NostalgicRelease's Datingish

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:40:00 GMT

Apparently, they've broken up. That really sucks. I feel sorry for the guy, he must have loved her, and he doesn't do breakups well...

I'm Done.

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:23:24 GMT

It's finally over.

Today, after a vague mention by my mother, I realized that I no longer feel anything toward my ex. I don't have the tug in my heart or the ball in my stomach when I think of him or something reminds me of the past. The most I feel is curiosity.

I don't feel the need to ever be friends with him, but I still wonder occasionally how his life is going. I no longer harbor any resentment or strong feelings. Time heals all they say, and it's faded into nothing.

I actually feel quite liberated after realizing this. I hadn't given it much thought lately, with so much going on in my life this month. Looking back now I think the whole thing may have crossed my mind barely twice in the past while.

I'm wondering if this has correlates in any way to the hints my boyfriend has been throwing toward our future. I've been questioned a handful of times in the past couple months on whether I intend to marry him, and am wondering if his family has been tossing the same questions at him as well. I tend to change the subject when the topic comes up, but actually had a great conversation about it with my future sister-in-law a month ago.

She admitted that she always wonders if he only proposed because he was afraid no one else would come along after her. They were engaged after dating for 3 months. They were married soon after. They are now pregnant, and I will be welcoming my niece Addison next month. She admitted her insecurities to me, and I did to her. And after talking through the whole thing, I know that I will most likely, one day be a Sawatzky. I am in no hurry, and I am hoping he is not either. We are both in debt at the moment, and need to be financially stable, which will probably take a few good years. And by that time, I may actually be ready for a more permanent commitment. Our relationship is quite opposite to his brother's. They moved very quickly, and now own a townhouse, new cars, and are having a baby, and have only been together a year longer than my boyfriend and I. We took a long time to get serious, and worked through a lot of issues before finally deciding that, yes, this was all worth it. By this time, I honestly don't think anything about him could surprise me. I know him so well. I know all of the things that annoy me about him, and have developed ways to deal with them.

I think by the time he and I are ready to tie the knot, we will actually have a better foundation than some couples, simply because we have learned to deal with our issues together. We're already basically family. He's spent more time at my parents house than I have in the past year. He and my brother are nearly inseparable despite the 7 year age difference. His mother relies on me to keep things running smoothly with his family, and his sister and I have grown much closer through her pregnancy (partially because I cannot be pregnant, so have to live vicariously through her). I feel very at ease with his family, as he does with mine. It all just feels so natural.

Huh, I guess I went off on a bit of a tangent there. My mind has been so full of everything lately it was nice to sit down and focus on one subject.

After my epiphany today I don't expect to spend much time on this account. This may be my last entry, but I feel it's a good enough message to be my last one.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:48:44 GMT

My mother and my brother are friends with my ex on Facebook. They both adored him dearly, and since I haven't told them what happened last year, they have no reason not to.

Sometimes I go over to my parents house from my boyfriends place and my mom is on Facebook. And she'll say "Hey, come see the pictures [my ex] posted!" Normally I blow her off and just continue on with whatever I went there to do, but occasionally I give in and take a look. And I have concluded two things:

1. He looks terrible with a shaved head. It made me a little happy because it made him less attractive in my mind, which made it a lot easier to keep him out of my thoughts.

2. His girlfriend is adorable. They made a cute couple. Not entirely sure how that makes me feel, but at the moment, it makes me feel great. I'm happy, he's happy, and really, that's probably better than we could have done together anyway. So, win win?

It's been nearly a year since my lapse of judgment in increasing contact with him and going out to see him. I go from feeling guilty, to sad, to mad, to content thinking about it. Guilty, because I broke my boyfriend's trust. Sad, because it was the last chance to ever see my first love again. Mad, because of how I got played, and how I can't 100% get over it. And content, because at least now I can say with complete and total assurance that he and I will never be together again.

