anniversaries

I would just like to start this by saying that my cats are fighting on the bed behind me, and Sophia just went fucking NUTS on Paolo, hissing and screaming and attacking him with her mouth and teeth.  Not one to back down, Paolo just popped her right in the mouth and now I can't stop laughing at the way she is growling.  What a dick (Sophia, that is.)

Anyway.

I have this wonderful program that I signed up for at Timehop.com; it sends you an e-mail every day (or almost every day, depending on you) of what you posted as your Facebook status one year earlier.  Granted, if you don't post much it isn't a good program to sign up for.  But if you are like me and like to reminisce/post all the time, then you should sign up.  Sometimes the posts aren't as wonderful as the program is.  For example, this was my message today, sent by me one year ago:

" Sean Parker thinks his deodorant gives him chemical burn.  Oh, ps, he's also engaged to dreaded-ex's name (c: "

Yep... wonderful.

So it was a year ago today that I popped the question.  I knew this date was coming up but I actually couldn't really remember when it was.  I thought it had been January 11th (boy, I was WAY off!) but when I didn't get a little e-mail, I figured I was wrong and/or maybe some divine force decided I didn't need a reminder.  Then it came.  Whoopsie.  I couldn't help on my drive to work today and subsequent boring hours in the store but to think about this day last year, and that isn't really a bad thing.  I mean sure, it kind of hurt to think about, but we learn from our mistakes and that was one of mine.

I had actually written him a letter the night before I did it.  In the back of my mind, the holidays were over and we were starting to lose traction in our relationship.  So in several ways it was really a break-up letter.  It rehashed everything he had put me through over the last year, why I hated him for some of the things he and done, and how I didn't feel I would get over it.  I think the letter ended up being like 11 pages long, because when I have something to say I SAY it until people start bleeding from their ears.  Or eyes, as it were.

The next day (the 13th,) I went to work and messaged him to say we had to talk that night.  He flipped out and I flipped out even though he didn't know what we were talking about, and I think I cried a good portion of the way to work.  When I got to the store, my district manager was there so that sucked because my face was all puffy and I wasn't very friendly.  I thought about it all that day, how it was going to go over.  Did I really want to give it to him?  Should I really give it to him?  Things were going pretty great for the most part; the holidays had been amazing compared to the previous year, so why was I throwing a rock in the cogs?  Then I got the bright idea to ask him to marry me.

I mean he wouldn't see it coming, that's for sure.  He wouldn't see it coming by a long shot.  Mostly that was because after I had proposed nearly a year earlier out of desperation in keeping our relationship alive, I said I would never do it again (because he had called the engagement off.  It only lasted two days, big whoop.)  Once I started thinking about proposing to him, I was giddy with excitement.  Maybe the feelings I had were jumbled because we were going to be buying a house together and I felt like our relationship itself should take the next step as well.  So I started plotting how I would do it and then quickly enough it was time to go home and set my plan into motion.  I wasn't going to tell anyone I was doing it.

Probably because I knew how stupid it made me look.

And I didn't have a ring.

And I was somewhat doing it to be dramatic.

So I got home that night around seven and said hello.  We made small talk for a couple minutes and then I said I wanted to change clothes before starting "the talk."  I went upstairs to my office and printed off the letter I had written the night before, and then I printed off a sheet with the words "Will you marry me?" at the dead center.  I folded the letter and the question the same way and taped them shut, changed my clothes and went back downstairs.

At this point I was incredibly nervous but I could see that he was too.  So I start talking.  He has two choices, the first one being the 11 page letter.  It goes over what the year was like, what I think, and all that jazz.  The other choice is a single question.  If he chooses the question, he has to answer it honestly and that I'll know if he is lying.  So he weighed his options for a moment and then pointed at the paper with the question.  Butterflies are flying!  I handed him the folded paper and watched him open it, and then he started crying.  He looked at me and nodded.

"Yes?"  I asked.

"Yes," he replied, "I will marry you."

I can't say that I look back on that moment and frown, shaking my head at my stupidity.  At that moment I was happy... that is something that will never change within me.  When a breakup hits you, part of you only wants to remember the good but a larger part of you only tends to remember the bad.  And that wasn't the bad.  I was so in love with him and so genuinely ecstatic to finally feel like something good was happening.  Something was going right.

We went outside to the gas powered grill and burned the letter, and I said I didn't have another copy of it (which was a fib; I keep a copy of every letter I write to people.)  In reality he was holding our relationship in his hands that night.  The letter would have ended it... the question would (supposedly) keep it going.  THAT is a point that I look at in hindsight and realize I wasn't serious.  If I was serious, the letter never would have made its way off the computer.  I wouldn't have given him the option of letting our relationship die through my own sabotage.

In the end, I wanted to announce it on Facebook by being my usual somewhat-funny-in-a-weird-way self, and then following it with what had happened.  Hence my deodorant giving me chemical burns (which it was, ps; my pits were all red and itchy!)

I'll wrap this up by saying that today is really the beginning of the end.  Everything started happening pretty fast after January 13th, 2011, and before I knew it our relationship was over.  Essentially, it is two months from today.  I'm glad that I'm single right now because I wouldn't want to be feeling this way with someone expecting my positive emotions to be on their side.  It wouldn't be fair to have this on my mind, knowing full well that I shouldn't.  But being single?  It's okay.  Because it's still that lovely grieving process I seem to desire to go through.  Am I alone in anticipating it or do any of you do the same?

Timehop is wonderful because it gives me the ammunition I need to fire the proverbial gun I tend to wield so accurately.  It seems to grant me permission to remember something specific, deal with it the right way (hindsight being 20/20,) and then set it aside to die.  And what was my New Year's resolution?  Why, it was to let the past die!  I guess I just have a couple months left to break off the shattered bits, read them a eulogy of sorts, and then send them off on their way to become part of the growing lexicon that is Sean Parker.

This ends with the song I turned to when the shit hit the fan, and I feel it stands in quiet nicely for the way I feel today.  That's all for now... some happiness is to come soon, I promise (c:  Thanks for reading, my loves.