the eleventh iteration

"In the next year I want to share more.  More blogs, more stories, another book to release, and of course the videos of what I am doing in my home." - Sean Parker, October 2020

So, none of that actually happened, and if I'm being honest here (and you know about my penchant for honesty), no one writing or reading this is surprised either.  To me, what's funny about that sentence is how totally and completely I rebelled against the idea of sharing more in the year to follow.  I first deactivated my Facebook account in November, and subsequently deleted it permanently in July.  At the time of deletion, I also deactivated my Instagram account.  Part of this move was based on my need to protect my own sanity and interests, and a large part was to focus on my love life.

That of course being the other big "whoopsie!" from the previous blog.  I wrote about Andrew and I reconnecting over a long phone call, which a month later turned into regular correspondence.  In February I dove into a blog trying to pepper everyone for the possibility we might be getting back together, then I shot my shot in March and watched it sail right past like a led balloon.  Then, without warning, by June we were back together.  Still are together, in fact.  And it's amazing, really, for me to look back with fresh eyes on a year old blog, see how much has shifted and rearranged itself in my life, and to also cap off the last decade with this, my favorite of the series' I've annually written about:

The Ten Year Anniversary for

Musings of a 

Self-Proclaimed Author

I feel like it took me a long time to finally understand something about myself when it comes to sharing my life.  To get there, it ended up requiring a complete departure from social media, the thing I had so completely and fully embraced from the inception of MySpace and onward.  It also meant pulling myself away largely from the blog.  Not because I felt like I couldn't write or anything like that, but because I just didn't feel like sharing.  You can't just live in the moment and interpret things as they occur if you are constantly looking for an angle to pitch it to the rest of the world.

I've spent years sharing about myself.  Call it my ego, or call it a delusional assumption that people cared to read about my life and the antics going on in it.  I'll clarify that, real quick, because I do know some people want to know about my life.  My family and a few friends, or even the other random two of you reading this right now.  Did I ever bring anything astoundingly special to the table?  Not really, but I also knew that all along.  I think my niche that I fell into was being the everyman, showing what I was going through and working on, figuratively or not, and how I was doing it (or not doing it, as it were).

In the past I received some comments around this habit of mine and how it helped some people.  It may have helped with a breakup, to shed light on the emotions of getting rid of your first car, and it may have drawn inspiration in you for projects to work on in your own house, etc. etc.  Over the last couple years though I started losing the point in doing this.  The past is in the past, but I still was holding on to it like it had never changed.  I often look back on 2012 with this strange fondness for how things were, knowing they will NEVER be that way again.  All five of my best friends living in the same city, without the cares of rent or a mortgage or children, with nothing but great times ahead?  That exists in your mid 20's, not your mid 30's.  Mostly.

The reality now of course is that I only really speak with three of those friends anymore, one of them occasionally, and one that I want nothing to do with any longer.  I'm on my second mortgage and I've moved across the country twice.  I don't live within 5 hours of a best friend, though arguably I have friends here in Minnesota that I feel just as fondly for.  The point is that the old version of me is one I still held up on this pedestal and assumed wasn't allowed to change, because how would that affect the brand?

The "brand" of Author Sean Parker, self-proclaimed or not.  The image of this individual who at times had become quite bloated in his own self-importance.  That's what made the move away from Facebook easy in the first place; I was grossed out by myself and who I had become.  I don't think I ever, in the last ten years, posted something without thinking "this'll get likes!"  Truly.  I wasn't sharing for me, I was sharing for you and to spark a comment or conversation.  "Look at how interesting my life is, let's chat about it!"  The fact of that matter is that I grew tired of talking about it.  At some point I started making the mental shift to posting just to share something with SOMEONE.  I was lonely and bored, in a relationship or not, and I just wanted to share things despite not actually wanting to talk about them.

When you get to the point of being annoyed by people bringing up Facebook posts YOU MADE, maybe it's time to step away from making said posts.  Instagram came next.

I needed the attention there.  I in fact craved it.  I remember one of the very first arguments Andrew and I ever had, and it was about me posting on Instagram.  Firstly it was that I was posting selfies that I had originally sent to him (because hello, I looked great), and secondly it was that I was hashtagging to my heart's content to get more followers and likes.  His question was simple, "who's attention do you need other than mine?"  I was so angry about that, because how dare he ask me that?  The public NEEDED me, Andrew!  They waited on bated breath for my next post, my next brooding selfie, didn't they?  I needed to give them what they wanted.

Except they didn't want that... or at least, they weren't asking.  I was just supplying.

