New templates and new thoughts

As you've probably noticed (if you've ever visited before), I decided to change up the template. Of course, doing this the free way, my options are quite limited but I think I'm pretty happy with this new choice. The old one felt too squished and like there wasn't enough room for my actual posts.

This week has been pretty low-key on the social front. Or at least it's felt that way. Monday I saw J. again and Tuesday was my yoga class. But now there's a seemingly endless stretch of nothing and it's been kind of getting me down. J. and I are pretty much on the same page about what we're doing so I'm not upset at all about him (the only reason I would be anyway is because we haven't talked since Monday). It's more just the state of my life right now. My social circle has fallen apart, as I documented in a few of my earlier posts and my best girl friend has been MIA for the past year since she moved in with her boyfriend. She wasn't even there for me when everything was falling apart. Basically, I need to find some new friends and while I'm doing okay with getting out and catching up with people I haven't seen in a while, I'm still not in a comfortable place.

I didn't think I was still so unsettled by all of that drama, but last night I ended up staying up past 2:30 thinking about it. Luckily I had my netflixed Desperate Housewives disc to watch, which helped distract me, but I think I really have a lot of unresolved feelings about everything. Like for instance, all the mean, infuriating and unfair things P said to me during our breakup (and the fights that preceded it), or how my friend N. said equally unfair and hurtful things to me when he defriended me. OR how that girl friend, K., has been completely unhelpful and cold. Basically all of people (excluding my family) that were important to me during the past year are no longer there. It's been a hard few months, so I guess I can't be surprised when every now and then it catches up with me and I have a bad night.

Anyway, now that I've got that out of my system and on paper, maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight. Luckily I've got both Saturday and Sunday to catch up on that this weekend. It's time to re-focus on the good.

Recap

So last night was the big date with J. and I have to say, it went pretty well. We met up at a Mexican place nearby and had some good dinner and conversation. By the time we were ready to pay the bill, he asked me if I wanted to go get some coffee. From there we went to Barnes and Noble (in our separate cars) and we sat there and talked for another hour or so. The conversation could have been a little better - there were definitely a decent amount of awkward pauses and every time, he would kind of stare at me, studying me, which was kind of weird. A couple of times I swear I caught him checking out my cleavage, though the top I was wearing definitely didn't show much. Overall though, he was super nice and I liked the way things were going. When we finished up our coffee, he proposed seeing a movie and I agreed. This time we took one car (his) because the movie theater was pretty close by. We had no idea what we were going to see, so we just saw the one movie that was available at the time we arrived which turned out to be The Secret Life of Bees. I was sure he was going to make a move on me while we were sitting there in the dark, but nope. Nothing. By the time the movie got out, it was late and quite cold outside.

And this is when things got interesting. Right after I got in the car and shut the door, he leaned in and we kissed. He put his hand on my leg right away and I put my hand over his to make sure it didn't go anywhere it was supposed to ;) It was very nice. During the first bit of kissing he stopped for a second to ask if I had had a good time and then we went right back. We kissed and separated about 3 times and for most of it, he had his eyes open, which I'm not used to. Anyway, this was probably about 5 - 10 minutes at most and then he drove me back to my car and asked me if I wanted to get together to watch a movie at his place the next day (that would be today). I agreed. Then we kissed a little more and I got out and thus, the night ended.

I was up until about 2am kind of reliving the whole night and thinking about things, which was unfortunate because I had to wake up at 7:30 this morning to take my car in to the shop. I was so exhausted that I had to cancel on J for today, which is good and bad. Bad, obviously because I REALLY wanted to have a little more fun with him, but good because I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. Who knows what might happen when we're alone together at one of our apartments. But, regardless, I'm really hoping we'll reschedule soon :)

The next round of dating

I woke up this morning feeling a little "off" but nothing I didn't attribute to it being Monday morning and not having gotten enough sleep. But as the day wore on, I started to feel worse and worse. My nose wouldn't stop running and my throat started to hurt. Then I realized that it was the week before Halloween and resigned myself to the fact that yes, I was getting sick. It seems that every year, for at least the past 4 years or so, I've gotten a cold right at this exact time of year and it looks like 2008 will be no exception.

One reason this kind of sucks is because I have a date on Friday. A REAL date, unlike that fake lunch date thing I went on with J a few weeks ago. This date will be with J also, but I have the feeling it's going to be much different. This will technically be our third date, but that's only if you want to get very technical. Our first date was over a year ago, our second was the ever-so-brief lunch encounter I just mentioned. J and I ended up IM'ing a little bit last night (he initiated contact) and he officially did the asking out. We're going to dinner after work on Friday, so it's a night date which is a plus, and also our relationship and situations are a little bit more established than they were before.

