So, I met this guy at work and thought he was cute or whatever. One night, I stayed later than I normally would, like I'd been cut for a while and was just hanging out. Me and said guy found ourselves sitting alone at the bar. I was nervous to start a conversation, but he took the wheel (funny because he didn't have a car). He told me he got paid to write articles or some shit and he had recently written one about manatees. Cool. I still don't really understand what exactly the articles were for (Google or something. I don't know). Fast forward a few days and I found out he didn't have his own ride to work. This man was ALWAYS an hour late. Every. Damn. Day. I was like, what is this guy's deal? Like, how the fuck does he still work here? Turns out, he was taking taxi's to work (that's why he was always so late), and our manager was taking him home at night. That night, I decided, "Hey, he really doesn't live too far from where I live and I want to spend more time with him, so why don't I take him home?" So, I did and we just sat in the car outside of his apartment and talked for hours. A few nights later, he invited me inside. Unimportant, but I just find it interesting: he lived with his mom's boyfriend who just so happened to a guy he went to high school with. Moving on. He showed me his room and then we sat out on the balcony together and he brought out his ukulele and started to sing to me. That was nice. Side note: my ex, this guy, and me allll worked at the same place. My ex was not working for a reason I can't remember and isn't really important to this story. BUT ANYWAY, it was Mother's Day. One of the busiest days for restaurant workers. I was already stressed. On the way to work, he had the idea to stop and get doughnuts for everyone, since we were running late. We get to work and everything is fine. Then, the guy comes around the corner to tell that my ex was there. Jesus Fucking Christ. So, we're open. I'm getting death stares from my ex who had just found out me and the guy were together AND the whole computer system fucking crashed. Why me? I felt bad for my ex. I could feel his pain. Things didn't end well between us. We weren't healthy for each other, so I decided to end things. I was his longest lasting relationship. I digress. Over the next few weeks, we hang out at his mom's house. She's a but odd, loved to talk...a lot, and was a bit messy, but whatever. Who am I to judge, right? I spent the night a few times. The ride home was down a long deer infested road at night. No, thanks. My mom wasn't thrilled, but she'd rather me be somewhere safe than out on the road, by myself, at night, with murderous deer. We slept in the living room on an average sized couch. We could both KIND OF fit. I fell off one night, so he offered to sleep in the chair. Aww. You know what's weird? Our cats looked almost identical and his birthday is my lucky/favorite number. The universe was giving me signs and I was picking them right on up. I would only spend a few nights out of the week there. I NEED to get good sleep (I got tested for seizures when I was younger since my mom had a problem with them. Turns out, if I don't get enough sleep and I'm exposed to flashing or strobing lights, guess what? I'm fucking out). I. Need. Good. Sleep. Otherwise, I'll die or pass out. Fast forward to I don't even know how long. We'll say a few months. I'm coming over more and he has moved off of the couch (oh, I forgot to say that his mom and the boyfriend broke up and he kicked him (the guy out, shit in trash bags, so that was why we weren't hanging out at the apartment) and was in an actual bedroom with a good sized bed. Things seem good. Fast forward again. He gets fired from our shared job. He started working at a sushi place downtown (Fun fact: one of my other exes used to work at the same place). I stay at the job. Money's not that great. I'd been for a few years and hadn't been given a raise, so I decide to get another job...downtown. It's a fancier restaurant, but fucking Darlene. (Speacial shoutout to Darlene). Like I said not even a minute ago, I had been working as a restaurant host for years. I knew my shits...still fucking do. But Darlene acted like I knew nothing. I'm not stupid. Most, if not all of this shit is common sense. (Oh, get this shit. So, when I applied to work there, the manager asked if I'd done this sort of thing before. Uh, yeah...FUCKING YEARSSS. He told me that I was going to be getting paid more than the othe hosts because of my experience, but that I couldn't tell anyone...sketchy). Waaay off track, but I hated Darlene and the stuck up customers there. So, since we were both working downtown, we were together all the time. Skip ahead. I think he got fired from the sushi place and wanted to back to a job he had a long time ago working at a Thai and sushi place. He was working there and by this time, I was pretty much done with both of my jobs, so he told me that the owner of the Thai place wanted me to work over there as a host. Better pay. That's