But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ.
-Romans 5:15
Sorry this week I haven't had time to sit and write like I promised myself I would.
Not even a week since Tem and I have been back together and Saturday morning she informs me of the ways I have disappointed her.
Still not saying the right things
Still not doing the right things
Still not picking up on the nonverbal cues she wants me to
Wearing certain things means certain things
Not saying certain things
Weeknights
School nights
drinks out
bedtime
Saturday centering
all of it pressed, crunched, squeezed
I'm not sure what she sees in me. She doesn't seem to like the way I am and the things that make me me.
But I love her and I want this to work.
Hopefully this week I won't disappoint her as much.
Not long after I wrote last week's letter Tem and I broke up.
This is the second time since the new year. And It nearly happened in December.
I don't never know what to say. I don't know how to express myself.
I'm sad.
It doesn't exactly express the full extent of my feelings but it's certainly a start.
I love Tem.
She has been the most amazing woman I have ever dated.
It was perfect with her.
We spent our time laughing and having fun.
I use to brag to everyone how we never fought. She and I would talk endlessly about how couples we know aren't happy, or about how people get stuck in marriages they don't want.
All the while we were living in our perfect relationship, thinking we were different, that we were special.
But as time went on needs were not being met which led to tension with turned to fights which turned to hurt which turned to grudges which turned into a very silent tense relationship.
I know the wound is still very much fresh but it's hard for me to imagine doing this again.
If I didn't have a phobia of growing old alone, I'd give it all up dedicate my life to education and adventures.
But a part of me, a deep part of me wants to share my life with someone, someone I love and they love me.
And for a while there, I had that.
But again I lost it and again I'm writing a letter about a break up.
I'm tired of it. The thought of dating again makes me sick. The thought of downloading a damn app and fucking strangers sounds miserable.
I'm 31 and I want to build a life with Tem
But we weren't working. She hadn't been happy or satisfied with me since maybe August of 2018.
How the fuck do people do this shit? How do they keep their person happy? How do they talk about their day again and again? How do they find things to talk about? How do they keep the flame?
Is it real? Or does everyone master the art of settling?
All I know is I miss her. I miss her and I miss everything that comes with her. Her family, her friends, her cat. I miss her, all of her.
But I don't feel regret, I know I've expressed my thoughts on closure in letters past, but it's more than that. We tried everything and we failed.
I'm not sure how, we seemed so perfect. But we failed.
I don't want anyone else. But like I've written so many times before She loved the man I was with my thoughts and my writings. I loved the woman she was with her songs and her poems. But those two people began to lose themselves becoming something singular. In order to fight for something different than those other relationships, those settlers those miserable ones, we tried to create something new something rare something with a sort of balance, together otherness and singularity.
But it didn't work. She felt neglected, she felt distance, and I felt I wasn't the best man I could be to offer her the Adamest Adam which she deserved.
Maybe a healthy sex life would have solved all of our problems. If I dicked her down appropriately and often she wouldn't have cared if I spent a few hours a week away reading and writing in solitude.
Maybe it was Seasonal affective disorder taking its yearly toll on me stuck on a couch buried under blankets uninterested in doing any thing but wait for warmth.
A part of my mind certainly wonders if we held out for another month would the colors of spring had fixed us up. But those sorts of rabbit holes do the mind no benefit.
The fact of the matter is this: At that brunch at Hubbard Grille the woman I had attempted to love was miserable with plans of going back to her condo alone. I had felt unheard and disrespected being pulled away from the few little self care tasks I enjoy in a Saturday morning routine. All of this coming after an evening filled with another miserable fight, this time about her desire to facetime her ex husband. And that coming after she had been away on a business trip for three nights. And to make it worse the brunch was a precursor to her leaving for another week of work outside the state.
Spending my work weeks being slapped, kicked, and called a bitch, loaded weapons brought to school by 6 year olds trying to make it to Saturday to recharge my introverted batteries with a book and some inter thoughts only to be told how neglectful I am as a boyfriend, something was going to give. She isn't around during the week to express my feelings towards her appropriately through her love language of quality time and touch. And I wasn't able to create an 8th day to fit that meditative morning routine.
We failed, she needs a man who can provide her with that attention while she is home and away. I need space and time alone. Is it even possible for me to have a long term monogamous relationship? Am I being selfish attempting to keep the Adam alive? Is the only way to a relationship letting your otherness die letting the two become one? Is Esther Perel full of shit?
I don't know
But I do know I am sad and exhausted.
When Tem and I first started seeing each other August of 2017 it was perfect. We went on adventures, we'd go out, introduce each other to our friends, Some evenings we'd just sit together talking about life. Eventually down the road sex as added into our mix and it amplified our relationship. Everything was perfect. Finally before my 30th birthday I'd found the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Around the one year mark, things began to change. Our sex life started to slow, nothing to worry about really our sex was so electric and often before it must naturally slow to something more sustainable as the relationship grows.
