Redemption

This weekend was probably one of the best weekends I have ever had! D and I were able to talk and get through our rough time on Thursday and we decided to get away for the weekend. We headed up to Denver for a weekend to celebrate us, get away from everything and everyone and just unwind! We left Saturday morning and made a pit stop at the outlet mall in Castle Rock. Found some amazing deals and really had fun just shopping and strolling arm in arm with him. By the time we left, we made it to our hotel in the early evening. We picked a pretty great hotel....it was cheaper than most but was actually quite perfect. We had a room that had a little living room in it and made it look like a little studio apartment. The best part was this beautiful lake right next to the hotel! We have this affinity for lakes which I love, and it really helped in the decision making process on where to stay. Once we got into the room, we were trying to decide on what to do, and he left something in the car that would help us decide, so he went down to get it. During that time, I decided to pull out my surprise now...I bought myself lingerie, which I have NEVER done before. I really feel comfortable around him and wanted to do something out of the ordinary and wanted to feel sexy, which I have also never done before. The look on his face was absolutely worth every bit of money spent on it. I have never felt more desired in my life. It was extraordinary! I just melted! We decided that the theme for the night should be just that, doing things outside of our norm and really just enjoying each other's company. We headed toward downtown Denver and our first stop was the Cheesecake Factory for a really nice and romantic dinner. We had this cute little secluded booth that was so perfect. With full bellies, we left the restaurant and headed out on 16th Street Mall. We heard something like a concert going on and as we approached, we discovered it was a huge movie screen set up in this park in the middle of downtown and it was showing E.T. We were over the moon excited that we actually get to participate in this cute little event! It was amazing to cuddle together in the grass as a nice breeze blew across us, watching E.T. and getting to enjoy the beautiful cityscape as a backdrop! The movie ended and we continued on our way down the mall, this time ending up at Starbucks for some late night coffee. As we were leaving, the guy behind the counter smiled at us admiring how in love we looked and offered us some dessert on him! We spent the rest of our time taking in the scenery and stopping to listen to a jazz band on the balcony of a shop. We stopped at a liquor store on the strip and got a bottle of wine and spent the rest of our night next to the lake talking, cuddling and making love. It was the most romantic and wonderful night! I couldn't have asked for anything better! That weekend was exactly what we needed, and brought us closer. I can honestly say that I am totally in love with this man! It has taken me by complete surprise, but I couldn't be happier!

Here we go again...

I needed to vent today….not sure where to start! Things with D were going well…we have had such an amazing time getting to know each other and build on our relationship, and really getting to connect. It was incredible, and I feel more for him every day. And then I went on vacation. I went to visit my family and he stayed at the house to pet/house it. I was gone for 5 days, and I really missed him each and every day. On our way back, as we were getting closer and closer, I was getting anxious and excited to throw my arms around him and cover him in kisses. And as soon as I got to the house, that is what happened, and it was short lived. Within an hour, he started talking about a video game he wanted to finish, and I was crushed. Here I am, gone for 5 days and back for an hour, and he wants to play a game! I gave attitude and showed that I was devastated. We ended up working through it fairly quickly. Throughout the night and into the next few days, there was a myriad of problems that kept us at each other’s throats. Last night’s fight was the one that hit rock bottom. We argued and said some pretty mean things and left both of us questioning this relationship. We cooled down enough to say goodnight. This morning, D’s alarm went off and woke me up from an awful dream in which he basically ditched me and an event to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend. He ended up telling me he didn’t love me and that he wanted to be with her. It jumped ahead to a year later and I was doing a play. At the end of the performance, I looked in the audience and saw the ex-girlfriend but no D, so I shot her a dirty look. She motioned to the other side of the room where he was as he made his way back to his seat. As he sat down, he linked arms with her and his 2 kids and one they had together joined them. It was devastating and heartbreaking. I woke up feeling incredibly sad. I ran downstairs to tell him, hoping he would cheer me up. When I told him about the dream, he just said it was interesting. When I asked him if he still wanted this relationship, he said he wasn’t sure. It really crushed me. I have really fallen for this guy, and I was starting to see us having a future together, and he is now unsure. I have just been in a funk all day over it. Thinking about it ending tears me up, but I know that if I can get through a divorce, I can get through anything! I hope that we can work out our issues and make this work, I really do. Just frustrates me that he can so casually talk about it like that. Really makes me wonder what it is about me that makes it so easy for men to hurt me or leave me! I just want to be happy! I want to know that someday, I will have a great life and will be as close to happy as I can get. Give me a man who is loyal, honest, kind, compassionate, and loving and a child and I am a happy camper. It just seems like a nearly impossible task to have any of it. I thought I was on the track to being happy, to having everything that mattered, and it was ripped away. I hate starting over. I just want to know that I am making the right choices in my life. I get so confused sometimes, that I really wonder if I even know what I truly want. The other thing making this frustrating is my mother living with me. I appreciate all she does, but I am so tired of the lack of privacy and feeling like I am a teenager playing pretend. I can’t please everyone, and at this point, I just want to please myself! I really need to start giving it to God again…he did far better with these things than I am, and I need help! I need to feel like myself again, get my life figured out, and hope and pray it works out for the best! I can’t wait to go see my bestie in a week….it will take my mind off everything and give us a bit more time and space to figure things out!

