"A peace that surpasses all understanding..."

As promised, here is the recap from this weekend's festivities. I first have to give major shout outs to my support team for the weekend (and for life). If you don't have any girl friends who are on your team, then you are truly missing out! I was having two of the worst anxiety attacks ever over seeing Mr. BIS-D this weekend and my support team was there and had my back. So, I have to call them out by name: Ashlee, Jontae, Angela, Cicely, Tiffany (she's my beauty SME), and my fav blogger, OneChele (she helped calm my nerves via Twitter DM). I think I would have been a basket case if it they weren't in my corner. It's so funny because I had myself all worked up and for nothing. It was so bad that it put me into a 6 am yoga class this morning (FYI...6 am yoga is not my friend!), but I do feel more centered and relaxed. I do have an update to the BIS-D post and I know a few people who are going to be upset. Not upset that I have an update but upset that I didn't fill them in when it happened...but I'll take that risk because I wanted to share it with everyone at the same time.
After these few days stressing myself out unnecessarily, I decided that I needed to take control of myself (and my situation) before I drove myself crazy. I figured that if the outcome of what happened with BIS-D bothered me so much, then (if I felt that I was strong enough) I would say something...and I did. I sent him a text and we had a very productive conversation. (Note: I've been scolded a time or two about having major conversations via text but I express myself better through writing than I ever could in person. It's the most effective way for me to say everything I want to say in the way that I want to say it. I have to use what works for me) I sent him a message expressing how I was a tad bit relieved that we didn't see each other and he responded that he was sorry to hear that, it would've been nice to see me, and that he'll respect my space and if we do ever find our self around each other. Now although that's pretty much what I said, I didn't really mean it like that (so much for my writing being more effective approach lol). So I decided to go a little deeper. I explained that I'm a lot better now than I was then and that I understand that I put myself into an unhealthy situation and that the best way that I could get out and stay out was by cutting all contact. It was a hard decision, but it was one that I had to make for myself. It wasn't like I didn't want to see him, it just would've been awkward since we hadn't communicated in such a long time. He reminded me that the lack of communication came from my side and that he could take a hint (see...I told ya he's the type of person to not press the issue...which is how I needed it to be). He then said something that I think that I really needed to hear...even if it's over a year later. He said that he had his part in it and he contributed to the situation. He took responsibility and that he's glad that I'm in a better place. Can we all say sigh of relief/woo-sah? It felt like a huge bolder had been lifter off my shoulders. I don't know exactly what it is or was, but I felt at peace. Anyway, we chit-chatted about catching up with things that's happened over the past year, but I did let him know that this won't be the last time that we communicate because I do miss our friendship. He said that he never had a problem with it (I don't know he meant the friendship or the communication) but that he guess that he was the problem (BINGO buddy!). Then I got to say what I really needed to say: that I questioned his friendship because the extra and his inability to step in as my friend to end things when he saw it wasn't a healthy situation...that was the root of the issue. I felt like the friendship was a sham. Although I did express the things that I felt that he did, it was important (for me) that he knew that I took responsibility for being grown and not following my intuition. With that, we agreed that hindsight is 20/20 and ended on a positive note.

Bright Side: I feel a lot better. We didn't discuss where our friendship is headed...we didn't need to. I'm just taking it one day at a time and not a pace faster. I feel that whatever is set for the fate of our friendship is set and I would rather the chips fall as they may.

The Art of Fixation

fixation [fɪkˈseɪʃən]

(n) noun

1. the act of fixing or the state of being fixed

2. a preoccupation or obsession

(thanks freedictionary.com!)

