The Good Old Days

Had dinner with an old friend tonight and I had really forgotten how much of a friend he had once been. I’ve been in sort of a depression as of late. It started with a totally crazy Blue Angels week. That escalated into big expectations for my four day weekend, vacation time I hadn’t had in quite a while, that spiraled out to nothing much after a car accident on freakin’ Friday the 13th and extremely hot weather that made me feel like doing nothing more than laying around feeling sorry for myself.

From there it’s just been the overwhelming feeling of being alone. It’s been one thing or another that has piled up on me. I had one of those “last straw” moments at work, and have felt totally isolated from the guy who once called himself my boyfriend. It pains me to realize that the one person I spent most of my time with is busy with his girlfriend and probably only spent time with me before because he was lonely and wanted to get back together. My role playing group hasn’t met up in two months and its looking like it’s done for good. Lastly, my good friend Laura, who has kept me feeling sane, was gone for these two weeks to be a part of a wedding in England.

About a week ago I got very fed up with everything. I was going to delete my facebook account and just plain old give up when this good friend found me. I literally stopped in my tracks and felt better about having a facebook. It wasn’t until our conversation last night and our dinner tonight that I really started remembering how close I was to this person. As I drove home tonight I felt a bit of inner peace slip back into place.

I love being reminded that I am still the person I think I am. I am still the person that I wanted to be even back so long ago. I’ve grown and experienced life, I have my stories, but I’ve also stayed the person that I am inside. I am an intelligent, witty, and attractive female, that doesn’t “act” like a girl. I love all that nerdy stuff and have been unafraid to hold on to it no matter my age. The one thing that drove me absolutely nuts was that my last boyfriend had this rock solid idea of who I was and how I reacted to things, which was NOTHING close to how I think I am and appear to be. For years I’ve agonized over how I lost who I was, and if other people thought I was that person my boyfriend thought I was. His friends even agreed that I probably needed to seek counseling and medical attention for my bi-polar symptoms. I can safely say now, nope… It was just the messed up relationship that was causing me to acting completely unlike myself.

I always say that life is like a video game. You gain friends and experiences that prepare you for the big boss fight at the end. I think I first caught my guy’s eye because I was a nerdy gamer chick without all the social awkwardness that usually goes with that sort of person. I can attribute a lot of things to my first boyfriend… but thinking hard I realized that it all started a lot farther back.

This friend I had dinner with tonight was a part of the largest group of friends I’ve ever had. During my first year of high school I randomly fell into this menagerie by being able to quote Monty Python. We called ourselves The Clan, not in a white supremacists way but more like a Scottish family. We had our special table at lunch and we always hung out as a big group. It was through these people that I learned about important things like: anime, role playing games, renaissance faires and the SCA, boffing, metal music, Pink Floyd, video games, gothic fashion choices, and how to be the quickest whit of them all. All of this required intelligence and vast amounts of humor. I learned to laugh at myself and that people can make fun of you and still care.

When I think of high school all I can do is lament for those days and those people. It wasn’t all social grace and amazing acceptance. I’m not forgetting the bad parts too, but it all happened at just an important time in my life, the first year of high school. I was that shy person that no one ever understood, and then all at once I was surrounded by people who thought like I did, and enjoyed the same things I did. It was an amazing way to learn and grow when most teenagers only remember the cruelty of those who didn’t care to understand that which wasn’t apart of the itemized list under the blanket term of “cool” for the moment.

All of that sort of was sealed on the first week of my freshman year of college. My best friend was not of that world but had pushed me and helped me discover over sides of myself as well: a need to achieve excellence, a competitive nature academically, and just the softer things in life. She had always accepted my strange nerdy, gothic side but never joined me in it. For some reason that night I put on my goth gear, a black velvet dress and these lace up patten leather boots that were plat formed enough to make me six feet tall and I decided to take a quick walk outside just to show I was different and not like the rest of the sheltered rich kids that I thought was all that attended that university. I walked through a busy lobby that night and instead of stares and judgment, I got hit on (nice to meet you Anochie). That was when I knew this was who I was, quirky or otherwise and that was never going to change. I was willing to risk the “fresh start idea” that came with going off to college because I didn’t need to pretend to be someone else.

