Emotional Real Estate

I used to think a guy saying he is "Emotionally Unavailable" was a total line... now, I don't doubt that it totally is. I also, however, actually understand that statement.

And I am not using it as a line.

I was recently asked out by a kid (I say kid because he is younger than I am, and anyone younger than me is considered a kid). And, just that look on his face as he is talking to me, and his body language... It is all screaming "I am so into you."

I hate venturing into a situation where one person is much much more into the other than the other person.

Anyway, this kid... he is all wide eye'd and eager to take me out... with all the cuteness and charm that comes with a Irish Setter Puppy (a well trained one).

And I can't help but look at him and see.... nothing.

I see nothing with him, I feel nothing for him. Nothing meaning deep feelings of attraction or whatever. I do however feel extremely flattered that he is just that into me. But that is it.

I feel like I need to make him sign a release form before going out with me.

Something to free me of any guilt/liability that may cause this youngsters heart to break.

Or at least a month to month agreement that nothing is my fault and that he has willing ventured into the arduous task of attempting to try and take me out on a date.

Yes, month to month, I haven't said yes.

It is situations like this that I realize I am not a starter kit.

I am not for the unskilled hands of hapless beginners.

I have been through some shit, and at times, it shows.

Newbs don't know what to do with that.

It's not like there is a support group for guys dating damaged goods girls (IDEA!!!).

hahaha, "Hi my name is _____, and I am dating a DGG"

Maybe, I am just worried because I am a mostly nice person (when I want to be) who doesn't like to inflict (undue) pain on anyone.

Or could it be that I am just feeling the affect of having my heart pulled from someone so far away from me that it doesn't feel real, and I am just comparing this to a random act of interest (which is better than a random act of kindness).

And who knows, maybe a date wouldn't be such a bad thing. I maintain with my circle of gf's that a "girl's gotta eat, girl's gotta drink" mentality-- I never said I was good about taking my own advice. And it could be fun, or at least interesting.

But there is a huge part of me that is saying don't waste your time. You know you don't want this. Oh and you are totally into someone else somewhere else.

So now what... I sit here, over my Ghengis Grill concoction thinking it over.

I don't have an answer.

Becuase I realize my answer depends on others.

Can I hinge my heart (again) on something I cannot tell (as of yet) is real (or not)? Can I spend time with someone only to potentially hurt them in the end?

Ugh. Such is the plight of the seemingly single gal.

I am sure the answer is much more simple than where I am looking.

Because the Devil is always in the details.

Fits and Starts and an Accidental Recipe for Success

I have a problem with follow through sometimes. I mean, I have a short list of projects to start or are half started. Like, the table I have that I want to tile the top of with a mosaic. Or the pile of prints I've done that STILL need frames...

But, readers, my lack of craftsmanship is not the topic here. The first is the "fits and starts."

I feel like I am always starting something, that eventually fizzles out and then I have to start again... Photography, an on going hobby/venture of mine. I pick up my camera for a bout a week a month now... When I used to have it glued to my hands. Have my interests changed? No. What I really feel is a lack of inspiration. I'm used to operating (and an artistic sense) from a place of pain/hurt/anger. And now... I have a lack of those things (not complaining), so how do I operate from a place of stability with no emotional extremes? Yeah, I have no idea either. I feel it actually shows in the work. I mean, the pictures I've taken have come out flat, dull and pretty uninteresting. Which is kinda how my life is right now... it really has the personality of a Malto-Meal . Before you add the peanut butter/brown sugar/etc.

Only recently have I been able to write.

And it is not filled with passion or rage or what-have-you, but rather delicate reflective observations from my vantage point.

Which, I can say, I have not had this level of clarity in my writing in a long time. So many times the writing has had an emotional edge and urgency to it. Now, not so much.

I take it back.

It did.

Until I head this song, Since You're Gone by The Pretty Reckless.

The lead songstress wails about not that you're gone her life has moved along. And all the "awesome" shit that has gone down since.

NOW.

I like to think that everyone who crosses your life path has done so for a reason... I mean there is a reason I still have the business card for Christina the Aura Reader... and haven't used it yet. I never really felt like people in your life were proverbial roadblocks to success... until now.

I mean, in the last 6-7 months I have had a LOT of success.

Quick recap.

