Estrogen Sonata.

February 2006 - a market roof collapsed in Russia killing 56 people

March 2006 - More than 200 wildfires in a 24-hour period destroyed 15 homes, killed 10,000 cattle and horses, and burned 191,000 acres.

April 2006 - terrorists set off 3 bombs in the Sinai Peninsula resort city of Dahab, killing 18 and injuring 85.

June 2006 - an overloaded bus plunged into a ravine in Tanzania killing, 54 people.

November 2006 - a fire swept through a home for the mentally ill in Missouri, killing 10.

With events like these my own personal "natural disasters" are horrifically  irrelevant. However, to a 19 year old girl with man troubles these news headlines don't even appear on the radar. It's spring 2006, and I am almost a year into a relationship that would end up lasting 3 years. Of course I knew at the beginning that this partnership wasn't going anywhere - but being the headstrong post teen that I was - I did it anyway. Now those of us good with arithmetic can gather that investing 3 years in a relationship going nowhere is quite the time-suck. However it would seem that although I had the wisdom not to start attaching his last name to my Christmas cards I couldn't convince the rest of me that I wasn't 100% committed. 

100% commitment: My gift, my curse. My passion, my blight. I had been living under the harsh impression that if you don't go big, you go home. And home was no place I wanted to be. 

So I committed 100% of my time and attention to an idea that at 19, I had no right to have. I continued my lifelong endeavor of assigning myself every single extracurricular activity out there and pairing it up with whatever class would give me the most homework all so I would never have to go "home". Since homework at the collegiate level is more of an "optional" thing - I gave myself case studies. My relationship was my homework. My woman-cave. My escape. 

I was reminded of this fact after an impromptu laundry date with my best friend in my room this evening. Pandora has once again failed us by being so damn stingy with their allotted 40 hours/week free listening gimmick so we had to result to..*cd's (*definition available on wikipedia). Since we just moved here there was still a full box in my room, this box was full of photo albums and burned discs. I pulled out a cd in an attempt to sountrack our folding session and I was mortified to listen to what I thought was an acceptable mixed tape back then. After a few failed tracks I would change one cd out for another and then I started noticing a theme. 

Not only was 2006 a complete disaster for my love life it was not good for music either. 

I mashed up Carrie Underwood's - "You Won't Find Me" with Lifehouse's - "Whatever it Takes" and Angels & Airwaves - "Lifeline", and of course, OF COURSE I topped it off with 1994's Hootie and the Blowfish - "Let Her Cry". Woulda been a sin not to, (if you're going to play a country singer opposite a blink-182 frontman you might as well go for the gold). And then various worship songs about Jesus for filler. 

I'm STILL listening to this cd - and I'm thinking, "what in God's name was I on?" I realize, often too late, how hard I am on myself. I was a young girl with normal estrogen levels trying to figure out an adult relationship way above my maturity level. I wanted to feel and experience things I couldn't really even identify because I never had them, in ANY  capacity. I was so intrigued by love and the concept of 2 people doing life together that I had no real grasp on what kind of life I wanted for myself.

I eventually torpedo'd that relationship and found myself in the aftermath. And out of of all disasters in 2006 and the years following - I am lucky to have been reunited with my  core and be among those counted as a survivor.