As I was saying goodbye to my friend tonight I saw a DnD manual in his back seat and felt a little tinge of happiness. Now at thirty years old I’ve come to realize that it’s those “nerdy, gamer people” who grew up the most while still managing to hold on to their childhood. It takes an adult to organize a number of people and run a DnD game. It takes dedication and a sense of adventure to stick out a video game, while also understanding that being adult requires time to unwind by dutifully playing said video game. They are some of the best parents I know, being still able to see through the eyes of a child and being completely willing to spend the time with their kids doing whatever. They’ve also retained their ability to laugh and perspective on life that makes them appreciate what the past has taught them.

I am still who I am. I wish my role playing group would get it together so we could get back to our adventure. I just downloaded Commander Keen onto my computer and I’m putting off really getting into it, because I’ll REALLY get into it. After attending that Renn faire a couple weeks ago I am still entertaining the idea of getting out the sewing machine and actually finishing the costume I had originally planned, even though faire season is pretty much over. All the things that matter to me are important simply because they matter to me.

It was a good night.

Love Changes Everything

For all the less than girly things about my personality I am to the core a helpless romantic. There is nothing better than a man who opens doors for you and does all those little things that shows he cares specifically for you.
In the past I wouldn’t have included the “L” word in that list of things. Those three little words were always so over used and quick to be spoken before the real meaning was really pondered. In some cases it was something merely said when the other person was angry or right before hanging up the phone so really it was nothing more that just three… little… words.
Yet it’s these three little words that have also set me free. He was eloquent when he said it wasn’t puppy love that this has been earned between us. The “L” word was given when the heart was truly ready and with full knowledge of the other person’s quirks and faults. Time has only made us closer and more understanding I think, which is new for me. Everything else of my past relationships has crumbled or faded with time. With him, a year and a half later, I still feel that spark.
As with everything else that has happened with this certain someone, it’s as if everything that I’ve been put through or have done in the past has prepared me to really appreciate him and what we have. When others doubted me and gave me advice that would have swayed me in the past, I instead chose to listen to my heart. What we have has allowed me to grow as a person rather than hold me back. What we have has allowed me to see clearly both myself and my needs. What we have has shown me that I can choose to be with someone, not feel I have to be with someone.
Nothing is perfect and I have no delusions of grandeur, but Love does change everything.


Love Changes Everything
By Andrew Lloyd Webber

Love, love changes everything
Hands and faces, earth and sky
Love, love changes everything
How you live and how you die
Love, love can make the summer fly
Or a night seem like a lifetime

Yes love, love changes everything
How I tremble at your name
Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Love, love changes everything
Days are longer, words mean more
Love, love changes everything
Pain is deeper than before
Love will turn your world around
And that world will last forever

Yes love, love changes everything
Brings you glory, brings you shame
Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Off into the world we go
Planning futures, shaping years
Love (comes in) and suddenly all our wisdom disappears
Love makes fools of everyone
All the rules we made are broken

Yes love, love changes everyone
Live or perish in its flame
Love will never never let you be the same
Love will never never let you be the same

The Adventure Returns...

