BroTips is the best website ever...

How long do you think I'll wait for you to finally say "no" to her?

Why I'm beginning to dislike my job

I enjoy the work I do but it is not time consuming, if that makes any sense. The day goes by quickly based on how much I have to get done but I am often left with my thoughts, my paranoia, my anxiety, my sadness. This job has resulted in me picking arguments with Ian or starting trouble because I am left alone with my thoughts all day. Even though I get to work with my best friend, our backs are turned against each other so we don't talk all that much. Also, we both have our own work to finish each day and I think he sometimes finds it distracting when I ramble on about silly things I'm either annoyed by because of Chicago's public transportation system or work-related things.

So while I am coasting through the day, reading, watching films/tv shows and listening to Pandora, I get bored and I become curious. The curiosity leads to frustration. Frustration leads to anger. Anger leads to tears. I haven't hit that point yet today though.

Things almost really fell apart and I am still upset that it seemed like it was all my fault when I know it's not. I'm still angry that a warning has been put over my head when so many times, I stayed because I love him and want this to work. I'm still angry that he continues telling people that I am the cause for his unhappiness when he knows very well that there are things he can do to prevent me from being unhappy, which then will prevent him from being unhappy that I'm so unhappy.

I don't want to ever lose Ian and I feel that no matter how many arguments or petty disagreements we get into, I will always say "I want to keep trying" because I saw how much my parents struggled but in times of despair, I also saw how much they loved one another, unconditionally. There is no doubt in my mind that they would have divorced had he had not leukemia, and even though it was a horrible disease it was a blessing to their marriage. They were married for more than 26 years and had he actually made it, they'd still be married today and I would not be helping my mother plan her wedding with the new man in her life.

I feel that I really have to work on my patience but just as scared as Ian is, I am scared that I will allow my patience to grow and I will be the fool who changed, who made improvements and he's still telling people that I make him miserable - even when we have good days after some bad days. I am worried that he will one day walk out on me because he can no longer understand why he loves me. I am worried that I will lose the person who has become my best friend, the person I turn to in times of stress and sadness - I don't always like what he has to say, but I always listen to what he has to say.

I'm afraid that the way I was brought up and the way my mother "loved" me has caused irreparable damage to me and the only solution would be to see a therapist (which I'd like to do at some point) in order to find the love and forgiveness in my heart for all the times my mother took from me, hurt me, hit me, emotionally abused me, told me that the adoption agency was sitting outside in a car waiting for me, etc.

I'm terrified that having to watch my father die for more than a decade, the man I loved more than anything in the world growing up, has damaged me forever.

I'll always be difficult, honest, complicated, wounded, scared, happy, sad, angry, brutal, sweet, mean when warranted and just...myself and I'm also afraid that Ian has decided that he can no longer deal with my less than graceful sides.

We had a good day yesterday. I cried for almost 12 hours on Friday and I know that had I not walked into the bedroom sobbing, barely able to breathe and asked what I asked, I would have spent the last few days sleeping at my mom's house.

But I still find it unfair that a threat was put over my head when I ask for such simple things. Talk to me. Tell me why you love me. Tell me why you think I'm adorable. Tell me why I'll always mean more to you than any other girl who tries entering your life. Bring home flowers once in a while if you can't verbalize how you feel for me. Let me know that you're still in love with me. Communicate that to me...and more importantly, communicate that to those around you instead of making me seem like all I am is a pain in the ass (which I can be but as I said before, I have good sides).

Every day, I will try to grow. I will take this relationship day by day instead of looking at it as one big whole, which I think has been the main problem between the two of us. After I'm comfortable with what my bank account looks like, I'll buy relationship books for myself...and if he chooses not to take that step, in reading books that will help keep this relationship healthy, there is nothing I can do. I can't force him to treat me better and to stop making me seem like such a shrew - all I can do is better myself and know that if the time comes that I have to leave, I'll walk out knowing that I'm a better person because of him and because I was proactive in growing and having a relationship with the man I could've loved forever.

It's been damn near impossible for me to find motivation to write. Mostly because I know that I just keep writing about the same things. There is too much going on in my head. I have nothing to write about, which I take as a bad sign because I know there are things I want to say but again, I've said them all before.

