There has been much weighing on my mind recently. Not the least of which is how over-worked and under-rested I am at this particular moment. I am regretting my decision to work 60+ hours/week this summer.
I love my coaching job with (almost) all of my being. I love the kids, and my fellow coaches. It has been a joy and an honor to work with such a great staff and (for the most part) great team this summer, and to get to do something I love (and get paid for it!). My office job, on the other hand, has progressively become more and more challenging. I am discovering very quickly that God's provision is not always what my provision would have been. It has certainly been a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow, but a challenging, difficult, and rarely enjoyable one. The frustration from one job, the time consumption of another, the excessive hours and little sleep finally caught up to me last week. I couldn't move. I didn't want to move. I haven't been that tired since high school (which, for those of you who know me, is quite a significant statement). To put it in perspective, I called in to work on Wednesday morning, which put me at 9 hours of sleep, Thursday through Saturday nights I averaged about 7 hours of sleep per night. I then slept for 17 (yes, you read that right.... 17) hours yesterday, and am just now beginning to feel like a functional human being again.
In all of this exhaustion and frustration, I have found some undesirable and unpleasant emotions bubbling up and rising to the surface. My irritability, for one. Anger, for another. More anger than I'd like to admit. While there are many, many issues which were thought-resolved-but-aren't I have discovered in the past few weeks, there is one in particular that irks me more than the rest. That is the issue of men.
I have never felt the need to date simply for the sake of dating. I'm quite comfortable being single (actually, significant and complete commitment to one man still freaks me out a little bit...), and I rather enjoy the freedom it allows me. But I am human, and there are moments when I panic, think I'm going to die alone and single, having never had a significant relationship in my life. I went on a few dates in High School (very few... and rarely was there more than 2 with the same guy), but never really clicked with anyone. It wasn't until my senior year that I had any real relationship of any sort.
I'm not entirely sure how to approach this topic gracefully or tactfully. In fact, I'm not sure there is a way... I don't like bad-mouthing people, and I try very hard to avoid anything of the sort. But I think this is one of the ways in which well-meaning women (and, although less often, men) can be used as a doormat; when women (or men) are afraid to stand up and say to the world that someone has hurt them in a significant way, simply because they don't want to hurt anyone, they damage themselves and let others get away with it. So I suppose it's time I came out and admitted that the last guy I dated really, really messed with me. So much so that I haven't been on a single date since him, not out of disinterest but, in part, out of genuine fear and incredible hurt.
The sad thing is not that our relationship was the problem (although it was problematic...), but it was our post-dating relationship which really did the damage. It does not matter how - that is a private matter - but the problem is that because I fancy myself a kind, drama-free, honest person, I allowed myself to be manipulated and used in ways I didn't know was possible. And the end result cost me not just his friendship, but every single one of our mutual friends as well. At a time when my life was falling apart right in front of me, he nearly single-handedly destroyed all precious people and relationships in my life, and left me with only ashes of what I used to know.
And wouldn't it be poetic and wonderful and inspiring if I could conclude now with imagery of a phoenix rising from the ashes, of a person remade and all the more beautiful and empowered because of it? But that's not how this ends. I'm still in the ashes stage (yes, even now, 2 1/2 years later...). I'm trying to get over the anger (and how deep it runs), to forgive, but it's not as easy as it sounds (even as petty as this fight was). I'm still working to let go, to learn to trust men again, and to try to figure all this out. I'm trying to figure out my identity as a woman, how empowerment and feminism plays into my role (if at all) as a woman of Christ, how my standards for men in general (and, hopefully, my future husband) need to change, and how I need to change if I am to become the person God has called me to be. I'm learning a lot, about myself and about others. But it really just sucks some days.
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