There are still little things that remind me of him on a daily or weekly basis, but I suppose that's how it will remain for a long while. I've never asked (because I don't care to know), but I'm sure the same happens to my boyfriend about his ex. They spent 4 years together, I'm sure there are numerous things that remind him of her, but he gets over it. He also vehemently hates her, which probably makes it a lot easier to ignore those things.

I have a friend who, despite all odds, continues to remain friends with her ex. He does not deserve it in the least. He broke up with her during sex. Yes, DURING sex. As in, mid thrust. And yet, they've worked out their differences, attend some of the same college classes, and are friends with each others current SO's. She says she did love him, but is glad they split, as they are both now with people better suited to them.

I think my ex has that. He and his girlfriend seem far more compatible than we ever were. And as for my boyfriend and I, compatible isn't our style. We rock the crazy life, and it suits us. Yes, sometimes our weirdness even gets to me sometimes, but he's the only person I'm completely myself with, good and bad. We stay up to all hours some nights watching Planet Earth, or playing cribbage or Rockband. We play ridiculous games together, and have far too many inside jokes. We go on random day drives, listen to stupid music, have sex in public wildlife sanctuaries (oops, did I say that?), and sing and dance terribly together. Because we just don't give a shit when we're together. We get to be ourselves to the fullest extent. No, we don't do roses and fancy dinners, and expensive concerts and bar nights. We're ourselves. Because being ourselves makes us love ourselves. And loving yourself is the only way you can truly love someone else.

It's been 2 and a half years of insanity, and it's not stopping any time soon.

And to my ex and his girl, you guys look good together. Congrats on your anniversary, I hope you have many more.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:36:27 GMT

One of my closest friends from high school just had a baby. She and her fiance were the people my ex and I hung out with together most often.

Usually I'm not excited when people my age have babies, but they have been together for over 4 years, are engaged, and make a ton of money. They own their own house, have 2 new cars, and have a beautiful nursery set up. They may be young but in their case I don't think having a baby young was a terrible idea.

If my ex and I were still together, if would be 4 years for us as well. If I had chosen not to move out here, we would probably be living together in an apartment in the same city, working at McDonalds and Extra Foods. He would have given me the promise ring like he intended, he would have proposed, and we would probably either be married or plan on getting married. And to be honest, we would probably have a baby or have one in the next few years. It would not be a perfect life by far, but it would have seemed perfect to me. I would have been happy in my little bubble not knowing any better.

And in comparing that to what my life is now, I wonder if the little bubble would have been better. I might have been happy forever in my ignorance.

But now, I know better. I know that I am capable and worth more than that. I will not base my life around a man. I am 20. I have much learning to do before I start caring about having a family.

I love my boyfriend dearly, and I hope to be with him forever, but I don't expect it. He is not nearly as ambitious as me, and I am not sure that he will be able to sit back and let me grow into a better person without concern for him. The negativity in me says that I won't be able to move forward in life if he's there, and dare I say, holding me back. But I choose to hope. I am not one to fantasize about a dream life, but I do try sometimes to picture the future. I try, and I can't really do it.

The future I choose to see is one he probably doesn't even want. I want to move to a big city and work as a zookeeper. He would prefer to live in his little bubble in his house with his Xbox 360 in the tiny town he grew up in, and he would gladly live out the rest of his life in that one town. I can't do that. I cannot spend more than 6 years in one place. By 3 years I am getting antsy and ready to move. I need change, growth, new experiences.

We have talked about getting married. Jokingly on his part I think. I told him my idea about a wedding and he agrees. We both absolutely HATE the stuffy traditional wedding stuff. I explained to him how I would use all the money people usually spend on dresses, tuxes, flowers, and other meaningless things, and spend it all on a 2 week long celebration in Greece. There would be tons of food, booze, music, and friends every day. And one day in the middle we'd have a short ceremony on the beach. I've envisioned wearing a white bikini, and after the technical and legal stuff was through, we would all go swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean. I want my wedding to be about friends and family, not just about me. And he enjoys that. He's joked about his father wearing that disgusting old grey wifebeater with the holes in the shoulder to our wedding. I told him as long as he can convince his dad to come I don't care what he wears.

