This One Where Super Careo Talks About Feelings

Just FYI: This post is really, really sappy. Really, really, REALLY sappy. You have been warned.

Armini has been gone for almost one full month and in that time I have spent a lot of time thinking, for better or for worse, about the life I'm living now that he's gone and the life that I had this time last year. And in that short amount of time I have realized a lot of things. Mostly about myself and also about how these things that I realized about myself may have directly affected my relationship.

Today was a perfect fall day (in Kansas, it doesn't matter that it's still August), the sort of day that Armini loved. Just cool enough for jeans and a shirt, maybe a sweat shirt as the sun goes down. It made me miss him a lot. I thought about the apartment and how we would have had all the windows open to let in the cool air. I wondered what we would have done today if he was still here.

My mom asked me today what I would say to him if he called me tomorrow and said "I've made a terrible mistake, I'm coming home." I told her that I would tell him that he should hurry back.

I know that people say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, I never assumed that I would feel like that in this instance. I figured he would leave, I would be miserable, we would grow apart and I would eventually move on. But it seems like the longer he's gone, the more I think, the more I realize, and the more I realize that Armini means a lot to me.

The only downside to all this thinking (which, honestly I would rather not be doing - so if you're in the Kansas City area and feel like doing something look me up. I have nothing else to do. Clearly.) and realizing stuff is that it makes me miss Armini all that much more. Which you know, sort of makes it harder to think about the fact that he won't be coming home for another 10 months. But hey - one month down so ... hooray for that!

Saying all of this ... "out loud" is weird for me because I feel like it's stuff I shouldn't really be saying. I feel like I'm supposed to be all strong and not talk about the fact that I miss him and care about him as much as I do given the situation. Yes, we broke up. Yes, I am trying to move on. Yes, I am starting to think that this moving on business is going to be way harder than I thought it was going to be.

And besides, if I didn't post about this then I wouldn't be posting anything at all because this is pretty much all I've been thinking about lately. So there. Sorry if I got too sappy for you. I promise that we will be back to our regular type posting next week.

My Wednesday Anthology

Since taking my internet vacay last month, I have been sloshing through my Google Reader desperately clinging to the hope that someday I will catch up with you all. Because you people post a lot and don't really care that I'm on vacay and are not reading all of your freaking aweseomeness.

So this is partly so that you can know that I am reading as fast as I can (really, I promise) and also because I felt like it. I was going to try and think of another somewhat legitimate sounding reason to create this post but then I figured that "because I felt like it" is a pretty legitimate excuse because this is my blog and the whole reason it exists in the first place is because I felt like it.

[end tangent]

Anyway. It's Wednesday and here is my anthology of bits of internet aweseomeness that tickled me pink and that I wanted to share with you.

Feature #1: Have you heard that Ben from No Ordinary Rollercoaster and Andy from Wild ARS Chase have teamed up again for another totally radical co-blog? And were you aware that this new co-blog is so awesome that they had to set up a stog (short term blog) for it? If not, you are missing out on something wonderful. Anyway, the horoscope for Aquarius was terrifying. Mostly because I know they were trying to be funny but pretty much hit it right on the head:

Aquarius: You want to take more initiative in your social life. Sign up for a Twilight book club, meet up with local World of Warcraft players and join a neighborhood crocheting club.

Feature #2: This picture from one of my favorite blogs, Secret Agent Josephine. Please note: I did not take this picture. Brenda did. I only wish I had taken this picture.

Feature #3: The idea of a Just Because box sent to someone you love just because (in case you hadn't already figured it out) that I got off of the lovely blog Cakies. I know a few people who could use some surprise love via the mail. I just have to stop being lazy and do it already.

Feature #4: I really don't have anything else right now. Truth be told it's actually Tuesday night (hooray for the ability to schedule blog posts!) and I am surprisingly tired considering it's only 10:05 pm and I read close to 300 blog posts today and I can't think of anything else that I loved loved loved. You know, except that one thing that you wrote the other day. I totally loved that.

Ahem.

The End

{ta-da!}

Take your Mom to Work Day

Today I took my mom with me to work. Yes, you read that right.

It worked out because I nanny and my mom has this thing about snuggling little babies and I really like to sit and let her do all the work hang out with my mom and little babies at the same time. The schedule for the day looked something like this:

• Snuggle time.
• Sitting and rocking on the porch swing.
• Make the baby smile, practice our coo-ing and giggling.
• Snuggle time.
• Watch Jurassic Park and snuggle.
• Nap for 45 minutes.
• Snuggle time.
• SuperCareo knitting time/SuperMama uses some mom-type magic to make the screaming baby fall back asleep.
• Shopping time (even though Mom didn't get me anything ... what a rip-off).

