20/21/22

When I became agnostic I was having a hard time shaking off the guilt. I started studying the history of religion to gain some perspective. I didn't know why, as a Christian, I hadn't already received this education, until I read it. Either history is a lie or the bible is a lie. I choose to believe what the nerds come up with, they're usually right. And they're constantly in competition with each other to know more facts. They're pretty strict with each other about using the word fact. You can only use it when something is a fact. So right there you see proof that you can trust them. Simply observe them and use your brains, people. They aren't evil liars.

You know who are evil liars? Nevermind.

I didn't date these two years. I flirted and went on a few dates, but few got a second chance. I decided I'm not going to settle. There absolutely is someone out there who I will want to spend a lot of time with. I'm not going to settle for a pretty face.

Instead I spend my time going on blind dates debating religion with theists who don't dare ask me on a second date. They don't understand why I need to know up front what kind of magic they believe in. I eventually trade blind dates for more time searching for atheist friends. I want a community. I'm agnostic, but only because I didn't really understand what it meant to be atheist. And because magic is poetic so I enjoyed hanging on to that. It helped with the loss of Jesus and the fact that people were wasting their lives for gods. I would continue to be agnostic until I experienced the magic in atheism. That's another post. Quit distracting me.

I was still rebuilding my self esteem when I met #3. He didn't much like talking about deep stuff. He was maybe agnostic, but refused to talk about it because it didn't matter. I kinda liked that idea. What I didn't know turned out to be dangerous with him. I still had had no good example of how a decent man treats a woman. I had no way of seeing the signs, and I was brainwashed again. He made me feel selfish for wanting to be a photographer. A job that kept me from being in town for more than a week out of every month. It was not a straight week, it was three days here and four days there. I wanted to be an artist. I was making A LOT of money. I was good at it and people remembered my name and requested I come to their town the next time my company sent a photographer. I climbed to the top. I was a manager, training other photographers. I set my own schedule, I got to pick whatever place in the United States that I wanted to travel to. I liked Alaska best.

He made me feel terrible for not choosing to be poor and be with him instead of doing what I love and what I'm good at. It's not like he made it worth my time. He liked to smoke and play guitar. He didn't like reading. He didn't like to talk about thinky stuff. My friends told me to dump him. I told me I was not worth loving so it didn't matter. No matter what I do I just make boys that love me mad. I'm just trying to do my best. No one else will ever be better than what I have now. I can't do any better. I am a failure.

When I felt my worst he waited until I left for a month-long trip. I called him after the two-day drive to tell him I got there safe and he dumped me. He wouldn't tell me why and changed his phone number and blocked me from e-mailing or messaging him. A while later he posted on his livejournal that he did some research and decided I was a Narcissistic Sociopath. He even joined a support group.

I felt like life was not worth living. Not because I could not be with #3, but because life was not getting any better. I didn't want to play the game anymore.

I spent a lot of time traveling after that. Town to town. No relationships. I spent six months alone in my thoughts. In the first month I became an atheist. I decided magic was getting me nowhere, and I needed to learn more about myself and how I can stop making these mistakes. I needed to self-actualize, and let no man get in my way. My photography changed and I started capturing pictures with crazy facial expressions. I started making a lot more money. I started feeling lonely. I wanted to make more friends that I thought were smarter than me so that I could continue to be challenged and gain some much needed wisdom. That's when I remembered Mark.