To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart

When I left Don and returned to my parents house it was because I felt like I was suffocating. I didn't do anything alone. Someone was always there, I felt like I was losing the "real" me, as I never had alone tine to express the true to me at that time me. Though leaving was a really hard decision, it was beneficial in the long run. 

It allowed me to see who really loved me and supported me and who just wanted to direct me for their own benefit,

I mean I had made plenty of decisions about my life up to this point and none of them were satisfactory, My place in life didn't line up with how those people viewed me, and they tried to stuff me into those boxes they had created in their minds.

Unfortunately for them I wasn't"t going to be stuffed into anyone's box again. I thought I was being suffocated but I was evolving. I was refusing to come to terms with where my life was at, and I tried to run away from it only to realize I was exactly where I was supposed to be with the people I was supposed to be with. I realized I really had been being true to myself, but I was burdened with the sadness of letting go of my safety net and my past relationships. These feelings largely stemmed from the fact, and lets's be honest, nobody liked Don. Everyone thought he was brainwashing me or holding me captive or getting me high out of my mind so I was disconnected with reality, Whatever it is they thought.

Their reality is not my reality.

I apparently still have very strong negative feelings towards this situation and time period in my life as I'm currently having to actively work at not rage typing. And the fact I've already made one post about this time and feel the need to delve into it again.

SO AFTER ALL THAT UNPLEASANTNESS.
I realized I did really want Don, and not "just for now" or "whatever's convenient and appealing". I realized he was my actual support system, my emotional one. My be there for you no matter what because I take care of you, you take care of me. No caveats, no demands for something I was incapable of giving at any given time.

We're in the spring of 2013.
Don  and I take a road trip to Texas to pick up his dad. We find a really cool truck stop on the Oklahoma turnpike. I come to realize I don't really like either of Dons parents just the same way he doesn't like mine. 

We also go to lazerfest in May. 

Fall 2013

I've decided to go back to college for Administrative Assisting.
Don gets fired from Winegard for some bullshit excuse after all the other things they let him get away with.

I take classes in keyboarding, business english and math, document creation and sociology.
Don gets a job in Wapello working at a office cubicle factory.

I kick butt on my first semester back at college.

We loved our lives and lived them to the fullest. We chased our dreams together and tried to make ends meet in the real world. We supported each other and lived in companionship. 

I don't have a lot of pictures from this time period. I was too busy just living my life and due to the ending of many relationships I just didn't care to have constant connection to the internet and people that didn't make the effort to be part of my every day life. I didn't use technology to record my life and I didn't correspond with people outside of my daily life. But I still made new friends and lasting connections. I journaled more and took care of kids and went to school and did homework and housework and all the planning that's required to make things run smoothly and everything seemed to be going great. And I mean it was, but then it really really wasn't. 

At least I can say I tried

Once Don and I were no longer dating, life at work changed.

I mentioned Jason earlier when talking about coworkers. This is really the time period that made me not like him. I was venting to work Nathan about my life and what I wanted. Jason worked in front of me, so he heard most things. He started giving me his opinion and what felt like lecturing me about life. Like my parents. And though I understood that he cared, I didn't particularly appreciate his input. 
Other relationships changed too, as in there were more of them. People that didn't really talk to me when I was with Don started to. I began hanging out with a new group of people. Not unexpectedly, those "friend's" didn't really work out in the long run. 

But, eh. 

I was aimless.
I didn't know what I wanted, I only knew what I didn't want.
I was once again stuck and not sure how to move forward.

I'd come to hate my job right about the time where I got hired onto the company.....I was bored and irritated by my surroundings. The company took my books away, they instituted a whole bunch of new rules, tried to fire my team lead, changed expected output levels and overtime became expected. All on top of my personal mess. Because of course there was mess at work. Some of the individuals that didn't like Don were trying to get him fired for mostly bullshit stuff.
I personally had created drama at work and I really didn't like it.
I didn't know how to fix it, or how to move forward with these people.

So I picked a different path.

A week before my birthday in 2013 I quit Winegard.
I had decided to go back to school............again.

I took the time to evaluate as best as I could to figure out what I was good at, what I could make a career out of. The assistant personality always appealed to me. Someone who does the work and makes sure everything is in order but isn't actually in the spotlight. So I went back to school for administrative assisting following the legal path because I've always been interested in law. 

recently found and loved

Cats

 

Pause.

I had to stop.

I was digging myself a deeper hole. Causing feelings to further root themselves into my psyche rather than providing them room for escape.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to let go of these feelings, the regret of losing you.
I don't think I'll ever accept the reality of not being able to find you.

I'm still going to try to update about my life...up to the point of now, but i'm not promising anything. It's something that I want to do but not necessarily something I can make time to accomplish.

 

I thought that if I went out and started living my life that the people who cared about me would be happy for me. This was generally not the case. 

I thought that spreading my wings to vacate my parents living quarters would make them glad. It didn't. 

I thought that having someone to rely on would make things easier being out there...to some extent it did, like I wasn't ever worried I was going to get mugged, but ....I didn't realize I was the driver until it was too late. Having someone to rely on isn't much help when you have to tell them exactly to do everything.

I had a conversation with my mother once about the dilema I was having between men. She told me that lust was just lust and when it wore out I'd be left in an unhappy relationship. She always chose Nathan, even after two years of being with Don she asked me if I'd heard from Nathan in a while. It amused me that she liked him so much from just a short span of interacting with him. 

