Well, yesterday was mostly a good day. Ryan and I had talked some on the way home from his mom's on Saturday night, and I made it clear that I wasn't happy anymore and that I felt so many negative things that it was really getting hard to bear up under it.

Neglected, neglectful, disrespected, alone ... among others.

Yesterday, Ryan and I got along fairly well, except that I was plainly down ... I just couldn't fake a smile anymore. But he was really sweet to me, and I got a break from Jo too, and I'm sure that helped some. When he went out to get cheese for tonight's dinner (yesterday afternoon), he took Joey with him, and they took their times. It was nice to just enjoy some time for me ... for my own thoughts and just to be with myself. And it was nice that when they came home, they were smiling and laughing together. It indicated she was good and he had a good time with her, which is somewhat rare lately.

But it was nice. We talked some last night (I think he read what I wrote) and hopefully now that he REALLY sees how I have been feeling, and how I haven't been feeling ... maybe something will click ... maybe something will change.

I felt kinda bad though, because he kept apologizing for "making" me feel that way. But I am taking some blame too ... no problem is one-sided. I am not perfect either, and I know that ... but I should still feel important to those who "love" me, right? So how come I haven't?

I asked Ryan last night, "What makes me less appealing to you? What makes my conversation less desirable, less stimulating?" He said there was nothing, and that he still feels that same and all I could think was, "Then why is it all different?"

Here is my tip for the day: If you EVER feel this way in a relationship ... tell your partner how you feel. It will accomplish several things ...

1) You have been honest and open and that is your obligation, unless you are in love with a mindreader.

2) You have (hopefully) asked them to be honest and open with you. Hopefully they will, and if not ... well now you have some things to think about huh?

3) Now you will learn how they feel about you. If you have poured out your heart and your sadness and see not even a token effort to make things better ... well, something isn't right. Some feeling isn't there ... love? Bingo. Respect? Uh-huh. When you love someone, you strive to see them happy, you sacrifice for them, you put so much effort on the table, just to see them happy, to see them proud of you, of being with you. If you are doing this and they aren't, then you are in a one-sided relationship, and they are never happy ones.

Why does it suck so bad to hurt someone and know that you are doing it for the best? I have been really down lately ... almost depressed I guess. The money thing just got really stressful and I felt like I was dealing with it all by myself. I had thought in the beginning of this all that it might even be good for the relationship between Ryan and I.

We had been drifting some lately, not as much to say to each other, not as much peaceful time spent together. We fought more, talked less ... Other things were lessening too, but not because of any lack of effort on his part. But without emotional closeness ... I have no desire for physical closeness.

I wasn't happy. I'm NOT happy. But there is something different about it this time ... I said so. With Richard, I convinced myself that my unhappiness was my own fault. A result of something ... ungratefulness? After all, he worked his little skinny butt off so that I wouldn't have to work at all. Willingly. So I told myself it would be okay, that he must love me if he was willing to do that. That the low points in the relationship ... the emotional and verbal abuse ... they were either my fault, or all in my head. But now? I think that part of what made Richard so willing to do things like that was just his inability to be still. And there is another benefit to his working like that, but here I may be reaching. I'm sure that some of it was just the ego boost he got from people thinking that he was some kind of miracle. A guy that is not even 20 years old and still willing to take on TWO FULL TIME JOBS to support his family? An angel right? A blessing?

Not necessarily.

I am not that low on Ryan yet, but I have cried a lot lately, and part of my biggest downer was that I did it alone. On Friday we were at my mom's and I just broke down. My mom asked me what was wrong, but Ryan for the most part just stood off to the side and waited for it to be over. Then yesterday, I was at it again ... just stressed, you know ...

Well, I stood sobbing in the kitchen for almost twenty minutes. ALONE. When I finally got it together and left the kitchen, Ryan was in the living room, in a chair. SLEEPING!!!! Yep ... love you too babe. I can't even look at him for long periods of time, and I have to avoid looking in his eyes, because it makes me cry. I don't think that it is really because of him though, totally. A lot of the issue is just that I didn't get honest with him about how I felt ... months ago. But then again ...

