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Homecoming

I got a couple more hours of sleep after the super late night last night. Getting out of bed for work was pretty hard, and I ended up getting in about 20 minutes late. I forgot my badge and had to use the security app to unlock the outside door to get in.

I stopped by the shop first to give Ben an old Windows 95 programming book and helped Zach factory reset  his Pixel 3 after the home button broke from his new OS update. Then I went to the high school to take care of a few work orders. I almost didn’t make it back to the shop before lunch.

I convinced Allen to take me to Zaxby’s since I rode the bike, and shortly after we sat down, Zach, Gary, Greg, and Josh all walked in, having independently chosen Zaxby’s for lunch.

My afternoon was a little more scattered in some ways, but for the most part I was able to focus on 1:1 laptop repairs. Jesica called to check in, and then I ended up staying a little late to make up for my late arrival by swapped out a bad computer. Brandie called me to catch up on the drama after I got home, and I explained my conversations with Summer over the past couple days, as well as our slow arrival back to something positive.

The girls had a band fundraiser at Chick-fil-A, so I met them there and had a salad for dinner. Erica made it through the drive-through and made eyes, so that’ll have to be a conversation soon. I hate getting egg on my face, but frankly there are too many good and correct things happening to ignore. While I refuse to maintain a Hopgoodian relationship, I think this one really didn’t need as much work as we might have thought.

Summer took Autumn home after dinner to do some homework, and then met Eaddie, Maristella, and me back at Steak ‘n Shake for BOGO shakes to share. She took Maristella home, and I eventually got Noah from work, and we crashed a bit late, but hopefully for a better night of sleep.

That’s an easy incompatibility to account for if you just stop to rewind occasionally.

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Lawdy, Lawdy

I couldn’t sleep again last night, save for a couple periods of maybe an hour or so where I lost some time and dozed a bit. I was wide awake long before my alarm, and got to witness the entire wake cycle for my lighting, which was actually kind of neat. I was much less groggy than I expected to be, and I made it work.

I got to my office for just a minute before going to a classroom to check on a projector. Then I had to go to the shop for a lamp that I didn’t have in my office. Along the way, I felt compelled to stop by Oakland for a little extra love, though I didn’t stay long. I got to the shop and chatted with Gary for a little bit before discovering we didn’t have any of the model bulb I needed, so from there I went to Melinda to try and get some ordered.

We chatted for quite a while, and she turned out to be way more holy-rolly than I expected. It seemed to come up everywhere I turned today, and I hated that this was the automatic response. It made sense for other people to look to their faith in their trying times, but not only am I past that time in my life, this situation has been completely different for me. Sure, it’s been rough, but my level of acceptance and the way I’ve coped has been, as far as I’m concerned, phenomenal. I’ve felt stronger in myself, more focused, more decisive, and overall braver.

Eventually the other guys started filtering in, and Allen, Zach, and Gary convinced me to go to Wendy’s where I just had a cup of chili and a chocolate Frosty-ccino. By this time, even the chili felt like too much, and I left wishing I had gotten the small. I figured I could use the lull of the depression stage of my grief to start a habit of eating less and doing more.

After lunch, Ben showed up and we chatted for a while. Then I bounced around some more in the shop. At the end of the day, he came back and talked to me about some decisions to make in the new lease, and then just like that, the day was over.

I went to get gas, then stopped by AT&T to see who I could pester. Mayra and Kevin were both there, and we caught up a bit. Then it was on to my parents’ house to tell them about my week over some shrimp soup. As parents, they wanted to reassure and defend me, but I had already made up my mind to just accept things and move on. We talked a bit more, and then I headed home.

Bâc Ván was in the garden trimming plants in the dark, so I chatted with her for a while about some of her issues and some of mine. Eaddie had texted me yesterday like some kind of loan shark asking for her money. I always collected the cash she threw around the house carelessly, and she wanted it back. I was almost proud of how it reminded me of myself in her practicality. I did some quick mafs and hit up Summer with a money request. She denied it almost immediately and I became slightly concerned, but then she texted and seemed to just want me to handle Eaddie’s cash on my own instead of deducting it from what she owed me. The money request quickly over tripled in size and she paid it without hesitation. I got to work loading up their bicycles and hit the road.

