I have an incredible headache right now.  I have a lot of work to do but I can barely focus.  I’m almost positive it’s a stress headache.

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My anger with her has dulled slightly.  It’s been almost a week, so if I use that as a scale for when I’ll be able to hang out with her amiably again, I would say it will be about a month.

The whole experience really made me rethink my life and what I’m doing here, not only because of her, but because of the way I felt about talking with others in concerns with the situation.  It made me realize that I don’t really have many true friends here.  Most people I could hardly imagine discussing everything with and of the two people I sought out for comfort, one of them basically brushed me off.  So that leaves one person, one single person, other than my husband who I can talk to about this kind of thing.  It’s really depressing and rather painful.  I guess it’s times like these when your feelings are revealed most clearly to you from the depths of your psyche.  All I feel is emptiness and lonely desperation when I think about the next few years here in this place.

It’s not only that I was betrayed by someone I cared about deeply.  I also betrayed myself.  I don’t trust my judgment anymore.  Why did I keep going with her even though I knew it wasn’t going to work out in the end?  Why do I do things sometimes even when they don’t really make me happy?  Why am I doing anything?  Why am I here?  What am I doing with my life?  Am I getting my PhD because it’s what I want to do or because it’s what I think I should want to do, what I’m “meant” to do?  I started thinking all these things and realized…I really hate research.  I hate being in the lab.  I hate feeling “contaminated” by just passing though the threshold of the door.  I hate working with things that could mutate my future children.  I just hate it.  And with that in addition to my sudden realization that I don’t really care about anyone here, I really want to pack up and leave.  I want to run away from everyone and everything at this university and find something else to do with my life.

So, with that chaotic thought under my belt, I started to consider what I do like, what does make me happy.  Almost everything I thought of other than spending time with my husband and playing video games and all that had to do with teaching.  I like teaching.  I love being a TA, or tutoring other students, or even helping my peers with their homework!  Sharing my knowledge with other people is what drove me to apply to graduate school, to become a professor and teach college classes.  But when I think about it, I had so much less contact with my college professors than I did with my high school teachers, and the person who had the most influence on my decisions about my future was my high school mathematics teacher.  Would teaching high school be more satisfying to me than becoming a professor?  No research, more personal investment in the lives of students…maybe it would.  Thus, I started looking into getting certified as a high school teacher.

I thought maybe it would be easy.  Take a couple classes, pass a test, done!  However, that is absolutely not the case.  The program here to become certified for secondary education is two years long, and I’m already two years into my PhD program, so I might be close to graduation in another two years anyway.  Additionally, application to the certification program requires test scores from a test that has registration deadlines that have already passed.  To take it in time to get my scores back, I would have to pay an extra $90!  So I may not even be able to apply this year, leaving me with even more time at this university.  I could also just stop at a Masters in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and then go on to pursue the certification separately, but, in addition to a pay cut, I feel like that would be burning bridges that don’t need to be burned unless I’m completely set on my decision.  And I’m not.  I think if I could have just taken a test and become certified, I would consider stopping at a Masters, but as is it will be at least a two year commitment here before I can leave anyway, so it doesn’t gain me any ground in getting the fuck away from here.

I’m at a loss.  I feel like my whole life is an elaborate lie that I’ve made up to keep people from realizing that I actually have no idea what I’m doing.  Why is everything so hard?

Last night I had a dream.  I was quite possibly the worst nightmare I have ever had.

My husband and I return to the apartment with our new pet rats, named “Tim” and “Eric” so that we can continuously reference that “Rats off to ya!” episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor.  We set up their cage and happily play with them for a while before going to sleep.

The next morning I wake up and kiss my husband on the forehead as I often do.  I go to work and notice that it is quite windy.  I spend the day in the lab, noting that my husband isn’t on gchat and doesn’t pick up the phone when I call him.  Around 3 PM someone comes into the lab and tells me that my apartment complex has been hit by a tornado.  I freak out and realize that my husband must have been hurt in the incident and that’s why he hasn’t been in contact.  I hop a bus back to my apartment only to find it completely destroyed and no sign of my husband.  A police officer is standing near the ruins of the office and I ask him if my husband had been taken to a hospital.  The officer asks if I want a ride to the hospital to see the survivors.  Survivors?  I ask the officer if there were any casualties.  He told me there was only one, a young man with blond hair.  He took me to the morgue and, of course, there was my husband with blue lips and a huge gash in his torso.

