Wow. Just wow.

THIS completely blows me away.

Christmas eve cha-cha

Have you ever felt like you were on the precipice of something REALLY REALLY great?  I mean, REALLY amazing?  No?  Me either.  

But occasionally, I get these waves of feeling like no matter how craptastic everything else has been, whatever is coming up next can't or won't be as bad as what I've already been through.  Some of that is just my inherent optimism (frequently referred to by friends and family as my naïveté - but I know better), but some of it is me drawing on my personal experience and deciding not to repeat mistakes from the past.  At least, not the big ones.  

For example, it would be easy for me to say, "ok, that's it - no more relationships, no more men.  Only bad things have come of it in the past, especially lately".  But I honestly don't feel that way.  As much as having a relationship isn't actually a priority for me right now, I'm a smart enough person to know that what I fear and want to avoid isn't having another relationship - I just don't want to have the same BAD relationship(s) I had before.  

It's very challenging to do, but I'm also going to have to leave my fears and prejudices of the past where they belong - in the past.  It wouldn't be fair of me to presume that every man who crosses my path is a lying, sociopathic cheater (although past history would say odds are good.).  I wouldn't want a man holding things his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend did to him against me.  I'm not a cheater.  I'm not a nagging harpy.  I'm a good person who can bring a lot of joy and happiness into someone's life if they'll give me a chance, and I know that.  But I'm not going to try to sell anybody on it either.  They need to be open to that and ready for it, or it just won't happen.  And until someone I feel merits an opportunity with me feels the same, I'm just going to keep it to myself and keep getting better.  That's the beauty of NOT being in a relationship - nobody to report to but ME, and I can use all my time for self-improvement or just relaxing and enjoying myself.  And I fully intend to.

I'm framing this in the context of relationships, since that's what's been on my mind lately.  But the same can apply to friendships and jobs.  You don't stop working because you had a crappy job or two.  You don't stop making friends because some old ones let you down once.  You move forward, knowing now what you need to look for and what you are not willing to tolerate, and you don't settle for less than that this time around.  So you KNOW it's going to be better.

So on this Christmas eve, the precipice of something good - or at least better than what I accepted or settled for yesterday - rather than be sad I'm not with a significant other, I'm going to enjoy not being under the sullen shadow of somebody else's misery.  I'm going to enjoy time with my family and friends, and sleep well knowing that whatever is coming next will only happen if I choose to allow it.

Enjoy your holidays, my friends.  

 

unsettling

How do we know when 'good enough' is good enough?  We all have to compromise and occasionally settle for less than what we might actually want in our lives.  But how do you know when to draw the line?

Like, I *want* a big house with a pool.  The house I ended up falling in love with didn't have one, and I know it's not financially brilliant to pay to put one in.  So I settled, and it's ok.  I've never woken up angry or regretful that I don't have a swimming pool.  I basically couldn't afford one, and I've come to terms with that. 

When I go shopping, I *want* the perfect shoes.  High-heeled, yet super comfortable, sexy, edgy, but walkable.  Talk about a unicorn.  I haven't found that pair yet.  So I settle for "not too painful but very sexy" or "kinda cute but very comfortable", or if I'm really feeling vain and hopeless in my search for shoe perfection, I'll go for the, "sexy and completely unwalkable" variety and hope I can just mince around and perch on a barstool all night and look cute.  

So I settle all the time.  But when it comes to affairs of the heart, when do you settle?  And how is that different than compromising?

To "settle for" is defined by thefreedictionary.com as "to accept in spite of incomplete satisfaction."

"Compromise" is defined as "a settlement of differences in which each side makes concessions."

 

It looks to me like the difference is between either one party or two accepting less-than-desirable terms.  In relationships, we all know compromise is necessary.  I compromised all the time in my past relationships - probably too much.  But as a woman with a very strong personality, I am easily perceived as a steamroller (a.k.a. 'bitch') when I argue or debate to convince them of my way, because few men seem to be able to (or want to) go toe-to-toe with me in a debate.  Ironically, that's the one thing I crave the most in a partner.  One who isn't afraid of me and my strong opinions and solid arguments (ok, not all of them are solid, but I always think they are when I go into it...) and will stand his ground calmly and help me see if from his point of view.  I admire the hell out of someone who can do that.  And it has been done.  I was humbled and filled with admiration simultaneously when this last guy pointed out flaws in my interpretation of his communications.  WHAT!?  *I* am the Queen Communicator!  I couldn't possibly have misinterpreted or misunderstood a simple text message...oh shit.  I did.  And he called me out on it.  Strangely, I loved that.  Put me in my place, and made me feel like I finally had an equal.

As my last marriage started falling apart, I had noticed that his pattern in an argument would be to angrily express what he wanted, barely trying to understand why I wanted what I wanted, then throwing his hands in the air in defeat and then running away from the issue, completely abdicating his vote on the matter.  I was usually still struggling to understand his point of view as he was shutting down emotionally and avoiding me.  Then he would hold me 100% responsible for the outcome when the decision I was left to make alone didn't pan out perfectly.  Oh, and there would absolutely be some passive-aggressive retribution involved...the issue would ALWAYS come up later and I would pay for it, one way or the other.  I will definitely be more aware of the intimidation factor and my steamroller tendencies if I ever choose to have another relationship with someone who isn't a cat.  (That's a big 'if' right now.)  But I'd rather just find a man who has a pair and isn't afraid of a debate.  (Not a fight.  I hate fighting as much as the next person.  I believe evolved humans can debate and discuss and even disagree without escalating and getting heated and ugly.)

But in addition to compromising (or at least trying to) in my marriage, I also settled.  Was I aware I was settling in the beginning?  On some level, I'm sure I was.  I knew I'd always earn more money than him, but that's not a deal breaker for me.  I frankly don't care about somebody's salary or title.  BUT.  To put a finer point on it, did he even try to work up to his potential?  No.  He would settle for a 'just good enough for now' job every time and glom onto it instead of reaching higher.  I do understand this is part of the work ethos from his culture, so I'm not being judgmental about it, but I now know that this is something that bothers me on some level, and I can't change that.  I can't make a man want to work up to his potential, and I can't change the fact that I lose respect for him when he doesn't.  So I think I knew I was settling, but I was trying so hard to be 'fair' and 'nonjudgmental' that I buried it and tried to ignore it.  Ultimately, that is the very thing that undid us - when the economy shifted, and we moved to a depressed city, his current skill set did not enable him to have a decent income.  And despite my offers of support and encouragement, he never made any efforts to better himself (beyond talking about it) and get some education that would help him move upward.  His inability to provide for himself and his family corroded his ego to such a point that it completely fell apart and he resorted to doing things like cheating on me and disrespecting me in public to bolster that sore, crippled man-ego.  I, of course, won't tolerate that shit, so it's over. That drive to improve oneself has to come from the inside.  External factors, even love, won't make you do it.

