My Deeds 2015. Part II.
Ok, let’s finish this once and for all haha. In my head it has been put behind me already but as my memory continues to whither with time (haha) putting things down to remember it’s smart. It helps the heart remember what it felt like when the brain thinks it’s better to hide it to help you heal. Some truths must remain with us to help as lessons for the future.
So last time, we were left down I believe haha. Time to go up again.
We’re still in August. Claire, Jim and Eileen’s older grandaughter Claire came along for a month or so and I went to pick her up from the airport. That was a fun day. I knew her since she was about a year old! It builds a bond you know.
August was also Grasu’s bday! My baby boy turned seven! In case I have not said it before, I am blessed to have such a wonderful soul in my life and I am grateful for his unconditional love and I am sure I do him more wrong than he ever does me. But I love him with all my heart!
End of August also brought my, what was it, 18 year anniversary from graduating grammar school. I’ve met people I’ve known for 26 years! It was so beautiful, so much fun and such an incredible night. It’s good to see that we are still friends beyond the borders of time and that life hasn’t really changed us or the way we interact. I believe this generation, the way we grew up together for about 8 years really bonded us through nice memories and I do not recall one negative vibe about that night. It was really impressive so I am excited to do it again. I hope it will happen again next summer!
August also brought me that damn entezita, namely that muscle in my right ass cheek that fucked up my existence for the following months. I managed to work it out beautifully throughout the month of September, but now that I have started running the half marathons it is back with a vengeance. It’s ok. In fact it’s getting better already. It’s a mind trick as much as it is physical pain. The ass cheek (muscle haha) needs to learn that I will run half marathons constantly and that with my care and its rational understanding of its new circumstances and rules, we will manage without further pain haha. I know I’ve taken my ass, literally, out of its comfort zone, but it has to find a way to deal with it, like the rest of me. Am I making any sense? haha
September. Oh, wasn’t that the best of months? That was my first time taking a one month vacation from work and I spent it all in the US. Yes yes, I could spent another 12 pages describing my time there but the truth is, I didn’t have the time to write a blog about it, because there was too much to say. I had my first tattoo done on September 5th and it was an awesome experience. Then the Marco Sanchez episode, then the Houston adventure and all that came from it. Made so many new friends and lived the American life for 30 full days. I totally LOVED IT!
Coming back to Bucharest, I ran the relay on October 4th where I pulled out my best time ever on 7 miles, namely 52”14’. I had a great time, mom also participated in her first race and was a total success. That day was good, was damn good, with lots of fun memories! I always have a smile looking back at it.
A week later, I went to Sugas with my friends. My first ever trail/mountain race. That was truly another level of pain and hard work. But I will do it again! Just not in winter damn it! Haha It was so cold, so cold and the slopes going up were so steep at some point that there were times when I literally thought I wouldn’t make it. I was just going to sit down and send it all to hell! Surely to do a race like this, means training to run up hills and slopes and whatnot. At this point I’m not sure how anyone can run up a hill for fuck sake haha. Obviously I saw people doing it but personally, it killed my lungs. There is a technique in everything and I will master it in due time and with the right practice and attitude. Easy does it though. Otherwis
Later on in November, during our teambuilding with the Treasury Division I found out the terrible news about the fire at Colectiv. The death toll increased exponentially as days went by and it was one of the most dramatic events of this kind in the history of our country. Things went out of hand in many ways. You probably read the details in the news. A lot of people went out in the street. Hopefully a lot or something will change from that fight. At least they'll pass the legislation where people are not allowed to smoke inside anymore. There was much hurt and confusion during those days. This people showed unity for once in a very long time. I don’t think we were deeply coherent about why we went on the streets. Not at first. We were just angry to be proven again that much of our system is rotten and constructed on piles of corruption and misused money and lack of care for what really matters. This generation has made a point, has somehow surfaced their priorities and the level of being fed up with the old ways. I hope we understand, old and young, that it lies with us to make a change. The system won’t change if we don’t force it. The system won’t change if we don’t change. If we continue to give and accept bribery, if we continue to consider image and wealth as part of who we are and feel like we can’t accomplish anything in life without them, then any movement of 25k people in the street will fail. As for me, I managed together with friends to collect donations and send them to the hospital as they were running short on supplies with so many critically injured. That was a fine day to live and witness.