what's important. He told me I'd be more work than what I was used to. More money = more responsibility. Cool, I get that. Bitch, hold on. So, at the host job that I had been at for years, they begged me to move to serving or to-go's and I said fuck no. I know I'm not going to like it. Pass. Hard pass. I'm comfy where I am. So, at the Thai restaurant on my first fucking day, mind you. He told me it wouldn't be that busy. My ass. My trainer got too busy and had to leave me to handle to-go orders by myself and the owner's husband. (Plot twist, I'm the host and I have to work to-go's. Yay. I cried a lot that day. I didn't want to go back. It was literally the worst first day I've ever had. But he begged me to come back, so I did. On the weekends, the guy and another guy that we'd both become friends with worked at their second store...right across the street from where my first host job was. I remember it was around Christmas time and the music for the restaurant was played through Spotify. Christmas time = Christmas music. I would put on vintage Christmas music and everyone really liked it, but on the first Sunday of the season, I put on the oldies Christmas music like usual and the bosses husband came over and told me to play Christian music. Not my thing. Meanwhile, I'm getting texts from the guy saying him and our friend are having a great time over at the other store. They get to play whatever kind of music they want. The second store was also waaay slower than the one I was at. He kept saying that after Christmas, I would be moving to the other store with him. I hated being myself there. The boss said I had to stay two more weeks and I needed more training. I really didn't think I was going to make it that long. (Oh, I forgot to mention that I quit the job downtown and had gone to pick-up only at the first host job, but I wasn't picking up any shifts, sooo. Also, the guy had moved out of his mom's and in with my manager from the first host job). Eventually, I was moved over to the other store. It was slower...kind of. It was up on the north end of town, so the customers were uptight and thought they were better than you and EVERYONE knew the owner and thought that by mentioning that, they would get their feet kissed or something. Like, good for you. When it was slow it was REALLY slow, but when we were busy, we were fucking busy. I also had to do to-go's all by myself. All alone. The guy was serving(and a manager), so when he was busy, he couldn't stop to help me. And if he had to go to the bathroom and people walked in for dine-in, guess what? I had to greet them and get their drink orders and shit. He yelled at me A LOT and I cried A LOT. But damn, I really miss those $1,000 paychecks. I guess by default, I was also a manager so, I was just working on my resumee bit by bit at this job. I hated it there. I kind of liked doing to-go's by myself, but damn, shit was stressful. So, to break it down, I had to seat people, take orders (including Door Dash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. The first location only had two of the three), serve tables when the guy was at his limit, count the money at the end of the night, stock to-go's, feed the fish, unlock and lock the doors, take calls, always be able to answer the phone (if I didn't answer the phone at the second store right away, even I was up to my eyes with shit and literally losing my mind, it would transfer over to the owner's Bluetooth and I'd get in trouble), AND have a mental breakdown. This was all uncharted territory for me (except answering a store phone and hosting shit) and it was all happening at once. I'm honestly an absolute nightmare and I'm surprised I'm still as sane as I am today. The owner liked him (she liked me, but she said I was "slow"...whatever) enough to offer us a little house on a piece of land over on the north side of town. I'd heard stories about where they lived and how much money they had and how in Thailand both her and her parents (who were the sushi chef and kitchen chef at the second store) were basically millionaires. I was dumb and imagined a good little house in a nice neighborhood. Nope. It was on the north end by a rich neighborhood, but it was a little cottage, I guess, on a compound. It was us in the tiniest house, the kitchen manager from the first location in the big house, and two kitchen workers in a slightly bigger house. All on the same property with the same address. (I keep forgetting things, but backstory, the people that were running the second store, lived in the little house first and they were GROSS, like seriously, ew. Anyway, they were stealing money from the store and they got caught, packed up, and left. So, we (the guy, I just came along with him) were asked to come in and try and fix things) Time goes on, I have some downtime at work to start drawing more and I got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas and I was playing Animal Crossing every chance I got. That part was cool. Everything else can fuck off. We were