Am I Enough?

I woke up on the insecure side of life today.  The ugly, annoying, ridiculous side of life, meaning I'm feeling ugly, annoying, and ridiculous.

I hate the Ungame.  Not for what is said during it, but for what isn't said.  It's the knowing what the other person wants to say, but they don't want to hurt your feelings so they make up some other answer that is considerably less hurtful, but you saw in their face what they really wanted to say while they hesitated, and just seeing that thought cross their mind stung.  It hurt so much you don't even want to admit to yourself that you even saw that thought cross their mind.  But you did.  And it's killing you to know they feel that way.

He could do better than me.  Someone funner, smarter, more confident, thinner, prettier, stronger, more athletic, less annoying, more graceful, less talkative, someone who is a better listener, even a better person than me.

I just wonder if I'll be enough, or if he'll leave as soon as someone better comes along that shows an interest in him.

Just a thought on a day like this.

Keep it real readers.

Excitement, Sundays, and The Ungame

Well readers, I am very excited for the coming week.

No karate, so maybe my lingering soreness from my beloved sport can work its way out of my body.  I only work three days this week, which means I'll actually be home for dinner a few days this week before *drum roll* going to FRIGHTMARES!

That's right, Sky, a few friends, and me are going to Lagoon for the weekend, and I am super excited!

In other news, I went to church in Virgin for a missionary homecoming with Sky today.  Is it weird that I still get a little excited when he introduces me as his girlfriend?  It'll be four months since we've been together a week from tomorrow, and it still feels brand new sometimes.  I love that feeling.  I hope it never goes away to be honest.

After we left church we drove around looking at houses we liked and talking about our future children.  I freaked out a little inside, since I'd never actually done anything like that with anyone else.  The whole idea of a future like that, with a house and children and a husband and an actual life just never seemed so real to me.  I actually felt happy about the prospect, especially with him in that future.  That is one thing I can finally admit to myself.

Tonight I broke out the infamous Ungame.  The game that almost cost me a friendship when I was 17.  I hadn't played it since, and it was actually pretty neat to pull it out and dust it off.  It was hard keeping it light, since I had about a million serious questions in my head that I didn't want to say in front of Dason, and also didn't want to admit that I wanted to know the answer to.

Silly Ungame.

To reiterate what I said earlier, I'm super excited for this week. SOOOOO excited.

Keep it real readers.

Ironic Strength

Today was, to say the least, awful.

I mean, the events of the day weren't awful in and of themselves, but add epic PMS and cramps to them, and yeah.  Awful.

I woke up much later than I intended, which set back my chore-doing (I'm literally broke, and I asked my mother if I could do chores around the house today to make a little lunch money) by a few hours.

I cleaned out the fridge, swept away cobwebs, and wiped down blinds all in an effort to make a few bucks so I wouldn't starve.

Not a big deal, but I didn't hear from Sky all day, which given my already fragile state of mind, was not conducive to a happy Karen.  Any other week I wouldn't have thought much of it, and just figured he was busy and I would see him in class.

Karate came, and I watched his eyes soften as he raised his eyes to look at me across the room through the window while he was teaching the younger class.  Again, any other week I would have smiled and waved.  What did I do?  I averted my eyes.  All during warm-ups I felt his eyes on me, daring mine to stare back, but I kept my eyes focused on the floor in front of me.  I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of seeing my deep blue eyes.  Especially on a day where I was feeling so unattractive.

He actually came over and touched me to get me to look up.  I hoped my sleeve wouldn't pull back to reveal the evidence of what I'd done to myself earlier that day.  (Again, not cutting.)  Thankfully it didn't.  I gave him one glance before averting my eyes again.

While doing a drill later in class, I strained a muscle on the back of my thigh.  I had taken a pretty good kick to it a week before, but it was on the mend.  It hurt so bad.  I dealt with the throbbing and the disappointment pretty decently at first, but when I messed up a simple kick three times, and Sky insisted I do one more, I'd had it.  My leg was screaming, my abdomen throbbing, my entire body covered in my own sweat and a few tears from when I hobbled out of class after my strain, and I did something childish.  I stormed away.  I folded my arms, I disrespected Sky as my teacher in front of the whole class, and I told him no.

He should have made me do push-ups.  I don't know why he didn't.  Part of martial arts is controlling every part of you, including your emotions, and I failed.  I'm sitting here on my bed, hours later, feeling completely embarrassed.  He later warned me that I was way out of line, and if I pulled something like that again there would be consequences.

