Tormented

I don’t know why I can’t get her out of my head… and why I still worry so damn much about her.

Just found out that her boyfriend (the 2nd since she moved out 2 months ago) kicked her out of the house last night, threw all her stuff out in the yard.

And she already has a new boyfriend that she’s living with!

It seems like she gets farther from me every day – and I can’t shake the ghost of her.

Love?

Real quick post today, I just have this question in my mind.

How do you differentiate between love (healthy) and obsession (unhealthy)?

This question has been on my mind a lot lately, because I honestly don’t know the answer.  Is my love for Her a healthy, dedicated, strong love? Is it obsession, with all the negative connotations that go along with that? How the hell do you tell the difference, and even more importantly, what the heck do you do about it?

She’s been gone for two months today, and nearly all the (very infrequent) contacts between us have been very negative. The problem is that I still find myself wishing she were here with me, that we could find a way to repair this thing… I still miss her badly, even though it seems that since she has left my life has been SO much better… I don’t miss the drama and the fighting and the feeling insecure about myself… but I miss having my partner in crime around, the things we would do and the dreams we would talk about, about moving, buying a house, shopping for baby items, exploring new places… argh

Sometimes I hope that I will get over her soon… and another part of me never wants to.

Roses.

As in, everything is coming up roses.

I find it difficult to deal with things going WELL in my life. How fucked up is that?  It seems that everything I touch these past weeks has just been working out my way. I honestly have not had one single thing I’ve done recently fuck up on me, or turn out bad, or piss somebody off…

It’s just plain wierd.  And a bit unnerving… like things are going well, so I keep looking over my shoulder waiting for the big damn bomb to drop… for something awful t0 happen to mess up all the good that seems to be coming my way. Paranoia, I know… but when you’ve gotten used to things just not working out at all, you tend to expect that things are going to continue in that vein. 

And of all times for this streak of good to come blazing out of the blue…. it has to be now, when I am still grieving or whatever over Cindy leaving.  I am still missing her, it’s only been 2 months. I try not to think about it so much anymore, because the busier I can keep myself, the less I think about her, about missing her and aching to have her back.  I think that is the perfect recipe for a broken heart… as trite as it sounds, getting out in the world and staying busy seems to be the only remedy.

So, a quick rundown of the good things going on:

First, I took a temp job at a local restaurant/bar, as a friggin’ dishwasher of all things.  I was a dishwasher for a restaurant like 18 years ago… but for whatever reason, I am enjoying the hell out of it.  I can go in there and just shut off my brain, and do the job… and suddenly it’s closing time and I’m exhausted and sweaty and dripping with ick… and smiling from ear to ear.

Second – My school loans came in!  I am so happy about this you have no idea – I know now that come first week in October, I will be getting a nice chunk of change, and will be able to catch up on all my bills, rent and electric and net and phone… it will be AWESOME.

Third – I went and bought all my books today at the college bookstore.  $400 worth of books. ugh. 2 hours of standing in a sweltering bookstore line carrying thirty pounds of overpriced textbooks… and I was still smiling – I’m going to college! w00t!

Fourth – I talked to the landlord today about the whole winter weatherization program and he sounded really positive about it.  I sent him all the forms he needs to sign by Priority Mail, and as soon as I can turn that in, I should get a couple thousand bucks worth of home improvements made… including (hopefully) a new furnace!  double w00t!

Fifth – My home improvement projects are going well, too.  I just bought a new light fixture for the breezeway and will try to get that installed tomorrow, and found a great deal on 18 gallon storage totes at the Home Depot… only $3.44 apiece is great – I bought a bunch and plan on repacking and reorganizing the whole damn garage next week when Caitlin gets home.

Sixth – It looks like I may actually get to keep my unemployment a lot longer than I initially thought – like through next march or april even! while i’m in college! triple WOOT!

Okay thats all the goodness I can spew about tonight… I am gonna sign off and go watch the most recent epi of True Blood (yum Anna Paquin)

(PS – I still miss her.)

B

Why do I love her?

This is the question that has been bugging me for weeks now.  My family and friends keep asking me this one, seemingly simple, question… Why do you love her?

