P.S.

p.s. happy birthday to my daddy

p.p.s. This is amazing:

All I feel's alone, might be a quarter life crisis, or just a stirring in my soul (yes that title is shamelessly stolen from John Mayer)

I know I said I'd post "later" which apparently means in you know 5-6 days or whenever I get around to it. In my defense the subject matter is kinda heavy so it takes longer to will myself to write it. In other words...brace yourself this is gonna be a long, emotion-laden one.

I did in fact go visit the ex and his family last weekend and that one week break I took after I returned home? That was me assessing the emotional carnage. Who in the hell thought visiting the ex would be a good idea? Like seriously what kind of idiot gets over someone and then decides that they should plunge themselves right back into their life??? You may not be able to guess it from the tone of this entry but the weekend was amazing and loads of fun, thats the problem. I miss them all so very, very much. I was so unhappy before that it was semi-easy to just walk away but now??? Not so much. As I write this I feel depression, not sadness, not regret, but deep down emotional distress and sorrow. So on the car ride home (after the first hour was spent crying uncontrollably) I started to analyze myself (what can I say I'm a psych major, it's what I do). It suddenly dawned on me that this pain was a familiar pain, a hurt so deep that it expresses itself in every aspect of my life. I become some neurotic basketcase who doesn't even want to get out of bed in the morning for fear of facing my feelings, it's exhausting. Sometimes people think that I'm just lazy (and sometimes I am) but how do I tell them that sometimes it's just because I don't want to face pain, real or perceived. When I'm in this mood everything I see and do reminds me of how un-happy I am. I realized that I feel this way after returning from my visit because those people love me, and I them. Everyone I meet tells the ex how great I am and they actually fight over whose house I should stay at, they speak what little English they know and include me in all that they do. They gossip with me about his new fuck buddy and they tell me not to be sad, that I am their family and she never will be. Above all there is always someone around for me. That's the bottom line, that's where I had my epiphany of sorts. As I mentioned above this pain was not new; I have felt it many times before but I had forgotten how miserable it was. It takes me back to the days of my childhood when I would spend every-other weekend with my dad. We would have the best time, not because he's extravagant and took me everywhere I wanted to go or because he bought me things but because he genuinely understood me and was always there (notice the theme?). The best memories of my life thus far include rainy Saturdays spent inside, just me and my dad, eating chicken noodle soup and talking about everything and nothing at all. When Sunday would roll around I would be devastated, I would begin to cry two hours before I was supposed to be home, sometimes I would get physically ill and beg my Dad not to make me go and I would see the tears in his eyes as he would pull away. It's not that my mom was some terrible monster, she loved me and cared for me the best way that she knew how but it just wasn't the same. She didn't quite "get" me nor did she want to spend quality time with me. I felt isolated and alone and I remember crying and feeling miserable until I could return to my dads again. I didn't realize it until later in life but I was actually depressed; at 8 years old I suffered from depression and tons of anxiety which expressed itself as OCD oftentimes. Okay so there's my sob story, you've heard it and now I'll get to the point the theme is I am terrified, I mean terrified, of being alone. At both my dad's house and now with the ex's family I feel like everyone is there for me, that I can be alone in a room but not be alone. Here at my house, at my desk, I am alone, alone in the world. I pass my mom in the hallway and we talk but for all intents and purposes I am alone. Now that I'm older and have the tools to help myself I know that I will be okay, I know that this feeling of sadness will pass and that I cannot become involved in a relationship solely because of a great emotional environment; that would be a cop-out, and I am putting it in writing right here so that when I feel weak and like he's my only option I will come back and read this and remind myself that I am strong and I won't take the easy road; I've worked through to much to do that now.

Okay I just wanted to make note of how weird it is that I actually dreamt a blogging related dream last night. The dream lasted like, literally, two seconds and all it consisted of was me finding a note written by my co-worker to my boss regarding me that had yesterday's date and read "Couldn't stop blogging". Totally random and weird especially since my co-worker is old and probably doesn't even know what a blog is.

On another completely random note, the weather here has been absolutely a-fucking-mazing; its been sunny and hot which is just the way I prefer weather to be. On Sunday I went to my dad's new camper (me, the queen of hating the outdoors and all things camp related) but it was okay because his campground is fairly civilized (as much as a campground can be) and has a very lovely swimming pool and even a movie theater. So I spent my day laying in the hot, hot, sun and wading into the pool every once in a while, all while reading this weeks edition of US Weekly (speaking of which holy crap Nicole Richie is pregnant!). I was watching Last Comic Standing last week and this girl pretty much summed up what I perceive to be the "camping experience". She said: "It's pretty much a bunch of people who don't live in trailer parks but like to vacation at one." Not saying that there's anything wrong with living in a trailer park because my dad totally does (he lives in one and vacations in one; double classy)its just not my cup of tea (camping, not living in a mobile home)

Well I was just thinking about what to title this post but blogger must have known that I got nothin because it won't let me type in a title. Hmmm we'll see how that pan's out.

The one where me and my dad actually argue about "butch" hair

Now don't get me wrong, I love my dad to death, he is and always will be my best friend but it boggles my mind how two people so different can love each other so much. My dad is extreeeeeeeemely conservative in his religious beliefs and when we talk we often get into "discussions" about our various beliefs. Mind you, this man taught me the ropes of religion, he is the one I went to church with and he is the one who helped me with my Bible studies etc. When you're young you're sort of just learning the basics but when you're older you start to get into heated debates and touchy issues and as you can imagine my church as well as my father frowns upon homosexuality (quite difficult for a child who is being raised by a mother who happens to be homosexual) anyways blah blah blah a lot of confusion blah blah blah... Suffice it to say that I came out of all this with my own set of beliefs that is quite different from my dad's in many areas. Last night I figured I'd strike a chord if I told my dad I started to read Sylvia Brown's soul searching series (or whatever its called) and as soon as the words escaped my lips BINGO! DISCUSSION TIME Somehow last nights topic turned out to not be about Sylvia Brown and her theories but about homosexuality and I kid you not these words escaped the lips of my father, one of the (otherwise) smartest men I know.

Dad: "Nicole, have you ever seen a lesbian couple walking down the street? Why does one of them usually have butch hair??? Because one is trying to be the man!"

Me: "Dad what about straight people who have 'butch' hair? Or what if both of them have 'butch' hair?"

Dad: "Well straight people shouldn't have butch hair, there's a difference between butch and short. And if both of the lesbian's have 'butch' hair it means they're battling over who is the man!"

Blink...........Blink, Blink, Blink

It amazes me that he just asserts these things with so much certainty and he is convinced that he is 100% right. I asked him how he could back that up and his answer was that "it's just common sense" although there are verses about hair in the Bible nothing specifically mentioning this. WOW!

I am just floored sometimes by the way people, even the smartest of them, can be told things and they just continue to believe it because that's just "how it is" and never take the time to stop and think things through for themselves. Yes I grew up extreeemely religious and today I still consider myself religious (though I have slipped away quite a bit, I'm working on that though). However, I don't believe religion or God is about bringing people down, judging people, or acting like you're better than someone else just because of your beliefs. I believe that religion should be a personal challenge to better yourself each and every day.

And all that being said I should start my own church hahahaha anyways that's my message for the day, so there!!!! :)