Overwhelmed

My brain is jumbled, I feel overwhelmed and I'm procrastinating on things I need to get done for work. In just one day the friend whose marriage is most likely over admitted to having a crush on me these past ten years and made it clear he'd like the chance to see that through, a married friend who continues to feel unwanted solicited nudes, a friend I met while in grad school whom I've slept with once - begged to see the sex tape I made with the man that I once alluded to, and Shiloh made it clear that since I saw my parents yesterday we will not be getting together any time soon out of respect for his own family. My mother offered to come over and help me go through my shit and pack since holy shit May is next week...so I basically responded to Shiloh saying I guess I'm switching up my quarantine circle.

Perhaps it's best...timing matters and I still know we get what we accept. He can tell me to be patient, but how many years did I give to the man patiently waiting for him to deal with his life and make room for me and in the end he never chose me.  Tomorrow marks five years of being legally divorced and I truly did believe I would have found what I've been searching for by now. I have met so many men across that time, most of them shitty, but there have been a handful that I cared deeply for, but I never could see a future, I only ever wanted one with the man. It doesn't seem like Shiloh is my future either, but it does feel like a small miracle that I wanted one. That feels like progress, and yet, yesterday I had a small meltdown. My twin's phone crapped out on him, and I have my old phone still, and I had plans for a social distance walk with the friend staring down a divorce in the city anyways. I knew I needed to restore the phone but it's also been the keeper of some of the last interactions with the man. Somehow the idea of it being gone forever gave me pause. I spent hours trying to figure out how to backup text message threads and then waiting through the process of gleaming it off and then trying to get them on my current phone to make sure it worked. It was anxiety inducing and when I tried to restore them to my current phone not everything came through but it was too late, I was already running late to meet up with my friend so I had to hit the reset button anyways.

It has been a long time since I've read through any of that and while waiting for it all to copy over I did go through some of it. I'm sure there is a part of me that feels attached to those tangible interactions because I've received such little acknowledgment from him that we mattered. Friday day I was chatting with Burdman and he admitted he hadn't participated in any virtual hangouts with people, lamenting he had no friends, and I found myself wishing I could have one with him and Buddah, and the man, but that's no longer a possibility in this life. I ended up video chatting with Buddah that night and shared this sentiment with her, and while I knew they had started following each other again on Instagram after I visited, I didn't know they were regularly chatting. She was like lets call him too! So I ended up re-downloading my Instagram so that we could all chat. It was actually really nice and a lot of fun, but I definitely did have those moments where I wished the man was a part of it too... Perhaps those feelings added to the anxiety I felt the next day about deleting our history. Earlier in the week I ended up googling him for the first time in a long time and learned that his grandmother passed at the end of last month. They were very close and it just reminded me that I have very little business being sad for myself right now while people are experiencing actual loss. In a previous life I would have reached out, but we are finally strangers and I know it's for the best we remain that way. The ending I wanted for the two of us, our someday, it's never coming and perhaps it's time I fully accept that. It still makes me really sad to say that, to acknowledge that there are still pieces of me hoping for it. It was bittersweet reading through our exchanges and I know I will miss how easy it always was to talk to the man for the rest of my life.

I have no idea why I keep finding myself in these situations with emotionally unavailable men, I'm sure a psychologist would say it relates to my father never being emotionally available to me or my siblings. We unknowingly seek out what we've been exposed to because in a fucked up way it's comfortable.  Right now I truly don't know if I'll see Shiloh again before I move to Maryland and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly I feel grateful that what could end up being our last night together was memorable. I was really feeling spring this past week and eager for summer even though it was rainy and cloudy the whole damn week. I kinda just decided I was gonna pretend anyways. When I got out of the shower I decided to put on a deep V flowy flowery sundress with nothing else on and started to make some banana bread. I was still in the process of making the dough when he got here and he just kinda watched me wide eyed flitting around the kitchen as I wrapped that up and started dinner. We ate and chatted and then I had a virtual happy hour with some old work friends and he joined in on the convo every now and then and served me some banana bread once it was finished. It came out so much better this time! Once the call was over and I could give him my undivided attention I approached him where he was sitting on the couch and leaned down to kiss him and mentioned I had nothing on underneath. He retorted that he had already noticed when we had embraced in the kitchen earlier on. He stood up to disrobe and when I asked if I should take off my dress, he said not yet. I hadn't fucked sitting on a couch since over a year ago at the sex club with the man and I had forgotten how hot that can be. A little while later I asked Shiloh his feelings on lingerie. I had ordered some back in February in preparation for a boudoir shoot I had scheduled for the end of March that was obviously cancelled, but I finally got around to doing a load of delicates and they were hanging on the drying rack.  He admitted he'd never really been with anyone that wore it to which I responded well I guess it's only fair I model some for you. I ended up putting on this bra I got that is a red cup-less balconette. That thing is very fun, ample access to the girls while making them look fantastic and extra bouncy, super pleased with that purchase and the fact that it lead to round two.

Multiple rounds isn't really something I experience frequently and to this day it still boggles my mind that after being away in California for a week to pack up the apartment I once shared with my ex-husband, the man and I played hooky for the day and in the ten hours we spent together we managed to pull off five rounds. The next day he would tell his wife he'd been hanging out with me and that he wanted a divorce all without consulting me and I would end up encouraging him to give his marriage a shot if she was willing to try. I'm sure that fact has made it harder to understand now...the man was once willing to throw his life away to be with me, but then years later after she had cheated and refused to end it, ya know a very fucking valid reason to end a marriage and move forward with his life, he never did. He made various strides, gave me all sorts of hope for a chance at our someday, but in the end recommitted and now it's been a year since that choice was made. I very much feel like a broken record when it comes to this story and I don't know how to help myself, how to end this loop. I haven't seen my therapist since November and reached out to her last week, we have a phone session scheduled for Thursday. I guess I'm still struggling to make sense of it all, to understand what the fuck was the point of it.  I still ask myself the same question I was asking back in 2015 when I first started therapy during grad school, "was it real?". The Burdman once told me, "It was real to you and that's all that matters. Be glad that it happened and move on with your life".  When it first ended my lasting feeling was indeed gratefulness, I was grateful for feeling a love like that, where I felt like I was more than enough and that what I wanted out of a relationship wasn't too much. I really needed that after my failed marriage. Now though, after years of an off again on again bullshit the man really does feel like one of the worst things I've had to live through and it's super hard to access that gratefulness and super confusing to still miss someone that in the end didn't treat me very well. At this point I don't fucking know what closure means or what it looks like, I just know I'm bored of this story.

