stranded in suburbia

Hmm, I’m a little surprised there weren’t more notes on the last entry, I figured my diary’d be rife with advice from all my regulars!  Ahh well.  It WAS a bit rambling and disjointed, I can’t blame you I s’pose.

So anyway!  I’ve started writing this entry about 5 different times and scrapped each attempt.  I think over the next week or so, I might devote a couple of entries to the various goings-on and events, but for now this one will just give a general overview of the bit you’re actually interested in : developments or what-have-you with Sam.  For background on what I’m about to tell you, please refer to my previous entry!

Right, so, after the text/Facebook message fiasco, I heard nothing until I came home from camping last Thursday (August 30), like I said, with that random Facebook wall post.  I did reply eventually, and also sent a text asking her to call me whenever she’d be available to meet up for a chat, not really expecting her to do so, but asking nonetheless.  Here is the wall post:

September 2, 2007
"Since you wrote on my wall at like 5 AM yesterday, I figure it’s only appropriate to repondez at around the same time today…so here goes.

Yeah, I haven’t been to the Hat in 3 –count ’em, THREE– weeks! The first week it’s cuz I fell asleep at like 9:30 (yeah I’m a grandma), the second is cuz I was in Halifax, pubcrawlin’, and the third…well…quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Having been away for 2 weeks and not sure what to expect, I was content to just drink socially at a friend’s house and pass out around 1ish, and not worry about what would happen if I ventured out to the bar.

Man, this is a long-ass reply to one sentence.

I think I’ll message you the rest of what I’m gonna say…"

Her reply:

September 3, 2007
"So, the reason why I haven’t called is because you said to call when I’d be available – And, well, surprise surprise .. I haven’t been available.

You haven’t been to the Hat in THREE WEEKS?! Caiters! That’s insane! Get your butt there this Friday .. Even though I won’t be there, haha.

You never did message me. What’s up with that, hmmmmmm?"

Ooooh, she totally called me on it.

September 3, 2007
"Yeah, I know, I’m hoping to make it out this coming Friday, but I haven’t decided yet. Apparently people are missing me there?? Also it’s kinda ironic that right after I get made the "Queen" of the Top Hat facebook group, I stop going for 3 weeks lol.

Your message is forthcoming, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it! I actually forgot that I’d said that at the tail-end of my last wall post haha…I mean uh…no, I’ve been super busy and haven’t had time! Yeah, yeah that’s it….*shifty eyes* I have though, really. Been busy I mean. Also my head is so full that I need to just empty it I think!"

And then after that, I proceeded to start writing a Facebook message…but it soon morphed into a long rambling e-mail….

"***Okay, I started out writing this in a Facebook message but kept going on rambling and figured I’d run out of room before I finished what I had to say, so I transferred ‘er over to e-mail instead***

Hey hey!

Well here it is, the long-awaited (kinda) message! 

In response to the first bit you said on my wall, yeah, I kinda figured that’s what happened.  I wasn’t like, sitting by my phone waiting for your call lol, cuz I knew it wasn’t going to happen for a while anyway.  It’s just something I’ve learned over the years 🙂

Okay, I also said like last week I think that I was going to respond to YOUR message when I had more time, because I was camping when I received it.  So here goes…

Not gonna lie, I was a little taken aback by the whole text message fiasco, it just seemed to come out of nowhere and I was a little hurt I guess, so if my text response seemed a little short, it was.  I didn’t want to risk making you any more "uncomfortable" than I apparently already had.  Also, I had some other drama-ish shit completely unrelated to you going on, so I wasn’t in the most receptive mood I guess; one part of that drama being the realization that I was running out of time to tell my dad about my sexuality before he left again (he was home for 2 weeks, 4 days of which I wasn’t even home for).  You’ll be pleased to know that I DID tell him, September 1st, and it was such a non-event that it’s not worth going into right now because I have other stuff I intended to say and I dunno how many characters fit in this message box!!

