5 Ways to Handle a Breakup, a How-To

Alright, here’s the deal: boys hate me and keep breaking up with me. I could write melodramatic posts about how I sometimes stare at water run down the sliding glass shower door and pretend I’m in the Vanessa Carlton “Ordinary Day” video, or I can give you some breakup advice.

And well, not everyone needs a mental image of me in the shower, but everyone freaking needs breakup advice from time to time. Here is the wealth of my knowledge!

1. Stalk.Him

Girl, get in the car and drive past his house. It will definitely help you to see his car there, and when his car isn’t there, you will feel even better. While you’re driving to the location of his latest FourSquare check-in, look at his Twitter profile to see the latest girls he’s followed. Instagram, too. Nothing says “take me back!” quite like reporting all of the girls he follows!

2. Take Advantage of Social Media

For the love, make sure you make this your Facebook status:

I cannot tell you how many boys I have won back the second they read that. Works like a charm.

3. Public Intox

If the Facebook status hasn’t convinced him quite yet, never fear: your backup is public intoxication in his presence. Make sure you cry, too, as your friends are holding back your hair while your face is in a toilet. Classy is key, ladies!

4. Make Out With Someone

When he hears that you made out with his roommate he will literally say this sentence: “I made a mistake. She’s wonderful. I have to spend the rest of my life with her!” I’m telling you, he will never want you more. Jealousy is always the way!

5. Text Him!

Of course he still wants to be best friends! That’s only natural. Make sure you let him know what you had for breakfast, when your next test is, and what your plans are for the weekend. He will also never see through any lame excuses to talk to him, so bringing up the pencil he let you borrow a month ago is a legitimate conversation starter. Don’t you worry.

 

Good luck and Godspeed, girlfriend!

(Or should I say ex-girlfriend?)

The Perfect Space – How The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons Taught Me A Lesson

I am one of those people who has an emotional connection to music. If you aren’t one of us, surely you’ve heard of us. In my experience, we’re the super dramatic girls listening to slow Coldplay songs and drinking black coffee. (Who am I kidding, I have to have one sweet-n-low.)

Typically, we’re the “music snobs.” We judge your Taylor Swift CD but, in truth, when we’re alone in our cars we become the freakin’ backup singers of “22.”

And ya know what? I’m callin’ a spade a spade—that music snob, dramatic, coffee drinking gal is me, and I’m content with it, so if you are too, let’s move on.

I was listening to “The Perfect Space” by my boyfriend’s The Avett Brothers two-or-so weeks ago when my life was in shambles (maybe more on that later) and in a soft part of the song, after the energy and instruments had picked up and then faded again, they wrote this idea: “I want to have friends that I can trust, that’ll love me for the man I’ve become, not the man that I was.”

Now, during this melodramatic life-in-shambles week, my friends were pretty upset with me. You would have been too. You, you, my momma, my daddy, that man on the street. I was not making the best decisions. Haters gon’ hate, which is fine. I learned my lesson. In hindsight.

BUT boy at the time I wanted to make that Avett lyric my freakin’ Facebook status. Passive aggressive to the extreme, I know, but I wanted to say LOVE ME FOR THE ME I AM NOW.

I decided against making it my Facebook status and admitted my faults to my friends just in time for us to roadtrip to Guthrie, Oklahoma for the Mumford & Sons Gentlemen of The Road stopover tour, also featuring cool folks like Edward Sharpe and Alabama Shakes, amongst others.

I enjoyed all of the bands at the festival. They were lyrical masterpieces, musical inspirations, but none spoke to me quite like Mumford. I remember them taking the stage just as the sun had completely set. I was twirling in my sundress, kicking up my barefeet, surrounded by 30,000 people, and even though I wasn’t listening to The Avett Brothers, that darn line came back to the forefront of my mind.

I was happy, I was carefree, I had managed to make a lot of wrongs right, and in that moment I realized that for me, in this situation in my life, I am glad my friends didn’t love me for what I had become.

I want to have friends that I can trust to call me on my absolute crap. That’s what I need.

I want to trust that my friends will love me through my messes, but more than that, I want to trust that when I am on the Road That Leads to Destruction, they will be the roadblock.

Because sometimes who we are becoming isn’t as good as who we were.

But rest assured, I’m still a music snob.

That part of me will never change.

I’m Not a Perfect Christian And That’s Okay

 
passion 2013

I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop in town, a quaint old house with original hardwood floors and cozy furniture. Beads of water are rolling down the sides of my frozen dirty chai latte. It’s humid outside, the thunder of an afternoon storm shaking the glass window panes.

I am sitting here, a week out from beginning my fifth and final year of my undergraduate education, reflecting on this summer and the things that I have learned about myself.

I have watched my spiritual life grow weaker and weaker these past few months. I have made choices this summer that I am not proud of.

And I have learned that Satan really isn’t my biggest enemy: I am.

I’m not really a perfectionist in any aspect of my life except for in my Christian walk. If I were staying on the righteous road, only making good choices and rarely sinning, saying my prayers and reading my Scriptures, I felt the absolute closet to God and the Holy Spirit. If I made even one mistake, no matter how small, I quit praying. I quit reading my Scriptures, because I felt like I had failed God.

Yesterday while I was sitting in church, I felt hot tears brim in my eyes because I realized that my mentality, this need to either feel like the “perfect” Christian or no Christian at all, left zero room for what Christ and the Cross ultimately provides: grace.

There are things about myself and my actions these past few months that I am actively going to try and change, but the most radical change I wish to make in my life is to stop giving up on God when I feel like He’s given up on me. Because the truth is, He hasn’t.

I have given up on myself.

So today, during this torrential downpour, I am reading these scriptures with a weak heart, but rejoicing that when I am weak, then I am strong.

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” –Ephesians 1:7-8

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
–2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”