POST #78: what God’s forgiveness feels like

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Before I started dating Sean we had plans to go skiing in Wisconsin.  Actually Lizzie, Peter, Sean and I had plans to go skiing in Wisconsin.  We were the fabulous foursome and I was really looking forward to a fun weekend with my friends.  I hadn’t been skiing since junior high and because Sean was an expert, he was in charge of planning the trip:  Where we would go, where we would go, when we would go etc.

All the planning took place during my dating detox and the trip was scheduled for about a week after my detox was over.  I was in the process of sorting out my feelings for Sean, because the last thing I wanted to be was hot and cold, I wanted to be sure of my feelings before I brought someone else into the mix. Either way this weekend was going to be a perfect time to figure out where Sean and I stood.  I figured that Lizzie would go off skiing with her boyfriend Peter so that would leave Sean to ski with me.  I knew that if he stayed back to ski with me (because he is a much better skier than me), it would mean that he liked me or at least be a good sign. 

Here is where things got hairy…Well one of Sean’s guy friend also wanted to come skiing with us.  Which would have been fine except his friend did not like me for whatever reason and was bad mouthing me behind my back.  In fact, this friend thought I was really fake which is probably the last thing that anyone could accuse me of because I am so genuine but whatever.  So I decided that rather than be the third wheel I would just stay home.  Plus, it was not that big of a deal to me because my college friend Drew invited me to go to a Mizzou basketball game that weekend. So I had an out.

Gibson Party of 20

Sean and I ended up talking about this at my brother’s military ball of all places, and I told him about the basketball game offer so I would have no hard feelings.  He thought I was being “dramatic” and really wanted me to still going skiing with the gang. But there was no way I was going to go on a trip with someone who really did not like me.  Plus, why would I go to Wisconsin with all of them only to get ignored and ski by myself.  This talk ended up being an argument and I ended up storming off to the dance floor because I was in no mood to talk about these things and dancing is the best way for me to blow off steam.

I know now that Sean did chase after me but I was so quick to leave that he couldn’t find me.  I was dancing with my family and my other friends from the ball and tried my best to ignore Sean.  I really wanted to have a good time and let go of my anger so after about 10 minutes I told him, “I wouldn’t get so mad if I did not care so much” and then he apologized.  As a way to smooth things over we went to the photo booth to take pictures.

The plan was to have the Gibson party of 20 stay at my house (aka Hotel Gibson) but because Sean lived so close he decided to go home.  Before he left, I walked him out and he promised me that the ski trip was still on and it would be the fabulous foursome as it had always been.  In essence, he was going to uninvite his friend who bad mouthed me.  Before he left, he told me everything I wanted to hear including, “I don’t know why you would think I would go off skiing with him when I’d rather ski with you.”  As always, I asked him to text me when he got home so I knew he got home safely.  His text? “I’m home and I miss you already.”

So I declined the basketball game with Drew and I was really looking forward to this ski trip.  I talked to Sean almost everyday; Should I bring a swimsuit?  What time will we leave on Friday?  But the Tuesday before we were going to leave for this sexy ski weekend I get a 6 page text message from Sean saying that the ski trip was cancelled because he was going to play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends.  To say I was furious was an understatement.  It may be safe to say that I have never been so angry in my life.  I literally could not see straight.  My vision was blurry, my heart was pumping rage very similar to when I went back to Mizzou and Jackie was so mean to me.  Except this was worse. 1000 times worse.  I trusted Sean, he was a valuable friend to me more than Jackie ever was.  Plus, Sean knew how mistreated I had been from men in the past and he was no better.  In fact, he was worse.

I went to my parents as I always do for guidance and support and they were dumbfounded.  My mom could not understand how anyone could do such a thing. Even my dad was like “Oh yeah. Next. Get rid of him. There is nothing right about what he did.”  If I was going to give Sean a chance and date him, that ship had obviously sailed.  I think what hurt me the most is that I gave Sean an out a week earlier but he lead me on.  He was selfish and screwed me (and Lizzie and Peter too who had taken off work) over.

