Of Death and Dying

Tonight it just occurred to me that I might not be as in-control of my own thoughts and emotions as I think I am. Once again I, horribly ashamed of myself, am watching Grey's Anatomy and crying for little to no reason. And I'm thinking how I've got to find a way to break up with PC and make him understand the reason and then I sort of have a realization.

What if all this stuff that is going on with my dad is changing the way that my brain is trying to process my relationship?

Things have been pretty good. Especially in comparison to how they were in Ohio, things have been quite good. PC is pulling his own weight financially and giving me more space (he's actually out right now, allowing me to cry and watch Grey's and write) and we're hardly ever fighting. And yet, I'm apathetic. I look at him and I know that I have feelings for him and I still feel like being with him is more of a burden than being without him. It's not fair. It's horribly unfair and yet I know that I'm doing it and I keep doing it.

We even talked about it. I told him how I'm feeling and how it's not fair. Somehow he doesn't agree. Somehow he thinks that this will pass and that we will work out.

Inside of me, I know this isn't true.

But what if I'm wrong? My father is dying - however slowly it's happening - and it's almost harder to watch what it's doing to my mom than it is to watch what's happening to him. She has to be strong and be the rock and still know that the man she's spent nearly 35 years with is going to be gone. How can anyone want to commit to that? How could I really want to commit my life to someone when this is how it turns out?

I don't know. I don't know what's behind my feelings. I don't know if they will resolve or change or whether I'll keep coasting until I realize that's all I'm doing.

Lyrics of the Day

"It's all the good that won't come out of me and all the stupid lies I hide behind. It's such a big mistake, lying here in your warm embrace." Rilo Kiley The Good That Won't Come Out

Play It Again, Sam

So, I know that I may incur some wrath from y'all faithful readers, but I did finally come to a decision where PC is concerned.

I'm just not ready to give up quite yet.

We have been apart, both as a couple and geographically, for a month now. During this time, it does seem that things have started to head in the right direction. PC knows what he needs to do now: make an effort to give me space and turn to other people in his life for some of his emotional needs and pull his own weight financially. He's spent the last month on a ranch in South Dakota, helping some distant cousins prepare the ranch for pheasant season. He's been making money, giving me space and has had a lot of time to think about how things went wrong. And I have done the same.

I've got a new job, back in Baltimore where I was last summer but at a different location. I'm leaving tomorrow to head out there for just a quick 9 week gig. In the last week since learning that I had the job, I thought a ton about what I wanted to do concerning PC; I realized that I do want to give it one more chance. I don't want to put myself in a position to regret not seeing if it could work out under different circumstances. I don't want to wake up one day and think, "Maybe PC really was the guy for me and I let it go too soon."

I don't know. I can't be sure that this is the right decision or that it will work out. But I will say that I'm optimistic, which is a big change from how I was feeling when I broke up with him. If, by chance, it doesn't work out, then I think that I will be able to be satisfied with the fact that we both gave it all we could and it just wasn't what was supposed to be.

Lyrics of the Day

"She swears she hears the phone but she only gets the dial tone, so she imagines what she'd say, 'If you feel like coming home to me, sometime. Yeah if you feel like coming home to me anytime; I'll be waiting at the door, there's nothing to be sorry for." The Good Life You Don't Feel Like Home to Me

Losses

I've been writing. I've been starting and stopping and erasing what I've written. There is some hole in me that I've tried to fill with rational thought and questions about the right thing to do; the hole swallows these things and grows.

I've been thinking of loss. Of the losses that have been and of those still to come. The losses that I have control over and those that are coming no matter how hard I rage and struggle against them.

How often does one meet another person that really loves them for who they are? How many chances do we get at these things that seem so monumental and so small all at the same time?

Lyrics of the Day

"And I filled the emptiness and the pain inside with a whiskey and a woman's touch, and that's as good as love." Joe Purdy Meteor City

Decisions, Decisions

I have been practicing avoidance. Avoiding telephone calls, avoiding conversations, avoiding this blog. There is too much that has been happening that I just don’t want to talk about. I’m not even sure that I can really talk here and now.

For the moment, I’m going to skip my family life and go back to what the purpose of this blog was in the first place: My Love Life.

Or lack there-of.

I guess that it’s time that I tell y’all what’s been going on with PC.

*Deep breath*

*Big sigh*

I broke up with PC.

Technically.

But I guess that there’s still a part of me that’s undecided. I don’t know if it’s the part of me that has gotten used to not being alone (how quickly this happens), or if it’s the part of me that loves him, or if it’s the part of me that fears any and all kinds of change. But I’m not sure whether or not that part of me that is hesitant can override that part of me that was just suffocated by his neediness for so long. That’s what finally did it – the suffocation, the neediness.

