Sunday, June 04, 2006
Finally, a BLOG! I must have logged on at least twice since my last entry only to find that the site was down. Irritating, because now I don't remember what I wanted to blog about, exactly. Life has been about as normal as it can possibly be--all the same ups and downs, but that's not to say nothing's happened...
First, I met with members of my local SCORE chapter--3 retired businessmen from the area who volunteer to give business advice and guidance. It was promising--they were quite positive, and incredibly helpful. They were able to ask the right questions to get me thinking about things I hadn't considered, as well as feed me some "underground info" about some other goings on in the area that might be helpful for me. I left feeling like I had just taken a real, ACTIVE step toward opening a REAL business. Now I have to get my ass in gear and make the phone calls, do more research, and start writing that business plan. Oy.
In the meantime, I have now officially gained 10 lbs. Fatso. Errgh. Thank GOD the sugar cravings have eased. Unfortunately, now the junk food eating has become an embedded habit and I have to work hard to break the unconscious lunge for the junk food cabinet at every chance I get. I'm irritated as crap because I have now lost every bit of progress I'd made last summer, just in time for swimsuit season! Whoopie!!
The kids are both starting their summer at the Boys & Girls club. They're both terribly excited about it. Unfortunately, I doubt it'll take long before they figure out it's just glorified day care. Hopefully they'll make some friends and have a good time, though.
And finally, there's Rusty. I hate to blog about it, as it borders on feeling like airing dirty laundry, but I swore I wouldn't stay in a relationship if I felt I had to hide that sort of thing from my friends. A couple weeks ago, Rusty ran into an old highschool girlfriend here in town. He was happy to learn that she lives fairly nearby and has 2 kids close in ages to mine--in fact, her son is in the same grade in my daughter's school. He had hopes of rekindling a friendship with her and her husband, perhaps giving us a family to hang out with here in town (we don't know very many people, so it can feel pretty lonely and boring around here sometimes). He gave her his phone number. She called a couple days later, they chatted. They exchanged phone calls every few days or so. When he bought his new car, she mentioned she'd like to see it, and since they work similar schedules, he offered to stop by after work one morning and let her check it out. He was completely out in the open about this as it unfolded, being sure to tell me all about the topics of their conversations--partly so that when I finally got a chance to meet her and her family I could be familiar with her, but also to demonstrate that he wasn't doing anything suspicious or unscrupulous. The truth is, the longer it went on, the more I began to think I wasn't going to meet this girl. Just before they made plans to meet, she discovered that her husband had been cheating on her (the prick had the balls to bring the girlfriend into her HOUSE, where her children SLEPT over night while she was out working 3rd shift!!!). My gut instinct was to immediately view her motives with My Man as suspicious. But no, I didn't want to be cold to someone who was obviously going through a really rough spot. Like us, she doesn't have a lot of friends in the area. So it could go either way, right? Still, I felt the urge to warn him to expect her to hit on her. I didn't, though, thinking he would think I was being unduly suspicious. He met her around 8:30am, and I was OK with it. Not HAPPY, but OK. When he didn't return in a half hour, I figured they'd driven around town a little just to show it off (as he'd done with everyone else when he's taken the car to show it off for them), but still, fought that ugly feeling in my gut. There was a peak around 10am when I was absolutely livid with him for not calling, and for not coming home sooner (we were planning a trip for the weekend, and this was going to mean he would be driving me and my family on an hour's drive with no sleep), and this crappy feeling that something was going on between them would NOT go away. I had to sit down and meditate on it a bit--basically, I knew that if it *were* happening, there was nothing I could do to stop it, and it's better to know now than 10 years from now. He called shortly afterward, asking if I wanted him to pick anything up on his way home. In the end, when he came home, I was pissed at him for staying out all morning--if he'd come home, he could've gotten about 5 or 6 hours of sleep before it was time for us to leave, but I know him well enough to know that he would refuse to go to sleep if there was only time for a couple hours of rest. Things were quite cold between us. We spent the next couple of days or so with kids and other family members around us constantly, so there was very little time to have any conversations about it, but eventually it all started coming out. I wish he'd have told me right away, but of course I understand why he didn't.
