sometimes

love just isn't easy to 'splain.

crap.

to clue ya'll in

When the X broke my heart in January I was in India, and had been living in New York with said X in a 300 square foot apartment. Two weeks in India post-foot break it became quite clear I would need to have surgery to repair the damage that five Kingfisher Strong's and my lack of coordination wrecked on my body. Realizing I had no home in NYC anymore (even though the X said I could stay and she'd help me for one day* post surgery) I fled back to Colorado and returned to the nest of the 'rents, a place I had flown at the tender age of 17 and never looked back.

The 'rents were loverly and super accommodating taking me from appointment to appointment. Enter the new girl (from here on out TNG). Bright blue eyes, big smile, smarty pants of an environmentalist. I'd known TNG for three years, as she was the X's good friend. The X also happens to be TNG's first girlfriend 13 years prior.

Apparently, TNG had quite a thing for me for some time now. In fact, on my first date with the X, TNG did her damndest to convince me that dating her instead of the X would be advantageous to my well-being as a human being that TNG was well-traveled, college educated, and much nicer to the ladies. I took her advances as flattering, but decided the X was the one for me. So I thanked her, and went on my merry little way.

In the meantime, I got engaged to the X and moved my ass to NYC from Boulder. All the while, TNG stayed in Denver/Boulder area and would insist on seeing me every time I came to town. Of course, being who I am and her position in the X's life I felt it my duty. (Not to mention those visits that came post breakups resulted in lots of space to whine to TNG about the X's inability to do y, z, a...whatever).

So three years later there I was, TNG ready, willing and able to do anything to make sure that I was happy post-surgery. And then one day it happened, I looked at her across a table and realized what a fine human being she was. And the rest they say is history....

Yes. This may make me a bad person.
Yes. It calls into question TNG's moral character.

But then again, how many times can you toss something aside before someone else decides that your trash is their treasure?

Six might well be enough times....

*obviously the nicest person ever. One flipping day of a five day recovery.

Wherein I realize I really hated New York...

For those of you who know me (which is few and far between of you I would guess), I spent the past nearly three years attempting to make a life for myself with the X in New York City–the city that never sleeps.

Now NYC for most people is a place where dreams are made. A place that inspires and instigates excitement deep within one's core.

For me, NYC was...exhausting.

I used to explain to people that NYC was simply bustling with too much humanity. That the daily grind made my teeth hurt. And I wasn't exaggerating in the least. I woke up each and everyday with that ever present sense of dread I mentioned a few posts back. (I'd totally hyper link you but since my blog at this point is only four posts, you can find it yourself kids).

I look back at my life there and I am always shocked to find that I truly, deeply, disliked NYC.

I loved my friends. I loved the X. But the city itself never settled into my core, I never had a rush of "oh my god I must live here" before the relocation and it never really found a place in me. Instead it sat like a half-pound blue cheese burger in my gut, perma-settled in my stomach.

And now, I feel lighter. Feel more at home. But the X still keeps me up at night. And maybe its because I finally realized it wasn't her that initiated the desires to throw myself under oncoming subways but rather the city that housed the subways themselves.

And that my friends, is as unsettling a realization as one can have at this stage in the game.

I'm doing this for me

That's it. I've had enough. Enough wallowing. Enough fear. Enough of everything.

I've managed to exist in a state of fear for about seven years now. A constant, unending, unnerving state of dread. Dread that I will fail, fear that I will lose everything, gut wrenching "oh shit" moments that this is my life. The worst of which has been the past three years in a relationship (if you can call it that), which caused me nothing but pain.

But I'm done. I'm packing up my bags and heading to a state of "take no prisoners".

My life, as I know it now, is by far the most fulfilling place I have been thus far. Despite my lack of job, my slowly mending broken heart and my unfinished thesis I do believe I am legitimately happy. I have love, someone to come home to, and friends that would easily throw themselves under the bus for me.

But happy is hard to enjoy when you still have a festering sore o' doom in your chest from the last one who ripped you open. I guess what it comes down to is closure.

Closure.

I want the X to call and apologize for breaking my heart consistently for three years. I want to hear "I'm sorry" from her lips. But then again, who am I to ask for her to apologize? To expect her, after three years and six breakups later, to be an adult and say what most human's would say without prodding.

And of course, I am party to her torture. I let it happen for three years. I was so afraid of losing her and her hurricane that I let her play with me. It was I, who let her yank my heart strings from here to Timbuktu, without a peep. Had I been the one to say enough is enough, I'd feel vindicated–the owner of the last punch thrown. But instead, I am once again KOed.

So I'll say it now! Enough is enough. I can't be afraid of something not worth losing, even if that means we never speak again. And maybe, just maybe, once that wound heals itself, I will be able to find my inner strength that I lost long ago, amid turmoil and lost loves.

Its time to take action.

Mark my words. In six months you won't even recognize this girl. And I think that will be a very very good thing.

Perhaps I am a tad bit maschochistic

I decided today, unceremoniously, to telephone the X. The one who, in all of her callousness, left me stranded, one limb down (right foot), in the Himalayas in India. Since the insipid phone call via skype, a mere three hours after my harrowing adventures in two different rural Indian ERs, she and I have been but ghosts to one another*.

It was the type of breakup that twisted everything within you into knots. There was no telling which was you were facing. A dizzying, tale spin of where did those last three years just go? I'll tell you where...Right down the crapper, kids.

And despite my best intentions and my deepest desires, I called. After promising, just a few weeks before, that I was done talking, thankyouverymuchmylifeisbetternow, I'm moving on.

But oh, how deep those ties can be. Ties you wish you could sever with a simple snip of the scissors. Only when trying to do so, it turns out that you need a crew of five, and a few chain saws to actually make a dent in said ties.

So I called. And we talked. Things were...civil...At first.

But then I realized, some where between her "You and I were never compatible" and "I never wanted to stay with you that long anyways," or maybe between her "I love you, but I don't appreciate you when you are so close"** and "You have so much to offer, I'm just not the one to take it" you realize HOT DAMN who does this person think I am.

So there you have it folks, after three years this woman knows me about a well as the bum she passes on Houston street each and every day. And to date, she has yet to alter her view of me. Has yet to acknowledge growth.

But then again...Seeing growth would be admitting fault that maybe, just maybe, she jumped the gun on the all-in-one-breath "I can't be with you anymore, sorry about your broken foot" skype call.


*save for my sojourn to the big bad city a few months prior to today. As I said, call me a masochist.

**cut the drivel, I'm not a god damned Monet painting.

"I'm fine"

Sometimes I forget the depth of sadness that I feel, as I have always been the queen of "I'm fine". Growing up my life was made of "Don't worry about me's" and "I promise, I'm totally fine."

I forget that I am a cancer survivor. I forget that I have lost two financés, both of which have now move long past me...At least one of them I still pine for daily. I forget that I am not as strong as I appear. I forget that I raised myself, while my mother suffered from debilitating auto-immune problems.

In all of this forgetting, sometimes I think I forget myself. Forget that I am but a human, one who is made to bend but who may someday break. That I may be powerful beyond belief, but admitting weakness doesn't jeopardize this power--it only makes me strong.

Still to this day, if someone asks me how I am doing, I, like most others respond with the obligatory "I'm fine". But the truth is, maybe I'm not. And maybe that is ok.

I'm burnt out. I'm tired. And I am ready for new opportunities to come knocking at my door.