A jumble of thoughts fresh from a breakup

Anyone reading this probably at least knows that derek and I have broken up because he cheated on me for the better part of a year.

When I first found out (because he left his e-mail account open, not because he had the courage to tell me), I felt like my entire world was crashing down around me while the rug was being pulled out from under my feet.  I was so scared to lose him that I decided to stay with him provided that he seek counseling and we attend couples counseling.  That old cliche of "I've invested so much of my life into this relationship, I'm not going to let it go this easily."  Because you're supposed to fight for love, right?  I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

But after two days, derek decided that that was too much work, that there's no point in trying again because "the unhappiness that led to his cheating would probably come back again eventually" (oh yeah guys, he cheated because I didn't keep him sexually satisfied, so it was my fault in his eyes).  He insisted that I was only staying with him for the financial security.  The best line he gave me was "we need to make sure that we can be happy on our own before we can be happy together."  Translation: "I'm too much of a coward to break up with you outright so I'll pretend like I maybe want you back eventually."

Yeah, no.

Once I got over the initial shock of everything that happened, I had a very, very important realization:

I honestly don't miss him all that much.

Oh sure, I miss the companionship, I miss having a warm body to snuggle against at night (it's been unseasonably cold this week), I missed having a body to snuggle when I had a nightmare the other day, I miss being pretty sure that I'll be debt-free by 30, and it's weird not having someone to talk to about every TV show that I watch (I started a lot of them because he was in to them).

But you know what?

I can find any of that with someone else.  Maybe not the debt-free part, because I don't expect anyone to be willing to pay 100% of the rent until my loans are paid off, but that's okay.

Him breaking up with me (it really should have been me breaking up with him) has opened my eyes to what an underperforming boyfriend he really was.  Every time I asked him for a simple date night (like, to the place literally 3/4 of a mile away from our apartment for a quick dinner not in front of the TV) he would grumble.  I planned this awesome staycation for us last summer and he was a total asshole about leaving the apartment the entire long weekend.  Every weekend was a lazy weekend.  As in, if I asked him to go walk the 2 blocks to pick up dinner from the deli, he'd ask why I couldn't do it.  The only time he ever helped me cook dinner was if I burned myself and couldn't finish the recipe by myself due to pain.  My family came to visit, I had to practically beg him to come out with us and spend quality time with these people who he saw once a year max.  His family came to visit, and I ended up spending an entire day alone with his mother while he played video games at home.  We went to Jamaica for our friend's wedding and he stayed cooped up in the hotel when we all went snorkeling FOR FREE because "I've been snorkeling before, I don't feel like doing it again."  ON AN ALL-EXPENSE PAID WEDDING PARTY TRIP TO JAMAICA.  On the rare occasion that he did leave the apartment with me, I felt like I had to coddle him the whole time to make sure he was enjoying himself.  Yeah, that made it fun for me.

Okay I'm rambling now.  The point is that after I moved down to Maryland to be with him, he stopped putting any effort into our relationship and for nearly four years I pretended like that didn't bother me.  Or I denied that it did.  Either way, now that I'm out of that relationship, my eyes are wide open to how unhappy I was.

When I was 18 and just so broken-hearted over the fact that my high school boyfriend wouldn't talk to me anymore, my therapist asked me this question:

"Why would you want to be friends with someone who treats you that way?"

Her voice echoed in my head almost as soon as I found out that derek had cut me off (which was while I was at lunch with my coworkers - yet another cowardly move on his part).  I knew it as soon as she asked me that when I was 18, and I knew it again a few weeks ago: I don't want to be with someone who treats me that way.  Not as a friend and definitely not as a romantic partner.

It's a difficult question to answer sometimes, and it was definitely difficult when I thought about the future that I had to say goodbye to.  We'd been talking about getting a domestic partnership before November so that I could hop on to his health insurance when I turn 26, and we were talking about buying a house in the next year.

I was watching Frasier the other day - a show that I often turn to when I'm sad - and at the end of the very first episode, one of his callers is still feeling like a mess months after a breakup.  Frasier told her that she's not mourning the loss of the relationship, but the loss of the future that she thought she had.  Yet another light switch flicked on in my head.  That's exactly it.  I already don't miss him - it's hard to miss someone who barely paid attention to your relationship.  And I'm actually already starting to be excited for my new future thanks to the love and support from my friends and family who have all promised to welcome me back to Michigan.  Honestly, maybe it had become about the promise of financial security, even if I didn't quite realize it at the time.

