balivatn

Things continue apace with my new relationship. There's been a few small bumps, but so far they've been handleable. A couple of nights ago, I was mildly triggered by something that was going on. Instead of just withdrawing and leaving me to deal with it on my own, I was held and told I was loved and it was OK to be a little broken.

Not the most fun part of my evening, but at least it was handled well.

Today we put my parent's 15 year old dog to sleep. It took a while to find his vein for the shot, but it was over fairly quickly after that. Then we took him to a nice farm that their friend owns, and buried him. He was wrapped in a comfy blanket and buried with his favorite pink ball.

Goodbye, Buster.

So I'm at an odd place, emotionally. I still have two large person-shaped holes in my heart, but the people that I hoped to fill them seem to have decided to no longer speak to me. Which stings a bit, to say the least.

I don't want to say "there's nothing more I can do," but... I'm just not sure what TO do, really. I want to call, text, email, IM... but I don't want to do anything that can be taken as me trying to harass them, and I don't want to make them uncomfortable.

I'm trying to get out of the house and do stuff with people, instead of just the animals. I started playing a vampire game - which isn't my favorite system, but is WoD at least. I'm kind of tired of D&D games, although I'm still in one. It gives me and Dan something to do on Fridays.

The storyteller and her boyfriend are fairly nice, and there's a small simmer of flirtatiousness that goes on between the three of us at game. Enough to be noticeable, but small enough to ignore if it comes down to that.

I also met a really nice woman named Sava (which I think is a gorgeous name), and we went out to dinner last month. She works as a television assistant, so shortly after that, she was called out of town. She mentioned that she was free for dinner this Thursday, though - hopefully that comes off. She's married, so there will definitely be a balancing act involved there. I admit to being a little nervous in this arena, which leads me to the other stuff circling in my head.

It's mainly worry about talking about my last relationship and the issues I'm currently dealing with. I don't want to demonize Colin and Ash. I'm worried that by saying what they did that was hurtful, I'll come off as just bitching about my ex and his current. Which isn't what I want to do.

But I also don't want to just gloss over things, because that's sort of what bit me in the ass last time. I tried to keep any sort of details vague, because they make people so uncomfortable. And so, the groundwork was set for a massive trigger, which did damage to the then-current relationship and pretty much killed the potential relationship I was interested in.

And of course, there's the fact that I still really wish I could resolve SOMETHING with those two. It's stupid, I know, but as my birthday gets closer, I wish that whatever forces control birthday magic in the universe would actually decide to be nice and they would actually call or email me and open an actual dialogue with me. I can't even begin to say how much it would help to hear "Look, I've been thinking, and I wouldn't have liked to have been on your end of (hurtful action), so let's see what we can do here."

Some of it seems just to be a unwillingness to not think about bad things - and I'm one of those bad things. Not only that, I'm a bad thing that CAN be ignored (unlike something like family health issues or financial stress or whatever). While the five-six hour drive wouldn't be much of an issue to someone that they wanted to maintain a relationship with, it makes it easy to avoid people you want to avoid - no chance of randomly running into me at the store or anything.

Then there's the totally human and understandable, if frustrating, reluctance to admit that something you did hurt someone by mistake. Especially when the thing that hurt someone else was meant to be a good thing for another person. I've gotten some "I'm sorry if you were hurt" type of apologies, but sometimes it feels like if they admit that an action they did was hurtful, then that makes them a bad person. And those apologies tend to be followed by long periods of silence, which makes them harder to really believe.

I get the not wanting to be a bad person - or not wanting to seem like a bad person - it's one of the things I worry about too. There was a woman that messaged me on OKCupid, but was apparently friends (at least Facebook friends) with my ex. If I even come up (I rarely did when we were dating, so...) , I'm sure I'm not really portrayed in flattering terms. And then there's the fact I've gotten blamed for some people not wanting to speak to them - even though if that's ever come up, I've said that I don't want them to lose friends. It's also strange because I know at least one of them doesn't take kindly to anyone who knows about the situation bringing it up at all.

I don't know... it's stressful, and I'm probably thinking about their feelings too much. It is what I would like them to do in regards to me, but I get the feeling there's a lot more pleasant distractions for them. Or at least other distractions. First it was just waiting to see if I would settle down at all, then it was job stuff, then moving, and of course wedding stuff. Again - nothing that would really get in the way of a relationship unless you really wanted it to.

I don't want to come off as though I was totally blameless in all this, either. I was hurt by a lot of things they did, and didn't do, and that's one thing. However, my reactions to that hurt were quite strong, scary, and certainly not productive or helpful. I could have found websites that talked about things I was feeling that DIDN'T have the word abuse there, and I might not have hit that button on him. If I had called her back the night after the flashback...blahblahfishcakes. It's all stuff I've talked about before.

The funny thing is - I'm reasonably sure if any of these scenarios were presented to them by someone else, it would be easier for them to understand why those things would hurt. But because they were done with the best of intentions, and for the cause of love... it's a lot harder to do that. And I get that, and I understand that. I just wish I knew what to do.

So tomorrow (in my time zone) is Valentine's Day. And I do have this fiance type person wandering around, so according to many people, I should be happy. Or at least indifferent. My fiance and I haven't really done much for Valentine's Day in quite some time. If we think about it, we might go out to dinner. But currently the financial situation combined with the work schedules has lead to more dinners out than in - admittedly, they're of the cheap fast food variety for the most part.

These past few Valentine's Days have been rather difficult for me. Mainly because I am in love with four people and only one of them is speaking to me. It's not great to have all these reminders around reminding me of how many people have cut me out of their life.

There's some jealousy, but it's... it feels more complicated than that. Like two of my loves are planning their wedding, after they've moved further away for better jobs. And those are both good things, and I am happy that they get good things. Another former love and friend has found a gorgeous house they want to buy with their current love. This is also a great thing. I just wish it didn't feel like they were getting so much good stuff at my expense. I don't think it's that unnatural to want to share in the happy moments of the lives of those I love. So I'm not exactly jealous that they're getting good things, I'm just... wishing I could be part of them, somehow. Part of their lives.

But I'm fairly sure that would involve speaking to them, at least.

And it seems that that's not something they desire to do.

This does not make for the happiest of Valentine's Days.

The fact that one of the people I love also has a birthday this week doesn't really help, either.

It's not been a great couple months (probably could extend that, but... yeah).

( Talk of frustration and sex and relationship stuff )

Anyone in the general LA area that's interested / available:

There's a Bulgarian concert/party going on at UCLA on Monday, November 29th. It's in room 1344, Schoenberg Music Building. There will be singing, dancing, and traditional Bulgarian Christmas foods made by my conductor. If anyone has time, it would mean a lot if they could be there - my fiance is traveling on Sunday and will be in Denver until Tuesday, so he won't make it.

The concert starts at 7 PM, and will probably be done by 8:30-9:00. It's free.