Isn't it ironic?

Again... To be clear...  I really have little desire to start a new relationship with anyone.

Looking back, a large portion of my life has been in the elusive search for the one; and if I wasn't looking, it was because I was with someone I thought was that person.  So granted, I haven't been spending the last twelve or so years looking for that person because - well, that should be obvious.

Anyway, wrong again; and that, along with the honest fact that I'm mostly surprised I'm still alive, makes me not desire starting over again.  I say this because there was a moment where I reconnected with a childhood friend, and allowed myself to get excited about the possibility of-- well, let's just say I have spent most of my life convincing myself that I don't deserve to be with her.  There were timing issues, sure, but more the most part, I would stifle any hope of being more than just friends because my self-esteem is juts low enough to think that she doesn't think of me that way.

Fast-forward a couple/few decades and rewind at least nine months, and we're at that point where my current marriage has been removed from life support and I reconnect with old friends.  She's a good friend.  A very good friend.  She's one of those friends that I love will all me being, and have loved for a very very long time; but like an admirative love.  Like the grown up version of being friend-zoned, even though we never came close to exploring the possibility of either of us being in a friend zone.

So, yea, we reconnected a friends and discussed adult things.  I mean, we're clearly not the second to ninth graders we once were, but all that stifled childhood crushing did make a home in my psyche.  I don't want to start a new relationship, but she's not new, is she?  She's life-long.  But there I go, justifying things.  "This one is the one because all the other ones were parts of her and I see now she is the one."  I really need to make sure I do not do that again.

Oh, but still -- what if?  Not only can I not start anything right now, but I have to stop what ifing.  I've always what ifed myself into every relationship.  I mean, I've done that with her.  We've even discussed it.  Well, not discussed, per se.  She doesn't want to talk about it because she doesn't want to entertain the idea.  See, I'm not the only one that has been unsuccessful in relationships, and that is something I've been aware of when I realized that I'm getting ready to be single again at my age.  If I had new relationship, I would want what I thought I found -- which is all I really want.  A friend to grow old with.

I told her that I could see myself growing old with her.  She told me to stop talking.  The funny thing is, the idea of being together is not being entertained because "what if" it ended?  What would happen to the friendship we've had our whole lives?  She's right, but she's also created the quintessential definition of irony.  There's this possibility that we could be happy together for the rest of our lives, but there's also a possibility that we will be miserable apart after that fails.  The irony is that we are basically miserable apart in an effort to not be miserable if being happy doesn't work out.  Well, I'm miserable; she might be okay.  Or maybe she's not.  I don't know, we don't talk too much about that kind of stuff.  I'm assuming that's because we're avoiding the possibility of being happy that might be unhappy.

But I end with this nugget where I state again - I have little desire to start a new relationship with anyone.  I mean, I truly do miss the intimacy of another person nearby, but I struggle with separation between physical and emotional attachments.  And because of that, I don't want to start anything new.  I guess I basically just want her, even though I know that's not something I can have, and therefore all I want because I want nothing.  I'm not drunk, this is truly what's going on in this mind.  There's this awesome person that I want to be with that I cannot be with because we are afraid our failure would hurt us more than we do now, and therefore claim I want nothing because I know I cannot have the one thing I want.

Here's hoping she never calls my bluff.

A New Year Full of New . . . Blah Blah Blah

I'm borrowing the title from an old old post on my website (A New Year Full of New . . . Blah Blah Blah), to which, while almost eleven years ago, is eerily echoing now.  In it I had talked about my complete failure to complete any of the resolutions from the year before (all still very valid targets I should maybe consider trying to resolve this year), and I had talked about how much my life had changed in the five years since the world was supposed to end.  I also talked about letting go of the past.
Letting go of the past and the changes in my life -- I'm sensing a pattern.  As Santayana once said, "Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Which is weird because I never forgot, and I felt I had actually taken what I learned and applied it this time.  Twelve years compared to four I think is a form of success.  However, here I am repeating myself - again.
I won't lie.  It's been a tough year for me.  Everything I ever faced the last time came rushing back - all the emotions, all the thoughts, all the instinctive actions.  I managed to recognize the actions for what they were, and have made the decision that I will not be replacing what I lost with something shiny and new (well, new to me).  While I've been on this decided path for many months now, I fully plan to continue my solo journey in the upcoming year; more so in a few months when my earlier plan to live alone is finally realized (since meddlers can no longer meddle).
The emotions and thoughts: those I still struggle with, I always will.  I fully believe that without my cat or my daughter, there's a good chance I wouldn't be here to post these thoughts.  The emotions are what they are; I don't plan to change them because they are legitimate and getting rid of them might mean replacing them via someone that makes me feel differently, and I'm not ready to start down that mistake-path again quite yet.  The thoughts though, while they are what they are, will always be with me.  They've been with me for over thirty years; and while I'll claim that acting on them would sadden my cat or daughter, I really have no true intentions to follow through for completely different reasons.  It's not the small number of people that would be sad but all the people that wouldn't care is why I'm still with y'all today.

