Single No More

As I said before, things have changed.

I am no longer the girl that I was when I started this blog. For one thing, I turned thirty. I've left the mistakes and uncertainty of my twenties behind and I feel no need to look back. I'm also no longer confused, no longer looking, no longer wondering about the "why"s and "how"s of love and relationships. The answer is: Because.

Because you suddenly cannot imagine your life in any other way. Because you suddenly find yourself in a world that is gray when he's not beside you. Because you can be absolutely, completely, utterly yourself and he still looks at you like you're his own, personal angel.

Bombshell of bombshells: Joe Montana and I are getting married.

He popped the question on May 21st, with my grandmother's ring. My family was ready to hand it over after Thanksgiving, barely 5 months into our relationship.

Living with Joe Montana (since February, when he came down here from Montana) has been amazing. I cannot believe how easy every day is with him, even when things aren't so easy. He is more than I ever could have imagined. I've never been one to believe in things like Soulmates, or The One. But he is. He is The One.

For months, I've been ruminating on where to go with the writing, on how to carry on. And I've been distracted, jealous of my time with Joe Montana, feeling that every moment is special and important and it's so hard to tear myself away. But I do want to continue writing. I want to continue for me, because it's good for me. But I also want to continue for anyone out there that was where I was before I got together with Joe.

A year ago (tomorrow, actually) I was resolutely single. I was quite, and almost contentedly, sure that I was going to go it alone. I knew that things like marriage and coupledom weren't for me, and I was okay with that. I was almost happy about it. Compared to the catastrophes that I had weathered, being by myself was a refuge. It was safe.

And here I am. I'm planning a wedding that doesn't matter to me nearly as much as the marriage that I get to share with a man that I love more than breathing. I'm trying to reconcile my old, independent self with this new self that hurts when he's gone (as he is now, sent to North Carolina by his job, for two weeks that include the weekend of our anniversary) and can't seem to enjoy things as much with out him as with him. I'm here, thinking of how I want to write about what it's like to be in love. Not just in love, but in love now, here. To be in love in this time when love and relationships are so fleeting and I've found a man who promises me 54 years of love. (Due to his odd refusal to promise to live to be older than 86 is the time limit, and one I'm determined to convince him to reconsider.) So this is going to be my, somewhat hackneyed, focus in my next blogging endeavor. Love. Modern Love. Lasting, lifelong love.

And, despite the odds against it, how it can ultimately triumph over all.

Lyrics of the Day

"Ahh home. Yes, I am home. Home is when I'm alone with you." Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros Home

Lucky

How can I sum up what is now happening in my life without resorting to tired cliches or sounding like a Nicholas Sparks novel? Well, kids, I'm not entirely sure that I can. But, as usual, I'm going to give it the old college try. (Cliche #1. You can make this into a game. Every time I use a hopeless cliche, take a drink! You can then judge me as a writer by how drunk you are able to get by the end of this post.)

Remember when I talked about selling out? It's done. It's sold. It's been wrapped up, the shop's closed, the lights have been turned out. Whatever idea I had in my head regarding the noble cynicism of remaining single for-e-ver, it no longer applies to me. This is not to say that I'm a full convert to the side of marriage and coupling up. I'm not. I still think that it's beyond stupid to be in a relationship for the sake of not being alone and I can't even imagine the idea of deciding to marry someone that you have even the tiniest of doubts about. But I think I'm managing to defy the odds here. And here is where I go all sorts of sappy on you...

You know all those things that you're supposed to feel about the person that you choose to spend your life with? That they're your best friend, that you would support them in anything, that you would take a bullet for them, that they are the best, most wonderful person ever to walk the earth? Yeah. I feel those things. It's seriously embarrassing to see them laid out on the page like this, but it's all true. These are the feelings that I always thought I should be feeling for other men in my life; these are the feelings that I spent a good deal of time faking or convincing myself would come. Loving someone just for who they are? Check. Not wanting to imagine your life without them? Check. Wanting to become that cute old couple holding hands in the park? Check, checkity check.

(I hope you're drinking! Or throwing up in your mouth. I couldn't blame you.)

Someone commented on my last post, curious as to what is different about Joe Montana. Well, pretty much all of the above. But some of it is also base compatibility. We have a ton in common, but we also compliment each other. Where I'm high-strung, he's laid back. Where he gets stressed, I am calm and confident. There has always been space for one of us to be the cheerleader when the other needs a boost. It's pretty amazing actually. There is also nothing abusive or manipulative in his behavior - something that has been a problem for me in the past. I won't belabor the point, but everything that raised red flags early on in my last relationship has been completely absent here.

