You Can Only Win What You Put in the Middle

"You can only win what you put in the middle."
      - Rounders

Never forget, there is only that to be won which you are willing to risk.
Period.
There are no safe bets worth winning. Not on the long timeline of life.
Love.
Lose.
Play again.
Strike out.
Win big.
Lose it all.
Start over.
Embrace the risk.
That being said......sometimes you have to build up your bankroll. After a tough 3-4 weeks grinding with only the occasional single day off, you reach the point of burnout/diminishing returns and you need a respite to come back to the mat or the table or the game with fresh eyes and excitement.
That time to occasionally recharge is also part of making gains.

Stayed in last night despite getting done early training.
I'm broke beyond belief from the divorce and the rest of burning down my personal life.
I'm actually glad I stayed in b/c I slept deep and catatonic after watching Project Runway.
I wasn't aware of how tired I was until I woke up this morning and realized how deep I'd slept.

I'm curious as to what the weekend holds.
A good night in to rest and recharge my batteries after the late night out earlier this week leaves me almost excited. I'm going to keep with the trend I started earlier this week and mix it up with some different venues and hopefully a more international crowd. That's always been a strong suit of mine anyhow.
----

Putting my love to sleep.
Letting go of expectation.
I feel the cold slide deep inside my chest and settle.

For a flicker of a moment, I wonder if ending my marriage is just more of my Peter Pan syndrome kicking in and avoiding real commitment and expectation and responsibility.
Or...if it was mature to accept reality (is it? or is it just perspective and the dark passenger whispering lusty lures and promises?) and elect not to throw good money after bad?

I know with time I will unequivocally know that I did the right thing: for both of us...for both her and I.
In the meantime....I would be lying if there weren't moments in the silence that I feel something....bad perhaps, regret(?) as I look back on all the things we overcame together.

 



I know in my rational, conscious mind it was the right thing to do.

I knew it was inevitable.
I knew that she would look past the cheating and the rest, as we had agreed before we got married.
Yet, more than that....it, the institution, the agreement, the expectations...they just weren't for me.

I felt like a caged bird and who I was....the things she liked aboud me, that drew her to me, that enthralled her....they were changing...unless I went back to who I was completely.
Staying out sometimes, disappearing, long nights of red flags.....I was becoming one of those relatively soulless guys at the Christmas party who every now and then goes out and disappears into a strip club for a few hours to feel, remember, and recall his old life but comes home, goes to work hungover, and his wife is mad for a few days then life returns to the doldrums and repetition and monotony.
I stopped dressing up when her and and I went out. I stopped wearing cologne regularly. I dressed down more. When I dressed up to go out with my friends or wore cologne I heard about it from her.....we became that couple half the time we were out at our favorite bar(s) that had nothing to say to one another.
The kind of couple we made fun of when we were dating and when we were engaged we didn't understand how they become that way.
I guess from what I've read and heard you can work through that.
Work.
I have elected to avoid what feels like work in my life.
Sigh.
Going ***** dancing as I had done before we dated/got married was out of the question b/c that was how I met my ex.

I was unwilling to give up things of who I was and used to be in order to be this new person. Which you honestly have to be when you get married....eventually.
A new, more calm, more reliable, and dependable person.
Things which have always made me chafe and react poorly with mania.

It just wasn't for me.
I don't know that it ever will be.
And perhaps, that's okay.
Good luck and happy hunting.
       - Yrs. in Christ