What I wonder about is, did he know that I was settling for him?  He had to have, on some level.  Ultimately, how much can you trust the love coming from someone you know is lowering their standards and settling for you?  Doesn't that feel more like charity of some sort, or pity?  I would not be comfortable knowing that, if I were the charity case.  My pride wouldn't let me stay.  Maybe that was the root of our undoing.  He knew, and was never comfortable with it.  But that would have had to have been on a very sub-conscious level - this man is not very self-actualized (AT ALL), and doesn't look too deeply in the mirror, since he is (and apparently many others are) all too happy with what he sees on the surface.  It's a good theory though, I think. :::pats self on back:::

All of which leads me into my next (non)relationship and questions about compromise vs. settling.  I don't think either one of us would have been settling for the other in any way.  That's why it felt so electric - having someone of equal stature in life, neither of us would have to make excuses for the other for any reason.  I'd never have to explain for the umpteenth time to my family that I was still paying all the household bills because he couldn't get a good job because he had no education in this country and his English skills weren't as good as they should be.  I could argue a point with him and he would listen intently -- intensely, even -- then deliver his thoughts on the point usually in story form, via an anecdote of something that happened in his past.  He never shied away from telling me my point of view was limited or maybe even totally off-base.  I admired that.  I valued that.  I treasured that.  And now I miss that.  But back to my point.

We wouldn't have had a problem around 'settling', since we were on even ground.  But compromise seems to be where we fell down.  I wanted transparency and exclusivity.  He wanted all the emotional intimacy of a committed relationship - without the commitment part.  In order for us to have a compromise, we'd both be giving up what we wanted most.  I'd still have to tolerate the lack of transparency and lack of exclusivity - things that make me the most miserable.  He'd have to tolerate invasive-feeling questions, and a tether to only one woman.  Clearly both things he wasn't willing to do either.  So in our case, compromise just wasn't possible, which is why it's over, despite all of the good things we had going for us.  

So now I wonder (more frequently than I want to or should), is he settling for/with someone else?  Since he claimed he didn't want ANY commitments, I'll extrapolate that to his other relationships as well and not take it too personally (that's a lie, by the way, I'm totally taking it personally, as you can tell) and choose to believe he's not committing to HER either.  But she's still sticking around for it.  So...are they both settling?  Or compromising?  It's not my relationship, so it's none of my damn business, but my mind can't help but go there (to torture myself, of course) and wonder.  

If I knew the person I was seeing wanted something else, something more, but I was only willing to feed them the bare breadcrumbs of a relationship, just enough to keep them coming back for more - would I respect them and truly want them in my life if I knew they were dysfunctional enough to accept that kind of treatment?  Me, personally?  Absolutely not.  It reeks of desperation.  But I guess it depends on what they want from each other.  That's something I try NOT to think about too much, but apparently that dynamic is still working for them to some extent.  They both get something out of each other that apparently is 'enough' for right now.  That worked for us for a while too, but as my other posts will attest, it turned into a whole other thing that kind of took over and made 'enough' into 'not nearly enough', for me anyway.  And I had to walk (or rather, stagger) away, although looking back frequently through a haze of tears and runny mascara to see if he's chasing after me.  Which he isn't.

I cried over it again as recently as yesterday.  Of course, I also ripped the scab off again (yeah, I know.  Cut it out, asshole. I'm working on it.  Made it 19 whole days of radio silence this time, I'm improving.) and opened a dialogue.  My bad. But the dynamic is still the same.  He openly tells me he misses me.  Which is validating, but painful.  I miss him.  We miss each other.  This whole thing is stupid.  But until the pain of remaining the same outweighs the pain of change, we'll remain in this emotional mexican standoff, just missing each other and enduring it.

Either I have to compromise and tolerate a man who is a mystery and won't commit, or he has to compromise and limit himself to one woman and be honest about everything. 

Apparently, neither one of us feels like the 'good' the other brings to the relationship outweighs the 'bad' that those changes require of us.  So there is no relationship.

In the meantime, I've holstered my virtual gun, I've turned my back on the whole thing and am no longer hopeful that he'll be the one to compromise.  I know I can't, so why should I think he can?  Even if to me, my terms seem more reasonable than his. But that's because they're MY terms.  Just like when I dirty the kitchen, it's not THAT dirty, because it's MY dirt.  When somebody else sullies my countertops, I'm all put out and huffy because it's OPD - Other People's Dirt, which everyone knows is dirtier than your own dirt.   I'm sure he feels the same way, that I'm being completely unreasonable in choosing nothing with him over the something we used to have, and that what I'm asking for is not in his repertoire or is just a deal-breaker that he knows will make him miserable.  And I don't want that.  No temporary emotional high is worth knowing that you're breaking a man to get it.  Because a broken man will never be a happy man, and you always pay a price in the end. 

In a very weird way, this reminds me of the story of the gift of the magi. We'd both be sacrificing what we value most to give each other something that the other then cannot use - our broken, over-compromised selves.  Not really a gift at all.

Speaking of gifts, I heard a rumor there's a holiday (rapidly) approaching.  Maybe I should stop all this reflection on something I can't change, and make a dent in my Christmas preparations.  Not feeling festive just yet, but that always changes when the plane lands in freezing-cold Pittsburgh where family awaits with good food and even better gifts.  This year will be my first Christmas not having a significant other in my life, I think for about 10 years.  It's going to feel strange and maybe a little hollow, but at least I won't have the dark spectre of misery that followed me the past 6 years there to ruin it as usual.  So I'll make the best of it.

 

  

*le sigh*

Yes, that's me.  Pixellated almost to the point of abstraction, which is how I feel right now.  Less than my normal sharp-focus, well-lit, on-the-ball self.  I have a fabulous coworker who is a cartoonist by hobby (and a very good, funny one) who has informed me I'm his next subject.  I can't wait - I know there's plenty of good comedy material in me (I know because he showed me the list he's been making), and I've always wanted to be rendered into cartoon form, especially if it involves giving me super-powers.  

But I'm not feeling so super just now, and I'm irritated that I don't know exactly why.  Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's just an overwhelming feeling of "meh", and considering what many others I know are struggling with, I feel like a jackhole for still having a few toes trailing along in that huge pool of self-pity I've been struggling to pull my waterlogged self out of.  I'm the first person to tell a struggling friend "hey, be gentle with yourself, you wouldn't let anybody else talk to you the way you're talking to yourself right now!", but I'm total shit at taking my own excellent advice, and there's nobody in my face to tell me to cut it the fuck out and get my shit together, I have a million things to be grateful for.  And I am grateful.  But 'grateful' doesn't automatically cancel out 'sad'.  I can be both.  

