You Must be This Tall to Ride

I get way too much pleasure out of finding a cheaper price for a flight than those available on the standard travel sites.

30 has to be better

I’m at the bar talking with my friend Casey and I realized I have just 7 weeks left in my 20s. At the same time I came to the realization that 29 has, for all intents and purposes, been the worst year of my life so far.
This has been the year my brother has no longer been able to make things work and I had to start supporting him. My father, one of the 20 best at what he does in the country, finds himself without work and in danger of losing their house of 22 years. My beautiful amazing middle sister cannot find love and is reaching the point of no return for having kids, and is constantly stressed about paying for school. Nothing has gone poorly for my oldest sister but she still deals with challenges every day and her husband’s business is still struggling.
I thought I’d be married with kids at this point and the happiness of my cousin Elias with his wife, daughter and 5 month old son at 2 years older than me only reminds me of how far I am from where I thought I’d be.
I have love, but she holds on by a string to life every day. She encourages me to move on, but I still have trouble with that notion at times. And I’m sure I can’t fall in love with that in my mind.
So I am on the precipice of 30, trying to accept what happiness I have in my life while not being overcome by the challenges the rest of my family faces, and my personal life is such a trail wreck I can’t imagine bringing anyone into it. Where the fuck did they years go, and how can I I get back to where I want to be?
Oh yeah, and Casey just reminded me I hate my job…

God Dammit!

So I went back to my plastic surgeon today with my head filled with the notion that the surgery to fix my broken nose would be this week.  To my eyes, the swelling in my nose was gone and I didn’t see anything that would delay things from getting done. 

Unfortunately, he did not see it that way.  Instead I have to wait two weeks just to go back to find out if the swelling has gone down enough that I can have surgery, meaning it will be at least 4 weeks or so till my nose is fixed and mostly healed so I can finally feel normal again.  Until then, my nose will continue to make Owen Wilson’s nose look good by comparison.

Not quite the ending I expected

I was supposed to have returned from my trip to Spain today. Sadly that happened a day earlier and I’m up right now because I’m in too much pain to sleep.
On Sunday night I went out in a well trafficked area of Barcelona. At 5am I was headed home amongst a number of other people, walking to the metro station about a quarter mile away. Once I got to the ticket machines I realized I had accidentally used my last 2 euro as a tip. I tried using cards to buy my ticket but that did not seem to work. I decided I would return to the street where there had been plenty of available cabs. As I walked I was using my iPhone to confirm the name of the street I was staying on and not paying attention to my surroundings.
As I was emerging from the entry way to the station I faintly noticed two figures approaching me from a group of six. I calmly slid my phone back in my pocket as I had the info I needed but as I looked up the two men were blocking my path. I was confused momentarily. One stated “we’d like your phone.” At this point I still hadnt figured out what was going on and I said “What?” which was immediately followed by me feeling the first punch to my face.
By the time I had processed that there was no chance of me beating 6 guys and mumbled “Just take it” gesturing towards my pocket, blood was flowing from my nose and mouth from a few more blows. It took still a few more punches till I was able to explain I didn’t have any money and was able to stumble away. I walked a block aimlessly, spitting blood from my mouth as it drained from my nose and lips. I started yelling “Fuck” out of frustration before I saw the passing police car.
I chased the car down, showed them my blood covered hands as if my face wouldn’t have been enough and quickly explained what happened. The police were able to get one of the two guys who actually beat me and two of the others, and, not as importantly, recovered my phone. Two ER visits totaling 13 hours, one police station visit and one plastic surgeon visit later I have a nose that belongs in a Picasso, a split and slightly infected lip, a couple teeth that aren’t as straight as they used to be and two black eyes. The nose will hopefully be back to normal once the swelling goes down and they can do surgery but I’ll have to go through recovery from the surgery first too. There’s really no moral to this story except that shit happens, things could always be worse, you should probably buy travelers insurance just in case (I didn’t), always make sure to have money for the metro, and sometimes people do really shitty things for stupid ass reasons.

On my way to Madrid.

