Getting back into the swing of things

If you haven't heard, I'm trying to work it out with her. Yes, my ex-fiance. It's been a year. A rather eventful year. So much has happened and it would be a damn lie to say that I've not grown in the time span. I look back and I realize I was truly confused and reaching. Reaching for a new me. Who wouldn't? In a time of despair, you're more open to drastic changes. I did that and now I'm a new... me?

Debatable. I've got the ability to be a new person if I want. Confidant, outgoing and unlike the unassuming person I am today. I'm cocky at times and upon a good hair day, I'll definitely be a happier version of me. The most comfortable version of me is one who just laughs and does something fun.

Since I've started to realize that I'm in love with my ex, I've completely changed myself back to what I was used to. I miss her dearly and would like to give myself a chance to repair what I tried to hard to convince myself I was done with... me and her. She hurt me extremely bad and broke me down to the core. I'm forever bitter about it. Will it actually work? Who knows? If I knew someone who did know, I'd certainly be the first person to grill them with an intense curiosity only rivaled by Zeus himself.

I could go out and get "girls", but I really don't want to. I want seclude myself until I give us a chance. Until next time...

Stone stepping

I see her tomorrow. She's coming for the weekend to get her stuff. Her mother is following a day after to help take her stuff to parents' house. Am I nervous? Slightly. I'm nervous because I've been able to shut her out. I'm also nervous because I'm getting over her, for now. Am I ready to move on? As time moves on without me thinking of her 1000 times a day, it certainly gets easier. Every day is a stepping stone to a more peaceful and more definitive me.

I went to Vegas. It was great. Though the guys I was with were all 38+ years old and married with kids and enjoy getting mindfully lost in gambling; I had fun. I don't gamble. However, when in Rome... you know the saying. If you don't, well, shit; go to school.

I've been trying to figure out my obtusicities. Is that a word? Nope, not in English anyway. I made it up. What that word means to me is the things about me that aren't quite right; otherwise known as weird. What am I referring to? I need to why I think a certain way.

Oddly enough, I came back to this blog post. It's been nearly a full year since I really dipped my toe into this blog and I've come back to this half-made blog entry. I'll end it here and add on it different entries.

Happiness is a state of mind

I've done it. I've broken it off. What now though!? Am I happy? It's such an overwhelming feeling of bitter and sweetness it's like a mating of a fresh orange and arugula sprigs. I'm no fan... of either situation. At times, it's cool, when I'm busy or entertained for the most part. When I look back at the wonderful relationship we had, it's very hard. I see our pictures on Facebook and the great times we had rush through my mind leaving me with a feeling of anguish and regret... but it's normal. At the end of the day, it's expected though not easy to handle. I knew I'd feel like this.

I read something the other day;

“Happiness is not determined by what’s happening around you, but rather what’s happening inside you. Most people depend on others to gain happiness, but the truth is, it always comes from within.” – Anonymous

It doesn't matter where you are or what you do, it's how you mindfully keep yourself happy by focusing on the good, not the bad. A lot of bad has happened to me in a short amount of time.

"It's not who you are underneath; it's what you do that defines you." Ok, I totally stole that from Batman Begins; however, it remains true... at least for me. The duality of truths here is that I partially am searching for myself and for what I want to be. I don't know how long this person will last, but it feels more like me than I've felt in a long time.

Is it possible to be a different person in a month?

I'm different. I've changed. I'm outgoing and confidant. I'm happy. I'm not constantly foraging through self-pity and doubt. I'm no longer thinking about how I can't live without her. I'm taking chances in my mind and it's paying off. It's amazing what some internal reconsideration can do for a person. Reconsideration of what? Well, basically freeing your mind of assumptions of what you thought you wanted in life. It's freeing yourself to live day to day without the nagging worry that things might not go exactly as planned. It's liberating yourself from that model citizen that people around you want you to be (or at least the manifestation of the belief that these surrounding people have expectations of you.) Not to say I was planning my life down to the tiniest detail, but I guess I had a notion about how I figured it would be. It's been quite the month or so and reasons are many.

