The Fall of Falling Apart

Let's just take an in depth look at the hot mess that was my first semester of my senior year in college. Well, okay, maybe not THAT in depth. You don't need to know every grueling detail of my chaotic life. But allow me to give you a look inside the 4 months worth of roller coaster rides that I recently had the privilege of living out.

Historically, I have not had the best luck with senior years, so this story feels quite familiar. The story of this particular year goes something like this:

These 4 months started out a little bit cloudy, but it didn't seem like any cause for panic in the beginning. It was harmless. I would be staying with some of my closest friends for a little while until my roommate found a job, was able to move back and we found our own place. We had lived together before, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Well, this might be the case in an ideal scenario. However, this story doesn't exactly pan out that way.

I'll save you every painstaking detail of the next few months. All I will say is that I didn't want to be there. I knew I was an inconvenience and I was doing everything within my power and abilities to get out of there. But it's hard when you're vehicle-less and even the combination of your new job that came about a month into this time period and your decent existing savings won't support the rent required for even the tiniest studio apartment in Orange County.

But I had to be there. I had nowhere else to go. Nowhere that made it feasible to get to school and work without severely inconveniencing someone else or draining my bank account. So I stayed, against their desires and my own.

This period of time, which spanned two months almost exactly, was characterized by a lot of anxiety-filled, sleepless, tearful nights. I was stressed out beyond belief, I was depressed, I was terrified, I wasn't eating, and I was completely exhausted. I looked like all of those things and no amount of makeup was able to cover that up, no matter how hard I tried.

I was a mess, to put it simply. I was sleeping on a couch, living out of a suitcase, and staying in an apartment that I couldn't even call home. At this point, the only bright spots were that I had a paying job that wasn't completely horrible, I was working at a paper with a staff of people that I was actually really starting to grow fond of, and I had the dullest glimmer of hope that things would turn around soon.

My best friend, who I had lived with for the past two years had graduated in the spring but was trying tirelessly to find a job in the area so that we could find and afford a place to live together. But it was taking longer than either of us had anticipated. She came down for interviews and each time we were hopeful, but we were usually left disappointed when the call finally came.

I would be lying if I said that none of this phased me on a social level. This wasn't something I was proud of. In fact, I was utterly ashamed and embarrassed to tell anyone I knew, especially those friends who were new to my story that I was essentially homeless and sleeping on a couch with no car and no way out.

I reached out to the few close friends who knew what was going on to see if they knew anyone looking for a temporary roommate or renting out a room that I could occupy for the time being. But every seemingly hopeful possibility came up short.

As I was growing closer to new people, I found it harder than usual to open up to them because of my "predicament." There was no way they would understand and they would be brutal with their judgments if they ever found out. I couldn't handle that. So I just kept quiet.

I was building relationships with these people based on half truths. Many of them knew where I was "living," but under what circumstances they knew nothing of.

And then, there were the new men who had come into my life. And yes, men as in plural. This was never my intention, but being as I am and having finally gotten my "groove" back after what was literally years, my flirtatious nature had been turned on full blast. Maybe I was compensating for all of the other less than enticing aspects of my life. Therefore me being nice got misconstrued as me being interested. So that made another mess for me to clean up. But I'll get back to that in a bit. 

Fortunately, things started to turn around in October. After many, many fervent prayers, I was finally getting some of them answered. God was providing exactly when and how I needed most. A car with my name on it surfaced. My best friend found that job she had been looking for and almost simultaneously we found a place of our own that was available less than a week later. Everything was finally falling into place and I might have actually cried tears of joy. Honestly, I probably did but just didn't notice through my numbness. 

So everything was turning out as it was supposed to. I was finally going to be able to live a normal life again and it genuinely felt like I was starting over. And, at that point, that was the only thing that would mend the wounds of the previous months. A fresh start. A clean slate. A chance to begin again. So I did, weird as that may be in the middle of a semester. 

I got my life back and I slowly started to put all of the tiny little pieces where they belonged and things started to feel like they had a sense of order again. I gradually started to feel less and less insane. 

But then work slowed down, and I started to panic. The bills came in, and I panicked some more. Then work sped up, and I started to stress. Then midterms. And deadlines. And closing shifts. And boys who wanted more from me than I could offer. And finals. 

I was strapped in every sense of the word: financially, mentally, psychologically, time-wise, and energy-wise. I was juggling everything, and then some. I was officially an adult, and it sure as hell felt like it. 

So, any logical person could look at my daily schedule and say "That girl is insane, she doesn't even have time to breathe." Because, yes, I was still taking a full course load and attempting to be the president of a nationally recognized organization, on top of everything else. So, obviously, relationships or anything of a committal nature were absolutely out of the question. Unfortunately, that message didn't exactly translate well to the men I was trying to steer in the opposite direction. 

So, yes. There was that. And I think anyone who has ever read any of my personal entries is tired of hearing about this part, so I will do all parties a favor and just leave it at this: It was complicated. It got messy. I probably screwed up. A lot. The end. 

I all but lost my mind in the midst of the chaos. But I survived, which is honestly a miracle worked by Jesus Himself, because I don't know how I managed to walk out of this last semester alive and fully intact. But I did. And I swear I'm better for it. 

I learned some of the hardest lessons of my life in the past several months. It was rough, but I suppose it was a series of lessons I needed to learn. 

So here I am now. I have a home and a car to call my own, both of which I am paying for with my own paycheck from a job that I don't completely despise. I get to live with my best friend again. I miraculously passed all of my classes. I became a real journalist. And, maybe most importantly, I became a real adult.

And here's a bonus: To quote myself, I once said that I would "never be a size 2." Well, guess what, kids? After a semester of nearly crippling stress, an unceasing work schedule, no breaks or downtime, combined with being the poster child for "broke college student," I accidentally lost 10 pounds. I am now a size 2. This is not something I'm proud of, but I guess I'm embracing it. I have unintentionally and reluctantly brought "Hammer pants" back from the dead. 

However, I'm a changed woman and that's all a girl can ever hope for, really. 

This has been my retrospective of my senior year thus far. I'm praying that spring will be much, much more merciful. But if not, bring it on. I'm pretty sure I can handle it.