In my life my mother has ignored me, scolded me, disowned me, and finally accepted me as well as she can. She wanted to be the driver of my life but by my choice and actions made it painfully clear to her that her dream was not mine. She's never been happy with choices as an adult because as she says "they don't make you happy" which she may have a point but the whole point is that everyone I was around was less than supportive of my relationship choices and I didn't want to be around their negativity so I moved away from them. 

I grew away from others because our life choices and goals at that time were different. I had given up on going to school for the time because I was being very unsuccessful at it but all my friends were still in school. I worked 2nd shift so the beginning of my day was the middle of theirs. I had to be proactive about seeing the people I wanted to see and even this was only about once a month due to working or having the kids, or cleaning the house or whatever the heck it was that came up last minute. 

I had very minimal contact with people outside of the work circle. That was by my choice, I wanted to be present in my life and do what I thought was the best for me. Unfortunately, closing all those doors meant I had less of a support system to rely on when I needed help. And the people who did help me acted like I owed them something for helping me besides a thank you and some money for gas. They thought they got the right to tell me what to do with my life AGAIN, and since they weren't living it and I didn't agree I most definitely didn't listen. and one by one they told me that I wasn't worth it to them if I was going to keep making the choices I had made. Everyone of them wanted me to change into a persona more desirable to them. For me to have not made the choices I had made or for me to ignore the changes in me that stemmed from those choices, to erase my history and just act like it was 2008 all over again. 

I was on my own but I wasn't really single. We entered into an it's complicated relationship. I focused on myself and my own growth And learning how to breathe through the Anxiety that was my life. I worked. We transitioned back to friends with benefits but we were allowed to see other people. I looked for Nathan and considering and seriously plotted moving to Washington State with Corey. I wanted more but I was stuck. I wanted to move on but I had lots of emotional strings that I couldn't sort through. 

And then Corey told me he wanted to go without me, and my mother told me to choose, to make choices, to decide what I was going to do with my life.  THE TIME IS NOW.

So I chose the person who had chosen me, again. For comfort, and reliability, and physically being there affection. Because I couldn't see another path forward and I hated living with my parents again after being on my own. 

Hello from the outside

I have to say that coming back to Burlington was not my idea of a good time.

I enjoyed living in Ft Madison, regardless of it was a trailer and not a house.
Or the fact my Harley Cat got out all the time because of the holes all over the place. 

I liked being at a distance from the Hellmouth that is Burlington. 

Don's father had also lived in the trailer park but in April of 2012 he left to Texas in the middle of the night without saying anything to anyone. Don was understandably upset. Shortly after, Don's mom was moving out of state and she offered him to buy her house for a hell of a deal and he accepted. He didn't consult me at all about this decision that effected both of us. This ticked me off greatly. 

We got the house in June of 2012 but couldn't move in until the end of the month because of the ridiculous number of fleas in the house that had to be exterminated. Oh, and because I had to clean his mom's stuff out of the house and clean the house before we could move our things in. It was ridiculous.

Having more space was nice at first but it quickly became overwhelming. Taking care of that much space and picking up after everyone on top of working and daily chores was exhausting. Life quickly became a slog and I had to wonder if this was all I was meant for. Of course the answer is no, but it was beginning to feel as if it was. 

In the winter of 2012-13 my depression came back with a vengeance. 

I tried to keep myself busy to keep my mind off of it's negativity but nothing really worked. I felt like I was losing myself. I had made these choices and become someone else that I didn't recognize. I was unhappy in my life and it was finally coming through. 

One night I was so grumpy while we were having sex that when we were done he said something to the effect of "I can't expect you to be happy all the time when I manipulated you into this relationship" and that statement has stuck with me ever since. "What do you mean manipulated?" I asked him "Oh, there's no way you would be with me if I hadn't used all of my powers of manipulation to get here"..... It sent me into a spiral. 

I was questioning all my choices between us and our relationship. 

Like at what point did he decide he needed to posses me? Why did he think he could possess me? What if I didn't want this anymore? What if it was all too much?

This was the first time I looked for Nathan online. I didn't log into any of the messaging services because I couldn't, I didn't have a computer, but I did log into my socials and I couldn't find him anywhere. 

It seems like I'm saying he was my backup guy, but he was (at least previously) my everything guy and I needed him.

But I couldn't find him anywhere. He hadn't posted since around the time we broke up. At least on anything I could find. This sent my spiral deeper. I couldn't find the person I wanted..I felt like I was suffocating...so I picked someone else. I covered up everything about Nathan and I picked someone else that made me laugh and feel good because I was incapable of making it better and no one that I was currently interacting with was helping either.

I cheated on Don.

I picked someone and I actively tried to fuck them. And I was successful. And it was everything I didn't want it to be. I had a post on here about it but when Don found it he made me delete it. He made me delete everything that was even remotely related to me having feelings for someone else (at least the things he could find). Everyone in my life had told me how controlling he was, but most of them didn't know him so I ignored them. But after that he was more controlling that he'd ever been before (which was not at all). And mean. I remember begging him to just let me go, I told him I felt like I was suffocating, like I'd never be happy again. Like the world was sucking out everything that made me who I was. And he replied simply with "I can't."

So I left. I packed my stuff, with my families help, while he was at work one day and I left him. 

In case you're wondering about the timeline, this brings us to the beginning of 2013.

I think I'm going to take a break from timeline related storytelling and remembering and talk about some other things in my life that were changed or affected during the Aug 2011-December 2012 time period. 

Interruptions: Coworkers in memory

I wanna take a minute to talk about work friends. And coworkers. Those you spend most of your waking hours with that can either make your day better oooor a living hell. Depends on their moods. 

