Awkward

There's nothing quite like waking up on a Sunday morning to an email from the wife of your ex-boyfriend.  I got that distinct pleasure yesterday and the ex-boyfriend in question is Angry Ex.  As a refresher, we dated for just shy of two years from 2009-2011.  He has periodically reached out to me over the years in spite of the fact that he started dating someone three months after we broke up and has since gotten married and had a child.

I last heard from Angry Ex a few months back.  He reached out via LinkedIn since I had him blocked on G-Chat.  Because I am ever the moron trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, I eventually responded to his message in spite of my hesitation.  We spoke via G-chat one day for about half an hour and I was actually pleasantly surprised at first.  We were catching up like normal, functional people with no off the charts weirdness.  He told me he'd moved to Florida, had a son and was running his own business, which he'd always wanted to do.

He sent me pics of his kid, him with his kid and then pics of his house and his beach view.  That was eyeroll-worthy, but he'd always been obsessed with overcoming his meager beginnings, so I wasn't too surprised.  He also told me that he'd been sick, but refused to give me details.  It came up in the context of how he'd overhauled his eating habits and was now gluten-free, etc., etc.  He attributed his "remission" to this dietary change exclusively, which I found questionable.  I think I was generally annoyed that he was doing the equivalent of vaguebooking via chat by implying illness, but refusing to offer details.  We ended up sparring a bit over the subject of the diet changes being the end all be all treatment and cure for things, and he immediately fell back into the role I knew so well from him...the all knowing asshole.

At that point my annoyance was mounting quickly, and I made some comment about how it was so obvious how different we were and why we hadn't worked out in retrospect.  I only meant it to be about 25% passive aggressive snotty LOL, but he took it as full on snotty.  I tried to explain that I was just happy we'd both found people who were better suited for us and he took that opportunity to say something that basically boiled down to him having found someone intelligent, as compared to me.

I blocked him.  I remembered AGAIN why this man was so toxic and immediately decided it wasn't worth sinking to his level again.  He's always going to be meaner, he'll always go for the jugular in a fight, and I will always come out feeling worse than him.  It wasn't worth it.  After a few days the dull ache of disappointment in myself for falling for it and opening that window again, however briefly, went away and I forgot about it.

Until yesterday.  For your reading enjoyment:

This is Angry Ex's wife. Thank you for being so respectful to my lying husband. I would appreciate it if you stopped communicating with him, although I do understand he is the one initiating it. 

I also appreciate him sharing all our details with you. Oh and btw, I have the disease, not him. Not sure what type of sympathy vote he's trying to get on that one. It's interesting to hear that we are having so much marital trouble (especially when I was pregnant). I'll have to discuss that with him. This is like reading his diary. 

Not trying to be dramatic, just a little shocked by this. Have a wonderful life.

So yeah.  That happened.  I was pretty shocked.  I was heartened to see that she at least recognized that he was the one who reached out to me, but I still felt a pang of guilt for a moment.  Then I realized that I had nothing to feel bad about.  All I've done for YEARS when he's contacted me is a) stupidly give him a chance to be normal and b) tried to keep him in line, remind him of his marriage, remind him of my relationship status and point out how wholly incompatible we were.  I didn't even get into most of that this time around because it was such a limited interaction, but I do know without a doubt that I didn't behave inappropriately at all.

My biggest takeaway from this is disgust with him.  I feel bad for this woman and have since the first time he hit on me while he was still with her.  Furthermore, he implied in past convos that he's cheated on her, he constantly told me how she was needy, insecure, that he wanted to leave her, that they were going to divorce, etc.  I do wonder if she delved further back into his email or if he'd deleted all of that and just left this because for once he hadn't hit on me in the messages.  

However....I'm appalled that he apparently lied about this illness.  Whatever it is, he doesn't even have it, she does.  That's truly appalling to claim someone else's illness for sympathy or whatever he was doing.  This woman has been tied to him for several years now and is locked in a marriage and forever bonded to him by that child.  I truly feel sorry for her.

