I always believe in Futures

I'm gonna assume that no one really reads this and that it's a good place to put my thoughts. An online diary of sorts, I suppose. and if by chance, someone does read it, well...I guess thats ok too. They are my thoughts and nothing that should be kept inside. When they are kept inside, well- thats when I start showing the passive aggressive behaviors. And we all know that's no good.

So, my topic of the day is finding out where you stand. It's something that applies to people of all ages, I suppose. When you are in high school and dating, it's such a big announcement when you get to tell people that you are "going steady" with someone. It's a milestone as a teen to have that first girlfriend or boyfriend. Man, I wish so much that people knew how much harder that talk ends up as you get older.

I learned in my 20's that it's not really a talk that you have. You date people or hook up with them. Maybe you start by hooking up and actually end up spending time with them. Once you get to a point that you spend more than 1 night a week together and it's ok if you sit at home with them on a Friday or Saturday night, you just are "dating." You don't have the discussion because in your 20's you don't really expect that it neccessarily needs to go anywhere. I mean, of course, there is that percentage of people that do their coupling in their 20's and end up marrying that person and it's forever...but in my world, that's a fairy tale that VERY often doesn't apply.

In your 30's, things take on a whole new spin. As a woman I found myself in a situation where I had dated so many guys that were 100% worthless. All that they managed to do was break my heart in some way. Either they didn't live up to my expectations (which are pretty high to be honest) or they were just rotten at the core. I had a knack for finding dudes that just really had the worst of intentions. Which I still struggle to understand. If that's the life you are choosing to have, why date someone? Just be an admitted fuckwit and be done with it, right?

So, I took a break. Like that famous scene from Sec and The City that has Charlotte saying "I've been dating since I was 15! I'm exhausted! Where is he?" I felt exactly the same. So, I stopped. I was exhausted emotionally from all the baggage that was piling up because of the emotional retards that I kept running across. In my mind, it made more sense to just stop inviting pain into my life. I was starting the get a good grasp on my career and was making all kinds of other aspects of my life work finally. All these positive things were happening, why did I need a guy in my life. As I've always stated before, I have the best friends in the world. My true soulmates. Weren't they enough?

3 years went by. And with an occasion moment where I lost my head for a second, I remained man free. And happy. I moved across the country, spent time in so many other countries that I don't remember them all. In my spare time- I wrote, I cooked, I traveled to see friends, I read, I laughed...A lot. And I loved it.

And then it happened. This is my blog so I get to be honest in it. There was a guy on my tour. I thought he was super cute. He had great legs. He had a great laugh and a nice smile. He had laughter in his eyes. I liked that very much. There was never a moment where I physically thought to myself- "Yep, let's do this again!" But there was a feeling in the pit of my stomach. We had a party one night after a show. I made sure to invite him personally. I attempted to flirt with him, he showed no interest. I got bummed. I tried again which led to shots at the bar. Which led to me taking him back to my hotel room. I woke up the next morning with the most raging hangover I had ever had in my life, threw up and threw him out of my room so I could pack. That's the end of the story, right?

Wrong. What? If there is anyone reading this at all, then they will know that 9.9 times out of 10, a tour hookup is not something that turns into anything. Color me shocked. Cause I was. He came to find me everyday, he and I would catch each other looking at the other in catering, he sent me cute little texts, I attempted to do the same only to be twarted by inputting his number into my phone incorrectly. Ha!

So, sparing you the details, I came home, he went to another tour. 4 months later, he came to California for a week. A month later, I went to see him twice and went to Mexico for 5 days to see him. 4 months later, he came back to California. A month later I went to Chicago to see him again. A month later I flew through London for a week to see him. Yes, somehow it prospered'ish.

Don't get me wrong, there have been many bouts of tears and misunderstandings. There have been breakup letters out of fear and phone calls of disappointment. But let's be honest, those things happen in all relationships. Nothing comes easy when you are in your 30's. Because it means more.

