So here we are....

Little Man at about 7 mos
I have not completely abandoned this blog. In fact, I go back and read it quite often. I cannot believe how much things have changed in the years that I started keeping this blog. But I guess that's the point of writing it all down!

I am now 34. I live in Michigan AGAIN and for good. I am the proud and happy mother of a beautiful boy, who at this time is almost 15 months old. I spend my days in my old two story farmhouse that I just moved into with my sister, my son, Alexa (remember her? That cute little girl who was twelve when I began this journal? Well, she's 18 now.) and Joshua's father Curtis. Yes he is the guy in the pics.

Shawn and I divorced in 2007. I left him in 2006. In all actuality, I think I just kind of lost my mind there for a while. Let me back up...

I lost one of my best, best friends in August of 2002 right after a very surprising and heartbreaking break up with my boyfriend. (Who I have written about in this blog and referred to him as PWF for panty wearing faggot. Which is ridiculous. Yes, he wore panties but so what? He was truly a good person and a very good friend. I have ruined all chances of him being my friend just by reacting to our break up the way I did.) After both of those events, I moved to Florida. When I look back on the years from 2002-2009, I think I was on some kind of seven year anger fest drug binge, and it seemed obvious that I was trying to kill myself without actually doing it. I seemed to become another person, but I didn't realize it. I guess that's part of mental illness. The beautiful part is that a lot of it is chronicled in this blog. I was so angry at everything, but didn't know how to fix it. Some of my entries are hard for me to read. Which brings me to 2006.

I met Bryan, as everyone knows. I left Shawn to become a cocaine snorting hoodrat with Bryan. I STAYED with Bryan for three years and put up with the craziest shit you can ever imagine. When I look back on it, I am like, what in the hell was I thinking? How could I have done this to my daughter? I really don't have answers to those questions. I did have a fun job at Denny's restaurant in Pensacola, and had friends, and stayed away from cocaine once I got to Florida. But still...we fought constantly and this blog is full of entries of me attempting to convince myself that he loves me so much, blah blah blah. I mean, really. He was a low level person with an IQ of six who also happened to be in trouble with the law for several occasions of inappropriateness. I can't say much more than that, so read between the lines.

Finally, in January of 2009, I woke up one morning and just felt like I had shaken off something terrible off of me. I felt free in ways that I hadn't felt before. It was like a lightbulb suddenly went off over my head. I realized that the best way for me to be happy is to live alone, have no man around, and work my job and do what I want to do. Spend my money on what I want. Not have to talk to anybody if I didn't want to. I told Bryan that I was moving on and I don't think he believed me until it happened. I shed no tears. I rented a nice enough place for Alexa and I at tax time, filled it with new and cheap furniture and was ecstatic with my freedom. I have discovered that if I am left alone, I am very productive. Those were the mornings that I would get up and make breakfast for Alexa before school, and then wipe down and vacuum the house before work. When I got home from work, it was puff time with Daniel and then I would make dinner. So easy. SO stress free. I didn't have to apologize for my OCD and explain how I like things extremely clean and how clutter makes me feel like I can't breathe. There were no odd looks from others regarding these issues or any of my other idiosyncracies. Sometimes I felt like cleaning the whole house with bleach wipes. So what? It just did wonders for me to be alone.

Then I had some kind of mental break again in May of 2009. I walked off of my job at Denny's for no reason other than I didn't like the way I was spoken to. Stupid. Then I tried to kill myself by taking a mix of somas and flexaril. No one really knew this except my BFF's, Daniel and Lynn. So I convinced myself that I needed to go back home to Michigan and that's exactly what I did. I rented a small house (SMALL) and got a job waiting tables at a diner. All was well and good and happy. Then I met Curtis.

Someday I will get into everything regarding Curtis, but RIGHT NOW everything is good. He is working part time and I am not working at all. (I'm sure I will write more about that later.) We love our son more than anything at all, and I can say that for both of us. Our lives revolve around him. I never thought that I would be good at caring for a baby/toddler/child, but it has made every day of my life worth it. I truly do not know where I would be without my boy. He loves his mommy so much. I have never had anyone love me like my kids do. As far as I can see there is no other love as important, or fulfilling, or as wonderful as the love a child has for the parent and vice versa.