Anyway, I obviously didn't respond.  She sent the email from his email address, but even if she'd sent it from her own I think I would be staying out of it.  I want no part in this marital drama, and I will gladly oblige her request to stop communicating with him.  In fact, I did that already since this interaction she's referencing was months ago.

Sometimes it's good to be reminded of what a huge bullet you've dodged.  Crossing fingers I receive no additional contact from either of them about this in the future!

Ready for Fall

Now that vacation is over, I'm officially ready for fall! My beach trip was fantastic.  I looked forward to it for so many months and it truly lived up to all of my expectations once again.  I read two full books and finished another I'd been reading.  I spent my days in some variation of the following:

Morning hot tub
Beach (with sandwiches for lunch)
Pool
Sitting outside on deck reading, scene gazing, talking
Shopping in quaint little shops, enjoying various foods, walking the Duck boardwalk, mini golfing
Grilling dinner at home or going out
Late night hot tub

We went to the beach every single day, we swam in the pool every single day, I hot tubbed every day (BF got sunburnt on the first day and had to pass until a couple days before we left!).  We ate Duck Donuts three times in the course of the week and rode the house bikes to get them.  We also rode the bikes down the road to the beach each day since it was a bit further than advertised (!).  I had fantastic fish tacos twice in the week, I had a few summery margaritas and other fruity drinks that came in fun glasses.  I managed to avoid getting sunburnt, I bought a really cute t-shirt, a pair of earrings and a bracelet and also got BF's daughter, J, two pairs of earrings that I get to give to her tomorrow.  :-)

I cannot convey how much I needed this vacation!  It is so amazing to step away from life's every day obligations and expectations and just be ruled by your own desires.  I got up early most days on vacation, but it was by choice and that made all the difference!  The bed wasn't amazing, but I slept really well, anyway.  BF and I got the chance to just be together, have fun and relax, which we needed, too.

Most importantly, after a rough several months of feeling pretty disconnected from my body and not being a general fan of it (I'm out of shape, I've had some health nonsense going on-nothing serious, just frustrating)...well, vacation reminded me that my body is my friend.  I'm not perfect, it's not perfect, but I'm still good.  I love the beach because suddenly all of my self-consciousness goes away.  I rocked two different bikinis on the beach throughout the week and added a third to the mix at the house.  I didn't hide in my cover-up or stay tucked into my beach chair.  I wandered for shells every single day, I cooled off in the water.  It was something I really needed!

I've been back to reality for a few days now and things are basically back into the usual swing.  We had some seriously gorgeous, fall like weather early in the week and I was LOVING it.  It's warmed back up, but the mornings are still cool and you can definitely tell that summer is moving out and fall is moving in!  Now that my vacation has come and gone I am ready for fall!  I am having romantic visions of myself in soft jeans, my new t-shirt and one of my new pairs of booties LOL.  I can't wait to wear them both!  Football is underway and I'm loving that, and I love needing to pull out a hoodie in the evenings.  This is my time of year.  :-)

In real life news, I got my first flu shot yesterday at work.  I never used to get them, but after last year I have changed my tune.  I still firmly believe that all of the health issues I had this past year are somehow connected, however tangentially, to the fact that my immune system got beaten down by the flu in the winter.  I got sick on the day of my holiday party and it just started a snowball effect of crappy health stuff, and the flu stuck around in some form or another with a cough that WOULDN'T DIE.  So I'm doing everything I can to avoid a repeat occurrence of that.  My arm is totally sore from the shot,but hopefully it will be worth it.

I'm very glad it's thursday.  It's tough being back to work after all that time off!  We don't have any real weekend plans yet aside from football viewing and Costco (oh boy), but I'm sure some things will shape up, however small.  Cold front supposed to come through sunday to break this building heat we're having (still milder than regular summer, but not weather that allows happy jeans wearing and bootie breaking in!).

Happy thursday!

