Thankfulness

It's that time of year where everyone talks about what they're thankful for.  Pretty much everyone always leaves something or someone out.  I didn't want to leave anything out, so I thought about it for a long time and figured out one thing I'm faithful for that covers everything.


I am thankful for Karmic Fate.


Over two years ago, when Hannah was first talking about going on a mission I didn't want her to go.  Our relationship was my best one yet, honestly it was to the point where you start to have thoughts like, "What if we got married..." and things like that.  However, when we talked about it, I felt like it was the right thing for her to do, everything about it just made sense.  So I supported her, not because it was necessarily what I wanted, but because I knew it to be right.


Well Hannah left, time passed, then about the beginning of February I started to get letters that indicated things between us weren't going well.  I became angry.  I guess I felt like, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, what was right, and it doesn't matter, things still go poorly.  I guess I felt betrayed by the system.


Then Hannah got home, things were worse, and I felt even more angry and betrayed.  Here I had done what I felt was right and doing what was right had become more of a sacrifice than I was willing to give.  It didn't seem fair.


Then suddenly, and inexplicably, just when I was approaching that cliff, everything turned around.  Almost immediately after realizing things weren't getting better now that Hannah was home I was given quidditch.  I mean what are the odds that the captain of the quidditch team would end up on my IM flag football team?


Then right before Hannah drops off the face of the planet I meet Mirage, someone who I was honestly more intrigued by than Hannah at the time.  So much so, that part of my brain is tellin the other half that I should be freaking out over a girl I dated for a year and a half just discarding me like an old newspaper, and the other is saying, "whatevs."  It's  just all coincidental timing, and I don't believe in coincidences.


These were just the latest incidences.  I could also point out the perfect timing that came with meeting Smartypants.  After a year of waiting, when I really needed someone I could just talk to, or argue with.  I now consider Smartypants one of my closest friends.


Then there was Bangs McCoy, whom I met on the home stretch, when I really just needed someone to be with.  Bangs has moved now, and we don't talk as much as I'd like, but she was right there for me and invited me over every night when I just needed someone to be around.


Yes, I've been lucky over the last year, I must admit.  I know that I don't talk about spiritual matters much here, but it's truly been a testimony building experience.  That by doing what is right, what you're supposed to do, won't be forsaken.  There's a poem I like to think about whenever I hit a rough patch, many people may have heard it, but I use it to remind me that help is always there for you when you need it:

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed 

he was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.

For each scene he noticed two sets of

footprints in the sand: one belonging

to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,

he looked back at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed that many times along the path of

his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very

lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he

questioned the Lord about it:

"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow

you, you'd walk with me all the way.

But I have noticed that during the most

troublesome times in my life,

there is only one set of footprints.

I don't understand why when

I needed you most you would leave me."

The Lord replied:

"My son, my precious child,

I love you and I would never leave you.

During your times of trial and suffering,

when you see only one set of footprints,

it was then that I carried you."

"Just Deleted" and "The Odyssey for the Cup"

Oh man, what a WEEK!


Let's start this epic dual-post from last Thursday:


Thursday night the Quidditch team and I had our red-eye flight to New York.  Before that I had some free time between class and when I needed to meet at the airport.  Mirage and I have been getting pretty close over the last few weeks since Date One, and she came over right after class and then took me to the airport. 


I'm a fan of the red-eye, I sleep really well in vehicles of all kinds, so I pretty much slept the whole time.  Once we landed things got a little hectic, for various reasons it took us 3.5 hours to get from the airport to our hotel.  It mostly sucked since I was carrying a 45lb. box of tent poles that whole trip.




The World Cup started bright and early Saturday morning.  After taking part in the Opening ceremonies we had to wait about 3 hours for our first pool match against #2 ranked Kansas.  We all came out a little cold and it showed, easily our sloppiest game, but we kept it close, we lost by 10 on a snitch catch that came a split second too late.  We swept the rest of our pool, including a 120-30 win over Hofstra, who somehow beat Kansas, which created a three-way tie in our pool for first place.


Kansas ended up being the top team out of our pool since the scored more points against Vermont than we did, and then our bad luck struck.  Texas A&M had a fluke loss in their pool which dropped them to a #15 seed, while we came out with a #18 seed.  Yup, a standard 32 team bracket pits #15 against #18 in the first round, and thus we faced the only team I was afraid of right of that bat.  We played our guts out, I may or may not have earned a mild concussion while stopping an A&M drive to the hoops, but alas, it wasn't enough.  Personally I feel no shame losing to A&M, they were amazing, easily the best team at the World Cup, and they even told us we were the toughest game they had played to that point afterwards, what a class act.


