Breaking The Engagement: 6 Months Later

When I tell people that I broke off my engagement, they usually tend to tell me that they have no idea how that feels, and they can't even imagine what I am going through.  Allow me to try to explain.

When I saw this Lamebook post the other day, I laughed right into the screen.  I laughed from both sides; the annoyed and the annoying, because I was once engaged and I uploaded a picture very similar to this onto Facebook to alert my friends and pseudo friends that hey, I've grown up now!  Someone is buying me sparkly things, check it out (especially you, people that blew your chances)!

Ugh.

Breaking off an engagement, especially when it isn't necessarily mutual is just traumatic.  It's not as traumatic as being hit by a semi and nearly plunging to your death into a shallow, icy river, but thinking back that would have been a lot quicker and maybe even less painful.  As if the break wasn't enough to grieve over, there are so many things that require un-doing in "It's Already Done" land.  

A lot of brides sign up for TheKnot.com right after engagement where you're supposed to talk to bitchy brides-to-be about how crazy you all fucking are and why it's so goddamned important to freak out if your bows are one shade too dark and by God if they don't match the flowers just so, a rampage is to ensue.  Can I tell my fiancee I don't like his Best Man?  Is it bad etiquette to say 'no children'?  My family is paying more than his family for wedding expenses!  Help!  BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.  It does a fantastic job of overwhelming you to the point that you forget what is actually important about your wedding day.  The only great thing about TheKnot.com is that when you get married and the computer recognizes that your account is now days later than your earlier-entered projected wedding date, you get automatically graduated to TheNest.com.  TheNest.com is exactly like the Knot, except that now everyone talks about being newlyweds and when their husbands are gonna let them have babies.  Home decor dilemmas?  Say it isn't so.  He wants blue and you want lilac?  You should probably cry about it online to other paranoid and delusional people, I've heard that helps.  You know what really sucks though?  When you can't undo your account (and get too angry navigating the site to figure out how) and tell the damn site that you didn't get married at all and that you're not a Nestie, you're just alone.  Good old-fashioned alone.  Thanks Nest for reminding me.  Thanks for the follow up 'congratulations, hope you had fun on your honeymoon' e-mail you sent me, because that didn't make me cry at all.  Also, thanks for the awesome newsletters you send out that beg the real important questions like Are You Having Enough Sex?  Are You Ready for a Baby?  and other reminders that I can stop trying to 'hook a man' such as 6 Great Comfort Food Recipes and Great Date Nights Without Leaving The House.  I don't need Home Buying Help.  I only need help figuring out how the fuck to get OFF YOUR MAILING LIST BECAUSE I DON'T LIVE IN PRINCESS DREAM LAND ANYMORE.  

Another awesome thing about calling off an engagement is running into someone you haven't seen since they saw you last wherein you were engaged.  It's one of those anchor topics that they are sure to ask you about right off the bat.  "How was the wedding!" or "When is the wedding!"  It's almost-always good-natured, which makes the sympathetic recoil even worse when you explain that you didn't get married after all, and/or any time you use the term ex-fiancee.  This is generally followed by "What happened?" (then like 80 vodka sodas) or "Better now than five years down the road."  Thanks; I will keep reminding myself of that when I log in to my bank account and realize I spent all my money on down payments for futility and I can no longer afford to buy new pants or dog food.

Also, commercials for diamonds, engagement, or anything to do with weddings?  Not so much.  Never has anything in the history of things been able to sour a day like seeing two happy people getting fake-TV engaged after yours fell apart.  Nothing.  They can die of feigned happiness into a pit of rainbows for all I care.  And I don't.

Have you ever heard of wedding dress angst?  Well I just made that term up, but it exists.  This is a unique blend of wistfulness, sadness, and pure anger.  One of the saddest moments in my entire life was when I walked into the room after canceling my wedding, and saw my wedding dress just hanging there, still in protective cellophane.  It was just like seeing a garment woven with my own dreams, time lapsing right in front of me, collecting dust, waiting there until.... what?  When?  Maybe waiting for absolutely nothing at all; maybe it would never have the one moment for which it was specifically designed to have. And, even if it did get its moment, something meant to be so virginal and pristine and so sacred had already been tarnished by a past failure, and would forever.  I thought ahead to myself in five years, putting 'dust off the wedding dress' on my list of things to do for the day.  This is the springboard into the anger, in which the dress itself and what it is supposed to stand for is so beautiful that it must, too, be destroyed in the same fiery pit of pain and despair that I've been suffering through for months.  I can't even pass a wedding dress in a window without feeling like an angel just stabbed me in the heart.  It is an inconceivably difficult emotional situation, one that I can't even say with any certainty will get better.