So now is the time for steps. The most exciting step is that Joe Montana is about to become Joe Florida. Well, I'm not actually changing his name, but he is changing locations. JM is joining me in Florida and he should be here, fittingly, by Superbowl Sunday. This step, moving in with him, means more than it may seem. After my last disaster, I vowed never again to have a live-in boyfriend. I am now of the mind that moving in together should not be a rung on the relationship ladder that falls between dating exclusively and getting married. I think that, for me at least, moving in together can't be a trial period or something that you do so that you can delay having to make the decision of whether or not you want to marry someone. To me, moving in means that a bigger commitment is already made. And I'm making that commitment. Taking that step.

The next step is a step away. I think that I have outgrown this particular space. There are no longer many misses in my adventures and there certainly isn't any more internet dating. This doesn't mean that I'm abandoning you all or that I'm done indulging my latent narcissism anonymously. It just means that I think I'm going to shift my focus and my location. I haven't done anything definitive yet, and you'll be the first to know when I do, but the move is coming. I hope you'll take this step with me.

Lyrics of the Day

"So if you wanna be with me, with these things there's no telling, we'll just have to wait and see. But I'd rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery. Besides maybe this time it's different, I mean I really think you like me." Bright Eyes First Day of My Life

No Angle

I think about you all a lot. I think about posting. I think about telling you about Joe Montana and everything that happens and everything that I'm thinking. But then I don't. And another day passes.

So I've been wondering what it is that is keeping me away. Then I realized what it is. I have no angle on Joe Montana.

You know how it is. Nobody reads blogs for earnest self-expression and heartfelt words of emotion. People (myself included) read for entertainment. And maybe to identify with the author in some way. But not many people are interested in keeping up with something that resembles a 14-year-old's diary.

That's the problem here. I can't seem to take my relationship with Joe Montana and give it a spin. I can't make it entertaining. I can pretty much only tell you things that will make you want to lose your lunch.

Lyrics of the Day

"While you were sitting in the backseat, smoking a cigarette you thought was gonna be your last, I was falling deep, deeply in love with you. And I never told you til just now." Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros Home

Joe Montana

I know I've been quiet, but it doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you!

They don't know why, or where the name came from, but everyone I know is calling my man Joe Montana. Everyone.

Last night I went out with my friends Ghost and Polo. They were asking me what the plans are for a "Meet Joe Montana" function on December 5 - a weekend that Joe will be in FL for a visit. I told them that they need to remember that his name is actually [redacted for privacy purposes], and not Joe Montana. They said, "Yeah, we're probably just going to call him Joe."

Fortunately for me, Joe Montana is a very good sport and doesn't mind if people happen to call him Joe rather than his actual name.

Lyrics of the Day

"Hey Joe, where you gonna run to now? Where you gonna run to now?" Jimi Hendrix Hey Joe

Selling Out

I was out with some girlfriends the other night (thanks to kickball – I have actual friends!) and my friend Ghost was giving me crap for the complete 180 that I’ve done since we met. She and I had a mildly-intoxicated late night confessional in my car way back at the beginning of the summer and we discussed our mutual issues with men. I was in serious PC/relationship backlash at that moment and I went off (as I was wont to do around that time) about the possibility that I’m not the marrying type and that I don’t think you need a relationship to complete you, and blah blah blah. Ghost brought that up as we were out on the town last weekend and said, “Now look at you!”

So, yes, I’ve sold out. The odd thing about it is that it doesn’t feel like selling out. Once I regained my independence in March and remembered how much happier I was alone, it seemed perfectly reasonable for me to assume all relationships would make me feel smothered, drained and miserable. But Joe Montana doesn’t make me feel that way. Yes, we talk every day (because how else can you sustain a long-distance relationship?), but neither of us is ever upset or resentful if the other is too busy to talk at certain times or can’t talk for very long or puts their own social obligations ahead of spending hours on the phone. I had a little too much to drink when I went out with Ghost and the girls and passed out on a friend’s couch instead of calling Joe Montana. Rather than being upset with me, he was happy for me that I had so much fun.

I keep thinking that I should be more worried about selling my Single Self out – but it doesn’t feel like I’ve had to give anything up to be with Joe Montana. I haven’t had to change my life or how I do things for him, I’ve just been able to add him to everything that was already here that has been working so well for me for the past 6 months. So is it nuts for me to think that maybe I am the marrying kind – as long as it’s Joe Montana that I’m thinking of marrying?

Ghost told me that she’s totally jealous of what I’ve got going on, and if she felt the way I feel she’d be married in about two weeks. I told her people would think I’m insane if I were to rush into marriage that fast (or even this fast). She said, “I wouldn’t think you’re insane. Well, maybe insanely awesome.”

