A lot of strange things have been happening over the course of the week, and I can’t get an overriding problem out of my mind. It’s been pretty present since last December, and it has a lot to do with the fact that I made a choice then that I may be questioning have been questioning since. When I offered to invite into my apartment and live with me, I was nervous about that offer even though I probably didn’t give any sort of outward indication. But, I was not about to let someone go homeless if there was something I could do about it, and it was just the fact that we were in a relationship when the decision was made. Truth be told, back then, had things worked out differently, I think we would not be together right now. If she had stayed up there and not come down, because I’m just not the type of guy to sustain long-distance relationships very well. I would rather not be stuck in limbo for any period of time over a relationship that has no personal contact.

It’s pretty funny if you look at it that way. If she had not come down, then there’s no telling what would have happened. But the last six months has been pretty proof positive that when we’re together, we can make it work. At least, so far.. and I say that to satisfy the fatalistic part of me, which continues to give me warnings about taking this relationship too far. There are times when I look into her eyes and I want to get down on one knee and propose to her, and then there are times when I look at her and realize that one she figures out exactly the kind of person I am, she’ll move on to something/someone better. It’s not a putdown on me, it’s just that I feel myself slipping back and getting comfortable and at the same time my mind is telling me to protect myself and not get comfortable. I got comfortable once and look what happened to me. Logically, she’s not the same person and to be honest, she’s nothing like Stephanie or Marla (thanks be to the gods on the last one). Once could also argue that it’s really because she’s so young that I have an advantage that I’m taking for granted. I don’t beleive it, but it is a possibility. I’m just having a difficult time in getting comfortable with her because I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and bean me in the head like a sort of heartwrenching wake-up call from reality. Things sometime feel so surreal to me that I get skittish and freak out, allowing fear to take hold of me and rule my thought-processes to a point where I end up hurting others just to make sure they keep their emotional distance. I’m setting myself up for failure; I’m going so far as to not only say it’ll fail, I’m manifesting the failure in my head to prepare myself for that so-called eventuality.

I’ve been getting tempermental lately, and I think it has a lot to do with this. We had a little conversation last night and that ended up with her crying on my chest, and I just shook my head and wanted to laugh. I felt like I was back in my marriage, near the very beginning, when tears used to have a strange effect on me. While I don’t like to be the cause of tears on anyone, I try not to let them get the best of me out of guilt. And a guiltless man is not something Mel needs right now. So how do I handle this? With all of the emotional crap I’m carrying with me, and despite my best efforts to try and work it through, am I doing any good by her this way? I get jealous easily now, when I didn’t use to before. I do love her, but it seems to me sometimes that it’s not enough. Or perhaps, that I don’t show her enough or tell her enough. I laugh at her when she tells me that she thinks she’s being selfish, because it’s not her that’s being selfish… it’s me. I’m the one who holds back, I’m the one who takes and never gives, and essentially, in the end, that’s going to drain her unless she’s just capable of putting up with it forever.

I find myself wondering if I’m really the person she’s destined to end up with, or if I’m simply a waystation on the path of her life, like I’ve been so many times in the past. I don’t mind either, because we will still have our good and bad times together, for as long as we continue to be together. So far, we’ve proven ourselves to each other many times over the past six months… she more than I, I think. She’s willing to do a lot more for me than I honestly do for her at times, and that makes me think I might be in a lopsided relationship sometimes. But then there are others where I try so hard to make up for that by doing something else. Random little things; gestures, words, even posts like this.

In the end, though, whenever I think about her leaving me, or me leaving her, it’s going to destroy me pretty badly… and that’s not to say what it would do to her, depending on where she is in her life if it happens. She might grow a little older in the next few years and look at herself and wonder what the fuck she’s doing here with me. Like waking up from a bad dream, shrieking at me for corraling her to California and away from her home. The very thought makes me cringe, and depressed. But I’m prepared; armed with my experience and ability to switch it all off for long durations. That may be cold-blooded, but I do what I need to do to keep me sane. I’m not going to come out of this looking like that good guy… and later, when she’s not looking, I’ll mourn over it in my own way. I’m not looking forward to it at all, but I’m not ready to escalate the relationship until I feel more comfortable… and I won’t feel more comfortable until I get over my fear.

I do love her. Very much. I’d like nothing more than to spend what’s left with her, if that’s what’s written. I just wish that I could rid myself of feeling uncertain at times. She deserves better than that.

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The fifth week of the spring quarter ends, and over the past five days I was lucky enough to get my Japanese exam score back to find out that I got an A (96.25%) on it, which is not only good, but far better than I had originally thought, given the fact that I had omitted certain sections of the exam due to either spacing out or just plain not studying. Imagine my surprise when many of the guesses I made were actually correct. Of course, I could attribute that mostly due to the fact that this is actually my third time around taking this class. The same class also yielded the Kanji quiz for that section, and I got a B- (82.5%)… which is exactly what I expected. Turns out that 16.5 out of 20 was what a majority of the class ended up getting, so I don’t feel too bad about that. I’m doing okay in my other classes so far, which is a major surprise. I have my midterm exam in History coming up next week on the 14th. Having already completed my midterm for Philosophy, I got it out of the way and I don’t have to worry about having to complete it at all. Math exam number two is Friday morning next week, the 16th.

Monday afternoon, I went to go see X2: X-Men United at the Century 22 theater. I thought it was much better than the original X-Men, though I really want to go back and watch the first one again to refresh my memory. I guess I’ll have to add X-Men to the pile of DVDs that must be mine. Tuesday, a friend from Redwood City came down to San Jose and we went to the Milpitas Golfland for some DDR action. On the way back, we stopped by Gamestop to visit Todd, and then off to Kinokuniya Bookstore to pick up some new cds and check out the manga. I still need a final project for Japanese 3 for translation work. I get extra credit for it, and in Japanese 2, it’s what raised my final grade from C to B, so I tend to take it very seriously. Unbeknowest to me, though, I had left my credit/debit card on the counter. So when and I went to go see X2 again on Wednesday night, I had him spot me for the ticket while I went inside to withdraw cash from the ATM machine and imagine my shock and fear when I opened my wallet and noticed it missing. I spent the time before the movie started searching the theater and my car and all around my car for the card. I called Todd and asked if I had left it at his store, and then I figured out that it was probably at Kinokuniya. Thursday morning, after classes, I went over there and sure enough, the manager of the store (after checking my ID) returned it to me. I briefly thought about buying something, but I decided to hold off.

The misplacement of my debit card aside, I had a pretty good week. It was just this morning when I came in to work that sucked pretty hard. My boss announced to us all during the weekly meeting that he has submitted his resignation (his departure date a few weeks from now) to HR. This means that not only are we going to lose the VP of IT, but also we’re no longer without a NOC manager. I’m personally and professionally sad to see him go, because I did enjoy working with him and out of the NOC managers I’ve worked with in the past, he’s actually been the best one. For now, I guess we speed up our transition to working over at eBay. We report directly to our CTO, once our boss leaves and even then there’s been no real mention of trying to find another manager to lead us. I assume that our CTO will be filling in until we’re under eBay’s site operations group, and then their management will put us under that umbrella for authority. I’m more than just a little concerned about all of this, but right now all I can do is sit and wait. There’s not much in the way of change that I can personally affect, and that’s both comforting and frustrating at the same time. I want to step up and do something, but at the same time, I just don’t have the drive or time to really contribute anything on a sustained level. I’m literally just along for the ride, at this point, despite the supposed open-door policy upper management has.

We’ll just see what happens.

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