Reason numero uno, I've gained some interest from a company in Watsonville, CA for a Security Engineer position. It pays well, is in a great area and they have shown interest in me and my skill set. They reached out to me via a recruiter and I honestly hadn't considered the Santa Cruz area. I figured I would give them a chance though. Before this, I had totally focused my efforts to go to Denver to get back to her. I opened my mind up to the idea and to the changes that would inevitably occur if I accepted (had they offered it to me). I had my first interview with them over the phone, which was immediately followed up with a peer interview via Google Hangouts the next day. It was nuts. Then, they waited a couple weeks and told me they wanted to fly me out to the headquarters of West Marine. They did and I went through a nice, relaxing 4 hour interview with 6 different managers. They grilled me with all sorts of questions that left my brain feeling like Hannibal Lector had just snacked on half of it. It seemed to go well, but you never really know. They requested I take a personality test referred to as the Caliper test. It was a 100 question online test that mostly just reworded the same damn questions over and over again to see if you commit suicide or finish the test. Good news, I finished it.

Reason deux, I'm on the verge of putting my house of for rent. I'm pretty close and finalizing all the little things needed to be represented by this AIM property management company. I've sold most of my things and will continue to sell, donate or trash the rest. I want to stay light and mobile and plan to be out of the house April 18th. Hopefully, I get going somewhere or else I risk being homeless for a bit. I've learned I don't need many things anymore. I believe that my meager and pauper-like life as a child played a huge part in what I thought I wanted when I became a working man. I thought I wanted a house, lots of things and to be that guy who gets into a nice family routine; though we never had kids. I've found that I'm not that and she isn't either. I think that's why she initially left because she really didn't know what I or her, wanted in life. In retrospect, I didn't know either but I knew I wanted her. Things have changed. Maybe, I want to just be on my own now and perhaps, if we're meant to be, we meet up later down the road.

So, what else has changed? I've been outgoing for one. I've been actively trying to be friendly to everyone and the results are awesome. I've always been a friendly guy, but I've been trying to step out of my comfort zone a bit more. Honestly, people have been ultra receptive and way cool about it. I would always be really cautious about putting myself in a "bad" situation because I was a taken man. No, I'm not cheating or anything like that, I'm just talking to people and not limiting myself by standing up the invisible barrier that I had previously been putting up. In a single weekend, I've gotten like three girls numbers just by them giving them to me. I hadn't prompted them for it; which to be honest, felt good. I haven't been single for 8 years. Is this how it'll always be? Of course not. I think I was just being me and they seemed to enjoy my conversation.

Now that I think about it, my "change" is more due to that barrier that I put up. I was timid about moving it because I always wanted to treat her with respect and didn't want to put myself in a bad position. Who knows what will happen with this "new" me. Maybe it'll come and go. Maybe it's a coping mechanism to deal with what seems like the end of a great and long relationship. Whatever it is, I'm into the moment, into having fun, into being healthy and into being a good human being. It'll be hard. I'm not over her, and I know that she loves me and wants to be with me now. She's missing me pretty hard right now because she's bored and lonely. That's not going to do it for me. She's missed me before but when she's busy, she doesn't miss me like this. I find that a bit deplorable. It reminds me of the song by Passenger, "let her go". The lyrics:

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go

I can't blame her entirely because this is a basic human trait. We occupy our minds to avoid thinking of what hurts us. She loves me and was depressed and lost at the same time so she chose to leave. Unfortunately, to me, no matter how I try to empathize, I feel like she left me and in a way, broke up with me. Hell, she did give my ring back to me. I told her later that I would sell it and she cried. She wants it both ways and that's incredibly selfish. 

