E

I don't quite understand why the most trusted people always turn out the be the ones that hurt you the most. Seriously. What the fuck?

Emily and I have been all the way through Hell and back at this point. Ultimately, our love prevailed, and we were slowly working our way towards a full recovery. I thought so, anyway.

The very first major problem was an ongoing issue. Her mother is a major control freak and simply would not let Emily go. But the real problem was with Emily. She simply wouldn't break away from that crazy behavior. She let her mother control her in every way. It was to the point that I couldn't see Emily unless her mother approved. It got so bad, in fact, that her mother would start claiming that Emily didn't love her and all sorts of other crazy things just because Emily wanted to spend time with me. Heck, by the ultimate end of our relationship, it even came down to, "As long as I'm alive, you will not stay with Steve."

So, as one would assume, this caused a massive amount of serious arguments between Emily and I. The resolution was a simple idea, in theory. All Emily had to do at the time was initiate a basic conversation with her mother and (nicely) inform her that she needs space. After all, Emily is a grown woman and should be allowed to control her own relationship. As expected, her mother would have nothing to do with such thoughts and even insisted that she had never attempted to control Emily's life. What's more, her mother swore up and down that everything she did was because God told her it was for the best. She would even ask Emily to ask The Lord and see what he says whenever she wanted to come over. Even when Emily played those games and did as her mother had asked, her mother still wouldn't stand for it.

So finally, shit hit the fan so bad that Emily and I were screaming at one another on a daily basis because nothing was getting done. Emily wasn't really trying to do anything to resolve the problem out of sheer fear for how her mother would react and the impact it had on our relationship was destroying us. We were never able to see one another and any time we did finally spend time together, her mother would ruin the entire day by calling or texting Emily and starting a serious argument. She would literally try to throw Emily into a corner and beat her down verbally, all while Emily gave in and just did whatever her mother said. She even agreed with all sorts of negative things her mother said just to end the argument. She would give in to her mother, ignore anything I said and allow her mother to control our relationship. It had become a 3-way relationship, as far as we were concerned. Her mother was the puppet master, forcing Emily to do her bidding until our relationship started to crack.

Eventually, her family and friends started noticing how upset Emily always was. Emily never explained exactly what was going on. She never stood up for herself. So, of course, everyone blamed me. They all assumed that I was simply being a jerk and that Emily was the only one who wound up sad every day. And because Emily did not tell people exactly what was wrong, everyone started trying to get her to end the relationship and eventually, she did. She started acting very cold towards me because other people told her to. Her feelings hadn't changed. She wanted to be with me. She was just too afraid to follow her heart because of how her mother is, basically. She doesn't like conflict and especially not when it involves her family, so she broke it off with me to avoid having to deal with more family issues. I am by no means trying to justify what she did, for the record.

What she did was fucked up. She refused to tell people the truth, didn't defend me at any point in time, refused to talk to her family about what was really going on and then broke up with me just to get away from those problems. I understand the motive here, but these problems will be a recurring theme throughout her life until she takes a stand and shows her entire family that she means business. She doesn't have to go crazy and destroy her family, but they need to know what's up, ya' know? I mean, her mom even threatened me several times and Emily just sat there and let it happen.

Oh, I forgot to mention the other half of that part of the story: She lied about everything. She claimed that she fell out of love with me, didn't want to be with me, etc. She denied every acusation that her family or friends were involved in her choice. She swore up and down that it was all her and that there was no other reason for what had happened aside from falling out of love with me. I found everything else out later from Emily herself, but you can imagine how hurt I was when she told me those things before I knew the truth. And how upset I was later when I found out that she lied and exactly what she had lied about.

Anyway, after all of that, we were going back and forth for a while, exchanging words nearly every day until I finally said "Fuck it." and dropped the subject. But after I gave up, she started begging me to talk to her again. It took about a week, but I finally gave in and started talking to her again. And you know, when I did, she showed some promise. She said that she would come over and spend time with me to see where things go and to talk about everything that had happened. But of course, as with everything else in this fucked up story, nothing went according to plan. In fact, she bailed out for 3 solid weeks until I finally gave up, which is when she started begging me to talk to her yet again.

After that, I gave in a few days later and she actually pulled through. We hung out, everything went great and we had lots of fun. We were back to normal. But as with the rest of this story, another fucked up thing happened: I woke up to a text from Emily saying that things didn't feel the same. She had said that we should stop talking and forget about trying to be together. As if once wasn't bad enough, this happened twice and it was almost the same exact situation over the course of 3 weeks.

