An experience

I am contemplating deleting the blog.  If it keeps going it might turn into a blog about stroke recovery.  Well, that and my first relationship.  It's a bit of a weird story!
I think I'll leave the blog up..There were days when I felt completely alone and that there was something wrong with me and reading other people's blogs helped so much.  So, so much!
I received a comment on my last post that was short and sweet and helped clarify things about Walrus.  It's an 'experience'.  I think I keep seeing him because it's exciting, the ups and the downs.  It's a roller coaster but it's better than this endless waiting, and it's making me realize things about myself.  Like how massively repressed I am for one thing.  I finally started to like kissing.  I haven't been able to do my homework because I'm thinking about prickly-beard kisses on my neck.
And oh it is nice to put your head on someone's shoulder.
I waited so long for this.
I only hope I'm not lying to myself, just 'taking what I can get' because I turned 30.  Sometimes dealing with the stroke stuff isn't fun.  What an obvious statement!  If we're out together and he gets tired or overstimulated, it's all stroke, no Walrus.
I have been reading as much as I can about strokes.  It's still very early and I have faith that he'll continue to improve by leaps and bounds.  But should I bet on that?  Because if he doesn't get better, I'm not sure I'll be happy once the novelty of kissing wears off.  I should like him as he is now.  I remind myself how intrigued I was by his profile; I never looked at anybody else.  He treats me beautifully and I feel special.  But I wonder if I'm actually smitten with this fantasy I have of what he was/will be, and not with him now.  He's rebuilding his life almost from scratch.  Do I want to get built in?  Does he have to do that alone?

And this is how it is

Well I have now made out on a bench in the park.  And in a car...and in the movies.... I'm still seeing Walrus and it's still a little weird dealing with the stroke.  He thinks he can do more than he can, and when he starts to get tired I start to feel like a babysitter.  Just a little.  He gets a little clumsy with his movements and has knocked over chairs in restaurants, or spilled his coffee everywhere....
He wrote me a poem for my birthday and it was very beautiful.
I'm not sure I want to share these things on the blog any more, now that it involves another person.

Um hello.  I suppose I should tell you what's happened.
I've been very busy with work and school, and I kept telling Walrus I didn't have time to see him.  He found out I was done a gig at 8pm and asked if he could meet me for coffee after.  I said ok.  I was somewhat discouraging, mentioned how tired I was, but he didn't take the hint.  I don't know what my intentions were.  I had imagined a conversation where I told him he was brave and smart but not ready for a relationship but I was sure we'd be good friends....
Yeah.  That didn't happen.  He was actually quite talkative and it was quite okay.  He couldn't get his bank card to work and I paid, but I felt better having evened out the score in that department.  Afterwards we walked around the city and held hands.  I was so tired from work I said I was ready to go home at 10.  There were two pecks on the cheek and one quick peck on the lips before I darted onto the subway train.
I couldn't sleep that night.  Very wired.  I thought it might be worth it to give it a try, and it was so nice to hold someone's hand....I thought a long time about all the weird things I've done to my pysche in order to keep going on alone for so long....I won't go into it.
We went to the beach two days later, which was weird, because there's a lot of skin showing, and we were lying on a beach blanket.  That day it was hot and we were both sluggish.  He just seemed 'off' a bit, and all the quirks of the stroke were quite apparent.  I could tell he wanted to touch me and I was so jumpy.  There was a few short kisses.  So there, I've kissed someone, but it wasn't very exciting.  That day was tough. 
We're writing to each other (texts on our phones) several times a day and those still seem very different in character from the man in person.  He can write, but his speech is muddled just a little... Grammatically it's still good but the words are simpler and the sharp wit is missing...
He's started to say very warm things to me through the texts.  I'm called several pet names, and I'm beautiful and he misses me etc...I've told him to tone it down, I don't respond to ones that make me blush...Not that he's 'sexting' me, they're all quite innocent.  He's being quite patient, really, by today's standards.  But 4 dates, and I think he's planning the wedding already....Not exaggerating! 
I don't know what to do.  When we just write, I can forget about how hard it is to communicate sometimes face to face.  Except for being too enthusiastic, he's been quite a gentleman, and supportive. 
I don't know what he was like before so I don't know what parts of his behavior are caused by the stroke and which are caused by the emotional trauma of the stroke. 
I hope I'm not deluding myself.  I keep saying I want out and I press on.

End of Summer Lament

What a weird summer.  I got a niece and nephew and a sister-in-law.  I had a great job and met some neat people but didn't realize until now I wasn't having much  fun outside of that.  I didn't see many old friends, or camp or go to the fair or the beach or do any other traditional summer things.  I was sick for the better part of the summer it seems, and then there was that darn summer school!

So now it's the last few days of freedom and I've got lots of work to do to finish up my job commitments...I don't want to go back to school!  I hate it!

