Bipolar Summer!

This has been one nutty fuckball summer. I wish I could put it all into words how crazy the last three months has been, but there's no way. It has been nuts. In a nutshell:

I've been camping. Up north. I hated it.
Watched fireworks from a boat on the fourth. It is so hard to believe that that was actually four months ago. WOW.
Drank a lot of coffee.
Started smoking cigarettes again.
I also partied at the bar quite a bit, and made some new friends.
I started a hot and heavy affair that just keeps getting hotter and heavier. I'm not complaining.
I've lost another fifteen pounds or more. It WOULD be much more but I can't stay away from coneys.
I've done some things that I've never done before.
I've discovered my groove.
I lost my beloved Willie, and my Montana. That was very hard.

I really am collecting all this information in my mind so that I can write a book about this summer's experience. It was truly one of a kind. I think it will be a best seller. I have a LOT to say.

Well, it's November now. I still drink a lot of coffee. I'm still smoking. And I'm still having an affair that is quite possibly going to be the affair of my lifetime. Not much to complain about. At least not on here. There's no drugs, no drinking, no Bryan, so really....it couldn't be better. And did I mention that I am really enjoying myself?

Supposed Happenings

If I could find one word to describe my life right now, I would have trouble limiting it to one phrase. Ones that run through my mind regularly are hopeful, careless, chaotic, peaceful, and assured. I am making choices right now that I usually do not make, and I really, really miss my Daniel. The pain of not having my male BFF in my life right now is almost too much to bear. But I am keeping on keeping on, because I have to hold out the hope that someday things will change and he will be in my life again. I have so many regrets about that.

Right now I have feelings for someone who is attached. Forget the fact that he left her to be with me and then went back because she claimed "pregnancy". Forget our almost Daniel-Sondra like chemistry, and forget the fact that we can talk with our eyes all day. Forget the fact that when he touches me I warm right up, or that when he texts me my heart pounds and my face turns red. Forget about it all, the way he smiles at me and how he's sensitive to my emotions. Forget it that he hates Bryan and all that he stands for in the name of loyalty to me. God, I even have to forget the fact that he turned down a drunken proposal from my BFF because, as he said to me, "I could never do that to you." I even have to forget the fact that he is as emotionally attached and affectionate as I am. He is everything I want, and maybe he is everything I need. I don't know him well enough to figure that part out yet. I just know that I want it, and I want it to be all mine. Being with him, there is a sense of completeness. But there is just the fact that he has been with this girl for two years now, and even though he says, "WHY couldn't I have met YOU two years ago?" he still loves her. I accept that he loves her, and I could learn to love her too, as this is someone that I actually know and have spent time with...but not since I developed major feelings for him. She knows all about us and when he left her she pulled out all the stops to keep him. For two weeks we left each other alone besides the occasional phone call. But something, and not just sex, keeps us from staying away from each other. I just can't do it right now. When I hold him at night I know he's not all mine and most likely never will be, but I just can't sit here and let the chips fall where they may. This time, I have to let sense and conscience guide me...not my emotions. I am going to demand that she take a pregnancy test. I have already told him that he needs to think about what he will do if she is not pregnant. If his plans do not include trying to build on what we have already, then I have to walk. For my own good. This blog has taken me through my marriage to Shawn and my relationship with Bryan...and I don't want to make any more mistakes. I find myself reading my horoscope daily and asking God to point me in the right direction. It is so hard because his love for me is very healing. But at the same time, this love could really destroy me if he takes it away from me again.

