One or the other

Choice, free will and self-determination are all at the core of being a real person. Living with those choices is the shell that surrounds that core.  Depending on your decisions, that shell will take some hits now and again.

That’s something important to keep in mind when you make some of the important fundamental decisions in modern life.

Coke or Pepsi.

Playstation vs. Xbox vs. Wii vs. Huge Debt for buying them all

Punk vs. New Wave

Pro Life vs. Pro Choice.

Corrupt Political Party vs. Corrupt Political Party

And one choice that is very important to me this morning.

Turning the ringer on your phone off when you go to bed vs. Leaving the Ringer on your phone on when you go to bed.

It’s been week for sleep.

Good Pain: Day #1

Along with BP’s #1 and #2, of which BP #2 is back up on its horse and moving again, I’ve been trying to create a slimmer me. The holidays took at bat to that idea, but even before then I’ve been trying to eat better and exercise more.

So here’s the challenge for myself (along with many others lately): talk about the weight loss so that you can’t make excuses. The last time I had real success with losing weight, I kept that simply mantra: No Excuses. Yeah, it may sound like a cross between a stupid t-shirt slogan and a motivational book some guy with veins the size of ethernet cables popping out of his bulging arms is trying to sell you, but it worked.

The first thing I realized there was no excuse for in this quest: exercising everyday I can. I’ve got a free gym at my new apartment complex (three actually, but who’s counting) and usually wind up awake a half hour or more before my alarm thanks to Bits, who not surprisingly is asleep in my lap as I try to type this and eat breakfast…

So Good Pain: Day 1 is about me getting up at 5:30 a.m. to go work out for 30-40 minutes each day.

A message from the part of me that is not a morning person: 5:30 in the morning!!! Are you out of your God Damned mind???? What about coffee? What about your insomnia? What about your (currently non-existent) sex life? 

All good points. If I want to not do this, if I want to not lose weight and if I don’t want to get healthy. And in the interest of full disclosure: and if I don’t want to look better to the opposite sex. Yes, personality counts more, but I don’t walk around with a print out of my writing or my life story. Vanity  is a bitch.

No excuses. Maybe its not the morning everyday, but it will be excercise.

Shopping for food goes under the microscope next.

Don’t worry, this won’t become a diet and exercise blog. But I gotta break up the geekery and woe is me relationship crap with something right?

Questions I Don’t Want to Answer

So, almost as if by clockwork, I’m given another set of questions that need to be answered. Not that I don’t have other questions that need to be dealt with: Do I want to stay in CC past the end of next year? If so, do I want to keep my current job if I can? How am I going to balance paying down debt and saving money? Does it make sense to just run Elpis, my car, into the ground or trade her in while she still has value and get a newer used car?

All very logical and practical things to consider. Thanks to the spreading sickness that is allowing me to enjoy being organized *shudder*, these questions don’t give me fits as the once did. This, of course, is meaningless when it comes to the emotional question I got asked Thursday night.

I really want to blame the Sainted Bitch for this. Find someway to rationalize how this is her fault for asking the question. I can’t, but it hasn’t stopped me from trying.

I’d dropped her an email to ask her a favor and also to catch up a little bit. Besides my usual enjoyment talking to her, I was more than happy to bask in her joy. She’s leaving the company that she’s worked at for the past several years – the company where I worked a few years back and where we began our friendship – and is moving on to a much better situation. I can almost see the light in her eyes over the phone, the nervous excitement that is hovering around her as she gets ready for this change. During our talk, she read to me a card that her parents gave her for her birthday, professing their undying love and wishes for her to have an exceptional year. And as she spoke, the armor slipped back and SB cried gently, overwhelmed by the fresh memory of her parents pride and love. My heart ached a little at her soft tears, both in happiness for her and longing for myself. I’d never begrudge anyone love and connection with their parents. I’m not that much of a selfish prick. It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the skill under my tattoo get warm when I think of what I’m missing…

We had a good conversation, as we usually do, but I’d just realized what I was avoiding when SB went right for the jugular.

