Epilogue to How long does it take to get over someone completely

Every day, it seems, someone comes here looking for answers as to how long their broken heart will take to mend. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, as I turned to all sort of online resources when I was in the midst of my own heartbreak and despair, searching for answers. Searching for something to cling to when my world collapsed around me.

Searching for hope and reaching out for help.

And I found it too, but not on some website or blog, and it wasn't some profound discovery like finding some new continent after sailing across a vast empty ocean. It was more like the ocean tide itself, creeping up ever closer before retreating again, over and over, until finally, one day I realized I was afloat again. No longer aground. That's not to say the hull hasn't scraped bottom a few times since, but I've never end up high and dry again like before.

To those of you still searching, I empathize. I truly do. And perhaps on some of the posts here you may find something that you relate to, something that resonates with you and helps in some small way. (This post is feeling an awful lot like a rerun. Note to self: Need new blog material.... oh and a Powerball ticket.) But I don't have the answers to your quandary, because only you (and hopefully your family and friends) can effect how long it will take to move on from a relationship that once meant so much and is now gone.

Perhaps having a teenage daughter has helped me. It's hard to hate and entire gender when the person you love and care most for in the world is of that enemy camp.

It was amusing to me recently to see her with a new "friend" as she called him, acting all flirty and affectionate (OK, that part didn't amuse me very much) when just the day before she had broken up with the boy who was then her boyfriend. No long-lamented suffering there. Just youthful exuberance that I could only hope doesn't, and didn't, get too exuberant, if you know what I mean.

I wish I had some great "happy ending" to write for all you heartbroken seekers out there, but I can't do that. Not yet. For the ending to my life and love story is not yet done.

Once upon a time, my every waking moment was consumed with pain and loss. Now, I can't say there is are no down times or irritations. But it's normal life shit -- frustrations with work and gas prices and trying to balance the checkbook, not getting to spend enough time with family and friends or just living life to the fullest. Normal, old, boring life passing the time until the next time I get to express the passion and love for life and another person again.

But I say it again, people, this is not an advice to the lovelorn column. Someone left a comment on an one on my earlier breakup posts and I was tempted to fire back and just say "get over it already, and get over your damn self. Move the fuck on!" But I realized that isn't fair. For many, the pain is new and fresh or lingering. And they aren't trying to pull me back into my previous pain. After all, I chose to write the things I wrote and post the things I did. And maybe, just maybe, it will help someone to have something to read, or a place to vent some of their emotions too.

But I am not whomever the modern equivalent of Ann Landers or Dear Abby would be. I'm just me and past heartbreak doesn't rule my days or my dreams anymore. In fact it's not much more than a fading memory, like when I realized the other day that I got 4 stitches once after getting cut playing baseball, but I couldn't quite remember just how I got cut or just how much it hurt.

It's just a line on life's resume.

There are more important problems in my life now, like broken computers and the inability to update my iPod. Now that, my friends, is the stuff of 21st century Shakespearean tragedy.

Gateway to hell (part 3)

There's no such thing as a short stay in hell.

When I arrived home from work there was a message waiting on voicemail. The before-mentioned beleaguered laptop was back from Gateway and ready to be picked up at my local service center.

So, I trotted off to pick it up and returned home to attempt to at least reformat the drive and get the machine operational again. After all, before shipping the machine off to get it checked for the hinge problem, the service technicians had told me there was nothing wrong with the hard drive, other than it needed a complete reformatting. How that happens when there is nothing wrong with it and more virus protection on the thing than would fill a cyberpharmacy, I have no clue. But I figured, what the hell, I wasn't going to pay service technicians to reformat the drive and reinstall the system software.

But the kicker is, the drive wouldn't reformat. I tried it three or four times.

So, it looks like I will be making another trip back to the service technicians where they can check the thing over again. We'll see if being 19 and having zits makes them any more adept at software installation, not that I'm going to pay for it.

Have I mentioned the fact that I will never buy another Gateway laptop again?

So the saga continues.

Gateway to hell (part 2)

So I was checking my blog visitor report today, which doesn't take long when only a handful of people show up each day. And in the report I noticed that someone had come here by searching for "Gateway laptop broken hinge," which got me to thinking.

Hmmm, maybe my problem with my laptop is not unique. Maybe it wasn't a fluke, freak thing that the hinge on my laptop broke.

So, I got to doing some research. And I found several user forums and review sites that feature complaints or questions about what people have had to do to deal with broken hinges on laptops by Gateway and a company called eMachines, which Gateway bought out.

Moreover, there are posts on these forums reporting hinge problems, cracking and breaking, dating back to at least 2004. Like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one that doesn't talk about the hinges, but does talk about hard drive problems, and this one about all sorts of problems.

Now, on my computer problems, I went through the people who sold me my computer, not the manufacture up to this point. But I think I need to change that and give Gateway a call directing and find out just what the hell is going on and why they have been selling laptops that they know are susceptible to breakage, and then when they do break they don't fix them. I find that very curious. Curious indeed.

Now, I'm really irritated.

I'm not sure where all this is going to lead or what is going to happen, but this is not over. Not by a long shot. I am not happy with Gateway, but I'm getting a little worked up about the folks at the store I bought the machine from either, if their purchasing folk knew they these types of machines had defects. I think I need to ask their service folks point blank when I pick up my machine if the problems I experienced are common with these machines. I will be curious to here what they they say and just how they go about saying it. We'll leave the name of the store out of it... for now.