It's like if you lived for 4 years in a really shitty climate, and you'd tried to forget that nicer climates exist, and any time you saw any little reminder of a better climate you were like "yeah but this region is totally perfect for me, I don't need better weather to feel better" but then one day you get strapped into a giant slingshot by force, and you get thrown into a WAY nicer climate and after you brush yourself off and figure out your new surroundings you're like "holy shit.  This climate is PERFECT for me!  How could I have ever been happy living under those conditions?  I'm never going back to that region even for a brief visit!"

So I actually kind of hope that one day, maybe months from now, derek will come crawling back to me so that I can laugh in his face.  He knows how hard it is for me to deny someone another chance to stay in my life - he literally had to hold my hand while I blocked an ex best friend on Facebook when we were in college - and I hope he'll think that he'd get a second chance if I have enough time to miss him.  I want to smile as I tell him that I don't miss him.  He selfishly told me that he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to move on from me (which is stupid because he already had, at least sexually), and I want the opportunity to show him that I have moved on from him.

A comprehensive list of the awesomeness that is coconut oil

I know I'm not the first person to discover how great coconut oil is, but really, WOW, it is awesome.  Here's a list of all the things I use it for:

• Cooking - especially baking, waffles, and sweeter meals (such as this sausage with grapes dish that I like, or pork chops with apples, that kinda thing)
• Acne - I have adult acne pretty badly.  Last summer, I wouldn't have been surprised if everyone I met thought I was 15 years old because it was raging so badly.  But if I slather some coconut oil onto my clean face about an hour before bed, then gently blot it off right before I hit the pillow, my acne is much less red, angry, and swollen throughout the next day.
• 2020 update: DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, put coconut oil on your face. Coconut oil is highly comedogenic, which means it clogs your pores. Which means that back in 2017, I was making my acne worse by slathering coconut oil all over it. My acne was honestly always red, swollen, and angry back then. I think I was imagining things when I thought coconut oil was helping me. At least I smelled good though?
• Chafing - my thighs rub together when I walk.  Sometimes I forget to rub deodorant between them, and sometimes I sweat the deodorant away but have to keep walking.  Which of course leads to chafing.  Coconut oil on my chafed thighs soothes it wonderfully and I'm pretty sure it helped it to heal faster.
• Shaving/waxing wounds - A few months ago, I cut myself while shaving my armpits.  Since I couldn't wear deodorant over the open wound for a few days, I chafed badly which also kinda made the wound worse.  Coconut oil served to sooth the chafing, prevent it from getting worse, AND help heal the wound.
• More recently, I've started waxing my armpits. Coconut oil is great for soothing my pits immediately after waxing, and after a few days when my baby hairs grow back and get kinda sensitive.
• I also dab a little bit onto my eyebrows after I tweeze them.  The swelling goes down quickly and it helps prevent ingrown hairs! 
• I imagine it would be a really good way to prevent razor burn, too.  I haven't ever used it after shaving unless I cut myself, so I'm not positive.  But probably!
•  Nails&cuticles - my cuticles barely dried out this winter.  Also, I had damaged nails from too many peel-off base coats in a row; a few days of naked nails in the winter with lots of coconut oil and the damage seemed to disappear.  I highly recommend it for after scrubbing off a glitter polish!
• Burns - so, I haven't used it immediately after burning myself, so I don't know if it soothes the initial pain.  But the day after my most recent burn experience, when I had tender blisters that didn't ache constantly, coconut oil was wonderful for keeping the skin moisturized and happy.
• Hair - I use it as a hair mask BEFORE showering every now and then.  It's WAY too oily for me to use it after a shower the way I use argon oil, which I learned via trial and error.  As in, "let's try it!  Ohh, that was a mistake, now I need half a can of dry shampoo because I don't have time to wash it right now."

Seriously, coconut oil is a miracle serum.  If they ever decide that it causes cancer, I'm probably going to be diagnosed at like 30 because I consume and absorb so much on a regular basis!

