Tomorrow is Lance’s birthday. He’s turning 29. And I am slightly concerned because I’m up at school and it’s supposed to storm badly tomorrow. Which may impede my trip to Base Camp for Lance’s birthday, and for spring break. Even though Lance said I need to “go with the flow” for his birthday, not getting to be there due to weather conditions was not apart of that. I don’t “go with the flow.” I go with plans. And I planned to leave immediately after Ecology tomorrow with plans to be at Base Camp around 2pm. And look cute in my grey sweater dress, which is very difficult to do in a snow storm.

I’m not usually this much of a snot, but I just want to make sure he has a good birthday. I want to be there because he was there for me on my birthday. And he’s done a lot for me, so I want to reciprocate.

I baked him two cheesecakes. Yes. Two. He doesn’t like regular cake, but he’s very fond of cheesecake. Before last Saturday, I had never made a cheesecake before. Last Saturday was the trial-run cheesecake. Which my roommates and I test-tried a small portion of it. Then, I cut it into individual slices, wrapped each slice, and froze them. That way, when I’m not around, he can just pull a slice out of the freezer and eat it whenever he wants.The cheesecake I made today is the Official Birthday Cheesecake.

He also has an unusual tractor brand. Not the typical John Deere or even International. It’s an Agripower, made by Zetor in the Czech Republic. Although sold in the United States, there is no merchandise in the U.S. Lance adores that tractor (I think mostly for contrary reasons, but still). John  Deere has all kinds of hats and clothes, but Agripower/Zetor doesn’t. Not in the United States, anyway. So I ordered him a hat from England.

Although he doesn’t have any draft horses at the moment, he once did. I also got him an illustrated history of the draft horse.

All in all, I think it’s a good collection of gifts.

I have a concern that we’ll go out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and it will be a repeat of two years ago while I was dating Sparky. It was Lance’s birthday and five of us went out to Texas Roadhouse. His cousin is one of the managers there and she came to sit with us. When they came around with the birthday saddle, he claimed he only rode double. Obviously the waitress couldn’t jump on there with him, that would be unprofessional. So his cousin turned, looked at me, and said, “Well, what about her?” I think not. Even though I’m dating Lance now (unlike two years ago), No. Just no. I don’t think so. Not my thing.

Jeesh. For his birthday, I’ll make sure he gets his 29 birthday spankings, like how he wanted to give me my 22 last October.

 

Since my last post:

• I went on the date with Alex. He is still very much in love with me.
• David broke up with his girlfriend.
• For a short time, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. I thought David and I would finally be getting our chance to be together again.
• David got back together with his girlfriend.
• Alex has been very attentive and everything I had wanted to be while we were dating.
• I’m still hung up on David, but I’m close to giving up, so I’ve been entertaining the idea of being with Alex, even though my heart wants David.

 

I Never Stopped Loving You

From when I first realized it two years ago until now. I never stopped loving you. It breaks my heart that you’re all I want in my life and you’re 3000 miles away. Give me some glimmer of hope for us and I’ll wait for you. I’ll stay strong and I won’t make the same mistakes as I did. Just let me know.

 

Quite the Predicament

Once upon a time, I dated a Navy Corpsman named David. I had known him since we were in 3rd grade, but when we were juniors in high school, he moved three hours away. Before he moved, we were moving closer and closer to starting a relationship. Both of us were just far too cautious, inexperienced, scared.

Then, in my freshman year of college we started talking again. Really talking. He told me he wasn’t going to college, he was joining the Navy. I looked forward to the messages from him, even though I had a boyfriend at the time. He was what kept me going through classes and my relationship troubles. I thought I was in love with my boyfriend, so I never acted on my feelings for David.

A few months later, while David was in boot camp, I had a dream that he drowned. That scared me, I worried, I knew that I was in a relationship with the wrong person.

Late May of 2009, David and I started dating. It was good at first, but then it slowly got worse. The novelty wore off and the hours he was working and his training meant we never got to talk to each other. We were both dumb about how we acted. August of 2009 is when I met Alex and, at the time, Alex was there and attentive. I ended my relationship with David late August so I could be with Alex.

