Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

I am embarrased to say that I succumb to all types of pressure and pressure of not using the internet won and I did not embark on my seven day challenge. The reality of it is that I do want to use the internet on a daily basis and that is just who I am and who I will remain to be. So perhaps one day I will just do it, but until then, my Mac remains to be my only companion.

Spring is here. The sun is shining. It is going to be close to eighty the next few days and I find an extra spring in my step even though my life is still a bit chaotic, but I'm working on that. Today is my last day of work, tomorrow my last day of class for a few days and I am going to spend the weekend catching up on life and pulling together the pieces of my life.

The tool box detox did not work. I of course took him back and then I of course went back to rehab Monday. This time I need to find the strength in my irritation. He was seeing someone else. I know it, he won't admit it and I cannot take someone lying to my face about it. I have been there and done that and I knew how this would end all along so perhaps my lack of heartbreak stems from the instinct I had from the moment I met him. Perhaps this is what Marianne was trying to tell me when she said I will be able to recognize situations and know what to do before they go to far. I still think I let this one get to far, in the sense that I did start to develop feelings which is apparent in my internal struggle with checking my phone every five minutes to see if he will text. I know that he won't because I told him I did not ever want to speak to him again. I told him his prescense in my life was no longer accepted and that I have moved onto bigger rocks (he actually refered to himself as a stepping stone for better mates). So for the time being I am going to take everyone's advice that I have so blatenly been ignoring and I am going to try to see what this "alone" thing is all about and I'm going to stop looking. I am going to ignore what my heart feels for the sm, for the hot MMA fighter I met this weekend and the tool box and just be me for a while. I am going to find solitude in an empty bed and peace in this quiet apartment and I am going to figure out what I want in this life and a partner.

On a great and unrelated note, I am working on a research project. I may have discovered Cholera in Haitian tap water! For a student scientist like myself, this is very exciting! Well I am going to eat some lunch and head into work! So excited today is like a Friday!

7 day challenge

I have come to the realization that I have what therapists like to call "an addictive personality." I drink, I smoke, I love boys, I have to constantly check my email, my facebook, and my blog. It's funny how I never forget to do my vices, but things on my to do list remain unchecked and very undone. In a world of texting and emailing and the internet, we have lost communication. So when posed with this challenge, I thought at first, no way. How could I go without at the very least checking my work email? I mean people have to get a hold of me. But then I realized there is the modern convenience of the telephone...or (gasp) face to face interaction! So beginning tomorrow, I am going to take the seven day challenge. No Internet! None! Not for any reason. Not for facebook, not for email, not for researching, not for blogging, for absolutely nothing. I am going to see if I can remain connected, while staying, disconnected, so to speak. So I have a podcast to listen to and then goodbye internet for one week. Can I do it? I'll let you know how I feel in a week!

If at first you don't succeed...

I love thunderstorms. There is just something about laying in bed, alone, in the dark while the sky is rumbling outside. It reminds me of camping and is if the world is washing everything clean. As long as the power doesn't go out, because I am not particularly fond of the dark dark! Recently I have hardly been able to sleep. I have so many thoughts racing through my mind that perhaps blogging about them will help to release them from my inner sub conscious and I can fall asleep again. For one thing, I am having really odd dreams when I fall asleep. I think I know what the universe is trying to tell me, I am just refusing to listen for some reason. I had a dream last night that I was in a hospital, being chased by clowns (in which I am completely afraid of). They told me that if I could find a way out, I would live, and I of course could not find a way out. I kept running and running, and trying to open every door, that of course was locked. I realize my subconscious is trying to tell me that I am running from someone or something in my waking life. I know what it is I need to run from, but for some reason I cannot find the will power to take the first step of that sprint.

I keep dreaming of my sm (soulmate), but I am jokingly going to refer to him as sm from here on out. Last night he was with my former best friend, dating her. The night before, we were together. I am driving myself crazy keeping my thoughts of this topic internalized. I have yet to speak publicly to anyone about my misconceptions and feelings on the topic. Let alone ever let him know how I feel about the issue. I am going to just keep trying until I am either turned down or completely ashamed of my behavior lol.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Ahhh I finally went to hot yoga again today and it was the most fitting practice because it was all about letting go! Isn't it amazing how something inspires you to do something and it perfectly relates to your life. I decided to go to yoga, simply because I wanted to go. I have wanted to go and I had the morning off so why not? I also heard from the banker today which lifted my spirits, and I then went to target and bought toilet paper and some earrings for myself because I wanted to. It is nice to have the freedom to do what YOU want to do! I went to work and had a hugely productive day, and I then proceeded to experience my adult st. patty's day by having a few drinks with my cousin after work. It was there that I was told, I was beautiful and should have a man worshipping me! Even though it was told to me by someone heavily intoxicated from drinking all day, it still made me feel great about my most recent decision to detox!

