I am here once again to look at the state of my heart. The last year have not been kind to me in terms of romance. I had some good times in 2007, but they were not to last. Abigail broke up with me twice in that time. The first time really screwed me up, the second time just made me feel like crap.
I really loved Abigail. Both times she broke up with me really hurt. I am still not sure what happened the second time. It really did not make sense to me. I guess that is what happens when you try to restart something. It might be for the best because now I can put it all behind me now.
Loving Abigail taught me something about myself. I know that I can totally put myself out there for someone. I know that I can get past all of those worries and anxiety to really connect with someone. In the past I was worried that I would be able to do something like that at all.
The problem in the post-Abigail era is that It is harder to be alone. I find myself being lonely more often. Before I meet Abigail I did a pretty good job of being alone without being lonely. Since the break up I find myself wanting to share things with someone else. There are more nights when my bed feels empty and I know it will not change anytime soon.
That being said, I am in rush to find someone. There are a bunch more things in my life that I am focused on. I would like to resolve those things first. I do not have the energy to put into looking for a relationship. If a relationship happened unexpectedly I would not walk away from it because I am not ready. I just think that I need to work on other things first. Things that would just get distracted by a relationship.
St. Valentines Day is here again and I am alone again. That is par for me. I have been alone many more years than I have had a Valentine. I wish I have someone to spend the day with. It would be nice if I had someone, but I will not be crying myself asleep because I do not.
It is Labor Day and I am trying to figure out where my summer went. As an adult summer is more elusive that it was as a kid. When you are in school summer is different that being in school. You know you have to make the most out of summer. You can see the days count away. Most of the time I was happy for school to start up again.
As an adult summer is no different than the rest of the year. I can take my vacation any time. Summer is just a time where I am worried about how hot my apartment gets. I get to go to baseball games in the summer, but sports go year round and I can always go to a game.
I will admit that I will be glad to see this summer come to a close. It has not been the greatest summer for me. The three markers of this summer for me have been my ex-girlfriend breaking up with me, Comic Con, and Labor day. The summer broke perfectly into two halves. Now that the summer is over I am not sure how my life will be different.
It is Labor Day and I am trying to figure out where my summer went. As an adult summer is more elusive that it was as a kid. When you are in school summer is different that being in school. You know you have to make the most out of summer. You can see the days count away. Most of the time I was happy for school to start up again.
As an adult summer is no different than the rest of the year. I can take my vacation any time. Summer is just a time where I am worried about how hot my apartment gets. I get to go to baseball games in the summer, but sports go year round and I can always go to a game.
I will admit that I will be glad to see this summer come to a close. It has not been the greatest summer for me. The three markers of this summer for me have been my ex-girlfriend breaking up with me, Comic Con, and Labor day. The summer broke perfectly into two halves. Now that the summer is over I am not sure how my life will be different.
I was talking to my sister Ruth, mother of two, about relationships. She was on vacation when my ex-girl friend broke up with me. She wrote me a letter from the road. She found the letter going through her souvenirs. That prompted her to call me. We talked for about an hour and most of it was about relationships.
We talked about her friends and what she has seen in the world. I told her that I know nothing about meeting women. Her friend Joe kept on coming up in conversation. He is well known for always having women hanging off his arm. He says his secret is to never stop trying. He has failed many more times than he has succeed.
At this point she say that I have to be ready for meeting women to be the hardest thing I have ever done. At this point she says, "I think meeting the right person is harder than child birth." I was surprised to hear her say this. I thought women with children never said that something is hard then child birth.
To be honest I am not expecting meeting a woman to be hard like that. She might be right, but I have never thought about it like that before.
I got my hair cut yesterday. I have been putting it off for a while. My ex-girlfriend like my hair long, so I did not get it cut much over the last year. She liked running her fingers through my hair. I liked that she like my hair. It was a little too long for my job. I know I work in Silicon Valley, but as a manager now I need to look like I am coming to work.
Old haircut
I liked having long hair, but it was a pain. It was long enough that my baseball caps did not fit. It was a pain having my hair fall into my eyes. Now I will not have any problems taking photos. I made some mistakes on photos because my hair was in the way.
The haircut represents a break from the past. She liked it long. Whenever I talked about getting it cut she would protest. I will admit that cutting my hair is away to distance myself from the relationship. I know that distance is important.
I am not sure if women will like this haircut more or less that the last one. To be honest I really do not care. In the end it is just hair. Tell me what you think of the new haircut.
I had seen this documentary about math and history before. They did a segment about the game go and samurai warriors. At the beginning of a game of go there is a seemingly infinite (4.5x10^397) number of outcomes. With each piece that is played those outcomes start to narrow. The game was taught to samurai warriors for them to learn decision making. With every choice you make you have fewer choices in front of you. Often in life you only get to make once choice in a situation.
Part of me thinks that the end of my relationship is like ending a game of go and starting a new one. I made a lot of choices in my relationship, choices that limited the directions the relationship could go. I was happy to make those choices for the relationship. Now that I get to start fresh, I can think if those are the same choice I should make next time.
Directly from the department of synchronicity, the week before the breakup I read Who Moved My Cheese for work. I did not know the book would be coming into play in my personal life so soon. The cheese in the book is supposed to be a metaphor for whatever makes you happy. By breaking up with me she ended up moving my cheese.
One of the questions in the book was, "What would you do if you had no fear?" This saying has been in my head for the last couple of days. I am not saying that I am a person that usually lives his life in fear. I am thinking of this more like, "What would you do if you had no obligations?" I was happy to live up to those obligations when I was in the relationship. I think that obligations are a good thing. It is our commitments that life substantial. Now that I do not have them what should I be doing?
