Sliding Doors

I know you all think I am such a sap.  And I am becoming one.  A star crossed lover.  A believer in fate.  A person who KNOWS that if not Crush (please be you, Crush), then someone else will find their way to me and it will be okay, too.  I can just feel it in the air.  My heart is open again.  Almost 1 year after I left Awful's home forever and slammed that door, that phase in my life.   But still, until very recently, Awful's door had been open a crack, a sliver really, enough to slide a thin piece of paper through, but not even a envelope.

This last year has been SHIT.  Healing from the aftermath of Awful.  Doors still ajar.  Information still shared in the context of, "I am better than you....."

Awful and I had a toxic relationship.  He was like a drug for me.  A bad drug.  I wanted to be around him for some reason, but the minute I was in his company, I was uneasy, agitated, and then afterwards, the depression that would set in.....rock bottom.

For months, post breakup, Awful and I played cat and mouse.  We would attempt to have friendly conversations that would end in tears and jealously.  He would regularly call me to check in on me, but really only to brag about all of the new women he was sleeping with.  To prove to me that he is more desirable....I am not Giselle over here, but he's not some stone cold fox, I don't need to be the better looking one in a couple, but I was with him, inside and out.  Text book, little man syndrome, that Awful was.

Crush tells me that I am a knockout.  He tells me I am soft and sweet and sexy and just like a real woman should be.  For someone who has just finally put most of her body image issues to bed FINALLY, after YEARS, this is just what I NEED to hear.  But, Crush also tells me that I am just as pretty inside and out, and that my friends, that is really the most important thing. A face and body may be beautiful, but it is nothing if the heart inside of a person is ugly.

I fell into Awful's trap every time we spoke.  I would end up in bed for days unable to lift my head off of my pillow, even though I was the one who left him.  You see, for a while there, I would rather be with Awful than be alone.  Never be afraid to be alone.  The best strength comes from the lessons you learn solo.

Then only a few weeks ago, after a long period of blissful silence from Awful, most likely because he was busy seducing young stupid women on his boat (I was one of them, so I can say that) I received an email from him asking me for money that I don't think I truly owe him and I wrote him an email.  A really personal email.

I admitted all of my insecurities, I didn't sugarcoat it.  I let him win.  I wanted to marry him, he didn't want to marry me, but he didn't want to let me go, he didn't want to be alone and face all of his many issues.  He had the power.  I may have gotten wrapped up wanting what I wanted so bad that I couldn't function, but I will admit my truth, I wanted to get married....to him, to the wall, to a plant, to a car....I just didn't want to be alone anymore.

In the email, I called Awful out on his bullshit, I stopped playing games, I stopped trying to protect myself from the hurt I was feeling, I stopped trying to show him that I would win by being evasive.  I let it all hang out, the ugly, the insecurities, the pain. I called him out, with the truth, the truth from MY perspective. And I allowed myself to be truly vulnerable.  Not angry anymore.  Vulnerable.  You hurt me Awful.  You made me feel perhaps as bad as your ex-wife made you feel.  You wore the pants in our relationship.  You didn't want to share the power even though you presented in public that I was the boss....I was NEVER THE BOSS, we both know this.

I became the boss when I left you, but a ring would have kept me.  THANK YOU for not giving me one.  I would be so sad right now if I was with Awful.  If I never had the chance to feel the way I am feeling for Crush, even if it's only been a few weeks.

After I sent that email, I got scared I would hear back.  I counted the days.  I haven't yet, it's been weeks.  I had a few sleepless nights over it.  The day after I sent Awful the email, Crush called me and we had our first real conversation, the one that spanned over 4 hours, the one that gave me the chills, that made me feel that maybe just maybe good guys exist.  The one I feel connected us.

I have been 100% honest about my ENTIRE reality with Crush.  I have NEVER been able to do this with anyone that has a penis.  It's a relatively new concept, for me to be honest all the time and I like it.  It is so freeing.  I have let it ALL out this year and perhaps this is why I am ready for something bigger, something real.

