Things are doing better on the bad-thing-that-cannot-be-named front. Slight signs of improvement/hopefulness. At any rate, I'm trying to enjoy life while I can before the ax possibly falls, you know?

Today was a nice fun day at work. We went out for Thai food and my padt thai was excellent. I could order other stuff there, but the padt thai is so good! Had a cute cheery conversation with the boss, which was fun, and generally had a good time. I didn't even mind that I spent two and a half hours waiting around for my page to print (turned out someone had stuffed it in the "checked" bin when it hadn't been. Yikes!), and an hour and a half over when I was supposed to have left. But we were having fun.

I am working on reviewing children's books, untraditional/original Christmas CD's and maybe some advent calendars for work, and some of the stuff I got this week is quite bizarre. The first CD I got, Mr. Handey's Christmas Classics, has some good stuff, and yet some stuff that (a) is hella offensive during wartime, or (b) quite vomitous (remember, we're talking about talking poo here. In great detail.). Amazingly enough, the editor I'm doing it for was all "South Park rocks!" and has no problem with my reviewing it. The other CD's are Squirrel Nut Zippers's Christmas Caravan (nice enough, not that funny, is okay, nice swing sounds) and Just Say Noel compiliation of rockers (some songs nice, some are completely incomprehensible). I plan to do Bob Rivers Comedy Corp's Twisted Christmas and Dr. Elmo's Twisted Christmas (which I already own) as well. Yes, I'm weird. Get used to it ;)

So I was reading Kismet when I got home today and found this one section interesting, where she said that she should just concentrate on science instead of her love life and her friend said, "Well, everyone needs an emotional life." Kis didn't exactly want the one she has right now. I found that thought pretty interesting.

Right now, essentially I don't have one and am concentrating on the nonemotional stuff as best I can (ironically, this is what a tarot card reader said to me that I should do the one time I got it done). Haven't had a love life in ages, nor have I really been interested in anyone new for ages, or even mildly interested in anyone. I've always been like that, really-- zero interest in guys except for once in a blue moon when someone comes along and REALLY blows me away. It seems to take a lot to get me interested in a person, which explains a lot about me and my behavior. If I find someone I actually can love, I don't want to give them up. Which applies to friends too, but it seems like there's less you can do there. This is why I deleted the previous incarnation of this journal- because it was all about me not wanting to give anyone up and them dumping me willy-nilly without a care in the world, and like I said, depressing.

Now I'm just trying to avoid having deep feelings for people, and this seems to be much better for me. I can't get what I want right now at this stage of my life (I suspect I'm too young emotionally, and the people around my age are even younger like that), possibly ever, and for the first time I'm actually able to stand it. I get kinda mushy "Oh, I want that again" reading people's lovey entries and stuff like that, but most of the time I just think of how I get when I'm really loving someone and think "No, I'm much better off alone, and even if I did find someone to be interested in we'd both be better off if it wasn't pursued. No need to get messed up when it goes bad again."

I suspect that if (and that's a big if) I ever did end up with someone for the long term, it'll be when I'm like 45 or something and FINALLY an adult who enjoys cooking and cleaning and actually bothers to frame her wall decorations and whatnot. I'm jealous of y'all who do find The One at 20 or so big time, but I just didn't get that lucky. Or choose the right people, of course.

While I've been trying to avoid the subject of the infamous ex (I have more than one, but there's really THE Ex that I used to have a great relationship with, and I doubt any other loves will be mentioned here much because I no longer care), something came up about him recently that I want to talk about, so I'll have to prime you. With a whole lotta leaving things out, we could summarize it all as "first blissful fulfilling relationship that made me happy, boy started getting depressed and broke up with me but still really wanted to be friends, were friends for a long time, his depression got worse, things went up and down a lot with said friendship and his depression got REALLY worse, boy now refuses to answer/return my phone calls." Things had been really bad with him since last... January or so, and had gotten worse and worse. I hardly talked to him this summer but he was still talking back, and then I found out in October that the fellow I thought would never pull the traditional crappy person stunt of not returning phone calls and not picking up when he saw my number on caller ID, did that.

He used to not be like that at all. Depression has turned him into a really shitty person. I strongly suspect he's bipolar. I seem to like people like that (I have a cousin who is bipolar, an ex-best-friend is bipolar, various other former friends of mine had depression issues... My taste in people is scary).

I may always love the person he used to be on some level (though I hope to god someday I get over it). Even if I couldn't have him as a boyfriend, he was someone I definitely wanted around for good as a friend. (Hah.) Damned if I know who he is now. I swear, it's like the whole Angel/Angelus/sex thing or something- the man I loved turned into a jerk. I used to think that the good person was still in there, and he sure did make appearances enough to convince me of that for a long time, but who knows now. I don't want to be in a relationship with a depressed person-- hell, being friends was like the seventh circle of the damned sometimes -- but I still miss the old person and want him back in my life. Not that that will ever happen, though.

Anyway, back before I discovered he no longer wished to speak to me ever again, I wrote to Sars's advice column about what to do. (Mine's the middle letter) And it came out yesterday. Good advice, but too late for me to follow it. He chose (a). I also got e-mail from her asking what kind of free merchandise I wanted, and when I answered that I said that thanks, but it was too late, etc. She wrote back today saying essentially "sorry about that. but it's still not you."

