my careless contagion

Two years ago today, I started this blog. What started as a way to deal with my divorce spawned many threads which, at times, threatened to overwhelm me. Some of those threads have come and gone, though I will say this: this blog has been an important part of my healing and overall therapy.  I'm (slowly) reading a book about a woman's coming to terms with her childhood sexual abuse. Most of her life she kept a journal. At some point, her journaling turned into a book. She said she was introduced to "reflective journaling," and that was what got to the heart of her troubling past. It doesn't take much to realize that's exactly what I've been doing here without knowing the term for it.  It was here, in the summer of 2018, I finally came to terms with my childhood abuse, both at the hands of my father and my brothers, as well as the psychological abuse that was pervasive in my household. It was in my childhood that the seeds were planted that turned...

She's Out of My League is a comedy released in 2010. You can tell by the flip-phones. I've seen this movie before but watched it again because I needed a laugh. I didn't expect to see themes from my life portrayed before me so plainly.  Jay Baruchel plays Kirk, a good guy extraordinaire, a dorky guy with low self-esteem. Alice Eve plays the hot girl, a perfect ten who got out of a relationship with a very manly, perfect kind of guy (nicknamed "Foot Long") who was cheating on her. What makes the movie work is that you like both the main characters. And, they are relatable. We've all been in or contemplated a relationship with someone "out of our league."  The woman I'm in love with I've always had this opinion about: She's always been too good for me. As long as I've known her — stretching back to the fourth grade — I've felt this way about her. In grade school, I used to tease her just to see if I could bring her ...