When I got there, I got some things off of my chest before Eaddie came out to collect her money. That is when she absolutely melted my face. That girl always played it so close to her chest, but she came out and said some things. I said some things. And then I lost. My. Fucking. Marbles. It was like she said to me every single thing I had ever longed to hear in my entire life. She hugged me and held my hand and stood there to talk to me for so long. I hadn’t even been ambushed or bamboozled. This girl just always played it cautiously like I did, and it was like we finally understood that we were both in the exact same place all along.

Summer and I had a go at conversation, and though not restored, we were at least reconciled. She ultimately agreed to counseling to help nail down her own issues, and we agreed that we should continue to talk as people who deeply care for one another. Times are confusing and uncertain, but it is a Wednesday after all.

I never could get the hang of Wednesdays.

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Finding Value

I laid in bed for a couple hours but didn’t sleep a wink. The sound of thunderstorms echoed from my Google Home speakers just as the storm raged behind my eyelids; synapses firing constantly with every burning question and emotion. I could feel my eyes darting back and forth, jittering at lightning speed. Frustrated, I eventually just got up and played more Overwatch to try and occupy my mind. I figured there was no sense in burning cycles trying to understand a truth that wasn’t my own. The only thing I could possibly do was make assumptions, which would only serve to bounce around in my head forever, wasting even more time. I could never really know Summer’s truth, because she would say one thing and feel another.

Eventually I got out with the sun and went to retrieve those things – those bigger things that I had brought over for my family. Being financially-minded, I tried to provide nice things so that Summer could focus on paying down her debts instead. I never did get to actually witness that looming mountain of debt. I only heard stories, as though it was a fictional giant in some kind of fairytale. I just wanted to make sure my family had more than we needed. I thought that actually providing for the family was speaking louder than any words I could possibly muster, but Summer found no value at all in what I provided. If words were all she really wanted, then I accepted the trade and wrote letters to take the place of things I took back. It was over a couple grand worth of just stuff around the house, not to mention the thousands of more dollars invested in things for our family to do, like season passes to Magic Springs, a family set of bicycles, a kayak, a motorcycle, or my own family’s reservation for another hotel room on our planned trip to Eureka Springs in two weeks. Neither one of our houses could even contain it all, so it remained split.

Wanting to know the truth is what drove me mad in the past. I could never understand what motivated Sarah to treat me the way she did. I could only assume it was for her own benefit, either as emotional support, or some kind of backup plan in case something else went sideways. Summer never seemed particularly motivated. She expressed that she only wanted to do things to please me, constantly. She wanted to tell me nice things and do things for me, but she would never accept that I simply loved her the way she was. She projected how she wanted to be treated onto me, and could never see past that singular vision. Conversely, she seemingly wanted to change who I was from the start. Surely, she helped me regain some of what I had lost, but she would never accept me for who I was. She said that she did, but then acted differently, or got upset when I didn’t change enough for her liking.

In the end of it all, it certainly feels as though she was just looking for a reason to leave, or at least looking to see where else she could go. Fussing over who texted who first in the day felt petty. Saying she had to force herself not to text me first just to see if I would text her was passive-aggressive at best. Saying that by not giving holiday gifts I made her feel guilty was completely contrived after tabulating how much money I had spent on her and the kids over the course of our relationship. I always told her that if she didn’t want to be with me, she didn’t have to make an excuse. She could just not be. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her, but rather that I knew I couldn’t really make her feel any kind of way about me. We had to meet in the middle, and all this time I thought we had been.

Even before we dated, I told her that girls tend to jump from relationship to relationship with relative ease, and that guys tend to fall harder than girls. We both fell into stereotypes, and couldn’t communicate effectively enough to break that barrier. Communication is a two-way street though, and she refused any suggestions of counseling to work through her own grief from the past. I would have done anything to help us communicate better, but she outright refused at every single turn. In the end, I have to accept that there are things I can do, and things that I cannot.

I ended the day with a walk to Allen’s house where we did a lot of man-hugging. He gets a little too woman-hatey to be honest, but he’s always there for me as a pillar of support. I certainly did not rebound to some mystery woman that wanted to help me grow stronger, and after two days of spilling my guts, I kind of feel like I’m just screaming at a wall expecting it to budge.

