I had to say I love you in my blog

The internet is a really funny place. I’m not sure how it’s possible that there is something so big and yet so illogical. Granted every person with a blog is hoping to speak to the masses, we all want to be like Christian Slater in Pump Up The Volume. But sadly most of us (myself included) will never reach an audience larger than 8 people and maybe a few of our myspace friends. I wish that I could say that the main reason most of these people won’t be heard of by anyone outside their top eight is because they are the only people who think that they’re a good writer (i.e. me) but actually there’s plenty of people out there who are talented writers whose voice will always be over shadowed by a kid wearing eyeliner, hiding under a blanket begging us to leave Britney alone.

The last three months of the year 2008 were epic at best. In the beginning of October I moved out of my parent’s house and moved into my friend’s apartment. The following week I turned 23. Four days later I got dumped by the first girlfriend that I could truly consider a “serious relationship”. The following day she had a new boyfriend. The next week I met the girl of my dreams at a Halloween party (I was a ‘work in progress’ and she was ‘Jessica Rabbit’). A few weeks later I was in a car accident that killed my Buick LaSabre the faithful car of mine since 2003. I got a new car and in the last week I’ve managed to (a)meet a mom that I am sort of/kind of dating, (b)send a really pathetic email to “the ex”, (c)graduate college and (d)find out that come January 1^st I will be unemployed.

Perhaps it’s all these things that lead to the fact that it’s 2:40am on December 25, 2008 and I’m laying on an inflatable bed in my family’s basement (which is also my brothers bedroom, which became his bedroom when I moved out which means that chances are this is the exact same place I was this time last year). I remember being a kid and not being about to sleep a wink on Christmas Eve. Eventually I would fall asleep only to wake up early. I recall that every year I’d wake up around 3 in the morning and I’d walk downstairs and look at the gifts under the tree and size up my gifts vs the rest of my siblings. I’d turn on the TV and watch some Christmas special and try to guess what the different CDs and DVDs would be and then go back to bed and try to do anything to make the time fly by (normally I’d end up reading a Garfield comic). Around 5am I’d wake up my siblings and convince them (literally we’d be in my bedroom discussing plans of attack) that we need to wake up mom and dad and open our presents ASAP.

Last year however, I feel asleep almost immediately and had to be forcibly woken up by my entire family in the morning. I always assumed that meant that the Christmas spirit had finally, after 22 years, been lost on me. But alas here I am, now 2:45 am, sitting on my laptop listening to my brother snore. The Nick at Nite Family Matters/Home Improvement reruns didn’t make more sleepy, nor did reading Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourself to Live. But the weird thing is that, I’m not “awake” out of excitement of opening gifts. I’m awake because I’m terrified of 2009.

I’ve always been one to scare easily. Infact I spent most of late-November and early-December convinced that I was going to fail chemistry and not graduate despite telling my whole family tree that I was going to be “the first person in my family tree to get a college degree” on December 19^th. But right now I’m thinking about things like, when I get laid off will I find a job soon? Will I be able to afford rent AND continue to get my Netflix? (man, I really need to get my priorities in check) Will  the Ex reply to my stupid email? Will she be angry at the email and just make me more depressed? Why does Jessica Rabbit seem to be more interested this Jerk she brought to the 80’s party instead of me? (That’s a story for a different day) Should I date this mom? (for the record she’s 26, it’s not like I’m dating someone who could have been my mom).

The most aggravating thing though is that all these things are distracting me from the things that SHOULD be keeping me awake. Things like… Did my mom buy me Wall*E on DVD? Will Grandma like the Candle I got her? Did I just hear a “clatter” on the roof? What exactly is a clatter anyway?

I’ve never been a person who understood relationships, or dating, or women, or sex or how any of those things work when connected together. The girlfriend who recently dumped had dated me for roughly a year (there was some on and off periods here and there) which means my relationship with her is almost as long as all my other relationships combined. What’s so confusing about the ending of this relationship was how out of the blue it was while at the exact same time was completely foreseeable. I won’t lie and say that everything between this person and I was perfect. But I wouldn’t have ever called it unhappy. Even then, the break-up wasn’t after a fight, or even a bad/awkward weekend. All things considered my birthday weekend was the best birthday weekend I’ve had to date. Too bad it’s now tainted with a underlying feeling of failure.