My family situation at the moment is a lot to handle. Not only am I having to handle it myself, but I have to be here to be strong and to support the rest of my family; having to be the only emotional outlet for PC at the same time just proved to be too much for me to deal with. I had thought, when PC and I decided to spend a week and a half apart after leaving Columbus, that I would have time to think about our relationship and how difficult things had been and whether or not it was worth continuing. Absence really did seem to make the heart grow fonder, as I started to feel myself missing him as it approached a week of being apart. Then he came to meet me in Montana and attend a friend’s wedding and everything that had been plaguing our relationship just rose straight to the surface and bubbled over during the five days that he was here. I was even considering giving it more time (I was having this High Fidelity idea that maybe a break-up would be too much stress for me to deal with in a time already brimming with stress) until he just pushed and pushed and proved to me that being with him is more stressful than being without him. And I broke it off.

Almost the minute PC left, he says, he started to really realize what it is that he needs to do to make the relationship work. Ignoring , of course, the fact that he’s told me almost the exact same thing three or four or five other times. Ignoring, of course, that I’ve given him chance after chance after chance to understand what kind of relationship I wanted – that I thought in the beginning that we both wanted. I am, and always have been, an independent person. Only-child-independent. I need space, I need a man that has his own friends and his own life and won’t begrudge me mine. I just don’t have faith that these are things that PC could ever give me.

But he’s begging. He wants so badly to have a chance to show me that he can do it. I know that it would be best for me to be strong and to stand firm with my decision. But can I?

Lyrics of the Day

"So when you ask 'Is something wrong?' I think 'You're damn right there is but we can't talk about it now. No, we can't talk about it now.' So one last touch and then you'll go, and we'll pretend that it meant something so much more." Death Cab for Cutie Tiny Vessels

Space is Not Just a Place for Stars

I guess that I've come to a sort of conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion is that I cannot come to a conclusion.

As a couple of you commented, maybe space is what I need. I actually know that it's what I need (and something that has been in terrifyingly short supply over the last 6 months or so), and I'm coming to a decision about how to get it.

PC and I are leaving Ohio on Saturday, July 26. There will then be 3 or 4 weeks until I am to start a new job in another city, which I will be spending in Montana with my family. During this time, PC and I are negotiating a way to spend some significant time apart. I'm hoping for two weeks to process and get a chance to get some perspective.

Maybe I sound foolish, but I feel like I can't fully make an informed and rational decision on the future of this relationship (or lack thereof), without getting a chance to truly reflect on my own thoughts and feelings. I just can't get that with PC giving me puppy dog eyes and insisting that we're perfect for each other every moment of every day. He means well, but he just doesn't know how to drop it.

So there's limbo right now. Waiting and seeing.

Lyrics of the Day

"I'm starting to feel we stay together out of fear of dying alone." Death Cab For Cutie You Can Do Better Than Me

* Special thanks to Chris for the link to the Gibbard song - and a Death Cab lyric today as a bit of an ode!

Ugly Update

I'm not sure that now is the time to write, but I feel the need to reach out and it's getting to a point where it's now or never.

I disappeared because my grandfather died. My grandfather was an amazing man and the ever-present and dearly-loved patriarch of my family. He was 87 years old and we never really believed that anything could beat him, but nature eventually did. This was a much harder thing for me to digest than I really ever wanted to admit that it would be. Even now I'm crying. It's just not something that I will ever be ready for, even though it's over and done. My dad is also sick. He's been tentatively diagnosed with a disease that is progressive and eventually fatal. Only 50% of people diagnosed with this disease survive 3 years after diagnosis. My dad has always been invincible to me (to everyone else and himself as well) and this is something that I still can't truly digest most days. I've been with him recently and I've seen the changes and I know that it's true - but I still can't believe it.

The worst thing is that in the middle of all of this my relationship, and the smoldering rubble that is has become, has been more of a focus of my waking thoughts than my family. That mere fact makes me so angry and has spurred more than one long, middle-of-the-night fight. The money troubles never cleared up. PC tried, sort of, and the money trickled in. Of course, while it was trickling in, I was still paying for the groceries and the nights out and the cell phone bill (not to mention that the rent is part of my compensation). There were things that PC could have done to change the situation that he was in (or that we were in), but he didn't (wouldn't). Instead of addressing the problems and improving the situation, he clung to me. He suffocated me. He depended completely on me.

There were times that it seemed like things were looking up, or like it was going to be okay, but I think that I was just ignoring my own feelings and ignoring the problems as much as PC was. But it gets exhausting to be so miserable all of the time. Last time I posted, I was trying to blame some of it on my job. And some of it was that - but more of it was him. I should have gotten the warning signs earlier when I would leave work feeling alright, but do a 180 after getting into the car with PC. Then, somewhere in the last two weeks, everything went to hell.