But yea, looking back, this is about the time last year when everything should have been a little clearer.  It is what it is, and while the devolution of the relationship has progressed, it still is what it is.  I don't plan to dwell on whether events over the past year that have hurt me were intentional; if I've learned anything this last year it's that I don't think people consider me when they say or do things.  No, they all did and said things that benefited them.  I don't blame them or hold ill will - it is what it is.  So, I do need to truly focus on me and healing, if that's the right word.
So to help me in this "healing" process, I think I will again repeat my actions from early in the year; when I disappeared for a while.  I won't fully shut down my Facebook this time around, but I will be logging out for a long while sometime this week.  I'll still be connected through Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat; but only because they are a different experience for me.  I have friends on each of them (some of those friends are reading this), but not the flurry of activity that Facebook is.
It is that flurry that I think I need to take a break from.  I get melancholy when I sift through all the inspirational, religious, political and humorous pictures; or all the baiting statements that result in people asking for more information that never comes because it's just a ploy for attention.  And, shit, I'm just as guilty of those too, except that I respond to my attention-grabs.  No, it's all just noise; and with the election coming up this year, I don't think I could take anymore incorrect information from that genre along with all the others.  I realize now I've spent the last year going to Facebook looking for a version of companionship, and that seems to go against my plan to not replace what I've lost.
So, there will be this post to Facebook, and that might be about it.  I know that I probably won't be doing anything for NYE that doesn't involve hanging out with the kids or being alone, and I think I might abstain from sharing what I'm doing regardless this year; so yea... this might be it for Tofer posts on the Facebook for 2015.  I'll also be here on Blogger, hopefully more often and more positive in nature.  I'm also here in real life, so if you truly want to get a hold of me, you either already know how or will be able to figure it out.

So many months

It's been a while since I posted here.  I always mean to, but by the time not-work is over, I'm too tired to do anything else.  It's been pretty much work and kids the last couple months.  I had intended to move out and be on my own by now, but the plans of others got in the way.  That'll be the last time that happened, seeing as how I am very unsatisfied with the results.
I just want to be alone.
That's my current state.  The cat I'm okay with, and the kids.  Every one else can just piss off.  Too many people in the last six months have demonstrated how little I mean to them.  I don't fault them for that.  However, it's made me done being with people.  So many friends giving me advice, and I've learned two things from that.  My friends really don't know me, and their advice is what they want.
So, alone it is.
I'm okay with that.  I mean really.  I promised myself that my last marriage (this one) was the last one - so I'm clearly not looking to get married again.  Like I mentioned above, friends have hurt me in the last six months - so getting close to any one is also out.  Nope; it's pretty much just finish this life (That honestly has gone on longer than I expected) with my kids and cat.
I have five months until my current life on hold can move forward.  I'm excited about that, but the time frame seems so long.  Five more months of living somewhere I don't want to be, driving twice as long I need to, dreading every moment I am here.  Five long months of the constant memories of what I once had, and not being able to move on like everyone else could.  Five months of family get togethers that I've already convinced myself I want nothing to do with.
Five was never a number I considered, but here I am loathing it.  Five months of my live remaining on pause before I am allowed to start the next chapter.  The final chapter.  The one where the hero doesn't need anyone and finally overcomes everything and wins.
Then again, I've learned that tomorrow can muck all that up, and all my plans mean nothing.  So I just observe until it's time to act.

The Charleston Thing

I say thing because I have no desire to identify what it was.  Was it a shooting?  Racisim?  Terrorism?  A reason for further gun control?  A never ending trend of violence in this country that is escalating?  All of this?  Maybe even none of it?  Is it perhaps something else?

I don't know.  I honestly don't care either.  Part of me got quickly burnt out by the constant media coverage, including the standard periodic updates of no new information so we'll speculate instead.  The other part started hating God for this.
It's been a long time since my long since defining moment that established the relatonship God and I have.  A very long time.  And those feeling have slowly been creeping back into my thoughts in recent months.  Trying to figure out why events in my life have hapened recently.  Trying to understand if his hand is in all of this, and why he's decided to go against our agreement.
Then bullshit like this thing happens, and God shows back up again in the vernacular of the people.  People wondering why he would let this happpen.  People asking for prayers for the victims and survivors.  Even one claiming devine intervention for her being somewhere where the shooter happened to be so she could call police to come get him.  Honestly, interviews with her give the impression that she fully believes that God had a hand in the circumstances of the apprehension of this individual.