Time to wrap this entry up with some pics from quarantine and get my ass to bed.

Snuggles with Lady :)

Apparently my foot was a good place to nap LOL

Homemade pizza! Whole wheat thin crust with green peppers and onions.

On Earth day I watched a special in the background where there were all sorts of interviews with random people and streamed performances of songs put on by Zero Hour and Roger Waters performed! I bought tickets to see him this July which has already been cancelled and really hoping he'll decide to still tour once the craziness of this has lifted...

I made one of my favorite pasta salads earlier in the week, and I lovingly call it rainbow pasta cuz I do my best to include as many colors as possible. A red onion for the purple, carrots for orange, bell peppers for yellow and red, cucumber for green and then ya just mix it with a bunch of Italian dressing and pepper.

The night Shiloh came over I made this Mexican dish sans onions since he's allergic (I know, sad existence) that is a lot like chili that I like to serve over tortilla chips and with cheddar cheese. That meal is so flavorful that even without the onions it was still really good.

The banana bread! Looks a hell of a lot more like bread than the brick from the first time. I was able to buy some baking powder, but I still used apple sauce instead of vegetable oil. I think I let it bake a tad too long, but I feel super confident next round it'll be absolutely perfect.

Lady Bug on her perch judging ha.

Hiding behind my laptop. 

Made some avocado toast with red onions, olive oil, cayenne, and cherry tomatoes. I clearly am getting bored and decided to play around with presentation and added the sliced apple.

I added a drizzle of balsamic glaze to the toast and then honey to the apple slices, but I am no good at drizzling that shit in any kind of appealing way lol.

And lastly, Friday morning before I put all my laundry away I felt like trying on the last piece of lingerie I had ordered and ended up feeling myself enough to snap some photos. If this was better lighting, you could probably see my nips since it's sheer, but alas it's not and thus this is no different than a bathing suit and I feel fine sharing it. Was not expecting so much underboob, the model's rack was clearly a bit smaller, but I like it and when I can finally reschedule the boudoir shoot, I think I'm really going to enjoy it. I bought myself a package last summer cuz so many people in my life had recently gotten engaged and I was just seeing engagement photo shoots galore and I never did that, and while my Aunt did a fabulous job shooting my wedding, I've just never done a formal photoshoot. There was a sale and I decided so what if I have no family to take cute pictures with, and so what if I don't have a significant other to make a bedroom book for, I'm enjoying being 30 and like my body and it'll be nice to remember it this way when I'm older.

Deep Red

Welp I've just under 40 minutes until my third video conference of the night. I enjoy them, I really do, but that basically means I've done nothing all that productive since 4 pm. I painted my nails. I have painted my fingernails now twice during this quarantine -- that is more than I have across the last decade...slight exaggeration, but honestly not by much. But there's something about my nails being a deep red that brings me a sense of calm. My mother's nails are always a red or pink and her mother's were always a red and there's this Italian artist named Frida whom I love that makes these incredibly sensual but oh so beautiful pieces of work where the recurring girl always has red nails. I think anything that helps ground you is worth doing right now, these really are such bizarre times.

I didn't take as many photos these past two weeks, I honestly was really sad this last week. An old co-worker told me that he and his wife were done, she moved out yesterday, and so we've been talking a lot this past week and it has lead to me thinking about the beginnings of my own divorce and of course the man and how that all started. I shared with my friend that even though it is still the hardest decision of my life, and it was really fucking sad, and it literally is the end of your life as you know it, there was such a relief. This weight of having to pretend like everything was ok, and that my life was what I wanted was gone, and I was so excited for what was next. I had no idea that just a month later a married man I worked with was going to send me "Wicked Game" a song I'd never heard before and tell me no song had ever spoken to him before the way that one had when he heard it the night before. At this point only an acknowledgment of a mutual crush had been admitted to and a very forward statement by me of what I wished could happen. A week after that my dog would die and two days later the man would drive me down the shore and he would kiss me for the first time that night nearing midnight while standing in a life guard boat with the moon bright and looming.

It has been wild to acknowledge this past year that I am the age he was when we began. Here I am, in a similar situation, friend/co-worker is just in the beginning of getting divorced and the idea of even entertaining a romantic interaction with them is the furthest thing from my mind. When I was finally honest with my mother about my transgressions and the mess I had gotten myself into, I remember her saying that the man had taken advantage of me and how vulnerable I was and at the time that felt so far off base because I wholeheartedly believed we both had fallen in love unexpectedly.  Perhaps if things had truly ended back then, I would have continued to believe that, but now I sit here and I think about the history of us and it gets harder to believe this man ever had my best intentions at heart. Instead of being able to celebrate my new freedom and redefine my life after getting out of an emotionally abusive marriage with an alcoholic, I was devastated over losing the man and could barely find the will to go to work.  Somehow I managed to get my shit together enough to take the GRE and apply to grad school all while finalizing my divorce. There was communication every now and then, only once or twice was him warning me about not going to something he'd be at, or not playing softball, it usually was when I would reach out because I couldn't let go... I couldn't stop the deep down feeling that what we had was rare and was supposed to happen. Back then he did his best to respond but would keep it short and curt, but still in a way where I always still felt like I mattered to him, that my well being was important to him. Eventually school started and I got immersed in my new life and it helped, but then came the summer and I was back in the office full time, and it was hard for me, and I asked to just clear the air, but then somehow that turned into having three hour chats on the work communicator once a month until that October where it finally dawned on me that no matter how much I wished to have the friendship back, it would never be just that to me. That the best way to love him was to let him have a life uncomplicated by me, and that it was also my best shot at letting someone new in.

