Day 02 - Something you love about yourself
No matter where I end up in life, no matter how many mistakes I make, and no matter how many times I fall flat on my face, I can take solace in knowing that I did what I thought was right in every situation.
I am human and occasionally I will slip up, but my “home base” is that of someone who is honest and caring.
I am a good person.
I have integrity.
Now that my blog has become the most depressing space on the interweb, I find it appropriate to keep going with these little updates about how things are going for me emotionally. Afterall – it’s not like this can get any more depressing than it already is.
As I’ve said many times before, writing is how I deal with doubts, insecurities, and thoughts I can’t seem to let go of. Admittedly, I suppose I am being a bit of a drama queen about this whole thing. It’s not like we had a house, four kids, two dogs, and a life together. We had an apartment, one dog, and a big screen tv.** But this whole thing still sucks (for the lack of a better word). This morning I found myself forgetting why we broke up in the first place. Then I spent the rest of the day moping around, second guessing, and suffering from thoughts in my head that couldn’t sit still and give me a moment of silence.
And then, when I was venting to my friend Joe, he found it appropriate to say, “I totally thought you guys were going to get married”. WHOA… GEE… THANKS… I always appreciate it when someone cuts me right across the chest with a jagged and rusty blade, runs out to buy the biggest package of salt available at Sams Club, empties all of the salt into my fresh wound, and then rubs it in there so that not a bit of it is wasted — it is forced into the cut in a way that allows every individual granule to cause me an awful, resonating pain. Next time maybe he can grab some lemon juice to spray directly into my eyes, too. REAL COOL, BRO.
I also forgot to mention that I was given a $4000 Vera Wang wedding dress the day after breaking up. No joke. It was 100% free and is hanging in my closet right now. Of course the women who gave it to me had no idea that less than 24 hours ago I had broken up with a guy I once talked about marriage with… or that it doesn’t fit and I will need to lose about 5 lbs before I can zip it (not only could I feel lonely… I got to feel fat too!)… and they couldn’t possibly know that I would try it on as soon as I got home and tear up over how pretty it was and my lack of places to wear it. They were actually really sweet when I told them what happened, and they are totally cool with me selling it. But I just thought the timing was incredible. Seriously. Who does that happen to?
I am handling this well. I really am.
I started doing Yoga, and while it has been strenuous for me physically, I have found it soothing emotionally. My friends like to joke about the silly things they say (ex. “breathe out the impurities”), but I typically find myself trying to follow the instruction that they give. I do my best to inhale the best I have to offer and to exhale the things that keep me from being happy. In the last week and a half, I have been able to focus entire on me. It is no longer “What’s best for us?” Now it is “What do I want to do?”
When I was at dinner with a friend on Wednesday, we started to talk about the movie Eat, Pray, Love. I mentioned how I kind of wanted to go on a solo vacation, and she excitedly proclaimed, “I did that once and it was fantastic!” Apparently she went to Hawaii with a stack of books and spent an entire week there. She went to the beach every day and didn’t have to ask anybody else for their opinion. It was weird, she said, but a great experience. “No matter where you end up going, you will learn a lot about yourself.” Suddenly Take a vacation by myself is on my bucket list.
Hmm…
Well anyway, after rereading the beginning of what I have written here, I think I should mention that I am really not an emotional wreck. The fourth paragraph (about the wedding dress) was written because… lets be honest… who does that happen to? It is kind of sad, but at the same time very funny to me. The 3rd paragraph was written because my friends have the best intentions, but they say silly things sometimes. Also… I am pretty sure Joe reads this so he might appreciate a shout-out about how insensitive he sometimes is (and one of my favorite things to do is give him a hard time). The 2nd paragraph is honest to what I’m feeling. I’m not depressed and I’d like to think that those thoughts come with any breakup.
So, in case anyone was worried, my sense of humor is still intact and I am still the happy-go-lucky person I have always been 
Besides all of that, I have a wedding to attend tomorrow. I thought about wearing my new wedding dress to it, but I heard that wearing white to a wedding is rude. Maybe a birthday party is coming up.