Yes I did. I tried the book thing which went nowhere. NOWHERE. I did it to reopen the communication lines, to reconnect with him. But I got nowhere, nothing, zilch.

I am struggling to decide how much of this is in my own head because of stress and how much of it is real ... and causing stress. But I do know one thing ... I can't take it anymore. I have talked to Ryan, several times about how I am feeling, and how I am feeling about him. If I get nowhere this time ... then I will be brokenhearted again. But then I will have brokenhearted Joey beside me, because I am not going through that again. I will not spend my life miserable just because I don't want to hurt someone's feelings...

To the Bloggers: Thanks for listening.

To Ryan, if you are reading this ... I hope you love us enough to make a change and make a difference. Because I DO love us enough for that even if you don't and none of the three of us should be living like this. Even if we are unhappy at the end to have a good new start ... we just can't keep going this way.

Today Ryan got a new job ...

Well so much has changed since the last time I was here ... Which do you want first - the good news or the bad?

We'll start with the bad ... maybe the good following will provide a sliver of hope ...

THE BAD::: Ryan decided to be "sick" again last week. And this week. So on Monday, he lost his job. Great. He felt so bad ... and he should have. We talked a lot, and I think that he was worried about "Us" and what that would do to us being together. So we talked about that too. I told him that so far, we are okay, but I also let him know that I can't be with someone I can't depend on. Before we got together I had very few bills and they were all very small ones. So I could cover everything on my child support, and that was fine with me because then I could be here to watch my little one grow up. The plan was to go to work when she went to school, and that way I could build us up some, you know?

But when Ryan and I got together, he wanted things. So he got a job to pay for those things. But now? We have bills ... some are not so small ... and only my child support. So we had some talks and we have had some arguments lately. But he is on the hunt, and this may have worked out for the best.

You see, Ryan HATED that job. Hated it really bad. So I'm sure that the hate for the job had something to do with Ryan always being so "sick", you know. And I would tell him, "Since you hate it there so bad, go and find another job that you will like, and then quit this one." But he didn't listen ... he didn't want to lose his health insurance ... and he just didn't want to listen. He is like that sometimes. So now he is forced to do it, and his health insurance runs out in twenty days or something like that. But then again, since he has been forced to get looking, he put his resume online, and has had some offers to apply for. He filled out applications for EVERYWHERE! So there is bound to be something, we just have to wait and see I guess.

We are still going to be able to make it to FL, if he has a job by then. We will be somewhat behind when we get back, but that's okay, and we will get caught up again soon. It is just stressful I guess, because now I am having less trust for him to fill the shoes that he put on so willingly. Less trust in him to do what he says he will. I don't know ... this has been a hard relationship already ... so now I am giving it to GOD and saying, "Please tell me what to do."

Lately it seems like every time I feel like we are getting somewhere, going somewhere, the world is like "Haha! Psyche!" And then I am down again. But that's not the best viewpoint, so here I am to get this out of my head.

Hopefully things will work out okay. Since he put his resume out and is actively looking at other companies, he found one that is in the field that he is going to school for, so if he can get that job, it would be really great and it would have a lot of potential. He also has an interview tomorrow for a hospital job ... not what he wants, but if nothing else, it would be a good "for now" kind of job. It will be a good job period if he can just get up and do it. He also got some offers for salary jobs .. if he can do it.

You know, I really love him as a guy and all ... and he's a good person, but I find myself left with little faith in him as a provider which is what he wanted to be. I will be so happy when Joey goes to school next year and I go to work, then I will have things resting on me and not worrying about if someone else is going to follow through. Then he can be "sick" as much as he feels like and I won't have to be sick with worry because of it.