“So, what’s up with you and The Heroine lately?”

No, she didn’t actually call her that, but when she spoke her name I realized I’d been actively avoiding talking about her. Partly because I’ve had a lot to react to lately and partly because I want to be able to talk to my friends about something OTHER than this.

I feel slightly dirty for not getting these events out here sooner, like I’ve been hiding them from myself, yet I have had some real life distractions to keep writing about them at bay. The trip to San Diego and the ensuing weekend of illness that followed. And a few days off from work the following week because I didn’t get enough rest. But even amidst that, two moments have been chewing at the ends of my reason, hope and patience.

The first actually began just before Thanksgiving when I sent The Heroine a very long, rambling email. The long and rambling is a shock to you all, I’m sure. But like I mentioned in before I’d been having conversations with her in my head for months. And I got to the point where I had to get some of it out to my best friend. Which, for the past (almost) three years, was her. So, like a fool I sent her this long winded and (I thought) deep email. And now, there was no “Take me back” or “I was wrong” or “I hate you.” None of that. It was me being honest with her about things I’d figured out for me. Shock of shocks, but unlike a good portion of what I write here, this was me being clear. Thoughts that in many cases were passed through this particular rock tumbler you’re reading now and then put through a more intensive blasting process inside my head. Visits from thoughts, ideas and reminders provided by several of the regular guest stars here added the pressure needed to strip the stones down to their essence. So I’d taken a few of them and piled them up in my own haphazard way and showed them to her. Why? If for no other reason than it made sense to do so. The truths I shared seemed more real telling her, just as many things did in the years and months prior.

I know it was not Wise, but I’m a flawed person. A good man, but even the best heroes come with flaws built in.

I didn’t know what type of reaction I expected. Maybe the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday helped my decision to send the message, but I had a simple hope that she would understand more of where I was at at that moment in my life and in them moments that would follow. Sharing these things with the important people in your life is vital. And while not necessarily in a good place (or a bad place) in my life, The Heroine still lands on the Important list.

So you can imagine when I didn’t get one reaction about the email why I was getting pissed. And we’d communicated via IM and email after, trading stories about friends getting their car’s stolen (sorry 5-7) and other random things that friends are supposed to be able to talk about. There was even talk of hanging out like normal friends, but that go nixed because of her prepping for her show. And I was good. Patient and understanding. She was busy. I was busy (see my entries on SD as a reminder). At at that point, the lack of feedback on the letter didn’t bug me (at least not on the surface).

So the second moment comes to pass. I go see the show she directed and helped produce. And it wasn’t bad. Her actors were far from pros, but she got some good performances out of her leads and made some interesting choices. Granted, it was surreal as hell seeing furniture and decorations from our apartment as props in the play. Including picture frames that were anniversary gifts with the images removed. Even that didn’t bother me. Her friends that I knew and that knew me were polite. A few even kind. And her being distracted and busy before and after was fine too. It wasn’t a night about us hanging out. It was her night to put up the show. And I was happy for her. And proud of her. And when I gave her a hug and left, I felt good. Like an honest to goodness adult for the way I’d handled it.

Maybe it was the cold/flu/bout of TB that would kick my ass for the next week clogging my brain, but the thing that ultimately bothered me didn’t register until I was driving home.

When I’d first arrived, The Heroine introduced me to the leader of the community theater portion of the group she’s working with. An executive producer of sorts. She’s mentioned him often when talking about her new job, so I know they’d spent a ton of time together and that by all accounts he was a good man. So I said hello, shook his hand and smiled.

And he asked me, “Are you a Boston friend or a Washington friend?”

I smiled at said Boston, but I’d just moved down to the area.

“Oh, what for? What do you do?”

I gave him a vague but friendly answer about making some changes in my life, etc, etc and then moved on.

