Still feeling a little off. I had good sleep last night, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t able to make it to the gym again today because I had to work right away AND had to take my car in to get a recall on it fixed. I’m back home now, but between that and having another full day of work ahead, plus lunch with Matt at 11:30 and an appointment with my aesthetician at 3:30, it’s probably not going to happen at all today. Whatever.. I’m just rolling with it.

***

Still rolling.

***

Still rolling. Hours later and miles from where I tried to start this morning. Needless to say I’m still on Slack (who made up that name for a communication app?), still testing for release, still dealing with not feeling well. Aaaaand just finished having a conversation with JS about how my lunch with Matt went and that one two punch (the lunch itself and that talk) was about all I could take today.

I’ve known people who are all drama. People who thrive on it and somehow seem to seek it out. Strange bad shit is always happening to them and they say they aren’t the start of it, but somehow, it seems like it follows them. That’s not me. I don’t like drama at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m pretty passive and if anything, I suppress things. I don’t want to upset people or situations and I tend to bottle up and keep it inside.

I suppose that’s where the blogging works in my favor. It’s like somebody listening, yet I know nobody is going to be to bent about anything I have to say. Dealing with real live people in person is a much tougher thing. And I guess today was my day for that.

I’ve said before I wasn’t sure why I would even subject myself to this lunch. Call it obligation, or guilt, or curiosity, but I went through with it. It was as expected with a fair bit of surface level conversation to start and all was just fine until he asked me about any vacations coming up. I was honest and told him and if you could have seen the look on his face it was like someone just told him there had been a death. He apparently didn’t know I was dating someone.

Despite being “Facebook Official” AND having a mutual friend in Josh, he apparently did not know. It’s like in that instant, all the blood drained from his face along with any trace of a smile and was replaced by a look I never want to see again. My heart sank.

The conversation took a turn at that point and became very awkward. He tried to recover and faked a smile and asked me more about it. “How long?”, “Does he have kids?”, “How old are they?”. All pretty short answers from me. It was up to me to steer the conversation somewhere else, which I did successfully for a little bit. Until his Miata came up. I love that car. I’ve always loved miatas.

So much fun cruising around with the top down. I happened to comment about how great that was except for the trip where we bought the car. It was an attempt to provide a quick reminder of one of the worst times between us. That entire trip was miserable. Flying to Austin, being stranded at Jim’s house while Jim was on a Work trip. Not having any way to go look at cars (I’m the one who eventually broke down and got a rental). We found a car just in time for me to need to get home and he don’t want to leave. We fought heavily about that. We left anyway. I had to get home to get my kids. He got sick on the way and still had to drive because I couldn’t handle the miatas manual transmission. The whole thing was a disaster and frankly quite eye opening.

After my comment, he held his hand out for me to grab it and he apologized. I apologized too and then we both started to cry. Full on red eye, tears streaming, nose running crying right there in the middle of the Panera. It was gut-wrenching. After a few minutes, we both had napkins and he suggested I excuse myself to the restroom, which I did. When I came back, he went. When we were both back, we tried to recover the conversation again and sort of did.. talking about family and how everyone is doing. As that was ok but soon after I decided I needed to get back home and get back to work.

We walked out together and my car was first so I turned to hug goodbye. It was a long embrace. I think I had already decided at that point I would probably never meet with him again like this. There’s really no good reason. Feeling like it was the last time, I said “take care, and give the fam my best if you like”. He held on to me a little longer. I think he knew it too.

As we separated, he said “let’s do this again sometime soon”. WTF? I just smiled and nodded. What was I supposed to say? I got in my car and drove away and he went back inside for some reason.

When I got home I dove back into work and I worked most of the afternoon and evening. At about 8pm JS came to visit me and bring me the power cord to my monitor which I left at his place. We chatted for a little bit about the normal stuff and then I brought up my lunch.

It was and is my intent to always 1. Have full disclosure about things that happen even if those conversations are difficult. 2. Share how I’m feeling with my person because I need to be able to do that with my partner. 3. Do a fact check with them because their opinion matters. If it seems like my head is not clear, and I’m making wrong choices, I want someone to call me out on it.

In this case all things are applicable and his initial reaction made me very nervous. He was silent and tentative and eventually said some of the ways it made him feel. I also get that it takes People time to process stuff and I suspect we’ll have more talk about it soon. The whole thing is somewhat complicated because we’ve never talked about that relationship so he has no context other than it was 5 years of my life. I’m going to remedy that soon too.

When we were done talking, he thanked me for telling him and by that time it was late for the both of us. He went home and I went to bed (or tried). I was called on by my work peeps to do more testing and did that for about another half hour and after that, headed for my bedroom.

I started writing this post yesterday and tried to continue/finish before I went to bed last night, but the call to sleep was too strong and pulled me under.

Now it’s 8AM and the start of a new day. I’m back at the gym for the first time in a few days and trying to inject some “normal” in my routine before I embark on my tour-de-USA tomorrow. Today I’ve got lunch with my friend Barbie and then laundry and packing, etc. more work of course. Time is short and whatever happens, I’m just gonna have to keep on rolling with it. (Or spinning as that’s how I really feel).

Right round like a record, baby,

~Miss SugarCookie