I don’t often have them, those days that just creep by. I couldn’t sleep Friday night and woke up often. I knew that yesterday was going to be a bummer even though the week I had last week rocked. It only hits me somedays, usually when I go out with a group of people and they all have somebody. I try not to let it get to me - because I don’t really need somebody but it would be nice if somebody just looked my way.

I cleaned out my car, found an old photograph of me and S when we were in NYC, during happier times; though not the greatest of times…it was early on in the relationship and I thought I had our whole lives together. That bummed me out, so I cleaned harder. (I’m one of those I’m upset so I have to clean everything people.) I got my oil changed in the Zuki and stupidly I did not check the bill when I left. They charged me for 6 quarts of oil and gave me almost a whole carton of oil that they didn’t use. I have been short on cash (three weeks between paychecks is a little hard!) so I opted for the cheaper, WalMart brand of oil. I guess they get comission on the other brand and the guy was pissed that I didn’t take it; and because I’m a girl they get away with these things. It’s neither here nor there, but I’m an honest person….I just wish the rest of the world saw everything through rose colored glasses like I do.

I came home and read Firefly Beach. It was a great book about the tortured lives of two people, starting from grade school who finally wind up with each other some thirty years later. A hopeless romance story with a happy ending and I couldn’t help but wonder when it would be my turn. I was always everyone’s friend and nobody’s crush. I was the innocent, the wide-eyed doe. The one everyone loved as a friend and who couldn’t bare to hurt me if “something happened.” I still have the dress I was going to wear to one of my friends proms, the year he was a senior. He called me a few days before to tell me that he wasn’t going, and then years later I found out (from him) that he went with his high school sweetheart, who he is still madly chasing. She’s alluring, beautiful the kind of girl who lost all that babyfat and turned into a beautiful swan.
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What is it with people when you go through a major life change that they don’t stick around and they just don’t keep their word? I just don’t get it. I’ve got my parents breathing down my neck trying to convince me to go for this guy I’ve known since High School. Yeah, I admit it, he’s a great guy and I do like him and we’ve hung out a couple times recently. But it’s getting quite obvious he doesn’t feel the same and I wish they’d just shut up about it. Every day its “Have you talked to him?” or “How’s [blank]?” The person in question had come over this way last month to go and visit his university. He stayed at my parents house with me and we hung out. We had been making plans since November for me to go and hang out with him on my vacation (which is this week) and his work picked up and he “doesn’t know” if he’ll be busy or not and that’s fine, honestly. We have just been email buddies for the last couple of years and life goes on (Ob-lah-dee-ob-lah-dah).

And the fact that I feel like all of my friends have somehow abandoned me. J got the new job and starts next Monday. I feel like whenever we make plans, she’ll make ‘em and then stand me up. I’m starting to take this personally, like it’s me as a person that I’m not good enough for these people, although I should probably think it’s me that’s too good for them. But you know, it’s really hard sitting at home on my vacation with absolutely no one. I feel like I did in high school, all dressed up with no where to go. Everyone always lets you down kinda mumbo jumbo. That’s what happens when you move a kid 3 times and expect them to have lifelong friends. Do I blame my parents? A little bit. Do I blame myself? A lot. I should have been more outgoing - but it never works for me.

And you know, I trust people. I should just stop that right now. I always feel like there is good in everyones heart, you know? And that they’ll come through and do the right thing. So I sit and I wait like a tool and wait and wait. But no one ever does come through, and I’m always left there waiting for some one good to come by. Never make promises you can’t keep. Everyone is always after their own intentions and they screw over other people because it makes them feel good when the other person is upset. Like they had the power to do that kind of thing. Just once I’d like to write a book where the leading character overcomes all of these obsticles and proves everyone wrong in the end. Kind of like “take that!” kinda deal.

P.S. S - you telling me that the dog and cats are so much “happier” without me just shows what a horrible person you are. I was good to you and just because you’ve already got someone in your bed doesn’t make you the better or bigger person here.