So, after a while of arguing back and forth, ignoring Emily on and off and trying my best to just move on, we finally sealed the deal. We were back together and happier than ever. We were going places all of the time. She was staying over here constantly. We both made one another happy, aside from a small handful of stupid arguments. Nothing's perfect. I did have a hard time trusting her, after all that had happened, so it's to be expected. For a while, at least.

Throughout all of this recent relationship mumbo jumbo, she had been claiming that she talked to her Aunts and her Uncle. She went into all of this elaborate detail about the things that she had told them and about how everything was okay now. She told me that her mother was leaving her alone about things and that everything should be okay there, too. It seemed too good to be true, so I questioned it every time a piece of random evidence popped up. One time, I even checked her phone when I picked it up. The text screen was already up, so I looked at a message she received from her mother. She had said something about going to breakfast and stuff with other people; not me. And of course, when I questioned Emily about that, she yelled at me. She made me feel like shit for checking her phone. I've never checked another human being's phone. That's just not the kind of person I am. But regardless, just like every other time I questioned anything, she blamed me and said that I was wrong. She created these elaborate stories every time to cover her tracks. I was never right. I could never win. I was always the bad guy in these scenarios because I didn't trust her. She would even cry and throw a pity trip to make me feel worse. But of course...

I was right all along. We were on our way to Mega Media Xchange. I was going to sell a few misc. items that were just taking up space and then we were going to stuff our faces because we were both hungry as balls. But something crazy happened: We were crossing the street after getting off the bus, when her sister drove by with her Uncle, her Nephew and her mother. Emily walked up to the car, so I followed. We said hi and the traffic was starting to pick up, so we backed away and they drove off. This is where the most recent and most fucked up thing happened: Emily confessed, as we were walking across the street, that everything recent had been a lie, as well as all of the "conversations" she supposedly had with her family.

So, her family thought she was going other places this whole time. She was lying to all of them every time, all while she lied to me by telling me that they knew and that everything was okay. None of them knew the truth, but neither did I. She not only lied to me once, but also every single recent time that we were together. She looked me in the eye, lied to me, told elaborate made up stories to cover her tracks and even cried to make me feel bad for "not trusting her." And for the record, we had spent about 60% of our time together, if not more, during that period of time. So in short, her lies had been an almost daily event and she knew she fucked up.

But you know, this is what really gets me...

Had her family not drove by and saw us walking, I probably would have never found out. Or at the very least, it would have been at an even later date and in a different, but equally fucked up way. She would have kept lying until that chapter was closed or until she was found out in some other way. Talk about fucked up...

And for those of you that may be asking, "What was her motive? Didn't she love you?"

Well, supposedly her motive was the fact that she had assumed that we would not be able to have a relationship unless she hid it from most people. Instead of just taking control of her own relationship and following her heart openly, she lied to everyone, which in turn hurt everybody quite severely.

And of course, I'm confident that it's impossible for me to trust her ever again.

Who's to say that it's even worth the effort, anyway? If she can lie so easily and so frequently, she could do it all over again without any sort of notice, leaving me to deal with the aftermath of such destruction all over again.

Sad as it may be, honestly, I want to be with her. Regardless of how things have played out, this is love. You may call me stupid, but my heart chose her long ago.

However, I know it's an entirely stupid choice, so at this point, I will definitely avoid being with her. I will consider casual dates, hang out with friends and try to have a somewhat happy life until I finally get over Emily. That's the most I can do, although I'm not so sure how possible it is for me to just be happy right now. Eventually...

Believe it or not, this is a hard choice. My heart beats for Emily. I've never felt so empty before. And honestly, it's not like I haven't had my fair share of serious relationships. I just haven't felt this strongly about another human being. Ever. And at this point, I feel as though it's an incredibly big deal that I've found someone that I care this much about.

But still, as anyone would suspect, matters of the heart are not so easily dealt with and most of the time, impossible to understand. As such, I actually gave her one last chance to come clean and attempt to rebuild the relationship. But of course, things did not go so smoothly and thus, we are 100% finished.