Standing my guard

I have always had this finite sense of justice, it’s pretty much been with me since I could remember. If I felt like something was not right or fair, you were going to hear about it and I was going to make it right. As a child, you don’t have a lot of say in things, and what you thought was fair may not be so in the eyes of a parent, or to everyone else for that matter! That is why as a child, I could not wait to grow up. I just knew that everything was going to be fair and as it should be. I was convinced that I could live off of a $600 a month budget surviving off of Cheetos and apple juice, and the occasional splurge of cookie dough! I envisioned this wonderful life complete with the perfect man and an adult career all balanced out with 6 children! In my world, everyone was treated with respect and no one cheated to get ahead. Love was love and there was nothing that could break that. As I got older, I realized that I have just as much power to make things fair as I did when I was a child. I am merely a piece in this game of life and I have to go along with things no matter how unfair or unjust as they may seem. I am still bound and determined to have certain things my way, but it’s not really working out so far!

One of the most unfair things which also happens to be the one where I have the least amount of control is in a relationship. I know this phrase is a little off putting to some. Why would someone want to have control? Come on! If you don’t think you are controlling in a relationship, you are a lying fool! Everyone wants to have a little bit of control! It’s the person you are that determines how much! I have come to find out that I can be quite a bit controlling! I am trying desperately to rein this in. It’s just like cleaning, I know that no one will clean it as good as I do, so why not take over the project. I think this is where most of it comes from. I feel like I have infinite knowledge on relationships and life in general, so why shouldn’t I just take over? Hahaha, yeah, now I’m the fool! But I like to pretend this is true! I think that having control in a relationship over certain things is a good thing. Where you have weaknesses, it’s better for someone with those strengths to jump in and take over, therefore, controlling that part of the relationship. This control really took over when my ex-husband cheated and left me. Everything that I thought I knew went up in smoke. I was hurt beyond measure and the worst part was that I was so vulnerable and completely blindsided! I swore to myself that it would never happen again. I would always be guarded and aware of what was going on. This statement itself is absurdly crazy! It is unfair to let something that happened in a previous relationship affect a new relationship. But, this is how it’s been so far. I am trying to let what happened go and open myself up and not be so guarded, but it is just too hard. I fear everything and my insecurities consume me. I find it nearly impossible to trust.

I know the values in a relationship that I hold high, and I know the expectations that I put on a relationship, and they are very simple but are very necessary. I want someone who is loyal, honest, trustworthy, kind, and someone who can communicate, show patience and understanding, and who accepts me and loves me for me. I don’t feel it’s too demanding, nor is it too much to ask. Then there are the things that are just common sense and don’t need to be talked about. It seems that those things come up and bite me in the ass constantly! Boundaries is one of them! If you are in a committed relationship, it should be common sense not to give your number out to a woman without communication to the partner. If she is truly a friend, then it needs to be presented in that way. Communicating that you have this friend that you want to give your number to so you can shit talk about work, or what have you, is better than saying nothing at all and giving it away without regard to that partner. A friendship shouldn’t be hidden. Messages should be able to be read in front of others as well as phone conversations. The minute you lie or hide anything about that person, it turns nothing into something. You have now crossed a boundary that you should have never been near! I don’t know why this is a hard concept to grasp or why I keep coming into contact with this scenario! Am I being completely unreasonable? I just don’t get it. But I will not be the fool that excuses this behavior. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! I will not go through what I just went through again! I won’t be as guarded in this relationship, but I am a hell of a lot smarter this time around and not nearly as gullible or naive. I don’t need that kind of disrespect or dishonesty in my life, and that is my sense of justice! You want to act like that, take a hike, you are not for me!

