary to that, especially as I got deeper into the social work program. I started realizing I was this scared insecure girl that desperately wanted to be accepted but believed everyone hated me.

Realizing how much I had torn myself down this summer was so hard. There was a day in therapy where I was telling my therapist how I always felt like I was so weird and abnormal. I really believed people would look at me and wonder what my problem was. My therapist looked me in the eye and said, "To be completely honest, socially there is nothing weird about you. Not at all. Never have I thought that about you." I remember just walking out to my car and bawling. I couldn't believe how mean I let the thoughts my in head get. If I didn't think people hated me and thought I was weird all this time, I could have been happy years ago. But I let those thoughts in my head get so destructive......

Thanks to the help I got over the summer, I'm getting a lot better at catching those thoughts but a few will still slip through the cracks. I still question from time to time if people really don't think I'm weird, but I can fight that off now.

Anyways, I don't know where this post is really going. I guess I just recognize I still have a ways to go as far as building that confidence in myself goes. I hope other people aren't in the same situation. Please don't let those negative thoughts get to you. Fight it off. Better yet, let God help you fight them off.

Lucifer

Just this morning I was asking myself why I decided taking Pearl of Great Price was a good idea this semester. More often than not when I tell my supervisor at my internship, "I can get there around noon after Pearl of Great Price." It always seems like he wants me there sooner......so of course I feel bad and want to skip class.

As I read through Moses 4 in preparation for today's quiz, I had this thought pop into my head. Was Satan always supposed to be Satan? If not, how does the plan of salvation work without someone there to tempt us? I know everyone's born with the gift of agency, so doesn't that apply to our fallen brother too?

After we got the quiz out of the way, I raised my hand and asked this question. My teacher, being the brilliant man that he is, gave me an answer I never really thought about before. Everything we do that's bad is not because Satan tempted us to do it. Our bodies have drives, desires, wants, needs, that just come because we have a body. Satan can tempt us to give into those, but ultimately our fight isn't against Satan, it's against ourselves.

That concept rang true to me so quickly. After going through intensive therapy this summer for my eating disorder and having my irrational thoughts challenged left and right through that, I know what it's like to fight within yourself. It's definitely the hardest thing I've ever experienced in my life. And it's not something that was fixed so quickly. I still have moments, heck, I had a pretty bad one today, where I beat myself up over nothing. 

I was at my internship with juvenile probation helping supervise some community service. Another intern had to go plug in a power cord into an outlet, so while she walked towards it, I helped unroll it. After I got done, my supervisor said, "Woooow. Because you just unrolled that so annoyingly, you're going to have to roll it back up when we're done." I felt so stupid. So so so so so so stupid. I had a few rational thoughts pop up like I didn't mean to be annoying, I was just trying to help, I didn't know. But then there was the I probably shouldn't have touched anything, I'm so stupid, He hates me now, Everyone else around probably thinks I'm an idiot, I'm so awkward, Why do I even try, etc. This little shame storm went on for the rest of community service. When we started cleaning things up, I went over and started wrapping up the cord with my head down, still feeling like such an idiot. Then my supervisor looks at me and says, "Hey, (Other Intern) is supposed to be doing that since she unrolled it so weirdly before." .....Yup. All that shame storming and he wasn't even talking to me before. Then I started feeling stupid for thinking he was talking to me before. I'm aware of how dumb this all is, no worries. The thing is now I'm recognizing it and catching it. But even though I'm not quite perfect at it yet, I know it's something I'm capable of catching and correcting.

So the fact that our fight is against ourselves in this life.........that gives me so much hope. After doing some of that fighting, I know it's something I can accomplish with God's help. I don't know if anyone else gets super hung up about if they're going to make it into heaven or not like I do, but learning stuff like this quiets those fears. Logically I know because I worry about it so much, I'm probably fine in this respect, but my brain's still figuring out how to think about everyday situations logically instead of always assuming the negative.

So why did I take Pearl of Great Price this semester? I need it.

What's up

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Making // lots of new friendships and memories.
Cooking // with a crock pot. Makes life soooo much easier!
Drinking // water. Lots and lots of it.
Reading // homework for days.
Wanting // to know what he's thinking and maybe something to distract me from him.
Looking // forward to winter. I want snow already!
Playing // the guitar more lately. Missed it.
Wasting // too much money! Need to figure out a better way to grocery shop.
Sewing // .....ha, good one!
Wishing // this pimple would get off my face. It's painful and isn't helping me look like I'm not 17.
Enjoying // getting to know my roommates. They're sweet hearts.
Waiting // for tonight! Hoping this date goes well.
Liking // a certain boy who's driving me crazy and crushing on so many more.
Wondering // what the heck I should eat. Brownies aren't for breakfast.
Loving // my internship! Working with these teens is pretty much the coolest thing I've ever done.
Hoping // my keratosis pilaris decides to calm down. Boo!
Marvelling // at the view from my apartment window. Having the temple right outside your window never gets old.
Needing // to figure out things I can invite some people to. I want to be social, dang it!
Smelling // Nothing. I want to chop my nose off, this being stuffed thing is getting so old!
Wearing // Gym shorts and this camo shirt with a wolf......wearing headphones. But the boy who gave it to me is so good looking so it doesn't even matter.
Following // ....nothing? Really though. No tv shows i'm obsessed with right now, no netflix, I'm barely reading the news.
Noticing // how dirty my room currently is. I need to remedy that.
Knowing // that things will work out.
Thinking // I should probably go grocery shopping sooner than later else it's going to be crazy busy.
Feeling // a little bit less sick, finally! :)
Bookmarking // books. Literally. Highlighting books like crazy.
Opening // my heart to more possibilities.
Giggling // at my cute roomies who are finally waking up.....at noon.......after sleeping the hallway, haha!
Feeling // hopeful. Hope today is good.

One Liners

"I just want to be friends......but I think you're really pretty."

"I probably shouldn't have kissed you. I'm moving to Belgium in 3 weeks."

"No matter what happens between us, last night was not a NCMO."

"Why are you confused about this? Well....I guess I did cuddle with you. But I'm just a cuddly guy."

"You go first." "Okay, I'm still in love with you." "Well, I'm not."

"After many months of thought, I've decided to end our relationship."

"I only made out with her for practice."

I could go on and on with lines like these that have been permanently burned into my memory.

At first, they sting. I always have that moment where I blame myself for everything crashing and burning, but that wasn't always true. And then I'd cry and cry and just wish things could go back to before he had to say that. 

That's my love life thus far, folks. There's definitely been sweet moments like when I got a call while I was in California with the song "Come On, Get Higher" playing on the other end or the candlelight dinner planned on the shore of a lake for me. And then awkward moments like when I was forced to drink coffee on a date or taken to the temple on a first date.

And all this gets hard when friends and classmates and those girls who used to be beehives when I was a laurel get married. I have days (or weeks) when I get frickin' bent out of shape about that. I thought I was going to get married at 19, but that fell through. And then I had the chance to marry someone at 21, but I just couldn't see myself being with him forever.

But when those sweet moments come when I actually go on a date with a guy who treats me with respect, it gives me hope and reminds me that someday it'll be my turn and it'll all be worth it.

Plus, I'm 21. I seriously have ALL the time in the world to get married. Except I live in Utah county where everyone gets married at 18 which makes me feel like an old maid. What I really need to do is move somewhere back east, then I wouldn't feel so lame.

Problem solved. Done deal!