Blame The Rain

Two days in a row and it can't just be the fact that I remembered to take my happy pills in the morning.  Can't quite pin it on anything other than the past two days which were sixty degrees and sunny, guess that weather does a bit for the spirits.  I'm starting to see the possibilities this summer holds for a guy who is not tied down and stressed out of his head. 

I'm honestly starting to get a hard on thinking about it.

Saw the guys tonight and we got pretty damn excited to get outside this weekend and disc.  It's the first time in a long time that I've been able to look forward to the beginning of the season with my friends like I have this year and I couldn't be more excited.

I can't quite put my finger on it, maybe it's the fact that I can roll my windows down and turn the music up on the ride home, but I feel that change in the air and I am chomping at the bit.  I'm whistling a new tune, I've spent my winter of sorrow and whining, it's time to live.  I can deal with bittersweet, I don't expect to forget everything so quickly, but I am not going to let this ruin what is going to be one of the best summers I have had in ten years. 

Honestly, I'm pumped and I don't feel sorry about it at all.

So maybe I screwed things up in the last dance, but she sure as shit did too.  The time has come to give the big "fuck you" to this winter gloom and enjoy the process of putting my roots back down where they belong.  

After all...I'm home.

Flogging a Dead Horse

“And throw away my misery, it never meant that much to me.  It never sent a get-well card.”              

 -The Weakerthans

I am one whiny son of a bitch when I am sick, even more so than normal, which would most likely explain the bout of self-pity I was engaged in for the entirety of yesterday.  I’m not going to sit here and deny to myself that a lot of what I wrote yesterday isn’t true, as it certainly is.  The trouble is the ridiculous amount of effort I put into making myself completely miserable when I think about her.  What a completely counterproductive exercise, one that is honestly pretty pathetic.  

Oh, and come to think of it I forgot to take my Zoloft yesterday…

It is obviously apparent to me and anyone who would care to take the time to read the previous few years of this nonsense, that feeling sorry for myself is something I seem to take pride in.  I’ve been doing this for so goddamn long that I don’t even know why anymore, it doesn’t get me anywhere.  All it does is put me in a whole which makes me wholly miserable to be around.  What’s worse, I’ve come to realize, is that I’ve been playing this fucking game throughout the duration of every relationship that I’ve ever had.  I’ve put the weight of reassuring me on the shoulders of every woman I have ever truly felt for, a completely unfair thing to ask and probably a big part of the reason I’m jerking off alone these days.

You know what; it really isn’t the end of the world once I think about it.  

Why in the hell do I feel the need to have a “better” half to pick me up when I beat myself down?  The real question is, why in the hell do I beat myself down in the first place?  It would be pretty pointless to sit here and speculate as to why I have been doing this for as long as I can remember, so I am not going to.  The only thing that is for certain is that I need to get out of this habit.  If I don’t I am going to end up in the same exact place I am right now…alone. 

I need to get to a point where I can actually be ok with not being in some form or another of romantic relationship.  I don’t think I’ll be able to get into something lasting and stable until I first learn to accept that reality.  I need to spend this time thinking about me, like I had intended on when I first moved back here.  I’ve got to figure out who this person I have been for 27 years really is, something I haven’t known in a while.  Thankfully I am in the right place and with the right people to do it.  

So here’s to hoping that I can find peace with myself.  Here’s to figuring out who I am.  Here’s to getting back to doing the things I love with the people I love.  Here’s to being ok with going to bed alone at night for now.  Here’s to giving up flogging that long dead horse.

When There's No One Around

It isn’t right in my face every moment of every day anymore.  At first it was every commercial, every song, every show, every time I turned on the TV and heard that god damn chime that played on the one we had and so on; I couldn’t forget.  It was always lurking just below the surface, I thought I was covering it up but I could see it in the faces of my friends that I was not doing a good job.  I guess after a while I got good at faking it, but it was always there in the front of my mind, coloring my view of the world.  It took a few months, but after a while they stopped asking.  I guess they just figure everything is back to “normal” at this point, whatever the fuck that means.

Right now I don’t have to try to push those memories out of my mind, when I’m occupied they stay out of my way.  When I find myself alone and my head clear, that’s when it happens.  As I lay my head on that pillow and wait for the Benadryl to kick in, a thought will often cross my mind and then it is too late.  I don’t know what triggers it, but as soon as I’m asleep it’s all over.