I love her, I do and I always will; but I'm not sure we should be together right now. Especially being that we lost our spark and have physically been apart for 5 months now. I haven't talked to her about this yet because I want to tell her in person. She can't come to California because she can't get a job in nursing as her application is moving way too slow. By the time she's done with her 3 month contract in Denver, she'll already have another job lined up and she said if California doesn't turn out, it might be in Austin, TX again or Seattle, WA. Waiting for this, I'm not sure it's worth it. I'm not getting any younger and it seems that I now need to figure out what I want to do. She had her chance, why shouldn't I? 

"I'm letting go"... something I hope to say

Firstly, today was better... I done did betterest. I was really in a great mood today, like I normally am when I'm not thinking about all this relationship stuff. I definitely agree that life without having to think about this, is much better and maybe deep down, I understand why she might not want to be together at this point in her life... but I'm not very fond of that. Anyway, me and the fiance spoke today about just stuff, nothing serious and it was a fucking relief. I didn't feel I had to defend anything today like I normally feel when we argue. The crazy thing is the first 3 years of our relationship, we didn't fight... like not even once. Looking back, I think it was awesome, because we were both super compromising then. We're both much different people now and have more responsibilities, obligations and goals. We're actually fairly different people altogether. She's more of a free-spirit than I; I flourish with a bit more structure. She likes doing what she likes to do, when she wants to do it; aka sort of self-centered. I tend to be a bit more compromising. That's not to say she doesn't ever compromise or I don't ever get lost in my selfish bullshit, but I'm simply pointing out our overall tenancies in comparison to each other. I'm more of a flirt, sexual and more open about a lot and she tends to be more to herself and reserved. She loves the outdoors and exploring whereas I like the outdoors, but I'm not generally in love with exploration and am picky about the outdoor destinations. I enjoy technology and sports and she's overall indifferent about both. Despite the differences, we get along a majority of the time and have the best things in common. Our sense of humor is a lot alike and we can keep each other laughing. Our love for food and drink is very strong and we indulge often. We share a love for the beach and traveling.

By the way, the comparisons above; they aren't binary or black and white. For example, she can be a very thoughtful person and used to do a lot for me. She'd cook for me, do my crazy amounts of laundry and all sorts of other things. I don't know if the general public knows this, but cooking and doing laundry didn't exactly scratch the top 10 of fun things to do in the world. I really appreciated her when she cooked for me. She was a really good cook and she even learned how to prepare some Korean dishes because I don't get to eat that often in New Mexico. For my 30th birthday, she took me to Vail, CO. That was the coolest and latest thing she's done for me. Vail is amazing and I was really thankful for that.

I'd say the one thing that might ultimately put the kibosh on this relationship is her desire to be spontaneous. She thinks she's more spontaneous than I, but I really don't think so. I'm spontaneous with my attitude, but I constantly think to myself, "is the juice worth the squeeze?" "HEY!! Let's go to <not a cool city> tonight!" I'm thinking to myself, "well, that city is a hour drive each way and there's nothing to fucking do there... so... blah, that sounds boring." "Oh, you're no fun." No, I'm fun, I just would rather do something else because that city sucks balls. I definitely like spontaneity; it adds a freshness to most things but like I said, is it really worth it? I can be spontaneous and go skinny dip into freezing cold water. I'd probably do it. She might not. So there are different ways that we're spontaneous and I hate that she thinks she's so much more spontaneous than me.