Last year when we went out, we had a pretty great time. It was during my match.com dating phase so it was our first time meeting face to face. We arranged to meet at barnes and noble for coffee and we stayed there for a few hours chatting. Then he asked if I wanted to get dinner and proposed going into Boston to find a nice place to eat. So we did and we had a LONG drive both to and from the restaurant due to the always enjoyable Boston traffic but it gave us time to talk. On the way home he started making some moves on me. Actually it started as soon as we left the restaurant as we held hands all the way back to the car. During the drive, he had his hand on my knee. When we finally arrive back at the Barnes and Noble parking lot so I could get my car, he parked and we began to say goodnight. And then he kissed me, and it was not just a quick goodnight kiss - we made out for a good minute there in his car. When I finally pulled away, he asked me if I wanted to go anywhere (presumably back to one of our apartments to "continue"), but I told him I had to get back.

I would have gone out with him again back then, but shortly thereafter, P came into my life and well, what a long story that one is. I'll save it for a future post. But based on that date with J, I know that he's not shy about the physical stuff and this could be both good and bad. Good because I would not be opposed to a little making out on Friday. Maybe even more than a little. But I don't want to do any more than that. Overall I'm just really excited about going on the date and seeing what happens :)

BUT... this cold better not stand in the way of my potential making out on Friday, that's all I have to say.

The best laid plans

Tonight I was supposed to be meeting up with an old friend for dinner. This friend is quite an old friend, as we went to elementary school together. I haven't seen him since the summer after my freshman year of college when the two of us briefly worked together. A few weeks back I sent him a random facebook message saying something along the lines of "hey, it's been forever! let's get together to catch up". So we made plans.

Last night I sent a quick email to him to make sure we were still on for tonight and I started to get a little worried when he didn't write back. So I found his cell number through his facebook page and sent him a text message before I was about to head out to the restaurant tonight. Apparently, he wouldn't be able to make it because he was IN THE HOSPITAL. He got ELECTROCUTED at work today and they were afraid his heart was going to stop. We texted back and forth a few times and last I heard, he was still waiting to find out how it was all going to turn out. I hope he's okay!

Aside from that almost-adventure, a few days ago I decided to take the plunge and email J to see what was up with him. In case you've forgotten about him, this was the guy I had gone on one date with last year who I contacted after my breakup - we met for lunch one afternoon 2 weeks ago and I hadn't heard from him since. My email was quite casual, just asking him about his weekend, etc. He wrote back two days later apologizing for the lack of communication and I finally got the story. He had just broken up with someone right before he and I got together a few weeks ago and he was hesitant to jump right back in with someone. At the end of his email he brought up getting together again. So now we're making some plans and I'm excited. I would be more concerned about the fact that he hadn't mentioned that and the lack of communication, but I'm sort of going into this as casual as possible. I'm not looking necessarily for anything serious.

I'm meeting up with another friend for dinner tomorrow - this one an old (female) coworker. Hopefully that will turn out better than tonight!

One week later...

Remember my last entry, where I mentioned how things were starting to turn around and I was feeling good? Not more than a few hours later and that notion was promptly blown to bits when a mutual friend of P and myself signed online and unceremoniously told me he no longer wanted to be my friend. And oh, he did not hold back on all the bad feelings he had pent up toward me. Needless to say, this set me back a little and the downward spiral resumed.

Luckily I had a lot of fun distractions this weekend. On Friday, my friend had her 25th birthday party which, though small, was really what I needed. It was good to get out and have some fun conversations with people. We were going to go to a bar after dinner, but the party was split on what to do and we just ended up calling it a night. This past week was also my father's birthday and Saturday we had our family party for him. Due to the recent traumas in my life, I decided to make it a whole weekend at home and stayed over that night. I hadn't told my mother about the defriending but by the time I got home from their house last night, she had emailed me asking if anything was wrong. Very perceptive, my mother is. At that point I decided to tell her and I'm glad I did because she made me feel a lot better about it. In her first email back to me, she went off on my ex, calling him a "wimp", among other things. Strangely, I think that was exactly what I needed to hear.

And so, life moves forward.

Things are turning around...

After the big blowup with P from last week, I decided to write him off, didn't reply to his email and attempted to stop caring. Then finally, Saturday morning when I checked my email, I had a very long email from him waiting there for me. He told me what his impression of my last email had been to him, and told me he wanted me to respond this time because he was really hoping that he had misinterpreted something. Well, apparently what had happened was that I had mentioned that I was feeling "better" in my last email to him and he took that to mean that I had moved on and that our relationship didn't mean as much to me as it did to him, and not only that, but I was rubbing it in his face. That was TOTALLY not what I meant - what I did mean was that I wasn't in the horrible state of saddness and depression that I had been when the breakup and my grandmother's passing happened at the same time. I wrote back to him and explained that and long story short, we're back on good terms. In fact, we might be on the best terms we've been in since the breakup. We talked about the plan as to how we're going to get to the point where we can be friends and we decided that we're going to give it another few weeks, and then start with a few IM conversations.

