Behind the Scenes: May 2015

Sophomore year is over, and I was going to try to write about everything that has happened, but between all the things that could (and did) go wrong with the team and private family matters that went down, there was just too much I couldn't share, and too much to share.

So then I moved on to what God has done this year... and there has been a lot in that area alone that has completely intertwined with events of the school year, so that is hard to explain. Along with that, many people don't see when God is working, they just see the results. I was one of those people. I sat back through the whole school year and watched relationships take some pretty tough hits, other relationships crumble, and people tried to walk out of my life when I know it isn't time for them to leave. It wasn't until I was sitting in church the Sunday morning after Mason's birthday party that I realized all that God had done this year.

So basically I am going to attempt a re-cap of everything that happened this year, and God's fingerprints on it. Here it goes.

Days before I move in, I realize that I am still the only one moving myself in, unless we do it later and then Mom can help, but I didn't think that was such a great idea. Because when things get heavy and we are tired that could turn into a very unenjoyable day for my mother and I because I can easily get frustrated with her so I either sound annoyed, or stop talking, and then she gets frustrated with me. So my Dad pushed me to ask for help, so I did, and literally at twelve in the morning the day I was supposed to move in, God PROVIDED. It also ended up being a really good day. The apartment was prayed over, and there were some pretty decent conversations on the way up.

Shortly after that, I was sitting in my room putting my drawer set together with Mason, and God SPOKE. I knew what he said, he said Mason's name, but beyond that I didn't know what it meant or why. I figured God wanted to do something through Mason this year, and I wasn't sure what.

Then September came, at this point I have had time to talk to Katie, tell her what happened over the summer, catch up with her, and she now knows everything. So I was sitting in my apparel textiles class, sewing a bag when I get a call from Katie. I ignore the call, so it goes straight to my lock screen, which has a message from Katie. I open it up and start reading. "Hi, My name is Katie Harris, we met briefly when you were helping Becca move in..." I read the whole message, and I was furious I set my phone to the side, and as soon as class was over I called her. What had happened was Katie knew me very well and knew I was not going to do anything about a situation, and she hoped to speed things up a bit and share it with some other people. Except she accidentally sent the message to me. She went into my room, tried to get on my computer to delete the message to me on Facebook before I got on my phone and saw it. So when that didn't work, I came barging through the door asking her "what in the world!?" We argued, she gave her case, and I disagreed. I said that it wasn't her decision to make, that I wanted to handle it, but she continued to fight me. I looked at the clock and realized I had to get to the YMCA to sub for someone. When I left I told her to send it. I figured I would rather know about it than tell her "no" again and have her try one more time to go behind my back.

CRACK in our friendship.

From there it took a couple of weeks for me to finally sit down with Katie and talk about what had happened, that she hurt me by sneaking around behind my back. She hurt me by not asking my permission and above all else what happened weakened my faith and hurt my relationship with God. It made me doubt him for a little bit, and that is never a good thing.

BUT Fall Retreat came. The day that we were supposed to leave I had a serious conversation with my Dad, and realized that something that I thought was recent knowledge, I have known my whole life. My Dad told me that I have known since I was five years old. I just sat there shocked, "if that's the case darlin, and you accept that this is where your life is heading, you are going to have to trust God 110%." Is what my Dad told me. There was more, but I can't really share it, but I nodded, if this was how the weekend was going to start, I was curious to see how it would end.

I realized that I had a decision to make. God had made it clear on some of his plans for my life, and it was my job to accept them, and to trust him with these plans. So one of the days during our free time, everyone was working out and I just felt God pressing in saying, "read Esther, READ Esther." So I did, I sat on the playground and read, and when I was finished I suddenly knew everything about my future!

Just kidding... I was even more confused. In fact, I didn't know why God had me read all of Esther. Thought maybe I was wrong, that I didn't hear God speak... But I told Annelise about this, and later that night during service, the pastor told us to turn to Esther so we can talk about courage to accept God's plans or calls on our lives.

BINGO.

So I went up to the front, got prayed for, and the woman who was praying for me stopped, and looked at me. God had spoken to her, and she told me things about myself that only people I trusted knew, and even fewer believed... and on top of that. She told me what to do... Or not do... about it. I walked away with my mouth dropped. I had literally spent my entire summer thinking that I was nuts, asking for confirmation after confirmation when God spoke, and then a stranger just tells me everything. She stops me and tells me. I had to tell someone! So I told Annelise, and I told Gela, and through that Gela told me her testimony and pieces came together and it was great! Suddenly that doubt in my relationship with God that Katie had planted was gone. GOD CONFIRMED, SPOKE, and MENDED.

Not only that, God had used what happened with Katie to break myself of emotional attachments to people so that I could be focused on what God wanted to do through them, and my relationship with God. It was kind of cool the way that God used Katie's mistakes in our relationship.

But some more cracks came in our relationship. Minor things... but there were still some things. Like the push to drink, the push to find a boyfriend (when I really don't want one), Katie yelling to the whole club how terrible of a friend and roommate I am... taking care of her every time she drinks too much. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK.

