Ugh!

So I had my first bad day courtesy of students today... For the most part my students are amazing, and they are the most respectful kids I've ever taught.

But there are always that few... :(

I didn't have any ice cream, so I'm eating chips and dip and watching Oprah! lol

Random trip to Memphis...

So last night at church my friend Olivia and I decided to go to Memphis today, as long as the roads weren't bad... When we woke up this morning, it was snowing, but the roads were dry, so we decided to go ahead and go, and pray that the roads stayed good.  It worked out great!  We ate lunch at J. Alexander's, which is a slightly overpriced place, but it's got really good food, a cool atmosphere, and it's a tradition of ours.

Then we went to the mall... Don't ask how much I spent, because I won't tell you, but I did save over half on everything that I bought...  Plus I got some really cute stuff that I will definitely wear the crap out of! :)

Anyway, then we went on to Target, where I didn't spend as much as I could have... Can you tell I'm trying to make myself feel better about what I spent? lol

As we were leaving Target, Olivia asked me if I wanted to fulfill the normal tradition of taking I-40 back to Jackson and eating Italian food... Of course I said yes!  We usually go to Old Town Spaghetti Store, but since we ate there last week, we decided to go to Olive Garden.  We got back to Jackson alot earlier than we planned on, so we hit up Books-a-Million.  I got some Spanish books there, and a couple of the are really fun... They're some that my friends that are always wanting to know Spanish insults will most definitely want to borrow! :)  But I did get one book that I will actually use with my students... The other 2 will never see the inside of my classroom! lol

Anyway, I just got home from Olivia's house.  It had been forever since just she and I had hung out, and it was really nice to just sit back on the drive and talk and catch up. :)

Hopefully the school district she teaches in will get out for the snow tomorrow and she and I will get to cook up a bunch of stuff. (My district's already out...)  Cross your fingers!

Whammy...

Warning: This will probably be confusing if you don't know details about a certain time in my life... and it's pretty all over the place...

So I looked at the date on Wednesday and realized that it had been 5 years since I got engaged.  That was a surreal feeling.  I didn't really tell anyone or talk about it or anything, but I did start to wonder about alot of things.

What would've happened if I hadn't broken it off?
Would "Rob" (not his name) have done it, or would we have gotten married?
What would my life be like right now if we had?
Would we have any kids?
Would I still be as involved with mission work?
Would we even be going to church anymore?

It's crazy how different my life could have been.

If I hadn't gathered up the balls to break it off, I really don't think that he would have.  Rob was a really sweet guy, and breaking his heart was still the hardest thing I've ever done, but he really just wanted to get married.  We started dating in February, and by May he was talking about wanting to get engaged and married by Christmas... OF THE SAME YEAR!  Yeah, that freaked me out cause I wasn't ready to get married yet, and I didn't want to until we were out of school, so we talked about it, and we decided to just see how things went.

For the most part, things continued to go well, but the longer Rob and I dated, the more red flags I started to see.  They started out as small things, but when you look back at just how many "small thing" there were... Yeah, that's how I came to my decision.  It started off that he couldn't get himself up in the mornings, so he was always missing classes.  Being a good girlfriend, I volunteered to start calling him to make sure he was awake for class... Even though I didn't have a class before Chapel most days, so I didn't have to wake up til about 10, and calling him every morning meant waking up about 7:30 or 8:00 each morning.  Then he started oversleeping and missing drill. (He was in the Army National Guard.)  He was supposed to be in Jackson by like 7am on Saturdays and Sundays once a month.  I had the hardest time getting him up to answer the phone, and I don't know how his roommates dealt with the phone constantly ringing at 5:30 on Saturday morning... I would have gotten fed up with it and poured ice cold water on him or something.  There was one time that I called and called and called, and he had to leave by 6:15 or so to make it to the part of Jackson where he had to be... When I realized that I'd been calling for 30 minutes and still hadn't gotten him, I called his dorm mom at 6am and asked if she could get her husband to go wake Rob up because if he missed drill again, they'd kick him out of the military. (Literally, that was the point it had gotten to.)   That night I tore into him about his lack of responsibility and about how if he couldn't get his butt out of bed, he never should've joined the military, etc... and while I continued to call him most mornings, that was the last day that I called him for drill, and I told him to stop relying on me to be his alarm clock, because he already had THREE!