In other news, I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed about my new position at work. It's a highly technical position that comes with the label of "engineer", and while I feel confident in some areas, there's A LOT to learn. I imagine I've got some weekends of studying ahead of me.

On Saturday I went out with my parents and finally finally got myself a new laptop. I had my old laptop for almost 6 years and as the past year went on, it became riddled with issues. The plug wouldn't stay in, which meant it wouldn't charge properly. The only way I got around this was to position the laptop ON the cord, in a very specific position and then not move it while I was using it. Fun! Also, the CD burner stopped working completely. So, I've now got a new Toshiba Satellite (the same brand as my old one - I figure if this one waits another 6 years to crap out, I'm golden).

So, overall I'm feeling good. I've got my new job, my new computer, I did a ton of cleaning and chores this weekend and I'm trying to stay true to the goals I wrote down in my last post.

Resolutions

I was just reading an old archived post on one of my new favorite blogs and it was about new years resolutions. Something about it inspired me to make some resolutions of my own - but screw new years, I'm making them now. I've been feeling so down in the dumps for the past month about my ex and my grandmother and it's really made me do some hard thinking about what it means to be "happy". It's not an easy thing to define. But what I'm hoping is that my Right Now Resolutions will help me take some steps toward a happier place. Here's my list so far:

Reconnect with old friends and try to make some new ones

Strengthen the relationships I have with my family

Write more - writing out my thoughts has always helped me sort through issues

Declutter my apartment - I started on this one a few months ago but everything came to a grinding halt this past month. Time to pick it up again!

(Possibly) Rearrange my living room - My apartment is very limited on wall space, which is nice in that the living room/kitchen/dining room area is very open, but that makes it hard to rearrange furniture in a pleasing way. If I can come up with a new floor plan, this is on the list.

See the bright side in each situation I find myself in and don't get mired down by the few things that may not agree with me

Actively look for topics of conversation to bring up/things to talk about when hanging out with other people - this one might seem a bit strange to you, but it's one of my weaknesses. By nature, I'm a pretty shy person. Always have been. I've gotten much better as the years have gone by, but when I'm in a group situation or when spending time with someone I don't know that well, I find myself clamming up and feeling uncomfortable. I figure some preparation prior to finding myself in these situations may help me be more outspoken.

Don't rush! This past year I was seemingly going at warp speed at all times, trying to find the most efficient way to do everything. This was partially brought on by work because that's the way we're expected to be there, but it spilled into my life outside of work as well. Living like that, aside from being efficient, did nothing but stress me out.

Stop caring as much what other people think of me

That's all for now but I may add more later.

Boys suck, yet again

Since I last wrote a few days ago, tons more drama has happened with P. The general gist of what happened is this: I broke down and sent him an email on Sunday - it was short and sweet and basically just said, Hey, let's chat as friends when you're ready. He wrote back 2 days later, with a really long, very nice email about how while he's not ready yet, he will be at some point and he's looking forward to that, but that he's still hurting, badly. That same day I also got a condolence card in the mail from him so I responded to his email, thanking him and saying that I understood and was looking forward to it too. Well, something in my email must have rubbed him the wrong way (though exactly what is a complete mystery to me) and he completely tore into me about how I keep adding "gasoline to the fire" and if this keeps up, we won't be friends. I was BLOWN AWAY. I have no idea what I did - was it that I responded at all? Was it that I initiated contact? Maybe something I said came off the wrong way? No idea. But in his email he forbid me from responding so I'm not going to. Which is probably for the best because all I want to write to him now is "Fuck you". I'm at the point where I don't even want his friendship now, not if he's going to treat me this way. After that, I deleted him from my friends list on AIM and made him "never visible" on gchat. I contemplated blocking him completely on these apps but I didn't want to do something I'd regret later. So it'll help me not to see him on but if he ever gets his act together and wants to contact me, he can. Now, whether or not I'll respond is still to be determined.

Well, in other news, I haven't heard a single thing from J after Sunday. When we chatted after our lunch that night I told him I'd be up for hanging out again sometime and he said "maybe Friday". I didn't really get a vibe from him that it was something he really wanted to do so I didn't push it and I haven't initiated any contact since then. Plans for the weekend mostly involve spending more time with my family and attempting another outing to get myself a new computer.