Baseball… the newest cure for a broken heart.

Oh yeah, that for real happened. I went on my trip and got back just over a week ago. I don’t know if I mentioned that right before I went the guy who I was going to visit in the first place and that so harshly ended things a little over a week before I went then let me know a few days before I went that he had cheated on me. To which I told him he is a jerk and he replied that I was judging him harshly. Puh-lease.

The first day was hard due to the drastic change in plans, the second day I had a hardcore breakdown. Cried for a good portion of the morning. later that night I was going to accomplish one thing I have had on my bucket list since I was about 15: to go see an MLB game. I bought a ticket to see the Braves and I was a little worried to go by myself, but you know? It was amazing! I understand the sport without the help of a guy! I left that game feeling better than I had in weeks! I left with the realization that I absolutely LOVE baseball and that I do not need a guy in my life to be happy. (I’m not opposed to get married, just to be clear) I felt so good and so now whether the Braves play beautifully or horribly they are my team. We are emotionally connected and as corny and ridiculous as it sounds, the irony of their name still makes me smile to myself. I had learned to be brave and take my life back, with their game and doing that all on my own as the first step! Yay for independence! 🙂

 

Eating, praying and loving on my own…

I have had a stunning realization over the last few days. Mostly due to a comment from my mom that I didn’t want to listen to, but in the end it brought on a lot of reflection. So I have been thinking about how my mom told me I jump in too fast, almost desperately and I have not learned to be okay on my own. I told her I definitely understand and enjoy being single. This is true. I see a lot of benefit to the single life! I can do what I want, I go where I want and do things how I want. Who could disagree that this is nice?

Then I started to think about it while watching “Eat.Pray.Love” and it dawned on me that I am a lot like that character… I have to constantly have at least a crush on someone or I don’t know what to do with myself. So I jump in and out of relationships looking to be fulfilled, but not willing or even able to give real fulfillment, because I am not a full person. I thought I was, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I am looking for someone to complete me. I am selfish, insecure and only focused on my golden ticket of marriage. So I sink my claws into everyone that seems like a fairly legit candidate. But an unhappy and incomplete single person is not capable of giving love to the extent needed and will never be happy or fulfilled in a marriage. This movie has really made an impact on me, because I feel as lost, incomplete and unsatisfied with my life as she does. I need to become my own person and really truly learn to be okay with myself and by myself before I can really offer anything to a lasting relationship. I have the dreams, the feelings, the memories and the lonely yearning that Liz does in the movie. She keeps almost settling (or actually settling) only to find out that she is still empty and remaining unsatisfied.

So… I’ve come to the following conclusion. I am using my ticket I bought to go see this boy that I loved so fully in GA and I am going to do a mini trip like Liz’s, only I am not rich enough to go to Italy, India, and Bali over the course of a year. I am going to do what I want on a solo trip without anyone to tell me what I need or should do. I will be able to really think and I can go out to eat wherever I want. In addition to this I am going to take a 3 month sabbatical from dating. I need to learn to make friends with guys instead of trying to evaluate them as potential marriage candidates. It is hard being in this environment where it is heavily influenced by religion where marriage is a huge principle and where being 26 is old. I know it really isn’t that big of a deal and I am not that old, but it is hard not to feel like it. I really just need to learn to love my life as it is and stop trying to live in the future constantly. There is a quote from Thomas S. Monson (the president and prophet in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), “Learn from the past, Live for today and plan for the future.” I just try to live in the future on the daily. There is a book I am reading that says that is a a problem and shows that we are not grateful for our lives. I can only imagine how offensive that would be to God. I feel like I have been completely broken down lately in every regard. The job I was aiming to get just totally blew me off, my love life has gone to crap and I started questioning my faith.

There is a website I found while basically googling a quarter life crisis called allgroanup.com. He writes an artivcle about the benefits of having a quarter-life crisis and he has a couple of quotes that I really loved “We learn that sometimes life will dismantle you so that you can be rebuilt” and then another one from someone else named Gilda Radner, “Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” That summed up exactly what I was feeling, but put a positive spin on it. 

The other thing I am looking to do is learn to really control my thoughts as Richard from Texas in the movie says “you have to learn to select your thoughts the same way that you select your clothes everyday. Now that’s a power you can cultivate. If you want to… control your life so bad, work on the mind, it’s the only thing you should be trying to control, cuz if you can’t master your thoughts you’ll be in trouble forever.” You have to surrender and still your mind. You have to realize that exactly in this moment there is no problem, like in THIS exact moment. I’ve been reading a book to learn to master my mind as that is my biggest challenge and my WORST enemy. I am going to master my thoughts so I can hear more fully my God and so i can think more rationally and love more fully and truly. I need to think of others way more and reach out to help them. If I am struggling, there must be others out there going through something similar and help. Again Richard from TX in the movie makes a good point on this very subject (yes I am watching the movie while writing this post haha) “You know if you could clear out all that space in your mind that you are using to obsess… you’d have a vacuum with a doorway and you know what the universe would do with that doorway? It would RUSH IN. God, rush in fill you with more love than you’ve ever dreamed of. Man!”

I WANT THAT!!! He tells her she has the capacity to love the whole world. That is amazing. I want to change sooo bad! So I am going to change how I think, take some time for myself to understand myself and then also take a 3 month break from dating (yes, I am going to start turning down dates for 3 months, something I have never done). I hope by doing this I can be rebuilt. I felt like my life was ruined, but it is like Liz says in Italy “ruin is the road to transformation.” I need some transformation.

Here I go, on an unknown road, but “to get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.” So here goes nothin! 🙂