Get Over It Day: A hard-hitting exclusive report

Matthew asked how Get Over It Day went. And I hate to admit it, but it went by largely unnoticed. I got pretty busy at work that day, and I spent a good part of that night straightening my apartment, since I had a friend staying with me over the weekend.

But nevertheless, Get Over It Day was useful, because it forced me to start thinking about what, exactly, I need to be getting over. And oddly enough, I decided that I needed to get over a boy I had broken up with about two years ago. Weird, huh?

This is the same boy who started dating a nineteen-year-old a while back (here’s a refresher, in case you don’t remember). I ranted about that for as long as anyone would listen. And while I still think it’s gross, I think the problem I had with that situation was that it proved that he, perhaps, wasn’t in love with me anymore. And I was pretty sure that he needed to continue to be in love with me at least until someone else was. I mean, he was the last guy who I at least sort of let my guard down around and who liked me anyway. And he did try very, very, very hard to be a good boyfriend to me. (I just needed him to be a different kind of boyfriend, but neither of us realized that until he gave me an ultimatum and it was sort of too late.) So I think I was holding onto him a little tightly. But I admit that the whole "I’m not sure I want you, but I know I don’t want anyone else to have you, either" mindset is pretty normal, but also pretty crappy.

Which brings up another thing I have been trying to get over since the start of MY: the source of my self-esteem. In the past, it had come from the number of boys who were interested in me at any given time. I take the liberty of blaming this phenomenon partly on them, and here’s why: I was a late bloomer. A VERY late bloomer. I didn’t "bloom" until around my sophomore or junior year of high school, but when I did, something miraculous happened: boys, who had previously shown no interest in me at all, started paying a lot of attention to me. And while this royally pissed me off (someone please call in the shallow police), it also taught me that people cared more about me when I looked good, and it gave me a lot of power, which I enjoyed very much. . .until I realized what was actually going on and that it needed to stop. It’s very dangerous to get your feelings of self worth from other people, especially from the fleeting affections of certain men. So I began learning how to get my self-esteem from more important sources. And when I say "learning," I mean, "fumbling around, hoping things are changing." But either way, that’s a pretty big deal, and I think this is the longest stretch since high school where I have not been the object of anyone’s affections (minus that security guard at work, who could just be very polite).

I’m not really sure how I feel about posting some of my deepest, darkest secrets on the internet for all to read, but Kim just told me recently that she appreciates my honesty, or my real-ness, or something like that, and I have been preaching sermons to B about the fact that it’s okay to be human, and that sometimes it’s even exciting. So this is my attempt at real-ness. And my confession that I don’t have everything figured out. Perhaps I can spend the next Get Over It Day tackling the idea that I will never have everything figured out. But I’ve still got a year till then.

(Although if you wanted to reward me for my real-ness, you could comment about some of the things that you need to get over.)