holy buckets

[tiffybear]

i dont even think anyone i know ever reads these anymore. so here i am again. time sure does fly, 571 days now. not that i'm counting. . . maybe i'll never stop counting. who knows. so anyway, its still colder than i could ever imagine, and i'm still living in Saint Paul. still working at the adventure, and its been over a year there for me now. its wierd. how writing here is like the last destination my exhausted ego has to go to find solace regarding my life and the completely bizarre world that i operate in. meh. so maybe i should see a pattern. maybe i should see history repeating itself and know what's the next right thing to do. maybe i should look at the laundry list of my past mistakes and just use that to make an educated prediction of the steps i'm about to take that will launch me into insanity. but i can't. its completely foreign to me. even though this is the same thing that happens everytime. i can't begin to understand what the hell i'm doing. so. maybe here i can try to be honest with myself and see. based on experience and logic and wisdom and hope that i can be different and try to see what's going on. so here goes. john is flying out here to minnesota to see me. well, not exactly just to see me, he's actually flying to chicago with his mom to meet up with his grandparents and then driving back together with them to minnesota. anyhow, he will be here on monday. for a week. his plan is that he will come out here spend a few days with his grandparents and then the rest of his time here with me. now i wouldn't have a problem with a visit. actually, noone has come to see me since i moved up here with the exception of my parents following me out here last june to help me get my car back here from virginia. and kyle visited but incidentally he was driving to Oregon anyway for law school. so noone has made the trek for a true tiffany visit except john. john came out here last summer to see me when his cousin got married. this is visit #2 for john. not that it gives him any cool points or anything, but i guess the not so well part of tiffany was still hoping it would be one of my brothers making trip #1 much less trip #2 to see me. i remember my mom even said she'd come see me if i got to swim in the tanks at the aquarium, and i booked the date, but she never came. i guess i kinda knew she wouldn't. but i digress. john will be here in a week. i live alone now in a studio apartment near downtown St Paul and honestly, i'm not sure how much i can take when it comes to me spending time with him. i feel like there's such a part of me that misses being close to someone who knows me but there's such a part of me that doesn't trust him as far as i can throw him. hmph. so anyway, this wouldn't be a problem except eric has been such a part of my life for the last few months. and i know what that looks like too. i know how just one year ago we nearly ripped each other to shreds and bitterly backed out of one another's life. how his friends ripped me apart and gossipped about me behind my back to make him feel better. and ultimately how i said i'd never be hurt or get that hurt by a friend ever again. ya. he's back. and the funny thing is. history DOES repeat itself. the patterns are all there, still. black and white. he manipulates me. i let him. he gets needy and i caretake. i become passive and let him take the proverbial wheel. he dangles red bull and candy in front of me and i act oblivious to the idea he's buying my attention and suddenly we're driving aimlessly for hours. we don't even talk half the time. he buys me diamonds and takes me out to eat at the most impressive establishments i've ever laid eyes on. and then i feel like i owe him time. the last time i was in the hospital i thought i was going to die and he was there with me, watching me cry. he can't stand needles so when the nurse blew out the vein in my right arm he sat across the room telling me it would be ok, that everything was alright. i was sure i was going to die. and started shaking uncontrollably and crying. the nurses gave me an IV and said i needed ativan. they injected me with ativan and dilaudid in an effort to make me calm down and make the pain finally tolerable. once i was sedated he sat next to the bedside and watched me. i dont think i've ever been so sure that someone was wrong for me. i mean just that sense of knowing. like some 6th sense, an intuitive all encompassing "knowing". he's wrong for you. but he said he loved me. and i pretended like the dilaudid made me fall asleep. i was so scared. and i was suffering so bad, in so much pain and so afraid, but no comfort came from his presence. maybe its an unfair expectation. maybe noone anywhere ever could have comforted me. maybe i was looking for a mortal to do a divine deed, where does comfort come from when you're hurting so bad? anyway. hours later after radiology and the doctor came back with the report, i was discharged from the hospital and in an effort to help? maybe? eric said i should stay with him. to be watched. overnight. at least until the ativan and dilaudid wore off. i could hardly walk and it took me everything i had to get to his lexus SUV and he took me home. and