Dating Sucks.

I fucking hate it! I am trying to be available, open, look my best so I will feel my best, I am doing the online thing one TWO different sites! I am finding that the more options available the more I hate that I have to "pick" a new life partner. I signed up to do online dating because I thought it would quickly narrow down the options to just the one's who want what I want, but I am starting to think no one wants what I want. I am just being met with rapid fire rejection and men with whom I am completely uninterested. It is so unfair. I had everything with KC, everything. I shouldn't have to be looking again. And honestly, not to sound boastful, but I don't think it should be so fucking hard for me to find a nice guy who is reasonably attractive that wants to make babies. It's not like I am looking for a god-damned unicorn here, just a nice, funny person who is excited to raise a family. I entitled this post dating sucks, but I can't even say that I am even dating because I haven't actually been on any dates! Though I really don't want to, I think I just am going to have to get comfortable being alone. I have said it before, but I always felt like I had more work to do before I was really ready to date, and that was why I wasn't being flooded with opportunities. At this point, I feel like I know what I want. I feel like I am confident in who I am and what I have to offer someone in a relationship. And still nothing. I guess KC really was the only man for me.

My story

My story began and ended with tragedy.  I met my late fiancé at a funeral for the father of my dear friend, who, as it turned out, was KC’s Uncle.  I remember the very first time I saw him; he was walking through the reception hall of the church following the service. He was wearing a suit and had sunglasses on his head and he was with a beautiful young Asian woman.  I thought to myself too bad that guy is married, he’s so cute. That is the type of man I would want to be with. Following the service my friend asked me to accompany her to her mother’s house and stay with her. It was here that I met KC, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the lovely young Asian woman he was with was not his wife, but his adopted sister. KC’s father, aunts and uncles have told me several times how they had never seen anything like it when KC and I met; it was electric. We clicked immediately and felt completely at ease with each other. I couldn’t believe I had only known this man for a mere couple of hours as I felt as if we were old friends.  KC would make little jokes about me, like that I was too tall in my heels and too tan from living in Orange County. Somehow even when he was making fun of me I could feel the affection and I knew it was his way of complimenting me.  KC and I were sitting outside and he leant me his sweater to stay warm. When I left that night with his cousin, my friend Heather, we were about halfway home when I realized I had left my phone in the pocket of his sweater, so we turned around to get go retrieve it.  I was so embarrassed when I walked back in the door to see him sitting there amongst his whole family, adorned in the sweater I had been wearing all night, with his hands in the pocket.  The room went quiet and he looked right at me, held out my phone to me and said “if you wanted my number so bad, you could’ve just asked me for it.”  I was mortified and the family all laughed. I took my phone and thanked him, and left.  When I got back in the car I looked at my phone and scrolled through my contact list, where I found his phone number.  Three days later, I called him and we set up a time for me to visit him in Santa Barbara.  I knew I loved him right away and KC always said the same thing.  We talked about living together on our first date (or more accurately, he tried his damndest to convince me to move from the OC to the SB).  Everything in me wanted to just say “OK I’ll send for my things!” but the logic within me and the fear of what the people in my life would think made me wait 3 months before moving to be with him. KC and I had so many adventures together, and we taught each other so much.  In less than three years, we visited mexico, Mammoth Lakes, traveled the entirety of the California Coast, partied in Las Vegas and hiked the mountainsides in search of wild mushrooms, fished the Channel Islands, and even lived in Southeast Alaska for 5 months.  All this time we knew this was the real thing, and we often talked late into the night about how we would raise our children (one of our own, then adopting another one or two).  We had a timeline and a plan. Everything we wanted was coming to us, and just two months after returning from our summer Alaskan adventure, KC took me to one of our favorite coastal escapes on the Sonoma Coast in Gualala.  We had this tiny little cottage all to ourselves with a bay window that looked right out at the ocean; it was incredible! After a quick tour of the grounds and a little mushroom hunt, I was sitting in the bay window wrapped in a blanket and reading.  KC walked over to me and stood at my feet looking out the window but not saying anything.  He looked a little strange to me, so I closed my book and asked what he was doing.  I could tell he was starting to cry and I reached for his hand but he pulled it away.  He looked up toward the ceiling and took a deep breath, and then looked toward me and said “Babe, you know I’m going to love you forever, right?” I said “yes,” and he went on. “And you know that as long as we’re together, we’ll be OK, and we can do anything.  And that no one can ever love you like I love you, right? You know that, right?” (Here is where it is tough to remember the details). I said “yes” and he dropped to one knee and held out a little heart shaped box with a bow on it.  I think I asked him what it was and he told me to open it.  I said “you have to say it, you have to ask me!”  He looked me straight in the eye and said “babe, will you marry me?”  I took the ring from the box, handed it to him, and held out my left hand; I couldn’t speak.  He put the ring on my finger and I kissed him.  He said “you never answered me.”  I screamed “YES YES YES!!!!” and jumped into his arms.  We sat on the window for hours and talked about our wedding and all the plans we had to make, what songs we would dance to and who would be in our bridal parties.  It was perfect.