I say that and feel that maybe it deserves an explanation. When you get to this point, at least me, you don't have to settle anymore. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna have someone in my life that i don't feel is worthy of my experiences and the things that I have learned. Let's be honest here, I've been around the block. I've dated guys, I've slept with guys, I've cried over guys that honestly never even deserved to hear my voice...out of loneliness, out of fear, out of shame, out of lack of anything better to do, out of want, out of drunkeness, out of many reasons that aren't good enough. And god knows some were a multiple of things combined at lower points in my life. Something happened when I took that man (should write boy, cause that's what most of them were) sabatical. Something in my head switched and said "you deserve more and you deserve it on your own terms." Something told me that I was done being at the mercy of someone toying with my emotions. Something told me that I was in control now of my own happiness and that my happiness didn't henge on someone else's day to day emotions.

and that's why when he didn't go running for the hills after the night in my hotel room, I asked myself twice if this was something I might want. And if I was ready for it. and my head gave me a resounding YES!

Well, let's skip to now. Here I sit. I am in love with him. He makes me laugh more than any person ever has. He can do simple little things that make me smile all day long. He understand me for the most part. He understands when I get in a mood that it doesn't always have to do with him. He understands that I have lots of little weird idiosyncracies that most people would run straight for the hills from. He understands that I have a messy head full of thoughts constantly that never stops running. And most importantly, he doesnt look down on me for it. He understands most of the time that I have lots of questions and sometimes that I have a lowered sense of self esteem from the years of fuckwittery that I experienced. After many conversations, he is finally coming to understand that I need " a little more" effort than most. And I think he understands that won't last forever. It's not that I'm asking him to prove something to me...but in a way it is.

And that's why when it hurts, it hurts so much worse. The one thing that maybe sometimes he doesn't understand is that the words that he says maybe sometimes don't come out the way that he means them to. And he doesn't understand that there are things that don't necessarily make me anger, but make me feel uncomfortable. They are things that I don't have a right to ask to be changed. And that's the worst part. There are situations that are awkward for me. While they are completely seemingly comfortable for him, they make me squirm with a feeling of just general anxiety. A good example is where he sleep currently. Not the roof over his head. The position under it. I don't guess that I feel like explaining the entire situation but it causes an awkward feeling for me.

Moreso awkward are conversations that go like this...
"So, where do you see yourself after that?"
"Finding a cheap apartment in Vienna"
"oh, ok...right."

and then the conversation is changed to a completely different subject. It is a rough realization that in that equation, i am not figured in anywhere. And its not anywhere in the near future, which would provide most people with a sense of security in the fact that they would comfort themselves with the thought that it would change by then. That's not how my head works. My head works in the means that it tells me- that's potentially a year away and I still don't count enough to be a factor in that. So, why do I continue wasting my time? I mean, that's really what it is then, right?

Because in your 30's, you like to think that the relationships you build are something that are going somewhere at some point. And I guess that's what I've been thinking the last year as I tried to share my life with someone. But I guess there was a realization today that maybe I am not. Maybe it is more one sided than I ever thought it to be. Up until today, I like the idea of a future. Now I am faced with the idea that maybe the difference is I want to live my life with someone instead of being with someone and spending it alone.

As the Jimmy Eat World song goes-
I, I always could count on futures
That things would look up, and they look up
Why is it so hard to find balance
Between living decent and the cold and real

And as they say in Sleepless In Seattle-
"It's easier to be killed by a terrorist than it is to find a husband over the age of 40!"

Where's the balance?

Forcing change to initiate tradition?

Today I made myself go by groceries for the Christmas Feast. I'm forcing myself into a new mindset about this. No, I can't figure out home. So, I'm going to stop trying to figure it out. I'm going to enjoy the moment and make some new traditions of my own. Whether it ends up being a new recipe or re-doing the 7-11 midnight gift exchange, I will make a tradition that will be mine. I will be surrounded by people that I love and that I know love me. I guess at the end of the day- that's what it's about and that's what we are supposed to remember at Christmastime.

Pure Joy

http://www.usatoday.com/video/index.htm?bctid=718689247001#/Weird+%26+Strange/Dog+in+Germany+gives+birth+to+17+puppies/42804638001/44278301001/718689247001

Phone Coffee...

best therapy ever.

While I am a bit doom and gloom still, my soul feels a bit lighter. I find that I try so hard to not bother people with what I consider to be my petty luxury problems. But when a friends opens the door and invites me in to share whats lurking in my brain, it feels so good to lighten the load.

I have spent so much time lately feeling like I am bad person for the thoughts that I have and the feelings that come out of me sometimes. Guess I just need to realize that most people have those same feelings, I just verbalize them. It may take me a bit to get it out, but when I do the floodgates open.

Let the rain keep coming, the gates open now. And it feels good to not have it all bottled up.

