I moved! But not where I thought I would...

So........ I lied. I didn't move back to Texas. I'm still in Chicago and loving it! I had a very last minute (like with less than a week to go) change of heart and decided to stay in Chicago indefinitely. The decision came when I realized that I have a great life here that I want to expand on and I really did NOT want to move back to Texas. The more time I have spent outside of my home state, the more I realize that, although I love Dallas and Austin, the state as a whole is not a very good fit for me. Even the suburbs of those cities are not very friendly toward guys like me (read: gay).

That being said, I moved from my old place in the "Gold Coast" area of the city, which is located in an old, wealthy, and primarily senior citizen heavy district of the city. It was great for law school because I was close to the school, but now that I've graduated I decided it was time to move up by people my own age and live in an area with more age-appropriate things to do. I moved into the Lakeview/Boystown neighborhood and have already made some good friends up here as well as met a great guy who just happens to live three blocks away.

Speaking of guys: the last few months have been CRAZY where boys are concerned. I've never been so emotionally screwed up by a guy who hadn't actually done anything to me or even bad for me! No need to go into details, but in the end I decided it was best if we're just friends. He's a very intriguing and sweet guy, whose friendship I wouldn't give up for anything in the world; however, for the time being we are not a good match. In-fact, it's because of him that I met the wonderful man I am currently with, who also happens to have asked me to be his boyfriend (exclusivity FTW!!! Yay!) tonight. So in the end, I think things are going pretty well in life. Moving on.

I am currently focused on three things in life at the moment: (1) studying for the bar exam; (2) not letting my studies for the bar exam destroy my life or my soul; and (3) trying to make new friends and spend as much time as possible, despite my 7-days-a-week study schedule, with my new boyfriend. So far that has left almost no time for playing video games (I'm a WoW addict, what can I say?). Once things settle down a little more, I'm going to try to get back into playing games. I think it will help keep me balanced. Every time I completely abandon my game and my friends (yes, I actually have friends in the games), I start to forget how to unwind and relax. It's not that I don't have fun, I do, but I forget how to just set back and let the stresses go.

Anyway, I just thought I should post and update my blog so when I look back on my life in a few years I'll have a record of the stupid things I've done, or perhaps a memento of the beginning to my wonderful new phase of life. I have met some of the most wonderful and influential people in my life in the last three years; I hope the next three prove just as fruitful, if not a little less stressful!

Woot! I'm graduated from law school! Now just those pesky bar exams in multiple states because I was too shortsighted to make my decision to stay sooner.......... :)

Time To Move On... Again

First off, this post is NOT about relationships, but rather a more general moving on: I am about to graduate from law school! Woot! So much has happened in the last two and a half years, but it's all led up to this. It seems that although I have been through a great deal, most of it great, my life has come full circle.

When I first came to law school, I had a wonderful boyfriend (who, despite my past blogs or comments to the contrary, is still a wonderful person, even if he is no longer my boyfriend), I had good friends, good family, and I was excited to live in Chicago, not have a car, and be part of the big city. Then I got to the city, got settled in, and started school. I had a hard time making good, quality friends, and the ones I did make ended up being pretty bad for me and my relationship. My boyfriend and I tried long distance for awhile, and eventually he moved to Chicago despite some problems. In the end, he and I just weren't right for each other, so he moved out and met a guy he's happy with, I realized the friends I'd made were bad for me and had made me not a very happy or good person, and I left the country for the summer, traveled abroad, and made some of the best friends I've ever had.

Now, it's time to graduate, and I'm moving back to Dallas. Chicago has been a good place to live for the last couple of years, but it was never home. It wasn't that Chicago couldn't be home or that it never could be, but that it simply never was. I'm going to be sad to leave the incredible group of people I recently befriended, but this just isn't the city I'm supposed to be in right now. My family and I are closer than ever, my sisters are growing up and quickly becoming some of my favorite people (helps when you don't live with tweens and teens on a daily basis), and I really do miss Dallas.

I hope I get back to blogging more, but I found myself in a sad, but not depressed, mood tonight and felt the need to write it down, hopefully so that if nothing else, someday I'll be able to read this and remember how I felt at the moment.