            The days that followed were the happiest I can ever remember.  We were back in Santa Barbara, everyone knew he was proposing and knew we were coming home engaged and everyone we knew was so happy for us. It was eight days after he proposed when he went out lobster diving with his father and a friend. I was no stranger to this as fishing and diving was his obsession and this happened on a weekly basis.  Around sun down that day I got a call from KC’s father, Dave.  I answered and asked if they were back in. He said yes, and asked me where I was. I told him I was in my apartment. Then he asked me if I was alone and I knew something was wrong. Instantly I flashed that KC must be in the hospital; I thought he got the bends. I said “is everything ok?” “No.” I collapsed. He went on “KC went down for his first dive and he didn’t come back up.” I dropped the phone, and my friend Ashlee picked it up and talked to Dave. I heard her scream through what sounded like a tunnel.  KC was missing for about 30 hours until his body was found outside of a cave on the front side of Santa Cruz Island.  When his sister, Emily, came in the door and told me they had found him I already knew he was gone, but I was hoping. She told me “they found him, but he’s, he wasn’t, he isn’t alive.” I was back in the tunnel, couldn’t hear people talking to me, couldn’t see straight, couldn’t stand, couldn’t cry or talk.  My next memory is being in my mother’s car and begging her to take me with him, but she said she couldn’t. Then the hospital. Then drugs. Then a week of flickering memories and lots of people and no food and everyone trying to give me food. December 4, 2010, two days before my twenty-seventh birthday and eight days after getting engaged my world ended as I knew it.

I feel good.

 I am feeling really good right now and I feel like it is important to recognize and document this feeling. I so often write to express myself to no one when I am angry or frustrated or sad, but not really so much when good things are happening. I am not sure why, but I just had a moment where I was thinking I am really done with school. I graduated from college and I worked really hard to do it. I just might go to grad school, in fact, it is very likely that I will and in two years I will be working as a therapist to help children with Autism and their families to make their lives better. Me. I will do that. And that feels fucking good. I feel fucking awesome, not afraid to say it.


Remind me of that when I am bitching about course work in like a year.



OK, arrogant rant over.

Lonesome

I have a lot of things going for me right now. I am doing the things I love with the people I love. I am healthier than I have been in a very long time. I am dancing and teaching dance. I am moving forward professionally. I am about to graduate College with honors and and in the midst of applying for graduate school. I have a niece who I love more than anything and a *nephew* who thrills me with his giggles and sweet little cheeks. I am so proud of what I have accomplished since KC passed and I feel really good about who I am and the path I am on. KC's birthday is this sunday and I am regressing. I am so desperately lonely I am dreaming about KC being here, being back and with me and us planning our wedding. I want to be in a relationship. I want to love someone and be loved back. I want those intimate moments and inside jokes and nicknames that we're embarrassed to say in public. I want to be pregnant. I want to raise and love a family. And I have absolutely, positively, no idea how to proceed.

KC, I need your help. I love and miss you so terribly and constantly. Send me the next *one.* Help me be happy again; happy like I was when I was with you.

Panic

Sometimes, in grief, I notice these moments of panic. They are subtle and internal, which I suppose makes panic seem, well, hyperbole. I keep these feelings subtle because I know if I do what my body wants to do I will ruin my life. If I do what I am supposed to do, what my body and heart wants, like throw a giant fucking fit, or cut myself, or get drunk, or take meds, run away, or shut down, if I do that there will be consequences lasting far longer than the urges I have to do these things. So I just sit and breathe and sometimes cry a little (or a lot) and feel all of the feelings that I have and wait for it to go away. See, I know I am not crazy, because I know that these urges would make me seem crazy so I control it. Right? I mean if I were really crazy I wouldn't be thinking about cause-and-effect type consequences, I would just act on impulse. I mean, right?