Part of me wants to write that I'm sure it was my fault, because I have been picking fights at least once or twice a week, but then I think that I've been picking the fights because I've been so unhappy and because he always swore that things were going to change and still nothing has. And that's the crux of the matter - it's not the situation (the broke-ness, the money struggles) that is the true problem - it's how PC has handled it. He's procrastinated, he's made excuses for himself and for everyone involved in his difficulty making and getting money, he's allowed himself to be walked on - all the while allowing me to pick up the slack but still expecting me to feel that we are on equal footing. The purpose (aside from accommodating my schedule) of staying in Ohio for so long was so that we (he) could catch up and start fresh and try a life together and that purpose has not been fulfilled by any stretch of the imagination. We're almost exactly where we were 4 months ago when I was less than a centimeter from breaking up with him. Truth be told, I would have broken up with him by now if it wasn't for the fact that we're stuck in Ohio with one car and it's almost more difficult to get rid of him than it is to stay with him.

He promised me when we were in Montana that things were going to change. He promised me on the drive out here that things were going to change. He promised me 3 months ago when I was extending my job here that things were going to change. And here I am months later, feeling cheated of my own security and aspirations, being asked to believe him as he promises me that this time things are going to change. What evidence do I have to help me to believe that this is even a possibility?

This is the hard part. This is what I don't want to admit, but I have to if I want to receive any feedback at all that could be helpful to me. I have these feelings now, and they're involuntary. I don't want to kiss him. I don't want to be affectionate. I don't want to have sex. I don't want to be close or intimate or cuddle at night. When he tells me he loves me (as he assures and reminds me twenty times a day, as if that could change the past), I can't say it back. I say, "I know. Have a good night at work." I say, "I know. I'll call you at lunch." I say, "I know. It doesn't change anything." I say, "I know, but it's not enough."

It isn't. In a perfect world, love would be enough. But it's not. You have to live with someone, you have to be able to make a life, and how can you do that when only one person is living and the other is behaving like an emotional parasite.

Part of me thinks about the other kinds of guys that I could be with, the other types of relationships that I could have. Part of me never wants to be in another relationship - ever. Part of me can't really see leaving him. Part of me wants to believe that it could work out, even though most of me can't imagine that it will.

I remember once relating some of the story of The Ex to a co-worker. At the time the wounds were still a little raw (though it may have been a full year after the catastrophe, which is freakin' pathetic), and it was tough for me to talk about how I had felt he had started to back away from me and treat me poorly because he couldn't handle the idea of having real feelings for someone (after having been cheated on by the love of his life). My co-worker asked how he treated me like crap - did he hit me? Did he cheat on me? And at the time I almost felt like my hurt feelings didn't mean much, since he wasn't actually abusive or anything. Even though he did manage to rip my heart out and step on it as he walked away.

No, PC did not cheat on me. No he didn't hit me. No, he didn't actually steal money from me or wreck my car or gamble the rent check away. But I've been so unhappy for so long that I can't just say, "Well this is just part of being in a relationship." Because it shouldn't be. At least not this far in. We haven't even been together for a year and a half. PC abused my trust and my good intentions and my willingness to give him chance after chance to make things right.

So do I give him one more chance? Or do I drop him off on my way back home in three and a half weeks and start over?

Lyrics of the Day

"Some things don't work out like they should. Bang my head against your walls, but it ain't no good. 'Cause I'm screamin' at you, but you're screamin' at me, 'bout what I think you should do or how you wish I could be. 'Bout what I think you should do or how you wish I could be." Joe Purdy Some Things Don't Work Out

Disappearing Act

I'm afraid that I may disappear again for a short while, but I'm hoping to gain brownie points for my effort in warning you.

There's a lot going on in my private life right now, and I'm going to be dealing with family issues for the next couple of weeks. As wrong as it may be, my relationship and it's minor dramas are not at the top of my list of things to focus on right now.

I will probably be more forthcoming when I reappear, but right now the nerves are too raw. We're all lucky that teardrops don't smear typed words.

Lyrics of the Day

"Regretfully, I guess I've got three simple things to say: why me? Why this now? Why this way?" Ani DiFranco Grey

It Figures

So I think that I've figured something out. It's not much, but it explains a little bit. This job that I have, here in Columbus, it's unlike the jobs that I usually have. It's a start-up. It's rough and not well organized. The boundaries are ill-defined and I'm the only person that really knows everything that it entails. So at the end of every week, I sort of feel like I want to die. I'm so exhausted and worn out from fighting the adversity and the system that I come home and am barely able to pull myself off of the couch to climb into bed. And every Friday night I seem to find myself in a new pit of despair for some reason or another. Maybe it's the job as much as it's the Relationship.