Back in high school I was dating this guy who had the oddest hobbies. He loved to sew; enjoyed making costumes to wear to Renaissance and Medieval Faires. He grew his hair long and painted his nails from time to time. He loved reading and writing both fantasy fiction and poems. He also did this crazy thing called Role Playing. I sat in a couple nights with him and his two friends, Mitch and Aaron, confused and yet fascinated by how the whole thing worked.
I have always loved anything set in the medieval era. Fantasy and fairy tales were where I placed all my thoughts as a child. I had been taught to sew but it wasn’t until I started making costume pieces that I really did some of my best work. I looked down on those that didn’t make their outfits as they would have originally (minus how I came about the cloth and taking advantage of the added efficiency of a machine that stitches for you). I’d even come up with a name for those half-assed fakers that merely showed up to one faire once a year thinking they were “all that”: Topic-ers. These were the people that bought everything from Hot Topic and then tried to come off as if they were well read and knowledgeable about the time period. Please remember that this was fifteen some years ago when Hot Topic was stricticly Goth wear and not the crazy skater-eighties-skinny pantsed-emo wear they sell now.
At my boyfriend’s urging I created a character, with his massive and overbearing assistance, and started to play with them. Aurora the Grey Elf Mage was born. Role playing is exactly that, designing a character within certain rules and really PLAYING that person. Aurora became a sort of split personality for me the longer I played her. She was the amazingly gorgeous, flirtatious, and talented woman I wished I was. But as time went on I didn’t have to think about what SHE would do in a situation, what her weaknesses or faults were, I was in her head playing her straight on.
My boyfriend had also found a job working for Wizards of the Coast, a corporation that had bought the rights to TSR, the company that produced Dungeons and Dragons materials. It was like being hooked into the supplier for an addiction we all had. It was also a completely illegal outlet for making extra cash selling cards for deck games like Magic and Pokemon to card sellers before they could get them legally. Those were some strange back alley transactions which I never approved of.
Once in college my boyfriend found other players within our dorm, Danielle and Doug joined us and even Aaron made the drive over from a neighboring university. We started meeting every Friday night in his dorm room, Pizza Time pizza our only sustenance. Those adventures were some of the greatest memories I have because I really saw them in my mind as we played. JR was a story teller and an amazing one at that. It hardly ever felt like we were being lead down a chosen path. He created an amazing world and we freely and randomly interacted with it.
From those friends we met other people, Nick who lived in our dorm and ended up later that year playing with his group of extended friends. We also participated in a tournament through Wizards of the Coast where two of our players won awards for best played character (Aaron) and highest points achieved in the game (Nick). I on the other hand got the unofficial award of “Quickest to Die.” I had enjoyed the tournament and it was great to play the game as it is officially intended, but man I was neither prepared nor able to think quickly and creatively. I sucked!
When JR and I and my best friend Janai and Nick, who had recently started dating and he had just taken a new job working for WoC as well, all moved in together that summer it seemed there was always a Dungeon and Dragons game happening. Those were some good times of being able to surround yourself with the world of the game twenty-four / seven. But when I broke up with JR three months later things became horribly strained. JR moved out and continued playing with his co-workers, delving into other worlds dealing with vampires or werewolves. Then the next blow, Nick and Janai broke up five months later and I lost all touch or avenue of playing the game. I was also dealing with a completely distraught best friend and we were the remaining two people in that big apartment. We had bills to pay to finish the lease and playing make-believe didn’t seem practical any more.
Over the years I’ve generally kept touch with everyone. Those people and maybe two more are all I can think of that I’ve remained friends with over the years. I graduated with my totally practical Biology degree, but still managed to work in my love affair with lords and ladies and the inevitable dragon or two when I completed my minor in Medieval Literature.