But November and December came and I swear Katie, Becca and I were in a giant chess game. Constantly trying to figure out the boys in their lives, figure out school, and team decisions... it was rough, very rough. Basically the break down went as such: Katie and Tyler "Broke up" but they were still together. (Tyler just wanted to go out and have fun without Katie calling him and questioning his every move, because if they aren't together, she doesn't have that kind of power over him). Not Cool. In the meantime, Ethan Knopp was messaging Katie and I saying that he wanted to end it with Becca. He then continued to tell us that he liked Katie more. So when Tyler actually ended the relationship saying, "I can't do this!" Ethan Knopp jumped on the opportunity and asked Katie out. Katie said yes, and did not tell Becca. Tyler tried to fix his relationship with Katie, and Katie told him about Ethan, so Tyler got mad and texted Becca telling her about Katie and Ethan. Thus the beginning of the end of Katie and Becca's friendship, and to top it all off, we decided that we were going to get a club house and not invite Becca to live with us seeing as though she isn't a part of the club. Bye Bye Becca...

PHEW that was a lot. That was just December, and that wasn't all that had happened. Lets just say that it is easy to get caught up in the college life, and the whole "I want a boyfriend," and "I want to be comfortable with intimacy," and "I wish I could trust people." I talked in so many circles with Dave and Danny that I am sure that they were sick of me after a month. Even Mason came to my rescue a couple of times because I would start to get pulled into the college life, but realize I didn't want it and so Mason and I would talk about Katie's influence over me.

After all of that, Christmas break came, and my Mom and I got into a huge fight when I was in need of my birth certificate. She started hounding me for the "partying" Which there had only been three, in the four months that I had been at school. They were on Friday nights, after practice, and I still got up for work the next morning... I was still responsible... and I was completely sober... So... yeah it wasn't that big of a deal, but Mom was flipping out. It was just some games, and really loud music on a Friday night after practice. Anyway, the argument starts, and the birth certificate was still no where to be found. Also within that week, I dropped one major and decided that I wanted to minor in communications. What communications? NO CLUE, I just like my communications classes and I like making videos.

So I get back to school with one day until my birthday, and Katie is literally helping me plan out my life. I finally decided on Graphic Communications, as a minor, and tried to sign up for more Creative Writing classes since my prerequisite english class got cancelled. However, the only two options were 1.) FULL and 2.) Tuesday Nights at Five... AKA During work. I would only be taking one Creative Writing class for Winter Semester of 2015

The semester was off to an interesting start, but for a couple of weeks, I finally felt like I might have my life together a little bit... for the first time since October.

But who am I kidding? It's January of my sophomore year in college. I don't have my life together. AT ALL. I have been in school for five months now, I have been home approximately six times. Two of those were holiday breaks, and one was so that I could leave to go to Fall Retreat. I'm used to the college life, I'm used to the freedom, my own room, having a school schedule, work schedule and goals for gymnastics. I am used to having a party once a month with my club, even though I hate partying, I find that I enjoy hosting them (because then if I get tired after about an hour I can retreat to my room and nap). I don't know what I want out of life, heck I just got done dropping a major and picking up a minor three weeks after I declared that Major. I don't know who I like, how to pursue relationships with people, and quite frankly, I don't know what I want or who I am.

My life was not together.

So the middle of January, Mason shows up for a practice. Katie leaves to set up for my birthday party, which leaves Mason and I to lock up the gym, and for the first time in months we have an intimate conversation. He tells me that he is really trying to leave Eastern, and get onto a varsity team. A million things ran through my head at that time. One, "can't you see how much this team cares about you?" No. Two, "can't you see that this team is a family. You are family." No. Three, "Katie's leaving, you're leaving... and you two are like... my best friends." Okay... Four, "God is not finished with you here yet..." and the list continued, but I didn't say anything. I listened to him talk, I asked my questions, trying to understand. We left the gym and shut off the lights as I continued to ask questions. One that was really pressing in on me, and I felt like God just wanted me to ask him was "where does your self worth come from?" He said he didn't know who he was anymore, and needed to get out of Michigan... it seemed as though gymnastics was giving him his self worth. To me, that seemed like a pretty easy thing to lose, and if you are placing all your self worth in it... If I were him and not a Christian, I would at least want to find my self worth in my relationships, and so I started praying for him more, because we care about him, we love him and we want him to stick around. We went to my apartment, and got ready for my birthday party. If God was going to do something, it wasn't going to be anything that I could say that would change Mason's mind. Mason would have to see what I see in the club for him to realize how special it is.

That night I fully realized the damage that (my) Tyler had done to me when it comes to relationships. I know I am awkward, but screaming in someones face when they try to kiss me... Yeah. Umm... That was an interesting night and it just reinforced that I knew that I didn't know what I wanted and that I really just needed to let God work. Poor Danny, Dave, Chloe, Stephanie and Katie had to listen to me talk myself in circles about everything that was going on. In the meantime, I was pretty sure that my friendship with Mason was ruined, and I was torn between not caring at all and being completely hurt by it. Throughout the next week, Katie and I had a conversation about the friendships that I have let fall behind. She joked that we started off with two Ethan's in our lives and now we didn't have any. I was taken aback by this, and realized that I still wanted/needed a couple of those decent friendships that I formed last summer, besides I had questions for Ethan so I texted him and asked him if we could get a coffee and catch up sometime soon. He said yes.