Can I really do this for 13 more weeks?

Lyrics of the Day

"Dorothy wake up. Dorothy wake up. Dorothy wake up, it's time for work." Cursive Dorothy at Forty

On the Edge

So, I let things go. I let them simmer. It was a mistake, but a mistake that I didn't really know that I was making. I thought that things were getting better for a little while. And then I started noticing.

Noticing that (although I don't really like my job here) I could be in a perfectly mild mood when leaving work and as soon as I got into the car with PC (the car that we share, since we came here together and it's more cost-effective - please infuse the previous statement with a bit of bitterness since it's just one more way in which I have felt that I have nothing of my own anymore), I'm immediately on edge. I started noticing that I didn't really want to be physically affectionate with PC and that I would sometimes cringe or shiver inwardly when he would touch and hug and kiss me. I found myself becoming ever more short-tempered with small, stupid things. The fact that PC has turned the cup-holders in my car into his personal garbage/pen/change depository, making it nearly impossible for me to put cups into them. The fact that when he cleans he will pick up almost everything in the house, but he won't touch the dishes. In my (admittedly slovenly) world, the dishes are the really important thing - since you know, they rot. I know that these things are nit-picky and they are really just the tip of the iceberg with me - but it's what's behind my short-temper that triggered all of this. It started adding up. And then, The Dream.

Then, The Sister calls and she's seeing a new guy who is "perfect" and "amazing" and she's head-over-heels. And I'm happy for her, but more than that, I'm envious. I start thinking that I could meet someone who would be better for me. I could meet someone that wasn't so much work.

Hate me please, for what I'm saying. I hate myself.

I still don't realize, at that point, how much it's all bothering me. I think it's just a low mood point, because those aren't abnormal for me. And then I talk to SJP the other night. And she asks me when the hell I'm coming to LA to visit. And I realize that that is the only thing in the entire world that I truly want right now. To go to LA. To see my people. And I start looking at flights for Memorial Day weekend and I find one and I realize: I don't want PC to go with me. And it's not just because I don't have the funds to pay for his plane ticket too - it's because I want some time to myself, some time with my friends and The Sister and I want that time without PC.

After this realization, it's all a snowball. I talk to Red about how things are and she says to me, "You haven't been happy for a while now" and I know that she's right. I think very hard about calling my best friend from high school, because she was in a long-term, marriage-destined relationship with a really great guy and she just couldn't go through with it and I start wanting to pick her brain about how she dealt with leaving him. I start thinking about how much easier it would be if I was here alone. Or if I were to be alone on my next job. I start thinking about how all I've ever wanted in my whole life is to have a house and how I'm paying off almost half of a down payment in credit card debt because I've been supporting us both in one way or another for almost a year now.

And through all of this, I know how awful I am. I know that PC deserves so much more, and I've told him this before. I've said it over and over in fights and I said it again when I broke down on Friday and told him how I've been feeling. Red told me, quite correctly, that it wasn't fair to hold it in to the breaking point without letting PC know what was going on in my head. Even if it was risking causing him more heartache than I already have (which is saying something). Sometimes I really, truly believe that he deserves better and more. Sometimes I am convinced that there is someone out there that would really appreciate the emotional side of him that makes my skin crawl when I'm on edge. Sometimes I really think that we would both be happier if we were apart.

But he assures me differently. PC swears that he just hasn't "been being himself" and that he's not this needy, over-bearing person and that he doesn't want to continue that way. He swears that if I give him just a little longer, we will be happy again. And he may be right. And as Anonymous commented on my last post, I do owe it to him to give him that time and that chance.

I have 14 weeks left now on my renewed contract in Columbus. So that's what we have. 14 weeks to assess and adjust and see if it will all work out.

Lyrics of the Day

"I'm sorry if I made you want to cry. You should know, I never meant to hide, I just hate bringing you down." Joe Purdy Can't Get It Right Today

"I know, it seems like I should say oh, oh well, as long as this is love. It's not all that easy." Counting Crows Anna Begins [Live]

The Castle Crumbles

I think that I've been doing the same thing to you guys that I've been doing to myself and worse, to PC. I've been pretending. I've been coasting. I've been complacent about my own feelings.

