Up and down then back again - Part 2

Friday at work was absolutely crazy, though it didn't start off that way. Up until lunch, there wasn't a single thing to do, which gave me plenty of time to think about the possibilities of what might be happening that night. I went home for lunch that day so I could clean up a little and relax. When i came back, I immediately had to go help someone with a project they were working on and then things started breaking left and right. It was one emergency after another all the way until 6. When I got home, J and I chatted about our plans for that night and decided to see Body of Lies at 7:45. All of our dates so far have been driven to in separate cars and that night was no different. I was worried about parking so I left a little earlier than I had to. We got in line together and started chatting about our days and when we got to the ticket counter, I reached for my purse and for the very first time... he offered to pay! All of our other dates have been split 50-50, so I took this as a good sign. We didn't really have much more time than that to talk since the movie started right up. It had to have been at least halfway to 3/4 through the movie before he started making a move. We've only been on one other movie date together and there were no moves during that movie either, so I was actually sort of surprised this time around that anything actually happened. He reached over and put his hand on my leg and then grabbed my hand, which was really sweet. That's all that happened there and then as he was walking to my car again, we made out a little in the parking lot again.

Saturday I spent the day at my parents house cooking and eating and just generally hanging out and Sunday was a low-key catchup kind of day. After 4 days in a row of social events, I was actually happy to have one of those. Unfortunately now, the cycle seems to have started over again and I'm feeling down once more. It probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't had much going on this week and that always gives me too much time to think about you know who.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about that friend who defriended me after the breakup and I've been wanting to write him a letter to try to make things better between us. Basically I want to explain my side of things and why certain things happened the way they did and just apologize for the wrongs done on my side. Now, he was just as responsible for all the bad stuff that went down between us, but I'm taking responsibility for my stuff. I started drafting the letter yesterday during my lunch break but I have a lot of revisions to make. I need to make sure this doesn't come across in any way that might make things worse. I don't honestly think he will want to come back and be friends with me again, but I'm hoping that by doing this, I'll get all these bad feelings off my chest and maybe he'll at least think less badly of me.

Oh, and P was not online tonight - I found out from his facebook status that he wouldn't be home tonight. So the conversation is postponed yet again. I'm actually sort of relieved.

Up and down then back again

Sorry it's been so long since my last update! Last week was quite busy, and I must say, exciting. Early in the week I had started to get down again, thinking about P and all the drama surrounding him and that whole time period. He and I had sworn to stay friends during the breakup and after our post-breakup email exchanges/fights we decided that after a month or so had gone by, we would try to start talking, casually and online. It's been about 6 weeks now so last week I decided to send him a quick and very casual IM. He never responded. A few hours later he sent an email saying he was sorry he missed my IM and we'd catch up some other time. Now, my reaction to this was that he just didn't want to talk to me so he pretended he wasn't on. His status shows him as online when I sent the IM and for a while after, at least until I signed off to go to bed. This happened last Monday, so it's been a week and a half and I've heard nothing from him. I'm contemplating trying again tonight, but I know there's a good chance I could regret that later, depending on how it goes. I would just let it go and wait, but I know that if we ever want to be friends, this is something we have to do eventually and I'm really really anxious to just break that ice so I can stop thinking about it. Basically, I want to get that first conversation over with.

Tuesday night my yoga class got canceled because of the election and I stayed up to watch the results come in. I was pretty excited by the outcome and the whole event was a great diversion for the night. Wednesday though, I was still in a funk so at around 4 while I was still at work, I sent a text to J asking if he felt like doing dinner that night. It was totally random and we hadn't talked for days so I didn't think he'd say yes, but he did! That's about when my mood started to turn around because I knew I had that to look forward to that night. In the back of my mind though, I was wondering if that would be the night we'd have "the talk" and end things (maybe I'm just paranoid, but I had (and still have) no idea where I stand with him). Luckily that didn't happen. Not only did it not happen but after we finished our dinner, he walked me to my car and asked me out again for that Friday and then he gave me a great big kiss right in the middle of the parking lot. Uh-huh, mood 100% turned around.

The next day I was all day-dreamy, thinking about J, and our kiss the night before and the possibilities of the date on Friday (he had asked me to a movie). Also that day, I had scheduled a dinner with an old old high school friend who I hadn't seen in almost 10 years. We were set to meet up in the city and I was a little nervous about getting there and back because, ok I'll admit it, I really suck at directions. I spent half of my downtime at work that day daydreaming and half studying maps. I did end up getting ridiculously lost on the way there (and back), but I think I did okay for myself lol. The dinner itself was awesome and it was great to reconnect.

