Guilty Tuesday.

This movie is one of my oldest guilty pleasures.  I can't explain why I love it so. 

I laugh at how ludicrous it is pretty much the entire duration of the movie.

And yet...  I keep watching it.

Oh, Johnny Depp.

Catharsis.

Read 1, 2, 3, and 4 first.


I have been mangled, battered, broken, bruised, torn, cursed, and scarred beyond recognition.  I have been stalked and I have been pushed around.

I'm not going to lie.

I have been convinced I was weak enough to go back.

On some level, I thought if I kept trying, he would realize that he didn't need to fight with me to keep me.  I thought if I stayed, he would suddenly change into the sweet and shy boy he had been when we met.

I failed to see that the fact that he was just a boy was part of the problem.  He was just a boy.  And he would never turn back into the loving person I wanted to be in a relationship with.

Sometimes I'm still afraid to write personal things on my Facebook, Twitter, and even on this blog, which is one of many reasons I didn't write this post for so long, and why I get vague and weird about saying where I live and what my plans for the future are.  Sometimes I'm afraid to answer the phone at work (which is, unfortunately, my job).  I'm afraid to drive home late at night because I think someone is hiding in my car. 

I am afraid of the sounds outside my window.

But I don't care.  I'm afraid, but I don't let that fear control me.  If I changed my plans as a result of fears I have based solely on things he did to me or threatened to do, he would still be controlling me and my life.  Something I refuse to let anyone do to me ever again.

Honestly, I'm sometimes thankful.  I needed to grow up.  I needed to learn who I was.  I needed to learn what I wanted and how willing I was to get it. 

I needed to learn that I do not need a man. 

I needed to learn I am stronger than I feel.

Sometimes I still cry.  Not because I miss him, necessarily.  I haven't seen him or heard from him in months and for that I'm thankful as well.  I cry because I miss having someone love me like he did when things were actually good.  But the love he showed could never compensate for the cruelty he also showed.

Sometimes I cry because I miss being part of something bigger than just myself.  Not often, but every once in a while.

Mostly, I cry because life is so completely unpredictable.  And PMS is a bitch.

I am so different from what I expected myself to be at 24. 

I am so much better.  So much more honest and real.

And if it took this huge relationshit to show me who I actually am, so be it.  I know I can handle whatever life throws at me now.  I know how much I can take.  I know it's so much more than I ever imagined it could be.

We're (when I say "we" I mean my cat and I, because he's more awesome than any boyfriend I've ever had.  My apologies to any ex-boyfriends who happen to read this.) survivors.

So you know what, life?

Bring it.


P.S.--  Thank you, Bambi.  For making me a better and stronger person without ever realizing what you were doing.  I'm sure you're out there, somewhere.  Watching.

Exodus.

Read 1, 2, and 3 first.


My parents returned from Mexico late Saturday night.  When they reached the San Francisco Airport, my mom turned on her phone to receive a text I had sent her a week before saying I'd left him.  She never texted me back.  Never asked any detailed questions.  Just greeted me with open arms when they arrived home.

I like to think they were overjoyed. 

Sunday Bambi was in Chico until sometime in the evening.  I knew because he had texted me about it the night before.  A pointless trip with one of his worthless drunk/druggie friends.  He was psyched.

It took me two weeks to fully move in to the aparment.  It took two hours for us to move everything out.  Including my baby kitty, which he tried valiantly to get back.  But I had too much emotion invested in him to let him go back to someone I knew would ultimately kill him, just as he almost killed me.

As we were driving over, my mom said to me, "Welcome to your first quasi-divorce."

The exodus from my near-life, near-death, near-marriage. 

By the time I moved out, I was fifty pounds lighter than I had been when I moved in.  I was thirty pounds lighter than I had been two months earler.  I was an unhealthy, anxiety ridden, and a complete and utter mess.  I felt broken.

Despite everything (and believe me, it's pretty glossed-over as a result of the length of this piece anyway), I didn't stop talking to him.  For years.  I didn't know how to let go of the only real love I'd ever known.  The only relationship I'd managed to stay in for longer than six months... 

The brown eyes.

The End.

Read 1 and 2 first.



I turned 21 in that little apartment. 

I got off work early and he had hidden a sort of scavenger hunt of little presents around the apartment for me to find.  We had beer and pizza for dinner, since I could legally go to Liquor Barn and purchase my own Corona. 

I was happy.

For the most part. 

It seemed to creep up on me, the drinking.  I didn't notice how much he was doing it at first.  Then, by the time I realized what was happening, it was too late.  He didn't respect me enough to listen when I told him not to drink.  I think as an alcoholic, he couldn't help himself.  The guys at the drag strip would bring beer when summer started really getting hot, and he would tell me he had only had one while hiding the three or four other empty bottles behind his back.