As I stood in my room getting ready for bed, I stretched out my pathetic, sore body.  Looking at my bruises and cuts, extending my arms and legs as far as they could go, feeling joints pop and crack.  Feeling the muscles tense and relax with my slow movements, massaging my leg whose pain has decreased to a dull, gnawing ache.  In spite of all of that, all the pain, the soreness, I felt something new.  Strength.  Being involved in something I once found so confining and restrictive has made me feel powerful.

It's funny how tearing down my stone walls, replacing them with thinner and thinner materials until they're almost gone completely, leaving me vulnerable and open to heartbreak, letting someone see all of me has made me feel strong.  He has taken my weakness from me.  He has refused to let me hide behind it, and I love him so much for that.

I just wish I could tell him that.

Keep it real readers.

I Still Can't Believe It

Well, we're rounding out three and a half months, and still going strong. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was pretty excited about that. He officially knows all my important secrets, and I hope I know all of his.

I never imagined that I would feel this way about another human being.

No relationship is perfect though. But I'm OK with our little corner of imperfection. I find any excuse to shut down when Sky confronts me with a problem. But he makes it so easy for me to do that when he insists on having serious conversations over text rather than face-to-face. Neither of us like heavy conversations, so I guess we have our own ways of avoiding them. We're working on it though.

I see pictures of a girl he was involved with about a year ago, and a video he made for her explaining his feelings he had for her at the time, and I can't help but feel like a bit of a failure in his eyes. She's beautiful. Logically, I know that I more than likely have nothing to worry about. She's with someone else now, and she's married with a baby on the way, and he's largely over her, and I know he's mentioned he just needs to get around to deleting them, but it doesn't change the fact that we've been together for a while and he still has them. The other night I just sat and stared at my hands when they popped up while he was looking through his photos on his computer.

When he talks about her I want to revert to weird habits I used as a teenager to deal with stress and low self-esteem, but I save up the fear and the insecurity that bubbles up until I get in my car or make it all the way home to let loose. (No, I'm not going to divulge what it is. But don't worry, it's not cutting. Blood is just too messy.)

I'm working on getting up the nerve to say something. I promise I am. By the end of the week I will have taken care of it. I was actually going to say something today, but he jilted me for homework, and I ate a chunk of cheese the size of my hand followed by a huge spoonful of fudge and felt like a failure while watching Law & Order: SVU.

Then I watched a documentary about eating disorders and had a flashback to when I was 16.

This is the worst week of the month for me. Can't wait till next week.

I love Sky, I really do, and I know he loves me. I just had a whole bunch of crazy, PMS-tacular insecurity to get off my chest so I don't stew about it all night.

Keep it real readers.

Hearing It Back

Yesterday was amazing.

I went to Sky's karate tournament in Mesquite, where he had volunteered me to sing the National Anthem, and later I helped perform in his Demo team.

Sky's best friend Thomas took Grand Champion, and his girlfriend Sam and I hung out for the better part of the day while our men were competing and judging. After all of my participation was over, Sam and I decided to hit the town and grab a quick bite (which turned out to be a slice of chocolate cake and a strawberry shake) when I ran into Sky in the hall on our way out. He asked me if we were heading out, and I replied that it was only going to be for a little bit. I planted a quick kiss on his lips before muttering "love you" as I turned around to catch up with Sam. What I heard next was something I didn't expect.

"I love you too."

I stopped short and turned around to look at him. "That's right!" he said, "I said it!" and let out a quick laugh before heading back into the gym.

I couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day. I still can't stop smiling.

He loves me.

After the tournament was over, we grabbed Blizzards from DQ, and after revealing that there was a Popeye's Chicken at the edge of town, we made a bee-line to it. As we were chowing down on our delicious spicy chicken, he surprised me with yet another sentence.

"You know what's crazy?"

"What?" I replied.

"Next year at the tournament, you could be competing as Karen Gubler."

I almost swallowed my tongue. I mean, yeah I've thought about marrying him, and to be honest, for the first time I'm actually with someone who I feel like I could not only marry, but be really happy with forever. We've joked about getting married off and on since we got together, but the way he looked at me and the way he said that, I knew.

He's the one. It's not a matter of what if, it's not a "I could compete as Karen Gubler."

I will.

Wow.

He's going to marry me.

Keep it real readers.