The next few weeks were a blur of torture and agony.  I was alone, so alone.  I had lost everything in the world that was important to me.  The apartment didn’t matter (except for the poor little rats that died after only a day in my care), but my husband was the only person I ever truly trusted and loved with everything I had.  I took two weeks off from lab work and spent time with my family and his, saw old friends, tried to reconcile everything in my mind.  It was no use.  My life was over, for all intensive purposes.  I contemplated suicide.  Eventually I resolved to get back to work and finish my project so I could at least say I did something with my life as I killed myself with my sharpest kitchen knife afterward.

On my first day back to lab I sullenly get to work at my station.  There is no joy in my labor, because I know that when it is finished, so is my life.  She walks through the door and jovially greets me, telling me she heard about my husband’s death and wanted to talk to me about everything.  I raise my eyes slowly, carefully.  I narrow my gaze at her smiling face.  I walk casually toward her.

“What?  What could you possibly want to say to me?”

“Well, it’s just that…you know…he was what was holding me back from wanting a relationship with you.  I think now that he’s out of the picture I could really be with you and not [insert name of her love interest].  Then you wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.”

I stiffen.  She speaks of my husband as if he was a burden for everyone.  The love of my life, the only person I ever truly cared about, A BURDEN?  I smile, just like the Master smiles.

“Are you sure that’s what you wanted to say?”

She nods, thinking she’s made me happy with her complete lack of emotional understanding for the situation.

“Alright,” I begin to stride toward her, “if that’s what you really want.”  I hold my arms out as if to hug her, and as she steps nearer to me I force my hands around her neck and start choking.  My muscles ripple, my veins surge and my mind goes blank.  I squeeze tighter and tighter until she goes limp in my hands.  I snap her neck as she falls to the floor.  I grab a razor knife we use to open deliveries to the lab and flick the blade out.  I rake it across my neck and fall to my knees in my own blood, content.

I woke up covered in my own sweat and immediately sat up and grabbed my neck to check for the wound.  A tear rolled down my cheek.  I then jerked my head around to check that I wasn’t alone in the bed, and my husband opened one eye and smiled at me before rolling over.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was the most vivid dream I have ever had.  In the dream I experienced over a month of this horrible fake life that my mind imagined for me.  I’m still not completely over it, sometimes looking down at my hands and remembering the feeling of someone’s neck snapping between them.

I wish there was a way to turn off dreams when I’m not in the best place mentally.  I don’t know how many more nightmares like that I can take before going insane…

Well, if you go by those five stages that everyone talks about, I’m still knee deep in the Anger stage.  I want to keep away from her as much as possible and I’m still really angry about everything.  I know I’m to blame and I’m really only angry at myself, but I still get this feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see her.  It’s like that feeling you have right before you get really sick.  You can tell something is up because your throat starts to hurt and you feel a little foggy, but it’s too late because you are already ill and there is nothing you can do about it.

I went to a house party last night and she was there, of course, because we have all the same friends.  Sometimes I could feel her eyes on me and I think she really wanted us to talk to her, but we both got drunk at one point or another and I’ve never been drunk in such a state.  Normally I get drunk with friends and I’m having a wonderful time and all I do all night is tell everyone how much I care about them and how good of friends we are.  But I don’t feel like that about her anymore.  Now all those warm, happy feelings are replaced by wicked, cruel thoughts.  I can only imagine what I would have said to her if she had come up to me for a conversation.  I worried about my husband also, since he was more drunk than he has ever been in his entire life.  At one point we were on the porch all alone with her (not sure why she let that happen since my husband basically had to be outside so he didn’t vomit all over, but whatever…) and all I could do was talk about inane stuff so that my husband wouldn’t talk to her.  I think if she had talked to him at that point it would have been a powder keg situation in which everything he usually holds back would have exploded all over her.  Like me, he’s usually a really happy, silly drunk, but I could see in his eyes whenever she walked by or was looking over at us that he really wanted to tell her how hurt and annoyed by her presence he was.

Two days ago something came in the mail.  My husband had purchased a surprise gift for her in the hopes that she would reward him with some affection, but that was before we broke up.  We opened the gift and mulled over what to do with it and finally settled on just giving it to her because we didn’t want it in the apartment and didn’t know anyone else who would want it.  Meeting her and handing it over was one of the most awkward moments I’ve ever had.  I was less than thrilled to have to talk directly to her so soon after the break-up and I could feel my husband’s frustration at the fact that he had bought this little trinket out of love and now had to give it to her out of annoyance with it’s presence.  I think I did a good job of sounding amiable enough, by my husband stayed silent.  I think no matter what she knew that we didn’t want to be there with her and we really didn’t want to give her a present, but there was nothing else for it.  I’m not going to just throw away something my husband spent $15 on when someone could use it.

