I moved to Michigan May of 2006 after being out of work for several months, I received a job offer that seemed like a pretty good opportunity. I wasn't sure what Michigan was like, but didn't think it could be too much different from my experiences living in Wisconsin and Illinois. Seems reasonable, right?
I only had a weekend to find a place to live there and I chose an apartment complex in Canton, Michigan. Most people have never heard of it. It's definitely not "city living", that's for sure! I didn't know anyone in Michigan, but figured that through my job and various networking I could make some good friends. I was so wrong. Each month in Michigan was torture. The people I worked with were either married and spent all their free time with their families or they were 50 years old and were not remotely interested in going out or having fun! I tried the local nightlife, but meeting people was impossible. It seems if you are not from Michigan then no one in Michigan wants to get to know you. I know this is a broad generalization and it's probably not true for most of the state, but in my little world it was.
I was depressed and sad all the time. I hated my life there. There was really nothing to look forward to. I met a couple of people that made things bearable, but all I could ever think about was escaping.
Then I met Ryan. I had gone to Ann Arbor one weekend thinking I had a better chance of meeting people there since it was a college town. I don't even recall exactly how I met him (that tells you a lot). I was so depressed with my life there, that I think I was desperate for any kind of relationship or friendship. I immediately took to Ryan and started dating him. I spent all my free time with him and probably took our relationship a little too fast. That is very unlike me, but I wasn't myself there. We had been dating maybe 4 months I think and I got pregnant. At first I was devastated. If you know me, you know having a child or family has never really been in my future plans. Ryan was excited and convinced me I needed to keep the baby and we could make it work. I was about 9 weeks into the pregnancy when I started feeling excited about the idea of it. I think it just hit me all at once that I was going to have a baby, and instead of fear, I felt happy.
When I was about 11 weeks into the pregnancy Ryan told me his fellowship at the University of Michigan was ending and he asked me if I would move with him if he found a job outside of Michigan. I was carrying his baby and I hated my life there, so of course, I enthusiastically said YES! A few months prior I had interviewed with a company in San Diego, but had backed out after I got a negative impression of the company from my experience with their HR person. Ryan suggested I give them a call and see if they still had a position open, because he had heard of an opportunity at San Diego State.
I contacted the company and a few weeks later they got back to me and I picked up where I left off with the interview process. I came out to San Diego to interview (although I was pretty sure I didn't want to work for this company, I thought it was a great opportunity to have fun in San Diego!) After the interview they immediately offered me a job and seemed pretty desperate to get me to join them. I went back to Michigan and thought it over. I wasn't sure I was ready to make so many big changes - having a baby, moving to Southern California, and fast forwarding my relationship with Ryan. It was a lot to take in and added to that was the fact Ryan wanted to marry me.
Ryan hadn't received confirmation on the SDSU job, but had learned from a friend on the inside that he was probably going to get the job, but they worked slowly. He pushed hard for me to take the San Diego job and after much thought and negotiation, I just woke up in the middle of the night one night and it all seemed clear. It felt right. I made all the decisions right then and there. I was moving to San Diego with Ryan and we would be a family. It was more decisions I made in that one moment than I had made in my entire life up to that point!
I was scheduled to start work in San Diego in mid-June. I was organizing my move and starting to get excited. Then once again tragedy struck in my life. One afternoon in May I was experiencing a great deal of pain in my abdomen and I went to the ER. I was 14 almost 15 weeks into my pregnancy. I was so panicked as they hooked up the fetal monitor to me and I saw the desperate looks in the faces of the nurse and doctors. There was no heart beat. I had lost the baby. All I could do was cry.
Ryan was sad too, but we had decided to move forward with our San Diego plans, and he was going to move a few weeks later than me so he could finish things up in Michigan and get confirmation from SDSU on the job.
Yet again, I found myself moving somewhere all alone where I knew absolutely no one. At least I had Ryan to look forward to, it would only be a few weeks.
When I got to San Diego I was excited and ready for a new beginning. I was still hurting quite a bit from my loss, but I was ready to put it behind me and start my life fresh again.
When I started my job, I thought it was going to be Michigan all over again. People didn't seem to like me and no one seemed interested in going out or doing anything fun! I thought I had made another big mistake. I was really anxious for Ryan to arrive. Being all alone all I could think about was the baby and it just made me really sad. I was becoming withdrawn again.
The few weeks went quickly and Ryan arrived in San Diego. We were supposed to live together when he came out here. When he arrived he moved in with me, but things seemed very different. He seemed very cold to me. He had gotten the job at SDSU and while he didn't officially start until the Fall, there were a lot of events and activities he was going to participate in for the summer. He had been here just a couple of weeks when he was invited to a picnic with other SDSU faculty. He was allowed to bring a significant other and I went with him.
While we were at the picnic he was still being kind of cold to me, didn't show me much affection, and didn't really want people to see him "with" me. We met a few other couples and were chatting with them quite a bit at the picnic table we were at. I really liked them. Ryan seemed to be getting along great with a couple of people he met too. I had gone to get some lemonade and when I was making my way back to the table I heard one of the guys ask Ryan "are you really with her? girls a cow! You could do so much better than that! You are in California now, the pool of hot chicks is overflowing!!" I was angry and upset hearing him say that, but was sure Ryan would come to my defense. That's when I heard Ryan say "I know! I just needed her for a little while 'til I could get my own place. If I have to sleep next to her fat ass one more night I'm going to be sick! I already have some nice "talent" lined up..*wink wink*." My heart sunk. How could he have said that about me? This was the same man that only a couple months ago was going to be the father of my baby and wanted this incredible life with me?! Now I was nothing more than a "fat cow"??
I walked up to him and I dumped my lemonade on him and told him "I hope your "talent" works out for you and I want you out of my house tonight!" He just laughed and said "no problem, I have plenty of options." Ugh, he was such a sleaze! How could I have ever thought of marrying him?
It was very recently that I ran into Ryan again. I look very different from how I did in 2007! When he saw me he looked me up and down and said "damn, you look good!", and I kept walking. Then he stopped me and he said "wait, you can't even talk to me a minute?" I asked him "why I should bother, I'm sure there was some "lovely" woman waiting for him somewhere on a cold street corner." He just rolled his eyes and said "are you still bitter over all that?" Bitter?? Was he kidding? What a JERK!! He goes on to say that he's always thought about me and he really didn't understand why things didn't work out with us. He said he always wanted to be with me and that I pushed him away. He said he's spent the last few years trying to find what we had with someone else and nothing ever came close. I wanted to hit him!! I asked him "don't you remember why we ended things and what you said?" All he could reply was "I only said those things because you were hurting me bad pushing me away like you did." OMG! I hate him, I really do. I don't really like to waste the emotion hating anyone, but he is an awful human being.
He doesn't have my phone number anymore since I changed it last year, so now he's emailing me constantly with these sappy letters about how much he loves me and he wants what we had again, and that he always thought I was beautiful. He's a pig.
At least I know now that I'm a great person and I deserve more than that. At one point in my life I didn't know that and I probably would have taken him back. I deserve someone to love me for me and not judge my worth based on my size. He had his chance and he blew it...which turns out to be pretty lucky for me! He is so not good enough!!
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