I worked on an assembly line.

Half of the assembly line made half the part and the other half finished it. At least with the part they were running when I start working there. Either way the assembly doesn't run without team work and one person being a whiny bitch can really throw a wrench in the metaphorical and proverbial wheels of an assembly line. 

Also, training.
Everyone's eyes on you.
You're the new meat.
The new interesting shiny thing
or the thing that is fucking up everyone's day.
There's really no in between. 

BECAUSE I was around these people every day I thought I would make an effort to get to know them and here I want to talk a little about them if more in memory than anything else. 

Tanya was my first real friend from work. She was from Oklahoma. She was in her late twenties. She had a son whom she didn't have custody of because of her drug addiction and battles with depression. She was a super up beat chick who was always trying to crack a joke and put everyone in a good mood so work went more smoothly and was more enjoyable. She "adopted" me at work and basically showed me the ropes. We'd party outside of work...I say this loosely because she drank like a sailor and I don't drink. So we hung out while intoxicated? We cooked together sometimes and she taught me how to make the best tater tot casserole in the whole world.

 

Randy and Nickolas both were strange guys that wanted to get in my pants that I hung out with because they were interesting but kept firmly in the friend box. I only interacted with Nick at work. But I did flirt with him like crazy because I knew nothing was ever going to happen there. I did interact with Randy outside of work but *shrugs* I was lonely and he was very needy and friendly. 

Charity was the mean old lady of the line, well her and Patsy. Both of those old cunts hated me before I even did anything. And then when I could do the same job as them while reading a book they really hated me. 

I went to school with Kel, so I'd known him my whole life except the couple of years I was out of town. He was a big gamer with these coke bottle glasses that was sometimes the most dense person I'd ever talked to in my life. He liked Wow and LoL, and he was a Playstation junkie so he was fun to argue with about Xbox vs. Playstation. We liked to talk about people we went to elementary school with and make up stories about what they were up to in their lives.

Chris, oh Chris, manic bipolar jerkwad of a face. He worked directly in front of me for a while because he was also a gamer and I tended to talk to guys who play a certain style of games. And he happened to play these games but he was also a total cunt. Sometimes he was interesting but most of the time he just made me growl at his arrogance. I'm going to tack Jason on the end of Chris because though I liked Jason, there at the end of me working at Winegard he was acting more like my Dad than a friend and I don't like that behavior.

And finally, as far as people I worked with regularly, like the people around me on the line, there was Nathan. Nathan Bennett not Gentry.
He started assembling shortly after I had. Like around the time that I finally was getting the hang of it. And when he started on my line he worked directly in front of me. He was there for about a week, at the same table in front of me, and he never said a word. So I thought to myself "If he's gonna be working around me I might as well talk to him" as almost everyone else on the line talked to me whether I wanted them to or not. And thus began a beautiful friendship.

 Nathan was an ex-marine with a specialization in automotive repair. He liked to play Wow and LoL. He liked to read and watch movies. He ate mac and cheese for lunch every day because it was cheap. We would race to assemble our parts because our skill level was pretty even.
The more I talked to Nathan about the little things in life, the closer we became.
He's actually the one that figured out how to build a book holder so that he could read at work and after watching him use it for idk a week? i asked him to build me one. which he kindly did. and it made work 1000x more bearable.
We also both lived in ft. madison so I gave him rides to and from work.
I met his girlfriend. 

In 2012 we got kaizaned, which is a work efficiency thing, so our line got reorganized. After that Nathan and I worked side by side until I quit Winegard. We talked about anything and everything. We gave each other relationship advice, we explored trauma, we talked about literally anything that came to mind. Including kinky sex things that we liked or didn't like.

I thought we were just friends, like the best of friends, we babysat each others kids, I mean...idk i didn't see it coming. One night I got messages from Nathan and he was dressed in his girlfriends lingere asking me if I'd fuck him with a strap on. I was very confused and explained this to him. I was dissatisfied in my relationship and Nathan knew this, but I wasn't trying to look elsewhere at this point. He then confessed that he was in love with me. And it literally killed any feelings I had for him at all. I didn't even want to be around him anymore because I thought we were just friends and he had been harboring secret feelings for me for over a yearrr.... *sigh* People never turn out to be what I thought they were. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really that blind. for all my outside of myself and ideas thinking I try to do I'm still too egocentric.

None of these people are a part of my life anymore.
But for 3+ years I saw them everyday.
I think  about some of them sometimes but most of them not at all.

But when I call, you never seem to be home

I think now it's time to move on to what happened next.
Don and I were together. All the time. It was great, but also had drawbacks.

• Most importantly, I was away from WiFi and smartphones were not like they are now. On top of being internet absent, I was also sharing my phone with Don so his friends and family could get in contact with him if necessary.
  
• The first weekend we were together we stayed with his brother Duckie.

                ......................................

• For the next six months almost we stayed at  his friend Del's house. 
• Del lived next to Don's wife, so like next door to where he lived....Don got to see his kids almost every day. But it was hella awkward for me. As I'm sure you can imagine.
• Living with Del was rough.
•  Besides the fact he was a total sociopath (i'm being literal here), he had ridiculous rules, and he wanted ridiculous rent for the one room we were in. 
• At the beginning of August I had almost $2,000 saved up, but by the end of our stay with Del I had little over $800. I was paying for everything, Don gave his whole paycheck to his wife for the kids. 

