Hey, maybe I’m the problem

Maybe it’s me. Maybe Charles was right and I’m the one who starts all the fights, who complains too much. Expects too much?

I dunno, this past weekend was good but Kellie and I got into two more arguments about stupid stuff. Friday we got into a big argument before he even got here. I had gone out with Jay and James and of course the main point of discussion was Charles. All this Charles talk, hearing about him and his boys, it still upsets me. (more on that later). But I got home from the meetup and talked to Kellie a bit before he came up and of course he got all anxious about it and I got annoyed he was being anxious. This all just spiraled into an annoyance and an argument. Thankfully he called me and we talked about things but I was still pretty pissed about just everything in general. It basically ruined our entire Friday night.

Then Saturday we did glass blowing and had a super fun time. After we went to lunch and we were talking more about Charles. He said something along the lines of how Charles is avoidant and I should have seen the red flags from the start and I said something like “well you have red flags too, should I just give up on you” and that of course started another argument.

The good thing is that Kellie and I can TALK about them, apologize to each other, share how we feel and what happened. However, I’m worried that with these arguments already so early on. Is it going to ruin our relationship long term. Is it already building any sort of resentment. Like this morning he asked “can I call you, it’s not because I’m clingy, it’s just cause I want to hear your voice this morning”. Like him saying tings like that, it’s just a little…. IDK, weird? Why is he SAYING he’s not clingy.

I am starting to question myself, AM I OVER CHARLES ENOUGH to really be able to give Kellie what he needs. I try to be, but as you can see. Charles just keeps being a big point of discussion all around for things.

Or Maybe Kellie is right and I just need to completely exclude anyone who has connections with Charles. This is what he’s pushing for.

I also was pretty pissed because I had tried to get Jay & James to hang out this past weekend so that they could meet Kellie. They said No because James was working. But then they were able to make time to go hang out with Charles and his boy Don. Just makes me feel a certain way. And it’s the second time that’s happened now. Last time was they hung out with Charles and Anthony on a day when I had asked them too.

And that also brings up other thoughts and problems. Like Charles has ALL THESE PEOPLE wanting to hang out with him. Jay, James, Don, Anthony, Serge, Eric, etc. He seems to be able to just call any one of these people and they jump to hang out with him. They make plans to hang out with him. But here I sit most night still with no one to really hang out with. I dunno. Just frustrates me on multiple levels, Not only that he can do that and has these people who will just show up at a moments notice for him. But apparently now he’s going out and doing all this other stuff that I’d always wanted him to do but he was always “TOO TIRED” after work to do anything. And IE today, it’s a fucking TUESDAY and he has at least two of us fighting over his time today.

After Charles and I broke up, I tried to start making better deeper connections with friends. But it just seems to not work for me. IE Matt, it’s always ME asking him to hang out. Same with most of my “friends”. I just feel like they don’t want to hang out and it’s a one way street for me.

I ran into Serge at the gym yesterday as well and we ended up hanging out for 3 hours having beers and talking. Come to find out that the company he works for is a vendor that my company uses so we talked a lot about that. Spent some time talking about Charles but very little. He said Charles has been “grey” lately which is the same way Jay described him.

So this comes to my next biggest thing is that now apparently Charles is like MR planner and wanting to do stuff. He’s apparently planning a little day trip to San Jose for his birthday, he’s planning a weekend in PV for Pride. And who knows what else. He’s able to plan things with Jay & James. He’s able to go out after work and do stuff. But when we were together he was too tired to go out a lot of the time. He was too busy to plan ahead or think ahead and do trips, he couldn’t take Time off work. It’s just frustrating hearing him doing this stuff that I BEGGED him to do when we were together.

It’s also frustrating to hear him doing this stuff and I’m not part of the inclusions any more. For two years we did everything together. And now, I am just missing out on doing those things with him.

Am I over him enough, can I move on. How should I proceed.

Bear Valley Weekend

Spent last weekend in Bear Valley doing winter fun stuff. It was a great time with the group. Kellie, Owen, Jhunrie, Jonathan and Shaun. We went snowmobiling, hiked in the snow. Had a great time overall. Things with Kellie were great the whole weekend and everyone really liked him. It really made me like him a lot more over the weekend.