It will always be a case of you can do no wrong and I'm the evil woman from hell.

I have a feeling that you did not even talk to your mom and just had another good laugh at my expense/a pity party.

Nothing is ever really efficiently done to calm my fears.

Fat Shopaholic

I found this girl's blog a few minutes ago and I absolutely love her. Her website came up through Torrid's facebook page. At first I thought "Oh NO...." but seconds later, it turned into "Good for her and good for fat girls everywhere who dare to be different."

In my probably brief moment of hope, I will tell myself to make more bold choices in my clothing and stop caring if people are looking at me or judging me - Who cares. She was in an article in Time Out Chicago a few days ago and made a comment about eating in public and what it basically came down to was "you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't." And she's totally right. Eventually, I reached a point where I really didn't give a shit if people were watching me eat or if they were disgusted. If I want to eat a cheeseburger, I'm gonna eat it. If ketchup is running down my face, I really don't care as long as it doesn't get on my clothes. I wore heels/boots the other day - first time EVER. I was scared shitless that I would fall on my ass. People looked at me. I wore leggings with the boots. People surveyed me up and down. Nobody seemed disgusted or shocked or angry. I gained an ounce of confidence back even though my feet are still recovering from those boots and I am about six feet tall in them.

I recently purchased a mini skirt from Torrid - my first EVER (again). I sent it to Ian before purchasing.

"It's a little too short," he said at first.

Today I put it on and looked in the mirror. I know that despite my size, I look good in it because I have great legs and I ALWAYS have and ALWAYS will.

Even though I want to continue losing weight, mostly to get rid of my health problems, I know that I'll always be fat - if not on the outside then on the inside. I love food. I love good food. I love greasy food. I love healthy food. I love Sunday Breakfast/2 a.m. breakfast food.

But I also came to realize that I love my body - whether Ian does or not. At the end of the day, I have to live with myself and I have to be okay with myself and I have to stop caring about whether or not anyone else is okay with how I look.

I know I'll always have curves, or some kind of tire around my stomach and while I'm okay with that, I am also okay with improving my body to the best of my ability for the sake of my mortality.

I love how one person made a complete difference in my life today. Someone that I don't even know. That is one thing about our world that has not and never will change. One person CAN make a difference.

I'm freezing. My boss said it was going to be 76 today. It's only 61 right now. Burr. I slept on the couch last night. Don't really know where to go from here. I said that we had to go one month without a blow out and it happened anyways after only a week of peace. I once again feel like I'm the only one making the effort to keep things going strong. I have a feeling of hopelessness and indifference. Of course I always want us to be able to prosper and succeed but when is enough, enough?

probiotics

One of my bosses has three small children at home.

All three of them have a cold so now he has one.

...I work with three people, in an office that is the size of my dining room.

If I get sick, I'll be terribly upset. I don't function when I'm sick. I feel like death. And then I become paranoid that if I'm sick and I get someone else sick - when I am well, will they then get me sick again?

If there is anything I hate about fall and winter, it's people getting colds.

I'm for sure going to stop by Walgreens tonight and pick up a couple of bottles of probiotics to help keep my immune system up. Sure, it helps that I'm working out regularly every week to stay healthy but I just don't want to catch anyone's cold lol.

I also do not get flu shots because a lot of people fail to realize that you're injecting the illness into your body - which is why you get the "symptoms" afterwards. I've been relatively lucky with not getting too sick for the past year so hopefully I can keep that up. I know that Ian always gets sick when the weather changes. One year, I got sick and I gave him my cold. He has a pretty low immune system because he eats poorly and doesn't exercise. I may try and convince him to start taking probiotics, even if I have to secretly put them into his food. We're having a dinner date at Flat Top Grill later. I know it's not one of his favorite places but he gets to eat as much as he wants so that's why he's almost always willing to go when I suggest it.

Yesterday felt like the way things used to be, in a good way. We aren't taking steps backwards or anything like that. It just felt better, how we were in our better times together.

I wish every day could be like that.

When I think about how poor I currently am, it takes everything in me not to cry.

Why couldn't I get paid today...

An Unrealistic List of Things I'd Like To Do This Fall

(No particular order)

1. Go to Fright Fest at Six Flags - I have never been.

2. Go to State and Madison's fall formal and buy a new dressy dress and have Ian be there as my date...I will probably spend the bulk of that evening in the bar area drinking and eating pizza.

