Karma done came!

This isn't a blog so much as me alternately gloating and feeling guilty...

I can't help but feel awful because I'm slightly glad that the Pickle was just laid off from his job.

Alright, maybe I'm more than slightly glad, as in gleeful. And this, of course, makes me feel like an awful curmudgeonly dragon.

It's just, during the last six months while I searched for a job something akin to decent, he sat back and watched critically. I'm one of those people that naturally expect a lot from themselves and when I fail to deliver - I kick my own ass - I didn't need him to do it too. What I did need was to feel like I could lean on him. He dropped me.

In a way, I feel like maybe karma  has come to kick him in the ass. To show him, quite literally, what I went through...though I didn't have my parents living a block away, ready and able to feed and clothe and comfort me. I only had him. And he didn't provide much by way of comfort, though he did begrudgingly feed me and pay the rent (which, I did while we lived in Florida - without making him feel awful about it).

I also think it's ironic that he blamed his bad attitude during our relationship on the job - and now that I am gone, so is the job that caused us to break up. Although, that is over-simplifying things. While I DO think that if you are miserable at work it can carry over into your personal life, I also think that if he really wanted this to work between us - he would have overcome it. It was a crutch. One he doesn't need now that I'm out of the picture.

I do feel bad for him, really. I know that it IS scary not to know how you will be able to keep a roof over your head and food in your tummy. Hell, I'm still not really there yet myself as I'm technically homeless. But part of me really resents how he acted towards me.

And the part of me that still cares for him is a little, teensy bit worried about him. Hoping that he will be okay. That he won't suffer as much as I did. That he'll find his way and end up happy. As long as he's humbled in the process....

Hope is a cruel mistress

Last night I was, without a doubt, the happiest I've been in quite a few months.

In the light of day, I'm forced, with sobering reality, to review what happened after I logged off the computer and climbed into bed and found the man I'd fallen in love with nearly a year ago.

See, for months I've been walking around in a daze wondering where he went, how he disappeared and was replaced with a miserable prick that made me feel eternally awkward. I found myself often speechless. Unable to find any words to bridge the silent divide that had formed. And then, I stopped wanting to. I found myself unable to find a single redeeming quality in this new man. Alas, I came to hate him, then fell into indifference.

As we lay in bed watching the end of the Phillie game, Riley climbed up between us for the first time in ages. We played with the dog and joked around and it felt natural, for the first time I can remember. So natural, I couldn't help but make a note of it. I didn't pause because he spoke to me with obvious detest. In fact, he was devoid of his usual impatience. He engaged me in conversation. It wasn't like talking to a disapproving parent.

Then we had what can only be described as the best sex we've ever had together.

And we continued with our cutsey little inside jokes that I'd almost forgotten.

Almost.

I'm left this morning wondering how he hid that part of himself for so long. And now I actually want to know why. Why he can turn on his old self so easily, now that we've made plans to go our separate ways. And is that it? Is he that relieved that he's out of this relationship that he can finally be himself again? The self that I loved?

Part of me wants to grab him and shake him and scream and demand an answer.

Part of me wants to slap him and walk away.

Part of me wants to pull him close and beg him to be that man for me.

But this time, I will walk away. I will hold my head high. I will be silent. I will be somber and empart some niceties on the way out the door. I will get in the car and I will cry.

I will cry for the girl in Florida that fell in love with a boy and found a man she couldn't understand. I will cry for all the days I waited for him to come back. I will cry for all the hurts, big and small and in between as I waited. And at some point as I swerve down the highway, I'll laugh. I'll tell Riley we are starting a new life and we will. And there will be new inside jokes. New moments. Another body to snuggle against. A new back to rub.

And it will be alright.

I'm so happy, I could puke

A few days before I met Pickle, I wrote a blog about the smoke from the Everglades and how even though you could barely see a few houses away - everything seemed so clear.