How much of a free-thinking badass you are in everyday life gives you absolutely no defense to the inordinate amount of failure you'll be feeling on your shoulders, imposed from yourself, their (and your) friends, the unrelenting media, and just life in general.  I was at a point where I couldn't even see two birds perched beside each other on the same branch without wanting to throw myself onto the ground and cry.  There is a dark month or two in which experiencing anything or anyone happy just conjures this deep, black anger from inside your soul.  I would get pissed off at the sun for shining, strangers for doing just about anything, and other shit that made no sense whatsoever.  I would walk past a child stacking blocks and feel a real need to kick them all over if for no other reason than that they made the kid happy, and fuck that kid for being happy, 'cause I'm not.  Because if I'm a good person and bad things happen to me, then only in fairness should they happen to all good people to make me feel better, right?  Because having a broken heart is complete justification for me being a self-absorbed dick for as long as I want, just so you know.  You aren't wearing a cast or a sling, and so no one walking by you on the street knows what sort of scarred emotional burden you are carrying.  You're 30 years old and you have a job, and no employer is going to give you cry breaks in 15-minute intervals so you can feel sorry for yourself and reflect back on your sad life.  Clients don't stop calling in because your heart hurts.  The obviousness of life continuing to go on around you is another cold reminder that yours does, too, whether you feel it should or not.

Eventually it does, and you get past your wedding-date-to-be with a cold shiver and a box of wine, there are no more e-mails to send canceling any other venues or services, you stop getting pissed off at birds, and you move on with the friends that didn't stop speaking to you out of loyalty to your ex.  Essentially you go through a transformation that you and everyone else convinces you is 'way better'.

And one day, you believe it.

There's a Mouse in the House

"Those, my dear, are mouse turds."

Phrases you don't want to hear after having eaten a handful of something before noticing soggy, bloated pellets in the other half of the handful of something that you know are mouse turds and yet do not want to believe are mouse turds thereby demanding a second opinion of said mouse turds to solidify that they are, in fact, mouse turds.  And you just ate food marinating in mouse turds.  Happy Mouse Turd Wednesday!

First note:  Mice like spaghetti.
Second note:  I no longer like spaghetti.

At this point in the story, I am in the kitchen anticipating a lovely dinner of handmade turkey meatballs and whole wheat spaghetti, standing by the boiling pot of spaghetti delicately plucking under-cooked strands out at one-minute intervals to ensure the utmost al dente for my family. Visions of beautiful steamy plates of intertwining noodles cradling perfectly-sized juicy meatballs swimming in spicy red sauce dance through my mind as the hot rush of steam warms my face upon straining the water from the noodles.  As I put the noodles back into the pot, I look back at the strainer.  I almost didn't.  Oh, God, I almost didn't.  My heart went from normal operation to one thick super-beat.  Whatthefuckisthat.  WHATTHEFUCKISTHAT!

There they were, lodged into the strain holes.  The things that should not be.  Bloated green pellets.  My mind raced.  Did I make spinach?  Did the dishwasher fail to thoroughly clean the dish from last use?  Or do I now need to come to terms with the fact that I just contracted mouse AIDS?

I already told you how this story ends.  Well, I mean, I already told you where it stands.  Where it ends is obviously in a crippling, inevitable fit of mouse AIDS.

What makes me the most angry about this experience is that I feel guilty for wanting to kill the mouse living intermittently in my pantry. Screw Tom & Jerry, Disney's American Tale, and Rescue Rangers for making me think mice are cute.  Mice are not cute.  Mice do not wear aviator hats and sing to the moon and go on rescue missions to make your life easier.  Nothing mice do end up in cheering and moral victory.  Mice shit in your food and your mouth and ruin spaghetti dinners and make nests out of your NASA pot holder that you got from Kennedy Space Center.