Owen really pissed me off over the weekend though. He’s just so self centered and everything has to be his way. Saturday was Chinese new year and Jonathan had specifically asked if we could go to Chinese food that day. I found a Chinese place in Arnold which had 4.2 stars. But Owen was all “oh this place is going to be gross, blah blah blah” and he made us all go do this stupid Mexican place where the food was bland and dry.

Also, I personally spent probably $300 on food over the weekend for the group, but not one person offered to chip in or asked to help out with that.

The day before we left. Charles texted me and sent two songs that he said “were making him emotional” lately. And then also sent this big long text about how he misses me every day, wishes that things had worked out between us but this isn’t a “reconciliation” attempt. We agreed to talk about it in person.

So yesterday we met up for tennis and lunch. It ended up we hung out from 11:45am until almost 5pm. Just talking about every thing. It of Course brought back a lot of emotions and thoughts. I can’t even really elaborate on everything we talked about. It was all over the place, from his current two boys, to Alex coming to Austin with him, to jay & James, to his birthday to us and our relationship, to kellie.

He was telling me all about this don guy, the way he described him, it was almost identical to me. And I even said to Charles, “Sounds just like me” and he said “yeah, that’s why I said I would marry you”. This don guy has a MAJOR red flag though. He’s in a relationship.

I just still question, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED that it ended. He says it’s because of the way that I “approach” things. I call BS on that. I mean yeah, I could approach things differently but he also is to blame in the way he talks to me about things. Or lack of talks to me about things.

There were three times where he cried. I hugged him and held his hand once. When we said goodbye, he cried again. I kissed him on the forehead and he ALMOST kissed me on the lips but stopped himself.

He had plans to meet Don for a workout and he was late. Don was of course pissed that he was hanging out with me/late. But Charles said he “found him and convinced him to go to dinner”.

I dunno. It just pisses me off seeing him flirt with these guys, lead them on, It upsets me to see him happy with these guys. It just makes me question, why didn’t we flirt like that. It comes back to what I talked about over thanksgiving that one year with catching him flirt with Alex. How come WE never had that flirtations, I felt like he was never that invested in US. But yet, he seems to ACT like he was.

I just don’t know how to express what I’m feeling about him, TBH. KELLIE is great, he’s a breathe of fresh air compared to Charles. I don’t have to beg him for the basics. But yet, I’m still so hooked up on Charles. So miss him, so want him to be part of my life. Want him to be back with ME and for him to do those THINGS with me.

Thinking about him having sex with other people pisses me off. Thinking about him working out with other guys. Seeing that he’s taking those secret dinner pictures of other guys. It just all hurts. Seeing him do those “us” things with someone else.

That song, “I wish all your ex’s were dead” came on the radio on the way home from seeing him. I honestly sometimes with MY ex were dead. I wish I had the strength to BLOCK him out of my life. But yet, I want to hold onto him.

Our First Argument

Well, Kellie and I had our first real argument… On Saturday night we went out to see The Wiz with Andrew, Steve, Matt and some other guy(?). While we were waiting to get into the show we were talking about the new apple vision and I had sent Andrew a TikTok earlier that day of people using it.

I said to kellie, have you seen the tiktoks yet? And he said “No”, so I scrolled back through the conversation with Andrew to show it to him. He got all pissed off for two things
1) I had sent Andrew a picture of my outfit before I left home asking him if it was cute.
2) Kellie was pissed off because I didn’t send HIM the TikTok but instead sent it to Andrew and he felt “stupid”.

Honestly, these two things are just such an expression of insane anxiety and it’s SO OVER THE TOP. So I brushed him off and basically told him it was insane that he was upset over those two things.

BUT the good news is that we TALKED about it. There were a few points during the argument where I was like “Fuck, it’s another Charles”. Kellie would just sort of shut down and stop talking but when I asked him to elaborate or talk more, he said “I just need a second to process my feelings” And he would sit there and then talk more about the problem.

Kellie is great. But he’s HELLA anxious. Even at JP Saxe, he got a little grumpy that I was “looking around”.

Anyway, we had a great Sunday together, we even meal prepped again which was super cute.

