Broken Hearts

We'd only been dating for a couple of months, but still, when I heard the words "I think we should be friends" I cried. He had already brought it up earlier in the day, but I was hoping that I could change his mind. I knew he was exhausted and was hoping he would wait until after he got some sleep to see if he still wanted to break up.

He didn't. The six words that no one wants to hear. Those six words, that no matter how much you did or didn't like the person, cut you. I kept my composure as I said goodbye and walked to my car. The tears came. Not just little tears, big, sobbing, gut wrenching tears. He had broken my heart.

He moved out of state shortly after and I moved on with my life. It wasn't until I started dating Ethan that I realized just how insecure I was about that relationship. I didn't realize how poorly I had been treated and the lack of love and respect that was in the relationship. I had convinced myself that he was the one for me and didn't realize that I was doing all the work in a desperate attempt not to lose him.

I never thought I would talk to him again, but he surprised me by calling several months later. Even more of a shock was the purpose. He wanted to apologize for how he treated me. He realized that I deserved better than that. Although I think he was calling to try to get back together, I'll never know because before he had a chance to get to that, I told him I was engaged. Needless to say, the conversation didn't last much longer.

It's been over a decade since this happened. Looking back, I know that we could have had a happy life together. He's married now so he must have figured out how to treat a girl, but I'm glad that it's not this girl. I have better than a happy life, I have an amazing life. Noah was everything that I wanted, but Ethan is everything that I need. As much as it hurt, I can't help but be grateful for that broken heart.

Tender Mercies

I'm a Latter-day Saint.  I've been a member my whole life, but have studied and gained a testimony for myself.  Every six months the leaders of the church address us in a conference we refer to as General Conference.  Clever name, I know.  A few years ago one of the leaders gave a talk about the tender mercies of the Lord.  The point was that while we're in the midst of our trials, the Lord will give us tender mercies to get us through until the trial has past.  It's a great talk.  You can read it here.

I bring this up because I feel that I've been blessed with a lot of tender mercies.  One of the biggest is the daily emails I receive from the church (that I signed up for) with a spiritual quote.  There have been many times that I'm shocked at how much I needed to hear that quote on that day.  It's like they chose it specifically for me.  I've often wanted to find another person who also gets these emails to see if they got the same message.  Today I had another one of these moments.  Here's today's message:

"With all my capacity I encourage you to discover who you really are.  I invite you to look beyond the daily routine of life.  I urge you to discern through the Spirit your divinely given capacities.  I exhort you to prayerfully make worthy choices that will lead you to realize your full potential."  -Richard G. Scott, "Realize Your Full Potential"

This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday.  I'm trying to discover who I really am beyond my daily routine of life.  This couldn't have been more perfect.  Some of you may chalk this up to a coincidence, but I don't.  I believe in a God who knows who we are and wants us to be happy.  Clearly, He helped put this quote in my inbox today to reassure me that I'm on the right path as well as to give a little nudge on how to accomplish my goal. So cool.

Not a Blond

I was born with a head full of black hair.  I'm told that it wasn't long before it all fell out and grew in blond.  Looking through pictures of my childhood, I have light blond hair.  I imagine a lot of that had to do with spending my summers outside and at the local water park.  It wasn't until I was in high school that it started to look darker.  In my mind, though, I was still blond.  I spent years and years highlighting my hair because I'm a blond.  I'd spend 30 minutes blow drying my hair, straightening it, and making sure that it was perfect every single day.  I needed my blond hair perfect. 

About a year ago I started to feel uncomfortable in my own skin.  Who I saw in my mind didn't match who I saw in the mirror.  My perfect blond hair didn't match me anymore.  But I couldn't see the person in my mind so I didn't know how to make them match.  Out of laziness and humidity I stopped drying my hair everyday.  I started letting it air dry, but it bothered me that I couldn't get my wavy hair to be perfect, beach waves.  

A friend of mine has gone through a pretty big transformation over the last several years. As I've listened to her talk about where she was and how she got to where she is now, I realized that I'm on the same journey.  She's given me confidence in my messy waves and to accept that I don't have blond hair.

I took my first step last week and dyed my hair brown.  I intended to have it be light brown, but it turned out to be more medium/dark brown.  I quite like it though and all of a sudden, I feel more comfortable with how I look.  My eyes have become a focal point and I don't mind the messy waves.  In fact, I'm totally okay with them being big and messy.  I think that I was unintentionally suppressing my true self and accepting my natural hair has changed that.  I have a long way to go, but I'm happy to have at least found a way to start the process.

Cast of Characters

I've decided to introduce the cast of characters.  It can get complicated explaining how everyone fits in and rather than take an entire paragraph to do so, I'm going to do it here. I've changed their names.  I'll add to this list as necessary so if you read a new name, feel free to reference this for information.

These are the individuals I met while living in Virginia:
Sophia - when I was 16 my family moved across the country for a job.  I met Sophia at church and we were almost instant friends.  She's a year older than I am.  We were roommates for about 2 years after graduating from high school.

Jackson - I first started dating Jackson when I was 19, he was 18.  We were serious for about two years before he broke my heart.  I thought we were going to get married.

Aiden - Jackson's older brother and Sophia's boyfriend for awhile.  Best friends dating brothers.  We were living the dream for about a year.

Lucas - Lucas and I had an interesting relationship.  I'll go into more details on a post. Needless to say, at times he liked me and I liked him, but never at the same time. Ultimately we had a huge fight which he never got over.  I knew our friendship was over when I found out he got married from a mutual friend's mom 6 months later.

