Reconciling Saints

Dear Dead Husband, 

Well, you did NOT get better, as I had hoped, and I'm here trying to piece it all together, not to mention trying to stop your father from sucking me dry monetarily. Currently, he's in the lead. 

It's a long story. I'll tell you sometime. 

Tonight, I was finally able to change any profile pictures on social media to something that was just me and not us. That's pretty huge for me! I don't know why I couldn't do so before this, but I couldn't. I guess it just helped me remember the good times and not just the end there. 

But I don't want to talk about the end right now. 

I want to tell you about the progress.

Aside from changing the pictures, I've also started tackling the shows we used to watch that I couldn't catch up on because of where we left off. It shouldn't have been that hard, but it was. The books I could do as there were only a couple series... or was it only one?... that we were waiting on, and it was a solitary pursuit that we only touched on when we were both done. 

Books... 

Speaking of books, I'm reminded of the first night I spent in this house on the day you died. You had a book open to where you left off before you passed, your glasses laid down beside it on the coffee table. I had to ask Tracy to take it away while I went outside to smoke. It was too real, too soon after... a reminder of how quickly you had been there and then gone. I still cry when I think about that day and seeing the book. It still guts me. 

OK! So... ummmm... enough of that. I came here to tell you about my progress, not to tear open the wound. 

I love you. I miss you. But I do understand, and maybe we already knew how this would end. 

Love you. Truly, deeply, madly.

Ceci

I remembered how to breath the other day.

I was worried about getting a call back for an interview, doubting myself and my abilities. My head was going negative about what I can or cannot do, and then... I didn't care. I stopped worrying and I started breathing. With every breath I put it all out there to the universe, just laid it all out. I will or I won't get a call back, I might get hired full time at the current position or I might not. Breathe in, breathe out.

I stopped caring. Not in a negative. I just... let go... and I felt calmer, I felt ok.

Then you know what happened? I got another call saying that they were going to be scheduling appts. for next week and I should get a call back then.

See? It's ok to let go, it's ok to surrender and just breathe. Life is easy... it's like a heart beat... it's like breathing. The trick, as Ms. Shirley Manson said, is to keep breathing. Just live.

Life is good in the in- betweens of what we worry about and what we want. Sometimes we forget to live it because we're too busy worrying or wanting. This is it folks, so do it. There's no later... just now. *shrugs*

So I leave you with the words of the late great, albeit stupid, Jim Hanson:
"Life's like a movie
Write your own ending
Keep believing
Keep pretending
We did just what we set out to do..."

... because it's appropriate for today.


*Special thanks to Tracy for bringing this song back onto my radar.


Also, thank you to Señor London for helping me find where the Keyboard viewer is. It's helping A LOT*!


*not to be confused with the Alot

This is our cat Iggy.


Every time we go into the bathroom, he follows us in and stares at the tub, whether or not we're actually in there for a shower.


Basically he's waiting for one of us to get in so he can lick the water that trickles out of the shower down the side of the tub.


Addict.

Life, my friends, is weird.

I know, I know... I say that all the time. Here's the thing... it's true!

On Saturday I got upset because the boy that I'm, well, married to, was giving me a hard time about paying my bills. I don't want to get into a he said she said here, and I know some of you are still friends so I'll leave it at that. Needless to say, he pissed me off and yes, there was a good reason for it.

Weird #1:
10 years with one boy... 10 years with a million ups and downs, love and admiration, a move and a wedding. Open relationship. I don't see anything wrong with that, really. I have a "problem" with not being able to, errr, restrain myself. I don't see that as a problem, but many do, so I brought it up.

Now, who knows exactly when everything changed or exactly why, but it did. He's not the guy I knew and either I'm not the girl he knew or I didn't change. Whatever it was, things changed and our run as partners had ended.

Sad? Yes. Very, in my opinion. I understand, through our therapy sessions, that it happens. People change. We, as our therapist said, should not think of it as a failure, but instead we should understand that we had a good run; change does not make it a failure.

