Hodge Podge

I've said it once and I'm apparently in need of saying it again.

I've been a bad bad blogger.

I realized yesterday that I've not really blogged much lately, and what I have blogged has mostly been the Operation Muffin Top(ple) stuff - re my attempts and failures at losing weight.

There's been a lot going on in my life and I suppose the reason I've not blogged about it is because blogging is kind of like my journal. If I don't write it in my journal (blog about it) then it's not really an issue and I don't have to deal with it.

But you can only escape life for so long so this is going to be a mish mash of catching up on everything that's been going on.

~> Operation Muffin Top(ple)/Raw Diet update - not much to report on this end. Matthew and I totally fell off the wagon last weekend. We had Mexican Friday night, which wouldn't be terribly bad except we ate as much as we would have several weeks ago and that "full" feeling left us feeling sick. Then we had Wendy's Sat and Sunday evening. I realized that your body quickly adapts to eating healthily and quickly lets you know it doesn't like it when you convert back to eating junk, so I had granola cereal with rice milk this morning and am currently eating a lunch of grapes, strawberries, carrots and celery with peanut butter.

~> Family - Nothing terribly exciting on this front either. My mom is currenly sewing costumes for Matthew and I for the upcoming Renaissance Faire in November. It will be the first either of us have gone to and we're pretty excited. My dress is the one on the left in the picture. I'm using different color material though so it will look slightly different.

Matthew's costume is a combination of a few patterns but basically he'll look a little like Aragon in Lord of the Rings. He'll have a tunic, jerkin, wrist cuffs, trousers and boots. Maybe a cape, we'll see.

The nieces are good as always. Paisley is growing so fast and looking more beautiful each time I see her and Marley is still smart as a whip and full of more energy than any one child should have. We're going to MS Friday night to stay over and visit with the girls and check out the progress on our costumes.

~> Kitties - Back in July a stray cat wandered up on the porch of our apartment building and kind of adopted Matthew and me. Against my better judgment we ended up taking her in and she ended up being pregnant. Now we have four 5-week old kittens running amock in the apartment. They've just started eating hard food and are learning to use the litter box. Some of them are doing well with both, some prefer the floor to the box and leave us lovely little piddle puddle surprises to find.

I'm not a cat person. I've never been a cat person and I'm not likely to ever become a cat person. When I lived in Michigan I got talked into adopting two kittens from a lady I went to church with and while I loved those kitties dearly, the stress of dealing with cat hair and scattered litter ended up turning my boys into more of a stress than a joy and I re-homed them both to the same lady. They now live terribly spoiled lives in the lap of kitty luxury.

Matthew wants to keep one of the kittens. I do not. Since bringing in Scathath (the stray) I've pretty much stressed non-stop about the little she spreads everywhere, the smell her poo leaves lingering throughout the apartment (even after scooping!), how she scatters her food all over the kitchen floor when she eats, and the massive amounts of dust and cat hair that seem to be everywhere now. Not to mention the new holes she's put in my leather furniture.

When a pet brings more stress into a home than joy then it's not a good idea to have it. So, as sad as it makes him, Matthew has agreed that it's best to put the mom and all 4 kitties up for adoption. Next week they'll be 6 weeks old and we're taking them to the no-kill shelter.

~> Matthew - now we get to the crux of my blogging avoidance. Not Matthew himself, he's still as wonderful as ever. I mean the guy will go to Dollar Tree with me just so I can play.
The problem is with me. If you've read my blog for any length of time you'll recall that aside from Matthew, I've only ever been in one relationship. From the age of 25-28 I was with the man who I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. We were engaged. Twice. In the end he didn't want to grow up and I didn't want to spend my life raising a grown man so we parted ways.

For the next 5 years I was single. And when I say single I mean SINGLE. No dating, no flirting, no casual sexual encounters. Other than family and co-workers there was absolutely zero male interaction in my life. Last year around July I decided to change that and for the very first time in my 32 years, entered the world of dating. It was a combination of being tired of being alone, and sick of hearing my family ask me when I was going to 'find a good man' that finally prodded me into signing up on a couple of online dating sites. I chatted with a few guys here and there, but none struck my interest enough to actually meet until PT. Long story short, he was young, flirted well, I fell for it, got hurt and he moved to Japan. If you want the long story long - well you can read all about it here.

While the PT debacle was going on I met Matthew. He'd messaged me on OKCupid and seemed like a nice enough guy, if not someone I'd be into dating. We met, went out here and there as friends, but as time went by I found myself wondering what it would be like to be more. Cut to today - we live together and are going to be celebrating our six month anniversary on the 22nd of this month - next Tuesday.