both working twelve hour days and were spending every single minute of every single say together, since I had pretty much unofficially moved in. I was there for six months. Every day, when we were slow, I would look out the window at the first host job across the street and thought about my ex and how I broke up with him. I thought about him a lot. In February of a couple years ago, we went on a very well planned trip to Florida for a week. First, we would spend three days at Disney World (Day One: Magic Kingdom on Valentine's Day because how fucking cute is that? Day Two: Hollywood Studios. Day Three: EPCOT. After that, we'd go to St. Augustine to chill for a day or two before heading back home. Spoiler Alert: when he got his job back at the Thai place, he told the owner he would need a week off in February. When asked why, he told her he was going to propose (he went back in November ish). He said he was going to do it on the Haunted Mansion, since it's my favorite thing ever, but decided against it because it's a dark ride. Plus, it would've been on Valentine's Day, so that would've been pretty lame. So, instead he carried the ring around with him (don't even get me started on the ring. He said I said I wanted that RING. I infact, did not. But what do I know). After Hollywood Studios, we went to Disney Springs and ate a restaurant built like an old steamboat. The food was alright, nothing too special. We were sitting down eating the rolls and I was texting my sister. As I was distracted, this man took a roll, hollowed it out and put the ring inside of the roll. All I could think of was the scene from the Little Rascals where Alfalfa puts the fucking Cracker Jack ring in the Snowball to give to Darla (I didn't bite down on it). I could very obviously could see it. When he asked (I don't remember what he said exactly), I had a thought in the back of my mind to say no. I don't know. I feel like I'm open to change, but the big life steps always seem a bit uncomfortable and unreal to me. Like, this can't really be happening to me. It's almost like I have an out of body experience. I don't know. It just feels really weird to me. But I said yes and that was that. I was engaged. We went on about our Florida trip. I waited maybe a day or so to tell my mom. I wasn't sure exactly how or when to tell her. Anyway, we get back home and around Father's Day, we quit the job and I went back to my first host job and he went to work at a bar and grill. Both were close to our house and we had a new kitten. (Back story: I hadn't met anyone in my previous ex's family. Exes from before, yeah, I'd met their families, but I hadn't really gotten to know them that well). This guy's family (dad's side) LOVED me. I liked them, they were all very nice to me, but I loved his dad. I still do and I miss him. They were all very happy that were engaged and that he was finally getting married (he's in his early thirties at this point and he been engaged before, but obviously, it didn't work out). Months passed and I always had second thoughts, but I couldn't figure out if they were my intuition trying to tell me something or just nerves. Hmm. I get started planning for the wedding. In the meantime, he has manic episodes and has all of these ideas: glass cutting, starting a Facebook store, gardening, growing weed, building a cat tree, wanting to build a hot tub off the four foot tall back deck, buying thrifted items and selling them online...just things. He would also get VERY depressed. One time, he got so depressed that he didn't work for two months. I had to support us off of my little host salary. I found out later that he got fired from the bar and grill for not showing up or something (word from the wise everyone knows everything about everyone in the restaurant business). Eventually, he got himself back to normal and got a job at a Japanese steakhouse. Because he hadn't worked for months and money was tight AND we had a wedding to pay for, he got my reluctant "ok" to take out a pretty big loan out in my name (his credit was absolute shit). I've never been good at math and math goes hand in hand with money. I've never understood money. I'm not bad with my money; I know how to fucking save. Keeping that in mind, taking out a loan and everything about the loan made no sense to me at all. But he did it and it'll take me for fucking ever to pay it off, but anyway. The payment for the venue is taken care of from the loan, along with bills, and a unnecessary, but fun weekend trip to Florida (not a good idea). I don't tell my mom about the loan. This whole time, I had my ex in the back of my mind. I kept playing out our relationship in my head over and over again. It's torture. I cried pretty much all the time. It didn't help that the guy would explode one minute over something that upset him and then act like nothing happened a minute later. It also didn't help that I would see him every day at work. All of the memories came flooding back. We would always stare at each other. Never speaking. I