A dawning of a new decade.
So much, yet so little has happened since the fall really. The big picture hasn’t changed much, well not at all. I’m glad the previous decade is over, and I guess I’m sad that I’m glad it’s over. In my mind, the last decade should have been “the time of my life” and instead it was a bit of a sputter. It wasn’t all bad, there were the major life milestones such as completing my graduate degree, buying my first home, moving along in my career. Then there was me facing my first serious health threat that ended up hospitalizing me, my first major sports injury that saw me tear my ACL, crazy world events like 9-11, Katrina, Tsunamis, and the cause of this blog.
December was tough for me as I lost a friend suddenly to a brain aneurysm. She was pregnant and died suddenly. The child made it, but she now leaves behind two kids and a husband. I’ve been in touch with Carol (the girl from a few years back) and she did offer to accompany me to the funeral, but I declined. We’ve hung out a bit, but she was seeing someone at the time. Carol had broken off moving back to her previous boyfriend whom she had dumped me for. She’s also clearly, but nicely stated to me that she was no longer interested in me but would like to remain friends. I’ve accepted it, but deep down its also been a bit difficult. Ultimately the question comes up again and again, am I not good enough? I’ve refrained from asking because I’m sure I wouldn’t like the answer.
She also invited me to her New Years eve party in which I was very reluctant to go. She had recently said shes been seeing someone new, and I that was the last sight I wanted to see on the start of a new decade.
I had been party hoping from one place to another, and ended up at a party only a few blocks away from Carol’s. It was a large party full of friends from my past. They were predominately friends whom now all had kids. It was very nice seeing these people, but they were all occupied with their children and trading parenting stories with each other. By ten o’clock I needed to get out of there.
I was prepared to go home, but I really felt a need for a quick drink first so the easiest thing to do was drop by Carol’s. Maybe subconsciously I really wanted to get a look and satisfy my morbid curiosity. Who knows.
It wasn’t long that I was able to determine, that if she was seeing someone, he wasn’t there. The funny thing is, I think I befriended a guy who was probably seeing her. Dude was tres drunk and spilled his guts out to me, figuratively and literally. He was definitely in a worse head space than me. He’s an Irishman who met a Canadian girl and followed her here to get married. Eventually they divorced and he admitted to being depressed and has been struggling with his broken marriage. Not sure how, but by the end of the night I think I became his new BFF. Anyways, I overheard people talking and wondering who he was (and who I was) and I heard someone answer that he was someone Carol was recently seeing but are no longer together.
There were many of her friends who were there several years back at Carol’s birthday party. It was the same party where they had all given me the cold shoulder. Great I thought. I had completely forgotten about that. This is still going to be a short night. Standing in the corner for a bit, someone finally came up to me and asked “you’re Anthony right? We met a few years back”. I admitted to not remembering her name, but eventually it turned out that we work for the same company. It also turned out that a bunch of people at that party also work at the same company and in fact in the same neighbourhood. This time around we were able to vent about work and chatted for a while. This went on until she managed to tip over and hurled into the sink.
Then I was greeted by another girl who was also very intoxicated. It was then easy to see this party had a few single lonely people. We chatted for a while and she proceeds to drag me out to the freezing cold porch to light up. It turns out she’s a friend of Carol’s roommate. She got really friendly and we end up sharing time on a blue moon lit porch. We get interrupted by the drunken Irishman (shocker) where he proceeds to give me the drunken “I don’t know you very well but I love you man” speech. This was enough to drive the girl back in. Half the party then comes out to the porch.
It was fun times. My plans were to get back to the blue moon girl, but not soon thereafter, I see her leaving with another guy. It became public knowledge that she just picked up that guy, and she was bringing him back to her place. I’m not here to judge, but I was very disappointed if for nothing else, he looked like an older balding Indian guy! Damn! What is up with the bald/ing older Indian guys?
Oh well. It would have made for an interesting start to the decade. Happy new decade to you.