Flash forward eight years… when ever Danielle and I had a chance to get together and talk the idea of an all girls game night or putting together a group to play DnD always came up. I wasn’t ever really in a place to do that and feared the new editions and rule changes had ruined the game as I knew it. Since my high school reunion over a year ago I found myself back in the company of those I went to college with, even dating one of them. I had gotten in touch, somewhat randomly with JR recently and he was quick to confirm that he had two separate games that he played very often. Nick was still doing a faithful weekly game with people that I had played with through his extended friends in the past, and old co-workers of WoC that I had met at one time or another. At my birthday dinner Danielle told me all about meeting her group weekly. I suddenly found myself wishing and thinking of old times. It seemed like everyone I knew was still playing but me!
When she and I met later last month for dinner, again the subject came up and I expressed my jealousy. From there we ended up concocting a plan. Danielle was still good friends with Mitch and Aaron and neither of them had played the newest edition. It would be a nice fresh start for all of us. Leaving her in charge of seeing if the boys were willing I had to smile on the way home. How strange that if everything worked out I’d be playing with two guys that I had started playing the game with in the first place. But then again there were complications. Mitch and I had parted friendship in not so grand a way, and I had no idea where I stood with Aaron after all these years. They had both been friends of JR’s and really I hadn’t spoken to them since JR and I broke up so long ago.
When the email came back that the boys were willing and we set a date to meet up and discuss things, I got really nervous. It had been ten years since I had seen these guys. Life puts so much bullshit in the way of people’s relationships, but it’s up to the people whether they let the bullshit stay in the way. Since I had started seeing JN and dealing with the never ending drama from a girl I had once called my best friend, I’ve really put a lot of thought in what I considered insurmountable bullshit. To my way of thinking, there isn’t much in the world that isn’t surmountable. I’ve learned that other people have differing and limited thresholds. What would I find when I walked into that coffee shop? They had to at least be agreeable, since they knew I’d be apart of this group.
It was a fine evening even if it was odd that it had been so long since I’d seen those guys. Nothing seemed hostile or cold about their interactions with me, but when JN offered to come down and say hi, I was all for it. It had been forever since he had seen these guys and I needed the added moral support. Sitting next to him and watching his interactions with them as well as with all of us reminded me that I’m not the same person I use to be, and at the same time I am the person I am.
My biggest complaint about my last relationship was that he held a firm idea of who he thought I was, and I completely disagreed with with that idea. In fact I HATED it. His responses to my personality and reactions were all tuned toward this idea he had and it made things horrible between us. Being with JN was like going back to my roots and being reminded of the motivated, intelligent woman I was (and still am) in college. I fought tooth and nail to get my education and finish my degree without any financial assistance from my family. That is who I am, and the person I am now eight years later is also who I am. I am not JR’s crazy ex-girlfriend, I am not the broken down alcoholic ex-Army wife, I am not the co-dependant idiot that can’t do anything right. I am me… and in his eyes he sees me. In moments of insecurity, that is the best feeling in the world.
So in two days I’ll be meeting my group for the first night of actual role playing. I still have a lot of reading to do about the mechanics of the game since it’s all new rules for fourth edition and well… it’s been eight or nine years since I’ve even tried to play this game at all. I’m also pretty sure I never really KNEW how to play the game any way, or at least I was never very good. JR had been the sort to do something for you if he felt you were taking too long to do it. I have no memory how I went about building the stats and scores for my infamous Aurora character, but this time I’m going to do it myself. I’ve borrowed books from Nick and totally plan on surviving this without help. I want to learn it right the first time and on my own.
What will the future hold? I’m excited to find out.