Now, he's phasing me out. His point of view is that I phased myself out since I moved. Is he right? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. It's sad to me, to think that someone I was so close to, loved so much for 10 years, is gone. It seems, and again I could be wrong, but it seems that it's easy for him to let go or at least think that not being part of my life is the way it should be.

I don't understand this and so for me it's weird. I don't understand not knowing, not having in my life, someone that was such a part of it for so long. Had I stayed, would he have done the same thing? Would I be in Portland wondering why he's phasing me out while I was still there and we hung out with the same friends? I truly believe that if I had stayed, I would have been worse off than I am now in sanity and depression. It would have been difficult to see him hanging out with others if he wasn't a regular part of my life, even if it wasn't in the same way we were. I have a feeling he'd have done so anyway.

Having Stephen so far away would have been extremely difficult. I can't rationalize in my head how I went from one to the other, I just know that I knew when I called it off that it had been done for a while and we just hadn't seen it that way. What about when Mae returned? What of our relationship then? I just can't wrap my head around it.

Weird #2:
I had a good job that paid well, friends I loved and a city I adored. I left it. I already realized this and knew what I was doing when I left it. However, it sunk in a little more on Saturday, probably because I now have to give up insurance since I don't have the money to keep up with it. Why, I asked myself, did I leave? I thought of everything I had and what I was able to do. All my clothes were generally not cheap, the products I bought the shoes I loved were not inexpensive. I left this for a life where I didn't know what I would be able to do, didn't know how I'd be living.
...
I could see why people thought I was crazy for leaving, especially so suddenly.

The thing is, I knew what I wanted and what I needed. I knew that staying in Portland was not only prolonging what I wanted to do but would make me miserable. Don't misunderstand me, it's not like I hated it and didn't have friends who turned into family and a good job I liked. I would be miserable because of 2 very good reasons: the death throws of my marriage and not being with Stephen.

My marriage was done, I knew that. We had changed and had been arguing for quite some time before I came to Lexington for a visit and fell in love with one of my best friends, Stephen. When I went back I was miserable not so much because I wasn't near Stephen, but because my marriage was still a mess. The couples therapy didn't help and Da5id's want to be with Mae also didn't help. I know I let him be with her, but I let him because I didn't want to have to ask him to stay. He would be staying because I asked him and not because he wanted to be there. That I thought that was a point of arguement with Da5id as he thought that my asking him should be enough. I just... didn't and still don't agree with that. I knew then that it was over and I knew what I had to do. I knew that the death throws had started a while back, as was quite evident from the nonstop fights and crying fits. When I called it, I knew this and I accepted it. Then I knew what I had to and wanted to do. Move to Lexington.

A while back I left a good paying job to work at Trader Joe's. The money was a little above minimum wage and the days were odd. Yes, it didn't help my finances and I was living paycheck to paycheck, but I had done so because I hated having a job that I was eh about just because I made good money. I remembered that I had done so because the happiest I was was when I was working at Tower Records for not much money. I'd rather be happy than have a high paying job. Silly? Maybe. Still, it's what I prefer.

I was starting to dislike my job in PDX because it was ok in the makes me happy field and provided me with flexibility and nice people to work with. Still, it wasn't me. No matter what happens here, what sort of job I get, I want to be happy in it and I also want to be able to pay my bills.

I'm still going through the death throws of my 10 year relationship with Da5id. Mostly because it was 10 years and I don't know what our next evolution is, how to still have him in my life as he's been such a big part of it. I don't regret leaving and I don't regret ending it. We are both happier apart, yet I still hold some pain and bitterness that I have to get through from all the things that went on since sometime around January or perhaps earlier.

Stephen... Stephen I adore. We've been friends for so long and understood the crazy parts, our actions and decisions. Being free have the option to love another person and being able to take our relationship to that next level allowed us to progress. I don't see it as leaving Da5id for Stephen because I tried very hard to keep Da5id and me together and make it work. I believed that we could. In the end, we could not.