I'm a few weeks away from turning 30 so that adds to the need to reflect.  There was a glimmer of hope a few weeks ago that maybe I would actually kiss somebody before I reached that milestone.  Well we know how well that turned out.

Speaking of Walrus, on the way home from seeing him last night I realized he didn't smile the whole time.  Or laugh.  He indicated that he liked things, or thought things were funny, but his face can't spontaneously break into a smile.  It's so heartbreaking, the whole story.  I cried a little this morning thinking about it, then I snooped his facebook page.  I think the breakup with the fiancee was even more recent than I had previously thought.  In any case, it was only 'announced' with the status change on facebook in July.  And he's on OK Cupid in August?  He is not ready for that.  He mentioned her a few times last night, still calls her 'my fiancee' and not 'the ex'.  So, so not ready.  And why am I mixed up in this and how quickly can I get myself out of it?

I am feeling a bit 'suckered'.  I am feeling my inexperience.  It feels like the universe is mocking me.  I don't understand why love hasn't happened for me.  I'm not ugly or dumb or mean so what am I doing wrong?

 My social life is so quiet...I have a former best friend I'm not speaking to, and a whole wack of relationships that I let die away because they were tied to her....

I just want to cry a big weeping sobbing gasping glubber.  I haven't cried, properly, in two or three years.  I didn't even cry when Angie died. 

I meet the Walrus again

The saga continues.  Walrus has been texting me daily.  I was a bit sick, and somehow it became the thing for him to check up on me and start these conversations.  I have an old phone and am terrible at texting.

Anyways, we were supposed to do something Wednesday and I cancelled and took a nap instead.  When I awoke I had a burst of crazy energy and started working on an art project.  When he texted me I made a joke about me being normal one day and it started this whole conversation that made me uncomfortable and yet somewhat flattered.

He replied, 'No, no!  I like you just as you are.'  He said he tried to be normal and ended up a workaholic with a stroke, an aborted marriage and an affinity for hard liquor.  There was more stuff about how great it was that I was me being me and how it made him happy.  I said this was too deep for texting and told him goodnight.

 

So, having put it off for days, I saw him tonight.  This is the raw version I just emailed my best friend.  Why does she have to be backpacking in Europe when I need her?

 

"Met him 4:30 at a coffee shop on ____ street.  He was late.  He gets his coffee and sits down and doesn't say much and I start babbling.   He eats this huge coffee cake forever.  We walk down _____ Street and go into a few shops.  Conversation is start-and-stop.  I am racking my brains for questions to ask, he doesn't ask me any.  He might make general comments about something we pass and there's not much for me to say back. 

 

In the book store he is tired and sits on a stool and I of course feel bad and we go to look for food.  He talks about food a lot and has been to every restaurant we pass.  He picks a place and I agree just to stop walking but it was more of a drinks place with an extremely limited menu.  We sit outside at a high counter outside so we are side by side and I accidently placed myself on the other side of a beam (post?  anyways a piece of wood)  from him.  I asked him to tell me about the stroke and that at least gets him talking for a long time.  The other people on the patio left, i don't know if that was because of us.  I asked about the hospital and the treatment etc which at least let me know what was going on. 

 

He had a beer with dinner.  Then he ordered desserts, and another beer.  By then I was freezing and we moved inside while he finished beer number two.  He was pretty spaced out by that time and stared at lights for a long time.  He would occasionally snap out of it long enough to ask how I was doing.  He paid.  He walked me to the bus stop, I hugged him and hopped on the bus.  I had his stupid coffee cake in my bag and forgot to give it back so there was another round of texting on the way home, he asked if I had a good time.  I just said yes.

 

There was no compliments or attempts at hand-holding or anything romantic at all. That probably would have upset me greatly but it's weird when I get enthusiastic messages the rest of the time. Huge disconnect between the guy online and the guy in person.  It's like I spent four hours with a robot.  No, it's not quite that bad, but his emotions are a but muted.   if I try and talk about my life he doesn't really ask questions about it, he just says 'excellent, excellent' 

 

His stroke was in the right basal ganglia, which means I believe, that it was in the cerebellum or anyways a more primitive part of the brain.  It controls appetite- he said he doesn't feel hungry.  He eats a lot and talks about food constantly.  He said he has no notion of time passing.  I wonder if that's why he stares into space so much.  He might have no idea how long I'm sitting there.  Eye contact is still poor, although his eyes didn't seem so freaky as last time.

He said it was the second beer he had since his stroke.  I don't know if he meant it was the first time he'd had beer, because he had two, or the second time. 

He pulled out his iphone to look up some movie we were talking about and I saw that the background picture was one of my drawings.  I didn't say anything.

He told me his younger sister had had addiction problems and went through some sort of detox program. 

 

Conversation sometimes got going, we like a lot of the same stuff...I think a not-stroked-out Walrus would have been my undoing but this is just too hard.  I don't know what happens now.  I am very booked up for the next two weeks so that might give it enough space for me to say what i have to say.  it is very sad."