9 months and things left unsaid..

I've been putting off this post for awhile now. I didn't want to rock the boat I guess. Why ruin a good thing? But this blog is about me. What I feel. So I'm gonna post this story. I've also decided to do it in breaks so I can breathe a bit between parts. So here goes:

About nine months ago I received a early morning phone call from the woman that I had been seeing. Nothing in her voice sounded unhappy, or worried, or even overly stressed.

She told me about a dream she had. We did our usual cooing at each other, wishing we were in bed together. 

"I have something to tell you, wanna guess what it is?"  I threw out a couple funny guesses, but I knew. She was pregnant.  

We spent the rest of the morning talking back and forth about names, Sherpas, and me trying to quell her fears about the future.  We talked until I had to go to work, but we planned on seeing each other when she got off, on my lunch break. 

She came in and I couldn't help myself to rub her belly. I kissed her and told her how happy I was. And I was. On my way into work and talking to my boss he asked, "why are you so damn happy?" I told him that I think I'm going to be a daddy. He inquired as to who it was. I said, "I don't wanna jinx it. But I'm happy."

So there we were. I asked how she was feeling, if she needed anything.  My friend showed up at that time so the three of us hung out outside talking. My best friend none the wiser that inside her was the start of a new life.  He wouldn't find out until later that night when I just couldn't contain myself. 

She blogged about it. She was freaking out a bit, but holding steady on having it. The next day I had planned on going out to spend some real time with her, but she cancelled telling me that she needed some space. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I knew space was the last thing that the situation needed.  In my mind I just wanted to start. I wanted to start planning, start talking about the future, our future as a family. 

That's when shit hit the fan. She started railing against everything. Against me, against having the baby. She stopped talking to me. And here I was, realistically thinking about all the possibilities of a future, reading about what was happening with her body, thinking about living situations. I thought about our trips to baby stores, I thought about the day she conceived, when we talked about raising a family over lunch at potbelly's. How in love we were that day. 

I did some serious soul searching during the time we didn't talk. I thought long and hard about whether I was up to the task of all of this. Could I be a good father, could I provide? The next 9 months would have been a bitch emotionally as well. Her divorce, her family, my family, where would we live? Could I live in the same house she occupied with her husband? 

I knew I'd do anything and everything possible for her. To be the emotional support she needed. She'd want for nothing.  I decided then and there that even though it wasn't preferable, it's what I wanted.  I mean shit, I wasn't planned. I think about the fact that my mother in the end sacrificed her life by having me. Literally.  Without me around she probably would not have stayed with my dad.  

But the quiet was unbearable. I had absolutely no idea if she wanted to hold on to talk to me, if she was still deciding, or if the whole thing was over.  Not only did I worry about the pregnancy, I was wrecked over our relationship. 

So I sent texts on occasion, all the while trying to give her space. In hindsight I should have been a little more vocal. But I had no idea on how stuff was gonna play out. 

I reached a point of such great despair, that I did the unthinkable for me. I stepped foot inside a church. There's one by the old apartment that still has it's doors open 24 hours a day. So one night after midnight I went in. I lit a candle for the life inside of her. I prayed that for once in my life god or whatever entity up there would smile down on me and grant me just this one thing.  I spent a few nights there soul searching, trying to make sense of everything. For some kind of peace. 

She asked to meet me by the lake to tell me that she had ended things. I was upset. Mainly that I wasn't given a say. But a say wasnt my right. It was her life too, and it was a sacrifice I couldn't expect her to make.  

What happened for both of us at that moment was that there was a sense of relief. Not for what had transpired, but relief that even after that there we were, rolling on the cement, laughing and kissing. Making more plans for the future. 

This Christmas would have been when the baby would have been due. I think about how great, and how hard life would be. But I also think about how rewarding it would be as well. But most of all I think about how much I miss her. Because what I lost wasnt one thing that happened, what I really lost was opportunities both past and future, and the one person I wanted to share them with. 

If you truly want to hurt a person that's been hurt in the past, you don't just attack them straight away. You show them everything they ever wanted out of life, make them believe it's theirs and then take it away from them. 

Great white apartment hunter

Here's a fact about me. I've moved 5 times in the last five years.  I've always been keen on the idea that I'd find a place and just stay there.  My best friend has been in his place for the last six years.  Me....I just seem to get knocked about for one reason or another. 