I once again got my hopes up because my "soulmate" was supposed to come out with us tonight but decided he was too tired. So I decided it is pretty obvious I need to give up that part of my life once and for all for the 100th time.

More later...it's time for me to hit the sack!

inspire me

Enough about the tool and more about me! I seem to have lost my inspiration somewhere in the past passion driven month! Where has it gone too? How do I go about getting it back? I need to find myself again. Perhaps starting back up my 100 list will make me feel better! I need to do something for myself tomorrow before I drive myself crazy. This would include going to pick up toilet paper, because I just ran out. However, it is so nice not to have anyone to blame but myself for not having toilet paper! No one to fight with about it...just luckily a new roll of paper towels!

Tool Detox

I have gone back and forth in my head for over six months. I have blogged. I have cried (internally), I have been angry and I have been happy. After looking through recent blogs and those over the past few months and after coming to some realizations that I knew but just didn't want to believe I think I have finally figured out what I knew all along. I am a great girl who just happened to get caught up in feelings of being wanted. When he is with me, he makes me feel wanted and desired in a way that I never knew existed and that felt great. This is what makes a womanizer, a womanizer. They make you feel wanted and desired and incredible when you are with them. I do not do drugs, but this is what I imagine an addiction to feel like. When you are high you feel wonderful, and then you crash without the drugs. Then you need a little bit more the second time around to get your fix and then more and more and eventually you spiral out of control. He was my high, my fix. But I need to forget about the good times because I realized they were spent with any real substance. Besides this past week, they weren't spent doing anything of importance or anything that was fun and exciting. Times before they were spent in a daze of partying and with friends. It was only up until this week that it was ok that we just laid around and watched a movie on a friday night, or went shopping or went to his grandmothers birthday party. And this is exactly what he doesn't want. He doesn't want a real relationship, and I do not want a real relationship with him. He is not the person I am going to marry so why do I waste energy and time trying to scratch through the surface to try and find that good guy deep down inside of him. I might be trying to justify and cover my heartache because I am going to miss him being around, but I know that I made the right choice in the long run for my life. In ten years, I will hopefully be married to a wonderful husband who will love me like a real man should love a woman. I will have a house, children, a career. In ten years, he will still be living at home, not paying his child support to the three kids he'll probably have with three different women and still trying to pay off his unpaid parking tickets. I think it is time to chalk this one up to a good loss and realize sometimes losing something can lead to the biggest gain of your life! So let's start a Tool Box free countdown. Detox for 30 days. This means no contact, no texts, no answering, no seeing him, not anything. He has left his shoes here and if he wants them, he can find another helpless girl to come and pick them up on my doorstep.

Beautiful

Why is it that as I spurge literary bull shit, I find myself eating it shortly after. Yet again the tool bag is just a tool bag. Not in the sense that he did anything, just in the sense that he makes me wonder why I even remotely begin to believe that he has the ability to be a good guy. I would also like to point out how facebook is momentously ruining my so called "relationship." As I'm sure it does for many couples. At least for those in situations like mine, where their man friends are dumb enough to post things that would make their "girls" mad. So obviously I have set this story up enough for you to know that it 1. includes the tool box and 2. Has to do with facebook.

So I come home from work, after I hammered out some stress on the treadmill, and I hop on facebook, as I will be the first to admit that I am addicted. I will also admit that I will occasionally (ok who are we kidding here), creep on this form of telecommunication. So what do I see. Of course Ryan is sexbooking. Yes, this is the new word I am going to coin to flirting on facebook. Blatently flirting. Telling one girl to come out with him on St. Patty's Day, telling another "it's time," and he hopes her house isn't as cold as the last night, and telling another that he was "drooling over her pictures and hopes to catch her eye. All three of them nasty. Now, under normal circumstances in a relationship, this is borderline crossing the line. Not that there is anything normal about our relationship so where is the line here? I have decided that I have to draw it, apparently. He makes me feel like I am not good enough. I am not hot enough, thin enough, ambitious enough. Which all of these things are ironic, considering the fact that he is the one not good enough for me. He is the one lacking depth, ambition, desire, drive, honesty, integrity, all of the things that I value in a relationship. Why have I let these wants go out the window for some guy who is just great in bed? He isn't that great. He constantly makes me question if I am making the right choice with him and that is no way to live each day. It is a constant up and down roller coaster. I am up when he's with me and down when he's not, because he's off womanizing everything with two legs and a vagina. I cannot keep stressing over a guy who is like this. I deserve to be with someone who loves me for who I am, who wants to be with me for who I am and who I long to be and who will accept everything I have to offer along that journey. Being with someone to pass the time until that guy comes along is no way to live a life. So I am going to say to him that he won. I gave him the best of me at the time and I have nothing else to give him. I cannot give him more time, I cannot waste more gas. I cannot waste more energy and I most importantly cannot waste more of parts of my heart left unbroken. It's time to move on.

