New Years Eve

Ahhhh December 31st...the possibilities lie strewn ahead of my like bread crumbs of gold for an amalgamation of Hanzel and Gretel that is assumedly me, if this metaphor is to make any sense whatsoever...

I have hopefully planned the evening well, and will be firstly attending a house party, at which I know one person, who is Mel the kindly (so far) lesbian that I met through myspace, and with whom I share many common interests. I hope that that goes well, I'll be meeting a large volume of her friends, and I have no idea what they're like, so I'm hoping that my lack of pot smoking will temper my gregariousness in this situation.

After which I'll be encountering my regular group of friends at Le Bifteck, which will no doubt be packed half full with Bostonians, and most likely not in a positive tea party for freedom way. On top of that Jen will be here for new years...which is hopefully a good thing, but only time will tell...I'll no doubt be posting about the evening eventually anyhow, wish me luck my non-existent readers!

Lon

Boooooozzzeeee

Ahhhh alcohol the muse of truth. It's unbelievable how much it helps with issues of honesty. In one fell swoop I told my ex that I was very attracted to her physically but didn't feel anything emotionally, called a girl that has been flirting with me for months on whether or not she was truthful or not (still don't really have closure on that), and leveled with a female friend about friendly platitudes about my looks.

I've derided alcohol in the past, but to be quite honest tonight was a great night. I went out to watch some live jazz by myself. The waitress either served me really nicely, and/or was flirting with me (I would rather believe the latter, but I'm a realist, and once the alcohol wears off I"ll believe the former). I talked to random second cup worker who agreed that women are crazy.

I even summoned up the courage to talk to the ex of a girl that I almost slept with, just to tell him that nothing happened because I know that had the positions been reversed I would have wanted to kick my ass (I hope your still following).

Life is funny, and everyonce in awhile I tend to look up/sideways at the creator (not that I believe in a white bearded god) and I mentally say "You've at the least created something interesting". Because he has! This world is nothing if not interesting, at times it may be, as quaintly as I can put it, fucked, but interesting most certianly.

I had wished that Jen was online, so that I could tell her, that despite all the pain, she let me taste true love, and as much as it hurt to lose that, and as many painful questions as it raised, I'm happy to have had it. I wouldn't trade it for the world, I wouldn't trade it for anything ever, because she gave me a reason to hope for future relationships. In recent days my conversations with Jen have been rather harsh, and typically end up with me being a certain shade of jackass...it's hard...I"m pessimistic, and she's nothing but positive about me...which automatically raises the internal question of "Well if I'm so great then why aren't you with me". IN the end it's not about that...we didn't match right now...she has her own shit to deal with...and me being great just showed her that she should be great to, I don't think it's any less stupid, but I can get it, or at least be ok with it at this point.

I told Aurit that she was hot, and that I would have loved to sleep with her, but that I didn't feel anything for her emotionally (I was a little more delicate than the above text admitedly), but I wanted her to have the confidence of being an attracive woman. because she is! I told Regina that I was having issues re-approaching dating, because I had no idea how to readjust my approach, since my ex's all agreed that I was great, and that despite that, they still weren't with me. I told Natasha that I wanted to know if she was all talk, since this is the girl that brought me such memorable quotes as; "I want to get drunk and suck your cock", or "I want to give you a massage while you're on E" etc etc. I simply wanted to know if she was being honest or just being a cocktease...since I'd be all over no strings attached sex, if it was in fact that. I just don't want to be the gropey friend...which I think we can all agree on.

Now I'm going to post this on my blog as is, outside of grammatical errors and spelling errors, lets nobody judge me on it, its' brutally honest, but, it's also brutally honest...heheheheheh. I'm trying to establish mysself as "Honest Lon". AHAHAHAHAHH everyone wish me luck.