I learned this morning that a friend who has already battled cancer once is facing yet another battle.  Very sobering news.  Yet he still managed to make a few jokes and got me to laugh, as if he needed to ease the blow of my hearing about his diagnosis.  For ME, not for him.  That's very selfless, and shows a tremendous strength of character that I admire.  So of course, the JC that comes from generations of stoic Austrian women who never kvetched about their ills even when they had every right to wants to kick my sad little self right in the nads and shout (in a heavy Austrian accent, of course), "VAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?  NUSSING!  DERE IS NUSSING DE MATTER VIT YOU!  STOP CRYING LIKE BABY!"  Because that is how my inner Austrian rules.  She's a tough bitch.  No-nonsense.  I'm disinclined to fuck with her, she could mess my shit up real good.

But even knowing that friends are facing very real life-and-death battles, and getting a drill-sergeant-esque dressing down from my inner Helga hasn't bolstered my spirits.  And why should it?  These aren't good things, or fun things.  Knowing a friend of mine is facing another major battle saddens me.  And I don't like getting yelled at, even just from myself.  I only retreat and get sullen, especially if they're right.  Which of course, she is.  (If they're wrong, I get all kinds of unstoppably sassy and in-yo-face.)  I KNOW I have a million things to be happy about and grateful for, and I usually am in that place, sitting on top of the world in the little seat I carved out for myself (with a lot of help from family and friends and mentors), just enjoying the view and smiling down upon my little fiefdom while petting a cat in my lap.

Right now, there's some clouds blocking my view and they just won't seem to clear up and get the hell out of the way.  The misty leftovers of what a month ago was a complete thunderstorm is still blocking out the sun.  The shine has worn off of a lot of things I usually look to when I want to cheer myself up.  I feel like the shine has worn off of ME a little bit.  Just a few months ago I was working hard towards my fitness goals and feeling and looking good, my skin was clear, and I had somebody other than myself to try to impress and notice all the changes.  Someone who wanted to see what I looked like every day.  Now, I'm still working hard towards my fitness goals, but I'm feeling like a rusty tin man.  Tendonitis has flared up, along with my shin splints.  I feel bloated and lumpy and like I'm gaining weight again despite diet and extreme amounts of exercise.  Unwelcome aches and pains are back, and I don't feel like going to my regular massage place and having to small talk with someone I have no connection with for two hours just to get my kinks worked out.  My skin looks dull and is once again breaking out, which is how I wear my stress.  Even my hair isn't cooperating.  Maybe it's the lack of human touch.  I don't know.

I feel disassociated, untethered, like the sum of my parts isn't just NOT more than the whole, but isn't even the whole right now.  I'm coming up short.  Maybe it's the eerily silent phone, and my coming to terms with "if he wanted you in his life, you'd be there." Ok, that just made my eyes well up, so I must be onto something.  So I guess this is just more of the same, although most of my anger is gone now and I'm just left with the hollow sadness that I guess some people call 'loneliness'.  I'm not a person who likes to be around people all the time.  Even most of the time.  I actually like to be alone, and have never felt like I needed constant external stimulation or validation to get through life.  So this is a foreign and extremely unwelcome feeling for me to have.

After having someone seem to be so interested in me and my life, suddenly having no one in that space has left a spooky echo and a feeling of incompleteness that I am not comfortable with.  And it pisses me off that I feel that way, because I have never needed somebody else to validate who I am.  So why do I feel that way now?

I'm just going to chalk it up to a bunch of cosmic stuff.  Mercury, asshole of a planet that he is, is still in retrograde.  I'm probably also having a low biorhythm day.  Even my horoscope was shitty, and the horoscope of the person I'm missing only made it worse. (No, I don't usually read it, but of course it caught my eye today, of all days.)  "There is someone who needs to hear just how much you care.  This person has been longing to know how you feel...this person is in need of some reassurance.  Reach out and show how much your friend or lover means to you.  This could be the beginning of a really wonderful relationship."  AAAARRRRRGH.  I actually raised my eyebrows and was surprised at how accurate it was...until I got to the "friend or lover" part.  Once again a reminder that I'm neither of these things to this person anymore, and he'll most likely be reaching out to the one who now IS.  Another sharp stick in my already watery red eyes...Oh well.

The good news (because society says "stop being negative!", "Count your positives!", and that old favorite, "Smile!"  I hate society.) is that I'm going to be busy all day and on a military base where I can't have my phone or computer with me. So at least I won't be hearing all that silence coming from my phone.  See?  I can be positive.

SuperJC out.

      

so they say

Also, this.  (It's a song - if you're at work, put on your headphones and crank it.)

just kickin' a can

In my ongoing quest to 'get my shit together' before I get even older and more physically broken-down, I have been consulting an Osteopath about the seemingly unending mystery neck/back/shoulder pain I've been having for about the past 6 months.  If I had to name it, I'd call it "Acute Emotional Onset Extreme Tension" or somesuch.  As my excellent name for it hints, it seems to reach its peak when I'm under extreme emotional stress.  Which has happened twice in the past 6 months, and almost rendered me useless both times.  Highly inconvenient, when one is trying not to mope, yet is almost confined to the bed from extreme, untouchable muscle pain and unable to even turn one's head.  Anyway, that's doing much better (for now), so on to my actual point of this post - my visit with this doctor this morning turned out to be about something else completely.  

This doctor is very thorough - almost alarmingly so, especially since he has a blood pressure machine that is CONVINCED I have high blood pressure.  Every other single place I've had my blood pressure taken in my LIFE has reflected either normal or low blood pressure.  I swear his getup is rigged to give him justification to prescribe unnecessary tests.  So far, this alleged high blood pressure (that I totally don't have) has caused him to order a full workup blood test that revealed I'm actually totally healthy as far as my blood is concerned.  But this morning, in my bloodwork follow-up visit, he was listening to my lungs and heart, and asked me if I knew I had a little bit of a heart murmur.  

Heart murmur? 

Aye, que no.

First of all, I'm 41, and have never been told by a single doctor that I have a heart murmur.  So this is a new thing, as far as I know.  And I have seen a LOT of doctors this year.  Here's why I know it can't possibly be true.  If my heart had anything to say, it would not merely 'murmur' it.  It would shout it.  With a bullhorn, probably.  And would use my body cavity for further amplification.  