K so, it’s no secret that I had a thing for you back in the day…what, like, 2003, 2004ish?  In fact, you were the first girl that I ever confessed to liking, to her face, so I suppose that’s made you special in a way.  Not that you weren’t special to begin with…ahh, you know what I mean.  Anyway, I got over it and all kinds of stuff has happened in the meantime, including me getting my heart broken over and over again, but somehow I keep bouncing back.  I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this really, it’s just sort of spewing out and I can’t stop it…I apologize in advance if this also makes you uncomfortable.
Getting back to what happened just before I left to go camping, I really did appreciate your apology, but at the time I was, again, stunned.  I hadn’t been expecting you to say sorry at all and it seemed like a big apology for what little damage had been done.  It got me wondering if it was actually part of something bigger, like maybe you felt guilty about ever treating me badly at all before, I don’t know.  I guess that’s something you’ll have to let me know.  Like I said though, as unexpected as it was, your apology is absolutely accepted and I reckon I can forgive that minor transgression.

While I was away camping, my friend Sara pointed something out to me, in such a way (bluntly) that no one had ever done before that it made me sit up and take notice.  It was a big discussion and I can’t remember/don’t want to bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that her opinion is that I’ve changed a lot recently, in the last 4 or 5 months maybe.  She says I seem to be all about finding someone to be with, and initially I disagreed, because if that were true, I’d be hooking up with random guys/girls every weekend, like a lot of people I know do.  But then we delved deeper, and on some level….it’s actually true.  I apparently size up each new person I meet as a potential mate.  I was almost ashamed of myself, realizing that– like, had I become that shallow?  Was I turning into the very person I’ve always hated?  So over the next couple of days, and even now, I sort of mentally shook myself.  Snap out of, Caitlin, this isn’t the way to be doing it.  Obviously it hasn’t worked up to this point, and I end up setting myself up for disappointment, while the rest of my life wastes away…so why keep doing it??  I’m always hearing about my "potential" and how I should be off wowing professors at university with my intellect…but what am I doing about it??  Realistically, nothing.  So that’s gotta change, and I’m working at it slowly…

Wow.  Rant over, sorry.  Haha, I really hadn’t intended to type so much and now I think I may have developed a minor case of carpal tunnel, so I think I’ll end here.  I’d like very much if you replied, and we really COULD get together before you take off to Halifax, whenever that’s going to be.

Lator gator,

Caiters"

I didn’t even hesitate clicking Send, and didn’t regret it afterwards, but wondered what she would say.  As it turned out, I would only have to wonder for about 7 hours:

September 4, 2007  1:23:23 AM
"I can’t really reply right now since I have to head to bed (second interview with AIL in the morning, eek!), but I wanted to email you to let you know that I have indeed read your email. I should be able to email you back either tomorrow night when I get home or sometime on Wednesday with a more proper reply.

I’m glad you emailed me.

And yes, the apology was for much more than the text messages.

After a while, crocodile.

Sam xo"

So that was encouraging, at least.  I really don’t know what she’s going to say though, I can’t even imagine, and actually…I don’t want to.  Overanalysing always gets me nowhere, so I’m just going to sit back and let things flow the way they should and see what happens.  I will say, however, that as I began typing this entry, Sam started talking to me on MSN (which is a rarity in itself), because I’d sent her a quick e-mail hinting that she was "running out of tiiiimeeeeee" and she wanted to say hi to me, because she figured she owed me that at least.  Honestly, this is such a change of pace from her, and it’s absolutely welcome, although I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve it….she went on to say that she’s studying for a test she has to take in a couple weeks for a job that she got (her second interview was yesterday) in the city, and that’s why she hasn’t e-mailed me back yet.  She doesn’t know when she’s going to get a chance, but I’m pretty confident it’ll be worth the wait when she does.  Though I’m content to get on with other things in the meantime, don’t get me wrong!  I found a box of stuff today that I’ve been looking for for about 5 years; I started to think I was imagining its existence at all.  But lo and behold, under my mum’s old paints, there it was!!  It wasn’t labelled like the rest of my boxes from the various moves, which is why I’d never found it, and it was just by chance that I even looked in it today.  Man I’m glad I did!  There’s a box of photos that encompass a couple years of my life

Anyway kids, I’ll let you all absorb that, cheers to anyone that makes it all the way through without skipping anything, hehe.

~SS