All they see is the surface of things, but sometimes I wonder if perhaps they don’t see more clearly than I do.

They say that she is not worth it.  Not worth my time, my effort, my pain and heartache.  That she is not now, and never was, worth it.  They say she is whiny, selfish, conceited, bitchy, manipulative, lazy, and immature. When I look at her through the eyes of others, I can see what they are talking about.

So I try to look at her, and at us, through my own eyes – but with the added interpretation of seeing things as they do. 

She is beautiful, but this is not why I love her. She is young, very young – but this is also not it. I really am not sure how to put into words what I feel for her.

She can be very selfish, this is true - most of the time she seems to concentrate only on what makes her happy or contented.  But looking deeper, I see more than that.  I see the small things she likes to do for people, the little things that most people hardly even notice, whether it be a picture she draws for them, or a funny note sent via email, or something interesting that she wants to share on the computer.

She also can be very whiny and full of complaints… but at times I feel that this is her trying to find some way to fill the void inside her, the void of discontent and unhappiness.  She has a hard time liking herself, and I believe she has some very deep rooted fears of inadequacy, that she is not worthy of other people’s love and respect. 

She seems to only be able to find happiness with herself when filtered through other people.  It’s not enough for her to think of herself as pretty, for example… she has to take pictures of herself, and get other people to TELL her she’s pretty before she will believe it.  This same thing can be said of other things besides physical attractiveness, too – she doesn’t feel she is smart enough, or likable enough, or whatever…  unless other people are telling or showing her that she is.

So back to the original question… why do I love her?

The best answer I can give is confusing and incomplete even to me.  I love her because of who she is, and because of who she can be.  She tries very hard to be the person she has the potential to be, all the while feeling like she is failing and that true happiness and love for herself is just not possible. I love her because she needs me, and I love her because she doesn’t want to need anyone. She wants to build a happy future, but feels that it’s never going to happen, so gets frustrated and scared and says it was stupid to dream in the first place.

I love her because she gets me, she understands me in a way that few people ever have. She tries to drag me out of my comfort zone and to do crazy things, and though I fight against it, when I finally give in and do it, I have fun, and some of my best memories of her are those times she nagged and teased me until I did what she wanted… like going out on the loading dock in the rainstorm just to stand and feel the storm thrashing around us, getting soaked and freezing… and laughing the whole time.

I love her because she can drag out the emotional side of me.  I tend to be so controlled in my emotions that so much of who I am gets buried.  With her, we fight and yell and get ANGRY… and the flipside of that is that in the middle of the negative emotional stuff… I still see her and love her and am amazed by her.

God damn it, I miss the hell out of her.

B

Letter to You

I have no idea if you still remember this blog, or if you even care enough to find it again.  I just wanted to write to you, but don’t feel that actually emailing you would be a good thing – so here I am getting my thoughts and feelings out in a way that is safer, but still accessible.

I miss you.  Every single day that goes by is hard for me, because you are not here, in my life. 

Since you left six weeks ago, I have tried to turn things around for myself.  I am enrolled in college, have already gotten my financial aid, and start classes in about three weeks. There is a fitness center on campus as well, and I am getting a membership in it.  I will be going to classes four days a week, and figure I can hit the gym every single one of those days for at least an hour. 

In some ways this may just be a pathetic, desperate quest to find some way to bring you back to me… both the school and the gym.  I know that my weight bothered you, so I will do something about it.  I know that my inability to find a job because of my lack of education was a problem – so I will fix that.

I have continued carrying on our plans for the house here, you’d be surprised how cool it looks.  The painting in the kitchen is totally done except the trim, which is getting done this week hopefully.  That detail painting is a bitch!  You remember how you always wanted to pull  up the carpeting in the kitchen, go down to the linoleum underneath? And how I was always hesitant to do so?  Well, I finally said fuck it and tore all the carpeting up.  I am now spending an hour or three a day hand scrubbing all the nasty padding that had turned to something between super glue and cement underneath the carpeting.  It is looking awesome, and you were right – it was a good idea.  I wish I had recognized that while you were still here.