I’d be lying if I said that S having a new girlfriend didn’t bother me. I’d be lying if I said that the flowers out in front of his new apartment downstairs from our old one (which is near my friends, in whom I was visiting tonight) didn’t bother me. A girls touch. The chairs that sit facing each other on their little porch and the little table in between, just like I had always wanted, she got. I’d be lying if I said that that was okay and that it didn’t hurt me. How they have built their little life together in such a short time (less than a month!) indicates to me that this was a romance under the covers for a while. I feel foolish, forsaken and just a tiny bit of me wants to know why I wasn’t good enough?

And then I remind myself that tomorrow is another day. Another day that I don’t have to get up to find dog poop on the floor. Another day that I don’t have to hear some language I was never included in. Another day where I didn’t have to feel alone in my own skin. Tomorrow is another day where I will belong in these clothes (a size smaller!) with this new hairdo, and this foreign makeup. Tomorrow just is. Tomorrow is another day where I can get up and go to work to find people who have less than I do and sometimes all they come in for is a smile. Tomorrow is another day to take care of myself and treat myself like the princess I should have been treated like when I was with him. If no one else puts me first, I will put me first. If my friends want to turn their backs on me, they weren’t friends to begin with. I feel sorry for the new girl S has roped in - for her sake I hope he treats her better than he did with me and his first ex. But a leopard can’t change his spots. I bet that in a few years he’ll be one of those dirtbags that are on disability because they feel it is owed to them. And he’ll hound the Pharmacist for his Vicodin or Morphine whatever the Doctor has put him on to shut him up. Please don’t misconstrue this as all people on disability are dirtbags, these are the people that think the world owes them and that they should be served on a silver spoon. The people that have the ability to work but feign injury to avoid the pressures of everyday life and don’t have consequences for their actions.

And this week I go on my vacation. I will travel across the state to the town where I spent my high school years but it feels more like my home than anywhere else in this world. I will bask in the sea breezes surrounded by people I don’t even know and one person I will get to know. Me. Sometimes the hardest person to know is yourself and until you know yourself how can anyone truly get to know you? How can anyone open up and feel what you want them to feel if you can’t even understand your own self. Your dreams. Your ideologies, your idiosyncrisies, your dynamics. The eb and flow of your emotions like the tide on the sand.

I hate airing out my dirty laundry for all the world to see, but if I don’t get this out I might scream, or cry, or punch a wall. S has a new girlfriend. And is basically 2 months behind on the electric that I helped him keep on because I was being a good person because he told me he didn’t have the money. I will never trust anyone again. I feel so broken and bruised that it’s just not funny anymore. How could someone that I gave my heart to….how could they just hurt me over and over and over again and why on earth did I take it? It was like someone getting stabbed to death and begging their killer to stab them more. Dude, I stood there and took it and let him treat me that way.

I let him hurt me. Me, who shouted the phrase “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” That was me. I let him in and I let him hurt me. Not physically but mentally, emotionally and financially. I keep mentally kicking myself over and over again because I am sure now that there were times that he schemed to do these things to me and I was too stupid to notice or to love struck to care. God.

I believe in Karma and I know how we started our relationship was wrong (I was the other woman). I truly believed that it was love at first sight. But what goes around comes around and I’m tired of getting the shaft. I made peace with her (his first ex). We talked, we worked things out - a long time ago. And on the scale of karma, I think that should have counted for something. So why am I the one that keeps getting screwed over. It’s like I have a “step on me” sign on my forehead or something. I’m too damn nice, I’ll do anything for anyone. Oh, you don’t have money today? Sure, I’ll buy you lunch. Sure, we’ll make plans and I’ll sit around like the dumbass waiting for you to come.

Whatever doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger, right? This has to be a test. This has to be one of those Almighty tests to make sure I’m paying attention, to teach me something for the future….something. Maybe, just maybe, I won’t be so nice anymore. And I’m going to learn to say no. And I don’t care if he reads this or not. I’m angry and I’m hurting and nothing anyone says will make this hurt go away. Nothing.