He also agrees with adoption. Which is huge for me. Not being able to safely carry a pregnancy with my spine means my man needs to be on board with adoption. We've talked about it many times, and he's fine with the idea. I've told him that I want a boy, then a girl. I've told him that I want a girl from China or Japan, and that if we end up together he can pick the nationality of the boy.

Beyond that, I mean, who really cares about the details? I love him, and he loves me. Life with him would never be dull. Even stuck in that pitiful little town, his parents seem to have fun every day. I hope that when I have been married for that long I still find my husband funny. One can only hope, and that's what I'm doing.

Sometimes I wonder...

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:36:06 GMT

What would happen if one day my ex showed up at my door and asked for me back. What if he went down on his knees and told me he still loved me, that he made a terrible mistake choosing her over me, and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me?

I think my heart would melt, I would look at him and know that I still love him. And then I would wind up and kick him with all my might directly in the gonads for being such a spineless, self absorbed asshole.

I'm always going to love him aren't I?

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:55:30 GMT

I hate him as passionately as I love him, and it pains me, because all I want is for him to be out of my mind and memories forever. He was my first love, and first I left him, then he broke my heart. My heart is torn every day, because after 3 and a half years, I still yearn for what used to be, and my heart tells me I've lost my soul mate.

As much as I hate to keep rethinking it over and over again, I hope writing it down will serve as some sort of release. I want to be able to put this to rest.

So here is the story, from the beginning, as my memory recalls it. If you were to ask him, he would probably have a different take on the story, and both versions would probably be just as true.

The Whole Story

The first night I got truly, truly drunk, was at the four plexes. I drank half a bottle of raspberry smirnoff straight and fell asleep on the floor while people I vaguely recognized from school walked over me and kept on drinking. I woke up and went downstairs to vomit in the bathroom. I had been falling into depression in a dead end town, and I don't know how that night would have ended or how much further I would have gone down that path if he hadn't shown up. I had no idea that he lived there at the time, I had just worked with him at McDonalds a couple hours earlier. I had a crush on him, but hadn't said a word to him the entire time we worked together, as I was too shy. My friend was far too drunk to even remember that I was there, so he took me outside to sit on the step and talk until I felt better. We talked for a while, tried to take a walk but it was snowing and I had no shoes, so he took my inside and tucked me into his bed. I had never really talked to him before and I remember him saying, "I never expected that the quiet girl I worked with in drive thru today to end up drunk in my bed the same night." He left me there to sleep for a while, and then came back to check on me. Eventually he convinced my friend to take me home, and drove us to her house.

From that day on we met outside of work a few more times, and he always had sweet words to say. We walked on the beach and watched movies in his room. He always made me feel that I was perfect and that I was the only person in the world when I was with him. I was extremely self conscious and didn't feel like I deserved someone like him, but he never stopped treating me like a princess. He wrote me pages and pages of love letters, brought me little presents when I was sad, and always went the extra mile to make me smile.

We had only been dating 9 months, when my parents decided that we were moving, and I was devastated. I wanted so much to be with him, but I wasn't willing to stay behind as my family moved away from me. I ended up moving on September 1st, 3 days before starting grade 12. It changed my life. Moving in grade 12 is no easy thing. Everyone already has their cliques and aren't open to new people. I only made one good friend. I was living with my aunt and uncle that I didn't really know because my family stayed in Alberta until my dad was sure he had a job. What kept me going was nightly conversations with him. Every night we would talk about him moving out here and us moving in together. That was all we wanted was to be together. Eventually I started getting discouraged, I wanted to be with him, and knowing I couldn't was killing me. I started shutting down, trying to stop myself from feeling hurt. Finally, a week shy of our 1 year, I broke up with him. Over the phone. I broke up with the man I loved over the phone. He didn't want to talk to me. I couldn't have explained it to him anyway. I loved him and yet I broke up with him. I was frustrated and impatient about waiting to be with him.

