What can I say? Life sucks sometimes. This is one of the sucky times. 

Grandma is doing worse. (I just found out she's been given one week.) I was over there on Saturday for quite a while, but she was sleeping and unable to be awakened.  My aunt was over there, too, and as we were leaving she said, "Between you and me, I hope this is over soon. It's hard to see her like this, and it's wearing your mom out."

And that was the high point of the day.

I don't know what's going to happen with me and Matt. I really don't. And I feel there's nothing more I can say anymore. I am willing to do anything to make our relationship work, but the way he's talking... 

I told him that it would be up to him how often we see each other-- I'm not going to have the money to go there. He'll have to come to me. And he didn't say anything. Not, "Yes, of course I'll come visit you" or anything.  I guess he doesn't want to make promises he might not be able to keep. 

I don't know what to think. What if he's doing a preemptive strike? Maybe he's convinced that I'm going to move and then find someone else. But I don't want anyone else. Doesn't my current emotional state speak volumes? Doesn't it say, "Hey, I love YOU. I want to be with YOU." Does he need reassurance? Do I need to beg? Cry? Scream? Argue? Is he right to go? Am I wrong to want him to stay with me?

I have never felt like this before, ever, in my life.  So miserable, so conflicted, so confused.

You know what they say. "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never yours to begin with." I really, really believe in that saying. I broke up with Bruce because of that saying. But the problem is, Bruce never came back to me. What if Matt doesn't either?

The only reason I'm even functioning right now is because I have a wonderful best friend. In fact, I have the best best friend in the world. 

That's not hyperbole. Tim is, without question, the best friend on planet earth. If there was a best friend Olympics, he would win every gold medal. If there was a best friend pageant, he would get the tiara. If there was a best friend election, he'd win in a landslide. You see where I'm going with this? And don't even bother trying to argue with me. I'm sure you have a good best friend, but mine is better. I will never be convinced otherwise.

After I had cried myself sick on Friday, I decided I needed someone to talk to.  I wrote an entry (although the notify didn't go out) and got a couple of badly needed messages of support.  But who to talk to in real life?

I can't tell my family... they'll be devastated. My grandmother asks about Matt every day (every "good" day, that is) and constantly says, "I hope you will stay together and get married." One of the last conversations I had with her was me reassuring her that we're doing great, and of course we're going to get married. 

Oh, love has made a fool out of me.

I don't want to listen to Matthew's sympathetic "I told you so" or Danielle's pity.  Charlotte would change the subject, and Bruce would be supportive, but inwardly he'd be thinking, "I knew he would hurt you. Look what he did to Marcy." So, I decided on quality time with Tim. If nothing else, we could have a laugh, and it would make me forget about my problems.

On Saturday during the day, I bounced from my (tense) apartment to my parents' (tense) house, feeling physically ill and mentally exhausted.  And Matt can't win... if he is loving or sweet to me, it hurts because it reminds me of just how much I stand to lose. If he's cold and distant, it feels like he doesn't love me. So I bounce from one kind of despair to another, and it's fucking exhausting. When Tim finally came over, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. 

(Tim brought me the Renfield CD, which he had picked up for me at their concert on the 22nd. I couldn't go to it because I had to pick up my sister from the airport so he went by himself and got me the CD. Due to the defection of one of their members, Renfield has replaced their violin with a regular guitar. They are a lot less cool now.  But I digress.)

I decided we should go to the Castaway, which is a great restaurant in the hills above Burbank. I craved the warm summer night air, and the twinkly lights, the peace, the darkness, a glass of wine. So that's what we did. For dinner, I had a papaya/chicken/avocado salad that was wonderful, and some excellent Chardonnay. I had a yummy white chocolate mousse thing and a mocha for dessert. 

After dinner, we couldn't find seats outside, so we sat by the window and drank our coffee and talked for hours. I can't really indulge in self pity talk when I'm with Tim. I said one thing that was very "woe is me" and immediately I made the tiny violin with my fingers and it cracked us both up. It's impossible to wallow when Tim is around. 

We talked about Matt, of course, but we also had a lengthy gossip about Survivor-- which is a no-fail way to cheer me up, since I love to talk about Survivor (plus we were at a restaurant with a "Castaway" island theme, so it was perfect). He's missed the last few episodes, so I had to fill him in on all the machinations and alliances and hilarious quotes over the past few weeks. 

Anyway, it was a really nice night, and made me feel a little better. 

But that's not why he's the best best friend in the whole entire universe ever.

On Sunday, I was laying around the house in a puddle of abject misery when the phone rang. I ignored it, of course, until I heard it was Tim. We had just seen each other the night before? Why was he calling me?

You see where this is going, yes? Tim actually got in his car, drove to my house, took me to the store, and bought me a DVD player. 

When he told me he was coming over to buy me a DVD player, it turned my frown upside down. Immediate 180. I put my hair in afro puffs (tm stee) and wandered from room to room, yelping excitedly. When he arrived I said, "Thank god you're here, I'm so excited I can't sit still." 

He took me to Fry's, but the line was through the entire store. It was a retardedly long line. So we switched to Plan B and went to Circuit City. We went to the DVD display and he said, "So. Which one do you want?" We picked out a Sony one (his friend had recommended Sony) that had lots of features checked off. As he was paying for it, we discovered it was $70 less than the display said. Woo!

Then, before we could leave, he insisted that I have some movies, too. I was overwhelmed by the display of movies, but as soon as I spotted Guys and Dolls, I knew I had found my movie. I've been dying to it own it-- so much so that I still have Matthew's copy of it. He picked up Dark City and said, "Well, you're getting this one, too. You picked a gay movie."

Dark City is something we saw together in the theater. He dragged me to it, and I insisted that I was going to hate it. "Yeah, probably," he said. Well, we both loved it, Keifer Sutherland notwithstanding. Of course we immediately headed home, hooked up the DVD player (pretty buttons! pretty lights!) and watched the movie. DVDs are fucking cool.

It's not the expensive gift that makes me so happy. I mean, yes, I've been drooling for a DVD player for a couple of years, and I'm thrilled with it, but that's not what cheered me up so much. It's the fact that Tim was sitting around on Sunday, thinking of how unhappy I was, and trying to figure out a way to make me happy.

He's not a demonstrative person, and evidence to the contrary, he rarely buys people gifts. Every time I tried to thank him, he just blushed and said, "Yeah, yeah. Shut up now."  I think the whole process is very uncomfortable for him. But he knew it would make me happy, so it was worth it to him.

It makes me happy just to think about it. I still can't believe he would go out of his way and do something so generous just to cheer me up. I hope he knows how much it means to me. I hope he can tell. Because I don't even have the words to express it... and even if I did, it would just embarrass him.

I guess it just made me feel really loved. And it made me realise that, in spite of all the misery in my life right now, I am a very lucky girl.

Of course, it’s far more accurate to say that all happy endings eventually become sad. Cinderella dies of cancer. Snow White gets stretch marks and cellulite. Prince Charming becomes an alcoholic.

Or maybe I’m just cynical.