God has not been a big force in my life, because up until I met him, I felt very bitter about my life in general. I wondered why it was so easy for people to hurt me like they do. Not that this man hasn't hurt me, because he did when he walked away from me the first time. But now I am calling on God to guide me through this because I don't know what else to do. I have no more options. I find myself in a bizarre and unthinkable position, even for me. I sleep with him at his house while she's gone at work, and I help him take care of her two little girls. I love those kids, even though I said I wouldn't allow myself to get attached to them, because after all, they are not his, they're hers. Now that doesn't matter to me. They're beautiful and smart, and they love their mommy. She doesn't hate me, but I don't really know if she knows how much time I spend with him and the girls. They love me and probably wouldn't understand if I just went away. I don't think I can just go away...they all live next door to my BFF. So here I am doing what I'm doing and I'm pretty sure this is all bad karma. I need to figure out what to do. Hurting people is not my thing. And this is absolutely a no win situation, for sure. SOMEONE or more than one person is going to be devastated. It's a no win situation no matter how you dice it, and no good can come of it. Laying next to him in bed last weekend, I was listening to the radio early in the morning, as he lay there asleep, the DJ asked people to call in and tell him about a situation that "seemed like a good idea at first but turned out not to be." I chuckled to myself as I imagined calling in and telling them about my situation. What could they tell me besides what I've already heard?

So I feel a little lost. Sometimes I really want to try to make this work in however shape or form it's going to work, and sometimes I really want to just throw in the towel and walk away because I'm taking a big gamble on my weakened heart. I can't see how I can possibly win this time, and maybe, for the first time in my life, I should just walk away. All I really want to do is be healthy in mind, body, and spirit, and with this on my conscience, I can't be. I just really, really don't know what to do. I never do, do I? LOL. Hopefully, the answer will come soon. Time to have the box of tissues ready.

Anxiously,
Sondra

Things To Ponder

Lately I have been absolutely outside of myself. I don't know what's going on. My mind wanders off in directions unknown, I never hear people when they're speaking to me, I'm constantly distracted, and sometimes I'll have days where I am pretty weepy over everything. I know it's because of my current situation and I am trying very hard to control it. I have never felt like this before. I mean, I have really strong feelings for someone who I am not sure returns those feelings. But, it shouldn't, and WON'T matter, if they're not reciprocated because of our friendship. But I just don't know. And there's so many other things I'm dealing with besides that...that just complicates things. And on my better days, provides that ray of hope I've been longing for for so long.

But now that I am out of the relationship with Bryan, I find myself getting more and more pissed each day. It's like I kept a lid on a bubbling pot for three years. Now, it's starting to boil over. I guess it's the hurt before the heal, I don't know but it sucks. I have no desire to be with him or to try and love him ever again, but I still feel obligated to care about him for some reason. although he never really showed me that he cared about me. And when I go back on the relationship and realize how bad, how really, really bad he treated me, I get really angry, not just with him but with me for putting up with it. It hurts me even more when I stop and actually think about the things he's put me through and everything. I realize that I am broken, in more ways than one, and like I've said before, everything hurts. I feel limp, twisted, and useless. I hurt so much sometimes that I find myself desperately trying to think of some drug, any drug, that I could take that would fill this void and make me numb. I realize now that it's a pattern for me to use drugs as a way to cope with situations that I feel I can't handle. I did it when I was 22 and transitioning out of my first serious relationship...I drank myself into a stupor every night, I did it when I met Bryan and started doing coke, I started smoking weed like crazy to get over doing the coke, and now I find myself wishing for numbness. Not happiness. Numbness. I am so tired of feeling...I want to feel nothing. However, I have learned from my previous mistakes so drug use isn't really in my plans. I've been drinking some, though, and that's just not something I do. I've also been taking whatever nerve pills my coworkers are nice enough to give me for free, like xanax. I look in the mirror and I can see that everything is eating me up alive, even though I am making a valiant effort to survive this without crashing. I have never felt so hurt, so broken, so betrayed in all my life, and while I don't mourn the relationship, I mourn for myself, for selling myself so short, for wasting my time, and for all the times he's hurt me by not showing that he cares for me at all. He continues to do this.