A much needed vacation to take a break from work and clear my head. One week in Spain doesn’t sound like enough but hopefully it’s a good start.

What could have been

I was hanging out with a friend from college yesterday evening who I hadn’t seen in the past two years or so.  My friend had gotten to hear the full story of Her, including the most recent updates, and I was explaining that over the past week it became clear that things with Her would never be the same, even if by some amazing miracle she does manage to live. It has become clear through everything that has happened since our breakup that the trust and understanding we shared in our relationship would never be the same.  While I still love Her more than anything and nothing would make me happier than to be with her, the window on that potential reality has closed.  This realization has been coupled with the need to accept that I can no longer base my decisions about my life on trying to make a life with Her a reality.

My friend was trying to explain to me that she thinks what happened really shows that marrying Her wouldn’t have been the right thing for either of us in the end.  For a great number of reasons, I disagree with my friend.  As I was explaining the certainty with which I could state that She was everything I had ever wanted in a woman, in a partner, in a lover, and that nothing would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life with Her, I remembered what this week up was supposed to be. 

Tonight we would have flown to San Francisco to stay with my best friend from Law School and his girlfriend.  It would be his first time meeting Her.  Tomorrow we were going to drive up to the red woods during the day, which would have been her first time seeing them, and spend a romantic night in a cabin for Valentine’s Day.  On Wednesday we were going to drive down Highway 1 and spend the night in Santa Barbara with my sister. Thursday and Friday would have been spent in LA staying with my cousin, his wife and their two young children, who are 4 of the most important people in the world to me.  We would have also spent time visiting with my law school friends she had yet to meet that still live there.  Saturday would have been driving down to San Diego and then going to the zoo.  Her favorite animals are crocodiles and I imagine a good part of our day would have been spent admiring them and enjoying the sun.  Sunday morning we would have gone out on the water in my parents ocean kayak, before my mom’s entire extended family got together to celebrate January and February birthdays, including my mother’s 63rd birthday.  At the end of the party, I was going to take Her aside, and ask Her how She would feel about the people we spent the week with becoming Her family, because they are my family.  After I heard her response, I was going to give Her the ring I had picked out, and ask Her to marry me.  I have no doubt in my mind that if she responded the way I think she would have, this would have been the best week of my life.

And you took it all away.

I have to believe that in your head you thought you were trying to protect another woman from getting hurt.  Maybe some guy cheated on you and you didn’t want someone else to find out the way you did, or thought She would be better off knowing then building a relationship around a lie.  If I don’t believe that you sent that message to my girlfriend—the woman that I love more than anything in this world, the woman I want to marry and knows that, the woman I’ve been saving up for a ring for and have the proposal planned, the woman that I’d do anything for— out of some misguided sense of duty, my head will explode. 

We went on a few dates nearly 8 months ago. I initially met you at a relatively low point in my dating life.  I had just been cheated on by the girl I was dating trying not to think about Her, and was still working through things.  You were in the process of moving out of the place with your ex.  Neither of us wanted anything serious, but yes we slept together.

I wasn’t a great guy to date.  I fluctuated from insecure to callous and aloof within most of our dates.  That’s because you weren’t Her.  No one is. And because MM wasn’t Her.  So things had no chance with either of you.  I didn’t realize at the time that things with MM and EV had gotten overly serious too quickly because I wanted the relationship I couldn’t have with Her at that point.  But that never happened between us because I knew I wasn’t in a place to date anyone seriously but Her.  And She wouldn’t be with me.

I assume you remember that She lives in Toronto.  She didn’t want to do long distance because the last guy She tried it with couldn’t handle it and it was too hard for Her to deal with.  More importantly, She didn’t want to risk trying things when She didn’t think they could work because the idea of us breaking up and me not being in Her life was too much to deal with.  So we were just friends even though I loved Her.

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A clear indicator that I am exhausted…

I start walking down the halls of my office pigeon toed because it seems to make my legs feel less tired.  On a related note, this will be the third night that I do not go home from my office in the past 10 days.  I am not a happy camper.

Need to take a trip to Austin…

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