All in all, a good day indeed. I particularly liked the part when the screaming baby was being dealt with my someone other than myself. Plus I got some knitting done on my sweater which only has the one sleeve left until I seam it all together and then knit the collar.

Yes, I knit. I'll own it. Even if Hilda insists that I also need to acquire 20 cats and grow some gray hairs to go with it. Knitting isn't lame people. Just go click that link and then tell me that I'm knitting things that you would hide in your closet. I AM NOT A GRANDMA.

Ahem. Sorry about that. I just needed to get that out there.

An Award/Meme! It's so terribly exciting!

Even after taking a month off from blogging, and having most of my posts since then been about Armini being in China, you people are still reading! And please don't think for a minute that I don't appreciate the fact that you're reading. It's really, really nice to hear people who don't know me at all outside of this blog tell me that I'm not crazy for feeling the way that I do right now. Or ever. Or something like that. It sounded better in my head, anyway.

Anyway, Full of Heart tagged me with my first ever blog meme/award thing. So, hurray for memes! And awards! And being tagged!

1) Who is the hottest Movie Star? Yes, you may think I'm a little weird for saying this but ... it's Peter O'Toole. Yes, he is old now but go watch Lawrence of Arabia and tell me that you don't think he's a good looking dude. And Carey Grant. And Brad Pitt (if we're being honest here).

2) Apart from your house and car, what is the most expensive item you have ever bought? The girl that I roomed with during my junior year at KU had her computer stolen at the first (and also last) party I ever threw, even though I had offered to put it in the trunk of my car for safe keeping because she had been worried about it. I was so upset that I offered to buy her a new one. We found a model she liked and I thought it would end up being around $500. Turns out she upgraded it so much that it cost three times that much. Plus, Dell charged a 33% interest on it when I had to finance it. Needless to say, we don't talk anymore.

3) What is your most treasured memory? This is so hard for me to answer that I have, literally, been thinking about it since yesterday and I still can't really come up with anything that I would consider the most treasured. But for the sake of putting something here I will say this:

• The first time that Tim wagged his tail at me.
• That time on our way to Vegas when I was in the car with the boys and Delay made me laugh so hard that I almost drove off the road.
• The time in Texas, sitting on a boat with Armini and some friends (and a not-friend) thinking about how I was having the best and worst week of my life all at the same time.
• Laying in bed on the phone with Armini when he told me, a little over three years ago, that he couldn't get me off his mind and he wanted to try and get back together. That was a good night.

4) What was the best gift you ever received as a child? This is also a tough one. I can tell you want it wasn't. It wasn't the Barbie Power Weels Corvette I still ask for every Christmas. Or the My Size Barbie that I'm still waiting for. But I would have to say that the best gift I ever got would be Clover, my Cabbage Patch doll. I didn't get her until I was 5 and the Cabbage Patch Kid craziness had died down. She's dirty and old and I love her just as much as I did when I was a kid. She is very good at keeping the monsters under the bed where they belong.

5) What is the biggest mistake you have ever made? I don't think I have a biggest mistake, per se. I do wish that I had done some things in my life differently though.

6) 4 words to describe yourself: messy, lazy (sometimes), hopeful, and easily amused

7) What was your highlight or low-light 2008? Moving home. Definitely moving home.

8) Favorite Film? This is a hard one. I love lots of movies. I would have to say that all time it would have to be Fern Gully. I can still watch it 6 times in a row without getting bored.

9) Tell me one thing I don't know about you: I am lazy, and I tend to sound sort of whiny, but really I am quite motivated. It just comes out at odd times. And also I give into peer pressure like that. Which may be good information to have in case we ever get to hang out in real life.

10) If you were a comic book/strip or cartoon character, who would you be? Ariel from Little Mermaid. I have always always always wanted to be able to turn into a mermaid.

Now for the tagging part ... let's see ...

Kim at Perfectly Cursed Life

RCaitlin at City Intern Girl Life

... And of course you if you are feeling so inclined. I know this is such a passive aggressive thing to do but honestly, I don't know very many people out in the blogosphere and I hate tagging people who don't know/read this little blog-o-mine. It makes me feel silly.

Due North

It always surprises me how quickly my sense of self vanishes after a break up. It's like, one day your sad and the next day you wake up and you're still sad only now you have no idea what to do with yourself.

Which is what happened to me. You know, after the reset button on my life somehow got pushed.