I can’t ever actually remember the dreams, just the feeling they leave me with when I wake.  I will roll over and reach for her only to find the side of the bed that she slept on cold.  It is usually then that I close my eyes and feel a tear roll off my face and into my ear.  After a few minutes I’ll fall back asleep and it starts all over again.  I usually just wake up with a pain in my chest and a vague memory of pleading with her to no avail, in my dreams she is so very heartless.

Look, I don’t even know why the hell I’m writing this.  I still love her and it hurts so fucking much, why can’t I move on?  I don’t want to feel for her anymore, I don’t want to see her when I sleep; I’m so tired.  I don’t have anyone to talk to about it: my friends have heard enough, parents don’t get it and the therapist is about as helpful as a third nut.  

I suppose that first paragraph isn’t completely accurate, you see what prompted me to write this is the fact that she seems to be on my mind an awful lot over the past few days.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that two years ago at this very moment I was the happiest I had been in my entire life, I had just arrived in New York.  All the hard work had finally paid off; she was mine at long last.  It sure didn’t take me long to fuck that up, did it?

Here we are now, two years later, and everything is completely the opposite.  All that work we put in is all gone now, I’m just another on the list of assholes who have hurt her in her life.  Maybe I’m the worst, who knows?  I know I’ll never get a phone call or an email from her saying that she forgives me, let alone that she is sorry for how she did it.  I’m just a speck in the rearview mirror now, an immature child who never was quite good enough for her.  I wonder now if I am good enough for anyone, I know people tell me I am, but I don’t feel the same.  I’ve never been hurt like this before and after nearly six months I still haven’t the slightest clue as to how to “heal” as she put it.  I don’t really even know who I am anymore; she gave me definition for so long.  Maybe that should have been the clue as to how much of a loser I really am.

She was my support, my rock and my love; I guess I was just never the same for her.  It makes me feel less than human.  It makes me feel like giving up.  It makes me feel like a failure that wasted both our time.  I don’t see a purpose in my life anymore, and I have not for a long time now.  I don’t see the point anymore.  It’s like that first Saturday night we ever shared was a microcosm of our entire time together.  Wonderful at first, I fuck up, she walks away and I try to chase her.  Except this time she doesn’t take me back in, this time she never thinks of me again.  Just a speck in the rearview mirror, someone who couldn’t handle it, who blamed New York for all his problems…weak, insecure and dishonest.  Never worth her time anyway, or anyone else’s for that matter.

How’s that for self-pity?

Validity

It is something I have been struggling with for a long time.  There have only been a few extended periods of time when I have really felt confident and sure of myself.  I can say that it doesn’t have any effect on me all I want and I might not be able to notice any, but I know it is there.  

I have this friend named Bill who is a good 20 years older than me.  I see him out pretty often when the little Milwaukee artist group gets together in the 3^rd Ward on the weekends.  The conversations tend, more often than not, to end up being about women.  Bill is always on me about not going up and talking to new girls in an effort to pick them up.  First and foremost, I have never been a “pick up” type guy so let’s just move on from that.  There are times, however, when things did just seem to fall into my lap, so to speak. 

I’ve been thinking about those few brief stretches when I seemed to have no problem meeting new girls since the last time I saw Bill.  What the hell was so different about those times than times such as…now?  The more I think about it, the more I consider my state of affairs during those times.  What was it that gave me the confidence needed to end up in casual relationships?  Honestly that is all I need right now; a warm body under me, not another long term situation.  Trouble is that I just don’t seem to have the motivation or the wherewithal to make it happen right now.  I keep thinking about it and I can only come to one conclusion.

I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I feel like I am worth so much less than I was before everything in NYC ended and good god it hurts.  Whether or not I am right in feeling this way or not, I still feel like I obviously wasn’t worth her time.  I mean she left her fiancé over the phone with no sympathy; I never did get that ring back.  I just can’t see how she would do that to someone she supposedly loved, unless she really didn’t anymore and just saw me as so worthless that I wasn’t deserving of anything more than a five minute phone call while I was in the hospital.  

