Getting it Right

 "I say find someone you can love like crazy and who'll love you the same way back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived." --Anthony Hopkins, "Meet Joe Black

I have had the most amazing few weeks ever.  

It seems so silly, because so many of my blogs have begun with "I had a great date!" or "I met the most amazing guy!"  At this point, it is beginning to sound a little overused.  However, I think that I may have actually gotten it right this time.  I keep pinching myself.  

We went on our first date to a sushi restaurant.  He showed up with flowers, and I spent the next hour or so thinking that he had the most amazing green eyes that I have ever seen.  I was really nervous, and I'm not really sure if I hid it well or not (most likely not), but by the end of the date, I was smitten.  After we polished off a few sushi rolls (including eel....I cannot believe that I ate eel!), we walked over to a frozen yogurt place.  After that, we had a glass of wine next door at another restaurant.  I didn't want the date to end.  

Since then, we have seen each other at least every other day, sometimes several consecutive days.  The funny thing is that I don't care what we do when we are out. I would be perfectly happy watching paint dry with him.  We took Kylie to a baseball game last weekend, and when he showed up at my house to pick us up, he brought flowers to Kylie.  It's the first time that a boy has ever given her flowers.  Furthermore, when he arrived, my hair was still in a towel and I had zero makeup on, and he didn't run away.  That alone makes him an amazing person.  

We spent this entire weekend together. He met me at work yesterday and hung out with me for thirty minutes or so, and we had dinner at P.F. Chang's.  He is so easy to talk to and be with.  I keep waiting for something to pop up that makes me realize that this entire thing was simply a figment of my imagination, but nothing has made that happen.  I tend to fall hard for the guys that I date, and it has left me a little battered and scarred.  For whatever reason, this feels different.  Last night after dinner, he looked at me and said, "This just feels right."  I was thinking it, but I certainly wasn't going to be the first to say it.  Too often, I have gotten ahead of myself and imagined that things were progressing faster than they actually were.  This however, seems different.  

I hope that this really is right.  :)

Face-Plant

A couple of weeks ago (on a Saturday), I was having a fabulous day.  I was at work, having a really cute day...cute dress, cute hair, cute wedges.  I was rocking it out, feeling like I had it all together.  For once, my work day didn't suck.  My customers were happy, my employees were happy, I was happy.  It was good.

Then, when I was on my way out to the parking lot at the end of the day, walking with one of my favorite associates, having a random conversation, I tripped all over myself and face-planted right in the middle of the sidewalk.  One minute I was standing, being adorable, and the next I was sprawled all over the concrete, right in front of God and everyone.  Okay, well maybe only two people saw me, but it may as well have been millions.  I attempted to pick myself up, which was not as easy as it may seem considering the shoes that I was wearing and the awkward position that I had landed in.  I was mortified.  My knee was all skinned up, my hair was suddenly a mess, and my pride and self-esteem were left behind as I marched into the elevator to go to the top of the parking deck.

In a way, I feel as though I have face-planted in everything at the moment.  My happiness comes in spurts, short little bursts of feeling like things are working out the way they should be.  Then, something or other comes along and hits me like a train, and I'm right back where I began.  Maybe I'm just not cut out for the things that I always envisioned.  I am 32 years old.  I have been divorced for almost six years.  I thought that by now I would have had another chance, that maybe I would have found this elusive meaningful relationship that I have been searching for.  I continue to meet people who I think may be "the one," and then everything spirals and I end up feeling like a dumbass.  I feel like I have done it all right, like I have worked hard to get myself together, to prove that I am successful and a great mom and anything else that would make me seem like a great catch, and yet it is all in vain. One good thing is that I have discovered how to sniff out the rats, at least a lot sooner than in my younger days.  In my early twenties, I tended to pick the most terrible guys on earth to date, and when they proved themselves to be complete jerkfaces, I would decide that there was simply no other choice but to cling to the awfulness for dear life because I couldn't bear to see it slip away.  I remember my mom telling me a few years ago that when someone showed you who they are, you should believe them.  For the longest time, it didn't really make sense to me because I always thought that I was such a great judge of character, but eventually I learned that, in actuality, I tend to only see the things that I want to see.  I would ignore the bad parts because I didn't want my idealist views to be tarnished, and that's where the trouble always started.  I have come to the conclusion that I cannot be with a person who doesn't make me a priority, who doesn't want to make the effort to get to know the real me and be accepting of it. 

