Still fighting and pushing forward.

 Oh life, it can really push you to your limits.
 It has been well over a year since I last posted and of course a lot has changed. Erik moved to Kfalls, we visited a few time and we still talk from time to time. I moved out of the horrendous living situation I was in, the one where I was living with my long time best friend, her new baby and fiance who happened to be a sex offender who went to jail for 6 years for sexually abusing a 9 year old girl and my best friend who had been with me through all my healing lied to my face time and time again. So I moved in with what seemed to be a lovely couple only to find out a few months into the new place that I had moved into another bad situation. Yay bi-polar people who decide they don't need to take their meds... I ended up selling Tiger (black bunny) since Lilly and her did not bond.
 I moved back to Hood River with my family last December. It has been so nice to finally have a solid foundation under my feet and be surrounded by people who I love and love me. I am very blessed to have a wonderful relationship with my family.

 Needless to say with everything that happened last year I ended up having high anxiety every day, major depression and became suicidal again for the first time in 11 years. Luckily I was strong enough to reach out to my support circle. With their help I pulled myself out of it. but was still dealing with high anxiety and depression. Can you blame me after everything I had gone through?

 Once I moved back to HR and finally felt safe I ended up getting very injured at work. I have a bulged disc in my neck and a very messed up back. Then on New Years I got a concussion and separated my shoulder, tore my AC ligament resulting in a 2nd degree separated shoulder, best part was that I was totally sober.
 I was in a sling for 3 weeks, then months of physical therapy to regain the use of my right arm and shoulder. I had fun practicing writing with my left hand since my right was totally useless. A separated shoulder is a 6 month injury so I am totally back from it now, but I do still have some pain in my shoulder at times.
 As for my back and neck... It's been 11 months and I'm still in a lot of pain, I can't wash dishes without my back locking up and breaking out in painful muscle spasms. The bulge disc in my neck is pressing right into my spinal cord. It is a constant ache, sometimes so bad that all I can manage is to lay down and try to take all the weight off my neck. I have numbness in my hand and occasionally my whole arm well go numb and tingly. These injuries have really hindered my life and mobility. Although I have been handling it well.
 I started seeing a psychologist again. With everything that happened last year and then all the medical stuff I have been going through it was well past time that I got some extra help. I also decided to go on an SSRI for the moment in time, to help with my consent high anxiety and depression. It has really helped. I have started to actually feel like me again, although now that I have been on it for 6+ months it seems I need the dose adjusted. I've very drug resistant so I think my body has finally gotten use to it and is metabolizing it faster or something along those lines, so it is not working very well anymore. Silly anxiety has poked it's nasty head out again.

 Happy news is that I am now together with my best friend, Travis. We have been friends for 10 years, and became best friends in college. We had previously talked many times throughout the years how we would make an amazing couple but due to my issues with relationships it would trigger me into an anxiety attack and I would shut down that idea of us being together. Over a month ago I was just starting to socially date this guy and it was going very well, then the relationship triggered me and I hit full blown into a panic attack. In the time of trying to deal with it the thought came to me that maybe I have to work through the anxiety and panic attack in order to get to the other side and finally be in a solid, loving relationship. Then I thought "who would I want to do that for? Who is worth going through that for?" Travis immediately came to my mind.
 I had already wanted to call him and talk to him, since we pretty much have been in an emotional relationship for years, just not physical. I was already use to sharing everything with Travis and talking to him through my problems. So I called him and shared with him everything, even that thought process. We decided to meet up for lunch that day, in the middle of Corvallis where he lives, and Portland where I work. We hung out for hours, talking and lightly cuddling. At the end he asked me if I would be up to going on a date to see how it would feel, and I accepted.
 Since I already said we are together, obviously it went great. It feels very natural, and I already know he is the guy I'm going to marry, he knows this too. Not hard to guess since way before we even started dating we had already planed out our house and how we would raise our children...

 So I am still working on my healing, still working on dealing with my physical damage and trying to heal and come back from that. Currently working 50-60 hours a week between my two jobs, and filling my free time with projects, sowing, painting, sketching, as well as lots of reading and some video games. Heh... Life...
 Last year I would of never imaged myself in this place or going through all of this, the good and the bad, but here I am, and I am still fighting and pushing forward.

That's life...

 Found some gnarly wounds on Tiger, the new bunny, the other day. They are too healed to have came from Lily, plus one is a long deep scratch and Lilly's claws have never been sharp enough to even slightly break the thinnest of my skin so I know for sure that she could not of caused that type of damage on Tiger who has really thick fur. I called the place I got her from yesterday to let them know that I was very displeased that they missed that (well at the time I only found one out of the current 3 that I've found so far). They had no clue and didn't offer any really help on the fact that they sold me a damaged rabbit that should of had stitches for some of these wounds.
 So she's been shaved in the areas where the wounds are, so I can keep a better eye on them and easily clean them every day. Poor girl, luckily her hair is long enough that it's not too noticeable that she has some bare spots. On top of that fall future face to face meetings between her and Lily are on hold until her wounds are healed because I don't want to chance something happening and them getting reopened. So I now have a big fence separating my room in half so both of my bunnies can be free and running around, and hopefully with them getting to see each other all the time through the cage but unable to fight will help them get on better grounds. It seems to be going good so far.