**In case anyone was wondering, Dan and I are going to move out of our shared apartment and into separate places beginning on Sunday. I get the television and the dog. He gets the desk that I spilled ink all over. I definitely won in the “who gets what” game.
On Tuesday night, Dan and I broke up.
There was no cheating. No unhappy feelings. No not-getting-along. From the outside looking in, we had a great relationship. Hell, even from the inside we had a great relationship. But something was missing, and I never could quite put my finger on it.
I brought up my thoughts on our relationship, and he agreed. Something really was missing. He was able to put it in words better than I could.
“When we both lived in Michigan, we were both unhappy because we were just starting out and not quite doing what we want to do. Moving to Minnesota has helped me find my happiness here through my research and the things that I do, but you haven’t found yours yet. I needed support to reach the place I am at now, and you were there for me every step of the way. Unfortunately for us, what you need is space — and I am willing to give that to you.”
I am not one to say that our 2 year and 4 month relationship was a waste. I take everything as a learning opportunity because, no matter what I am doing, I am learning about myself in one way or another. And I learned a lot with Dan. He pushed me to be a better person and supported me no matter what I was doing.
But there are only so many things you can learn in a relationship. At some point, you need to take a step out of your comfort zone and learn to live on your own. Since starting college, I was a “serial monogomist” and went from one serious relationship to the next in a matter of weeks. And lately, with all of this talk of marriage and forever, I don’t think I’ll really be ready until I get the chance to try this out.
I’m not going to go into every facet of the breakup here, but to put it plainly… I am very sad.
I am sure that I will be for a very long time.
For the last week, I have been listening to two songs over and over again. I respond to music. If any of you are having trouble with something in your life, maybe these songs can give you some much needed strength as well.
♥ Here’s to two years of fun together ♥
♥ Here’s to two years of celebrating our accomplishments with one another ♥
♥ Here’s to two years of taking those cute little smoochy pictures together ♥
♥ Here’s to two years of being in love ♥
Happy 2 Year Anniversary, handsome. XOXO
Ever since my boss gave the okay to 60 hour work weeks (meaning 20 hours of potential overtime), a lot people have been staying in the office until at least 6pm. Some even stay until 10pm. Me? I’m not too concerned with overtime and I leave about an hour after wanting to gouge out my eyes from staring at a computer and manipulating spreadsheets for too long. Some days it’s after 9 hours and some days it’s after only 5. It’s like my own test of willpower. Can I make it that next hour without blurred vision? Will my sanity still be there? It’s like this crazy mind game I can play.. and the outcome is never the same twice in a row. Usually I will take some time and just set my forehead down on my desk and leave it there for about 5 minutes. Then I pick it up and I have only 55 minutes to go. Score 1 me.
Needless to say, after anyone spends 3 hours making spreadsheets, they start to go a little crazy. But when 5pm rolls around and a lot of people have been there for 10 hours already (except for me… since I usually stroll in at about 9am), people start talking gibberish and laughing at God knows what. Suddenly people are talking about weird crap and nobody can focus any more. They are losing their minds.
I think that I have mentioned here before that I learned how to survive bear attacks at work. And believe it or not, that conversation did not happen at the late hours of the evening, but at around 2pm. The guy that sits next to me just knows a lot about bears. ANYWAY. Last night, as the sun was setting and we were all still sitting around talking and clicking away on excel, the bear conversation came up again. Eventually it evolved into a conversation about cougars and how, if you were to ever encounter one, you had better just get the biggest stick you can and hope to God that you’re able to beat it away (and then I giggled because I was thinking about how that might apply to the older-women-type as well). And then it become a conversation about all cats, big or small. And FINALLY, about 15 minutes after the initial conversation began, the common house cat was introduced into the discussion.
Are you ready for this? Because this totally blew my mind when they told me this little factoid. Make sure that you’re positive you’re ready because this post is about to go to a really weird, morbid place.