Someone would always rat him out to me.  I was the old lady, after all, and they would rather he do his duty and face my wrath than they have to. 

I am fully capable of being unbelievably scary.  Apparently.

I wouldn't really know.  I don't scare myself.

The more we fought, the more he drank.  The more he drank, the more we fought.  There was no end in sight.

Then he started calling me to fight while I was at work.  Sometimes he would do it when my boss was standing at my desk.  Then call back four or five times for good measure. 

My work performance was suffering.  I never got enough sleep.  I was sick all the time.  And he was always on my case about something.  My acid reflux was so bad that I couldn't eat until after I got home from work.  I lost probably lost close to 20 pounds before I got fired.

That was before the shit hit the fan.

I was depressed over having lost my job.  I was trying to find a new one.  But for those of you who don't realize, Northern California is exceptionally hot in late July and early August.  I was trying not to use my car much because I didn't have money for gas.  But schlepping around town in 110 degree weather in heels and trying to look presentable for potential employers just doesn't work. 

I was also driving him to work every morning and picking him up every afternoon. 

He knew I had always wanted and orange and white "tiger kitty," so he found a litter of free ones.  He let me pick the one I wanted.  I wanted the little boy. 

He pissed on me the first two nights we had him.  He would wake Bambi up several times over the course of the night attacking his toes.  He would crawl up on Bambi's pillow and sleep there with me after I returned from taking him to work.  He would wait by the door until I got home from looking for a job, and later from work.  He would wait until I sat on the couch, then run so he could curl up on my lap.

He was beautiful, albeit a little bit of a shithead.



I make it sound like something terrible happened to him.  It didn't.  He is still alive and still gorgeous.  He still waits by the door for me to come home from work.  And sometimes he still sleeps on the pillow next to mine.  He was one of the best things I got out of the relationship.  Along with a feeling of self-preservation and some fucking sweet Hollister sweatpants that "accidentally" ended up with my stuff when I moved.



Though, I didn't expect him to end up being so... Angora.

Bambi drank more and more.  Then he started calling his friends in the middle of the night and going out at two and three in the morning. 

He would have fits of anger in which he'd push me or throw things at me.  He would hold me down by sitting on me with his knees on pressure points on my upper arms so I couldn't move.  He pulled out a handfull of my hair.  I could hear it ripping from my scalp.

In September, I finally got a part-time job at Payless.  His sister got married and I made her a centerpiece in filet crochet with lilies designed in it.  I stayed home to work on it the night of the bachelor/bachelorette party.  He said he'd be home by ten. 

He wasn't home at midnight.  And he wasn't answering his phone.  He was still gone at two and three and five. 

When I got up at nine to get ready for work, he came home crying.  He said they'd made him snort Ritalin, then drink beer to come back down, and they had taken his phone and wouldn't let him call me.

I still don't know if I believe he was forced into any of those things or not.

After work, I went to my parents' house.  They had just left for a weeklong trip to Cabo.  It is the only time in my life I have ever desperately needed my mom and not had her around.  I couldn't even call her.  I know she would have been there if she could have.  She was just already out of the country when I broke.

An hour before rehearsal dinner was due to start, I went home and woke Bambi up to see if he planned to go.  His mom called while I was there and he said we were going.  Then he asked me to call her back and tell her he was sick.  I don't think he ever really woke up from his hangover coma.  I packed a bag and went back to my parents'.  My brother was housesitting, but said it would be okay if I stayed in my old bedroom for a while.

I went to the wedding with him the next day.  I posed in pictures.  I pasted a smile on my face.  I didn't cry when his family members asked when we'd be getting married.  I stayed with him that night because he wouldn't let me leave when I tried.

I'm not even sure he slept.  I think he may have just laid beside me and watched me all night, memorizing everything I did, knowing I was already gone.

A Case Study.

Read this post first.


When the song first came out, one of the people I went to high school with posted on Facebook that it was not about love because real love could never be like that.

I had to hide the post because I didn't want to argue over it with someone I now only know through (presumably mutual) Facebook stalkage.  

Real love isn't like that; real love is about mutual respect and adoration, blah blah blah. 

Maybe real love is supposed to be like that, yes.  But, unfortunately, that's not always how it works out.

Sometimes you can love someone so much you don't realize how deeply and horribly wrong your relationship has become.  Sometimes, love makes people volatile.  If love was everything it was supposed to be, we wouldn't have hate crimes, cheating, or spousal abuse. 

Haven't you seen Purple Rain?  Love draws you back in.

When a certain type of person falls in love with another person, they want to own them and control them.  That way they will never leave. 

Bambi was adopted.  His parents divorced when he was little and he was forced to endure a neverending parade of "aunties" every time he stayed at his dad's house, and his mom worked constantly just to be able to keep a roof over their heads and food in at least his mouth. 