I'll save the rest of the weekend for another post later tonight and maybe by then I will have attempted my next contact with P and will have stories about that - good or bad (I'm almost sure they won't be good - but it needs to be done!).

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.

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.

Moving on... ?

On Wednesday, something miraculous happened - I started to feel better. After weeks of living in survival mode and being miserable 24/7, something kicked in and I got happy. Secretly, I think it had more to do with the cloud of all the chemicals in the pill being lifted, since I went off it as soon as the ex and I broke up. But also, I began to have hope. That morning I woke up in the same bad, hopeless mood I had been in on Tuesday, the same day I last posted, but I went to lunch with one of my co-worker friends and exchanged a few emails with the guy I mentioned earlier that I had gone out on a date with a year ago (we'll call him J) and things started looking up. I could listen to music again. I didn't feel like bursting into tears at my desk. It was good.

The high from Wednesday has worn off little by little as the days have gone by, but I'm still feeling significantly better than I have since everything happened. Yesterday I spent the day with my parents and did some computer shopping, which is a story in itself that might have to wait for another post. Spending so much time with them lately has been nicer than I thought it would be. They seem really happy to have me "back". Then today, J and I met up for lunch. All week I had high hopes for this lunch but I'm not quite sure how to evaluate how it went. I don't know if it was a date, and frankly I don't know if I wanted it to be one or not. We met early, had lunch with lots of conversation and then went our separate ways. The whole thing was less than an hour. Now, on the one hand, there's no way I'm ready for a relationship again right now. Not at all. On the other hand, it was kind of tempting to think about a guy in a somewhat romantic way again. I'm conflicted, but in a way, relieved that I wasn't forced to make any decisions about the situation today.

The ex (who will now be known as "P") and I haven't talked since our big blowup after the breakup. I'm hoping we can maybe have a quick chat this week, just so we can start establishing our friendship. I've moved on to the point where I'm not holding out hope of getting back together and I just want to break the ice on the friendship thing so I don't have to freak out about it anymore.

So the moral of the story is, I've finally begun the process of moving on. Where I'm moving to, however, is still to be determined.

Last Day Off

Today I'm off from work as the last day of my bereavement time off and all the time to myself is predictably starting to get to me. I've been trying my hardest to resist sending my ex an email since I woke up this morning. It's been about a week since we last talked, and that conversation was horrible. I just want to talk to him, as a friend. We had agreed when we first broke up that we would try to be friends and this was very important to both of us. However, last week when we fought again, post-breakup, he told me he needed a few weeks of no contact. So, I have to stick to that. I know that logically, but emotionally it's incredibly difficult. So much has happened in my life since the breakup and I just want to tell him about it all. But I have to keep reminding myself that I can't and that he needs time away.

On the plus side, I officially got promoted at work as of yesterday. Yes, it's true I wasn't in the office, but in an effort to stay busy I checked my work email and found the offer letter waiting for me. My new position starts on October 1st and they offer they gave me was better than I was expecting. I'm looking forward to getting all of that moving when I get back to the office tomorrow and honestly it'll be pretty nice to have something to keep me busy for 9 hours a day again.

Back

I'm back from the funeral and working on getting things back on track in my life. Despite the fact that we were all gathered together for a tragic reason, it was quite interesting to spend such an extended amount of time with my extended family. For example, one long lost relative insisted that I don't look a day over 13 (I'm 25).

Now I'm back at my apartment and watching back to back DVD episodes of Sex and the City. My breakup routine generally consists of marathoning some of my favorite tv shows, preferably the ones that include relationship drama. First I went through all of my episodes of Gilmore Girls (seasons 5 through 7 - I have 1 - 3 on order and am watching 4 on Netflix, one disc at a time). Now I'm back to SATC and yes, I have the whole series so this should last me a while.

One terrible, terrible thing about the internet is that you can very closely keep up with the social activities of your ex. Nothing bad has been revealed about the ex (yet), but it's clear from his facebook that he's keeping himself busy and trying to move on. It's kind of torturous to have access to this kind of information because on the one hand, I want to know everything, but on the other hand, everything I find out makes me miserable. But I have decided that it's time for me to start getting back into the social scene and attempt to move on as well. I contacted a guy I went on one date with last year - this was immediately before I started dating the ex - and we're going to do some catching up. Not necessarily anything romantic. I'm also trying to set up some lunches and dinners with friends I've fallen out of touch with. Right now the main goal is to keep busy. After that, I'm really going to focus on figuring myself out.