I debated for a long time about whether I wanted to renew my current lease in June.  I thought about finding a place closer to work so that I didn't have to deal with the traffic and the commute and the craziness.  I even made a list of pros and cons of going versus staying.  I stared at it for a long time.  I even considered moving to Michigan for the mere sake of being able to leave everything and everyone that have in NC behind.  I wanted to be closer to my family, who (despite being completely insane) are still the people that I know will always have my back.  It has been a year ago today since my grandmother passed away.  I have been a basketcase for the past couple of weeks, knowing that the anniversary was coming up.  I expected that some of the sadness would have dissipated by now, but it has stayed entirely intact.  It still stings just as much now as it did then.  At the time, I asked my mom how long it would take before I would stop hurting, and she said, "I don't think it ever goes away."  Once again, she was right.  

In the end, I decided that moving north would not bring my grandma back to me.  I have this habit of feeling like I need to make some big drastic change in my life, convinced that happiness is lurking right around the corner; I just need to catch it!  I have moved so many times, changed jobs as often as my hair color, tried to find whatever it is that I'm missing.  But this time, I reminded myself that I don't have the right to disrupt Kylie's happiness in the pursuit of my own.  She has adjusted so well to where we are.  Her life finally has a routine, a balance, and I can't take that away from her.  I never thought that we would get to the place where we are now after such a rough start in Raleigh, when she was angry and sad and miserable.  I recently told her that I was thinking of looking for a new job, and she replied with, "We won't have to move will we???!!"  In a way, I was relieved to say "no."  I don't want to have to start over again either.  Being the new girl is hard, no matter how old you are when it happens. 

Since we are going to stay put for now, I decided that it was long past time to do something that we have wanted to for a long time.  Kylie and I adopted the sweetest, most amazing puppy in the entire world.  Here she is.....

I am finding my happy in small places now.  It is the adorable little face of my puppy.  It is in hearing Kylie talk about the drama in her fourth grade class.  It is in deciding that it is okay to spend my entire vacation in yoga pants and a ponytail.  I will take it anywhere I can get it these days....

Invested

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans...."

I have been absent from the blogosphere lately....

My laptop took a nosedive a couple of months ago, and replacing it has not been at the top of my priority list.  I'm a computer snob, and I refuse to get anything other than a Mac.  Everyday, I walk past the Apple store at the mall and drool a little at the computers in the window.  Soon, my friends, I will convince myself that spending $1200 on it is a completely rational idea; it just wont be today!

So for the most part, Kylie and I are hanging in there in Raleigh.  Some things seem to be easier than they were in the beginning.  I alternate between trying to decide if I'm crazy for being here and convincing myself that this was the right decision all along.  We have lived here for almost a year, but the last twelve months only seem to be a blur to me.  My days run together in the bustle of getting Kylie to and from school, making it to work, and retaining my dwindling sanity.  Work has finally leveled off, and I feel like I am finally at the top of my game again.  It's good to know that I am still good at something that I care a lot about.  I knew that the first year in a new store would be awful (and it was), but I'm happy that I stuck it out.

