Realizations..

There are certain things that are certain in life. The Sun rising in the East and setting in the West; Spring leading to Summer, then Fall and then Winter and the fact that whether we can see them or not, the stars shine brightly over our heads.

I can look at that small list and tell you that every single one of those is true, but I can’t tell you much else.

My living situation is changing again. My whole year has felt like it’s all about change. Change to grow and stretch me to become a better person. Change to help me realize that I can strive for more, I don’t have to settle and I can accomplish much if I set my mind to it.

Travis is moving out. The bond between Jen and him grows stronger everyday and I get to watch it with my own two eyes. There are times when we’re hanging out that we play the question game and they’ll ask tough questions. About a week ago, we’re in our cups and sitting at the table of truth, asking our questions.

“Gabe, how does it feel to know that you brought us together?” Travis asked. (Paraphrase I believe)

That’s a loaded question.

I’ve already told you their story, at least I think I have. They’ve become my shelter because they’ve been so honest with me. Because they’ve been so genuine. Because they’ve decided to let me in. Yet they both look at me like I’m the reason they’re together when in all honesty, it was and is the ardent love that they have for each other that brought them together. Watching them is like watching a supernova. Bright and full love light, but also hot and dangerous in a sense that getting too close will scorch you.

I explained myself as best I could. They are my family. They are the world to me in that they show me that there’s hope in this fucked up world. They show me that even though we all have a tendency to screw up, we can still have a happy ending. For that I’m always grateful.

So today I’m emailing back and forth with Jen because that’s what we do and we’re both talking about our exes.

The whole conversation came up because M called me last night. She heard through the grapevine that I would be losing a room mate and she sent me an email a few days ago. The email was the type that you never want to read. She wanted to try again. She wanted to move in with me, get a job and see how things went from there. The thing is, even in the email she wasn’t the woman I remembered. I’m not a grammar nazi BUT I do know the writing styles of the people close to me and the way that she wrote that letter made me sad because I KNEW that she wasn’t the same.

I didn’t answer right away. Honestly I didn’t know how to answer that question without sounding like an asshole. While it doesn’t really matter I suppose, I didn’t want to hurt her more than I already had.

So she called instead, five times yesterday after work.

I was having dinner with Sarah, no you don’t get an explanation yet. And I explained to her what was going on and how I was trying to gauge what I should do exactly. She helped me out, she knew I had to make the call but she was my moral support while it happened.

The person on the other end of the line was NOT my ex-wife. She couldn’t be. Recently she had a shunt put into her brain because the doctor’s felt that there was too much brain fluid in there. According to her they haven’t perfected it yet.

Still, this isn’t the first time I talk to her in weeks. I just spoke with her on Sunday. She called then too. I took the call, not sure of what to expect and what I got was hit up for forty five dollars for her to pick up pain meds. Something that I was not willing to do.

In this call she’s trying to present her case, however, I had to ask her to repeat herself more than once because I couldn’t understand her. It sounded like a severe case of cotton mouth and it just crushed me more. I know that some of you may think that I’m crying over spilled milk but I hold by the fact that I will always love her. I am not IN LOVE with her and I haven’t been in a while but still, she was an important part of my life for a long time. Hearing her the way that she is just killed me.

Then she asked if I had found a roommate and I said yes. She asked if it was a male or female, I told her it’s a female. That’s when things went very south. She started asking some personal questions that I didn’t feel comfortable with answering or telling her about. I explained that to her and she seemed okay. We hung up with me promising to call her back today, why? Cause I couldn’t listen to her like that anymore.

The texts started an hour after that. Full of recriminations and accusations, full of frustration and anger I’m sure. How I never truly loved her because I was trying to move on, how I never gave her a chance and I didn’t give her an opportunity to clean up.

I texted back and forth for an hour and finally gave up. It wouldn’t matter what I said to her, she would feel that way.

Back to today and I’m talking to Jen and she says something that clicks, “Now that I know what it’s like to really be loved, I know for sure that my ex didn’t love me.”

Okay, am I the only one that’s like, “FUCK?”

Don’t understand? Think about it. You spend so much time loving ONE person and things fall apart and you find someone fun and then when things get heavy you realize that true, unselfish love has been something you’ve never received, you’ve only receive the pale shadows of that love but now you’ve got something so strong and powerful that it makes it harder for you to breathe.

Have you been a fool for too long? Were you blinded by some minimal attention that someone showed you? Did you settle?

The worst thing about moving on is that the past can haunt you if you let it. I’ve been trying to ‘break off the rearview mirror’ as it were, easier said than done.

I had been trying to be civil up until this point but the conversations and texts I’ve received in the last week tell me that it’s something I’m doing in futility.