If you were to die in your house and no one were to find you for awhile and you owned a cat, the cat would eat you to stay alive.
If you were to die in your house and no one were to find you for awhile and you owned a dog, the dog would not eat you and starve to death instead.
**I had to stop writing at this point because my dog just consumed bits of the plastic water bottle I didn’t notice it was chewing. It won’t eat me as a last ditch effort to stay alive, but it will ingest plastic for no real reason at all. Wow. **
First, I was disgusted at this news. I felt betrayed, thinking that my cat would eat me to stay alive. My love for Prandtl grew exponentially as I thought about her, laying next to me, refusing to eat me because she was far too loyal.
But then I thought about it longer, and I suddenly thought Prandtl was an idiot. She’s a wild animal, for God sakes. She wasn’t raised eating ceasar salads and filet mignon. Her ancestors hunted for their food and stalked their prey to get it, but she wouldn’t eat me to stay alive? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She just lost a ball under the entertainment center and it looks like her brain is going to implode as she thinks about how to get it back.
So after careful consideration, I’m not hurt that cats are willing to eat their owners to stay alive. I’m not disgusted. It’s self preservation. They gotta do what they gotta do. I mean, as long as I’m not waking up in the middle of the night to find Lucy gnawing on my arm with a crazed look in her eye, I’m fine. I respect that she will do whatever she has to do to stick around. And I certainly don’t blame her.
And honestly, usually conversations like this gross me out. I’m usually really squeamish whenever it comes to anything dealing with the deceased or zombies eating one another. So sorry if you threw up in the middle of reading this, but I just couldn’t let this one go.
PHEW! I almost forgot it was the end of the month!!
On December 31st, I declared my New Years Resolution: Make monthly resolutions.
For the month of February, this is how I did –
So for those of you keeping track, I succeeded at 5 out of 8.
I still struggle to believe that I didn’t go ONCE thoughout January. I mean.. I can believe that I didn’t go since I was there every morning when I rolled out of bed late and got to work barely at 9am, but… ugh. Disappointing.
I guess I can pride myself in that I don’t just “kind of” fail. I fail big and go home. *HIGH FIVE*
I got home last night at about 5pm. I thought about picking my dog up, but I decided I didn’t feel like it. So I came home, said hi to Lucy (my cat), and slept until 7am this morning. For those of you that lack basic math skills, that’s 14 hours of sleep. WHEW.
So I got up this morning, cleaned my apartment, and brushed Lucy. Usually I use some really crappy brush that I probably got from the dollar store or something, and it doesn’t really do much. It pulls out maybe 3 hairs, and then 15 seconds later she is wandering around shedding all over everything again. Today I wisened up and decided to try out my dog’s furminator on her. And for those of you with dogs that shed a lot but you haven’t heard of the furminator yet, you are missing out on the best invention EVER. Seriously.
So I don’t know if these wonderful inventions from the heavens are made for cats, but this is what I got before Lucy started gnawing on my fingers, the brush, and my arms.
That is a lot of hair. I even compacted it all in a dense hairball. Gross.
And when I showed Lucy, of course she grabbed the whole thing between her front paws with a death grip and tried to eat the whole thing. I actually gave her a little piece of it just to see if she really would follow through and eat the hair, and she did. I should have known better. It’s like she’s upset that the hair is no longer on her and she needs to eat it so she can grow some more. Because she needs it. And I need more of it on my couch.
In my eyes, Valentine’s Day is overrated.
And it’s not that I don’t appreciate flowers, chocolates, or affection — I am a woman, afterall. And it’s not that I am one of those people that whines about it with the standard “Why do you need a special day to love your partner” argument. I personally think it’s great that one day a year we celebrate the fact that people are in love. But I’m just not that into it.