Anyway, I don’t know when I’m going to get around to Bargaining, but I think I may skip right through it to Depression with the way I felt at the party and over the last week.  I just have absolutely no feelings for her anymore.  Like I said, the happiness and joy and affection have all faded into different shades of dislike and frustration.  I have no desire to bargain with her anymore.  I don’t want her back.  I’m not even sure I can be her friend anymore, or ever again.  Who knows how many lies she told me, how many times she pretended to be happy for my sake.  I can’t stand that shit.  I CAN’T FUCKING STAND IT.  Yep, definitely still in the Anger stage.  I just want her to disappear from my life altogether.  I should have just let her break up with me the first time and moved on.  At least then I probably would have been able to handle friendship.  At least then she hadn’t made any of her deception apparent to me.  At least then I still loved her.

But I will never love her again.

Well, she broke up with us again.  Can’t say I’m happy, but in some small way I’m relieved.  I knew it wouldn’t work out in the end, but I feel like I’m getting “too old for this” and all that.  I clung desperately to hope that this would be the one, that my search would be over, and ignored all the warning signs.  Here is a list of warning signs that I disregarded, but that others should look for in bad relationships:

1.  She’s just not that into you, but willing to give it a try and see if feelings crop up.  Spoilers, they won’t.  Also, this indicates a person who really isn’t in touch with her own feelings all that well.  Some people don’t mind, but I prefer someone who can give me black and white, yes or no answers.

2.  She couldn’t see herself in the kind of relationship you are offering, but could try it out.  Spoilers, her thoughts won’t change.  Whether it’s a serious relationship or a casual fling, if the other person isn’t on the same page with the relationship status, then it’s over before it’s begun.

3.  She has other love interests.  Almost always this is a bad sign.  It means someone got there before you did and you’re probably shit out of luck.  Also, unless she’s having trouble in the current relationship and wants to get out of it you probably stand no chance.  You can’t steal someone’s heart if they don’t want to have it stolen.

4.  You are embarrassed about your relationship with her.  If you can’t talk about your relationship with friends and family without feeling awkward or unsure, then you probably won’t be able to sustain the situation long term.  You can’t just block everyone else out of your life and hide your relationship.

5.  She doesn’t want to be referred to as your “girlfriend” or “significant other”.  This is a HUGE red flag!  It probably means she either isn’t into the whole committed relationship thing, or she doesn’t want other people to hear you calling her your girlfriend because she wants to appear single.  Either way, if you want a real relationship, move on because you aren’t getting it form this girl.

6.  She doesn’t return affection.  I’m not talking about a girl who doesn’t want to have sex with you right away.  I’m talking about a girl who leans away from you rather than toward you when you sit together, or perhaps moves her hand away from yours if you try and touch it after you’ve been together over a month.  These are not good signs, even if the person isn’t really that touchy-feely.  In the end, you probably want to have sex with this person, and if they can’t even wrap their mind around holding hands after a couple months…well…WTF?

7.  She breaks up with you.  I don’t think I have to explain this.  If a person feels comfortable completely abandoning a relationship with you at any point in time, it probably doesn’t look good for the future of said relationship.  I know there are exceptions, but in general this is a terrible sign, no matter the duration of the break-up.

8.  SHE LIES TO YOU.  This is my number one super duper red flag of the list.  My mother always used to say that a relationship is a three-legged table.  Without one of the legs, the table falls over.  The legs are communication, trust and intimacy.  So, without trust, there is no relationship, especially when the lies are about her other love interest!  Plus, how can you really respect someone and tell them how you feel in good confidence when you aren’t even sure they are telling you the truth about anything.  And once a liar, always a liar, so don’t trust a girl who says she’ll never do it again after you catch her in a lie, because, guess what, she’s fucking lying!!

Numero eight is the straw that broke this camel’s back.  I basically told her to decide, me or him, and she chose him.  I won’t go into detail about the guy because I’m sure I’ll just end up bashing both of them and they really don’t deserve it.  But, I mean, what the hell was I doing being all head over heels for this girl when she doesn’t give a flying fuck for me and my husband?  I was sad yesterday, but now all the sadness is replaced by rage, not only at her, but at myself for letting this debacle go on for so long.