Freshman year of college: the time I quite almost killed myself over a final project

I've told this story to many people in the past - staying up for nearly 3 days straight to work on a final project that I'd badly procrastinated.  But due to the lack of sleep at the time, and the years that have passed since, I tend to get the details wrong when I retell the story.  Lo and behold, I wrote about it the day after it all happened!  I've decided to type it up for all to read.  Friends who are parents, please feel free to use this as educational material as your kids grow up and start thinking it's okay to pull all-nighters for school.  I've added some annotation for clarification in pink.

*   *   *

30 April, 2010
Freshman year of college
Right before finals week

Oh my god.  This week was so hard.  I procrastinated my art history project WAY too much, like holy butt. [yes, it actually says holy butt.]  After TV night with Steph on Monday, I tried to stay up all night to work on the story.  I fell asleep around 4:30, woke up at 10ish. [I likely still made it to my 10:20 German class, because skipping class is bad m'kay?] Okay, that's kind of enough sleep.  Tuesday I got off work shortly after 1 (am, I worked the closing shift in the caf, so technically this was Wednesday morning) and continued working on the story.  I watched the sun rise (so pretty!) and fell asleep around 7:30 or 8... Woke up at 10:30.  Got breakfast at Hubbard and decided to have some coffee. with lots of cream & sugar.  Went to IAH (my afternoon class), then to CVS for some Vitamin Water and an energy drink because I knew I'd be up all night again.  By the time I went to lunch at Akers I was pretty hyper, so I had another cup of coffee. [a completely logical decision.]  Then, despite how pretty it was outside, I sat inside and drew. And drew. And drew.  I think I ate dinner in there somewhere.  Around 1 or maybe 2 (am, mind you) I chugged down most of a can of Amp before realizing that 1 can = 2 servings. then I started going insane...

I started posting random stuff on Facebook.  I worked right through sunrise and around 7:45 decided it was time for breakfast. took a shower. got back to work.  Realized that my heart was beating too quickly and I sometimes felt out of breath just sitting there drawing.  By this time, my writer's callous and right arm were getting sore, but I still had lots of work to do.  So I kept on working until 12:30, when I had to go to bio.  I was pretty freaking out because holy crap, I still had 2 drawings to do and I had to attach the book and shit I had like an hour after bio to do it.  I was so tired, too.  I started falling asleep and I'm pretty sure I hallucinated a little.  I thought a picture of a rain cloud was moving and raining, and that a bunny was breathing and twitching its head. [the prof never used animations in his slides, only still images.] Then I thought I saw... I don't know, water or something spurting out of the wall.  After class I picked up some food from Sparty's and went back to my dorm.  Then I really started freaking out.  I was straight up out of breath but just sitting there, and even though I knew I had everything under control I started crying.  I was like "no, you're wrong. Everything is fine.  Stop being illogical." but I kept crying anyway. [I'm pretty confident that this is the first and only panic attack I have ever experienced.] So I ate my food and watched my favorite videos on YouTube and felt better.  I finished up one of the empty pages, attached everything, and went to class where I threw up a poopless poop angel (complete with confused flies) onto the blank page.  Turned the little SOB in and mostly fell asleep through class.  By this time I was basically a zombie.  But the sun had come back out after clouds leading up to like a 5 minute rain, and I had the story off my damn chest, so I was feeling a little better. 

I happily turned in the books I'd used [for the research] and then bought some new earphones at the International Center.  I called Ben and YAY, he's coming to MSU on Saturday! <3 When I got home I did some German homework and went to bed.  At 7:45.  Then I woke up at 8:55... today. Oh my god. I wish I could sleep that deeply and blissfully every night.  So yeah, I would rate this experience about a 10 on the crazy scale.  Never, ever, ever drinking coffee again.  Or procrastinating so horribly. Ever.  I am so sorry for what I did to my body.  [closing about how my hand was cramping and I wanted to go outside]

*   *   *

I'd like to point out that I would have had an extra two hours to work on the project and probably not have a panic attack had I decided to skip bio the day the project was due.  But nooo, I had to be in class!!!!!  Compare this to my senior year when I was like "I'm behind on work in Lisa's class, so I'm going to skip Lisa's class today and work on the projects."  I certainly did change a lot in a few semesters.