Also filed under 'improbable' is the fact that dogs and mice are best buds?  The question is not how my dog would react to a mouse upon discovering one, but rather, why the fuck has he not killed it yet?  I mean yes I got him for companionship and protection and he is super cute, but come on dog, do your fucking job and eat the damn turd-maker before he ruins another meal.  

Just don't scare any more shit out of it.

Missing the Point

I listen to the police scanner all day at work; several times a day dispatchers are sending out police to check on the well-being of so-and-so who hasn't been heard from for 25 days, or another so-and-so who hasn't been heard from for three months and could you please go check on her because her mail is piling up and becoming unsightly...

I don't understand how one can become so detached from their surroundings that three fucking MONTHS can go by without so much as anyone becoming concerned that the person is even still alive.  I mean, sometimes there isn't any family, but there's always church.  People at church have to care, don't they?  You always at least have God's family.

Unless you're a despondent, soulless asshole, I guess.

I found myself helping my future roommate move the last bits and pieces of trash and furniture out of his old apartment the other night.  I have known since I was in high school that trash goes into a dumpster, correct?  So here I was, holding a box full of trash heading over to the dumpster in the same parking lot to throw it away.  Mission accomplished.  As I turn my back to grab the next load I hear an old man's voice cut through the chilly air in my direction.

"Hey!"  His voice was accusatory and urgent.  I turned around thinking someone had possibly broken a hip.  "You can't throw away trash in that dumpster!"

I hate being tricked.  Here I was, tired, cold, and sore, willing to drop whatever I was doing to help an old man out and I got tricked into almost caring about someone who was just trying to make my life a little more difficult.  He didn't have a chance with me after that.

"Well, I just did."  I said, making it very clear that I wasn't afraid of an old man yelling at me about something I had already done.

"Well stop!  This dumpster is private property and doesn't belong to you!"  He protested, as if I should really heed his generous warning.

"Listen dude, I've had a long fucking day and I don't need to listen to an old man yelling about a dumpster today," I yelled while walking away.

"I don't care about your day!"  The man yelled back.

"And I don't care about the stupid fucking dumpster!"

He began to protest again.  I cut him off.  "Call somebody about it then and SHUT.  UP.  Or go find something to do."

"I think I will!" he retorted, getting out his cell phone and leaning on the dumpster.

My roommate comes over to me and asks me if I'm really arguing over the dumpster.  I tell him yes; I've grown to hate most people.  I inform him that he's calling 'someone' about it.

"We're almost done, and I'm moving out anyway," he stated.
"Exactly."

There was one cardboard roll left with some papers in it that I was told needed to be thrown away.  Through the night, I could see the old man still leaning on that dumpster, excitedly explaining the situation to whoever was on the other end of the phone call.  I started toward him with the cardboard roll, partly to prove a point and partly because I am vengeful when provoked.  His 'explaining' face turned toward incredulous when he saw me veering toward him with what seemed to be more evil trash.

Now, a foot away from the man, I went to lift the lid of the receptacle to throw away this one item.   The man threw himself, arms spread, in front of the dumpster as if to protect it like his dead wife from someone attempting to piss on her ashes.

"Seriously?" I said, flatly.
"YOU CAN'T USE IT!  IT'S PRIVATE PROPERTY!"

I propped the cardboard roll up between the man's leg and the dumpster and walked away.  He picked it up, yelling and screaming.

We were done.  I got in my truck, the back of which was loaded down with more trash and furniture, and prepared to head over to the Volunteers of America to drop off some of the unneeded furniture.  As I pull out, a conversion van with tinted windows flies around the corner and squeals into the parking lot toward the man at the dumpster, who is shaking his index finger toward me.

The van had Juggalo stickers on it.  The man called a Juggalo to prevent me from throwing away trash.

And this is why three months pass without anyone wondering where you are.

This is Me Being Mean

Hi.  This is me being mean and childish.  Just thought I'd let you guys know that I know that, however, sometimes I'm just tired of the lonely high road and I feel like being vindictive.  I'm a Scorpio; I've been told one is supposed to expect this kind of shit from us on occasion.

