Night Cap Re Cap

Whew!  Now that I have had a little cheese to go with my wine, I will let you in on a little recap of some happier occurrences. 

The last week of work before Christmas was a breeze and bountiful on the gluttonous holiday office eating.  Biggest news of all: I recieved a HUGE end-of-year bonus.  It is no exaggeration to say it was ten-fold what I have ever recieved before.  Though the money is gratefully accepted, this is huge for reasons beyond the cash.  My company means the world to me and this is testament that we are finally succeeding in our fourth official year.  Furthermore, I am finally feeling compensated for my work.  This certainly helps to partly ease the almost-thirty-freak-the-fuck-out.  Though I promise; I'm still bat shit crazy enough to keep you entertained.

That bonus?  It was given to me about an hour before I left for an eleven day vacation.  Yep, hate me now.  This is the most consecutive days off I have taken in almost three years, so much needed, and deserved if I do say so myself.  I am currently sitting on a couch in my family's beautiful mountain cabin.  Yes, I know, I was just bitching about them.  But damn, do I love these people.  The last few days have been all about playing cards with my cousins. Frolicing in the snow with our dogs.  Cooking and eating insanely delicious meals.  Sleeping in next to a cozy fireplace.  If there is an afterlife, I sure as hell hope it looks something like this.

Last but most certainly not least, there is The Writer.  Oh boy.  This man may have me in for a doozy.  Last I time I gushed, I shared with you the events of Date #3.  Since then, we were able to spend a little more time together before we each left town to celebrate Christmas with our families.  Our most recent "date" was really more of a movie night at his aparment.  Of course, neither of us wanted the night to end so I stayed way past my bedtime.  At one point, he looked me dead in the eye and said "I really like you" then proceeded to rattle off ten reasons why.  Really?  This kind of romantic shit does not happen to me.  It's like my own real life version of Love Actually. We have continued the tooth-rottingly-sweet converstaion cross country via text messages and phone calls.  Thank god for my unlimited everything plan.  He is also my confirmed date for New Year's Eve.  Christ on a fucking stick.  I think I might be falling for him.  And yes, I have kept my panties on.  Yay, willpower!

The Kids' Table

I know I have sucked at blogging this week.  My sincerest apologies as I have been just itching to write. I certainly hope everyone has enjoyed their holidays thus far.

The main reason for my lack of posting has been a lack of material.  My other excuse is I am currently on vacation in my family's mountain cabin where the bandwidth has been in short supply.  Which brings me to this current post for your reading pleasure.  Looking back at my very first post, this whole blogging experiment is to help me sort out exactly what I have done with the last decade of my life while preparing myself for the next.  And yes, I am in a bit of a freak out knowing my time in my 20's is running out.  My family certainly doesn't help with that anxiety.

Let me firstly say, I love my family.  I abnormally love my family.  We are all amazingly close to where even friends have commented it's a little freakish.  Just last night, some cousins and I were joking that we are perhaps more accurately considered a cult than a family.  The blessed life I have had would be impossible without them.  But here's the thing, I am almost 30 years old. (I know, I'm beating the dead horse with that one.)  Yet, although I am the oldest member of my generation in my family, I am still treated much the same as the other members of this generation.  My family is young.  I have an uncle less than 10 years older than me.  His wife is only 4 years older than me.  An aunt of mine is the same age as my last serious boyfriend.  However, they are in The Grown Up group.  And I am left somewhere at The Kids' Table.     

Yeah, it's unfair when I don't get offered a glass of wine because the host or hostess "forgets" I am 7 years over the legal drinking age in our state.  And yes, it's unfair that I don't get introduced or included in meetings and conversations with adult family friends and neighbors. I must admit though, if I were to tell my parents how I feel about this issue, they would hammer home the following:

•  You didn't finish college so you aren't a grown up.
•  Because you didn't finish college and get an engineering job, we still have to help support you so you aren't a grown up.
• You don't have a mortgage so you aren't a grown up.
• You aren't married so you aren't a grown up.
• You don't have children of your own so you aren't a grown up.
•  If you were a grown up, you would be paying for this cabin. So you aren't a grown up.

Fuck!  No wonder I have a complex and insanely major anxiety about turning 30!  What about 40?  Will I still be at the Kids' Table at 50?  Am I required to have a high paying job, husband, home owners insurance and children to finally be considered an adult member of this family? I feel stuck somewhere in limbo.  In a parallel universe.  Alone amongst my own people.  Truly, I feel like shit about myself.  This is just more proof at how much I suck at life and what a failure my 20's have been. 

