ex's and oh's

So, as I mentioned in my previous post via the ever so popular social networking sites a couple of my exes have found me. I got the strangest message from one, R, telling me why he feels we had issues. OMG, this gives me flashbacks to the worst nightmare I ever had ~ me stuck in the elevator room of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland with every boy I ever dated. Said boys then decided to either tell me how horrible I was or tried to get me back. In my defense of this crazy dream, I had it after a night of drinking jager to get over a bad breakup...so let's not read to much into it. Oh yes, I get the irony of this drama occurring at the Happiest Place on Earth does not escape me, all I can say is I was in my 20's at the time.
So, back to the message from R. We had exchanged a couple of notes-messages back & forth catching up. He is divorced from the woman he married after me, no kids, but a dog they fought over. I do love how people feel the need to tell you what they think you did wrong. Apparently I was not ever there enough in our relationship. Now by this he doesn't mean I didn't spend enough time with him, oh no, he clarified exactly what he meant. He feels that I never opened up enough to him the way he saw me do with others. An example he gave was that I had something going on with my best friend, DK and I didn't ask, tell, invite him to be involved. Basically what it all boils down to is that I put him too low on my list of priorities. I had college classes, a job to pay for said college classes, friends and family, but in his opinion he came at the end of all of that.
OK, not going to lie at all, my first thought was screw you. I mean this is all from a good decade ago, who cares. I did break up with him, but he also had a date the weekend after that happened so he didn't seem too broken up at the time! Well, then I stopped to think about it a little bit. I will give him a bit of credit and say that it is mostly true. I am great at sharing my life with my friends and will drop things to help them even. I tend to be much harder to get to know in a relationship. I care about the people I choose to get involved with, but I hold back quite a bit until I hit my comfort level.
With R, he was the first guy I dated for any length of time after my breakup with D. To know why this matters, D was the first in a lot of things for me and to this day is one of only 2 guys I have said I Love You to. He was an amazing guy who I loved, but in the end found I was not in love with. The hardest part of breaking up with him was accepting that and hoping we would both be better for it. My friends at the time...and some even now think I was crazy to ever stop dating him. R came along about 9 months later, met him at a dive bar I went to with my co-worker restaurant friends. He went to my school and also worked as a waiter so got my job hours and stresses. He was fun, cute and made me feel good about myself. We dated in what I thought was a casual way and didn't fight at all. He never met my mom, who lived 40 miles away, but many of my school friends. I never had him stay over at my place, I always went to his. I have no idea if this was some sort of control issue as I could leave or what. That was one of the things he brought up when we broke up. I broke up with him as my life was getting busier & after 3 months to be honest I didn't think it was going anywhere. To me he was like a friend I went to the bar, movies etc with and sometimes we made out. I didn't feel a big connection or growth. As I said he found someone fast, he had a date 5 days later, she knew him from work I think. They ended up married 2 years later. She didn't care for me much so we lost touch, only to have him find me online and send me a note letting me know what he had been up to all this time.
So in the end my ex gave me an oh moment, where I came to an understanding of what he meant and how much I held back in past relationships. I didn't let him in as far as getting to know me via my world, my friends, my family. I kept him apart from all of it and then left as there was no connection, well how could there be? I have learned now that you have to open yourself up some in order to get that back. I think I actually appreciate what R said even though no one ever likes to be told they were wrong ; )

social networking

I love and hate the concept of social networking. On one hand I am finding people I am related to, went to school with or even dated ages ago via these sites. On the negative side is that some people I would rather not find me. I didn't keep in touch with some friends from HS and college for a reason. Now all of the sudden they are on facebook or myspace or linked in or some place I am and able to see exactly what I am up to. I try to keep my info on these sites to the basic. I live in CA, by the beach, etc...not so much on details if possible. I have gotten much more selective as to what pictures I put up, comments I make to others that can be seen etc.
I am thankful that the stalker ex I had from SD is not computer savvy enough to bother trying to find me. This is the one all my friends said was so sweet because he brought flowers for every date and called me everyday. Is it also so sweet that he would call even if I said I was busy with work or school? I got off easy though with him as I realized how bad it was getting before it got bad bad bad. I ended up moving shortly after that and no trace of him ever was a nice thing.
The people that have found me lately are my cousin from M. that I lost touch with quite a number of years ago & was jazzed to get to see pics of her cute lil kidlets. In this day & age with family spread so far out I will take the contact in whatever way I can. Then just a couple weeks ago I had 2 ex-boyfriends find me. Actually excited about both of these also as I always hoped the best for both of them. They were my two serious boyfriends and meant alot to me. The funny things is both of them got married to the next girl they dated...guess I was good practice : )
The thing is that while I loved both of them and am not wishing to be with either one, it does make you stop and think what if? If things had been slightly different I could be married with kids right now , or to be a bit of a pessimist I could be divorced and looking to start over. Who knows, but it is kind of fun to ponder too.
So, all in all while there are moments I hate how available our lives are via social networking I think I have to come down on the positive side after all.