Bitter Rant (You've been warned)

So I"ve touched on this before, but now it'll have a nice dash of bitterness to it. Two relationships in which I"m good, and they leave. How the fuck am I supposed to feel about this? They both say "Lon go out, meet someone who deserves you, blah blah blah".

I laugh dryly but in reality, what should I do? Go out and meet someone else who thinks I'm great but leaves in the end? Something has to change, and I don't know what it is but it has to change, or this is going to keep happening otherwise, and I don't know about you guys ( my non-existent readers) but I certainly don't feel like going through all this crap again. I mean its fun while it lasts but the recovery...its like a 2 week hangover for a night out drinking, just not worth it.

I still keep in touch with my last ex, and I try to be "moved on guy" and in reality I am. But I like to bitch about women, relationships, dating, and my chances therein. She'll be super supportive, and of course the entire time all I can think is, "Yea you say I"m great, but your still not with me, so either you're lying, or think I'm stupid enough to believe this...or I don't know what".

And the fight between my love of sex, and my love of not getting emotionally skewered wages onwards...unfortunately my bitterness just doesn't have the stamina that my sex drive does...which is unfortunate...but its how it goes.

That has become my favored saying of late, its like a sigh in words. Take a deep breath, shrug and imperceptible shrug, and say "That's how it goes". This is how I get through my days.

Rings

I wear three rings, and they have specific meaning, because I tend to steep my life in meaning, assumedly because of a fear of a lack thereof. The two rings I wear, I wear on opposing ring fingers. Now the rings are essentially from my long term ex, when I went to greece way back in 2001, I bought myself a ring, silver is cheap in greece, and I wanted a simple reminder of the trip.

When I returned and started dating christine, things were pretty stable, so after a year or so (I'm guessing my concept of time is fucked) I offered her the ring, as a sign of commitment, because I was commited, I'm not the cheating type anyhow, but to give her some piece of mind. A little time passed, and Christine bought me a ring as well, which I promptly lost, and caused a large fight between us. She eventually bought me a replacement ring, and I then found the previous one. So the rings have always been to me; One for love and one for loss.

Once we broke up, we agreed to keep the rings the way they were given, and I realized quite quickly that A) women aren't crazy about a guy wearing a ring on his wedding finger, B) women aren't crazy to find out that I still wear two rings that I got from a long term girlfriend, even if I feel nothing for her at this point.

So when I was single I made a mental note to wear the left hand ring on my middle finger. Now once I started seeing Jen, I was so deliriously happy, that I switched it back to the ring finger, since I had no need of anyone else. I only realised a couple days ago that I had been wearing them in the committed (no pun intended) sense...and have since then switched back to middle finger wear.

I feel the ring all the time now, it weighs more, and is more apart of my everyday thoughts, it brings to the surface thoughts that I'd rather leave at the bottom, but hey that's how it goes....

On music

As anyone who has ever been in any kind of relationship that comes to a premature end, or just plain end. Music is the bane of and rising platform of the person afterwards. I had a crushing moment leaving her apartment when I turned on my mp3 player, the normally trusted muse of my internal mental mechanics, to discover that all but Led Zeppelin had betrayed me by wearing Jen colored glasses.

On the upside, once you've rid yourself of the barbed musical numbers that serve only the lost loved one, you can again find solace in specific songs, depending on what your like. I'll endeavour to bring to mind the songs that helped me out. Now they fit into multiple categories, which further bleed into the states of recovery, I'll try and make it all make sense;

Angry-ish

Artist/Song

Jet/Cold Hard Bitch
Song about a guy whose obssessed with a woman whose bound to use him

Burning Brides/Heart Full of Black
Song about a guy who gets used, and decides to become a jerk. Favored line of th song "I made a promise by the side of the road, that I would bury my god damn halo"

Danko Jones/Play the blues
Centers around the fact that if you want to play the blues you should get a

Everclear/California King
Song about an ex going through a make-over and the boyfriend not believing it and thinking that they're trite.
"I will find you in the crowded room, I will knock you off your feet, I will burn you just like teenage I will eat you just like meat" The way he sings it as well is great, glistening with vitriole.