Jump five months later, the longest we've ever gone without communication since it all happened and I'm two months away from graduation and have just agreed to move out to Pittsburgh for work so that I don't have to experience being back at the office full time and I've been genuinely dating people since that October, and not just sleeping with people. I was pumped for the next phase of my life and to be leaving all the pain behind me. Of course the man decides it's time to pop back into my life because low and behold he had just found out his wife had been cheating on him for months. A smarter me would not have responded, a smarter me would have stayed in the life I had just managed to rebuild for myself. Instead I allowed myself to engage with him more and more regularly over those next weeks and on the night I was meant to celebrate graduating with my friends he tells me they are trying some weird ass open marriage type of arrangement. I cried hard in my car on my way to meet up with my friends and was barely present the whole night. I should have ran then, and yet I didn't, too long I'd been hoping for more time with him and so I kept trying to keep him in my life but that just resulted in more moments of my life that should have been happy ones to be tainted by the emotional rollercoaster the next two years would become...The day of my birthday that year I had taken myself on an adventure of Philly and went to the zoo and the mutter museum and a 360 view of the city and knew I was going to see him before I headed back to Pittsburgh, it felt like it was going to be a perfect day, and instead it ended with him telling me he was no longer going to come visit me out there and I could sense that things were going to end, and they did four days later with his last words being "Our someday will always be out there, whether or not we ever get to it is what remains to be seen."

By the end of that summer he would come back again, apologize for the mess of the spring, that he was living with Burdman and eventually we began to legit date. Little by little he told his family he was getting divorced, and I even met his two best friends and he met mine.  Little by little I began to believe I was finally having that chance I'd genuinely begged for, that chance to see what we could be, a chance at our someday.  I had no idea that right before I moved back from Pittsburgh he would move back in with his wife. I had no idea that within two months of being home it would be over. Eventually things began to shift back to the way they were when we were dead to one another but this time was different, this time I couldn't write it off to the circumstances, this time it just felt like he didn't choose me, that I wasn't enough. Where before I still felt like I mattered, this time he couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye to me when I eventually got a new job and left. Around this time is when I began to write in the blog I reserved just for the things I wish I could say to him. I used to write in it a lot, like multiple times a week and eventually in a moment of desperation shared it with him. For about three months he read what I wrote but never said anything until the very end of the summer.  This time I tried harder not to let him back into my life but it was impossible to pretend that just talking to him hadn't made me happier than I'd been since it had all ended. Even though I had started a brand new job, in a brand new apartment, with a brand new cat, and genuinely loved my life, I hadn't felt that kind of deep loneliness since right before I ended my marriage. Maybe I just wanted more time, maybe I just didn't care that I knew it meant inviting more hurt, maybe part of me still had hope for our someday and that if he could just remember, he would choose me.

Things turned into a FWB kind of situation but I was never built to handle something like that and I was foolish to pretend otherwise. I have memories across those months that I am grateful to have and know I will remember fondly for the rest of my days, but I still struggle with accepting the way it ended. With accepting the way it felt like he turned a switch and all of a sudden I was nothing. How not even two months after I asked for space because I knew I couldn't continue on with what we'd been doing, he re-entered his marriage. Again like all the times before, I struggled to let go, to leave him alone, but apparently this time I was no longer worth even acknowledging. It has been eating me up that I can't reach out to someone I love during a time like this, and while the past is a big reason why I feel like I can't, I'm sure the biggest is because I honestly have no idea if he would respond and I'm not sure my heart could handle more silence.

Thinking about all of this though made me lose my fucking mind with Shiloh this weekend. Tuesday was his birthday and I made him oatmeal raisin cookies and joined him and his family for dinner and spent the night. It was a lovely night and we woke up in each others arms and just stayed like that for a while not wanting the moment to end and start the work day. As I drove home recognizing how happy I felt, all of a sudden I kept hearing this voice in my head shouting, "How is this different?! How have you not learned a god damn thing!?". The circumstances are different, there are not years of hurt wrapped up in it, but the bottom line is still the same. Shiloh is not emotionally available just like the man never was, and in the end the situation just makes me feel like I am not enough. Those thoughts continued to bounce around my head all week long and Friday night I told him I was so tired of meaningless and he responded "What makes you think this is meaningless?" to which I responded by reminding him he had said things weren't mutual. He said "I told you I didn't feel as strongly as you because I can't even think about that yet there's just too much going on" and he then rolled over and promptly fell asleep and I just stared at the ceiling biting my lip so hard I bled while trying not to cry. I wanted to leave but it was late and I was tired and figured I would leave first thing and tell him not to bother coming to mine for dinner that night. I was ready to just bail on it completely, just run away from it. In the morning I was curt, rebuked his offers for food, told him not to bother with coming over and started to pack up my things. He immediately apologized for not being more available for a conversation the night before and asked me what was wrong and I could barely get the words out, I had to look down at my hands and began to cry as I said them "I am struggling to convince myself that I am not setting myself up for the same kind of hurt I'm still in the process of healing from". At this point I had made my way back onto the bed and was sitting in front of him feeling my face flush with my embarrassment and heartache. He looked at me and said "You love so hard and so quickly, most people are guarded, it takes times, it takes me time even when I'm not still messed up from something else". I started to really cry by this point, turned away from him and curled up into a little ball and barely croaked out "What I am is naive and stupid and never seem to fucking learn, I know you're not Him, but this is no different, you're not available and I'm still not enough".  Shiloh then engulfed me in a hug and told me that I wasn't stupid and naive, that I was lucky that I allowed myself to feel and that the situation with the man had been a losing battle from the start, that there were so many things working against the ending that I wanted and that what happened had so very little to do with me, just like right now has so very little to do with me and that I am enough, I am more than enough and just begged me to be patient. I cried in his arms for a little while longer and then he asked me to stay, to spend the day with him and swayed me with the promise of smores made with reese's cups by the fireplace later on.

