A Lot of Time to Think

The boys and I had a really great weekend. We left Pullman on Friday at 3:30 and we made it up to Bellingham by 10:30, which is great freakin time, I expected to leave at 4pm and arrive at Midnight! Everyone was still up, they had been shopping down at Seattle Premium Outlets in Marysville and ended up only being 30 min. ahead of us.

After chit-chatting for a little while Jen showed us to our Cabin, which was really nice, it was more like a little studio apartment kind of. It was only about 20'-30' from her house too, which was nice. She lives in an area of Bellingham I hadn't been to before, but it was all really nice, she has a great view of the mountain range and the lake which she lives really close to. The whole residential area looks really nice too and her house was awesome.

On Saturday Jen's mom came up and we all went out to eat and went bowling, had some cupcakes, then pretty much let the boys dink around and play, it had been quite awhile since they had seen each other so it was probably good that we didn't fill up all the time with activities. Jen's friend Angie was hanging out for a bit too and we talked about Lost, which I Love!

Sunday we did some more hanging out, we went to Barnes and Noble and spent Tristan's gift card, he picked out 2 cool books! Then we drove home. I think we left about 4 or 4:30 and then we got home at just after Midnight, though we had to make more stops this time.

The car ride itself was fine, the boys are getting older so it actually feels a bit more fun, more like we are together. I had a bunch of Stand Up cds ready and waiting to be listened to, but the boys did not sleep very much either way, so we listened to the Radio an aweful lot. I really expected them to sleep more, finally in the last 2 hours of our trip home I got to listen to some Dane Cook, Mitch Hedburg and Nick Swardson.

I know that driving over there on I5 is more intense, but (esspecially on the ride home) it just felt like home to me. We went to a couple stores in Everett and I could not get rid of the feeling that I was home, it felt great. Its hard for me to explain, and its a subject I've mentioned in the past, but my complaints, musings, whining, bitching, moaning (you know, whatever you want to call it) about not feeling like I have a home... well anyway, the point is that how I felt in Everett makes that seem even more true to me, because even though I have not lived there in over 2 years and even though I barely know anyone there, it still felt like I belonged there, I felt so comfortable driving around there, even when I didnt know where I was going or even where I was at.

Its mainly Everett I suppose, but that whole area really, parts of Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Bothell and even Snohomish, which before last year I had only been on the outskirts of. Sure, Pullman is familiar to me, I lived her for 16 years before moving away, but even in town I just don't get that feeling, I feel like I 'click' over there. Its not time for me to go back, but I have no doubt in my mind that someday I may very well end up back over there.

You know, the last two times I made the trip across the state, it was so I could be there for my Best Friend when his Dad passed away. He had a great condo in Lynnwood and we stayed there so we could situate his estate and such and Russ wanted someone there that wasn't family that could keep things on track a little bit, or at least get stuff done in those frequent moments when family would have to just sit back and take a moment.

Russ and I always have our most deep and meaningful conversations during roadtrips, politics, parenting, life, death and ofcourse girls. I mean, when the freak isn't trying to feel me up and when I try to get Yvonne to put him on a tighter leash she just shrugs and says, "hey at least he isn't doing it to me". Anyway, that aside my last two casual trips across the state were made with a girl that I was totally interested in. 'Was' is too light a word, I am 'still' interested in this girl, I guess I've just written the idea off like a fairy take or something. A dream I had that won't ever come true.

I put most of my life on here, I really don't hide much and when I do hide something its generally for someone elses benefit and not my own. I am not a person who likes to keep things hidden, I like to talk about things and I like to get things in the open.

So I will probably keep all the details of this private but for the most part this will be a fairly complete overview. I think talking about this openly will help me get past it, because whatever I am doing now just isn't working.

I was completely and totally in love with my wife, or I thought I was. Before she moved to Phoenix we had been together for nearly 3 1/2 years. I had a really really hard time when she left me, my family, my life was just falling apart around me. Slowly over time I realized I hadn't loved her, I mean, I did 'love' her but I was never 'in love' with her, I loved our family and I was in love with the idea of it all. But I never fell in love with her nor would we have ever stayed together without our children being there.

Anyway, Im past that, that is merely leading up to the issue at hand. I met a girl in November or so of 2006. I've been blogging about this girl since the moment I met her, if you go way back to around that time period in my blog you will see what I mean. I am not a ladies man at all, I barely talk to women really, unless I know them already or meet them through others, or perhaps am in a social situation that they are also involved in. Anyway, the point is that I met this girl and I was immediatly enthralled by her, I still remember the moment I first saw her and most of what we talked about in that first conversation. She was working when we met and I was crushing on her big time, I made every excuse in the book to go back to her work to visit with her, It amazed me just how comfortable I was talking with her. I mean, I was still shy, even later in our friendship I could barely compliment her because I just wasn't sure of myself.

Eventually I was visiting her 4-5 days every week, whenever she worked I would come in and we would chat for an hour or two everyday. I loved talking with her and I couldn't learn enough about her or her life. We started hanging out outside of work a little, playing tennis, we saw a couple movies at a couple meals had some coffee and so on, kind of just as friends as she did have a boyfriend at the time. We also went on a couple of roadtrips across the state, on the first one on our way home we talked about her and I a little bit. Well not really, she just revealed that it was obvious I had a crush on her but we didnt talk about it much beyond that.

