Was going to do a clever BNL reference here, but it's actually been two weeks.

So, yea, two weeks.  Two weeks in my Fortress of Solitude.  It's cold like the "real" one, but I'm no Superman.  No, other than the girl wanting to come over, it's just me and the cat.  Two days back, and I'm already in the work-mode.  Early up to do things, a little bit late doing more things.  Back into the grind of things that should have been done with a few soon need to be done in the queue.  It's getting exhausting again, but I just have to get into it.
I say that because these last couple weeks (as I mentioned in the last post) I've ventured out into meeting new people (cyber-version, not real life).  I've meet some interesting individuals, but for the most part people that feel the need to meet.  I'm re-discovering that is a problem.  The new surroundings, the no one but a cat to talk to; yea, I felt the desire to find someone new, but then many realities came back.  Reality one: I am used to not being alone.  Reality two: There are more people that know me that don't want to be around me than people that do.  Reality three: I don't want to meet new people, in person nor online.  Reality four: I really don't want to do that - any of that.
On the mental level, I'm done.  I'm perfectly fine with the idea of being by myself for the rest of my life.  But on the emotional level, I wasn't ready.  I like the idea of just hanging out with someone, but either I too much of a curmudgeon for anyone to want to be with me or I just not anyone's type.  At least my cat and daughter like being around me.  I just have to concentrate on work, making this new place feel like a home, and save.

New Place, Same Mindset

Does anyone even read these?  I hope not.  It's always comforting to be able to do this.  I've been in the new place for a week now.  It's been difficult.  It's not how I had planned it.  I know I've covered that before.  The loss of saved money that would have reduced my anxiety.  The difficult process of putting my life into to boxes.  Taking those boxes to my new abode of solitude.  Made more difficult by all the attacks.
I start my mornings by heading over there while mentally making a decision of what I will focus on.  Then, like a humming bird, I go from area to area trying to avoid how I feel.  Then I eventually start crying, and then I throw up (yea, that's a new stupid thing I'm doing).  At which point I then gather all my stuff into my car and head back to the new place to redistribute my stuff.
The new place:  Lots of "I don't care" going on here.  Unpacked things haphazardly put places for later sorting.  Bags of packed clothes lying on a closet floor.  Cat stuff without a any idea where I really want it.  An air mattress on the floor that's serving as a temporary replacement for a mattress I wanted to replace back when I had money to do so.
Just a fantastic collage of patheticness that I really want no one to see.  Yep, the perfect environment to ensure that no one can be interested enough to hurt me later.  <snort laugh>  A couple weeks ago I ventured into the dating-app realm.  You know, because going out to discover no one wants to interact with me requires money, effort and planning.  Nope, I find being rejected virtually way more efficient.  So, after a couple/few weeks, I think I'm done with that experiment; which is odd because just yesterday a friend discussed with me that they saw me on one of those apps, but only told me that after I promised I wouldn't shut down.  So, I'm now aware that quitting these additional sources of sadness might give them the impression that I broke my promise.
Is it irony that the relationship I most recently failed at was what I wanted as the perfect relationship?  Someone to hang out with and be able to talk about things.  Granted, near the end, she didn't like listening to me talk about things, and even now wonders why I talk to her when I do.  I mean, if I had my druthers, I wouldn't be in a situation to be around her, but she's still pretty much the only thing in my life that's qualifies as a friend that wants to hear me talk about what's going on in my life.  It'd be nice if that person and I were able to be intimate, especially since that's been the most difficult thing about going cold turkey on relationships.
The thing about needing to have someone in my life, the need to be validated or accepted, it's such a difficult thing to overcome; and like I just mentioned, even more so when forced to do it cold turkey.  I know this is the path my life is now, and I know I just have to accept the solitude.  Thankfully, no one reads these and I can just keep on being whiny about how my life has ended up.