By the end, I'd amassed 2,100 followers over my tenure on the app.  The bulk I didn't know, and I didn't care to know, but they cared to know me and that was what mattered.  Not to slap a tag on myself as toxic or anything, but... yes.

After Andrew and I got back together (more on that in another blog, this one is about me, natch), that was when I decided to move away from the 'gram.  At first I posted a little goodbye message to my friends and just deleted the app, but about a month in I went back and started deleting people.  First I went through the list of those following me and forced them to, y'know, not.  That 2,100 was whittled down to 49 people, the ones I was fine with seeing my life if and when I started posting again, and then I made my account private.  Then I whittled down the people I myself was following, from like 600 or so to just 44.  Then deleted the app again.

In early October I downloaded one more time, and decided to keep it.  A few friends noticed that I was watching their stories and said hello, but that was about it.  I reached out to a couple other friends just to say "hey" and that I was still alive.  But I haven't been liking or commenting on anything, and I haven't been posting, aaaaaaand there is now this weird trepidation in doing so.  Weird that my first post in 6 months will be to announce I've written this blog, and thus, am back.  

Albeit edited.

I'd like to think in the next year that I'll get back to writing more, but I don't know that.  I'd also like to think that I'll post a blog with all of the updates I did here at the Ranch, but I don't know that either.  Partly because I really didn't take that many before and after pictures like a real asshole.  I do know that I do intrinsically have a need to want to share about my life, but the things I want to share have gotten much more selective over time.  It will come back though in some form or another, I'm sure of that.

I thought when I sat down to write the ten year anniversary of this blog that I'd have something more profound to say and share, but I just don't.  It's crazy to look back at where I was in 2011 and where I am now, though I'm sure that's something a lot of people could say about their lives.  It just is what it is.  A year ago I was writing this in solitude, a month shy of getting my massive bitch kidney stone and enduring the Christmas holidays and my birthday alone.  It was hard.  Today?  I am listening to some soft Christmas music while Andrew takes a shower, and then when he is out we will drive north to Duluth for a quick holiday overnight getaway.

I'm happy, and I'm in love, and I sometimes fear this feeling is fleeting for me.  But it's a love that keeps me warm, and it certainly is stronger than any I've ever felt before.  Especially back in 2011 when I was lost and had no idea who I was or what I wanted to be.

Still don't, but that's what your 30's are for.  Ciao for now (c;

a full year stronger

Would it surprise you to know that this is the only blog I've ever written with a title I've already used twice before?  "A Full Year Stronger," originally posted on March 3, 2012, recapped what the end was like with my first great love, Ken, 365 days after the fact.  Then came "A Full Year Stronger," posted on July 1, 2018, bringing full circle what had happened with Derek, the next great love.  I think at the time, labeling the blog as one of my series' ( an episode / iteration / volume) meant that it was going to be the first of many.  As if I was expecting it to happen again, and really, what kind of person would I be if that were the case?  Though no longer an "eternal" optimist, I still remain an optimistic person and I still very much choose to see the good in people.  

So when I wrote the second blog six years later, I still believed it wouldn't happen again.

Then here we are an additional five years on with the third go-around.

Things with Andrew were always so different to the other relationships I'd been in, from day one through day final (I'm not gonna count them (okay it was 263)).  Before him, relationships were just smooth sailing from the start.  Attraction, get along famously, long long honeymoon period, settle into normalcy, watch it gradually crumble, get cheated on, call it quits, insert all the sad faces and emojis here and press send to complete.  I can hardly remember anymore what my life with Derek felt like aside from what the blogs and photos tell me... and Ken?  Even less so.  It feels not only like it was a lifetime ago, but as if it happened to someone else entirely. 

With Andrew, it all still seems to exist right before my eyes.  You can argue that that's for a multitude of reasons.  First being that it was only a year ago, so of course it's still fresh, and second because of the different nature of relationship we had.  

I was infatuated from day one.  Utterly and completely.  Then we met, and that infatuation grew.  It compounded on itself, it quadrupled in strength, and then it multiplied indefinitely.  We had some epically awesome fights and epically awesome... you know what.  And while our honeymoon phase got bitch slapped into reality maybe two months in, after that it settled into this beautiful normalcy.  For the short time we'd been together, it felt like we'd really gone through something and come out stronger on the other side of.  Then on a sunny Monday in February, one year ago from... I guess an hour from now, actually, I came home and he had packed his belongings.  

After twenty minutes of talking Andrew was gone.  I'm not sure I've ever cried like that in my life.  I don't think I could pinpoint a moment in my life where I'd felt so low, so hurt, and so utterly and completely devastated by something that was so clearly out of my control.  As a control freak, try to imagine how challenging that was, not having a say in the direction you thought your life was headed.