What is it about me that makes me automatically assume the position of “blame”? I didn’t do the dumping. In fact while being dumped it was made abondently clear throughout the whole “break up speech” that I was a good boyfriend and didn’t do anything wrong. I just wasn’t ‘the guy for her’. Which now I know means that she had already met the right ‘guy for her’ so she felt safe letting me go.

Everyone handles a break up differently I think. Some people can go right on with their life with no feelings of remorse (they’re normally the dumpers) meanwhile others (aka the dumpees) can spend months to years trying to figure out what they did wrong and eventually they just decide that it’s easier to blame the other person and move on. I don’t know where I and my ex fit in. But I do know the following things.

1.     My ex desperately wanted us to stay friends

2.     As far as I can tell, my ex still doesn’t think she did anything wrong

3.     It’s very well possible that she didn’t do anything wrong

4.     I hope she’s happy (and not in a sarcastic way at all)

It’s Part 4 that really gets me the most. Why is it that I say this after someone has torn out my heart and I don’t mean it in any “ironic” way? I refuse to believe that I’m the only person who feels like this? There isn’t a question in my mind that I loved this ex-girlfriend. I won’t say that she’s the only person I’ll ever love because that’s almost certainly not true at all. I can say that I was happy, even when I was un-happy, I was still happy. This ex girlfriend was a lot younger than I was and I was dealt a fair share of mockery and ridicule for it. But I loved her so much that it didn’t bother me. I suppose she felt differently.

The funny thing is that, when a relationship ends in the awkward way that mine did. It’s hard to really put together thoughts about how you feel. Instead it all just comes together in a series of memories. I’ve started to realize that relationships can destroy everything you hold dear.

After the break up, there were a handful of movies and TV shows (Rocky Horror Picture show, Scrubs) that held some form of significance between this person and I that has still to this day made it very difficult for me to watch and not think of her. Even more aggravating is the hundreds of songs that have been destroyed by her.

I’m a big mixtape guy. I love making mix-tapes. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve at one time or another made a mix tape (well… CD) for anyone who I met and liked enough to hang out with a second time. If you’re a girl and I like you, you can expect Mix tapes on a monthly basis, almost like if you signed up for one of those Columbia record things (12 CDs for a penny). I can catergorically say that my ex has received more mixes from me than any other girl.

This raises an interesting question. As stated earlier I’m sort of dating a mom, but I’m also just short of being completely in love with “Jessica Rabbit” who seems to enjoy dating anyone who’s NOT me. Now my fate (if there is one) with either one of these girls is still undertermed, is it possible to ever use any of the songs from the Ex on mixes for these girls? That almost feels like cheating. I makes me feel like I’m Elijah Wood in Eternal Sunshine desperately copying Jim Carrey to hopefully see if whatever worked once will work again.

At the same time, if one of these girls in my not to distant future makes me “pretend that I’m kissing the lips that I’m missing” why shouldn’t I put All my lovin’ on a mix? If that make me feel swear that “Today was the first day of my life” then why can’t Bright Eyes explain that to them? Why can’t Jason Mraz tell another girl that I’m theirs?

At the same time what exactly do I know about relationships? I mean, I still find the first three American Pie Movies to be the most romantic teen flicks ever penned. For those of you who have forgotten these are the movies that involve fucking a pie, eating dog shit and among other things gluing your hand to your dick.

Is there a point to this? I suppose if this were to be a book this could be the first chapter. In my mind though it works better as a prolouge. It kind of sets the mood for the randomness that is my life. The things that lack importance that I still decide are significant to focus on. If this were a book though, it’d be one boring collection of stories that no one really cares about in the first place. I guess this all steams from the fact that I once said that the only reason I want one of my scripts to be made into a movie is to get a commentary track. Somehow I’ve been put under the impression that people care about what I think and want to listen to my nonsensical ramblings, stories and opinions. In the end I guess this is all just one giant random experiment.