Maybe the only way to move on is to just forget.

And maybe we’ll try sobriety again tomorrow.

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Dear Summer,

I envy that in all of your own troubles and pain and suffering, you managed to hold on to what I had lost so long ago in my own years-long wars. You seemed to earnestly believe that you could fall in love with prince charming and have everything fall into place so perfectly, and you fawned over me more than any person ever should. In that fantasy, you sometimes had trouble making things work in a practical sense, but your struggles appeared to be my strengths. For years upon years when all I wanted to do was die, focusing on practicality and making the day-to-day work was what kept me alive. Ultimately I felt like your emotional strength and devotion met with my practicality and wit, allowing us to grow stronger together, into a proper, functional family. What you felt was weakness in our differences, I perceived as strength in the breadth of our combined skillset.

It’s no secret that cynicism and sarcasm are my strongest and most prevalent defense mechanisms. I’m not so bad, after all, if everything else is awful too. I seldom speak those things as true and honest feelings, though I understand how someone could take them to heart. I doth joke too hard and too negatively, but it keeps me sane, I think. There are three truths to every situation: your truth, my truth, and the actual truth. Neither of us can ever truly know the truth apart from our own without some trust in the other, so I’m afraid I’ll never really understand the causality. Did my cynicism truly drive you away from me? Or were we never meant to last, and my darkened heart proved itself yet again in protecting me from further harm? After years of struggling with a very real addiction to Sarah and her emotional manipulation, I was left broken in so many ways. Not all of those wounds healed completely, and even if they did heal, you might not recognize them for all the calluses. I knew that I would never survive another trip through that level of darkness, and so in order to protect myself and my own family from what I understood as my own ultimate demise, I found strength where I could. I survived tonight because of how jaded my relationship with Sarah made me. And just like that, somehow I’ve credited that wretch for saving my life.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, unless you’re just left paralyzed, in which case everything pretty much just sucks. I would rather the end of our relationship be an inevitability, and credit my dark humor for saving me, than accept the thought that I drove you away with my own misgivings. I couldn’t let you into my heart quickly enough because I was terrified of exactly what happened tonight. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I wholly trusted a “completely innocent” interaction and later learned it to be the complete opposite. It’s literally my greatest fear in a relationship, and you knew this. Finding you having dinner at Umami with that guy brought me right back to ground zero, and I have to say I handled it like a goddamn champ. I didn’t want to revert back to that suspicious, jealous me that I had given up eight years ago, but there we were. Even if it was completely innocent to you, and you just needed a friend, it should absolutely NEVER have been some random guy you know through work that I’ve never even heard of. If it had been a male friend like Alex that you had known for years, I would have 1,000% understood. As it was, I knew that you had already made up your mind that I was old news, and it was obvious because that motherfucker ghosted you AS SOON AS HE SAW MY FACE. Even if you play naive again, he knew exactly what he was getting into, and for that, shame on him.

I never thought I’d be saying, “goodbye,” forever, but I think that is because I am an idiot. They told me actions speak louder than words, so I physically put myself into your home to make it our home, and my own house became a very strange place for me. Regardless of what idiocies came from my mouth, I continually tried to put myself where it really counted. It was hard and overwhelming a lot of the time, but I kept coming back because I thought it was worth the steep learning curve. Ultimately I guess you had bigger fish to fry. At least I was honest from the beginning when I asked if you were looking for Mr. Third-Time’s-a-Charm. I don’t need superficial symbols because I show my devotion with actual honesty, presence, and inclusion in family, and I expect my partner to respect me and mine well enough to verbally decline unwanted advances. It’s a pity you didn’t really want to be a part of mine, because they’re a pretty great family most of the time.

You can’t expect your boiled-over, emotional diatribes to function as productive adult conversations. I was very honest in that I knew I had a lot of growing to do. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle for me, and I thought that I had adequately expressed that to you as well. I suppose I could have done more to initiate the conversations, but who has the time when you’re busy parenting teenagers. Blame whatever you want, but at the end of the day you have to learn how to express what you’re feeling in some kind of meaningful way. You can’t outwardly express that everything is perfect and expect your partner to accept that with eager arms, then get upset over all of the combined little things. You literally went from “I would marry you tomorrow” to “dinner with schmuck” in a week’s time, and so for that reason, I’m out.