And with my other situation..well, that's just so difficult. Here is a person that I have a beautiful connection with. It's rare to connect with someone they way we have, and after that relationship with Bryan, it can sometimes be very healing to my heart to know that there is someone out there who really does care for me, no matter on what level. Everyone that has ever met him loves him and can observe how much he cares for me. I know I'm safe now that he's in my life. No man will ever hurt me again, not physically, and certainly not mentally. I know that I am not really alone any more, because I have bonded with someone who won't let me be alone. Being near him is calming and we spend a lot of time together. Eventually, we'll get to the bottom of whether or not he can see me as more than a friend, but what that will boil down to is pretty much nothing will change. If he does care for me, I want everything to stay the same. So nothing is going to change, really...except the knowledge that I will have that he doesn't love me in that way. Sometimes I think he does, and we've had a few unfinished and somewhat vague conversations about it, but I do feel like pretty soon it's all going to be out there on the table. He knows it's hurting me, and I think he knows exactly what it is. Time will take care of it. I just hope it's soon, because my poor heart is overloaded right now.

Tiredly,
Mz Bowailey (once removed)

So Far So Good

This is me and my kitty Willie. I forced him to take a picture with me the other day because we haven't had a picture taken together for a while. Plus, he was being very cuddly.

Things are still going well with me. I am paying bills, cleaning house, eating right and doing my best to be happy. When I look in the mirror, I'm starting to like what I see. Right now my disenchantment is with my job. I've been there for about 14 months, and what a 14 months it has been. Some days I just don't know if I can take being talked down to for one more minute.

This job is so quirky. We have our regulars that we see every day, our white trash hillbillies, our droves of senior citizens, our ghetto folk. Most of the time everyone I wait on is very nice and I don't let customer behavior get to me too much. But there are some days when it seems like you have the same thing over and over again...people will order the same menu item all fucking day, or you'll accidentally serve seven coffees with lipstick stuck on the cup. If one thing goes wrong, your whole shift could collapse. It can be stressful, but I thrive on it. I love it when it gets so busy that five hours goes by like two. I don't smoke cigarettes anymore so I work the whole shift now instead of spending time smoking. It's good that there are so many positive things I could say about my job, but the bad things are bad. Like, the way management treats us. The way that they preach teamwork to us, but don't lead by example at all. There are competent people in this field but they're being overworked by other management that are overworked as well. It's like the domino effect. No one really gets credit for the work they do and they're afraid to fire people in this day and age so subpar employees keep their jobs and slow the rest of us down. It's total craziness.

But at least I can say that I have bonded with everyone there in some special way. I hang out with them. They're part of my life right now. I don't know about a year from now, but they're important to me now. Someday I will look back on this time in my life as being something other than what I see it as being now.

Tiredly,
Mz Bowailey

This Sucks For Me

Check me out. My hair is so long, just how I wanted it. I'm steadily losing more weight. I should be happy...and I am, actually. There are times, and they are few and far between, when I miss being with Bryan but for the most part I am very comfortable being alone. I am a lot less stressed out and I don't mind sleeping alone, but I do occasionally miss cuddling. Not as much as I thought I would. But I wasn't prepared for these kinds of emotions, the ones I'm experiencing.