But here's my theory:  it is tired.  It has exhausted itself this year with disappointment, betrayal, false hope, and ultimately, getting broken.  So while I highly doubt my heart is even capable of something as understated as a mere murmur, I could conceive of it having completely spent its little muscular self throwing temper tantrums, kicking and screaming like an angry toddler until there just wasn't much left.  So now, after the storm, and after the breaking, and the stitches, it's just kinda tired and leaky and cranky, like an old cracked tire with dry rot.  Half-assed heart.  And its probably muttering under its breath.  Epithets like, "...such and such and blah blah blah NO COMMITMENT blah blah blah UNFAIR blah blah ALIMONY blah blah blah" while making nasty faces as it imitates those it mocks.  If it had feet, it would be kicking tin cans in seedy, darkened alleys just to make the scene complete.   

The good news is it doesn't always feel like kicking cans and mocking people anymore.  Those feelings are actually pretty rare these days.  I've even experienced some pretty spectacular unexpected moments of joy lately.  Amazing, uplifting house music.  Good friends.  Purring kitty cats.  Sunshine.  Those things still work on me, and every little bit counts and they are adding up to more positivity than negativity overall these days, which is good.  And overdue.


Like some of my other seemingly psychosomatic ailments, hopefully it will also heal itself  and go away when it has no more cans to kick down the alley.

I'll let the doc think what he wants and order the ultrasound or other probably completely unnecessary test to actually see how serious it is (chances are it probably isn't serious at all, its very common), but I know it's not really a heart murmur.  It's a heart mutter.  

in other words

"When you left, I was not lonely anymore.
It was a relief. Because there was nothing to think of as not being mine. " 

Tet Gallardo said it better than I ever could have, so I won't re-hash it here, I'll just let you enjoy her much more succinct, penetrating words.

I'll be over here in the meantime, enjoying that lack of stress over not having all of something I thought I wanted.

thank you sir, may I have another?

As humans, it is part of our nature to try to avoid things that hurt, and to seek out things that feel good.  Lab rat behavior confirms that we aren't the only species that operate on this principle.  Pain recognition is a warning system that our bodies have evolved to tell us things like, "don't touch that hot stove"  when receiving a burn, or "those berries aren't good for you" when you feel sick after eating them.  I would say we are 'hard-wired' to avoid pain, but actually...we aren't.

We are 'wired' with a nervous system to detect pain.  But the interpretation of said stimulus is largely up to the software that is our brain.  Our brains choose to interpret the signal as something unpleasant - or not.  Sometimes the signal is interrupted between the nervous system and the brain, and never gets acknowledged or interpreted (ever take an opiate-based pain pill?  It blocks the signal.  Incredible stuff.).  Sometimes, an individual can choose to observe the stimulus from a detached position and decide to interpret it as something other than unpleasant, even choosing to derive pleasure from something others interpret as pain.  Hence, masochism.

Obviously, this system can serve us well and help us avoid damaging our bodies unnecessarily.  But when pain is necessary, does it always serve us to let our lower, autonomic self drive the bus down our typical path of pain avoidance?

A good analogy is dentistry, which is what I am facing today.  Nobody (well not *many* people anyway) actually enjoys it. We all know we have to do it, or else pay the consequences later - bad teeth, less-than-stellar smiles, pain from cavities.  So even though we KNOW it's going to be unpleasant - loud drilling, expense, shots, numbing, pulling, and sometimes even worse...we go anyway.  We dread it, we may put it off, drag our feet, but ultimately, we go.  Most of us, that is.  I do have a number of (adult) friends who have practically made a career out of dentistry avoidance because of the sheer unpleasantness, and for whom it is actually quite traumatic to go when it is time.  For them, 'time' to go is defined by when the pain of NOT going outweighs their fear of the potential pain and discomfort they are going to experience in The Chair.  And I guess that's what it comes down to for each of us, every day, when deciding exactly how much pain (of any kind) we are willing to tolerate.

I used to be one of those dentistry-avoidance people.  I remember as a child fearing the semi-annual visits to Dr. Shaw, the family dentist.  I'm pretty sure Nurse Ratched was his dental technician, and that she dreamed at night of carving up young people's gums with sharp instruments.  (And lived her dream daily, especially when I was in The Chair.)  As a young adult, there were many years that for both financial and anxiety-related reasons, I did not sit in The Chair.  But eventually, my inferior enamel and knowledge that I needed to do the maintenance now or pay the piper later kicked in, and I begrudgingly made the necessary appointment and faced the music (of the drill).  I was always proud of myself for doing this, knowing how much I dreaded it and how much anxiety novocaine shots used to give me as a child.  (I would literally have nightmares about them - sometimes having near-panic symptoms on my way to the office, in the backseat of my parents car with a runaway heartbeat and shallow breathing, panting like a dog.)

These people that choose not to go as adults for anxiety reasons are basically choosing comfort and the risk of the unknown vs. the known pain of The Chair.  They are also probably demonizing the dentist more than necessary.  He's not really a sadist, he's just there to keep your teeth healthy.  They are choosing to allow their brain to interpret all of those pain signals as threatening and worth avoiding at all costs.  I would call this a low pain threshold, mixed in with some unchecked level of extreme anxiety.  If you examine other areas of their life, I would gamble that you'll see conflict- or pain-avoidant behavior in other areas too.  It may even manifest as passive-aggressive behavior, where they avoid confrontation of any sort (which their anxious brain interprets as "danger! danger! run!"), and instead express their dissatisfaction by simply removing themselves from the situation and grumbling under their breath, or 'paying back' the person they have a problem with in some less obvious way.  (I experienced many paybacks from passive-aggressive husbands - yes, plural - who couldn't handle my up-front way of dealing with confrontation.  Basically, I would confront them with some important but possibly painful  topic, and they would squirm and evade and deny, but eventually would pay me back for that perceived humiliation (pain) by cheating on me or disrespecting me on some other level to make them feel vindicated and like they got 'even'.  It's extremely cowardly.)

Today, I have chosen to face The Chair voluntarily for a cosmetic improvement.  I have tetracycline staining on my two front teeth - I have had this my whole life.  I looked like a 2-pack a day smoker by the time I was 10.  My parents, recognizing my embarrassment and reluctance to smile because of it, had Dr. Shaw apply topical bonding to those teeth to cover the worst of the staining.  It did the trick for many years, and I all but forgot about the self-conscious smile I had in elementary school.  Some years ago, a dentist brought it to my attention that the bonding and my teeth in general were less than Chiclet white (the standard in Miami, where I was living at the time), and why didn't I do something about it?  Sounded like a good idea, that bonding had been applied and re-applied over the years and wasn't holding so well any more anyway.  So I invested in two veneers.  And I do mean invest.  Since it was a cosmetic application, insurance doesn't help much. But I felt it was worth it.  I do work in a customer-facing role, and smiling can be a big part of my job sometimes, as I've been told I look too intimidating when I'm *not* smiling.  So this Miami dentist injected me with copious amount of Novocaine (imagine getting multiple shots right above your two front teeth. Yeah.), ground down my front two teeth to little nubs, made a temp veneer which I wore for a week, then removed it and put the permanent veneers on.  When I say 'veneer', I'm sure many of you are picturing a thin coating of enamel, perfectly translucent and molded to the exact shape my original teeth had been (which quite frankly, I liked - it was the original color I had an issue with).  That is the basic idea behind veneers.  What I received instead was more of a crown.  Opaque, not-well-matched to my other teeth, larger-than-before protuberances that refused to let my lips close normally, turning me into a bad Bugs Bunny imitation.  I cried for DAYS before mustering up the nerve to return to the dentist and inform him that I was not at all happy about what he did to my smile, which was now threatening to not just strike, but completely run away, never to return.

