Start, change, stop.

It’s funny how time can fly, then without warning, slow to a crawl. I started this semester off strong, in control, and then it seemed to gain momentum from nowhere, and quickly I lost control. Weeks seemed to fly by with me standing, bewildered. In my mind I seem to have misplaced the happenings of the term. How my life has evolved before my eyes, without me knowing. At the beginning I was stagnated. Stuck in a poisoned relationship, my progression spiritually was stifled, and I was suffocating as a student, to say nothing of my hectic, and unpleasant work life. As these things weighed on my consciousness I grew more and more frustrated, felt more and more apprehensive of something elusive. I knew I had to take my life back, reorder the pieces and begin again.

I dumped my suppressive boyfriend, though it took weeks for him to stop affecting me. Even now when I catch a bit of gossip about him I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to be that caught up in misemotion. As awful as our relationship was, breaking up with him seems to have completely shattered him, as I knew it would. A friend idly complimented me, he didn’t even manage to drive his ex out of the school, and I was able to push mine out of the state (nearly the country). I didn’t realize what a profound effect I have on people.

Interestingly, the breakup handled the lack of spiritual progress. I shouldn’t be surprised; there are data in my religion that state clearly what I’ve just learned the hard way. During the entire time that my ex and I were together I made no progress on a cycle that should have take two weeks. It instead took me nearly a year. Now I’m moving along at a decent clip, finding it easier to handle life, day by day. I’m even finding that situations that would upset me before now get handled smoothly without a second thought. Native abilities are returning to me, and I find myself more and more aware of my surroundings.

My first two terms here at school were fairly successful. Then, I met the man who would later be my ex. Since meeting him my grades have dropped steadily until finally I was kicked out of school for a term. This was my first term back, and now I had to prove myself. I broke up with him in the beginning, and I scheduled my classes. One was a class that I feel is truly beneath me, and the other is one that I had failed three times prior, because I let my life get in the way. I decided to take only two classes, to ease back into the groove of being a student. Things started off well, with me disagreeing with nearly everything one professor said, and being utterly bored, and unimpressed with the other. I kept up rather well, and despite three consecutive nights of being up until three or four in the morning I passed both classes. One of them I was really nervous about, I was taking it for the fourth time, and my Dean had gone up to bat for me to get permission to take it again, because school policy dictated that I take it at a different school now. I had two tests to make up, and the final to take, and I did them all on four hours of sleep, on the last day possible to take them. I had to get permission from my boss to take the tests while I was on the clock, as it was the only time I had to take them, and I passed them all better than I expected.

Work was an area for me that I preferred not to talk about. I don’t like speaking ill of people, and I just saw no way around it regarding work. I worked in customer service, and had some of the most inane conversations with people I could imagine. Imagine my relief when I found that they weren’t willing to work around my school schedule and I had to quit. I walked out on Monday, had an interview Tuesday, and was hired Wednesday. I now work in a place that’s pretty calm most of the time, and where I can develop my natural talents. I have plenty of time while at work to do homework, catch up on reading, or even exercise my writing abilities. I even found out that after a year they will start helping me pay for school. Score!

In scheduling my classes for next term I decided it’s time to break down my self-imposed barriers. Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly shy I used to be. They also know how I used to loath writing. Both seem to have dissipated, so I decided to prove to myself that I can do them. I’m taking a speech class with my best friend, woman_of_heart, and a professional writing class. I apparently have the same professor for both, and I’ve heard great things about her. I’m definitely looking forward to them. Since speech is with woman_of_heart, I know that we can both keep each other on track, and encourage and keep in check the other.

Last but definitely worth the wait, I have a new boyfriend. I had originally planned after the breakup to just make my way through life until I got to a stable place before I started a relationship. Then out of nowhere comes this guy. Now, I have several tests that I put people through. First is the email test, if it’s online. If you don’t have something more interesting and intelligent to say to me than “uh..ur hot” then I’m going to delete the email and not bother with a response. Then there’s the second email test. This is where I figure out if you can hold a conversation, and whether or not you’re willing to listen too. Next comes the first date test. This is yet another chance I have to be nit-picky and decide you’re an ass and won’t survive me and subsequently purge you from the ranking. Then there is the roommates test. Few if any make it this far. This is where you’re held to the most unimaginable scrutiny, a panel consisting of woman_of_heart, enveloped nescience, and black wyvern. Not only did this new guy pass these, the final test included woman_of_heart’s mom, the alpha bitch. He not only won approval, but woman_of_heart keeps offering to do a hand fasting. It’s truly an odd thing to go from dating someone far beneath you, to dating your equal. I find myself keeping up with habits from my last relationship, only to be told I don’t have to do those things. I’m actually with someone who has his head together, who knows the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’, and who knows that I need personal time away from him too. I really think I don’t just ‘like’ him. He even willingly went to church with us, and that was only after being together for little over a week. The second week, he went to church and even paid money to attend a seminar with us, and afterwards bought the basic book of my religion. The best part about it is I know that he’s not doing it just because he thinks it will make me happy. Like me, he hates being placated.

I don’t think my life has ever changed this much in the course of 15 weeks, but all I can say is I’m looking forward to the future for the first time in my life without fear, and without worrying about the present.