It was good to play some of the best teams out there, I feel like we became aware of our weaknesses and we know what we need to work on for next year.


Hannah is officially deleted from my Facebook.  I actually forgot to do it before I left because I was with Mirage, and didn't remember until Monday morning.  How did I feel about it?  Not that bad actually, and, little anecdote here, Hannah texted me out of the blue about 20 minutes after I cancelled our facebook friendship.  I guess that gives me the high ground, so I felt even better about it.  Side Note: I did notice right before she was deleted that she went Facebook official with the aforementioned Broseph.  I wish them luck.  No, that wasn't a snide comment, I'm serious, I hope she's happy.  Ok, it was actually a little snide, but also had some serious aspects mixed in.


Let me Tarantino this post now.  Let's go back to Thursday afternoon with Mirage.  Mirage came over right after class so we could spend some time together before I left for the WC.  We got lunch and watched Rudy, I have this pre-sport-road-trip ritual of watching an inspirational sports movie before I leave.  Rudy is one of my favorites.  After the movie we flirted a little bit, kissed, and talked abou...WAIT OMIGOSH WHAT!?


Yes, I've set a new land-speed record for myself, three weeks from first date to first kiss.  That's ridiculous by personal standards, and I don't really know what to say about it.  I feel like Mirage and I have known each other for a lot longer than a month.  We have the exact same core interests, while also having our own unique fringe interests to keep things interesting.  We make the same dorky movie references at the same moments.  She's smart, but not the whole I'm-superior-to-you-all type of smart.


The one weird thing about "moving so quick" (haha I know by Mormon standards people have been engaged in less time than this...) is that, although she seems so familiar, I've never known so little about someone I've kissed.  I guess I'm going to have to pull out the big guns and ask the serious questions the next time we're together.


Now to less happy news.  Can I vent about trigonometry for a little bit?  I've mentioned how hard on myself I am.  I expect a lot from myself, so it hurts me to be bombing a class that I'm actually trying at.  I have learned a few lessons from this experience: 1) Don't take more than one math class in a semester, it's way too much homework when you're working full-time. 2) Next time you find out you're taking a class from a first time professor, drop it like it's hot.


I've always been at the top of my classes, and most people think it's because I'm a genius, and I usually go along with that theory, but the truth is I just pick things up quickly.  The problem with that is, you have to understand something before you can pick it up.  In the case with trigonometry I'm just not understanding anything, it took me until now to make my big breakthrough, and it just came too late.  Let's just say to pull a solid C I'll have to ace the rest of the homework, get at least an A- on the exam today, and no less than a solid A on the final, which realistically won't happen.  One of the most frustrating things is that I know that when I take it again next semester I will completely pwn it.  I really wish I had thought about withdrawing before the deadline had passed, like all of the "smartest" people in that class, which is about 1/3 the size it was after the first week or two.


Back to good news, I'll get to spend some time with Mirage this weekend!


A little more bad news, I'm pretty sure I messed up my nose in the match against Kansas.  Something in my nose crackles when I itch it, in the area of the cartilage.  It's probably nothing. 

Mirage

I met this new girl, Mirage, a little while ago.  Actually we went on a second date Friday night.  Dinner and Laser Tag, then my place for a movie.  I think for some girls, laser-tagging isn't super-appealing, but c'mon, Mirage talking about how she found some places to "snipe people"?  That's a win.

It's odd for me how quickly I started feeling comfortable around Mirage.  I think one of the reasons for this is that Mirage and I are VERY similar.  I've always said that I am probably looking for a girl that is most like a female version of myself.  Mirage is pretty close.  The more we talk, the more she says things that make me say to myself, "Hey, I've said/thought that exact thing!"  Mirage and I can talk for hours, pretty much about anything, I love it, though I'm always paranoid that I'm so excited about talking that I do too much of it and exhaust too many topics.


One thing I've thought about is how, comparatively, I've moved at break-neck speed with Mirage.  I mean a hug after the first date?  Cuddling during a movie on the second?  I don't even know who I am anymore!  No, but seriously, it's not a bad thing, I've already stated my point here previously that I'm trying to move past my whole, let's-date-a-month-before-we-touch-and-three-months-before-we-kiss thing.  It's kind of lame, so maybe I've finally moved beyond that.

