After I broke up with Army Guy everyone, and I do mean everyone from my closest friends to my accountant, predicted I would hear from him again. Most bets were for 4-6 months. I got an email from him right before Christmas, so everyone lost that bet. But everyone predicted he’d contact me to try to get me back, but in fact he emailed me to see if he’d left something at my apartment.

My initial reaction (aside from almost driving off the road when I saw the email on my blackberry (I didn’t mean to look at my email while driving - I was trying to make a call and it just jumped out at me), and after I pulled over, stopped shaking, started breathing again and got past a brief rush of tears) was that he was shockingly insensative and stupid to email me about something like that. But not trusting my instincts, I took it to a friend, and over tea (the great healer of all things) we decided he was in fact being insensative and stupid and even if he was attempting to reconnect he was doing it badly and so I returned a one line reply that I didn’t have what he was looking for.  

As I told a few people that I had heard from him, and more people voiced their opinion that the email was just a lame cover to reconnect with me, I became obsessed with finding out the truth. I spent many hours playing out the possible outcomes of emailing him and asking him, and decided that the best and easiest response he could give would be to say “no, I was really just looking for that disk.” The answer that would open a can of worms and be messy and hard and scary and agonzing would be “It was a lame excuse to get in touch with you.” So I emailed him and asked him point blank the day before I left on my holiday travels.

I got his response while stopped at a rest stop somewhere in PA, and in typical AG fashion he said “I really was just looking for that disk, but I also used it as an excuse to see how you were doing. Your brief response answered that question, sorry if i caused you any confusion.” What I got from that is that he just wanted to see if i hated him, b/c of his need to always be the good guy. So I just didn’t reply and put it out of my mind.

Then when all of the holiday hoopla settled, I started to obsess on the fact that by not replying it would look like I was disapointed or hurt or whatever. And then I started to wonder why I cared, and on my fourth long car tip in two week, I finally realized that while I’ve moved past the whole romantic hurt/disapointment, but what’s left is a feeling of embarassement born of feeling like I was scammed. For years I managed to see through all those “pleasing your attention Sir/Madam. I have come into large sum of money, but needing your helping for to transfer to USA. Much blessings on you for kindlyness.” And then I got an email with a Nigerian prince with proper grammer and he made a strong case and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find the catch in his argument. Finally deciding it was true, I gave him my bank account information and BAM! promises broken and identity stolen and I’m just left feeling stupid for having fallen for it. But oh well, I’ll get over it.

OK. That was the old – that’s the last moment I’ll spend looking back on 2008. I mostly wanted to acknowledge that everyone was right, and I did hear from him again, just not in the way everyone thought.

Moving on. Here are my RESOLUTIONS for 2009.

1. Lose  at least 20lbs thereby winning the Friends Biggest Loser Contest and winning $1000.

2. To spend more time looking forward than looking back.

3. To actively explore adjunct teaching positions at area colleges.

4. To build new friendships  and grow exisiting friendships.

5. To laugh or dance (preferably both) at least once every day.

6. To call my grandma more (or at all).