I'm beginning to feel that my personality is diametrically opposed to PC's. I got so caught up in all of this - in the thought of having found someone to be with - that I forgot what I wanted and who I was and I allowed so much to happen that I never intended. I, of course, allowed the money thing (which is so insanely out of character). But there's more. I became one of Those People. Maybe not the worst case That Person. I didn't abandon my life and my friends entirely, but I did become a type of That Person. It has been more than 6 months since I have spent any quality time with anyone in my life alone - without PC. It's a way of living and acting that I have never ever wanted and yet, it's something that I've done repeatedly. I let myself get drawn into a completely emotionally co-dependent relationship. Even after talks and appeals and pleas for PC to talk more to his friends and family (even at the risk of having him talk negatively about me), he still almost always bottles anything up that he's not talking to me about.

I'm just not sure, in all of this writing (though I do know that it's been much more abbreviated since I met PC), that I've ever tried to describe how PC is, or how the relationship has been. I could spend an hour reading back over my own self-indulgent rambling right now, but I'm in no mood to deal with myself.

PC is the most giving person that I have ever met. He's genuinely uncomfortable with receiving and is quite happy to cook all the meals, give all the massages and conform to all my quirks. But it's to a degree that has long-since ceased to be endearing. I'm an independent (you can translate to "cold" or "unavailable" at times if you would like) person and I can't actually stand to have someone running behind me making sure that I'm happy and comfortable and relaxed at all times. Sometimes I want to eat potato chips for dinner. Sometimes I want to lay on the couch and let the house be a mess and watch crappy television and not have to think about what might make me happier at any given moment. If this sounds terribly ungrateful, then I'm probably describing it correctly. For every thing that drives me more and more crazy about this relationship, I blame it on myself as much as I want to blame it on PC.

PC has a theory that he is incredibly good at reading people and making them comfortable. And to a degree, he's right. He is very good with people and can generally have a conversation with just about anyone. But the thing is, he gets too familiar too quickly. It's so hard to explain, and it's harder to explain why it makes me so horrifyingly uncomfortable. But he takes liberties. He touches people without invitation. He gives people nicknames (like calling a "Jim" "Jimbo" or calling a "Patrick" "P-Dog") without invitation or permission or even getting to know them first. And I'm not saying that I handle things any better, it's just that I'm generally an over-cautious and overly considerate person and it freaks me out. I do appreciate that he can get along with people and it's a lot of what makes him so good at being in the service industry, but he just goes too far too fast a lot of the time.

The thing that is the hardest, the thing that has brought me to where I am now, which is at a place where I would break up with PC if I hadn't brought him to Ohio and if I didn't feel like I probably owe him a bit more time, is that he is just so needy. I thought that it would end once we moved in together. In San Francisco, he would leave my house on a Monday morning, call me 3 times on his way home, talk to me at my lunchtime, talk to me when I got off of work and then call me 2 or 3 or 4 more times from work in the evening. It got to the point where I was snapping and becoming upset because I just needed a little down-time after a long day at work and a long weekend of togetherness. And he would back off. A little. For a little while. But I really thought that it would change.

But it didn't.

He's been slowly smothering me. Constantly touching and calling and texting me. Always asking me if I'm fine or what's new, like there was anything in the entire universe that he didn't know already. And I know exactly how I sound right now. I sound awful. There are probably a million women that would give anything for a sensitive, communicative, giving man. The problem is that I'm not one of them. I would give anything for someone who would occasionally share his feelings or thoughts; would walk away when I'm angry and let me regroup, instead of insisting on talking and talking until nothing being said makes any sense anymore. I'm exhausted by this relationship.

About a month ago, about the time that I starting writing here again in earnest (just like that friend that disappears in a relationship but comes crawling back when it ends or isn't going well), PC and I had a blow-up. As I said then, it seemed to be mostly about the money. Maybe. Or maybe it was just the simplest thing to focus my frustration on at that moment. And when he promised that things would improve and I lost the initial feelings of utter desperation, I just sort of let things start to slide. I just fell into the routine of life and ignored what was going on inside of me.

Last week, I had a dream. In this dream, The Ex suddenly appeared in a helicopter (having obtained his pilot's license - not altogether insane since he was an Air Force Reservist and last I truly heard of him he was being deployed to the Middle East) and he came for me and told me that he had made a terrible mistake in leaving me and that he would do anything that he could to win me back. In my dream, I actually thought out the process of breaking this to PC and I went with The Ex. I was ecstatically happy.

I woke up and I nearly sobbed.

Lyrics of the Day

"Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed that I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed. I ain't ready for the alter, but I do agree there's times when a woman sure can be a friend of mine." America Sister Golden Hair

"I think I'll go out and embarrass myself by getting drunk and falling down in the street. You say I choose sadness that it never once has chosen me... maybe you're right." Rilo Kiley That Good That Won't Come Out

More Internet Dating?

