Heartbreak and the Rain (This Title Could not be More 8th Grade)

Dammit! I was doing such a good job updating regularly on Sundays. I thought I was going to go 4 weeks in a row and then reward with myself with a big cookie. But alas, I failed. (I will still probably eat a big cookie though). I am trying to get this done as soon as possible by putting off animation homework, because who needs that? It's not like it is my major or anything. Unfortunately work has made me into a zombie who is pretty certain she will pass out standing up any time someone tries to talk to her for more than 30 seconds at a time. It's been pretty rough.

My excuse is that I got pretty busy with work and the Colorado Pole Championships/workshops this past weekend (which were awesome, by the way!) Although I also got a little self conscious. A friend from the pole studio I've been attending discovered my blog and shared it on her lovely blog: Vivienne's Process of Elimination, which has a lot more followers than mine does, because she actually updates consistently and is a real writer and stuff. When she told me she shared it, I actually started to feel slightly dizzy. On top of that, people really liked my last two posts. Especially the one about butt holes. Which amazed me. I mean, I thought it would be pretty hit or miss, but wow. People aren't disgusted and weirded out by me? It's a dream come true... Except for my friend Dylan Thomas who told me it was "over sharing." I am pretty sure he is just uncomfortable with the thought of my butt hole. He can get over it.

The real problem is when people start paying attention to you and liking what you write, suddenly you have to have standards.

Ew.

Most importantly though, for some reason, writing this particular entry has been a lot scarier for me than writing about my own butt hole. It is really difficult to make this story sound entertaining instead of whiny and indulgent in my own melodrama. Mostly it is just hard to admit to being vulnerable. Yea, I know I have an awesome butt hole of steel and soul unicorn magic, and I can brave any despicably offensive OKCupid message, but sometimes I cry and want someone to hold my hand as well. Let me tell you, only a real badass can admit that.


...

Not really.

I'm just a pansy.

(We're working on that.)

Ok. Here is the real entry. That is almost irrelevant now because it is a week overdue. Oh well.

Yes, it has rained a lot in my hometown in the past week or so. More than it ever has before, in fact. We received more rain than we normally get in a year, set multiple records, and in the process a lot of homes were damaged or washed away. In short, it flooded.

Big time.
See?

Proof!

I never overreact. Never. 

It was exactly like that, by the way

My own family has been fortunate in only losing the not-so-beautiful-anyway carpets in our basement from the few inches of water the seeped in from the walls. But there was definitely a few moments  hours of panic that Wednesday night where we stayed up til the wee hours of the night trying to bail water out of our basement with a tiny shop-vac. It was basically like trying to save a sinking ship with a thimble. Puzzle Pirates never prepared me for such a thing, either. It was nothing like Bejeweled. I was lied to!

The bilging I have always known was not quite the same. (Not my actual basement, by the way. Don't worry.)

I've always been crossed between a like and dislike of the rain. It really depends on which of my many multiple personalities is driving the steering wheel. If Love-Filled, Earnest Meri is at the helm, then she wants all sunshine and blue skies, usually because she has the motivation to like, actually go outside or whatever. But if Cynical, Angry Meri is in charge, it's a very different story. Guess which Meri has been in charge a lot lately?

All of the rain caused a lot of damage. It drowned the town in a literal sense and also an emotional sense. Everyone can feel the heaviness. I can feel the heaviness. I've felt like I've been drowning along with Colorado. I have anxiety over two jobs, anxiety over being in school for something that isn't “lighting my flame,” and anxiety over heartbreak.

Yes. I said the H-word. I'm officially calling it. The events that occurred this past summer broke my heart.

I've written so much about what happened already that I will spare the details for your sake, even though the further out I get from it, the more perspective I gain. Which is good because it makes me that much more wise, but it also is bad because it makes Past Meri look really, really stupid, and I have this blog as a lovely record of all my stupidity. Yay.

But here is the very, very short version for those of you just joining us:

All these events somehow led me back here, where for the past few weeks I have been flopping around like a fish out of water, my heart gasping for life. Being back home is like living in a broken time machine. I grew up here, left, came back, left again, and so on and so forth. Being in Boulder is like re-living multiple years of my life all at the same time. I am learning all sorts of fun things about myself by drawing parallels between the various years of my life. Being in the throes of boy sadness has forced me to revisit: DUN DUN DUN! The first and only other time I've ever truly felt like my heart was broken. AKA The Jaws Story: A MapleStory Affair. Catch it on the Lifetime channel this coming winter.