I’m not looking for pity or reassurance; I’m simply trying to put these feelings down.  I just can’t wrap my head around how she could drop me so easily if I was really worth it.  I’ll just put it plainly; I don’t think I was.  At one point in time I felt like I was, in fact having her love me was a huge validation of my worth, but slowly it began to erode until it finally fell apart.  

I guess that’s why I find myself going home alone at the end of the night after everyone has paired off and headed back to fuck.  I have the inherent belief now that I am not worth it, why would I bother wasting someone else’s (or my own) time.  I tell you what, whether she meant it or not, the manner in which she did away with me continues to hurt.  

Some kind of payback, I know I messed a lot up and could have done better but I didn’t think I deserved this.  I feel like a shell of myself.  Here’s to another great year…

Erin

I don’t even know what to say about this subject, one I should have probably thought a bit harder about a few years ago.  I kind of let it go for a while, maybe thinking that someday it would wear off.  No such luck, my friends, no such luck.  It was bad when I was in college, I couldn’t ever stop thinking about it.  I had a thing ever since that damn 8:30 am freshman English class that she sat next to me in.  The first conversation was a bit of an awkward one, had while lighting a cigarette after class.

“Dude, your bag smelled like weed that entire class,” she said.

“Uh…..well…….,” I stammered.

“It’s cool dude, I was just letting you know so you didn’t walk into your next class with it.”

“Well maybe you’d wanna smoke some time?”  

That was it; we were tight ever since then.  We spent so much time driving around in her VW smoking weed and passing off our crappy fakes at the drive-thru liquor store down the road.  She was so unlike any of the other girls I went to school with.  She wasn’t interested in the stupid politics of our social group and would hang out with the guys like no other (guess it had to do with how many brothers she has).  She was just so much different.  It didn’t take long before I was feeling it, granted it never really does. 

I sat on it for a while before I finally couldn’t take it any longer and gave it the kiss of death…I told her I had feelings for her.  Still don’t quite know what the fuck I was thinking telling her that, lord knows that is the fastest way to getting your number erased.  Strangely enough, she took it in stride and gave me the ol, “let’s not jeopardize our friendship,” line.  Even stranger was the fact that she never let it get weird, regardless of how often it seemed I was determined to.  We have been close ever since.

Now I’m not gonna sit here and bullshit about this, the feelings for her never went away…if anything they got stronger.  As I got a bit older, however, I realized it would be best to keep it to myself.  She was right; our friendship was worth way too much.  Still didn’t change how I felt, just changed how I dealt with it.

Well time passed, school ended, she moved up to Chicago (her parents had recently moved to my beloved hometown 100 miles to the north) and I was stuck in a shit relationship in Cincinnati with a dead-end job as the real frosting on the cake.  Naturally those feelings took a spot on the back burner as I spent much of that time after college concerned with other women, but they never quite went away.  I would see her over the holidays, the few that both of us were home for, and we would have a few drinks and run around town with my friends.  I always thought about it over the next week or so, but it would go away when I got in bed again.

When I went on my little “adventure” in New York I didn’t think about her anymore as I was so completely focused on the reason I went out there.  I never thought that I would be back here thinking about this, I thought I was with the one I was meant to be with.  I’m still not quite used to that yet, but more on that at some later date.  The simple fact of the matter is that I am here now and that false comfort is gone.  The other fact is that now my old friend is only 100 miles away from me and comes up here once or twice a month.  Bet you can guess what kind of old feelings that conjured up, eh?

Every weekend she has been up here has been a fucking blast.  She gets on great with my friends and is as hilarious as ever, not to mention oh so much hotter.  I have to admit, I’m right back where I was seven or so years ago.  Now I’m not gonna go and do something stupid like tell her I have been in love with her since freshman year of college, but I do wish I could.  I’m pretty sure that I’m securely in the friendzone and that she will never see me as anything other than “Cheese” her buddy from college, but I still hold out some foolish hope that isn’t true.  

See, now that it is actually feasible it has me thinking about her all the fucking time.  I know I’m still on a pretty hard rebound here and I know that might have a little something to do with it, but these feelings are not new.  I guess they never did quite go away and I’m seriously wondering if they ever will…or if I even want them to.   