We were still working 8 or 10 hour days at Winegard 5 or 6 days a week.
We had the kids on weekends.
I lost time for myself.
The time I did get was when I showered, and even that wasn't private staying at Del's house.
But I did it so we could be together. 
Even though he left his wife mid August, Don and I were not in what we considered an official relationship until mid September. So a month of living together and getting to know the other's routines before we were 100% in an agreed boyfriend girlfriend relationship.

Like I said, living with Del was rough. He was a pusher and he pushed Don towards things I would have rather he stayed away from. In October I had my first experience with an overdose. I woke up one morning to Don on the floor convulsing. He wasn't responding and he was barely breathing. Del said no ambulance and his girlfriend at that time ended up taking care of Don. See, Don was a heavy smoker and also occasionally had fun taking prescription medication he ought not. Well he ended up taking a bunch of pills which were for the cessation of smoking and it caused him to shut down, basically. It was really scary for me to experience this and it's definitely left a mark. (red flag two)

<< In November 2011, Amanda got married. 

    My friend group was still pretty close at this point 3 years out of high school, so it was like a big nerdy gathering that I brought my rugged biker dude to. The mix was interesting and we had lots of fun that night. 

By Christmas of 2011 I was ready to not be living in some shitty ass basement, with access to only one room, no laundry, and a locked door in the middle of the night when I had to piss for way too much money with someone that didn't respect privacy. So we started looking for a new place to stay. It took a little while but in February of 2012 we moved to a trailer park in Ft Madison. 

The park was (and still is) managed by Don's dad. The rent and utilities were cheap. Living in Ft Madison was way less expensive than being in Burlington. The drawbacks were that his kids were farther away and so was work. But life in Ft Madison was better for the most part. I got to meet and interact with his brother. We continued learning about each others interests. I started DIYing my living space and learning to cook (seriously, I really only knew how to cook with a microwave before this and when we moved in we only had a stove oven combo so that was ....fun?). This is also the time that I tried to redownload WoW and it murdered my laptop so then I didn't have a way to get online unless I went to the library to use a computer. It wasn't until the spring of 2013 that I got another laptop.

During this phase of my life I would say overall I was happy. Even though I was farther from my friends and family.
Even though I had to learn a ton of new skills related to homemaking.
Even though I had no idea how to take care of small humans. Who were jerks.
Even though most of the time I felt too much responsibility.
I was happy because I was with someone who loved me. In my own space. Doing my own thing.

We worked. We had (a lot of) sexy time. We hung out with friends. We took care of kids. We slept. And we repeated. For almost a year everything was right as rain. And then the "real" me came out of the box I had so forcefully shoved her into. Or should I say....my unresolved thoughts and feelings finally overwhelmed the wall of "NO!" that I had put them behind and things in me started...crumbling.

In July of 2012 we moved back to Burlington, and for me this is when the happiness started to fade. This was also around the time I first actively creeped on Nathan online since August of the previous year.

For everything that I've done

I remember I talked to Corey a lot about Don. I talked to Corey a lot about everything until I didn't anymore. But I never talked to Nathan about him, not unless he directly asked about him and even then the answers were short and vague because I knew he didn't want to talk about that. And I didn't want to talk about him because at that time I never intended the relationship to become more. I thought I could control the way I am built, to master my emotions and have a carefree sexual relationship with another person. 

But I require connection along with attraction. I made Don tell me about himself. I asked him all kinds of random questions to get to know him and keep him talking so I didn't have to share. Some nights we wouldn't even have sex, we'd just hang out and talk. And those nights were the hardest ones. At least they were after we started having sex regularly. We were developing feelings and we would talk about those feelings. Which was great because it allowed us to be on the same page but not great because I don't think either of us fully told the truth about those feels. 

Did I ever mention that I was in love with someone else? No.

Did I ever confess how even though the sex was fantastic that the thought of our actions destroying his marriage tore me up inside? Also no. 

I honestly didn't see the relationship going very far.
I underestimated my effects on others.
And my need for physical love. 

I felt like he understood my need and he helped me to satisfy it. He was interesting to talk to because I had never been around anyone like him before. He wasn't needy because he was married. And our time together was pre-scheduled so I knew what to expect. 

That is until mid July when he started changing. He became more distant but also more possessive. He didn't know anything about Nathan but he knew about Thomas. And like I said before, I used Thomas for my own experiment.... but what I did not say is that I also, though inadvertently, used him to make Don jealous. To see if he could be made jealous, because if he could then there were more feelings there than were admitted to. 

And of course there were. Maybe my actions and use of Thomas were what pushed him over the edge. Maybe I told him I was starting to like him as more than a friend. Maybe my barrage of questions and following attention to the answers caused him to be more attached to me than he should have reasonably been. Idk, it was like he woke up one day and decided to take a chance on me and fuck all the rules and agreements we had previously put into place. 

I've noticed that the exact opposite of what I intended to happen is usually the exact thing that happens. 

Either way, Don was here and Nathan was not. And then Don chose me. He showed up at my house one afternoon after he stayed wayyyy to late in the morning. He had his kids. He'd walked them all across town. He told me he chose me and asked me if I chose him back. No pressure. >.<

But, I mean, how could I not? I had been waiting on a grand romantic gesture my whole life. I didn't, not for even one second, stop and consider what accepting this grand gesture was gonna cost me....I just jumped.....

Nathan told me to go out and live my life. to experience and communicate instead of living in my shell with my shame and hurt....and so I tried. And in the course of my life I have lost everything, everything except the person who chose me. 