I didn't end up leaving until earlier this afternoon. The rest of the weekend was lovely and we spent some time outside today and working on some random projects around his parents' house. Shiloh remarked Saturday evening that he wished he could turn around his mood like I could, or that he could get excited about anything the way I do about everything. A comment that struck me since the man had said the same thing to me once before.  I told him that I definitely prefer to be happy, to focus on the good and to relish in the little things. That I may be an over-thinker but I've never been a pessimist.  I have felt legit crazy the last two days with how sad and distraught I felt Friday night into Saturday morning, to how carefree and happy I was the rest of Saturday and today. Somehow though it feels like life keeps reiterating that your emotions are meant to be felt and acknowledged, and if you do, they will pass through you and then it's done. Again Shiloh has responded so differently to the difficult conversations, he doesn't shut down on me, he shares where he's at and reinforces that I matter. I still don't know what happens when I move to Maryland but I just keep telling myself I deserve all this happiness his presence in my life is bringing no matter how long or short a time-frame it ends up being. And now some photos from the last two weeks:

Some pasta with red sauce, I had some vodka sauce in the fridge, so I sauteed some mushrooms, onions, and green peppers, then poured what was left of the sauce into the pan and eventually added the linguine and made some garlic bread. It was super satisfying.

Managed to snag a pretty decent shot of the full moon.

One day during work hours I was in the middle of taking notes for a project and Lady decided I was done with that nonsense and jumped up and just laid down on my notebook.

Homemade quesadilla, just some cheese, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms with a bunch of cheddar warmed in a frying pan. 

I decided to sign up for a wine service after a friend sent a coupon for Winc. Haven't tried the white or Rose yet, but that Pinot Noir was BOMB.

Watched a livestream of the tallest man on earth and that was SO enjoyable, what a pure human.

Homemade vegetable fried rice. Carrots, broccoli, and red onions. 

 Had been on a conference call and someone said your cat is judging us.

LOL.

I suck at breakfast... I hate getting up in general, but this particular morning I put some peanut butter on a honey oat rice cake, sliced up half a banana, two hard boiled eggs and two clementines with a cup of coffee. It was actually a great start to a very productive day.

Lady looking all regal up on my desk over the weekend.

I ended up going for a nice long run along the Cynwyd Heritage Trail and it was awesome. Will definitely be going back there and wish I had snagged more photos of it. 

After my run, Shiloh borrowed a family friend's old school car and I'm not a car person and remember zero details but it was a lot of fun just driving around with the windows down.

And this is literally the only photo I took this past week. Look at how beautiful she is, I'm obsessed.

Welp the last call of the day came and went and I finally wrapped up this entry. Definitely not ready for the next week to begin but definitely ending this day feeling grateful that my current woes are as meaningless as they are... One of the video chats was with my college roommates and one girl's husband just lost his mother this morning and his grandma died last week. What a fucking nightmare to be dealing with that during this craziness. She only gets three days of bereavement for each of those events and his family is from the East Coast and they live in San Fran. So for now until they finalize the funeral details, she is stuck alone out there, mourning the loss of people that had become her family, and feeling that pull of guilt that she can't be with her husband when he needs her. We tried not to talk too much about it all, to give her the much needed distraction, but it definitely sucks knowing that even if I wanted to try and see her while she's on the same coast, it wouldn't be allowed.  Same thing with my buddy going through his divorce, or Burdman's sick cat, or random shit with my twin, or stuff with my mom, so many random moments where in normal life I would have hopped in my car and I would have been there and instead I'm not and struggling to figure out how to best support the people I care about, while keeping all of us safe. I think my 30th year already had a theme of gratefulness to it and this is just strengthening that feeling. 

COVID Week 3

Well week three of this nonsense has come and gone and we're well into this week. I just wrapped up my own report for a Borough Council meeting and then turned my video off and am just listening until it's over. I wish I could say that my day is over but all of a sudden I'm very busy on several things that need to wrap up this week. While definitely stressed, so very grateful to be busy and to have a job.

Last week was a bit of an emotional whirlwind because early on I kind of freaked out about things with Shiloh. It just is still very clear he's still processing his breakup, which is perfectly normal and expected, but I found myself acknowledging that if things continued on for the next month and change and just ended once I moved to Maryland, I would be disappointed. We were able to talk it through and initially it seemed like we were just going to stop hanging out, but he responded so well, and we both were just so honest and I ended up spending the majority of the weekend there. It was a really nice and relaxing weekend; we spent time reading next to each other outside, doing a puzzle, walking the dog, and then watching some cartoons from our youth. I think I'm still in danger of having that narrative of only being good for sex reinforced but I definitely know whatever this is, is raising the bar of what I deserve. We're not even dating and he has treated me better than anyone I've been with.  I know the man and I were never actually in a relationship so it's hard to really know what that could have ever been like, but I do know any time I ever needed to have a conversation about how I was feeling, he was always good about listening, and being understanding which was so drastically different from my ex-husband, but then that'd be it, he'd kinda shut down and very rarely would be honest with me about how he truly felt. I'm sure that has a lot to do with why it felt so one sided by the end. I know across our time together he definitely did have moments where he shared stories of importance from his youth and how he felt he had ended up in his marriage, but other than the very first round, he never really was forth coming about how he felt about me.  I know it's why I always felt so unbalanced, I could never fully relax because I never knew where I stood with him. I'm starting to feel a tad unbalanced in things with Shiloh cuz I'm so ready for something real again and so very tired of meaningless and at this point, since getting divorced I've only seen real potential of a future with the man, that was it, I could never see a future with anyone else I have met across these nearly six years, but all of a sudden I do. Who knows if things will progress, right now it's really nice to have someone that regularly does nice things for me, just to see me smile. 

