Changes

Posted 5/10/14
Lots of changes have occurred in the last year and a half - almost too many for my psyche to handle.  Yet, here I am - still alive, still plugging along.   Some of the changes hurt, a lot - still working on them.  I have had to let go of or alter some ideas that have been at the root of what makes me tick.  Love, oh it's nothing like what I grew up believing in from movies or TV.   Some of what I've believed in will have to be adapted to what really is, out in today's world.    And so it begins

Hello

Testing....testing...

Regret

Oh lord what have I done?  Uprooted my life and moved across the country for a guy?  What on earth was I thinking?  I was thinking we were in love.  I was thinking he's the one.  I was thinking we were on the same page.  13 months into this and I see that I was misinformed.  Nothing in this dessert has gone according to my plan.  Nothing has worked out in my favor.  I couldn't get a do-over if I tried.  What have I done. 

Time marches on

I keep promising myself that I will stay on top of my blogs.  I haven't picked up a journal in years.  Things are happening that I know I'm going to forget.  It's 2013 - I have moved to Arizona to live with my boyfriend!  Me - she who raged against living together for YEARS.  Yet here I am trying to make it work.  Lots of posts to come.  Lord knows I have nothing but time on my hands right now.

Remember me?

Soooo sorry I've been so neglectful - I lost my bookmark and couldn't remember my password.  But I'm back!  Have lots to share!  Stay tuned.

I don't remember what it was like to be fearless.  I have been afraid from as far back as 1996.  How does someone work though things they can't see?  Things that feel so real they take your breath away?  How do you mend what seems irrevocably broken?  What kind of therapy do you seek for irrational fear?  Yes, I know it's irrational to think no man will ever love me - that no man will ever treat me with respect and honesty I would give to him.  Knowing this doesn't make it any easier to deal with. 

I wasn't purposely keeping a list but now there are two items.  Two deal breakers.  So, so sad.  I'm not used to being in this spot.  I swear I'm not looking for reasons to cross him off my list.  I don't know where I'm supposed to draw a line in the sand.  What things am I supposed to stand up for and NOT compromise on?  I have always felt the need to be the most important in my guy's world - simply because that's what he is to me.  I wish I didn't give everything like that away right from the start.  I wish I made people "earn" it.  How can I be different now?  I don't want to be.  Yet I can't keep feeling like the world's outcast. 

Dependence is bad.  One should be able to stand on ones' own. 
I met a man and found myself in a strangely familiar position.  With each day that goes by I find myself wanting to spend more and more time with him.  He's not a local so my 'time' is conversations on the phone.  Nightly talks usually go until one or both is tired and has to go to sleep.  Monday I could tell he was distracted so I hung up so he could do what he had to do.  Tuesday he fell asleep on me about 15 mins in.  On Weds. he went out and his 'phone died' so by the time he got home it was about 3am.  No phone call - just some argumentative texts.  (Silly me - feeling bad cuz I wanted to talk to him and for 3 nights I wasn't able to.  I'll have to work on that.) 
Now as I sit here on Thanksgiving I can't help but feel bad.  I don't feel the same enthusiasm I felt earlier this week about us.  He hasn't sent any texts today while celebrating with the same people he hung out with last night.  Makes me feel stupid for missing him and wanting to talk to him.  The feeling clearly isn't mutual.  Sad.
Dependence is bad.  I need to stop depending on him.  I need to not need him. 

It's horrible how one word, phrase or exchange can send you plummeting back to a cold dark place.  Scary feelings and emotions which I thought I had worked through apparently still linger.  My stomach is a mess today.  I keep thinking I'm not made for this.  I was right to stay hidden all these years.  No one will ever understand me.  No one will ever be able to comfort me.  To be with someone will mean a lifetime of having to explain myself.  Each and every time.  I'm just so tired.  This is so exhausting.  Why is this my road? If it is a lump I found, these last few weeks aren't helping it.

I don't want to question God but really - everything - all at once?  Health, job AND relationship.  Couldn't I have one that worked.  One that I could run to and feel good in.  Must it always be this hard?

Time marches on - go with it or get left behind.  I stood still for about 11 years.  Now I'm all about moving forward. 

