July 7 Hanover - back to work after paris

dear Lord,

I guess I keep moving in the wrong direction. i should have never had sex before marriage. true. i should have never moved in with a boy that i didn't want to marry. true. i should have never tried to disobey you. i should have never dated a non-christian. i shouldn't have given him a second chance.

i miss baltimore though. i miss it terribly. i saw a craigslist ad about a place in st. paul near mt. vernon. i used to live there, that used to be my home - mt. vernon, baltimore. the art's district, restaurants on St. Paul and Charles St, The Charles Theatre, and the train station...they were all my "hood". it meant so much to me because i chose it, with a boy. i chose to move in with someone. Not only is that one of those monumental life steps that you take like going to college, getting engaged, getting married, having a baby...it is also something that was meant to be extremely rewarding. why does it hurt so much to think about? because the whole thing was so happy and now it's gone.

...the nights of cuddling up and watching a movie, or watching lightning and thunder storms from our 10 foot windows. Oh those windows...I had my parents buy us new custom made curtains that would fit the dimensions perfectly. There was so much happiness about that apartment. Dancing in our large living room with or without music, cooking and baking a billion things in a tiny kitchen, throwing him a surprise birthday party in the middle of summer and having all our guests sweat it out until we finally move out to the side walk to grill. Marko and Liz were so helpful and gracious, they brought all this delicious meat to grill. I can't say much about the bathroom except that there was a shower that was nice and used often. My bedroom was beautifully decorated, one of the first rooms that I actually took the effort to personalize. It was so big and spacious, and my deep wine coloured curtains made the room as dark as I needed. It was also the cooler one of the bedrooms because he was sweet enough to give me the air conditioning unit. His room was smaller, hotter, and not as decorated. It had all the essentials, a bed, a desk, all that. And it had his own personal space and his weights, posters, a billion shoes just hanging out everywhere. I remember I used to go in there when he wasn't around and just stand there hoping to catch a glimpse or a smell of him. Sometimes, I'd tidy up a little bit, arrange his shoes in a certain order, pick up a few things here and there and arrange them in an orderly way. I'd never do too much though, I wouldn't actually want him to notice that I picked up after them. Because God forbid he confuses me with his mom! What a travesty! I'd hate for him to think I was becoming a wifey figure or something responsible.

I remember the day I moved out, I walked into his room without any regard as if it still was accessible to me. I placed a few things on his desk and in his drawers that I wanted to return or for him to keep. I stood there for a moment as I always did, taking everything in, breathing in the moment, looked around and again tried to catch a glimpse or a smell of him.

I really did love that apartment.

Anything else? That's all I think of right now...so the best thing to do is to collect those memories, place them in a box, and hide it away in a closet somewhere for a later time.

I have to be holistic, we did have fights there. A few bad ones stick out in my mind. There were quite a few nights that we'd try to sleep apart from each other, most of them failed, but once or twice we succeeded. but there wasn't a success story to it. sometimes i felt trapped in that apartment. mostly because i built up these invisible walls that I couldn't escape. the walls initially made me feel safe with someone that i deeply loved and cared about, but then the walls became a barrier to the outside world. it was hard to even crawl outside to go to work or down the street to yoga classes or do anything else by myself. all i wanted to do was be with him or sit around waiting for him. that was kind of pathetic now that i think about it.

I'm not ready to digest all of these memories. I can't be completely objective about it quite yet, I still miss him and want apologize for everything that I did wrong. I want to go back and do things differently. To scream, I'm not that needy or insecure I promise!

My mind sometimes wanders/wonders back to all the things that he said in the past month or so. I remember how he said we'd study together, him for his boards, and me for the gmat. I was so conflicted when he said that. On one hand, it was cute and I thought how nice it'd be to be with him again when I heard it. It was like we actually had some figment of a future, at least a near future, together. But along the lines of my whole addiction theory, it was like someone dangling a small piece of the happiness I was addicted to, in front of me. I saw it, and I knew that I'd like it, but I also was repulsed by it. There was a part of me that screamed, "Nooo! i don't want to study with you, i know i'd never get any studying done, and i'd do badly on my exam, stay away from me!"

Same reaction with when he said he'd like to pick me up at the airport. I saw in my mind, and there was that feeling of oh my I'm gonna get some of that good stuff now...I saw him, flowers, big smile, I imagined me running into his arms, falling into his arms, feeling whole and completed, and relieved. It'd be so amazing to see him - having him pick me up at the airport is so romantic. But then i stepped back and after the phone call my perfect image disappeared, and reality hit in - where would he take me after he picked me up? where would we go? to his apartment? i didn't belong there. to my parent's house? he didn't belong there, it wouldn't be fair to spring this on my parents and just have him show up. we'd have to separate eventually. i'd have to go to atlanta, and miss him again. what then? how would we cope with the distance? how would we start a relationship when we barely saw each other? when would i have time for myself? when would i take my gmat, go visit business schools, invest in my future when all i wanted to do was be with him and lay in bed and roll in the sheets all day long?? all the little questions started to poke giant holes into my beautiful picture of happiness. finally it was all torn up and unrecognizable. i knew it. just the idea of seeing him and having to leave him again tore me up inside, it made me feel vulnerable and weak, anxious and unsettled, small and scared. having a weekend with him was going to do more damage than good, and i knew it. the next time we talked, i screamed at him for tangling unattainable happiness in front of me. it wasn't fair of me to put that on him. i had no idea how all those little things impacted how i saw my future. but a part of me knew that it was impossible for me to get into business school and still be with him at this point in my life. so when the whole thing finally came tumbling down again, that's why there was a sigh of relief, it was like i knew i'd be able to get into HBS now. i knew i'd be a successful capable human being again. and i only had God to thank for it. i thanked Him for loving me enough to do what was best when I couldn't do it for myself. I thanked Him for intervening and for His Grace. i also said a smaller thank you to jim. for being the one to pull the trigger.