However, to try and get over the whole thing faster I’ve been getting on OkCupid again and finding some sweet girls who must have joined during this whole nasty interlude.  And additionally, my husband and I are going to go to the local gay bar together and try to meet some people we don’t already know in the gay community.  I just need to do some things to get my mind off of my anger for a while.

At least I can move on to someone who might actually love me, instead of a people pleaser stringing me along by tossing shreds of hope my way now and again.  If I had known what a crappy person she would have turned out to be, I would never have gotten close to her.  I don’t regret anything, because it taught me a lot about what my husband and I need in a girlfriend, but I do kind of wish that the person I built her up to be in my head resembled the person she actually is a little more closely…  Oh well, c’est la vie as they say.

I’ve looked up a lot of pornography lately.  I suppose it fell out of fashion with me around junior year of college and I limited myself to downloading a few yaoi manga here and there.  Now I can’t seem to help myself.  I’m constantly thinking about sex and I considered blaming it on Rose, and while she might be part of it I think it might also be the increase in testosterone production from being quite a bit more muscular than I ever have been.  Maybe it’s overpowering the lack of a sex drive I’ve had because of birth control over the past few years. 

It’s sort of pathetic though.  I had gotten kind of used to being a slightly less sexual being than I was back in high school.  Being inordinately horny is kind of frustrating sometimes, especially when I can’t immediately have sex with anyone.  My husband isn’t the most sexual creature and I haven’t even made out with Rose yet…

Speaking of which, it’s getting really hard to control myself around her.  I mean, when I’m not around her I’m thinking about her and when I am around her I just want to rip off my clothing, but I can tell from the way she and my husband interact that neither of them is really ready to be physically intimate with the other.  They haven’t even kissed  yet, and my husband is so shy that he can barely bring himself to put his arm around her without freaking out.  I think he’s a little gun-shy after being sort of rejected a bit ago.  So, I’m holding back from showing Rose how much I really need her until we’re all on the same page.  I suppose that may be never, but I accept that as a possibility.  I’d rather have her in my life forever than get to spend a night with her only to have it all fall apart because she and my husband couldn’t do the same.

That being said, I want to mention a conversation that we had with her about living together.  I think I was talking about wishing our apartment was bigger or something like that, and she brought up how she would be quite willing to get an apartment with us.  Of course, I had already considered the idea thousands of times, how wonderful it would be, but to hear the words gently tumble from her mouth filled me with joy and amazement.  Admittedly, she suggested that she would probably just stay with her current roommate unless a series of rather unlikely events were to come about, but the fact that she was also obviously thinking about it made me so happy.  If she was living with us next year…wow…I would definitely have to contemplate what fantastical thing I did to deserve such karma.  She’s just so wonderful.  I want her and my husband with me as much as possible.  I…I love her.

I should tell her, but I think all that will come with patience, if at all.  It’s like that song, you can’t hurry love. However, it’s also like that other song, if I can’t have her, than I don’t want anyone else, so I’m totally will to wait.  <3

I was looking back through some of my past entries and marveling at what I thought was worth writing down, but no matter how inane the content, it was still nice to read.  I’ll do my best (and forget the rest) to write a comprehensive account of how my life is currently progressing, not necessarily for you, but for me.  I want to be able to look back in a few years and have many, many pages of text to read, not just a collection of extremely short entries with varying degrees of coherency.

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I’ll start with the most recent news and then move on to the more general.  Yesterday I went with an undergraduate student from my research group to an open gym with several members of his Tricking club.  I’m not so good at Tricking in general, and can barely do a cartwheel.  So, when he asked me if I wanted to try a back handspring, I should have said absolutely not.  Instead, I tried one and destroyed my back and right knee.  Right now, I’m sitting in the computer lab waiting until 10 PM to pick colonies for tomorrow’s fluorescence measurements with a giant IcyHot pad on my back and my leg up on a chair.

It pisses me off because I got overconfident what with P90X and I should have instead been able to recognize my limits.  Plus I was gonna go swimming with some friends on Saturday morning, and I’m in no shape to swim laps now…  At most, I’ll be able to pathetically lounge in the jacuzzi.  *sigh*

At least I finished the first drafts of all three of my NSF essays just before I started this entry.  That’s good news for today at least.

