My trip to LA was rather cathartic. I was very diligent about not thinking about anything “back home” during my time on the other side of the country. And, we were so busy that I hardly had time to breathe, let alone think! There were some pangs of sadness, like when I met up with my friend Maria and her Nicaraguan husband who happens to be Flaco’s best friend (or they were, but Flaco has not been in touch with him as he seems hell bent on self-destruction at this point….). Seeing them together reminded me of the fleeting good memories that have been over-shadowed by the nastiness of the end of things. My last day in LA, literally as I was checking out of the hotel and heading to the airport, I got a phone call from a withheld number. Curiosity caused me to answer and it was a woman who claimed to be a neighbor of Flaco’s. She was prompted to call me by someone who works with him in the restaurant to tell me he has had numerous women over to his place and they wanted to be sure I knew about it. I flipped shit. I told this woman, who refused to give me her name, that I didn’t give two shits about what he was doing, we were separated and if he wants to bang ghetto whores that is his business. She wanted to make sure I knew, so he wasn’t tricking me or pulling anything over on me. It was a rude wake-up call that I was about to be back in the thick of things. Reality bites. I called Flaco and told him to be more discrete because I did not appreciate him dragging my good name through the mud, etc. I wish I could say that I wasn’t hurt by all of this, but I was. It makes me sick to my stomach how much he has changed in the very short time we have not been together.
But, I try not to dwell on these things. I am trying to take Joyce Myer’s advise and forgive him, but right now I am finding it hard. I would like to say that I haven’t wished all kinds of evil upon him, but I have. I’m working on being the better person here. Truly I am. I want to be the best me I can be, in body, mind, and soul. I have my work cut out for me! But, I must believe that something will come from all of this insanity. If I must endure all this heartache, it will be for a reason, even if that means making up a reason. I will improve and grow. I already like who I am as a person. I think I have a nice personality, I am kind and I try to be good and moral and do the right things. But, there is room to grow for sure. I am impetuous and short tempered, letting my anger and irritation get the best of me on more occasions than I would like to admit. And, I need to like all of me. For most of my life (I would say since 3rd grade at least) I have despised my body. I have always wanted to look like someone else. Yet, contradictory as it may sound, I never did anything to improve my physical being. Time for that to change too. We went hiking in LA (Runyan Canyon) and it was a wake-up call to just how out of shape I am right now. It made me mad. There are a lot of things I want to do in life – like hiking up to Machu Pichu – that I won’t be able to do if my body is in such poor shape. Flaco used to bring up my weight a lot and it used to make me feel worse and add to the self-deprecation. It never spurred me into action. Now, in my quest for self-betterment, I want my body to be as strong as I am emotionally. So, I am making life-style changes. Slowly. First, I have not been sleeping well since I got home in part due to my general insomnia and also because I was out with someone last night (more on this in a bit). So, I need to get myself on a better sleep schedule to ensure I get the prescribed 8 hours of sleep (my average is 6, last night I got roughly 5). Next, I am going to devise a weekly menu prior to grocery shopping to ensure I am adding more vegetables and fruits into my diet. Rather than the egg sandwich I have every morning, I am going to have a spinach quiche or a fruit and yogurt smoothie. Finally, I will be adding more activity into my life. I’m not a runner, although I wish I could be, but I am going to save up and get a bike. I might even teach the dogs to run alongside the bike so we can all get some fresh air. I don’t want to join a gym, at least not at this stage in the game. One, the financial burden and also, I’m way to self-conscious and I have no idea what I am doing in a gym. I will start out slow. I know, or I have heard, it takes 21 days to create a habit (or break one, for that matter) so my goal is to throw myself into these changes for 21 days in hopes that it becomes an ingrained routine. Fingers crossed.