I'm happy now. Despite the hard times, no job, and having to give up medical insurance, I'm still very happy. Maybe that's because of Stephen and then again maybe not. All I know is that he makes me happy and he makes me feel right and whole... and home.

Weird, that.

Tracy introduced me to this...

The Mockingbird Song from Katy Towell on Vimeo.

... and I ADORED it.

So!

Remember how I said that my parents took it well???

Yeah... apparently my mom changed her mind. I got a very long talking to from my mother last week that included such statements as:
"You never should have let us spend the money on your wedding if you were going to leave in a couple of years."
"I feel ashamed that you let Da5id's parents spend that much money in thinking you would stay with him."
"Marriage is something you try hard on. If you get in a fight all the time with him, so what? Your dad and I get in fights all the time and we're still married."

Yeah...

Part of me wishes that I had disappeared, had changed my number and never contacted them again! Ah, if only! I, however, have that catholic guilt/ need to love my family. As far as I can tell, and as my therapist had said, they're not always the best thing for me, whether they're family or not.

SO here I am in Lexington, hoping to god that my mom doesn't stick with her threat of coming here to "talk" to me. Seriously, am I 16 years old and are my parents are planning on coming to take me "home?" My parents say that at times like these I need my family around since they are the ones that understand me. REALLY?! Really?? Is that why they never got it when I was actually trying to communicate when I was a teenager???

*clears throat*

Yeah, 34 years old and my parents are still treating me like a teenager.

Moving on!

Life's a mess, but still good. Well, things with Stephen and me are good. Life's... trying; a mess.

Quick rundown:
- I didn't pass the test to get licensed by the state for insurance which means that I can't work at the insurance company managing accounts.
- I'm TOTALLY broke. Completely used up all my resources, as I was SUPPOSED TO BE working by now. Seriously, I don't know WHY I didn't keep looking for jobs in those 3 weeks that I was studying for the exam. You know... that thing about putting all your eggs in one basket and what not.
- Stephen is having legal issues because of that cunt of an ex-wife (and my ex-friend). A lawyer was needed so now we're BOTH tapped out in trying to pay the retainer. Phun!
- My health insurance is usable here BUT I need to pay up front and then my insurance reimburses me. Do they think that I have the time or money to wait 3-4 weeks for them to reimburse me??? Fuckers.

Ok ok... all negative so here's the positive...

...

Oh!
- meeting new friends (Stephen's friends and old acquaintances, really)
- Lots of Stephen time :D
- Hanging out at the shops. I really like most of the people who work at both shops.
- I now have 2 cats. Well, Stephen's of course, but now that I live there, well I help take care of them and I talk to them.
- I like my room and my desk in my room where I play on this here computer, Eddie.
- Drinks are cheap
- When we go to Mia's (a bar), if Mary Beth (the owner) is there, she likes to feed me vodka as she's a vodka lover and an old friend of Stephen's.
- Stephen. PATEOTS.

That's what I got so far. Life is good but trying. Everyone PLEASE try to send good vibes that I get a job and/ or unemployment through Oregon REALLY soon!!

Stephen and Evie Bean

That butterball of a cat named Iggy. I think he's trying to be a rug or something.

Evie Bean and a PBR.

Drunk, smoking and taking pictures. You know, like every Saturday night.

At our friend Mackenzie's work party.

Ok... a post has been a brewin' since my first week here, and now that I've been here a month (Yes, REALLY!) I think I'm starting to get things in place and my head in the right space.

Huh... that rhymes...

SO... I figured I'd start with pictures of the house. These are just a few and I'll have more of the rest later, but it's SOMETHING, right?

Stephen's record collection... or as Adin calls them, Stephen's big CDs.

The living room with the lovely antique wheelchair. I even got my Lain cel up!


We painted one side of the hallway red, which we think looks pretty damn neat!

My room :D The painting on the closet door is by the famous child artist, Adin ;)

Oh and new haircut! It's freaking hot and humid here so I went REALLY short!

I'll get you filled in more later.... promise!