My Labor (or lack thereof) Day Weekend

My Labor Day Weekend was action packed. Well, sort of.

It started out with my friend and I driving up to Orlando to celebrate another friend's 30th birthday. However, by the time we showed up, the party was over and almost everyone had gone home. We hung out for awhile and played various video games, and short clips from here. Eventually, just when I thought I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, everyone decided it was time for bed and I collapsed from exhaustion, only to awake a few hours later, as my internal clock oftentimes has difficulty discerning weekends.

Saturday was a total white trash day. There's no other way to describe a day that starts off with your friends deciding to go play video games in the world's largest McDonald's and ends with shopping at Wal*Mart. Good times. I couldn't believe the McDonald's restaurant. It has showcases of its foods, which include pasta dishes, wraps and all sort of things that you would never expect to see at a McDonald's. Weird.

Somewhere during the course of the day, I learned that I am not allowed to volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters until the organization and the school board figure out whether the school board needs to perform its own independent background check on me. Apparently, some worker in a school hurt or killed a girl recently and so there are new restrictions regarding who can be allowed access onto school property. I have no problem with this, but I really wish they could have worked this out at some point during the past month, before the school year started, and before I met my little brother. I also think my Bar admissions should be sufficient, as I do not think the Bar would allow a felon to be a member.

I came back on a very late night drive, arriving home at about 2 in the morning on Sunday, and again, collapsed from exhaustion. I finally managed to wake up sometime around noon so that I could drag my ass to the gym, and get my heart working again. Had a rather routine night, I guess and eventually wound up in my own bed.

Monday is where things get somewhat remarkable. Well, remarkable for me, but likely not anyone else. It started out like any other day, I went to the gym, got some groceries, managed to easily suppress my high hopes of reading the remainder of the research that was sent to me by my friend about charitable organizations, and was wandering about my apartment when I noticed my ex was instant messaging me. This wasn't totally out of the ordinary, as we have been known to do this on occasion, as of late. All part of our attempt to enter this brave new world of friendship after romance. There has to be a pill you could take for it, maybe a mixture of amnesia, combined with some good old fashioned denial, and a side of avoidance, but until such a thing is invented, I'm left to my own devices.

In any event, she got together with a mutual friend and me for dinner. It was really cool, though. It ended up lasting about three hours for her and I because she and I both arrived excessively early, but for different reasons, and stayed after our friend had gone home. The best part about the evening was that we were having fun together again. We were joking and smiling and hugging and laughing and were happy together again, and that was probably the coolest part of the evening. We had always been such great friends and losing that had sucked a lot so I'm hopeful that we will at least eke a friendship out of this mess. However, it's early yet, and I'm sure all kinds of things could go wrong in the process, but at least it's a start, and that is something.

I also realized, as I was with her, how much I have learned about myself through therapy in the last few months that I have spent working on me. It was really interesting to approach her, me, and our interactions with a different and fresher perspective. I'm still not sure what to make of it. It felt different, but familiar.

And that was my weekend.