When it’s my first Valentine’s Day with someone new, I am thrilled. I go all out with special gifts and plans and fancy dinners. But since Dan and I have been together for almost two years and have been living together for almost a year, there’s nothing that exciting about spending the evening going to the movies and dinner. I mean, we do it all of the time! And while it’s nice to get flowers, they’re kind of the go-to gift for every other holiday and birthday. Plus, why should I get excited to spend my February 14th evening crammed into a movie theatre with a bunch of tweens and teenagers trying to say “smart” things to impress one another. And going out to eat isn’t really anything special any more since we do it all of the time (although we did go out for sushi tonight… yum!)
I know I sound like a bitter old woman right now. I have been dating Dan for less than two years and already I’m losing interest in major lovey-dovey holidays.
Anyway, I gave Dan an electric shaver for Valentine’s Day. He loves it. We are nothing if not practical.
After a trip to Minnehaha Falls and after a short grocery shopping trip, I decided to do some cleaning around the apartment today. Living in a 700 square foot studio means that even the smallest mess can make it look like this whole place has been trashed. And so I got out the vacuum, turned it on, and started to move it around in order to pick up the salt, dirt, and pet hair that was on the floor of the apartment.
The vacuum looked like it was picking up dirt. It also sounded like it was picking up the dirt. The problem? It wasn’t picking up the dirt. Usually there is a tiny cyclone that forms inside of the vacuum, but the hair in the vacuum just sat there. Nothing was going in. It was time to investigate the situation.
Turns out, the hose was clogged with a huge mass of dog and cat hair. I probably could have taken a photo of the disgusting pile of hair and dust that came out of there, but I thought it was appalling and didn’t really want to remember. If we were to bunch it all together into a dense glob, it would probably be about the size of a cantaloupe. A disgusting, hairy, dusty cantaloupe. And Prandtl laid next to me, tail wagging and tongue hanging out, looking like she was proud of the havoc she had caused.
Cleaning out the vacuum was disgusting and not the way I wanted to spend part of my Sunday evening, and even though she sat there staring at me in a way that could have been construed as mocking, I was happy to have her. She may be clingy, high maintenance, annoying, and clog my vacuum, but she’s not afraid to be herself, and I kind of respect that. And I know it’s silly to say “I really respect my dog for _____”, but I do. She’s not afraid to be herself. Every time anyone has ever yelled at me for shedding (I have very thick hair and tend to leave it everywhere), I have been slightly embarrassed. What does Prandtl do? Just watch me clean it up.
I am always in awe of dogs because people love them for the way they are and dogs don’t have to pretend to be something that they’re not. Everyday we work to impress the people around us through our appearance, actions, and way of speaking. We work to impress people that we don’t know and are polite to people that we don’t even like. When my dog doesn’t like someone, she barks and growls. She prances in peoples’ way when we’re taking a walk because she wants to look at them. If someone wants to pet her and she’s not really into it, she runs away and barks at them under her breath from a distance. She’s a little bitch to everyone, but everyone still wants to love on her. Nobody cares because, after all, she is just a dog.
But I suppose she’s also so lovable because she’s so cute. It’s hard to say “stay away from me” to such a pretty face. And I hate to admit it, but I love that she will do anything she can to be as close to me as possible at all times .
On New Years Eve, I went to Brit’s Pub with Dan. We met Charlie and Glenn and Jason there, and a few other people joined us as well. There was a live band playing The Beatles and Sting, but we left at about 10:30pm because the band wasn’t very good and there were two drunk girls knocking over beers and talking/screeching like they came straight out of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
We moved on to Keirans Irish Pub where the Tim Malloys were playing. They were GREAT! They got the crowd involved, they had a lot of talent, and they were just a lot of fun to watch. We got seats near the stage and I sat at a table with a woman that had a huge issue with a large group of lesbians that were also in the pub. They were constantly fondling the one guy that was in their group while they were making out with each other. PDA to the extreme.
The countdown hit zero, we all toasted and drank champagne, and I got a great big kiss from Dan. The first words I heard in the year 2010? “Happy New Year, baby. This is the year that we get engaged.”
I guess I had better start saving for a wedding.
<3