Almost On My Own

That's a pretty powerful statement.  I've never really been able to claim that before.  Forty-four years and this will be the first time on my own.  I mean, I'll have Waffles, but I'll have the task of making sure she doesn't die.  I mean, I am really going to be on my own, a large part of the time. I've never been successful with that yet in my life.
Obviously, I lived with my parents as a kid.  My mom and dad until I was four, then with my mom until I was fourteen, and then my dad until I was seventeen.  At seventeen, I joined the Navy.  After a year "on my own" I got married; four years later divorced.  Another three years "on my own" and then married again for another four years.  All the "on my own" quotes above is because I always had my shipmates.  So after ten years of shipmates, second marriage ending had the first potential for being on my own.
I didn't do well actually that time.  I buffed off help from family to prove to myself that I could be on my own; but after a month alone, no new job, no more money, rent due, and eventually the loss of my car - I broke.  I always have the dark thoughts.  That fear is always there, but that particular downward spiral was one of the really close times.  Thankfully, help was there; and more thankfully - I accepted it.
Things eventually got better.  So much better.  I found my penguin.  Instead of going into that, I'll summarize with the obviousness that she wasn't.  So here I am again, as I was fourteen years ago, getting ready to venture out of my own.  On my own, but with a cat.  On my own, but in familiar territory.  On my own, but with the guarantee of not being alone.
I have anxiety.  Anxiety of being alone, and anxiety of being with someone new.  I come to prefer the alone version of the anxiety.  In two weeks I finally move away from this abode of memories.  While my penguin and kids moved out six months ago, it's only next week that a version of me alone begins.  By next weekend, my current roommate will have also started his journey.  It's also most possibly the last time I'll ever see him.  That's really not the issue of this post.  He'll be okay.
Nope, this is about me.  It has to be about me.  I'm staying focused on this next step, and little else - I have to get to this next step.  So many false starts.  So many impacts by outside sources.  So many things I didn't expect I needed to plan for.  Sure, maybe after I move, I'll be able to spend time doing things that make me happy.  Maybe I'll just end up being pseudo-reclusive (you know, do things with the kids like I do now, but nothing else).

Meh.  Now I just sound whiny.  Yea, that's enough sharing.

Almost there

It seems like it's been a very long time.  It seems like there's still so much more time left.  I have a little over five weeks until I finally get to move to a new place.  Unlike all the other times, it happens this time.  Granted, all my financial planning I'd done for six months were undone last month, and I'm still having anxiety in being able to do this; but it's finally happening regardless.
No longer having to come home to a separated shared house.  It's a good feeling.  I mean, it will be.  I hope it will be.  I hope I haven't built up how much happier I will be when I finally move somewhere by myself.  I expect reality will finally kick in once I'm truly by myself.  It makes me nervous thinking about it.  And sad.
Yea.  It seems I'm at the precipice of fully coming to terms with the harsh reality of my situation.  This post was shorter than I'd intended.

Moving On

I'm pretty sure tomorrow is the one year anniversary of when my life changed.  I'm pretty sure it was last year on a Thursday because Saturday was Valentines Day and one of the things that was a gift was delivered to my work on Friday.  Granted, I ended up throwing it away on the way home.  Just that gift though.
Here's the backstory.  For a couple/few months before, I was getting worried that my wife didn't want to be around me anymore.  So I decided that this year, Valentines Day would be special.  I would set aside money for a fancy restaurant, flowers, and a gift that had thought behind it (something that I wouldn't be told later I secretly wanted for myself).
I especially wanted to do this since only a could weeks earlier I made a joke about how she would make up excuses to spend time away from me and with her friend instead.  A comment that was a drunken joke, at my birthday party full of her friends, that I found out later upset her friend.  I guess it was unfair to accuse her of something so untrue.  So, anyway, I decided that Valentines Day would be when I make up for that and get the spark (if it was gone) back into our relationship.
Of course, like an idiot, I made a joke that morning about how she seemed to always be in a rush to get away from me.  Unlike when I said the thing when we were both drunk, the comment made her reflect on what was going on.  So that night (still pretty sure it was a Thursday) she told me that what I had been denying to myself the past couple/few months was true.  That she no longer wanted to be with me.

For those of you that have faithfully followed me this past year (which I'm hoping is really no one), you watched me post what I've gone through, you know how I feel, and you're probably sick of hearing about it.  Heh.  Yea, I guess I'm about sick of it too.  Soon.  So very soon.  It's still a bit muddy of when this holding pattern will end, but soon.  And the other stuff too.  That girl I pined over a couple posts ago, I know she didn't post it for me, but she posted one of her -isims that with basically if you share your feeling and don't get a response, that's your response, and you should move on.  She's right.  I never told her, I told you, but regardless, there was no response.
Yea, tomorrow should be the one year anniversary of a response I never wanted.  I don't want to fail again, and she's right - I need to move on.  I need to move on.

