Fall Peaches

Yesterday I came home from class and I did homework. All night long. I'm nowhere close to where I should be on it yet. I have cut everything out of my day that I can possibly cut out and I know that I will still go to bed tonight feeling overwhelmed and not finished with what I need to do.

My bathroom is a mess.

My bedroom has clean laundry in a mountain, not folded, on my roommates bed, who is out of town, so I'm going to have to fix that before she gets home tonight.

My backpack and nursing bag are disasters- I have papers floating around that are weeks old, and I need to organize them but can't find the time.

I have three tests next week, none of which I am prepared in any way for.

And I've realized that anytime I start to feel overwhelmed, I get on Facebook or Instagram and scroll for DAYS, liking the beauty that other people post and forgetting that they, too have shortcomings and suffering.

I have this bad habit that when I don't feel like I am measuring up, I feel like I am bad. Innately. Like I am foolish and a time waster and if I were somebody else, somebody better looking or more intelligent or more hardworking, I would be more on top of my life and this wouldn't be a problem. 

Like I would be married right now if I weren't such an idiot. So needy, so emotional, so unenchanting- like he would have seen that I really was worth his time and he wouldn't have spent the whole relationship focused on himself and not spending time with me like I saw his friends spending time with their girlfriends, paying them attention like it wasn't hard to do so and being overwhelmed with how wonderful they were. Wanting to get them gifts for Christmas and not whining about how much they hated buying presents for other people. Texting them back when they texted because it wasn't hard for them to want to talk to them or to think of them randomly throughout the day. Going on group dates and wanting to spend the time on the date with their girlfriend, not ignoring them the whole time to spend time with their brother. But I was always a second thought to him. When we went on vacation, he did what he wanted to do first, and then would maybe come spend time with me, but mostly I was asking for his time or following him around. His best friend would pay more attention to me and say things like, "Where's your boyf? Off doing whatever he wants to do just like he always is?" or "You're the type of girl that he should marry."  We did homework together frequently. I remember one time, he went back into his room and finished what he needed to finish, leaving me out alone with his roommates until it hit midnight and I walked home alone. I remember feeling pressure to not walk over to his place because him walking me home afterwards was such an inconvenience to him- he preferred not to. When he met my family or people that were important to me, he never really seemed invested in impressing them- in building relationships with them. He fell asleep on the couch of my friends family the night that I introduced him to them. My Dad called me after I brought him home and told me that he was a great guy and it was an uncanny match, but that he would never dote on me- that he would always be more involved in himself and his own work and that I would have to get used to that. 

This is a good man. There are many reasons why I wanted to marry him. And I am an insecure girl. So I struggled sometimes to not be overly sensitive to what was going on. But time seems to have given me some perspective- that anyone in that relationship would have felt like I did. That the problems were not all mine, the way it seemed they were sometimes.

I kept telling myself to buck up. To become more emotionally independent, like this boy told me I needed to be once if I were going to fit what he was made for in his life. I knew what God had said, that He had guided us together and that this was His intent, for us to have an eternal relationship. But he couldn't seem to see it- I take that back. He could. He told me many times he did have feelings that he wanted to marry me. He knew God had 'no qualms about it.' But he wanted to find out, basically, why it might not be everything that would make him happiest. He wanted to see which qualities I had and if they fit what he 'needed' in his life.

Because, again, it was all about him.

And so I waited. For five months after telling him that I wanted to marry him. I waited for him and I trusted him to put the decision first, to put my feelings first. I should have known that ultimately, and he admitted to this, when it came down to it he was being selfish and just enjoying dating me for those five months. That he did know that 'marriage was a possibility' but that he wasn't ready for any next step so he was taking his time. And finally, when I said I couldn't do it anymore, I gave him an ultimatum. And that is the only reason why a decision was made. 

And he broke my heart. He didn't just break it, he carved it out of me with a blunt knife and walked away with it. On the same day that my friend died. And he left me in a hole in California. And now it's four and a half months later and I still sometimes wake up in the mornings just feeling like a piece of trash. Like a used tissue that wasn't worth somebody's time. Like I gave everything I had to something that I knew was right, that everyone around us knew was right and good, and it wasn't enough for him, because he just took from me and couldn't see a reason to invest everything he was too. So I got thrown away. Discarded. And now his friends and family look at me on campus and say hello, with this nasty pitying look on their face. 

And I wonder if they believe what he has told them- that there just wasn't "the emotional connection" that he was looking for, that "he still feels really badly." Or if they see what I see. That he is selfish, in every relationship he has. With his family, with his friends. And so he didn't know how to make himself uncomfortable enough to be selfless in a dating relationship, let alone take that step into marriage with someone who he wasn't worthy of. That now, since dating me, he has been happier because he 'has more time to do the things that he wants to do' and to play Dungeons and Dragons, and to date a girl for week before she dumped him.

And God keeps telling me I am good. And I believe that. And it makes me angry at that boy for not seeing it. That everyone else can see it and he couldn't, the person that I let in closest to my heart for so long. That his parents cried when he ended it, that his dad said, "What is the problem son? Nothing? Isn't that telling???" And, when he found out his choice, "Are you sure, son??" And now I am waiting here, knowing what God has promised me, praying with my whole heart to just come closer to Him because no boy seems worth my time trusting. And praying that the next time it is the right thing (because God has confirmed over and over that that was the right thing, and that boy simply made selfish, faithless choices the whole way that ruined it), that the boy who is lucky enough to be with me will see it too. That they will have their eyes opened and see what I'm worth. Because I see it and God sees it and I'm not letting anyone else in unless they aren't selfish or faithless- unless they can see it too.

Peaches are my favorite food, of all time. Right off the tree in the fall. Fuzzy, juicy, messy. They remind me of days in elementary school, coming home after a long day, walking into my garage where there was a huge table filled with them, just bursting with juice and flavor that filled the whole garage with that amazing, safe smell. I would pick one up and sit behind my mom's lavender bush on the front porch, or at the kitchen table with my mom and sink my whole mouth into it, not worried about the juice that would run down my cheeks and get my clothes messy. Because I knew what a fall peach was worth- it was worth that sticky mess. It was worthy of all of that, because of what it had to offer. Vitamins, a full tummy, and more than that, memories.

I am a fall peach. I am sitting on a table. One stupid boy picked me up and rubbed me raw, looked at my skin and saw my flaws. He saw that I was good, but before sacrificing his nice clean shirt and sinking his teeth into what would have been an incredible experience, what the Lord had offered him, he thought for a long time about whether or not it was worth it. 

In the end, I am grateful he set me down and walked away. I feel prideful and mad sometimes when I think about how he thinks it was because I wasn't the right peach for him, or that God simply didn't make it clear enough to him that I was the right fit. God has made it clear to me that it was. Not that it was just right for me, but that that was His intent for the relationship overall. But instead of being humble and selfless, the boy who had an amazing privilege of knowing me could only focus on himself and what made him comfortable. And so he abandoned me.

He put me back down on that table. And now, instead of waiting for some other idiot to come around, I am coming as close to God as I possibly can. And if no one can keep up, that's fine. Because I am here to grow towards God and I will not babysit someone who is selfish and faithless their whole lives when it comes to hard decisions that God asks us to take a leap of faith on. 

I am a beautiful fall peach. And I don't have to be picked up off of a table and chosen in order to have more than just some juice and a full tummy to offer.