There are things about me that are great and there are things about me that aren't.  Crush is the same, he is only a person, only a man.  His good FAR outweighs his bad, but he has lived his own mistakes, too.  We all can't get to a certain age without having a past.

I learned with Awful: the games, the perception of reality, the wanting, the longing, the ending up so close, but not at all on the same page....I am not going to ever date like that again.  I am not going to date a man I cannot communicate with, I cannot disagree with, I cannot share my feelings with.  I don't want to have to throw insults, jabs, or heavy books on a regular basis to simply make a point.

My love story will only work for me if I am true to myself.  No game playing.

You see, I closed my door on Awful, but it took me 10 months post breakup to do it.  Now, that I  FINALLY slammed and locked it, complete with a double bolt, now another door seems to be sliding open for me.

Fate

I don't want to forget this, so I am going to get this down in real time.

I am feeling rather odd.

Let me just say that I believe in god, in angels, in ghosts, in things that happen that no one can explain...I believe it fate, in soulmate love, in being patient, in being kind, in trying to learn everyday.

I have some weird theories based on my religion, how I view life and death. Weird is too strong a word, it is actually really beautiful, and hopeful, and soothing.

I think about these deep things a lot.  When I am trying to sleep, these things keep me up.

In terms of supernatural occurrences, a few things happened last year, that really made me believe, and I do plan to eventually share them.  Not like ghost related stuff (even though I have experienced it and will also share), more like fate related conversations with the deceased....EVERYONE, stop judging, I NEVER claimed to be normal!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mentioned my crush earlier and I spoke to him tonight for a bit.  We share the same religion and many of the same views which I am enjoying.  After arguing with Awful for over 2 years, I am learning to just speak and not scream with a man.

Tonight, Crush and I started talking about spiritual stuff as we both reflected a bit yesterday on Yom Kippur and he told me about his version of heaven and I nearly peed myself.  No one has ever explained the idea to me EXACTLY the way I explain it to other people....it was chills.  My views are based on my religion, but also on how my family views these things too, so it is not only odd that our beliefs are the SAME, it is also weird that he explained it just as I have so many nights having the kind of drunk conversations I live for before everyone passes out sitting up with lit cigs in hand.

Then, he said something else........"I don't want to freak you out, but you seem so familiar to me.  Not like I have really met you before this or know you.  Just your face, your laugh, your voice, everything about you seems so familiar to me and it's scaring me a bit, but I really really like you.  Do I seem familiar to you?"

The answer is yes.  I made a list a few months ago and sent it to someone very special in heaven and I do think it's possible that my prayers are being answered.  He checks off everything on that very long list.  If not this one, then someone good like him is coming soon, I am getting so close, I can FEEL it. My heart is opening at the seams in a very good way.

The fact that he says I am familiar is just such a good way of explaining what I am feeling lately.  Everything is familiar because I am opening myself up enough to see the things I already know, but never believed.

So Much To Say

I am a posting MACHINE!  A MACHINE!

I just wanted to explain that for the past year, I have been journaling a lot.  I have been purchasing really expensive journals and then spilling coffee on them, getting greasy food finger prints in them, and then losing them and having panic attacks about people reading my thoughts.....so, I decided to start this blog.  I haven't lost my laptop yet.....cross those fingers. Many of these posts are from a year ago or so, but I did want to share them, to show my progression, my place, and my honesty.  When I get all my existing writing up, I will be a normal poster and post once a day.

Real time, my anxiety is still out of control, I suffer with depression, and I am going to get my meds straight here next week. Real time I am tracking my bingeing and weight.

This blog is also beneficial because sometimes I am hard to track down and my work schedule keeps me against the world a bit (I work evenings and weekends often), so now the 3 people in this world that may want to actually chat with me, can read about my issues and NOT have to hear about them all the time when I complain and play my sad sad violins to them.  WIN-WIN.

Also, many of the real dark stuff is from a while back.  I had a really dim period a few weeks ago when the ex started bothering me again and I had a work melt down that I did see coming because I accepted something that was so below me, but for the most part, my sky is parting and the sun is starting to shine and I feel like myself again....this is because the people who love me have been by my side, have encouraged me, and have made me feel like getting what I want is possible...THANK YOU ALL!