Another thing about him was how he handled his money.  I had a piddley workstudy job and I made about $100 a month... Which, with me eating most meals in Gano, was more than enough for me to go buy food a couple of times a month.  He also had a workstudy job where he made the same as I did, and he also made about $200 a month for the National Guard.  Not bad for a full time college kid!  Before he and I started dating, he had borrowed enough money to buy a top of the line computer, and he was making more than enough money to make the payments.  He rarely made the payments though.  I think he borrowed around $2,000 for it, and when I broke up with him he owed nearly $3,000 on it.  Instead of paying his bill, he bought random crap.  He'd go to Wal-Mart and buy 3 movies off the new release rack.  He'd go to Abercrombie and buy a $100 pair of jeans.  If he pointed something out and I said it was pretty, he'd buy it for me (In the beginning I thought it was sweet, but as I realized what he was doing, I put a stop to it.)  Anything he saw that he wanted, he bought.  It was pretty ridiculous.  Once we got engaged, my mom said something about how when we got married, everything would have to be in my name only, and he got really angry about how he would have his name on everything too because he would be the one providing for us, blah blah blah... I finally told him to shut up because she was right... With his credit, we wouldn't be able to afford the interest rates that would come with his name being on stuff.  He didn't like that very much, but I told him that he was the only one that could change his credit, so if he didn't like it, to do something about it.

The summer that we were engaged was an interesting time.  He spent almost the entire summer at my house in Arkansas, because if he didn't get a job there and stay with my parents, we wouldn't see each other at all during the summer.  I was doing the 6 week study abroad program in Mexico that was required for my Spanish degree, as well as 3 weeks in Panama, and 1 in Honduras, so between trips was literally the only time I'd see him.

I learned alot that summer, and not just about Spanish.  You see, Rob is bipolar, and as is common with people who are bipolar, he would start thinking that he didn't need his meds and that he could control it just fine without them, so he would stop taking them.  When he was off his meds, he was a completely different person.  I could tell when he stopped taking them within 2 days, because he would become this rude, all around jerk.  When we were discussing our plans for the summer, he said that he'd like to stop taking his meds so that he could see if he could control it on his own, and I said we'd talk about it later, not telling him there was NO WAY I was going to subject Nannie and Poppa to the person he was when he was off them.

So one day while I was in Mexico, Rob called me and we were talking.  Before he called, I had been talking to Mama (the woman we were staying with) and some of my housemates like we did all the time before we would all go take our siestas.  I was still sitting at the table and they were still talking while I was talking to him.  I laughed at something that they said and Daniel asked me who I was talking to and when I told him, he snapped back with something like, well I'll just let you go if you'd rather talk to them, and I snapped back a reply that was along the lines of "Well if you're gonna act like that, I don't want to talk to you anyway." And he hung up on me... The first time ever... He hung up on me...

I waited til I knew he would be at work, and I called Nannie.  I asked her what Rob's problem was, and she said that he'd been being short with her too... I asked her what she wasn't telling me, and she started telling me everything.  He'd been lazy, rude, sarcastic, and everything that he was when he wasn't taking his medicine.  I told her if I didn't know better I'd think he was off his meds again.  There was a long pause, and I asked her if she knew if he was off his medicine.  He was... And he'd told her that I knew because we'd talked about it.  I was FURIOUS!  He was staying at my parents' house cost-free, and he was treating them like crap.  Nannie asked him to wash her car when he was out washing mine, and he acted insulted and smarted off because she'd asked him to do something on his day off... This was the woman that bought groceries that she knew he'd like and packed his lunch everyday for work.  Plus, he had promised me that he wouldn't stop taking his meds again unless I knew, and he'd broken that promise.  I told her to have him call me when he got home from work so I could lay into him for everything.

Yeah, that was a fun phone call.  He assumed that Nannie had called me complaining about everything and started going off about her and I told him that he better shut his trap talking crap about my mother, because I was the one that called her asking questions, and since he had told her that I knew about everything, he had no right to get pissed at her for anything.  Needless to say... He got the butt-chewing of a lifetime.

When I got back from Mexico, things were a little better, but there were some other things that weren't adding up, so I asked him about them... Then I asked Nannie about them... Yeah, that night, I went at him screaming at him at the top of my lungs.  Was. Not. Pretty.  (That's actually the only time that I remember ever screaming at someone like that... Including my students... Raise my voice/yell, yes... Scream, no.)

Needless to say... His mom was there 2 days later to take him home for the rest of the summer.

That's not everything that contributed to me breaking it off, but that was alot of it... I'm so glad that Rob stayed at my house that summer, because that was when I realized that I could no longer see myself marrying him.  Sure, I could see myself walking down the aisle at Northside in my dress... But I couldn't picture him standing at the front of the church waiting for me.  I couldn't picture myself as Mrs. Rob... And I really didn't think I'd be happy spending the rest of my life with him.

