Author: shelly

PREFACE: This note is no longer offered to the person it was intended for. The string of notes she sent me in July revealed the content of her character and, ironically, was the last push i needed to realize that i’d rather be a man that dated and loved women than to have her in my life. I am opening this post again so someone i know can read the string of notes she sent me in July and have a better understanding of what my responses to my ex was.

I do not know that you will ever read this but i suspect at some point you’ll stop by although i do not know why.

I do not know why you wrote me Sunday morning. After seven months of silence and after you, in no uncertain terms, said that you saw no place for me in your future (and by doing so, severing our friendship and categorically dismissing all that we had been for four and a half years), you write me out of the blue.

I have no idea why you wrote me. My friends think it was just to beat me up some more. My counselor had other ideas in addition to a need to beat me up. He was not impressed with what you wrote (as usual,  i asked him to read your unedited notes and my responses- also unedited) and no one has been happy knowing that i wrote you back. “Nothing good can come of this,” they say. They say other things too.

Right now, i am ignoring them. I could not explain why if i tried but i believe you’re the only person that can understand.

So why did i write back?

Because of the things i know about human nature, i know that contradictions are mysteries within ourselves that we have not resolved yet. I am conflicted about you. You are conflicted about me. But one thing stands out- we seem to still care for… and perhaps love one another.

I also wrote back because, in writing me, you made yourself vulnerable. And as i said, i could have ripped into you with a fury you have never known me capable of. The problem with that is that when you say or do something like that, you can never take it back. Perhaps you will consider this should you ever be inclined to contact me again. As an aside, do you even read what you write before you send it? Do you ever go back and look at what you’ve said?

I needed to respond in a way that was honest, insightful, serious but with some levity to remind you of the person you once knew.

Speaking of vulnerability, things like this do not just come to me naturally. This was an aspect of me that had not surfaced for fifteen years. It did not happen overnight- it took MONTHS and it happened because of the growing isolation and abandonment i felt for the reasons that i pointed out in my response. Please do not believe you didn’t change. You did.

I could go a lot of directions with this. I could go a lot of very negative directions with this and be justified. I’ve decided, instead, to reiterate with part of what i told you already. It’s a list that i’ll add a few things to now and in the future.

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Things I Miss About You.

I miss your voice. I can’t believe i never told you what a nice voice you had until you asked me. I’m sorry for that.

I miss your beautiful hands.

I miss your smile.

I miss your smell.

I miss how beautiful you are.

I miss working in the kitchen with you and knowing when to leave you alone.

I miss your cooking.

I miss cooking for you.

I miss trading scratchies.

I miss trading pullies.

I miss giving you pushies.

I miss feeding geese with you.

I miss repeating silly quotes from Dune at inappropriate moments.

I miss that i could get excited about seeing “bun-buns” and that you liked that about me.

I miss teasing you about making me a turkey pot pie.

I miss teasing you about moose. *

I miss teasing you, period.

I miss our dynamic- that you were the intelligent one and i was the smart one.

I miss that you were the dreamer and i was the pragmatist.

I miss combing your hair and i am sorry i fell out of that habit.

I actually miss driving to see you- the rituals i had before leaving- of packing, the rhythm of the drive up there, the music that i would listen to and that last stretch of a few miles where i would let you know i was close and either you’d have something ready to eat when i arrived or we’d go out.

I do not nor will i ever miss the heartbreak i (perhaps “we”) went through on our last day together.

I miss that we could sit in the same room and totally be comfortable with one another. Reading, playing games, watching movies; it didn’t matter. I just liked being near you.

I miss sitting outside while you roasted coffee and helping you when you needed it. *

I miss feeling you press your hand on my back at night.

I miss being able to reach out and touch you.

I miss waking up and seeing you and your smile. I thought that was something that would last a lifetime.

I miss going and getting coffee with you and sometimes having you watch me doodle and even critique me at times. *

I miss looking at books with you. *

I miss going to Jays farmstand with you. *

I liked being seen in public with you.

I enjoyed having your arm in mine.

I enjoyed opening doors for you even though you used to be suspicious of me because of that.

I miss driving and being able to rest my hand on your thigh and i miss being able to reach out and rest my hand on your shoulder if you were driving.

I miss winding you up either in public or private and then making you go out in public. *

I miss your building silly things for me in Minecraft.

I miss hiding stickers of bugs and bees that i’d drawn for you to find after i was gone.

I miss moments like helping you learn to change your tire in a way that was entirely you.

I miss buying you vegetable peelers and pretending like I didn’t remember ever buying and giving you the previous two or three. *

I miss lifting you to pop your back and having you turn to liquid in my arms afterward. I never let you fall.

I miss the person that took me to the emergency room and held my hand when i was in agonizing pain.

I miss picking you up at work, going to Winco and then eating lunch at the Lesbian Duck Lake. (This is a small lake in Olympia that appears to be entirely inhabited by duck hens)

I miss sending you silly pictures.

I miss making you laugh.

I remember a night when we had overindulged and i stayed with you to make sure you were okay. That meant a lot to me.

