starting over and overusing the s word

Good evening great wide world of web! Here I sit watching So You Think You Can Dance Australia and considering 1) my dubious desire to be a fit dancer who can "sing with my body" (yes a real quote from the show, and it's all very inspiring and deep and such) and 2) my promise to write and update you all on the last few months. Or, um, year. Or so, you know. And I was just thinking, if it's ok with you, would you mind terribly if I were to just skip over it all and continue on from here? I mean, I know that continuity is important and everything, but really, I have the feeling that I have lost most of my audience at this point and it can't hurt to just start anew, in a sense, even if its just with me, myself, and oh what the hell, I!

So. Yes. Starting new. Basically I will just let you know that I have finally (almost) managed to rid myself of Feb entirely. Perhaps one day I will be able to explain it all to you, but right now it is too much.  Feb is still in my life and in my normal weekly "friendship circle", and I try as much as possible to limit our interaction to just that. Friendly friendship circle-type stuff where we don't actually have to talk, but just sort of sit in the same room and try not to have eye contact or start brawls or street rumbles or anything.

Now, that all said, I am pretty much free! Yay! It's been a long stretch of what was essentially, honestly, truly an enslavement and I am so pleased to be emancipated. So that's enough of that!

New news? Well, I am still working at the not-for-profit organisation (ooo, notice my very Australian spelling, and how I am a true local with the vernacular and 's' instead of 'z' and such down pat!) where I am sort-of-kind-of in charge of promotions and publications. This has proven to be both a challenge and a wildly fun experience as I work in a team of all males. That's right y'all, yours truly Little Miss sits with boys all day every day, and learns about boys and laughs at boys and feels particularly proud of herself when said boys laugh at her jokes. And, as a special coup, I have managed to convince the boys to set aside a special chunk of everyday that is (and I tell you this with every bit of officialness I can muster  [it's a word NOW, ok!]),  Silly Time.

I love Silly Time. Silly Time is always in the afternoon, usually about half an hour or so, but as a rule is never policed. Silly Time is a group time that involves three people- myself, Adonis (lisping Greek coworker) and Caesar (football-star Italian coworker). It always occurs after Headache Time (a special Little Miss-only period that usually lasts from about 2.15-2.55pm) but before Preparing to Go Home Time.

Silly Time is very simple. Basically it boils down to this: three creative people who have been sharing an office all day long let go and release all the ridiculous impulses they've repressed for six hours in the name of Being Professional. Anything can happen during this period. We've been known to hold dance-offs, people. Dance-offs can get very competitive so I don't encourage them when we have a big project to finish.

This week Adonis was away seeing George Michael in Sydney (George Michael!) and so Caesar and I forged into Silly Time all alone. After some discussion and a bit of giggling, Caesar and I decided that it would be very clever and very silly of us to reverse Adonis' entire workstation, down to the photos on his bulletin board and the sugar packets sprawled haphazardly on his desk. We moved his phone, his paper clips, his filing cabinets, and his pens. (Interjection: upon re-reading this I discovered I made a horrible typo on the word "pens"! Look at it, folks: pens.  now tell me you don't see the typo that was made and would, had I not fixed it, you would have been shocked and appalled  to read that I moved that particular thing on a man. And a co-worker, no less!) 

Anyhow, Caesar and I muffled our snorts of laughter as we perfectly angled Adonis' white-out, his stapler, and the crowning glory, his scales. (Yes, Adonis keeps a body-weight scale next to his desk at all times. This will likely take its own future post to explain.) After admiring our handiwork, Caesar and I declared an end to Silly Time and settled back into our respective work, feeling supremely self-satisfied and extraordinarily clever. (Look. Sometimes work is hard, and sometimes work is boring, and we just need to feel like something, ANYTHING has been accomplished in a short amount of time.  Y'all stop judging what makes me feel good!)

So Adonis comes back into work on Monday, and being the Greek god that he is, he sunnily wanders into the office, late as always, says hello, and settles into his desk.  Caesar and I exchange glances and smirk, trying to withhold our hysterics (see: work hard and boring, distractions welcome) and wait for the hilarity that is certain to ensue.  