I had already been shutting my heart to him, so it wasn't too hard to tell myself I was over him and try to move on with my life. I hung out with Sarah a lot, and in November my parent's finally moved to BC and bought a house. I was doing fine. Until one day at school I got paged to the front office. I went down and picked up a note that said to call him. I was scared for a minute because I thought someone had died or something equally serious. I didn't even think long enough to notice that it was in fact, his handwriting on the note. I called him and all he would say was that I should go home. He repeated it when I questioned him, and then we hung up. I sat there confused, and then read the note again, finally registering that it was his handwriting. Sarah and I got into my car, and drove toward my house to check before I dropped her off. Sure enough, when I pulled up to the stop sign I could see his truck around the corner, the unmistakable gold truck with the decals. In the back of the truck was a bunch of furniture. I freaked out and took off, with Sarah as confused as one can be. I drove for a while, shaking and hyperventilating, and then pulled over the explain it to Sarah. I finally called home. My mom answered and told me to come home. I asked her if he was there. She repeated to come home. I said no and hung up. I drove a bit more, then finally drove to our house.

It was moving day, and our house was full of unpacked boxes. I pulled up to see my little brother and my ex's friend playing football in the cul de sac. I walked into the house, and up the stairs to the kitchen where we was waiting with my mom. I freaked again and ran to my room with Sarah. He came up and handed me my ring, telling me I had left it at his house when I was last there. We went to the family room to talk. All he wanted to say was that he loved me and wanted to move here and make it work. And I wouldn't let him get a word in. I had already made up my mind, this could not be happening. I told him I didn't want him there and he left. I drove Sarah home and then stopped in my car and cried for a while. I didn't want him there because I didn't want to remember what I had done to him. I had broken his heart and his trust.

I called him later, I don't remember how long after. I caught him just as he was leaving the city, and asked him to come back. We met in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He sat in my car and tried to talk to me. I don't remember how long we talked. He asked if he could kiss me again. We kissed, and it was very nostalgic. In the end, I told him again to leave, and this time he did for good.

It took a lot of work for me to not go back to how I had been before I met him. I focused on school and ended up on the honour roll for the first time in 2 years. I had my family here. Being in BC alone made me feel so much better. The mountains have always equaled home to me. I loved being back in BC, and for the first time that I could remember, being able to go visit my extended family any time I wanted to, not once every year or two. I was single for the next year. I grew to like myself and who I was was. I was content, and I was happy. I was working at Castle Fun Park and made a few friends. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, and I didn't feel like I needed anyone. Deep down I was still feeling guilty over what I had done to my ex and although I was lonely, I sort of felt like I deserved to be alone for a while.

I started becoming friends with Emily that I worked with. I knew that she played a lot of DDR, as did her boyfriend Koko. One day while the two of us were working a late shift together, Koko and his friend came in to hang out with Emily when she was off. Emily finished her shift and went upstairs to play with them. Eventually she and Koko came downstairs to the counter I was working at. Koko asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said no. He asked if I wanted one. I said no. He continue bugging me about getting together with his friend. I remember his golden line ,"Come onnnn, he's not fat or anything." I found that funny, and sort of wanted to hang out with Emily outside of work, so I agreed to hang out with them.

I showed up at Koko's place on Tuesday the 6th of October. I met my boyfriend. I thought he was cute and tall, but I wasn't entirely interested in dating. We sat beside each other on the loveseat and watched anime and then Gilmore Girls. I went home. We hung out with Koko and Emily at their house a few more times, and then the day Koko left for Laos. Emily hung around for a while and then left he and I alone. We held hands for a while, which I hadn't done in over a year. I got the old feeling of butterflies in my stomach. I realized that I had missed it. I made the first move when I kissed him. And once I kissed him, I couldn't stop. We ended up in his bed, and we had sex. I remember beforehand not knowing how to bring up the awkward sex talk, so I just blurted out "When was the last time you has sex?" I was shocked when he seemed embarrassed and said "The truth? ... Never." I hadn't expected to hear that, so that confession calmed any second thoughts I had, and we went for it. I remember expecting it to be terrible as it was his first time, but it wasn't. Far from it. The next day I had mixed emotions. I cried in the candy closet at work and asked myself what I had done.