I miss that we were once genuinely kind to one another.

I miss your company.

I miss a few things we did in our private moments; one that i have shared with you and you only in particular.

I miss your friendship.

I miss you as a lover.

I miss that you were one of the very few (less than five) women i have known where those two were firmly integrated into one another. I wanted it to last a lifetime.

I miss that i never had to wear armor when i was with you.

* added after recording
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You wrote me out of the blue after telling me i had no place in your life or your future. I can’t believe that you did so solely for the purpose of hurting me. Maybe i’m wrong, but if i’m right, i hope you will consider what i proposed in my response with the seriousness- and the sincerity- that i meant it.

I do not drink much. In the last four or so months, i’ve had two pints of beer and i tried to have a shot of rye just to see what rye was like. I got half way through it. I think it’s pretty safe to say that i am not a whiskey drinker.

Right now i have a significant buzz on. On the one hand, i’m tempted to admit a couple of things that i need to. One is a personal realization and one is holding myself accountable for a very bad judgment of mine that i have been recently reminded of. Despite what an incredible asshole i can be at times, i will assume responsibility and make apologies and/or amends when i fuck up.

But right now with this much vodka in me, going down that road is probably a profoundly bad idea.

Tonight i have been drinking because of our newest roommate. Four days ago he brought a friend home. Okay, i thought. No big deal. We all have needs. She struck me as kind of odd but i wasn’t around her much. I’m a pretty private guy and they spent most of their time in his room.

But come yesterday morning, the THIRD DAY she was here, i wake up to the sound of someone talking outside of my sliding glass door. I cracked open my eyes to this person having a full blown conversation with NOBODY. I think she may have been trying to coax one of the cats to her. Nonetheless, it was the sort of conversation where she seemed to actually be expecting (and perhaps she was receiving) a response. It was also weird in that it seemed she was having a conversation with a child. Anyone beyond the age of 14 or so that has that weird, purely emotional attachment to animals is not well.

I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was actually trying to talk to one of the cats. I have no proof of this.

I do not tolerate alcoholics/ drug addicts or crazy people. If i could or would, i’d be in the counseling business. It’s not that i don’t have compassion but i do not nor will i tolerate them living under my roof. Period.

I asked him to send her home yesterday. He says, “okay,” and i assume that’s the end of that. But then she’s here this morning and i realize something: She’s a full blown schizophrenic. Now, i don’t want to seem like i’m being frivolous or cavalier in that evaluation so let me say it again: She is a DSM-V qualified psychotic with schizophrenia. Every time i see her alone, usually outside smoking, she is having full conversations with no one but herself and her magical, invisible moon people.

And then she’s here again this morning and i have a trigger event. And then i figure something out: he picked this woman up off of the streets. She is HOMELESS AND SCHIZOPHRENIC.

I explain to my new roommate that she is to leave immediately and there will be no negotiating. So finally he leaves with her. But before he leaves, he tells me how he hoped he’d be able to help her and give her a place to live. I stayed silent but my inner voice is screaming, “ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING?!?” . He wasn’t.

So he realized i wasn’t fucking about and he left with her. You can see the picture here. I’ve blurred his face. Initially he said he’d just stay with her in his truck down the driveway. I IMMEDIATELY said that was unacceptable.

By this point, my stress is stratospheric. I cannot believe the absolute and profound stupidity and bad judgment of this person. I can feel both my diastolic and systolic increasing to unacceptable levels. It’s everything i can do to not snap.

This was around noon. He stopped by a few hours ago saying he still had not found a place for her to go. My fear is he’s not entirely well himself and he’s going to try and bring her back when he believes i’ve gone to bed. In fact, if i could put money on it, i would.

I have a lot of reasons to drink right now but my contempt for crazy and the flagrant disregard for any fucking common sense by this guy (and he’s older than me) is beyond anything i can cope with. I swear that if he shows up with her again, i will call the deputies because if i don’t, i’m likely to just fucking lose it.

Vodka and cranberry, come to daddy.

This is a post i recently left on my TF2 clans page (even though i seldom play, let alone enjoy playing, video games these days, my TF2 clan runs a good forum). Apparently some people found my latest post amusing.

Years ago i bought a copy of Risk 2210. Unfortunately i never played it and i figure that if i haven’t played it by now, i probably never will. Apparently most board games require ingredients called, “friends” or “suckers” or even, “small children that are kidnapped and dragged into my bunker.” And since i have very few of any of these (and have since been asked to stop referring to the small children that i kidnap and drag to my bunker as “friends”), i have decided it’s time for me to give away my rather large collection of used teefs as well as my copy of Risk 2210.
Continue reading “giving away my copy of Risk 2210”

I’m talking to him a couple of weeks ago. He’s one of the many people that have helped me salvage my objectivity and has helped me understand, not just the process of grieving, but he’s helped me identify some of my behaviors such as how and why i allowed my dignity to be eroded to the degree that i did and why i was incapable of recognizing it for what it was. He knows a thing or two about relationships and communication. His doctoral thesis was on the methods and differences between how men and women communicate. He’s spent two decades talking to people, to couples and many of them are genuinely afflicted with some type of clinical psychological ailment.

