My Heart and All Its Problems - Physical and Emotional

My heart sucks. I was born with two holes in my heart and suffered a heart murmur until I was about ten. When I was in college, I developed heart palpitations. They're aggravated by stress and caffeine. My heart these last few weeks has been insane. Lots of palpitations, lots of just feeling funny.

This morning, I got a latte with my freebie and forgot to say "half caf". I had approximately 1/3 of my drink before it hit.

I was nauseous. My chest felt funny. My pulse rate was slow, so slow. And I still had another fifteen minute until I got to work. So I guzzled water, I trashed the rest of my delicious latte, and I decided I needed to reduce my stress for the day.

After Natalie woke up, I loaded some toys into the car, bundled her up, and we picked Mac up from preschool. Then I took both of them back to my place. Is what I'm doing here any different than what I would have done there? Not really. But being in my place, my home, it helps. I did the dishes while I made lunch and for once it was productive for my life. I do dishes every day, sometimes multiple times, but most of the time I come home and I see that mess waiting for me. And it just stresses me out again. Yes, I've spent most of naptime watching Netflix and on my laptop just like if I was "at" work. But once they wake up, I'll unload the dishwasher and I'll put a few things in and then, I'll get to feed my charges and my husband all in one swoop. And I get to eat at a decent hour.

I spent a few minutes putting on a face mask -which was an epic fail actually. I turned into a tomato. And I'm going to do my nails. I'm going to pamper myself. I'm going to do whatever it takes to center myself, to destress, to get in tune with who I am. Because I haven't been lately.


And ya know what, I used to think confidence and feeling comfortable in your own skin was a slope. I thought once you got it, you had it. And lately I feel like I've lost it. I think back to when I was in Europe and I had it. I swear I had it back then. I felt comfortable and confident and I was active. I was walking around the city, about two hours a day. Which meant I lost weight. And it showed. I had a glow that I've lost. I survived the dreariest winter in 50 years in that city. WITHOUT my anti-depressants.

My anxiety got out of hand a few times but I knew who I was. I felt comfortable, especially when I was with my friends or on my own. But lately? I feel like I suck as an adult.

At 22, in Europe, not knowing how to cook wasn't an issue. I just ate what Kathrin made. If I was hungry at other times, I ate a slice of that delicious bread with yummy cheese. I don't think I even went so far as making pasta for myself the entire time I was there. Yes, I cooked a few times for the family. I tried my hand at burgers, lasagna, tacos. But I couldn't just whip something up. I don't think I ever saw Kathrin use a recipe. She made her tomato sauce from scratch. She whipped up some form of frittata weekly without any guideline. Things just got thrown into a pan and cooked. Salad dressing was just sprinkled on. Meanwhile the one time she asked me to do it, I looked up a recipe. How else was I to know how much oil or vinegar, salt or pepper to use?

Now, I want to be able to throw dinner together just by looking in the fridge. I want to have a month where I can toss chicken in a pot and a vegetable in another and just wing it. And have it turn out delicious. But I don't know the first thing about cooking. I can follow recipes but I cannot cook without one.

Furthermore, I suck at being a girl I've decided. I don't know how to do my makeup. I don't have a skin care routine. I manage to shower and use deodorant and that's about it. I'm not well dressed or put together and though it might not matter to some people, it's starting to bug me. I even suck at keeping a home. Both decor and cleaning. I didn't even know how to properly empty my vacuum cleaner until this past weekend!

Are these things I could learn? Yes. But I feel like by 25 I should have some of this down. And instead, I feel behind. Behind where I was two years ago when I knew who I was. Behind my friends who seem to be able to cook their own dinners without problem. Behind my expectations of where I should be.

This is a pretty dreary end to this post I suppose but I don't really have a revelation yet. I just know that I feel behind. I feel like I've lost something I didn't know you could lose and I don't know how to start getting it back.

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Starting Over Again...