I am so glad that social media wasn't yet integrated into everyday life when I was in middle and high school years; I did not always used to be so reserved and forward-minded and probably would have taken several opportunities to work against myself and my enemies with the help of my ever-sharp, snaked tongue.  Now in my thirties, I'm supposed to have the perseverance of well, someone in their thirties.  But, that only works when other people treat me with the same matured respect that I am supposed to extend to them.  Sometimes they don't.  Most of the time I can ignore it, bitch about it to my friends, and move on.  Judging by every single sitcom and movie I've ever seen, I can safely say I am doing what every other woman my age does to deal with hardships.  And my ex-male counterpart is doing, I'm sure, what every other male his age is doing to deal with hardships; nothing at all.  Definitely not picking up all his things with which he burdened me by keeping at my house that now live in a box under the stairs.  And, blocking me on social media sites so that he doesn't have to deal with seeing me smiling in happiness that he didn't cause, or upset in bouts of frustration that he did is certainly a mature way to keep all of the wonderful friends I introduced into his life without having the pesky burden of seeing me interact with them.  Oh, ex-male counterpart: If only you had spent less time worrying about being replaced and more time trying to make yourself irreplaceable.  I don't think you were ever the man I thought you were at all.

Carpe Diem

Breakups are so awkward. They happen all the time, most everyone has been through one, and yet there's no real protocol on how to handle anything. You've spent months and years focusing on yourself and when the break happens, suddenly what everyone else thinks of you becomes glaringly apparent. Everyone seems to have an idea of what is best for you and what you absolutely should not be doing. People are worried about you, sure, which is why you're under the microscope but that worry can seep into judgement a little too easily. You find yourself afraid to divulge the sinful details of your new post-breakup routine. Things like "I'm actually happy" or "I feel better". You have bad days, and people tend to understand those because they make more sense from the outside. But showing excitement about your new life a little too soon? Clearly you're in denial.

When you're a teenager, breaking up is the end of the fucking world. If you're like the vast majority of teenagers and go out with someone who is in your same school, you realize you can't get away from them easily, if at all. You still have the same classes, you still have the same lunch schedule, and when they find someone else - their new relationship will play itself out right in front of you like some rerun with a different cast. It's brutal.

Then you get to college and your eyes are opened a little wider; maybe you start to see those other fish in the sea everyone was talking about. You start to discover what you like and don't like, get screwed over completely by someone who sweet talks you into believing whatever they promised you, and screw over others the same way because in this transient environment, you can.

Maybe in your 20s you feel as though you've been on both sides of the coin enough to know what the hell you're doing and you decide to get into a relationship with someone who has a common vision of where you both are going in life. These breakups hurt because during this time, you really do think you may have it figured out. These hurt your heart and rattle your sense of security. By now you've established your sense of identity and someone's just rejected it. Enter: jaded and bitter. If you let them. A lot of people do.

Then comes your first adult relationship. The one people take seriously for you. The one your friends put aside their differences to accept. You might spend years and years together. You might plan on spending your life together. You have the same friends. People see you as a unit. This relationship is in terms of the rest of your life. There is no sugar-coating it; these breakups are completely and utterly devastating. Like, hard-to-bounce-back-from devastating. Why-people-write-sad-songs devastating. Shun-society-and-become-a-pig-farmer-in-a-remote-country devastating. These are the ones people don't want you to get over. At least it seems that way.

"Take some time for yourself."

"Don't rush into anything."

"You don't need another relationship right now."

It's probably the three safest things to say to someone who just suffered a setback to their life plan. Or is it? When does Carpe Diem! Live for the day! Turn into "Woah, slow down and don't make any decisions right now."? Straddling the line between slowing down and feeling like your time is running the fuck out is maybe one of the more difficult things life throws your way. Why would I be taking time for myself? To reflect inward, to 'find' myself? I have been doing that for years. Why would I be rushing? Because I feel like time is finite? I don't need another relationship right now? Wrong. I don't need another shitty relationship, no. If the whole point of why I left my life plans was because the quality of them was not up to par, why would I sit by idly while I could be working to build something awesome that makes me happy? I guess that does not make sense. The whole point was that I want to be in a relationship. When the dust settles, I want to give back and write notes and call to say 'hi I miss you' and come home to a hug and hear that I'm a beautiful person. If all I wanted was a healthy relationship, and I didn't get one, why should I do anything but get into one? That IS what I wanted.

Is it better to go out and stay out until 2am with my friends trying to find the bottom of a bottle, because that seems to be a more acceptable way to deal, or to stay so busy with booze and social events I can't sit down and take the time to deal with my pain - but whatever I do, just don't meet anyone? Because at a time where you have a lot of room for self-defeatist behavior and self-destruction, you should most assuredly be alone? Or worse: in the company of people who enable that destructive behavior?

