I am also grateful for being broken.  It may seem weird to be grateful to that, but it’s a reminder of the humanity in all of us.  If I didn’t hurt when seeing people’s lives ruined, we should all be concerned.

I’m also grateful for my upbringing.  For class, I have to share about a situation where I learned something.  I started thinking about how my dad taught me to change a tire on my car.  As frustrated as I was to have him only talk me through it without helping me as I struggled in the winter at age 16 to change that first tire, I did learn how to do it and have successfully changed two tires on my own.  I think a lot of dads would have just done it for their daughters, or had someone else fix it.  I’m grateful my dad made me do it on my own.  He really did believe that I could do anything!

2000 – Mom’s health problems with her liver started, turned 16, started working at Scheels in Sioux Falls, started dating my first serious boyfriend and fell in love for the first time, joined Concert Choir and show choir, lost my aunt Connie to cancer, my family adopted a cat for the first time!

2001 – September 11 changed the whole world and how we relate to each other.  I was a senior in high school when that happened.

2002 – First time in an airplane when I traveled with the Concert Choir to New York, graduated high school, traveled to South Carolina with my boyfriend, sister and aunt/uncle, worked to open the new Scheels store in Sioux Falls, started college at Concordia, worked at Scheels in Moorhead, broke up with boyfriend…

2003 – Started getting involved with Orientation at Concordia, summer job at TGI Fridays and Sioux Empire Baseball Association, cut ties from high school boyfriend, started getting involved with Habitat at Concordia, worked at Fargo Youth Commission

2004 – Spring Break trip to Washington, D.C. with Habitat for Humanity and decided to do Americorps after graduation, served on Orientation Committee to plan Cabaret, summer job at Limited Too and SEBA, Work at Limited Too in Fargo, serve as treasurer on Habitat board at Concordia, vote in my first presidential election (for John Kerry)

2005 – Led Spring Break trip to Americus, Georgia with Habitat for Humanity, served on Orientation Committee as Meal Coordinator, traveled the country and worked with Catholic HEART Workcamp (in Orlando, Tampa, New Orleans, Harlingen and Shawnee), worked for SEBA, worked at Concordia Admissions Office

2006 – Led Spring Break trip to Mobile, Alabama with Habitat for Humanity, had Sarah visit Moorhead from Florida in January, applied for volunteer positions, graduated college with a B.A. in Business and Public Relations, traveled/worked with CHWC (in San Antonio, Harlingen, Orlando, Mobile), Grandpa Tramp died and his wife Rosa died a few weeks later, moved to Minneapolis and started with Catholic Charities Volunteer Corps, learned to compost, cook and live simpl(er), worked in a homeless shelter as a case manager, learned to like beer

2007 – Was DFJ’d by my best friend, had a horrible manager at work but learned a lot about mental illness, camping trip to North Shore with CCVC roommates, hiked for the first time and survived 12 miles, finished my CCVC year, moved to apartment in Uptown with Michelle, started at Minnesota Housing in multifamily communications, Lindsay got married, Kelly got diagnosed with lung cancer, walked through the Minneapolis skyways with my sister and Hanson before their concert

2008 – Lost Kelly to cancer and my sister got married in the same week, moved to my own apartment in St. Paul, adopted my two kittens Georgia and Louise, trained for and walked the Breast Cancer 3-Day in the Twin Cities with Sarah, elected President Barack Obama, started dating a coworker and fell in love for the second time, got a promotion and moved to agency communications team, went to Miami to celebrate New Years with J

2009 – Started the year in Miami Beach with J, he broke my heart a week later by telling me he was still in love with someone else, Mom had major liver surgery, took the GRE and applied to grad schools, saw a therapist for the first time, turned 25, tried online dating, met a lot of weirdos and one very nice guy that I dated for a few months, started grad school at St. Kate’s in the MAOL program, grew into more of an IT role at work, spent a week in Sioux Falls for Christmas because of a blizzard

And there are only about 13.5 hours left of the decade…we’ll see if there’s anything more to add. 