I ran into Serge (Charles’ roommate) at the gym Sunday. We talked for nearly an hour. It was good/refreshing to hear that he sees the same issues I had with Charles. He even told me that he scolded him for the way he treated me when I picked up Astra. For not asking me how the trip was and for not getting up off the couch to say goodbye. Serge said he told Charles he was an “asshole” to me. (his word) but I agree.

Honestly, made me feel good to hear that he’s pushing him and telling him off. He needs to hear that.

Serge said he wanted to meet for drinks sometime.. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this. It’s the same with Jim, he keeps asking me to go to dinner. But I don’t know how I feel about keeping these connections to Charles open. I am sort of at the point where I just want to shut the door, move on, be happy with Kellie. But part of me also wants to keep that door cracked, so that we can be friends in the future. I need to process how I feel about that more.

Kellie even said he had a dream the other night that we were old and my dementia was setting in and I kept calling him Charles.. That I had never gotten over or moved past him.

Speaking of old friends, I forgot to mention that on my birthday Jason texted me happy birthday. I never replied. That is a door that’s firmly shut.

BVI’s, JP Saxe

Back from my birthday trip. It was a lot of fun. We had two days of terrible weather with rain and winds up to 45knts which was super stressful trying to navigate through. But I think that everyone still had fun. The other days were nice and we spent a lot of time just hanging out, swimming, snorkeling, etc. It was good to have them all around but of course. I missed you know who while I was there. Everyone said we should make this a yearly event. So we’ll see if we can make that happen.

Came back and Kellie was an 45 minutes late picking me up from the airport cause he fell asleep. I was super pissed but whatever. He brought me a cake which was sweet.

Nothing much else has been going on TBH. Kellie and I have been going well of course, there have been a few minor annoyances with his super anxious attachment. But we talk it out and things move forward.

Last night was the JP Saxe concert. I met him in person and had no idea what to say to him. It was SUPER awk. While I was standing in line, all I could think of was Charles standing there with me, holding my hand. Squeezing it the way he does in nervous excitement. I could just imagine how excited he would have been to meet JP. Everyone got a couple minutes to sit and talk to him. I just met him, introduced myself and then asked for a pic. I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, My ex bf who broke my heart introduced me to your music and every time I hear it, I cry my eyes out”. I don’t think that’s the kind of message he’s looking for before a show.

Of course, after the show I was a little drunk and wanted to call him so badly. James replied with “it would’ve been a bad idea 😬”…. I assume that means he had a boy with him or something.

Why after all this time does he still hurt my heart so much. I went and picked up astra the other day after the trip and he didn’t even fucking ask how the trip went. Just kinda sat there awkwardly. He doesn’t care about me. He says he wants to be friends but when we hang out he doesn’t act like it. He doesn’t invite me or include me to anything. He doesn’t reach out and just say “hey, how are you”. So why can’t I fucking get past him.

In other news, my cousins are apparently trying to sue my mother over my grandma’s estate. Fucking greedy ass shit.

Grandma’s Funeral and Kellie Update

I found out about grandma dying from a text message at 2am: “Grandma’s gone”. That was it.

Yesterday was grandma’s funeral. I didn’t go back because flights were over $1000 and I’d only be able to spend like 36 hours there. Also I don’t really want to face the cousins on that side of the family. Apparently it was a very small and very tense affair. My dad says that basically none of the cousins on that side of the family even talked to my dad or my mom. There’s a whole bunch of drama around grandma and her finances. The cousins, from what I hear, basically wanted her to just stay in her tiny little $600/month apartment by herself instead of getting the care and help she needed from an $8,000/month assisted living apartment and they are pissed my mom moved her from Carroll to Des Moines…

My cousin even texted me “If I hear one more snarky comment form your mother, I’m going to explode”.

My mom even said that the cousins weren’t visiting her the past few years, they weren’t sending her cards, calling her on her birthday, etc. Which hurts. They were all much closer to her then I ever was. They lived within miles of her (two of them were walking distance). They spent much more time with her. And yet they just “seem” like they are just in it for their inheritance, money. Greedy.

I dunno, it was hard when my Grandma Black died, we were all close to her. And when the “kids” (my parents, aunts) basically excluded all of us grandkids from the affairs it was a little annoying.

But my mom says she was texting my cousins, telling them about grandma’s finances, etc. Which I wasn’t included in (again a little annoying my cousins are getting more information then I was).

