ub[3]rgeek.net

It is strange looking back. In the three and a half years we dated and the nearly nine years we have spent as friends we have a sum total of like 3 pictures of us together. I have tons of pictures of the house, tons of pictures of computers and car parts but few pictures of her and even fewer of us. Now that things are all up in the air I am finding myself regretting not having more pictures of us. I treasure every moment we have together and I want to remember them all. I want to build on them a wonderful friendship, that hopefully will last a lifetime, or at least a very long time. It is amazing how things change, how before I didn’t feel like I needed reminders as every day was an adventure in it of itself. Now that things are challenging I like to look back to where we have been, good and bad to try and build on it — to better myself and strive to be the best friend I can be.

I think if I can keep the past in mind but not let it haunt me I can grow and improve myself and I can make this thing work. I still have a ton of emotions all wrapped together about all this but I know through and through that my only course of action is to be the best friend I can be right now and build that into the best thing it can be and I believe it can be wonderful. I am still driven by something deep in my heart to protect this girl, to support her and to make her proud of me. I am trying desperately to continue walking this line here, to keep the balance between my own needs and my desire to support her. I think I’m doing an O.K. job right now, I’m keeping myself safe and yet I’m finally opening myself up to Carla.

I am getting better, building this friendship is helping and giving me strength to push forward. If I can keep myself safe in this then it will last and things will be wonderous.

It’s funny, It has been so long since I’ve gone out and had a good night that I feel actually compelled to write about the weekend I have had so far, ignoring the fact that it is a) not nearly over yet and b) I’m pretty buzzed at the moment and would rather be laying down or sitting on the couch (though I still seem to be able to type pretty well and I haven’t called the ex yet…).

Yesterday the ex and I met after work for some coffee and it ended up that we went to Chili’s with a whole bunch of people I haven’t seen in ages. It was an absolute blast and I had a fantastic time, probably better than a lot of the times I recall from recent history with the ex and I. Great food, wonderful company and just sitting around and laughing. It was a perfect night. Driving back to my car we sang along with the Avenue Q soundtrack, which is something I usually only do when I’m really comfortable with someone or drunk off my ass. It was an absolutely perfect night.

Saturday dawned and the general chores of the weekend settled in and the ex called me up for coffee. So I went, and for what it’s worth it made me smile to spend even 10 minutes with her. I have been so spoiled living with her that now not getting to see her every day is still hard. So any excuse I have to spend time with her is fantastic. But this is where it gets good and of course this will show you how the story ends with me being nicely lit.

One of my co-workers plays guitar in a band called Household Pest here in Rochester, NY. They played out at a pub about 2 miles up the road from me called J. B. Quimby’s Public House so I met up with a bunch of work people there. Beers and shots were had and it was a good old time. So good in fact that I had to have the roommate come get me.

A good time was had by all, they were rocking out pretty hard and even though I’m not the biggest classic rock fan I was bouncing along with the tunes.

I am not so inebriated however that I’ve stared drunk dialing the ex. Though that would be pretty funny to have to hear about tomorrow.

Oh well, there are more weekends and plenty of opportunity for that!

P.S. Matt, your car is in the J. B. Quimby’s parking lot. Don’t freak in the morning when it’s not in your parking spot. Love Matt!

P.P.S. Next time you go out, maybe you should eat something, that day…. you damned cheap date you!

Last night I went and saw 300 with the roommate, Luke and my brother. It was over the top and filled with man nipple and leather codpieces, but dammit it was enjoyable. I got the lecture about how historically inaccurate it was later from my brother, but I thought it wa amusing and the cinematography was well done, it was bloody and gruesome and over the top. Exactly what I needed to see. Today the ex and I got together and saw Number 23. Jim Carey never ceases to amaze me with his range as an actor. He played the part very well and it was quite good. Also I enjoyed getting the opportunity to spend time with the ex, and getting to spend time in a movie theatre holding hands with a pretty girl is always a plus. Afterwards we talked for a while and the whole time I couldn’t stop smiling, well except for the teary-eyed bits, but other than that I was grinning like an idiot. And slowly but surely I’m forgiving myself.