She Stands With a Well-intentioned Man

An old friend called to tell me that she was getting married to a guy that I had met twice and who she has been dating for only six months. I tried to be happy for her but in every word and tone she used as she talked about the coming wedding and the man she’s about to pledge her life to, I felt only determination. No love, no singing passion, just calm well-planned determination. It’s as if this was the next check mark to be made on her list. House …. Check. Marriage…. Check. Now it obviously takes two to get married. Finding a man willing and able to pony up for a ring after just six months says something toward their relationship. But I hear plans not love.

I’m reminded of two quotes from the movie Meet Joe Black: William Parrish: Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. If you don't start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who'll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you'll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.
William Parrish: I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a dervish.

I’m not sure why it bothers me so much that I’m not hearing any heart from her. She and I aren’t even close anymore, where once we were sisters. She was the maid of honor in my wedding and I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without her. Now I am getting a phone call two weeks later and the option of getting an invitation in the mail. I know people said that I sounded the same way when Mike and I got married. Maybe she’s being defensive about the situation, I remember I was. It was all too stereotypical: we were graduating from college and he was going to be an army officer. If our relationship was to continue it was either get married or break up. Was that smart? GOD no, but I can only say that with retrospect. At the time we talked for hours and days about whether I could survive the life of an army wife, and if we were really meant for each other. I was then and still am fully intent on having the fairy tale and nothing less when it comes to the ultimate commitment. That’s what marriage is… it’s not a party, or a cultural agreement to hang out exclusively. It’s a celebration and a public announcement of a “forever” kind of love.

