It’s weird how at times I can speak things into existence and then other times I kill them. I had wanted to write every day for the month of December and… Well, that petered out real quick. Get high a couple nights and that consumed any want or desire to fulfill my goal.

I had intended to not say anything. In the past making such proclamations had had similar results. So, I hesitated to do it. However, the one night I forced myself to write “something” while I was shitfaced on edibles, I made the mistake of “outing” myself and thus ended my effort. (But, that could be my own self-fulfilling prophecy.)

The one thing about attempting to do such writing feats is that you need a back-up idea to write about if one is just not feeling it that particular night. Since I was practicing this technique, I have had two post rolling around in my mind to jot down. One is about the song “All Too Well” and my visceral reaction to a particular verse and the other is a post about losing an ex-boyfriend/friend abruptly to cancer. Today, I feel nostalgic and I am going to go with the second.

I dated Travis when I was on the brink of turning 18. He was 23, a piercer, punk rock, and an absolute nerd. He is one of two people I have attempted to watch the Matrix with only to end up “dickstracted.” (I have yet to watch it completely through.) I met him online, in a chat room. The same one I would then meet my husband but before I ever met Charlie, I dated Travis.

Like I said, I was really into him. He was mysterious and cool, covered in tattoos and piercings, and I thought he was dangerous and tough. That was all an illusion. He was just a scared little boy, just like me.

For a moment in my life I use to have this weird sixth sense about the men I dated. I knew within the first few days of “dating” how it would end. With Travis I saw the number 2 and that he would dump me. Two months together, to the day, he did exactly that. He did it in such a weird way. Travis didn’t speak to me all day even going as far to turn off his phone. He had broken his radio silence and called me over to his place. I got there, sat on the end of his bed and waited for the CD he had been listening to to finish and then he ended it.

I have to say, I have the utmost respect that he did it in person. He could have just done it in text, but he chose to be an adult. Only now do I feel that way. At the time I fucking hated him, yet I wanted him back. He really broke my heart. I really, really liked him.

Previously, a nasty habit I had was that I would take on characteristics and personality traits of the boys who had dumped me. After some self-reflection I know now that it was a way to make myself “more attractive” to those that had “done the deed.” It was my fucked up way of trying to win them back. It’s stupid, I know, but because of that these men would have a drastic influence on my life.

Travis was no exception. He was “punk rock” and I wanted to be too. His taste in music consumed mine. Finch, HIM, Alkaline Trio… To this day I can’t listen to Alkaline Trio without thinking of him. They’re 1,000% linked in my brain.

I thought of all the tattoos and piercings I was going to get when I turned 18. (When I did turn 18 he was the one who gave my first and only piercing. My husband took me to the shop to get it.) After our break-up I started smoking the cigarettes he did, Camel Turkish Gold. I became obsessed with drinking and getting drunk. (At that time, Travis had been a raging alcoholic and I had never once had a drop of liquor.) And the most fucked up of all, he is the reason I even met up with my now husband.

He is also the second reason I came out, again, to my mom. (Yeah, I came out twice.)

For someone who only existed in my life as a significant player for such a short time, he had the most effect.

On November 3rd, the day before my birthday, he passed. I only learned, in a roundabout way, from a friend I had made on a cruise (who bizarrely knew him too). This friend told me he reached out to his sister to discover it had been from stage 4 cancer. No one had a clue.

Travis and I didn’t really speak much these past years. I was trying to distance myself because I was still hurt by the break-up (18 fucking years later.) I still considered him a friend, like he had said he wanted when it ended. You better believe, I’m always good for a “like” on an Instagram post. God, he was so hot. Check him out @kubdumpster on twitter and instagram.

I am about to do something I have never done before, and that is write a blog high.

Last month (and For the first time in my life) I gave into trying edibles. Most of my life I was absolutely anti-drug. But after the shit time I’ve had I decided it was pointless to live a life that celebrated sobriety.

And tonight I decided I was going to get high again.

And since I told myself I would write something every day of December I am forcing myself to push through and write this blog. Plus it’ll be interesting to read sober.

Christmas is such a memorable time for me in regards to my husband. I think it’s because it was around this time that we became serious and it was then that I had someone tell me, for the first time, that they were in love with me. It was also my first experience watching someone change aspects of themselves to fit my mold.

My husband has never been one for Christmas. When we started dating was no exception. For him Christmas was always a stressful time because he came from a split family. He watched his mother struggle and work to do Christmas “right.” And his father wasn’t much of one at the time. (He has drastically changed recently.) So this time of year came with more negative baggage than positive gifts.

For me… Christmas was everything. I grew up as an only child from a two parent household. So this holiday was “magical” for me, filled with shiny decorations and tons of gifts. I wanted that to be for my husband, charlie.

During our first Christmas together (and only two months dating), I somehow talked him into buying a tiny spruce tree from the garden center (when they had one) at Target. He also purchased a set of 24 miniature ornaments to dress our living decoration. I still have every single one them and I relish when I get to break them out. The tree, unfortunately, didn’t make it.

Charlie is someone who likes extravagant gifts. Ones that people wouldn’t think to or be able to buy for themselves. The first ever gift he got me for Christmas was a stereo. But when I told him I had accidentally caught a glimpse of the one my mother had gotten me he decided to gift it to his mother and bought me a GameCube instead. This was when they were first released. I felt so weird allowing him to buy these things for me. It felt like I was using him. Which is why I never took the console home. It stayed as a fixture in his apartment. That way if we happened to split, he would still have it.

Much like the ornaments, I still have the console and will probably never get rid of it.

The first gift I ever got him for Christmas was somewhat of a gag gift. It was a matchbox truck and a t-shirt with a truck on it. I was only 18 at the time, with no job and no money, that it was all I could get him. But the reason I purchased these in particular was because whenever he saw a truck he would say “buy me that truck.” I thought it was adorable and still pat myself on the back for it’s cleverness. He was not amused. But that would make sense being the person he is and how he had just bought me something that cost about 50 times as much. But that could just be me projecting because he still has keep the matchbox truck.