As has been the sad experience with several other dentists in my past, even though I approached the situation carefully, calmly, and professionally, his ego took charge and reacted negatively.  I had made the appointment, telling the receptionist I wanted to discuss the veneers with the dentist.  I calmly informed him that the color match DIDN'T (match), and that if he reviewed my 'before' pictures, I was most certainly NOT buck-toothed prior to the veneering process.  I showed him how my lips no longer closed normally while at rest, and how unsettling and unattractive this was for me.  He acted put-out and exasperated.  As if I was just being an unreasonable child, after paying thousands (ok, maybe hundreds) for his services, I had no right not to LOVE the result I had received.

His 'solution' was basically to shave down the profile of the most offending veneer (the left one) and reprimand me.  Over what, I have no idea, but I felt reprimanded.  Red-faced and upset, I left his office, still unsatisfied.  A few short weeks later, that veneer cracked - while I was in California, no less.  I had to see Dr. Ego one more time to allow him to GLUE the cracked corner back together.  I was once again chastised (surely I had been chewing on rocks or somesuch), so this time I left, never to return.  Put him on the pile with Dr. Shaw, whose ego and shitty chairside manner of thinly disguised misogyny also eventually chased me out of his practice.  

Cut to 5 years later, I'm living in Jacksonville, still fighting my way out of a divorce, recovering from a recently broken heart, and on a MAJOR self-improvement kick.  I have stopped accepting "good enough" from myself and everybody around me.  My body hurts, but I still work out about 5-6 days a week.  I choose the pain over the alternative - staying the same, unhappy, overweight JC I had been for years.  I ended my last (non) relationship because it was not as fulfilling to my heart as I know I needed it to be and deserve, even though the pain of doing it was SO intolerable that I had to ply myself with alcohol (never a good tactic, by the way) just to work up the nerve to get myself there to do it.  But I did it.  I pulled the rug out from under my own feet, causing my heart so much pain.  That was exactly one month ago today.  And here I am, recovering from that pain, now voluntarily marching forward into yet another painful experience.  I am going to have these two inferior, non-matching, protruding veneers chiseled out of my head this morning, have the two neighboring teeth ground down to nubs as well, and have four (purportedly) glossy, perfect, translucent modern veneers applied to my front four teeth, thereby fixing my 'good enough' cracked unmatching smile into what is hopefully a beautiful, normal-looking smile. 

Do I need to experience this pain?  Probably not.  Although eventually that cracked corner is sure to come off again if I don't, exposing my sad, sensitive little nubbin of a toothlet underneath and making me look all kinds of hillbilly.  I don't want to live with that risk, and I'm tired of being just 'good enough'.  I want to push myself beyond, achieve something more (even it if is vain and shallow in this case), despite the pain required to get there.  My wallet is sure to be hurting after this as well, but the pain and discomfort and money and risk are all the price I'm willing to pay to take a step up to the next level.

It's like anything in life though.  Dentistry can be applied as metaphor to relationships.  Do you take the leap?  Risk your just-ok smile for one that could possibly be more expensive (taking more time, energy, effort,) and potentially end up worse (more broken hearted than the last time, when it ends)?  Or does your fear of The Chair and your past negative experiences in it keep you cowering at home with your 'good enough' teeth?   

I guess when you boil it all down, I am a risk-taker.  I put it out there.  I don't hold back.  I gamble.  Not compulsively, mind  you.  I weigh the risks.  I'm a Libra, after all...that's what we do.  Put the potential negatives on one side of our scales (risk, cost, effort, pain) vs. potential positives (LOVE! HAPPINESS! FULFILLMENT!) on the other.  I am willing to go through the pain of change (and change, even good change, is always painful) in order to have just a shot at those positives.  I understand when people aren't willing to, though.  I don't always agree with them.  Sometimes I pity them.  They are just more financially or emotionally conservative than I am.  Hell, they'll probably retire with a lot more money in the bank than I will, and may suffer a lot less heartbreak along the way.  But I'm choosing to take the risk, bet it all on black, and see what happens on the other side of the changes.  It could be awesome.  Because isn't that what life is about - taking a chance, despite the pain?

phoenician cycle

So, at first, I was like

And for a while I was kinda

But now, I'm all

That's all I have to say about that.  Finally.

my patronus is surely a phoenix

Now that I've recognized my ability to fly high, go down in flames, be reduced to mere ashes, then rise again to fly once more, I have decided that the next logical addition to my collection of body art is a phoenix.  My right arm is a near-complete half-sleeve, I just need to figure out what will be a logical addition for the empty space in the back.  My left arm only sports a scorpion, partly encircled by the tail of a cat sitting on my shoulder. Originally the scorpion only represented my (now) ex, but it also represents the part of me that isn't pure Libra, that is Scorpio rising, and serves as a good reminder not to get stung again.  I don't feel the need to alter it or hide it, it is my past, it is part of my story.  Which to me, is what body art is all about.  Telling your story, telling the world who you are through a visual diary.

So I sketched this (yeah, I know, I'm so NOT an artist, just "artistic"!) phoenix, against a backdrop of flames, about to be engulfed again.  Although looking at it now, the head looks more like a cardinal. THE ANGRY CARDINAL OF DOOM.  Heh heh...just made myself laugh.  That's a good sign I'm getting back to the real me.  Dorkily laughing at my own stupid jokes is a sure sign of my return to my default setting of "uncool and doesn't give a damn who knows it or likes it".

