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I realize that there is almost a rose theme to these posts! Completely untended and my love of roses has nothing to do with my breakup being dumped. I realized that there is an important distinction that I’ve made for myself that makes me feel a whole bunch better about the situation.

I didn’t get to go through a breakup. There was no negotiation, no goodbyes. I was dumped. No wonder I felt (and sometimes still feel) like garbage.

This post was an important step for me. I felt a lot of guilt for the bridges that had gone unmaintained for years and posting this made me feel as though I’d put myself out there and tried. At least a little bit.

This is the last of the original “on being dumped” series. It kind of abruptly ended when I was focusing my time on making a new relationship work as opposed to mulling over an old one. But then again, it’s only been since the relationship that I’m in that I’ve been able to share so openly and honestly how I’m feeling.

But I promise you this, it won’t be the last. They just won’t come as often as they have the past couple of days. But now at least you are up to speed!

Originally posted: August 19, 2009

I’m trying to scan more photos as I’m trying to piece together my life between 1999 and 2006. I did a few scans when I first bought my scanner (the photo above included) but have yet to do anymore. The time between 2006 and today has also been rough.

I don’t for a second want to go back to when I was in this photo. Even though then, both of my grandmothers were still alive and I still got to spend every day with my family. My Dad was sick. I longed for adventure.

I didn’t have a Bachelors degree in Political Science, I certainly didn’t have a Masters degree in Canadian Studies. I hadn’t been a Senate Page. I hadn’t been a Parliamentary Intern in both the House of Commons in Ottawa and in London. I hadn’t spent 4 years gaining invaluable work and life experience as a public servant in Ottawa (August 24 is my 4 year anniversary of walking into the building where i currently work).

In this photo, I’d never been kissed, never had a boyfriend. I didn’t have two glorious cats who are the best roommates on earth. I had never met Him. I hadn’t met some of the greatest people in my life (I’d name you but honestly if I forgot one of you I’d not be able to forgive myself. If you wish you were one of the people I’d name, you are one of them). I’d not been to my little sister’s beautiful wedding.  I’d not be sitting right here right now writing this blog post.

I had never been dumped.

Being dumped was a terrible experience. Being dumped meant that all of the effort that I had put into the relationship and sacrifices I had made for that relationship didn’t matter. It meant that six years of compromises and shaving off bits of myself so that we could fit better together and so that our relationship could work didn’t matter. I was left sobbing in the middle of the apartment, not eating and just waiting after every time I heard the elevator doors open (my apartment is right beside them) that there would be a knock on the door and the words that would make the nightmare stop.

I felt as though I had done a terrible thing. I had sacrificed so many things for a relationship that was over with a note duct taped to my wall. I had sacrificed time with my family every time I went home to Manitoba so that I could spend time on the phone with him. I had sacrificed friendships to develop a relationship with someone I wholly believed was my best friend and who I believed I would be with forever. Which is how I justified the sacrifices. Because they were worth it.

I’ve learned something. I’ve learned not to sacrifice bits of myself that are important, because you never know when you’re going to have to go back and make six years worth of apologies for lost time. I feel so much guilt, sometimes it’s so overwhelming that I just try and ignore it. Other times I realize that though I didn’t really burn bridges that I’d be more comfortable about asking for help if the bridges were in better repair. So this post is dedicated to repairing bridges.

I have no idea who reads my blog. I barely know how to access my site statistics, I have no idea who subscribes to the feed. I know that I import the posts as notes into my Facebook account. I know that I get lovely comments on occasion from lovely people.

But if you read this and you’d like me to repair our bridge, please let me know. I’m right now trying to do the best I can but I’m spreading myself thin and getting overwhelmed. I don’t know what bridges were out there and who cares to reconnect. So if you read this and you want me to make you cookies or go to coffee or let you yell at me while I sit quietly, let me know.

For those of you who don’t want to let me know, I’m in the process of importing all of the blog entries I’ve ever written into this blog. For the longest time I have struggled with what I wanted to share and what I’ve shared. I figure at the very least that you all deserve to root through the contents of my last six years and see if there is anything good.

I’ve hung the big old “Under Construction” sign on my network of bridges people. Through the power of the Internet I hope we can get in touch.

http://herrealworld.com/

http://flickr.com/photos/herrealworld/

http://twitter.com/herrealworld/

http://facebook.com/herrealworld/

Re-reading this post made me look back at myself and think about how kind I must have been feeling the day I wrote it. I can tell I was upset (because it doesn’t really have a very good flow) and that I wanted to make sure I didn’t make an ass out of myself. This is the second post (chronologically) where I talk about being dumped (I think, looking back in my archives is dangerous because I spend a bajillion hours reminiscing instead of finishing the post).

In case it’s not clear below, I wrote this post as I was cleaning out my desk at work (we were moving offices) and I found a note from the ex tucked away. It was a card from the roses (pictured above) that I got for some reason. All I remember is that I really deserved the roses.

I think I was trying to be artistic because I had a vivid memory of red roses from when we met (I didn’t get them though, the roommate did) and pull this whole post together with the red rose theme. Looking back I don’t think it worked, but I’m sharing a post from my past so I’m gonna leave it as is.