But not everyone sees marriage that way and I don’t know anything about her man or their relationship. I have no room to talk really. All I know is that she’s not singing with rapture and I feel sad about that. But then again, why would she sing with rapture to me?

I really like the band Death Cab for Cutie, and the more I listen and read their lyrics the more this group really speaks to me. The elegant simplicity of their instrumental sound and the way they’ve chosen to record their albums fits so nicely with the lyrical stories they write. The song “Cath” always makes me sad and wonder about so many women’s reasons for walking down the aisle and was I guilty of it myself.


Cath...
By Death Cab for Cutie

Cath, she stands with a well-intentioned man
But she can't relax with his hand on the small of her back
And as the flashbulbs burst
She holds a smile like someone would hold a crying child

And soon everybody will ask what became of you
'Cause your heart was dying fast, and you didn't know what to do

Cath, it seems that you live in someone else's dream
In a hand-me-down wedding dress
Where the things that could have been are repressed
But you said your vows, and you closed the door
On so many men who would have loved you more

And soon everybody will ask what became of you
'Cause your heart was dying fast, and you didn't know what to do

The whispers that it won't last roll up and down the pews
But if their hearts were dying that fast,
They'd have done the same as you
And I'd have done the same as you

Black and White Birthday Night

So it’s official… I survived three decades. Thirty years I’ve been on this planet and I’m honestly not sure what to think about it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and that I’ve done my best to embrace it with style.
I pretty much skipped over being twenty-nine. Some how I managed to turn everything into an age joke and I was most assuredly taking credit for having already reached thirty. Hell, when I was at my sickest the night after “opening” for Bar Grooves, there I was bitching about being thirty years old and didn’t I think I would be smarter about my alcohol consumption by now! I was ready then to be older, but now that I’ve passed that specific birthday I wished I had taken more joy in being in my “twenties”.
Since graduating from college it seems that I’ve spent most my time with people that were either ten to twenty years older or five to ten years younger. Now since my high school reunion I am back in the company of those who graduated from high school the same year as I, and from college the same year as well. We’ve even listed each other off in order of who is making the leap to middle-age next. Since the summer SJ has been talking about going on a cruise for the sake of not being in the country when she turned thirty. MN wasn’t even in the state anymore but she would have her usual costume party for Halloween and her thirtieth, I was so envious. None of my attempts to have a costume party ever worked. Then again I had a difficult date to work around.
I’m not sure how I came to my final decision of trying to book a show for my celebration. I had heard and seen other people, better connected in the music scene than I, being able to throw a bill together and getting the night of music in their name. Three of my closest friends were all in amazing local bands and yet they were all completely different: Americana/folk, reggae/rock, electronica/down-tempo. No booker in their right mind would even ponder such a bill. I knew right away that if I was going to make it work I had to start looking early for a spot to rent out. How expensive could that be?
Pretty damn expensive as it turned out. Even thought I was starting this search in early September I knew that I was still facing issues with finding a date that would work for everything: the bands, the location, and my friends. The earlier I started the better. The first spot I emailed was the restaurant that the high school reunion had been held. The second floor was exclusive and interesting, with a stage and sound system at the ready. After several awkward emails back and forth with the manager, the price tag of four hundred dollars and the requirement of catering at eighteen to twenty dollars a plate was more that I could honestly tell myself was worth the effort. My parties are never well attended, not even when it was a nearby location and open to the public. It would be ridiculous to convince myself that I could get two hundred people in the room, even if I tried to charge a cover in order to deal with the rental charge.
So that led to emailing all sorts of locations and getting prices both north and south. The date as I’ve said before is a difficult one. I felt like I should at least nail down a location before I made the bands commit to playing. With several locations giving me similar prices for both a private function or rental that I could open out to the public I was starting to wonder if I should walk away from another outrageous and impossible idea.
On a whim I emailed LC the owner of the club Lena and I had once spent so much time at. I wondered how open minded he would be, but I knew he’d have a weakness for the fact that Lena’s band was to be my headlining act. I was actually surprised how receptive he was. But then my plan hit a snag. My opening act was going to be out of town for the end of December. Although totally willing to play, I had to decide to replace the band as an option or change my time table. Deciding that the three band bill was very important to me, I figured I was back to square one and told LC that it wasn’t going to work out.
But he kept emailing me. It was almost like a car sale, the way I would refuse and he would come back with another deal for me. In the end he gave me exactly what I wanted and I was so excited. I would take care of paying the bands, and he would take the cover charge to cover his costs. No rental fee and open to the public. I was responsible for advertising the show. It couldn’t have worked out better. But when I reminded him that we had yet to decide a date in January that would work for both of us, his response crushed my hopes. He had some how missed my email explaining that the end of December would no longer work for me, and had created this offer all on the basis of the original date. I thanked him for his time and went back to emailing rental spaces.