She supposedly talked to her family, set the record straight with her mother and had planned to make a trip over here to talk about everything. As a side effect, her mother was supposedly incredibly furious. They even threw a surprise birthday party for her and did not even consider inviting me. In fact, Emily asked if I could drop by and her Uncle said no because it's too last minute.

Well, what the fuck? How is that fair? I didn't know about it. They handled it and invited everyone that showed up. I WAS NOT INVITED, despite Emily's supposed vocal outreach to her family. I would be lying if I said that I was not completely hurt by that.

Also, that happened today. That was the last stand. I can not deal with Emily or her family anymore. I tried. And tried. And tried. (AND TRIED!)

At this point, it's totally unrealistic to assume that anything positive could ever come from any sort of relationship with Emily.

And you know, while this is a whole different game altogether, a few recent things bothered me. Like, for example, her mother never replied when I sent her a text message directly asking her why she disliked me. I was not mean. I was very respectful and I told her that I miss Emily and that I love her.

Guess what she told Emily to tell me, instead of replying to my text?

She told her, with a very mean tone, that it would take too long for her to text all of the things she dislikes about me. What is that shit? I NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG TO THAT WOMAN! I tried to be as nice as possible and even went out of my way to do things for her and the rest of Emily's family! It's so fucked up!

I don't know why everything turned out this way. I can tell you one thing for sure, though: Emily changed. She used to be the most amazing woman in the world. But it was like she had become the total opposite type of person overnight and now, I don't know what to think of her or her family. I'm confused, still depressed and not entirely sure how to proceed. I mean, we did everything together. We were a happy couple. We did a few things in the bedroom that I never expected. We saw movies and shared deep laughs. We playfully tickled and wrestled with one another. We laid in each other arms through the night and woke up to each other's smiling face. We were even able to bathe together in a completely innocent and loving way.

What the hell happened to my Emily? I'll never know what happened to cause such a drastic change, but I'll never forget the girl I fell in love with.

While this may be the end, I love you, Emily Ann Dean.

From here, I guess the only way to proceed truly is the only way to proceed. Someday, I'll be whole again.

Life.

So, I'm not entirely sure what to make of life. There honestly isn't any other way to sum things up right now as far as I'm concerned.

There's much on my mind, but the first and foremost issue is that of my ex-girlfriend. While it's true that we broke up "for good" recently, we have been on speaking terms. We have spent a small amount of time together and we have managed to be happy during said time together.

BUT, as with all seemingly good things, here's one "small" problem...

Lack of trust.

I'm afraid of any possible outcome. I don't even trust the most basic words that come from that girl's mouth. It's to the point that I even doubt her daily stories about her basic routine. It's sickening and I don't really enjoy such feelings, but she begged me to the point that I felt as though I had no choice but to let her back in, even if only for a brief period of time.

The thing is, this girl has straight up admitted what she's done wrong. She knows what she did and she feels horrible about the whole situation. She even claims that she's going to prove me wrong, regardless of how little I trust her. That's not saying much, of course, as far as I'm concerned; still, it is what it is.

The simplest way to explain this: I'm stuck between my heart and my brain.

On one hand, my heart is crying out for her. My heart tells me to hold her and to never let go, as if she were my only reason for living or something like that.

But then, on the other hand, my brain tells me that I'm stupid for even considering any sort of possible future with this girl. It's as if someone is yelling at me, ripping me apart and throwing me against the wall each and every time I so much as hug this girl.

So, what do I do? I can't even decide at this point, so I'm letting her do her thing and just going about my life, hoping that time will reveal the truth, one way or the other. Maybe she'll play head games and act like a child. Maybe she'll grow up and really make something of this cruddy situation. I'm not sure, but something has to happen, one way or the other, with or without my hand as the driving force.

All of that relationship drama aside, there are a handful of other things going on that I have to get off my chest.

I'm sick of Walmart. I made that point very obvious already. My availability has been changed, so that part is no longer an issue. My bosses are still assholes, though and so are some of the people throughout the store. Hell, not a day goes by in which I do not feel like strangling someone that works at my store. I swear, some of the employees are worse than most of the customers.

So, hand-in-hand with that is Mid-Atlantic bakery, which is a potential new place of employment. It could be next week. Who knows? It may even take 2 or 3 months. But I WILL be there within' a 3 month time frame, tops.

The benefits far outweigh anything bad that could be said of my new job, but there ARE a few issues.