I couldn't make this up if I wanted to. Really. I was watching TV tonight and I saw a commercial for this dating website:

Farmers Only

I am seriously considering leaving Prince Charming just to try my luck with some good ol' country boys. Really, because I'm from Montana. And I know:

City folks just don't get it!




P.S. Now we (and I mean myself, Prince Charming and all of you[!!]) get 10 More Weeks!! in Ohio. My employer thankfully (or regretfully, depending on your perspective - or which minute of the day you ask me) agreed to extend my contract for the extra 10 weeks that I was hoping for. That keeps PC and me in Columbus until July 25, allowing us continuity of work to hopefully (finally) catch up on the finances.

And allowing me more time to meet some nice country folks.

Lyrics of the Day

"The mid-west farmers daughters really make you feel alright. And the northern girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night." The Beach Boys California Girls

One Year Later

One year ago, yesterday, Prince Charming and I decided (based on 3 insane days of spending any waking moment together) to begin a relationship. It was at about 5am, in the car from his apartment on the way to meet The Mother so that I could drive to Montana, and I remember being so nervous that I was nearly stuttering. I knew that I wanted to bring up something, that I couldn't just let those last 3 days be the beginning and the end of our interaction, but I had no idea what I was getting into. I had no idea that I would be losing my Single Status, gaining a Boyfriend and changing the direction of my life forever. Also, the direction of this blog...

So here we are, a year later. I'm not sure that the enormity of that length of time really makes sense in my brain. I don't really know where it's going to go from here either. Things have been better, though there have been set-backs and it seems impossible to avoid the occasional squabble. I've been caught between a rock and a hard place here in Ohio: my schedule is such that the best thing would be for us to stay here until the end of July, but I'm not sure that my current employer wants to spend the funds to keep me here (paying for a traveling employee is much more expensive than paying for a permanent one), and in reality, Ohio just really isn't my place. But it seems more likely today, after getting a very kind review from a higher-up, that we will be staying here in Columbus for the summer. So although the finances are still struggling to catch up and things are moving very slowly, it will help both PC and I to stay here and have continuity of jobs and paychecks. He's trying, he really is, it's just hard to predict your income as a server/bartender (which is what he is, if I've never mentioned that before).

So last night we went out for an anniversary dinner and had a nice time. We'll probably do a little more celebrating this weekend, when it's not a school night. Oh yeah, and I'm also for some reason determined that we're going to run a half-marathon (AGAIN) on Saturday. Mostly because it's here, so I feel like I should run it. Does that make sense? Nope. But I'm low on making sense a lot of the time these days.

Lyrics of the Day

"Why, why some people break up then turn around and make up, I just can't see. You'd never do that to me, would you, baby?" Al Green Let's Stay Together

Cutting Slack

Things are still on the better side of where they were, though the financial stress just isn't abating quickly enough for my obsessive brain. But finally opening up and talking to people about it has really made a world of difference. In all of my panic, I did manage to lose sight of a few things: PC really did intend to eventually become a contributing financial member of the relationship, paying off my bills would be a bit easier now that PC and I are living together because there isn't the expense of commuting for the relationship, and much of what got us into the financial situation that we are in came from Prince Charming prioritizing the relationship over making more money. SJP pointed this out to me in a long-overdue phone conversation last week. She said that she didn't think he ever intended to live off of me (and certainly not for so long) but that he had decided that love was more important than anything else; he was taking that leap of spending time with me instead of working and moving away with me to start over rather than building up savings, making enough money to pay all of his bills, etc. Non-romantic loser that I am, I would never have made that same decision, but I should have cut him more slack for doing so.

So that's where we are. I still have doubts. But to be honest, there wasn't much of a time when I didn't. There was a lot of time when I pretended (even to myself) that I didn't because I wanted so badly to match Prince Charming's enthusiasm and certainty, but I realize now that that is an unrealistic expectation of myself. I need to feel certain (or not to) in my own time. So I'm being patient, which is something very hard for me. But I was tired of fighting and tired of making myself miserable. It's just not worth it. But as I said a bit ago, I also feel like I finally made all of the points that I needed to make so I don't need to be constantly harping on the things that I'm still stressed about.

Lyrics of the Day

"Things are good we should take a Polaroid, a memento, before the moment's destroyed." The Good Life On the Picket Fence

Middle America

By the way, I'm in Ohio now. And really, I mean no offense if anyone out there who has an undying love of Ohio, but I won't be sad when I leave here. I guess I just had no idea what the mid-west was really like, and how different it is than the coasts.

When it snows more than 2 inches or so here, they close all of the schools. I've been in Columbus for 5 weeks now and I think there have been almost two weeks worth of snow days. If it's foggy, they delay school. If it's rainy, they let school out early. Why aren't I a teacher?? In Montana, it can be 40 degrees below zero and blizzarding and you dang-well better get yourself to school. The difference is that you don't have to stay on the playground until class starts, you can go inside.