Depressing but good
Sometimes you just want to wallow in your sorrow and/or loss etc. These songs are great for that.

Jeff Buckley/Despite the Tears
A man who comes home to a dear john letter, and who refuses to stop loving the woman. Favored Line "And he knew that he'd love her forever and a day" also "he knew that a part of him was dying"

Beck/Missing
About missing something/someone. Favored lines "I dragged all that owned, down the dirt road to find you" also "I prayed heaven today...bring its hammer down on me" also "I need you out of my head, because I can't think with you in it" also "my shoes worn out and used, they can't take me much farther" also (chorus) "something always takes the place of missing pieces you can take an put together even though you know there's something missing" also "the guns of her mind aim a line straight mine" also "I can see her hollow eyes" also "can't believe these tears are mine, I give them to you to keep away in a box"

Big Wreck/Blown Wide Open
About being ambushed by feelings you thought you'd consciously settled
"So I'm all surrounded by the things I thougtht I'd put away" also "so the mess is drawing forces, I thought I hear them say, come out with your hands up so we can blow you away, and I walk out the door get blown wide open, by the things I'd put away"

The Cult/Painted on my heart
About a guy who was moving on, but can't because he loves her.
"I thought you'd be out of my mind, and I'd finally found a way to learn to live without you, I thought it was just a matter of time till I had a hundred reasons not to think about you, but its just not so, and after all this time, I still can't let go, I've still got your face, painted on my heart, etched upon my memory, and I've got your kiss still burning on my lips, the touch of the fingertips, this love so deep inside of me"

The Yea yea yea's/Pin
Great song about lamenting about dating, going through the motions of it. I enjoyed the metaphor of pushing in a pin to the similarity of dating, each time you go out, pushing in the pin
"Things are feelin thin" also "I'd like to sleep with him, pushin in the pin"

The yea yea yea's/Maps
Great song about love lost.
"Pack up, I'm a stray" also "wait, they don't love you like I love you"
The video helps but, she sings the lines with a lot of feeling and the video her and the band are performing in front of a crowd that's barely even noticing that they're playing. She is wearing bright red lipstick, and just looks so sad...adds a lot weight to it. Not to mention the entire song has a great bass line and some really nice heavy drums.

Bob Dylan/Don't think twice it's alright
Classic, if you don't know this song...I hope you've been living somewhere remote for a long time or you should be certified mentally disabled.
"and it ain't no use in turnin on your light babe, the light I've never known, and it ain't no use in turnin on your light babe, I'm on the dark side of the road" also "and I wish there was something you would do or say, try and make me change my mind and stay" also "I'm a thinkin and a wonderin and walkin down the road, I once loved a woman, a child I am told, I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul" also "so long honey babe, where I'm bound I can't tell, goodbye is too good a word babe, so I'll just say fare thee well" also "I ain't sayin you treated me unkind, you coulda done better but I don't mind, you just kind of wasted my precious time, but don't think twice it's alright"
I think dylan managed to squeeze ninety percent of the good/bad relationship ending stuff into this one song, and I think if I was a musician I'd be a little peeved at the fact that he took so many meanings and hoarded them thusly so early on in musics lifetime.

Hopeful

Wolf Parade/I'll believe in anything
"Give me your eyes, I need sunshine, your blood your bones your voice and your ghost, we've both been very brave, walk around both legs" also "I'll believe in anything, and you'll believe in anything, if I can get the fire out from the wire, I'd share a life and you'd share a life, if I can get the fire out from the wire, I'd take you were nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn" also "I can take another hit for you, and I could take away your trips from you, and I could take away this all from your eyes"

One of many hurdles

I realize that I have many self hurdles to overcome in the coming months, and I will describe them here, both for your amusement and my own need to enter them into some kind of taxonomy.