3. Go to an apple orchard and bring home a big ass bag of fresh apples that we pick from trees.

4. Go to Goebbert's pumpkin patch again and walk through the corn maze and look at the sad exotic "zoo animals." Also, would like to go into the REAL haunted house. Just walk around/drive around South Barington for the day and wait until it's open at night.

5. Go to Brookfield zoo and feed the llamas.

6. Have a picnic near Lincoln Park Zoo.

7. Go to the Nature museum and stand in the butterfly room. I've never been and didn't know that this even existed until Ian told me about it shortly after we started dating. I firmly believe that my father's spirit visits me through butterflies - my mom believes it too because shortly after he died, monarch butterflies kept showing up on our front doorstep or would land on our arms or shirts. Today while I was on the train, a butterfly flew in front of my window for a few seconds.

Unfortunately, a large number if not all of these things will not happen because I am usually always the planner and I'm really, really sick of it.

Cried myself to sleep last night on the couch. I was so exhausted from crying throughout half of the day that I don't even remember falling asleep. I hit an all time low.

I don't think I did anything to deserve this. I keep trying to go back and remember all of the times I screwed up or started a fight in a selfish or immature moment.

Nothing I did should have made all of this happen for two years. I feel like there is this person Ian pretends to be, and everyone thinks he's so great - and he is, sometimes. And then I live with this person who is sad, annoyed, angry and bored with me. I don't know what happened. I don't know if these past two years, at some point, I just made him so mad that he decided he wasn't going to tell me how he felt about me anymore and he was just going to tell people all about my annoying habits.

I know that I give people a hard time - I have been doing it my entire life and not always on purpose. I know that I'm a pain in the ass - I complain about everything because so many things in life did not go my way. While I had happy moments as a kid and a teenager, I mostly just felt let down by the most important people in my life at the time.

I'm going to be 25 years old. I don't want to start over with someone new and I don't want to look back on this relationship and just feel regret and hurt. I wish he would just show me how much I mean to him, to help me remember and to make him remember that we have too much to lose.

As much as I love him, I can't help but feel that there is no fight left in him because he knows how much he's hurt me and he knows how hard it is to keep getting back up after something happens. He has to sit there and watch me cry and listen to me trying to make sense of it all and he just gets knocked down. I don't mean to sit there complaining but I just keep running around in this circle in my mind trying to figure it out on my own and I get nowhere. And when I ask him "why did this happen" or "why did you do this" I still don't really get an answer. I don't think there really is a reason why he does the things he does but I've always found that if you can figure out why something is happening then you can figure out how to stop it. I don't want us to have to tell new people in our lives "it didn't work out and we both screwed up big time" and look back and wonder if we had just did one or two things differently, would we be sitting here with each other instead of someone new?

I don't think it's right that I keep being made out to be a bad person to everyone in his life but he won't stop. I know that I'm not the only one who has a problem but at least I am willing to try and fix myself, not only for me but for our relationship.

I'm tired of compromising and losing dignity every time I give in. I cannot keep doing this by myself.

desperate attempt to get your attention #539658589350358

As much as I try being happy, it's incredibly difficult when I ask you to do something simple like talk to me throughout the day and let me know you're thinking of me and you can't even do that. It used to come so simple to you. I remember waking up to text messages at 630 in the morning "hi, how are you" and now here we are, two years later and I have to ask you to text message me during the day or I have to ask for an email. I have to ask you to comment on things that I post or let me know what you think of the things I write. There's no effort to do any of these small things. Meanwhile, I sit here all day waiting. Wondering why it's such a struggle to make an effort.

It's the little things.

You can't just expect me to get happy when you don't do your part. Think about it. It makes no sense. Why do I have to keep asking you to make an effort and to start doing things??

We're hanging on by a thread and you just act like you don't even give a shit.

WAKE. UP. And start taking initiative in the other things that are important in your life. PLEASE. Otherwise, this is never going to work, Ian.

Today is Colleen's birthday (Ian's mom). On Sunday, her and Ian have plans to go see a movie and have dinner.