A friend, who has been helping me clarify my thoughts about this relationship, pointed me to this "Letting my wife go" blog. It's about a young married couple who've been together for 10 years. It's from the husband's point of view. I found it to be pretty interesting and I already knew that's what I had to do; which is let her go. He talks about how different they are though despite their many differences, he says "Real love shouldn’t limit a person’s potential, it should expand it." I totally agree with this and have always been an advocate of it. My fiance and I have had discussions when she was in school about holding each other back because at one point, she felt like she was holding me back. If you love someone enough, letting them go to see if they return can be a mind fuck. You HAVE to put your mind elsewhere and that sometimes seems impossible. Aside from that, I have a couple insecurities. I've tried to understand my insecurities and where they stem from, but I'm not 100% positive that I will ever know. My guess is that the incidents in a couple of my high school relationships has caused them. I dated a few chicks throughout high school, but I caught this one girlfriend in high school, whom I dated for a month or two, hitting on my best friend. Maybe that's when I started the lean toward insecure? Or maybe it was my 1 1/2 year relationship in high school where she left for an entire weekend without telling or contacting me and came back with pictures of some muscular dude with his shirt off and tacked them up in her room. The worst part is that she was persistent with the whole "nothing happened" story. Honesty and integrity are important to me. Since I've caught chicks straight up lying to me, I tend to "read" people and if I sense a lie, I'll push and push for the truth. If you say you're going to do something and promise it, I'm going to hold you to it. I don't make promises I don't keep and I think people need to be held accountable for their promises and lies.

Anyway, there are at least two things that need to happen for me to "let her go".
1.) I need to have hard goals in my life that I can continually work toward.
2.) I need to have a good amount of friends to constantly keep me busy when my goal getting isn't. It doesn't sound so hard to do.

My first goal is to move to Denver and get some friends. After that, I'll work on my fitness and career goals and hopefully, that'll remove my mind from the worries. In the end, I hope I reach my goals but with her in my life.

I miss my dad

This was the last thing he said to me... ever. He gave me advice through Facebook. This was our way of communicating since we hated to talk on the phone because it was a hassle. Yeah, I'm ridiculously lazy when it comes to the phone. Anyway, I wanted to immortalize this if/when his account gets removed and my chat session gets archived. It was advice about my fiance and I when we had our first break. This coincides with her first night job. Anyway, the fiance's name has been removed to protect the public... or something like that.


June 18th, 2013 -
Stuart, when they start saying things like that, it is not good. I don't know <your fiance> that much, but I think she is great girl, that pattern however, is more common than most people would like to think. You are both very attractive, which in some ways makes staying a couple more difficult to stay together until the end of time. I think a common mistake though is if for one party to give up every thing in hopes of working it out, usually the relationship ends anyway. I hate giving advise for relationships because each couple is different, but if I was you, I would not try to keep the relationship, if you really know inside that your beating a dead horse. Many times when one person says "I think your right, its time to go our seperate ways" when other the party agrees with the other person, after awhile he or she realizes that they made a grievous mistake , if on the other hand if you split and right away she adjusts, well it was the right thing to do. Is it hard? When you break up with someone that close, it feels like all is lost and someone just ripped out your heart and flushed it. These type of things, you will never forget, and the pain is awful, but to try and keep a relationship with someone that knows it is over, is the WORST. I been through quite a few of these triangles and it never gets easier, I hope I never have to do another.

Is that light I see?

Well, I've had a day or two to think about it and the regretful tirade I unleashed over the phone toward my drunken fiance and how it wasn't the best idea I've ever had. In fact, it wasn't a premeditated idea at all. It was purely impulsive and instinctual. I was protecting my pride, my deserved respect and my integrity as a man. I've since spoken to her when we were in a more stable mindset. I think we made some progress.

She's a private person. I'm not necessarily that private. I can be, but I'm not to the level that she is. There are so many variables for me to open up. I'm more of the type of man that if I feel comfortable talking with a person and something comes up, I'll probably discuss it without inhibition; so long as it's within reason. I'm not just going to blurt out how I had sex and what we did and what I rate it on a scale of 1 to... shut up, I'm not talking about it. She's the type who doesn't like judgement. In fact, I'm going to go on to say that she absolutely hates it. She really doesn't take negative judgement or criticism very well. Honestly, who can? No one likes to be criticized and though I try, it MUST be constructive for me to accept it without picking you up and throwing you out the window (150 lbs or less please). What I'm getting to is that she doesn't like when I post our business on social media. Things like relationship status or that we're fighting or any of that. She has every right to dislike that because I don't necessarily like it and I don't normally do it... but I can say that I've done it more than she has. I feel like if you really are in a relationship, not just going through the motions, but I mean really in a relationship where it's balanced, compromising, full of love, respect, and trust, then you have no issue proclaiming it to the world... of people who follow you or are your virtual friends/family. I can respect her need to keep it to ourselves. During this rocky time, we really don't need the additional scrutiny and pressure.

