3/12/2024

Today was mostly about rest. I did get to talk to April this morning, but it was focused on Abrielle’s dress. April was making alterations to the dress and we were talking through what all needed to be changed and how it would work out. April sounded confident this morning that the alterations would work. Abrielle does not want to wait until next week to try the dress April has on because she doesn’t want to wait until 2 weeks before prom to be shopping for a different dress if it doesn’t work out. April and I did start talking about us briefly before we ended the call. April reiterated that she could not keep going and she could not continue talking to me because it hurts too bad. I suppose I will use this journal to help chronical some of the issues between us so that I can evaluate what I think happened and why. Perhaps I’ll even learn a bit about myself and why my relationships have all had an expiration date. Sharing with a keyboard or even anonymous folks online maybe will cause revelation that I haven’t yet seen without it.

Although I am still interested in taking inventory of my daily activities. Abrielle took Cash to the groomer’s today. His hair had been really matted and was starting to get really rough. He was sick about a month ago and we have not had hot water in our apartment since then. We have been able to use the neighbors showers or my parents but I felt bad about dragging my dog to the neighbor for a bath. I suppose if the property manager doesn’t get it fixed soon, I’m going to have to either set normal grooming appointments or take him to the neighbor as well.

I was able to get quite a bit of rest today. Caleb missed his medicine the night before and when he was asked to help take the dogs out he really flipped out. I had to umpire baseball in Fairland and he decided he wanted to come with me. Fairland hosted Oklahoma Union tonight. Union was markedly better than Fairland, but made multiple mistakes on defense. Twice with the bases loaded Fairland hit the ball up the middle and the center fielder let the ball get past him scoring 3 runs both times. This allowed the score to remain close enough that we couldn’t get to a run rule. The Varsity game went all 7 innings and was 9-18 at the end and it took nearly 4 hours. I was so happy to get that game over with. The JV game was cut short as lightning started to move in. Caleb wanted to drive home so I let him. He does a pretty good job if he can relax. He does miss things in the dark because of the light and glare still, but we got home safe.

When I made it home April sent me some pictures of the dress and then called me. She is unhappy with how the alterations are turning out. She talked some with Abrielle but until Abby can try it on we aren’t sure if it will work or not. April was pretty down on herself. She wanted to keep talking so we went back over the last month or so of garbage in our relationship. I was willing to own all of my mistakes and all the stuff I had done to hurt her. I tried to help her understand how the hurt that I was working through drove me to make some of the poor choices I did. She continued to insist that I was lying about stuff that I was not lying about. With having lied to her in the past all I could do is admit that it was my fault that she did not trust me. Other than being willing to be honest now on and working on building my character to avoid misbehavior when I am hurt in the future I am not sure what to do. I am going to see a counselor tomorrow and I am for sure going to discuss some of these issues. I think having a solid accounting of how I experienced and lived through each situation will help bring to light anything I can develop and grow.

I just want to grow through all of this. The relationship with April is tough to give up, but if it leads to growth that is the correct direction I want to move in. I really don’t know what my future holds, but I am committed to my faith and learning from each experience.