As I walked, I contemplated how quickly time passes and how ten years from that moment I'd still be walking Riley, but maybe down a different block while my kids ran around the house and my husband tried to coral them.

I had a clear idea of where my life was headed. I was financially secure, stable. I'd finished school. Gotten the starter jobs. Moved on to better ones. I was ready, or so I soon came to realize, to do away with the starter guys. Move on to something that could be a forever.

Maybe Pickle just happened to be the guy I was dating at that moment of zen.

But ever since we moved and he did a 180 into a complete jerk, a fog has settled down. Perhaps that's why I felt so Centrailia. I felt like the floor had opened up and smoke was blinding me. I was suffocating in the domesticity I'd invited into my life.

After I got home from work today, I got the call. The job in NY is mine. Suddenly everything seems to have fallen into place. The fog has lifted because everything is clear.

I know what I want.

I want to start this job. Find myself a cute little studio. Walk Riley. Cut up hotdogs and wave them frantically while trying to get him to roll over. I want to drink wine and eat pizza while I watch House. I want to walk on the boardwalk. Have my cousin cut my hair again. Sit around at family BBQs. Take the train into the city to see a play and have a few drinks. Go meet my college roomie's new baby.

But mostly, I want to laugh. I want to feel like the world is mine again. Like opportunity is lurking around each corner. Like I'm young and free and with the world at my feet. And I do. Finally.

I'm so happy, I could puke. Really.

Kinda funny. Kinda not.

I sent my landlord's lackey, Wayne, an e-mail earlier to alert him that I would be moving out of the apartment Pickle and I rented. I wanted to find out if I needed to fill out any papers or anything, in the event Pickle had another mid-life something and decided to bounce without paying rent. I didn't want to be held liable. I'd rather just walk away and never look back.

Wayne called and told me there is a $250 administrative fee to get my name off the lease. I told him for that price, it'd stay there unless the Pickle wants to pay for it.

He asked what I was going to do and I told him I wasn't sure yet. I was thinking to go back to Florida or NY. He said, why not stay in PA. I told him I'd need a better job. He offered to call in some favors from a large publishing company in the area. This struck me as really weird, being as he's only met me once - quite briefly - and that seems like really going out of the way for a virtual stranger/tenant.

So he asks me what happened. I give him the long and short of it.

Pickle used me while we lived together in Florida, I funded his move back up North, then he decided we don't have anything in common and dumped me (after putting me through an emotional rollercoaster of breakups all spring and summer).

Wayne, who is an overweight, almost bald, middle-aged man, said that men like Pickle are the reason good women 'go bad.' They get sick of being mistreated and these experiences make it harder for nice guys, like Wayne, because by then women have a very low opinion of the male species.

He asked if I wanted to meet up and 'talk' about what he can do to help me and as I politely declined, I chided myself for being such an asshole, thinking that the guy was hitting on me. I mean, hey, it IS possible that some people are just nice. Right?

So I check my e-mail (cause Wayne told me he had written back) and this is what Wayne wrote in response to my initial e-mail about getting my name off the lease:

Amanda......wrote you a long noite and lost it so...dont want to write it all again...basically it said..I am so sorry..never would have suspected anything....does this mean you're single??what can I do for you? Will bill let you off the lease? If so, there will be a 250 rfoommate move out fee..if NOTmmyou are on the lease for the duration (6 months).....would you like to discuss in person?? Wayne

After reading this e-mail, I begin to think that the phone conversation wasn't quite so innocent. I mean, asking if I'm single...Hmmm....

But then, I think I'm really a douche. He's just a nice man and I should be grateful that someone wants to help me.

Wayne calls back and tells me he has a two bedroom apartment 'with all the amenities' and I'm welcome to stay there 'no strings attached' if I want to get away from Pickle. Need I say, this was a very awkward conversation.