So today, we spoke as she was at the airport for fucking ever. She got her nursing license application done pretty fast and had hours to sit and wait at the airport. She called me at work and we spoke for a bit and she told me she read my first blog entry and it made her cry. She said "it was so sad". And, it is. It is sad. No one should feel like this, but I'll wager it happens on a daily basis to people all over the world. I finally had the chance to talk to her and it seemed like so long of a wait; I can't blow my opportunity and turn this into a fight again. I was glad she read it because it fully explains my point of view and removes my tone from the conversation. She said that she understood and told me she does love me. She told me she literally couldn't leave because at this Christmas party (yes, in February), they locked the doors in this particular restaurant after hours so they could have an open bar and freely smoke weed (After all, it is legal for recreational use in Portland). She had no where to go to talk to me and tons of people were in every crevice and room in the building. She was embarrassed and her friend kept telling her to calm down and have a good time while she's there. I had no idea about this. She didn't exactly tell me all that. She just said, "it's not a good time" so that just offended me more than helping me understand. But, oh well, she was really intoxicated and at that time, her ability to explain anything was hardly possible.

I told her that I wanted to know if she was really into this relationship. Do you still want to pursue a romantic relationship with me? Are you willing to compromise to make this work? Most of all, are you still in love with me? There's a big difference between loving someone and being in love with them. What's your top three priorities in life at this point? Am I among those ranks? She replied "yes, I do love you. I do miss you", while tearing up. I could hear her quiver a bit as she spoke, "I know you don't think so, but I do miss you... a lot". It felt good to hear that. The pain subsided a little. But then, she said that she wants to take things slow. She wants to meet up with me in Denver like we had recently planned and be together, but at a slower pace. The pressure that she receives from family and friends to be with me has been weighing on her. I feel her. I understand. I explain to her that no one else matters in this but me and you. If you don't really want to be with me, let me know so I'm not a prisoner to hope. I need to move on. We're not getting any younger and we don't need to string each other along for eternity unless it's about true love. All that other noise is just that, noise. It needs to be turned down so she can come to a conclusion on her own. Her family and friends like me. I mean, I'm a pretty cool dude. I'm kidding, but I think I've got something to offer. I'm confidant though lately, it might not seem like it.

Today, I tried not to think about this too much, but inevitably it hung around in my head. I had been in and out of thinking about work and my life. What do I do? Do I even go to Denver? Do I give this relationship a chance or just cash in my chips now and bail? We have a few friends in Denver and I'd be really embarrassed if it ended. Even if it was mutual, I'd have to talk about it and explain it to people. Breaking up with someone is one thing, but getting broken up with makes you feel... like less. You feel like you don't have anything to offer and that it didn't work out because you weren't enough. It really fucks with your confidence.

Why was this relationship so different now? What happened? I've pinpointed it to that first nursing job. A combination of that and me being distant due to playing my computer games. The night nursing job messed with her and the love and attention she needed, though I don't know how much it would have helped, wasn't really there. I failed at being her companion and best friend. Another thing was that she left pretty quick and we didn't get to recover our strong relationship. She left to Austin and fully recovered to that person she used to be... but without me. So now she's unsure. She's thinking, am I happy because I'm alone and had time to recover? I don't have to answer to anyone and can do whatever I want. Not that I was a dictator in the relationship. However, there is compromise and she seems happy to not have to - hence all my doubts. She's living a good life now, alone with her dog and she's happy. Why mess up happiness with complication? In addition to that, she's starting to feel guilty that she's happy without me. That kinda hurts, but if I move to Denver and we kick our life off right, it just might be a light I see at the end of this dark tunnel that we've been in.