Had a meeting for work this week, and although it was not exactly the most scintillating two days I've ever had, it was oddly refreshing.  I have a bunch of coworkers (they're all guys, I'm the only chick, hence my "unicorn" nickname) who I can see genuinely care about me as a person.  Not just as a (sometime) asset on the team, but as a human being.  They all checked in with me to see how I was doing coping with everything that's happened to me this year, and each of them did what they could to cheer me up.  Some of them shared their own stories of similar situations, some told anecdotes to distract me, some just listened and nodded sympathetically.  Some of them made me laugh so hard I was sure milk I hadn't even been drinking was going to come out of my nose.  Each one of them helped in their own way and reminded me that although I may not always be valued as much as I want to be by someone, there are plenty of good quality people out there who do value me and can be counted on when I need a friend.  Not that I don't have friends here - I have AWESOME friends here - but who can truly say this about their coworkers?  And it's almost universal throughout this company.  I have close coworker friends who I didn't see this week who aren't on my team but check in on me regularly when they think I'm struggling with something.  And I appreciate that. 

So this is like my Thanksgiving, Part Deux.  I'm so grateful to be a part of this amazing company and incredible team, and honored and touched that they all look after me, like a dozen or so protective big brothers I never had.  It's things like this that make me realize I am beyond what people call "fortunate".  I exist in the realm of the few, the proud, the genuinely "lucky".  Hmmm, that sounds like a good tattoo as well... 

I'm just a knockoff

Apparently I'm not the original hopeless romantic.  Not that I thought I was.  I guess it's reassuring to know I'm not the only fool.  But according to my stereotype, I'm allegedly never going to get 'smarter' about it.  We'll see.

I haven't read the book Anna Karenina yet, but I'd like to before I see the movie.  I'll try to fit that into the .002 seconds of downtime I have this week.  Chances are I won't get around to seeing this or any movie until late 2017, so on second thought, I won't try to rush it.

Strike 3

As I continue on my path to healing to try to wring every bit of understanding out of this weird, awful, and new situation I've just been through, I noticed some very strange patterns, and I needed to write it down here to see what it all means.

Exactly three times in my life I have been emotionally devastated like I am now.  This feeling of absolute "WTF!?  How did this happen?!  How did I get here?!"   Followed by a long run of "poor me".  Let me explain what is so unique (one could even say 'special') about these occurrences.  

All 3 times, I was involved with a guy who had some affiliation with a particular branch of the military.  All of them, the same branch. One was a lifer, one just did a few years, and the other went to the academy but mysteriously did not continue into a career.  

All 3 times, the guy was physically closest to what one could describe as a "roughneck".  Not very tall, but physically imposing, big, and strong.  Nobody would look at any of these guys and decide to mess with them.  Two out of the three were also bikers with significant ink.

All 3 times, these guys had larger-than-life personalities.  Especially with a few drinks under their belts.  They were funny, charismatic, loud.  Bombastic.  And tons of fun.   When sober, and caught at a good moment, they were teddy bears.  Gentle, sweet, loving...extremely fond of children and animals, all 3 of them.

All 3 times, I entered into an exciting, roller-coaster style relationship that had just enough high points to keep me coming back, but extreme lows that frequently left me devastated and ultimately, led to me ending it.

You read that right.  These 3 relationships that I allowed to devastate me, I pulled the plug on.  Even though it was for seemingly different reasons, they all had one thing in common: I knew that I could not survive as a happy and complete person with the kind of treatment I was receiving from them.  So as a survival tactic, I ended it.  Pulled the rug right out from under my own feet to avoid a worse spill later.

And then I mourned.  And mourned, and mourned.  And strangely, felt like a victim.  It was only my analysis of this extremely uncomfortable victim-colored coat I kept donning that has forced me to see the commonalities in these 3 relationships and spurred me to examine what happened, and why do I react this way?  Injured, even though I'm the one that walked away each time?

The first one happened when I was very young - 20.  We were in college, and he was fresh out of the military, a year older than me, and looking for trouble.  Ultimately, he cheated on me and got a girl pregnant.  To say that was a shock would be the understatement of the year.  Once the truth of the situation was revealed to me, I realized I wanted nothing to do with this situation, and as much as it broke my heart, I told him to leave me alone.  I let it devastate me for an entire summer. Lost about 20 lbs.  Couldn't eat.  Cried daily.  I took it personally.  I felt like the other woman must surely have something I didn't - why else would he have made that pitstop at her place when I was waiting for him at home?  My young, insecure mind couldn't stop wracking itself with comparisons to her.  And seeing her was even more devastating - she wasn't anything special.  Horsey-faced, even.  And THIS is what he preferred over ME?  Devastating.  He realized too late that he had really fucked up a good thing and would show up, usually drunk, making loud, insufficient overtures as to how much he actually loved me and it was his fear of that which had made him act out.  He caught me at the wrong moment once, and having had way more than enough, I (drunkenly) lashed out and broke his nose.  That seemed to get the message through, and he dissolved into the background, forever tainting my memories of my final years in college.  (The coda here is that 20 years later, thanks to social networking, we have been reconnected as friends, quite good ones actually, and finally deciding to release the anger I held towards him for two decades was an amazing, uplifting experience.  And hearing him talk about how he knew that I understood him better than he understood himself, and how that unnerved him and freaked him out, and he didn't know how to deal with it, is extremely validating.)

The second one happened about 10 years later, as I was entering my 30's.  He was a co-worker (learned THAT lesson the hard way) who hadn't necessarily caught my eye as much as my ear.  His personality and intelligence were off the chart amazing, and once you fall for somebody's personality, everything about them becomes beautiful.  Everyone we worked with thought he was the best.   A real good-time Charlie, always buying rounds of drinks for everybody, making the best toasts.  Things were good until I moved from Pittsburgh to DC (where he lived).  Unbeknownst to me, he had a best friend who was very jealous of our relationship and was working against me.  My boyfriend had promised me that I'd finally have the New Year's Eve of my dreams, he'd see to it.  Come late November, he suddenly mentioned that his friend had invited HIM (and only HIM) to the island in the Bahamas that his parents owned for New Year's.  He jabbered some excuses about there being "only one single bed" available and his friend's parents "frowning upon" me potentially being there with him when I knitted my brow at the news.  He stammered and backpedaled and avoided eye contact.  I was furious.  Disappointed, and hurt.  He denied ever having said he would spend New Year's with me, which only served to insult my intelligence.  That was the final straw for me.  I said, "_____, you cannot treat me like this and expect that you can still call me your girlfriend.  Goodbye."  And I walked out.  (Actually, I had to call my BFF and have her and her husband drive 40 minutes to come rescue my stranded ass, but that's beside the point.  I ended it right then and there, in the beautiful foyer of his parents' house, next to the baby grand piano.  I spent those 40 minutes behind a locked guestroom door, sobbing quietly into my freshly re-packed overnight bag.)  I mourned that for MONTHS.  Lost 30 lbs this time.  I just couldn't understand it.  Again, I let it devastate me.  I'm sure I was quite intolerable during this period of time, and I still appreciate the few friends who managed to tolerate me and reach out to me during that time and make sure I was ok.  