And what do you think happened, internet-ers?  It took Adonis TWENTY MINUTES to recognise that everything, and I mean everything on his desk, down to the tiniest stray staple and the Canadian maple leaf shot glass (courtesy of moi!) was reversed.  I mean, people, this was wild stuff! And then, when the madness of his situation finally set in, what do you think Adonis did?  I'll tell you.  He said, "Ah.  You guys switched my phone to the other side.  Now is that a productive use of Silly Time?"

And so, dear readers, (should any of you still exist), that was the day  I realised that my silliness factor has gone down significantly.  I mean, I know that part of this lackluster response is due to Adonis' sad inability to recognise humor in its purest form, but it also has to reflect a little bit on my diminishing talent for true silliness, doesn't it?  

So I have come face to face with the stark realisation that I need to get back to my silly roots.  I mean, come on y'all, I understand that there are only so many times I can say the word 'silly' in this post and I need to stop, so I will draw it to a close with this: please help me get back to my s-ness! It will be my goal over the next few months to find my silly and put it into play at work and at home until no one, I repeat NO ONE is able to resist it.  And all will be drawn into my evilly silly plan for the WORLD! Yes! Yes! 

Ahem.  And with that, I am back.  Back from personal heartache and tragedy to blogging once again and focusing on me.  And I will be working hard to remember who I am and where my confidence has gone, and really embracing the Little Miss within... whether she be Little Miss Happy or Little Miss Angry or Little Miss Bossy or Little Miss Sunshine or Little Miss Independent or Little Miss Needs to Move Back to Canada to Realise Her Potential or yes, even Little Miss Silly.  

It all comes down to this, y'all: I can't wait to find out which it is! 

well, hi!

So. I can't even go back and read what my last post was to update you because, really, I am mortified to read anything that I may have wrote about FEB and the fact that I got back together with him just to let my heart be broken all over again. I actually just can't face reading those posts. I can't remember what they say, but I'm sure they don't deal with the emotional, mental, and physical abuse that he put me through. I'm certain that I don't detail the rape, the spiritual anguish, the feelings of worthlessness that I endured for him, so I won't address them now. Not this time.

But I have news of a new man, and I'm not sure if he is much better. Perhaps writing about him will help me to work through my feelings. We shall see! In the meantime y'all, I'm so pleased to be back! I have a feeling I'm on my own now though.... I miss you wall. If there is anyone left, stay tuned.

Oh hello there, internet world! It's been almost a year, goodness gracious, and here I am, writing all over again. Possible to just lil' ol' me this time, cause my lack of consistency has likely driven all of you away! Buttttttt, tonight I don't mind. I have made a delicious red lentil soup, I am drinking a delightful wine (purchased, untasted, by the case might I add! I'm proud of my selection!) and making friends with the blogging world once again.

Much has changed. Feb is still a prick (ooh, strong language!), but my job, my home, my life has changed. I look forward to telling you all about it!

May I just start you off with a little tease about my job- I LOVE it, I actually look forward to getting up in the mornings and going there! I actually get respected for my writing and it is an integral part of my work AND I work with a lisping Greek man, a footballer graphic designer who I am platonically in love with, and an Englishman who sings all day long and tends to emit loud bodily functions WITHOUT NOTICING!!! Ya'll, that is the favorite part of my day, when I hear loud exclamations of the bowels from the other side of the office, and no one minds!! Oh the joys of working with all males!

Also, since my move to Foreigland (Australia - did we cover that already? Now what number glass of wine is this?) I have become slightly more liberal and SO you may get to hear a story or two of the gory reality of my relations with Feb and what exactly he has been in my life over the last year.

And hopefully, at some point SOON, I will be writing of new boys and new fun in my life. Cause Lord knows I could use some fun after the hellish year that has just been!!

So if there are any of you left out there and you want to write to me and tell me about your nice sons/brothers/cousins who are funny and smart and not total pricks, please do! And I shall be a faithful lil' miss and not leave ya'll alone anymore!!

love love love!!

