With just a few short weeks until New Years, I would like to get a head start on my resolutions, as well as discuss all that has happened in the last year.

So first, what did happen this year?

  • Alexa’s adoption was finalized
  • I permanently separated myself from Alexa’s mother
  • Graduated
  • Came out about the truth / Rid myself of secrets
  • Removed friends that don’t respect me
  • Moved out
  • Started attending STI
  • Roommates and the hell they bring
  • An overall relationship overhaul

So… I’ll start in order:

Alexa’s adoption was finalized January 31. This the hardest, most self-sacrificial thing I’ve ever had to do. I can give my money out to anyone, I can spare my extra time to help someone, I can help people with almost anything. But… to adopt away someone that comes from my blood is extremely hard. The car ride to the court house, we had Alexa with us. After the court, we dropped Alexa off, visited for a while, and left… It was an eerie feeling returning home without my daughter. Even more so going days without seeing or hearing her. Adjusting to this change in my life was difficult, but I did it through making my schedule busy in other ways. I kept my mind off of what wasn’t at home waiting for me.

While I’m on the subject, I believe it would be a good idea to explain how I finally made the decision to commit to the adoption. It’s bitter to say and hear, but the decision was easy for me to make; but hard for me to follow through. As with all my other hard decisions, I broke it down into smaller, easier to understand parts.

  • Our families had irreconcilable differences
  • Alexa was bring tossed between two homes, with families that raised her completely opposite ways
  • I couldn’t be around Alexa’s mother for more than fifteen minutes without a fight breaking out
  • When the two of us would fight, it would get nasty – Alexa doesn’t need to see or hear the things we said
  • Neither Alexa’s mother or I could provide the stability we wished for her.

With all of those reason combined, harboring Alexa for our own selfish wants seemed morally irresponsible. Why should Alexa have to suffer because her parents are too thick headed to see what’s best for her. Thus, the decision was made for me. I just needed a lot of support to follow through with it. Eventually, I got there.

 

Moving on:

The separation of Alexa’s mother and I. This seems easy when I say it like that. In reality, it was hard. We had dated for nearly two years before breaking up, and even after that, we still had to be around each other for our daughter. Nearly three years, I finally just shut her out. She couldn’t contact me via phone, internet, or in person. I told my parents that they would have to relay anything she or I wanted to say to each other. I hated putting that stress on my parents, but it was the only true way I was going to make this separation work. Finally, after months of refusing to talk to her, and proving to her that I WASN’T going to be there for her at all, she finally got the hint and quit talking.

 

Graduation: 

I totally didn’t think I would. A few months short of graduating, I was failing a class, quite miserably. And in the end, it did all come down to getting my ass in gear in that class. I spent somewhere around six hours outside of class time to work on my projects that were bringing my grade down.

Graduation in a tough thing in general. School work aside, it’s a huge process getting everything ready: the clothes, the parties, the ceremony, and etcetera. It’s a lot of work. I hate getting an extraordinary amount of attention, so this was a huge eye-opening activity for me. ~70 people showing up at my house to give me congratulations and money… That doesn’t happen very often.

 

Ridding myself of secrets:

I wish I could go into detail on this subject a lot more, but in order to do that, I would have to embarrass people close to me; I don’t want to do that. So I will only discuss what I can here.

In June, I had a very close friendship and relationship with someone who had all the keys to all my locks. Through many late nights and close connections, she had finally released the pendulum that was waiting high above me for years. Through a small question, she had broke down a decade of self-made reinforcement of all the secrets that I’d kept. I trusted her enough to do this. And I definitely don’t regret what she has done for me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it time and time again: This person has made me a better, more trustworthy, more trusting person overall. I’ll never be able to express the gratitude for that, either.

 

Removed friends that don’t respect me:

During this year, I had what I thought was my best friend. I thought this person would be someone I could confide everything in, and they wouldn’t tell a soul. I also didn’t think they would ever go behind my back for their own selfish needs. But life has an awesome way of revealing people to you.

Basically, since kindergarten, I had a friend that was just plain awesome. We literally grew up with each other, and have the same mind set on a lot of different subjects (or… used to…). This person was there from beginning to end with Alexa and her mother. However, just shortly I had broke up with Alexa’s mother, he found it in his values that it was okay to attempt to get with my ex.
Now, maybe I’m just fucked up in the head, and this IS righteous action. You tell me. I dated this woman for nearly two years, and I HAD A BABY with her. As soon as we break up, he finds it acceptable to ask to spend the night with her, while he’s drunk, nonetheless. I don’t find that very concerning of the friendship he held with me.

Another, similar, experience (however not from this year), is when another one of my ex friends decided that he would start texting the same girl after I broke up with her. Only, instead of texting, he would send pictures of his penis to her… Very shortly after hearing (and sadly seeing) about that, I cut him off from ever being my friend again. It also doesn’t help that he told my ex, “If you ever tell Nick about anything between us I’ll cut your baby.” Or something along those lines. That shit doesn’t fly well with me.

 

Moved out:

I understand that this isn’t essentially a huge thing to go through, as most of us DO go through with it. But not only was this my first time moving out, it was my first time MOVING in my life. And I didn’t move just a few miles away. I moved sixty-eight miles east, into a large city. I did a complete revamp of my way of life. Without a doubt, this is a lot of stress. The first few weeks of being out of my parents house was the hardest. I didn’t have anyone to talk to, or any friends to go see. I mostly sat around my apartment trying to figure out small things I could to make my time there more efficient.

