2002-09-30 - 7:39 a.m.

I just realized something. When I first pulled up wordpad to write this entry, I thought of it as a kind of work, almost like a task I had to do. But then I smiled and thought to myself, "it's what I want to do, what I know I should do."

Just realizing that I'm doing the things I tell myself to do made me realize something else. I'm now living the life I want to live instead of just whatever life happens to come along for me. That's a huge change from life before August 16th.

I got to sleep really quickly last night. I played my guitar again with the lights out. It's funny that something I first did as a desperation move when I couldn't sleep for thoughts of Michelle flooding my head has turned into an almost nightly routine that I look forward to and can depend on. I'll play the guitar a little while, sitting on the edge of my bed, usually until I get cold from sitting there in the open, or until my arm gets tired or I just feel like going to sleep. Then I'll turn out the lights and lay under the covers with the guitar on my chest. Sometimes I'll put my left hand on the fretboard and choose notes, but that never lasts. I end up with my right hand slung up on the guitar, gently plucking various strings and thinking the note name for the string as I pluck it.

This will continue until I'm too tired to reach up past the last two strings, then I'll just keep plucking those strings in patterns. Usually A-E.. A-E.. A-E.. A-E on and on. Eventually, I'll realize that I stopped. It will be a surprise, it always is. My hand just quit on its own because I got too tired. Then I'll lay the guitar on the ground where I won't step on it in the morning and go to sleep. Works like a charm.

The weather network says it's foggy and 10C out. That's weird cause it wasn't even that warm in the beginning of the month when I wore shorts to bike to work. I'm thinking I'll head up the hill today and see if I can see the sunrise. I went yesterday, and I could tell the sun was rising behind the clouds, but there weren't any clear patches right where the sun was. It still looked cool, though :o) I think that was yesterday... hmm. Yeah, overcast.. yeah, it was yesterday.

I'm starting to feel very tired in the mornings. That comes from actually waking up at 6:30 every day instead of just telling everyone I do but really sleeping in an hour almost every day. At first I really did wake up at 6:30, but then there was a certain fateful day when I was "just too tired" to get up. I don't remember the day exactly, but I do remember thinking Michelle would be dissapointed in me for not getting up. It's true, she would have, because I was like that when we were together and she didn't like it. Didn't stop me from doing it, though. Anyway, even though I thought that, I fell back asleep that day and that opened up a can of worms because the next time it was sooo easy to just lay back down and fall asleep.

There were some pretty hectic mornings there where I tried to rush my diary entries so I could eat quick and get to work. I think I even drove to work a few days just because it was so late I didn't want to bike cause I'd be late for work. But I still told everyone I was got up at 6:30 every day. I wouldn't go to the office and say "I got up at 6:30 today" when I really didn't, but I would say to people that I generally woke up at 6:30 every day. Now that I'm actually doing it again, I'm realizing how much work it really is and how I was portraying myself as a better person when I really wasn't.

That's so typical of me. I had a very confused and confusing childhood. I worry about Kris.

So this morning I really didn't feel like getting up. "Dilligence" I said to myself.. and repeated .. and repeated... and I slowly got up and out of bed. I made it, though. I honestly think I would feel too rotten to stay in bed knowing how much I need myself to reach these goals each day, and I doubt I could forget about "dilligence" when I woke up and wanted to go back to sleep.

It's also helping me get to bed on time :o) Pretty soon my body will be even more used to the schedule. Already I get tired at the right time and wake up some time before my alarm. This morning I woke up at 5:00 which probably explains why I was so tired at 6:30. I know my body will come into line, though. I just need to be consistent and patient.

Hey, Uncle Bob and Weetabix do it, so why shouldn't I? Besides, a <hr> looks better than my usual ".." separator. Notice I said "a" <hr> instead of "an" <hr>. I usually tend to pronounce shortened things when I read them, so I think of it as "a horizontal line" instead of "an hr". Just so you know.