Well this is the second time that I've been in a relationship with someone who has baggage about relationships, and/or men, and/or both. This hurdle is a little harsh since I've once again come out of it with no negative commentary on how I am in a relationship, how I am as a person/in bed/in confined quarters etc etc. Now typically when one does the "take stock of self" after a breakup, you're doing so in order to adjust your approach, and hopefully come out of it new and different, and up to your neck in ass, so to speak. I have absolutely nothing to go on...what have I done wrong? nothing...so twice I've been a great boyfriend, and now I"m expected to go out and apply this again, hoping that the odds play out in my favor this time? Can anyone else see how annoying a leap of faith this is?

So I'll try to adjust what I can adjust, admitedly I feel like I fall too hard and too fast and that that tends to scare some women off...I always saw it in a more romantic light of "Well if it feels right then I should be falling this quickly"...but that's the negative point I can assign myself so I have to bow and attempt to fix it. That is all.

Slightly more Background

So these sections will keep popping up, since there's a lot of background, and I've only started bloggin about a month or two after this all happened, and I have to keep all the avid readers up to date right?

One of the things that I greatly enjoyed about Jen is her belief in me. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have any huge self conscious issues, I think I'm an average looking guy, of decent intelligence and all that jazz. Jen made me realize that despite achieving most of the things that I've wanted, I did let a lot of things slide, and even more so that I tend to skim through life somewhat, and that I owe it to myself to do better no question.

The above is part of the entire Moving Lonwards deal, that I have to go out and do the things that i've always wanted to, since I can, and am capable of doing them. That is all.

The Backstory

Soooo the all important backstory, it goes a little something like this:

I was hitting my stride in as far as being a single person goes, getting comfortable with just doing the stuff I wanted to do with friends, and really enjoying the time and space that being single afforded. A good friend of mine was making a resurgence in my life, and it was refreshing to hang out with as his general endeavours and conversations were much more cerebral than those that I had had of late.

Now the wrinkle comes when I'm introduced to his girlfriend's friend . Now I won't go into the minutae of how it happened, but me and Jen started dating. A lot of it had to do with a rainy night when we all returned to her tiny bachelor apartment who's decor, personality and most importantly bookshelf blew me away.

So 6 months of relationship with Jen go by, I'm head over heels, she's lukewarm. It's how it goes, and I can say that now only after a month or two of disturbingly sad times.

This is where I find myself Moving Lonwards once more, squinting back at the sun to find my path again from the fork in the road that apparently leads nowhere at this point.

One of the hardest things about Love is letting go. Once you've felt it, you realize what everyone is talking/singing/writing/yearning about/for. You do have to let it go to, and sometimes its reminiscent of that scene in old yeller...the best analogy I ever came up with referring to the quashing of love was:
"Riding yourself of love is like punching a puppy until it runs away"
And you know that puppy is going to keep coming back for a long time, and by the end your punching it through tears, but you know it has to be done, you can't feed that puppy anymore so you have to make it go away.

The harsh part to is, and cliches always crowd around us during these troubled times, I think of the saying "You'll always have a place in my heart", and she does. Now one would think that I could just scalpel out that chunk. Sadly enough its one of those feelings that like a mind altering substance makes the world clearer, experiences sharper, and its not so easy to just let go. The best thing I"ve found, is to gently steam roll it so that the roadkill is always there, but at least you can look away when you drive past.

It has been an uphill battle, I cared for her more than I've ever cared for anyone and letting that go is tantamount to cutting off my own arm with a chainsaw that I"m holding with my teeth. I've been successful though, and hence I am Moving Lonwards.

Intro

I decided to start Moving Lonwards when I noted how much of a journey it always is to find yourself after a relationship falls through. I felt that despite this being a much traveled path, both individually and societally, why not chronical it somewhat, and perchance someone else will be able to avoid some of the cowpats, and find the roses a little quicker by observing my meanderings.