In the past, I was included in those plans but this year, I guess not. I'm assuming that it's because Ian decided to tell her about our arguments, big or small, made me seem like I'm this horrible person that he is stuck in a relationship with...so why would I be invited?

While I continue acknowledging that I'm responsible for my own screw ups, I also know that there have been things that were done to me that I did not deserve. Things that Ian did absentmindedly and didn't think about the repercussions that his actions might have at later date.

In this case, Colleen's perception of me is much different now because Ian decided to open up to everyone else but me about our problems during a certain point/the whole time we've been dating.

And now I just feel excluded, that we won't all be together on certain days like we were before. The worst part is that there is really nothing I can do about it at all because the damage has already been done and Ian is responsible for whatever he decided to say to his mom about me. I just have this sick feeling in my stomach, thinking about what he told her or didn't tell her and made it seem like I was the person who screwed up time and time again, that I was the one who caused all of that pain.

When we visited my mom on Sunday, I just found myself crying unexpectedly. I openly asked her for her perspective on how she would react in my situation, with Ian sitting right there, to make it clear that I have no secrets from him and I'm not going to talk shit about him behind his back like he has with me. To me, there is nothing more disrespectful than that.

I told my mom that I've been crying every day and at one point, one of them said "It's not every day." And I just sat there thinking of all the times I have cried with him sleeping next to me in the bed, when I've cried in the shower, when I've cried at work, when I've cried on the train on the way to work or on the way home, when I've cried at my mom's house without Ian there, when I've cried on the phone with Juan, when I've sat in the bathroom and cried and I said again, "I cry. Every. Day."

He says we'll fix things, that things will change and while I am starting to believe that, I keep thinking about the things he has said about me or done to me in the past that are now going to be very difficult to change. What I find really funny is how a few of my friends know about some of the arguments Ian and I have gotten into and none of them have ever pulled him aside and said "you're an ass hole" or have treated him ANY differently. Meanwhile, anyone on his end that he may have told about our fights thinks I'm the fucking devil.

And he thinks it's totally okay to tell people our business while only explaining his side so it looks like I'm the one causing all of the problems...when all I want is some respect and some thought towards me and our relationship. Instead, I'm made out to be this dragon lady.

I don't know what to do about this. I really do love Ian's mom, especially now that I understand what a supportive parent really looks like. But I'm completely helpless because I know Ian won't take the initiative to say to her "she loves you and she wants you in our lives forever" to let her know that all of this shit that's gone down can't only be put on me.

But you're just a boy.

I wish you told me and showed me how much you love me more often.

Because then I wouldn't feel so inadequate.

If this doesn't change, I don't know what I'll do but it's too difficult to know I love with my whole heart and never know where I stand with you.

I'm not asking for a lot.

...Just let me know that I mean something to you.

Not knowing, not hearing or seeing anything is what makes me sad.

Please.

The weather here is becoming a little ridiculous for me. I do not do well in this heat. It's September 1st and the high for today is 95. No thanks. On the plus side, after tomorrow the weather is going to be great. Highs in the 70s. Maybe that means we can put the air conditioners away...somewhere. Our landlord claims that he's cleaning the basements so anything put in the open area down there has to be gone or they'll throw it out, assuming that it belongs to past tenants. So yesterday Ian and I moved a few of his plastic containers back up to the apartment and one of his glass cabinets that was the heaviest thing in the world.

I guess things are alright. All I really care about is if he's happy but I don't know where that leaves me. I'm happy but fear once again grabs a hold of me. I guess I worry if we will be happy tomorrow or the next day or how long it will be until we fight again. My problem is that I'm so used to chaos, that I constantly keep myself from being happy. Yesterday I was watching a slideshow I made for Ian in February and started to cry, just remembering all of the good moments we've had and how there have been so many times where either one or both of us almost threw it all away. I think that we're both to blame for not appreciating the other person enough. I have to appreciate the small things he does, because as small as they may be to me, they might be bigger for him. Eventually, I know he'll understand how much more of an effort he has to make and I think he'll slowly get there.

My mom keeps calling me all of the time. I don't know what she wants...she talks about things that I don't really need to hear over the phone. It can always wait till the weekend. I have Monday off and I'm looking forward to just sitting around the apartment, reading, maybe actually playing a video game and watching movies. This daily routine is beginning to get to me.