The past few months seemed to be a relentless cycle of bad dates that got worse and worse with every one that I went on.  If I had had more time, I would have written about them.  They were so terrible that they were hilarious.  I went out for coffee with one guy who was so awkward that he made me uncomfortable.  He showed me a picture of his daughter, who was not cute AT ALL, and my first thought was, "Omigosh, I cannot allow myself to have ugly kids with this guy!"  I thought about going out with him again just because I felt sorry for him and because he probably doesn't get that many dates, and then I realized that I simply could not pity date him because that just wasn't cool at all.  There was also a guy that i went on two dates with who was a few years younger than me which was simply bizarre.  He spent our lunch date at Panera Bread psycho-analyzing everything that I said or did until I was so incredibly nervous that i couldnt even carry on a conversation with him.  I am completely aware of my quirks, but I don't necessarily need to have them all pointed out to me!  That should have been my first clue that date number two shouldn't have happened. but my mom informed me about a bazillion years ago that I was never ever ever going to find a guy if I kept finding things wrong with all of them.  Although I will never admit that my mother is right about anything, I gave it another go, and the second date was just as bad.  I entertained myself by texting my friends and complaining that I was on the date from hell.  They were sweet....they all offered to call me with some sort of emergency that warranted leaving early.  But he was making dinner for me (shrimp alfredo), and I really love shrimp alfredo, so I stuck it out.  Dinner was delicious; him, not so much.

Soooooo, anyway, I was ready to give up on the dating thing.  maybe being single isn't all that bad, right?  (No, being single sucks and we all know it.)  I gave it another go (not believing it would amount to anything) and miraculously, I found an amazing guy.  Our first date was at a sushi restaurant, and we talked for over an hour before we even ordered.  I think that we both forgot that we were supposed to have food at some point. He didnt kiss me until the end of our second date.  I knew then that he was different, because the majority of guys are at least attempting to cop a feel at some point within the first couple of hours.  As of now, it has been six weeks (the equivalent of a century in Carrie-world), and I still cannot find anything wrong with him.  I have (somewhat) stopped expecting him to bolt at any second.  However, I refuse to give him his own ringtone on my cell phone because that always proves to be the kiss of death in my relationships. I have met his parents, and they are really awesome, and he talks about us in the future sense.  It's a nice change. 

In unrelated news, my ex boyfriend informed me a few days ago that he bought a house just down the street from me.  This means that we will be sharing a gas station and a grocery store (as there are only one of each in our tiny little town).  How incredibly awkward and maddening.  I can't really describe how pissed I was when I found out.  Maybe that's silly and childish, but I cannot help it.  Raleigh is such a big area.  Why did he find the need to move into my little corner of the world?  It occurred to me after he broke the news that he was probably just really excited about having bought a house and that he really didn't have anyone else to share the news with.  At first, I felt a little bad for being so mad at him, but then the rational part of my mind reminded me that he was such an asshole to me, and he broke my heart in as many pieces as he possibly could, and that it isn't my responsibility to be his friend.  I don't owe him that.  Too often, I find that I try so hard to avoid hurting people's feelings when I don't get the same in return.  When did I decide that my own feelings went on the back burner?  I need to get better at that. 

So for now, I'm going to enjoy the new boy and all of his awesomeness, and I'm going to forget that the ex will be my new neighbor in a few weeks.  He doesn't deserve anymore of my time and attention.  I deserve better than that....

 

Turbulance

I'm not sure at what point I stopped writing.  I look back at my posts from the past twelve months, and they are scarce.  I have had plenty to say, but I can't seem to put my thoughts into words.  I write everything, and then I delete it.  Nothing comes out the way that I want it to.  

I can't figure out what I want right now.  I go through these weird ups and downs that leave me questioning my own sanity.  Part of me wonders if I am having my own version of a midlife crisis, an early one at that (since I will only be turning 32 next week).  I wish that I was more of an optimist, but I have always had the tendency to lean toward pessimism.  If there is a negative, I will find it, even if I have to root around in the dirt for awhile until I dig it up.  It is the character flaw of mine that I can identify the easiest.  This isn't to say that I'm always unhappy.  I think that I have just been made to think that I should always prepare for the worst.  There are only so many times a girl can be let down before she comes to expect it.  I'm always surprised when the bottom doesn't fall out.  