Back to the Start

The irony is not at all lost on me. It was a Friday that day as well, just a little under four years ago. I distinctly remember spending the first half of that boring day reading various sex blogs while I was supposed to be working, something I had been doing for a few months at that point. Mainly I was just looking for a way to help speed the clock along. After a little while I figured I could kill a few more hours if I started writing one myself.

I sometimes think about how that day has so greatly impacted my path over these last 4 years, it started in motion a chain of events that I wouldn’t have believed if you’d told me back then. That little domino chain moved me halfway across the country and back, found me falling in love and having my heart broken and left me generally wondering where the hell my place in this world is.

I won’t pretend to know how to frame this chapter of my life in the grand scheme of things, I have a feeling it is going to take some years to gain an understanding a bit further removed from raw emotions. One way or another, this little adventure has brought me home and left me with so much to process that most of the time I don’t even bother.

I liked to think that when I put that ring on her finger that this blog would finally outlive its usefulness. Man plans while God laughs, right? It seems this is a hard thing to kill. It seems this whole thing is hard to kill.

For some reason I keep looking for closure, regardless of the fact that I know I won’t ever get any. I thought it might ease some of the slowly fading pain, but I’ve come to discover that it only prolongs the forgetting process. I, however, have a distinct feeling that this is not something I will ever forget, nor is it something I am meant to forget.

I walked through that old neighborhood on the last day of 2011 and sat on the steps of the high school across the street from our old apartment. I wasn’t meeting my friends up in the Bronx for a few hours, I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t there to do anything stupid, more so just to try and find some sort of comfort on that street corner in Brooklyn. I dropped the note with her name on it in the mail slot, lit another cigarette and looked up at the light in our old place one last time as I walked away. I never did hear back from her, which was not shocking, I just had to say that last thing.

From the first day I started writing this blog until that last day of the year I have had some of the happiest and some of the most painful moments of my life. So with that being said, if I could go back to the start and fix everything or do something differently, I wouldn’t.

See, in one sense I am actually back at the start. I’m back at a desk doing a job for the same pay as I was four years ago. I’m looking out the window watching the snow pile up and hoping five comes soon. It’s Friday and I’m bored at work so here I am…back at the start.

I'll Be Waiting

I find it quite ironic that I have finally gotten to the point where I am only reader.  I've been wanting for this for a long time.  I thought I could avoid it, but this website fails to let me forget it.  I guess it is just you and I reading this...and let's be honest, we both know you have no interest in reading this.

I thought about it a lot tonight as I was driving home, which is funny because I didn't think about it when I was driving out there.  East on National Ave doesn't seem to be a problem, west is a totally different story.  I'm not stupid, I have a great fear of being alone.  I am so completely content when I head east, I have all my friends waiting for me, but headed west...that is a totally different story.

It's strange to see a pillow next to me in this bed.  I think each time as I get in what it was like to have you lying next to me, but when I wake I see nothing and I remember.  I had this dream the other night, I don't know quite how to explain it.  You were there, you wanted me back...funny, right?  I should have known it was a dream right then, but I couldn't help being sucked back into the life that was you.  I guess I don't know what I thought about the whole thing, I just know that when I woke up and found the right side of the bed empty and...well.....

I miss you.  I don't know, maybe I more so miss the idea of you.  I miss knowing someone was always going to be there next to me when I laid down for the night.  Who am I kidding?  I miss you.  You know, I'm alright with that.  My dear, I'll be waiting.

I am going to try so hard to spread out those eastbound times, times when I am feeling on top of this town.  I am not going to concentrate on the westbound blues that always call your name into my head.  I miss you, regardless of whether the feeling is mutual or not, and I don't feel any shame about it.  I'll be waiting.

Maybe it will be you, I would take you back if you would have me.  The thing is, I know you won't.  I suppose I'll be waiting for someone to take your place.  My sponsor keeps telling me that I will never find a woman who will top you and I agree, I don't want someone to make me forget about you.  I want someone who I can use the knowledge I learned with you.  I want someone who will be there for me when I fuck up.  I want someone who I can be there for when she fucks up.  You were just too perfect...I could never live up to your standards. 

I just want someone, but in the meantime I am happy enough with me.  I know she will come along someday and I hope he comes along for you.  I don't know about you but...I'll be waiting.