Five years ago I rented a condo near the airport. I loved it. It was right next door to a supermarket. I had a car back then and commuted an hour each day for work. But I didn't mind the drive. I'd listen to sports radio or music. Once a week I'd plug in "This American Life" and just listen to the stories. Towards the end of my lease my ex and I talked about moving in together. My place would have been perfect, but it meant both of us would commute. She lived in uptown and I found myself only going home three times a week to feed and spend time with the cat. So we moved, but god damn was that a fiasco. 

We went through a apartment finding service. We went out one Saturday and looked at about 12 places. When we finally found the place we wanted. It was a few blocks from the train in Lincoln park. It was a garden apartment but it was cheap. Especially for the neighborhood. So we put in our application and down payment and waited. And we waited. And waited. Apparently we needed to get confirmation from the condo board before we could move in, problem is that the president of the board just died. And we had less than two weeks to move. 

Alex was also due to go to Florida for a week and a half at that time, which meant she would be gone on the 1st. She took off, and I kept looking, and looking. Sending text after text, panorama pics, estimated square footage and shape and size of tubs. "Just fucking pick one!", she said. "Honey this is important, this is where we'll begin a life together." 

I finally was about to pick an apartment that neither of us would have been thrilled with on the 30th. But finally after getting through to our landlord who resided in another state, he says "fuck it, just move in, we'll deal with the other stuff later." That was nice and all but that didn't happen until the 31st. And I finally got keys for the place. Rented a truck, and moved myself all the away across the city on my own. 

A year later, Alex would move to Texas, and I would load her up a week early and then have to move again. This time to uptown myself. It was a small little space. One in which I was gonna just kind of hang out and save money in, until I moved to Texas myself.  Turns out I wouldn't be making that move, and instead I'd end up just drinking my ass off and wasting two years of my life. 

I recieved a non renewal for my lease in uptown due to raising prices and I  waited too long, and because I am the way I am, I focussed on the wrong thing and ended up waiting too long to find a place. Ended up staying a month with a friend with my shit in storage.  With that I ended up subletting a place for six months just so I wouldn't have to think about or go through the process of finding a place to live. So I moved to Albany park.  

Albany park has been pretty uneventful. The commute sucks, the stores are god awful, people ride their bikes all up on the sidewalk. And there isn't shit to do over there.  So I'm moving again.  

I spent the last week or so looking at places when I walked into one and within about two seconds of seeing it said, I'll take it, right now." Left the place and went down to the leasing office and filled out the application and got approved. Gods honest truth....I haven't even seen the bathroom. I didn't even bother to check it out. It might not even have one. That's how nice it was. 

So right now I'm sitting at a Starbucks down the street waiting for my lease to be finished typing up. And then in two weeks I'll move again.  Back where I belong. 

Playin hooky

Decided to give myself a three day weekend. Bonus breakfast and footballs. We're waiting at Starbucks waiting for a friend to get off work. 

some nights...

Some nights I'm more melancholy than others. Some nights, like tonight I feel like an absolute failure. That every decision I've ever made in this life has been wrong.  Nights are when I get to judge myself, when I come home and get to pour over every decision I've ever made that has led me to this spot in my life.

I think of decisions I've made with people.  There was a girl once who I liked very much. She cared for me. She came to me one Christmas eve with presents, even though i had none for her. She came to me, because I was "on a break", with my current girlfriend. That we were trying to sort some stuff out. But the truth is, I cheated on my then current girlfriend with the girl in front of me. We went out on a drive one afternoon, and we ended up in some forest preserve and she ended up seducing me in the front seat of her car. I say seducing, because well, she did. I liked her very much, we were friend, she was really attractive, and well, my current relationship wasn't going so well. My then girlfriend was a bit of a party-er, and I had suspisions that he was cheating on me with someone else. My friend Jenny and I, had been hanging out quite a bit, and she was nice to me, she introduced me to starbucks, because she worked there. She used to make me mochas everytime I'd come pick her up from work so we could go bowling, or to the mini golf course, or whevever.

One night I picked her up from work and we took a drive. We headed out to a forest preserve to feed the deer. We were parked there late at night, and Jenny looked at me and we started flirting. She leaned over and said to me, " I bet I could undo your pants, just using my mouth." I looked at her and said," but I'm wearing a belt."  She said, "I know." Next thing I know, I'm all the way in her mouth and I'm cheating on my girlfriend. But it didn't stop me, it felt right. But she wanted more. She liked me. A lot.

That night led me to rethink my relationship with my then girlfriend Erin. If I loved her so much why would I cheat on her. Why would I allow myself to be weak. But the thing was, I wasnt weak. I was just unhappy, and unfulfilled. I didn't realize that then. So I told Erin we needed a break, that I needed time to kind of think about where things were with us. I loved Erin, but she confessed that she also had feelings for someone else and didnt know whether or not she wanted to continue.