Out of the blue a week later LC emailed with the date of January 10th. He was still interested in having this show and I couldn’t have been happier! My crazy plan was actually going to work out and it wasn’t going to cost me a million dollars. I could do this! With those details locked in and all the bands confirmed to play shortly after, I was set! Hell, I even had plenty of time to get KT to make posters and I could plan my attack on the town of Fremont in order to promote and advertise. But that was January… my birthday was in December. I still wanted to do something on the actual day.
My original plan got split into two nights. The elegant dinner party and night of music that I had originally planned when I had thought I could afford the space from the reunion made me go back to look at the other spaces available in that restaurant. And I found it. The two times that I had been to the restaurant I had totally been enamored with the glass encased theater that sat in the center of the main floor. It was exclusive and yet fun. I could show a movie and people could come and go as they pleased. After reading the specs on the space it was perfect: seating for seventeen, space for up to twenty-five. It was just the right size with the option of watching a DVD, satellite TV or hooking up a Wii. I paid the rental fee for the HD Theater in early October and felt like everything was in place.
Then shit hit the financial fan at work and at home. Unpaid time off was required for the next three months, which meant I was losing something close to a hundred dollars a paycheck. I had paid the rental fee the theater just in time, but I had had grand decorating plans which now appeared to be unreasonable. My car also decided that it wasn’t happy with its boring existence and ended up costing close to fifteen hundred dollars before Christmas on four separate trips to the shop.
Yet in the face of adversity I prevailed thanks to my family, JoAnn Fabrics for having MASSIVE sales on their Christmas supplies, and the Dollar Store for just existing. That’s not to say I didn’t down scale my original ideas to something much more creative and festive, with a lot of brainstorming from my friends.
I had made lists, I had checked them twice. I had packed the night before to make sure all my decorations and supplies were ready to go. I wracked my brain to be sure I had thought of EVERYTHING. I even started my day an hour earlier than I had planned for in order to make sure everything worked out. And it didn’t…
All I had to do was find four dozen red roses, but I had planned to check a couple places in order to make sure I got the cheapest or nicest roses in town. The problem I began to notice was that no one had roses and if they did it was only a couple dozen that looked long dead, most weren’t even red. Panic started to creep in as I visited store after store. Stopping into a florist shop the lady there said that none of her shipments had come in. Whether it had to do with the holiday or what, she had a feeling that everywhere else was having the same problem. I wanted to cry. Everything had been perfectly timed. I was to pick up my roses, then my cake by noon and head home to prepare in the most girly of fashions. Now it was almost one o’clock and time was slipping away from me as well as the most important part of my decorations for the night.
In the end I gave up my hunt and headed over to pick up my cake. I had seen roses there before and could only hope that they had something left. I was desperate. I was both extremely relieved and angry all the same when I saw the most beautiful roses right as I walked in the door. If only I had just come straight here I would still have the day ahead of me!
So the rest of the day unraveled from me. Almost two hours behind I tried to sit patiently under a hair dryer as I watched time tick away from me. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. I didn’t get to the restaurant until six forty-five when I was supposed to have been there at five and my guests would be arriving at seven. I had so much to set up and I knew it would never be done before they started showing up. I put on a CD that I had specifically made for this night and did my best to calm down and focus.
The final product, with the help of my friends came out looking exactly as I had hoped. Ten of my good friends came all dressed in black and white as I had asked. JN had even worn a suit and tie for me. We didn’t end up watching the movie, because it just seemed too much of a change from the table hopping and conversation that was happening in the room. The cake was beautiful and the sparklers that I had found in the shape of a three and a zero were just as I had hoped they would be.
Going home that night I was pleasantly and perfectly drunk. I was pleased with how everything had worked out and yet I was sad it was over. I do that though; get struck down with post-event depression. I had planned and saved and anticipated this night for almost four months. Now it was over and I was actually thirty years old.
Now I’m suffering from both the renewed anticipation for the show on the tenth which I have turned into a Snow Leopard benefit, and the melancholy attitude of someone who got old without realizing it. There’s something terribly social about being thirty. It’s like a barrier that cannot be uncrossed. Over the hill as it were. It’s another bench mark that makes me stop and wonder about my life and where I’m going. Do I really want this job for another ten years? Will I ever get of debt and be able to stand on my own? Is there a man out there who wants to love me and be with me forever or should I start collecting cats now?
I have “lived” my life and I don’t look back on my twenties with any regrets. Will my thirties be just as exciting? I guess I need to tackle these years with the same enthusiasm. It wasn’t about being twenty-five or any other age in between. I was just living. Thirty doesn’t mean I should give up what I like doing or stop trying to experience life. I need strive even farther.