But the sex continued to fizzle, These things happen I suppose and it isn't that big of a deal because the other aspects of the relationship are so perfect. We never fight, we laugh all the time, we share so much of our very different lives together. We managed to survive 10 days in a tent circling Iceland with little to no personal space away from each other. That is a very rare and beautiful thing.
But as summer turned to fall in late 2018 arguments began to surface. Surely couples argue and let's be honest it was only a matter of time before we were going to find some communication breakdowns.
As the days grew shorter and the temperature dropped winter hit. Winter of 2019 has been very very difficult for us. Sex is gone, Arguments nonstop, insecurities have surfaced full blown in both of us. Now it seems all we do it argue until one of us is too tired to continue and we go to bed.
I don't know, is this what a long term relationship looks like? The scale tips from all good with a little rough to all rough with a little good and we spend our time thinking back to the good old days of our relationship?
All the while sprinkled throughout our relationship has been the intermittent appearances and occurrences of her ex husband.
This is to be expected right? I mean they were fucking married.
So I shrug it off. She loves me right? She talks about how terrible he was right? What do I have to worry about and who am I to control another person telling her who she can and cannot talk to?
Time goes by:
Josh came over today
Josh texted me today
so Josh called me
I wanted to let you know Josh has been texting me
I saw Josh at the grocery
Ran into Josh while I was out
And a month turns to a season, and a season turns into a year, and a year grows past another season
And I sit at the table of her parents house quietly as they discuss his other man
and I sit at the bar with my pint as friends of friends speak of this man
and I am told "we facetimed"
No sex
All fighting
texting the ex husband
In Fall of 2017 this man spit only hate towards me. He said things about me to his wife and he had never even met me. Now in Winter of 2019 I can hear his words coming out of my own mouth about this man I've never met.
We have switched places.
I am now the neglectful significant other
and he is the kind attention giving confidant
He tells her he loves her as simple as breathing, just the way she likes it
He texts back and Facetimes punctually, quickly, just the way she likes it
I don't cuddle as well as he once did
I am forever the 'treats her better than Josh' new guy
Not simply Tem's boyfriend
It seems since the new year Tem and I have been coasting on the energy reserves of found memories past. Both of us unwilling to end this relationship because of how absolutely fucking perfect in every way it once was From August 2017 to August 2018. But This isn't then. This is now.
It seems we spend most of our time talking about how many needs of hers I no longer meet.
And this manipulative conniving man has been waiting in the wing waiting for me to fuck up exactly as I am now. Working the circumstances, making sure he will forever be a part of her life. Friends with her brother, Roommates with her friend, Creeping doctor's offices near her new address, inside her phone to the point that she talks about him with her parents, keeping himself alive with in their minds as well.
He kissed a stripped and suddenly that's the line. Can't believe he crossed. Never mind the strippers ass and vagina being pressed against his dick countless nights, that's fine, that isn't cheating. Pressing ass to dick, fine, pressing her face on his face...whoa now that is too far.
Fuck this guy. And fuck the way he plants this hate within my heart towards him.
I am tired.
This is exhausting.
Everyone loves Josh
And Josh, always gets his way.
2019 has had a depressing start for me. The year started already 10 days into a partial government shutdown. The shutdown lasted 35 days, the longest in this countries history, and for what? No wall agreement was made which means the president merely stopped American workers from getting paid for absolutely no reason other than the fact that he could.
Officially halfway done with Trump's first term and on the second anniversary of his inauguration the country was again reminded of what he stands for and how divided, racist, and hateful our country is.
Nathan Phillips, Nick Sandmann
Drums and MAGA hats
I once again got into a text argument with Jared. This time it was about the situation at the National Mall those high school students from Kentucky and the innocent that occurred.
His arguing points felt very similar to Laura Ingraham in this "interview" I hesitate to even give this type of "news" a view but I think this accurately illustrates the culture I am living in currently in 2019.
at about 6 1/2 minutes into the segment:
Is the maga hat racist?
it’s a piece of clothing that represents Donald Trump and everything that comes along with Donald Trump. Donald Trump is an unrepentant racist. The MAGA hat to many is representative of a Klan hood or of various other symbols of racism.
What’s going on here? Is this real? Did he just say that on cable television? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in seven years of doing cable news that Make America Great Again, by the way a slogan used by Bill Clinton at times too, is racist? Are you serious? So Donald Trump, who gives you back more of your money, fought for school choice, has black unemployment at the lowest in modern American history… if he’s a racist, he’s the worst racist in American history.
This was the point in the "conversation" where the frequencies or channels of communication begin to split and we can see clearly where the two sides stand. The Fox News team is making the argument that the MAGA hat CAN'T possibly be racist because it has the harmless words "Make America Great Again" on the hat. Who could be against the idea of making America great again? We are all American citizens why wouldn't you want America great? And how can someone wanting America to be great possibly be racist? Wouldn't making America great be defeated racism? So doesn't the MAGA hat actually stand for the exact opposite of what you are claiming it stands for?!
