And this is how it is
2006-01-18, 11:06 p.m.

Hold it back. Referring to tears, anger, frustration. I'm wearing out my friends.

My boyfriend of about 14 months has two weeks to go until he can file for divorce. First step was getting the new job and to do that he had to present a stable home life. Needed her for that. A recent divorce and recent marriage wouldn't have boded well for stability, so I remained a secret.

Second step was a 6 month residency requirement which is up in two weeks. She's fully aware of what's going down. It's not like she never cheated on him. Shortly after she found out about me even, she gave him clymidia (please forgive the spelling, I can never remember that one) and tried to blame it on me. There were at least 3 people before that that she's admitted to, before he and I ever even met.

When I met him I was facing down the 3 year anniversary of the last time I'd had sex. I was dealing with all the body image issues that follow childbirth for so many of us.

But it's more than that. Our story goes all the way back to my childhood. I wasn't raised with my peers, I was raised around adults. My father kept myself and my sisters very close. We didn't make friends with other children. I was 14 before I was even permitted to go to a friend's house for the afternoon. We went to public school, but were heavily educated at home as well. When I was finishing second grade, my mother was approached with the offer that I attend 5th grade the following year rather than 3rd. She turned it down, she was afraid of what would happen to a fourteen year old high school graduate.

So instead, I grew up intellectually superior to my peers, and therefore a total and complete outcast. My mother was afraid age would outcast me, and didn't allow me to move forward, but it was in vain. When a kid's different, a kid's different. I grew up in a world where nobody understood me. My lack of life experience hindered me from being taken seriously by people on my same mental level, and my overabundance of intelligence separated me from my age group. I never found "home." No matter where I was, I knew it wouldn't make a difference if I disappeared. I didn't fit ANYWHERE.

I lost interest in school where I wasn't challenged, I developed poor study habits. I passed high school barely because I never did homework, but would go in and ace my exams. In my senior year I got the highest grades in my class on the exams in both Government and Algebra II. That's the whole senior class, not just my classroom. My algebra teacher pulled me aside and said, I quote, "What the hell is wrong with you?" Nothing. Nothing at all.

My father prevented me from going to university on account of the expense. Wanted me to start at community college, where I ran into the same problem of sheer boredom when even the "advanced" classes were compiled of shit I already knew, but couldn't pull the same forget-everything-but-the-exam manner of study and still pass, so I flunked out. Basically, I lost interest in everything. Got pregnant, dad died, I went to work.

Almost one year to the day things started to change. I didn't have a car, so for a long time I got a ride home from my older sister. She worked an hour from where I did, and got off at the same time. I'd head out to the lobby at the end of the day, and sit there with my Oscar Wilde and wait. Then for a long time I got a ride home from a co-worker, when she switched units I got the vibe she wasn't wanting me tagging around anymore, so I went back to rides from my sister.

This was almost a year to the day from the day I got hired. First day I have to go back to riding with my sister, I walk into that lobby and behind the front desk I'm greeted by the first young member of security I've ever seen at that place. He hadn't even been there a month. Our security force had been 100% geriatrics up unto this moment.

I open up Dorian Gray, but this guy strikes up conversation. I've learned to not speak in there unless spoken to, people can be very unfriendly. So, I respond. He was obviously bored and looking to talk, and I hadn't had human contact outside my two and a half year old in quite some time.

What sprang out of this first conversation was a love affair to end all love affairs. For the very, very, very first time, and I can't stress this enough, I met someone on MY strange and odd level. Someone who understood what I said, didn't brush me off as a kid or become immediately threatened or disinterested by my knowledge of politics and religion and philosophy. I was eager for someone to share my passions of conversation and conspiracy theories. Someone who understood why Farenheit 9/11 made me feel so angry and sold out.

This was the man who called me and first broke the news to me that Kerry concieded. This was the man who listened while I went off about a girl in the bible belt who's rapists got off scot free after videotaping the atrocity. This was the man who listened and let me educate him on the gifts Sandra Day O'Connor had given to the American woman by using her vote to stand up for what was in our best interest, for protecting our freedom.

This was the man who fell in love with me because he found the same things in me that I found in him. A person who could accept him for who he was and not judge him. An openminded, honest, intelligent woman the likes of which he'd never seen and would never see again.

Our relationship has been a roller coaster because of what I've had to deal with to love him. But in two weeks, in two weeks he can file for divorce and then in 60 days it'll be finalized, and we're getting married.

He's military, the Air Force. That's all I'll say about what he does. Suffice to say he's not a security guard anymore. And he's ranking.

He's ten years older than I am, he and his current wife have a 7 year old son, I have a 3 year old son, he and I are planning to birth the 'ours' part of the 'his-mine-and' in 2008. We'll be married for a year before we try.

So that relationship is what this journal is about.