Let the good times roll!

Yesterday, D and I celebrated being together for 6 months with dinner at The Elephant Bar and going to see Pacific Rim in IMAX 3D….not exactly the romantic night in Denver that we planned, but that was put off for a couple of weeks. We ended up having a wonderful night! It’s crazy to think about the fact that we have been dating for 6 months! It feels so short yet feels like I have known him for years! We get along so well it’s ridiculous! This is the happiest I have been in a very long time! It was such a wonderful feeling yesterday to sit a reflect on the past 6 months and how drastically my life has changed. I was a broken woman who felt nearly worthless and really had no hope that anyone would take interest. Here I am, 6 months later, feeling more love, passion, romance, and confidence then I could have imagined. Things aren’t perfect, and we are far from perfect, but who is perfect?! I am having so much fun with him and the big things that really bothered me are working themselves out, and that makes me care less and less about the little things. I really wondered if I was in this relationship for the right reasons, or did I just go with the first person that showed me attention. And the absolute honest answer is both. I went on a few dates with him because he was the only one out of the group of guys on the site that was worth anything and showed me attention. But he turned out to be one of the biggest and best surprises of my life! I never imagined that I could have felt this way about him! I am really excited to see where this goes….I really have hopes for us! Things seem to be working out, so I am going to roll with it and hope that the good keeps on coming!

I can see clearly now....

It has certainly been a while since I had an update. Things have been going wonderfully well! Last Friday, I had the closing on my house, so I am officially the sole owner of my home! It is such a great feeling....very liberated, very peaceful, very grateful! When everything happened, I felt like my world was turned upside down and I was losing everything...I could feel it slipping away from me. To be in this moment, nearly 10 months since it happened, I still can't believe that this is my life, but more importantly, I can't believe that I actually got to keep something I worked my ass off for! It was very gratifying! For the most part, I am getting over what happened, getting over him, and breaking through my emotions. I definitely still have moments where it's difficult, but I am allowing those to happen, it's a process and it will take time, but I am proud of where I am and what I have overcome. Yesterday, my friend who started work where I work took me out to lunch and we discussed a dinner that she had just had with my ex-husband. Curious, I asked how he and the mistress acted toward each other. She said that they shared inside jokes but didn't hold hand, there was no touching, and she said that he didn't compliment her the way he would me! That right there helped me out tremendously. I got that...I got the hand holding, the touching, the compliments, the look of love...I got it all! They act more like friends then lovers! It was gratifying to know that I got the best years of him and she gets this! He is such a different person than he was when we were married, and she gets this broken down mess of a person, who for the most part, settled for fear of being alone! Meanwhile, I get to spend my time with a man who truly loves me. What I have with D has been by far more passionate, more intense, and immensely more happy then it has with my ex-husband! It is so strange! I have only been dating D for 6 months but it feels like I have known him my whole life. It's been insane how fast things have progressed, but I wouldn't have changed it for the world! Every day, I fall more in love with him. The things that worried me before have been working themselves out and I have been taking time discover our relationship and have been making a solid effort to not make the same mistakes that my ex and I made. I will not take him for granted, I will pick my battles, I will respect his wishes, I will always be there for love and support...but I will not be walked over, I will make my wishes and wants known, I won't be taken advantage of, I will not have him move in with me until he proves he can handle financial responsibilities, and I will not be disrespected! I really love the place I am in right now, and although it may be difficult, I am having a blast getting to know myself and building this fantastic relationship! I finally feel like things are looking up and this season of pain and despair is nearly over!