From then on our relationship was mostly physical. It was the opposite of my prior relationship. With my ex I waited a while before deciding to sleep with him, because I was a virgin and I wanted to be sure I cared for him. I lost my virginity on Christmas day, and he said it was the greatest thing he could ever have asked for. With my new man, I felt like I needed it. We fooled around almost every time we saw each other. Eventually, he tried to call it off, because he thought he would hurt me. I told him I didn't want anything serious. Turns out I was lying. Our physical thing slowly turned into a real relationship.

He and I have a ridiculously weird history and relationship. We started out completely opposite to how we should have. We saw each other for sex, and didn't do any couple things. No dates, love notes, or presents. Nothing compared to what I had been used to. We slowly also became friends, and eventually, I fell in love with him. I wish we had done the dating thing. Maybe we'd have a more solid foundation now.

Through all of this my ex and I kept in contact. Three or four times a year we'd catch up with each other, taking care to not get too serious, because I think we both had feelings we'd rather keep hidden. Myself more than him, because I was relatively happy and in love with another man. Once in a while we'd jokingly jest about what would happen if we were to meet again. Earlier this year when my boyfriend and I were having problems, I started confiding in my ex because he knew my dating history. My boyfriend and I broke up a few times, but fixed things because we were living together. I kept talking to my ex. We slowly started working into the conversation what we would do differently if we were still together. It made me question my feelings for my boyfriend, and made me finally open up the feelings I still had for my ex. One day he asked me the million dollar question, "Do you still love me?" I decided to be honest with him and myself, and said yes. From then on our conversations were about how we had gone wrong, and what we could fix if he ever got together again. The twist, I was still with my boyfriend and he had recently started dating someone. I tried several times to stop the conversations. I blocked him for a couple weeks to get time to think. Unfortunately, my boyfriend somehow found my ex's blog, talking about getting back together with me. He was understandably upset. My ex and I didn't talk again for almost a month.

I honestly don't know why, but we started talking again. And again things with my boyfriend and I went south. I moved back home when the semester was done. I kept talking to my ex while still seeing my boyfriend. I was in love with both of them. My boyfriend and I broke up again, and things with my ex and I escalated. We also began talking on the phone for hours. My heard did flips when I heard his voice for the first time in 3 years. The week after my brother's birthday, we were up late talking, when he suddenly asked me to buy a ticket out there to visit for the weekend, saying he would pay for half. It was Wednesday and I am not a spontaneous person. After some persuading, I bought a ticket. Friday night, I drove out to the airport and got on a flight to Edmonton.

I got there at 1 in the morning. my ex met me there. I got out of the terminal and stopped to text him, when he called my name and I looked up. We hugged and it was like being home again. We talked a bit on the drive to his house. When we got there, we attempted to watch a movie together, then I slept on the couch. He had to work the next day, so I tried to occupy myself until he got home. Eventually I ended up talking a walk through town, all the way to his work. He met me outside to give me a key to get back into his apartment, and I kissed him. He said I caught him off guard, as I had the first time we had kissed, when we started dating. When he got home, we went out to the West Edmonton Mall. We wandered for a bit, and I bought a CD and a DVD. We went out for dinner (at a place I knew he regularly took his girlfriend, which dampened my mood), and then he wanted to go to a movie, but nothing good was playing, so we went back to his house and watched Juno. I had intended to sleep on the couch again, but he asked me to go to his room with him. He said he just wanted to know, after all those years, what it would be like to wake up next to me. So I did. I got into bed with him, and we talked for a while. We ended up making out, and fooled around a little bit, but I did not want to have sex with him, I was still questioning whether he was serious. We went to sleep, and it turns out he snores, so I ended up back on the couch anyway.