Back in Chicago

So, after a productive, but not terribly relaxing Spring Break, I'm back in Chicago. I got back last night and just relaxed. I tried to enjoy the last night of break before I had to get back to work. It was nice just to do nothing.

Today, I have been planning for my study abroad trips this summer. I bought my tickets, which turned out to be pretty easy to do, although it was still a little mind boggling. Chicago to Beijing, Beijing to Hong Kong (lay over), Hong Kong to Sydney, Sydney to Los Angeles (lay over), Los Angeles to Dallas, and finally Dallas to Chicago. All in all, it's going to be a busy summer, but I got it done. Now I just have to find someone that can get my trips to Beijing and the one from Sydney to Dallas upgraded to business or first class. That would make everything much better :)

Planning the flights makes the trip all the more real. It's a done deal now. No backing out. All I have left to do is pay the rest of tuition for the trips and turn in a couple of forms. Scary. At least paying for things has been made easier this last week with the passing of my grandfather. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy he's gone (although it's not the saddest event either, since he wasn't always the nicest person), but he did leave just enough to cover the trips. He wanted the money he left to go to education, so he gets his wish and I get to go on an amazing series of trips this summer. All in all, everyone gets what he wanted from that.

I'm actually excited to go back to class this week, because it means I'm finishing this semester, then I get to go abroad to study, and then I only have one semester left before I graduate, move back to Texas to be with my family, and start a life outside of the academic world. It's a wonderful thought, even if it is a bit scary, but I suppose I have to join the "real" world eventually!

Back to work I go!

Losing Someone - A Death in the Family

It's amazing how much death affects the world, but how little we know about it, or why it's sometimes a tragedy, and sometimes a blessing. This last weekend, my grandfather passed away. It's been stressful dealing with everything, but wholly unemotional. I wasn't close to him, and he did nothing but make my life difficult, simply for the sake of being a pain in the ass. He made my mother upset every time he came to visit, he was the cause of innumerable fights in my house growing up, and he never once showed remorse.

So, of course, despite having no really positive feelings towards him, I'm going with my mother to his house tomorrow in order to help go through things and figure out what to sell, what to keep, and talk to his lawyer. It should prove interesting since my mother hasn't quite decided whether she's sad he's gone, indifferent, or glad. Maybe this trip will help her to figure that out.

As for me, I realized with his passing that I never want to end up like him. I don't want to hate people or spend my life trying to make them miserable in the name of doing it for their own good. My grandfather believed that if you didn't do it his way, then it was the wrong way, regardless of whether there was a better way, or an equally acceptable method, to do something. I know, to some extent, I too think that my way is the best way, but I try very hard not to force that off on other people, although I sometimes feel like people do think that. I think many people feel like I care how they do something, and the honest truth is, I don't.

I'm always willing to share my opinion when asked for it, and sometimes offer it even when it's not solicited because I think it might help, but I don't like forcing it upon other people. I feel like everyone has to do his or her own thing, in his or her own time, in his or her own way. There are very few "right" or "wrong" ways to accomplish goals in life. There are right ways to wash dishes, there are right ways to do laundry; there is not a "right" way to live your life, choose your friends, or be successful. Everyone measures success and happiness in different ways, so how could there be a "right," or even "best" method?

Anyway, I'm going to Arkansas (and people think Texas is backwards...) for a couple days to help sort all of this stuff out. I hope it's not too awful. If nothing else, I get to come back with a sword and some first edition books; it won't be a total loss.

Being Home

I'm home this week for spring break and having some seriously mixed emotions about it. I love seeing my family and friends. I love the city. But it's making me realize that when I move back here, it won't be the same place I left. The city hasn't actually changed, nor have a great many of the people, but I have. In the time since I've moved away, I'll have finished law school, lived downtown in the third largest city in the country, made new friends, learned a different way of life, known what it is to be truly cold, and lost love.

I'm not saying that I'm having second thoughts about moving back, because I'm not (at least not yet). I know I can't stay in Chicago; it's just not home and I don't enjoy being there. The weather and the way of city life up there just doesn't work for me. Maybe it would if I were in a different place in my life, but who knows. Nonetheless, there are things I'm going to miss, and it would be stupid of me to deny that.