For ever so brief a period I was in a relationship.  I even changed my FB status to read 'in a relationship' - it felt great.  I had to change it back to single today.  It breaks my heart.  This was the first time in a long time I actually thought I had a chance.  I was wrong.  Again, a case of not knowing what I was up against.  I thought I asked all the right questions.   I didn't.  There were unseen forces at work, again, which were out of my field of vision.  This is the beginning - the time when it's all magical and light and happy.  Things are supposed to flow and be fun.  I wasn't ready for the dark side of the relationship to surface this early on.  I am not ready to be avoided.  I'm not strong enough to avoid taking it personally.  Ignoring and avoiding me is bad in my book.  It's not a good way to start out.  I had blue moments myself but I never wanted to be away from him nor did I avoid him.  Quite the opposite.  When I was in those moods I wanted him around me - more than ever.  Sometimes just to hear his voice was all I needed.  I feel so stupid now for that.  For all of it.  His pulling away is the ultimate rejection.  We're too new for me to be able to occupy myself with other things while he digs himself out of this.  I can't believe my heart is breaking again.  Why would anyone want to get back up on this horse? 

Why do your words have the power to cut me at my knees?  Or send me over the moon?  Why can't I find an even keel?  The highest highs and lowest lows.  Always.  When you're tired and get short with me it feels like you're ripping my heart out.  I wait around all day just to get a few moments of your time.  Sorry if I'm disappointed that you're tired.  Sorry if I ask too many dumb questions of you. 

Funny the more things change the more they don't.  I'm back home for approximately two months.  Sure didn't take long to remember why I want to move out so badly.  Sure do miss my Nashville apartment.

I'm skipping ahead to Day 23 because I'm not in the mood to do any of the others. 5 guys who are famous who I find attractive - EASY!!!!

Russell Crowe

 Gabriel Byrne

Matthew MacFadyen

Gerry Butler

Drum role please - the FINEST male specimen to EVER walk the earth - Andy Garcia. 
I've never lusted after a married man but oh the things I'd be willing to do just to listen to that man talk to me!  What is it about accents?  Everyone of these guys has one! 

Mmmm now this is a great blog!!!

Day 14 - your earliest memory

Mom and I have traced it back to when I was 2.  I was going for a bike ride with the family.  My sister rode on the back of my Dad's bike.  My brother was 6 and he rode his own bike.  I rode on the bar of my Father's bike.  (I KNOW!!!  How unsafe!!)  Well, pulling out of the driveway one time, I got my foot caught in Dad's tire and it bent my toes.  I don't remember getting it caught but I remember how they treated me afterwards.  I was soaking my foot and Mom brought me a Popsicle.  You know the kind they still sell - the long liquid filled Popsicles.    I wasn't permanently maimed - I survived.  I don't think I cried - we don't recall if I cried.  I know my Father felt horrible that it happened.  It wasn't his fault it was mine.   It's funny I don't recall the pain or it actually happening but just the aftermath. 

 Green Popsicles are still my favorite. 

Day 13 - somewhere you'd like to move or visit.


Since I'm only days into moving back home, let's answer the last part of this one.  I cannot wait to visit Ireland and Scotland.  Next years as a special birthday present to myself I'm going.  I haven't worked out all the details but I'm doing lots of reading.  I would really like to just wander around and "find" stuff and not be too scripted.  I plan to visit the castles and historical places but I also want to see the rest of the countries.  I can hardly wait to just listen to the locals chatting!  What is it about the Irish and Scottish accents that's so darn attractive.  I keep joking that I just might stay over there and never come back!  Between the accents and the music - I'll be in heaven!!! You just never know.  I feel as though there are lots of things in store for me over there!   Stay tuned.

Day 11 of the Blog challenge was to put your IPOD on shuffle - well I'll have to come back to this one - have to find the IPOD in all the boxes!!

So instead I will complete day 12 - Bullet your whole day:

* Get up with alarm - 6:45am
* Catch the 8:40am Orange Line Train downtown
* Walk to hotel
* Attend orientation - 10-12
       -asked to stay later - worked until 4:45pm
* Out to lunch with mgmt staff
* Return to hotel - finish making buttons and lanyards for staff
* Walk back to train
* Take train back to Midway
* Home - unpack??

Not a chance!!  Way too tired.