Which brings me to Christmas Eve, Jenny, the magical pants undo-er girl, came over. I was home by myself, family all by inlaws. And she knocked on the door. She came in bearing gifts and even though I had nothing for her, she made me open them. Then we started making out, and I got her all the way down to her matching panties and bra, and she looks at me and says," If we are going to do this, if we are going to have sex, then I have to know that you're my boyfriend, that you are with me."

At that moment I knew, I knew that if I lied to her, that if I just said something like, "yeah sure". That within minutes I'd be having sex with this girl. One that I had lusted after, one that I had fantisized about. I could have had her right then and there. But I didn't. I let the truth fly. That I didnt know where things stood with myself and Erin, that I didnt know exactly how I felt. That at the moment there was nothing more than what I wanted but her, but I didnt know how I feel feel the next day, or the day after that.

I regretted that decision for a long time. She told me once that if I would have showed up at her wedding, that she wouldnt have been able to go through with it. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't lie.

Which leads me to today. I sit and think about the woman that I love. I wrestle with everything. I think about her making love to someone else and it makes me upset.  I think about how happy she is without me, and I want to peel my skin off.  I would give anything, anything, just to feel her in my arms again. Hear her tell me she loves me.  But tonight, and probably tomorrow night, that's not me. So is this decision wrong too? I have no god damned idea, but sooner or later, one of the decisions I make has to be the right one.

about me

I've been alive for 38 years, and I dont know shit. I couldn't tell you the first thing about making someone stay, or keeping someone happy. I have one rule in my life, "Everyone leaves". Knowing that rule, is both a good thing and a bad thing. For starters, you know that since that this person that you care about isnt going to be around forever, you appreciate things more. You do more. You want to try to cram every last bit of enjoyment out of the time you do have together. But its exhausting. I get tired of starting anew with people. People that I know are going to eventually break my heart. But it doesnt stop me from trying, from hoping beyond hope that eventually that there will be someone who'll want to hang around. To build something instead of just smashing it all down, taking their ball and going home.

I wonder sometimes if my life is meant to be one of an observer. To bare witness to humanity, to feel things beyond the scope of what a normal person feels. I do things in my life that I don't tell anyone about. Things that I know that if I told people would change how they view me, would make me more vulnerable. People have a way of turning even the good things that you do into something shitty.

Case in point, my mother, while no saint, did things for those less fortunate than us. One of the things that always stood out to me about holidays growing up was that there was always some strange older person that I never met before. And there was good reason for that, they were strangers to her as well. She'd go out and find some elderly person that didnt have a place to go, and invite them over for christmas and thanksgiving dinner. She'd even buy a gift for the person so they didn't feel left out. She may have had her own demons to face, and we may not have had very much money at all, but she gave with her heart. My brother is the same way, as am I.

A week before Christmas after getting off work early, I was on the red line train and there was surprisingly a car with very little people on it. I stepped on and happily grabbed my seat, and sat down with my headphones playing my going home music. Then the most awful smell in the god damned world hit me. It was almost nauseating. It was a homeless man that was in such god damned disrepair that he had shit himself so badly that you could see it on his shoes.

A black woman walked up to this man and berated him, telling him that he should be ashamed of himself, and that he was ruining the train ride for others. Like this guy didnt feel like the dog shit existence of the bottom of everyones shoes already. I stood up and told her to leave him alone. The mans eyes were welled with tears, and it broke my god damned heart. So i asked the man if he was hungry. He said he was. I said, "come on pops, let me buy you something."

We got off the train at wilson, and I told him I was going to buy him some new clothes that we needed to do that before I took him to eat.  I got his sizes, out of him and bought him thrift everything, down to the socks, shoes and underwear.  Took him back over to target and had him strip down everything and have him take a hobo bath in the bathroom as I stood guard.  When he came out it was like a different person.

We went to the corner and I bought him dinner, and asked if he could make it to the YMCA that was close, I had called them and asked if they could save a room for him. He said he could, and I gave him the cash to get there and have a nice out of the elements and a hot shower. He thanked me, and repeatedly told me that I didnt have to do it. But someone should.

I havent told anyone about this. Why? Because I dont want the thanks. I dont want the awwwwww...what a nice guy. I did it because while I dont know what its like to be homeless, I definitely know what its like to feel unwanted by the world, like something easily cast aside. I just wanted the guy to know that not everyone is a monster.