I will share it all, but I don't want any of my friends to feel like they need to schedule an intervention, not yet, at least.

That Girl

Oh lawrdy......the only person you didn't want to be in college was "That Girl."  "That Girl" did a lot of things that most girls didn't: peed in chairs in frat houses, pooped in boys' beds in summer sublets, fell down steep stairs at work while drunk and holding a cocktail tray full of drinks while wearing a mini skirt and no underwear, had a threesome with 2 sexually repressed metrosexuals during a summer long coke binge, showed up places uninvited crying about a broken heart and a seriously itchy and unsightly STD.

Now, surprisingly, none of the above apply to me.  They are just things I was fortunate to witness during college that made me feel better about being this girl and not "That Girl."

That is not to say that this girl didn't: pee her own bed once after drinking 2/3 of a bottle of Jose Cuervo on a very quiet weekend in the dorms when everyone else went on frat and sorority walkouts freshman year, puke on the regular after drinking Long Island Iced Teas that cost 75 cents, yell at innocent strangers for things they NEVER (accusing them of calling me fat was a big one) said, pass out while making out (I think we kissed) with a sociopathic politician which caused him to rob my home afterwards because his blue balls simply made him insane, lose my underwear at a bar regular's house and then see him at happy hour when I was working the next day...MORTIFYING, throw up on a friend's stereo and then accuse her of doing it, wake up nude next to a bottle of rum, a beer can, 2 Dave Matthews CDs, a bong and my alarm going off for 5 hours and then went outside to realize that my car had been stolen by the very man that would leave me in such a horrific condition, make out with a 40 year old bartender who still lived in a college town (and recently hid from me) and 2 of my friends while listening to a Styx record....like a record, I do not think he could afford a CD player, jump in the pool with all of my clothes on after being inspired by my best friend who already had jumped in holding a Louis Vuitton clutch, take topless photos with my friends all on one couch while wearing costumes after being amped up by the song "It's Getting Hot in Herre" by Nelly, pass out when the only boy in college who wanted to be my actual boyfriend, but didn't even go to my college, came into town after we went out on our first date because I drank 6 beers before the date because I was nervous and then drank an entire bottle of wine during it and then a few weeks later, I had the nerve to get so drunk at his sister's wedding (WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!) that I couldn't remember even getting up to the room after the wedding, but I was told I took a nap in a chair during it......and how can we forget when I rubbed baby oil all over a very handsome boy (who sadly got the absolute shit kicked out of him and had to leave college he was so injured) on my living room rug and then slid around with him like 2 well oiled pigs until the sun came up.

I mean how is this better than the "That Girl" actions? It isn't.  Hypocrite city here.  And this, all this, is just the tip of the iceberg.  It is only the fried chicken of Old Country Buffet's spread. A nibble really in the hilarity and utter pathetic nature of my college experience, even though I wouldn't change a thing and I am so glad I am still here to tell you about it....

I was this girl to me, but so "That Girl" to everyone else.....and I didn't even know it.

One day, when this blog gets more than 2 views per day and someone actually comments, I do hope we can discuss some of the "That Girl" or "That Guy" stuff you all might have done.  Please feel free to share even if you don't read this until 2014.

More Dreams

I woke up in the middle of the night again last night and I ate a few snacks....pretzels and cookies.  It is such an automatic reflex, it isn't even something I notice until I am in the middle of doing it.  I know how this whole eating at night thing started.....

When I drank to excess in years past, I would often wake up in the middle of the night dehydrated and when I mustered up enough strength, I would stumble to the kitchen and slam soda (always diet) and carby snacks, so I wouldn't puke.  Often the bubbles and bread helped and I would wake up feeling like shit, just not like total shit.  I always wrote these calories off as an absolute necessity (so they didn't ever count) because I mean, I would puke if I didn't eat them, so they were crucial (perhaps I shouldn't have been drinking to puketown....hmmmmmm)

Then, I was taking sleeping pills for a while when I first went on my anxiety medicine.  I am afraid of the dark (I still am, but I am working through it) and coupled with my anxiety, I went through a phase a few years ago when I didn't sleep for months....perhaps 3-4 hours a day max and it wasn't always at nighttime.  The good news, I had Bravo, Lifetime, MTV, VH1, Oxygen and my absolute favorite WE, so I could be constantly entertained by quality programming in the wee hours of the morning.