He didn’t know who I was.

Not that I was expecting a knowing look and an ominous comment about who I was.

However…. I just happen to be the guy who she was living with, in love with, in theory going to marry, who’d just moved his entire life away from all of his friends AND THEN we’d had a painful break up yet we’re still in contact and I wound up moving within spitting distance of her.

But, it seems, I just wasn’t worth mentioning.

EVEN, with the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t want to get into all of that mess about the end of our relationship, I should have at least gotten the ‘My Ex’ title.

And that bugged me.

So, along with my illness, that set me off thinking about the lack of response about the email. So at one point while home during the following week – listening to my excellent boss’ recommendation and taking an extra sick day – I asked her if she’d read it.

“Oh, which email was that…??”

“The one I titled Mr. October… it was long and rambling but I talked about some stuff I figured out.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that.”

“I just wanted to know if you’d read it of if you’d put it aside like BP #2 to read later.” [Her not reading BP #2 I can kinda forgive, I sent that do her in the middle of her prepping for her show and its reasonably long and I'm looking for solid feedback...]

“Yeah, I read it.”

And that was it for her response. Again, I don’t know what was expecting when I sent it.

So, this brings me back to the Sainted Bitch and the questions she asks me. Now, I tell her the vague beginnings of all this… that I’m confused and a bit upset with her, when SB cuts to the chase as she is want to do.

“Is it time to let her go?”

*insert me not responding and her continuing to ask*

I try to respond with something other than Yes or No and she keeps coming back to the question. A few times she teases me about the silence on my end of the line (something not often achieved in conversations with me unless I’m on the phone with LL or The Mighty) and then finally offers a moment’s respite and then slams me with the question that is the other side of that coin.

“I’m not saying that I know the right answer or that there is a right answer, but I’m still wondering… Is it time to let her go OR is it time to decide to fight for her?”

Well, fuck me sideways… If there was a question I wanted to hear less than “is it time to let her go” it was “is it time to fight for her.”

So, still reeling from those questions, I proceed to fill in the details about everything else. I even wind up reading the email to SB, just so she understands that it wasn’t some lovesick letter, it was me trying to talk to my friend.

When I finished reading it to her there’s a pregnant pause on the line. I feel my Sainted Bitch trying to balance her frustration and her concern, but she confesses that she’s blown away by the honesty and openness of my message to the Heroine. For a moment I’m sad that such behavior from a man is a shock to her… but that’s a different blog entry…

She has a lot to say, but the thing that stands out the most is this…

“I don’t care who you are,” she says offering one of many lines that still meander around my head, “Or what type of state your relationship is in, but when someone sends you something that honest, that open and that real… you respond. You let them know that you got it and that you took the time to read it. You don’t have to comment on it or agree with it or even understand all of it, but you let them know that you read it. Hon, I love you and you put a lot of yourself into that, so I don’t know how you can not get a response from that. And you deserve better than that. I love The Heroine. I barely know her, but I love her for all the love she’s given you and how she’s made you feel and all the wonderful things she’s brought to you life, but you deserve a better response than nothing until you ask her about it.”

We talk a while longer about a few things, some of which I won’t discuss here, so email me if you really want to here more of the painful details, but SB leaves me at a very intense moment to contemplate some conflicting thoughts.

And I do, throughout a very sleepless night into the next day. I go with Thor and Loki and one of Thor’s friends to see I Am Legend Friday night and after doing a favor for Thor I’m looking forward to a weekend alone with my thoughts, with my writing and not being sick to figure all this out. That’s when I started this blog entry, trying to help work some of this out.

So my phone rings Saturday night, completely throwing off the whole ‘think about it this weekend’ plan. The Heroine calls and says she’s got time to hang out Sunday. Do I want to go see I Am Legend since? Sure, I say, like the asshat that I am.

And I’ll continue to tell you what a jackass I am next entry. As you can imagine, I’m a bit spent rehashing all this crap.