This last time, now in my 40's, I wasn't looking for anything at all much less something serious, but all I can really say about it here is that he was a friend/acquaintance - somebody I had always liked and admired, so I felt 'safe' with him.  He was in my safe zone.  And within that safe zone, I allowed myself to get sucked in by something with the force of a turbine engine and spit out the other side so quickly that I never did quite figure out what exactly happened, why it was so intense, nor why it had to end so suddenly.  Although I know damn well why it had to end.  Once again, I realized that I was having some unhappy moments that were so unacceptable to me, they outweighed the amazing highs we had together.  I knew it was not a sustainable model.  We had never talked about exclusivity or commitment, yet I felt (apparently incorrectly) like we were there.  When I started seeing and hearing evidence (some very real, some circumstantial) that he was still juggling someone else into the mix, I had to bring it up even though I knew that conversation was verboten and wouldn't end well.  How could he be looking deeply and intensely into my eyes, yet blowing me off on alternate weekends to spend time with her?! Doesn't make sense, and I can't live like that - on hold, on call, waiting to be picked as the favored girl that weekend instead of being relegated to the afterthought of a weekday.  I am not, and have never been, a second choice.  A runner-up.  I take the ribbon, or nothing at all.  And I won't chase it.  I'll work or fight for something I believe in, but I won't beg.  So again, even though it hurt my heart and my ego, and I wasn't strong enough to do it sober, I yanked the plug out of the wall and walked away before it got worse. 

And here I am, three weeks later, still overanalyzing the whole thing, but with a reason.  I'm not trying to pick my scabs or beat a dead horse, I'm trying to LEARN.  To grow, to improve, to not repeat the mistake I seem to make on a 10-year cycle.  And to tell myself, "stop sulking, asshole, he didn't end it with you.  YOU ended it with him."  You'd think that little pep talk would cheer me up, but of course I just look at the reasons I perceive that he (all 3 of them ) didn't make me his top priority or first option.  I'd like to get to the point where instead of feeling sorry for myself for not making the cut, that I feel proud about walking away with my head held high (eventually), and not accepting less-than-stellar treatment from a guy.  Because I see a lot of women who DO choose to stay in relationships like that.  They cling to these men in a veritable ballet of dysfunction, on again, off again, tears, smiles, tears, smiles...I just can't do it.  And I guess somewhere inside me, I know my limits.  And I know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.  

With all that learning under my belt, I guess what I need to do now is just enjoy my 40's, and come 50, keep on the lookout for an ex-military tatted up roughneck on a motorcycle - and run like hell when I see him.           

   

 

Black (Friday) Sunshine

So it's Black Friday again.  The day we're all supposed to arise from our tryptophan coma at 0-dark-30 and set out with our game plan to trample each other in a race to get a bigger, better deal than the next person. I love to shop, and I love me a deal, but I just can't deal with the traffic and crowds and front-row seat to the lower side of humanity.  I'm not that desperate to own anything that I'll put myself through that kind of unnecessary stress.

As much as I like saving money and getting a bargain, I don't hesitate to invest in something that I need, adore, or feel compelled to buy, even if it's still full price.  Maybe that's why I don't put myself through Black Friday hell.

I was told by this guy, on the first night that we discussed having a (non)relationship, that every person sets their own price.  I believe his quote was, "even if I have a million dollars, if I can get you for two dollars, I'm only gonna give you two dollars."  Sounds shitty, but he wasn't actually insulting me and insinuating that I was only WORTH $2, he was saying it in a friendly warning/advisory manner, giving me advice that I determine my worth to others, or I guess what the cost of entry into my life is.  I'm not sure what brought us to that particular conversation at that moment.  I have always known my worth and value, and even at those times when I chose to make an exception, I never left it up to others to make that determination.  I hold the pricing gun.

But I guess you could say this guy found me on my own personal Black Friday.  I had a fire sale.  "ALL ITEMS MUST GO!"  "LIMITED TIME OFFER!"  "NO EXCHANGES OR REFUNDS!"  Even though I had never had a (non)relationship like I had with him before, I was willing to lower my price temporarily, let go of some of my typical high pricing (transparency, fidelity, exclusivity), to give it a shot.  It might be worth it.  You never know what you're going to find at the bottom of that neglected, half-empty bin back in the corner that has been overlooked.  Maybe there's some tchotchke or gadget that you wouldn't normally look twice at, much less consider taking home with you, but if it's cheap enough, well, what the hell?!  Let's try it.

Do I think of myself (or him) as some leftover trinket that got relegated to a dark corner of a cheap store?  No.  Not at all.  But sometimes, if you rummage through those discount outlets, you'll find a designer piece in perfect condition, marked with a tag that says, "last season".  Maybe it didn't make it on the shelves when it was more in demand last year, or maybe the market was flooded with cheaper knockoffs and it was excess.  Who knows how it got there, but its original value is still marked on the tag, just stamped over with a temporary discount to get it back out into circulation.  But the recipient of that bargain still gets to strut down the street with that designer piece on their arm - nobody needs to know the new owner paid less than everybody else who has one.

Now this isn't to say I lowered my standards by going out with him - that is not what I'm saying either.  This is a person I would have gone out with at any other time in my life - not just at what is a typically vulnerable, overwhelming time like I was expected to be  having when this thing started.  One would think I would have been in that expected broken-down state right then, considering the pending divorce and everything that had led to it.  But actually, I was fine, and I told him that.  A little shocked at the speed with which things were changing in my life, but I felt pretty stable.  I wasn't sitting home crying at all.  I was busy being independent and happy to be free of the negativity that had saddled me for the past 5 years or so.  I wasn't looking for anything or anybody.  But that day I had decided to show up at a social event I don't frequently attend anymore, almost like I was being driven to go there by some other force.  I remember feeling like a puppet, just going through the motions completely numb, but knowing that getting out and seeing friends would be good for me.  I have to wonder what it was that drove me to go there, to see him, and to reconnect.  And then take it a step further when I saw that he made it a point to open his doors to me.  It did all happen with dizzying speed, but it was good.  I have to think that it was what I needed, a pleasant distraction, a kind of human band-aid or salve for something that was actually healing pretty well on its own anyway.   Although the way it ended up, I guess it turned out to be another bruise that just distracted me from my earlier one.  That's ok too, sometimes a different kind of pain is a relief from the one you're used to.  And it didn't turn into pain until somewhat recently, when I realized my fire sale was over and my prices were returning to normal.  That's when I think we both realized he wasn't carrying the type or amount of currency required to keep this particular trinket in his life.