I work with a young man who seems very cool and modern and "normal" by the standards of a girl who spent the most significant part of her adult life in LA. Last Monday he came into work and told a story about his weekend that involved taking apart a tractor and putting it back together. Cuz, you know, they just do that in Ohio.

They are so crazy about college football here, I've heard that every Saturday during football season, the town basically shuts down to watch the game. Even now, in the off-season (it is basketball season, but OSU did not make it into the NCAA tournament), you can't walk out your door without seeing whole families dressed in Ohio State shirts, jackets, pants, hats. It's like its own religion.

But here's the biggest travesty about Ohio: Two-Buck Chuck costs more than $3 a bottle.

Lyrics of the Day

"Somewhere in the middle of America, get right to the heart of matters, it's the heart that matters more. I think you'd better turn your ticket in, get your money back at the door." Omaha Counting Crows

Progress

Today I am feeling slightly less pessimistic and vindictive than I have been recently. I think that I have been typing a lot more with my emotions here lately than with any kind of objective eye. Not to say that it isn't within my right to do that (it's my damn blog after all!), but I think it has definitely made me more on the vague side when it comes to describing the actual events. This is one of the many reasons that I resisted writing for so long - I wasn't sure I should air my dirty laundry and if I did I wasn't sure I would do it in any satisfying way. But I think it is helping to share and it is helping to gain a little perspective, because obviously this is not the end of the world.

Yes, Prince Charming does now have a job. He actually has two, and between the two he is working somewhere in the neighborhood of full-time. Even though I doubted it in many of the darkest times, PC did not intend to live off of me forever. But he did take advantage to a certain point and he did handle the situation very poorly in Montana. I struggle so much with the debate of whether to try to prove myself rational by vilifying PC or whether to just drop it because at this point, things do seem like they have started to change (albeit, slowly) and they are on the way to a place where I can judge the situation from a more objective standpoint.

The bottom line is this: I'm still not happy, but I'm no longer catastrophically upset every other day. I think that things may continue to improve, but I'm still having a hard time feeling normal and feeling the same affection and desire for him that I did before. There were enough white lies told while he was upset and apathetic in Montana that I still have a hard time trusting everything that he says. And I know that is a red flag and I've told him this. I've told him everything so many times. Part of my frustration that I didn't feel like I was being heard, but after another terrible fight last weekend, I think I may finally feel that. So it's been helping...

I want to thank everyone for reading and offering such compassion. Whether things work out or not, and whether you think I'm nuts or not, it's nice to have an ear or two.

Lyrics of the Day

"We trade tit for tat, yeah that for this, and I don't think that there was an insult that was missed. I can see it in your eyes like I taste your lips and I'm very sorry." Little Motel Modest Mouse

Resentment

So maybe now I am asking for advice. Maybe I do need some help, if I am to truly make a decision that is more than reactionary.

Can resentment be overcome?

Having been shouldering the financial burden of the relationship for so long (and anyone who knows me knows that I am more than slightly uptight when it comes to money), I can hardly feel anything besides resentment when I look at PC now. I just see how hard things are for me (however selfish that viewpoint is), and how long it's going to be before I can dig myself out and all of the other places that I had intended for all this money to go. Paying off student loans. Paying off my car. Saving for a house. Now I'm just paying off credit card debt.

It's partially my fault that it came to this. I allowed it to happen. It started small, but it grew and gained momentum until it was no longer under my control. But he allowed it to happen too. And he has delayed and made promises and never followed through.

I don't know where to blame him and where to blame myself anymore. But here's the really difficult truth: I do not like who I am with him. I have become someone that I barely recognize, and I'm that person far too often now.

Lyrics of the Day

"Still to come, the worst part and you know it. There is a numbness in your heart and it's growing." The Shins A Comet Appears

Owning Up

I have never been very good at expressing my feelings. I have always jokingly referred to myself as a man or a guy, because there are ways in which I am not the typical girl. But I didn't realize how much that would affect a relationship, or what it would do to the dynamics of a relationship that I would choose.

I may not be the most traditional of girls, but I never meant to find myself completely out of my traditional gender role. I hoped for a relationship on equal footing - for shared feelings and chores and responsibilities. But somehow, I have found myself in a relationship in which I have come to feel like I shoulder all of it.

Somewhere along the way, things that I thought to be temporary snowballed out of control and became a weight that I can no longer lift. I became responsible for being responsible in every situation that PC and I have been in and are in and I wasn't built to live like this.

