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Home. Everyday this word takes on new meaning for me. I just got home after a week long vacation. As I was driving home tonight I realized that I am lucky to be where I’m at. There are so many people in this world who don’t get to drive home to family or friends. That don’t know what that feeling is like. It’s always bittersweet though. I didn’t want to live OKC and Darci. It makes me sad. And I am contemplating the idea of making a change depending on where this year may take me. It’s too early to tell. I have always thought that I had to move somewhere to have a real “life”. That I wasn’t really living if I wasn’t someplace besides where I grew up, someplace amazing like New York or Seattle. But after spending a week experiencing a new walk of life, I realized this is what life is all about. Being near your family and having close friends, even those only a flight away, taking vacation with your girlfriends while you’re young and single, sitting at mom’s on a Sunday afternoon eating BBQ and watching the dogs run. I’m living life and I must say I have a pretty nice one.

Vacation

After my week long vacation of rest, relaxation, friends, fun, sun, boys, and way too much partying. One thing has been on my mind since last week…Tommy. And trust me, it annoys the f*** out of me. Here I am in sin city having the time of my life and thinking about him. How dare he intrude on my thoughts when I was supposed to be having fun. And as I showered tonight after laying in the pool all day, I was wanting to talk to him about something I don’t know anyone else will be able to understand. I know I do things he doesn’t understand sometimes because he got to miss out on 3 years of my life. I want to look forward more than I look back, but I feel like I never really grieved the loss of the man I loved. It hurt too bad to process and so I just tucked it away. I ran as far in the other direction just so I wouldn’t hurt anymore. So here he is back in my life again. And now I’m being forced to deal with and process all the emotions I left behind.

I am thinking about it now because people say they are truly friends with an ex. But I know that Tommy will never be friends with me like Darci is friends with me or JO is friends with me. Joce cried with me when Tommy left the last time. She held me when I didn’t think I could go on. She supported me in my decision to run and supported me again on my decision to come back. She is the only one in the world who can calm me down and she does it without fail every time. Darci has seen me at my best and worst. She knows want I am capable of before I do. She laughs with me and supports me even when she knows I’m wrong. It truly was love at first sight. I have never seen more beautiful women then the ones I call my friends. I could never drive these girls away – Steph, Whit, Joce, Darci, Adrienne, Jamie, Jessy, Mikaila, Amanda – even though sometimes I’ve tried. But Tommy has walked out on me once. So what is to stop him from doing it again.

This is what I’m afraid of. Out loud and in the flesh. I don’t want to hurt like that again. I know that love means putting yourself out there and that sometimes means rejection. This experience with Tommy has jaded my whole love life to follow. I believe that someday it will happen to me. I am just so scared in the process. And I’m not a woman who gets scared. He’s got me turned into this insecure, blubbering girl. I can’t read him. I can read most men. But Tommy gives me nothing. I am angry with him still for moving on as quickly as he did. I am hurt for watching him walk out like he did. I am annoyed because he still gets to me as hard as I try to not let him. I feel like there is so much still there for me and he couldn’t give a f***.

So now what? How does one process all these feelings and move on. That’s where I’m at now. I want to. I want to process all these feelings and move on. I want to put Tommy behind me and look forward. He may be my past, but he’s not my future and since he’s made that perfectly clear shouldn’t that be enough. He doesn’t want me move on. But instead it’s like I’m trapped in limbo. I’m waiting for him to leave again so I don’t want to get close. But I miss him so much I don’t want to let him go again. He is the only man I have ever loved. Do you ever really move on? Maybe it just takes someone new to move on. Tommy moved on and fell in love again. Maybe that’s why this doesn’t bother him. Or maybe just cause he’s a man. How does someone just move from that kind of love to someone new? And if he doesn’t feel it maybe he never did and it’s all in my head. Sometimes I just think it’s all too much and if I just walk out first I won’t have to deal with all this bullsh*t anymore. But then it will just hunt me down in the future and do it again.

Hmm…looks like I’m up a creek.

The city

I took a walk tonight with the dogs. I've been working on making some big changes to my life and my attitude. So I've adopted a new positive outlook on life. Or at least I'm trying too. I have been reading a lot lately too. You know I love the library. I've been reading every night and one of my books said to find something that makes you ecstatic and do it for at least 10 minutes a day. I've wanted to start taking a pictures again so tonight I grabbed the camera and I grabbed the dogs and we left. So I just walked and took pictures of anything and everything that struck me as beautiful or different. It's amazing what you can find when you wander a little out of your comfort zone. I had no idea some of the houses in my area were so pretty and old. Some of them you wouldn't even believe we were in Salem. So as you now know, love is usually not far from my mind. I am a very passionate person. I feel like I am one of the most honest people in the world. I never lie. I don't see the point in it. And I live my life like this is who I am, deal with it. But there is this whole other side of me that is a people pleaser too. But that is in my head, which is one of the things I've been trying to stop. All the self-doubt and inconsistencies in my head. I got off topic :) So I'm walking along thinking about my trip to Vegas coming up this weekend and how all the girls going with me but one are married or engaged and I feel some doubt in my head that that will ever happen to me. So I'm thinking about all this as I'm taking pictures and walking with my dogs. I realize now that this is what I've been wanting for as long as I can remember. When I was growing up in high school and just beginning to think about the future. I wanted to be independent, have a dog and a job and live in the alone in the city. While some girls dream of a wedding and a man, that has never been on my mind. Along my path I was thinking I was making mistakes, but really everything that I have done has led me right here. I realize now that I felt I tried and failed at moving to my city. But now I realize Seattle just wasn't where I was ready to be. Now I am living in my city, in my random, completely non cookie cutter apartment, walking my two dogs through interesting old houses downtown. I have been so blinded by everything else in life, I didn't even realize it til I embarked on this journey of self-discovery. I wasn't ready for love. I couldn't appreciate a relationship when I was looking for myself still. I feel like I get the best of both worlds because I get to still look forward to what the future has for me and I get to enjoy all this great single time alone. I may never get this back. I do believe in marriage. I believe that two people can find each other when they are ready and make a relationship to last. But I also believe you have to be ready for that relationship or it will never work.