What I will say is that red roses are (and continue to be) my favourite flower. Apologies that the photo is blurry, but I kind of like it that way.

Originally posted: August 13, 2009

The precursor to my being dumped story begins in my first year of university during reading week. Those who were geographically close enough to family had gone home to visit them, those of us who weren’t stayed and did more of nothing than usual. It was just after Valentine’s Day and I had been lamenting to myself over the fact that for the 18th time in a row, I was single.

My roommate had her boyfriend come to visit her and he had gotten her two dozen roses and I was a tad jealous but quite happy that I was able to help him get a really good deal on them in the Byward Market. I helped her modify of my big water bottles as a vase and I was able to enjoy them as we shared a room.

There was a guy on our floor that was always very sweet and often girls would say “Oh I wish I could marry you!” to him. Very friendly, open-hearted, kind. I will admit that I had developed crushes on many of the guys on the floor (you were all so awesome!), but one evening (and for the first time ever) that crush became something more.

I’d been waiting for this forever. This being a relationship. I had no idea what I was getting into; I just knew that I wanted it. And all of a sudden it was almost seven years later and I was sobbing into my telephone to anyone who would listen about how he left me that night and shoved his keys under the door. I have never spoken to him since.

It’s strange how things work out. The end of that story was a typed note signed with an orange Sharpie red duct taped to my wall that told me how fucking much he loved me and that he’d call me in a few days about bills.

The beginning of my being dumped story was a note that I found stuffed into my hardcopy of the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service while cleaning my office for our move across the river. The note was attached to a dozen roses (one of which is pictured above) that was sent to my workplace and said “love me forever, the ex”. I looked at it, shook my head, and threw it in the recycling bin.

This story won’t be about my relationship with my ex. That ended rather crudely on December 5, 2006. This story will be about how being dumped made me into the woman I am today. And though there will be bits and pieces of the story of that relationship mixed up in this story and even though I (and a number of medical professionals and therapists) think what he did to me was inhumane, I’m going to do my best to respect the ex’s privacy.

I hope you learn as much from this as I did, I am certainly going to learn a lot from writing this.

Since I was just tagged in a similar meme (and wanted to prove that 7 things were just not a challenge), here is a list from 2005. I wrote it just as I was starting to make a space for herrealworld on the Internet.

This was of course before I was unceremoniously dumped. And I find #20 HILARIOUS as it shows that I didn’t even like him enough then to put him in a list other than to feel guilty about not including him sooner. #28 is also funny, but honestly I fell in lust to a mixed CD. I can’t even say that I was kissed for the first time to a mixed CD. I had to kiss him. All he said was that I had nice knuckles. And #74, ugh. Everytime I think of that camera I get mad. I didn’t get it for him for his birthday (which means I lied in this list!), I got it for him as a gift to “please love me” after he left the first time. That’s right, after he left the first time. I haven’t told you about that? Don’t worry I will sometime.

Don’t tell Clawdia and Pawylanna about #57.