As I predicted, she did make a pass at him--kissed him. Now some of my friends are probably giving me the slanty-eye, thinking, "RIIIIIGHT, in the 2 hours he was with her, all they did was TAAAAAAAAAALK, and then SHEEE kissed HIIMM. RIiiiiiiiIIIiiight." I'm not stupid, I know that there's a big length of time to fill in there, and I am well aware of all the things that MIGHT have happened that I don't know about. So the question is, do I trust that everything he's told me is the truth? Well, my gut was right in warning me she was too vulnerable to be trusted with someone she had a history with. And my gut tells me he's telling me the truth, too. We've finally talked about it at length--his conflicting emotions about trying to "be there" for a friend going through a really hard time, about being loyal to me and proving he's trustworthy, about how it hurts me and makes me feel disrespected, about all the cracks and weaknesses in our relationship right now that make us vulnerable to such things... I wish he'd take a little bit more responsibility for it all, though. She has since told him that she can't see him anymore because she thinks he wants more than just a friendship and she can't do to me what someone else has just done to her. Respectable, and I appreciate that, but it's not her that needs to get right with me. What really irritates me about this development is how incredibly offended and STUCK on this subject he has become. We can't make it through an hour without him bringing her up, talking about how UNFAIR it is for her to blame it all on him when he didn't make any moves on her, how INSULTING it is to be accused of such a thing, how DISAPPOINTING it is to lose the chance to have a friend here in town. And the more he talks about it, the more I think she's right: he *did* have ulterior motives. I don't think they were conscious--I really do believe he has been telling me the truth ~~as he sees it~~ throughout this entire ordeal. He wasn't at all prepared, though, for the return of feelings he'd experienced with her 10+ years ago. Maybe he saw it as a chance to test himself, to prove whether or not he really *is* a "cheater", or if he could resist the urges that were bound to come. The thing is, how on earth did he get into this situation? If he really did have nothing but completely pure and platonic intentions, why did he allow himself to be in this situation in the first place? See, it's not the fact that there was a kiss that bothers me, it's that the opportunity for the kiss to happen was so well planned for.
I imagine that if this were some long-lost high school boyfriend of MINE showing up out of the blue, I couldn't speak 3 words about him without me being harrangued at every opportunity about how I must be about to break us up and that Old Boyfriend was PROBABLY better than Poor Old Rusty in some way (more money, better job, better looking, taller, bigger penis, no family history of diabetes, whatever crossed his mind at the time). And if, after all that garbage, I still had the temerity to MEET this guy IN PERSON, there would be LOADS of pouting in addition to cell phone calls and text messages every 45 seconds.
But the truth is, I would never put myself in that situation. I wouldn't want to lead Old Boyfriend on. And I wouldn't want to give Rusty any reason to distrust me. If Old Boyfriend really wanted to see my new car, he could see it when Rusty could come with me. We could meet at Denny's or Burger King and leave it at that. But to presume it's OK to just go to his house? Never. And so I'm mad. Really mad. But my gut tells me it's not a deal-killer. It was an ugly lesson to learn--for both of us. I don't want to grow jaded about our relationship. After all, things have been really hard for me lately, with the med-imbalance and all, and I was not the most pleasant person to be with--that's not to say it gives him an excuse to treat me disrespectfully, just my part of the truth: that if I don't work harder on *my* part of the relationship, then I can't expect 100% from him, either. That makes me sound like a pushover ripe for being cheated on, doesn't it? Truth is, I don't know what I would do if it ever comes to that. I don't believe it automatically means the relationship is over. But I don't believe it's something I could tolerate more than once. I suppose it depends on the nature of the situation.
I can say this, though: I have a direction to go--I have a business to open, a life to build. He can do it with me or he can hit the road. I don't have time for petty dramas like this cropping up every time we get bumps in the road. Fair is fair, and I can be a forgiving person, and I'm sure I'll get over this sooner than later, but you can bet your ass that if something even remotely similar happens again, it will all come right back up... "Anything you say can and WILL be held against you..." as they say.