The following weekend though was... too much. I ended up landing my double salto pass wrong, and my back really hurt. So Friday night at the team potluck, Danny rubbed my back for a good hour and I chilled most of the night. The Saturday night Katie wanted to go out to the Delt party. No Thanks.

But she got Dave and Justine in on it, so we played True American (me drinking soda) in our living room and then went to the party. All I really remember from that night is being so tired of drunk Katie, that I literally ran away from her, and went upstairs with Dave. I talked it out with Dave, and we also talked about everything else. Things going on at home, my failing friendship with Mason, my awkwardness... we literally talked about everything. Eventually Tyler called Katie (as they were "back-together") and when he found out that she was at a party, he flipped. So we went back home (thank God) I helped Katie go to bed and the next morning we cleaned up the apartment because there were pillows, chairs and dishes all over the apartment from the game.

The Ohio State Meet came, and there was just a lack of communication. I was completely frustrated by it, I was frustrated by the fact that the team didn't even want to be together most of the time, and most of the team stayed back and slept instead of going out and dancing. I hate partying, especially in public, but I had fun. So if I can be tired, and in pain and having fun... so could the rest of the team. But it was a lot of fun finally getting to know some of the freshman more, and playing those weird games together in the hotel room. I tried to get Mason to stay for the party, but he went back with his Mom.

This frustrated me a little bit, and for the same reasons that Katie hating Eastern frustrates me. I have wanted this school since my sophomore year of high school. I counted down the days until I would finally be here, and when I finally arrived, I was embraced by these two awesome best friends and a whole family, a team. Neither of them saw it though, and Mason would refuse to spend time with the team beyond dinners together. So when you consider someone a part of your family, and they aided in being a part of a place that was your escape, but they don't care... it gets frustrating.

The fourth weekend in a row of going to some sort of party, came and it was the Miami meet, but EVERYTHING went wrong, and it was right from the beginning too.

We had all the plans for room assignments and car assignments figured out. We had the cars figured out, what time we would leave, and what time we would arrive. Where we would meet and so on, but something happened, and our biggest car suddenly couldn't go. So we hurried up, grabbed two other cars, figured out those arrangements, and finally left an hour after we had planned to leave. An hour into the drive and I really had to use the bathroom, so I call and ask the front car if we can pull over. They say sure, but ten minutes later they called back and asked if we just wanted to stop and get something to eat. Okay.

So then starts the discussion of what everyone wants for dinner. I still have to pee. Then we have to find an exit with those restaurants nearby. I still have to pee. Construction starts, mom calls "what's your address?" Really Mom? I'm driving, there is construction, I'm following someone and I have to pee and watch for any exits that has Subway so that we can satisfy Mason.

We eat... so on so forth.

We get to our hotel, and right away Dave Mooses me. I tell him that there is snow on the ground, and so we make a deal that if I roll in the snow, he will get it on video. So that happens. As we are unpacking, I pull my gym bag out of the trunk, and pull the tipped over cooler off of it. When I feel my gym bag, it is SOAKED.

Okay... Anyway, we unpack, get ready to go swimming, go to the pool, Katie and I are just about to jump in together and the front desk lady asks if we can switch rooms because we were, "being too loud and there are older couples on the floor we are on." We thought that was ridiculous because us being loud is partying... not unpacking our stuff after a four hour car ride?

But we throw on towels, flip flops and slippers, grab all of our things, get new keys and find our new rooms, which don't have microwaves or refrigerators. So on our second trip we run into Danny, Dave and Mike who are taking the microwaves and refrigerators out of our old rooms so that we could have some in our new rooms... About 45 minutes later we were finally able to jump into the pool.

Chloe arrived later that night, and we had a heart to heart. She talked me through some things, and the fact that my friendship with Mason had hit the highest level of awkward. We caught up on our lives and the next morning we awoke bright and early. As I was putting my gym bag together, I feel it, and it is still wet. That is when I pulled out my grips. MY GRIPS! They were drenched. The wrist pads were cold and wet, and the leather was cold and wet.

I was about to go flying off the bars when I compete.

So we get to the meet, and I buy a t-shirt. The last medium left. We start on vault, and I am having a hard time going over once again, so Katie stands there. With every landing my back started to hurt more and more. Then we go to bars. My grips still aren't dry, so I am asking around for someone who has extra grip pads. Thank God for Sammi! But I start warming up, and there gets a point where your grips are just too wet where chalk is just sliding off your hands, I probably would have been better off with butter on my grips. That was that point. I was doing my release and Katie, instead of pulling my board, ran up behind me and literally caught me in mid air. So Katie and I started switching grips back and forth. While that was going on, it hurt my back to even start to hold up my legs, so to speed up the process and get my legs though my hands hurt even more.

I survived the bar routine, but the look on my face afterwards, was not a pretty one.