On the road to recovery

I started reading a book that was suggested to me and lent to me by D’s roommate. It’s called Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I am only a quarter of the way through it, but after I read a passage from it, it completely changed my perspective on things. A short synopsis on the book so far….a woman who was a model was in a car accident where someone shot through her window and the bullet mangled her face which included removing her jaw. She spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering, but in one fell swoop, she lost her identity, her career, her fiancé, her voice, her beauty, her friends, and ultimately, the life she knew. She gets out of the hospital and upon her first outing, a child calls her a monster…this spurs her breakdown where she ends up back at the hospital and into the room of a woman recovering. She scribbles everything she lost and is mourning over on a pad of paper. The woman reads it and tells her to write it down all night, tell her the story repetitively until she realizes that it is no longer happening to her, it’s done and over with, and when she realizes that and throws the paper away, she can put it in her past and begin to rebuild her life. That really hit home with me! In one fell swoop, I lost my husband, my security, my confidence and self-esteem, my love, my best friend, my future, my marriage, and ultimately, the life I knew. I keep reliving it over and over. I dwell on what has happened and what I have lost. I still mourn and cry over it. I have to stop. I have to realize that it’s over. No amount of ‘what if’s’ or replaying it over and over is going to change anything. It happened, but it’s done. It was awful and unimaginable, but it’s over. It’s time to crumple that paper up and throw it away. I am rebuilding my life and I don’t need this thing holding me back! I feel liberated for the first time!

Oh the possibilities

Sitting at work feeling antsy… could be because I have had a 3-day weekend back to back the last 2 weeks and now I am feeling like this work week is going soooo slow and it’s only Tuesday! Memorial day weekend was amazing! D and I took advantage of my friends empty house in Manitou and it was beyond wonderful! It was nice to just be with each other in complete privacy, have no schedule and just be able to enjoy our company. We arrived at the house in the early afternoon and celebrated with a glass of wine and some fun! We ended up napping for a few hours and awaking to more fun and then a tour of Manitou. We walked around, shopped, played in the arcade, talked next to the little stream and enjoyed the weather. We had a nice romantic dinner, wandered back to the house for more wine and conversation. It had to have been one of the best days I have ever had. At this point, it was safe to say that I have fallen in love with this boy. It was wonderful to have a day filled with such passion, a day where we could just talk and get to know each other better, a day about just us. The best part was that there was no arguing. I had never had a romantic getaway where there was no arguing. With my ex, we argued constantly. We even argued on our honeymoon. I loved how carefree we were and how into each other we were. It was simply amazing! We finished out the weekend by spending time with D’s family and getting to know them which was pretty cool. There are a bunch of crazy connections with his family, it’s so strange. I went to middle school with one of his sisters and the other sister has a child with a guy I went to middle school and high school with. His family is definitely interesting but sweet none the less. I had fun getting to know them and seeing D around the kids.

This last weekend was pretty great as well, but not without its challenges. I had Friday off, so we planned to spend the day together just like last weekend and take advantage of the empty house and enjoy the last weekend before D started his new job. A conversation that we had earlier in the week got brought up. Last week, D and I were laying in bed and were talking about things we want. He looked at me and said that he didn’t realize how badly I wanted children until he saw me starring at some pregnant women at an event we went to last weekend. He asked me what my timeline would be. I told him that I would like to have my first child before I turned 30, so ideally, it would be pretty soon. He then asked me what my reaction would be if I found out I was pregnant right now. I told him that I would be scared but for the most part I would be ecstatic. He said he would feel the exact same. So he posed the hypothetical ‘what if we were to stop the protection and just see what happens’ question. I was stunned and speechless. I told him I would have to give it thought. Fast forward to Friday….I told him that I thought about what he said and that before I could comfortably do something like that, I would want to know that he could have a relationship with his children. I have been trying to get him to reconnect with his 5 year old daughter since we started dating, and it really bothers me that he doesn’t have that relationship. I can’t begin to understand what happened between him and the mom to want to separate himself especially since it obviously kills him to do it, but I told him that he should fight with all he has to be in her life. We had a long talk about it that resulted in a huge argument but ultimately got us to really understand each other and him to take charge and take the appropriate steps to get back into her life. I was really proud of him and it really made me see him in a different light. It also made me really consider his offer. I was going to go the route of a donor in about 6-8 months, so why not entertain the possibility of D. I am still considering it, but will need to see improvement before I actually decide. Ultimately, I know that if I am blessed with a child by whatever means that it happens, that child will have more love in its life than it could ever know. I would do anything to have a child and I will do anything for that child. At this point in my life, I am ready for my life to continue and I want these things to happen. I am nearly a solo homeowner, I have a great job, and I am going to work like hell to have a family. Screw the traditional family, tried it and it didn’t work! I just want to be happy! I really feel in my heart that I could be happy, truly happy soon. I really love D and could see us being a quirky family some day. But really, who knows, I thought things were all figured out in my life and that didn’t turn out like I thought. All I can do is live in the moment and plan as best I can for the future and pray it all works out the way it is supposed to!