First off, I'm 24 years of age. This isn't the "I was with them for a whole month and THEY BROKE MY HEEEAAAAAART!!!!!". I'd like to think the situation is a little bit more unique than that. I know and understand fully that relationships end every day. Relationships that may have last a few hours to many, many years. In my mind I know this and know it well. I've seen it happen many times over with friends, family and complete strangers.
Each one has their own story. Many of those stories I found filled with mistrust, rage, hatred, ignorance, confusion. I've never heard of one ending the way mine did. This day and age the way the whole world overreacts, fights, screams and places blame on everyone but themselves; I consider it a rarity the way my story happened.
So me and this woman whom I still have nothing but pure respect for. A deep love for. She's my friend. We've been friends for over twelve years now. The friendship did not fade; not at all. Our love however came to a soft, sudden stop. At least I'd like to think it ended like that. For me it was a hurdling plane falling from the sky with both engines on fire and the pilot had just ended his life with a blow to the head.
What I need to try and do is explain the situation. Wholly. Not leave out any detail; maybe help better understand what's going on and where each side is coming from. But it'll be hard to do that. Details will be left out; things I did not think to mention. For this I apologize in advance.
I guess this is how it'll start.
Coming up on March 1st would have been our forth year of being together in this sense. We started talking a few years back; more about the stories and books we were working or wanted to work on. Designs of things, videogames, movies, music. You know. The stuff friends usually talk about. Then we started flirting, confiding even more within each other. There was a rule though when we started flirting; no attachments. Maybe that would send red flags up for people. It didn't for me. It was only a rule. We could flirt and talk dirty all we wanted and there were no strings attached. But then it happened. One of us uttered the phrase "I think I'm falling in love with you." That would be me. Remorseless and carefree when it came to the rules of life. Turns out she was developing the same feelings.
I visit once; stay for a week. Get a feel for the place. Texas is hotter than hell on your first trip there. It also didn't help that there was some sort of weird cedar fire that had controlled the air in the area. This trip took a good four or five months to make. I couldn't get time off work and my financial situation at home was in dire straits. I was feeding my brother and sister, my mother was addicted to coke and who the fuck knows where my dad went in all of his spare time. But at work they'd forced me to a four ten hour day schedule. And when they had done this it gave me a good five days off. I'd two pay checks in the bank, a good chunk of cash in my pocket at this point in time. I called her, we made plans to meet, I drove from Maryland to Texas in less than 24 hours.
It was a good few days. We talked a lot. About nothing, really. We just passed the hours talking to one another; I showed her some WoW, she brought me some art to see. Literature was discussed while movies were thought about. During the week we made love. Both of us being our first time. So of course things didn't go smoothly at all; the condom broke, it was awkward for the both of us during the process and I had a day to head back home. But we didn't regret that moment.
Eventually I was able to move down there about a year later after recovering from a car crash caused by a cop at three in the morning sitting partly in the highway on a curvy up hill embankment. When I get there my job from Home Depot was supposed to follow. Not at all. I had applied to have my job transfered and HR had told me it all went smooth. So when I went to put in my final day I'm pulled aside and informed the transfer didn't happen at all. The woman had a month to tell me and she tells me on the last possible day. Plans were already in motion. I had to get the fuck out of dodge and head south.
Finally arriving at my destination VIA plane, I get out at the lobby with my two massive suit cases and laptop satchel. She's there to meet me, we discuss the situation even more for the day. I try very hard to find work. I apply every where: McDonald's, restaurants, lawn services, computer work, groceries, Home Depot, Lowes. I put out more applications my first month here than I ever have my entire life.
I gain a job at a restaurant. Owned by a super pissed off man and his wife. Apparently the man used to make more in a week in his construction job than he did an entire month at the restaurant. I cut my self there fairly well one day and when I asked for a first aid kit to mend my wounds I was literally laughed at and told he didn't have one because no one gets cut. This much was obviously a lie. So I get a first aid kit from m'lady, who is concerned because it isn't bringing in enough cash at all. I'm working 40 hours a week at minimum wage. Eventually another chef in the place ends up cutting himself and they confiscate my first aid kit for use. They said they would pay me back and never did. After a while the business shut down. He drove off customers; he hated the pen and paper role players who would come in and order food while playing D&D or Shadowrun or whatever piece of literature they had for rules.
This process goes on a few times. Places I'd get work at would just go under. Jobs vanished and you were lucky to get a 'good bye' before they booted you to the curb. Our original plan was for me to get a steady job and move into an apartment. The work force was against that so me and her ended up staying in her parent's house which they rented to us for 800 a month after they had moved out.
For the last year I've had difficulty maintaining work. I'd get a job some where and a few months down the road the job is suddenly gone, doesn't exist and doesn't offer unemployment. Shit sucks. Bad toss of dice, saddle up and ride again. I had landed a job at a computer shop for some time; now keep in mind I'm a lousy people person. We would have customers come in and buy AMD motherboards with an Intel processor and then give me a story they've been building computers for umpteen years only to come back and scream at me they wasted X amount of money and I should have told them that it wouldn't work. I did tell those people. They never listened.
Work there lasted for eight months. It was a mom and pop shop. Two of the greatest people I've ever had the luxury of working for. Good people. The only problem with the store was the financial drain. When I first got the job there I was informed it was either feast or famine. More often than not it was famine. So after the eight months mom and pop pulled me aside and said junior had to make his house else where.
During these eight months I'm easily agitated. Needlessly so. It's just a trait I've had my entire life that always drove myself insane. I didn't like being angry or annoyed all the time; the few times we tried medication it did nothing to stave or control either. So during these eight months the money is okay. I'm sort of careless with it. Me and her bicker some what. Nothing major. We're just stressed because both of us are too tired to take care of the house and it more or less started churning itself into a wreck neither of us wanted to touch. So we would just go to the computer room, play our games and talk with our friends until we could barely stay awake.
But for the last year, since things started slipping, our life style, how we cared for our selves, what we did, everything started to change and she just started to lose emotion for the relationship. I only say that because I can't for the life of me figure out how to properly say it. She stopped caring? No. She started hating? No. She wanted to break up? Not for a long time, no. It's hard to put it to words. So for the last year she was waiting for a change. She told me she wasn't sure what kind of change. Even when the money was going good it was still rough on her. She'd felt loved, adored and respected. But there was something wrong that she couldn't quite place her finger on.
A few things we have derived would be my temper. She was never afraid of me in that essence. But she wasn't raised around that. My anger was never directed at her nor any harsh tone toward her either; it had just always made her feel very uncomfortable. I grew up in a house where yelling and roaring were expected every single day. The days it didn't happen were pretty good, but usually involved some member of the house hold not being there. I really can't blame all of my needless rage on that, but it didn't help any.
One of the other things would be that I am, and we are, still some what child like. She's 25 and I'm 24. But how did we deal with things? We crawled into our respective corners and waited for a better day tomorrow. Only problem is tomorrow never came. We'd squander resources and time just to feel better; just for a temporary kick.
Only she did it much less than I did. Our bills were being paid, sure; but it was always unnerving. Of course after my few months without work that kind of behavior had stopped all together. If it had stopped sooner we would have had a little extra set aside for this. Making it some what easier. In her defense, she had a bad feeling coming and started to recede from that mentality before I had.
Her main concern; one I can respect and in hind-sight I see it flawlessly: I was becoming like her father and some other unsavory gentlemen we know. Basically they all had hit a slump like mine and had given up. They'd sit around the house, do nothing, consume food and beverage. My saving grace? My transformation would have taken decades. While I didn't keep the house clean or even bother to touch it; I did keep up with some very minor things. Cleaning dishes; taking out trash; doing laundry every so often. Even then I wasn't top notch with the dishes. The laundry was done once all clothing options were exhausted.
There have been many, many errors. I know. I know full well. I look back and at the time I was letting so much little stress get to me that I eventually lost sight of the big picture. I was trying so hard to find a steady form of work; but like I said, every place just kept shrinking or disappearing off the face of the map all together. This of course essentially lead to me starting to lose hope of finding work, this lead to me becoming some what mopey, slightly depressed.
The current situation is this: The break up had happened on the 11th. I'm forcing myself to better control my anger. I have taken work back at Subway once more on minimum wage and thus the cycle begins where a good deal of my rage can be generated. In fact any day I go in I know I'll be angry. The boss doesn't pay the full time you've worked, I'm the only one there who isn't snorting coke, drinking, or getting high in the back of the store. I once worked two straight weeks in a row. Eight hour days each day. 8 x 7 = 56 hours. 56 x 7 (Minus the full pay of 7.50 and the time and a half I should have received) = 386. Now do the math once more: 392 + 392 = 784. Then we minus the 33% that Uncle Sam devours and you get 526. Well, 526 give or take some change.
Keep in mind the 526 is without the time and a half, without the extra fifty cents. This is just using 7 as the base number to keep everything nice and even. The check I had received for all of that came in at only 498. After I got my check I called the guy. He said I had only five eight hour shifts. That he didn't know I worked those other days. EVEN THOUGH HE REQUESTED ME TO WORK THOSE DAYS PERSONALLY.
I had quit this job. You could say that there was a one month relay where I had found work again. However, after the night manager had shoved me and threatened to kick my ass, I had to quit. I'd called the cops because the guy had a record and figured I didn't want to get stabbed. Cops show up and basically tell me to grow up and get a new job. 911 wasn't dialed, either. I had called the non-emergency "We break up fights" police. I figured it was warranted as he had a history of doing this sort of thing.
Cops told me to grow up and get a new job.
This place is the ultimate training ground to control my anger. To learn how to properly harness it with my self to control it. Lord knows I didn't want to come back to this job ever again. But here I am needing money badly. Taking whatever comes my way. And as the owner of this franchise is a major fucking tweaker, he took me back almost instantly because one of the other employees who had started the fight between me and the manager had come in drunk throwing beer bottles.
I'd like to say this solves two issues. But I know the money is lousy and will not cover any bills as I try and move into a new place. In fact, I can't get an apartment at all because of this job. There are some people who can create false documents for me that say I make X amount a month, but I'm not sure I trust them enough. Not to mention I am authentically worried of paying my bills and keeping up with my medication. Being diabetic for life sort of puts a 40-80 dollar membership fee over your head if you want to live.
And I'm not sure if I'd mentioned it before; but we do talk to each other on and off. I've been giving her all the room in the world. We would smile, cry and try to care for each other. We talk how time and a little space may bring us close again. Then we discuss how it's just a possibility and not to put too much of ourselves into those words. But it's so hard for me to not hope and try to better everything after hearing that kind of thing.
She has a much larger support group of friends she can talk to to help relieve some of the stress from her life, to help her deal with the situation at hand. Have good times. Unfortunately I never had that luxury. My very few friends are few and far between; we're never around to talk to each other for more than a few moments really and I haven't really befriended anyone since my move here. So this leads to something of filling the depression even more. The few people I've talked to around here, trying to receive advice from co-workers per-chance, have all suggested the same things. Clubs, beer, pot. I don't like any of those things at all. Beer just tastes bitter sweet, the few times I tried herb I was only hungry, and I get so bored at clubs I tend to bring my laptop if I'm absolutely forced to one.
I think I may have strayed from the point. I'm not sure any more.
But in some sort of hope, I guess I turn to you guys. Some where in my mind I know what's correct and how to move on and continue to be strong. I keep telling my self this. But it doesn't seem to go any where. My heart is screaming like a caged banshee and no one's listening it seems. Each day I try to stave off the depression. Take the dog for a jog, clean the house some, play videogames. But as soon as any of those activities are over I go back to the same state again.
Do any of you know how to properly deal with this? I know it's a long read and for that I'm sorry. But I've got a feeling I'd still left a lot of detail out. Any help would be appreciated.