I have been up and down with being here in Raleigh.  I think that overall, I needed to be here.  I don't think there was really anywhere else for me to be over the past six months.  Looking back and knowing the course that life was going to take for me, I had to have somewhere to go and something new to focus my energy on.  When 2012 rolled around, I made the proclamation that it was going to be "my year!"  Big things were going to happen for me.  I was going to prove myself, make my mark in my little part of the world.  But I think that it took a full twelve months of me rushing around and trying to do everything and anything, being Super-Carrie, to realize that very little of what I am focusing on even matters in the least.   I dropped out of school midway into the fall semester.  I was so overwhelmed with my new job and adjusting to our move that I could not make myself care about accounting and algebra.  I realized that suddenly it didn't matter to me if I ever earned a degree.  Something that has always mattered so much to me suddenly didn't matter at all.  I gave it up just as easily as I could give an old sweater to Goodwill.  I gave up the stress.  I had always had this master plan of how I was going to maneuver my way through semesters full of classes tailored around my work schedule, how I would juggle classes and managing a store and motherhood and make it all look effortless, and at the end I would have this fabulous degree and everyone would wonder how I had managed to make it look so easy.  But I realized that behind the scenes, I was stressed out beyond explanation, and I was melting down everyday on my way home from work because I knew that my day would not end for another six or seven hours because there was just so much work still to be done and I was just so tired.  And then it bothered me that I wasn't painting this picture of perfection for my daughter, because isn't that what moms are supposed to do?  Aren't we supposed to show our daughters that they can be smart and beautiful and have incredible careers and families?  Is it okay that I want to sit my little girl down and explain to her that it's okay to not be able to do it all?  That she doesn't have to someday twist herself into a pretzel to make others think that she is the ideal woman?

A couple of weeks ago, I had a really rough stretch of time.  Part of it was probably due to working in retail during the holidays, and part of was probably just due to life in general.  For several consecutive days, I cried on my way to work and on the way home for no explicable reasons.  I questioned whether or not I was losing my mind.  One evening, I picked Kylie up at her afterschool program, and she could tell from the litter of kleenex thrown around the floorboard of the car that I had had another bad day.  She said to me, "Mommy, I know you're sad here, but I'm happy.  I like Raleigh."  And of course, her saying that to me made me cry all over again, especially considering that this was the complete opposite of the angry little girl that moved here with me six months ago.  She is happy, and knowing that of her makes me happy for her.  She has friends, and she is involved with dance and tumbling and cheerleading.  She begs to be dropped off early and picked up late from school.  She has a cute little 4th grade boyfriend who looks like Justin Bieber and  a best friend who lives down the street from us.  She is having the school year that I wanted her to have last year when she was miserable.  That alone makes this move worthwhile. 

I think that over the past couple of months, I have had a complete change of heart with the direction that I want my life to go.  For sixteen (gulp) years, I have worked in the retail field, and since almost day one, I have envisioned myself moving up the corporate ladder.  I wanted to move into management, and eventually into upper management until I was running an entire district, maybe even a region.  And then, without warning, something changed.  I can't explain it, really.  It's almost like I woke up one day and realized that my goals were different.  I can't define them yet, but I know that they are not the same as before.  Suddenly, I don't want to go past where I am now.  Maybe that will change later on, but I feel like there is something bigger in store for me.  Something more important than making sales goals and working weekends and killing myself to prove that I care more about my store than the next manager.  I still love my job; it still matters to me.  But I have to do something else that makes my existence worthwhile.  I don't think that my life matters as much as I want it to right now.  I am more than what I am doing right now.  Maybe I just had to move here to realize it.  Maybe I needed this challenge to realize that bigger isn't always better.  Success isn't always what it's cracked up to be.  There are very few open slots at the top, and maybe I can be just as happy making a difference at the bottom.  