The sleeping pills, unleashed the eating monster in me.  Rooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr.  I would sleep eat and be just consciousness enough to not choke, but it wasn't fun and I stopped taking the sleeping pills very soon after I woke up with a half eaten Lean Pocket (meatball and marinara flavor, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) stuck to the back of my pajama pants. Reality check.

One of the advantages, there were a few, to dating Awful, was that I slept.  I slept because he had the side of the bed by the door, he had a security system, he owned several guns (many collectables and serious rifles), and he had a sure shot that could rival Annie Oakley.  I mean Awful did have some talent....he could have seriously shot a pea right through the middle from 50 yards away.  When I once saw him slay some birds, I had very mixed feelings of being impressed and being appalled. Contradiction he was, blue-blooded WASP democrat who killed baby animals....I digress, I digress again and again and again....

I can admit this now, one of the reasons I stayed with Awful was because his parents had a summer house, he had a boat, he owned a home in an expensive city, I slept.  I really slept, like black out slept sober, and it was something after years of not sleeping, that I really needed.  I do look forward to one day sharing a bed with a non-Awful because though I hate to snuggle and I am a hot sleeper (I like really cold sleeping quarters, cannot be confined by top sheets, and socks while sleeping is my version of hell), I do love the company of another warm body in a big cozy bed in a very chilly room.

My dream last night involved Dunbar from the Real World: Sidney.  It was brought to my attention that Dummy Bear (what all those cool MTVers call him) did some porn and I may have watched the clip (if you find it, SO NSFW obviously) and I will never get those 6 minutes of my life back even though sometimes (shhhhhhh) I do enjoy me some erotic film.  Being intimate with Dunbar in my dream made me feel like I was in college and whereas I like that feeling most of the time, I do remember being in some pretty bad sexy situations that I walked right into without knowing how to get out..one of them is that I was had sex with someone like on three separate occasions (I have been told) and I do not remember any one of those occasions.....I mean NOT good and I am SO lucky.

Being naked in my dream with Dunbar felt a bit like that.

Also, then I went to Starbucks in my dream and ordered a vanilla latte and forgot to say nonfat and then I thought they gave me whole milk even through I do believe the default is now 2% and then I never even got to drink that fattening delicious latte because my nephew came into my bed screaming "Rowseeeeeeeee" at 5am with really bad morning breath (I never knew 2 year olds can have terrible morning breath) because I must admit that I do a killer rendition of Ring Around the Rosie complete with a tickle-pickle (I made this genius up myself) breakdown that comes immediately after we all fall down.

Talent people, talent.

These Are My Confessions

I'm not Usher.

No, for real, I did get up in the middle of the night and eat some cookies mindlessly and then I stuffed a few chocolates in and then I didn't rebrush me teeth and then I woke up drooling chocolate.  It happened.  I logged the calories, 370.......and I have moved on.  This is an accomplishment in itself.  I am not going to be all or nothing anymore.  370 calories will not define the final results in a year....baby steps, one bite at a time.  It all went into my calorie tracker as "Late Night Snack Attack."

Perhaps I woke up and needed some sweets because I had a sex dream about Ted Danson.  I mean, WTF?  I never even considered him sexy, but after last night....whew, silver fox rocked my world.  He has very strong shoulders and hands if you are wondering.  He is also tall (in my dreams), lives in a rustic Colorado home, with beautiful showers, a kind size bed with bedding so soft you may be rolling around in a cloud, toilets that talk and wash your lady parts, and a full-time security staff lead by Mase (like P Ditty's former sidekick from 1998).....Also, I dreamt about Friends Ted Danson, not Three Men in a Baby Ted Danson, and not current Ted Danson who is starting to look a little too much like my dad for normal purposes........and gag.