It is not that I do not have any obligations at all. I still have work and financial obligations. I am not willing to just pickup everything and leave. If I had no obligations at all, I think I would look for work in another country. I think that might be enjoyable. I am not ready to leave TiVo anytime soon. Maybe I will get a job in Prague when I am ready to leave TiVo.
Now that I have no relationship obligations I have to re-examine what in my life. Are there interests that I have not engaged in that I should look into? This time gives me a chance to look at my life. I need to take time to do that and not just be pissed off about the end of the relationship.
I realize that I have a handful of break up post in me. I know that bitching about relationships is one of the things people like to make fun of personal bloggers for. Oh well, one of the reasons I have a blog is because it is a space I control. I do it for myself first and for my readers second.
I will try to limit my posts to interesting insights or things that help me learn about myself. I think that is the essence of Sad Salvation. The things I write here may have been written a million times before. I think it is still good to write these things and share them.
In case you have not heard, Dreamgirl and I are broken up. It happened for a lot of reasons and I will not go into them here. In the end the physical distance between us put other things between us. There were lots of things that just did not work in the end. Some times age and distance are too much of a barrier.
I am not angry with her. Dreamgirl did what was right for her. I have no problems with that. I am sad. It is going to take me a while to get over her. I had never felt for a women like that before. She is something special and it will take a while to get use to the fact that she is no longer in my life.
I know there are things I could have done to avoid this. I kept on putting things off thinking I could take care of them later. We all do think in relationships, put things off thinking you have all the time in the world. I will have to remember for next time to not put those things off.
Our one year anniversary would have been on this Sunday. I enjoyed the year we had together. After I get over Dreamgirl I think I will be able to look back at this year and smile. It was a good experience for me. I know more about myself now. I do not see that year as a waste.
I wish Dreamgirl all the best. I want her life to the best it can be. I still care for her and I want her to find what will make her happy.
Who knows what tomorrow holds for me. This is just another reminder to live in the present.
I am sitting next to two sixity year old men. They are talking about women that used to be parts of their life. The funny thing is that I could hear my friends having the same conversations. The one guy was talking about finding one of his old classmates on myspace and hooking up with her. They are talking about not getting over women and the mistakes they have made. I guess men never grow up.
Update: I heard this on Sunday before everything happened with Dreamgirl. I wonder if it was a sign I was not seeing.
I used to love to drive. I used to find something spiritual about it. Driving is less fun than it used to be. It is more of a chore than it was before. I wonder if that is because I have a place of my own. Not just an apartment, but a place in the world that I feel is mine. I have the places I need when I need some time to myself.
I drove to see Dreamgirl this weekend. The drive just felt like a chore. I just wanted to get from one place to another. I am not sure if this is because I am older or if I have changed.
There are a lot of places I would like to drive. I might not have liked this drive because I was not willing to take the time to stop anywhere. Maybe more places to stop would make these drives better. Maybe I still would enjoy a drive cross country.
Today is my birthday. I have been thinking about my birthday all day. I have been thinking about it for over a week now.
When I turned 33 I had not idea what the year had in store for me. I did not know that I would meet a wonderful woman and fall in love. I did not expect that I would get a promotion at work and so some of my best work ever. I did not expect that I would be so engaged in photography. I did not know where what about the year would be hard and what would be easy. Looking back at the year I am a bit surprised by those things.
It is odd for me to think that I did not know Dreamgirl this time last year. It was my birthday post that go our relationship started. I guess I will always see my birthday posts a little differently now. I am sad that she is not here on my birthday. I have been a little bumbed out that I do not get to see her more often. I wanted her to be here for my birthday.
The lesson from being 33 is that I should engage the things that are hard. In love, work, and life there are things that are hard, but that does not make those things less important. By engaging them and trying to find solutions I grew a lot. I learned things about myself that I did not know was true. I found things out that where only there because I was engaging life. That has made this one of the best years of my life.
I am not sure what the next year has instore for me. I look forward to it. I know that life is all about not knowing what is in front of you.
A friend of mine is about to become a father for the first time. I know that he will be a good example for his kids. I know he will think about how his kids see his actions. I know that he will be able to teach his kids with his deeds.
For the first time in my life I am thinking about what kind of example I would be for children. Before I knew Dreamgirl I never thought about having kids. Now it does not seem like an outrageous thing to think about. I can imagine what it would be like to be a father.
The problem is that I think I would be a Lousy example for a child. I am lazy and selfish in most things. I live like a slob and I am not very good at maintenance. That would be a rotten way to raise a child.
I know that I need to start having more discipline now. I need to improved my bad example behaviors well before a child is even a consideration. It is hard to go against the way I have been living my life.
I think video games make me boring. I recently got my hands on a PSP. I am using it for work. I also had a friend lend me a game. I have been playing X-Men Legends 2 for the past couple of days.
I am worried that the game is making me boring. That is sad because it is just a mediocre game. I am always someone who is extremely caught up in his own thoughts. Most of the time I try sharing my thoughts with other people. That is the way I get out of my own head.
The problem with games is that I get very involved with the world in the game. It makes me think of just of the game world. All of my thoughts get stuck in that world. After playing a game for a few hours I end up having nothing to say to anyone.
This really disturbs me. Whenever I get this feeling I try to stop playing games. That is why I only have a handful of games for my PS2. I think this is clear to me because Dreamgirl is in my life. I talk to her all the time. I feel bad if she has to do all the talking.
Does anyone else feel this way if they play too many games?