First, I met with members of my local SCORE chapter--3 retired businessmen from the area who volunteer to give business advice and guidance. It was promising--they were quite positive, and incredibly helpful. They were able to ask the right questions to get me thinking about things I hadn't considered, as well as feed me some "underground info" about some other goings on in the area that might be helpful for me. I left feeling like I had just taken a real, ACTIVE step toward opening a REAL business. Now I have to get my ass in gear and make the phone calls, do more research, and start writing that business plan. Oy.
In the meantime, I have now officially gained 10 lbs. Fatso. Errgh. Thank GOD the sugar cravings have eased. Unfortunately, now the junk food eating has become an embedded habit and I have to work hard to break the unconscious lunge for the junk food cabinet at every chance I get. I'm irritated as crap because I have now lost every bit of progress I'd made last summer, just in time for swimsuit season! Whoopie!!
The kids are both starting their summer at the Boys & Girls club. They're both terribly excited about it. Unfortunately, I doubt it'll take long before they figure out it's just glorified day care. Hopefully they'll make some friends and have a good time, though.
And finally, there's Rusty. I hate to blog about it, as it borders on feeling like airing dirty laundry, but I swore I wouldn't stay in a relationship if I felt I had to hide that sort of thing from my friends. A couple weeks ago, Rusty ran into an old highschool girlfriend here in town. He was happy to learn that she lives fairly nearby and has 2 kids close in ages to mine--in fact, her son is in the same grade in my daughter's school. He had hopes of rekindling a friendship with her and her husband, perhaps giving us a family to hang out with here in town (we don't know very many people, so it can feel pretty lonely and boring around here sometimes). He gave her his phone number. She called a couple days later, they chatted. They exchanged phone calls every few days or so. When he bought his new car, she mentioned she'd like to see it, and since they work similar schedules, he offered to stop by after work one morning and let her check it out. He was completely out in the open about this as it unfolded, being sure to tell me all about the topics of their conversations--partly so that when I finally got a chance to meet her and her family I could be familiar with her, but also to demonstrate that he wasn't doing anything suspicious or unscrupulous. The truth is, the longer it went on, the more I began to think I wasn't going to meet this girl. Just before they made plans to meet, she discovered that her husband had been cheating on her (the prick had the balls to bring the girlfriend into her HOUSE, where her children SLEPT over night while she was out working 3rd shift!!!). My gut instinct was to immediately view her motives with My Man as suspicious. But no, I didn't want to be cold to someone who was obviously going through a really rough spot. Like us, she doesn't have a lot of friends in the area. So it could go either way, right? Still, I felt the urge to warn him to expect her to hit on her. I didn't, though, thinking he would think I was being unduly suspicious. He met her around 8:30am, and I was OK with it. Not HAPPY, but OK. When he didn't return in a half hour, I figured they'd driven around town a little just to show it off (as he'd done with everyone else when he's taken the car to show it off for them), but still, fought that ugly feeling in my gut. There was a peak around 10am when I was absolutely livid with him for not calling, and for not coming home sooner (we were planning a trip for the weekend, and this was going to mean he would be driving me and my family on an hour's drive with no sleep), and this crappy feeling that something was going on between them would NOT go away. I had to sit down and meditate on it a bit--basically, I knew that if it *were* happening, there was nothing I could do to stop it, and it's better to know now than 10 years from now. He called shortly afterward, asking if I wanted him to pick anything up on his way home. In the end, when he came home, I was pissed at him for staying out all morning--if he'd come home, he could've gotten about 5 or 6 hours of sleep before it was time for us to leave, but I know him well enough to know that he would refuse to go to sleep if there was only time for a couple hours of rest. Things were quite cold between us. We spent the next couple of days or so with kids and other family members around us constantly, so there was very little time to have any conversations about it, but eventually it all started coming out. I wish he'd have told me right away, but of course I understand why he didn't.