So here we are, months and months later, and like most bloggers I have taken a break due to stress and huge life changes. I have moved to Foreignland (let's come out and say it's Australia, shall we?) to be with Feb, and have been in the country for nearly two months now. I am starting to get settled in, though the necessity to move is on the horizon, and I start a job tomorrow, finally.

The biggest development, I suppose, is that two weeks ago, Feb once again changed his mind about our relationship. Readers, this time his words were, "We just aren't supposed to be together. This isn't going to work out in the long run". So he truly is Feb again.

He feels that since my arrival in Australia, our relationship has been "too hard", and if it's right, then it's not meant to be so hard. We have only been together in the same country for five weeks. Five. Weeks. After ten months of upholding a long distance relationship, of talking nearly every day and emailing at least that often, of long letters and hopeful prayers, he has given us five weeks to create a perfect relationship "in person", decided that we (I) do not meet his expectations, and now it's all over.

Cliche as it may sound, my heart feels like it is being ripped out of my body: skin is streching, straining to the breaking point, a long, slow tear is opening that reaches deep down within my chest. Something grabs my heart, wraps around it, squeezes it and becomes still, vise-like, a steady, inescapable pressure. And then, excruciatingly slowly, my heart, my deepest insides, are twisted, pulled, savagely torn as vein and artery and ligament are snapped and discarded, and then there it is, for all to see: the bruised heart writhing and torn and alive, but dying. And so I feel sick inside, and heavy, and empty, all at once and all the time. I don't want to eat, I spend my days mostly alone and lonely, without a car, without my family, without my closest friends.

And that I think is maybe the hardest part. I have friends here, but they are still new, still surface, and often untrustworthy with details and feelings. I find that information travels like lightning in our community here, and I am the new one, the one that Feb has rejected. I get looks of pity and the sympathetic head tilt, and people offer to "catch up" and hang out, which is sweet, but there rarely is that level of total, soul baring comfort where I can sob for hours and know that the warm arms around me will not let up, will hold me and stroke my damp hair and look past my blotchy red face and swollen eyes and know that inside is a girl who is worth it, even if he doesn't think so.

I just feel like he hasn't even given us a chance. Of course it's going to be hard, our relationship was stamped "difficult" from the very beginning: an Aussie and a Canadian, both fiercely loyal to their homes and very involved with their community, schools, and church. We have spent 17 months of our two year relationship in separate countries, but we have always made it work. This time, seeing each other, was the first time we were physically together since he up and left Canada, and there were trust issues on my end (I was afraid of all this happening again) and we had never lived our lives "normally"- working and doing day to day things. One of us was always on vacation and so we spent long, lazy days together, seeing only each other, oftentimes, and picking irritably until little fights would start.

But now I have moved here, across the world so things could be different, we could be real. I have left my job, my friends, my home, my car, my family, my life, just to be with him and set up a normal relationship in a normal life, to give us a chance. And I knew it would be hard and woud take adjusting, and I knew that there were parts missing from our relationship that needed to be introduced and strengthened, but I thought that we had time to work those things out together, to create and renew and refresh and to relearn each other in so many ways.

But he has given up. Just like that, he has seen the future somehow and decided that this, us, will never work. He asked me if I think two people can be so attracted to each other, but it just not be "right", and of course I think so, but not us. We are different, we are special- we can't resist each other, even from across the world. We are drawn to each other, to our humor and looks and laughter and intelligence and kindness and the whole package.

I just don't understand why he would give up. Why, now, he would dismiss our future. He begged me to come here in the first place: I was so reluctant, so scared because I was worried this would happen. He dismissed that, promised he would take care of me, told me that this time it was permanent and God was going to make us such a powerful team, partners. He even wanted me to move on an "Intention to Marry" visa, which provided that we would have to marry within 9 months of my arrival. He had no problems with that, but I held back because I was afraid of the steadfastness of his heart.

By the time I got here, I was convinced. He had made me believe that he was trustworthy, that we would be together forever, that a happy home with love and fun and devotion was ahead of us. And now he has abandoned me, left me to my own survival.

