Hardest Thing You've Done

6. What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?
The past year or so of my life has honestly been one of the hardest things I've gone through. From November 2010 through November 2011, I lost every single plan I had. I'd been planning to be a teacher and to marry Ron after graduation. Then I had some problems with my classroom teacher as well as my college mentor. I was also struggling with lesson plans and trying to manage to reach all my students at one time. With the different levels even among "normal" students, I was having a hard time tailoring my lessons. The final straw was when I walked out of a Veteran's Day performance because I was having a hard time coping with the implications from my personal life. In retrospect, it was most definitely not the right choice. I should have wiped the tears away, shut my eyes for a moment, and watched my kids in their performance. Instead, it was the last straw. Two weeks later, I changed my major to English because I realized I would not survive the student teaching. The idea of making it through another week was too much, let alone another year. With that change in major, I lost my motivation towards school. I ended up having one of the worst semesters of my entire life. I passed my courses but barely. I didn't do most of my homework, honestly. I was depressed, I was also not on the best terms with Ron.
After the summer, where Ron and I fought a lot and I failed my driver's license test, as well as fighting with my parental units over their alcohol use, I went back to school. Ron and I decided before I went back that we wouldn't decide about our relationship until I came back from the semester at Christmas. Well, that didn't work so well. We still fought, we still were growing apart. I was living with six of the most amazing girls including my best friend. If not for those girls and the example they set for me in Christ, I don't know how that year would have gone. Somehow, Ron and I disintegrated. When I came home for October break, I got my wisdom teeth out and was incredibly drugged up. Between the penicillin, the vicodin, and the remnants of the anesthesia, I don't remember too much of that weekend. I remember being very tired and I remember not knowing if I'd spoken or if I'd just thought about it. A lot of my memories of that weekend come from the text messages I'd written and then read after the anesthesia wore off. Apparently, at some point in this time frame, I said something horrible to Ron for which he never forgave me. Until this point, I was basically desperate to fix what I viewed as a marriage. Shortly after I returned to school and recovered from my wisdom teeth removal, I started praying about G-d's will for our relationship. I went from telling G-d that my relationship was a marriage and therefore, He couldn't possibly want it to end, to asking G-d what He wanted from me in regards to this. One night at Koin, I opened up my hands, physically, and I prayed that if He was to take this relationship from me, that He would support me and give me the strength to overcome the heartbreak. It became incredibly clear that G-d was telling me to end it. I took my ring off and I asked Ron for one last kiss. We ended our relationship in the same Starbucks we started it. That weekend, I pierced my ear on a whim, I worked out like mad trying to get to the point that when he saw me again, he'd wish he never let me go. Yes, that's childish. I went back to school. I ate cookie dough almost every day for a week. I cried. But you know what? I had the strength of G-d. I cannot tell you how many times people told me "Wow. You just broke up with your fiance of three years!? I don't know how you're handling this so well." And honestly, the ONLY way that I was handling it was through the Grace of G-d. But at the same time, everything in my life was falling apart. All of my plans were gone. I had no idea what my life was going to look like in a year. I had no clue what my love life was going to look like. And I thought that I was ready to move on, to start dating. I was so wrong that it's not even funny. This year of my life, from changing my major to changing my relational status, is the hardest time I've gone through. And I learned to lean on G-d. Without His strength, I would have been crushed. Instead, I found friends to help me. No, I didn't handle it perfectly. I made some mistakes. I hurt some friendships and I leaned on some people in the wrong way. But I got through it with HIM. This was the hardest thing I've gone through and even now I'm learning the lessons He has for me. I don't know what comes next but I'm learning to see the next step on the path and to rely on Him. This is bound to be a lifelong lesson, I'm sure.

(P.S. My idea about five per post? Well this is so long and rather intense that I think it deserved it's own. So number of questions per post will vary. My blog, my rules. :P)