When Ariel was still hanging around I tried to get the rest of my stuff and it didn’t happen. I was stalled by the MIL about how M was supposed to get half of everything. What I’ve learned? Oregon doesn’t work that way and if I call the cops, they can help me get my stuff. I don’t want to go that route, I hate to have to burn a bridge but the options are becoming less and honestly, I want to move on with my life.

There’s nothing worse than knowing that maybe, maybe you were never understood at all.

Shaman, Where are you?

Shaman, Where are you?

If you’ve noticed because you follow the blog and watched it’s mutation from a hard core WoW addict to a guy just expressing his life, you know that I haven’t posted in a while. Indeed the last post that I made had been written for a while and I had forgotten to post it. (At least here.)

I’m not neglectful. I’m burned. Not at writing, I love writing and as I felt earlier in the year this is a productive season for me. I’ve written more words in this year than I had in the last two combined. Much of that is that I’ve been left to my thoughts and the fact that I’ve been able to experience so much more than the four walls that I live in. I’ve made friends. I’ve gone through hard times, I’ve had huge laughs and I’ve figured myself out little by little.

The burn I’m talking about is the last time I wrote on here, shoving my gun ho attitude down your throats like it was going out of style. My last decision was a costly one in that I learned the hard way some truths about life and I learned some truths about myself.

I’m a believer. I like to believe what I’m told. I like to believe that there’s more to life. I like to believe.

The Simpsons have a character, Ned Flanders, and I can sometime associate with him, just not as naïve, at least I hope. He has a positive attitude most of the time, wants to have the world be happy, never a cross word to say about anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I get down, I get sad, I get angry but for the most part I love seeing the good in people and pointing it out. I’m infamous for it with my friends and family.

The problem that I’ve now encountered is that, I’m having a hard time taking things at face value. People mostly. Women especially.

Which sucks since I have a lot of girl friends, not ‘girlfriends’ just girl friends.

Hell my best friend is a girl. (both of them actually, long story)

So I’ve told you about everyone else under the sun basically, there’s a couple that I’ve left out of the loop intentionally but at this point there’s one more person in my life that I think I should introduce you to.

Shannon.

When I had just gotten away from the things going on with M I wanted to make friends and Shannon was one of the first ones that I made. We hit it off, became fast friends and have had a bond ever since. It’s a nice thing, we can call each other and talk shit all we want or vent, or talk about fears and blah blah blah.

She’s gotten to hear my exploits first hand when it comes to dating. She’s been the one that I’ve told about aspects of relationships and other things (more guy like conversations but I’ve been able to have them with her.) the thing is that some where along the way the edges got blurred.

(don’t worry this isn’t anything like you might think)

Recently, recently I’ve begun to notice how the friendship works, and I don’t like it. Why? Cause I’m starting to feel like second string.

Here’s the deal. Each time that I’ve met someone new, Shannon has come forward and expressed something to me that I didn’t know. When I was with Amy, she expressed love for me. When the Amy thing ended, she moved away from me.

Then the Ariel thing happened. One night during a phone conversation she said, “I always thought when I was ready to settle down it would be you and me.” Then we ALL know how that happened and then she pushed away.

Things like that, if it happened once, okay I can understand it. To have it happen several times though? Yea, not so much, then it’s a mind game and I LOATHE mind games. I try to be open and honest about everything that I do, all that I am and then here’s this lady who can’t say something straight to save her life? Yea, no, I don’t see it happening.

I think things happen for a reason and I think the reason why the Ariel thing happened was because I needed to know the things in life sometimes aren’t as cut and dry as we might love to believe. Sometimes there’s ulterior motives, be it because they want to leave the situation they’re in, they want to have control, or maybe they don’t even know what they want. Sometimes, when people who are lost and don’t really know anything about what makes them tick, they find those that have it more on the ball and they latch on or try desperately to bring that person down so that they no longer feel alone.

I’m not doing it again.

I am talking to someone new. Someone special, at least in my eyes and probably in yours at some point too. I’m not putting it out there, I’m guarding it. Why? Because I want to figure it out on my own. I want to stand on my own two feet about something for once and I want to take it slower. I want to build it from the foundation up, not from the penthouse down.

Yea, that’s me right now.

MOTW

"I want to show you how he lived..."

Say what you will about Tom Cruise, this is by far a masterpiece in regards to showing us how the Samurai truly worked. The scenerey, costuming and casting really bring you into the era in a way very few movies can anymore.

It's a great movie to watch, it's a great movie to have as background noise. I've watched it a few times in the past couple of weeks.

I haven't done this segment in a while, I needed to dust off the cobwebs!