If we'd gotten married, I don't think I would be as happy as I am now, because I'd still be acting like his mother instead of treating him as a responsible adult.  We'd probably already have a kid by now, but I would at least be pregnant, because we had planned on one by the time I was 27, and another around age 30.  That's a scary thought right there, because I canNOT imagine having a child right now.  I don't think that I'd be involved in mission work anymore because of an offhand comment that he made about how I'd have to give it up once we got married because we wouldn't be able to afford it... Yeah, that comment caused a fight, because I reminded him of who would be making the money in our relationship until he got started up in his career.  Anyway, probably no to the still being faithful church members too.  His family always seemed to have a very relaxed attitude about going to church, and if they didn't wake up on Sunday morning, they didn't worry about it.  Actually, they didn't worry about much of anything, which is how Rob got some of his problems... Learned behavior...

I don't regret the almost 2 years that we were together... I regret not ending it sooner (I didn't know how to, because he'd made comments about he didn't know what he'd do without me, and I was the best thing in his life, and stuff like that... And he'd been suicidal before, so I was afraid to.), because letting it go  only hurt both of us more, but I learned so much during those 2 years, as well as the years after it.  I learned so much about myself in the aftermath, especially about how being independent is a good thing, and that graduating without my Mrs. was a good thing. :)  I learned how much I'd missed having my guy friends (Rob didn't ask me to, but I'd pretty much given up all of my guy friends when we got serious.)  I learned that I really could take care of myself, and that it was okay to do things on my own. (Like flying to Boston on my own, and waiting on Kerri outside of Logan at 11pm!)  I've done so many things that I wouldn't have done if I had married Rob.  I know I wouldn't have made that trip with Kerri.  I wouldn't have been on as many mission trips as I've been on.  I wouldn't still be involved with the children's home in Panama.  I probably wouldn't be the Christian that I am today.  I wouldn't have a masters degree.  I wouldn't have had the learning experiences teaching at Chester County that taught me how to stick up for myself and when not to let people walk all over you.  I wouldn't have the friends here in Henderson that I have now that I wouldn't trade for anything.  I wouldn't have the nice material things that I have, and who knows what I'd be driving! lol  Sure not the car I've got now!  I know I wouldn't be as close to Nannie and Poppa as I am now because truly they didn't really like Rob, but they wanted me to be happy... While they tried to hide it, Rob pretty much figured that out, and so he would have tried to move me to Atlanta (13 away from Nannie and Poppa).  You know, he and I came in together as freshmen, and I graduated in 4 years... He dropped out after 6... I could be married to a Target electronics guy that was about as responsible as a 12 year old, that went to college for 6 years, majored in about 10 different things, and still didn't finish... and probably living in his parents' basement.)

I REALLY learned about what great friends I had the the week before and the first month after I broke it off.  All of my roommates from college came home with me the first part of November to celebrate Thanksgiving with Nannie and Poppa since I was supposed to be going to Rob's.  We stayed up late Friday night, and slept late Saturday morning... 5 of us in Nannie and Poppa's king sized bed.  :)  Everyone was up getting ready and Nannie and I were sitting in their room talking, and we got on the subject of Rob.  I just blurted out that I didn't think I could marry him.  Nannie looked at me, and then looked up and muttered Thank you Jesus!  Then she held me and let me cry.  Gina stuck her head in to ask me something, and when she saw me crying, she shut the door behind her and came running to find out what was wrong.  I remember looking at her and asking "How do I dump Rob?"  Nannie went and got my other roommates and we all sat around on the bed talking and trying to figure out what I was going to do.  That ended up being one of the most memorable weekends from my senior year because of how close I felt to those girls and how they were all banding together to try to help me 1) figure out what I was going to do and 2) feel better. :)  Some of them didn't really know each other that well before, because they'd all been my roommates, but that Saturday afternoon and the next Sunday, it felt like we'd all know each other for years.

The night that I broke it off, I went and found one of my girlfriends and when she asked me what was wrong, I started crying again and couldn't answer her, so I held up my left hand and she saw that the ring was gone.  She called her fiance Tim (who was one of my really good friends) and told him, and he promptly called me, but I was in the shower and didn't check the messages until the next morning... So after Chorale, Tim waited until everyone was done hugging me and everything and then grabbed me and said come on, I'm kidnapping you.  He took me to Shell and bought me ice cream, and we sat there for 3 hours just talking about everything.