In fact, I believe one word sums it up: CREEPY

Time machines

If I could go back in time, I'd wave at Freckleface as the U-Haul pulled out of our gravel driveway in the Keys, I'd walk back inside to the kitchen table and face my friend Amy and I'd cry. And tell her I wasn't leaving to follow him up north.

Except I cried and left.

If I could go back, I'd bitch slap myself.

And then I'd point out that life is good. That you've got your own place. A job you like. A nice pay check. Friends. And that giving that up in order to "share it" with a guy isn't just taking a chance on romance. It isn't just taking a stab at starting a life with some other person. It's putting your entire self on the line.

And there's a good chance you could be left dangling.

Probably I wouldn't listen to myself, I never considered that when I moved I might not find a job right away. I might not have money in the bank. I might not be able to pay my bills. I might have to chose between dog food and people food. I might get dumped and find myself suddenly dead-broke and homeless.

I figured if it didn't work out, I'd shrug it off the way I've always done.

I keep having these, panic attacks I guess, more like crying jags - where I'm overwhelmed with the urge to throw a temper tantrum. I want to scream and yell that it isn't fair. That I gave up everything and that fucker could have at least waited until I was in a stable financial position to give me the axe.

I want to throw a cosmo at all those women that write for magazines and promise if you suck a lot of pee pee and cook dinner, he'll love you forever. He won't. He'll decide you don't have enough in common, probably because he doesn't like to cook or suck dick.

I want to grab the threads of time and undo my life. I want to unspool it all. I want to go back to high school and take that ring and agree to be cherished. And loved. And protected.

I want not to feel so utterly grown up in the knowledge that you can do everything right and still get it wrong.

I want to be fake-jaded. I want not to feel the cynicism that lines my spine. I want to go back to when being jaded seemed like a romantic notion. To when I thought that if I followed all the advice girly magazines bestow and became a 'domestic godess,' it couldn't fail. That it was a sure thing.

I want not to have been so confident in my cozy, wonderful life, that I thought some one else wanted to share in it.

I want to get into a time machine and bitch slap myself.

It's Done

I am officially single :)

Feeling Centralia

I was writing an article today about a preschool and how a 46-year old coal fire was the catalyst to its beginning. Ironically, the preschool is called, "New Beginnings."

So yeah, this fire burning underneath Centralia, Penn. has decimated lots of the buildings and homes, which prompted a Methodist church to move all its goodies to a new place 20 years ago, hence my article two decades later to announce its anniversary.

In the course of writing the article, I happened across a bunch of Web pages dedicated to Centralia, which I'm determined to visit. In another twist of irony, it is located about 15 miles from where I used to live in Pennsultucky. Two weeks, too late.

But then, isn't that the story of my life. Always too late.

Too late, as in recently, I've realized that I don't want to be with the guy I've been desperately trying to make things work with for the past year and a half.

On our first few dates, I thought he was a "nice" guy, the kind you can bring home to your parents and settle down into suburbia with. But, there wasn't any spark. I was bored and lonely and he grew on me. Maybe it was the patient way he explained that life doesn't end when you settle down. Maybe it was the flowers when I had a shitty day at work. Or the warm body I'd grown accustomed to snuggling against at night. Maybe I was just ready to let someone into my life. To share my moments with that guy, he of freckles and tiny fingers.

Except he isn't that guy anymore. He's downright mean. Yeah, I said it, mean. And maybe this is because he wants me to break up with him. Because he's scared of relationships. Or because he doesn't want to be in a relationship with me. But I'm not investing the time psychoanalyzing it so that I can try and fix it. You know why? Because I don't care.

I don't care why he's behaving like an ass. I don't care if he loves me. I don't care if he wants to date me or marry me or dump me. I don't care if he doesn't know what he wants.

Because it's simple. I know what I want. And it isn't him.

I've got an interview Friday in NY. Please cross your fingers and send a bunch of positive vibes my way because I need to be done with this. Now. I need to get out of Pennsylvania before I become Centralia and crack.