So, I had one of the worst weekends in my life, and things aren't getting too much better. I am handling things surprisingly well, especially for me, but I'm just glad school is starting soon so I don't have to think about anything.
Okay, so when I last wrote, Ben and I had decided to stay together blah blah. He called me on Monday and Tuesday and then he passed my test by asking me to hang out with him on Wednesday. Wednesday was a good day. I went to do interviews for a position at my school, which was really interesting (some people have NO CLUE how to act in an interview). We got to go out to lunch and we all agreed on the best candidate for the position, so that all went really well. Then I met up with Justin for dinner and then went to see Liz Phair at the Doug Fir. It was general admission, but they had it set up with chairs instead of standing up. It was so great! Justin and I were the first people in the door, so we got seats in the first row, right in front of where Liz and Dino were performing. It was so cool to be that close! It was an acoustic thing, so they both just had guitars. Overall it was amazing. I was so happy I got to go, and Justin had fun, too. She always looks around at the audience members and smiles and looks into your eyes as she sings, so Justin was all convinced she was doing it specifically for him. It was kind of funny. Anyway, after that I went over to Ben's house and we had a really good time together, and I spent the night at his house. I felt like things were going really well. The next morning I asked him if he wanted to hang out this weekend, and he said yes. Then I mentioned that on Saturday my brother would be playing with one of his bands and that maybe we could go to that. He said okay, and then I said if he would rather do something another time during the weekend that would work, too.
So I felt good about that. Anyway, that night I talked to my brother and found out when the show would be, so I called and left a message for Ben about the times. Ben had basketball practice after work, so I knew he wouldn't be home until late.
So the next day was Friday and I didn't hear from him at all. I didn't call him either. I figured he would let me know the next day if he wanted to go with me.
Let me interrupt the Ben stuff with why Friday night sucked so badly for me. I live on the third floor of an apartment building (with raised ceilings), and I have a third floor balcony. My cat likes to go out on the balcony, and from there has jumped on the roof. She has a harness that I got her, but she has figured out how to escape from the harness. But every time that she's gone on the roof she comes back down and is fine, so I thought maybe it was okay to just let her go out there. It isn't that steep, and I thought she would be okay. Well, what happened was that I let her on the porch at around 11 PM and then was on my computer and suddenly heard her meowing forlornly. It sounded really near to where I was (in the other room). I went out and called to her, but she was nowhere to be found. I couldn't see her on the roof but I could still hear her. She sounded really far away and I tried calling her. I had no idea where she was or if she was hurt, so I went down to see if I could see her from the ground. I couldn't. I went into the second bedroom of my apartment and realized what had happened. There is a separate roof that is lower down, because the ceilings aren't raised in the bedrooms of the apartment. So she jumped down to the lower roof area and couldn't get back up because it was too high for her to jump up. So she is basically stuck far away from me, but I had no idea how far down it was. So I called my mom to come help me figure out what to do. The neighbor across the way was shining his flashlight to see what was going on, so he was calling out a running commentary about what he thought I should do.
So my mom came over and we tried to figure out if one of us could get up on the roof but we decided it was probably too dangerous. I called the non emergency fire line and asked if they could come out, and they said that they don't do that. They said that the cat will eventually get hungry and figure out a way to get back. I had no idea what to do, and we just kind of called to her and hoped she would figure out how to come back. Meanwhile, she was crying and scared. I could see her out of one of the windows to the roof, but I wasn't close enough to reach her. I knew she wasn't hurt because she ran toward me when I looked out the window. She was about ten-twelve feet away at an angle, but there wasn't really a way to reach her, and my apartment is so far up that I was scared of her falling, too.
Finally, the neighbor from across the way came and knocked on the door. He wanted to get up on the roof and see if he could get her, so he did. He said that the drop to the other roof was about five feet down, so he couldn't reach her. He tried to reach her and then we gave him a basket with rope to try to get her in, but she was scared of him. Finally, he gave up and went home, after struggling to get back down off the roof. I was pretty upset and distraught by this time.