Date #3 with The Writer

Happy Monday everyone!  May you have a wonderful start to your week!

The Writer and I shared Date #3 on Saturday.  He came to my town where we had dinner and stopped by a Holiday party / Charity benefit / Concert some friends of mine were hosting. That also means I ended up introducing him to a handful of my social circle.  Normally, it is no big deal for me to introduce a date to my friends.  In fact, that often happens on the first or second meet ups.  For some reason though, I feel the need to keep my time with The Writer personal.  I want to keep him all to myself.  My friends are great and welcoming people so I certainly do not feel worried about him getting to know them.  More that I just want to fully devote my attention to him when we are together. 

Upon leaving the gathering, we came back to my house where we shared pictures and our favorite funny videos with one another.  Naturally, we also made out like teenagers until 3:00 a.m.  Though it has not become a subject of conversation between us yet, I have decided to keep my knickers on until we are an exclusive item and have had a mutual conversation explicitly naming us as so.  I foresee this becoming a challenge as firstly, I am not great at expressing my emotional desires to men.  Rather than having an adult conversation and leave myself vulnerable to potential rejection, I seem to withhold my feelings while only hoping (but never knowing) he feels the same way.  Secondly, I find him insanely charming and handsome and my willpower to resist a man like him could be fairly weak.  Damn it all; I will put my heart before my libido this time.  Dare I say, I am beginning to really like The Writer do not want to risk falling into casual sex with him.

We are going out again tonight for a film screening in the city.  Our courtship makes me feel special.  His writing seems to provide him with perks and invitations to fun events.  The idea of him asking moi to be his date, is quite flattering. 

Merry Christmas, Baby

The holidays can prove to be so painful for so many people.  The guilt of having more when some have so much less.  Memories of better times, worse times, lonely times.  Regretful times.  I am in this group of people who find it excruciatingly difficult to get into the spirit most years.

Upon the end of my first real relationship, my devastation drove me to make some of the most dumb-fuck decisions of my life.  I ran to the arms, and eventually the bed, of my closest male friend, Patriot.  I paid for it.  Dearly.  If the whole situation wasn't irresponsible enough, we made it even more so during our "therapeutic sack sessions".  After a long night of tequila shots with my best girl, Trinity, I hungover-ly mentioned that I was late on my period.  So as normal girls do, we stumble our asses to the grocery store for some breakfast fixings and a piss stick.  As Trinity lovingly makes me biscuits, I holler from the bathroom "Hey, what does 2 lines mean?"

So there I was.  A heart broken, drunken mess.  Young, impregnated by my fuck-buddy.  Scared shitless. Of course, I immediately called Patriot.  Well before breakfast was even finished.  He was my one of my closest friends after all.  He would figure this out with me right?  Well, he actually did NOT completely freak out over the phone like I expected.  Instead, he was totally calm and said "You know, when the phone rang, I had a feeling it was you calling for this reason." 

I told my parents the day I found out I was pregnant.  Being the rock stars they are they simply said "We love you and whatever you want to do, we will support you".  Patriot on the other hand, came from a guilt ridden, strict, Catholic family and kept mum. We went back and forth over what to do.  We both have pro-choice views so we had options.  We also felt as adults we should just put on our big kid pants and become parents.  After a couple of weeks of this back and forth, we decided that we were just too unprepared, would likely make miserable parents and each of us had big plans for our lives.  We made an appointment to have a medical abortion.  We would go into a clinic, undergo a few minutes of "are you sure" questioning, I would swallow a pill there, go home to take the rest of the pills and wait out the bloody results.

The evening before the appointment, I called Patriot in hysterics and he immediately rushed over.  I was having doubts.  So was he.  We changed our game-plan entirely.  He called his Catholic parents to tell them they would be Grandparents. Fast forward to 9 weeks gestation and only a few days before Christmas, I miscarried their grandchild alone in my apartment. 

To this day, I think of the result as a blessing.  A bullet dodged.  Patriot and I are civil but no longer close and I am thankful I am not tied to him for the rest of my days.  At present, I am not sure if I even WANT to have children.  Ever.  I am content with only having a dog to depend on me. I have had a lot of fun and many experiences that would have not been possible with a little one in tow.  I am thankful with every ounce of my being that I don't have a 4 year old looking up to me, aspiring to one day make a mess of themselves just as mommy did. 