1-800 Call Someone Else

Fall has never been a good time of year for me. All my life it’s been the months of October through February that I find myself depressively reflecting on everything and unmotivated to the extreme of being unable to get up in the morning. Right on time, I’m getting later and later to work but this year something else has layered on top to make it all worse.
Apparently similar fall depression is effecting just about every guy I’ve ever made a social acquaintance with. My late nights are currently being plagued by phone calls and text messages from desperately lonely and usually intoxicated males. Everything from a simply cry for the renewal of our friendship to the blatant demand for sex. Some are in current relationships and claim they are soon ending, with the hopes that I will come keep them company.
The caliber of people making these requests would have thrilled me five or six years ago. I would have over looked that fact that most of these guys kicked me to the curb for the lack of sex in the first place and would have decided, being the romantic that I am, that the man in question must have realized he couldn’t live without me. The sheer fact that a guy was thinking of me specifically for the easing of his sexual urges would have made my ridiculously low self esteem perk up and assuage my constant need for acceptance from everyone and anyone. The problem is… I’m not that person anymore.
I may be completely insecure about my current romantic situation, but if nothing else he is the first man to make me feel normal in the sex department. Besides teaching me a lot about myself, he’s shown me that not wanting to have sex twenty-four/seven is not a malfunction on my part. Why would I want to go back to someone, if even briefly, who made me feel like a broken human being in the most personal of all subjects between two people.
A couple of the people suddenly blowing up my phone with their needs and wishes I’ve never even slept with. No matter who I talk to about this and equating in the fact that intoxication throws out any queries of rationality, I still can’t understand why you could call someone you’ve never had sex with and ask for a quick and demeaning romp. All that leaves me with is the painful question of, what kind of person do they think I am? How did I leave them with the impression that I would think this sort of behavior was okay?
All of this has sent me into hiding, practically afraid of my phone. All I do is reflect over my less that stellar past and wonder how I became the sort of person who would get these sorts of phone calls from men. What can I do about them? Like I wrote earlier this month I realize that these people who are calling and texting aren’t doing so because they’ve realized how awesome I was and regret the loss of me from their lives. It is because they remember how easy it was for them to treat me like shit and that I would take it. That is the impression I have left with these people and it is physically painful to me when I think about it.
For all my effort to be a good and loving person who has always forgiven and tried to help everyone she came across, this is what I get in return. Base male sexual grunting without any sort of concern for me at all. To top it off, when I tried to crawl into the one set of arms that could comfort me right now, I was held in a way that said I wasn’t really there or being merely tolerated. It broke my heart.
I feel so low right now that I’m not sure how I’m even managing the day to day stuff. Some how my phone number has been written on the bathroom wall of the past, “for a good time call.” Halloween is usually my favorite time of year and I couldn’t even fathom getting dressed in the costume I had decided on almost a year ago. Last night was my good friend’s birthday and I couldn’t even imagine going out hang with her and her friends. Last year they were all so amazingly good looking that the idea of going up against that last night in a costume that was the same theme as several other people were planning to wear was more than I could deal with emotionally. I watched an old scary movie with my best friend and went home.
Tonight I can’t even get motivated to leave the house and do my usual movie night. I feel like a wounded animal that would rather crawl in a hole and lick her wounds, but I can’t even do that. These wounds are emotional and I can't do anything to deal with the pain. It’s in my dreams and in my waking hours. Every relationship I have is called into question and when I wish I had a female friend to talk to, everyone I know is not one that would understand why this hurts me so.
I feel pain that these guys rejected me originally. I feel pain that I wasn’t the one for them. I feel pain that there still isn’t someone who currently wants to shout from the rooftops how awesome I am. I feel pain that all these people think of me as some easy way out of whatever pain they’re feeling. I feel pain because no one is thinking of how any of these requests or conversations make me feel. I feel pain because one really cares what’s going on with me, when I’m obviously acting different no matter how much I’ve tried to hide my distress. I feel pain because I don’t know what to do about any of this. I feel pain because I can’t hide in the affection of the “someone” that I feel affection for.

I feel pain.

How Did I Get Here?

How did I get here…. How did I let myself get here? I sit at home alone on a Saturday night sending out text messages to people I haven’t seen in a while only to get no responses or worse yet, get responses from people I really shouldn’t be talking to.
I sit here feeling completely insecure about the romantic situation I am in or about to be out of, and I wait. I wait for every text message and read something else out of it when I do get them.
I sit here playing a computer game that I played back in college, while I should be supporting a friend of mine who is having a very important show tonight. Instead I reminisce about how I use to play this game to get through my breaks at work because no one would talk to me on the crew I was supervising.
I sit here playing this computer game while an old flame text messages me provocative messages that just make me want to cry because it reminds me that no man in my life has ever respected me or really appreciated me. They only think of me much later when they have a moment to think about how great I was to them. I’ve always had this depressive little thought but tonight I realized it’s not out of sense of new found appreciation that they call out of the blue or text me. It’s because they remember how easy it was to get me to take their shit. That’s what they want from me now. The same as it was that they wanted from me then.
How did I get here? I’m desperately smitten with a guy that I don’t think really feels more for me than that of a kitten or a fuzzy little animal. I’m good for companionship and great fun to play with when he’s in the mood, but other than that I’m best kept in my kennel or room, or hell, even at the damn pet store until he wants to come back and visit me next week
I sit here crying for my past that I’m amazed to say I have, but hate to look back on when I think that it paved the way to getting right here… to this moment. I’m almost thirty, sitting at home on a Saturday night trying to find something to do other than sit at home and yet I ignore the important things I should be doing, and merely get depressed at the ridiculous offers that are rolling in.
Have I always let people abuse me? Is there anyone that truly cares about me out there? I do this to myself honestly. I let people treat me this way… so why shouldn’t they think that it’s okay?