Next my mom called back the fire department dispatcher and explained that there was no way for her to get back up since it was too high. The dispatcher talked to her supervisor, who said we could call back at 7 AM and see if they might be able to send someone to help. At this point it was probably 12:30 AM, and my cat was still outside crying and scared. My mom thought maybe we could find a way to get something out the window for her to crawl over on. She took out the screen, and I thought maybe my cat could crawl over on the sliding door screen if it was taken off and was long enough. So we took that off and my mom put it over there to see if it was long enough. Well, it wasn't long enough to reach the window we were at and the roof, so she was holding her arms out the window. Even if my cat crawled over, I wouldn't be able to reach her and it was so far down. Unfortunately, my cat was so eager to come to us that she got on the screen right away and started walking toward us. Since there was no way to get her once she got to us, I was freaking out. I started having a panic attack because I was so afraid she would fall down. Finally, my mom was able to get her to go back to the roof. It made me feel even worse when I saw how badly my kitty wanted to come to us.
At this point there was nothing left to do, so my mom thought I should try to get some sleep until I could call the next morning. It was too hard to sleep, though, because my cat was basically on the roof right above my bedroom window and she was crying all night. I kept talking to her and telling her she would be okay, and I probably got an hour of sleep. I had dreams about her figuring out a way to get to me, too.
I finally got to call at 7 AM, and first they said that they didn't come out for that again, but then they said to call back at 8 AM because the fire liasson would be in at that point. So at 8 AM, they finally agreed to send out the fire truck. Three firemen and one woman came, and I showed them where she was. They ended up using an attic ladder to get up on the roof, and then they were able to get her down. The first time they tried to hand her off, she managed to escape and ran back over the roof and jumped off the edge to the lower roof again. The second time they used a towel and grabbed her. She was so scared that she was spitting and shaking, but finally they put her in my arms. I was so relieved. She ended up being really scared and hungry, but basically okay. The firemen/women were really nice about it, and I felt really grateful that they actually came out when it was supposedly against policy.
Anyway, that was my terrible Friday night, so I was really looking forward to seeing Ben on Saturday and telling him what happened. I called him at about 10 AM and left a message that said that I had a horrible night (I was almost crying) and that I wanted to tell him about it, but also I was wondering if he wanted to go with me or not that night. Then I went to sleep.
It got later and later, and I started having a really big fear that not only was he not going to go, he also wasn't going to call me to tell me. He has cancelled plans with me before, but he hasn't ever not called or stood me up. I couldn't believe he would do that, but I hadn't heard from him. I finally called him at 5 PM to see, but just got his voice mail. I was really, really upset. I ended up spending the rest of the evening crying. Once it got too late for him to call and tell me, I gave up on going (I feel horrible because I told my brother I was going, but I was too upset to even call him). I wasn't just upset about him blowing me off, I realized that this was basically the end of our relationship, unless something really bad had happened. I can't let someone treat me like that, so I knew I would have to break up with him. I also knew that him doing that probably meant that he didn't care about me all that much. So that was why I was so distraught and spent so much time crying. Ultimately, Justin came over and we rented a movie, and I fell asleep.
I thought for sure that he would call the next morning to give me whatever excuse he had, but he didn't. So I spent the rest of the day crying and talking with friends about the situation, just hoping he would call me. I went over to my mom's house so I wouldn't be so upset by myself. My mom thought maybe something bad had happened to him. I didn't want to call again from my cell phone because I felt stupid calling him AGAIN if he didn't answer, so I decided to call him from my mom's phone. He answered the phone and I asked him what was going on. He said that he was having some family stuff going on and he had been at his parents' all weekend. He didn't sound like he wanted to talk to me at all, and he didn't tell me what was going on. I asked when we could talk about stuff and he said when he came back to town he would call me. I also asked why he hadn't called me to tell me he couldn't go and he said he was sorry but it didn't sound sincere. Because of the way that he was talking, I really felt like he didn't like me and I ended up saying that if he didn't want to do this he needed to say so. He said he would call me later on. I knew that if he didn't break up with me I needed to break up with him.