Other than lasagna, if you asked me what food made me think of my ex the most I would say teriyaki chicken over rice. It was the one dish that she cooked the most while we lived together I think and as such it reminds the the most of us living together. So I tried blindly to replicate her handiwork tonight and the chicken came out OK, but the rice is another matter entirely. I will have to get the hang of the rice cooker as I think I may have committed a crime against humanity with respect to the preparation of the rice.

I am desperately trying to make some semblance of normalcy reappear in my life. Tomorrow will be the 3 month anniversary of our break up. I am pushing myself so hard to become a better person because of this whole thing, trying to do more and not let the sadness overwhelm me like I know it can. It is hard, I miss her a lot more than I ever really thought I could miss anyone. I still use her as a barometer for a lot of things, like when I have been redecorating the house, a lot of my decisions have come down to what style do I think she would like. Obviously the intent is to create a home for myself that embodies my own likes and desires but many of the things that she would like I enjoy either because of her influence on me or simply because we share many of our tastes. I think I have succeeded even though this is the easy part of the growing process I have to go through it is no less as important as learning how to communicate better.

Anyway, I will have to get better with the rice, but other than that, not a bad dinner.

So friday morning I woke up and moved my right leg wrong and really tweaked the muscle out in the back of my lower leg. I have not had anything hurt so much in a while, even when I popped my jaw out of place a month ago didn’t hurt quite this badly. Well for some damn reason just now I did the same thing to my left leg. I really am a damn mess.

Burning Crusade is fun and Anorak is almost 61 but I feel like an outcast in my guild and yet she is the guild leader and I helped her run the guild until a few months ago so I don’t want to leave.

With her gone it feels so alone here, so cold here. I have to find the strength to fix my failings because I never want to lose someone as important to me as she is again. I don’t think I could bear to love anyone again if I have to endure this pain again.

Day two (three?). People have been around all weekend so today will be my first day alone here. Saturday night Clayton, Mary and Luke were over until god knows what hour of the morning. I was a lot less social than I could have been but I just wanted to be alone and to figure out how the hell to live alone. I’ve always had her to support me, I guess I’m starting into a withdrawal of sorts.

Anyway, Sunday Luke was over most of the day and we just kind of lounged around which was nice since that morning I scrubbed the bedroom and the bathroom down as well as the kitchen. The house is getting there. More vacuuming to do around the house and the ‘den’ that I lived in for a few months is in serious need of love since there are piles of my things in there.

In other news we switched most of the house over to Compact Fluorescent lights over the weekend. It cost us about $40 to do it, but they are all 26 watt bulbs replacing mostly 75 watt bulbs. The light is a much cooler white (6500K rated) so it looks somewhat industrial in here, but we’re getting used to it. It’s starting to seem more like daylight the longer we have them. I don’t expect HUGE cost savings on the electric bill, but every little bit helps. Mixing the few regular bulbs left (in the living room there are two lamps which the CF bulbs won’t fit in) with the CF lights seems to help cut the industrial look a lot, and we still get the benefit of the energy savings.

Pictures of my mostly-cleaner room can be found, as usual in the gallery.

Sunday was pretty good, pretty emotion filled but otherwise good. She and I ended up sitting up and talking until shortly after midnight drinking plum wine and looking at pretty Japanese things on the internet. Last night she pretty much just packed until she couldn’t move anymore and appears pretty frustrated by the whole thing. It is tearing me up inside to see the house getting taken apart like this. She is 1/3 of the family that I felt we had here that built this place into a home and her leaving is really hard for me both because it’s the end of our relationship but because it’s the end of this place being the home that it has been.

It also feels that our chance for friendship after this is tenuous at best. I want to keep my promise to her that we would always be friends so badly, but something just feels off in this whole situation. Like a force is looming in the shadows outside of my field of vision that is pulling us… not unnecessarily apart, but pulling us in a direction that I can’t quite make out. I feel that we’re going to be apart for some time while we try and nurse our wounds, I just hope that it’s in the cards for us to find each other again.

At least the plum wine was good!