Things didn’t work out with Alex. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that David and I would still talk off and on. The love we had for each other never left. I truly loved Alex, but I always had a deep longing to be with David. Then he got a girlfriend. I would dismiss my feelings for David as simple friendship.

In the spirit of friendship, I picked him up from the airport when he came home on leave February 19, 2011. We realized there was definitely more than just a friendly feeling. Even though he has a girlfriend, we started kissing and touching and that lead to even more. Then the next morning his parents picked him up to go home. I was in a funk for the rest of the week until the 24th of February, when I drove up to see David where he lives. We went to the movies and to dinner and had a wonderful time. His parents invited me up for the weekend. That night I went back to where I live at school.

Saturday morning I drove back up. We went snowmobiling. Sunday we went sledding and snowboarding. Monday we just chilled at his house. It was a fantastic weekend. Then Tuesday I brought David back to the airport where he would go on a plane to return to where he’s stationed. I started crying ten minutes before we reached the airport. I continued crying the whole time I was at the airport. I lost it when David went up the stairs to go through security, where I couldn’t go and I had to walk away to my car. I kept crying until about ten minutes after I left the airport. I cried yesterday listening to a song.

I realized I still love him. I still want him. I still want to be with him and spend the rest of our lives together. I would sacrifice anything for that.

But he has a girlfriend and I don’t know where I stand with him. We acted like a perfect couple all weekend, but we never talked about what we are now. Am I just the girl he goes to when he’s home? Is there a possible future for us? Is his girlfriend just the girl he’s dating because she’s close to where he’s stationed? Would things be different if we dated a second time? Am I just romanticizing the relationship again?

I just know I want to be with him and he might be the love of my life.

 

Finally

After a month and a half of wanting to break up with Alex, I finally did it over my Thanksgiving break. I’m such a girl though because I started crying. Even though I was the one doing the breaking up.

As much as I might get passive-aggressive about Alex’s behavior toward me, unlike past boyfriends, there wasn’t a huge fault about him. Obviously, all the little things built up, but he didn’t do any of the major, universal relationship deal-breakers. He didn’t cheat on me, have an entire other relationship, or play mind games. He was just immature.

So, yeah, it’s going to hurt and take time to get over. For the longest time, I thought I had finally found the guy I would settle down with. It’s jarring to have to go from that mindset to a new one. In the first, you have your whole life planned ahead of you and now that road is blank.

 

 

Waiting

At the beginning of October, I had every intention of breaking up with Alex when I saw him the first weekend of Fryeburg Fair. My mother dissuaded me. It would only cause drama and she didn’t want to deal with that. I owed it to her. Afterall, me and my father were leaving her there by herself. She was only doing it for me and him. She told me she didn’t have to spend her vacation time that way. “Wait until the fair ends,” she told me.

I thought this was fair. Afterall, after the fair ended it would be my fall break, so I would have a few days at home, in which I assumed Alex would come and see me. Except then, he got the flu. Additionally, he had asthma, which made it all the worse. So I waited.

Then, when I finally decided “today will be the day,” his grandmother died. With all these interventions, one might think I might take them as a sign that I shouldn’t break up with Alex. But I have been unhappy with him for some time. A lot of this unhappiness is derived from issues that Alex is aware of, so my unhappiness isn’t from a lack of communication about wants and expectations.

Now that Gigy is dead, I don’t know how long I should wait to break up with him. It would be cruel to do it now, but I don’t know how long I should wait. It’s been a week since she has passed; is it okay now? The funeral is in another week and a half; do I need to wait until after then?

Or do I take another route and try broaching the subject of my grievances again?

 

An Unsent Letter

Dear Alex —

There was  time when all I did was fight for our relationship to work. From the very moment in which you broke up with me at Fryeburg Fair 2009, I fought until it nearly drove me to the edge. Giving up wasn’t an option for me then. When we got back together in March of this year, I finally felt like I wasn’t the only one fighting.

However, at the end of this summer, that changed. Again, I feel like I’m the only one trying to make this relationship work. This time, it’s just too much for me. The fighting spirit broke. First that was answered with anger. Now, defeat. And I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to heal.

I love you, but it just hurts too much to stay with you. It also hurts to leave.