Soon after, Paris was struck by death as well and I bled for them too. Useless to say that I look back on it all and realize my little dramas in life could turn to dust when compared with the lives lost and the atrocious pain in the hearts of families enduring the unfair passing away of their loved ones. I mean, at the end of the day, you look at some story in your life, it meant something at some point, but after a while you just say fuck it. I don’t need this shit and you move on. But you can’t move on from such a loss. It will always stick with you. There’s levels of pain and endurance that cannot be compared. And death always seems unfair, no matter how it comes.
November. Mom's Bday. Jim’s Bday. Bond. James Bond stuff haha. Lots of fun as usual. I’ve been working with this man for 8 years this February. Believe it or not it’s becoming increasingly difficult to come up with new ideas for his birthday. I can only be so inventive haha. But it was great working on the details and I, fortunately, have the best of people and the greatest of teams at work. They are always into whatever idiotic ideas I come up with and they turn a normal day into a beautiful birthday. Of course, it was Grandpa’s birthday the same day. My beautiful, amazing, loving and patient Grandpa. It was a day where my heart was split in two. Rejoicing Jim who is a father figure to me and whipping for my other father figure I had lost the same year. Every smile came with a tear shed that day. And that’s ok. There was love in both.
December came. The Coup de Grace. How else could a year such as this end up but with a swift blow where it hurts more?
It started deceivingly good with the first half marathon on December 1st. My first half marathon in competition. A few weeks before I ran the same distance with Valeria van Groningen. Another Gemini amazement! (I am secretly so proud of my species!) She received the gold medal in single sculls at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles back in 1984 among other titles and she is a professional runner, organizing the main running competitions in Romania. She had the patience to run with my slow ass through the woods in Baneasa so I can conquer my own record and threshold of 11 miles and make it to past 13 miles. Believe me, every extra mile is a huge effort beyond what your body has been trained for. Every 30 seconds won in time means months of hard training.
Two weeks after that I participated to the Baneasa Trail Run which was absolutely amazing. I really start enjoying trail running more than street running because of its diversity. Yes, it’s more difficult in a way because of the uneven terrain and the greater possibility of accidents. But literally, it’s a date with nature. It’s so quiet and at every turn you see something else and you can’t get bored because you always have to be on the lookout for some hole in the ground, rocks, mud holes, collapsed trees or fallen branches. It’s literally just you and the woods. And the mental pressure is different. Yes, people are running around you, but on a trail you can’t run 10 people side by side. It’s pretty much just you and the forest and the silence. I only needed my headphones during the last few miles to put some stamina in my joints because I was getting tired. I did better in terms of time in this competition than I did during the first one. It was awesome!
But as December came to an end, so did the perfume of happiness. Two days before Xmas I was walking home from work, reading through my FB chat when I ended up in this “restricted/filtered” FB messages I didn’t even know existed. And there were messages from people from as far back as 3 years! WTF? It seems people who are not friends or follow you on FB but write to you straight on the chat get “filtered” so if you don’t see that right away it gets lost after a while and re-pops when someone else does the same thing. So among many others, there was this message from a girl. She had actually messaged me back in mid June. To make a long story short again, she turned out to be the wife of the guy I had dated for almost half a year in 2014. The guy I had banned entirely upon my grandpa’s death. I cancelled all my plans for that night, went home and skyped with this woman. In my eyes she was the “ex girlfriend” who was always causing him trouble– the way he explained it to me – and for her, I was the one woman he cared for and spent time with the most. And I am saying “one” because there were more.
As she was out working night shifts and sometimes being away for 2 weeks at a time with her job, he had plenty of time to see me. He also kept his wife hidden from the world so not a lot of people knew he was actually married for a year (when I met him). When she found out about me she realized I knew nothing of the entire thing and asked him to tell me the truth and stop seeing me because it was the right thing to do. Eventually after threats and arguments, he promised he would. But he didn’t and she knew it in her heart but could never prove it. So for the rest of the year she followed me on Facebook and little by little she realized we were actually very much alike. That, as she put it, I was a good person and had circumstances been any different, we could have been good friends. Consequently, as she also said, “at least he has good taste in women.”