I thought I'd moved on and I would be able to just jump into my "new" life with Don, and for the most part I did....

but Nathan was always in the back of my mind. Sometimes I'd go months without him in my head and then he would pop back up like he never went away. That's the point of these posts is to try to somehow process where my life is now from where I thought it was going to be during the time period I'm going on about. I really thought I'd closed my chapter with Nathan, but now I'm beginning to realize that it will never be closed. I will always always love him. 

And I miss him, I miss my friend.  

I've been thinking about my life.

About where I came from, where I was, the paths I've traveled and adventures I've had and how I came to be where I am today.
then and now.
her and me.
us together.
how my choices affected my present and perception of reality, the world, creation, destruction, chaos.
how I've grown as a person and how I haven't changed at all. 

I've been thinking about love.
Its forms and feelings, its shapes and signs, its effects.
How we can love and hate at the same time.
It's twining directed at the same target to create more conflict and controversy within. 

 I don't think I will ever be able to convey how I was feeling from mid July to mid August of 2011. I've read through my social media posts and my journals only to realize how much of what I was actually feeling was omitted. I was afraid of being truthful outside of myself because I feared the judgments of others and I was honestly disappointed for having real feelings when I told myself I wouldn't.

I was truthful about being conflicted in my feelings towards both men. I lied and said I didn't love Nathan to try to make myself believe it as truth. And I lied to myself thinking that my physical relationship with Don would just stay that way. I was naive in thinking I could control other people's actions with my actions.  I was naive for thinking I could control my emotions.

But like Nathan said, sex doesn't come without feelings ... I'm just so chock damn full of feelings. I loved Nathan, but I was starting to love the way Don made me feel, the way he made my body feel. For my part, I wanted to learn more about actually having sex so if Nathan and I did get back together I could feel those things with him. All that kinky fucked up porn we watched made me want to be more sexually adept. I wanted to be comfortable with my body and confident in the things I could do with it. 

I was learning excellent sexy time skills, I was making bank, and I was having to socialize all day, so I was exhausted by the time I did finally get to talk to Nathan and I was still hurt. And then we barely communicated. Back to the point: one day I woke up and realized I was in love with both of you. And I didn't want to talk to you about those feelings, and I couldn't talk to you about anything that really mattered because I was terrified that you were going to change your mind and disappear and I didn't want to be left. Funny how shit works out.

Looking back I can't say I ever made a choice... I was still talking to Nathan when my friends with benefits situation drastically changed.

I was actually wrestling with what I really wanted, if you remember, and I couldn't be honest  about how it was really Nathan I wanted more than anything because I didn't think I could handle another round of healing my broken heart after whatever switch flipped in him that caused him to push me away.

But I did want Don because he was physically here and some of the best pleasure i had in my life.

There weren't so many attachments, we didn't have history, it was simpler.... I didn't want to be sad and he made me not sad. I wanted to be the sparkle in someones eye, and he made me feel like I was that sparkle. Nathan made me hum, and glow, and waaaant so.much.want. Though I didn't understand the difference until later.

To tell you I'm sorry

I was already very conflicted, as you can tell if you explore any of my social media from april-august 2011. I wanted something other than what was happening in my life but I couldn't actually have what I wanted. I was using other things to fill that hole that Nathan left. I didn't want it to be over, but I didn't want to be sad dwelling on how much I missed my person. So I started to live my life like he wasn't coming back. But then at the end of June he did.

Unfortunately, for both of us I now think, I was just more conflicted about my feelings. I obviously still had them for Nathan, and even though I loved him truely, madly, and deeply, I really didn't want to get my heart broken even more than the last time. I had spent months trying to put myself back together, improve myself from where I was, and heal that I was very hesitant about opening up to him again.
I wanted him, sure, but I didn't want to be destroyed again. But I was eleated and full of so much love for him. I never shared that part with anyone, maybe him, but I really was so glad to be back into contact with him. I talked to him every chance I got as long as I wasn't going out of my way to do it. I really did want him to be my everything...even though I was having sex with someone else. It's fucked up, I know.

You see, I really was trying to be better for us. I was trying to make money, learn new skills, move out of my parents, to support myself, maybe further my education eventually, and just go out and be happy. Just like Nathan asked me to. I was in full blown self discovery mode while slogging through an 8-10hour day with social interaction out the wazoo. It was helpful for me, all of these connections I was making. But they were also pulling me away from Nathan. My here and present life was taking over. And I was choosing myself over everything and everybody else's choices. I gave him what I could without it being too much...

I'm continuing but also switching topics a bit.

In June a new person started working at Winegard.
I knew him from afar, from high school...he was a friend of a friend of my brother.
He had this farmer vibe, with the I work on my motors and hunt and fish and wear cowboy boots and tight pants kind of way. I'd always admired him from afar...like I liked the way he looked.
Because of this he was perfect for my experiement.
you see, i had deep down full blown emotional and physical need and love for Nathan, and I was kind of starting to like Don because of the way he talked to me and the way he made me feel with his body. I was getting mixed signals because I had Nathan back in my life and I thought maybe those feelings were spilling over and making me have more feelings for Don than I really did.
Don and I were also taking a break so I was missing him.
I wanted to see if it was just the affection that was causing the emotions. Like I wasn't looking for a relationship with Don outside of the bedroom and the dom.sub thing I was trying out.
I was beginning to wonder if I was being driven by sex rather than logic...so I picked one of the other guys in the factory and I let him whoo me.
Thomas was new, and nice, and different, very different than my standard "type". He wasn't an asshole, he wasn't nonchalant about the fact he liked me.
He was shy and cute and well, pretty much everything that the other two weren't.