Getting up today was rough af, I was up late on the phone with Burdman, his cat that he has had for 17 years is on death's door and has a procedure scheduled in two weeks, but it's looking grim about if they'll even perform it in his state. I've seen this man tear up before, especially right after the most brutal breakup I know of, but he cried on the phone with me. It was heartbreaking and I am now even more worried about his well being. I'm sad too though, I love that cat, he's been a staple of my life for six years now. I've known Burdman longer than that, but our friendship didn't graduate to me spending time in his personal space until the summer I left my ex-husband. I wish I could go over to his place...what a terrible time to be losing something SO important.

Welp took a small break from this to chat with my sister and make myself some dinner. Last week I decided I would start taking more pictures of what I was doing throughout this and sharing them in this like I did during my trip since I know it will be interesting to re-read this in the future and I don't have any other outlets with not being on social media. I'm definitely enjoying cooking more so here's some of the meals I apparently deemed worth taking a photo of...

Shiloh made homemade pesto while I watched, I did bring the fresh shrimp and the homemade pasta (that obviously I bought) but this meal was delicious.

I had a bunch of bananas I didn't manage to eat right away and then decided I would let them get EXTRA ripe and attempt banana bread for the first time in my life. What a fucking adventure this was, especially because I didn't have any baking powder or vegetable oil, so I used extra cream of tartar and applesauce. This thing was a BRICK. It was so dense, the plate was SO heavy when I eventually got it out of the pan haha I'm pretty sure with my substitutions I should have baked it longer at a lower temp, but it was honestly delicious, I decided of my own accord to add some vanilla extract and cinnamon when I chose to use pecans as the nut and the flavor profile was extremely enjoyable. I think the next time I try this it's going to come out great.

There was some left over shrimp from the meal with Shiloh so I sauteed them with some onions and cherry tomatoes, and then threw it all over some polenta. Super quick, way more food than you think a 1/4 cup of polenta will turn into, and very tasty.

At the beginning of last week I made some tuna with mayo, red onion, and black pepper, and then used that to make a bunch of meals. This first one is tuna pasta with avocado and grated parmesan.

Hard to tell, but there's english muffins on the bottom, so this was sort of in the family of a tuna melt? I didn't think to get slices of cheese :(  Sooo it's whole wheat english muffins, tomato slice, avocado slices, the tuna mixture and topped off with parmesan.

This was a take on stuffed peppers, so I seasoned the pepper with some olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper and then baked it a for a bit. Then stuffed it with the tuna and topped with the parmesan. Clearly I fucking like parmesan.

So by the end of the first week I realized I needed a desk, and ordered it and it came near the end of the second week, it was quite the task to put it together, but I sincerely enjoyed it and am SO happy with what I got and honestly last week was incredibly productive and I know the desk played a key role.

I took this photo during a conference call for work cuz Lady was just looking so regal. Shiloh said it was frame worthy and that I should title it "Cat and Mouse"

Lady eventually figured out that she could get into the drawers of the desk from the window sill... so she will now occasionally hang out in them while I'm working and bat at things and it's quite cute.

Might as well throw in other cute photos of my cat, it's all my instagram feed was near the end anyways lol

On Friday, my grad school friends and I had a group chat, we were supposed to have a Grace Kelly night at the end of March, dress up, fancy cocktails, and a marathon of her movies. A few of us decided to then do our hair and makeup while on the call together which was actually a ton of fun and I may officially be a fan of the winged tip look for my eyes and can see myself doing this again. Additionally, as I should have known, pin curling my hair at the beginning of the call and then taking it out near the end, was not enough for my thick hair to dry, even though I even used the hair dryer for a bit! I wish I had remembered to take a photo while it was all still pinned. I watched a handful of 50s makeup tutorials and did my best to recreate how they would do it. I didn't have any lip liner and not sure I found a red enough lipstick, but otherwise I think I did a decent job. I even painted my nails red. My hair is definitely getting shaggy and I found myself watching tutorials today about how to cut your own hair... so perhaps I'll give that a go this weekend, the back of my neck feels gross. Welp who knows what shenanigans I'll get up to before the next entry, but with how things are now, definitely seems like this social distancing is no where near over.

A dose...

While this quarantine stuff is entirely insane, I gotta say I'm enjoying these live streams of some of my favorite artists. Ben Folds just finished playing, yesterday while beginning to build the desk I had to buy online I watched Little Dragon perform a live show. This morning I had a zoom chat with my mom and step father, and my twin and sister and I've had a handful of virtual happy hours with different groups of friends and more filling in my calendar, what a timeline we're living in. Not sure if I should be surprised that even during a time like this I'm finding myself busy. Went over to Shiloh's last night to cook dinner together and then stayed over, it was my first time seeing people I know in real life in five days, such a wild thing to acknowledge and I'm sure if I hadn't experienced this feeling before during many of my solo adventure trips I think it'd be freaking me out much more.

I know that before I deactivated my social media accounts I was always anxious I would miss out on things, but even before the craziness of all this, I found I was paying more attention to different avenues of communication with the people that truly matter to me. Now that the test has been cancelled I suppose my catalyst is gone, but I honestly feel like getting back on them is not worth my time, especially now, and perhaps I may be writing here more often, this at least feels productive. All the people I truly care about, I have contact with, the only person I don't, I had to block him on there anyways because I didn't have the self control to not try and stalk the shit out of his feed to gleam what I could about whether or not he was happy. As more people reach out the sadder it is making me that I feel like I can't reach out to to him. When things with the man first began we used this phrase "a dose of honesty" and it has been bouncing around my head all day today. Being brutally honest with each other was one of my favorite parts of us and that last go around I was trying so hard to listen to his desire of not wanting a relationship that I did what I could to not rely on him emotionally and kept a lot of things that were going on for me at the time, from him, and the fact that he so quickly re-engaged with his wife, I'm positive he kept things from me too. Now I wonder if that was what lead to things no longer feeling as special as they once did, that the choice to close off just a little, made it all change. 