So the first batch of furnature showed up today and I got the kitchen table and chairs setup and for the first time in nearly 2 years (1 year 355 days) I did two things that have never been done since the three of us moved in here.

1) I cooked dinner
2) We ate at a table

See, until now we didn’t have chairs for the kitchen table so we have always eaten whereever. Be that in front of our desks or on the couch or on the floor. Pretty much wherever. So tonight I put together the chairs, set the table with my new table cloth and place mats, even lit the oil lamp we have and made dinner.

Of course she didn’t join us for dinner. Now I know things have been uncomfortable for her and it’s not exactly easy for me either, but I’m still mad. I know we’re not dating anymore, but she’s supposed to still be at least my friend and roommate and I just hoped that since we started this journey together that we could finish it together.

I guess that is too much to ask.

I know I shouldn’t be mad and I really shouldn’t expect her to play along with my desire to have the last few days of our time together here be anything like normal, but that’s rational thought…. and I’m not really all that rational at the moment.

Anyway, I’m excited about the new stuff that came in and I’m off to put together my new coffee table.
Here’s a picture of the new kitchen table setup. Other pictures of the house are in the gallery.

Edit:
Coffee table is together and one of the end tables is together. Pictures being added to the gallery at a furious pace!!

It’s 5:50 AM EST right now and I’m awake. Why the hell am I awake? I am back at my home, in a bed (after she and I broke up I had slept on the couch for the first 3 weeks or so) that is actually mine from before all of this (when we moved out, we took her bed which I had been sleeping in for the last almost two years). I am tired, but I can’t sleep. And it’s not even that my mind is really racing, or my heart is really heavy at the moment. I just can’t sleep.

She is leaving for the weekend soon and I had hoped to be asleep when she left. It appears to me that since she is leaving at 8:30 AM I may not get that wish.

It is so wierd that she makes me feel so safe. It is also wierd what us breaking up has made me realize. I am sure I appreciate our time together much more than I had in the recent past, probably because I only have a few short weeks of it left. It is going to be a big change not having her around anymore. My
safety net is going away.

I keep making jokes along the lines of ‘how will you do (x) without me?’ as we do stuff around the house and I think the reality is that I’m asking myself ‘how am I going to do anything without you?’ Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to spin completly out of control, but it’s a huge shift of reality for me and I really don’t know what it’s going to be like at all. All I can do now is follow my heart and hope that it leads me through all this.

God I wish I could sleep.

On the upside, when her and I were out earlier last night at Target we ran into one of my co-workers and he told me that his second daughter was just born!! Her and the mom apperantly are doing fine and he
was just in there to pick up some baby formula!!

It is quickly approaching christmas, she’s gone for the weekend, my family here are about to leave and I will be here all alone with my thoughts. I can’t go home yet, it is all too raw and yet I feel as if I am abandoning my family. In a strange way I felt like her and I were the parents in a rather strange family and dispite all of this I still do feel that this is more of a divorse than a simple breakup. I can see myself forgiving her now, I know she’s a good person who just made a terrible mistake. The really truely hard part, that I’m having a real hard time swallowing is that forgiveness may not be enough. And I’m terrified as we all are of time; for we are just mortal creatures and time is this thing that continues to pass us by until eventually we realize how much we let slip.

My father stopped by today to wish us a merry christmas. It was hard, especially with the number of things recently that I have been challanging myself to deal with that stem from my relationship with him. He is looking awfully thin and pale, I admit to being worried about him. As much as my relationship with him has hurt me in the past I still do not wish him any ill favours and am distressed to see him appearing unwell.

Anyway…

A merry christmas to all, may your lives be full of warmpth and people who love you. That is what truely matters in this life, so hold it dear my friends and do not let time pass you by and leave you longing in the end for that which you always had.

To those of you who are or were my friends, I love you all very truely and wish you all the best. To anyone whom may have wronged me in the past you have my forgiveness. And to those whom have wronged me in the present you have my best wishes despite it all. And finally to those whom I have wronged you have my most sincere, heartfelt apologies.

My resolution for the new year is to find the strength in myself to follow through on my promise and become a better person and a better partner. I know I have it in myself, I just need to find it.