He grew up desperately needing attention.  He became involved in sports, which he was apparently very good at, but he sustained several injuries over the course of the years and by the time I met him (he was 25) he had the health issues of someone twice his age.  His mom did everything she could to be there for him.  She always thought he was the best at everything.  That adoration, coupled with pretty much being ignored by his self-absorbed father, gave him false confidence. 

By false confidence, I mean he acted like hot shit most of the time, but really needed constant praise to feel any self-worth.

As a result of his less-than-perfect childhood (I'm not trying to blame anyone by saying that; most kids nowdays are forced to grow up lacking something, especially as the result of divorce.  However, in cases of adopted children, it seems pretty important for parents to have very strong relationships in order to adopt, or single parents who can provide for the child they desperately want should be able to adopt more easily.  Unfortunately, this was not the case for his family; his mom made sure she was able to get him while she was married to his father, stuck it out for a little while, then divorced him.  She remarried when he was fifteen and he ultimately grew up with several terrible [and alcoholic] father-figures), he not only constantly strove to gain affection from everyone, he also was constantly searching for the one thing that would never desert him.

He tried to identify with musicians and professional athletes on a personal level, beyond just enjoying their performances.  He wanted to know them, in some cases even be them.

He couldn't find himself.  I'll never know how aware of it he was becuase of that, but he spent much of his time trying to feel accepted by groups of people who were really awful because he felt like he was more a part of their seedy lifestyle than worthy of becoming a creature of life and light.  (By that I don't mean God.  I mean a productive member of society as opposed to someone who constantly sits in a bar, does drugs, and allows the lowest members of society to push them around.)  He was incapable of truly becoming an adult.

When I first met him, he was one of the sweetest, cutest, shyest boys I'd met.  And I was in a very vulnerable and lost place in my life.  I was 20 and intended to transfer to Southern Oregon University, but really didn't want to go.  I didn't know myself.  I didn't know what I wanted. 

The only thing he knew he wanted was me. 

After a few months, I decided to stay and keep my accounting job, which was actually an excellent job, especially considering my age and limited work history.  Once I'd decided to stay, he started to test me.  He would fight with me over nothing.  Fight with me all the time.  Do anything in his power to get me into his bed because that was the only way he said he could re-establish the connection between us. 

At the time, I fell for it.  I believed him because I was young and naive.  I believed him because no one had ever looked at me with as much love and adoration as his brown eyes could sometimes hold.

I fought to keep him in my life. 

It was like I passed his test by doing so. 

I loved him unconditionally, as I always tend to do.  (Why love with conditions? No one should have to conform to something they are not, something someone else wants them to be, in order to be loved.  Love is not control over another person.  I would know.)

He became addicted to me.  Dependent on me.  And I just didn't see it.

He convinced me to move into a one-bedroom apartment with him.  I loved that apartment.  It was perfect.  And for a while, I loved living there with him. 

For a while.

A Long Time Coming.

Several of my friends are turning 21 this year.

While I am beyond excited for them and more than willing to help them celebrate (responsibly), it's also a little strange for me.

I hadn't really thought about it much until a conversation I had with some other students during my biology final last week. One of the other students mentioned that he felt young compared to a lot of the people in the class because he was 21. My 32 year-old lab partner told him that when he was 21, he was married with a baby.

When I was 21, I was engaged.

I lived with my fiancee.

And I had a 5 year-old step-daughter who told me to marry her father the day I met her.

This was my life.



*Note-- This is the playlist I listened to while I wrote this post and the four that will follow very soon. If you're interested. Who knows; it might set the mood while you're reading.  I know it set mine for writing.


**Note on the note-- Track number seven makes me cry pretty much every time I hear it. Especially if I hear it after track one. There were a couple songs on the playlist on my iPod that I didn't include in this playlist, primarily because I just didn't need it to be that long.  And don't try to guess if one of the songs was "our song."  It's not in the playlist.  A Quiet Mind is as close as you'll get.

Just Like Peeing in a Cup... Kinda.

Have you ever heard of a "female urination device"?

Yeah, I hadn't either.

Thanks, Stumbleupon.

In case you're curious, it's basically a little silicone funnel ladies can use to pee standing up.  Which could be completely awesome for same two reasons I pretty much refuse to pee outside (unless I'm drunk on the beach, apparently).  1)  I ALWAYS get raped by nature.  Even if there is no grass in sight, the second I squat down, one blade of grass will instantly pop up.  And it will always, always be dangerously close to my cooch for absolutely no reason.  Nature can be so stupid.  2)  Downhill is never behind me, where my shoes are not.