I kind of took the easy way out of that last one and used my boyfriend from 1st grade.  My thoughts on love are so different now.  I "thought" I was in love with each and every boyfriend I've ever had.  I wish I was one of those people that made you earn my love.  I'm not.  I have a big heart and I give it away too soon.  (I'm not that easy - other stuff you have to wait for!!!)  My definition of love is so completely different from what it was when I was in my 20's.  I dated Rich right out of high school for the next 6 years.  There were a few breakups (his) and one long discussion on our 4th Christmas together.  We were not getting married - he wasn't any closer after 4 years.  So I put him on notice that we could still go out but the next guy who came along that was interested, he was history.  I think he thought I was bluffing.  It took another 2 years but along came Jack.  When I broke up with Rich (did it before I started even talking on the phone to Jack) he was stunned.  All of a sudden NOW he's ready to be married.  I told him that wasn't good enough.  I don't want him to be ready just because I'm leaving.  Where was this when the feelings changed?  Why didn't you say something then?  No, I had moved on in my heart two years prior.  I don't go back - never have.  There's a reason it didn't work out. 

I spent 4 years with Jack - 3.5 longer than I really should have.  That wasn't love.  That was me being swept off my feet because the first guy in over 6 years was interested in me.  ME!  He could tell me what I wore on my very first day on the job.  THAT'S how far back he liked me.  That should have been a warning for me.  He took advantage of everything.  He ruined me in so many ways.  I've been trying for 10 years to get girl back he destroyed.   He was bad in every sense of the word.  I've told a lot of you about him but no one knows everything.  I wonder if keeping it in all these years is part of why I haven't gotten the old me back.  Perhaps I need to get more of what an ass he was out in the open.  Future blogs might tackle some of those issues - when I'm feeling strong enough. 

I still believe in love.  I still want it to happen.  Now a days I tell people who ask that I have never really been in love.  Not by my current definition.  Here's to hoping!!!!!!

Day 10 - discuss your first love and your first kiss.  Well, they were not one in the same!  My first love was my boyfriend 1st through 3rd grade (though KK will disagree with me).  I was sure we were going to get married (so was everyone else!) cuz I was one of the only people in school who could spell his last name - lot of vowels!  When you have a boyfriend in 1st through 3rd grade you do fun stuff like go play over at each others' house.  We would play with all of his Stars Wars stuff at his house (he had EVERYTHING!) and then in the little house in our backyard that my Father built for me and Cindy.  We broke up in 4th grade when, one day walking home from school he knocked me down.  I don't remember why.  I just know that as I got up I swung my lunch bag at him which contained my thermos.  It connected with his mouth.  I think there was blood.  He then reacted by calling me the "B" word.  That was shocking in Catholic grade school.  I went home and told my Mom.  She told my Dad.  He called his Mom.  We were never friends again.  He got into an argument with me at Great America on our 8th grade field trip which resulted in ME using my first swear word out loud.  Thank goodness there were no nuns around!

My first kiss.  Well, I would really like to forget it.  It was not fun at all.  It took place in Then-boyfriends' garage.  Things were so tense and nerve racking in the days leading up to it.  We discussed it.  It freaked me out on the inside - outside I was all calm and cool about it.  When it finally took place he was less than pleased.  I'll never forget the comment he made which I will not share here.  It inspired me! Oh yes it did.  You might have been my first and you were less than stellar Mr.  I've put in a lot of practice and research since.  I believe I can make anyone a good kisser.  I did it with 2 boyfriends!  No one is beyond help.  I think kissing and making out is more fun than sex actually but shhh don't tell anyone. 

It's funny but neither of these guys are married now.  Hmm, wonder if they crappy attitudes have anything to do with it!  

Day 9 - what you hope your future will be like.

Oh boy - my future.  If you would have told me one year ago I was going to be living in Nashville about to return home for work I would have laughed my butt off at you.  I have no idea what my future will be.  What do I HOPE for?  Peace - love - music.  My heart is taking an awfully long time to heal since asshole-Jack.  I know the years are passing me by.  It might just be time to test the waters.  I'm understanding things about myself these days - seeing things is a little bit different light.  Boys still scare me.  They probably always will.  Like that person bit by a dog that gets a queezy feeling in their stomach whenever they see a dog - that's me.  I found a way to make peace with lots of issues in my past.  Dating again would be a big step forward.  Perhaps this summer - after I settle in at the new job - downtown brings lots of possibilities.  My music is still going so I know that part of my future is safe.  Right now I'm happy getting through one day at a time.  My future is wide open and I do believe it is in God's hands.