This weekend has been a real eye opener.
I’m not sure how to describe everything that I’m feeling right now… but I’ll do my best.
First off I’ll apologize for the lack of posts on here. Moving to a new city has taken a lot of time to pack, move, unpack, readjust, and to try to maintain friends that live a bit far away. Doing this took a lot of energy out of me. I was always missing someone during the whole move.
But to start this all off… I just moved out to a new city for my new job. I was, and still am, really excited for my new career starting. It’s what I’ve been clawing at for years and finally achieved it. I get sworn in as a deputy for the county I’m working for Monday. Yesterday the Sergeant called and asked “Is there anyone that will be there to see you get sworn in?”
I thought about it. I did have one person in mind, but I knew that there was no way for her to ever make it out there to watch something that only takes a few minutes to do and drive all the way back. I thought about it more and realized that with every big step I’ve taken no one really has been there to see me swear into any big title. Not for the Marines, not for the Air Force as a firefighter, and now no one to see me swear in as a deputy. Does it bother me? A little bit, but at the same time I know that doing the job means more to my family and friends then watching me get the job. Everyone always knew that I would be able to accomplish whatever I put my mind to and get whatever job I worked hard for, but it would mean a lot more of how I would do that job to them than just getting it.
So I said “No… I got no one who would be able to make it out… but will there be pictures taken?”
He responded “Absolutely. The Sheriff will be there to swear you in and we will take as many pictures as you want. I know you don’t have family or friends nearby but if it makes you feel better I didn’t have anyone come to my swearing in ceremony.”
I said “hey pictures mean a lot. If I can post it on Facebook to get a lot of likes then we will call it good”. Then we shared a good laugh.
After the phone call ended I told a number of close friends and my family of the day I will be getting sworn in. Everyone was excited and said I’ll do great and to be safe and blah blah blah. Really there was just one person in mind that I wanted to be great for, but we will touch on that later.
So after I got all (for the most part) settled here I was waiting for a certain someone to spend time with. Someone who I felt like would at least stick around as a great friend and someone I knew I could look up to during the hard times out here. They finally came over and to be honest it was awesome. I had the time of my life with them. It was what I had been waiting for. It’s like knowing Christmas will eventually coming but when it finally does it just feels so amazing and you don’t know how to handle it.
We drove around town and I got to learn a lot about her. She told me I’ll be fine and I’ll do great and that her and I will be great friends and she’ll still be there if I needed someone to talk to and told me not to worry. I was feeling like I was on a cloud and that everything was finally going right for me. Every time I looked at her I just knew everything was going to be okay for once.
Little did I know that just because I got a new career, new place, and in a new city did not excuse me of any bad habits I still held on to.
As we all knew my last relationship ended and it was, I would like to say, on very mutual terms. It just wasn’t working out and it was something that I needed to work on as a person. I won’t admit that I am awesome and that every girl will fall head over heels for me cause I’ll admit… I mess things up real quick.
Quote of the day: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results each time.
Too true… especially for me.
I have mentioned in the past I hate conflict. It’s the number one thing I do my best at avoiding. If I feel like I can handle something, regardless of how big or small, I’ll do my best to hide it away and try to take care of it myself. I don’t like to admit that I’m struggling between two things. I feel like that made me weak. But as time progressed I learned a lesson in the worst possible way.
My friend found out I had been hiding a big secret from her. I mean I wont go into detail but the root of it was that I wasn’t being honest with her. I was caught off guard to be truthful about it. I struggled. I tried to pick up excuses but it was just another lie to cover a lie. I lied to her. Just because I was hiding the truth didn’t mean I was being truthful to her. I lied.
She confronted me about it and immediately grabbed her keys and she was on her way out the door. She told me it was the last time I would ever see her. In my mind, I didn’t want to tell her this, I didn’t want her to go. She could totally tell by me trying to stall for more time with her. It’s not that I wanted her to say “oh you’re right and I’ll stay”. I knew she was going to leave. I knew it was all over, but for some reason I wanted more time with her.
She even admitted she knew she shouldn’t of trusted me from the beginning. But she told me that I’m not a bad guy.
After every little excuse I could say all that I could do was stand there and look right into her eyes. I could tell that no matter what I said just made her more angry. I’ve never felt this kind of pain before, but the thing was that was me being selfish. I had, and still don’t, no idea how much it must have hurt her. Her eyes were side, her fists were clenched, and she was clenching her jaw.