 I went home for Easter, and I had a three day weekend because I have Monday and Tuesdays off. It was so nice to be home with the family, I've really missed them, and they are telling me I need to move back. Heh, I would love to but I moved here so I could have all my social activities that I love and be closer to more of my friends, both things that I was lacking big time in HR.
 I had a wonderful Easter weekend, the fam went skiing, I got in two motorcycle rides, one on my FZ6 which we just sold and the other on my new Ducati which we just registered today. The family loves my bunnies, Tiger the most though, which I can't blame them too much for because she is very sweet and much more playful then Lilly, who takes some time getting to know and understand how to play with.

 I got back home today and have been borderline breakdown for the rest of the day, but I've managed to keep myself busy, cleaning and organizing my room, although it needs more work and of course getting it duel bunny ready with the two different living areas for each of my loves (they bunnies) Heh.
 Reason for this is because Erik has canceled our laser tag plans that we were going to do before he moved, and it just really enforced my worry that although we say we're going to stay friends and keep in contact, that that is total bull shit and just a nice sweet white lie and that we will really just fade away. Which I really don't like the idea of that happening and it makes this harder realizing that there probably isn't any actual future of any kind of relationship for us. :(  yep that's a sad face. I was really looking forward to have at least one last good, fun time with him before that whole fading away thing happened and now it seems I don't even get that, my last memories of him are going to be of awkward, painful silence, neither of us wanting to bring up what we knew we needed to.
 I guess that's life though.

Finalization

 Erik and I did talk, we didn't go over everything on my silly long list but it wasn't needed. Nothing has changed in our situation, we have decide that we are choosing the right option. I am sad but I do feel a lot better about it now. I'm really going to miss that guy, although we will still be friends and talk he will still be 5 hours away, but then again if he wasn't we wouldn't be just friends.

 I got another bunny today... I haven't figured out a name for her yet, but she is an all black mini lop, so she is a bit bigger then Lily. They had a good first meeting but then it turned south... it seems we (the bunnies and I) are going to have a long slow process of bonding them together. I'm sure they will work out well in the end though, I just have to make sure they don't fight anymore, so probably for the next few weeks this blog will turn into a bunny filled "Lily did this today and ___?___ didn't like it..." don't worry other bunny owners I am keeping them separate most of the time expect for a few supervised moments.

Trying to communicate

My letter to Erik...  Too much? Probably, will it change anything? Probably not, which it is not intended to, just to make sure we really are making the best decision. I realize that most people will think if it probably wont change anything then why even prolong this and drag it out? Normally I wouldn't want to, and I didn't want to at all at the beginning, I wanted us to move on cleaning and smoothly, but I also never realized how much it actually would affect me and how much I really was loosing by letting him go.Although it probably won't change anything by talking more about this, it at least will make me feel better and be alright with the choice that we made.

Alright here is the actual message I sent him today:

" Right now because we haven’t really talked about all of our options and what it would actually take to make it work to continue and do a long distance relationship and if either of us could handle that, I feel like we are just choosing the easiest option and throwing away a good relationship. Now logically I realize we probably did make the right choice but without really talking about all our options I don’t feel for sure about it anymore. I would really like us to talk about this a little bit, either over the phone, through messages of facebook, e-mail, text, in person would be best but I get the feeling that I won’t get to see you now before you leave so whatever works best.

 The things I think we should both think about and add our thoughts and input to are:

 Say we did decide to do the long distance thing, what would it really take for use to make it work?

  Right now I think it would take really making sure we keep a good line of communication open and total honesty, maybe making sure we specifically check in with each other say every other week with the main goal to see how each other is feeling about the relationship and how it is going, to see if there are things we can be doing to make it easier for the both of us or to see if it really isn’t working and talk about the possibilities of ending it.

 Another possibility is the idea of doing a “test run” which would basically be the above but really make sure we check in regularly with each other to see if it is work and finding out what the other person is feeling and needing, because in all honestly we can’t be for sure about how it is going to affect us until we try it.

 Things to think about and even talk about is how do each of us feel about possibly only getting to see each other about 4-6 days a month and probably really only in the evenings?

 For me this is the one that bugs me the most out of all. I don’t know if I can handle that, because I find that with too much time apart I can sometimes feel like I’m not actually cared about, or at least I have this last week, but I don’t think I can really compare this last week to the future. Some say love grows stronger with separation… I feel like it grows weaker. But I also think about the fact that it’s not forever, and right now I’m seeing if I can get back into school this fall, so possibly by the fall I’d have regular weekends once again, and at the very least I know I’m not going to be happy working where I am right now and if not in school by the fall I’ll be looking for another job with better hours and working days.

