History

Here is something I wrote back when I first started to blog (April.. May.. not sure of the exact date I wrote this). This one never actually made it up onto the blog. I just though it was time to share.
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I have a tendency to space off at work. Watching out the window wishing I was out there and not in here. This job is sucking the life out of me. I figured out about a year ago that I no longer like my job and want to leave. But the same crap keeps me here just like a lot of other people that keep jobs that they don't want. I have good benefits and am paid pretty well, I have also been working here for almost 10 years so I have lots of vacation time that I can use also. That is my excuse... I won't be able to make as much money if I change jobs and I will have to start over and won't have 4 weeks of vacation that I can use. I know, it's a pretty lame excuse, but it keeps me sitting here in this cubicle hoping and praying that someone will come save me from this insanity that some people call a career and that I call torture.

I am just a few months into 29 years old, divorced, and now 4 years into a relationship with Eric. Don't have any kids yet, however I have managed to acquire four cats (it's 3 cats now) and a dog. We live in this beautiful old house that was Eric's Grandfathers. Beautiful is a relative term here though, the place still needs a lot of work, but it is a nice home. Two stories with 4 bedrooms and a basement, large attic, entry hall, living room, eat in kitchen and formal dining room that we turned into a library. Sounds pretty great I know, but for some reason it doesn't quite fit me. I'm pretty sure it's because it doesn't get enough sun light inside. We also have a really neat greenhouse in the back yard that is currently being used as storage but I hope to one day turn it into a studio for me to do art. The other really nice thing about this house is that there is no mortgage. The house has been in the family for so long that it was paid off some time ago so all we have are the utilities and taxes to pay. All in all it is a pretty great deal.

I also own a house in a neighboring town. The town I grew up in. I bought the house in 1999, two years before I got married. I just couldn't stand the thought of getting rid of the house after the divorce and after I moved in with Eric so I rented it out to a friend of Eric's about a year ago. He only stayed for 6 months and never paid his last month in rent. Left the house in a bit of shambles also. Don't think I can go through that again. I've since then become ok with selling the place so I am going to fix it up and hopefully get it sold soon. It was really hard for me to finally make that decision but it was the only thing that made sense. I have been through so much with that house it is really hard to think that someday it won't belong to me anymore and it will be creating new memories with a new family.

So I suppose I should say something about the past 9 years or so... In 1999 I got this job, working in the Prepress Department of a publishing company. This job enabled me to buy my first house. Jeff, my boyfriend at the time, had not so good credit and I had none being so young, so we were unable to rent an apartment. So the next best thing to do was buy. I bought the house on my own, I decided it wasn't a good idea to put Jeff's name on the house since we weren't married. It was a grand day when I bought that place, we had been living in his parents house for almost a year and my poor animals were tired of being cooped up in a small bedroom(as so was I).

So we moved in and began our life at that place we got to call home. Two years later we decided to get married. By then we had been together for 6 years and it only seemed right to make it official. I loved him dearly and never thought I could love anyone more than I loved him. We got married on February 10, 2001. While it was a cheap wedding it was quite beautiful. I decorated it to look like a winter wonderland and it just so happened to snow like crazy the night before the wedding so it all worked out for me. I was so happy that day. Finally marrying that beautiful man that I thought would make me happy for the rest of my life.

During that time my parents weren't doing so well. My mom had moved out of the house and was living with a friend. They had apparently been having problems for quite a while, though they were good at hiding it. My wedding was pretty hard on my father. He held me so tight when we danced I had to take very short breaths in order to not pass out. He told me to always remember my vows. If I get in hard times with Jeff to always remember my vows.

Later that year, I'm sure no one can forget, the twin towers fell. I remember standing in my department here at work realizing what just happened. I don't remember any sounds, just silence. Looking out the windows facing West into the empty sky. It seemed to me that even the birds stopped flying that day. For a moment the whole world to me stood still, and just a second later it seemed like everything was then moving as though someone hit the fast forward button. All I could hear were people talking and peoples computers with the news on and radios talking about the planes. People leaving work to get their kids. I just sat down and was silent. I don't think I called anyone. I believe I might have received a phone call from my big brother and maybe my mother. I remember so badly wanting to call my dad. I just didn't know what to say. Ever since mom and dad split I didn't know how to talk to him. I could always just see and feel the sadness oozing off him. It seemed as if his pain choked me and I just couldn't speak. I wish I had called him, I should have called him.