There are times when I am deep in the sadness of it all and get so tired of how long I've been hurting because of this and I reach a little jolt of anger, just a glimmer of wanting to inflict even a semblance of the pain I've experienced onto him. Little play outs in my mind's eye of him finally realizing what it is that we shared and me saying it's too late. Those moments are so brief and even while those thoughts cross my mind, it is impossible for me not to feel my heart's elation at the idea of his acknowledgement that whatever it is we were, was indeed something worth having. Perhaps that is the root of why it bothers me so much to have never gotten a goodbye, the acknowledgement that what we had mattered. As soon as my pain begins to subside I just do my best to try and understand his side of things and at the end of that exercise I always know that if it was me, and after my own childhood, if I had the chance to keep my family together and it was a happy and healthy family for my children, I would do it. I used to worry that he didn't care about his own happiness enough, that maybe he thought he didn't deserve it, but I think I've begun to realize that once you have children and have bonded with them the way it is intended, your happiness is so intrinsically tied into theirs, it is impossible to purely think about yourself. I will always believe just staying in a marriage for the sake of your kids is not the right thing to do if that means it's a marriage of anger and yelling and creating a home that feels more like a prison and having to walk on eggshells. However if there's still a true partnership and love for one another's well being that is palpable, even though passion may have left, perhaps it is quite an honorable thing to give your children the stability they deserve during their formative years. My parents were never even able to figure out how to talk to each other after the divorce let alone co-parenting to any degree. The fact that they communicate now continues to blow my mind.

Perhaps he knows as well as I do that we could never be just friends and that for the sake of a happy life for either one of us, this silence truly is for the highest good of all involved. I think for a while there were parts of me that feared truly getting involved with anyone new because things with the man never felt finished, and I always knew I would never be able to say no to him and I just never wanted to hurt anyone, but yet I have ended up hurting myself creating a life of solitude far before this current global one was imposed. I have not allowed myself to rely on anyone but me for a very long time and as things continue with Shiloh I know I am definitely afraid to let someone in, and to let someone truly be there for me in that space of a significant other that really is different from friends and family. Even if what's going on right now never grows legs, it does feel like it's an important process of me learning how to actually open up my heart again to actually receive the kind of love I've been begging the universe for. I think I was right the other day, I'm never going to stop loving the man and wishing him well, but I am more than capable of allowing my heart to love someone else too.

Reset

The one true silver lining of this madness is the reconnecting with so many people in my life. I just got off the phone with my first everything. He went through a rough af breakup in the summer of 2018 and we ended up spending a decent amount of time together the second half of that year and a lot of 2019 and he is finally in a relationship again and it,  from the convo we just had, seems to be a good and healthy one and I love how happy knowing that makes me. The way my first love ended was dramatic and hurtful and extremely painful for me. There was a time I thought he and I would never speak again. However the summer I got married we found our way back to friendship and honestly he might now be one of my oldest friends that I feel legit close to. I've spoken with old high school people, college, grad school, former colleagues, and even Gray, the man's best friend. An article of his was recently published and I had the chance to read it after it popped up in my LinkedIn feed. It was so nice to chat with him, I've missed it more than I realized. I can't decide if it's hypocritical of me to be slightly bummed the man hasn't reached out even though I've said nothing to him either. It just definitely feels like I can't, that it would be wrong of me to do so. It continues to be hard to love someone this much from so far away. The song "Oceans" by Seafret always makes me think about this feeling...

More silence from the man  aside, there have been about five former flames that have reached out, and even that has been really nice, cuz even though some of these people are no longer actively in my life it's not like I've stopped caring about them and wishing them well and it's reassuring to know they feel the same for me. Only one of them started down the conversation of "what could have been" and I found myself wondering do I still consider myself single at the moment and I struggled to answer that. When the more than a friend and I first met years ago there was a short time frame where I had hoped it would become more and I remember journaling about him then. Back then I dubbed him Shiloh and I guess perhaps that nickname is still apt. I really don't have a good read on the situation but he literally just in this moment messaged me. I definitely have pulled back a bit this week cuz I'm trying hard not to get ahead of myself, but I'm excited to see him tomorrow.  At the end of the day I'm looking for someone to grow old with, someone that during a time like this I'm gonna be so fucking grateful they are who I am stuck with as my primary human connection. I like how easy things feel with Shiloh and I know part of that is because we've been friends for as long as we have been and he knows all about the things I'm sure I tend to initially shy away from sharing...I still miss the man more than I would like, and he still misses his girlfriend and we're both aware of these things and perhaps that's part of why there isn't a lot of stress to it. Neither of us has expectations on the other and I think that's a good thing.

I'm pumped the sun is out today and I think I'm going to go for a run, I haven't seen a human I know in person since Sunday morning and I think it's making me stir crazy. It's not often you know you're living through a historical moment, but we certainly are and I just hope I do my best to use it as the opportunity to reset that it truly is.

Counting

I know I should already be sleeping but I have the itch to write... it's always best to just accept it than fight it off and lay awake. I've been feeling a lot like the me of my youth, the one that was always lost in a book, enthralled with another world because I didn't care too much for mine. Major difference is that this past week though instead of books it's been webcomics. I'm now thoroughly invested in seven different worlds that update on a different day of the week, I wanted to give myself something to look forward to every day. I really can't tell if that line of thinking is something to be worried about...

My twin has finally come around to recognizing this program I found is his best shot at rebooting his life, however since we were out of state recently, they're not accepting him until he can provide documentation he's coronavirus free... apparently nothing can be easy. I barely worked last week and I really don't want to use PTO... I hoped to get some work done this weekend but Saturday was spent participating in an international dance party on zoom which was awesome, and then waiting to find out if the center was going to let him in, and when that fell through, my more than a friend brought over Chinese and we watched Onward together. He really has become my person over this past month and it's starting to make me worried. I really don't think I'd survive if one more person decided I'm good for fun, but nothing more.