All I could do was just sit there and burn that image in my mind. She told me that she wanted me to learn a lesson out of everything instead of storming out. It was to let me realize what hiding the truth can do to a person. Did it work? I won’t say that it did just yet because it’s up to me to figure it out from this point. But all I can think about is the look she had. The disappointment she had not just in me but in herself.
I asked her if there was ever a chance in the world I could make it up or that we would ever cross paths again. The answer as a very bold and well deserved “no”. I didn’t know what to say. Usually in these moments I freak out and I panic. I do whatever I can to try to hold onto something I want close to me. She was the one person who made me feel like everything I was doing was right and then when I did something wrong to her it’s been making me think what else was wrong that I was doing.
But when I went to the liquor store and sat back and I burned a cigarette in my hand I took a big gasp of air. I had been suffocating myself. I had been smothering myself with these secrets and lies to only get what I wanted. And it wasn’t to get lucky, to get a girl in my bed, or to obtain whatever I wanted through manipulations and tricks. It was to not feel alone. It’s sad and pathetic I know and I’m getting over it. Because she told me something. I don’t need a girl to feel awesome just like how she doesn’t need a guy to feel great.
She is a hundred and ten percent right. Absolutely right. Maybe we didn’t need each other to feel at our best, but I can’t help the feeling of missing her. I don’t know if feeling empty is worse than feeling hurt, but I know she is hurt.
So what do I do next? Do I chase after her? Do I give it a few days and tell her I’ll change?
What can I do?
If there’s anything I can do it’s to do exactly what she told me to do. To never do this again and to remember what I’m feeling right now.
The thing is consequences are things I never fully grasped. I never understood what consequences do because all I ever do is try to avoid everything. All I ever do is to avoid the negatives to make things seem like rainbows and butterflies. But the reality of is that sometimes the hardest things in life have to be done to make things in the future easier. I did the complete opposite. I took the easy way out. I did exactly what I wanted to do instead of thinking of what might happen.
And look at where it got me. In an empty townhouse with no one to call to express my excitement, sorrow, fears, anxiety, and any other feelings to. No one to lay down with and let them know I’ll always be there. I’m just sitting at my computer desk in the corner and looking at an empty room. Had I been honest I would imagine right now at this point I would be out to eat with my friend and having a blast and watching her smile. God do I miss that.
But this is what happens. I wont chase after her because I chased her away. I wont give it a few days to talk to her because that bridge takes longer to rebuild than just a few days. To be honest it will probably never get built again. Those pieces were one of a kind and cannot be replaced. I did that. I burned that one down because of me not wanting to come forward.
So I have two options in this. Keep doing what I’ve always done by not manning up and hiding the truth or to learn a lesson from this. If I could make anything up to her it’s by doing what she told me to do. Learn from this. Remember how empty it makes me feel. Remember how hurt I am but more importantly remember how much more it can hurt someone else.
I lost more than just distance from people. I lost something that is truly irreplaceable. What to do next? I don’t know. She suggested that maybe I go talk to a shrink or someone about my problems. Because she shouldn’t have been my shrink, my counselor, or my crutch. She was something a lot more than that and it would’ve been insulting to treat her as such.
The next thing is to really look into my personal matters. I got my professional career all lined up and ready to go. I got that under control, but I’m still suffocating here with who I am to someone else, what the weight of my words can do, and especially how to not hide the truth from people.
I’ll be okay. For now I’ll just sit in the empty room and hurt for a bit. But just like in the movie Batman (her favorite superhero): “And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
I fell hard today. Real hard. I have to learn how to move on from this. I have to learn how to pick myself up and realize why I fell. Why this happened and how to move on. Because she deserves much better than this and maybe someday I will deserve someone half as great as her (which truthfully that girl will still be awesome because the level of greatness she had was overwhelmingly awesome).
So is it a defeat? Was it a beat down knock out? Yes. Plain and simple. I got knocked right down to the ground and got beat with the consequences of my actions. I can either pout or get right back up and learn my lesson.
So again. I’ll be okay. I owe it to her to learn from this mistake. And if we ever do cross paths again I’ll repeat everything I said to her and let her know that I mean every bit of it. What will motivate me to become a better man will to hope that her and I will cross paths and she can see that she did impact my life, that she did help me, and most importantly that she is always on my mind.
If we ever meet again I’ll be ready for it next time. And she will realize that her words weren’t just words to a wall. They were words of enlightenment and that I did change.
But for now, I got to pick up all of the broken pieces and figure out how I fell.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Above and Below Average 