I just want someone to scratch my head for a while and tell me I’m not so irrevocably broken that I can’t maintain a real, adult relationship ever again.

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Use It or Lose It

Daylight saving time got me last night. I got to bed super late, lost another hour, and then tried not to sleep too late and ruin my chances of getting to sleep tonight before work again in the morning. I wasn’t having much luck getting motivated though, so I spent most of the morning playing Overwatch by myself, slowly ranking up in competitive. I did eventually get around to finishing up my laundry though, which had been nagging at me for quite a while.

I picked at the leftover barbecue all day, and got around to a shower before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. I hadn’t seen her all weekend because we both had so much else going on and I just crashed at home after the long day yesterday. She and Autumn were finishing up Looney Tunes: Back in Action when I got there, and then Eaddie wanted to watch an episode of Glee as soon as that was over.

Summer caught me up on her weekend once the girls went to bed, and then it was lights out.

The Nighttime Sniffling Sneezing Coughing Aching Stuffy Head Fever So You Can Rest Medicine

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These Axe Puns Are Bringing Me Down

I got up a little early this morning so we could head up to Bentonville for Brandon’s semi-surprise birthday shindig. Brandie messaged me early to let me know she was bailing on us, so after dressing up and washing the car, I picked up Josue and we headed out of town. We stopped in Ozark at Rivertowne BBQ for lunch, and though the food tasted pretty good, it seemed to lack in presentation a bit. At least the portions were huge, and I boxed up about half of mine.

We still had a bit of time, so we continued up to Fayetteville and stopped at Kohl’s so I could burn my $45 in bonus cash. I assume the slight difference in climate drove up the demand for winter wear, because they had a ton of coats on clearance. I picked up another hoodie and a coat after I couldn’t find anything else compelling. I wish I could have fit into one of the leather jackets better, but they were super tight around the shoulders. Both Josue and the cashier acted stunned when I checked out under five bucks for the two articles, but their rewards program doesn’t have me fooled. Luckily by spending so little this time, I think I’m out of the cycle of repeat visits to spend rewards.

At last, we made the last of the trip to the Urban Forest Axe House and met up with Diana, Brandon and his brother Ryan, and a couple of his other friends. Our coach was quirky and a little awkward at times, but it was a good time. Diana brought snacks, though Josue and I were still pretty full from our big lunch. My second throw was a bulls-eye, but when it came down to Diana and myself for the finals, she won with a killshot that I had never been able to nail, and eventually ignored in favor of the larger and lower bulls-eye.

Once our time was up there, Brandon decided we should go by Dave & Buster’s for some drinks and gaming. We all sat at the bar, and I chugged soda waters as we visited. Brandon talked to me a little about his job, which was the first we had really talked much about anything since we were all kind of busy throwing axes. Eventually we got up to play some games, though I didn’t spend very much. My birthday promo had expired, and the place was kind of busy anyway, so we just mingled for a little while and then left.

Ryan suggested we go to Bariola’s for cheap appetizers and free ice cream, so we made the quick hop down the road and visited some more. It seemed like a pretty good pizza joint, but the cheap appetizers were perfect for sharing and just hanging out. In the end, I asserted my dominance by creating a huge ice cream cone, and eventually it was back to the road to head home.

I really hate that drive… And after all that, I never even got out of the state!

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Mount and Balance

It was kind of an odd day at work today knowing Jason was gone forever. We all kind of got straight to work unlike the usual slow start to the morning. I went with Ben and Allen to mount a couple touch panels in the morning. The first one was to be mounted on a freestanding mount in the junior high library. That one took us the longest because it was a new stand that didn’t have fine adjustments to account for leveling. We ended up shifting it around and mounting it slightly differently than designed.

Next was a quick install at Crawford and the subsequent dragging of an E65 out of that building before breaking for lunch. The new guys wanted to go to Linh, which I’d heard them suggest at least three or four times since they started. When we finished, Allen and I ran by the high school to deliver a hotspot, and then took the old freestanding TV mount to Cunningham for scrap. We only got seven bucks out of it, and I’m sure it cost in the hundreds. I would have liked to keep it, but it was pretty unwieldy.