to be honest. i didn't want to sit at my apartment alone and scared and hurting. but i didn't want to be alone with him either. i just didn't know what to do. it was 3am and i was so tired and then he kissed me. it was wierd. like it didn't even matter. not like i didn't care, but just like it was him saying hello or a breeze went by. it wasn't a big deal. and i think that's when i knew. i don't love this guy. a week earlier we had a conversation about what exactly our situation is called. he asked me, can i call you my girlfriend? and i said no. i said if you're looking for someone to hang out with and have a good time every now and then i'm open, but if you're looking for a title, for a girlfriend or a relationship, i'm going to run away and not look back. i'm not emotionally available. he said he understood. that it was cool and we would just hang out. no pressure. so here i am weeks later. i haven't heard from him all day, which is pretty standard because about every 10 days or so he blows me off for like 3 days and then reappears with chocolate and gifts and empty promises of how he's so sorry and will never do it again. but nevertheless. he's MIA. part of me thinks he's out drinking somewhere or buying pills off the street from that kid that he knows in minneapolis. part of me thinks he is lying everytime he comes back and has an excuse for where he's been or why he hasn't acknowledged me. but there's a little part of me too that thinks, hey, if he disappears for 3 days just let him go. don't answer the phone when he comes back. don't read the texts. but then he shows up at my door. *facepalm* red bull. candy. apologies. says he wants to be a good friend and offers me a pass to swim at his gym. and suddenly i feel like my defenses are down. and in an effort maybe even to be helpful somehow i go with him. i'm like some dumb puppy that knows its going to be beaten but goes back to that stupid house every f-ing time. its sick. both of us. and every chance he gets he pours salt in the wound that was inflicted over a year ago and reminds me how heartbreaking it was to lose me as a friend a year ago when i walked out of his life, and its beyond me to remind him how the reason i walked away was because he was completely disrespecting my boundaries i tried to set and how he walked all over me and manipulated me to get what he wanted. so i feel trapped. metaphorically. sometimes physically but mostly metaphorically. and i know i'm not really trapped. i just can't see a way out. but the plot thickens. not terribly, just enough rope to tie my own noose with. so, when i finally got home from the hospital, like home back to my apartment home i tried to sleep the next day. restless hours later i realized it was 6am and went outside to smoke. in my fleecy heart pajama pants and pink snow boots, a white beanie cap and my blue coat i was still in a daze from the meds. i stood jaded on the porch smoking by the back door and a guy walked out and said hi. i dont think i even looked at him but i smiled and did the head nod that says, whatup without requiring communicating exactly. he asked me what my name was, and i said Tiffany without looking up again. he said his name was Edward. he casually mentioned he has lived here for about 5 months but hadnt met any neighbors and i mentioned i too was in that boat, having lived here 5 months as well. i was sleepy and cold. he asked if i was just getting in or if i was leaving. i said getting home. from the hospital. he asked if that's where i worked. i said no, i was a patient there. my arms were still covered in hives from whatever it was that was trying to kill me. i was all itchy and feeling wierd and tried to get away. he walked in the backdoor and as i walked down the basement hallway, he asked me where i lived. now i'm pretty naive but i'm not completely incompetent. i looked over my shoulder and mentioned it was around the corner, knowing full well there were 4 apartments that way. and that was it. i didnt see Edward again. Valentines Day morning, about 9 days later, i woke up to a note under my apartment door. in short it said, Tiffany it took me 5 months to meet you, i dont want it to be another 5 months before i see you again. i hope this is the right apartment, and if it is i hope you will remember me, Edward. blah blah blah please come to my apartment or stop by sometime we could hang out and get pizza or talk. and the first thing i said to myself was, no f-ing way. so. fast forward. a few days ago i decided i'd like to try playing piano, eric brought me to Guitar Center with him, and he was going to buy new guitar strings to restring his because a few had broke, and i bought some wonky learn it yourself crap piano book. which turned into eric and i getting into a fight that same night when i asked to use the music studio in his apartment building to play the piano. i was halfway through "When the Saints Go Marching In" and my left hand wouldn't play the stupid chords and i was stumbling through it. anyway. it turned into a big fight with eric who came into the studio having exhausted his attention for every game in the arcade and decided to play over my shoulder and i left the piano book at his apartment