I thought I would never talk to Sean again.  But for whatever reason, I decided to be true to myself and tell him what he needed to do if he wanted me to give him a second chance, oh and I wanted to give him a piece of my mind too.  After I got that text I told him that he had 60 seconds to call me. I think I told him that I hated him about 50 times.  He was very upset and knew that he made the wrong decision.  I remember him distinctively saying “you make it very clear that you cut people out of your life and I do not want you to cut me out. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness.”  So I told him honestly that I did not know if I would be able to forgive him and he would have to beg.  I told him that he would have to call me every day until I forgave him and I did not know when that would be because I could not put an expiration date on my feelings.

And he did.  He called me everyday.  Some days I picked up, some days I didn’t.  After awhile, I was feeling in a good mood and let him take me out to dinner to a Mexican place.  I ordered the biggest margarita I could and it helped because without it I couldn’t even look in his eyes.  Some of Sean’s greatest strengths are that he is super sweet and funny.  He always knew how to make me laugh. But goodness, I still hated him so I didn’t want to give him that satisfaction of a smile at dinner.  I bit my cheeks, I sipped on my margarita, I looked down, I did whatever I could but I could not hide my smile.  But Sean said some of the nicest things that anyone had ever said to me (and he meant them).  Basically, he told me specifically how special I was and how I should be everyone’s “first choice.”  It was then that I knew Sean was sorry for what he did.  I felt it in my heart.  And once I knew he was sincere in his remorse, my feelings of hatred went away. It was weird, but it was almost as though he had never screwed me over.  All of those feelings got washed away.  It was that powerful.  I will never forget what he did just because I never forget anything (it’s my curse) but we could move forward and remain friends.

Then that got me thinking, that must be what God’s forgiveness is like.  When God can see that we are repentant and when we ask for forgiveness, he always gives it to us and he sees us as pure and as if we had never sinned in the first place.  And that was a good lesson for me to learn.  I’m obviously not perfect, no one is, but learning about what forgiveness really is, what letting go and moving forward means was an extremely valuable lesson.  It has brought me closer to God because I am better able to understand one small piece of who He is.

Of course it took a little longer to convince my parents to come around.  I remember my mom telling me, “Don’t be stupid Janie, what Sean did was not ok.”  But I knew he was sorry and that was all that mattered.  I knew my parents would come around and about a month later they did.  What surprised me though is that even though I forgave him I was convinced that those romantic feelings would never come back… but they did and Sean and I became official about two months after this event.

Funny how life works sometimes…

POST #77: rejection

Rejection sucks. Plain and Simple.  Rejection from your favorite college, rejection from a job opening and of course rejection from someone who doesn’t return your affection.

One of the worst cases of rejection was when I was in my final year at Mizzou.  I had just gotten over my crazy “ I hate men” summer and semi-formal was just around the corner.  Time to find a date!  Perhaps I had always been blessed that every guy I ever asked to a date party said “yes” or maybe the boys I asked somehow felt pressured because I would always call them up on the phone because I thought that was the proper thing to do whereas most people just texted or facebooked probably (I’m traditional, I can’t help it. Sue me!).

Trying to find a date for my last Semi-formal was, for whatever reason, very difficult for me.  Let me tell you about it:

The first guy I asked was a baseball player who was a really good friend at the time.  His excuse: “Janie I’m not that into semi-formals, is there someone else you can ask?”  I found that excuse funny because I knew for a fact that he had never been to a sorority semi-formal much less any sorority party so how could he know if it was his thing or not? But I let him off the hook and asked the next guy.

The second guy I asked was a wrestler that I was friendly with, his excuse: “I’ll be out of town.”  Well that is only party true, you see sports schedules are posted online and since his tournament started on Sunday that meant he would leave Saturday which meant that Friday night (the night of semi-formal) he would still be in town.  “I’m sorry, I really wanted to check it out.”  What a liar, but oh well.