Which brings me back to my returning hate.  The beliefs of others that God was involved in the resolution of this awful event irks me.  Shit, I read posts from friends online where they too share their beliefs that God is solving their problems for them.  Like he's blessed them by providing them with a working spare tire, a helpful stranger, or the solution through the same problem-solving avenue any atheist or agnostic would have taken ("Thank God there was a mechanic that could fix our car").  Blessed.  They honestly believe they are blessed.  Blessed by God providing a soluton to their bad situation.
This is the kind of thing that makes those that don't believe in God sound sensible.  When something bad happens to them, it's not because some bearded guy sitting in the clouds wants to test their devotion to him or because he has some better plan for them that's yet to be revealed.  And when these things happen, they're not solved through the actions of a sky wizard.  Nope.  To them, shit happens, there's a reason, solve the problem and move on.

I once had a friend that was looking at eviction because they didn't have enough money for rent.  I offered to loan them money, but they didn't take it because God would provide them with a solution that wasn't borrowing money.  Eventually, after more attempts to loan them money, I finally just gave them the money.  They thanked me, and then pointed out my lack of faith in God was sad because he did provide them the money they needed.  Well, I'm grateful to God for giving them that money.
It's like the joke about the guy sitting on his house during a flood.  A raft comes by and that guy asks him if he wants to get on.  "Nope.  God will save me.  God will provide."  A little while later, with the waters higher, a guy in a boat comes by and offers to save him.  "Nope.  God will save me.  God will provide."  With this guy almost under water, a helicopter comes by and the same thing happens.  No rescue.  God will provide.  Then the guy drowns and dies.  Goes to Heaven and appears before God, and this guy is pissed.  "I had faith that you would save me, but you let me die."  God shakes his head and asks him, "I sent a raft, a boat and a heicopter; what more did you fucking want?"

So this shooting happened in a church; God's house; and no one questions why he let that happen.  Just praising him for that guy getting captured, asking him to keep helping, and seeing this as a test of faith.  Did no one remember the stories in the bible?  God rescued his chosen people from opression.  God stopped Abraham from killing his son (that he told him to kill).  God had Noah build an ark to save his family and a whole bunch of animals.  God even let his own son die for some lofty reason.
But notice something in all of those stories.  God didn't come in to save the faithful after letting bad things happen to him.  Granted, he often rewarded those that eventually followed him, but he never let bad things happen to the faithful.  Except one time, and that one time bothered him so much, he never did it again.  Shit, he actually disappeared after it happened.  Yes.  Read your Bible.  After the book of Job, God is never heard from or seen again.  He's talked about, but in past tense and no further stories of him doing new stuff.

I took to my empty forum to not convince you that there is no God.  Our agreement incluses me no longer doing that, but I can point out the obvious and ask questions.  One obvious is that this shooting took place in a church, and that's supposed to be sacred to God.  What other place is sacred to God?  Jerusalem; a place that has constant shooting for hundreds of years.  A sacred place for three sects of religions that believe in one God and that their sky wizard gave them that land.  Why should we be surprised that God let someone shoot up a church when he's allowed death on the holiest of places on this Earth for centuries?  I mean, statistically one of them is wrong, right?  Especially if all three agree that there is only one God.  That means one of them is right and two are wrong.  I suspect all three might be wrongs since there are diviisions of the beliefs even within the sects themselves.
What bothers me is that if there is ony one sky wizard, why the fuck hasn't he come down and straightened this out?  He stopped Abraham from killing his own son.  Had Moses herd a bunch of Jews through a desert.  Told Noah what to do to save his family and animals.  He can't come down and tell us which of the three is correct?
I'd be there with bells on, but until then, I think I'll just keep shaking my head at everyone that thinks he's there to solve their problems.