And the sad thing is that even if I went and got a job, it would be pointless. I didn't graduate high school ... I quit to work and pay bills that my mother wouldn't pay (she is a long story ... a little loopy, and really bad with cash). And I haven't gone back for my GED yet, though that is the plan. So even if I got a job it would be a sucky one that would cover nothing but daycare. After paying four hundred dollars a month for child care, I'd be left with less then three hundred, if I got total full-time, and six an hour. Plus, I haven't had a job in over five years ... Richard wanted a house-wife, and I was content to be that. It seems though, that now that is going to come back and kick me where it hurts. Now that I haven't had a job in so long, it will be hard for me to get one, just because of the way things change in the workplace. People who would have referenced me before would no longer be working where I could find them, and so that would leave me without references, you know?

Jeez giving the bad news made the good news slip totally from my mind. Now I feel like crap. Let me go get my positive attitude back and I will come tell the good news ... when there is some.

Recently on Myspace, I ran into some old friends from when I was growing up in my small town in FL. One was an on-again-off-again friend, and the other was a friend that I was so close to that I still considered her my best friend, though we hadn't spoken in years. Another was Brian ... the one I talked about in the posts about my dad. The first guy to "sleep over". My first love lasted from kindergarten to tenth grade ... It was Brian.

Originally I was excited, but all of them are having some rough times right now.

Jessica (the best friend) is now married with two beautiful daughters. She and I have been catching up a lot over the past few days, and I couldn't possibly be more happy to be back in touch with her. It must have been one of those times when we felt we needed each other, because we'd both been looking for each other online all these years, and now that we are talking, it seems like we just picked up where we left off. Like nothing has changed.

The problem? EVERYTHING has changed ... We both got married, without each other there. We both had kids ... without each other there. She and her mother were never close. Her mother was a slacker mom who allowed terrible things to happen to Jessica and then first accused her of lying, then blamed her for what had happened. Last year, Jessica's mother died in a house fire ... they were still very much at odds, and Jessica has always felt bad that they couldn't make amends. Now that guilt is multiplied. Her father ... God, her father has become so ill ... ... he has had chemo and tons of surgery for cancer. Other issues have paralyzed him on one side. I remember sitting in his living room when we were kids, and talking to him about my life, and his. Usually waiting on Jess ... He still lives in that house ... I am debating stopping in to see him while I am down there in a few weeks.

And after all this time, to finally be talking to her again ... she is in for heart surgery in a few weeks. There is a hole in her heart that is allowing the blood to pump both ways, back and forth. One side of her heart is 5x the size it should be, and it has cut her breathing capacity in half. This was discovered only a few months ago, while she was still pregnant with her seven month old daughter. Because of the increased heart size and the increasing size of the baby, her breathing was cut off so much that she kept passing out at work and at home. I am scared that after being connected to her again, something might happen .... God, she was my best friend .. we went through so much together, and now we have gone through too much apart.

Amanda ... she was the on-again-off-again. He mother died as well. A few years ago, she had cancer and she died. Amanda too had a baby. Her son is now almost five years old. I remember walking down main street with her, hoping that my mom wasn't in town that day. I was supposed to be hanging out at Amanda's house, and we'd walked all the way to town to window shop. We both new there'd be hell to pay if I got caught there. I remember Amanda's mom didn't like me. One day she came to pick us up from school, and we were smoking. She knew that, and that isn't the reason ... The reason she didn't like me is because when my cigarette would get down to the butt, instead of holding it regularly, and letting it burn my fingers, I'd hold in between finger and thumb so it wouldn't burn me. Also, from years of hiding the smoke coming from my hands, I'd taken to holding the cigarette so that it pointed into my palm, sort of hidden. She thought I had all the smoking traits of a pothead ... She never knew I didn't do it ...

And Brian ... He's in Iraq. He's a marine. I haven't heard back from him, because he hasn't logged on in a month ... I hope he's okay. Even if he doesn't remember me or anything like that, I just hope he's okay.

What a wild few days, so full of ups and downs. I feel like I've gotten onto a roller-coaster that goes and goes instead of stopping after too few minutes. But there is one thing I can say ... at least I am being reminded of how blessed I am to still have my parents ... to not actually be AT WAR ... to have all of my neccessities, and my health and family beside me.

 

GOD? Thank you ...