Our last task for the day was to deliver and assemble a laptop cart to London. We finished with some time to spare, which I spent at the shop cleaning out my cabinet a bit.

I spent most of my evening playing Overwatch and feeling like I was getting progressively sicker. Hopefully I don’t wake up with a head cold, but I can feel the sinuses getting pretty gross already.

COVID-19

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Prime Age

It was cool enough this morning that I didn’t want to ride in to work again, but it didn’t take long for the sun to come out and make me regret it. I spent pretty much all day messing with 1:1 laptops, so I found myself tired, bored, and generally wanting to hang myself.

Allen was still craving KFC, but I convinced him and a bunch of others to ride with me to Brown’s Catfish for my birthday meal. I don’t know why everyone’s too bashful to actually accumulate rewards points, but I only got four bucks worth myself after my discount.

After lunch was more of the same, and I just wanted to leave more than anything else. Eventually I did, and instead of taking advantage of the day, I just went home and played some Overwatch until Summer got home. Then I stopped by Arby’s to use another birthday coupon to get her some food on the way up. I ran into Scott and Jodi there, and I hadn’t seen them in forever. I felt a little awkward just because my brain was tired. I had already started to wind down from interacting with people for the day, so I had a hard time forming small talk.

When I got to Summer’s, everyone had already wound down for the day. Summer had a rough one, so she was pretty much done for the evening. We watched what was left of her baking show, and then everyone went to bed.

Hopefully only halfway through the primes.

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That’s a Lot of Poop

Today was quite a bit cooler with heavy cloud cover. I took the Grom to work and quickly felt the chill. My morning was mostly spent talking to people that didn’t have a clue, and wanted me to figure everything out for them. I felt completely surrounded by all manner of different test sessions, and I spent over an hour just trying to understand what they all were.

I made it back to the shop just in time for lunch and convinced Allen to try IHOP with me. I had a coupon for a birthday stack of pancakes, so I tried the churro style. Both the food and service were excellent today, and I loved the renovation and design update the place had received. To top it all off, we even made it back to work with time to spare.

Holy ShitAfter lunch, I had to go back up on the lift to replace the band projector lamp again. It didn’t even last a whole day, so I stuck the pristine old one back in with the hopes that it had only failed as a fluke, along with a defective brand new bulb. I spent a little while longer running around campus until it was time to go home.

Summer was going to work late, so I poked at the shrimp a bit before starting some laundry. Then I played some Overwatch until it was done, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening.

I’ve overeaten a lot in my lifetime, but never by enough to have a me-sized turd.

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Bye Forever!

It was nice enough, and I got out of the house early enough that I got to ride the bike to work this morning. The first thing on the agenda was to get some plants planted in the new office goldfish aquarium. It’s way overstocked and way underfiltered, so I figure some plants would help as much as anything else. The rest of the day was mostly spent working on laptops while the rest of the building started on testing.

I made it back to the shop for lunch just in time to hear we were all taking Jason to Taco Tuesday for his last day. For some reason, eight of us didn’t want to squeeze into the two appropriately-sized tables, but I guess there were still open tables for others. It wasn’t a particularly sentimental moment the way that others might have been, but we enjoyed our time together. Then I rode back to the high school to chug away at more laptops.

Classes let out early for the students to watch the basketball tournament in the arena, so it was really quiet. My office got super cold super fast, and it finally got to the point that I just had to get up and leave. I went back to the shop for the last 30 minutes or so, and chatted with Ben about his plans for the department moving forward. I would have liked to just take over the position, but I also know some of who I would be up against. Instead, I think he’s really leaning into adding a second tier for us so that multiple employees can benefit from an overdue wage increase.

I rode home for just long enough to get cleaned up, and then I met Summer at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. John served us, and I shared stories of his greatness. As we left, I finally asked the best way to pay our compliments, and proceeded to submit my entry through the company’s corporate website. Summer was exhausted from work, so I got Eaddie from karate and Autumn from hanging out at the basketball tournament. We headed home and everyone settled in to bed pretty quickly. Even I was feeling pretty exhausted.

Whatever you do, do it well.