Again, I guess...it's not for you to judge. And I find daily that I have more people in my life that I ever thought I would that don't judge me or look at me any differently.

Phone coffee was just what I needed this morning. Let's create some traditions of our own.

You take some good, you take some bad...you take em both and there you have...

the facts of life.

One fact of life that I do know is that for every bit of negative energy that we expel, we need to expel twice as much positive to combat it.

So- you got my blog of family regretables.

Now you get two small short things that I am thankful for.

1. I am thankful that my friend "J" is alive. That may seem odd to some to say but today...I am thankful that he is above ground cause every day that he can say that is a battle won.

2. I am thankful for technology. In the course of writing this evening, I was able to talk to boyfriend in Singapore, video chat with best friend who never fails to make me look at certain things in a light that I would never of seen and watch Gossip Girl almost simultaneously. I am also thankful that I am good at multitasking. :)

See, I have some light in here too...it's not all dark, doom and gloom ;)

One of the worst things that you will probably ever read

We'll call this the 5 days of Christmas. And reasons that I am avoiding it like the plague this year. I'm gonna warn you- you may change your mind about who you think I am after reading this upcoming post. It's ugly and it's the uglier side of my mind. But I can't keep sitting here feeling the way I do right now. There has to be a way to get it out. and I chose this. Beware, I warned you.

Raw. Thats the only way I can describe my the way I feel right now. Raw to the touch, raw skin, raw bones, raw brain, raw emotions. If I had to put it into words the only way I can come close to describing it is as if someone peeled the top layer of my skin off and put me out in the sun for a few hours. Wait...no, the sun would be a welcome feeling right now. Instead, I get days on end of rains. Dark, brutal, never stopping rains. So, maybe take that skinning and put me outside for the last few days. I believe its called Chinese Water Torture.

Theres so many different things that attribute to it all. And no one is to blame. It's just that time of year I suppose. All I see are photos of people with their loved ones, people excited about the season and what it means. I don't have those things to be excited about. I am 34, unmarried, childless (by choice) and have absolutely no want whatsoever to go home to my parents for Christmas. I know how this sounds, brutal- right? It's not that I don't like my family. That's not it at all. I love them, I really do. But there's a fear factor to it all. Going home means facing the fear of what could become. The Ghost of Christmas Future per se. To me it feels like the scene from Pretty In Pink where Molly Ringwald is trying to tell Andrew McCarthy not to take her home and after several attempts, she emotionally outbursts "I don't want you to see where I live!" That's how I feel, but its me that I don't want to see it. It has nothing to do with being ashamed or not respecting everything my parents have worked for and accomplished. It is simply that I am a very different person than basically the rest of my family. I had stars in my eyes from the time I was a wee little person. I always wanted for the bright lights, big city. I had a small trip and fall when i was in college and almost got sucked into everything that I didn't ever want. The house out in the middle of no where, the screaming kids, the mundane job. But somehow I still felt something in the pit of my stomach. That there was more. Going home is a reminder that no matter how hard I work, I will forever have the fear that someday it could all just disappear and that could be the life that I am somehow forced to live. I can't explain why I fear it so much, it's just something that's there. Like a bad dream where you wake up living someone else's life. If I were to wake up in Kansas on Christmas morning, that would be the panic attack inducing first thought that would come to my mind. I wish that life were like the movies where every sweet Kansas girl looked like Reese Witherspoon and got to go home to the beautiful farm where her mom was baking a pie in the kitchen and her dad was sitting in the recliner watching TV with a classy glass of whiskey. That's not the reality of it. My parents house is 15 minutes from a convenience store, an hour from the closest Target, an hour and a half from a mall but close to a decent public school that only overlooks my adopted little brothers special needs occasionally instead of not understanding them at all and calling him a retard so I guess its an ideal place to live. My mom comes in from working 10 hours at a hospital with a McDonalds bag in her hands with two little kids trailing her more likely than not- whining. My stepdad comes home from the factory he works in and watches an hour of Star Trek or some shit before he falls asleep again because he's tired. Just plain tired. The man has worked 2 jobs for 30 years. He's just fucking exhausted.

There are no pies, there are no dogs, there's no family china. There's paper plates, bags of chips and piles of laundry. It's what the normal American middle class household probably looks like...and it scares me to death.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of this very uplifting holiday tale! Sorry if you think less of me now.