My journal

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I still have thoughts of missing her and wanting to get her back these days.

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I think reflecting back on her now, I can see things that I missed before. She's quite hardworking and ambitious. What I saw previously as apathy, I think was just her trying to convince herself that she didn't want to work so hard. What I saw previously as a difficult to understand preference to live near her parents or on the East Coast was really just a strongly held belief that women should not compromise on everything and follow their husbands wherever, giving up their educational and career attainment. She wanted to keep something of herself and her life and I can respect that. What I saw as a difficult to understand preference to have a child rather than spend more time with me was actually not wanting to miss out on any aspects of life and wanting someone to be there for her when she's older and might otherwise feel lonely if her husband were to go first. This is all understandable.

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I hope she is happy.

 

I hope she is healthy.

 

I hope she is having the time of her life.

 

I hope that she is learning and growing and feels that she's making progress.

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Just back from a trip to Nepal. On these long flights and with jetlag it seems I have more time to think about relationships.

 

If only I hadn't checked that okc message from my friend or if I had thought to delete my profile when I did then perhaps she and I would still be together today. Though we'd still be long distance... and probably struggling to have/raise a kid long distance as well, which would be really tough.

 

I should just accept that we were not compatible. Her saying that I was trying to fit her into my life is a sign that we just weren't compatible with our daily schedule and preferred activities. Plus whenever I brought up philanthropy she tended to bring up jewelry. That can't be a good sign of compatibility.

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Unfortunately although I know that she is wonderful in many ways, psychologically, for me, it is just so much easier if I remember the reasons why it didn't work out and if I remember it that she ended it by not wanting to continue our weekly phone calls and by wanting to stay on the East Coast.

 

One of the other unfortunate things is that after our visit to Santa Barbara for New Year's which was a disaster and also showed our inability to communicate well, is that I have lost touch with those family members. I've been too embarrassed to contact them. They've also not contacted me. It's been a couple of years now and I haven't had any contact with them since that visit. Maybe we should have turned the car around to go back...

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I think part of my problem with commitment stems from problems with trusting women. The most important female relationship in my life, the one with my mother has been scarred by experiencing her lying to me and to my father and that resulting in the end of their relationship. Other experiences have resulted in the girl getting very emotional and unpredictable in behavior which makes it difficult for me to trust that things can work out in the long run and therefore makes it difficult for me to commit because I feel like I cannot trust them or that it can last and work out. So I think the thing is that in order to commit, I need to work on this fundamental trust issue. I need to be able to trust the girl completely and feel that she is very predictable and dependable in order to feel safe enough that I can be comfortable in committing. I think figuring that out will be the secret to finding a life long partner.

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Forgivenness is important. Forgiveness of the mistakes that she made. Forgiveness of the mistakes that I made as well.

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I just really wish I could clarify and let her know that part of the problem was that at some point I just lost confidence in myself. I lost confidence that I had the ability or the power to make her happy. I just desperately wanted to make her the happiest girl in the world. But she seemed to always be sad when with me and always interpreting me in the worst possible way. I just wanted to see that I could make her happy and at some point I lost the confidence in myself that I could do that because she was always sad or angry or upset with me. It's really frustrating as a guy when all you want to do is make her the happiest girl in the world and you just can't seem to do it. It makes you start to think that maybe you shouldn't be with her, even if you really, really want to be. I just wanted to know that I could make her really happy, but I felt like all I could do is make her upset and angry. I think she just wanted me to understand her emotions, but the truth is I could completely understand her emotions and my understanding was that I was making her very sad and upset and that I couldn't manage to make her happy no matter what I did or tried.

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If I could give women a piece of advice, especially with guys are aren't super confident it's to let him know and show him that he makes you very happy, that he has that ability.

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Ex got back in touch with me this week. Apparently her wedding was canceled for some (unknown) reason. Says that she has been reflecting a lot and wants to catch up over a glass of wine. She was very cold to me when we broke up though I'm thankful that she helped me to realize that I wanted to be with a girl who was more of a balance between career driven and caring/loving. That was what made me want to get back together with my other ex originally and made me value her characteristics more.

 

I want to be helpful to her and help her to know herself better and to be in less of a rush to get married and to think about her own emotions more and what she's looking for. But I don't want to get sucked back into a bad relationship. On paper she's great but I know the reality. Or at least how she was.

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Met with her yesterday and it seems that she is interested in getting back together.

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I went to a dating/networking event tonight. Didn't meet anyone as beautiful or intelligent or as sweet as she was though. What a waste of time. My friend thinks that the ex who wants to get back together needs therapy and to stay away until she gets it.

 

Thoughts go back still to my other ex, I hope she is doing alright, is happy and is in love.

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She used to be the most important person in my life.

 

Now her birthday passed and I didn't even get to wish her happy birthday. Although I was thinking of her, I did not write to her as I figured she probably did not want to be disturbed. It's so sad.

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I hear from our mutual friend that she is working very hard and sleeping very little these days. I respect her hard work and determination. I hope that she is also remembering to take care of her health and make the investments in exercise and eating well that will pay off in the long term.