Moving on.

A Pirate Looks at Forty (-Four)

Tomorrow I turn forty-four.  That's a lot of years.  A lot of things I've done.  I'll keep saying it: I'm still surprised I'm not dead yet.
Hopefully this year's "festivities" pass with little fanfare.  Thankfully I have nothing planned, but I didn't last year until plans changed.  (I'm beginning to see a pattern.)  Today I head to Las Vegas on business for a couple days.  I'm hoping this is the extent of anything outside my routine to happen this week.
Looking back at things I've done and have happened is becoming more often measured in decades for me now.  I have an increasing number of mistakes, I mean life lessons, in my past.  Looking into the future is becoming more dreadful.  I remember thinking I had plenty of time for things later in my life.  Now it's later in my life and have no idea how much time I have left.  It's getting difficult to get excited for what's coming up anymore.  This year I get to venture out on living by myself; forty-four years and this will hopefully a successful attempt at doing that.  Later in the year will be the divorce planning.  Too many of those it seems anymore.  Here's hopping I stay true to my plans of not doing that again.  Then there's the other thing this year of not seeking companionship.  I'll confess, recently there were opportunities, but, Jesus, the panic attacks take the steam right out of those sails.  I noticed the mixed metaphor, but you get the point.
How is it, at this age, I cannot be strictly physically intimate with anyone I have zero emotions for?  Why has every one of those encounters ended with guilt and apologies?  I don't look back at those encounters with regret, but I also don't look forward to repeating it with those individuals.  That statement seems hurtful and void of feelings, but it's a decades old fact for me.  Yep, if I don't want to make the mistake of another relationship, I'll have to do better at being celibate.  I don't think I can physically go through that again, and I don't want to make that shift that removes that end result.
Huh.  Thinking of her again.  I guess there's that one I could, but only because I foolishly always felt something for her.  Thankful, it's been almost impossible to ever hang out with her.  It would seem that she too is trying to avoid that which should not be acknowledged.  She's even said it's too bad that I can't just be physical without the emotional connection.  Yep.  Very bad.
One would think with the title, this would have been more Jimmy Buffett themed; but, nope, apparently I'm just going to mull about my learnt situation and pine for the same girl I cannot have.  If anything, it reminds me of my youth, when I failed my first marriage and sought happiness in a school mate.  Obviously that one didn't pan out either, but she was quite a different set of obstacles.  But maybe this time...
Hopefully we all know better.

I Still Sleep When I'm Sad

I was looking over the past posts, and I saw I already used this title.  It's still true though.  This week especially.  This week was difficult.  I slept a lot.
I almost spent time with a friend, but anxiety and panic attacks curbed that desire.  So, I slept.
Other things happened too.  Things where the plans of others changed my plans.  Seems typical nowadays.  I probably shouldn't be bothered by it.  I mean, it is what it is.  So I'm back to starting my financial planning for moving in March all over again.  So I no longer have money set aside for that.  I should be happy that I took care of the important things I put off because I couldn't afford it.  I should be happy that I got caught up on all the past due items.  I should be happy I could do all that before my account was emptied out this week.  I should be, but I'm not because that wasn't my plan.  None of this has gone as planned, and now I'm looking at my future wondering what I have planned.  Well, wondering more why I should even continue to plan.  I mean, if it hasn't gone as planned yet, am I the fool for thinking it ever will?
So I slept.  If anything, I can do that successfully.  It's not constructive.  I don't progress in anything while doing it.  But, it's also not destructive.  It's like a pause.  Sometimes I wake up refreshed and ready to start anew.  Other times the reality that nothing changed is on my mind when I wake up.  And other times, I'm sad I've woken up.
This week was difficult.  I'm starting over again on many different things.  All uphill battles with shorter timeframes, and all repetitive failures beside my plans were different than the plans of others.  I still have to move forward.  I still have to try.  But, first, I sleep.