Along with moving out, I started attending STI, the school I’m currently enrolled at. This was only a quick four months after graduating, and I was a college student. New school, new student body, new kind of homework, new teachers, new EVERYTHING. We need not even mention the fact that it was only after moving into a new city.

School has / is actually going quite well. I enjoy the classes, and the work load isn’t as much as I expected it to be. The only real, big problem I had with this whole new lifestyle is roommates.

Put bluntly: My roommates are absolute shit. For the first few weeks, all three of them had been loud, annoying, and inconsiderate assholes. I basically barricaded myself into my room in attempts to not have to deal with all of their crap. The more I’d resist, the more they’d fight back trying to get reactions out of me. Worse yet, there was my roommates friend, who was there nearly as much as the rest of them. This pathetic pile of douche found it easy to steal my food, and leave half of it out to rot.

Basically, after so much of this, I did blow up at them. I yelled at them and basically made my maturity level plummet. I decided shortly after, a new tactic around them would be better. Instead of fighting them. I will simply have no reaction for the things they would do. When I walk pass them, I’d simply smile and go on with my day. NOTE: This pisses people off. Which was half the reason I did it.

Now, with the semester coming to an end, I’ve already got plans to move out, into a new apartment, with people I actually know, who will better respect me and all of my belongings. Thank. God.

 

The Relationships of 2011:

In the start of 2011, I was heart broken by a girl that I had chased around for about a year. The reason for her breaking up with me the last time was because of my ex that I had Alexa with. Wonderful. I remember a note she gave me that stated she, “Was not going to date anyone,” until after the new year because she needed time for herself. Turns out, that was a lie. She started dating someone else before then, leaving me in the dark, as usual. Hah… life.

Anyway, I took this time to expand my relationships with other people. I started dating someone I was already good friends with. Sadly, the reason I was dating her was because I had made comparisons between her and my ex. I’ve expressed in my blog that this is a BAD thing to do. This relationship taught me that no two people will be alike, and cannot be viewed in comparison with the past. Because I did the wrong thing, this relationship did not last. We remained friends after this relationship, however.

After that, I started to connect well with a girl. And when I say well, I mean extremely well. This is the girl who got me to come out with the truth about everything. As I previously explained, we were close. Sadly, I got selfish when that girl I’d be chasing for the past year came back to me… I chose to try again with her. And it worked for a while. We dated for the longest consistent time we ever have. Almost three months (big woop, I know).

Anyway, we dated from July to October, when on homecoming night, I decided to sit by two of my female friends (don’t get them confused with girlfriends…), and after that, things just went downhill. It didn’t matter what I said, or how many times I apologized for sitting by them. We were doomed to end. And end it did.

After that relationship was done, I quickly rushed myself into another partial relationship. I pretty much used someone to get over my ex. And I feel bad for that. During the time of being with this woman, I decided that finally, I am done chasing that other girl around. I decided that being dragged around for the last year means that it will never work. I quickly gained composure, and finalized my feelings for that girl.

Also during this time, I posed on my blog about persons: A, B, C, and D. Shortly after posting that, person D did end up texting me, and we’ve been talking every day since. Furthermore, we reconnected, and even reinforced our relationship. We are now better than ever. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

——————-

 

Now that I’ve got the biggest parts of the past year down, I would like to talk about the next year of my life…

These are just a few things that I would like to achieve:

  • A better relationship between my parents and I
  • Have a full, committed relationship with someone
  • Find life-long friends in college
  • Write more
  • Learn to be more compassionate for others
  • Continue strengthening my relationship with my daughter and her parents
  • Write something that will leave people smiling
  • Be a role model for those around me
  • Commit. Follow through with everything I say
  • Finally: Have a better year than the previous

Again, these are just a few of my resolutions for the next year. And as much as I hope they will all be accomplished, I cannot guarantee that they all will.’My reasoning for choosing all of these resolutions is because they will overall make me a better person. What I really want in life is to be the best person I can be. For myself, for my family, for my friends, and even for strangers…

 

And with all this behind me, I’d like to dedicate this post to a song: A Day to Remember – Here’s to the Past.

Here’s to the past

Let’s all think back on what brought us here
This is my grasp on what is real
Don’t tell me how I feel
With all that’s passed I can’t relate
With myself from day to day
why does everything seem so far away
to me

There’s no turning back from here
I’ve got to get away from everyone who’s left
Everyone who’s left
I’ll tell the saddest story
Of how we made it through this past year
(Past year, past year…)
I’ll tell the saddest story
Of how we made it through this past year
(Past year, past year…)
They said we’d walk away
You’ll never make it if you can’t speak for yourself
they said we’d fade away

We’ve all been down this path before
You’re trapped in this town
And it wears you down
When we leave today then maybe you’ll understand
This constant struggle isn’t always in the palm of my hand

There’s no turning back from here
I’ve got to get away from everyone who’s left
Everyone who’s left
I’ll tell the saddest story
Of how we made it through this past year
(Past year, past year…)
I’ll tell the saddest story
Of how we made it through this past year
(Past year, past year…)
They said we’d walk away
You’ll never make it if you can’t speak for yourself
they said we’d fade away

This man will stand the test of time
This man will stand the test of time
This man will stand the test of time
This man will stand the test of time

I’ll tell the saddest story
Of how we made it through this past year
(Past year, past year…)
I’ll tell the saddest story
Of how we made it through this past year
(Past year, past year…)
They said we’d walk away
You’ll never make it if you can’t speak for yourself
they said we’d fade away