The third guy was a friend of mine from the college republicans who told me that he already had plans.  Ok by this time I am thinking to myself, are you kidding me? Who has plans more than a week in advance in college? Certainly none of my friends but then again he was in law school so perhaps things were different. Whatever.

So after about three days and three rejections I was destroyed.  I spent that night crying to my mom and my friends in the phone booth of  my sorority.  Really God? I’m letting my guard down and now I can’t even get a guy that I’m NOT interested in to accompany me to my semi-formal? What are you trying to teach me here? I felt so desperate and confused as to why no one wanted to have a free night of fun with me…

Well I got the courage to ask ONE more guy and thankfully he said yes. I had a wonderful time and a beautiful dress.  So I guess never give up is the moral to this story.

semi formal :)

POST #76: love & poetry

Last year, I was substitute teaching and the 8^th grade students were working on poetry: interpreting poems and writing some of their own.  Like 99% of songs, 99% of poems are about love.  But when you are 13 years old, you do not know what love is and what it means to have loved and lost so I found that the kids in the class had a great deal of difficulty understanding these poems.

I do not remember for the life of me the title of the poem they were interpreting, otherwise I would google it. But it went something like this: I tell my heart not to skip a beat/I try to stop my hands from turning into flowers/I try to keep my feet from floating away with the birds

So being the good substitute teacher that I was and the hopeless romantic that I am,  I sat down with this nice boy and tried to help him interpret the above poem.  “Have you ever had a crush on someone?” I asked him.  He seemed positively petrified that I asked such a personal question and sheepishly looked down to reply “Yes.”  I felt bad, because I know how private people can be but responded with, “well being in love is like having a crush but times a million, it is very emotional and wonderful.” 

But that got me thinking, how can you explain what love means to someone who has never experienced it.  To me that poem above was about passionate, obsessive, euphoric love.  The kind of love that makes colors brighter, food better and happiness happier.

Now I would argue that there are many types of love:  Love for a friend, Love for a parent, Love for your God and Love for your child.  But it is that act of being in love that is hard to define.  It’s that all consuming type of love where you think that your love will conquer all and everyday has a rosy tint to it.  You walk with a skip in your step and everyone can tell that you are glowing.  Like the quote from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, “There isn't a diamond it the room that sparkles like a woman in love.”

When I experience strong emotions like love, it always inspires me to write songs.  Some people create art and some people do…well I don’t know what they do I guess.  But the most telling sign to me that I am in love is that I become a different person.  I’m not talking about changing for a guy (that is a scary thought), I am talking about compromising on things I never thought I would compromise on.  But because I love that person so much it doesn’t even feel like a compromise because I actually want to do those things for the other person.  And while love feels different to everyone, one thing is for sure.  You know when you know and Oscar Wilde said it best when he said: “The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.”

POST #75: the most interesting night of my life

Shira: No. Tonight is about me, Emma. I'm feeling hot. I'm feeling good. I'm wearing bikini bottoms because my other underwear is dirty. Alright, we're hot. You feel hot?

Emma: [shrugs] No one threw up on me today.

Shira: We're sluts, Emma. We're dirty, dirty sluts!

Emma: Okay.

Shira: Remember, we're sluts!

~ No Strings Attached

Here I am in my get-up!

No Strings Attached is one of my favorite movies and this past Saturday night I was feeling like Shira.  No, I wasn’t going to hop into bed with a stranger but I needed a night out to get my mind off of things and the guy that needed “space” from me.  So I did what any reasonable girl would do, I grabbed the shortest skirt in my closest (you know…the kind where when you sit down you are sitting on your underwear), the tallest boots from my collection (hello thigh highs) and above all my secret weapon: my hippie headband.  I do not know what it is but whenever I wear it I get so much attention from guys.  Well this night was no exception.