So, I went out last night. I guess you could call this a third date. He certainly has been calling our outings dates. I despise that word, it makes me feel juvenile and reminds me I am not where I want to be at this point in my life. But, I think he wants to put the romantic touch on it, so date it is. Mostly, we go somewhere first and then end up talking for hours. Last night we went to first Thursdays in West Reading. It’s an area just outside the city that has a lot of cute shops, like cupcake shops, clothing, jewelry, cafes, and restaurants. We walked a bit and then stopped to watch a live band before having dinner. Then we sat in my car and talked until midnight. We talked about the TV show Madmen, Egyptian mummies and pyramids, super volcanoes, creation vs. evolution, and the Bermuda triangle. We are rather random, but I enjoy the mental exertion of our discussions. I’m a dork, what can I say? So, our times out have been nice, but I feel something missing. Passion. A friend of mine keeps urging me to not “screw things up” because he is very kind and respectful (he has not tried to put any moves on me at all, which I appreciate and all, but I hope it’s out of politeness and not that there is no desire there…..). And he seems ready to start labeling “us” in some way (before my trip he asked me, basically, where I thought this was going and I have him some vague answer about not wanting to label anything and that I saw us in an ambiguous state – he never responded on how he sees things…). So, it’s almost like we each have two faces. When we are together, it’s almost like a friendship rather than a courtship, yet when we are texting one another, it seems the focus is more on a relationship (at least from his standpoint). In person, we talk about stuff but not persona stuff. I don’t know how to explain it. And I don’t really know how to date. I never really did it before. I feel like a massive ball of confusion; a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma – or something like that. And I have friends and my parents telling me to take things slow, not jump into a rebound relationship and get hurt again. It’s not that I feel like I need to have a man in my life to make me complete or some bullshit like that. It’s more like, I know I want to be married, I know I want to be in a committed relationship, yet I can’t. Not now. I need to let myself heal from the @sshole who ruined everything. I have to hold back and let time and the good Lord heal my wounds before I am joined again in holy matrimony. But, I’m kind of an all-in person. So, I think my confusion stems from my inability to just jump in with both feet. I’m holding back. And my emotions are not to be trusted. As I was waiting for him to show up last night, I texted a friend that I wanted to run away. I was the one who asked him out! And, I seriously just wanted to run and hide and never come back out. At the behest of my friend, who has called herself my brain, I did not run. I stayed and it was a nice evening, er date. But, there is still a gaping hole where my heart used to be……
I think the only thing I have not even begun to get over is the baby aspect. So many friends have had babies in the recent future, it makes me want to scream and tear all my hair out. When I see a baby or young children, my mouth runs dry and my insides turn to sawdust. I have pushed the idea of my own children as far from my mind as I can, yet I find this insane dream seeping back in time and time again. I have stopped trying to make sense of it. And I try, with all my might, to not hate the women around me who have children or are about to have children. I know it is not their fault that I don’t have a baby, that I wasn’t able to get pregnant and now it might be too late (if someone leaves a message telling me I am still young, I will delete it with malicious intent!). Yes, I am “only” 30. Now. But, I am also recently unattached and incapable of developing a new attachment until a time unknown. And, even if I were able to re-attach myself it would take some time before we make the move to waltz down the isle. It would be nice to spend some time as a new Mr. and Mrs. before starting a family, so we are looking at like 5 years or more (my math has never been great, but I see it as 1 year of healing, 2 years of courting, 2 years married – or it could be 2 years of healing, 2 years dating, and 1 year married). I will be 35 before baby number one is born (and this is assuming the new svelte me is capable of procreating – we might end up adopting). I know I want more than one baby. So, if baby one is born at 35, then baby number two would be around 37 and baby number 3 (yes, ideally I would like 3-4 children, but as we can see, what I want and what I get don’t always equal the same thing) at 39. We are reaching into problematic years here. I know, I should stop thinking about this so much. I am trying. I have not yet obtained perfection.
I am staying busy. This weekend I plan to visit a college roommate in Philly for cinco de Mayo. And I have the house to clean, a yard sale to attend, and meals to plan. Staying busy keeps me from missing Flaco and missing our life together. It helps me to keep moving forward and not to slump back into things with him. Yes, there have been numerous moments of weakness, which at first I found helpful (odd as that may sound) but now I find distasteful. Especially given his dalliances with the ghetto whores. I am somewhat amazed at how resilient I am and how my refusal to break has caused me to latch onto only positive thoughts and not dwell in self-pity or depression. I have several mantras or positive affirmations, if you would like, that I tell myself when the icky thoughts seep in. I tell myself that I live a happy, healthy, harmonious life. I tell myself that something good is going to happen to me and that God will give me double blessings for my troubles. I listen to Kelly Clarkson’s song “Stronger” to remember how this didn’t break me (I repeat the line “You know, in the end the day you left was just my beginning”). I urge myself to enjoy my life NOW, not in the future when I have all that I think I want out of life. So, in essence I am handling it all quite well. In fact, I think I am handling this calamity better than I handled the whole infertility battle. Whoda thunk?
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