sleep & life are good

I have sleep issues quite often. Either waking up at crazy hours and not being able to get back to sleep or just having trouble falling asleep. I think I jinxed myself the other day when talking to my dad by saying " I actually have been sleeping quite well lately" Um yeah so that must be why I woke up at 5am and was not able to go back to bed? You know it is dark still this early in the am? It is now 6:30 and the first hint of light is starting to show up in the sky. I love how the sky looks right now, a soft blue as the moon goes to bed and the sun wakes up.

I do believe the last time I was up at this early was when I was working the job from hell and a water pipe broke. I had to go to the restaurant and turn off the water. I am thankful everyday that I no longer work there, but things like that top the list.

My new years resolution was to be more thankful of the little things in life. To stop and enjoy when I have a nice sunny day off. To be able to appreciate that I live in a great little house, in a great town, with great friends. I know...that is a lot of greats, but it is all true. I have people that I can call to come join me for a late afternoon chat fest with champagne on my porch. I have a house that I don't share with anyone...not having roomies is fab! My dad lives close enough to do some "honey do" list stuff when I need it. Most of my life is fantastic and the parts that aren't are definitely getting better. So, I am going to look at my getting up at an hour that most of us should be sleeping as a chance to appreciate the early am beauty and just take a nap later when I get tired ; )

MIA

I haven't been on here to post in about 10 days. Life just got in the way I guess. First there is work, looks like I am getting more hours, which is good, but not sure how that will work with my part time unemployment benefits. I heard there is not a cut off of hours, but rather income? The site makes it really hard to find the simplest answers on it and hell no am I spending half my day on the phone or in the local office to find out anything.
Then was St. Patty's, the Saturday before my friends had their second annual party, quite fun. I was a bit of a party fail though in that I left quite early. I had a good time though and it is always nice to see my friends, have a shot or beer and just relax. I had worked all that day and was getting up early to drive to SD to see friends. So, Sunday was me getting up at 6:30am to pack, get gas and get moving. The drive was nice, no traffic, gorgeous weather and great tunes.

( I love LA radio )
I got to SD about 2pm and had a nice visit with some people I don't get to see very often. My friend D from college was out visiting family & it was my first chance to see her cute lil baby boy Lemon. ( don't worry it is a nickname ) Our party got livened up by her mom having a heart issue and the ambulance being called. The dept. is one block from where her brother lives so they got there in seriously a minute. Super nice guys, and a couple quite cute ones! They even had us take pics with Lemon by the fire truck after mom got loaded up into the ambulance and taken to the hospital. Have to have something good come out of not so good things.
Then it was off to sit in the er at Kaiser for 3 or 4 hours...boy do I love that.
There was seriously good people watching though on a very late Sunday eve at the major ER in SD. Have to be entertained somehow don't you know?
By the time all was said and done it was almost midnight so I crashed at D's hotel in a chair, it was better than the floor trust me. I actually slept ok considering.
The next day was spent hanging out with my mom, doing a bit of shopping. We went to the mall, which I don't think I have been to in like 5 years. Lots of closed stores there, but surprisingly lots of the same stuff is still there. Bought D some See's candy as they don't have one near her in CO. Then mom and I went to lunch at the Hunter Steakhouse. I worked at this one when I was 18 and it hasn't changed a bit. The food was great, all as good as I remembered except for dessert. How can it be mudd pie when it is made with mint & cookies and cream ice cream...what happened to chocolate & coffee? Major sadness, but champagne at my mom's made up for that : )
Tuesday was D family day at the zoo. I gave up on taking pics pretty quick as D's hubby J hobby is photography & his camera is hella better than mine! Though I did get some nice shots...like this

I took the Coaster from O'side to SD, which was great. I got to sit back and watch the scenery without dealing with traffic...loved it. I also got chatted up a bit on the ride to SD which made me smile, always fun to flirt a bit. Got back to N. Co. in time to head out for a mini pub crawl in C'bad with some other friends. My cmg ( bestie from jr hs ) her hubby R and some other people who I hadn't seen in forever. I didn't know that downtown C'bad actually had that many bars, much less Irish ones. I was wrong. There is actually a area of about 5 blocks that has 2 Irish pubs, a total dive bar, an old school neighborhood bar, 2 upscale type bar-rest type places and an old bar that defied description, but had cheap ass drinks. 2 newcastles, 3 coronas & a rum & coke cost us $17.50...sweet. I had a great time and almost didn't want to come home, but the real world was hitting me upside the head with things I needed to do so home I came.