It's been eleven months and fifteen days since I broke up with my fiance and called off my wedding. I spent three years planning that wedding. I crafted. I bought. I planned. I saved inspiration photos. Sitting in a box in my bedroom back in America is a wedding dress for goodness sake. I was ready for that wedding. I was ready to get married. I wasn't ready to be married though.

When I look ahead to my future, I have no idea how I'm going to plan another wedding. I absolutely cannot manage another long ass engagement. I don't want to be engaged for more than a year, preferably less. At this moment, I can't imagine falling in love again. I can't imagine starting over a new relationship. I can't imagine learning how to make someone new happy. I just can't imagine how to start over.

I am not saying I wish I was with Ron anymore. I don't want to be with him. It's not about him and this is not some form of denial. I'm seriously over him as much as possible. He was my first love so a piece of my heart will always be his. I will always love who he was. Who he is though? I don't know who he is. I haven't spoken a word to him since May. I haven't kissed him since November 29th, 2011. When I think about kissing and I reminisce about it, he's not the one I think about.

It's just hard to imagine falling in love, starting all over. I'm not sure how planning my next wedding will go. Can I manage it without thinking about my failure of an engagement? Can I plan a future with someone else without hedging my bets? Without holding back because I got it wrong once before? Without remembering and comparing it to the last time I did this? How do you move on after something like this happens?

And yet, when it starts, when I'm flirting with... well whoever I'm flirting with (because yup this girl does have some secrets still), it's easy. I don't compare. I don't think about my ex. I don't think about the next step. I don't have to worry about how to move on to the next stage. It fits. It works.

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Sex and the Single Woman

When it comes to sex and the single woman, I feel like there are two types of women. There's Sex and the City types (even Charlotte is having sex, talking about sex, thinking about sex) and there's the "good girls". Now I hate this dichotomy. If I have it in my head, I'm sure others do too. If a woman is Christian, especially if she's "really Christian" then she has to fall into the "good girl" category. Good girls do not think about sex. They don't talk about sex except in that dreamy sort of "someday... when I'm married..." way. If they've had sex in the past, when it's discussed it needs to be apologized for. As in, "I obviously wish I hadn't now. I wish I had waited." And they cannot admit that they enjoyed it while they were doing it. (Can you enjoy a mistake? Of course not. And to admit that you enjoyed a sin? I think that's another sin.) Oh and these good girls? They can't even want to have sex. They can't think about it in concrete terms or look forward to it. They can't have a sex drive.

Do you know why I hate this dichotomy so much? Because I don't fit! I've had sex. It did cause me immense emotional pain when that relationship ended to know that I'd given up such a big piece of me. But do you know what else? I enjoyed it. I miss it. I think about it. Hell, last night I had a dream about it. (An unsatisfactory dream mind you...) Sex is something that comes up in my life. And it's no longer because I'm having it. (I'm not.) Or because, as one acquaintance said, I'm broken over it. I've taped myself back together.

I don't have a next step to get rid of this dichotomy. I don't have a plan to make people aware of it. I'm not trying to pull anything here.

But I notice it. And I don't like it.

I want to be a godly woman but if that means not talking about sex at all, not thinking about it, not enjoying it, not missing it, I don't know if I can be a godly woman. It may no longer be every third word out of my mouth but sex is still something I think about. Most of the other Christian women I know my age are also single and most haven't been kissed yet either (by choice. Mostly. Which I honestly can't understand.) When sex comes up, it's either in light of my past or in that dreamy sort of "someday" way. I honestly cannot remember the last time a Christian friend and I spoke about sex and I heard some sort of a sex drive hidden away in her. Except for one but she's weird like me. :) And she's already married. (Hi, hun.)

So as Christian women, HOW do we deal with this? What are the boundaries for honoring G-d, keeping our purity intact, respecting our brothers in Christ, and acknowledging that sometimes it would be nice to get a little less talk and a lot more action?

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