I was at a point where so much had happened in such a short amount of time that I was overwhelmed to the point of losing my internal sense of direction. The sense of direction that propels you to go to that place. That place, of course, is different for everyone. Maybe that place is a fancy job, a career, or maybe it's a family. Maybe your internal sense of direction is pulling you in the direction of becoming the crazy cat lady for your neighborhood or trying to turn you into a giant hippie. You know, I'm down with whatever your place happens to be.

The last three weeks, I have had no real sense of self. No feelings of being pulled to be anything - even the crazy cat lady (although, to be realistic, I would probably end up being the crazy poodle lady).

You never really know how weird it is to not feel like that until you experience it. But the best part of losing that internal sense of direction is finding it again. Which I thought about tonight and was all ... "Well duh miss smarty pants. That's the only good part of losing anything."

But then I stopped and thought about it. Really thought about it. And I realised that it's not just about finding something that was lost. It's more about how it always finds you at the oddest and most obviously right moment and you're just over come with a sense of well being. Your internal sense of direction finally is pointing north again and you can move forward knowing that you're at least heading in generally the right direction.

The other day my dad was telling me about how he hoped that I either found a career that I loved or married well so that I could stay at home. And even though he wasn't trying to get me back on track, his words totally switched a light bulb on in my head and my Sad Little Ghost, who also took a vacation apparently, was all like ... "Let's do this!".

It's nice to at least feel like I'm back on track, even if there is still some grieving that I need to deal with. At least I know where I want to go.

Tonight is Hard

Tonight I miss him.

Armini has been in China for a little more than two weeks.

So far I've been ok. Surprisingly so. I think that I did a lot of grieving for him, for us, before he left.

But tonight I can't help but think of that moment. The moment where I had to turn away from him in the airport. When he left.

Tonight is hard. Tonight I miss what I used to have. Tonight I don't know what to do with myself.

My Longest Relationship

Is officially with this guy:


He beat out Armini for the spot by 3 whole months. Not too shabby, if you ask me.

Today is Tim's birth-a-versary. He is 7-ish years old and I have had him for 3 whole years. 3 wonderful years that have gone by much too fast.

Dear Timmer,

You have grown and changed so much over the last 3 years that sometimes I wonder how you were ever that scared little guy that I met at the humane society. I have enjoyed seeing you grow more confident, more friendly, so much and I still get excited with every one of your accomplishments.

I love snuggling you every night. I love waking up and having you be instantly in my face so excited to start the day. I'm not going to lie, I also love the fact that you like me the best of all the people you know. It makes me all warm in fuzzy inside to know that you like me so much more than other people.

Maybe sometimes you deserve your nickname Poopy Pants, but I still love you. I can't wait to spend another 3 years with you. You are my little snuggle muffin and I am so glad that we are going to be together forever.

I love you bunches,
Your Mom

PS - I really wish that you could read, then you would probably love me even more.

I'm going to call it an internet vacation

So you may have noticed (or not, whatever) that I haven't posted here (or anywhere) in last month. A ton of stuff happened in my real life and it was overwhelming to the point that I needed some time to process it and some of the stuff was more "impending" than anything else and I was trying my best to live and enjoy my life in the moment. But now things have settled a little, all impending things have ... impended.

July was a big month. And when I say big, what I really should say is HUGE.

• First off, I quit my job. It was something that I had been alluding too for a while, but I didn't want to mention it on the off chance that somehow my boss found out and decided to cut me lose before I was ready.
• I moved out of my wonderful little apartment. You'd think that 6 months wouldn't feel like 2 months, but it did. Now I'm back at home with mom and dad. Yippee!
• I ran my half marathon. Hilda and I managed to stay together the whole time, which was awesome, and I finished in under 3 hours which was the goal. Hooray me!
• Armini and I went to Disneyland and then he left for China. It was a wonderful and incredibly painful week.

So, like I said, a busy month. And a lot of the stuff that I did was pretty emotionally charged. All in all I am ok but really, really tired.

I find myself at a place now where I don't know what to do with myself. Armini and I made the decision to not try and stay together while he's in China, so now I'm single to boot. It's almost like someone hit the reset button on my life. Which is something that sometimes excites me but also terrifies me.

I am overwhelmed and I don't know how to go about rebuilding my life. It's tough, but I know that I will get through it (although I have to say that I'm a little worried about the amount of chocolate ice cream I feel compelled to eat).

So, I may not be posting much, and when I do it might be kind of sad. I'll try to keep it upbeat and happy, but I'm a girl and it's hard for me not to get my emotions all over everything when I have something huge happening in my life. Be prepared.