Manfriend

I can't believe it has been over a week since my last blog. I would like to say that I have been busy but in reality I just didn't have anything inspirational to say. I also decided, in looking back at my most recent post, that I am a walking contradiction.

After talking it over with some friends about my Ryan situation, I came to a startling revelation. Perhaps I was the problem here. My friend Anita was not justifying what he did, but she said in reality, he didn't really DO anything. He got a text message, from a girl. I didn't let him explain, I just assumed he was pursuing someone else. In actuality, I was the contradiction. Here I am, dating other people and wanting him to be exclusive to me. Months of back and forth, me saying one thing, doing another. I want to date him one minute, the next I want to explore my options. No wonder I have this guy so confused. We have been talking for over seven months now. People meet and get married in that amount of time, and here I am still contemplating whether or not I even want to be exclusive with this guy. By Tuesday Ryan had text me and asked if we could talk about things and he said just what Anita had said. I am back and forth and I need to make a decision. Either I want to try for there to be an us, or there is simply no us. He said he has told me how he feels and he wasn't pursuing any other girls and he wants to be with me, and it is now time for me to make a decision. So after contemplating for a few days, I decided why not? If we don't try, will I always have what ifs? maybe. If we do try will it end in heart break? maybe. Will I regret more trying than not? maybe. So since I was really neither one way or another on this platform, I thought sure. Lets do it. So we are now dating. Officially. He asked the other day if he could call me his girlfriend, but I don't really like that word so I opted for "girl" and he can be my manfriend. This is my girl, and this is my manfriend. Has a funny ring to it, and I like that better than girlfriend. Even though we've admitted to be dating, I'm still going to just go with the flow and let things go where the green path leads. I have to go to work. I will try and write more later.

Arnold, Snooki and Sly...OH MY!

Why is it that in two days time I can have so much to update on in my life? Why can I never sit still? Why do I need life to constantly keep evolving? I spent the weekend at the Arnold Classic which was fun. Even though I was stuck in the gym coaching the entire weekend, I did get an opportunity to meet some great people, ufc fighters, Arnold, Sly Stalone, Snooki from Jersey Shore! Still I'm glad to be home enjoying some R&R. Even though I couldn't sit still and 30 minutes after I walked in the door I walked back out to go for a run at the gym. The weekend inspired me to push to get my six pack back. Maybe next year I will be working a booth instead of coaching! You never know.

So once again the tool box...formely known as Ryan, is exactly that once again...a tool. I am only going to explain to you this story because I know that a year from now Michele, you will look back and laugh at your idiocracy. After all, what are experiences except for a fancy word for mistake?

So I drop him off at work Friday, before I am getting ready to go home and pack and leave for Columbus and the idiot leaves his phone in my car. I am pissed because not only do I have to turn around and get it back to him, but he was working a Cavs game. How was I supposed to finagle this one off? Why on the phone with him, an Amanda texts and says she needs directions to this party that he invited her to. Let me tell you...Curiosity did kill the cat, but satisfaction brings him back. I solidified the answer to following my gut on this one. He is of course simply a womanizer whom is incapable of having any sense of real or raw feelings for any human being, let alone a person of the opposite sex. I of course told him to never call me again. He of course text that he missed me. I ignored him and now he will not speak to me. I know he will not speak to me because I am an idiot and text him today and there is no response three hours later. Perhaps I don't need a response. This time feels different anyway. Times before when I would not hear from him or he would go MIA, I always had this feeling in my gut that it wasn't over. I would once again hear from him and things would be different. Not this time though, this time I can tell it is over. So I decided what I need to do is stop wasting time on men. Then maybe I will meet someone I can fall in love with. I am going to keep working out. I am going to keep applying for part time jobs so I can make extra money and keep up on my shopping addiction and if in the meantime someone great comes along...I will be ready for them! Well blogger I am going to finish up some stuff for the night and relax by watching a little television and then go to bed. Of course the work week starts back up again.

Finally Free!!!

So I may have been robbing Peter to pay Paul, but Peter had a better interest rate so I couldn't resist! I PAID OFF MY CREDIT CARD! The only debt I now have is student loan debt, which if I calculate correctly is about 10 grand. A little more, but that rounded figure makes me feel better. I have never been without a credit card since I was 18. That is 6 years that I have had a credit card payment every month and for what? I cannot name one thing that I have bought with my credit card. Tuition? Books? Shoes? My Louis Vouiton that I ended up giving away. All of it, such a waste of money. I feel so liberated right now that it almost brought tears to my eyes.