Originally Posted April 30, 2005

1. She loves lists.
2. She also loves categories and order, some say its because she’s a Virgo.
3. Born in the year of the Rooster, and true to her sign, she sometimes thinks very highly of herself.
4. She likes all of the good things that horoscopes say, and worries that the bad parts are true.
5. She worries too much, but is now worried that she’ll have nothing to worry about because she’s done school.
6. But then she remembers that she can worry about finding a real job.
7. She is irritated by spelling and grammar mistakes, but has a hard time finding them in her own work.
8. She loves playing video games, especially when she can dress her characters up in pretty outfits.
9. She really doesn’t appreciate gore and violence for the sake of gore and violence, whether it be in movies, video games or anywhere else.
10. She likes the fact that this list kind of captures her mood at the moment it’s being written.
11. She knows that once she hits 100 on this list, she’ll want to add more.
12. She likes collecting things, especially things on the Internet.
13. She knows that sounds kind of strange right now, but hopes that it’ll be better understood later.
14. She hopes that you’re not too irritated about reading this list in the third person.
15. She misses her laptop, but it’s never been the same since the time she broke it while overseas.
16. She loves travelling, but hasn’t had the money to go very many exciting places.
17. She hates travelling alone, because there is no one to take pictures with her or of her.
18. Her favourite part of London was the tour of Parliament, go figure.
19. She’s also been to the United Nations Headquarters, though it was a long time ago and she doesn’t really remember it that well.
20. She’s in love, and feels a little guilty that this is the first time she’s mentioned the boyfriend.
21. She loves Canadian Beef, and so should you.
22. Unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case you should love Canadian Beef Farmers.
23. She loves sticky notes, especially ones that are multi-coloured.
24. She wants to be a writer, but worries she can’t write very well.
25. She’s a quarter of the way to 100, and she’s just getting started.
26. She has a hard time making mixed CDs because she takes too long to decide what songs should go on them.
27. It’s also because she likes coloured CDs or CDs that look like records, and doesn’t want to ruin them just in case she doesn’t like the CD.
28. She fell in love to a mixed CD.
29. She wonders if people will think it’s strange that she refers to a mixed CD like she would refer to a mixed tape.
30. She doesn’t mind it when people download music, or anything else for that matter.
31. She thinks if things were more affordable, people would be more likely to buy them.
32. She thinks that if people made more money, they’d have more money to buy things.
33. She thinks if corporations thought about people rather than money, they’d make more money because people would make more money to buy things.
34. She’s kind of a crazy lefty, but in a cowboy conservative sort of way.
35. She wishes she were more of a cowgirl.
36. She’s a budding feminist, who learned this past year she’s been a feminist her whole life.
37. When she gets married, she’s going to hyphenate.
38. She’s kind of embarrassed to admit that when she’s lazy, she’ll wear a sheet around the house.
39. She’s not afraid to admit that wearing a sheet can be very comfortable.
40. She’s a bit afraid to admit that she may or may not be wearing a sheet right now.
41. She’s an awfully bad liar.
42. She loves eating, and is coming to understand that she’d rather eat healthy than not.
43. She often finds fast food and corner store snacks to be too greasy and actually not very appetizing.
44. She walked into a McDonald’s the other day and didn’t think it smelled very good in there.
45. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that she thinks that Super Size Me is a good movie that everyone should see.
46. She also thinks that should be more movies like Hotel Rwanda.
47. The last movie she saw was Kung Fu Hustle, and really loved the parts when the Axe Gang danced.
48. She loves kung fu movies, at least the ones that are funny.
49. She thinks that any movie with subtitles is worth seeing at least once.
50. Her favourite movie of all time is about a girl and a boy who fall in love, but can’t get together in the beginning because she thinks he’s an ass and can’t get together in the middle because because she thinks he’s dead, but end up getting together in the end.
51. She’s halfway there, and she loves it!
52. She loves dogs, and wants to get one.
53. She really doesn’t think that having a pet in an apartment will be too bad, especially if it’s going to be a small pet who grows up in an apartment and is loved from the first day.
54. She also wants to get some fish, because her father loves them and she loves the glow that the tank gives off in the dark.
55. Her grandmother also had a tank full of guppies, and she loved feeding them when she was young.
56. Her grandmother also had cats.
57. She doesn’t really like cats enough to have one of her own, but in most cases likes other people’s cats.
58. She doesn’t like people or houses that smell of cats.
59. She’s got a super sonic sense of smell.
60. One of her favourite smells is fresh cut grass.
61. Another of her favourite smells is rain.
62. She grew up on a farm.
63. She wishes she had ridden horseback more when she was growing up, but didn’t because she used to be afraid of horses.
64. Now that she’s bigger than the horse, she thinks she’d do better.
65. She wants to have an herb garden on her balcony.
66. She’s excited to be moving to a new apartment within the next month.
67. She’s worried that she won’t have the money to buy the things she’d like for the new place, especially the things that are needed.
68. She wishes she had the money to buy the things that would just be nice to have.
69. She loves coloured pens and markers.
70. She wonders if you realize that when she gets a bit stuck, she looks around her desk for inspiration.
71. She returned the last of her library books over a week ago, and her desk is very empty without them.
72. She loves taking pictures, and wished that she had a better digital camera.
73. She realizes that she needs many other things right now before she needs a new digital camera.
74. Especially since she realizes that the camcorder that she got her boyfriend for his birthday last year takes fine pictures.
75. She never wants to live beyond her means.
76. She wants to start donating money to the Red Cross when she is able.
77. She’ll rip out pages of a notebook and re-write them if she doesn’t like the way that they look.
78. One of the reasons she likes blogs so much is because they do everything very orderly, and she can make them look whatever way she wants, and then change what she wants at a moments notice.
79. She wishes she were better at making webpages.
80. She also wishes that she got to swim more, because she loves it.
81. She just remembered that there is a swimming pool in the basement of her new apartment building, which makes her quite joyous!
82. Singing Christmas carols also makes her quite joyous.
83. She enjoys singing a lot, and wishes she had the self confidence to do it more often.
84. She took voice lessons.
85. She can’t wait to get a bicycle with a basket.
86. She really tried to resist the urge to say she also wants the little streamers that come out of the handlebars.
87. She really likes any kind of popcorn, but prefers the kind that comes out of an air popper at home.
88. She talks to her mom on the phone for hours on end.
89. She loves the Beatles, and can’t pick a favourite song or album.
90. She’s got a wonderful middle name that she got from her great-grandmother.
91. She misses her family dearly.
92. She’s more afraid of her loved ones dying than she is afraid of herself dying.
93. She loves it when her feet get tanned.
94. She’s a clean freak who only cleans when she’s in the mood for it.
95. She loves taking baths, in fact she’s wanting to take one right now, but needs to finish this list.
96. She can’t remember the last book she read for fun.
97. After sitting here for a while, she thinks it was Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry.
98. But she’s not sure whether she read it this past Christmas, or the Christmas before that.
99. She has a pretty good memory.
100. But she wishes it were better, which is why she’s starting to keep a paper journal. Oh, and start this blog of course.