I think Iām ready to write tonight. Itās been a while since Iāve posted an update on my current situation in life.
I do this for myself. Iāve come to realize that I have the worldās worst memory, perhaps from being dropped on the head as a baby one too many times, or maybe because of all that weed I smoked in high school and early college. Who knows. Maybe I just donāt exercise my memory enough.
Also, last night I was high. Very, very high. I donāt smoke much anymore, mostly because I become extremely anti-social. If I hit a blunt more than twice I usually end up getting pretty bad anxiety. Oh well.
I was taking out the trash last night, in the beginning of the process of deep-cleaning my apartment. My neighbors were outside and offered me a hit. I said yes, honestly just to be friendly. That one hit was all I needed. I did not clean for the next 3-4 hours. Instead I watched a documentary (that one I posted below, which is worth it, My Beautiful Broken Brain; watch it), sat on the internet, updated the look of this blog, and thought too much about everything, leaving me feeling paralyzed and incapable of expressing myself.
I donāt think Iām actually depressed. My job currently sucks, but I wonāt go into that now; and the weed made me feel worse than I normally do when Iām sober.
Anyway, so, I just read through my most recent long-winded text post. It summarizes my experience dating an abusive man child. About that; I still see the guy around town. Itās strange. I donāt pine for him romantically, rather I just get anxious and angry when I see him. It irritates me. What bothers me more is that, being that he is most likely a sociopath and/or narcissist, he probably doesnāt look at me and feel guilt. All I want is for him to feel guilty, and maybe approach me saying sorry so I can happily once again tell him to go fuck himself while finally being granted the honor of validation, but I think that guilt is an emotion only available to genuine human beings, which he is not, so that imaginary scenario in my head is never going to play out. You just canāt get closure from an abusive man; itās not possible.
I no longer live in that house I talked about, with those 4 other friends of mine. I left that shit after about 4 months (I guess 4 months is my breaking point for living situations that I find intolerable, since thatās how long I lived with the sociopath before I dipped the fuck out).
Yeah, that house was a nightmare. A totally different kind of nightmare than living with a man who hurts you --but was filthy; dog and cat shit and piss everywhere because my other roommates couldnāt properly care for their pets. An unusable kitchen because it was always covered in dirty dishes and garbage. And oh my god, the utility bills were ridiculous. I blamed most of it on the worst of them, Iāll just call him Bob, the one who owned the two dogs that shat everywhere. He always cranked the A/C down to like, 50-60 degrees. He took 45-minute showers, sometimes twice a day. He left the lights on. One time, I put a new garbage bin in the kitchen and labelled itĀ ārecyclingā (my attempt to keep it somewhat clean). The purpose of the bin was mainly for empty beer cans and liquor bottles since those were always prominent. As soon as Bob saw that bin, he texted me sayingĀ āweāre not going to be green in this house,ā if that gives you a better understanding of the kind of guy Bob was.
I gave the roommates 40 days notice that I was moving out. Everyone understood, except for Bob. His immediate response was that Iād be fucking them over, that 40 days is not enough, you know how hard it is to find someone who wants to live here? HA. Not my problem. Get better habits. That house could be absolutely lovely, if only it was properly cared for.
Long story short, me and Bob had a pretty bad falling out. I got screwed out of $800. Bob found someone to move in, everything was fine, but I never got a full months rent from that new tenant, nor that last monthās rent which I had to pay up front when I moved in. I didnāt even ask for the money though because I knew I wouldnāt get it anyway. Whatever. At least I got to walk away from the trap house.
Iām now living in a very comfortable efficiency around the corner from my work, with a guy that I started dating back in February.
Yeah, yeah. I know. I said I wanted to be single for a long time. And maybe I have a slight problem with rushing into making things serious. Sure, youāre right, I do. But let me explain.
About a week after I started working at this new place, I flew off my bike when I rode over a slippery swing bridge. Chopped my knees wide open, got stitches, limped around for a little while.Ā
At work everyone would ask, have you met Jack yet? He fell on that bridge too and got pretty fucked up as well. No, I would say to 20 different people, I have not met Jack yet.
That was at the end of October. Sometime around Thanksgiving, Jack finally made an appearance. I was hanging around the server station when he approached me. I canāt remember how our introduction went down verbatim, but it had something to do with bikes, and both of us realizing that we were the ones who both fell on the bridge. Me saying something about how everyone kept asking if Iād met him yet, and him saying something similar. I thought he was cute; his husky-lumberjack Midwestern style, his beard, his piercing blue eyes. I also thought he was flirting with me, and at the time I was sorta kinda dating some random dude for a hot minute, so I didnāt really reciprocate.
So time goes on, things ended with that random dude I was dating (I have a story about that, but Iāll save it for later), I worked with Jack on occasion, and realized pretty quickly that he was my favorite person at work. I was always delighted to find out heād be filling in (he was not a regular employee, just picked up shifts every now and then to help the restaurant out). Heād always make me laugh, was always super friendly, not creepy at all and was basically just a wonderful presence to have around.
We finally started hanging out just after Christmas. Heād been asking me for a few weeks to come over to his house for āTaco and Soup Sunday,ā his personal tradition, until finally one week I decided to go for it. I was pretty nervous, which was when I realized I thought of him as more than a friend.