Lyrics of the Day

“…These wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below, who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end.” Death Cab for Cutie Brothers on a Hotel Bed

PC: Epilogue

I really try not to get defensive when people give their views and opinions on what I write about, because it would be pointless to write in a public forum and expect all comments to be flattering. But I'm going to address this subject one last time, because I just feel like I should say a thing or two.

I realize that my accounts of my relationship with PC are one-sided. The catch is that I was never 100% honest with how things were between us. Never. From the moment that PC knew about this blog, he constantly brought it up - when things were good or bad. He'd say, "So are you going to write about this in your blog? Are you going to make me look like a jerk? Are you going to tell your friends and your mom and your sister about this?" Because of this constant reminder that he felt what I was writing and saying affected him, I glossed over much of the bad stuff and all of the worst stuff really. Even after he left, I pulled punches.

I never felt that I was a woman who could be abused, in any way, but I've come to believe differently.

No, he did not ever actually hit me.

Would he have? If things had continued on the course that they were on (and they would have had I not ended it once and for all), I think he would have. In the last week that we were together, he scared the hell out of me more than once and one time he grabbed me forcefully enough for it to hurt and enough to send a million red flags and warning signals through my head.

With what I know now, and what I have found out since PC and I broke up, there was a lot more wrong and a lot more going on than I ever knew or probably ever will know. I realize that I sound cold when I talk about my frustrations concerning what I hope will be my final communication with him, but 6 months of half-knowledge and endless speculation have put me in a place where it makes me physically ill to speak to him and sometimes even to think of him. I felt a lot of guilt for a long time (guilt is a lot of what kept me with him for as long as I stayed), but I can't feel guilty any more. He made the choices he made - over and over and over again. He manipulated me every chance that he had, doing his best to ensure that I wouldn't leave him - that I would feel like I couldn't leave him.

He's not the worst guy in the world, there are plenty that are far worse, but he's an extremely troubled and messed up guy and he did everything he could to hide the worst and keep me tied to him. I was miserable with him and I thank my lucky stars every day that I finally had the wherewithal to end it.

By the time that I had been with PC for 3 months (as I've been with Joe Montana now), I had spent probably a week's worth of nights up and crying because of things that PC did or did not do. And those were the good times.

Keeping it To Myself

So I’ve been busy. Frighteningly busy really. I bought my townhouse and have spent much of the past couple of weeks working on furnishing it and getting my things moved out of the old apartment. I’ve also spent much of the last couple of weeks dealing with the train-wreck of BS that is still my every interaction with PC – but I’m mostly going to leave that alone in this space. Suffice it to say that six months after we broke up, he has still not come back to Florida to pick up his stuff (which truly is almost every one of his earthly possessions) and he is now scrambling to try to get his act together before the end of the lease on the apartment. It’s not been a stress that I’ve needed, but I don’t seem to have any say in that.

I’ve also been trying to analyze why I haven’t been more eager to tell you all what’s been going on with Joe Montana. I think that I’ve come up with a couple of viable reasons:

1. I chronicled a lot of my elation at the beginning of my relationship with PC and I just can’t bear for anyone (including myself) to make comparisons between that and how things are with Joe Montana at this point.

2. Part of me wants to keep this happiness all to myself and not share the intimate details with anyone.

What’s going on here is too good and too special and too realistic to really be described. It’s also hard for me to talk about it publicly because I know that there are people who will think that it’s just me rushing into something again and that I’m destined to get myself into more trouble (people like The Sister, especially). But it’s just not like that, although I don’t know if I’m able to truly articulate why. It just is, and that’s what’s amazing about it.

A brief break-down is that Joe Montana’s Labor Day visit was amazing. There wasn’t a single thing about the weekend that wasn’t fantastic and not a single thing about it that I wish had gone differently - except maybe the part about him getting on a plane and flying 3000 miles away from me afterward. We’ve talked every day since. We’ve been doing this phone thing for three months now and last night we still managed to accidentally stay on the phone for over an hour because we just didn’t get to the end of our conversation.

I’m going to man up and be honest here, because it’s what I usually do, even though it’s something that has always been hard for me – to be honest about my feelings. I’ve fallen completely in love with Joe Montana. It’s serious stuff here kids. Like, someone-may-have-to-move-across-the-country kind of serious. No real decisions have been made at this point, but we both know that eventually we will actually be able to be together. Because we know this, it’s somewhat easier to be patient with the distance now – though it’ll never be a cakewalk. I’m going to Montana for a weekend to see him in October and he’s coming back to Florida to visit for New Years. It’s not often enough, but we’re doing what we can. And as for that whole “we can date other people” stipulation, well that’s just a moot point. I can’t imagine wanting to, and it’s quite possible I’ll never date again.

Lyrics of the Day

“You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you. You know I dreamed about you. I missed you for 29 years.” The National Slow Show