Coming Full Circle

About 10 years ago, I was on the badminton team for the university. One day at practice, this gorgeous girl is just sitting there. Even though I had a girlfriend, I decide to approach her. It probably wasn't the most ethically decision, I didn't really think at the time there was any intent other than harmless chat.

Shortly after I would find out she was dating one of the guys on the badminton team. So I kind of left it along, but little did I know she would attend many practices and tournaments in future. I have to admit, that I got pretty excited when I saw that she was there. As I write this, I kind of sound like a jerk, considering at the time I was dating my now ex-girlfriend for a few years, who was away at university. But honestly, I can't think of too many instances where I'd be so excited to see somebody. Our friendship quickly grew, and we started getting closer and closer.

In hindsight, I was falling for her. My ex-girlfriend was always away, and she was extremely possessive at the time, and of course wanted nothing to do with my life and expected me to fold into hers. Whereas this girl, I was spending a lot of time together and she was hanging out with my friends and seemed genuinely interested in me. And the thing is, she knew fully well that I had a girlfriend, they did in fact meet a couple of times.

I was living in this huge moral dilemma filled with guilt. The whole badminton team thought I had broken the guy and her up. All my friends at school thought that she was my girlfriend (since they never met my actual girlfriend at the time). And some members of my family (mom in particular) really liked her a lot. I'm sure my ex had suspected something. The toughest thing of all was, all parties thought she liked me a lot.

Eventually everything came to an abrupt end. One day she was hanging out with me at my parents' house. Nobody else was home, and we were in my bedroom just chatting. It was time for her to go home, but she didn't want to... so she threw herself on my bed. At that very moment, I freaked out and told her she had to go home. I didn't call her for days. She eventually reached out and was really mad, and rightfully so. She didn't understand what I was going through. I told her we couldn't be friends anymore, and explained everything, except how I was feeling. She was upset and I was sad, but at the same time, I couldn't keep it up anymore. I had to choose, and I decided to stick with the girl I was technically with. It seemed like the stand up thing to do. I guess this might be one of the biggest regrets that I've ever had. While I still agree that my choice at the time was the moralistic choice, it probably was not the best choice emotionally.

Fast forward to present day. So I've been having a pretty rough 2012, as per my previous post. So I have my expiring eHarmony account, with one week left, guess who shows up as a match. Was I ever shocked. I wasn't too sure what to do with it. I didn't know if she was still upset. Or even if she would still remember me. After consulting a few sources, I decided to send her a message. She replied back fairly promptly, and to my surprise, not bitter. We exchanged a couple emails back and forth over a week. After talking to my mom, who went on to give me quite the lecture, I decided to ask to meet.

We met up last night, and she hadn't changed a bit. The first 5-10 minutes were a little awkward, but pretty soon we found out conversation groove. It was almost like old times again. I have to admit, I was pretty excited. Somewhere during our conversation, she made it quite clear that we were just friends meeting and it wasn't a date. While I found this deflating, I was just glad to be in her company and she didn't want to rip my arm off.

We ended off the night with the typical "we should do this again sometime". In this case, I definitely meant it. I can only hope that she did too. I'm doing my best not to look into things too deeply. It's completely possible that we may never see each other again, unfortunately it's something that I'll have to accept. It's something that I had accepted years ago up until a couple of weeks ago. So I don't know why it's so difficult to re-accept it now. Perhaps it's something that I accept, but will always regret.

This Should be Everybody's Anthem

Crush a bit, little bit, roll it up, take a hit
Feelin' lit, feelin' light, 2 a.m., summer night.
I don't care, hand on the wheel,
Drivin' drunk, I'm doin' my thing
Rollin in the Midwest side and out,
Livin' my life, getting' out dreams
People told me slow my roll,
I'm screaming out, fuck that
Imma do just what I want,
Lookin' ahead no turnin' back
If I fall, If I die,
Know I lived it to the fullest,
If I fall, if I die,
Know I lived and missed some bullets

CHORUS:
I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know,
Everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold
I'll be fine, once I get it, I'll be goooood.
I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know,
Everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold
I'll be fine, once I get it, I'll be goooood.

Tell me what you know about dreamin' (dreamin')
You don't really know about nothin' (nothin')
Tell me what you know about them night terrors, every night
5 a.m, cold sweats wakin' up, to the sky
Tell me what you know about dreams, dreams
Tell me what you know about night terrors, nothin'
You don't really care about the trials of tomorrow
Rather lay awake in a bed full of sorrow

CHORUS:
I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know,
Everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold
I'll be fine once I get it, I'll be goooood.
I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know,
Everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold
I'll be fine, once I get it, I'll be goooood.

I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know,
Everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold
I'll be fine, once I get it, I'll be goooood.

I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know,
Everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold, hey
I'll be fine once I get it, yeah, I'll be good

I'm on the pursuit of happiness
And I know everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold, hey
I'll be fine once I get it, yeah
I'll be good

Pursuit of happiness, yeah.
I don't get it, I'll be good

2012 is Kicking My Ass

So far this year's been a total bust, WTF! While I've been hesitant to use this acronym, but FML! Okay, lets have a quick run down in chronological order:

1) JAN 2/2012
The girl that I was interested in at beach vball brings her long distance boyfriend around.

2) JAN 7/2012
My car dies on the side of the highway on one of the coldest days of the year in the middle of the night. Said car cannot be repaired cheaply, must be replaced by a new car. Unfortunately I just had done $700 of work on the old car the month previous. Well, I guess I won't be seeing that $700 again.

3) JAN 15/2012
There are no more cars left in the model that I was looking for, so I have no choice but go up a model. Well, there's and additional $3500 that I wasn't planning on spending.

