Via Wikipedia Commons.
Dear Internet,
The one major hiccup while working on getting my archives back online is I read almost all of what I put up to check for errors, broken links, broken images and the like which makes the process longer. In the beginning of this project, I was also checking for grammar, but I decided to leave the earlier work alone in its pure form. (AKA, I’m lazy.)
Some years are terrible to read, like 2003, in which I was an emotional wreck of doom and other years are just nostalgic of, “Oh. I did/read/eat/fucked that?” Sometimes I’m not so bright, and others, I am goddamn fucking brilliant.
What always trips me up the most when working on this project is the relationships that died either in a fiery passion of destruction or the ones that could have been, but never kicked off for whatever reason. I get to relive each train wreck, line by line, in slow, agonizing detail.
A few weeks ago while doing some public clean up on various social sites, I came across messages for me from an ex, TheBassist, which were left on his blogs over the course of several years. One was from 2011 and the other from earlier this year. Finding his messages was happenstance and at first, I could not place who they were from, but then once I saw the message itself I knew exactly who it was. I checked his main blog and saw the 2011 post in which he had apparently stalked me on Facebook but didn’t attempt to contact me.
Not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with this information for:
- He splintered my heart the first time that when he came sniffing around the second time, about six months after our first tussle, I showed him my partially fixed heart which he took a sledgehammer to. Again.
- While the connection between us when we were together was insane, he routinely lied to me on just about everything
- I could never trust him again, even in a platonic manner
So if he’s wondering if I read them, yes. Yes, I did.
As I skip through most of the naughts, some exes keep coming up over and over. Miguel, who in 2011 decided to Facebook me to find out where I was so we could get married. And if you all recall, I already am married. Happily. What transpired out of that conversation of nearly 20 years of missed connections and opportunities, was finding out he was ALREADY living with a woman who happened to be nearly half his age. So yes, he was attempting to marry his high school sweetheart (who is married to someone else) while still living with his sweetheart who just out of high school as this is how this man rolls.
A bullet dodged.
I’ve started dipping into some time periods when Patrick and I were together, which if I had not married TheHusband, and the stars were aligned and unicorn blood had not been spilt, he and I might have ended up Mr. and Mrs. Patrick related to me a few years ago the thought process of if he had gotten his emotional shit together, at the time my emotional shit was together, I would be Mrs. Patrick on this day. Instead, he’s now married in Texas and has a step-daughter whom he adores. No animosity between us, we were never one of those couples, but the best recourse for our sanity is to just remain distant friends instead of the half dreaming of what could have beens. Our over protection of the other, truthfully him more so than me, coupled with our long, long interwoven past makes it difficult not to be forever linked.
TheEx occupied most of my thoughts from 2006 – 08, and makes appearances in my brain every six months or so now, basically in the realm of, “Am I still angry enough to want to rip his nuts out and shove them down his throat? Y/N?”. Just as working through the time in 2003 when Miguel and I were plotting to save the world is painful to read, so is the content I’m recovering about TheEx is painful. What’s up right now is just glimpses of what I have, and that pain is as fresh as if you have poured salt on an open wound.
Recently I was hanging out in 1999, where TheHusband and Jeff (known as Lucid) are prominently figured. I mention that,
Of course as I started writing this, I had to google stalk him. Well, let’s not be surprised he has a Twitter account and I made frowny faces as I read back his timeline because – this is not someone I would have ever dated in a million years. But it should be noted his first wife had emailed me oh five or six years ago because apparently he spent most of his first marriage comparing her to me and wife #2 looks suspiciously like me circa when we were dating.
After the entry that quote came from had been published, I started thinking about what Jeff would have thought of if he did the same (and let us presume at some point he had Google stalked me) – would he have thought he dodged a bullet with me? Would have have thought I had grown and evolved, or was I just peddling the same shit, just a different decade?
Tough, but much needed, questions to ask as I often wonder the same of myself. I think most who know me, and know me well, would have argued that I have moved and expanded my worldview in the last 20 years. That was one of the first things TheHusband remarked on as we started dating again – I maintained all the good things about my youth and seemingly smoothed out all the trouble spots. As I was saying to someone recently, this public naval gazing of the soul is becoming antiquated. I espouse so much, and at the same time so little, I am not entirely sure how to answer my own question.
Here is what I do know: Being here in this space, either alone or with you, has filled me with great joy this last month. There was a long time when I never thought I would write even privately again, and to know that I can do this still gives me so much.
Today is December 2, which means I’ve written AND posted an entry every day for the entire month of November. Crazy. I seriously can’t believe I have pulled that off! Will I continue doing it? Yes. I’m in a groove now and it seems as unusual now to not write something and post it to the world.
Let’s talk stats!
- November total posts: 31 (Two posts on November 27)
- November total word count: 28,036
- November longest entry: I have a vagina, watch me use a computer (1987)
- November shortest entry: scary house with the wild front yard (175)
- Site total posts: 611 (including this one)
- Site total word count: 412,066 (not including this one)
Taking into consideration how much isn’t up yet, whole years missing, there is a very real chance I’ll hit a million words once the archive project is completed.
Astonishing.
x0x0,
Lisa