Hello, September

How is it September already?  I feel like this summer has jetted by so quickly and now we're on the heels of it ending.  Once my vacation is in the books I know I will be fall-focused.  Autumn is my very favorite season and it's definitely looming.

I have four days of work, including today, before vacation times begin, and I'm continuing the countdown!  I'm checking the weather in OBX, adding to my packing list and figuring out when to do all the things I need to do before we leave.  BF took my car for an oil change yesterday during his tele-work day, so that's one less thing to worry about.  We take my car on on this trip since it has much more space.

I had a good weekend, too.  I spent Saturday morning and afternoon running a bunch of errands, which was really nice.  I don't often get a chance to run errands solo like I used to, as nothing is as close to where I live now, so we tend to consolidate our efforts.  This means that usually I have BF and often J with me for errands, and I hate shopping when people are waiting on me.

I bought three pairs of shoes on Saturday that I'm madly in love with. I got a pair of brown booties, a pair of black booties and a crazy comfortable walking/commuting/everything else shoe.  They're not the cutest things in the world, but they're not bad and they feel amazing.

Black Diba Bootie

Brown Crown Vintage Bootie

They're comfortable, sue me!

I also got a couple of pairs of super comfortable leggings at Kohls, a new bottle of one of my favorite perfumes (Viva La Juicy) and a couple of clearance shirts at Kohls.  It was a productive shopping day!

My new swimsuit arrived in the mail on Friday and I actually really love it!  I went with a dark teal color since I already have a pink swimsuit and it's very flattering.  The ruched waist on the bottom is a nice touch and I look forward to breaking it in this weekend.  :-)

Swimsuit

I am SO ready for a break from work.  I definitely need a time out and will hopefully come back feeling a bit rejuvenated.  It's been a hectic summer around the office and I'm feeling a bit burnt out and my patience is thin!  Ten days away from the office, seven of them at the beach, can only help things.  :-)

I feel like tomorrow starts the downward slide toward vacation.  That's when I need to start thinking about things like doing laundry before my trip and beginning to set aside things to pack.  Thursday morning I've got to drive to Alexandria for a dental cleaning in the morning, then I have an acupuncture appointment in the evening.  After that I'm meeting up with a couple of girlfriends for dinner and catching up!  Since we're doing dinner with J Friday night, we're not going to have a ton of time to pack on those two evenings.  We plan to set out for OBX Saturday morning around 9:30 or 10 since our check in time is 4 pm.

I can't say I have too much interesting to offer these days aside from pining for this long-awaited vacation.  BF and I definitely need this trip and this break from the real world.  It will be so good to just have all of those days to just spend time together and have fun without worrying about the day to day obligations.  I hope to remember what it's like to sleep in a little bit and to stay up later!  Living with BF has really cramped my style in terms of my schedule.  I've definitely had to adjust to going to bed earlier and getting up earlier.  I had to in order to be functional!

Finished another book yesterday, "The Best of Enemies" by Jen Lancaster.  I enjoyed it well enough, but will admit it wasn't my favorite of her books.  Can't pinpoint why, but it was a good enough read. Started "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Beth Harbison on my commute home last night, but just barely, and it's not overwhelmingly engaging at this point.  Maybe I'm getting burnt out on the string of chick lit, brain candy books I've been reading lately?  Hard to say.

The books I have on tap to take to the beach include:

Station Eleven-Emily St. John Mandel
The Fever-Megan Abbott
Dare Me-Megan Abbott
The Secret History-Donna Tartt

I also have multiple samples on my Kindle as well as at least one other fiction book on there.

I've been trying to read "The Secret History" for months.  I've started it and stopped it at basically the same point multiple times, which is admittedly very early on.  I feel like if I can just really immerse myself in it for a day or two I'd be hooked, but it's been a struggle to get there!  Maybe now that the fall times are lurking ahead I'll be better able to focus on a less fluffy book like that one.

Time to make myself an iced coffee and continue muddling through this already long Tuesday....but hey, at least it's September!  :-)