I am missing all that he was for me: a partner, a confidante, an advisor, a giver, a driver, understander of my jokes, a teacher, my best friend, my very best friend. I am so lonely, so confused, so hurt. I love him and miss him with all that I am, and he turns from me whenever we are even within eyesight of each other.

I don't know what to do. I just don't know how to imagine my life without him. Not again. This can't be how it's supposed to be.

So, I am well underway at the new job. It is very bizarre being back in an office environment- working at a restaurant is SO different from an office atmosphere, it really is. The whole reason I went to go work at The Restaurant is because my office job was boring the pants off me, not to mention making me gain weight!

So here I am, back at a desk! I do, however, get to run around the country club, talking to chefs and golf pros and servers in my quest to organize perfect events, so I get to move around quite a bit. I can also head out to the driving range or the course whenever I please and golf FOR FREE!! This would be much more exciting if I had ever golfed in my life, or if I even cared one tiny iota about golf, but as it is, I do love anything free, so I'm happy.

I finished my third day today and am so far happy. I am finally starting to "get" the event planning software and have finished bleach-wiping my desk/phone/computer/anything breathed on or touched by former employees. I set up my voicemail and finally got access to my company email account today. Business cards should be arriving next week, and today my boss gave me his company password and username (!) for Staples and I went on a shopping spree! Fellow Event Planner and I wrote out a little wishlist, and I spent a few hours searching out everything we could ever want or need before pressing "send" and being guaranteed that our purchase would arrive by Monday! I'm so excited! I got myself a new mouse, a desk protector/writing surface, new pencils, scissors, a tape dispenser, a new waste bin (Boss's idea!), new binders, and a whole hanging file holder set! I think that's it, but there really might be more . . . let's just say that not only is it the most I've ever been allowed to purchase for myself on a company account on my third day, but it is ALL I've ever been allowed to purchase on a company account and I am drunk, people, DRUNK with power!!!

I have a midterm tomorrow, so I really should go study, but please don't let me forget about the rock star revival story . . . it's a good one!

I've recently started another grueling Saturday class. This time it's Wedding Planning, which should come in handy for my new job at Big Fancy Country Club- I will be planning a ridiculous amount of weddings, and so far have no idea how to do it! This course is proving minorly helpful, though I am starting to have dreams at night about getting engaged! I am turned into one of those wedding-fever girls who can't stop imagining the perfect dress or coming up with countless themes and color schemes . . . somebody help me!!




Breakfast: small cup of yogurt, glass of juice
Lunch: medium Quiznos sandwich, turkey and swiss
Snack: bag of baby carrots, two cinnamon sticks (mini pastries)
Dinner: grilled chicken breast, salad
Dessert: piece of apple pie with vanilla frozen yogurt

Haven't updated lately- why is it so hard to keep up with myself? Basically, I've been doing really good at my running schedule and not so hot at my eating- it's playoff's, afterall, and we are all scarfing down pizza while we cheer on our Canucks! So, I figure it at least balances out because I am running heaps and waving my arms around in constant cheering and/or "what are you doing?!?!" movements while simultaneously consuming large amounts of greasy bread and cheese slices.

Feb and I had an early morning phone date yesterday. It was about 7 30am for me and midnight for him, so we were both a little tired. It was so lovely, though- I could lay in bed with my laptop and webcam and phone-call software and see and talk to him- it was almost like we were cuddling together on a lazy Saturday morning.

I say almost because it was Monday morning, I had to go to work, he's 13,000km away, and there was no cuddling involved.

This is all getting really difficult. I mean, we finally feel like our relationship is in the right place and we are learning how to really understand each other, but we can't even hug or share a kiss. And forgive me for getting personal, but Feb is an amazing lover who is not only very thoughtful and persistent, but also the bearer of a very large and skillfully-used penis. It's only fair to say that I miss him terribly and am not sure how to deal with all this right now!

On a completely different note, I am starting the new job on Wednesday of next week! I am madly trying to get ahead in my schoolwork so that I can focus all of my attention and energy on really being prepared for the training and new work I will soon be in charge of!!! And on that note, it's back to the books for me . . . and maybe a bit of daydreaming about a certain sexy-accented foreigner . . .