4) JAN 20/12
So I decide to give up pursuing the girl with the long distance boyfriend, in order to ask for her friend's number, who does give permission to give the information to me, only to have her friend reject me a week later? BTW, if anybody can explain this one to me, I'm all ears.

5) JAN 24/12
I've been assigned a completely mundane project for a client who's as useful as ice is to an eskimo. This project will require months of data mining, all by hand. Then additional months of data entry, all by hand.

6) JAN 29/2012
Hurt my lower back at volleyball. Feels like a slightly slipped disk, still hurts.

7) FEB 3/2012
Pull my right hip flexor, right knee and foot at volleyball.

8) FEB 4/2012
Pull a left rib muscle at volleyball.

9) FEB 5/12
Missing the Super Bowl for a second date with a girl who is exactly my type, only to get a text a couple days later saying she wasn't feeling it. On top of that, the Patriots lost.

10) FEB 10/2012*
The eharmony membership that I signed up for that drunken night has resulted in a total of zero dates.

*pending 2 days of waiting

It's All That You Can Do...

Audioslave - Be Yourself

Someone falls to pieces
Sleeping all alone
Someone kills the pain
Spinning in the silence
To finally drift away
Someone gets excited
In a chapel yard
Catches a bouquet
Another lays a dozen
White roses on a grave

To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

Someone finds salvation in everyone
And another only pain
Someone tries to hide himself
Down inside himself he prays
Someone swears his true love
Until the end of time
Another runs away
Separate or united?
Healthy or insane?

To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

And even when you've paid enough, been pulled apart or been held up
With every single memory of the good or bad faces of luck
don't lose any sleep tonight
I'm sure everything will end up alright

You may win or lose

But to be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

The Rebrand

So I was at work the other day and I was telling my boss about how I had a girl friend to my place, her first comment was "what a bachelor pad". I said "It's because there's not a whole lot, right?", her reply was "uh, yeah!".

My boss was quick to say that the way my place looks is part of my "branding". I recall my best friend Darren saying that I should do it to "sell myself". While the notion of "selling myself" sounded fake and sleazy, to phrase it as "branding" to me makes much more sense. I guess my place serves as a reflection of who I am. As a bachelor, I guess I felt I was entitled to keep it minimalistic. If I decorated it, I almost felt as if I was doing it for somebody else, because honestly, I don't mind it being empty.

So I took this notion of branding, and am feel like maybe now is the time to redecorate. It would be nice if my place actually looked like I lived in it. Reflecting about it, perhaps this is part of finding myself again. Before when I thought about decorating, it felt as if it was something I should do, and not something I wanted to do. The emptiness of my place kind of representing where I was at, and perhaps now I'm ready to fill it again.

While the break up with Shelley was so long ago (2+ years), sometimes it still feels like I'm recovering. It's not that I'm hurting from it, more in terms of re-establishing my own identity as an individual, rather than as part of a couple. Maybe I've come to terms with being single, and not waiting for the next relationship to happen. I'm not saying that I've embraced it, but rather accepted it. For a long time, in hindsight, I was pressing things to happen. I would be dating a girl and would want things to move faster, I just wanted a relationship to work out. But that's not how relationships happen, you do have to nurture them, but sometimes they grow, and sometimes they don't. It's just something I have to accept. When people would talk to me about being single, it would make me uncomfortable. Almost as if I was ashamed or had to justify it. Now I kind of feel like it is what it is.

It still sucks, but it is what it is.

Separating the Women from the Girls

This past week, I've had varying experiences with girls, but I'd like to talk about one experience in particular.

I have to say us guys can get a bum rap when it comes to the whole maturity issue. I think it's a very individualistic quality. From the past few posts, there's this girl from volleyball that I've been interested in awhile. We've spent a few times together outside of volleyball. It's interesting to see a person in one venue and then another. All sorts of things come out. For starters her immaturity. In hindsight, I suppose I could've expected as much, there's an age difference. At volleyball, everything is fun and games, but as soon as you start talking about 'real' stuff, it's a whole other ball game.

Okay, this is what's honestly bugging me. Girls say they want relationships, but are they ready with all the stuff that comes with it? So this girl is talking about her boyfriend wants kids in 3-4 years. That's not really a long time away, but her auto-response was "no way". Then starts going on about how he's so old (granted he's 10 years older than her). I'm thinking, he's in a different stage in his life, he wants a relationship that has long term future written all over it. He's not messing around, just to have a good time. By her reaction to his declaration about having kids, you can tell two things. First, is that she's pretty self centred, only looking at it from her point of view. Without giving away numbers, a lot of people his age has at least one kid by then. Second, is that she still wants her freedom. That her life should go on unimpeded by anything or anybody.

After finding all of this out, I've lost interest in her. She might want a relationship, but she isn't really ready for one. It's not all rainbows, fairy tales and ponies and shit, it's a lot of work. And frankly it's a lot of compromise and sacrifice. Not to make it sound terrible, but relationships and freedom do not go hand in hand. You're bound to somebody, at that point, it's not your story alone.

If you don't want that, then don't say you want a relationship. Girls, you might be fun, but at this point in my life, I need a woman.

And even when your hope is gone...

Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking
When you fall everyone stands
Another day and you've had your fill of sinking
With the life held in your
Hands are shaking cold
These hands are meant to hold

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along
Move along

So a day when you've lost yourself completely
Could be a night when your life ends
Such a heart that will lead you to deceiving
All the pain held in your
Hands are shaking cold
Your hands are mine to hold

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)

When everything is wrong we move along
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
When everything is wrong, we move along
Along, along, along

When all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
[x3]

(Move along)
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
Right back what is wrong
We move along