There is still though, a feeling of inadequacy.  Feeling less than a woman.  If I am unable to accomplish the one and only task I was biologically put on this Earth to do, then why am I here?  And of course, there is the sadness and a sense of loss from the trauma.  Postpartum Depression is widely known and accepted as a real medical emergency.  These women could be of danger to themselves and their children.  Studies show the bonding of mother and child during breast feeding can help alleviate the symptoms.  What about the women suffering with Postpartum Depression who have no baby to bond with?  The body goes through the same hormone spikes and drops (maybe more so) during a miscarriage.  I can say for certainty that even at 9 weeks, I felt mild contractions.  My cervix hurt for weeks afterward.  I technically, gave birth to an albeit tiny, baby.  PPD was indeed VERY real in my case.  I did not change out of my stinky bathrobe for nearly 2 months. 

The world is sympathetic to women who lose their intended and welcomed pregnancies.  But when it is a miscarriage of an unintended pregnancy, the woman is left feeling less deserving of the same sympathy and support.  There is a fear of hearing "Well you didn't really want it anyway".  And asking for support?  Saying "I got drunk and knocked up during a slut phase."  Forget about it.

The shame.

Patriot is now married with a healthy baby girl.  I am happy for him.  But seeing the random photo of the beautiful little girl on my Facebook news feed every so often, strikes a pang in my heart that only few people could imagine.

Nerd Bingo

I was off work yesterday and while the day proved to not be very productive, it did fall into my other goal categories of happiness, health and newness.

My happiness of the day started from helping a good friend of who recently injured himself. While his girlfriend is away for work, he needs a little help getting around.  I picked him up and helped him through the grocery store so he could wait out the last few days at home until his lady arrives. Yeah, I'm the nurturer type who gets happy from "mothering". 

Then it was off to Sister's house for a lazy fest while watching a marathon of one of our favorite shows.  I did say yesterday was not very productive.  Although most would not conjure up images of health while consuming an entire jar of Queso Dip in our jammies with the curtains shut, it most certainly was.  In the mental sense.  You see, my sister is one of the most amazing and wonderful people on Earth.  Just being in her presence, let alone her home, makes me feel relaxed and recharged.  I often nod off to sleep on her couch because I can finally just chill.  Spending the day with Sister is just what I needed to tune out this hyperactive mind for a while.

*On the health note, yesterday also marked my 6 month anniversary off the dreadful cigarettes!  Over that time, I feel I racked up more than enough Health Karma to entitle me to sit on my indulgent ass for a day.  Yay me!

Eventually, Sister and I emerged from our cave to attend a friend's birthday party in a neighboring city.  At a bar I'd never been to.  Full of people.  Most of whom, I had never met.  Newness!  It was a complete blast and restored my faith in trying new things.  Baby steps.  These next 400 days could prove interesting if I keep this up.

Introducing The Writer

So I left out one minor detail when I said today (or yesterday, at this hour) was uneventful. That was intentional as The Writer (or future-demon) deserves his own post away from those demons.  
I got a text from The Writer this afternoon, inviting me out.  I had to decline as I already had plans - that were later canceled, of course.
A text from The Writer is a bit of an event.  Enough to put a smile on my face, at least.
We met via OKCupid and mutual friends.  So far I find him smart, funny, sarcastic, polite, well educated and handsome. 

• 1st date  - Quick cup of coffee.  Enjoyable conversation.
• 2nd date - Movie and a beer.  More enjoyable conversation.  First kiss.
• 3rd date - Happening this Saturday.  We'll see.  Too early to determine his intentions with me.  Exciting anyway.

The First Exorcism

Photo courtesy Veritas Pictures

Today was fairly uneventful.  So I figured it would be a good point to start the exorcism of demons (or exes as some like the call them).  In chronological order, here is the condensed version of the significant men of my 20's.

The Mack
Oh, The Mack.  My first real adult relationship.  The first time "Love" meant something beyond scribbling his name on my paper-bag covered Algebra book.  The Mack and I met during our early twenties, dated like normal grown ups and broke up for normal, grown up reasons. The Mack was everything I thought I wanted in a partner: good looking, charming, athletic, funny, compassionate and a good lover. Unfortunately for me and the future men I would meet, he set my first bar.  Which is why years after our breakup, I left Banjo for him.  Turns out What If? is overrated.  The Mack may have started me down the Yellow Brick Road of emotionally unavailable yet beautifully enticing men.  But he was and is a great guy and we are on good terms to this day.