It’s 9:30, and while I had a very busy and productive day, my paper is only about two sentences long.

Oh, I also wrote a blog entry. 

He continued through the whole date to make the motion to put hair behind his ears, which I do with my hair–only he has almost no hair.  He also referred to his 18-year old brother only as “baby brother”–never the kid’s name.  It wasn’t the worst date I’d been on, but it’s one of the worst.

Tonight, I read an article in the New York Times about people pretty carelessly posting their photos on a variety of websites.  I remembered my Match account and logged in, to remove my photos, in case they were still there.  I wasn’t sure what I did with that account.  I removed my photo and (curiously) looked around a bit, then logged out.  I just got an email that someone “winked” at me…so I logged in.  And it was the music teacher!  How come, the only person I hear from on Match is someone I have already had a bad date with?  Maybe I need to live in a bigger city.

I am taking this as a sign only that I need to meet new people.  And that life is really funny.

Friday night after my grad school class, my friend and I went out for a few drinks.  It had been a long week and she just had a relationship end over text messages.  He’d been distant from her for a while but had never really manned up to tell her what was up.

She has seen me through a couple of breakups and I’ve seen her through a couple too, and she’s much better at them than me.  We were talking about this and she started telling me about her boyfriend from more than six years ago, and how she still thinks of him.  He’s Australian and I don’t remember how she met him, but they were the loves of each others’ lives.  They broke up because of the distance and she was afraid of getting hurt.  She said no love has ever compared to what she felt with him, and I had the same thought about my first love.  I have never had the butterflies or sickness or euphoric insomnia with any of the men in my life since my first love.

My high school boyfriend (yes, the plagiarizer) was my whole world for about three years.  It’s unbelievable to think back to me as a 17 year old, confident that I was with my soulmate and future husband.  We planned to be married two years ago.  As fucked up as that relationship was, it was real and intense and taught me truly unconditional love.

My friend and I wondered if we haven’t felt this magic in our adult relationships the way we did with our firsts, because we’re older and it’s just not like that anymore, or is it still realistic to expect those same feelings, if we’re with the right person?  And maybe that makes us feel better that the ex-boyfriends we’ve endured in the last year really weren’t right for us, even if it still hurts that they don’t love us.

I doubt I’ll have an answer to that until I find my next great love.

There are some friends I haven’t seen in weeks because I reserve many evenings to stay home and do homework.  I don’t remember being like this in undergrad, but then again, all of my friends were in the same boat.  We often hung out while studying together.

Now, instead of constantly being available to say yes to whatever comes up, I actually have responsibilities.  And even though my social life has slowed way down, I am feeling much more centered than I’ve been in a long time.  I’m almost the kind of grown-up that I want to be.

When I envision myself a few years out, I see myself as a very organized person, with an organized house and a pretty regular routine.  This involves always making coffee and preparing my lunch before work (and not missing the bus), regular workouts at the gym with people I see all the time, and seeing familiar faces and friends at church every week.  Most of these pieces are missing because I need better discipline.  Some of it is that I need better accountability.

One thing I’m doing this week as another step to a routine is to restart my gym membership and meet a friend for spin class on Thursday morning at 5:50 a.m.  That will be a huge change.  Almost big enough to not make another change for at least a week.

Our first Valentines Day together, he gave me a card with the most beautiful message written inside.  I asked him, “Dan did you write this?  This is beautiful!”  He said of course he did, and he was very romantic so I believed him.  A few months later, we were cleaning his bedroom and I found some greeting cards–one was a Hallmark card with the same poetry on the front that he wrote on the inside of my card…he plagiarized my Valentines card!  His explanation was that he couldn’t decide which card to give me.  That explained the copying, but not the lying about it.

Oh, and I found out after we broke up from my AP English teacher that when he took her class the year after I graduated, he plagiarized my paper that I wrote for her the year before.  I had saved it on his parents’ computer.  She recognized it and called him on it.  Who does that?!?