Mirage is tall, at 5'10" she's at the top of my ideal height range, of which I am a huge fan.  She does have dark hair and eyes, not my usual thing, but nice.  She wore a ponytail on date #2, have I mentioned how much I like those?  That was a big move.  I think the biggest thing about Mirage that I'm attracted to is that her interests and activity types are balanced, like me.  Mirage is probably one of the biggest female nerds I've ever met in real life, seriously, it's awesome.  Mirage is also outdoorsy and athletic, which is always nearly impossible to find combined with extreme nerdiness.  She's a college football fan!  And it was confirmed!  We watched some and she knew exactly what was happening.  Big Points.  She's also more of a touchy-feely, affectionate person, which I always like, because it's a thing in a relationship I tend to automatically reflect back, and I enjoy it.  In fact, maybe it's still my semi-jilted, post-Hannah self talking, but it's early enough that I sometimes feel Mirage is too good to be true.

Of course I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't pick out the Cons about Mirage.  First, Distance, seriously, when was the last time I dated a girl who lived closer than 30mins away a majority of the year?  Oh yeah, high school... Second, Mirage kinda stresses about dating sometimes.  Not terribly, but sometimes she says things that I don't really know how to respond to.  To be honest, it's not that bad, it's probably what I would do too if I wasn't so secretive about my thoughts and feelings.  But when it comes to dating, I'm just about fun, there's no need to stress, especially after one goes on the fabled second date.  That's really all I can come up with, and distance I have experience dealing with, and I'm gonna predict that the whole stress level declines now that the second date is out of the way.


I head to New York City and the Quidditch World Cup this week!!!  So I don't know for sure when I'll see Mirage and go on Date 3, but I hope it's sooner rather than later.

Just Delete

I had a good conversation with Smartypants earlier this week that really got me thinking.  One part of the conversation was about what I'm going to do about Hannah now.  Smartypants' recommendation was "delete from life."


At first I was reluctant to even consider it.  See, I hold on to things, I think it's a form of self-punishment.  The thing I hate about myself most is that I hold myself to these unattainable standards, then I'm incredibly hard on myself when I fail.  Usually when I fail big-time I spend years telling myself what I should have done, how I should have done better, but didn't.


I don't admit this easily, but since Hannah has gotten home I've been struggling, much more than anyone can see.  I walk around wearing this mask of arrogance and self assurance in order to hide the fact that I feel any sadness or depression.  The reality is I've been severely depressed for over three months now, every aspect of my life has seen a decline in quality, I struggle to focus at work, I'm falling behind at school, I'm forgetful, I can't sleep when it's time for bed and when I need to be productive all I can do is think about sleeping.


What makes it worse is that I recognize all of these things and I still can't pull myself out of it.  Which makes me hate myself, because I should be able to solve this problem.


During the conversation about deleting Hannah from my life I couldn't help but think about the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the movie was hard to follow at times, and trying to do Trig homework while watching didn't help, but it made me think about the concept brought up in the movie.  What if you could delete all of your memories of one person or event in your life?  Would you really want them gone?  Would you be better off without them?  Or would you just end up repeating all of the same mistakes?


I'm taking Smartypants' advice.  I'm starting to delete Hannah from my life in the ways that are realistically possible, Facebook.  I meticulously had to "untag" each picture of us together, and deleted each picture that I had posted of her or anything we did together.  It was amusing as I did this little walk down memory lane, how much of a parallel to the movie this was.  In the movie, the main character Joel is asked to go back through all of his memories of his former girlfriend, so they can locate them and target them for deletion.


While I was at it I deleted all of our peripheral mutual friends.  The final step, deleting Hannah herself as a friend, I've decided to put off until next week.  The way I see it, if I do it right before I leave for New York, I'll be so focused and excited that I won't have time to think about it.


I believe everything happens for a reason.  As hard and as emotional as the last 21 months have been, and the rut they've seemingly put me in, I've also, during the same time, been given the tools to pull out of this rut.  I've discovered new relationships that would have never existed without this period, Smartypants being the best example.


Right now I can see that I'm in a position to pull out of this hard time, I've built some momentum over the last month, now it's time to see if it's enough to propel me over the summit.