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Moving on, for the past few weeks I’ve been uncharacteristically unsure of myself.  I haven’t been getting as much done as I am normally capable of and it really bothers me.  I find myself sleeping for ten hours a night instead of my normal seven or eight, and I can’t shake the feeling of sleep even after I’ve been up and about for a while.  It’s almost as if sleep is following me, even when my eyes are open.  And I’ve been having nightmares, horrible nightmares, about loved ones dying or abandoning me such that I feel so helplessly alone when I wake up that I can hardly keep from sobbing each morning.  It’s like when you dream about having a fight with someone, and when you wake up you are kind of mad at them even though in actuality they haven’t done anything at all.  Picture that, only the whole day you feel as though all the people who matter to you have suddenly dropped off the face of the earth and there was nothing you could do about it.  That’s how I feel.

Consequently, I’ve been going into work later and later each day, taking longer and longer to find the motivation to actually do anything.  When I get home it’s no better.  The feelings of grief and terror wear off extremely slowly, and even though I’m sleeping more hours I think the sleep is inherently worse because of the content.  So by the time I’m back at my apartment at the end of the day, I’m in such an awful state of groggy disarray that I’m not particularly pleasant.  My husband and I haven’t been getting along as well as we usually do and I blame it 100% on my own crappy mood.  But he’s a tender soul, and he puts up with me as best he can just like he always has.  It’s just that now it’s quite a bit harder for him I think.

And I don’t know what to do about it all!  A couple weeks ago it was all sunshine and fairy dust.  My husband and I were doing a fantastic job with P90X and I hit my weight goal of 115 lbs.  Our relationship with Rose was going swimmingly.  I had just started making real progress in my research.  I discovered that an budgeting error on my part resulted in me thinking we had $300 less each month than we actually had.  It was like everything that I had always hoped for was finally coming together for me.

And now this.  I’m sure it will pass, but it’s most certainly affecting my life in a very negative way.  For the past few days I haven’t done any work in the lab, only grading and writing my NSF essays, probably because it requires much less thinking to sit in front of a computer than to design experiments.  Additionally, I’ve skipped so many days of P90X recently.  I’ve gained back about four pounds and it’s so frustrating because I was doing so well.  And, while she gave us a second chance that I thank her for silently each night before I go to bed, Rose broke up with us for a weekend, probably due in part to the terrible moods my husband and I have been in because of my nightmares.

I just want it to pass, but it’s been so long now that I’m worried.  I don’t know what’s causing them.  It could be dozens of things, most of which I don’t have any control over, so I assume I’ll just have to suffer through until my mind goes into self preservation mode and turns off all the nightmares.  I hope that’s sooner rather than later.

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On a lighter note, friends are amazing.  And some of the friends I’ve made recently make me wonder why the hell I wasn’t born a year later.  It seems like basically the whole “new” first year class is made up of people I get along with unprecedentedly well. 

One of them is this awesome kid who I will call PJ for short.  It’s kind of like we are the same person.  In fact, I introduced him to OkCupid because I had a hunch he was interested in Rose (because if we’re the same person of course we would want to date the same person) and he did the little questions thing and the site said we were 94% matched.  I laughed so hard.  The intarwebs knows all!  He’s just really fun to hang out with and chat with, and that’s not really true for a lot of the people in my year.  I mean, they are wonderful people, but I couldn’t see myself just hanging out with any particular one of them all alone.  However, I could totally see myself frolicking around with PJ for a whole day and not having any awkward silences or weird situations come up.  He’s just really cool.

Along with PJ, there are the members of what I will call his “crew”.  They are all fantastic in their own ways, and we sit around watching Tim and Eric Awesome Show in the computer lab near my office like we’ve know each other for years.  I love it!  And it seems like every time I’m getting lonely and sad because my husband is at home and my Rose is busy working, they show up and cheer me up with their antics.  It’s funny how life doesn’t always give you lemons. 

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Lately my parents have really been worrying me.  My mother seems really depressed and for some reason it never seems like she can take solace in my father the same way I can with my husband.  She has this martyr complex that filters through everything and really brings out the bad stuff in her mind I think.  She’s one of those “if it’s not one thing it’s another” kind of people.  Right now the thing is the stress of owning and operating apartments in addition to a hotel in a less than optimal economic climate.  Other times it’s my father’s family mooching off of them.  No matter what it is, I always think to myself, “This could be solved if you guys just sold everything and retired.”  And I’ve told her this.  I’ve told them both that I am worried about them and I want them to stop working and retire soon, but the answer is always the same:  that they don’t have enough money to do that.