I figured he probably wouldn't come home until the next day because he didn't have to work until 11:30 AM. I was right. What ended up happening is I went to a meeting at school and he called at 11:15 AM on the way to work. I asked if things were okay with his family and he said not really, but he didn't elaborate. Then he said that he didn't think things would work out. I was walking out to my car at this point. I said that I didn't think things would work out either, but I wanted to know why. I said I didn't understand how he had acted like he liked me so much on Wednesday and then he would do something like blow me off over the weekend. I told him how I thought maybe that was his way of breaking up with me--not ever calling again. I also had asked if he still had feelings for me, and he said yes, but that this was the last thing on his mind because of all the family stuff that was happening. I still wanted to say some of the things I had planned on saying when I broke up with him, so I started talking about how he wasn't willing to put out an effort. I said that it was mean of him not to call me and check on me when he knew on Thursday that I was sick, then how he should have called to find out what happened when I left him that message about the terrible night, and then not even calling to tell me that he couldn't come when he had enough time to pick up the phone when I called. Well, he interrupted me at this point to say/yell, "The reason why I didn't call is because my grandmother passed away this weekend, so I'm sorry I couldn't call you to ask how your weekend was!" Of course, I was shocked and felt HORRIBLE. I said, "I'm so sorry, but how would I have known that? I had no idea and you didn't tell me!" I started crying as I said that. He said that he hadn't told me the day before because she was still with them when I called, and that he hadn't told me today because he didn't think things would work out anyway. I felt so bad that he wasn't even planning on telling me. Then he continued saying that that, along with all of his other family stuff, was all he had time to think about and that I was the last thing on his mind. It was pretty hurtful. He said he couldn't deal with our relationship anymore. Finally, I said that I had some stuff at his house, so could I come get it. I also said it was pretty hurtful that he broke up with me in the fifteen minutes that it takes him to drive to work, and that he was acting like he hated me.
So that really, really sucked. I felt really bad that I gave him a hard time when he was already feeling so horrible, but at the same time I really had no way of knowing what had happened. I guess I could have assumed that he wouldn't blow me off without having a really good reason, but since he didn't tell me and acted so mysterious about everything, I thought he was just being an insensitive jerk.
So he did agree that I could come that night to get my stuff. I spent the day thinking about what I could say to him, because I couldn't go over there until 8:15. Finally, I went and got him a sympathy card and flowers (the most manly ones I could find) for his grandmother's death. I knew that he was really close to her because he had mentioned it before and because the only framed picture in his house is of him hugging her.
I also wanted to talk to him a little bit about the breakup, because it was pretty devastating for me, especially since just last week he said he didn't want to hurt me. Anyway, the breakup ended up being the strangest breakup ever. I went over there and gave him the card and flowers. Then I said how sorry I was about his grandmother and how I would never have said those things to add to his pain and stress if I had known. I started crying right then. He obviously had realized he was being unfair earlier because he said it wasn't my fault and that I didn't know. I asked how he was doing and he said he was doing okay but that it was the first person close to him who had died so he didn't really know how to deal with it. Then I just asked him if I could talk to him for a little bit.
We sat down and I didn't know how to begin, so he ended up starting the conversation. He said he was really sorry that he made me feel bad earlier by saying that I was the last thing on his mind. He said that this on top of everything else felt like everything was piling on. Then he talked about how the handwriting analysis I had done and emailed to him was really true (he was referring to the part about how he has secrets that he won't share with people, and he doesn't like to burden anyone with his problems). He talked about all his family problems and that it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I just sat there and listened to him describe most of the things that had been going on besides his grandmother. I was kind of comforting him by rubbing his arm and leg while he was talking. Then he started telling me a few stories about his grandmother and he started crying a little bit. And you know how it is when a boy cries, it just makes them so endearing and you just want to take care of them, and you feel like you love them so much. Or that's how it is for me. Anyway, he started hugging me, so I just kind of held him. It was so weird because we were breaking up, but I was comforting him about what he was going through.
Anyway, we did talk a little bit about the breakup, too, and I asked if he would have wanted to break up if it wasn't for all of this stuff and he said probably not (I don't know if I believe him or not). I also said I wished he would let me there for him, and we talked about being friends. Last week I had said that I didn't want to be friends with him, and he brought that up. I said that it is hard to be friends with someone you want to have sex with. He said he would leave it up to me, but he did want to be friends. I did ask him if he was sure he wanted to do this, and he said yeah, because he had so much going on he couldn't even think about us. Anyway, finally I ended up leaving. I cried a little bit with him about breaking up, but mostly it was all about what he was going through.
Anyway, it really, really sucked because if he is being honest, he is pushing me away because of all of his problems, when I would really like to be there for him. I know he still has feelings for me, but I am not sure if he is just using this as an excuse becaue he doesn't like me enough. Part of me really hopes that we stay friends and maybe someday we might get back together. I am not really sure what being friends with him would be like, but maybe he will realize that he made a mistake. I kind of doubt it, but I really wish he would. If he got to a point where he had more time for me, I really think things could be good between us. When we are together he acts like he likes me so much, it's just that we aren't together that much anymore. Anyway, I told him to call me when he can. He has to go to his parents for the funeral and all of that stuff, not to mention all of the other family stuff that has been going on, so he really will be incredibly busy.