I’ve got a lot of other projects in the works as well – the garage is about half cleaned out, and the breezeway is totally done.  I have some laundry to do that I found out in bags in the garage, but its mostly blankets and sheets and stuff.  The carpet cleaner I borrowed is for next week, after I have finished the kitchen floor and trim.  That awful yellow green shag carpeting from the 70s is way overdue for a thorough cleaning.

I was thinking today about some of the things that I miss about you, and some of the good memories I have from this past year.  I remember:

Drinking a beer with you on the 50 yard line at the high school football field, after running through the sprinklers and getting soaked.

Hiking for hours around the devil’s hole, climbing that damn steep sand dune, the primal scream deep in the woods, and laughing at you trying to pee in the woods.  I most remember you saying “I love you – no one else is crazy enough to do things like this with me” 

Taking you to get your first tattoo for your birthday.

Taking you to see Twilight for your birthday.

Reading the Twilight books to you each night while we lay in bed.

Deciding to get a puppy, and deciding on Aika.

That night with the tanning lotion.

The night we found out about Caity out in Washington, and how you held me as I cried.

Taking you out driving, and the fighting about you blasting the radio in the car. Dammit, it’s just not safe! And no, It’s not just that I’m old!

The night I burned my arm… and holding you as you fell apart.

The night we all got our tattoos from Danial – how you crushed my hand to a pulp while she was working on yours.  Holy gosh, that was a painful night.

Looking at houses, all the different houses… and window-shopping for furniture for our future home.

Deciding on baby names for our little girl/boy, and how you really wanted a girl because you wouldn’t have a clue how to raise a boy. Deciding on Cymry, because we both like old Celtic names.

Internet shopping for baby stuff…. tons and tons and tons of baby stuff.

The day we went shopping for a ring at that jewelry store in the mall… and how my jaw dropped when he mentioned the price for natural pink diamonds.

Breaking into and exploring the bubble house…. and talking about how we would set up our room.

I can’t hardly write any more of this… my heart is aching from missing you so damn much, and still loving you as much as ever.  I can’t believe what you said, that all of these things were just a lie, a fake – that you never loved me, that you never would love me.  I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that.

I love you completely and totally.  My only hope is that we can find a way past all the obstacles, that we are not done yet.  I know you are dating him now, and it kills me. I want to find a way to make it all better, to make the past months never happen, to find the right things to say and do to make you believe that you and me makes a good We.

B

Update

So, yeah, I meant to continue blogging regularly purely for therapeutic reasons, but have not kept up with that the way I had hoped to.

She is still gone, it’s been almost seven weeks now. I still miss her terribly, and wish that there was a way for things to work out for us.  This, of course, is not going to happen as long as she HATES me… which for whatever reason it is becoming more and more apparent that she does.

She is finally out of my brother’s house, which has been somewhat of a bone of contention between my brother and his wife.  His wife is mad at him for kicking Her out of the house, while at the same time my sister-in-law remains mad at ME for bringing Her into the family. It’s all very confusing.

Everyone I know says that I am better off without Her, from my Mom to my friends (both male and female), and even my exes… they all, without exception, say that my life is immeasurably better without Her in it… which makes me laugh sometimes, because how can something that is so damn good for me feel so completely awful?  I miss her every day, and have dreams at night of her returning to me and us making things work out.

I am a stubborn sumbitch, that is well known.  It took me four years to finally let go of my ex-wife, despite all the problems and anger and bad things that happened.  Even after I finally let go, it still took another two years after THAT before I came to the (incredibly relieving) realization that I didn’t love her anymore.

If things are not meant to work out between me and Her, I hope to God it doesn’t take me another five years to get over her and move on with my life. Cuz that would, in a word, SUCK.

Life, or something like it.

Okay, so I haven’t posted a new blog in over a fucking year.

In that time, I’ve lost my job, been unable to find a new one, fell in love, got my heart broke again, and became a college student. What the hell.

I promise I’ll post again soon… I think this could be therapeutic as I am still in the whole damn “grieving” stage of denial and non-acceptance with this whole relationship bullshit thing that I am going through. It’s only been six weeks, so perhaps you’ll forgive me for not getting over it quickly… I mean, it’s the first serious relationship I’ve had in 11 years, and it ended abruptly just last month… and she’s still not out of my life.

