Dear Tyler #25

Dear Tyler,

I love you, my dearest darling! Christmas is coming and I am ecstatic to be sharing this holiday season with you! I'm excited about doing our Twelve Days of Christmas gift exchange again. Traditions! I love how we have things that are just US and I love that we can look back many, many years from now and tell people that we started it our first Christmas.

In other news, I hate the retail world and how the powers that be don't care about screwing with their employees lives. It would be awesome if we could share some time together on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but c'est la vie. At least we'll get to share the wee hours of the morning.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Love, love, LOVE,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #24

Dear Tyler,

Wasn't Thanksgiving awesome? Not because of my cooking which was...functional, save for my pie, but because we got to spend it together. I am glad I could give you a traditional Thanksgiving and therefore, forge our own traditions. I love that stuff! No more kids table for us! I didn't think I'd ever get to cook Thanksgiving dinner for anyone...other than my parents, maybe one day.

Speaking of thanks...we didn't do the corny "let's go around the table and say what we're most thankful for" thing, but I am most thankful for you. Thank you for letting me in your life. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for eating my food! THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU!

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #23

Dear Tyler,

I love you, Babe! It is the morning of the day we are supposed to meet up with Gabe and I am very excited. I want to personally thank the man who is responsible for our (eventual) meeting because without him, our paths would never have crossed. I am also looking forward to meeting someone who is so important to you and someone who was there for you in your greatest time of need. I'm really happy to meet him before the wedding, too.

Thanksgiving countdown is commencing! The pumpkin is in the oven getting ready to be puréed. The pie dough is in the fridge. The turkey is defrosting. That's about all I can do right now, but I am raring to go! VROOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Work is stupid. I'd rather hang out with you all day...blrg. Oh well. I hope you have a great day. Love, love, love you!

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #22

Dear Tyler,

I love you! I hope you don't mind that I don't have anything profound to say today. I am really looking forward to cooking Thanksgiving dinner and having a spectacularly traditional holiday celebration with you. The other day I was telling Sabrina how excited I was to cook this meal even though I "normally don't do the cooking in our family." I didn't use the word "family" on purpose, it just popped out and that's because we are a family even if it's just the two of us. I love that. It's going to be our second Thanksgiving together which is also cool to think about. I love building this life with you!

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #21

Dear Tyler,

Hello, my love! I know I've already done this a couple times, but I want to thank you for bringing me hot water for my bath. I'm glad I figured out how to make them last longer and therefore more effective. I also wanted to address when I asked if you were "mad at me." First, I fucking hate that question on principle. A friend of mine from high school use to ask if I was mad at her all the time and I wasn't until she started asking that inane question. It's annoying. Sorry. The reason I asked though...there have been times when I have thought everything was hunky-dory and then it turns out it wasn't. Annoying as it was, I wanted to address any conflict that may be occurring and squash it. I don't like conflict but if I must deal with it, I want to deal with it quickly and effectively. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.

Turns out there was no conflict (yay!) and I learned something! I get far more time relaxing at home than you and I do feel guilty about it. I have often wondered if you just want to be left alone when you get home, but then you don't say so. Perhaps you don't always want to be left alone and when you do, you're too polite to say so. I don't know. Instead of doing what I think you want me to do (bad, bad, bad), I do what I want to do which is sit next to you and talk about my day, your day, etc. If we came to an understanding that we talk for 20 minutes or whatever and then I go do something by myself, that would be A-Okay. Balance is a good thing. I don't need your constant attention and I want you to have interests and hobbies that have nothing to do with me.

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #20

Dear Tyler,

Good morning, lover! Just wanted to drop you a short message before stupid, stupid poopy work. The neighbors are making noise and I don't know how you're sleeping through it. I miss having time off with you, just to run errands. I want to go look at desks with you even if it is something that doesn't need my input. I love you. I love spending time with you. You make the boring things not boring. I hope you have a wonderful day off!

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #19

Dear Tyler,

I am not a victim. I don't intend to play the victim either. I know this is something I didn't address in my previous post...because I didn't have much else to say besides "I am not a victim". I apologize for assuming that role the other night. It was absurd. I acknowledge the absurdity. I don't want to be the victim, either. It is no longer an appealing "role" to me. I want to be "partner".