Spring Break has given me the time I usually don't have to think. I haven't gotten all upset about my ex suddenly or anything, but I guess I just realized that he's moving on with his life, not just seeing other guys, and I'm not a part of it anymore. I know that was the intention of going our separate ways, but it's still a bit hard to think about. We were part of each other's lives for so long; it's hard not to feel a little left out.

Oh well. No use looking back. I've got an amazing summer planned where I'll be studying abroad in China and Australia for two months, I'll be home to see my family, and then I start my last semester of law school. It's so weird to think about it being over in less than a year; it feels like I've just begun. Then it's back to Dallas, finding a job, passing the bar exam, finding a place to live, and making a new life. A life that isn't centered around school. A life where I finally have money to occasionally do what I want to do without constantly worrying. A life where maybe, just maybe, I can make some friends that don't walk all over me or have such low self-esteem that they feel the need to spend more time blacked out than conscious. Maybe I'll even have a life where I can find love and give him all of me.

I'm not looking for love right now, however. It's one of those things you look back on and think, "wow, I miss that," but at the same time you think, "but now there are more important things; maybe I'll come back to it someday." I won't turn down Mr. Right if he shows up and sweeps me off my feet, but I'm not searching for him. It used to be my fantasy to come home to a sweet, sexy guy, but I had that and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. He was great, despite screwing me over in the end, and he was always kind and loving to me, but something was missing (well, several things were missing, including trust). It just didn't quite fulfill me the way I thought it would, so I'm taking a break from searching for love and focusing on the rest of life.

I've also taken a break from sex, which everyone thinks I'm crazy for. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't have sex again until I was in love again. I'm not sure that's really plausible, or even possible, but I just feel like if I set the bar that high, then I'm less likely to want to lower the bar, or bend the rule, because I'd have to completely break it. In the past, my usual way of dealing with a break up would be to jump into a new relationship, with someone I thought was cute but completely incompatible, and have meaningless sex. This time, however, I decided that never worked in the past, so maybe I should try something else. Not to mention, if I just started sleeping with someone else, it would somehow mean that sex was nothing more than just sex, that sex with my ex, or my first boyfriend, or my future partner, was meaningless, because it wasn't attached to any emotion.

Anyway, I've just been rambling from topic to topic. I think it's time for me to wrap this already long blog post up. Hopefully I'll have a more fun post about Spring Break later. This was just a rant about my emotions. I have actually been doing fun things, too!

Laundry

I hate doing laundry. I mean, it's possibly my least favorite activity in the entire world, falling short only to pulling weeds. It's gotten to the point that I will put off doing it for weeks, sometimes even buying more underwear so that I don't have to wash clothes yet. I really need to get into the habit of doing laundry each week, but I just hate it so much, and it's sooooo easy to make up an excuse not to do it. This weeks excuses included (1) "I'm going on spring break, so I should wait to wash clothes until I'm ready to leave so that they're clean," which perpetually pushed the date later and later, followed by (2) "It's too late to do it tonight" when I get home from class at 9:30 each night.

Basically, it's Wednesday, my class for this evening was canceled, and I leave tomorrow morning on my trip home. I managed to put laundry off for 11 days and now it's taken me less than an hour to do it all. It's really quite pathetic. I made excuse after excuse and it took less than an hour. Really now, that's bordering on EXTREME laziness.

Oh well, my laundry's clean and this was a pointless entry, but it's better than folding the pile of clothes now sitting on my bed getting wrinkled. I mean, I could even go ahead and just pack so that would be done too, but why mess with a system that absolutely doesn't work?

Hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather (in most parts of the US)!

Andrew

Spring Break 2010

All I can say about Spring Break this year is that it can't come soon enough. At this point, I'm just ready to be out for a week. I don't even care about class anymore! Oh well, only two more days and then I get to go home, see my friends, my family, and relax. I have stuff to work on, but it'll still beat going to class every day.