I woke up at 11 and my flight out was at 4, so I went and woke him up. When he woke up and realized I was there, his smile was amazing. We spent some more time together before leaving for the airport. I kissed him goodbye and got into the line for security. He stayed until he couldn't see me anymore. I felt sad, but oddly, as soon as he left, I started questioning all of it. Shortly after I returned home, I realized that he had not broken up with his girlfriend. He had asked me to visit, and let me sleep in his bed, while still dating someone else. I was furious. He said he didn't know how to do it. I got fed up. We had a fight on the phone and the last words he said were, "Get the hell out of my life!" I hung up without replying and whispered, "Done." This was not the man I had fallen in love with 2 years prior. That man would never have betrayed me. I no longer have feelings for my ex, only for the man I dated when I was 17. I know that they are two different people.

After that, I realized how ridiculously naive and gullible I had been. He manipulated me into leaving my boyfriend who I loved while he stayed with his own girlfriend. I swallowed my pride and went to ask my boyfriend to forgive me. Being the amazing person he is, he let me cry on his shoulder without asking questions. He told me he loved me and held me while I cried. He was there for me when I needed him. We have many problems in our relationships, and we are polar opposites on many issues and beliefs, but I love him with all of my heart and I trust him more than my own family. With my ex I was always guarded and self conscious. With my boyfriend, I can say the stupidest things without worrying, and walk around naked without feeling self conscious.

He is my best friend, which is far more than I've ever experienced in a relationship before. I can be exactly who I am with him, whether that is a good thing or not. We don't always get along, but I know that even if we fight, I can always go back and he'll be there. There are many things I wish he would do, and things I wish he didn't do, but I wouldn't change him for the world. He may not be a knight in shining armour, but he's far more than that.

He's my debate partner, he's my crying shoulder, he's my stress outlet, he's my punching bag, he's my secret keeper, he's my drinking buddy, he's my critic and my fan, he's my best friend and my lover.

This time around love hasn't been easy, but it has been far more rewarding and much more of a learning experience. It's been worth both the risk and the heartache.

My only guilt is that he will never have 100% of my heart.

I've resigned myself to the fact that my ex will always have a place in my heart, as my first love. But honestly, I cannot live like this, always being reminded of what I used to have. I haven't of yet been able to relinquish any thoughts of him from my head.

I distract myself with my life. My schooling, my work, my volunteering, my family, my pets, my friends, and my boyfriend. I have a fairly hectic life. And yet every once in while something will happen that reminds me of my ex.

With as much thinking as I've done, I've come to some conclusions. The first one being that, maybe I don't still love him, I just love the though of a "perfect" relationship. The second one being that, maybe this experience will force me to hold out for my perfect man to spend my life with. The third one (and one I least enjoy), being that it may be possible that my ex is in fact my soul mate, and I will never love someone as much as I loved him. That thought depresses and terrifies me.

I realize there is nothing to be done about this situation, and maybe writing about it is the last thing I should be doing. But I have no one to talk to about it. Perhaps I need an unbiased outside opinion? All I know for sure is that this needs to stop, if it can be stopped. He and I will never be together.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:38:00 GMT

Mr. Joseph Laverne Buck,

You were perhaps the most influential person of my teenage years. You've helped me become the person I am. And I hate you. I love you, but I hate you. I broke your heart, then you broke mine, so I suppose it's only fair.

You were my first love, but you certainly are not my best or my last.

You taught me some valuable lessons about dating and what not to do, and for that I thank you. But for what you've done to my previously happy memories, I despise you.

Moving to BC was the single best decision of my life, whether it seemed like it at the time or not. I kept me from being with you when I'm sure I would have eventually seen the side of you I saw earlier this year.

The love I have for you will always remain in my heart. But that love, like all bad memories, needs to go into a tiny, tiny box, locked in the corner of my consciousness so that it may never interfere with my life again.

I'll move on with my life, as you've so easily moved on with yours, and one day the past will be the past, and when we are both dead and gone, none of our children will ever know of that person we each dated when we were young and naive.

I don't need you in my life, I don't want you in my thoughts, and you are not welcome in my dreams.

Sincerely,
Me