But that isn't at all what Bishop Talbert Swan is saying. It isn't the literal words, it isn't the literal color red...is the the context, the subtext, and the representation that piece of clothing holds within it.
It makes me think of the Christian symbol of the cross. The cross is a symbol of love and peace right? But what if that cross is now suddenly burning in the front yard of an American citizen? How can the symbol of Jesus, who fought for the freedom, rights, and justice for the oppressed, possibly be perceived as racist? It's just burning on your front yard, no harm at all.
This is the racism of my day. This is the bigotry, the hatred, and the oppression of today. It hides in the smirk under a MAGA hat, it hides in a cable "news" interview asking about fairness.
You cannot deny what your own eyes see when you see these young men mocking, jeering, ridiculing, the native american, you can't deny what you see when you see them accusing and yelling at women and saying things like it's not rape if you enjoy it. So let's not pretend that they are not guilty of any wrong doing.
The fact is that that person who made the comment about rape is not a Covington Catholic student, he's not part of that group. They weren't doing that. (According to Covington Catholic Schools) Nick Sandmann has been threatened and he was standing there. They were not doing that. Did this boys, standing there, did they trigger this behavior on the part of this activist and the black Hebrew Israelites with these hats?
I have no idea what he's talking about we're all watching the same video. It's like we live in a post-fact bizarro world universe. You have a kid standing there in a MAGA hat with a political expression on it motionless with a smile on his face while an adult confronts the kid I don't know what tape the Bishop is watching what did these kids do wrong?
Well if you want to pretend that the few moments where Mr. Sandmann was standing in front of Mr. Phillips is the say all and the be all to the video then go right ahead but there is a lot to the video than just that one point and you cannot sit here and tell me that these young men were not ridiculing, that they were not jeering that they were not mocking, that's obvious, that's what our eyes see.
You agree, I would imagine, that nonviolent, standing there, even wearing a piece of clothing that people find objectionable is not grounds for then threatening to kill them, burn them, to destroy their lives.
I emphatically condemn that type of behavior, but I also condemn the type of behavior that I saw from those young men on that particular day.
What were they doing? They were standing there Bishop? What is Nick Sandmann doing?
Nick Sandmann was not there by himself there was an entire group of young men who were mocking, they were jeering, they were ridiculing...
They were reacting to being called incest babies I imagine.
Well it wasn't Mr. Phillips who called them that and you can't blame their behavior on their interaction with the Hebrew Israelites were.
So people should be called incest babies, and crackers and swear words, and not respond? First of all Nick Sandmann didn't say any of those things, and those other kids weren't part of the school.
We don't have video evidence of this one single student jeering, mocking, or ridiculing. The school where these students came from claim the rape comment wasn't made by one in their group. So that is the end of the conversation. We will choose to ignore the mocking, we will choose to ignore the other comments, because all of those can be refuted...can you prove a student said that? Can you prove that they are "mocking" in the video? Can you prove the phrase "Make America Great Again" is racist? So nothing in this incident was wrong. These are just innocent little baby children who love and support their federal government and who on earth could be against that?
That's the narrative here...but we know that isn't the truth.
Can't see the forest for the trees
Can't see the truth for the facts
And that's exactly where today's racism loves to sit. Can you PROVE the white cop was racist before he murdered the black man?
Do we know what happened BEFORE the cameras started rolling? What did the black man say or do before the cop pulled the gun? What did the woman say before she was hit? But when it comes to the MAGA hat kids we love to say, there is no video evidence so nothing must have happened. No wrongs whatsoever.
How can Donald Trump be racist? He signed the First Step Act Bill for criminal justice reform. Black unemployment is at an all-time low. So he couldn't possibly be racist. Therefore the MAGA hat can't possibly be the new Klan hood.
The facts, the stuff out in to open, the public eye, in the light of day.
But there is another piece to the puzzle. There is the truth that glares in our faces. It's so obvious, it's so present. But when playing the game of the American judicial system the oasis turns to mirage. And that's the exact way our country would like to keep the system.
What evidence do you have you were raped?
What evidence do you have that there is prejudice?
Obviously I am not advocating for the throwing out of facts. In my day the day of tossing around the words "fake news" facts are very important. And no one, especially myself is trying to discount the facts. Yes the video shows what it shows and the facts are that the MAGA kid stood there smirking, and the school claimed the rape comment wasn't from their student body. But there must be a second fastener in the sign post of reality. There must be a way to capture context with fact to create the pure picture of truth.
This stuff sincerely bothers me. It gives me a heavy heart. This is the truth, Donald Trump is a racist and those fucking MAGA hats are todays white hoods. But the fact is, it's just a piece of clothing.
