I apologize for my absence.  Life has been busy.  I had to take a test—a BIG one and so I took the month of February away from writing as I had to study.  A lot.  Every night.  In a few months I will know whether or not it paid off.  I am trying not to think about it until then. 

In a few days I will be coming up on one year of writing this blog, one year of being single, one year of starting over.  Some days it is really invigorating, while others I still find it difficult.   

As I have mentioned, Joe has blocked me from every facet of his life, erasing any proof of our existence.  It has been in some ways a blessing and in others a curse.  The blessing being that I don’t have to think about him—he is out of sight, out of mind…but therein also lies the curse.  I am curious.  Curious about not only what he is up to, and what he is like now but also why he has worked so hard to block me—the one he hurt more than anyone—out of his life while allowing so many others (including former exes) to stay in.  To be honest, I am actually annoyed. 

You see, while blocking me out may seem to be for my benefit, much like our relationship, now in our separation he still holds all of the power.  He is the one who has done the blocking, it is he who is the one who can choose to do the unblocking.  He still controls what I see and how much I can know.  I can’t contact him but he still can get a hold of me whenever he would like should he so choose to.  One rather mystifying example being facebook.  A few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon I suddenly saw a series of pictures of him come up in my newsfeed. He was at a wedding with some of his college friends.   It was weird to see him, what he looked like now…but to be honest, that is beside the point of my curiosity and annoyance.  The next day, the girl who posted the pictures defriended me.  It is not the defriending I care about, after all she wasn’t my real friend in the first place—it is the reasoning behind it. 

What exactly does he say about me that would lead to the unfriending?  Don’t get me wrong, I know he doesn’t sit around discussing me at length with others—in fact I suspect—and hope he doesn’t talk about me at all…but why now, after all this time would this girl who has upwards of like two thousand facebook friends wait until nearly a year after our break up to choose to go through and take the time to defriend me?  She probably didn’t even remember we were friends in the first place—I sure didn’t until the pictures popped up.  Something must have been said—but what, and why?

Why go to the great lengths to keep me from knowing anything about his life?  The only reason I even care is because of the extent he has gone to, to keep me from knowing.  That extent has far surpassed what he originally explained to me as being done to “keep him from reaching out to me”.  A few months ago, I wanted to see if he would take Lily for Christmas while I was out of town.  I was pretty desperate as I was going to be gone for a  week and I wanted to make sure she was in good hands—and to be honest, while he may not have always been the best to me, he is the only person I know who truly loves that little creature as much as I do.  I e-mailed him but when I didn’t hear back I tried calling him.  I knew he had my number blocked, (as part of the whole keeping him from reaching out to me thing [insert massive over-exaggerated eye roll here]) so that didn’t surprise me—the message I heard on the other end, however did.  He switched phone providers and even after switching phone providers he went as far as to have my number blocked AGAIN.  It just all rubs me the wrong way.  It feels manipulative and crazy—and more than that it makes ME feel crazy…

At the end of the day—and at the end of this year those who know me—and those who read this blog know what happened and what I have been through.  That is all that matters.  If he wants to work so hard to keep me out I will let him, it is much more work for him than me.  And, those secrets and new life he is working so hard to keep me from knowing anything about are probably much less interesting than the alternate realities (he is going bald and now is in the middle of rounds of extensive hair plug therapy treatment, he has possibly taken up ferret breeding, extreme couponing and/or hoarding…) that I come up with in my mind. 

I’ll take those fantasies over the more than likely relatively boring reality any day.