God hates me. Maybe.

-B

short update

Shit, I can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted anything…

Things have changed quite a bit for me, since my last posting.  Caity and I had to move out of our apartment home of five years, but managed to find a somewhat nice little place only a block away. The move wasn’t too bad (as far as that goes) since we didn’t have to go far, and the rent, while higher, was still in the do-able range.

UNTIL, that is, I got fired from my job about 3 weeks ago. On a Friday, the boss gave me a $200 bonus for all the extra work I’d been doing, and how I’ve really “picked up the slack” left from the departure of our service tech. Then, the following Tuesday, he FIRED ME. What the fuck?

The reasoning on his part was that I called in sick on Tuesday morning. Which I did. I woke up with my head hurting like a sonofabitch, and popped like 4 Motrin and called the boss to tell him I wouldn’t be in until noon or so.  He told me not to bother, that he was just going to close the business. The next morning, on my way to work, he calls and tells me not to bother with coming in PERIOD. And just like that, 8 months of job went down the tubes.

So now here I am, 9 days until rent is due again, with both the cable and electric companies getting spastic about the bills, no gas in my car, down to 3 smokes – and NO FUCKING MONEY. and NO JOB. I’ve been hitting the papers and job postings, but so far nothing.

Caitlin is off at Camp Chenaniah for the rest of this week and possibly another week after that if she wants to do it. She truly enjoys the camp, and I couldn’t be happier that she is doing something with her summer. Also, her softball season just ended, and her team ended up with a 7 win, 1 loss record, and took the league championship!

During the second to last game of the tournament, we were down by 3 at the top of the last inning, our final at-bat.  Our first two batters both struck out, so we were one out away from just being shut down and taking 2nd or 3rd place… and Caitlin came up to bat.  I could tell she was stressed out about the pressure, because if she got out, that’s it, Game Over. I was so worried about her… girls from both teams were screaming and cheering from the dugouts, people up the bleachers were yelling… then she pops a nice hard grounder between the third baseman and shortstop, getting a respectale single out of it! WHOO!

Her team went CRAZY in the dugout, cheering for her, and she had this HUGE smile on her face. It turned out to be the turning point of the game, because the next girl, Hailey, also got a single, then we reached the top of the lineup again, with our heavy hitters.  Caity’s team ended up scoring TWELVE RUNS in that inning, and won the game!

The final championship game was against our bitter rivals, and it ended in a TIE.  League rules give the win in case of a tie to the team that had the most runs scored throughout the season… which was US! Nobody was really happy with that, but by that time it was almost 10PM and everyone was cranky, tired and just wanted it to be over, so we were declared the league champs and that was that.  Caitlin was happier than I’ve seen her in a long time.

I went and hung out with my friends Kris and Kindra the other night, and we went to see The Dark Knight. One HELL of a movie! If you haven’t seen it yet, GO! Right NOW! Seriously!

Rob, our old landlord from a few years back, popped in on us unexpectedly last week. He is living in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was up for a week or so to try to get his catamaran sold.  He ended up camping out in our side yard the whole time, and while it was very nice to see him again, welllll…… it’s also nice to have the house all to myself again. He left today.

Yeah, so that’s about it so far for the updates… I need a job badly, and have no idea what I’m going to do about paying the bills late next week…. we’ve only been in this house two months, and now I am going to have rent troubles. SIGH.

LFG FTW

An Apology, and some Edits.

I was saddened recently to receive this comment on my blog post Tribute:

I wanted to ask you to remove your tribute to ******.  I’m married to her dad and I didn’t appreciate you telling the whole world about how ****** died.

I am asking you to remove this from your web site as it is disturbing. If her dad knew this was on your web site, he would not appreciate it either.

Ma’am, I apologize if I offended you or any of the family. That was not my intention at all. I merely wanted to remember her, and share a little of my feelings about both what I knew of her, and my grief when she died. I have removed her name from the post, changing it to an anonymous “she” and “her”.

It kind of makes me sad that what I intended as a melancholy story about a very important person in my life was taken as “disturbing” or even offensive.