I GIVE UP

GREAT! I spent 1/2 hour typing and venting and getting some stuff out, and then it all fucking vanishes! I thought I was ready to go to dinner tonite, but I was wrong. I just can’t go and act like nothing is amiss. I’ve returned what wasn’t mine, done what I said I would do, and now I can take a breather, maybe. It makes me sick that I allowed myself to get sucked in repeatedly into believing what I wanted to believe was true, when it obviously wasn’t. I spent a lot of years learning to love myself and be happy and content with the person I’ve become, as well as coming to believe that I am a good and lovable person, worthy of loving and being loved by a special man. I’m not perfect. I’m not looking for perfect. I wasn’t even looking at all, actually when it happened, and I allowed myself to be convinced that what I wanted to see was what was real. Apparently I’m the only person it was real to, because when my “friend” was told that something had hurt me, deeply, and left me with a broken heart, said friend appears to not give a shit about how I’m feeling, and doesn’t particularly care about helping me find my way out of the hole in which I find myself. Sure, I said I thought I needed some time and space to fall back out of love, and I was told that I would have it, and then I made the first move to re-open some communication. I’ve learned that I’m not ready to do that. Especially since the communication is stilted and uncomfortable for the most part, and it totally ignores the problem. All I want is to love and be loved, and share my life with a good man, but apparently I don’t get to do that. I’ll just go into my hole now.

It's not getting any better

I don't know what I was expecting, but frankly, I was hoping that something would be resolved by now, or at least some conversation to be happening. Yeah, notsomuch. I did get a response to what I felt I had to do, but in the grand scheme of things, it really didn't say much of anything except to give me the time and space that I asked for. Since we have a fairly sizeable circle of mutual friends, I guess I just need to figure out how to fall back out of love with him, and how to be ok with being just friends with him. I've not slept decently in days, though last night I did manage about 6 hours, but it wasn't particularly restful. Right now it's all I can do to get myself out of bed in the morning to function and get done what I have to get done at work. My friends are trying to keep me cheered up and distracted, but it doesn't work most of the time. Maybe I'll sleep tonite with the Advil PM

Weekend #3

This has been a hard weekend for me. My identical twin, AKA Darla came in for faire. This is a weekend that we both look forward to, beginning at cannon on Sunday night when we hit the parking lot to go back to my house so she can head home the following day. As a result of last weekend's trip, I have had to work pretty hard to get the enthusiasm back for us to enjoy our magic. I'm still frustrated about that whole situation, and it's something that I'm going to have to work through, and hope that it turns out well. This time around, the baby stayed home with Daddy for a couple of reasons. 1. big brother had 2 doctors' appointments today and we really didn't need to have to try and corral the baby as well; 2. who wants to corral the toddler at faire, since he won't stay in his stroller or a wagon; 3. Daddy said "he can stay home with me, we'll have a good time". Our days were pretty good, because the big boy had the phone with him, so we didn't get 47 phone calls, as we often do. The evenings, on the other hand, rather than being enjoyable, post faire dinners among friends, have been stressful and annoying because the asshole just HAD to call and prove his dickheadedness. Friday night he was mad because we were out to dinner with a 3 people we know and love that come up from Houston & Galveston, instead of sitting in the motel eating takeout and waiting for him to be good and drunk so he could call her. Saturday night, he was angry because after spending nearly 30 minutes on the phone with him outside the restaurant, she wanted to come in and eat with the rest of us (17 plus me, I think), and THEN when he called 4 more times in the 40 minutes she was inside eating and visiting, she couldn't hear him to talk to him, so he called again as soon as we got out the door & were driving through to get our friend who couldn't make it to dinner with the group something to eat. Yeah, it was UGLY. Last night he finally gave up after about an hour of back & forth bullshit. Today it has been off and on all day, because, well, DAMN, we have to actually be off the phone with him while we are talking to the doctor. Tonight he is pissed off because he doesn't understand why she's mad at him for calling her a bad mother since she needed to actually do something for her work by a specific time, so "no thank you, don't try to make the baby talk to me on the phone, since he's not wanted to talk to me for the last 3 days". Oh holy shit! Yeah, there may be a trip to the sticks in my future for packing and helping to move. In other news, I've had absolutely no response to what I had to do on Thursday night, in an effort to get my heart back, though I've had a bit of feedback. I'm still heartbroken, and in all honesty, it has been literally 8 months since I went this long with no contact, and it is harder than I EVER imagined, but it has to be done. Oh, and on Wednesday, as I was on my way home. I had a small accident, with a little over $4K of damage to my car. Nobody was hurt, and I don't think the truck I hit has nearly the damage that I sustained, but we'll see. Fortunately, my insurance was already renewed for 6 months, so I won't have an increased premium until October. Ok, I think I've done enough rambling and venting, and my alarm will go off in about 6 hours, so I've got to go to bed!