Yesterday was extremely productive. I did spend about a half hour playing DoD to pass the time, and a little bit of time playing around on Mark's electric guitar. I fed it through the mic input of the computer and played around with the effects on my Sound Blaster Live :o) Talk about funky stuff. And then I spent the rest of the evening at badminton. However, from 7:00 am to about 4:00 or so, all I did was work. Laundry, entry reviews, goal reviews, finance reviews, project planning, etc etc. It was very very good. A lot of much needed life planning. Something that's been missing - and sorely so - from my life for a long long.. well.. for ever? I don't know that I've ever really sat down and decided on which days I would work on a Christmas present. As in I actually have days marked on the calendar up until the end of October.

Speaking of this Christmas present, at first I thought it would be sort of easy and quick, but when I estimated how many evenings it would take to do all the different steps, I realized that even if I spent every wednesday night from here to Christmas working on it, I would be done a week too late to mail it! And Christmas is 3 months away! So anyway, I'm starting to realize how little time I really have to devote to projects and why I've never finished Christmas projects on time (or at all) and why I never finished any personal projects. Now that I am actually living the life I'm choosing, I can decide I want to do these things and get them done!!! :o) I'm so excited about such a simple thing, but it's been a long time coming.

So.. what else. Well I talked to Karen yesterday and we got around to talking about Michelle. I asked her what Michelle had told her about my visit there and she said that Mich said "He's not coming back". Ouch. I did say that. It hurts to remember it. It hurts because I was being so selfish and trying to beg her to come back, even though I had told myself I wasn't going to. And because I felt so rejected and abysmally sad and depressed, I blurted out that "I guess I'm not Kris's daddy any more" and "I shouldn't come back". "I couldn't stand to see her, it'll just make it harder to say goodbye" and "I'm going to take you off my MSN cause it would be too hard to see your name show up" and stuff like that.

I wrote an email the next day to say I was sorry (although I screwed up the apology big time) and also to say that I still wanted to be friends. I just feel rotten that Michelle thinks these things I said in the heat of the moment are how I really feel today. I miss Kris something fierce and I'm feeling horrible about not seeing her, but I'm also aware that Michelle doesn't want to see my face. I just don't want her to think that I don't want to go to Terrace.. I do, I wish I could. It's more like I can't because of how things are. Anyway, I really feel the need to talk to her about this.

I don't know when exactly I realized or decided this, but after my chat with Karen I just knew that it wasn't a good idea to talk to Mich. I still want to communicate with her once, to make things clear about how I feel now so she doesn't think I hate her or don't want to visit etc etc. But after that, I don't want to communicate at all until the new year. I said from the start that I would give her space and time to heal, and of course I thought only of myself and tried to talk to her every chance I could get (about convincing her to come back, etc) instead of spending the time working on myself.

I guess it could be worse. I could still be doing that. I'm really glad I got turned around and pointed in the right direction (thanks Niki) and that I was able to find it in myself to admit how wrong I was and start my recovery over from scratch basically. Now I feel like I could have something positive to offer Michelle in the new year. I think that if I show enough will power to leave her alone for a few months (it's already been a month and a half) that it would be enough of a difference from who I was to show her that I am indeed a different person now. We'll see.

And if not, then I'll be leaving the summer of 2003 anyway.

I remember her eyes tearing up when I talked about that. I said I was moving to Ottawa and buying a house and her eyes got all misty. I'm sure a part of her still wishes dearly that we would have stayed together somehow and managed to buy a house of our own. We'll see.

I'm not really getting anywhere here.. I don't know. I'm watching the clock and thinking of the sunrise. I have to eat breakfast too, so I guess I'll leave this as it is.

Time for a big day at work today. I need to carry the positive energy from this weekend forward and work really hard this week. It will make the days go by quickly and it'll make me feel much better for having something to show for myself at work. And this Friday is the day I'll have extra money in the bank!!! W00t!

Au revoir.

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