Two months later, the Sunday after Thanksgiving my dad shot and killed himself. Even today, seven years later, it's still hard to believe he is gone. I still have bad days where I wish he was here because he was always the one to help me when I wasn't feeling good about something. He had the most perfect hugs that made all the pain go way. It still hurts me that he won't be here to see his grandchildren. Or to see us kids grow up and become whoever we become as we get older. He wasn't here to see his youngest son graduate from high school. Or to mentor him with his welding. Today the only things I have left of him are his tools and my memories of him. I remember sitting on my couch when my mom told us what happened. Both my brothers, Jeff and I were at my house when it finally came out. I remember crying only because I knew that is what people expected of me. To fall apart and cry. I really just wanted to get up and go for a walk and be silent. I think I already knew he was gone by the time mom told us what was going on. I think of my older brother Jason who was outside our family house when it happened. How he kept his composure through that and later fell apart in my arms after the funeral. I only cried hard in front of other people a few times. The only time I let myself succumb to the pain of his death was when I was alone in my house. I never really let anyone see how badly he hurt me. Many nights alone by myself I sat in the middle of my living room floor screaming at him and asking him why. Crying and in so much pain from him doing this to our family but loving him so much that I could never hate him. I would sob until my body was sore and my face was raw from wiping away the tears and snot. My shirt and pants would be soaked. Finally exhausted so much that I couldn't cry anymore I would get up and take a shower and go to bed.

I think that watching my parents marriage fall apart it made me look a little closer to what was going on in my marriage. I felt that after the first year things just started to fall apart. It seemed that Jeff's friends became more important to him than me, and that what he wanted was more important than what was better for us. Perhaps I was being selfish but don't we all have to be at some point? To me the marriage just wasn't that anymore, it was more like a roommate that happened to sleep in the same bed. He would go to work on Saturday and come home pack up and head to Lawrence and sometimes not come back till Monday. I just started to feel so alone. I began to cling to his brother Ick (his real name is Eric.. but since there are two Erics in this story I am going to refer to Jeff's brother by his nickname Ick), and his friends. Everyday Ick and friends would show up at my house and we would all hang out, or go over to Ick's house and play cards or just sit around and talk and smoke. Every Tuesday we would go out to a bar and drink till 3am and it just seemed like Jeff really didn't care. Jeff would spend his evenings in the office playing on the computer. He seemed to engulf himself with his on-line computer games and his role-playing games that he played in Lawrence with his friends. I can remember days that he would come home from work and I would ask how his day went and he just didn't want to talk about it. But he loved talking about his video games or role-playing games. It was always about "if I could just get this many more dexterity points or if I could only do this one thing then I'd have this cool new power". I was just so over it.

So I decided to end my marriage in 2004. It just seemed unfair to me to try and make Jeff be something he obviously didn't want to be, or unfair to me to keep living my married life feeling so alone. I remember the night when I finally told him. We were both in bed and I think I might have been crying. I suddenly felt this huge weight fall on my chest. It felt like I sunk down in the bed a few inches because of this weight I knew at that time that I had to tell him it was over. I sat up and just said it. It was weird how calm everything was that night. I remember something about Jeff saying that the house was of course mine and that he would like to keep the Jeep. The next morning he left the house with a few of his things and stayed at a friends. The rest was an emotional blur. Me and him crying and yelling in the living room. Packing up his things. I felt like a failure. I had failed Jeff, failed at marriage and failed my father. I loved Jeff so much still but I just couldn't go on feeling that way and it seemed that I couldn't get how I was feeling through no matter how I put it to him that I finally gave up. Even to this day I sometimes wonder if I should have done things differently.

Jeff and I still talk on occasion. He has now moved out to Las Vegas and seems to be pretty happy out there. I think about him all the time, hoping that he is doing well and taking care of himself. I do miss my friend, probably more than he realizes. He called me about 2 years after we split and got a divorce to tell me that he realizes what happened. That he understood my frustration and that he was sorry. I'm glad that we can still talk and be friends.

Now I have Eric. I met Eric through Jeff actually. I think I was 17 when I first met him when Jeff took me to his friends house. They may have been playing role-playing games or table-top games, I can't remember. I was so shy back then but I do remember him. I was sitting on the couch when he walked in. I think we both said hi to each other before he went downstairs. I always thought he was an interesting guy. I really didn't get to know him until things started falling apart in my marriage years later.

Eric started hanging out with Ick and I after he was in a car accident and wasn't able to drive or work for 6 months. So Ick and I would go pick him up and bring him back to my house or Ick's house and we would all hang out. If it was the weekend we all (the whole group of friends) might stay the night at Ick's house and hang out all weekend. Everyone saw the problems in my marriage. Even Ick, Jeff's brother, saw it. We would invite Jeff over with us and he would rather stay home. Or he would go home on the weekend and I would stay there. It all just didn't fit.

After I ended it with Jeff it seemed everyone disappeared. No one called, or wanted to hang out anymore. Granted I do understand why. Ick was Jeff's brother. It just didn't make since for him to hang out with me anymore. The only person that would call me to go out or just hang out and talk was Eric. We still went out on Tuesday nights to see a friend play at a local bar, or go out to a local Irish Pub to see another friend play. Then one day our friendship turned into something more. We were sitting on my couch watching Master and Commander, he looked over at me with this look that I don't think I can explain...longing, loving something along those lines, and then it was over. We were stuck together like bees on honey, and have been ever since.

We have now been together for almost 4 years, and I am trying my best to hold on to it with all my might.