Here is the part I don't like to talk about much. It is a very silly story. And also really embarrassing. But what would this blog be if not a place to embarrass myself? I mean, I just blogged about butt holes for goodness sake. Being embarrassed is good for me, right? I hate to admit any of it happened, but it did. It is a part of me, I cannot deny that. I've tried my best to condense this story into the happy-fun-time-kids-book version for you. I don't want to bore you with too many excessive details and also it looks a lot cuter than it actually was this way.

The story goes like this:

.

----

It's a really beautiful coming of age story, am I right?

(I know I didn't give him a fun poet nickname like Lord Poopypants, but it has and always will be Jaws. It sounds pretty mysterious anyway, right?)

Even though it is has been a very long time now (almost a third of my life, which is just stupid), if I am being totally honest with myself, I still miss him. Even after it all came crashing down, even after I grew up and realized how dumb it was, even after I grew up even more and realized I never actually had what I thought I had... I miss that feeling of comfort I felt. It was intoxicating. It got to me, straight under my skin. I thought about him every. Single. Damn. Day. For five years straight. I felt as if there was a hole inside of me (not a butt hole) that would never be repaired. My heart was destroyed. I somehow ended up going all the way to Canada in part to discover if I could ever fix it. And what did I find? I could not.

When I ended up going there, I found a way to meet him. And he was sweet and polite. But he was not present, not like I wanted him to be. He was not there and was not the friend I had known. When I finally mustered up the courage to tell him everything I had ever thought and felt about him in five years, every thought and feeling I kept pent up inside me like a monologue just waiting for a super narcissistic actor to storm the stage and deliver it, he had nothing to say in response. Nothing.

That is precisely when my heart stopped feeling broken. It finally healed into a simple scar that I could see and touch but it no longer hurt. It unfortunately wasn't cool and/or across my eye or warranted an eye patch of anything badass. Alas. But it did make me wiser.

Or so I thought.

Because somehow I have ended up letting a relatively short friendship with a boy ruin me once more. I never thought I'd let that happen to me again, but I was wrong. And here I am. In the same boat again. Almost literally, after all the rain that just fell. Sad and with a million pent up thoughts and speeches just waiting to be unleashed.

Why or how this happened? I don't know. I have my theories. I'm still working on those. The point is that it did, and I can't stand the thought of letting someone who doesn't give me a second thought consume me for another five years. I have to get out.

Before it started raining in Colorado, I rained upon myself with a million criticisms. I poured on the self hate like a fat person puts ranch dressing into their “salad,” which is really more like meat lovers pizza with a couple of green things thrown on top and called good enough. I kept telling myself how stupid I was for letting these things happen to me and letting myself get so upset about them. How was I not stronger? Why did I care so much? So I had been used. So I was lied to. So I felt disposable. So someone made me feel like a worthless, shitty person...

Ok, yes, I know those things are a legitimate reason to be upset. However I was still annoyed that I couldn't just brush it off like everyone else in the situation. I tried everything to find a peace: Attempting my best not to care, being angry, wallowing in my sadness... One night I discovered this song, put it on repeat, and let myself sob for half an hour straight:

It helped a little? I think? Maybe? Probably not.

Just when I thought I was going to drown and die in my self pity, self hate, and melodrama, the real rain came.

 It kicked in the adrenaline of “ohmygodletsjustmakesuremyhousedoesntcollapseandeveryoneIloveisstillaliveandokay” and distracted me from feeling anything else which in a way was cleansing. That feels like a terrible thing to say after the rain destroyed so much, and I am deeply sorry for those who were affected, but I think for me it was just what the doctor ordered. Cynical, Angry Meri welcomed the rain with open arms and then when she watched it hurt so many things that she liked, she remembered that she actually liked things again.

Also! During the flood time I went on a date that by some magical forces I only felt mildly anxious before and then! Lo and behold, I actually enjoyed the date, maybe even a little too much-- something that I didn't think was possible anymore. Now, I don't know if THAT is going to go anywhere and I am certainly terrified at the thought of “liking things and/or people” again, but there is a certain sliver of hope. Hope pie. Which I hear is delicious.

I mean just overall...

Liking things > Not liking things.

So this is good, right?

I think I am making it sound simple even though it isn't really, but there is just a little bit of relief. The rain didn't fix things automatically. I still have moments of sadness sometimes, I still hate thinking about what happened over the summer. But it did wash away a little of my hurt and a little of my history with it, I think, and perhaps I will be stronger for that. I hope I better darn well beat my previous five-year-heartbreak stand this time. And if that doesn't deserve a scented “good job” sticker, I don't know what does.

Pumpkins. Because it is Fall now.