MY SUCCESSES

1. Trip to California to see best friend
2. Interview at current company home office for major job
3. Interim promotion at work for almost 3 months (april till june)
4. Promotion at work (official)
5. Raise at work
6. Loss of 15 pounds (yay! back to college weight)
7. Loss of 2-3 pant/dress sizes (back to college size)
8. Point person for Q&A for work colleagues
9. Gaining of friends
10. Trip to see MKSA in September

Yeah... I'll agree since you've been gone my life has moved along quite nicely.

I will take a nano second to gloat.

I have no proof this amount of success is one sided. In fact, maybe his life has moved along nicely as well... maybe he has found a nice girl that meets all his needs and blah blah blah blah....

Yeah. This isn't about him.

It's about me.

NOW, maybe you're asking yourself, how you too can be this successful in your life.

The answer is I don't know.

I mean, here is what I did:

1. Have a massive heart-break
2. Partially heal
3. Go back to said heart-breaker
4. Hit emotional rock bottom
5. take a vacation and have total emotional makeover due to supportive friends
6. come back from vaca ready to take on the world
7. find out you're in charge at work (indefinitely)
8. have daily panic attacks
9. be too tired-sleep-deprived-exhausted to eat
10. do month long intensive Bikram yoga program that starts a bodily make over that instantly stopped all craving for fast food and sugar but brought cravings of water. just water.
11. Drink gallons of water daily
12. get promoted at work to where you are at stress level that eliminates sleep, and ability to eat because you don't have time or are too tired
13. wake up one day and realize all your clothes are too big

TADA!!!!

NOW... I do not recommend this method, I am not a doctor, but I am pretty sure this is NOT HEALTHY.

So yeah.

I'm happier than I have been in a long time and skinnier than I have been since... Oh, I don't know, 2007?!

So, in summation:

It doesn't matter what you do or don't start (or finish) things will eventually move in and out of the way for you to get the success you have worked your fucking ass of for.

Totally motivational, right?

Back to Basics

I guess I need to re-explain myself here...

This blog, this little bit o' web-space, is about ME. There is a reason I have been calling this SELFISH HELP from the beginning. It is about me. The one place I make exclusively about me. I have had some interesting comments and emails about this site, none interesting enough to quote, but not everyone is the wordsmith that I am.

So, once again, let me re-state, THIS IS SELFISH HELP. I admit, I took a break from my emotional rehab to bitch about work and then wax poetically about MKSA. But that is not what the blog is about, and I migrated away from the original point. And for that, loyal readers, I apologize.

I will not, however, apologize for what I have written already.

I carefully (most of the time) construct every blog to be a direct reflection of my emotional state. I won't apologize for feelings I've hurt along the way, because odds are if you are a reader-- and you feel like you've had your feelings "hurt" by these words then step back and think if you hurt MY feelings somewhere down the line. Then get back to me. And if, it turns out by some freakish act of the powers that be that you haven't hurt me... then I will craft you an apology LETTER (with a stamp) so amazing that even Ms. Emily Post would be impressed.

NOW, there, that's over.

I can get back to what I wanted to say from the beginning.

Back to Basics (as the title would suggest), is exactly what I am trying to do.

I got an amazing promotion at work, so that really takes part of load of my shoulders but adds another. And I actually found something that resembles a relationship, even if it is not the most traditional.

What does that mean? Well, kiddos. It means.... yeah, I don't know, exactly. It means regular and open communication with another person (yes, a dude) with amorous tones and subtext. Something I have not had in a very long time... that wasn't with out conditions and a ton of strings attached. This, lacks obligation... rather we feel we owe it to one another (another first), and owe out of respect and mutual feeling instead of... payment? fear? commitment? or any of the zillion other reasons people will sometimes ineffectually throw themselves together.

But again, that's not basic... that's some advanced level shit.

Basics. Why is it seems the basics are so hard to master... women understand, the fundamentals of perfectly functional yet versatile wardrobe are damn near impossible to find... seriously, the little black dress, the perfect black pump, the perfect pair of non-schlumpy jeans.

I am finding the same thing true in relationships.

Maybe it is the years of disastrous relationships I have willingly (and not so willingly in some cases) have put myself through. But I know I will never be that open-hearted-hang-on-every-word in love girl that I once was. And I suppose that is something you are eventually "supposed" to grow out of. Is it wrong that I didn't want to?

Is it wrong that I really really do not care of the varying levels of hell various ex's have put me through, and I have been working really really hard to undo their work? I really don't think so.