I would like to preface this post by saying this kind of stuff never happens to me.  But I am so happy it did.  Part of me thinks that I this happened because I had been sending this energy out all day so of course it would come back to me (you can read my post about manifestations here), and part of me thinks that maybe I was just lucky.  But either way here is my story:

I had plans to meet up with my friend Katie, who just finished finals from Law School, so her friend Adam was having a party to celebrate.  It’s always nice to meet a completely fresh and new group of people.  I took the train down to Wrigley, but while I was on the train I started talking to this stranger who I now know as Mike.  Well long story short he told me I was beautiful and asked me for my number.

I got off the train at the Sheridan stop and started walking towards Adam’s party when another guy stopped me on the street to tell me that I was beautiful.  Feeling shy I looked down and then noticed a penny head’s side up.  Already feeling lucky, I knew this was going to be a great night.

I arrived to the party and was greeted by one cute boy and then another.  It was like a parade of cute, smart, preppy boys.  My friend Emily and I have this running joke that when the weather gets nicer all the cute boys come out of hiding and it is so true!  Plus for me, I absolutely love meeting new people, it’s almost like a high for me and a perfect distraction.  I was having fun at Adam’s party when everyone left for sluggers, a piano bar in Wrigley.  Once we got inside, the group was made it’s way to the bar when this guy in a green shirt grabbed me to start dancing.  So we danced for a few minutes then I joined my friends again to get a drink.  But while I was waiting for the bartender, this different guy again in a green shirt oddly enough, introduced himself.  Long story short I did theatre with his older sister and we both went to New Trier.  Small world!!

Well shortly after that encounter the law school bunch started making our way to the dance floor. I was getting ready to leave when Katie told me, “Janie, you have to stay 15 minutes and go dance with your men.” But before I could utter the words “nah, I’m just ready to go home.” This sexy Spaniard grabbed my hand twirled me around and started dancing with me, so I just went with it.  Now here is the weird part…while I was dancing with Mr. Spain, this blond haired boy tried to pull me away to start dancing with him.  Boys almost never fight over me, so I am always surprised when they do.  But the story doesn’t stop there.  It was getting late and I really did want to go home.

Now I recognize that sometimes I turn heads and my outfit was asking for attention on Saturday.  But for the first time in my life, I stopped traffic.  I was walking to the Addison red-line stop when this guy had his cab pull over in the 7-11 parking lot and jumped out while his friend waited in the cab and the meter was running.  He was the third person to tell me I was beautiful and desperately tried to get me to come party with him and his friend.  I was super flattered and they were both pretty cute.  But I really was ready to go home and not about to jump in a cab with two strange men.

So I crossed the street, but just before I got to the Addison stop this guy who was walking in a group of about 4-5 guys slowed down to talk to me and yup you guessed it, to tell me that I was beautiful.

So I got on the train, and I went home.  It felt nice to get all of this attention and I certainly remember feeling as though I still got it.  But at the end of the day, you could have the world falling at your feet and it mean nothing because to you, your whole world is that one special person.  So I must have looked pretty sad (that and the fact that I have no poker face), because then this guy on the train asked me, "Are you ok?"  "I fine," I replied "I just have a lot on my mind." And I did.

POST #74: how I got over my broken heart

“To get over someone, you have to get under someone else” – Anna

About six months ago I posted a blog post about what a broken heart felt like and then a how-to-guide for how to get over a broken heart; but in this post I will be more honest and open about how I specifically got over my one and only broken heart.

Let me give you a little background… summer of 2011 did not start out all that well.  I was studying hardcore for the MCAT, only to get a disappointing score a month later.  I was feeling especially heartbroken over Matt* because even though it had been a year since he had unknowingly broken my heart, those feelings became fresh again as I was reminded of him almost everywhere I went (because he had come to visit me the summer before so those reminders would play like a movie in my head).