I just sometimes get really overwhelmed by loneliness and I get scared that I will always be alone. This generally happens when I am, in point of fact, alone (which I am sure exacerbates the issue, although on rare occasions it will happen in public). But I just get scared I guess that it is impossible for me to be loved ever again. Or at least for me to accept it and love someone back. It happens every single day, people fall in love. It seemed so super special and significant when KC and I fell in love that I just feel like it is impossible to get that twice with a second man. I have tried to date, and I have actually dated. I have enjoyed the company of another man but it felt nothing like what it felt like when I fell in love with KC. I knew I loved KC and I knew he loved me, and we both knew it right away. And in the same way, I think *and I am scared to put this out there but this is how I am feeling*  that I know that I won't have the family that I want. So now I just have one question, knowing what I know.

How do I become OK with this life?

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is a little rough and tough for me, but I have to remember that I am lucky. Seriously lucky. I am lucky because for the rest of my life, no matter how long or short that may be, I will have always known True Love because I was loved by KC. He made me believe that love could be like what we read in poetry and see in films. It is because of who he was that I allowed myself to really open my heart and become so vulnerable as to fully experience a reciprocal and beautiful love. One that was so strong that strangers would tell us at restaurants what a sweet couple we were and that they could see how in love we were. KC's love hit me like a bullet and I never looked back; I never doubted it. Because of KC and the deep, profound way he loved me, I am able to love back in the same way, in all of my relationships, even those that haven't yet been forged. I am a product of True Love and today is the day that is celebrated. This is a picture of a sign KC made for me for our first Valentine's Day together. He worked on it for hours and brought it to my work to show everyone how he loved me. The poster is about 20 feet long, so KC asked our dear friend Trevor to hold up the other end. I remember being behind the bar when they came in and held this sign and I was so nervous thinking that KC was proposing to me. I just kept thinking "I don't want to get engaged at Outback!!!" I was floored by his grand gesture, and the sweet, proud smile on his face is something I will never ever forget. I miss KC and the love that we shared. Today, with a heavy, heavy heart, I remember how lucky I am to have known this great and tragic love. And to you, my facebook family, know that when I say I Love You, I mean it from the deepest, most sacred part of my soul, because that is the only way I know how to love anymore.

Green Giant

I am in a slump right now, and I am noticing how my grief has changed. In the beginning I was paralyzed, numb, a shell of who I was. I really do feel like I am as back to *me* as I am going to get, while knowing I will never be the same person I was before. I still miss KC the same way, desperately and angrily and passionately. But I also mourn him other ways. I mourn our future. I guess because I am trying so hard now to find the way to make a family for myself I am feeling more acutely the loss of what KC and I had planned. I feel so cheated. I feel so nervous about whether or not I will be able to find someone who loves me. When I think about this logically, it doesn't really make sense to me, I should be able to find someone. Other women my age find men to be their boyfriends, those boyfriends propose marriage, marriage leads to children; it's the natural order of things. I am still somewhat young at 29, definitely not out to pasture yet. I am reasonably attractive; no cloven hooves or warts on the nose. I love sports and fishing and action movies, I am smart and funny. I should have men knocking down my door left and right. But I really, really don't. The dude I was seeing for a couple months was about the nicest guy I could have asked for and he fell off the face of the planet for almost three weeks before sending a dumb ass cop out "breakup" text. Is this really what I have in store? After all I have learned and experienced, I am still subject to this nonsense? WTF?!
Today I went to a baby shower for a friend of the family. She is 21 years old, and a total doll, I just adore her. As soon as I walked in I felt like I was choking. It was as if I had the wind knocked out of me. Between peeping into the lives of old acquaintances on facebook and seeing that everyone and their fucking mother is getting married and making babies, then walking into the reality of a close friend, who happens to be 8 years younger than me, having a child with a loving and committed boyfriend; it was just too much. I got so sad. I was stifling tears the whole time and if I hadn't come with my mother and sister I probably would have left. I hate that I can't be happy for other people because I am so jealous. That isn't who I want to be. But I just don't know what else to do. I don't know how to stop feeling the way that I feel and wanting what I want. I just want it. In a perfect world I could jump to 6 months into a relationship with the perfect combination of John Legend and Phil Dunfy from Modern Family. I know that is stupid wishful thinking that is not anywhere in the neighborhood of constructive, but again, I just can't help myself.
So what am I going to do about this?
I am going to become the best version of myself that I possibly can. I am going to get healthy, I start dance classes next week, I am going to finish school, I am going to keep busy and put myself out into situations where networking will be done. Then I will be my most attractive, and if I still can't get a man, I will just, shit I don't know. I will just keep getting better at being an Auntie and file for adoption. I don't want to do it on my own, but I want to be a mom more than I don't want to be a single mom. So, there's that.