It has been an emotional rollercoaster. I have been angry, depressed, giddy and all things in between. I have realized that I am so happy to be single. So happy that I do not have to listen to him, or hear him make me feel like I am worthless. He might not have intended for his words to do that to me, but they did. I have realized that I have self-worth and someday somebody will see that in me and be head over heals for me. When that day comes I’ll be in a better place emotionally and spiritually.

We went down to Brighthouse to change the cable out of my name and into his. It was originally supposed to be that I paid half of the Cable and Electric, but I offered payment for the Brighthouse yesterday. And if the Electric company does a name transfer, that’d be awesome because then it really would not be in my name and I’m not responsible. I just want to wipe my hands clean and have it be over. We spent at least 30 minutes arguing about his stupid laptop and how I had to stay and help him get it hooked up to the cable modem. I finally shouted “It’s not my responsibility anymore!” and left, with close in hand. Do you realize how good it felt to say that I was not obligated to hear him complain to me that I had to help him while he sat on his butt and did nothing? Do you realize how happy that made me? I promised him I would help him clean up the apartment. That, to me, means that I will pack up my things and get them out and help him throw away what isn’t wanted. It is not me getting on my hands and knees and scrubbing the floor while he sits and watches t.v. He just does not get this concept.

I have thrown away clothes that no longer fit me, and have been sitting in bags or boxes for the last 3 years. He says I have done nothing. I might not be the super, bestest cleaner in the entire world. But I get the job done. More so than he has ever done. I can fix toilets (while he watches), I’ve fixed a leaky pipe, cleaned out shower drain, steam cleaned the carpets over the last 3 years and when he vacuums the world must stop and say “Good Job.” Right, that ain’t happening. And so, if he wants to spend 4 hours on the phone with his friends then he can figure out how to work his new modem and Vonage and leave me alone.

And someday, he’ll look back and realize what he had when he had it and be sorry that he ever lost it.

The parachute is opening and I will not fall. The last few weeks have been heartbreaking, confusing, hurtful. It’s been one huge emotional rollercoaster. We have both said out loud that it’s over. Now it’s just the getting out part thats hard. How do you disect a four year relationship and decide who’s is what when in reality the only things you know that belong to you were the stuff from your past. But what about the stuff you got together? My lovebird painting that he got me for christmas is coming with me. The dishes I bought are staying. Forks and knives are staying. The crockpot I got for my birthday is staying. The vacuum is staying. My dirt devil is coming with me. These are the things that have maybe brought us together. Gifts to and from.

Saying goodbye is never easy but I know that time will heal all of my wounds. Maybe not completely, but someday all I’ll have left is a little scar. Something to look back on and remember - and depending on how nicely things end will be the memories I keep with me. To look back on and remember fondly, or to look back with hatred and distrust. I know now, that I could never be with someone from another culture. It’s not that I am racist, but rather that I don’t like being left out. Language barriers annoy me. Family that doesn’t talk to you like you exist, that annoys me. Someone who can’t tell me about their day, you guessed it, annoys me.

But I also learned something about myself. I spent all of this time morphing into a person who somehow got their spine ripped out. I don’t stand up for myself. I let others walk all over me. I talk about these dreams and hopes and yet I never work to achieve them. Is this his fault? Maybe a little. Self-degrading, self-loathing. Never leaving the house - being couped up all the time…together. Even those in healthy relationships need time a part for a little while. If my next guy wants to play football with the guys on the weekends, hey it suits me, as long as I get to do something I enjoy during the week. I’ve learned never to depend on someone else for everything. I need to be self-sufficient. No one will ever hold above my head again that they’ve paid all of the bills. No one will ever tell me that I can’t put the air conditioning on 73 degrees again.

I know that in about a week I’ll be completely out of this place. I’ll have left behind two cats and a dog, but gained something so much more. I have figured out what I don’t want - now it’s time to figure out what I do want and what will make me happy. I’m afraid that I’ll be alone for ever, but in the same respect I feel an “I don’t care when it happens.” Someday, somehow I hope that someone will find me (or vice versa) and we can be happy. Someday, right?

I know now that sometimes those jumps are for the better and the parachute will open and I will land on the bottom unscathed. And sometimes I know I’ll get bruised and broken along the way. But I’ll always be me.