By the time her and I spoke that night, she had filed for divorce and she was bitter with his cheating and cruelty. I can’t tell in words what it felt like waiting for Skype to connect. I cannot describe my state of mind at that point. Skype finally connected and she was crying. “I’m not here to blame you.” I think it was one of the first things she said. “I know you didn’t know anything. And he fought so hard to keep you away from me. It made me realize that he actually cared a lot for you. I was so jealous he was treating you so nicely, but at home he acted so badly with me.” I listened to her for 2 hours and despite hearing her and seeing how our stories came together like two halves, I still couldn’t believe it that I had been cheated on so bluntly. And ironically, my cheating was her cheating.
So there we were, two women having shared the same man and both thought of each other as enemies at some point because of his lies. And now we faced each other and I felt amazed by her approach to me. It shows strength of character and a beautiful nature if you can look the “other woman” in the eye and thank her for actually admitting to talk to you. Who does that? And yes, I will say it. Who does what I did? Accept to speak to the wife not knowing what’s coming. It does take courage you know, on both ends. My courage to admit I might’ve lived a lie and hurt someone else at the same time. Her courage to be confirmed her fears after so long and his cheating, yet again. The other women she was able to track down vanished scared at the perspective of being involved in their divorce. Or messing their image or their current relationships. And he was also behaving like a creep because he has materialistic reasons at stake not to give her the divorce.
So yes. I had only known her for so long but I wanted, instinctively, to do right by her, because I had hurt her somehow and she is genuinly a very candid beautiful soul. On top of that, my decision to help her rested on the damage he had personally caused me. And yes. It was a consious choice of going against a man who meant a great deal for me. And yes, I did consider what he'd think about this, whether it was fair to him, considering he had stood up for me against his wife. But whatever his reasons, he should have not dragged us both into this mess. The truth will always be revealed so if he didn't care about the consequences, than I chose not to as well.
My mom went through being cheated on and she suffered greatly because of some woman who got in between. Because you shouldn’t lie about things like marriage. Because knowing where I come from and that I have also been through a divorce myself, you don’t keep this kind of information away from me. Because I can’t understand what lies in a man who uses his wife’s car and the clothes she bought him while dating me. Because he took away from me the right to make a choice. The choice of whether I want to still see him or not, given his situation. He knew I wouldn’t, so he chose to lie just to be with me. And that's not an excuse. In one move he broke two people's trust. His wife and mine's. I want nothing to do with a married man because I don’t want to be the reason for separation between people and no one can decide for me in a matter like this!
I gave her the proof of his cheating.
I gave her the proof of his cheating.
It wasn’t easy. It wasn't easy keeping the balance in between wanting to help her and feeling betrayed myself. I knew I had something of value with that man and he probably knew it as well if he stood up for me. But to what avail? It was all cancelled becaue of lies and it's so much sadder that it ended so miserably for everyone. One cannot be selfish this way. He should have divorced her and then seek another woman’s company. It’s how things should be done so she benefits from her life as well. You can’t have her money, her status and also another woman.
So now she’s on her way to getting her freedom back and we are on our way to discovering each other as people and friends. Amen!
Well, by the end of January 1st, after much thought and a few minutes of self pity and tears I decided that no. Life has taught me better. Actually, I had been given an example that very summer. People rarely change. Most of the times they remain true to their nature and only mold situations to fit who they are or blossom when they find prime circumstances. I lived to see my ex before his success and then I saw him blossoming into an increasingly wealthy man. But that change in his pocket also brought a change in his attitude that drove us apart. You can't have marrital goals just in theory while in practice you only follow your own plan expecting your partner to tag along. You need to learn to think for "two", to learn that compromise is the way when you both want the same thing but not at the same time. Talk about it. Don't lie, don't stall, don't confuse me thinking you'll get away with it until you reach your comfort zone and are ready to do it. That is a conscious choice you make into misleading me when I take an issue seriously, including your words. That's what happened to us. I wanted kids sooner, he told me he was with me on that one, but never really acted accordingly which saddened me because children are essential to me. The fact that he wouldn't discuss about it fearing that I'd get upset made it worse, while what really upset was him saying one thing to then do another. This wasn't about buying a new TV set. It was about our future. Everything else I can do myself. I had married to have a family, hence, children. So don't do that.