On one particular day when my mother was sounding exceedingly depressed about everything I told her that she doesn’t have to worry and that when I graduate and get a job as a professor, they can come with me and I will help them out with money if they need it.  That way, they can move away from all the stress and the family issues and hide with me somewhere in the northernmost part of the country where they can fish and hunt and enjoy their lives.  But I knew from her response that it wasn’t really the money that was keeping them from retiring.  She told me that it wouldn’t be a good business decision to do that.  I think, deep down, my parents just crave success.  Even if they had all the money in the world, they would never stop working because they would always want more.  I just…can’t understand that way of thinking at all, and it worries me that much more that there may never be an end to the stress in my parents’ lives right now.

I love them so much.  I just want them to be as happy as possible.  I don’t know what I can really do, but if there was something I would do it in a second.

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I feel like I should better explain the whole breaking up with Rose situation for several of my readers who have expressed concern.  So, here’s what happened.  One night Rose wasn’t interested in hanging out with us, and despite being with her almost every night for a week I was left craving her presence.  Instead of doing what a normal person would do and keep my mind off it with some other activity, I decided it was the perfect time to compose a huge letter detailing my feelings for her and asking her all kinds of really serious questions about a relationship that was barely out of the gate.  Here is a copy and paste of the letter:

Every time I’m with you I get distracted by goofy things like internet videos or cooking or fanciful chatter.  While those things are fun and I enjoy them immensely, I feel like I haven’t told you so many really important things.  It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about them.  It’s just that I’m forgetful, have poor timing, and can never seem to find the right way to say something.  That’s why I’m getting this all down in writing so that I have no more excuse for my lack of communication ability.

And when I say lack of communication ability, I mean my sudden and ridiculous loss of courage whenever I’m around you.  I’ve never seen this side of myself before.  I mean, every time I see you I get butterflies in my stomach.  I think I’ve told you this, but sometimes I deliberate for several minutes before actually sending you a gchat message or before stopping by your office.  After years of being an extremely forward person with little to no restraint, you are the only person that gives me pause because I care so much about you.  Even with Mike I didn’t have this much trouble articulating myself.

I think it’s just the amazingly miraculous quality of the situation.  I feel like it can’t possibly be real and that one morning I’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal, or I’m imagining everything or something.  I mean, I went from thinking you were straight (and thus impossible to date) to kissing you!  Perhaps it’s just taking me more time than I expected to acclimate, or perhaps I’m restraining myself too much around you.

And let me tell you, I constantly have to restrain myself.  I won’t lie, I made you the TARDIS mostly because you are amazing and you deserve amazing gifts, but also a little bit so that I could feel as though I had an excuse to ask you for a kiss.  And when you laid down beside me on your bed I wanted to pull you closer and make out with you.  And pretty much every time I’m with you I just want to hold you and kiss you gently, especially now that I know how soft your lips are.  Mike, too, but he’s even more nervous and shy than I am around you.

However, neither of us knows how you feel, primarily because we never ask, but also because you’ve never really say.  And I don’t fault you for that.  We haven’t been too clear about it either.  But it leaves me wondering about a lot of things.  Do you want me to touch you in public?  Can we hold hands while we walk around outside?  Can I hug you in front of other people?  Would making out with me or Mike make you uncomfortable?  Are you embarrassed to tell others about the situation?  Do you consider me your girlfriend?  Do you consider Mike your boyfriend?  If you do, can I call you my girlfriend in front of others?  Are you still thinking about dating other people, like Nick?

For me and Mike, we want as much as you are willing to give us.  We want you.  We’re only interested in dating you.  Until you tell us you aren’t interested, you have everything that we are.  You have the nerdy parts, the silly parts, the sexy parts, and the serious parts.  You have movie dates and quiet dinners at home.  You have relaxing on the couch and frolicking along a hiking trail.  You have two people who will always be there to listen and to support you if you need it.  While that may or may not be exciting to you, it’s certainly genuine and we’re offering it to you.

If I’m honest with myself, I’ve fallen in love with you.  I’ve almost said “I love you” so many times as I was leaving your place and always stifled the urge as something you probably didn’t want to hear.  And unlike with every other person we have ever met, Mike is constantly asking about you and wanting to hang out with you.  Like I said, you have us.  You’ve had us for quite some time.  We just want to know what you want to do with us.

And you may ask yourself “Why me?” and I don’t know if I’ve ever really told you.  I’ll try to be concise and add both Mike’s and my reasoning in a list:

1.       You are kind and upbeat, even when you are tired.  It’s difficult to be too upset around you because you look at me with a tender expression and try to cheer me up.  What’s more is that it never seems forced.  I guess what I’m saying is that I trust your kindness, if that makes any sense.