Status update

It's been a while.  I know.  I mean, I still hope no one reads these.
So since my last posting, I have made great strides to the redefinition of my life.  I have accepted my current situation and decided that I must take actions to move on.  It started with seeking reconnection with online friends.  I kind of messed that up.  Then I deceided to follow the example of my wife's moving out of our bedroom and moved out of our bathroom  Yea, I share the bathroom with the cat.
That's okay though.  eventually, the cat and I will be sharing an apartment.  Yes, during the course of messing up a friendship, I have decided to take the advice of others and break out on my own.  A morbidly frighhtful thing really.  My last attempt resulted in a police visit as a respnse to a suicide note after a month of being alone.  Granted, I'll have Waffles with me.  And my ids will be there from time to time.  It won't be thirty days of isolation without a job and dwindling money on hand and waking up to a car reposessed by the separated wife a shut off bank account.  No, complete isolation isn't in store for me, so I think I might make it.
But there was a moment of panic and a desire to replace what I had with what I think I need.  Yea, that was the friend mistake.  She indicated that she reads everything I write, including these; even after I stoped publishing them.  So, to be honest, that is why I haven't shared in a while, and while this share lmost didn't happen for the same reasons, I feel I need to get weight off my heart.
Basically, I took an oportunity, in my head, to replace the comfort and content in my head by separating myself (at her wish) from one person and connecting with another.  Unfortunately, in my head and real life are two different things.  I am being reminded why I struggled so many years ago.  I am easily smitten.  I take any form of attention as affection.  Freindships with women have always been easy for me, but as soon as I interpret their intentons, I ruin the friendship.  That's a pattern.  A pattern I need to break.  Especially if I want friends during the next phase of my life.
I haven't even updated my relationship status on Facebook to reflect my current state.  Part of it is because I'm not truly seperated, yet.  Something made painfully clear in the firend screw up.
I want this friend.  I'll be honest.  I want her in my life.  I always have.  Timing just never was right.  And this time it was again not right.  In my mind, it was only a couple months off, but I was so much more off.  She cancelled an evening with me a couple/few weeks ago, and our conversations have been strained and scarce since then.  It has been noticed that we no longer have our Sunday morning breakfasts, and I am sad during every oportunity I have to spend with her that she declines.  I let my mind define what I felt, and I think that scared her off.  I mean, I'm still attached, so I can't be fully there for her until I am no longer here.  Well, actually, I fear that time will never happen.
It is probably best that I concentrate on me.  I'm sure it won't win her heart, but I don't think she wants me in her heart anyway.  At least not like that.  Just a friend.  Yep, that's come up again.

I sleep when I'm sad

I discovered that today.  Actually, I think I've always known that, it's just that today was obvious.  I get it that the definition of friends as it applies to us is unique, but it is so hurtfully different that the definition of friends she has for the rest of her friends or that I have for my friends or, for that matter, anyone has for friends.
Nine months will be upon me fast.
Yea, no, today was a hurtful day.  I get that the intent is to stay together for the sake of the kids, but a discovery today about last night really cut me deep.  It would seem that events with her new friend that was the catalyst for this moment in my life are not to include me and shall now be presented in such a way that I won't have enough information to want go.  So, this morning I discover that a mutual friend has a birthday today, and that just happens to be the generic (I assumed) friend that I wouldn't have cared to celebrate her birthday.
So, yea - Along with almost practically not doing anything together and almost exclusively doing stuff instead with friends, we not include not being involved in mutual friend activities.  That was actually quite painful, and just another reminder that the longer I cohabitate, the longer I come off as a fool.  A stupid stupid fool.

No, it's cool. We're just friends.

I hated hearing that when I was so much younger.  There would always be this girl I liked, but she never liked me back that way because we just friends.  Now, imagine you're married to that girl.  How the fuck does that make sense to anyone?  How can anyone be expected to maintain a relationship with the understanding that a decade-plus of emotions or even intamacy are gone because one of them doesn't feel that way about the other.
I'm at a loss of how I can recover from this further-defined state of my marriage.  So far it has been imposible to explain this to friends without them seeing as that sad loser in high-school that thought if he kept trying she would eventualy love him too.  It feels worse when they all ask the clairifying question, "as in friends with benefits?"  Nope.  No benefits.  Friends as in I'll be there to watch the kids if she ever wants to go hang out with her friends and do fun things.  Friends as in...  huh.  There doesn't seem to be a second example.  It's been pretty much the watching of the kids.  I mean, she sleeps in a different room.  Granted, the fact that we have different taste in things has been brought up.  We watch different shows; although there is a number of shows we do both watch, but at different times.  We listen to different music; although I'm pretty sure that can be better defined as I don't really listen to the current hits.  We have different political views; which honestly I think is just something to bring up to illustrate a division because I really don't like any of the political representatives in any political affiliation.
It's getting harder the longer this definition of marriage continues.  We cannot call it a loveless marriage because that has a negative connotation.  We cannot call it a marriage of conveinence because that too sounds bad.  Open marriage?  I fear that will eventually be a new definition; once her desires overcome her resolve to not physically show affection because that would muddle the emotions of friendship she has for me.  Once she has found that target of affection that will perfectly transport me back to my teens where I like this one girl that feels the need to open up to me about her feelings for someone else and asks me what she should do.  Yep - that always never went well for me.
Negative connotation.  When did this world become a place where words that accurate describe something have to be replaced with kinder words that either need to be defined back to the original or immediately remind the interpreter what the speaker really meant.  Part of the decision for seperation is because we are two independant people cohabitating at this point in our relationship.  Sure, that may be a true statement, but one of those people seems to have defined their life as having the other in it.  Without her, I am just me and my kids.  There's my work and my home.  I don't know why I scaled down my work friends to a point where I don't have enough of them to be able to be gone every opportunity, but that's what I did and now I am alone in a marriage with a friend.

Shit.  I don't even think I'm a best friend.  I am that sad friend that's always there when she needs someone to make sure she can do fun things; just not with.