I've never been in this situation before. I never, EVER expected to be in this place that I'm at right now. You could say that I am constantly, constantly preoccupied. It causes me constant problems. I fuck shit up at work all day. Then, I get flipped the bird four times in about a three mile radius because I'm fucking up while driving. At home, I sit at the table and stare out the window for an hour at a time. I turn the TV on with the intention of watching something and I zone out to the preview channel instead. I have a sudden passion for Coldplay and listen to them every day. Music is about the only thing I can concentrate on. I can't really talk to anyone here about it really, because we all know the same people and some things have to be kept between only the two people who need to know. I feel so torn because while I am so happy being with this other person, I know that Bryan doesn't know and would never guess about some of the conversations he and I have had. He would never think that I would have the balls to say to this person, "Hey, I think I may be developing feelings for you," and actually have a few conversations about it. He doesn't seem to notice the eye contact that we make, or the way that I smile at him. I never smiled at Bryan that way. He also doesn't know that sometimes I secretly hate him, because I feel that this person's loyalty to him will cause the one I want to be unavailable to me. It fucking scares me to think that because of that loyalty that I may have to give up what I know I will never find again. A connection like this is so rare. I simply don't want anything else. I have been battling these feelings for longer than I will admit to myself, and over the past year, they've had plenty of time to grow. The thought of being without him in any way is terrifying. He is truly the very best friend I've ever had. He truly cares deeply about me and absolutely accepts all my weirdness. He does everything he can to make sure I'm comfortable, stands up for me and at the same time teaches me how to do it for myself. He once ran three miles nonstop to my house after clocking out at work without permission...because I needed him. I do not want to give that up. I'm choking up as I write this. There has only been one person in my life who ever cared about me this much...and that was my first love. I absolutely recognize this feeling, even though it's been 20 years since I've felt it. It's beautiful, and it hurts. It's right smack in my heart. I love the beauty of it, but it's making everything hurt. When I say everything hurts, I mean my heart aches so bad that it makes my body hurt, and no amount of aspirin or even weed will make it go away. It just hurts because I don't know if it can happen, but I know that if it should, it probably will.

I like the little ways we find to touch each other. I'm kind of sure that he's doing it too, finding little subtle ways to make contact with me, but I'm not absolutely certain. I don't really care because I feel like I'm melting when he touches me. If he ever did kiss me I might break down into sobs. I haven't ever felt this closeness with someone in all my adult life, in any of my relationships. This is it, right here. When I catch him staring at me it puts a little jolt into my heart. It can't be that I'm imagining all this? Could I? This from the same person who just snapped and beat the shit out of Bryan one day? Who bluntly told me one day, "I don't think it's a good idea for me to meet your father. I'm sorry." Who I catch looking at me? He admits that I'm pretty close to him, way closer than his ex girlfriend who he was with for about four or five years. I know him very well and I think I surprise him sometimes with it. He knows me just as well and demonstrates it daily. Example: The other night, we went out to eat and got pizza. I asked the server for more pizza sauce, and she brought it. I didn't end up using it, and when we were boxing up the leftovers, he made a comment about how I didn't use it. I said I know, that I didn't need it because I only ate one piece. He then took his fork and scraped some out of the bowl and onto his plate, and I said, "What are you doing? Trying to make it look like we used it so you don't feel bad?" He replied, "No, I'm doing it so YOU won't feel bad," while looking directly at me...because he knows I absolutely WOULD feel bad about making the server go and run and get me something that I didn't even end up using. He rendered me speechless with that one, just because it was so...thoughtful. If he thinks that much about it, shouldn't he love me? I mean, he tells me he loves me, especially when I'm depressed and stuff, but of course he means on a friendly level. All of these things, and I am still not sure.

I don't know if I can believe that I can be this lucky, to have come across something so wonderful and sweet and SO UNEXPECTED. I don't know if I can allow myself to believe that he could feel the same way. When I told him how I felt, it was in a very general way, and he didn't really say too much except to reassure me that it was okay to tell him that, and that it changed nothing. He didn't act horrified, or say that it would never happen, or act weirded out. The eye contact hasn't stopped. Neither has the touching. The touching doesn't happen too often, only when we are passing things to each other or when we're in the car, which makes it a treat when it happens. I am wildly confused about this but if there's one thing I have learned from my mistakes it's that rushing into things is never good and if it's supposed to happen it will, in good time. He accepts the way I feel, evidently, and he doesn't seem uncomfortable with it.

But then there's Bryan. I feel guilty for this. They are friends. Were friends first!! But luckily he is very intelligent and it didn't take him too long to see what Bryan was about. I still feel guilty and wonder how he would take it if I told him. If it came down to it, I WOULD tell him. Right before we moved into our own houses, I made him promise that he would not stand in the way of anything that made me happy, in those words. As I said before, I have been feeling this way for a while, so, as always, I am trying to be prepared.