Anyway, part of me feels like some of the problem was me and my insecurities from past relationships. He might not have broken up with me if I didn't keep saying, "Are you sure you still like me, do you want to break up with me?" blah blah. But what's done is done. I know I wasn't completely reacting to nothing--he didn't have time for me, and spent less time with me than he did in the beginning, so I was reacting to that. I also think that he didn't like me as much as I liked him, but I felt after our conversation that part of is was that he doesn't express himself as much as I do (he hadn't even told me his grandmother was sick, he just constantly alluded to various problems).
I did feel glad that I could comfort him during that short time, and I really hope he does try to stay friends with me. I really feel like I could fall in love with him. He is so funny and sweet most of the time.
Anyway, so I'm single again and it sucks. Part of it is losing him, and part of it is feeling like I once again rushed into stuff and trusted someone so much. I really thought he was it from the way that things started out, but I guess I have learned that things ALWAYS start off well. I need some time alone to really deal with my issues. I think that was one of the biggest problems we had--my issues and insecurities. I thought he liked me enough to deal with it, but he has his own stuff going on, too.
Anyway, my biggest hope is that maybe someday we will get back together, but I can't count on it at all. I am going to try to date again (maybe I will try Craigslist again), and see what happens. The best thing about this relationship is that I don't think he's a jerk like the last two guys. We really cared about each other, even if I did get more attached than he did. I hope he figures out he made a mistake, but if not maybe we will be friends.
I am just so sad that I won't get to kiss him or be close with him that way again. I do feel a little relief, though, that I don't have to constantly worry about whether or not he is going to break up with me. Ugh. I am such the epitome of self-fulfilling prophecies. Poor me.
So my friend Jasmine and I worked out our problems and have been talking on a more regular basis. She thinks I should try therapy again, and told me that she went to therapy five days a week for three years. I had no idea! I am thinking of doing it, but I really can't afford it right now. I am so out of control with my budget it is not funny. But I guess that I should try that before doing plan B, which is to go on anti-depressants. I just have felt so bad lately, like I will never, ever be happy.
I actually have felt somewhat okay the past two days. I did all my crying on Saturday-Sunday-Monday, so I was all cried out on Tuesday and today. I miss him so much, but I guess I am dealing with it okay.
And on top of everything, I finally decided to face my car-wash fears, and I had a bad thing happen to my car when I went. I always fear going through the car wash because of how you have to put it in neutral and I am afraid I will mess up somehow. Well, I went to the car wash and he started directing me into the car wash and then I heard a loud crunching sound and the workers told me to stop and back up. The splashguard got all scraped up and part of it was hanging down, which they said happened because my car was too low. I had taken my car to the other Ecocarwash place before and told them so. Anyway, I had to fill out an incident report, and they BETTER PAY FOR IT TO BE FIXED. They also couldn't refund my money, so they better give me my five dollars back. I was so pissed and felt so angry at myself and fate. If I had just gone to the one by my house it wouldn't have happened, because the guy said that the thing was lower there. They also tried to say that it couldn't have gotten damaged there, but we all heard the crunch, so they better not try to get out of paying for it. I think maybe it was just them directing me badly or something. Anyway, that really sucked, and the manager better call me and get it fixed. It's just another thing to worry about, and I feel like I have enough to deal with right now.
Luckily, my brother's other band is playing on Thursday, so I can explain to him why I wasn't at his first show. I think he will understand my broken heart.
The thing about this whole thing is that it is the third time I have gotten dumped in my 27th year. 27 has been the worst year ever. I am so glad my birthday is coming up soon. The other good thing about breaking up with Ben, if there is anything, is I won't have to worry about my birthday. Last year I was seeing Nathan. Nathan and my other work friends took me out for my birthday, but Nathan didn't end up buying me a present or anything special on my actual birthday. I was so sad about it, especially since back when we were just friends I had gotten him a birthday present. I was worried that my birthday this year would be similar, like Ben wouldn't remember or he wouldn't be able to go out on the day I wanted to celebrate, or he wouldn't get me a present. I get so worked up over my birthday anyway, that I never have a good one. This way I won't have to deal with worrying about that. So that is one of the small things that is good about breaking up. This would be the same way if I was still seeing Jose, so I'm glad I'm not (although he had promised me a Hello Kitty cake when we were still seeing each other).
Okay, enough with the mega entry (my thumb actually hurts from typing). I'm sad, but I'll survive, like I always do. PLEASE LET YEAR 28 BE BETTER!