I really can't say enough good things about this man. He's changed my life in ways I didn't know possible. I've become a better, stronger woman as a result of his love and support and for the first time in years started believing dreams were more than just things that disturbed your sleep at night. He's kind, hellishly smart and makes me laugh at least once a day. So what's the problem?

Like I said before - the problem is me. Matthew loves me, and has recently admitted that not only does he love me, but he is falling in love with me. He's asked me my ring size and recently talked about the idea of buying a home together in the future. He treats me better than anyone I've ever known and truly loves and accepts me for who I am. And although it's not as often as I'd like we have a fairly fantastic sex life. Yet in spite of all that I find myself wondering if he's the one. I find myself alternating between feelings of romantic love for him, and the love you'd have for a best friend. I find myself wondering what it would be like to flirt back with guys who flirt with me. I find myself knowing that I love him with all my heart, but being unsure that I'll ever fall in love with him.

We've talked about all of this at length, repeatedly, and of course as with every thing else, he's been wonderful and understanding. He says they're all normal feelings and that I'm only having such a hard time with them is because the one and only other relationship I've ever been in was about as far from normal and healthy as you can get so I don't realize that what I'm feeling is what all people feel when in a new relationship.

When I was with my ex-fiance he was my world. I never had any doubt what-so-ever that I loved him, was in love with him and wanted to be with him forever. I never so much as looked at other guys, much less wondered what it would be like to go on a date with someone else. I was also young and naive, and he was incredibly manipulative. I loved the person I saw on the inside, the person I saw that he could be, were he to actually try and he knew how to take that love and use it to his advantage. He knew how to cater to my insecurities, then use them to keep me under heel. Matthew thinks I was in a word, brain washed. Not like the 'I'm going to kill myself in a mass suicide because God is coming soon' brain washed, but manipulated to the point that I didn't realize things were supposed to be a different way. I don't completely discount that theory, but even knowing how much I let him break me down part of me still would like to think I was strong enough to have known what I was doing and had done so willingly.

So this is where I am - wondering if I'm staying with Matthew because I love what we have and don't want to be alone again, or because I actually love him in the way I'm supposed to. Fearing that I'm hanging on to something I know isn't right to avoid hurting us both and possibly losing the best friend I've ever had, yet afraid to break up because part of me thinks it might just all be my over-active imagination analyzing things into the ground that need no analyzing and that as soon as I end it, I'll realize I truly am in love and then it will be too late.


There are things that I want in a relationship that we don't have, but I don't know if those things are really important. I love music and dancing. Matthew likes music and is so white Carlton from Fresh Prince could learn a thing or two from him. I LOVE sports and going to ball games. Matthew loves sports but only goes to the game because he knows I enjoy it. We have interests that are the same but there are things I'm passionate about that just really aren't his thing and vice verse. He says it's normal, that you don't have to have everything in common, and I partly agree, but the person you spend your life with should be able to understand your deepest passions because they share them too.

Have you ever gone to an event with someone who only went because you asked, then spent the entire time not having as much fun as you could have because you knew they didn't really care to be there? That's the stuff I'm talking about - to know that I'll never dance with the man I love - fluidly - or never have him sit next to me at a game and cheer along with me are things that I'm not sure I can do without. They may seem like small things, but if you're with someone who shares your passion for something, imagine how it would be if they didn't. Imagine how your joy would be tainted because you can't share something you love with the person you love most - because they love it too.

Then there's the other guys thing. Last night we went out to eat and there were two guys in a truck next to us that were trying to flirt with me, and they were cute. Matthew is sitting next to me in the car but some part of me still wished I could have flirted back. Then when we got to the restaurant our waiter was really cute and part of my brain thought 'if I were with someone else I could flirt with him'. Matthew says it's normal to still think other people are attractive - what matters is whether or not you act on it. I think if you're with the person you're supposed to be with the temptation shouldn't even be there. So it makes me wonder.. is it really normal.. or am I with someone who should really just be a friend?

I'm pretty sure I've lost the smooth subject to subject transition this post started out with, but it's just really been something that's been weighing heavily on my heart and mind for some time now and I'm honestly at a loss as to what to do. I told Matthew that I'd give us time to see how things went and I still plan on doing that, but I thought having made a decision on what to do would take away the anxiety of not knowing what to do and it hasn't.

And that he's being so incredibly patient and understanding about all of this makes me feel even worse. He knows he loves me. He knows he wants to be with me. He knows I'm the one he wants. And I'm basically taking all of that love and telling him I'm not sure it's enough. It's not fair to him and I hate it, but I don't know what else to do. So if you've ever been in a situation like this please comment. No matter how your situation turned out or what decision you made, just knowing that this really is all normal and I'm not just a freak who has no idea how to be in a relationship would be a huge relief.

Until next time...