It's funny how quickly things can change. 

The Great Escape

"I can understand how when the edges are rough,
And they cut you like the tiniest slivers of glass.
And you feel too much,
And you don't know how long you're gonna last..."

- Pink, "The Great Escape"

I have lived in Raleigh for almost five months now.  The time has flown and dragged simultaneously.  It feels like I blinked and the entire summer flew by, but at the same time, so much has gone on since June when we began our new life here.  

There were fleeting moments when I didn't think that things were going to work out.  I imagined numerous ways that I could make an escape if necessary.  I thought about quitting my job and going back to Winston-Salem where I wasn't much happier, but at least I had someone to help with Kylie.  I considered packing everything into (another) U-haul and driving straight to my grandmother's house in Michigan.  Even though she is no longer there to greet me, my dad is there now.  When he moved, I suddenly felt like I was really, truly all alone here.  It was terrifying. 

I had two job offers over the past couple of months.  I went back and forth with my decision making process, but I ended up turning both of them down.  The little voice in the back of my mind kept telling me that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.  I realized that my job is what keeps me grounded.  I love the girls that I work with, and I'm good at it.  I couldn't fathom giving up the one thing that made me feel like I wasn't useless.  Continuing to run away and start over somewhere else wasn't going to help me find who and where I am supposed to be.  I still believe that Raleigh is were I was meant to end up.  I just need to figure out why. 

Kylie and I went to Michigan a couple of weeks ago.  It is the first vacation I have taken since last October.  The absence of my grandmother was as noticeable as her presence always was.  I spent a lot of time walking through her house, waiting for her to show up at any moment.  The hardest thing was seeing my grandfather work through his sadness.  I don't know what it's like to love someone for as long as they were together.  His heartbreak is painful to watch.  I'm glad that my dad is there to help, although I don't really think that he knows how to do exactly that.  There is no fix for this.  It is hard, and it sucks.  

It is nice to know that if the s**t hits the fan here, I have a place to escape to.  Having family around makes things easier, more tolerable.  They're the only people who have known you from the beginning who don't really have a choice in whether you keep coming back around.  They annoy the hell out of me sometimes, but I love them anyway.  For now, though, I'm just trying to keep it all together.  Even if things are falling apart on the inside, I have to make it look as though I am flawless on the outside.  I have realized that if I fake it enough, things begin to come together just as I have pretended.  Fake it 'til you make it.  This is clearly the secret to my success.  

A couple of days ago, I received a completely random text message from one of the girls that I work with.  We never text one another unless it is work related.  The message simply said, "Hey, are you okay?"  It caught me a little off guard, and I immediately shot back, "Of course!  Why?"  She replied to me that she had just heard a pastor say something during a sermon about your neighbor in stress or struggling, and that I had randomly popped into her mind.  She said that she wanted to check on me, and you know what?  That meant a lot.  How easy is it for us to say that everything is fine, when we honestly feel that the world is off-balance and out of line?  My world has been off kilter for the last six months.  Knowing that someone cared enough to ask about it made things realign a little. 

Maybe my escape plan can take a raincheck....

Moving On....

I don't have time to write, even though thoughts are swirling in my mind like a whirlwind.  So much has happened in the past couple of months.  While part of me wants to write it all down so I can remember later, the other part of me just wants to let it all go.   In the meantime, this is one of my favorite quotes.  It kind of sums up everything that I can't really put into my own words quite yet. 

“I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
 

-Maya Angelou

Go

"If he's dumb enough to walk away, be smart enough to let him go...."  

---person smarter than me who came up with that quote

Is there anything worse than the "stuff swap" after a breakup?  You know, the moment when the guy comes back to pick up all of the t-shirts and sunglasses and DVDs that he left at your house, and he drops off the earrings and hairspray and awesome cowgirl boots (that you forgot you bought) that you ditched at his.  It's so incredibly awkward and awful.  You're in the room with someone that you once could not get close enough to, who you could not wait to hug or hold hands with, and now you are both standing with your arms crossed, five feet away from one another.  It couldn't end quickly enough for me.  