If I had been, like, seven when I learned about this contraption, I would have been using it for the last 17 years (I suddenly feel old...  Eeep).  Since I was actually 23, it just strikes me as weird.

Not saying I wouldn't use it.

Just saying you might have to give me some champagne first.

Death of a Jeweler.

So, I had to take my fabulous new ring to the jeweler to be resized because if I try to wear a seven on either of my ring fingers it will inevitably fall off.  

When I have jewelry sizing needs (and let’s face it, since most of my rings need to be a 5.5 or 6 and all the ones I like are for some reason a 7, this happens a lot) I like to go to my parents’ jeweler.  There are a few reasons why I do this.

1)  I like to support small business as often as I can.  Unless small business is trying to ass rape me.  In which case I choose the cheapest place with the most decent product.  In this case, the small business support really works for me.

2)  This particular jeweler actually constructed my mom’s wedding ring, using her engagement ring and another ring.  (My dad had the new ring made because her original wedding ring was stolen.)  It is fabulous.  I’ve never seen another like it and I’ve been in love with it since I was little.

3)  I usually get a discount because my parents have been going to this guy for, like, 20 years.

I took my shiny new ring in and he determined that he would be able to resize it without taking the stone out (awesome) and it would be pretty inexpensive.  Yay!

He started talking about how he remembered my name and the association with my parents, but couldn’t remember what I looked like the last time I came in.  I told him it was because the last time I was in (also to get a ring resized) I was about 50 pounds heavier and had longer, very straight hair.

This was about the point at which I remembered the dude is kind of a creeper and I should have just not said anything.

But it was already too late.

I was running errands in my comfy “dyke jeans,” a plain t-shirt, and some vans.  He checked me out and told me I needed to wear some tighter-fitting jeans to show off the weight I lost (I’m sorry I don’t feel like a denim rape session every single day, awkward jeweler).

Then, he almost died.

Seriously.

Because I almost killed him with my bare hands.

Instead of just stopping there and not continuing his downward spiral of idiocy, awkward jeweler said this:  “You could be one of those girls…  Who models…  You know, for like bigger girls…  You know what I mean?  …Like, plus size models or something…  ‘Cause your face is pretty enough to be a model…”

Then an anvil fell on his head, just like Wiley Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons.

Okay, maybe I just imagined that last part.  

But seriously, he is dead to me.

Until later when I go pick up my ring.  

For that, I might need to put on some baggy, raggy, dirty sweatpants.

Decaffeinated Death.

I’m still feeling a little irritated and minorly depressed.  But I know it’s just the result of the fact that I am worried and anxious. Plus, I have a pile of laundry to sort out/put away that is nearly as tall as me now.    

Really, that’s pretty impressive. 

I also accidentally dumped out my little plastic bag of panty liners near my schoolwork.  So every time I’ve needed a one in the last month I’ve had to try to find one underneath all my books and part of a pile of laundry. 

I can’t stand it when my space is this messy, but I haven’t had time to work on cleaning it in a while.  It’s not helping my stress levels.

And there’s the PMS.

Being a woman really blows sometimes.

Like, when birth control makes you crazy.  But not taking birth control makes you paranoid and crazy.  And you can’t decide which one is worse.

Speaking of PMS, I should probably monitor how I exercise when I’m upset.  Because even though my job is technically sedentary, I actually do have to move around a lot and it sucks to shuffle in pain instead of walk upright like a regular homo sapien.

Also annoying is having to explain to my boss why I look like a cripple.  As is his retaliation for my making fun of his back-out crazy-walk for the last month.

Probably should have thought that one through.

It’s okay.  I won’t in the future, either.  I never learn.

Last night I couldn’t sleep.  I got maybe four hours, total.  I’m an eight hour girl.  My boss asked me a question twice and I didn’t even realize it until he pointed out that he forgot he already asked once.  I didn’t even bother to try to pretend I noticed he did it.  And he didn’t bother to ask why my eyes are puffy and so dark that I look like I’ve been brawling.

You know who should brawl?  The Brawny man and that Charmin bear.  I’m rooting for Brawny so that I don’t have to see the bear talking about how he gets little bits of toilet paper stuck to his ass again.

It’s one thing when my family talks about that kind of thing.  Coming from an unfamiliar fucking bear, I feel that’s a little more information than I really asked for.

Also, Brawny dude is kinda hot.  In that manly log cabin lumberjack kind of way.  He could totally take a bear.  Then make the bear into a rug that would lay in front of the fireplace in his log cabin.  Maybe not the kind with the head on it, though.  It would be kinda creepy to be all up in Brawny’s business, then look over and have the Charmin bear watching with that blank, dead taxidermy stare.

I suddenly feel as if I’ve taken this too far. 

How did I even get on this tangent, anyway?

Man, sometimes I wish I could drink caffeine again.