He’s just told me a story about a previous client who had been married seven times. She was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. As he’s telling the story, people that I know come to mind- people that are addicted to what’s called NRE (New Relationship Energy). They are often husks parading as polyamorists- incapable of any sort of sustained or sincere love.

But because of two events in my life that were instigated by the adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and because of a friend of mine whose friend of twenty six years simply stopped communicating with her (her friend is also a survivor of abuse), i saw a pattern. From that, a question emerged.

So i asked him, “In your experience, is it common for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to abruptly end relationships without even attempting to see what can be done to repair them?”
Continue reading “click.”

I haven’t been home much this weekend. Errands, a lunch w/ friend, a new television machine (even though i haven’t watched television shows in years), running both Friday and Saturday and then dancing Saturday night.

So i was looking forward to having a nice, simple meal. Fish, crabcake, brocolli, silence. I guess i got as much of the latter as anyone can get around here and was enjoying the former.

I eventually went to bed.
Continue reading “hurt”

I have really, really missed dancing. After my world came apart at the seams in 1998, my fear of dancing vanished like the night when the sun rises. But i have other things to do first.

The week before last i ran a total of 10 miles; 2.5 miles every other day. This week i went a bit further. This is a snapshot of what i’ve done lately:

10 Jan (Th): 2.5 miles
11 Jan (Fr): 2.5 miles, dancing afterward
13 Jan (Su): 2.5 miles
15 Jan (Tu): 2.5 miles
18 Jan (Fr): 2.5 miles, 32 minutes
19 Jan (Sa): 3.0 miles (36 minutes), dancing afterward

I RAN THREE MILES LAST NIGHT. Three fucking miles. Thirty six minutes. The last two minutes i poured it on, bumping my speed up 10%. I could have kept going but i began to have spots in my vision. My top BPM was 164.
Continue reading “the infection and the temple”

Everyone knows about my love for Bill Evans. A few notes from him and my heart soars or sometimes plummets. Either direction and he can still drive me to tears. Your reaction may differ but there is so much beauty, pain and splendor in the first couple of minutes of this composition than most people achieve in their entire lives.

My Foolish Heart | Bill Evans

Just to remind myself, this is why i’m going to the gym so much these days:

• I began this to trade one pain for another. I was going to cause serious harm to myself if i didn’t.
• I DO NOT get the “right” to use, “it’s in my genetics,” as a defense. A propensity towards obesity is one thing but a propensity is not the same as an inescapable destiny.
• I am tired of the distorted sense of self worth i have based on my shape. It’s not the only facet but it’s a tangible facet that i can change.
• I had a growing contempt for my sedentary lifestyle. It was costing me my self respect.
• I am tired of feeling my heart going off on me like a jackhammer when i barely exert myself.
• Because it’s the right thing to do.

In the time since i last wrote about this, i had finally hit my 30 minute mark. Since then, i’ve repeated that about three or four times. Last night was a bit different. Usually when i hit the 20 minute mark, i’m hurting but okay. At 25 minutes, i’m really questioning if i can make it to 30.

Last night i hit 25 minutes and i knew i’d be able to hit 30 “easy”. I put easy in quotes because it’s not easy. Fuck no. Not even close. I mean, i’m overweight and “running” for a half hour. No, it’s not easy. But last night was the difference between hitting 25 minutes and forcing myself to keep going and then last night, hitting 25 minutes and just going because i could.

I could and so i did. And i earned every fucking step i took.

So no, i’m not happy with what the scales have to say about me but i continue to eat fish and vegetables and have limited my intake of poultry/ beef/ pork to less than one pound a week (and usually less than half of that). I’m drinking almond milk these days instead of dairy milk, too. I have to say, someone showed me a resource for raw milk sellers and it turns out there may be two dairy farms in my area that are selling jersey made raw milk (grass diet), so i may try that for a bit just to see what i think of it. I’ll never give up my cheeses but if i can make a few small changes here and there, it adds up to much larger changes in the long run.

The long run. I guess that’s what this is about. Changes. Self image. Self respect. Dignity. Health.

There’s a lot on my mind these days. Recent discussions about some of my failings, an acknowledgement of my darker side- my “shadow” that someone deliberately provoked and brought out of me and how i move forward from here. I’ll be posting more later.

addendum: last night i had a meeting in Vancouver. Since it didn’t begin until 7, i decided to go to the gym instead. I really didn’t think too much of it but thought i’d go ahead and try to run. Normally i wouldn’t do this since my previous experiences have taught me that the ADP (is it ADP?) in my muscles isn’t recovered enough to run two days in a row. Guess what? I did it. Two nights in a row, 30 minutes each. In fact, last night was 32 minutes and the last minute of that was deliberately running faster. My heart rate peaked at 160 bpm which is great since the last time i pushed myself like that, it was 200. Three minutes after slowing down my bpm was at 130. Not bad. Not bad at all.