Enduring a couple weeks of shell-shock and misery led to the great quarantine of 2020.  And as it was with most of you reading this, what Covid brought was hard in its own right.  I don't mean to say my time in quarantine was harder than any of yours, because I can certainly guarantee it wasn't.  I was paid fully through my job, I didn't have any problems covering bills or buying food or any issues with insurance, etc.  I was just lonely to a point that it was exhausting to me.  I was constantly exhausted, and it's interesting how that happens, isn't it?  Where you feel like the life has been sucked out of you on a daily basis despite not having done anything to warrant it?  You're just drained from thinking.  From running things on a cycle over and over and over again behind your eyes, wondering what you could have done better.  What you shouldn't have done at all.

I don't look back on this relationship with pure fondness... that would be a lie.  There are plenty of things I hated about our relationship, plenty of things that were simply "wrong."  There were things I bent my will away from, or towards, or whatever direction you like.  I changed myself.  I transformed into a person I never thought I could be, trading in on some of my more stubborn traits for more co-dependent ones, and the painful result was where I landed in doing so.  

Spring moved on though and right now when I glance backward, the summer was actually great, all things considered.  I worked in the yard and got a great tan, I spent more time outside in general than I had in YEARS, and I strengthened a few more of my Minnesota friendships.  Summer was gone in a blip, of course, and then I sold the Manor and bought the Ranch.  I got sick in December with my giant kidney stone and that misery carried me all the way to juuuuust last week when my stent was finally removed after two surgeries.  It didn't feel like as much time passed as it had.

You can wallow in your own self-pity as much as you want, but eventually, ultimately, you have to lift your head up.  It's amazing how much can change in so short of a time.  You're so far from where you were a year earlier, both literally and figuratively, and since you turned a blind eye to most things you can only speculate on how this happened.

Was I wronged by Andrew as I had been by the others?  That's a difficult question to quantify a response to, as it's both a yes and a no.  No, in the sense that he didn't really lie to me (he did, but not in a betrayal or malicious way).  Yes, in that I had something pulled away from me without my a) approval, b) acceptance, c) consent, or d) all of the above.  That's the very nature of a breakup though, right?  One party (or both) doesn't want to be in it anymore?  Boo-fucking-hoo, move on?  Problem being that I don't operate that way.  Never have, never will.  I can say I've moved on and continue to split infinitives in blogs and all that crap, but I don't really move on.  

Call me stubborn, call me a Capricorn, but ultimately... call me single at 35 and writing for a third god damn time about being a full year stronger.

So all that being said, with a relationship unlike anything I'd ever experienced and subsequently a breakup unlike anything I'd ever been through... why would I expect it to dissolve into familiar territory a year later?  A year can do a lot to a person, after all.  Because you think you're done with things.  People... events... maybe even places.  Then all of a sudden you're not done.  Mot truly.  The people and events and maybe even the places that meant so much at one point, sometimes they have a way of coming back into your life.

Deleting Facebook in November was a great thing but it also stopped me from sharing errants thoughts all the time.  Such as the fact that Andrew and I began speaking on a regular basis in mid-November.  It's admittedly not something I would have made a status update about... "Hey all!  Just a heads up, the guy that flipped my world upside down before quarantine and destroyed my heart?  Well huzzah, we're speaking again!  We play Fortnite together five times a week and chat for hours, wa-hoo!"

Not likely.

But that's how it happened... we started playing the video game that was weirdly a big part of our evenings during the cold weather for months on end.  And we started talking over headsets while playing, some nights for 45 minutes, some nights for several hours, and we texted in between.  Not in the manic way we used to, but we were still communicating.  I think at first I was confused as to what this was.  Should I be getting feelings?  Should I be stopping this completely?  Should I be setting up all sorts of flaming hoops and high-bars for him to catapult through and over in some sort of mental olympics to prove himself as worthy of my attention?  Short answers are no, no, and no.  

Sometimes people deserve a chance., and you can look at it as a second chance, or third/fourth/fifth, whatever... but sometimes they just deserve a chance.  I think if we open ourselves up to offering that to people in our past and maybe some in our present, so many wonderful things are possible.  Over the last few months I've gotten to know Andrew as he really is, not the person he tried so hard to be when we were dating.  Not that the two wildly differ, but there are subtle things that set them apart.  Getting to know someone as they really are, with no pre-conceived notions of trying to impress the other or fit a mold for them, it can be an eye opener.  