 Would we be happier staying together or would we in the end be happier separate and ending up dating someone closer to where we live?

 I don’t know. I thought the second option was it, but now that we have separated and it has really became clear to me what I’m losing, I’m not sure anymore. I haven’t known anyone else that I’ve clicked with so easily and so quickly, with a few words through a text you can make me beam like a silly little school girl. You’ve been so helpful to me these last few months which have been extremely stressful on me financially, and emotionally since I found out that I was living with a sex offender who sexually abused a little girl. You are truly, very dear to my heart and I feel bad that you haven’t gotten to see much of my normal usually ridiculously happy, loving life self because I haven’t felt like my normal self with those other issues going on and I’ve been annoyed that they have taken away what should have been total “honeymoon” beginning new relationship everything should be ridiculous happy few months. We did get some of that but no were near as much as we would of normally and that has always saddened me since I first realized it because I felt robbed of that. I know you said it didn’t bother you and you don’t judge me on things like that, but I’m sure you’ve felt it and that it has affected you in some way. I want you to know that although I never really came out and said it I do love you, and you are so dear to my heart and I’ve felt so blessed to have you in my life.

Could either of us handle knowing we let go of a good relationship and finding out the other person is dating someone new?

Haha I thought about this last night, it’s a silly thing to consider but in all reality it will affect us rather we want it to or not, the question though is how much will it affect us?

 Anyways that’s it that I have for you right now, please add to it, any other concerns you have, other thoughts, other options I didn’t come up with.

I am sorry to draw this out, I didn’t want to and if it hadn’t been for my dang mom I would of let it go as it was, but at least for me it does feel right to really talk about it."

Lack of Communication

Communication, the biggest reason why I chose Erik over all the other guys I was socially "dating" at the time. He had the best communication with me and honesty, so much so that it really helped me trust him on a much faster level then what it normally takes. Right now at the end of things, hell this whole last week communication has been what we've been lacking, one of our strongest qualities in this relationship and it's been amiss this last week, and I feel even more right now. Yesterday we agreed to talk more about our decision to make sure we weren't just making the easy choice and not necessarily the best choice. Which made me feel so much better knowing we were actually going to really talk it out and figure out what is really the best option for us right now, and he seemed pretty sure like that was the best thing to do too. Last night though all I got was a "Nope, I think we made the right choice."
 I wish I knew what happened, only a few weeks ago he was so positive that we could totally make the long distance thing work. I was so sure that when I brought up to him how I was feeling about it he was going to be right there to reassure me that it'll be fine, that yes it might be hard every now and then but that we could totally do it... man was I wrong. I didn't expect this, and I didn't expect us to let it go so easily and quickly, I really did think we would spend more time actually discussing it and finding out what was really best for both of us.

 I hate the way we are going out...

 I don't feel so sad anymore, at least not teary and weepy like I was two nights ago. More so then anything now I'm annoyed, I wish I knew what happened and why the change in heart...

The loss of someone

Funny how the loss of someone, something makes you realize what you really had. Although I am exhausted and have been for the last few hours now, I don't want to go to sleep because once I wake up in the morning it will be real, truly, completely real. Part of me wants to scream and rage and shake him and tell him he was suppose to reassure me and tell me "of course we will make it work, we can totally do this" on the other hand it is nice to know that I wasn't the only one feeling like we were fading apart this last week, that it really wasn't just me and my commitment issues pushing him away, that there really was a legitimate reason besides me being a weak link. A part of me wants to run to him and reassure him that we can make it work that we can do this...
 I'm sad that we had such a short time together. We match so well, and got along wonderfully, in other circumstances I'm sure we would of had some amazing adventures together. And I'm sad that our last days together were pretty blah and of both of us not wanting to bring up what we were feeling and yet unsure of what to do. I wish they would of been amazing and full of joy and laughter so that we could of at least parted ways on that kind of note, with memories of smiles and fun times together.
 I've told him that if you can he should come here Thursday of Friday evening once I'm done with work and we can go play some laser tag and maybe have a bottle of wine afterwards that way we can part with happier memories. I hope he accepts.

Bittersweet Changes

 I finally sucked it up and brought my concerns to Erik, who as I found out, was feeling the same. That although we both care dearly for each other a long distance relationship would not work out right now especially since we would have different weekends with our work, so even when we would be able to see each other one of us would be working so it would only be for a moment in the morning and a few hours in the evening before we passed out. We both noticed that we were feeling farther apart from each other this week. It is good to know I wasn't alone in these feelings but this change is bittersweet. I have lost my lover but I am keeping my friend, even if he is moving 5 hours away.