Spring break

And we get it kicked of with a prehistorically good time, taking a visit to the Jurassic World exhibit at the National Western Complex. It was a short but sweet display of how far animatronics have come in time, giving the impression of being up close and personal with a blinking, roaring Tyrannosaurus and it’s fabricated relative the Indominus Rex. My kids favorite part was the creation lab with the baby dinos, the detail they put into the baby dino puppets really delighted the little adventures in our group. It’s a pleasant distraction from the other news we have coming in right now.

My husband’s grandma gives him a call from Russia, he’s pretty grim talking about. By her own account , his grandma supports the war on the Ukraine, giving the impression that Russian troops are only there to ‘help’,, but this is already after the time when speaking against the war on Russian soil is prohibited and penalized. I’ve heard more from Putin talking that crazy talk about caste systems and bloodline superiority, even though I read that Facebook has been banned in Russia itself I still catch posts here and there from Russian artists I’m friends online with. It’s possible they’re using proxy servers but I don’t actually know but in some ways I get more or at least different news from all these folks over the battle of opinions I see broadcasted on the side by side news channels that I see at the gym. My husband shows me a vk video of a burnt out Russian military truck and there’s body parts strewn about around it, the camera pans to the ground and an ass that’s laying on the ground unattached to any torso or legs. Giving me a whole different perspective to the phrase “Hold onto your butts.”

Tuesday my husband gets a day to hang out with his work buddies. They enjoy some mushrooms and getting silly for a few hours. It sounds like a much needed bit of laughter for the hubs and all in a safe setting. As an added bonus , he came own with a big bag of fungi for us to split when we have bits of appropriate time over the next few months, we might enjoy a nice walkabout when we visit my folks next month and have grandparent childcare available.

Farewell

V,

Wow, I guess that’s it. Was it really that easy to cut me off? One mistake? To make matters worse, it took me a full 2 weeks to realize. I guess I was so busy making you a cd I was gonna give you today to realize you don’t want any part of me in your life. I’m such a fool.

Maybe I deserve it. I mean, there’s no way I was ever going to change your mind, so what’s the point of keeping me around where all I can do is cause damage. Of course, from my perspective, I felt like I had to try. But as usual, it seems like I just made up a lot of shit in my head that was never real.

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. How does a person fall in love with someone convinced that the feeling is reciprocal when it’s not? Was there ever anything you felt for me? Maybe you just felt bad for me and wanted to be nice. It doesn’t matter now I guess.

I definitely did/do love you. It took me awhile to realize how special you are because I’m a stupid idiot. There’s not a thing I would change about you. I spent so much time fantasizing about having a life and family together with you when we never even went out once. In reality, I’m such a mess. I hate myself so much and I already hate myself even more now, not that that’s your problem. But that voice in my head, it’s been saying this whole time I was never close to deserving someone as amazing as you, and I guess it was right.

I’m gonna disappear for awhile now. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything drastic. It’s just like, when you lose a lot in life, each new loss compounds on the previous ones, like a snowball. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to recover from this, but probably a long time. The thing no one tells you about rock bottom is it’s not some finite point. There’s always more room for things to get worse. And if I don’t take some time to grieve, it definitely will. It probably will anyways, but here I am, the consummate loser, as optimistic as ever.

In that same vein, I’d like to think I’ll see you again some day. Maybe I’ll finally have my shit together and things will be different. But I’m probably just being delusional again that you would ever want that. Either way, I love you, and I miss you, and I sincerely hope the next chapter of your life will be as wonderful as you deserve.

Love,
E

A letter to John

John – I would like to thank you. Thank you for those couple months that we were together. Though it was a relatively short time you helped me learn so much. So much about myself, relationships, and just life in general. You showed me how I should be treated while in a relationship. That I should not be settling for what today’s culture believes a relationship is or should be. In today’s world gentlemen are hard to come by. So now, knowing that there are nice guys still in the world who want to treat a girl right is something so valuable for me to be mindful of. Though I was very upset at the breakup of us I can see and realize that God put you into my life to show me how my relationship with a guy should be in the future and that my ideas of an ideal relationship aren’t too out of this world. Also, thank you for making me realize I also needed to make a change in myself. I know you said you didn’t want to change people… but it’s in a good way I promise. I’ve now seen that I need to make a change in myself to better myself and become the person that I should be and think I deserve to be. By being more conscious about my decisions and beliefs and why I’m thinking the way that I do or why I’m doing something. Not just following with what everyone else thinks I should do or feel about a certain thing. But really focusing on the details and forming an opinion that is truly based on me. I’ve been going through important topics that are present today and becoming more informed on them. Seeing both sides to issues and deciding where I fall. I’ve also been able to look at my past decisions and figure out why I thought or did something at that specific time. And while I may not still follow though with that today it’s made me the person that I am today and has helped shape me. Thanks to you I have been able to become a better version of myself. I’ve also started reading the Bible again as a way of connecting to back to religion and having it take larger importance in my life. It’s often been pushed to the side or further back which I hate to admit but is true. And I’ve also learned so much from those few readings that I have done so far. I’m nowhere perfect or where my ideal version of myself is right now. There’s a lot of improvements and work that still needs to be done. But I’m working towards being the best for myself. And who knows what that will look like exactly in the future months or years from now. Though we didn’t work out and that’s hard to think about, I think we were really good together for that time. And we needed to be together to each teach some kind a lesson to the other. I hope you’re also able to take things about me and that I showed you during the relationship and take it with you or learn from it. Hopefully it was as beneficial to you as it was to me. And I really do wish you the best in life and everything. I know your wishes and dreams and hope that you’re able to achieve all of those and more. But I also hope that you don’t focus on the future too much. That you be here in the present and be grateful for the here and now. Thinking about the future too much can make you feel a little lost sometimes. So thank you again for our time together. Whether that be going on all the dates or just simply watching a movie at your house. I enjoyed being with you and truly wish you the best in life.

Circles

I’m not going to be super defensive. I’m not going to attack you for things you’ve done wrong. I’m sure that, like me, as you’ve gotten older and matured more you’ve come to recognize some of those mistakes and have regrets. I do think that it’s easy for me to paint you in my mind as a terrible person, when in reality, just because my experience with you has been terrible so many times, that doesn’t define you as a person or your interactions with anyone but myself. And I’m trying to remember that more.

What I will say is that if you are unhappy, I’m sorry. I have been unhappy for a long time. I’ve tried as best as I could to explain why, and how we could both work together to make things better. For whatever reason, nothing has gotten better. I’m still mad at you frequently because we never made any tangible progress from shortly after we first met. Since then, really it’s just one endless loop of cycles that all end the same way before repeating again. I’ve tried to break the cycle so many times and chart a new path forward for us, but it clearly hasn’t worked.

For sure, a lot of that is on me too. In the past, when I’ve said things like ‘let’s just forget everything and start over’, well I think I’ve proven there are some things that still hurt me deeply I can’t just ignore or forget. You just have to deal with that, or not, they’re my feelings and I am entitled to them. You, of course, have feelings too, and I know sometimes I have hurt them through my anger or even my awkwardness, and maybe you don’t want to just move past that either. Believe it or not, I care about you too much to ever want to hurt you.

In turn, you seem to really struggle with my needs, like the very fact that I have needs and you should ever be expected to provide them. Again, I have tried my best to communicate those needs, nothing crazy, friendship, affection, support, sex, but to no avail. And you know what, you’re entitled to do whatever you want, so if you don’t want to, or don’t think I deserve anything, that’s fine. But it’s not really fair to expect anything from me either then.

Anyways, hope you’re doing well.

Me