Patriot
As benign as The Mack was in retrospect, it demolished my spirit when we broke up the first time.  So much that I quickly drank myself into oblivion with my best "guy friend".  Patriot began as nothing more than a shoulder to cry on and buddy to take shots with.  As it all too often happens with vulnerable and naive (and skunk drunk) girls, it eventually turned into a short and toxic tryst. The full story of Patriot is quite depressing and I am just too contented right now to get into it.  A Patriot dedicated post will come sooner than later.

Banjo
Poor Banjo.  He was my first Crazy. An alcoholic musician, he was fun as hell in the beginning.  Once the PBR Can Pyramid in his living room took over the recliner, view of the TV and pathway to the bathroom, I got bored.  We only dated a couple of months before my interest quickly lost steam.   Sadly, Banjo fell HARD for me.  When I returned from a few weeks out of the country to end things... let's just say he didn't adjust well.  He spent the next 2-3 years harassing and occasionally stalking me.  Eventually, via email I told him "Go Fuck Yourself or I'm getting a restraining order."  I hear he now has a nice girlfriend. 

Gator
Like The Mack, Gator was pretty benign.  He was and is a nice guy with whom I stay in touch.  However, I did not get out unscathed.  For just a little under a year, we spent nearly every other day with each other.  Befriended one another's social circle.  He got to know my family.  All that relationship-y stuff, right?  Well at End-Time, I was surprised to hear he never thought it was actually a relationship.  Hmmm.  Fast forward a few years and I have learned to love the mantra "It ain't exclusive until he says it is, Honey."  Little bit of fuckery but I got over it.

The Wrecking Ball
He entered my life with such intensity and force that when he left it, I was standing in a pile of rubble.  He gets his own post.  Another day.

Princess
Really, Princess doesn't entirely belong on this list as he was NOT a significant man in my life.  We only dated a brief period of time but the complete fuckery and hilarity of his story is just too good to omit.  To be kind, Princess is a steaming pile of his own vain, rose-smelling shit.  Our courtship was my first attempt at anything beyond booty-call-status since The Wrecking Ball.  After about 3 months of regular dating and a couple of "what are we" talks, I discover he had been exploring Polyamory.  What's more, I was enlightened by finding evidence rather than him telling me like a man.  The responsible adult would have considered this pertinent information to a budding relationship and would have disclosed it in the beginning.  I am not to judge the lifestyle choices of others, but polyamory is not my bag. 
Here is how our last conversation went:
P: Are you okay?  Why did you leave?  Are you mad at the book?
C: No, I am not mad at the book. I am mad at your explanation for it.  I feel gross and need to soak my vagina in bleach.
P: Don't feel that way.  There hasn't been anyone else since I met you.
C: Yet, you mean? How long would that have last?
P: I would have told you before I involved anyone else.  I still want you to be my Main Girlfriend.
C: Gross.  Listen, I have already been on the fence as to whether or not our thing is working for me.  This just sealed the deal for me.
P: Well, what if we date and just aren't intimate?
C: No.
P: Well can we be friends?
C: No.
P: This is why I didn't want to tell you.  I was afraid it would scare you away and you would want nothing to do with me.
C: You were right.
Good luck to Princess with his Harem.

What's Going On?

This shit's been going for almost a year. And just today I realized I have a little under 400 days left in my 20's. 393 to be exact.

Unfortunately for my mental well-being, society would have us believe what exactly twenty-somethings are supposed to be doing with their lives:
Graduating College
I stopped pursuing an Engineering degree to go full-time at a job I love but pays me barely enough to survive
Using College Degree to Obtain a Decent Paying Career
See above
Purchasing a Car
Thanks Dad!
Owning a Starter Home 
I rent a basement apartment I can barely afford
Falling in Love
The only long-term relationship I have managed to NOT completely fuck up would be the one I share with my dog
Starting Families (Or at least thinking about it)
Hah!

Honestly, I have perhaps always been a bit of a rebel.  Thus not exactly keen on what society or its authority expect of me. And I do enjoy my life.  I'm busier than hell, have a great group of friends, I love my job, my family members are close and amazing, and I have had the opportunity to love.   Yet at some point, I have begun to ask myself if I made the right choices?  Where did I go wrong?  Why am I here?  Does it get any easier?  WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

So here I am.  In my basement apartment snuggled to my dog. For the next 400 days, I will be chronicling what I do with the last of my Twenties, all the while exorcising the demons and bullshit that got me in this mess. Who knows?  Perhaps this will help build a less rocky foundation for my third decade at life. Sure is cheaper than a therapist.