Liam - Sophia's boyfriend when I first met her.  He stayed around after they broke up and was a little crazy, but a lot of fun.

These are the individuals I met while living in Ohio:
Emma - My best friend from about 22 on.  We don't live near each other and haven't for about 10 years, but still talk regularly and get together when we can.

Noah - Oh, Noah.  Another guy I dated who broke my heart.  I met him at 22, he was 21 and we dated on and off for several months before he moved to attend college.  There will be several posts devoted to him.

Mason - Emma's boyfriend.

Ethan - Best man on this list and my eventual husband.

Olivia - another girlfriend.  At one point she was dating Noah's brother until he broke her heart too.

Caden - I sort of dated Caden for about 3 months before I served a mission for my church. He was convinced that we were going to get married even though I was very open to the fact that I wasn't interested in him that way.  It was funny and sad at the same time.

These are the individuals I met while attending college:
Ava - roommate.  Ava and Sophia were childhood friends.

Mia - the other roommate.  She was crazy.  She was taking medication, but decided to stop while we lived together.  Lots of fun.

Oliver - another guy I sort of dated for awhile.  He really liked me, I basically used him.  Not a proud moment for me.

Elijah - Ava's boyfriend, eventual husband.

Grayson - Elijah's roommate.  I had a major crush on him, and although at times would flirt with me, never showed real interest in me.  Just enough to get my hopes up.

My 9-Week College Career

I had a deep fryer blow up on me.

Bet you've never read that sentence before.

Let me set the scene.  I was 19 and off at college.  To make ends meet, I was working in a deli at a local grocery store.  Everything about this job sucked, but I needed the money. The morning staff didn't finish their work which made it so the afternoon staff couldn't finish theirs which meant that the closer (me) had to finish up everything.  I worked for at least an hour after I was supposed to every night finishing everything up.  It sucked.

On top of a crappy job, I was failing a class at school.  Like, really failing.  The teacher graded our first exam on a curve with 60% being equivalent to 100% and I still failed.  I was really overwhelmed and stressed.  On October 31st, I decided that I could fix this.  I could pull my grade up and I could complete my first semester of school successfully.

I was wrong.

November 1st.  I went into work for what I was expecting to be a normal day of work.  I dropped a batch of chicken into the fryer, closed the lid, and turned to help a customer.  My back was to the fryer and when I turned to throw something in the trash, it happened.  Hot oil sprayed all over me.  It was on my face, my arm, my neck, and my back.  I saw it glisten on my arm and felt the burn on my face.  Immediately shock set in.  I wanted to leave.  I wanted to go home, but my roommate had my car so I just walked back and forth saying I knew this was going to happen.  The lady working in the bakery came over and said my name.  I tell you, I would've done anything she said because she knew my name. She escorted me into the bakery and started administering first aid.  The produce lady came and assisted.  One of them told me to remove my oil soaked shirt.  I did and just stood there in my bra like it was totally normal.  The produce lady was kind enough to hand me her sweatshirt to cover myself.

Have you heard the joke that only in America you can get a pizza delivered faster than you can get an ambulance?  I had and when I looked up to see the EMT's walking toward me, my first thought was, "There's no way I could've gotten a pizza that fast."  Yeah, shock. They asked me where it hurt.  I told them my face was burning.  They told me there wasn't anything there.  But my face was burning. They assured me there wasn't anything on my face.  They wrapped me up good and escorted me out to the ambulance. With my head wrapped up and a blanket around me, I felt just like Rick Moranis at the end of Ghostbusters.  I imagine that's how I looked too.  Dazed with a goofy grin on my face looking around like an idiot.

Miraculously, I came out of that without any scarring.  You would never know this had happened by looking at me.  I found out later that the latch holding the fryer lid closed fell off.  Since it was in the middle of deep frying, when the latch came off and the lid flew open, oil sprayed everywhere.  Lucky me, I was the closest thing to it.  This was the final straw.  Sitting in the ER, I decided to pull the plug on college.

Oh, and also on this day the family dog, who we had for 17 years, was put to sleep.

Welcome to Where She Wandered

My name is Green Eyed Girl.  I'm a thirty-something happily married mother of four.  Lately I've been feeling scattered.  I suppose it all started when my mom died.  Her death triggered in me the need to write.  I'm not sure why.  I've always loved to write but somewhere around my early twenties, I just stopped.  It's as if my imagination went to sleep and the death of my mom woke it up.  This scattered thought process makes it hard to focus on just one thought.  Even now, as I sit here, I'm finding it hard to express exactly where I am.  I'm hoping that by writing this blog I'll be able to find clarity.

I'm also excited to be able to write anonymously.  I'm not hiding, if that's what you're thinking.  For at least a year I've wanted to write my thoughts and experiences down without judgment.  I often find myself thinking, "I can't post that on Facebook because of so-and-so." or "I don't want to share that because of how what's-his-name may feel." I'm not looking for a place to be mean or pass judgment.  I just want to be able to write whatever I want and not worry about who may read it.  I've held back a lot of thoughts and emotions about my mom's death because of how it will affect my sister and father to read it.  I don't plan on using this blog as a grief outlet although I do expect a lot of my posts to have it in the background.  I'd be fooling myself to think otherwise.

Well, I guess this is as good as any first post.  I hope that you'll be patient with me as I sort through my thoughts as well as enjoy random stories of fact and fiction.  I've had some interesting experiences in my thirty-something years.  I look forward to getting to know you as well so feel free to comment.