Therapy

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and getting pushed back another month for insurance means another month without counseling, so I have decided to begin writing. I need something to get me through. Most of my friends are very selfish. I feel like when I try to talk to them, they just wait for a pause so they can talk about themselves. And although I always listen to their problems, I feel like I’m not absorbing anything anymore. My mind is too full of feelings and situations and I need to let some of it out before I go crazy—or just flat out dumb.
To understand where I am now, I’ll need to go back a few years. The past 4 years have shaped me into the person I am now and I feel like I need to explain. No worries though, it will be quick and painless.
When I was 17, I started dating my best friend, Jacob. I thought the only goal in life was to be a wife and a mom. I also wanted to be a hairstylist which meant high school was not important to me. Why would I need to know chemistry in this career? (It’s all about chemistry by the way…) I went to class, did my work well enough to pass, and went home. I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t think I needed them. I only needed my man, right? Shortly after graduation, he and I moved into an apartment together. Things were going well. When our 6 month lease was up, he decided not to waste money on rent anymore since we would be getting married and living in this town forever, so it was time for us to buy a house. After a few months of searching, he found the “perfect one”. Despite my pleas, he bought it anyways. It was a broken down, double wide that he moved onto his mom’s land in the middle of nowhere. We decided to get 2 puppies. And then he was promoted in his job which put him in Tulsa Monday through Friday. So here I was, 19 years old, living next door to his mom (no cell phone signal either), raising 2 babies alone while my husband was away on business. I moved back in with my mom (and one of the pups) and broke up with him on our 2 year anniversary, which I learned a year later was the day he planned to propose to me. I decided that day to be independent for a while.
My sister moved out for college when she was 17, to a school 3 hours away from our family. She lived there for a few years after she graduated and then moved on to Nashville. As far as I know, she has only been in one “relationship”. I never understood her. How could she be happy without someone to love her? I get it now.
So I graduated beauty school, went into a salon, and 6 months later, decided it wasn’t right for me. Of course this was all I had thought about since I was young. So I was lost… I left the salon and started working for AT&T for a temporary, steady paycheck, until I decided what to do with my life. (This was a year and half ago…)
And then there was Ft. Walton.
I had hardly left Arkansas my whole life, so when I was invited on a beach vacation, I wasn’t too excited but decided to go anyways. I can’t even begin to explain the feeling I had the first time I stepped out onto that white sand a smelled the salty air. It makes my heart hurt just to think about it. Or maybe what makes my heart hurt is thinking about the walk back to the condo and meeting Tyler. He was the “umbrella boy” at our resort. We spent the week together, and the week after when he came to Arkansas for a family wedding. He inspired me to do so many things that I would have never done without him pushing me. He is my hero. He saved me.
After Ft. Walton, I realized there is so much more than Central Arkansas. I went to Nashville to visit my sister a few months later. A few months after that, Tyler talked me into getting a plane ticket and flying to Jacksonville, FL to visit him. I decided that there is something about the beach and the ocean that I can’t replace and that is where I desire to be. A friend, whom I didn’t know too well, invited me to live with him in Destin in February, so I went for it. I took a job, working at the pool of the resort I had stayed at the year before. 3 months later, after a money disagreement, he kicked me out. During the time, Tyler and I had grown much closer and our strange relationship, although long distance, was the only thing keeping me going. He was a wonderful friend who I knew I could always count on to give me advice, or even just listen. I moved back to Arkansas and we still continued to talk daily.
I took my job back at AT&T. And within a month of being back, I had a car accident. A mail truck (the large ones, not the neighborhood ones) ran over my car, literally, which caused me to suddenly have a car payment and hospital bills. Soon after, I had a nervous breakdown. I was working at a dead-end job that I hated, in a town… I take that back, state that I hated, doing absolutely nothing good for my future, or the future of the planet. This coming from a girl who used to clean her car out while driving down the street if you catch my drift. I never cared about the environment. But there was something about spending 3 months on a beautiful beach that makes you want to keep this place beautiful. It was also caused by the gulf oil spill. It was so hard to think about that gorgeous white sand being covered with black muck, and even harder to hear my friends who have been there their whole lives talk about their home soon being destroyed. So I feel like I have finally found my passion, but what do I do with it?
I finally started to feel like things were getting better, and then I realized in the worst way possible that long distance relationships don’t work. At least not when there isn’t a short term goal to get rid of the “long distance” part. Tyler has a girlfriend. And I feel like I’ve lost that person that I need most at a time like this.
Here’s where it gets messy and I can’t pretend I’m a writer anymore. I can’t pretend like I aspire to be this independent woman anymore. I can’t pretend that any of the decisions I have made in the past year were for myself. I can't pretend I'm not like every other silly girl. I fell in love. And now I don’t know what to do with it.
I had thought about joining the Peace Corps when I get my settlement from my wreck. But Tyler and I had stopped talking before I could tell him how serious I was about this. I need his approval to push me to do it. But then, all I can think is, “what if he and his girlfriend break up?” “After my settlement, I will tell him, I love him, I cant handle the feeling I have had while he was in a relationship with another girl, and if he will have me, I’ll move to Jacksonville.” But I can’t do that. I’ve told myself from the beginning I would not move to Jacksonville just for a boy. And what if he said no. Could my heart handle that?
So for now, I’m just trying to tell myself I have an amazing job (that pays minimum wage and drives me to drink), wonderful friends and family (who obviously won’t listen to me or I wouldn’t be writing this) and awesome goals to work towards (that I can’t do without Tyler there to push me to go outside of my element).
Positive energy breeds positive results! (which is why I lie)

Be love,
K

Edit: this was cut short so I didn't go into much detail on the now. I'll get to that later...