You know how you can be just laying around or just doing something that doesn't require much thought and you just have one of those "Ah-ha!" moments?  Well, that happened to me a couple of days ago.  I was laying in the bed planning out what I was going to wear to work, when I had my Ah ha! moment.  Backstory: There's a guy that I started hanging out with again, and I thought that I was really starting to like him...a lot.  (Don't get me wrong...I do like spending time with him and hanging out, but I don't think that I like him as much as I thought that I did).  When I shared this information with a friend of mine, she warned me to slow my roll.  And I was successfully doing this until something awful and unexpected happened...a friend of mine was killed by LAPD.  Now, this guy and I weren't buddy-buddy, but we had a good "check-in" type of friendship (We would check in with each other every couple of months to make sure that we were doing okay) and I was just thinking about him earlier that week.  I was thinking that I needed to call him to see how the new year was going.  I thought about contacting him for a whole week until I got a text message about his untimely death.  I'm a very sensitive person, so even though we didn't have this strong friendship, I still kept thinking about the situation and him constantly.  So you can guess what happened...whenever I felt myself starting to think about my friend, I would immediately change my thoughts to "NBO" guy (New, but old).  So for the past week and a half I was thinking that I really liked NBO, but in reality I developed this fixation of NBO because that was my coping mechanism. Even though this helped me deal with the death (meaning not staying up till 5 am thinking about it), it started to become a problem with confusing my feeling for NBO.  I knew/know that I was interested, but it was hard to gauge my level of interest. 

When I was laying in the bed, it hit me that I have been doing this for a while.  This wasn't the first incident that I used something that was semi-positive to cope with something that wasn't so positive that was going on in my life...and that's not fair to me or to that person.  Because of this fixation, I developed (unfair) expectations, which lead to me being frustrated, which lead to me cutting some unsuspecting man off. Well, this time I've "slowed my roll" and I've just been taking it one day at a time.  Although I'm not sure exactly how I feel about NBO, I do know that I enjoy hanging out with him and that's just fine with me.

Bright Side:  I'm hoping that learning this new thing about myself will aid in me overthinking something else help me to take it slow and deal with the things going on in my life individually, and not using one to get over another.  See...I'm learning a lot more about myself.

Updates

Okay, so maybe I should change this to "(when remembered) I don't make promises that I can't keep" because I sure did forget to do this post on Friday.  In my defense, I was at Homecoming from Thursday - Sunday and there was A LOT going on this weekend...I even came back with a cold.  But anyway, let's get to these updates (I linked the titles to the post in case you need to refresh your memory...because I sure did! lol)...

THE MAN WITH A THOUSAND QUESTIONS -
After the guy and I went out on the lunch outing, he text and tried to hang out again, but I simply wasn't feeling him in that way.  After our conversation at lunch (and my feelings on not wanting to anyone to lead me on) I felt it necessary to let him know that I just wasn't interested in him in that way.  I told him that we could be friends, but that was all.  He understood.  Lesson Learned: It all goes back to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  No one wants someone to string them along, so as scary as it may seem, you have to let people know the truth so that you are not wasting their time or yours.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS -
O-to the freakin-M-G!  Let me tell y'all about this ninja here!  So this is what I mean about wasting someone's time.  So on the date, I had a really good time.  The interaction, the conversation, just everything.  So the last that I shared was that he asked me out again but I didn't hear from him.  Well...a mutual friend decided that this wasn't acceptable so she went and asked him what happened.  Weeeeeeell, she called him to ask what the issue was and he was like I wasn't the type of female that he normally dates (cool with me because in my best Jay Z/Beyonce voice "It ain't for everybody"), but then he goes on to express how much he wants her to give him a chance.  (Yep..he said that) Now, it wasn't the fact that he wanted to pursue something with my friend, but I was trying to figure out why in the world he asked me out knowing that his fire was burning for someone else.  It made no sense to me at all!  Well, she explained that her interest in him was limited to just a friendship and that he shouldn't have asked me out (on not one, but 2 dates), if he wasn't really interested.  Men. 

LET'S SEE WHAT YOU DO WITH IT -
...absolutely nothing.  We've spoken via text and facebook twice since the date night, but that was it.  He's been travelling with work, and I've been doing the whole school-work thing, but to be honest I don't think that is it.  I think it's more that we are in two different places and that's it. 

TOLD YA SO (UPDATE) -
Yes, this ninja felt it necessary to text me Fourth of July weekend at 3 in the dang morning and then called after I didn't respond to the text.  He then called later that night and when I started to go off...he hung up the phone.  Really?  (Yes, really!)  Then if that wasn't enough he called and text me in August.  That time, I didn't respond to either.  I just rolled over and went back to sleep.  The next morning, I went to Sprint online and found a way to block all communication!  THANK GOODNESS!  I just don't understand how some people don't get it.



So...yeah.  That's what's come of those posts...I don't like to think of them as un-happy endings, but as to be continued's or room for improvement's.  We'll see what else life has in store for me...