Which is an interesting thought, since I felt like it was me for a looong time. By now I've realized that depression was really directing a lot of the stuff he did...but towards the end it was REALLY feeling personal. The fact that I found out that he's still going around as normal to everyone else and yet won't talk to ME, well... can you blame me for thinking that? But it makes me feel slightly better.

Another one of those random interesting thoughts related to this came up when I was reading this thread. What would I do if someone who ditched me came back into my life? Like I said in the thread, this is not exactly something common that happens to me. Usually I get ditched forevermore, and once I get dumped, I expect it to be permanent. If I was so awful that you had to ditch me, why on earth would you come back? I usually try to make myself hate them and move on and never let any hope come back again.

Okay, so in some respects I guess people have tried to reconnect with me.

The first one was who we'll refer to as Previous Ex, who did the typical 20-year-old-boy-flakeout-no-call-return thing for months, then called me when I wasn't home and said he'd call back, then didn't. Um, yeah. I wrote him a "fuck off, don't ever call me again because I'm sick of this shit" letter.

Second one was my ex-friend Zoe, (who also dated The Ex, loooooooong story) deciding that the best way to get over The Ex was to ditch everyone that reminded her of him. I didn't hear from her for months, he told me she wanted to make friends again, I got all "How dare you think that ditching me for nine months is okay!" and wrote a rude e-mail to her, then felt bad about what I'd done (I am an idiot). Somehow (I'll never understand this.) she er, got over it and tried again, we made up, but I always ended up calling her and she was acquiring a new boyfriend and every time I called her she was on her way to the boyfriend's house, etc. and I just gave up already, and nine months after THAT she calls me wanting to come visit on Labor Day (I wasn't home). She didn't return my call after that. I just don't GET behavior like that in people. Oh, how I love when loyal friends become flaky jerks for no good reason. NOT.

Even The Ex did this once- I had really pissed him off one month (and crashed his car) and he wanted to not deal with me. I assumed off the bat that it was over forever, but we ran into each other at a birthday gathering two weeks later and he was talking to me again and well, the friendship was back on again. But obviously that died again too. So while people HAVE tried to reconnect with me, they all somehow flaked or changed their minds. I don't really count that as trying after awhile.

But what this thread has to do with anything is that The Ex is notorious for looking up people he used to date/be friends with years later. He loves doing it. Hell, he did that to Zoe- they were best friends at about twenty or so, then he flaked out of her life as stupid young boys are wont to do (I would NOT have dated him at that age had that been possible) and devastated her, he looked her up eight years later when he was in her town and they hooked up. He always said he'd do that to me- that SOMEDAY the fates would conspire to have us meet again in an elevator in Argentina or something (don't ask me where he came up with that one) if we lost touch. And I've always been like "once someone's out of my life, they're gone, and it never comes back."

But I wonder. While in some ways it doesn't seem likely that he would look me up (the last time I saw him he ignored me walking down the street he was driving on- and while I can't prove for sure he saw me, I figure even if he did, he wouldn't want to acknowledge me), in other ways, well... he might. Mom figures he will, even. Might be years from now, might be a decade later, but I might have an anvil hanging over my head for the rest of my life now and one day he'll crash down into me again.

And what the HELL would I do? Would he have gotten treatment for bipolarity? Would he have deteriorated into a mindless blob of protoplasm? Would he be the person I used to know, or someone more monstrous? And would I really want to take the risk of finding out? If I blew him off, I'd stay safe. Not hurt repeatedly the way depressed folks tend to do. I'd already be used to him being gone from my life- why introduce him again and fuck things up? It'd be the sensible thing to do. Hell, even if he was on medication, bipolarity is so dicey to deal with. (Note that my cousin with it is on husband #4. He has his own issues, so maybe now it finally works for them.) If one day the meds stop working, it all goes to hell again. Do I really need that when I could avoid it? Of course not. If I could be a sensible, coldhearted girl I would do that.

I fear the stupid, stupid bit of me that has hope that someday he might return into my life as a decent fellow again. The part that wants him to. The part of me that KNOWS BETTER and yet still wishes. That part of me still hasn't been killed off yet like most of me has. Why hasn't it died already, for crying out loud? I hope with time it will, but I'm afraid of what happens if it doesn't. Because that part of me, if it gets control and it often does, will say "Yes."

I've thought about writing him an Ultimate Blowoff Letter telling him to never look for me again like I did everyone else, but he'd probably recognize it was from me and toss it out or something without reading, wouldn't he. Unlike the other two, he knows damn well that I do that, and he even read the one to Zoe and said I'd ripped her a new asshole. (What can I say- when I really get mad, it's The Littlest Volcano.) But even beyond the how-would-I-trick-him-into-getting-my-blowoff problem, I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. Damn foolish bit of hope won't let me damn it for eternity. This isn't a good sign of willpower, folks. I'm scared of me.

Then again, sometimes I think that I never wrote those blowoff letters until they actually DID try to get in touch with me, and that if he does do it, I will come through with damning judgement quite nicely in the end after all. Things always seem to end that way, don't they?

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