ever since that fight. partially because i'm stubborn and partially because i wanted to say, look its not going to get me to come back just because you have a piano if you treat me like crap and yell at me i'm not playing. you can take the ball, i'm going home. so i was leaving my apartment tonight to go see ashley and will and bring back the remote control to the tv she borrowed me 6 months ago that i gave back to her last week but forgot her dvds and remote and as i was walking out Edward was just going into his apartment. he totally caught me off-guard. he stopped in his doorway which stood between me and the backdoor of my apartment building where i park my car. "Tiffany?" he was totally beside himself so excited. in an effort to not make things any more wierd than they had to be i said oh hey and kinda kept walking to the stairs. i got to the first stair at the door and he asked me, Did you ever get my note i left you? *facepalm* right then i knew i had a choice. i could lie and say i never did, must have been the wrong apartment, sorry. have a good night. but something different happened. something i wasn't too sure of, but decided would be better somehow anyway. "Yea, i did. that was really nice. i'm sorry i haven't been able to visit, but i work a lot." and the truth was easier. i really do work 40 hours a week. i really do work 13 hour days sometimes arriving home at midnight and going back to work at 6am. and i really do have service commitments to speak at hospitals and i go to 3 meetings a week. "oh that's ok. would you maybe be interested in hanging out sometime? are you like seeing anybody?". i could feel myself start to blink rapidly. my stomach tightened a little. "no, i'm not seeing anyone." it wasn't entirely not true. and having sat in the hair salon for 4 hours today getting my hair colored and toned and cut and styled, i had a sudden flash of an article i read about dating. not that it was any of my business to be reading anything that insinuates i could or should ever be dating, but i remembered this line about if you've had unsuccessful relationships and are getting back into dating, try something different. If you meet a guy you would normally say yes to, say no. and if you meet a no guy, try yes. and it occurred to me, i had heard music from his apartment one day when i walked by to go to the laundry room to wash my sheets and so i asked him, "hey do you play music?" and he looked at me without any hesitation, had a huge grin on his face and said, "ya i play piano and guitar". i laughed and mentioned i had recently bought a book in some wierd effort to learn piano a few days ago. and he said, "if you'd like to come over sometime i could show you a few pointers. maybe play you a few songs?". and without reservation this No guy got a yes. not because i wanted anything from him. not because he deserves it more than eric. not because i don't want to see john. just because i think it could be something different. this guy wasn't afraid to write a letter to a girl he met once to tell her he thought she was a girl he didn't want to wait to see again. he gave me his number before i left and i told him i couldn't hang out tonight because of the whole remote thing with ashley's tv and he was like ok, well if you're ever free just come by or call me sometime if you know you have a day you'd like to come. and like that i said goodbye and it was over. no pressure to show up tomorrow. no wierd pickup lines. it was refreshing. and he seemed nervous and shy and somehow that was refreshing too. no flashy suit and tie or arrogant ego trip to fall over, it was like he just wanted to have a chance to say hi and was happy that he did. like he was wearing his heart on his sleeve. and i got this wierd feeling like i can believe that. he's being honest. so anyhow. its 230 in the morning and Eric is texting me now. saying he's sorry he blew me off today. asking if i'm awake and can he see me tomorrow. John will be here one week from today. and right down the hall is a piano playing musician who has no idea what he's getting himself into. its nights like these that i lay on my air mattress and listen to the silence in my apartment and look at the big blank spot on my shelf where ashley's tv used to be and i'm grateful. i don't know what the next right thing to do is. i don't know that i could do the next right thing even if i knew what it was. but i trust that somehow i will be ok. somehow ten years from now i will look back on all this and it will have all been exactly what needed to happen to get me to where i'm going to be.
and even though i'm crazy tonight. and uncomfortable. and afraid. i'm still here. i'm still alive. i'm safe and i'm ok. and i'm grateful. i hope i never stop remembering to be grateful for what i have. i gotta get up early for work . . . ugh. long day.
but maybe we're all so interconnected that we can't even see it. and maybe if thoughts can become things, if our thoughts have a gravitational pull to them somehow and we can think of the same thing at the same time we could be in the same place at the same time like on another plane. that makes me feel better. somehow. i mean we all sleep under the same stars at night.