This is not a pretty post

For a great many years, I was absolutely terrified that I would be alone for the rest of my life and that I would never find my life partner. Eventually I reached the point that I was just dandy on my own. That I could be alone without being lonely. Sure there was an empty space in my heart, but I no longer focused on it, and it didn't worry me. A little over a year ago, just as Faire was starting, my circle of friends expanded. This past year has been amazing for me. There have been ups and downs, but overall it's been an awesomely good year. As time went by, what I thought was a mutual interest in a closer friendship and more developed. I did finally work up the nerve to act on it, and while the rejection was as gentle as it could have been, it stung a bit. No worries, I understand the logic an the reasoning at the time. Off and on for the next several months, I thought I was seeing some romantic interest developing, and I would periodically do something stupid, like kiss him when he wasn't expecting it, or try to get him to spend some time alone with me, usually to no avail. I always wound up kicking myself for doing it, because inevitably there was a small rift that was caused, either by his discomfort at me making a move on him, or my brain kicking my ass telling me how stupid I am for trying it because I'm just the plain fat girl that no really good guy is going to want to be alone with anyway. Now, all along, my biggest fear has been that I would completely screw up the whole friendship, and create an uncomfortable situation for not just me, or him and me, or even him, me, and a couple that is comprised of on of his best friends and one of my best friends, but also another 10 or so people that care an awful lot about both of us. Knowing that that would be a horrible thing to have happen, I tried very hard to keep my heart in check and let my head stay in control. Over time, my heart began to win the argument much more often than my brain did... somehow, when i wasn't looking, a piece that seems to fill that empty spot quite well became wedged in there. Oh, I tried not to let it happen, because I didn't want to risk being hurt, or hurting him, or any of our friends. Yeah, that didn't work out so well, and before I knew it, I was head over heels in love. A love that completes me, and makes me feel whole and secure, beautiful and wanted. It wasn't any one thing in particular, or even a specific group of things. He is my first thought in the morning, and my last thought at night, and crosses my mind a thousand times a day, whether we are near each other, or half a continent apart. He makes me smile virtually every day. Everyday things make me think of him, a commercial on the radio, a picture of a white fluffy cat, a random word or phrase. We both suck at face to face, real, verbal communication, and most of our meaningful conversations are either instant messages, texts, or emails. I have a huge fear of rejection, and I have always hated for anyone to see me crying, so I admit to being a chickenshit about demanding answers. I have no idea why he is so averse to having conversations with each other when no one else is around. This past weekend was the one weekend that we would be at faire at the same time without one or the other of us having someone in from out of town to go with us. In retrospect, my expectations and hopes were probably unreasonable, and I know that they were not communicated as well as they should have been, for which I have to accept the blame, however it was a HUGELY disappointing day. I would venture so far as to say it was the worst day I have ever had at faire. Even my favorite musicians didn't salve my aching heart. I had anticipated plenty of time on walkabout with him, exploring the site, and finding the new shoppes in the village and seeing what had been moved around. Now, I knew that we would not be on our own for the whole day, as we have a large group of friends that is in the village most days, but I certainly didn't expect that I would have to settle for less than an hour throughout the entire day. My fear of rejection, coupled with the fact that the times I did touch his shoulder or arm he didn't exactly flinch or pull away, he did tense up a bit, kept me from trying to hold his hand, or walk arm in arm with him. It broke my heart to see him hugging other women in our group, though my brain said "he can hug them because they are attached to someone else, so they are safe for him to hug without worrying that he's sending the wrong message". Seeing other couples all paired up and affectionate made the pit of my stomach knot up for the first time in several years. I cried myself to sleep Sunday night, and again Monday night. I came to the conclusion that I can't keep on with the ups and downs, despite the ups being more frequent than the downs. This down has been the most horrible of my entire life. I have NEVER been in this dark of a place. The only choice I feel like I have is to back away and not see him for awhile, and hope that I can fall back OUT of love with him. I am more miserable than I have ever been in my life. I've been told that I need to move on and focus my energies on someone else. The problem is that there is no one else I want to focus on. Shit, there hadn't been anybody in YEARS that I particularly wanted to focus on, and suddenly he was dropped into my world and lit it up. I don't ever want to hurt like this again, and I just don't know when I might be able to open my heart back up, if it ever does heal from this. Intellectually, I realize that getting through this will be a process. Right now, I am mad as hell because my horrible day at Faire on Sunday has caused me to not want to go to faire this weekend, and is putting a damper on what is usually one of my most fun weekends of the year, the one when I am in the village with my very best friend in the world. I know that the only person responsible for my happiness is me, but I'm having a bit of a hard time thinking about walking around the shire with her and not hearing his voice saying "I don't think I've ever come up this lane before" or "that is really cool". Yeah, I'm in a horrible dark place, and I am going through the motions because I HAVE to drag myself to work and home again, and get stuff done, when I'd rather just hole up in my bed with my cats and feel no pain.