left a note on his truck one night saying that I was sorry for everything. No response. That's fine. I was told that he didn't care and was over it. I don't blame him. Like I said, it didn't end well. I would see his name everywhere. I had so many dreams about him. In one, he told me that he loved me and that he was taking a new job. I went back to my first host job 1. it was comfortable and familiar and 2. he was there. Those little things were all I had left of him. They were what I had to make me happy. Meanwhile, the guy is working all day long. We never saw each other except for a few hours at night when he would stay up and play video games. Sometimes, he would play all night long. Sometimes, it was for days and nights in a row with little to no sleep. I understand that everyone has their own way of relaxing after work, but that's a bit much. My mom had brought up premarital counseling. I thought it was a good idea. When my parents were going through the end of their marriage, my mom suggested they went to counseling, but my dad refused and that was the end of that. Divorce is a habit on my dad's side of the family. I didn't want the same thing. So, we went. She talked about all kinds of things with us about relationships and marriage and everything that goes into them. We told her about our home life together, how we handled situations, how we fought, how we worked things out, how we could spend more time together, and wedding things. She suggested setting a timer for him to play games and for me to draw or whatever and then after the timer went off, we would do something together. It worked for a while, but then it didn't and he played more and more. He was always stressed from work. I understand that. What we (he) didn't tell the therapist was that he's bipolar. I'm seeing her now and she said that she had a feeling, but wasn't 100% sure and that if she knew before, things would've been handled differently. Too late now. Leading up to the wedding, money was obviously a concern, but he swore he had it taken care of. He had been freaking out for months. I had been too, but not for the same reason. The day of the wedding, he's doing fine, I'm not. It hits me. I'm still in love with someone else and here I am getting married. He's a social person and knows everybody, so of course, everybody was invited. His friends and my family almost equalled out (I guess I have a big family). I think it was 150 people. I don't remember. I was in the bridal suite getting ready with help from my bridesmaids and my mom and then I just fucking lost it. Full on emotional breakdown with panic attack after panic attack. Only my sister, my best friend, and a mutual friend of mine and my ex's knew what was really wrong with me. I told everyone that I was just freaking out about the large amount of people. They know me, that makes sense. My mom had known that something was wrong with me for months, but I felt like I couldn't tell her the truth about anything. The money, the ex, my feelings, nothing. I felt trapped. Marriage was going to officially seal the deal. I couldn't do it. But my thoughts and feelings weren't the only ones that mattered. I couldn't be selfish. I could've stopped all of it months ago, but I chose to be quiet and suffer. The plan was to walk down a little hill to the officiant by a pond. You know, outside. I'd been checking the weather for about a month. While I was starting to freak out about literally everything, it had started to rain. I read that it's good luck if it rains on your wedding day. Bull. Shit. They just say that to make the bride feel better. So, all of the chairs had to be moved inside and plans had to be changed quickly. People kept coming in and telling me that the guy was taking care of everything and was really in his element. I was the opposite. I just wanted to leave and go to my ex or laugh with my friends and sister, but I couldn't. I had to stay. My cousin is like a second mom to me. She sat down next to me, gave me some lavender oil to try and calm down, and told me that once I was out there with him, nothing else would matter and that everyone out there loved me. That's sweet, but that's not what I wanted to hear. Yeah, I'm not a big people person, like, at all, but that's not my main concern right now. Thanks, though. It made me more upset to know that no one else really understood. A few close people, but that was all and I couldn't really talk to them. I mean, I could have, but I didn't want to leave him there, I don't know. If you can't keep up, that's ok, because I don't know if I can either. I don't think I've ever felt more alone and trapped. All I could do was go on and hope for an annulment later. This all might make me sound like a bad person, maybe, again, I don't know. Moving on, everybody sitting in the front row could tell and even told me themselves that they saw me shaking. Every introverts worst fucking nightmare: being infront of a bunch of people where you're the center of attention. For being me, I guess I