Bridal tip of the day: I cannot repeat this enough, DO NOT get caught up in all of the meaningless details. Try to focus on the reality of the relationship and the commitment you are making. Really this should be the first great party you throw together on your long path of life.

Feelings

I've been thinking a lot lately about the situation with Hank. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I was being a big girl and taking things too seriously. But I think that at some point sex is always serious. I think that women always over think the situation, we are prone to thinking about what we did wrong and how we could have done things differently. I haven't called or text him since. I've thought about it, everyday. It's funny with Jordan, I couldn't stop myself from calling or texting, with Hank I can't bring myself too. I'm feeling good, happy and healthy. I miss him. But I think that it's unfair to expect things to go back to normal or to try again if my heart's not really in it. I think I'm scared because I have been able to put the feelings away as if they were make believe. I think maybe they were. True feelings don't go away as easily as I feel these have. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe I'm just not willing to chance it. I don't want to ever feel the way that I did with him again. He hurt me and I guess that's all I need to know.

Change

All this time I realized and believed that things would change. I never thought that I was one of those things. But even from last year to now, I'm not the same. Every day that passes and every new experience is changing me. I see people from my past and I feel as though I don't fit with them anymore. I am different. I still enjoy hanging out with them, I'm just different. This has been on my mind for awhile thinking about how I am always afraid of everyone's reactions to everything I do. What if they put themselves in my shoes? How would they feel if they couldn't be themselves around me. If I was constantly judging them. I feel as though maybe it's selfish, but really I just don't think that much about other people, except when I am worried about their reaction. It makes me mad that some people can be so judgmental all the time. I'm just living my life. I believe that life is a gift and I am living. I make mistakes, just like everyone else, but it seems sometimes that mine are magnified. Everyone says I have the tendency to be a drama queen. But maybe my life is just more interesting. I think the point of relationships is to grow and change with each other along the way. That's why marriages and relationships fail, when one person doesn't change or doesn't like the new person someone has become. It's like with my family. For some reason it seems like they are critical of everything that I do. My horoscope today said that I should lower my expectations of people so they don't disappoint me. I've come to expect it now and I feel like now they've lost the opportunity to know what I'm doing most the time until after it's done. I do value their opinions, but at some point somethings got to give.

Patience

I was without internet for almost a month at home so I'm finally back on line. It's time now to start looking at the business again. Sue and I are meeting in a couple weeks to sort it out. I'm kind of excited. I had thought that it was never going to happen for me. I always think that if you work hard enough and you keep believing then it will. I think this is the year for me to take over. I am ready for it. I know what it takes and I have what it takes to do it. I just have to keep working at it and take the patience to wait and let it take shape on it's own. The recent turn of events has really helped me put my life and my work in perspective. Kira's wedding was last weekend and I worked morning to night for three days in a row. Not to mention all the preparation for the week of. I realized that I really do love what I do. I was tired and sore, emotionally and physically, and yet at 11 at night of day two I still had a smile on my face. I'm not sure I can or I want to do anything else. Life hit me hard this week. I finally had time to slow down and really feel everything that I had been thinking about over the past couple weeks. I was surprised by my ability to completely put everything else out of my mind and just focus on her. Everything went as well as we could expect. A few minor issues, like most weddings. I was down this week though once I finally had a moment to think about everything. But I'm doing okay. I'm going to be okay. Just have patience. Things will change.

Who knows

I don’t know if I know what I am doing. Part of me is saying yes, he’s wrong stay gone. Part of me is saying you’re crazy what is wrong with you he’s gone. I know that I’m not mistaken that I am feeling better since he’s been gone. I’m not low self esteem or anxious. I just live and work and breath like I did before I became one half of this unhealthy relationship. I think that this happens so much to us, maybe I’m really not serious when I think I am. I’ve been trying to leave for awhile now and he hasn’t let me. That is quite the revelation. Here I am thinking that he doesn’t care and doesn’t want me around. But he hasn’t let me go or held it against me that I try to leave once every other week. I don’t know. I know that I push people away and I know that maybe I could have worked it out if I had just taken another week off and not went to happy hour with JO. I had been thinking about it for awhile, but I could have never said anything without my liquid courage. But I guess now he knows. I don’t know why I feel the need to explain myself when no man has ever given me that courtesy. I think when I explain it to him, I am more trying to explain it and justify it to myself. But then again, only me and him know the real story. We can’t change it now though. It’s already happened and been brought to the surface and now once again I’m left to pick up the pieces. And that’s what started it all last night. I was so mad and DITM treating Joce like nothing that I was in an angry men who’ve wronged me mood. I was so hurt watching her deal and feeling her strength that it made me want to stand up for myself. I deserve to get what I want. And he deserves to get what he wants. Ryan used to tell me that it didn’t matter if some guy was the man of my dreams if I wasn’t the girl of his. True. Just doesn’t make it hurt any less.