While the healthcare, union benefits and much higher (over 2x) pay rate are wonderful benefits, as well as the awesome set schedule, I'll have to deal with a boring and potentially very hazardous position in a very high risk factory. And on top of that, transportation may become much more of an issue; it depends on the time and day. But even still, for that kind of money, I can deal with the extra time and more difficult/repetitious work.

Otherwise, daily stress is killing me. Between customers at Walmart, my bosses, a few of my co-workers, my family and the stress of the situation involving my ex-girlfriend and I, I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack at any given moment. I don't know what the heck will happen to me these days.

And you know, I honestly can't even say that I know who my true friends are these days. Shit is just that crazy, but that's not something I want to sit here and get into. I'll be writing for 10 hours if I cover every single bit of my life, at this rate!

Anyway, it's time to hope off here, grab some food and figure out when I'm going to bed. Peace!

Another New Chapter

So, I started working at Walmart in Golden Ring on December 3, 2010. Since then, life has been better, but quite a bit more on the stressful side due to the woes of working at a retail store.


First of all, my job description did not include 80% of the things that I'm told to do. In fact, on a normal day, I rarely have the chance do everything that all grocery sales associates are supposed to do aside from restocking milk or putting away the returns.

Second, there are a few employees that make work a pain in the ass. My "Zone Supervisor", Tom is the main problem. He's always making people do trivial things. No matter how often we question what he asks us to do, he just wont listen to our point of view. He only allows us to do what he wants us to do and only in the way that he wants us to do said task.

Of course, there are a few other people that are a pain in the ass for various reasons. Some of the daytime ICS crew, for example, are the kind of people that could be considered stereotypical. They make fun of people for no good reason and act like a bunch of asshats. It's totally okay when they insult you, but as soon as you retaliate, they get all frustrated like it's not cool. Such is life, I suppose!

The final bunch of morons are the absolute worst: Overnight employees. Some of them are pretty cool, but the primary group of overnighters that stock our section are a bunch of assholes. They insult us, treat us like we're the scum of the Earth and on top of that, they don't even do their job properly. We come in every day and the shelves are a complete mess because the overnighters move anything they want to places they don't belong just so they can be lazy. Oh well.

Third, the hours are freakin' insane! One day, I might close. Then, the very next morning, I'll have to be awake between 6-7AM just to prepare so I can get to work on time between 8-9AM. Seriously people, WHAT THE FUCK? It's unhealthy to force your employees to work without proper rest! Not to mention the fact that it fucks up a person's sleeping schedule pretty bad!

There are a bunch of other things that I could go on listing all afternoon, but you get the point. There are, however, a few primary positive points to be made about my job at Walmart.

The most important thing is that I've made a bunch of new friends. I never expected to meet so many genuine cool people working at Walmart, but clearly I was wrong!

The other benefit is clearly the money. While they pay me nowhere near enough to compensate me for what I actually do for them, the money HAS allowed me to buy pretty much anything I want for the time being.

And finally, I get away from my family enough to avoid most of the stupid drama and arguments. That doesn't mean that home life is much better, but it HAS improved to an extent just because I don't have to be around them as often.

In other news, Emily and I are officially separated. It hurts, but the pain is fading away more as time goes by. It's sad, though. I genuinely thought that I would be with that girl forever. She needs to grow up and learn a bit more about life before she gets into anything serious. That's all there is to it. I wont insult her or say anything bad. What happened between us is, for now, between her and I. But it's out there. I'm single. She's single. That's life. Recovery will happen... eventually.

Otakon is only a few months away. I'm relatively excited about that, although not as much as I probably should be. Maybe when the date draws nearer? We'll see.

I'm excited to play Dragon Age 2, which should arrive at my doorstep on Monday, March 28.

I started playing Rift, rejoined FFXI and also bought a few other games, such as Bulletstorm for Xbox 360 and Crysis 2 LE for PC. Needless to say, I've been keeping myself quite busy.

I've been attempting to go out a lot more often, which HAS been a success for the most part. My random days off don't help, but I still make due with what I have. :)

I still need to get on the whole driving school thing. It's taking longer than I thought, but it's honestly mostly due to laziness. I'm so tired from work half the time because of those close-open-close-open days that I just don't even want to do anything. We'll see if I can't get my availability fixed for a while, though.. Carla supposedly approved it; we'll see.

There's not much else I feel like saying right now, but there's a basic update for anyone that cares. ;)

Have a good one!