I was desperate to start feeling better that I had to became creative, yet no matter how hard I tried, it just seemed like nothing would go my way or somehow always come up short.  For example, I became a liquor promoter to have fun going out to the bars meeting new people to get my mind off of things but instead I got assigned a boring job sampling at Whole Foods.  I started sailing in hopes of meeting a cute boy to date, but I ended up just meeting guys in their fifties.  It got exhausting to keep putting effort into things, only to have it go into a bottomless hole of disappointment. However, even though I cried almost every night, I kept trying and slowly things started turning around for me.  Even though my activities weren’t as I had hoped, I kept looking for the silver lining and eventually I found it.  Then, finally the last weekend of Chicago, labor day weekend was one of the best weekends of my life and after months of feeling down I finally felt like myself again.  So even though my “Summer of Adventure” came as a necessity and not a desire – I do have quite the story to tell…enjoy!

***

On paper, I had the summer of my life; in reality, I had something far different.  Desperate to start feeling happy again, I made it my goal to try and do as many new things as possible.  All in hopes that it would jolt me out of my funk.  I went to new museums, explored new bars, dated a few guys and took advantage of every opportunity.  The pages of this post detail my summer of adventure because I was too miserable to have just a normal summer.

Before I started on my journey. I came up with three major tasks that I wanted to accomplish:

Task 1 - become a sailor: I have always wanted to be a sailor.  Heck, I own four pairs of Sperry’s Topsiders! So I thought this would be a nice place to start and perhaps a good way to meet a young preppy boy.  So I went online and I started emailing random people at the various Chicago Yacht Clubs and offered to volunteer my time for free as a way to get my foot in the door.  And it worked.  Eventually, I got hooked into the Wednesday Rhodes-19 group where I got to “third” boats during races (and I even won one once…say that really quick three times). And while I did not meet anyone under the age of 50, I learned a lot and have a new life skill.

Task 2 - become a sharp shooter: I played Annie Oakley in a musical and I am a Republican…how could I NOT be a shooter?  As far as guns go, my mom had a friend who completely adopted me and taught me everything I know about shooting and guns in general. I will tell you that it was downright frightening when I first shot a gun on the range.  I was so afraid that I shut my eyes the first time I pulled the trigger. But after about 100 rounds, it got kinda thrilling.  Having a goal and working to become more accurate in my shooting gave me some escape from how miserable I was.

Task 3 - lease a horse for the summer: I miss Horseback riding almost everyday, and I tried to find a horse to ride.  For one, because I miss it and for two, because I knew that if I loved that horse, that horse would love me back unlike every guy I had fallen for in the past.  The short story is that I was never able to figure this task out, It was very difficult to do research on and I guess I did not know the right people… but at least I tried.  Sometimes you have to throw a lot of darts until one sticks, and this one didn’t for whatever reason.

However, despite that bump in the road more opportunities became available...I got a tour on the floor at the Chicago Board of Trade, I entered a radio contest and I became a finalist, and I got to tour the WGN TV studio and be on local TV – how cool?!  Basically anything that sounded somewhat interesting, I went for it whether my friends wanted to join me or not.  If someone offered an idea I always said “yes.” Some things were flops, but some weren’t! Like Musical Monday at Sidetrack (a gay bar) was one of the best nights of my life, I went to a free concert at Navy Pier alone, snuck into VIP and then I got a picture with the drummer.  I found that the more things I did, the more empowered and cultured I felt.  Then by labor day when Hotel Gibson was open and we had about 5 cadets, my whole family, aunt and uncle and grandparents smoking cigars and telling war stories on the front porch.  I finally felt like myself again and no longer felt that haze of disappointment slowing me down.

Now I will tell you, I really do believe that Anna was right when she said it takes a new one to get over the last one.  But finding a new one in a big city can be very difficult and not always an option, at least that has been my experience.  So even though I never really got 100% over Matt* until I started dating Sean, the Summer of Adventure helped heal the wound that had been open for so long.