Which really brings me to the biggest point of this whole discussion around grandma. My whole life, I feel like mom kept us at arms length from her. We never really got to spend time with her, never got to get to know her and that kinda hurts. There were things in the obituary that I was like “Wait, grandma did that?!” I just wish we had known her better, that we had been closer to her. That we had been able to have those times with her the way we had with Grandma & Grandpa Black. Go spend weeks with them during the summer. Spend holidays together, etc.

With Grandma Sibbel, it was always just a quick 2-3 hours, go visit then go home. I was never close to her, but I always sent her cards. I tried to call her on her birthday, etc. Most of the time she was never home and I just always left voicemails. Her and I never really talked, never really got to know each other. And it makes me sad… She was my grandma. I haven’t cried at all over her loss.

On other topics. Things with Kellie are amazing so far. He’s so communicative, sharing his feelings and emotions, talking about things. Discussing what bothers him. It’s so refreshing. Last weekend I came down to his place and his best friend invited him out to dinner. I told him to go have a good time, but can you please be home by 10. He said “sure babe”. no argument, no discussion. he was home on time. Throughout the evening he was texting me what they were doing, asking me what I was doing. Etc. He made me feel incredibly comfortable.

The other night, I was kinda upset about something non-related to him. He knew exactly what to say, how to handle it. How to make me feel better. No just “Try harder”. he talked to me about what was upsetting me, talked about what we can do to change things. etc.

Every time we hang out, he’s just so sweet, so caring, so loving. He’s so into me. I’m so into him. I love that we can sit at dinner with our phones face down and just talk about shit. I love that he’s excited to do things together, to plan things together, to take time off.

I love that he remembers things. It’s only been one month and 10 days. But things are excellent so far. We will see how things continue to progress.

ONE thing so far that I don’t like though, is that sometimes when we are joking around he takes it a little bit too far. He will say things like “asshole” and “jerk” which I don’t really appreciate. But I have to just remind myself we’re just joking around, we’re having fun. But it does kinda sting a tiny bit.

Apparently Charles’ roommate saw Kellie and I in the gym the other day, he reported that to Charles, who reported it to Jim, who reported it to me.

I’m heading to the BVI’s tonight for a week. Charles is watching Astra while I’m gone. I texted him Monday and just asked if I could just drop her off at his place on Thursday. He said sure but then he asked if we could get breakfast. So we went to breakfast. It was hella awkward. I just feel like both of us didn’t want to talk about certain things.

It was funny though cause we were talking about where to go and he said “huckleberry or bear”. I said “let’s go to huckleberry, I haven’t’ been to one in years”. he said “Yes you have, we went to the one in Treat not long ago. You ate the biscuits and gravy and there was a semi cute boy behind you”. I wanted to reply with “How can you remember that but you fail to remember things like my birthday”. But I didn’t.

We did talk about things. He asked about Kellie and I could see tears in his eyes when I was talking about him. He said “If you had asked Kellie to watch astra instead of me, I would have been very upset”; He also said that when serge told him about seeing me at the gym with Kellie it made him “feel a certain way”.

I told him, “Yeah, I get the same feeling every time I have to fucking hear about you and Anthony”. I wish I had pushed him a little harder on that topic. What did he feel, what else did he want to say.

We walked out of the diner and I hugged him as we walked, shoulder to shoulder. And I told him: “Charles, after everything we’ve been together, you can tell me anything. There’s no judgement here.”

When we parted ways, we gave each other a big hug. He said “I’ll always love you”. I told him the same.

I really love him to death. I care about him, I want to see him happy and I want to see him achieve what he wants to. I want him to fly in life. I wish that I could have been by his side for it. I wish I could have been there to help him. But maybe my time with him was to just help him realize some things. I do hope we can continue working on a friendship of some sort. But I want him to take the lead on it. I’m debating if when I pick up Astra, I suggest “Hey, gym and lunch?”

I feel like he’s holding himself back at times. I wrote him yet another long ass note yesterday and I sent it to him. I hope he continues to grow and understand himself.

I’m excited to see where things go with Kellie, I’m excited to see where 2024 takes me.

I’m happy right now. Let’s keep it up, Christopher.