Speaking of vacations, I'm going to be taking a rather long vacation/trip this summer. I'm going to be studying abroad in China and Australia. I'll be spending a month in Beijing and a month in Sydney studying international and domestic law in each country. It should prove to be a lot of fun and very rewarding. In addition, the credits I'll earn by doing the two programs will allow me to graduate in December of this year, a semester early, which means I can take the BAR exam earlier and move back home sooner, both of which are good things!

Overall, life is good. Nothing to complain about. I gave up sex for... well, I'd say lent, but that would be a lie; I just gave it up in general. I figure, if I don't love the guy, why sleep with him. It cheapens the sex I had/have with guys I do/have loved. I might break down at some point, but so far my resolve is pretty strong.

Hope all is well with the rest of the world, because I sure as hell don't get to see any of it lately!

Andrew

Bad dreams

Do you ever have those kinds of dreams where you wake up and can't shake the emotions you got from the dream? Lately, I seem to be having more of those than I'd care to have, especially since the dreams are always upsetting. Why can't I get one with puppies and rainbows? Instead, I get ones with dead friends, dead lovers, and dead ends. It's incredibly frustrating to keep waking up so upset, because then my entire day I'm upset. I've got a somewhat permanent knot in my stomach going lately. I'm really hoping it passes.

As for everything else, it's going. School is going, life is going, friends are going. Going, going, going. Ok, that might be a bit more nonchalant than I really mean, but it's sort of true. Everything is just kind of going on. I guess I'm in that stage after a relationship ends where you have to redefine yourself. I don't feel that I "lost" myself in the last relationship, but it's impossible not to change, so when you're single again, it takes some getting used to. So far, I'm not used to it; however, I do LOVE not being woken up by snoring or being kicked or hit. That part I do not miss. But I do miss the cuddling and the 5am-my-cock-is-hard-and-I-love-you-so-take-it-and-love-it sex. That I do miss.

Speaking of sex, I'm trying this whole celibacy thing. In the past, although I'm not quick to jump into a new relationship, I have, on more than a few occasions, felt that the best way to deal with being single was to jump into bed with the next sorta cute guy that showed interest in me. This time I'm waiting until I feel that I might, or at least could, have a relationship with someone before even considering sex with him. Unless he's super, super hot; then we'll talk. There might have to be some bargaining on that one.

Anyway, life is good; I had a great weekend. I went to see Rocky Horror with my friends, and that was a lot of fun. I actually wore eyeliner and next time I'm gonna try to do it even better! (For anyone who knows me, that might come as a shock, lol). I'm having fun, I'm going out, and I'm making new friends, so overall things are good. Some days are tough, but mostly, life goes on.

*** NOTE: I read this post again and realized that not only did I take him back after that crap, but I didn't even remember it. It's amazing how stupid I can be. I mean, I even said in that post that the only reason I wanted to write it down was so that I wouldn't repeat that mistake. Ugh. It's amazing what we do for love. Completely gloss over things.

"Mourn the losses, for they are many, but celebrate the victories, because they are few."

To date, or not to date, that is the question.

So, I can't decide if I should be dating or not. I have mixed feelings about the whole idea. I'm recently single from what we can safely call an unhealthy, if not destructive, relationship, and I'm not sure that it's fair to try and date yet. Not fair to me, not fair to him; just not fair. Now I'm not really a big proponent of blaming "fairness," especially since life is definitely not fair, nor will it ever be, but I still aim to do the right thing that causes the least harm to everyone involved.

I just want to meet some cool guys, gay or straight, to hang out with. I miss having guy friends. The problem I've encountered so far is that every guy I meet either wants more than a friendship from me, or he wants nothing to do with me. Personally, I don't want a fuck buddy or a friend with benefits. I see the appeal in either one, especially since I'm only staying in Chicago for another year at most; however, that's just not who I want to be. I'd rather be celibate than deal with the fallout and the complications and the health risks associated with sleeping around.

Anyway, there's one guy in particular, who, if it was six months later or I was single six months earlier, would be a perfect guy to try to date, but he's gotten a little too attached, a little too quickly, and although I've told him we need to go slow and that I really just want friends right now, I'm not sure how that will work. Is it possible to be "just" friends with a guy who has a crush on you? Or is it just doomed to failure and drama, particularly if you meet someone else?