Even as innocent as our friendship was, we were probably doing too much considering she was in a relationshil with someone else. I felt really bad about that but I could never get her out of my mind, I loved spending time with her I loved talking with her. One weekend things went a little too far, I think I mentioned what happened in a previous blog, nothing extreme or anything, but definitly relationship altering.

That was when I realized this wasn't just a one sided crush, we both had some feelings for each other. As much as I was hoping for that, it was not expected, I always heard about her boyfriend and how excited she was to be moving with him and living with him and all that crap. I kissed Nicole a thousand times and I can't remember any of them, but its been a whole year since this kiss and I still can't get it out of my head, I still can't forget how soft her lips were when they touched mine. We didnt speak very much on the trip home or for the next week. Finally we played Tennis and had a long talk about the situation.

Ultimately we both admitted officially to haveing feelings of some kind for one another, but she decided she wanted to stick with her boyfriend, obviously having feelings for me does not mean she stopped loving her boyfriend, it just confused the situation. Staying with him was probably the right choice and while I told her i would understand if that is what she chose, I still wasn't very happy with that decision lol. I had a different job so we werent hanging out everyday anymore, Tennis practically stopped, except maybe a couple more times, our 2nd road trip happened after the kiss but eventually she moved away when her boyfriend graduated.

That was last year, we kept in touch a little bit, off and on really, we visted once when she came up, I dont recall why she was here at this point, but we went out for coffee. She also came up for Jadon's birthday in October which was a lot of fun. That was the last time I saw her. Then, not long after that, she and her boyfriend broke up. It sounds like it was a pretty clean break, just a mutual decisiont hat their lives werent going to be going in the same direction I suppose.

I didn't want to get too excited about the situation, even when I was talking with my friend about her breaking up with him originally we both agreed she would need some time, or quite a lot of time, it was a long relationship that she thought would have a different ending. But I did send her a message to feel the situation out and the response I got was suprising, and spurred more communication between us on the subject of maybe going on a real date for once.

Now, one thing I have left out to this point is that I am online freakin every day and I communicate like crazy, but she is the opposite. There are so many times that I have felt like I have just repeatedly pushed her away with just how much I communicate with her. And it increases when I start talking about her and I and the possabilities of us getting together and I go on and on and I just babble and repeast myself. And I know its too much.

Anyway, that happened again after she became single at the end of last year, it always causes her to take a step back and not really communicate with me at all. But this time in the end it caused her to write a message to me, I think I had written a message that may have been a little harsh to her and I just said something along the lines of, its December 31st and I dont need things to happen fast between us but I need honesty and if things arent going to happen at all then I need to know that, and while that isn't verbatim I got another response from her that suprised me and she said that I wasn't along in thinking about her everday and that she also thought about me that reguarly.

Anyway, the point is that in my attempts to get even just a first date with her, and I was not imagining her interest in me, I have managed only to silence her compeltely. It has been around 2 months since I have even heard from her.

I write to her frequently still, once or twice I week I am certain of. Just talking about  my life, telling her it would be nice to hear from her. Its been two months of total silence, nearly half a year since I have seen her, we have never officially dated, we kissed once and we have known each other for about 16 months now.

I need to stop writing her, I need to stop thinking about her. In some weird way, even this blog is a message to her.

I feel like I am completely in love with this girl. No matter where I go or what I am doing I am thinking of her. I think of her on drives, I think of her at work, I think of her when I listen to music or when I am reading. She is always present on my MySpace and Facebook obviously, but I have decided that is nothing compared to the rest. Even when I am not thinking about her everyone knows how much I talked about her when we were hanging out all the time and people always ask me how she is doing. My grandparents, my mom, my best friend, my sister in law, my ex wife and even my kids ask me how she is doing, what she is up to.

The truth is, I don't know what I feel for her, but I know that I loved hearing about her life, I loved hearing about her family, I loved talking with her and spending time with her, I always had a smile on my face when I was around her, I loved her aspirations and while we didnt have a ton in common, we did share many similar aspirations in life.

I still think about her, even though she isn't even talking to me right now and seems to be mulling over the possability of getting back together with an old boyfriend of hers, I can't stop myself from trying to figure out what I am feeling, why I am feeling it and if I should stop feeling it, if I even can stop.

I can't stop trying to figure out what happened, why we didn't even get a first date before I pushed her away, if that is even what happened. Did I push her away? was I too intense? was I just too fast? Sometimes I am just afraid of my own inexperience, but now in a way I am more afraid of what women will think of my inexperience.

I dont know what to think, I don't know what to do. I can't stop thinking about her, and I think things will remain that way for quite some time as I don't want to stop thinking about her.

What do you think of all of this? what do you think I should do? And if I should just forget about this girl, how? Because right now at this moment I still want to be with her, I still want that first date and I still want to see where things could go. But I dont think thats ever going to happen, but I dont think I can honestly find someone else until I can really get her out of my mind. So please ladies, beat some sense into me.