I worked Thursday-Sunday, including a bit of management training, go me. now I have 3 glorious days off and am not quite sure what to do with them.

What a horrible problem right? haha

but is it flirting?

So, I have this friend who comes to town every now & again, and when he does we indulge in a little harmless flirting. I like this as he is just what he appears to be: A guy who is not looking for any commitment, wants to hang out and have a good time. Being aware of this to me makes him harmless as I know not to expect anything from him. We have fun drinking, playing pool, flirting and yes even occasionally making out. He was around recently and it made me realize just how out of practice I have become with the whole world of flirting and dating, also how very much I enjoy the activity of flirting with a cute boy.

I have a great group of friends that consists of some couples and a couple of single guys. There really isn't any other single gals in the group other than me. I am so used to this that I don't give it much thought. However today I ran into someone I used to see quite a bit at my old job.

(Funny enough all the same vendors & salespeople come to my new job.)

He said something to me that honestly I couldn't tell if he was being flirtatious or not. His comment was basically that he had thought about me for a couple of days after we last saw each other, which was a random run in on the street near my old job about a month ago?

It was at this point that I realized how very out of practice I was at all of this. There was a time, back in college for instance where I would have been confident enough in the comment being all out flirting, that I would have flirted back to the reward of a number or date.

Now, I just kept doing my work that I had been in the middle of and made small talk to him....ugh this whole dating flirting thing is way to hard. Guess that is why I am single!

going back to school

After much debate with my finances I have deiced to go back to school. I went to a local jr college here in the early 90's, got GE certified and went off to SDSU. I really thought I was going to love my major, speech pathology, as I had gone to a speech therapist twice growing up. To me this meant I had an idea of what I was getting into...oh no I did not. The course work at an undergrad level was killer. Out of the 4 girls I meet during orientation for my major, only 1 graduated in it. The other 3 switched majors and I left school altogether.

I studied my booty off and my GPA dropped from 3.7 to a 2.8 in one year. I had never worked so hard for such negative results ever in my academic career. After another year of pushing thru I decided to switch to my minor, psychology, which I enjoyed. However at this point it was a case of to little too late. I was burned out on school, the room mate from hell and dating life. I decided to take a leave of absence from school and move.

I do not regret that decision, it was right for me at the time. Coming back to my little town of Shangri-La was good for my soul in a myriad of ways. I got to live on my own away from my big support system of friends. I found jobs that kept me in that beach lifestyle, even if they didn't satisfy me in my career goals.

In the past year and a half I have gone thru some big changes. I was let go from the job I worked at for 6 1/2 years with very little sentiment from the company. I got bad news health wise about a friend, then got good news about the same person. Went thru a cancer scare of my own that in the end was nothing, but I could live without doing that again.

All of this made me stop and think about what I really wanted from my life. I am not one to want for much, I live fairly simply, don't want for that fancy car or big house, but rather to be happy with my life. My current course of crazy restaurant work was not making me feel happy or as if I was moving ahead at all. Since I had so much free time I decided to start looking into what choices education wise were available for me. I found that Cal Poly has an adult degree program that I could attend classes at night. The application process is already started, the fee was only $35 and if I get financial aid it could be very doable for me even with my current budget. My mom is so excited at the idea I am sure she will even offer to assist me financially, which I will not turn down. I am quite excited actually at the idea of going back to school. I think the past 10 years were a good break and now I am doing this because I want to, not for family pressure or any other reason. Oh, and if I get all my paperwork done fast enough...I could start on March 30.

well damn it all

Just got off the phone with the lovely people at the government cheese factory & all is well in my world once again. The only reason why I have not gotten any checks for the past 3 weeks is that in my rush to fill it out the last time I checked NO on the box asking if you had looked for work that week. Seriously? I did this stress and irritation to myself? Well, damn me all to hell. The conversation only took 4 minutes and consisted of them asking me 4 questions, with me answering them to their staisfaction. I only had one question, was I getting the money from that time, to which the answer was yes. WooHoo, life is good once again. Got my appt. at CP today to see how hard financially it would be to get back into school. I suddenly feel so much better about life, really!