As I predicted, she did make a pass at him--kissed him. Now some of my friends are probably giving me the slanty-eye, thinking, "RIIIIIGHT, in the 2 hours he was with her, all they did was TAAAAAAAAAALK, and then SHEEE kissed HIIMM. RIiiiiiiiIIIiiight." I'm not stupid, I know that there's a big length of time to fill in there, and I am well aware of all the things that MIGHT have happened that I don't know about. So the question is, do I trust that everything he's told me is the truth? Well, my gut was right in warning me she was too vulnerable to be trusted with someone she had a history with. And my gut tells me he's telling me the truth, too. We've finally talked about it at length--his conflicting emotions about trying to "be there" for a friend going through a really hard time, about being loyal to me and proving he's trustworthy, about how it hurts me and makes me feel disrespected, about all the cracks and weaknesses in our relationship right now that make us vulnerable to such things... I wish he'd take a little bit more responsibility for it all, though. She has since told him that she can't see him anymore because she thinks he wants more than just a friendship and she can't do to me what someone else has just done to her. Respectable, and I appreciate that, but it's not her that needs to get right with me. What really irritates me about this development is how incredibly offended and STUCK on this subject he has become. We can't make it through an hour without him bringing her up, talking about how UNFAIR it is for her to blame it all on him when he didn't make any moves on her, how INSULTING it is to be accused of such a thing, how DISAPPOINTING it is to lose the chance to have a friend here in town. And the more he talks about it, the more I think she's right: he *did* have ulterior motives. I don't think they were conscious--I really do believe he has been telling me the truth ~~as he sees it~~ throughout this entire ordeal. He wasn't at all prepared, though, for the return of feelings he'd experienced with her 10+ years ago. Maybe he saw it as a chance to test himself, to prove whether or not he really *is* a "cheater", or if he could resist the urges that were bound to come. The thing is, how on earth did he get into this situation? If he really did have nothing but completely pure and platonic intentions, why did he allow himself to be in this situation in the first place? See, it's not the fact that there was a kiss that bothers me, it's that the opportunity for the kiss to happen was so well planned for.
I imagine that if this were some long-lost high school boyfriend of MINE showing up out of the blue, I couldn't speak 3 words about him without me being harrangued at every opportunity about how I must be about to break us up and that Old Boyfriend was PROBABLY better than Poor Old Rusty in some way (more money, better job, better looking, taller, bigger penis, no family history of diabetes, whatever crossed his mind at the time). And if, after all that garbage, I still had the temerity to MEET this guy IN PERSON, there would be LOADS of pouting in addition to cell phone calls and text messages every 45 seconds.
But the truth is, I would never put myself in that situation. I wouldn't want to lead Old Boyfriend on. And I wouldn't want to give Rusty any reason to distrust me. If Old Boyfriend really wanted to see my new car, he could see it when Rusty could come with me. We could meet at Denny's or Burger King and leave it at that. But to presume it's OK to just go to his house? Never. And so I'm mad. Really mad. But my gut tells me it's not a deal-killer. It was an ugly lesson to learn--for both of us. I don't want to grow jaded about our relationship. After all, things have been really hard for me lately, with the med-imbalance and all, and I was not the most pleasant person to be with--that's not to say it gives him an excuse to treat me disrespectfully, just my part of the truth: that if I don't work harder on *my* part of the relationship, then I can't expect 100% from him, either. That makes me sound like a pushover ripe for being cheated on, doesn't it? Truth is, I don't know what I would do if it ever comes to that. I don't believe it automatically means the relationship is over. But I don't believe it's something I could tolerate more than once. I suppose it depends on the nature of the situation.
I can say this, though: I have a direction to go--I have a business to open, a life to build. He can do it with me or he can hit the road. I don't have time for petty dramas like this cropping up every time we get bumps in the road. Fair is fair, and I can be a forgiving person, and I'm sure I'll get over this sooner than later, but you can bet your ass that if something even remotely similar happens again, it will all come right back up... "Anything you say can and WILL be held against you..." as they say.
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