And I went on dates with him. We hung out and listened to music or watched movies. I let him hold my hand and cuddle me. Sometimes we kissed but it was short and sweet. I met his family and rode around for hours in his big truck. And I liked him, but I didn't like him enough to date him, or to have sex with him in a relationship kind of way....
this one date we went swimming just so I could test myself, you know couples in the water and shit, touching, rubbing, and holding.... and I wasn't aroused or attracted to him anymore in the least, the kissing was only ever nice. I made him take me home after that date and then very politely showed him the door out of my life. Because it was all a test and my findings showed me My feelings for Nathan were real, and my feelings for Don were real. Both were real and valid and lived inside me. One love was built on years of dialogue, affection, and the darkness that lived in both of us. And the other was purely physical. At least that's what I thought at the time.

I must have called a thousand times

In April 2011 I started working at Winegard. It's a factory for the manufacturing of satellite dishes and their components. I went from being a sentient (pretty much) being to working 8-10hr per day for 5/6 days a week. When I started working there I was still pretty depressed but trying to be positive. I knew the money I made would help me move on to the next stage of my life. Also, the amount of socialization would be exponentially increased and I also saw this as a good thing, though exhausting.

I received more attention than I bargained for. It was like these men had never seen a young woman before. Not all of them, but a majority of them didn't stop themselves from flirting with me. Pretty fresh out of a relationship I compared all of them to him. And none of them even came close. I would ignore, laugh, or internally judge their "witty" pick up lines. I mean, Nathan was the master of word play and innuendo and no one even came close. That is until I met Don. 

When I was fleshing these ideas out I wrote that Don talked to me just like Nathan did, which is true to a point. Where Nathan would allude to what he was trying to convey, Don would flat out say it. He graced me with some of the most erotic fucked up pick up lines I've ever heard in my life. He wasn't witty exactly, rather very secured in what he was saying, and this made it very difficult for me to judge him like the rest. 

I was lonely and sad and looking for something or someone to distract me from all of the feelings I still had for Nathan. So Don and I started talking and hanging out after work. I say we started talking but really I did most of the listening. I wasn't ready to share myself with someone else. For almost three weeks we talked and did light petting. And then one day he called me a tease because I didn't want to go any farther. Which with all the moves he was putting down I could see how this would be frustrating. So I took the weekend to make some decisions and when we went back to work we had a discussion. We agreed it would be a friends with benefits kind of thing, as he was married and I wasn't looking for any serious relationship stuff. Later that week we had sex for the first time.

The first month of our not relationship was alright. We stayed in our lanes like we were supposed to other than maybe being a lot overly familiar with each other at work....which a lot of people didn't like....and then June came and things started to get more serious...which wasnt...well it wasn't supposed to be that and I started freaking out. I was still in love with Nathan, but Don was also making a space in my heart and I felt like a terrible being for loving both of them, for making Don love me when he was married (with kids), for trying to move on...etc. and then, at the end of June, Nathan reached out. 

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time I was so enamoured of a boy man-child that I let it run my life. In 2008 I met a fedora wearing mustachioed sarcastic magnetic flirty asshole. His presence sent electicity all over, hairs raised on my arms, elevated pulse...anxiety that he wouldn't find me as interesting as I found him. We dated, it ended badly, but I couldn't let go. In my whole life I'd only met a few people that made me feel this way and I wanted... Once upon a time I became completely obsessed with keeping this person in my life. I even dated his friend to keep him close but not too close, which was deterimental in the long run because of how much emotional abuse I suffered in that relationship.

Once upon a time I fell in love. We fell in love. But we were both too scared of our feelings to fully open up...or when we did we pulled back and hid. We returned to our safe spaces and created distance until we could handle what we were feeling for the other. The withdrawl wrecked me. Imagine setting up your life around a person, so you could spend as much time with them as possible due to distance restrictions just too have them revoke their attention...for months long periods. I'd give him his time and his space. I would be sad and eventually would seek him out. And he always took me back. And he always loved me, as I loved him. But we were both always scared.

He says I didn't really show myself as much as he showed himself,that my restraint on sharing made him withdraw, that he was bored with what we had. But he was always there, waiting, sometimes watching, reaching out to entreat me back. I actively loved him for three years annd i've inactively loved him since. Every time I think I've finally moved on and my feelings are gone they resurface. It's just so typical of the relationship we had, except now he's not there for me to talk to. I can't find him anywhere and the longer the silence grows the more I realize how he must have felt when I didn't come back. When he reached out that final time and I brushed him off because of then current relationship turbulence...well lets just say there are only three things that I regret more in life. so far.

Once upon a time I choose to have a relationship with someone in order to get over the fedora wearing mustachioed sarcastic magnetic flirty asshole....and it changed everything.

Hello from the other side.

I suppose I should start by apologizing because that is so me, only this time it is my fault. My actions, my choices, my life.

I'm so very sorry for not responding, for distancing, for pushing you away for breaking my heart. I'm so sorry for using the way someone else made me feel to try to negate the loneliness I felt after you broke up with me that last time. I'm so sorry for going interwebs dark and metaphorically leaving you behind.