We've spoken at length about what our relationship was and how it just wouldn't have worked out back then.  Not in that original form.  There were so many paranoias and notions of what the other was expecting.  We both sort of established "personas," if you will, at the inception of our relationship, Andrew more so than me.  But the pressure to live up to that persona, so terrified of letting the facade fall away and what the repercussions might be?  That's a lot.  Even if Andrew hadn't left when he did... it wouldn't have lasted too awful long beyond that.  In my heart I knew it just wasn't right how things were... and ultimately he was the stronger one to make that call and walk away.  I can't say with certainty I would have been able to do the same.

It's hard inviting an ex back into your life though, and I think that goes for any sort of ex.  While I have mostly positive relationships with all of mine, it was a gamble doing so.  Sometimes it pays off in a great way (my friendship with Jonathan being a prime example), and sometimes it's just nice to know you aren't hanging on to any sort of hate.  Maybe not the MOST fondness for some of them, but definitely no anger malice.  

Making the decision is hard because you're opening yourself back up to someone that has the ability to hurt you.  They know you and they know what makes you tick, often more than anyone else, and it's a risk to trust yourself enough to not let that happen.  It has happened to me... I've reached out to start a friendship and realized all too quickly that "oh, you jumped the shark on this one!"  Time truly does heal all wounds, first numbing them down and then eventually allowing them to seal shut.  But time is hard to be friends with because it moves too fast when you don't want it to and it slows to molasses when you need anything but.  

Where it goes from here, I don't know?  What I do know is this: for as much as I said I wasn't waiting for him to change his mind or come back, there was a huge part of me that has been since that day in February when he walked out of my life.  I wanted Andrew to walk back in, and he has.  There's vindication in that for me, somehow, and there's also sadness in it.  The sadness comes because this is isn't what it was and I doubt it ever will be again.  Is that bad?  Not really.  Could it be something else though?  Absolutely.  

Could it evolve into something even better?  Yes it could.  

There are days I full-tilt want that, to be swept up and away and feel light and free once more.  Then there are days where I simply just don't, because I was the one left behind and I was the one that had to scrape myself up from the pavement and figure it all out once more.  It's an overwhelming feeling to look back on the past year and see how much work it took to feel like a human again.  I can downplay it all I want, but I know the desperation I felt inside of me.  I know how far into the year I would randomly cry at a song or a memory.  I also know if it didn't kill you, it only makes you stronger.  And I know that for now, Andrew is my friend; he's a friend I shared something very deep and very real with for a period of time, and I am thankful for that.  I know he is too.

So that's where I'm at a full year later.  Stronger in some respects, weaker in others, but making paces forward all the same and navigating this unfamiliar terrain.  Covid still ensures there is no rush in my life for anything to happen, slowing me down to the crawl I've been at for a long while now.  But that's okay, right?  I've said it before in this last year, but slowing down is a good thing.  It allows you to take stock and look around, and make the best decision for you.  There are no rules to this game... start and stop the current level any time you want.

That being said, I'll leave you with Trixie Mattel's cover of Lana Del Rey's "Video Games."  I hope you're all doing well, that you're finding happiness as much as you can in 2021, and that you're looking forward to spring as much as I am.  

Ciao for now (c:

a new resolution part x

I've stared on and off at this keyboard all day long, not sure how to start or what to say.  I mean... I know what I WANT to say, but getting there is taking me just a moment.  How the hell is this my tenth time doing this?  I'm sitting at my dining table in a new house right now as I write this.  A year ago I was sitting next to someone I loved very much, in a Starbucks, with no face covering on and never in a million years imagining how I'd find myself in 365 days.

Did I ever tell you that I never read my old resolutions until January 1st of the following year?  Operating in this way makes it a true surprise to see how I inadvertently succeeded (or failed) in whatever prophecy I had set before my own feet.  Take writing the 2020 resolution, for example, where I admitted I really hadn't achieved a single damn thing from the laundry list I had set before myself in 2019.  

And then take the new resolution of 2020 and see how I blasted every single one straight out of the water.

There were two bits to my resolution a year ago, the "general" resolution and then a couple of things I also wanted to achieve.  These included: finished writing episode IV of my book series (success!), finish working on the house (after a long summer fo getting the yard ready, success!), and have Andrew get me into shape at the gym (not even fuckin' close as he left me just a month and a half later, whoops!).  The bigger goal for the year was to "let go."  Did I achieve that?  I like to think I did.

Sometimes I feel like the grand plan of the universe, as far as I myself am concerned, is to test me over and over and over again, just waiting for me to break.  Waiting to hit the flaw in my armor juuuuust the right amount of times so that it shatters, that it falls, and inevitably that the weakness of me as an individual is fully exposed.  Sometimes I feel like giving into these tests, and it pangs me a bit to admit that after 2020, I'm alright with that.