— Yours, Rachel

 

A long time ago, I decide that I was going to knit my boyfriend a hat for his birthday, which is coming up at the beginning of November. I decided this before a particular revelation came to mind. I plan on breaking up with my boyfriend soon.

In the past few weeks, I’ve realized all these quirks and personality traits and actions that Alex has, well, I’m not that fond of them. In a regular relationship, they are bearable, but there’s been talk of marriage. I don’t want a husband with a perchance of being two hours late, driving dangerously fast, or any of the other number of complaints. Alex has also mentioned having children, briefly. While I’m not so sure about child rearing, I know those same qualities will no make for an outstanding father. And I do not want a husband that forces himself into the role of father one the child has arrived in the world. I want him to be ready for the responsibility before conception.

So, now I have these plans for a knitted hat and no one to give it to once it’s complete. But you know what? I’m going to make it. For me.

 

In Which, Titles and Whatever Else

If I didn’t make myself title my posts, I probably never would. I would let it go once and then never turn back. In my mind, a title is a very important part of a blog post. For reference, or something. Though I rarely have said anything important enough to reference it in a future post.

Titles have always been really difficult for me. I feel like I need to come up with a title before I even write the post, which is ridiculous. Titles are supposed to be semi-descriptive of what is being written. If it hasn’t been written yet, it cannot yet be described. And now I’m writing about titles when I actually had something else I wanted to write about. So I’m going to have a really bad segue…

I’m probably a terrible girlfriend. Or just unstable. Wait. I know I’m unstable. I’ve known that for some time, but I opted to go off my pills. I’m a genius. Sarcasm is not becoming, I know.

I have a tendency, when in a relationship, to get really scared of committment and basically ruin the relationship single-handed because I’m insecure. Everything will start off fine, but about a month into the relationship, I will freak out because the guy has gotten too close. I will push him away, become extremely standoffish, in addition to being passive-aggressive. My attentions will wander, even though I don’t actually want a relationship with a guy other than the one I’m actually in a relationship in.

Such a thing is happening now with Alex. He keeps mentioning things that hint at furthering our relationship. Like his landlord has told him that Alex needs to get me “knocked up and married.” This freaks me out. Waaaay freaked out. Of course, I feel like I can’t convey these feelings to Alex. That would make too much sense for my mind. My mind interprets the whole situation as “If I tell him how messed up my mind really is, he’ll realize I’m crazy. No one wants to be with some one that is crazy. Taylor certainly didn’t. I don’t want to go back to that again.”

So then, I stop truly talking to Alex and I unintentionally push him away. Meanwhile, there are guys all around the campus and a few of them I see nearly everyday. And I start getting subtly flirty with them. But at the same time, I avoid those guys (in this case, there is only one guy) because I have a boyfriend. I lost Alex once and I don’t want to do it again. And I feel wretched. And I was going to tell him why I’m so passive-aggressive, but when I was hinting that I would like him to call me (because I also feel like I can’t call him) he went to bed or was just ignoring me. I, of course, thought it was him ignoring me.

 

In Which, Halfway Done

I took my last final of the Fall semester today! And that means I’m halfway done with the school year! Now I have three weeks off until I return to school for the Spring semester.

I’m so glad that finals are over. I can relax for a little bit. During break, I’m gonna see where things go with Alex. But if by the end of break, he hasn’t made a decision one way or another, I’m giving up and moving on. It will have been three months by the time break is over and that’s plenty long enough for him to get things together. I don’t need to be waiting my life away for a guy that’s not interested in me.

 

In Which, Hurt

Pain is…

Knowing of the two guys you love:

One just recently got a girlfriend. And the other just barely gives you the time of day.

 

Gosh, relationships suck.

 

In Which, Thinking

I don’t know if Alex realizes what a punch in the gut it was to me for him to go back to chewing tobacco. I mean, he quit for me during Topsham Fair. At Topsham, I expressed how utterly disgusting I thought it was, so he quit.

Shortly after he dumped me, I mean just mere hours after, he started right back up. He probably didn’t realize it, but it made me feel like crap. He made it seem like we’d get back together at somepoint in a month or so. I don’t know if he just told me that to make me be complacent or if he meant it… The fact that he went back to the dip makes me believe it was just a lie to make me complacent… It makes me feel like he doesn’t care about me any more…