Salt Lake City Airport

Since I’ve already eaten, done some grading, and played guitar for a while I figured I night as well update this. I’m at the SLC airport 3 hours before my flight (although it’s down to 1 hour now) because Amy has to work tonight at 7 and thus needed to drop me off a little early. This past week was midwinter break, also known as ski week. I spent it out in Utah, where there was actually the potential of doing some skiing. However, lift ticket prices being $60+ and then an additional $20 for equipment rental we just decided to forego the alpine frivolities. As much as I enjoy skiing, I just don’t enjoy it THAT much.

So no skiing, but I did have a great week out here with Amy. We did some more ice skating, where Amy managed to toe pick herself to the ground hard enough to bruise her knees and hands. Her left knee has been getting iced, but it’s still swollen and stiff. We went to a jazz and blues club one night, and listened to a drummer and keyboard player. They were good and entertaining and took requests. The drummer had a woman show up midway through to see him. We couldn’t figure out if it was a blind date or just an early on sort of date or what, but they were entertaining to watch flirt back and forth while he was playing. The next night we tried to find some more music. There was an 80s metal band playing at a nightclub. We got there a few minutes after they were supposed to go on, and after 45minutes of breathing choking levels of cigarette smoke with no sign of the band we took off before one of us keeled over. I haven’t been in that much of a second hand smoke haze since bowling at eagle lanes in high school. You would think Utah, of all places, would have enacted an indoor smoking ban like California, but evidently not. So with that, plus the temperature inversion that set in several days ago, I’m kind of looking forward to California air. Sad, I know. The weather was nice enough that I got a couple of good runs in. They were needed considering not only did I bring some chocolate cake with me, but her ward’s FHE activity was cake decorating, and we also made cookies and brownies.

More important, at least tome, than all of that is that Amy and I broke up. This week was kind of a last effort to see if we were going to make some major decisions to ensure we ended up together or end things. For some reason, Amy and I seem doomed to never be able to have a normal relationship where you get to live close enough to each other and see each other such that the relationship can develop in a natural way. Both this time, and when we first date years ago, we got stuck doing long distance, and it just seems to cause problems. I’m not particularly adept at negotiating relationships in the first place, and when contact becomes matter of famine, where you don’t see the other person for weeks on end, and then feast where you’re around them 24-7 for several days straight, I become a wreck. Plus, I’m terrible on the phone. As a result, it always ends up more like we’re just on vacation with a friend. We were really good at that. There is no one else I would rather have as a travel buddy. We have a lot of fun together. However, that’s where it seemed to stall for both of us. It’s weird that two people can get along that well together but the minute things get “relationshippy” (sure, it’s a word) it just becomes overly difficult. It seemed like one of us was always getting hurt. We’ve worked on things for quite a while, and the fact of the matter is that we probably could have made things work, but I know that I ended up feeling like I had to maintain a state of hyper-vigilance to make sure I was doing/saying the right thing, and/or not doing/saying the wrong thing. She’s mentioned feeling the same way on several occasions, and a relationship where you can’t just relax and let yourself go just becomes too difficult to keep together. The worst part about it is that I’m losing a kindred spirit who saw the world in a very similar way. I don’t know that I’ll ever find another woman that I laugh that much with.