I guess the fire is dying already (thankfully), because I'm not quite as focused in my message or my metaphors here.  I guess that's a good thing.  I think that upon hearing some random commentary about some 'sightings' from mutual friends that I realized that I didn't lose to 'nothing' after all, there's definitely still a 'something' (or rather, 'someone') else in the picture, that he didn't want to (and rightly, didn't have to) admit to, this gives me the piece of the puzzle I was missing.  It doesn't hurt any less, particularly when you know your competition's flaws and feel like you still came up short against them.  But when words and actions don't jive, a red flag gets thrown on the play.  Then when words and more words don't jive, my brain calls 'foul' and just goes into complete overdrive, hence my overanalysis of the situation.  It was my gut, telling me something ain't right.  I'm missing information.  THIS is why I was in the JAG Corps.  THIS is why I like forensics shows.  My brain can't rest until it all makes sense.   So now that it seems to be falling into place, and the scabs are becoming less painful scars, I'm reflecting on how and why I got myself into that situation to begin with, and how it managed to turn from a fun and pleasant distraction into an emotional rollercoaster.   So I don't do it again.

The how?  That's easy.  I put myself out there, and I am an open person.  Open to receive what somebody tells me, and because I do not lie or obfuscate, I never assume that others (particularly those known, liked, and respected by me) would do it either.  I give them the benefit of the doubt that I want given to me.  I'm also open to trying new things, even if they seem a little out of character or uncomfortable at first.  That's how I ended up in a college beauty pageant, the Army National Guard, a fire department, a motorcycle association, and several tattoo parlors.  I put myself out there.  It's the only way for me to live - fully.

The why?  I guess I felt the need to socialize and distract myself from the onerous tasks I was faced with:  finding (and paying) a lawyer, drawing the lines of what's mine vs. what belongs to my ex, packing it up, facing the enormity of it all...who wants to wake up, work, deal with that, go to sleep, wake up, deal with that...?  Nobody.  Certainly not I.  So having not been in the dating pool for over a decade (!!), I was willing to try something different with someone unexpected just for shits and giggles, even though I wasn't looking for anything.  Never expected anything to come of it.  Just welcomed the distraction.  And if you read my blog, you know the rest...it seemed to become much more.  'Seemed' being the operative word here.

Upon reflection, it 'seems' that this guy is quite the bargain shopper, and knows that the best way to find hidden gems at a sale is to shop early and often.  Always have a backup, in case the first one you bought doesn't work out.  And he got himself one hell of a deal for a while there (LIMITED TIME ONLY!).  The price of entry into my life wasn't the typical 'top shelf' fee I feel I'm worth (DEEP DISCOUNTS!).  I decided to hang out with the well liquor and cheap house wine, the white zin and moscato, for a while, since they seem to have a lot of fun and get invited to the dance a lot more than the dry pinot grigios and malbecs.  I put myself there, in the bargain bin, and opened the kimono to someone who got a majorly discounted ticket to the show.

And you know what?  It's ok.  It didn't kill me.  It did distract me.  Taught me a hard lesson or eight.  People don't always mean what they say.  People don't always have my best interests at heart.  People don't always understand how their actions can have a profound and/or damaging effect on others.  People don't always CARE if their actions have a damaging effect on others.  People will take as much as you will give them, and then they will ask for more.  If you're stupid enough to give it to them, they will take that too and still not say thank you or change their greedy, selfish ways.  And just because you give them what they want does not mean they will suddenly become a better person or want the same thing as you.  

Maybe the universe was trying to give me some tough love, a velvet hammer of sorts.  Like, "ok, JC, you're going through the worst of the shit right now, so I'm gonna give you this fun thing to distract yourself with for a while.  But when the worst of the divorce is over, the fun part is going to start causing you a lot of stress, and I'm gonna hit you over the head with some shitty life lessons so you don't stagger around for the rest of your life being an overly trusting idiot who gets used by manipulative people who don't have your best interests at heart.  You're welcome."

And I'm not necessarily saying he is a shitty manipulative person - on purpose.  I don't want to believe his actions were done with malice.  I still think this is an inherently good human being, with many redeeming qualities.  But in addition to not being at the same 'place' as me in terms of relationships, he's been doing this a lot longer than I have.  My girlfriends refer to his type as "smooth operators."  They know just when to find you, pluck you, what to say to you to draw you in, how to treat you, and what to do to keep you coming back for more, all the while also doing it with others to make sure they are never really alone nor fully emotionally invested in just one.  Hedging their bets.  And that's their right, and they will get incredibly defensive and shitty if you try to call them out on it, since they never promised you ANYTHING.  (Nevermind that their behavior did not uphold that verbal agreement and led you down a different path.)  If surface-level 'micro-relationships' featuring false intimacy is what nurtures their ego, they can go ahead and do that.  And keep doing that, and doing that, because they will need to keep juggling to meet their emotional needs quota.  I'm not judging them for it, but from my perspective, they will never get to experience the fulfillment from a deep level of commitment or partnership - that true intimacy that we as companion-craving human souls are truly nourished by.  They certainly have the right to keep everybody an emotional arm's length from their hearts and their true selves, to protect it from whatever perceived danger they aren't willing to risk, or the hard work of being in a committed relationship that they aren't willing to do.  I just wish they came with warning labels, because they think they're operating above-board and all is kosher, but I'm willing to bet they leave behind them a trail of broken women who don't fully understand what hit them.

Strangely, this guy even asked me once why that happens - why do women always try to turn these non-relationships into something more. So I called him out on his behavior, told him his actions did not jive with his words.  He puts on the boyfriend pants real fast and they looked good on him and they were comfortable for him.  Did he pull back after I told him that?  You betcha.  About 10 minutes after that conversation ended. And it lasted for about 12 hours, then he was back to the extremely confusing behavior that kept me wrapped around the axle of a train to nowhere for about 4 months.  

But I enjoyed the first part of the ride, I have some really great memories that one day I hope will not be too painful or anger-inducing to access.  I'm trying to desensitize myself to all the memories attached to the music I associate with our times together.  That's a tough one for me.  But I'll get there.  I'm better every day, getting used to the quieter phone.  Not having my mind chew the confusing bits over and over anymore.  Not worrying about what he's doing or thinking.  It's liberating, and I'm starting to seek, feel, and enjoy the sunshine again, even on Black Friday when everyone else is inside bargain shopping.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for.  We only paid part of the normal entry fees for a relationship, and that's exactly what we got - the cheapest parts of a relationship.  I'm going to follow Apple's model and keep my prices high - there's always a selective market of people who are willing to pay for high quality.  I'll just have to make sure they have the type and amount of currency I require, and are willing to part with it, to get me off of the shelf again.