Speaking of that boy, he just woke up, and well, he wants my time, so I am going to go spend it with him. I will be updating this blog more often again. It is therapeutic for me to write. And I kind of need the therapy.

Life on a Dime

Soooo...here we are. Me and the man that I am now going to be linked to forever. Before I even write about this, I have to say that I cannot believe I have been writing in this journal now for four and a half years, and when I re read some of my entries this morning I was just shocked at how much life can change. That's why the title of this post is "Life on a Dime." It can turn any second and without warning.

I have been in this relationship now for several months, and while it has been absolutely riddled with complications, and anxiety, and sadness, and some stress, there are a few things about it that are different than any relationship I've ever had before. All those nights I spent lying in bed next to Bryan, dreaming of the man I wished he could be, I never actually thought the next guy who crossed my path would be the one I used to think of. As I matured out of my relationship with Bryan and began to see him for who he really is, I began to give some serious thought into what I wanted out of a man for the next time I decided to be in a relationship with one. Being with Bryan made me realize a lot about myself and taught me some valuable lessons about self esteem and wasting time. I realized what it was that I truly value in a partner, and neither my husband or Bryan fit those criteria at all, which is why I was absolutely miserable in both relationships. But this one...this one fits in so many ways. Even now, though, I am not absolutely sure if he is a perfect fit. I'm not in a hurry to rush things along, and this situation is very unique anyway, not to mention unconventional. But somehow, it has worked all this time. We are pretty close and the difference between him and Bryan is that he actually loves me and shows it all the time. Sometimes I am still amazed at the things he does for me.

He is like me, in that he has a quick temper and has no problem displaying his emotions with fiery passion. The best part about our relationship is that we know how to talk to each other. We are exactly the same when it comes to temperament, but we know that about each other, so we step lightly around each other and show each other respect even when we don't agree. We hardly ever raise our voices to each other. We are not mean to each other, and we don't call each other names. There's been a couple of times when things got overwhelming, but two bad fights in eight months is not bad, and I think it's a pretty good indication that we know how to work things out. Sometimes we butt heads at first, and he can be VERY self absorbed, but we usually work it out. As he's said to me before, we always seem to find our middle ground.

So, in the beginning of January, I started not feeling well. I didn't find this too unusual, since I work with the public, but I was getting concerned. I was feeling dizzy at work a lot, and I seemed to never get enough sleep. I just chalked it up to working the early morning shift. But I was also very emotional and very very easily irritated. PMS has been plaguing me for years now, so I didn't think anything of it. I just laughed at myself and checked the calendar frequently to make sure my period was on time. (I chart my ovulation and my cycle in order to prevent pregnancy. I did have a prescription for Depo Provera, but every time I was ready to take the shot they didn't have an available appointment for me. I didn't concern myself with it because I was keeping track and that seemed to be working just fine.) I just went along with my business as usual. In the meantime, I began drinking a LOT of chocolate milk and I just figured it was a food phase that we all sometimes go through. However, the man continually told me, day in and day out, that I was pregnant. Every time I went pee, he would follow me and tell me I was pregnant. If I complained that I was dizzy...I was pregnant. He took note of how many empty chocolate milk bottles there were on the floor of my car and announced that I was pregnant. He would hold me in bed at night and tell me I was pregnant. I just laughed at him because there was NO FUCKING WAY that I wanted that to happen and I was one hundred percent sure it wouldn't.

Then, on the morning of January 20th, after opening up the restaurant and during a lull in which there was nothing to do, I sat down with my phone and calculated how many days, on average, I go between periods. (I use the calendar on my phone for that purpose.) I sat down with a piece of paper and wrote it down for each month. September, 23 days. October, 24 days. November, 23 days. December, 27 days. WAIT! 27 days??? And I have not begun bleeding yet?? Oh SHIT. So, that day after work, I texted my BFF Roxanne (referred to as Lynn in earlier posts) and told her I was going to take a prego test. I also called my friend Angie and said the same thing. I described my symptoms to her and we both agreed it could be anything. I stopped at the dollar store, bought a test, and came home. I took the test immediately, because I REALLY had to pee. Then, while it was working, I picked up the kitchen, changed my clothes, all very casual like, not even thinking really about the pregnancy test because even though it had been 27 days since my last period, I technically wasn't late....until the 21st.