And just for the record: my body still can't handle caffeine.  I don't know if I would always have been caffeine-sensitive, or if I broke the receptors in my brain that week or something.  But if I drink anything stronger than a black tea (or two black teas in a row), I get very shaky and breathing gets uncomfortable.  I don't get the energy boost and then I crash hard and pretty much can't function unless I take a nap.

2016 Reading Challenge: Summary!

Well, 2016 has come and gone and I have to admit: I didn't complete the challenge.  But I'm not upset about it, and I don't feel down on myself, and I'm not gonna let it keep me from reading in 2017 out of some lame "well if I couldn't do it LAST year..." excuse.

Honestly, the main reason I failed to complete the challenge is because I read several books that didn't count towards the challenge!

I did kind of stop choosing to read while at home, letting games and my nails and crocheting get in the way of that again, but I always read for about an hour a day on the Metro!  Actually, that's not entirely true - I also listened to one and almost a half audio books.  I never thought I would have the attention span for audio books, but as it turns out, they're great for a Metro commute - I can let my sleepy pre- and post-work eyes rest and still make progress in the book!

So if we're counting audio books (and I definitely think we should), I did manage to check off one more book from the challenge: a book recommended by a friend.  When I asked my coworker for an audio book recommendation (I explained to her that the only one I'd ever listened to before was Harry Potter, so I was used to an incredible narrator), she suggested Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, narrated by Stephen Fry.  Oh. my. gosh.  It was an incredible experience listening to that narration!  Stephen Fry did different voices for different characters, which is the #1 thing I need in an audio book so I can tell who the heck is talking.  And his voices were so. funny.  The book constantly had me laughing out loud on the Metro - I'm sure I got some funny looks!  The rest of the series (which I now definitely want to listen to) is narrated by none other than Martin Freeman.  (Is he knighted? cuz I kinda want to call him Sir Martin Freeman.)  I could tell while listening to the book that Martin was absolutely perfect for playing the role of Arthur Dent in the movie (which I did see, but don't really remember; I do remember that it wasn't received terribly well by fans of the book).  So for him to narrate the rest of the book series is just so exciting!

Okay, so, let's go over the list one last time:

BOOKS FOR THE CHALLENGE

• A book published this year: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, JK Rowling 💖
• A book you can finish in a day: The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami 👍
• A book you've been meaning to read: Not Quite the Classics, Colin Mochrie 💖
• A book you should have read in school: Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut 💖
• A book chosen for you by your spouse etc: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 💖
• A book published before you were born: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne 👍
• A book that was banned at some point: Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov 👎
• A book you own but have never read: Haunting Experiences: Encounters with the Otherworldly, Michelle Belanger 👌
• A book that intimidates you: Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring,  JRR Tolkein 👎
• A book you've already read at least once: The Book Thief, Markus Zusak 💖

SKIPPED CHALLENGES

• A book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller: skipped because I never got around to seeking recommendations (partly because I don't know them personally and I'm chicken to introduce myself)
• A book you previously abandoned: skipped because I have only ever abandoned books that bored me senseless, and I didn't want to hate the book I was reading

BOOKS THAT WEREN'T A PART OF THE CHALLENGE

• Bee Season, Maya Goldberg 👍
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke (audio book - not finished because the narrator was pretty boring and did NOT distinguish between character voices) 👌
• Magic Kingdom for Sale, Terry Brooks 👍
• The Black Unicorn, Terry Brooks (got about 1/3 through before the year ended) 👍

I decided to rate the books I read this year with a super professional and adult emoji method. 💖 means I loved the book and/or loved reading it; 👍 means I liked it a lot but didn't quite love it; 👌 means it was ok but I didn't quite like it a lot; 👎 means I did not like reading it but doesn't necessarily mean I think it's a bad book.  I did write up a blog post on most of these books, so if you're curious as to why I rated it a certain way, find it in my previous posts!  They're conveniently all tagged with "2016 reading challenge."

So, even though I only got 10/12 on the challenge (which is still a passing grade, hey!), I definitely enjoyed it!  I'm so glad I made the effort to read more in 2016.  I will be sure to stay in the habit for 2017!  Perhaps I'll challenge myself to read one book more than I did this year. :)