don't know myself very well or I was just doing my sworn duty as a people pleaser. People from work were there. I knew they would go back and talk about it. My ex would hear about it. I had been trying to save him, I guess, by trying to hide it. Our mutual friends were there, too. The guy and my ex's best friend were friends, too. We even went down to Florida a few times to see them. I really missed them since the breakup. I'm sure they'd hang out with my ex while they were in town and he'd find out that way. After the ceremony and pictures were over, my ex's friend came up to me and asked if I was happy. I lied and said yes. He then told me that my ex wasn't doing well. He knew. He fucking knew. I didn't want to hurt him anymore. I didn't want to break his heart again. Hearing that fucking broke me. But the show must go on. As the night went on, I just had a little bit of champagne, he on the other hand started drinking before the ceremony (everyone told us both not to do that, otherwise, it wouldn't be legal). The night was at an end and my new husband was passed out next to a tub in a bathroom. The next morning, we cleaned up and were getting ready to leave for the TWO WEEK honeymoon. I was nervous about driving. We'd have to drive through a major city. I was still very emotional and started freaking out. I knew I wasn't going to be leaving my friends and mom and sister forever, but it would be the longest I'd been away from home. I was a mess. I cried on and off during the hours long drive, but lucky for me, a bottle of lavender spray broke ope in my bag and bitch. That was the most relaxing drive ever. Once we'd made it to the destination, for two weeks, I didn't have to drive anywhere. Everything was in walking distance. It was a very small town. At night, I would sit by the fire, listen to people talk, watch drunk people walk by, and drink wine. I'm a light weight and I've only ever been drunk maybe two times in my life. I don't drink by anymeans. That trip, I had finished eight bottles of wine by my fucking self. If that doesn't tell you how I was feeling, I don't know what will. All of the money people had given us for wedding presents was spent by the end of it all. I really wanted avoid using my debit or credit card, but I ended up using those, too. After we got back, he got a new phone in my name (his truck is also in my name). He swore he talked to me about it. I may not be very good at remembering things or money, but I know I would've remembered that. He got right back into work and I kept torturing myself about my ex and my situation. One day a week, we would go to my mom's for a family dinner. I didn't like coming back; it just reminded me more of my ex and the memories of us hanging out. I knew my mom's would always be a safe place for me. Pretty much ever since, the big Florida trip, we went over to my mom's to plan for the wedding. After we came back from the honeymoon, he stopped coming over more and more. Whether he had to work more hours to make up for the time he was away or to stay home and play games. That gave opportunities to talk to my mom about what had been going on for months. I told her about the loan, about how dirty the house was, how he was glued to the TV, everything I could think of. Here's the thing, I always tell my mom about things AFTER they've already happened. It's always been like that. Strict parents create sneaky kids. So, the bells and whistles had been done. Nothing legal had been done. Nothing. I had known for a LONG time that I needed out. I knew I had to finally end it soon. It had been a few months since the ceremony. Was it WAY too late to tell the truth, yes. But oh well. He knew it was over. He felt bad about working all the time and not being there for me. He had the idea of going out on a date. I agreed. We went out to eat. He was on his phone, as usual. We then went to a bookstore. After that, we went to go see a movie. Then, he noticed the new pair of shoes (Crocs) I had gotten almost a month ago and freaked out saying that I've changed and wondered why I bought them and who I bought them for. I just wanted another pair of comfortable shoes, like, I bought them for me. I didn't understand. (Back story: He dyed his hair in the past, but that was years before we got together. He had recently dyed his hair...twice in like, a week). I brought it up and that was my argument. His response was that he'd changed his hair before. While I had never worn Crocs before. I explained that I had a pair when I was younger and wanted to try them out again. I really didn't understand, but then again, I knew he could feel me slipping away. Sometimes, it's easier to give someone the silent treatment or avoid them as much as possible to protect yourself. Is it selfish and unfair to the other person? Yes, but sometimes, you have to put yourself first. All in all, the date was not good. A few days later, I broke up with him, moved all of my things back into my mom's and moved on. And that's about all I have to say about that.