I used to think I had to be some version of a super man.  I thought I had to share my problems with everybody and then kick on the blinding floodlights to show as to how I persevered through them.  As if I had something to prove... something to hold above everyone else... in a way saying "I can do it and you can too, so suck it up!"  Part of that comes from childhood and how I grew up, where you just had to keep moving forward.  When we were kids, I can remember being a smart ass at the grocery store to my mom, turning and smacking into a coupon holder that was sticking out from a shelf.  And my mom would look down with vaguely disguised delight and she'd say "well, the bad fairy got ya," and that response should be true of a lot of things in life, right?  You don't need to be coddled for every little thing, you don't need the world to stop at your feet for every minor inconvenience, and this was a great lesson to learn.  I don't look back with any sort of negativity on this, it was a building block and a valuable one.

Another part of believing I had to be so great at everything comes from being a Capricorn, traits I've learned about a lot this year and have come to fully embrace.  And sure, with the zodiac you can put just as much faith into it as you want, but I find some of the evidence incontrovertible and choose to keep said faith in it.  Capricorn's have a habit typically of being hyper focused on how things are supposed to go.  They come up with a plan, they execute it pretty flawlessly, and they calmly look around afterward because that was just how it was supposed to be.  There's little room for error, and when error's occur, they don't really understand it.  They turn inward, they overthink, and they make god damn sure the error doesn't occur again.

So you've got to imagine my surprise at how this year in general turned out.  And you've also got to imagine my surprise at how every time I overcame an obstacle, either with ease or not, I was met with something so much fuckin' worse right after.  The year was snowballing in this wild attempt to throw me off course, and it did throw me.  I'm comfortable saying that.

I have been thrown.

Andrew left me in February and a couple weeks later quarantine was put in place.  I was alone a lot, with lonely thoughts to keep me company.  Eventually I could work out in the yard, planting grass and then pouring pavers, going through the motions of "this was your plan, so you might as well execute it."  But there was no thrill in it for me... it was just this bland sense of duty.  Then I put the house up for sale, and then I had to find a new one.  There were a lot of bumps along the way, a couple swerves, and then a full off-roading incident, if you will.  Then I had to get my tonsil lanced open.  Then Andrew re-emerged into my life.  Then the holiday shopping season started, I probably got a little too dehydrated, and now am left with a stent in my abdomen and a large kidney stone waiting to be broken apart through shockwaves in a couple weeks.

It wasn't a great year, lame Covid-19 or not (which you can for a lot of it).  Not seeing friends and family as much as I'd like, spending the holidays and my birthday mostly in solitude, that was Coronavirus, yes, but the rest was just circumstantial and complete bullshit.  I was angry a lot this year.  Frustrated with what cards had been dealt to me and frustrated with myself for not being able to pick myself up from the floor, dust off my clothes, and figure out a new plan.  The bad fairy had struck me, continued to strike me, and I just couldn't bring "eternally strong Sean Parker" to rally.  I don't think there's been a year on record in my life where I cried as much as I did in 2020.  Anything could make me cry.  I could cry right now if you asked me to, but there's not much use for it if you did.  I just kept thinking that life isn't fair, but really, boo-hoo for me.  It could've been far worse than it was.  

Upon looking back at the "learn to let go" resolution, I did learn.  Either willingly or not, I let go of the expectations I had for myself.  Maybe watched them burn a little, and maybe felt a little satisfaction in doing nothing to stop it, but that's what 2020 was for.  Slowing down, looking around, and taking stock of what matters in life.  Who matters?  What do you want to do that matters?  What do you need to change to make yourself happy?  I think we all got a strong taste of what doesn't make us happy so really, to turn that around, it isn't hard to spot.

I painted this almost 8 years ago, and it has hung everywhere I've lived except this house.  Tonight I'll change that, putting it up in my bedroom once more.  It's from "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and to me, one of the best quotes I've ever heard.  A good quote can work wonders on you if you let it, and I need to start reminding myself daily of this one.

Which finally brings me to my newest resolution: take the steps you feel you should take toward re-capturing your own happiness.

I was happy for a really long time.  Truly.  And I have been unhappy for what now seems like a very long time as well.  Pick a reason.  For 2021 I think it's time to start exploring the avenues that have either given me joy in the past or that I assume could give me joy in the future.  I have reached out to a college not far from my house for some information around one of their programs... and maybe that's just step one this year.  Nothing is off the table and the sky is the limit, and I feel like I finally have a clear enough head to make these decisions.  But like the quote says, it's never too late or too early to be whoever you want to be.

35 seems like a good age to get it figured out, and 2021 seems like the year to do it.

Ciao for now (c: