Learn from Your Mistakes

Last night I spent about an hour with JDK at his house (my old house). There was a rather glaringly odd normalcy about it all. Like he was just a normal person and not some hugely selfish, passive aggressive asshole. He fixed my bike and he was quit nice.  Very NORMAL.  Did I mention how "regular guy" he was?

Of course that gets my thoughts to churning......Maybe he is just a normal guy and the dynamics of OUR relationship were just really effed up for a number of reasons.  MAYBE....he doesn't treat her the way he treated me at all.  MAYBE he could of been a fine mate had we ever been able to change that dynamic that we were entrenched in from very early on?  Maybe he really has learned to treat people better?

(note to self: talk to Lauren about how he treated his first wife.  Ask her if she thinks he treated her different than he treated me.)

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking.........Where did I go wrong? Where is the lesson? What should I learn from all this? How could I have been smarter? Why does the whole situation continue to sit and fester in my soul? 

When I was dating JDK it all seemed fine at first, dare I say even wonderful, but that quickly faded away (like one month) due to some odd behavior on his part.  I know now, that it was because of the other woman. At the time I only knew that I sensed something was off.  I asked him about it and he brushed it off with some logical excuse.  I bought the excuse and proceeded on in the relationship even though I certainly knew it wasn't quite right.

Months passed quickly and we continued to see each other.  In the long run I believe both of us stuck around due to lack of other options not because we were all that enamored with each other.  I KNOW I thought to myself "well I can sit home alone or hang out with him and I don't really want to be home alone."

LESSON >>> Looking back I put up with less than ideal treatment from him because I just didn't want to be alone.  At the time I felt dating him was harmless distraction but it was really setting a precedence of how low he could go and I would put up with it.

Later when I found out I was pregnant, he was not AT ALL on board with me keeping the baby.  At that point I wanted one thing and he wanted another.  I continued to put up with crap from him for the baby's sake. I should have had better boundaries.  I should have put his negative presence out of my life.

LESSON >>> we were at odds and I kept "trying" to make it work.  I should have just realized that we had opposing goals and could not be on the same team!

Being flexible and "spackling" are things I learned from my parents so I could get along in an abusive (or at least dysfunctional) relationship and it actually served me well as a kid where I had no choice but to hang in there because, hey, you can't just go out and get a different set of parents.  But in the long run it taught me to accept things that aren't healthy for me.  Most "healthy" people would have chosen to stay home alone over hanging out with a guy who was acting rather jenky.  Most normal people would have said "hey asshole...if you aren't on board with me having this baby than you can just go piss-off"

Standing up for what I believe in and having faith in my own judgment is an ongoing project for me.  Asking for what I need in life can really be a challenge for me; hell I frequently don't even know I am supposed to much less how to.  I am starting to realize how being agreeable and getting along have set me up for failure because I am not sticking to my own core beliefs or meeting my own needs which in the long run it is setting me up for failure because in the end I won't be "OK" with the outcome even though I am the one who kept walking down the wrong road.

Does that make sense?

Sometimes I think I confuse betraying myself with being agreeable and getting along.  Sometimes I confuse being selfish with being true to yourself.  You can be true to yourself without being selfish.  You can stick up for what you believe in without being a self centered jerk.  I think I struggle with these concepts.

It's Just Hair

Last night I was watching TV with Beanie and she was nagging me about getting her hair cut.   Usually, in the spring, I get the dogs hair all mowed down and I get me and The Bean a trim for summer.  We both have long, no style, just hanging there hair.  She actually has beautiful long straight hair that anyone would be jealous of.  Mine, well it is old with gray roots half the time.

Anyway, I decided to give her the instant gratification she so desired and cut her hair myself.  I mean she is a kid, how hard can it be?  She doesn't NEED a salon hair cut!  It is just a trim, no styling required.

So I put her up on a stool in the kitchen and found my best pair of scissors.

Saving the details lets just say that at some point I realized that I should stop while I was ahead and call in a professional to fix my CHOP job.  No matter what I tried it just did NOT look nice.

Really I should know better.  I have always had hair anxiety.  I have always hated my hair cuts even when done by a professional.  For some reason cutting hair stresses me out more than it should.  It always has.  All my life I would go in for a trim of my long, straight, do-nothing hair and leave the salon FREAKING OUT because, hey, getting two inches cut off is akin to going bald.

My point is I am crazy and it's not rational but hair stresses me out.

Lucky for me she was THRILLED.  She loved her hair cut; told me it was fine and didn't need fixing.  When I dropped her at school this morning she was beaming with pride as her friends all admired her new hair cut.  Her hair had been so beautifully long, about down to the top of her pants but now it is just below her shoulders.  Thankfully it grows really fast.

I left school in a panic to reach my stylist and old running buddy Terry to fix her hair ASAP!

I also phoned her dad to fill him in on the drama.  I think more than anything I was having anxiety and needed to talk to someone.  He seemed like a good target.

The hair conversation went well and he was kind and supportive and just glad I was taking care of her.  He even offered to pay for the haircut (in lieu of child support I suppose).  But that led to us talking about my personality and the things that make me tick, which of course he is now (for some reason) interested in and thinking about and actually telling me things like "I never realized how much your ADD effected our relationship" and stuff like that.

Long story short we had a very nice, very real, conversation and he seemed like a decent guy who wasn't being a manipulative jack ass.

I truly believe he is sorry for how he treated me and is trying to be a better person.  I also believe that he hasn't had a character transplant and deep down he is still selfish and manipulative.  But I do believe he is finally recognizing some of his faults and working to overcome them. 

After the professional fixed my chop job.