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I have to stop working late at night. I am so much more optimistic and happy when working during the day. When I stay up late at night my thoughts turn more dark and depressing and I start to wonder why I'm even doing this. I should just force myself to go to bed before midnight, for my own mental health.

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My best friend getting divorced is really messing with my head. Makes me want to never get married if this kind of thing can happen. I will try to read some more books to see if I can get over this somehow.

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I still can't believe this is happening to him and he's getting divorced. I keep thinking about what she said that we had the equivalent of a divorce. Maybe it was just as bad?

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Going for a long bike ride this weekend to raise money for MS. I can't wait to just get away from it all!

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Life just gets tougher and tougher these days. Mom had to get a melanoma removed. Hope she'll be ok.

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I attended an event at the Faculty Help Center today. I was tempted to just skip it but I'm glad I went. It was about recovering and dealing with trauma in life. They recommended the book Getting Past Your Past by Francine Shapiro.

 

What I learned was that everyone has traumas in their life. Whether they are big traumas or little traumas. These accumulate over time and need to be processed and dealt with. They suggested yoga, meditation, EMDR and tapping therapies for help.

 

I was thinking about my parents divorce, the recent melanoma scare and losing her as the most relevant traumas in my life. Losing her may not be a big, capital T trauma, but it was certainly a trauma and everyone has traumas in their lives.

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Sometimes I feel alone, frustrated, and overwhelmed.

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It seems that mom's melanoma hadn't spread so that's good. The bike ride for MS last weekend was helpful to de-stress and get away from the laptop and work and get some good, meditative exercise in during the 135 miles. I decided that if I don't get tenure then I'm going to switch career fields and get some work experience in a value investing firm with the goal to eventually start my own value investing fund modeled after Ben Graham, Buffett and other value investors. I would probably focus more on small cap companies which would make sense with my entrepreneurship background and data analysis. It's been liberating to realize that there is a different career I can be excited to embark on and that my years of stressing over publications and teaching may come to an end soon. I'm really not excited for the stage of academia that comes after tenure with having to do editor work, committees and going for full prof. I've been getting really interested in value investing, reading lots of books about it and am excited that I could do that from anywhere and not have to be in cold nyc.

 

I've also been happy to get into more little hobbies like brewing beer, cooking and baking bread recently.

 

I still need to get back into being more regular about meditation but at least I've been consistently watching Daily Show and Colbert Report episodes at night to relax and laugh.

 

I also planned a vacation to San Diego at xmas and my friend will come out after xmas to tour the breweries and wineries around with me. If he can survive a divorce and still have fun then my life isn't so bad afterall.

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I think this stage of the academic career is about avoiding burnout and staying productive. That's about all you can try to do and then either the publications hit or they don't. But the key is to keep saying no to distractions and take enough rest and have enough fun to avoid burnout and just sitting at the laptop all day doing nothing.

 

Watching more of my friends have kids these days. They keep telling me that I will change my mind later on. But honestly, it just more and more doesn't seem like something that I want to do. I know eventually they grow up and it's rewarding to see them doing their own thing and coming back to visit. But I think I can get that in other ways and I just really treasure time to myself on weekends to do the things that I enjoy doing. I feel I've contributed a lot to the world so far through teaching. I'm ready to have some time for myself after all that I've invested thus far for the benefit of others. It was so hard losing her partly due to this issue. Also hard losing the more recent girlfriend due to this issue as well. I still feel awful about that as well. Finally though I seem to have an opportunity to be with someone who also does not want to go through the pain of raising small children. Maybe I will come to regret it some day however. But I've just got to go with what I think is the right way to live my own life rather than following what everyone else seems to think is right for them.

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Interesting article about stress in the nytimes today: link removed

 

Reminds me of Fred Luskin's book on managing stress.

 

A friend followed me on Flickr or something causing me to log back into that site for the first time in a while. Instantly came accross many photos of her. From Mexico and several other events. It reminded me of all the happy times we shared together. It also kind of made me sad. Like I've lost those moments. There's no one around to reminisce about them with and say hey, remember the time when we went snorkeling or remember the time when we rented a house in NC for the weekend.

 

These days I'm not even sure if I want to get tenure or not. It sounds like the job just goes from bad to worse at that point with the caveat that they can't fire you but you also can't quit or slow down. That article has me wondering if I'm super busy but just bored with it all right now. It might be a much better life if I have a chance to switch career fields actually. Well I guess just 1.5 more years of this or so, I can survive through that.

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On the plane I had a chance to read a bit more of the Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks. It argues that there are three types of transformation - transformation of condition (a thirsty man drinks), transformation of circumstance (you make more money, get tenure, etc.) and transformation of being (you transform from a selfish to a self-less person.

 

The book argues that what we're all really looking for is the third type, but often we try to substitute the first and second types of transformation instead. It talks about Joseph Campbell who I really respect and his "Hero's Journey". I think there's some truth to this. Personal development can't just be about the reduction of stress or the change in conditions. It's got to be about changing myself from a selfish to a selfless person. Then stress naturally decreases.

 

I think for a lot of people, having kids helps them to transform into a more selfless person just naturally because you have to start focusing on the kids more rather than yourself and your own personal concerns.