I went into the bathroom to check it, and when I saw two lines I didn't believe it. I just didn't. I said, "Oh my fucking GOD," out loud and placed it in the medicine cabinet. Then I texted Roxanne with "It's positive." It still hadn't sunk in yet. I called Angie, and told her. She suggested I buy another one, which I had already made up my mind to do. I left my house, stopped at another store, bought another test, and then headed for Angie's. It didn't take long because I already had to pee again. Once I got there, I took the test into the bathroom and peed on it. I didn't even have my pants all the way up before both lines were glaring at me...another positive result.

So...Sondra is pregnant. Again. This is my third pregnancy and will be my fourth child. There have been some complications with this pregnancy already. At this point I am almost ten weeks along and I have been to the ER twice with bleeding. Once I was absolutely sure that there was no more baby, but there was. I have seen it on ultrasound quite a few times already, and I am just amazed. I am amazed that after all these years of being with other people, I am pregnant by this one. I am amazed that I am pregnant at all. But with this pregnancy comes a certain kind of joy and love that I have not yet felt; I am in love with the man I created this baby with. I am madly in love with him because of the way he makes me feel when he loves me. And when I look at our baby, either on the ultrasound screen or in pictures, it makes me feel like in some weird way, it was meant to be. I haven't carried a child in twelve years and I never thought I would again. But this child is going to be worth it. I know that we will be good parents, regardless of how our relationship progresses. We have been through hell these last six weeks or so, it has been a very hard period of adjustment. Even though he kept telling me I was pregnant, when I actually broke the news for him he really freaked out. He was cool for two days and then, as he went into an internal battle with himself, he removed himself from me emotionally which was really very hard because I needed him to be there for me. I was scared, angry, and completely overwhelmed and so was he. Instead of supporting one another, we just kind of turned on each other there for a while. But we have gotten through that phase, and now we both have accepted that we are going to be parents...seperately and together. Not to mention that I had to go to the hospital a few days ago, because I was bleeding so badly I was sure there was no more baby. He took me to the ER and stayed with me all day and emotionally held me up. He kept himself sane by smoking more than a half a pack of cigarettes in a six hour period. He held me, comforted me, cried with me...and when I came back from ultrasound and told him that our baby was fine, we hugged for a long, long time. We talked about how relieved we were. We talked about how now we are absolutely committed to our child. Now he calls me every morning to see how I feel. We have lunch together on some days so we can see each other and touch base. We nag each other about our unhealthy habits. (His smoking and his diet are terrible. He nags me about whatever he can find to nag me about since I nag him.) We talk a lot about our baby. I have told him that I love him and I love this baby and that's all that matters.

So now, this year is going to be so different. I am sorry to be losing my single status. Not to mention I have lost a ton of weight. My weight used to plague me terribly. Now it's not so bad, and my biggest fear is getting up to be about 300 lbs again. I DO NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. So I try to eat well and drink a lot of water. I haven't felt well enough to exercise and I am not even sure if I should, given all the bleeding. (I have an appointment with my doctor on Monday. Hopefully he can tell me what is wrong.) I am trying to prepare myself mentally to be a mother to an infant. It has been a LONG, LONG time...16 and a half years, to be exact! Do I think I'm prepared for it? Yes. Am I going to be tired? Yes. Am I going to wish that I had used a condom sometimes? I'm sure I will. But this baby has been called everything from a superstar to a trooper already, just because I've been scared twice now into thinking I'm no longer pregnant, so that just fuels my desire to get it here and raise it with this man that I love so dearly. Of the men I have spent my life with in the last 7 years, Shawn and Bryan, this is the man that I am HAPPY to be having a baby with. I cannot wait to see it. He wants a girl, and of course, I want a boy. The thing is, he already has a son which is why he wants a daughter. So if it is a girl, he will be ecstatic and I will be happy for him. So I'll take either one. I'll be happy with what we get. It really doesn't matter to me, but I am not going to start buying baby stuff until I know for sure what it is.

So that's what's new with me. Pregnant! And in love with my baby daddy. What next?

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.