All being said, I have beautiful memories from that time, no doubt about it and to a certain extent I am sorry we didn't make it, of course. No one gets married to divorce. But I would have been more sorry if I had stayed. I can't settle to live someone's life and plans as long as they don't care to compromise to live a bit of mine, my wishes and my dreams. I am not a paper clip to a marriage certificate. I am a woman who's rather constant in what she wants so you should know me (really know me) before you marry me so you don't get "unpleasent surprises". So that's about it. There is nothing from that episode that I miss or want back, children or no children.
So. What is there left to say. I wish him all the best. I do. I hope the baby is born safely under the brightest of stars. They all come innocent into this world despite our grown up dramas. As for him, I wish he becomes better than his self/others' induced idea of "wealth makes you someone"; that he learns to trust people more and not look at them through his past/present fears, weaknesses and insecurities. Because if he ever falls, not only that he won’t have the strength to get up on his own because he believes his strength is in his possessions rather than in the life he lives, but others won’t hurry to help out unless he has treated them without interest.
As a side note. God has an incredible sense of humor. His new lady's name is my mom's name, the woman who probably suffered more than I did following this divorce. It's just a thought about how we will always be given reminders from "up there" through the small things, if you know where to look.
As a side note. God has an incredible sense of humor. His new lady's name is my mom's name, the woman who probably suffered more than I did following this divorce. It's just a thought about how we will always be given reminders from "up there" through the small things, if you know where to look.
So here I am, end of 2015.
A friend of mine said recently “You know Jesus died at the age of 33. It is said that this year is the year of penitence and hardship for most people during their lives.” If this is true, I have felt it. But let me tell you this. When I draw the line, only good things happened to me this past year.
My grandfather’s passing away ended his incredible suffering and made me more responsible towards my family. Grandma and I have not always got along very well and Grandpa always acted as an intermediary. Now I had to mend that connection on my own and learn how to go about my grandma in a different way. And it wasn’t easy. We were both stubborn, both hurt and both communicated like idiots. Only because we missed each other's friendship. Now, almost a year away from being left just the three of us we have found a new level of unity and understanding. The loss in itself and the struggle to stay strong gave me more energy and will to not let myself down, keep myself fit and not give in for their sake and mine.
Meeting old friends and listening to them speak about how they saw me when I was younger and how they see me today after so many years worked wonders for me. Because, haha, it seems I was nice, fun and possibly completely insane back then too. Even my “first crush’s” words made a difference despite everything else. For a moment I thought that him, finally making his choice, brought me peace. In truth, I made peace with myself, because his unexpected visit after so long really gave me the chance to let it all go. To clear all the question marks and put an end to all of my excuses of why I need to still hang on to anything related to him.
On the other hand, I was pleased to see that I have taken the right decision in leaving my marriage when I did because looking at all of this happening, other than a normal reaction to unexpected news, I was not sorry nor in regret. I am just content I can see to my life and content to see he is trying again. But. At the same time with his news I got excellent news of a dear friend of ours, Liana. She and her husband Mihai are finally having their much expected and wished for baby! I could not be more happy! I could not be more excited knowing how long they've waited for this to happen! So my heart goes out to them! I loved the happiness on their faces, I loved everything about that news! Wish them all the best and much much love and safe pregnancy!
2015 was partially about anger, hurt and dissapointment.
2015 was a lot about self-control to the point where I almost tore the reins to my mind.
It was about being brave and being loved.
You must see the full half of the glass. As one man quoted his grandfather on Facebook: because “the glass is beautiful.” And yes. Life is beautiful and we cannot choose to see the pain alone. The desire for vengeance. The desire to cry out your frustration. I called myself stupid many times for not going out there to hit some people in the face. My dear beloved friend John without whose help I would have not come to terms with my August adventure, said that in fact I am strong. Not stupid. But when you’re blinded by so much anger it’s hard to see strength in what you feel like being injustice. So that’s why I was loved. And that’s why I was brave. And that’s why, eventually I pushed my damn self control to the brink. Because the glass is beautiful and hell if I’m going to let anything taint it.
Enjoy a fresh new 2016 and remember:
Your gut feeling never trully fails you.
Only the decisons you make.
Mwuah!
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