So this is where I'm at. Confusion, confusion, confusion. But admist all of it is this fun and fabulous feeling. I glow. I smile more, but it comes from within. I get noticed now. It feels good. He just lights me up from the inside. But will I ever know what I want to know? I am used to getting what I want and he is admittedly the most stubborn and loyal person I have ever met, so what is going to happen? I am so scared.

FULL of Questions

What do you do with yourself when a bad relationship finally ends but before it does you find yourself thinking of someone else? Like, really thinking about that person ALL the time? And what if that person brings joy to your heart so that you always feel safe? What if that person spent most of their time with you? What do you do when the thought of being away from them makes you feel all panicky and...empty? Imagine this person to know everything about you, everything, everything...all the weirdness, the drug use, THE AWFUL CHILDHOOD, (LOL, all of us have one of those), and the abuse from your previous relationship? What if there was nothing that they didn't know about you? Would you feel close to this person? Would you want to be with them a lot? Would it make you feel good if you were? What about the person you were with before? What about their feelings? Does it matter? SHOULD it matter? And can you imagine that first kiss, if it ever happens, with someone who connects with you straight to your heart? I cannot imagine the emotion behind a kiss like that. What do you do when you feel like it's perfectly okay to not be with them physically because you know they're thinking about you so you don't really feel apart at all? What if the thought of touching this person made you feel like you were melting? Is it love? Is it attachment? What is it? I call it beautiful, a dopamine trip, a kick to the heart. I call it stress free. I call it fun. And comfortable. But do you call it love?

Realizations

This is a pic of me that I took yesterday. My hair is SO SO SO long now that it's becoming something of a challenge to find something to do with it. Since I have to wear it up five days out of the week I'm starting to develop a little bit of neck pain, but cut it off? NO WAY! I'm sure Andy remembers what I looked like with SHORT HAIR. Gross!

So I'm off to work this morning. Yesterday was my first night alone in our new house because Alexa went to spend the night at a friend's house. I thought I might be uncomfortable, but I really wasn't. Actually, I came home from dropping Daniel off, sat down on the couch with the remote, and didn't make it past the Preview Guide because I fell asleep promptly at nine. I don't mind, though, because I slept so well and was awake at 5:30. I used to shudder at getting up that early but I've been on day shift for a year now and I find that I really like the mornings. They're quiet and peaceful. I was probably more tired yesterday than I realized because I spent hours deep cleaning the house yesterday morning. Not that it needed it..but it was preventative cleaning. LOL.

I am really happy right now. Happier and more content and peaceful than I've been in a very long time. I like the peace of mind of only having to worry about me and my kid. I am able to keep my house immaculate (like I like it) without too much work because it's only us. I am saving money, doing more things, and going to bed later. (With the exception of last night.) I smile more and I pay more attention to how I look, because when I feel as if I look good, then I feel better about myself. Two nights ago I went to work at like 10 at night to see Daniel, and I ordered a salad. While I was eating, one of our regular customers (who is REALLY cute in my opinion) came up the counter, sat next to me, talked to me and then actually treated me like a lady and paid for my food. I didn't know what to do, it's been so long since anyone (besides Daniel who is the best friend ever) has done anything like that for me, but it made me feel really good.

I am eating better. I haven't had red meat in about two months. I eat a lot of turkey and chicken and eggs. I don't eat ANY heavy, greasy, or fried foods like I have pretty much my whole life. And I DO feel more energetic, less sleepy, and definitely less heavy. I am losing a few pounds here and there. Sometimes I miss my tacos and burgers and fried food, but that shit really hurts my stomach so I avoid it most of the time. I also don't drink a lot of soda..maybe one every two weeks or so. The rest of the time I drink mostly water and sometimes a glass of cranberry or orange juice. I have more energy overall. Now I just need to dig this treadmill out of the corner and get it to working!

I feel so positive about myself right now. Things are looking good. I'm off to work now!

Happily,
Mz. Bowailey