It already feels like it's more but I truly don't know...I hoped to get some work done today but I've ended up being sad and mopey a good portion of the day. I've been frustrated that my experiences with others are causing me to doubt the intentions of someone who has been nothing but kind to me since the moment we met. I find myself hoping that should things not become more that he will not choose to ignore my existence too... it's something awful when someone you care deeply for looks through you like you're glass. However for the first time I've found myself hoping that things really are done with the man because every time the last three years I've started to find just a little bit of happiness, he has always popped back in. I had once prayed that we would find our way back to friendship but honestly this last year he never treated me with any semblance of kindness and I'd be a fool to give any more of my energy to someone who clearly doesn't care for my well being.  I was scrolling through my notes just before starting this entry and found this poem of sorts I don't even remember writing but apparently I did some time in early 2019.

"Everything Dies"

You hold me close during stolen time. You fuck me hard but then slow. Your eyes are bright with desire but sometimes I'll see a flash of love. It was love once, years ago. It's something different now, something deep but not the same.  I can't remember the last time I heard you call me beautiful. I can't recall the last time you did something nice for me just to see me smile. It used to feel special, but I guess everything dies if you stop feeding it.

_______________

I'm still counting the days it's been since I last touched him, since I last saw his face, since I last reached out. I really hope soon I won't feel the need to keep counting because that will mean I've truly stopped waiting for the man to come back.

Roller Coaster

Times like these make it harder to forget there's someone you love that isn't dead, but isn't in your life. However times like these remind you that while you may be worried and wonder if they and their family are ok, none of that is your business, even during a time like this.

COVID-19 aside, the last few days of my life have been a roller coaster. Sunday night I was supposed to finally drop off my twin to the inpatient facility. I had initially hoped to do it early evening but he stalled, asked to do dinner together and watch the debate. So we did and it was a really nice night despite feeling how on edge he was. Eventually I got him to agree it was time and we drove over to the facility around 10:30. We then proceeded to sit in the parking lot for an hour and a half. He completely freaked out and was incredibly torn and I did my best to just be calm, to listen, and let him know I wasn't our parents, that if he didn't do this I wasn't going to be disappointed in him and laud it over him. That all I wanted was to make sure he finally got the help he deserved and has been asking for and this was an option, one I didn't see any negatives from. It was a draining and exhausting experience, but in the end I think an important one. He kept saying that all his life he just went with the flow of what everyone else was telling him to do, and was the right thing but that acquiescing to our father having deduced him down to nothing more than an addict, wasn't it. He was like "I need professional help, mentally and physically, but allowing  dad to spend the money for a stay like this when he could spend that on paying down one of my student loans, I'm just going to seethe in anger". I have no idea how much of what transpired was him manipulating me or him finally putting his foot down and accepting he needs help, but on his own terms. At one point he said " I hate the life I've carved out for myself" which broke my fucking heart...We also talked about how he was feeling a lot of shame at the idea of needing rehab...I think everyone struggles with asking for help, and I'm sure needing help to that degree is harder to wrap your head around. He acknowledged that so many of his struggles stem from his low self esteem and he was afraid that going through a program like this would strip him of what little he had left. I tried to encourage him that this would be a safe space and that part of the reason I was in support was because they acknowledged addiction is just a symptom of often various underlying causes and he was like "I know what my problem is, it's my chronic pain", to which I responded "Well then great you have a leg up on everyone else. You've been begging to have access to doctors and psychiatrists and here you go, you have a whole week to have their audience and you could come out of this at least with a diagnosis. Yes, you could go see a doctor and psychiatrist outside of something like this, but getting appointments and enough of them to reach a diagnosis can take months in a regular functioning world, who knows how long it will take right now and Dad is only paying for one year of your health insurance."

I tried so hard but to no avail and I'm struggling so hard to shake these feelings of failure.  The friend now more came over on Monday and made us dinner and we watched the rest of the Mandalorian and holy cow does baby Yoda give me baby fever. I was really grateful to have him here, for the support and the distraction. He mentioned at one point that he talks to his mom about most things, and I actually met his mother, step father and sister on Friday when he invited me over for dinner and to stay over. A little while later I was like, "So if you chat with your mom about everything, what does she have to say about you hanging out with me so soon after everything you're going through". To which he replied well I haven't talked to her about that, and asked me why, and I was like well "I want to know what you think about it and this felt like a good segue to bring it up". He basically said that he hasn't thought too much about it but that he's really enjoying hanging out, which I was like yea me too, but I'm moving to Maryland and he was like I know. That was the end of the conversation...I have no idea what is going to come of it and I'm trying for once to just not worry about the eventual. I've really needed someone to be there for me instead of worrying about everyone else in my life and he has certainly been that. Friday night in his bed he told me "You have such a genuine smile", and I responded "It's easy to have a genuine smile when you're genuinely happy". I've felt cared for in a way I haven't in probably a decade and I keep telling myself no matter the outcome I deserve this right now. It was so fun to be in his childhood house and see photos of him as a kid, I really like his mom too...but it sucked that there were moments where I remembered how badly I wanted to reach this place with the man... how badly I wanted to know all about his childhood and where he came from...