I remember everything causing me so much turmoil. I know I was an emotional rollercoster that didn't know which way was up most of the time. I wanted to better myself but I didn't know how to get there. It's taken me a long time to realize that what I thought I wanted to be and what I actually am are two very different things. I'm going to blame parent projections of hopes and wishes and dreams for this.
ANYWAY
Everything was happening so quickly there at the end. I didn't get to let you know what was going on, and I didn't get to tell you some things that have been eating me up for years.
I'm terrified that I'm not going to ever be able to tell you and I'll be stuck unresolved for the rest of my life....on an endless repeat cycle where I put you and the memories of you into a box in the back of my mind until you manage to squeeze yourself out and present yourself front and center.

I'm feeling the helplessness and loss I'm sure you felt when I went dark. I would think that with our world so heavily dependent on technology that it would be easier to find you, but that is not the case. I can only hope that one day you stumble back upon my blog. That is, if all my attempts to find and contact you come to nothing....

Weekend Project 8.31.13

Greetings!
I hope you all had a well weekend. It's Monday morning now, Labor Day to be exact, which means  you have one more day to relax before you head back to work, school, what have you. I have school to return to on Tuesday, and let me tell you, I'm excited.
But, in the spirit of a three day weekend I thought I'd work some on my most recent house related DIY project. Now, before you look at the picture be sure to note that this is a work in progress. I'm happy with it. And it's better than what was there before. Heck, anything I do will be better than what was there before.
I'm not going to share the disgusting details of this house with you, I'm just going to show you the pictures of how pretty it looks now. . . or, er, will look once it's all put together. :)

I cleaned the cabinets and shelves, sanded the cabinets and shelves and then primed the cabinets, shelves and header box. I've since laid another coat of paint and added some more of my damask paper to the shelves. Updates to follow.

Goodwill Shopping Trip.

I've been so excited to write this blog post, and it seemed like I was never going to have the time. Yay for chill friday nights. :)
I've always been interested in secondhand and thrift shopping. As a young girl it seemed like nothing around here was worth going to. I stopped by the Salvation Army and many second hand stores around the area but it seemed like everything was made for an older set of people. I think the real reason it didn't work was because I was too young. I had very little sense of my own personal style and I was a little chubber so it was difficult for me to find something that looked good AND fit me.
As I got older, I discovered the stores Goodwill and Stuff. This was like a goldmine, but I still wasn't secure in my fashion identity, so clothing still eluded me. But never fear, I spent those years stocking up on books. Now, at 23, I can confidently say, "I know how to shop in a second hand store".
So without further ado, here's what I collected on my latest shopping trip. :)
I went on this shopping trip specifically for skirts, but the button up shirts and dresses always get my attention too. So I walked im, got a cart and headed straight for the skirt isle. And let me tell you, jack pot day. You know, besides the little old ladies that go the wrong ways down the isles and don't move even though they looked at the same item fifty times and can't decide if they should buy it or not because they have 15 other identical ones at home. . . but I digress.
When shopping at Goodwill it is important to not get discouraged or too attached to an item, before you inspect and try it on. Clothing at Goodwill comes from all generations and times. Seams and general clothing wear have to be inspected for any damages, like tears, rips, or stains. Also look for where the cloth may be getting thin or is generally misshapen. For this reason, I buy all of my tank tops new. Why would I want to buy a possibly sweat stained, misshapen rag of cloth? When you find quality items, that seem like they are the right size for you it is best if you snatch them up as you pass.

It is also important to go through an entire isle if you're looking for a specific item in a non-specific color. Gems can be hidden behind other less awesome items. Once you've gone down an entire isle and are satisfied with your selections, it's time to head to the dressing room. And let me tell you, this is my favorite part. I don't worry that something might not look as good on me as it does on the hanger, or vice versa. So now, let me talk to you about my selections.

1. This skirt is colorful and super swooshy, for a lack of better descriptive word. It's got an elastic waistline and hits me lower calf.  It's crazy colored and covered in flowers. Wearing it earned me lots of compliments and I'm so glad I bought it, even though it's ridiculously colored.
Price: $1.69
2. So, I visited the shirt section, sue me. I love my button ups and this was just a bonus. It's a coral three quarter sleeve shirt with white stripes. It came from The Gap and has minimal wear.
Price: $1.69
3. A red and white stripped button up. It was hanging there on the rack calling my name and I couldn't say no. And I put it on just so I could light up like a christmas tree about how wonderful it felt and  how beautiful it looked.
Price: $1.69
4. White dress with black flowers and a below the bust ribbon tie. BONUS! It has pockets. How awesome is that? It looks amazing and just yeah.
Price: $5.38
5.Sheer long sleeved button up. It's also beautifully colored. Are you getting that color asthetic is important to me? I got it to ride the motorcycle in and I think it works quite well. I wore it as a shirt over a tank top in the morning when I knew the day was going to get warmer.
Price: $2.38
6.  This skirt is a lipstick red, A-line cut skirt. THIS SKIRT IS MY FAVORITE! It might partially be due to the fact it was originally $143.00 and I got it for $3.38, and also because it looks awesome on me! Can you believe that?!I don't know what else to say about this skirt. It's lovely and it was expensive so I know it's quality.
Price: $3.38
7.This is a royal blue trumpet skirt. It's most lovely. I haven't worn it yet. I think it's sitting in my closet mocking me about the fact that I don't have anything as beautiful to pair it with.
Price: $1.69
8. This is a sea green A line skirt. It also has pockets. Sweet! I'm in love with this pockets on skirts thing. It works so well with the advancing technology and the "need" to always have our phones on our possession.
Price: $3.38
Subtotal Cost: $21.28
Taxes:            $  1.49
Total Shopping trip cost: $22.77


The best thing about Goodwill is how often they put new things out. Which is about every two hours. So you can always find something that wasn't there before. I get tired of going to retail chain stores because it's the same inventory for weeks and everything has the same general style. Goodwill has everything. Every single thing. Except military tanks, because that would be ridiculous.
The second best thing is the price for what you get. Where else, besides a garage sale (which I haven't gotten to yet), can you find cheaply priced, quality, second hand items? That's a rhetorical question. No, not really, if you have something better, please share! :)

I hope you enjoyed this post, if you made it all the way through. I like words, a lot.

