Rollercoaster of Love

Now that it's been, oh, about 10 minutes since I last provided an update on my relationship with Ted, I thought it was high time to let you know where we stand right now, July 16, 2010 at 6:17pm. You can now get off the edges of your seats. I'm here to tell all.

Well actually, there's not a whole lot of "all" to tell. I've been out of town with my family and he's been in his city 450 miles south of here, doing his usual day to day routine, which doesn't include me.

I will say that Ted's really good about calling me so I've talked to him just about every day this past week. He'll call me on his way into work every morning--which is around 7:15am--and like some old, crazy person, I'm generally up by then, even though I'm out of work and should be sleeping in and living the life of Riley. But for some reason I can't sleep past 7am so I'll end up chatting with Ted while he drives to work. It actually works nicely, so no complaints there.

Even when we don't talk, there've been plenty of emails and text messages so yeah, I hear from him a lot. I'm actually pretty happy with the amount of contact we have. Thank you multi-media world of the new millennium for helping me keep in touch with my long-distance honey!

What I don't love is that he doesn't seem to want to see me! It's been two weeks since I got back from visiting him and still, there's no plan to get together again anytime soon.

It's not for lack of effort on my part either. I told him that I was starting my new job on July 29th (oh yeah by the way...I got a new job!) and that I'd love to have one last "hurrah" visit down to DC next weekend. He said his friends had invited him to their lake house but that he thought he could bring a guest so he would ask them and I'd book my flight. Fine. Sounds good right?

That conversation occurred on Monday so when I talked to Ted on Tuesday I asked if he'd spoken to his friends. "Um...no. I'll do it tonight". Well that night came and went and he didn't speak to them. So did the next night and the night after that. So on Thursday I sent him a text message saying that I had an itinerary on hold and to let me know what his friends said so I could pull the trigger on the flight. No response.

Ted finally called me this morning to say he just found out his friends were out of town and that he didn't feel comfortable inviting me along without checking with them, blah blah blah ... but he does want to see me! I said, of course, I certainly don't expect you to invite me to someone else's house without checking with them but I thought you were going to talk to them this week.

"I'm sorry," was his response. He said saw them Tuesday but there were people all around, blah blah blah and he didn't know they would be out of town today. Yeah okay, Ted. You had the better part of a week to check with them. Whatever.

He did say that he really wants to see me (uh huh) and that he's going to book a flight to come see me in .... September! September 17th to be exact. That's the weekend that I have the family's summer house reserved so I am going to be inviting all my friends down for a big party and Ted wants to come too. So yeah, Ted would like to see me in two and a half months at my family's summer house on the Cape. Hey, I'd love a free vacation in a summer house on the Cape too so of course he wants to see me then, right?

So how do I feel about a guy who doesn't want to see me for another two months? Well obviously I don't feel like he should be a major priority in my life right now. I can't sit here and put all my energy into a relationship with a guy that right now, I may see perhaps four times a year.

Not to mention, I worry about how much Ted seems to be drinking right now. Too many of his stories start with "I'm really tired today from staying out way too late last night". On Monday morning, his conversation included the sentence, "I needed to have someone piece together the events from last night" because he'd drunk so much, he didn't even remember how the night had ended. Lovely.

In all honestly, alcoholism is not an endearing trait to me, if you must know. It runs in my family and I don't want the father of MY children throwing back several drinks and passing out every night. Been there, done that and I'm not interested. That said, I am hoping that Ted's late-night partying is just a short-term thing -- it's summer and I'm having fun sort of situation. I don't know though so I'm just going to have to keep an eye on this. Time will tell.

I like Ted, a lot, and I think he likes me too. And maybe that's part of the problem. I think he's still reeling from his divorce earlier this year and he's told me on more than one occasion that he's not ready for a new relationship. So here I am, showing him all my awesomeness and I think he got totally freaked out. And that's why he's keeping me at arm's length until September. He likes me and he wants to see me but he's dealing with his own issues. Unfortunately, I think he's dealing with his issues by drinking way too much alcohol and avoiding me right now, so I'm not sure what will happen here.

I get that but you know what? I've got MY own issues too and I'm not interested in taking his on, thank you very much. So that said, I've decided that I'm going to put Ted on his very own back burner where I'll keep in touch and look forward to seeing him in two months but I will also hold onto my emotional energy so that I can focus on the things in life that are important to ME.

What's important to me? Well, I start my new job in just a week and a half and it's important to me that I am successful. Also, I've made it through my foster parent training and now I am one step closer to becoming a mom. That's super important to me. And who knows...maybe I'll meet a guy who's here and just a little more open to a relationship right now, which would be lovely. I do like Ted but he's not offering me anything substantial so I need to continue looking out for myself. Bring on the men! Bring it.

So that's my latest and greatest update on Ted's and my relationship. Unless something changes, this may be the last update I've got on Ted so yeah, enjoy this missive for what it is and feel free to read it over and over and over again until I've got another update for you. Probably sometime in September. Yeah, believe it or not though, that will probaly be here sooner than I realize. I can't believe it's already the middle of July so it's not going to be any surprise to me that the middle of September will be here in next to no time too. Time flies when you're having fun I guess.