Perhaps once I leave for MD whatever it has been will fade out, hopefully in a more conscious way cuz I'm not sure I could handle losing another friend that means this much to me. I've been reflecting a lot lately on how things with the man really never were much more than a physical thing that was pretty much always a secret. There have been times where I have wondered if when I asked for space to pursue something with someone else who was willing to try if I just pushed him back into his life when he had made such progress... he had told his family, friends, and boss that he was getting a divorce. He had even filed paperwork and when we were last in regular contact he had been apartment hunting. Apparently two months after my request they got a new dog, and by the time I came home from my trip I had to ask him if they were giving it a go again. While part of me knows that with having never been anything real he didn't owe me anything, the side of me that has always been his friend, not the side of me that is the woman in love with him, knows I did deserve a goodbye and I did deserve to have him tell me himself that he was choosing to stay in his marriage. The moments I wonder if I made the right call I go back to my old blog and read through my thoughts and I remember in full force how fucking worthless the situation made me feel and no matter how much I may still miss him and love him, I was so very right to end what was going on and to give myself a chance at letting go and finding someone that values me. Lately I've been trying to focus on the fact that I only ever heard a very one sided story of his marriage and that perhaps it really was something worth saving and that he is happy. Perhaps all we were ever meant to be was secret lovers, and nothing more... Reminds me of a quote that I love and used to have hanging on my quote wall.

Scattered

Sometimes it feels like I'm disproportionately surrounded by sad men that I can't actually help.  All I want to do is fix it, make it better, take their pain away, but it feels like all I do is listen, and is that enough? Burdman texted me stupid late on Saturday obviously in the midst of another drinking binge, but this time he actually said the phrase " I don't want to be alive".  I didn't see them right away he sent them at 3:30 in the morning, but luckily I was awake and as soon as I did I asked if he needed me to come over and he just said no and then stopped responding, and wouldn't answer his phone. I spent the next hour convincing myself that driving over there was a gross overreaction. I so badly wanted to reach out to the man to ask him what to do because I truly didn't know but in the end I decided that perhaps I was wanting a "valid" reason to reach out to him and there was no point. So I wrote in the blog that no one reads... the one I use when the urge to talk to him is too much and I just need to get it out of my head...it helps, it really does, but this situation is different. This isn't just me missing him and still wanting him in my life, this is me still thinking about that night and wondering if our mutual and close friend truly needs help and how do I help them?

Just because you don't drink every day, doesn't mean you don't have a drinking problem... does he drink to the point of not wanting to be here, or does he always feel like he doesn't want to be here and the drinking allows him to admit it? I genuinely don't know the answer to that, but I know neither is good.  Luckily that night as I was crying in my bed freaking the fuck out, a friend that has recently become more than a friend, happened to respond to a text I sent him. He helped me calm down and I was so grateful that I had someone, even if what's happening right now may not be anything more than a rebound situation. We met up a few weeks ago after I learned about things imploding with his gf of over two years that he was living with... Funny how right before this I had decided to give up on dating entirely for the moment, and now someone is asking me about my day, offering to make me dinner so I don't have to worry about one more thing, and cleaned all the dishes from a meal I made us. I really am such an acts of service kind of person, I'm not sure anyone has ever done the dishes for me and the fact he did it without me even saying anything, without even grumbling about it, it meant so much to me.

I have no idea if he should be one more moving part to be considered as I make my decision about Maryland... I don't even know how to ask him that. We've been friends for nearly five years now, and he's been a wonderful friend to me. When I was in grad school he used to let me crash at his place and take naps, or use his printer, he even picked me up from the airport at 1 in the morning and his car broke down! He so hasn't finished processing what he's going through, this last gf was the longest and most serious thing he has been in so far and it ended with cheating which is such a mind fuck. He seems to also be a bit lost in his professional life and dealing with some health issues and frankly just a bit of a mess. I have no idea if it could become more, or even if I want it to, I just know that I'm so sick of being a band aid for men's egos. I want to share my life with someone and I'm getting so fucking impatient for that person to show up.   

I feel scattered as fuck lately and clearly not focused at work nor have I been dedicated to studying and that's a real problem. With my twin continuing to capitulate about everything and my dad now cancelling his trip to the mainland my focus has been elsewhere...my life feels relentless.

Love is not Pie

An interaction with a married friend  yesterday who currently feels undesirable and knows what I've been through, caused me to admit that I have a subconscious belief that I deserve to be alone because of what I did. That I am only good for inciting desire, but not worth building a life with. That this deep loneliness I feel is my punishment.

When things imploded the first time the unavailable man I had fallen in love with intimated that he didn't care about his own happiness. I remember telling him that of course there would be consequences for his actions, but by no means did he deserve to spend a lifetime being unhappy. It's wild how much easier it is to have compassion for others versus compassion for yourself.  I've missed him more lately and have been yearning for him to reach out and I'm sure it has a lot to do with it being the anniversary of it being over, and knowing it's the anniversary of him learning of his wife's infidelity. I remember dates in a way that I'm not sure has ever been healthy... I give meaning to everything in a way that feels unhealthy but as I'm thinking about it now in a removed headspace the fact that I can give meaning to the littlest of things makes my life quite rich.  I can be quite spontaneous and often am winging it, but everything I do has meaning, has purpose and I know I prefer it that way. It's just a double edged sword when it comes to integrating the past. I know quite firmly that love is not pie, that having feelings for one, does not diminish the feelings for another. I know that relationships change and grow, and wax and wane but nothing now erases what was. I once told the man that the love I have for him could never be a mistake and I still feel that way with every fiber of my being, even though there are times my sad heart wishes to forget all of the memories.

I had the privilege of experiencing an all consuming love, one that filled me with such joy and an eagerness to be here, to live loudly and excited for all that was to come. Some people never get to feel that way and even though it didn't last, and even though it never became the someday we once talked about, I am grateful for the experience. I think I've known it all along, but a love like that will never truly leave me, but it doesn't mean I can't love someone else. I think I've been wanting the love to go away, to not still miss him, and then it would feel like I had let go and moved on. I'm not sure it works like that, I think it's going to be more of an acceptance of this love and allowing my heart to expand to love others.

The conversation about a move to Maryland has progressed and seeming more likely but it feels right. It feels like the next step to keep pushing towards a life of abundance and I don't even care how fucking cheesy that sounds. I cried myself to sleep last night and am surprised at the way I'm currently feeling but I think there's such truth in acknowledging that we are meant to experience our emotions in their fullness so we can then be released from them. If you try to suppress them, they end up trapped inside you and eventually manifest in a way that is very rarely productive.