Oh well. I should be in class right now, but instead I'm still in bed. My head's all stuffy and my neck hurts (sinus crap), so I'm gonna go drug myself up with Dayquil and attempt to get down to school for the second half of a very long day.

A Return

It's been way too long. I don't care if anyone else reads my blog, but I miss it. I always say that after I take a break, but it's true! I wonder why I stop, but then I realize that the reasons I stop writing are the reasons I shouldn't stop. Oh well. It's a paradox.

So, for my latest bout of being lame, I'm single again, by the same person as the last two and a half years, for the same reason. You'd think I'd learn (and let's hope I have this time), but it does seem as though I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment. I'm a repeat offender. I'm not going to try and analyze the break up; if you want to know why, read my older posts. It's nothing new. He moved to Chicago to be with me, realized he couldn't wait for me to be done with school, and moved out.

What I do want to talk about is how I feel now, what I learned. Not about the relationship, per se, but just about things I've realized now that probably would have been good to know during the relationship. To start, I realize now that my ex likes to go out: just not with me. He always told me he didn't have money to go out, that he didn't want to go out, that he'd rather stay home. Problem is, that was a lie. He loves going out, and I wish we'd have gone out together. Instead, on the rare occasions either of us went out (both of us being broke; another issue, but not one for the blog), we went out separately and came home drunk to the other person. It would have been nice to come home drunk together occasionally.

Also, I never realized just how much I hated him telling me about all the guys that hit on him. I tried to ignore it, or even just take it as a compliment that my boyfriend was so hot, but it really really bugged me. After you hear it enough times, it stops sounding like, "hey, this guy hit on me," and starts sounding like, "hey, you're not good enough; look who I could be with." I know that's probably not what he intended, but it's how it made me feel. It made it hard to trust him, and eventually it made me resent him. Of course it has just as much to do with my own insecurities, but nonetheless, it hurt.

Lastly, or at least the last one I'm going to write about, I learned that I have no fucking clue what I want from a guy. My ex is a good person, a good boyfriend, and a great lover. He did his best, but since I'm not sure what I want, and he's not sure what he wants, it never worked. I'm always torn between my school/professional life and my personal life. I have a very difficult time balancing the two. When I worked, it wasn't such a big deal. I don't know why I take school so much more seriously, but I suppose it's because school is such a big investment and I don't want to fuck it up, especially since I'm not the one paying for it.

In the end, the relationship didn't last. He moved out a couple weeks ago and I've dealt with it as well as I know how. So far this has been my healthiest breakup as far as the choices I've made to deal with it. At least this time I haven't tried jumping into another relationship or into the nearest bottle of booze. I miss him, but I also feel like there's less pressure. I wish I knew this for sure, but I feel like he's probably happier now. He doesn't feel like he has to live up to my unbelievably, even impossible (although they're all ephemeral and stupid), high standards, and he gets to do what he wants without worrying what I think. I never really cared what he did, short of drugs, but he always felt like I was judging him, that I didn't approve. Even though that wasn't true, I'm sure that's how he felt. I just wanted to be included, but no matter what happened, I was always finding out afterward. I wasn't the one he asked for help or advice or anything else; he did that with his friends; I was just guy he slept next to and fucked. Whenever I asked why he didn't include me, he just said I was busy and he didn't want to disturb me. So when he came home and told me about everything he'd done, whatever it may have been, I just felt resentful and acted distant. It wasn't the right response, but it's what happened.

Anyway, that relationship, for the time being at least, is over in all its forms. I wish it had worked out. I wish we'd figured out how to talk to each other. I wish I wasn't so concerned with stupid, irrelevant shit, but I've got another year of stupid irrelevant shit to deal with in school, so until then, oh well. At the very least, I wish we could be friends, because I'd like to know what he's doing, even if I'm not included, but that just sounds extraordinarily painful at the moment. Not falling apart when I don't see him, or talk to him, or read anything about him is hard enough.

They say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I have to agree. The pain of losing it is awful, but it pales compared to the immense joy loving someone can bring.

C'est la vie.