WINNER!

Gut...you win...I bow down to your ability to wrestle with both the heart and the mind. I am not sure which one is harder to take at times but I know it was a struggle. I know it will still be a struggle. Lucky for the mind, it is leaving town tomorrow for a few days...lucky for the heart, absence does not always make it grow fonder. Unfortunately for you, it will be harder to kick this habit, but you will try and eventually prevail. Keep up the great work!

Curse of the BBM

Monday was a good day. I did not tell Ryan what I had previously posted, simply because I sleep on everything and something in my heart would not let my head irrationally say the things that half a bottle of wine and the feminist Sex and the City movie would have me say. Instead I held out and it seemed Monday that I had made the right decision. Come Monday when he called, whether in the right state of mind or not, he said the thing I suppose that I have been waiting seven months to hear. "I'm going to get my shit together. My goal is to be driving by the end of the month. I want to take YOU out on a date. A real date. I pick you up, pay for dinner, kind of date because I am really starting to like you a lot and I want to do this right." All I could do is smile, because even though I have been wanting to hear that for so long, actions always speak louder than words. I cannot explain to myself sometimes what it is that I am feeling. It is something in my heart that believe that deep down he is a good person who has just had some rough breaks. Everyone deserves a little help, I have had to have help. We have all been in dark places in our lives and my only hope is that he learns from his experience and it is as life changing for him as it was for me. But life changing for whom? I cannot help but think. When he does get his life together, am I the one who is going to suffer? Is he going to want to find someone or something else? Because it has been in my experience that this is what happens. You forget those that help you, because you cannot be in love with this people. You feel forever debted to them and for some reason, those are the people you feel sorry for, not the people you want to love and spend time with. Take for example Scott. The only reason I stayed with him for so long and tried to make it work a second time around is simply because I felt obligated. He was there for the good times and the hard times, and I felt as if I at least owed it to him to try and make it work because I knew he loved me. It didn't work. Plain and simply because I wanted to meet someone when the chips were up, not down. Will this be the case with him? He needs me now. I know if I wasn't in his life he would find a way to get by, as he always does and this is how I go back and forth in my head. He needs you, no he doesn't, he WANTS you. Someone else could help him, he would find a way, but he wants YOU because he wants to be with you. If this is the case then why, on days like today, do I have this anxious feeling in my stomach that makes me think otherwise. I mean in reality, we still do not know what it is that we are doing. Are we dating? Should I keep my options open? Do you keep your options open?

This was prompted by thoughts of a few things this morning. I read this article the other day about wife fluffers (No not what you are thinking). These are the girls men date right before they settle down. This, in my experience, fits my description to a tee. There was Jake, got married right after we broke up. Scott, found and amazing girlfriend right after we broke up. Ronnie, again, serious relationship right after we broke up. Justin (both of them) serious relationships upon the ending of ours. I am a wife fluffer. Or at the very least, a girlfriend fluffer. Everything in the relationship that I wanted them to do for me, that they didn't, that caused our break up, they ended up doing for someone else directly after me. Am I just a girlfriend fluffer for this one? He will keep me around until his shit is together and then leave me for the girl of his dreams. Am I taking him to work so he can make money to spend on the potential love of his life. What is so wrong with me that I cannot meet a guy who wants to do these things for me? Is it because I have about given up? I do not give ultimatums, I do not nag, I do not ask? I feel like someone should want to do these things for someone they like, love, whatever word fits the situation at the time.

My situation is also touchy because of the dreaded BBM. No, not black berry messager, the Bad Baby Mamma. Yes, he has a daughter. You would think the the BBM situation would be easy because luckily for me she lives in New Mexico. However, we ended our relationship the first time because the BBM came home and stayed with him. My early morning indescretion proved that it was not a friendly platonic visit, but one filled of sexual experiences and potential makeups. They tried to make it work again, it didn't, and now they "moved on." Or have they? He loves her. How do you replace that kind of love? I don't think that I can and I don't know if I have the energy to try.

I need to go study for my exam. I just had to get this off my chest before I did or it would be all I could focus on. Columbus all weekend for the Arnold Classic, where ironically enough the love of my life will be, along with the random from the summer. Oh how destiny loves to laugh in my face. First we find ourselves missing each other in every location, then I move across the street and now we will be at the same location all weekend long, hours away from home. I think I will leave this one up to fate and if I run into him, I run into him. Bye for now blogger!