avoidingdanger

i smelled his shirt

2012-02-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

i did smell his shirt last night before i went to bed. the one he gave me that i haven't washed. that wasn't smart. but i think what really tipped me off was talking to my friend dp today, who said that this weekend he's busy because it's "boys weekend". which probably means peter is invited, and going. which makes me irritated because of all the times i had to beg or force him to visit our (mutual) friends when he didn't want to (of course he was always glad once we got there), and now he is just going on his own.

and somehow that morphed into me trying to talk myself back into the relationship. i miss him, it's true. i miss all the good things. i miss having mutual friends with someone. how great was that. we both have the same friends that go back ~10 years? so then i started thinking, that trying to make it work again would actually be a good thing because we've already made so many mistakes! like, *ding* it's over, those mistakes are made, never to happen again. we can start anew, better and stronger, knowing each other's weaknesses and being better prepared to respond to them.

because that's part of the problem isn't it? when you're newly in love with someone, aren't you more likely to give them a little room on those topics that make you a little uncomfortable or that you don't think were handled that well? but that just paves a rocky road for the future.

so now we could start fresh, i'm telling myself, loving him but not being so stupidly in love that i ignore it when things are going wrong.

but then i catch myself. does that mean i forgive him for the time when, during a break up fight when i said "you're not the same person i fell in love with" he responded with "and you are too much the same person i fell in love with." as if - that person - the person i stayed true to, was not good? as if he never loved me to begin with? as if he went into the relationship expecting that i would...what...morph into someone else? someone who doesn't leave dishes in the sink and never locks herself out of the car and who doesn't try to rescue stray kittens from parking lots in the rain?

should i forget the first time he let me sob for hours because of his crazy fighting and he completely ignored me. and then afterward said i had acted like a child. should i forget all the times i just let him have his way because i knew that if i pushed back whatever activity we were engaged in would be ruined? should i forget that i was never able to plan a vacation for us because i couldn't trust him not to fight during or before it, and possibly skip it altogether? should i forget the time that we flew across the US to our mutual friends wedding and when the airplane landed he said he would rather just take a flight home or to visit his folks in DC than attend this wedding with me? Should I forget the time I was sure we were splitting up and I started to pack my things. Or the time I was sure we were splitting up and rather than deal with moving my books I threw them all away. Should I forget about the time I was so depressed about our relationship that I went a whole 48 hours without eating. And he barely even noticed.

and what's wrong with wanting to save kittens anyway? or locking yourself out of your car once in awhile? happens to the best of them. i totally agree though - i do wait too long to do the dishes.

but all in all, i don't know if the pluses, strong as they were, outweigh the minuses. cause they were pretty strong too.

fear no danger

2011-12-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

so i have a refrigerator. i convinced my boss to give me one. (i work for a property management company, so these things are within the realm of reason. but still it was a battle i'm proud of winning.) i have improved water pressure. no matter that i feel like just a shell of my former self. at least that shell is clean. and now thanks to the generosity of friends i've met since moving to LA, i also have a mattress and most important of all - a TV & VCR. i watched 'lars and the real girl' last night and just in the distraction of watching a movie, felt some kind of normalcy creep back into my life. why was it such a relief to be able to watch a movie? did having thoughts and pictures and emotions acted out in front of me keep me from having to feel my own during that time? mayhaps.

here's a picture of a print i bought on etsy.com from an artist i LOVE! here's the link to her store in case anyone who may read this wants to see her other work:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/myfolklover?ref=seller_info

i remember what you wore on our first day

2011-11-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

i finished moving last night. it has been a week peppered with change, stress and indecision. lots of love, some joy, and lots of sadness. ever since i started packing boxes, my boyfriend has been trying to convince me to change my mind and stay and the fact that a huge part of me doesn't want this at all, his insistence has made it even more difficult to stay the course. then yesterday something happened and i asked him, if i changed my mind and wanted to move back, do you still want me to stay? and do you know what he said, after two weeks of begging me to stay? he said he wasn't sure. classic case of 'only wants what he can't have'. oh well. at least he was honest.

two days ago, most of my stuff had been moved, i had work and he had the day off. he took that day to completely rearrange the apartment and set it up in a way that would help him focus on his art. i was truly happy to see him doing something positive for himself with the space. but it also felt odd, because he hasn't done anything like this since i moved in over a year ago. any changes have been made by me, usually on my saturdays off while he works. he just never took the initiative to make any improvements in our space...until i was gone.

so i took my kitty to our new apartment last night. and she was not thrilled. but she is resilient. poor gypsy cat, i've moved her so many times. but she always adjusts.

the good news is that my new underground parking garage has great acoustics. last night as i was unpacking my car i was singing

"maybe it's true, that i can't live without you.
and maybe two is better than one..."

and i have to say, it sounded damn good.

may the force be with you

2011-11-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

today i'm moving out of the apartment i share with my boyfriend of two years. we've been living together since august of 2010. i'm moving to an apartment with no fridge. and i'm so depressed that i'm considering just not getting one. i had to go to the grocery store today for toilet paper and while i was there tried to pick up a few foodstuffs for the new place so i wouldn't starve right away. i got a bag of pretzels, the big box of goldfish, a bottle of sparkling water, a 4 pack of single serving nacho cheese dips (to avoid being left with the remainder of a jar that would need refrigeration) and a small bag of carrots and broccoli to dip in said nacho cheese. i figure the veggies will be able to last a day or two at room temp. i am disappointed though that this means i won't be able to bring the new bottle of real maple syrup with me that i just bought a few weeks ago. unlike the syrup i've always had before in the plastic bottle shaped like someone's granny, real maple syrup apparently needs to be refrigerated after opening.

i just took a break from packing to have dinner and while i was eating, watched the episode of arrested development where jason bateman realizes that his fiancee (charlize theron) is developmentally disabled. and he says that he should have realized it earlier, but he was overcome by her beauty and only saw what he wanted to see.

and i wonder if that is what i've done in this relationship. i suppose in some way that's what we all do. overlook a person's shortcomings because of the good you see in them. i guess the point of the episode is that clearly there's a line that you can cross, where you end up overlooking too much.

i'm so sad that it's hard to motivate myself to do anything. much less pack up and leave an apartment and a relationship that a big part of me really does not want to leave at all. i don't want a new apartment without a fridge. i want this one, and maple syrup.

in closing, i'm very thankful for the friends and family that have supported me, sometimes even from afar, through this move. reminds me how selfish i am. have i ever thought to call a friend of mine that's going through a breakup just to make sure they are ok? i don't know if i have. but the friends of mine that have called me, and keep calling me, to make sure i'm ok, have meant the world to me this week.