I really think that you should not place your baggage on a new flame... But how do you not? How do you not keep your guard up and eyes peeled for all those red flags you missed before. Truthfully, before now I would have said I don't think you can. But, now, I think with enough time and healing (healing most importantly) you can. True, it wont ever be perfect. I mean, sure, bells and whistles will still go off if he doesn't come home, and certain phrases will make ice course through your veins....

That's WHY I started this blog.

I wanted to get myself back.

I had given so much away to sooooooooo many liars/cheaters/bums/losers/creeps/jerks/fuckwits. That I really didn't know what was going on with me anymore. I was a mess of manifested insecurities (some original, mostly minted from relationships past). And this last heartbreak did me in. It literally broke me (a credit I do not want to give that guy, he doesn't deserve it-- I always figured the breaking would be done by a much stronger man). But here I am, 6-7 months past that, pretty much feeling better than ever. I wont lie, and say I never think about these men (which NONE of them deserve to be called, boys possibly guys/dudes at best). I do, and never fondly.

Some people think I started this to get even with a guy.

Honestly, yeah, a tiny vengeful part of me wanted to blog him into internet oblivion (or submission). And I didn't. I instead, put myself out there knowing people could identify with me, and my side.

Because deep down (with all of these guys) once there was a time when I could say I was your friend and you were mine. But that is history. That is something we both know we won't get back. And I know I'll never know the reason why you thought

That you could hang me out to dry for everyone to see, make a fool out of me, ruin me, degrade me, screw me (or not)...Did you think that I'd really just lay down and take it? That some how no damage was inflicted?
Fuck that. I mean, really... all of these guys had me apologizing for everything, sometimes my own presence in the the fucking room. And congrats to them, for being able to get out with no damage done. And many have moved along. It just, to me seems unfair that in the long run, I am still here feeling the effects (and not in a good way).

This is where it evens out, I know (hope/pray) that they get their due. And I know it wont be by my hand.

This could have been forum for me to air out each and every single one of there secrets, lies, and misdeeds. Which, would work in favor of any new women in their lives that wanted to Google them. But I didn't.

OH sure, I used some initials... but it's not like I linked their Facebooks to the page (another move I contemplated and rejected after .238 seconds).

So word to the wise (and the not so wise) just because I play nice (nice-er) doesn't mean every girl will. And if fan clubs in your honor pop up on various social networking sites because of all the other shit you all have done to other women.... I can neither confirm nor deny that I would lobby for an admin position... possibly anonymously.

Head Space

I've been counting down the days till my vacation to see MKSA (My Knight in Shining Armor).

It is 70 days as of tomorrow.

Good news is, June flew by, bad news... 70 days seems like, oh, I don't know, a third of a year??

I mean, here it is on a Friday night and I have been powering away on work stuff (since like 830pm), because I have no life (at least not social). While everyone else I know is out doing whatever it is people do on a Friday night.

But you know, I don't care.

I mean, I do... in a way. But I don't.

There are a few people (BFFFE and MKSA) that I want to spend my limited time off with... and well, they live on opposite coasts from me and I split the difference between them.

That is why, I don't really care that I am posted up in a both at Denny's killing some scheds for work instead of going out with friends as a pre-party for the Fourth of July.

Ok... so maybe I could have used a beer to do this.

But instead I have like an hour long phone chat with MKSA.

That makes me feel better then most beers could.

That is all beside the point. Moving on.

Last post, I talked about the start of MKSA and I. I, in theory, should be telling you about the middle. But instead, I'd rather talk about the music.

I know a lot of people associate music with a memory... well, consider the discography of the middle of our relationship:

Delicious Tunes for the Middle of the Relationship

Regina Spector, Begin to Hope: "Fidelity" "Samson"

The Sounds, Dying to Say this to You

Morningwood, Morningwood: "Take Off Your Clothes"

Kings of Leon: Aha Shake Heartbreak: "Milk" "King of the Rodeo" "Taper Jean Girl"

Leona Naes: I Tried to Rock You...: "Blue Eyed Baby"

The Cars: "Just What I Needed" "Dangerous Type"

The Killers: Previous Age "Bones"

The Killers: Sam's Town "When You Were Young"

Fall Out Boy: Infinity on High "America's Suitehearts" "Sugar We're Going Down Swinging"

My music tastes have changed... a little. Heh. But ALL of these are still in my iPod on heavy rotation. And I dig it.

It gives (gave) me a chance to think about MKSA a little bit everyday.