Ups & Downs

Another weekend of faire has come and gone. Saturday I was out with one of my adoptakids, who is 9. He's a sweetheart, and we had a pretty good time. I'm thinkin' I'll take him again next month when another friend will have someone in with a 2nd grader. The Rogues added a show to the schedule on a stage on the other side of the festival this weekend. It's not an official show, but they discovered an empty stage, and seized the opportunity to entertain people who may not always make it to Pecan Grove, for whatever reason. I think it went over fairly well. Sunday dawned cold and wet from overnight rains and a bit of ongoing drizzle, which kept a lot of people away, though about half of my usual bunch made it out. I had high expectations of Sunday, which, I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I should have known would not pan out, because, well, they never do. I won't say it was my least happy day at faire, but it's pretty close to that. I couldn't even get motivated to go to the afternoon Rogues shows, and even listening to them from the other side of the stage didn't help. Yeah, I was in a BAAAD way. I'm tired, and have been, frankly overwrought about this, so I know that this is not the time to make any sort of decisions, but I am hugely afraid that I have spent 8 months working toward a goal that is not going to ever be. On one hand, most of the time I've generally been happier and more content than I have ever been in my life. On the other hand, I'm finding that the price I'm paying is just too much to pay for little or nothing in return. The good days far outnumber the bad ones, but the bad ones are just a wee bit away from being absolutely unbearable. *sigh* I don't know how much longer I can deal with them. Photos of 1st and 2nd week later this week, I hope...

Well now

I had every intention of getting my Opening Weekend blog posted earlier in the week. Obviously that didn't happen, because here we are at Thursday and I'm just now taking the time to even write it. I took about 300 pictures and really wanted to include a few in here, but that didn't happen, either, mostly because I didn't get them edited and sorted yet. Friday I took the day off work to finish getting the car packed, and getting last minute stuff done so as to be a responsible, albeit absent innkeeper because some of my friends are staying at my place each weekend for the duration of Scarby. You are probably wondering why I'm absent. I love my friends, and I love that I can provide them a place to stay, even if I'm not there, however I also love the oh, about an hour and a half to two hours in the parking lot before cannon on faire mornings. I use that time to finish dressing (have you ever tried to lace yourself into that back-lacing bodice without any help? tried driving an hour and a half in that laced, steel-boned bodice, 2.5 lbs of skirt which measures 27 feet around the hemline?) and visit with my friends in the parking lot. In order to do this, from my house, I would have to leave between 6:30 and 7 a.m., and on Saturday nights, anyway, I wouldn't make it home after dinner until nearly midnight. Raevyn at Faire on less than 6 hours of sleep is NOT a pretty sight, I can assure you. Fortunately I have a friend that I can split a motel room with each weekend. It works out better this way anyhow, because there are only 3 or 4 people cycling through the shower at my house, instead of 5 of us. Staying near faire means I can sleep until 6:30 most mornings, and still be on my way to faire by 8, and have plenty of time to get a good parking space and play with my friends for awhile. So I am running around the house, getting sheets changed, trash emptied, etc. I finally finished everything, loaded the last of what I needed to into the car, and was off. I got a later start than I anticipated, but I made it to the motel, got stuff unloaded, changed another friend's room so she could be beside us instead of above us, and headed for the festival to deliver the housekey to one of my guests. I had a tasty little dinner with one of my oldest friends, and his wife... we'll hit 30 years of friendship this fall... holy crap we're old. It was Saturday morning in the wee hours before I was able to go to sleep because my roomie was sewing madly. Saturday morning was beautiful... we truly couldn't have asked for a prettier Opening. Getting passes at the gate didn't appear to be the fustercluck that everyone feared, but I have no idea what the situation inside where the actual passes were being printed was. As we were competing with 2 other festivals within about 3 hours drive, and Nascar race weekend, there weren't as many people as could have been, but it was still a great day. I honestly didn't get to see as much of the faire as I might have liked, but I did manage to see a couple of new vendors and lots of people I hadn't seen in months. I was at every Rogues show (yes, I know this comes as a terrible shock to you, but it's true), but didn't see a single other show. I remember last year, opening weekend totally kicked my ass, I was absolutely exhausted, and my back was killing me. At the time, I blamed the fact that my Pendragon bodice is not as extensively boned in the back as my Morescas are. Yeah, shame on me, it wasn't the bodice, it was the fact that my body is no longer accustomed to the walking and being bodiced up at all, because the same thing happened this year, despite the fact that I wasn't working and walking around a show area selling CDs for 4 shows a day. It was a bit warm by the end of the day, but overall it was an outstanding day. Sunday was about 20 degrees cooler, which means that anytime I wasn't in the sun, I was a wee bit chilled. There were fewer people out on Sunday, probably mostly due to the weather, we had a grand time anyway. I was DONE before cannon, which is a rarity for me, so left to head on home. When I got home, I discovered that perhaps I'm not such a fabulous innkeeper, as I'd left a bag of trash in the hallway. yeah, I suck, I know, but really ya'll is that any reason to leave the cats closed up in the media room? Fortunately they were happy to see me, and hadn't left me any messes in there, so it's all good. I think I'm going to post a note that says "hey, I won't leave a big bag of trash for you to trip on in the hallway if you won't lock my cats up" :) I know that it wasn't done on purpose, and even I have been known to lock one or the other of them in there from time to time. Today is my Friday, and I've got plenty to keep me busy this evening getting ready for this weekend. Hopefully I'll get photos up here in the next day or two...

