(no subject)

[sprinklethief]

sometimes you can't help it - you wonder where the people that have touched your life in good and bad ways are now, what they're up to, how they've been. it's not with any intent other than pure curiosity, but it really puts things in perspective...

in many ways i've been the disastrous ex, in some the heartbreaking ex, sometimes the better-off-friends-what-the-fuck-were-we-thinking ex and yes, the dreaded psycho ex as well. looking back over the years it's amazing to me how much i've changed. you see people from different parts of your life - hear the things they say about you, things they never could say *to* you that could have altered the course of everything.

its just so weird.

joey and i have had what i can only describe as a fairy-tale relationship. yeah there's been some situations that could have easily shattered us, but instead of killing us it made us stronger. we stuck together and had each other's back through everything from babies to cancer. i look at the gorgeous man sleeping in our bed, his shoes by the door, his dvds on the shelf, his hoodie tossed over one of the chairs at the dining room table, pictures of his family on our walls, pictures of my family sharing the same frames... i look at all of this, this life we've built together, and i feel grateful.

i have been put in situations no one should have to be part of, and i've done the same to people. i look at my past, the chaos that i've dealt with, and i wonder how anyone ever put up with me back then. especially when i think about where i am now. i consider myself fairly well adjusted - finally - but i still somehow have regrets.

i know a great deal of people don't think very highly of me, and you know what? they probably have good reason. i'd hate me if i met the early 20's version of me. you seriously couldn't turn your back on me because you never knew what you'd see when you turned back around.

i went through the hardcore drug abuse stage (several times actually) and hurt a lot of people through that. i went through the raging alcoholic stage that i hurt people with. i totally lost my mind which also hurt a lot of people. really, its a wonder that i still have friends. i look at pictures from those times (a great deal of which i thoroughly regret) and can't see how anyone could have loved me, how anyone could have cared for me, even for an instant. i was a freaking train wreck for so long.

but now look - drug free (except my crap ton of prescriptions for ailments probably stemming from said early 20's), about to graduate college, in a healthy relationship, able to hold down a real job for a few years (not that it's a career but it's getting me through school). it all seems so distant now, like someone else's life. because it *was* someone else's life.

joey has been talking a lot about "when we get married" and "at our wedding" and "when we're 70" and talking about how he's so excited to spend the rest of his life with me. i suppose that's what's spurred this moment of reflection to some magnitude. i wanted to look back to see how far i've come, where i've screwed up, lessons i've learned. i do whole-heartedly believe that joey and i will get married. it's simply a fact. they predicted it in high school, people are saying it now. we've been thoroughly accepted into each other's families, we've admitted to some ghastly shit we've done in our lives to each other.

i believe i can look back at my life and see what i've done, who i've done it to, where they are now - and feel that despite my regrets, i've become a much better person knowing the amount of pain i'm capable of feeling - and causing. i can know that fact, and i can know i'll never have to feel those things again.