Blog Design.

I've been spending a lot of time on my computer searching around for the perfect blog design and it's occurred to be that there is hardly anything out there that I actually am drawn to. So many layouts and templates require me to edit them to my liking.
I took my blog down for a bit because my blog didn't look the way I wanted it to. I've since been editing and shaping my blog into something I want it to be now. When i first created this blog, it was supposed to be a diary like thing that I kept to myself. I don't know why I did that because shortly after I started sharing links to it and telling people about my blog entries.
And then the internet changed and I was away and now it seems like Blogger is the only site that I still really understand. Now, don't get me wrong, I still plan on using the other sites. I'm just trying to make this a launch pad for all internet things that I enjoy. So here goes nothing on my way to making what I want instead of just having what everyone else has.
Yay me!

If You Forget Me

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine. 

Pablo Neruda

Things 546.

So, uh, hey.
Little update coming from me to you. Though it may be more than a little.
Typing is hard with a cigarette in hand. I know, nasty habit, which I could choose to stop, but I don't.

Just finished finding and printing out all the pages I want for my Christmas Planner. I'm sending out Christmas cards this year, something I've wanted to do for a few years now. It always just seemed like I didnt have time or wasnt ready. Now this year with kind of having a family I think i'm ready. If you want a card and I didn't contact you feel free to leave your info in a comment. . .or email me. whatever.
I'm going to make a little Christmas Planner book from my art materials, time to get a little crafty. I'll try to remember to share. I found so much inspiration while searching around that I coulndn't not create.

My wisdom teeth are out. Have been since Friday. That first day really sucked and I'm so glad I had a whole weekend to recooperate. It sucks that all my favorite foods are labeled as "hard" or "crunchy" so I've been eating blah-ish foods for the last couple of days. I think I pulled some stitches on the bottom right side as well. I got to keep my teeth. Funny story that, I was telling Donny (the 5 almost 6 year old) about getting my teeth out and he and Kayleigh having to be careful with me over the weekend. Donny told me that he wanted to see my teeth after I informed him that I still had them. So I pulled out my little plastic cup, unwrapped my teeth and he looked like he was going to vomit all over me. I learned never show children things the say they want to see, make sure they really want to see them. It was cute and funny but he did not look like a happy camper.
I was in the office for about 2 hours but with all the drugs they gave me it only felt like maybe 20 minutes once they started working. My nerves were all jumbled so they gave me laughing gas, which seems to be wrongly named because I didn't feel like giggling at all. Just calm and chill and bored. Anyway. Got them out. And now I'm waiting for the gaping holes in the back of my mouth (which are stitched up) to heal. I have to go in on Friday at 11:30am to get a checkup. I hope everything is going well. . . besides the possible pulled stitches I believe it is.

On another note, a few months ago Don and I were talking about getting promise rings. Promise rings because we have both discussed that we are not getting married. He even admitted to me in a sweet kind of way that if he planned on getting married again, he would have already asked me. Made my heart all aflutter and whatnot. Don has this jeweler in downtown Burlington that he's known since he was about 17. Her name is Karmen and she runs Natural Inspirations on Jefferson Street. Saturday morning we popped down there about 11am and checked out her selection of rings. We told her what we wanted, a more masculine form of matching rings, she pulled out catalogues and we had a look. It only took about 15 minutes and we found a match. After all the searching I did online, Karmen was a life saver. She said they'd be arriving in about two weeks and I can't wait to get that sucker on my finger. I'll be sure to post pictures when they come in. I'm so excited.
While there, Don also picked out another ring. One for Christmas. He plans on it being a pinky ring and for the beauty of it, I hope they have it in stock. Karmen is going to call in our orders Monday and I'm hoping everything goes smoothly.

Oh, and we (my mother, father, brother and myself) got family pictures done. It was an idea I had for a christmas present for my mother, but Maja said that my grandma (her mom) would like it more. So we went to Sears and had pictures done. They turned out really well. I now have a professional family portrait, and a portrait of my brother and myself. I want one of my mother and father too, but maj didn't see one that she liked. I took her half of the order over to her yesterday and she had a fit about the fact that there was no picture of her and dad. So I came home and ordered them one, with the free coupon I got with the session. I'm thinking I'm going to have to order one for myself as well, sometime soon.
I'm also planning on getting christmas pictures done for the kids. Megan kind of created a tradition with that and the kids were talking to me about it yesterday. I offered to help her out because she's down on her luck right now and I know it would make her happy. I don't want to be the horrible person that stole her husband, so I thouught I'd offer something that we can all get a little happiness out of. Plus it'll be like a christmas present.

Umm...okay. so it's two thirty, and I'm tired, got a few more chores to do before bed and might eat a snack. I don't know. Gotta get Don off grand theft auto and headed up stairs and god knows how long that could take. Oh, and I'm gonna read my tarot tonight. Last time I did a spread it was so dead on that I was amazed. It also helped me get through a few of my issues. Like. . .you know...my inability to actually talk about my problems.

Anyway,
goodnight.
wishing you all well.