I know we discussed this earlier, but I will officially release you from your "gag order". It was unfair of me to not release you from it earlier, when I had got my bearings due to my bath tub introspections. I have still been doing them, by the way, albeit with less frequency. I have no better excuse than the water goes cold. And then I'm not relaxed, I'm cold. I found my walk the other day  helpful too, Vitamin D and all. But winter is on it's way, so I probably won't be doing that.

I already told you that I have become less "afraid" or "bothered" by arguing between our fight in September and our fight the other night. Part of that is loving myself and knowing no matter what you might say, it won't change how I feel about myself. I am at no one's mercy anymore and that is freeing. Therefore, while I won't be inviting conflict, I'm not going to be afraid of it anymore. So I shall be rolling with the punches.

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #18

Dear Tyler,

I went on a long ass walk this morning because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't stay cooped up in the house. Luckily it wasn't cold.

I know I've told you this story before, but it bears repeating. When H----- and I worked together, she once came back from her lunch break all huffy because she and D----- got into a spat. I don't remember what it was about, something insignificant, but she was mad. And I remember thinking "Why bother being mad? You live together. You're married. You're going to wake up tomorrow married and the next day and the next. Why don't you save yourself a lot of angst and get over it sooner rather than later?"

Granted, this was before I was ever in a real relationship or had ever been in a fight. So I knew nothing. But now that I know a thing or two, I find that I have the same opinion. When we were still just dating, with our own apartments, our fights were more "serious" in that there was nothing holding us together other than our mutual love. It could have ended as easily as it began. Now it's harder to break apart which I am grateful for. I love you and I want to be with you forever and since I'm an asshat sometimes, I need all the help I can get. It hurts me to think that you might feel trapped though...and I can't get into that right now.

I want to make you happy and as you said last night, that requires consistency. I feel like I am consistent...for the most part. 90% of the time? (Let me remind you, I am not a machine. It is not fair for you to expect to operate with the consistency of a toaster.) It's not like I'm irrationally mad at you one moment and then crying the next. I love you solidly, consistently and I apologize if my actions don't always reflect that. I am human.

So let's talk about this blog for moment. I am aware when I'm not posting here, but when everything seems to be going fine, I think to myself "I don't need to post. I just need to be present and loving." Me in the flesh is better than anything I could write.

But maybe not to you. I don't know. I don't know how much you care about me posting on this blog. Because I will go for weeks without posting and you seem happy with me. And how am I to know you're not if you don't say anything? I will always assume that you are happy with me. And I will always assume you want me more than my blog posts.

If I could do one thing--just one--to show you how much I love you, what method would you choose? Would it be this blog? Or would it be me telling you in person that I loved you? Would it be me kissing and holding you? I don't want this blog to be what our relationship's success relies on. Why can't the success of our relationship rely on just you and I and how we treat each other?

The problem with this blog is that its very creation was meant to obliterate the other. True, I have not posted with the frequency on this one that I did with that one. BECAUSE I AM LIVING MY LIFE WITH YOU. I don't need the escape anymore. I don't need the distraction. I don't have the time on my hands that I used to. THANKFULLY. That blog was poisonous. It would be amazing if I could delete it (Yes, I have tried recently.) But since I can't, the next best thing is for you to stop giving it power. You are using it as a yardstick. You need to stop comparing how I behave in this relationship (this committed, loving relationship) to what I did in my imaginary non-relationships. You are comparing an 8-track tape to a MP3.

You have often brought up "what I did" or "what I would have done" for others in fights. And what I did or may have done for others was never good for ME. I didn't have the self-esteem or foresight to do what was best for me. (My fault). I tried to be all sorts of things to attract others. What others got was not me. Why would you want that? No one has gotten a better version of me than you, no matter what you think, because you have the Real Me. Don't you want the Real Me, even if I am flawed?

It's like if a guy saw pictures of his girlfriend back when she was anorexic and asked her if she could get down to that weight again. So what if she's killing herself? She looks hot for him! But what if she doesn't like that look anymore? What if she wants to be curvy? Then she should be curvy, Goddamnit.