When is an acceptable time for me to be happy again? 2 months? 5 months? 3 years? When is it okay with everyone that I start seizing the day again instead of sitting on my ass watching movies waiting for some awesome shit to just happen for me?

You know, I have my share of bad days. Days where I feel like I failed and that others failed me. I deal with it. I talk about it. I evaluate where I am now and know it is better. Sometimes when you're not happy because of external circumstances, you need to get happy by removing those circumstances. I know myself, and I know my strength and I know two things:

1. I know I deserve to be with someone who makes me happy.

2. I don't need anyone's approval to live my life, because it belongs to me.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. -Benjamin Disraeli

Will you be ready?

Movin' on Up

Unless you've been safely tucked away in a stagnant corner of the web, you've probably heard that Google has initiated a (self-proclaimed) social media revolution by introducing Google +. The invite-only website, like any other, has its pros and cons. However, after using it for a couple months it has become apparent that the deceivingly simple site is actually quite far-reaching in psychological complexity as it relates to disclosure.

One of the major cons right off the bat is that the majority of your friends are sheep and will likely stay with the rest of the herd on Facebook because, well, that's where everyone else is. Don't get me wrong - they'll sign up and keep the site open idly but it will only be a minor distraction from the Facebook party. There's nothing more tragic than an unacknowledged status update falling empty in an Internet full of captive, judgmental listeners amirite?

The major gaping flaw in Facebook has always been the lack of control over the privacy settings and the inherent structure of "look at me" disclosure not easily manipulated by the user. Basically, it's a bad place to flirt, post lolcats during work, or attend a party without hurting the feelings of those not invited. Creating friend lists and selecting which people to exclude from certain posts, and even how to enforce that privacy once those lists were created was a total nightmare on a PC and an impossibility on the mobile app. Like any successful company, the timely exploitation of this flaw is what will make Google + successful.

Do you ever remember in your life wherein you were dating someone and felt like the adult in the relationship, constantly hoping the other person would just grow out of their puerile, embarrassing behaviors? And then do you remember that time where you met someone that had their shit together and treated you maturely and fairly? That's exactly how I felt when I went rogue from Facebook and spun my efforts on G+.

The most alluring part of Google + is by far the ability to categorize your friends into clear "circles" of friendship. I can have my work friends in one circle, my beer geeks in another, and I can even create a circle for "People that think dead baby jokes are funny". When I am posting a status or a link, I can easily "+" which circles are privy to reading it. Of course, your friends have no idea in which circles they have been placed. In fact, you can create an entire circle called "I added you out of obligation but wish you would just die" just to outwardly showcase your maturity in accepting them into your circles, however, having the explicit option to exclude them from your posts. I have often been accused of reading between the lines too heavily, however, this is the very feature that sequesters G+ into maturity. How often do you think about why you are posting what you are posting and who you want to see it? Are you seeking validation? Are you providing information? Or are you just being fucking passive-aggressive?

For example:

Status update: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." - Marilyn Monroe

To: Close Friends Circle

Verdict: This is your support group; these are the people who know what is going on in your life and probably what inspired the update. They'll give you some acknowledgement, maybe a heartfelt sentiment in the form of Photoshopping your face onto a cow or something and telling you to get over it. Totally acceptable.

Status update: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." - Marilyn Monroe

To: Close Friends Circle; Extended Circles containing ex-boyfriend and ex-boyfriend's friends. (For all intents and purposes: Facebook)

Verdict: Totally passive-aggressive.

Status: HAHAHA INSIDE JOKE HAHAHAHA

To: Close Friends Circle

Verdict: Probably hilarious

Status: HAHAHA INSIDE JOKE HAHAHAHA

To: Public

Verdict: 90% of your friends hate you right now.

With Google +, you have to make conscious decisions on who you want to see your information, knowing full well who will see your information and you have to choose each time you post. That means if you post something shitty to your extended circles, you're just instigating and you are forced to face the self-awareness that you did it. G+ gives you a choice to be more mature and keep statuses between the people who should see them. It is up to you to manage it.

Again- not that I am reading between the lines or anything.

Lost in Translation

Get your very own "I love you" rape whistle!