The breakup itself would not have been so awful if he hadn't felt the need to keep replaying the reasons for it over and over and over, and if I hadn't felt the need to keep allowing him to do so.  Every time he called, I would answer.  I would wait for him to text me.  I begged him to give me another chance, even though deep down I knew that the breakup really didn't have anything to do with me at all.  I think that all of his reasons were only surface excuses, hiding something that is buried within him, demons that he has to deal with on his own.  I knew that they were there while we were dating, but like any normal girl, I decided that I could be the one person who could make everything okay, who could fix all of the wrongs in his life and make them better.  I knew that I could be his happy.  I have spent the past week beating myself up over saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing, when I know at the core of my being that it really doesn't have anything to do with me at all.  I would allow myself to talk to him, only to have him say things like, "You know, just because I'm talking to you doesn't change anything.  I just need a friend right now, and I really feel like you need one, too."  What is it about me that always puts me in the friend category?  It was like being stabbed in the heart all over again.  Maybe I don't want to be his friend.

I can never have a relationship with someone who can't be there for me when things get tough.  Right now, things are tough.  Kylie is still in a rotten place, and I am running in circles trying to find the best people to help her.  Work is slowly getting better.  I am finding my footing there, just like I knew that I would.  At the moment, it is the only stability that I have.  It is keeping me from losing my mind.  Rob told me that it wasn't fair for me to put my stress on him when he had his own to deal with, but isn't that what relationships are?  I took on plenty of his and didn't complain.  He told me last night that he thinks that he is better off alone, and I think that he is exactly right.  Throughout our entire relationship, he went on and on about all of the girls who have bruised him in the past, from his ex-wife to his previous girlfriends, and I felt as though I was being held responsible for all of their actions.  If they did it to him, then it must mean that eventually I would do the same to him.  It is really sad for him that he felt that way, because I truly loved him, and I would have done anything to make him happy.  

The girls at work are awesome.  A few days before the actual dumping took place, Rob met me at work for lunch.  Afterward, I came back into the store, and I was really bummed out because he had been a complete jackass, and I really knew that things were not looking good for us.  Demi, one of my coworkers, came up to me and asked what was wrong, and when I told her what had happened she said, "Girl, you don't let anyone put out your light!"  It made me laugh, and it stuck in my mind, and I keep thinking about it because she is completely right.  One day last week, I was telling another coworker, Kay, about the actual dumping.  She is a little older than me, and she knows all about being a single mom with awful dating stories.  She told me, "I spent so much time thinking that I was never going to find anyone to love me the way that  I needed to be loved, who would love my kids the way that they needed to be loved because their dad wasn't around.  And let me tell you, it is a miserable way to live.  It will happen....you just have to wait for it."  And then there is my other coworker, Kylie, who simply suggested that we all go and kick Rob's ass a group.  I love them.

I am still in a weird place.  I still feel like I fell out of the sky and landed here in the middle of the tobacco fields, millions of miles away from anyone that I know.  Part of me thinks that I must have been crazy for picking up and moving here, and part of me knows that I made the right choice.  Part of me wants to pack up and follow my dad to Michigan next month, but the other part of me knows that I would regret it because I love my job and that the person I want most in Michigan is no longer there.  I truly believe that people come into our lives just when we need them to be there, and I really think that I had Rob when I did to get me through the death of my grandmother and my transition to Raleigh.  I don't think that I would have come here if it wasn't for him.  There was too much chaos and too much fear, and there was too much of a safety net in Winston-Salem where at least I knew people and had normalcy.  But having him gave me the courage to jump in feet first when I normally don't even get in the water.  I have to be open to whatever is here for me now.  It is scary, and my heart is hurting because the past few months have been so incredibly tough, but I will get better.