PC and I got stuck in Montana, where we went for the supposed few weeks that I was taking off from work. A job that I thought was secured fell through and we ended up unemployed and trapped in my parents' basement for nearly two full months. During that time, we had only my savings to live on - the savings that I had accrued with the assumption that I would be unemployed for no longer than 4 weeks. Things devolved. I got depressed (I'm not one to have much self-worth when I'm not being useful) and PC got frustrated and rebellious and apathetic. We fought so much - I'm almost embarrassed to look my parents in the eye again. Night after night, the day's pretenses would fail and everything would break down.

Now, after securing a job (actually, the same job that I was supposed to have taken the first time, but that's a long story and not an important one), I thought that things would have gotten better. We have been in Columbus, Ohio for nearly 4 weeks now. And things only seem to be getting worse for me.

PC has apologized for actions of his that were hurtful and immature. (To assuage any fears: he did not hit me and he did not cheat on me. Both are deal-breakers of the permanent variety.) He has sworn up and down that things are different and that there's nowhere to go but up. But somehow, my mood goes nowhere but down. I can't look at him the same way anymore. Instead of seeing him as this attractive man with whom I have a definite future, I see him as a constant source of stress and uncertainty and I can't see past tomorrow, much less predict if we can make it work in the long run.

It's killing me. I don't think that there is any advice to be given, any words of wisdom that could possibly help. He has asked for two months to try to dig out of the financial mess that I have ended up in and to see what things could be like without my supporting him or the accrued debt hanging between us. I can't really see myself shutting the door completely at this point, so it seems that a little waiting-it-out is really my only option. But many days (like today) things seem worse for me than better, and his constant attempts at optimism just make me want to slam the bathroom door in his face, lock it and never come out.

Lyrics of the Day

"There's no talk of future plans, there's no romance, there's no good reason we should be in love - so I've been making shit up." The Good Life Playing Dumb

Venting?

I've never really done this before.

My only "true" previous relationship (with the Speed Freak) was filled with strife and pain and was bad and tumultuous a much greater percent of the time than it was good or even tolerable. So even though I ended up enduring about a year of that personally-created-hell, it wasn't actually a year-long relationship.

I've been with Prince Charming for 11 months now. It was 11 months on Saturday, actually. And I'm realizing more and more that most of the last 6 months or so have been far from perfect. My quandary is whether the good is worth all of the bad. Whether much of the bad has been situational (I dare anyone to have a perfect long-distance relationship), or whether there truly are ways in which PC and I are not ideally suited for each other.

I'm afraid to fully delve into it. I haven't been honest with the people closest to me in my life, and I'm not sure I can be honest here. It's not horrifying. There's no abuse and there's no cheating. It's not what many people I've met would consider a Bad Relationship. I'm sure that millions of women have lived through and with so much more, that sometimes I feel self-indulgent for being upset by things that have happened. And yet, at the same time, I'm ashamed of the things that I've allowed to happen and things that I've done. And all of this builds into a wall that I hide behind.

I know that I'm being vague. I know that I'm speaking in metaphors and hyperbole and that it must be more than frustrating to read. But today is an okay day. It's not the complete break-down kind of day that I had on Friday night after a conversation with The Mother and it's not the forget-about-the-complications-and-watch-South-Park kind of day that I had with PC yesterday. It's a middle-of-the-road day. But the turmoil in my brain refuses to quiet itself and I wanted to vent here. Unfortunately, my venting is half-assed.

I'll try to work on that.

Lyrics of the Day

"It’s been hard, we’ve both got our histories that haunt these homes - but I ain’t bathing in our misery. So pour me a drink and don’t pour it too weak and grab it from the top shelf. I ain’t asking for redemption and this ain’t no cry for help." The Good Life On the Picket Fence

Out of the Darkness

My life (love-related and otherwise) hit some pretty significant bumps in the road over the holiday season... hence the lack of communication in this-here forum. I never seemed to have trouble airing my dirty laundry when I was single; now that I'm not, well, it just seems a hundred times harder to talk about. I've been in pretty dark places for the last few months (just ask any of my friends who thought I was dead when I refused to communicate during the months of January and February) and I'm just now starting to find my way out.

What does this mean for me and Prince Charming?

Well, it depends on when you ask me. If you had asked me on Friday night, or any time at all on Saturday, I would have predicted catastrophe and heartache.

You ask me today: eh... not so much.

I've been contemplating writing for weeks now with no idea how to do it. I'm still not sure, but I thought I'd at least open up the door to my brain and see what would come crawling onto the screen if I allowed it. And I'm not surprised to find that all that comes out is the same vague uncertainty that I've felt living in there for what seems like so long now.

Lyrics of the Day

"Your head will collapse if there's nothing in it and you'll ask yourself: Where is my mind?" The Pixies Where is My Mind?