Nothing happened that night, other than homemade tacos and soup and The Never Ending Story on mute while we listened to records and talked about life.
Over the course of the next few weeks, we hung out quite a bit. He helped me out a lot. We had more Taco & Soup Sundays paired with movies on mute while listening to records and talking about life and music.
We clicked pretty well. We realized we were very similar in many ways, both being INFPās and all, but also that over the course of our lives weāve experienced a lot of the same things. Itās kind of like weāve reached all the same checkpoints, but at different times and in different places. I learned that heās from the Midwest as well, Toledo to be exact. And that he spent a lot of time in Detroit (my hometown), going to shows and what not. He also lived in Chicago for a while, close to the neighborhood thatĀ I lived in. He moved away from Chicago right around the time that I began my 2.5 year adventure there.
Little things. I canāt get into every detail.
So one day at work, mid-February, this girl that he was pretty close to came up to me and asked, so whatās up with you and Jack?Ā I immediately blushed and smiled and walked away. She freaked out (with excitement) and I begged her not to tell.
Truthfully, I was really enjoying establishing a close friendship with him. Thatās something that I have not really ever done with anyone ever before I started dating them, so I thought it was important, especially given that it hadnāt been a full year since I left a pretty traumatic relationship. I told Jack all about my horrendous year as well during one of the Taco & Soup nights, with the ex and with my friend dying and all, so I think he knew that I wasnāt quite ready and he wasnāt exactly trying to rush things either. Also, he admits to me now that even though he could totally tell that I liked him, he still couldnāt believe it, and constantly psyched himself out of making a move.
I had to work a double the day that my crush became apparent to that girl. Jack showed up during my night shift, said he had something he wanted to give me, something time-sensitive, so to come out to his van during a cigarette break. I immediately assumed that the girl told him I liked him, and thisĀ āthingā he wanted to give me was actually a kiss.
So I go out to his van and he tells me to close my eyes and I think to myself, heās going to kiss me. Nope--instead he had dessert for me from this really fancy restaurant. Dulce de leche from a place called Hot & Soul. It was fucking amazing. I wasnāt bummed out about not getting a kiss, just happy that he went out of his way to bring me such a wonderful treat after a long day.
That night after my shift (around 2am) he took me to Lesterās diner and we ate Lemon meringue pie, because I told him Iāve never had it before and he thought that was preposterous. The whole time we were there, he was all smiles. I was all smiles. We were awkward, but that cute kind of awkward thatās actually somewhat enjoyable and makes you incapable of NOT giggling. I knew that he knew. He totally knew.
Still, he dropped me off at home that night, and I fell asleep all giddy.
I didnāt see him the next day until just before I went to bed. Heād texted me earlier asking if he could come over really quick to give me something else, another time-sensitiveĀ āthing.ā I said sure. So he comes over, texts me that heās outside, I go out front, he tells me to close my eyes again. He walks over to his van, opens the door, closes it, walks up to me, my eyes still closed. I could feel him standing in front of me, for what felt like a moment too long--shouldnāt he have given me the thing by now?--and just before I started to say something, I felt his lips on mine.
I couldnāt believe the surprise kiss scenario Iād conjured in my head actually played out. I hadnāt told anybody about that daydream.
I said to him,Ā āI totally thought you were going to do this last night,ā and we laughed. He said he wanted to, and had thought about it as well, but psyched himself out, of course.
So thatās the story of how we got together.
We didnāt sleep together immediately. It didnāt happen until a few days after that first kiss, Iāll have you know, and yes I am proud of myself because Iāve never been very good at holding out to be perfectly honest. But after we DID finally start sleeping together, we couldnāt stop.
We tried to take it slow. We didnāt label it for a little while. The wordsĀ āboyfriend,āĀ āgirlfriend,ā andĀ ārelationshipā were not mentioned. But as time progressed, these things just kind of happened. And one day he started saying, you know, you can always come stay with me while you figure stuff out, because he knew how much the trap house I was living in stressed me out. The phraseĀ āmutually beneficialā and all of the reasons for it were brought up. I didnāt disagree with him, in fact I completely agreed, but that would mean this is the third time Iāve moved in with a dude, and me being only 25...I had my reservations.
However, come the end of April, after the water was turned off once again at my house, I was fed up. Jack knew I was fed up. We were at a bar with his friend who was visiting from Syracuse one day around noon, and while his friend was in the bathroom I asked if I could stay at his place, since it just made logical sense. I was already showering there often since my water would always get shut off; I was sleeping there constantly because we both have dogs that need tending to and my dog is much easier to travel with, and because I absolutely adored falling asleep and waking up with him, etc etc etc. All the reasons. He immediately said yes as if he was just waiting for me to finally ask.
So thatās that. God Iāve been typing for what feels like an eternity. I think I have to end this now. I donāt really know how though. All I can really say is that Jack is a wonderful man and I still donāt feel like Iāve made a mistake. Weāll see what the future holds. Iām not putting all my eggs in one basket, but I certainly donāt feel like saying no to what is happening.
More stories to come later. In the last 5 months of being with Jack, so much has happened--good things. Adventures. This may be my most adventurous relationship yet.
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