I am not perfect. I might always be a little bit selfish and lazy. I will try to rid myself of selfishness everyday. But nothing like this happens over night. Maybe I will stop being selfish when you stop smoking--they're both bad for us, they both hurt the ones around us but we've both been doing it for so long...and it feels good even when it shouldn't. And it's easier said that done to quit, isn't it?

To have a successful relationship, we should be equals. We are not. That's because I have done so many things before and since I've known you that you--I don't know how else to put this--hold against me. (Or at least, you bring them up in fights. I don't know if you do this because you want more artillery or if it's constantly bothering you and it explodes.) Like I've said before, every negative thing I've done in our relationship is subject to discussion. I have done wrong and I am sorry. But the things I did before I met you need to be pardoned. I don't want to live the rest of my life feeling indebted to you. I can only do so much. I can't help what happened. I can only be sorry it did and sorry you know about it. I will forever be sorry. That won't change. That is all I can do. This may sound harsh, but it's up to you now.

Tyler, I love you. You wake up everyday with me loving you. I don't ask you to do anything for me. I thank you for all you do, but I don't ask for it. All I ask for is your kindness. You may think it's because you do everything I need without me asking and the truth is, by you just being you, you are enough. And that's not to say that I like everything you do, because I don't. But I don't ask you to change. I just deal with it, because does it really matter if you leave a wet towel on the bed? No. I would rather you do that everyday for the rest of our lives than fight.

The only time I have a problem with you is when we fight and that's because it brings out your worst characteristics. That and forgiveness seems like the last thing you want to do. I would love to have the same. I would love to wake up and be loved for just being me. And I know the love is there. But the happiness, I guess? I don't want your mood towards me to be dependent on whether or not I have posted on this blog within an acceptable time frame. I want this to be a nice treat now and then, not the barometer for our relationship. I don't want to have a check list for things I must do to show my love; I just want to do it organically. Like you do for me.

I want to do things differently. I want to be curvy. Embrace my curves.

Love,
Jordyn

Dear Tyler #17

Dear Tyler,

Please consider the following:

1. Fighting sucks. And the way we fight really sucks. When an issue is brought up, we inevitably end up in a pit of quicksand. I am trying to resolve the problem quickly, before we get sucked under. I apologize. I recognize and own the problem and I plan to act accordingly in the future. Then I apologize again. That's all I (or anyone) can do at the moment.

2. But somehow, it keeps going. My apology doesn't suffice and you keep unraveling the sweater. I try to stop you, but you keep pulling at the yarn until we have a fucking mess on our hands. You bring up all sorts of unrelated things and you find a way to make them related because...well, frankly I have no idea.

3. You are not right about everything. No one can be. I know you think you are but you need to recognize that maybe you're not right all the time. Maybe I'm right. Or if it's not a matter of who's right and who's wrong, maybe you need to recognize that my feelings matter just as much as yours. I am a human with feelings, not a robot you programmed. I am not always going to behave how you want me to.

4. Drinking alcohol may make you feel better, powerful, more invincible but it doesn't make you anymore right; it just makes you talk more which takes the argument down all sorts of paths it doesn't need to go.

5. At a certain point in every long fight we've had, there comes a time when you turn against me completely and refuse to listen or believe or consider anything I say. At that point, why should I say anything after that point?

In conclusion we need to get better at fighting, if we must fight at all. Frankly, there's no reason for it to ever go on longer than ten minutes. We need to work together to find a solution. You vs. Me is not the way. You & Me vs. the Issue is the way. And we probably need one of those hour glass timers so we're not talking over each other, because that's also not effective.

Don't worry. I'll get to my stuff in a later post. But you needed to read this first.

Love,

Jordyn

Dear Tyler #16

Dear Tyler,

I love you! I want to relay to you that I am happy. I am happier than I ever thought I could be! And it is nice. It is comfortable. I don't feel empty anymore...and that is because I have found inner peace by loving myself and YOU have shown me how very necessary that is. I am grateful to you. I am grateful that you loved me even when I didn't love myself or think I was worthy. I didn't make it easy and I thank you for all your hard work. This continues to be the thought on my mind. I am happy and grateful.

Forgive me for quoting an unrelated Christmas song but, "All is calm, all is bright."

Love,
Jordyn