2.       You are a great listener and really easy to talk to.  I have no trouble telling you all my most embarrassing stories and Mike seems to actually initiate conversation with you, which for him is unheard of!  I feel like I could tell you anything and it’s very comforting.

3.       Our interests overlap quite a bit.  It’s rare to find a female who plays (or is even willing to play) video games.  Beyond that there is cooking and working out and Doctor Who and many other enjoyable things.  If we didn’t have so much in common there would be no way Mike and I could talk to you for hours on end and not run out of things to say.

4.       The way you carry yourself is very appealing.  You seem intrigued rather than confused, sure of yourself but not in an egotistical way, elegant but approachable.  I guess it’s a little hard to explain.  I admire you for your strength of personality, if that makes any sense.

5.       You have a lovely voice.  Sometimes when I’m feeling crappy on a particular day I just imagine you singing and it cheers me up.  I want to ask you to sing sometimes, but I feel like everyone does that and it must get annoying over time.  What I’m saying is if you ever get the urge to sing around me don’t hesitate to act on it, but I’ll never pester you to do it.

6.       You are absolutely gorgeous.  The angles of your face, your smile, your eyes, your lips, your hair, your body shape, everything is so nice.  I love the way you wrinkle your nose when you smile really big and Mike enjoys how you’re just the right height for comfy hugs.

7.       AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, even though I’ve known plenty of other people way longer than I’ve known you, I feel like you are the best female friend I’ve ever had.  I’ve never really been able to truly open up to another female before.  There is something unique about you and I can’t put my finger on it.  It reminds me of when I met Mike, like every time I was around him everything else went black and white and he was the only colorful thing.  You’re simply wonderful in every way.

Okay, so that wasn’t particularly concise, but I think it was all necessary.  I should have told you all this much earlier, but as I said I become rather cowardly when I’m around you.  I think if you let me (and of course Mike) know what is and isn’t okay based on those questions above, we’ll both be a lot less nervous and a lot more relaxed around you.

Ah, if feels good to get all that out there.

<3 Katie

And while that was probably a little much, instead of freaking out and telling me we had to break it off, she took it really well and asked to talk about everything the following evening.  Now, the point where things went sour came when she provided answers to some of our questions.  Everything was absolutely fantastic with her answers, except for this:  she wasn’t attracted to my husband, which utterly crushed his heart in 2.2 seconds.  That night we all decided that it would be okay if she and I kept dating, but left my husband out of the picture, and she left on amiable terms.  Call it my desperate attempt to keep a crumbling house of cards together.

Of course, as soon as she left my husband voiced his concern that he wouldn’t be able to handle it and that he would become jealous of me spending time with her.  I commiserated, saying that I would feel guilty for a situation like that and wouldn’t really be able to continue.  I knew I had to talk to her again about everything.  I also knew that when we had started the whole thing, she had said she wasn’t attracted to either of us, but she had developed feelings for me, so I felt as though there might be a chance for the same to happen with my husband.

The next day I asked her for another chat and she obliged in the afternoon while my husband was still asleep.  We both talked about our concerns and I think I just didn’t assert myself enough that I wanted to be with her, no matter what.  She ended up making some very intelligent points about the pros and cons of the relationship as a whole, and the chat resolved with her breaking up with me, giving me one last hug, and leaving me sobbing in the basement of the student union.

A normal person would have cried for a while, dried the eyes, and moved on.  I, on the other hand, called her in tears asking her desperately to reconsider (something I know is stupid and pathetic, but I just couldn’t bring myself to just throw in the towel on the most wonderful girl I had ever met).  My husband and I were about to go home for the weekend, so she suggested we all just think about everything over the trip and reconvene on Monday.  I agreed and spent another hour or so crying into my husband’s chest.

Over the trip my husband and I talked exhaustively about how we felt, what we wanted, concerns she raised, etc.  We settled on taking a step back and perhaps holding off on the super serious stuff for a while, maybe go back to a more casual relationship rather than the one I lined out in my letter to her.  And I think the time away from her did us a lot of good, because we both realized how used to having her in our lives we had gotten and how determined we were not to lose her.  She’s no ordinary girl, and neither of us has ever felt so strongly about a prospective third.

Monday came and we all met up to chat at our apartment.  I think we were all really nervous about what the others would say because we spent several minutes just talking about random stuff before we got down to business.  She explained that she had missed us both over the weekend and didn’t want at least spending time with us to end.  We presented our idea to back off a bit on the serious bits and she (to our great and wondrous surprise) accepted.  After she left that night I cried again, but for the absolute opposite reason.