Chorale in and of itself proved what a great group of people they were too.  Pretty much no one knew because Rob and I weren't really running around telling people, so when Rob didn't show up to rehearsal, a few people were asking me where he was and if he was coming.  I told them that I had no idea because I hadn't seen him.  I did tell my friend Katie because she was standing next to me and could tell that I'd been crying, but for the most part, Tim let the guys know and Katie and Julie handled the girls... Which was really nice. :)  After rehearsal, everyone was giving me hugs and telling me that they were sorry it didn't work out and that they loved me... Even the people that I didn't know that well. :)

Another group that surprised me were the TV 40 guys.  Rob was the one that got me interested in working down there, and so I didn't know what I should do since we were both working down there.  He Facebooked me and said he wouldn't be there, so I went on to work.  I was the floor director at this point, and Rob was supposed to be running a camera, so I figured I'd just cover for him and no one would notice.  I got down there and did all of my responsibilities and went and got on a computer.  Rob's sister's ex was the sports guy, so he was there and he knew about it.  He came over to me when I was at the computer, put his arm around me and said that he knew we weren't close, but that if I needed a shoulder, he was there.  I thanked him and he went back to practicing his script.  About that time, one of the other technical guys started hollering about where was Rob... Another of the guys knew, and he promptly shut him up and told him that he was assuming Rob wouldn't be there and then whispered that we'd broken up.  By the time the broadcast was over, everyone knew, but they got that I wasn't in the mood for talking about it, so they pretty much left me alone other than telling me that they loved me and that they'd pray for me to find the strength to handle everything. (LOVED going to a Christian school!)  Justin (sister's ex) waited for me to finish my floor director stuff and asked me if I was going to go to church that night.  I said no, because honestly my mind wouldn't be in it and I'd probably sit there thinking about things and then start crying.  He said okay, let's go get dinner.  We went to the student center and we sat and just talked for hours.  He did everything that he could to keep my mind off of it, and when the topic did turn back to either of our exes, we'd start telling stories about the crap we put up with. lol  We were both laughing most of the time.  Justin walked me back to my dorm about curfew (midnight), and said that he'd had fun, and if I ever needed to talk to let him know.

Justin was probably the biggest surprise out of everyone, because he and I had only really talked a couple of times and that was really only because we were dating siblings, and they were always there.  Needless to say, Justin and I talked many times, including spending 8 solid hours in the Student Center in one day during finals week.  We talked a few times over Christmas, and by Lectureship he had become one of my best friends... and at one point was my BEST friend.  While we're not as close as we once were (thanks to a bunch of drama), I'm grateful to Rob for Justin's friendship, because if it hadn't been for Justin's relationship with Rob's sister, he and I probably never would have become friends.

I'm also grateful to Rob for introducing me to TV 40... I got to fulfill one of my dreams of being a news anchor (even if it was dinky TV 40) because of that.  I also learned about all of the stuff that goes into making a live broadcast, as well as a recorded one.  During the Election Day coverage, I got to do more of the producing aspect of news.  In 2006, I was running the teleprompter, sound, writing/fixing the script, and everything was live.  In 2008, I wasn't an official TV40 employee, but I still had friends down there, so I went to help out and I was the one doing the research during the broadcast, writing the stories, and making/finding/stealing graphics.  LOVED IT! :)  One of the guys had to make a TV show for a project, and since he was one of the guys everyone liked, we all volunteered to help him.  I kind of felt bad about my involvement with Last Minute Update (the show), because Rob pretty much dropped out of it when he realized that I wasn't going to give it up, but I was having way to much fun, and it wasn't my fault that he couldn't handle seeing me there... Especially cause he already had a girlfriend at the point.  Boys! lol

Wow... It's kind of funny how well you can remember some things, isn't it?  

Whoa... Just realized how long this post was, so I'm going to wrap it up now... lol



Side note: Last week I was talking to someone who's a senior at Freed that I hadn't seen since middle school, and we were catching up on everything.  When I told her bout my being engaged, she asked about the proposal, and when I told her about it, she said "THAT WAS YOU?!"  Apparently my candle-lighting proposal is STILL being talked about! lol

Inconsiderate People

So you know what makes me mad?  When you ask someone on Sunday night if they want to come over and watch a movie on Monday evening, and they say "Yeah, just let me know."  Then you text them about 6:30 Monday night asking if they still want to come over... And now at 2PM on Tuesday, you STILL haven't heard from them.

This person hardly ever texts me back when I ask her something, and it's really frustrating!!!  I'm about ready to just stop texting her and stop asking her if she wants to do stuff, cause it's starting to get ridiculous!

People even if you're saying No, text back a response to someone inviting you to do something!  It's just good manners!