Final Countdown

YAY! We are finally in the home stretch of the countdown to Opening Weekend at Scarby! Cannon is in 29 hours. In 26 or 27 I'll be in the parking lot greeting friends and getting ready for a lovely day in the shire. I should totally be packing my stuff and getting the house picked up so I can leave at 10:30 this morning to get some errands done before I head down to Waxahachie, but of course I am sitting on my ass, watching the news and blogging instead. I have managed to narrow down what to wear and am leaving all but 2 outfits at home, in an effort to not have quite so many decisions to make when I wake up in the mornings after a late night. I suspect that tonite I’ll be helping my motel roomie work on alterations for a friend’s costuming. Hopefully the changes will be mostly straight seams being sewn so we won’t be up all night. The cats know something’s up, and my sweet boy is sticking very close this morning. The good news is that the house won’t be unattended this weekend for the crazy bitch to get in and steal me blind, because some of my friends are staying here, though I’ll be closer to faire at the motel. I’m also hoping to get some good sunshiny photos of my front yard before I head out, because I’m quite happy with what I had my nephew put in on Sunday. I am going to have to get a better shepherd’s crook for one of my fuchsias though, because the one I’ve got keeps leaning down, and won’t stay upright for some reason. The more time I spend trolling the net looking at plants, the more I want to do with my backyard! I suspect, however, that I need to slow down a bit, lest I bust the bank account. This weekend is also Race Weekend in north Texas. Several people I know are going to various activities out at the speedway, but even if I wasn’t going to faire, I would probably not be heading that way. Traffic makes me crazy, and as much as I like watching on tv, and keep up with where my driver is in the standings, I’m not willing to be driving in that mess. If someone else wants to drive, we can discuss it, but it’s not going to be me behind the wheel. A few years ago I went down to Sundance Square on Friday to get an autograph for a friend’s birthday. I realize that Nascar is considered by many to be a redneck sort of sport, and I find it hugely amusing that it is the only professional sport that openly acknowledges a supreme being, and addresses that being prior to every race with a prayer. I think it’s kind of sad that other professional sports don’t publicly acknowledge faith in any way. I also appreciate the fact that generally, Nascar chooses vocalists that can do the Star Spangled Banner who can actually sing it without mangling it or jazzing it up, or whatever so many of the others I’ve seen at other events are doing. I mean, I get that everybody wants to leave their mark, but come on people, it’s our national anthem, and as a military brat, I have certain expectations with regard to the flag, anthem and other patriotic things/ideas. Among those expectations are basic respect for the flag, which means face it, men should remove their hats, and if you choose not to participate in the pledge or anthem, please just sit or stand quietly. If I am at an event hosted by your country, I will afford your flag and anthem the same respect I offer my own. It annoys the HELL out of me to see or hear people talking or giggling during the anthem. OK, that rant’s over now. I’d better get off my butt and get the sheets in the dryer, clean sheets on the bed, and finish packing so that I stand half a chance of being on the road when I want to be!