So that’s what happened.  I hope that clears everything up for those of you who have been asking.

—————————————————————–

And that’s about it.  In summary, I want to say that despite all the ups and downs I mention, my life is really wonderful.  This is just a highlighting of some of the juicier bits.  I’m actually really happy and I have everything I need, a perfect husband, my Rose, a loving family, great friends, enough money, and I’m making progress in my research.  So, what I’m saying is don’t worry about me!  <3

And just as quickly as everything fell apart…

Seems a weekend apart and a bit of thinking did a lot of good for all parties involved.

I haven’t felt this horrible in a long time.  I feel like I grew an arm and then someone ripped it off just as I finally gained feeling in it.

I wish I wasn’t a bisexual.  I wish I wasn’t polyamorous.  I wish I was a normal person.  I wish it didn’t hurt so much.

I want her back.

I feel completely drained.  Trying to emulate someone so ultimately lonely seems to unexpectedly affect my mood rather drastically.  I suppose it’s probably a combination of a lot of things.

God, has it gotten this bad?  Am I that head over heels?  But I don’t feel right.  It’s like I can sense something brewing that will destroy everything, but I can’t put my finger on it.  Maybe it’s me.  Maybe I’m destroying everything.  I can never say what I want to say, do what I want to do, like a barrier 10 miles high has been put up around me and I can’t reach out and connect with anyone anymore.  I want to say that it’s all just nervous apprehension, but I feel so alone, even when I’m surrounded by people I truly care about.  Like I can’t remember what it’s like to be myself.  Like I’m fading.

I want to tell her so many things.  I write them down sometimes only to later crumple them up and toss them aside.  And when I get the chance to tell her anything substantial I always just gravitate to the trivial, easier subjects.  I look at her beautiful face and her gentle smile and I can’t.  I just can’t.  She just seems so satisfied with everything, and I can’t bring myself to pollute that contentment with the turmoil that is constantly swirling in this hallow shell of a human.  I don’t think I ever really made it out of adolescence.

Look at me, sitting here in this cave of an apartment, alone, listening to a Lady Gaga/David Guetta Pandora station because it’s the only thing inane enough to keep me from thinking about everything.  I kissed her, but all that did was make me need her that much more.  Now I want to hold her, kiss her, feel her against me even more.  But what does she want?  She never tells me.  I never ask, I suppose.  I want to say I’m excited, but more than anything I’m scared absolutely shitless.  I feel like I’m holding a delicate and extremely expensive sculpture, but my hands are covered in grease.  If I keep moving forward I’ll eventually lose my grip and that’s it.  It’s broken beyond repair.  But if I don’t move forward I’ll be holding the sculpture forever and I’ll never be able to gently set it on the table across the room and wash my hands.

Ugh, I hate myself when I’m like this.

Maybe the 10th Doctor really is the perfect character for me.

So much has happened in the last couple of weeks, so many unbelievable things have happened.  Here is a summarized list:

1.  I awkwardly told Rose that I was interested in her over gchat the night before the hike (Sept. 3rd).  Instead of rejecting me she agreed to go on a date with me.

2.  During the date, rather than telling me she was straight or that she wasn’t interested in the type of relationship I was offering, she explained that she thought she might be bisexual and that, while she wasn’t sure she could be in a three person relationship she would happily spend more time with me and my husband alone to see how she felt.

3.  Over the next few weeks she came over a lot and we introduced her to our lifestyle, i.e. playing video games and eating delicious food.  She seemed to take well to it.

4.  Having found out about possible competition, I became very jealous and worried about the whole situation.  In an attempt to reduce the amount of time I would spend asking her about it, I gave her an old key I found in a field in my youth one a chain.  I told her that if she ever decided to end this journey with me (so corny and Dr. Who related, I know), that she could just give the key back and I would take that as a sign.  In return, she gave me a ring she had found on the quad, bearing a rose with a gem on it.  She still hasn’t returned the necklace and I wear the ring every day, even to lab.

5.  She has held my hand, hugged both my husband and me, and even snuggled with us while watching old Dr. Who, but no kissing yet.  I can’t get up the courage to do it.

Regardless of how this all turns out, I’m still amazed by everything.  It’s like a manga where everything works out even though it doesn’t make sense.  I’m very happy, but at the same time so afraid that I’ll suddenly wake up and everything will be more how I expected, i.e. she’ll be straight and completely disinterested in the whole idea of dating a couple.

Maybe I should start believing miracles.  Fingers crossed.