Fuck This Shit.

We're taking a break from workout logs for a moment because a) there are no new workout logs to post right now, and b) because some serious shit was dropped in my lap on the Friday (20 January) before I came out to Telluride, and I've been using my downtime over the last week to try to process it more thoroughly. When I signed up for the race and started this blog, I said that blackbirds were indestructible and that we were going to find out just how indestructible they really are. That last part is turning out to be no joke.

WARNING: I've said in the past that I'm fairly certain that nobody reads this blog, but I do know at least one person that reads it from time to time. Unfortunately, that same person is going to be the focal point of what I'm about to say, and I'm not going to be holding back or censoring anything, so if you are that person and you happen to be reading this, you might want to stop right now. Or not. In the end, it doesn't matter.

SOMEONE SET US UP THE BOMB. C is pregnant, and has been since sometime in October or thereabouts. PIP (the initials of the soon-to-be human) is expected to arrive in early May. Lest there be any doubt...

IT'S NOT MINE. PIP IS NOT A BABY BLACKBIRD.

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, for those of you just joining the story, here's a little bit of background information and a brief timeline of relevant events. The reason that C and I split up in the first place was because of this very topic; she wanted kids and I didn't.

2015: We come to the final conclusion that this kid thing is just not happening and start planning.
April 2016: C moves out, gets her own apartment. Keep in mind that this has been an amicable separation, and that this entire time we have continued hanging out, going skiing, and the like. The only things that are different at this point are that we no longer live together and the "romantic" part of our relationship is over, but I still consider her my best friend, and vice versa.
September 2016: Divorce paperwork officially filed. California has a 6-month statutory minimum before a divorce can be finalized, so even though we did it all ourselves and didn't fight over anything, it will still be March before it's all 100% official. Our relationship hasn't changed; we're still good friends, we still hang out, etc.
October 2016: Unbeknownst to me, C hooked up with a friend of hers that lives in the city, and biology did the rest.
December 2016: We receive the signed paperwork from the court that our divorce agreement has been approved and that the date of official dissolution will be 17 March 2017.
15-16 January 2017: C and I are skiing in Tahoe. In retrospect, it should have struck me as odd that the canyons were open at Heavenly and she chose not to go over and ski them, even though those are her favorite parts of the mountain, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.
20 January 2017: Earlier in that week, C had asked me if I wanted to get sushi on Friday, which I thought was a little odd since we had just seen each other the previous weekend, and I specifically asked her if there was something she wanted to talk about. She said yes. OK, fine, whatever. I had originally assumed that maybe it was something having to do with grad school, but then when we met up on Friday she started acting a little weird about it, so I started guessing. First I thought she was moving back to CT. Nope. Then I thought maybe she got a big promotion at work. Nope, not that, either. She makes the comment that she didn't even think it was possible, which leads me to...

OK... "You're pregnant?"

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

Once I get over the initial shock, immediately I start thinking that it would be physically impossible for it to be mine. She confirms that it is not, tells me that it's a girl, and that she's already got the name picked out. Wow. I didn't see that coming.

Before I continue, let me just say that I genuinely believe that everyone should get the things they want out of life that they think are going to make them happy, and this is the one thing that C has wanted above everything else, so in that respect, and in that respect only, I'm happy for her, and I wish her the best of luck.

NOTE: If you happen to be C, and you're reading this, you should probably stop now and forget that this blog even exists, because you're not going to like what comes next. This is your final warning.

I don't even know where to begin with how fucked up this all is, but let's just start enumerating the ways and see where we end up.

1. The reason she didn't tell me sooner is because she was afraid of how I was going to react. She claimed that she wasn't sure if I was going to freak out or get pissed off or whatnot. She claims that I'm her best friend, and here we are with probably the biggest news of her life, and even her landlord and manager find out before I do. That's how you treat the person you claim is your best friend? Again? This reminds me of a previous incident many years ago where she drove herself to the hospital and didn't bother to tell me dick about it until they made her call someone to come pick her up. What the fucking fuck?! Frankly, I don't know how I would have reacted if she had told me sooner, but I can guarantee it would have been more positive than it is now.

2. She said that the baby-daddy wants to be involved, but she's also said that she doesn't want a relationship with him. The guy doesn't make that much money (he makes considerably less than C, who doesn't make a substantial amount as it is) so he probably won't be able to do a whole lot for PIP anyway. Effectively this means that C is going to, by choice, attempt to do the single-mother thing in one of the most expensive cities in the country, and she's OK with that. What the fucking fuck?! As the child of a single-parent household where my mom did not make a lot of money, I can say from experience that it sucks for the kid and it's a fuck-ton of work for the parent. It's not the worst possible arrangement, to be sure, but it's certainly not one that I would wish on anyone.

3. She was floating notions of me being PIP's godfather and saying that she'd sooner trust me babysitting than some of her family members. What the fucking fuck?! We split up because I didn't want children. Now she's going to have one. That's great for her, but nowhere in this discussion did my feelings on the matter ever change. Why would I suddenly want to be involved in the life of some random child that isn't mine when I didn't want to produce one that is? It's not going to happen. To think that our friendship won't change as a result of this new development is completely asinine and divorced from reality.

4. She said that she didn't think it was even possible to get pregnant because of her age and general pessimism about the whole process. Let's recap basic biology. You stick tab A into slot B and let it squirt some shit up there. That's how babies are made. It's been working that way for millions of years, and anyone who says stuff like "I didn't think X...." sounds like a complete tool. She said specifically that she wasn't doing anything to actively prevent it from happening when she hooked up with the dude. What the fucking fuck?! There's the answer. That's how it happened. Tab A into slot B, stuff came out, and here comes PIP.

5. Based on the timing of when all of this went down, it seems to have happened right around the same time that I was starting to really develop some feelings for S.^[1] C was giving me grief about this and the amount of time that had passed since she'd moved out and we'd split up, and she'd even gone so far as to say that she wished I wouldn't talk about anything related to S. What the fucking fuck?! It was "too soon" for me to show interest in someone that I never even got to kiss, but apparently it wasn't too soon for C to go get some bareback deep dicking.^[2]

So, now what? I'm angry with the way that C acted like a complete amateur and hypocrite in her handling of the situation, but that stuff I'd have probably gotten over in time if it weren't for the cold, hard reality of the future and what's going to happen next.

C and I started out as friends before we ever started dating or considered our situation a "relationship", and I think having that foundation was what kept us together for so long. It was also precisely because of this foundation that I never imagined a world in which our friendship was over. I believed that even if some aspects of our relationship changed or ended that we'd still have the foundation that we started out with, and maybe that's how I dealt with the sadness of our marriage ending back in 2015 when it became apparent that we had reached the end of the line and that there wasn't any other solution to the kid-vs-no-kid dilemma other than to break up.

Maybe that was foolish optimism on my part, because now our lives are about to go in radically different directions, and the bottom line is that these paths just aren't compatible. I wish C only the best, and I hope she finds the happiness and fulfillment in motherhood that she's been waiting for, but I won't be there to see how the story unfolds.^[3]

It is difficult enough to say goodbye to someone you love when they die, but at least there's some peace to be found in the finality of the situation. This is something completely different, and it's much, much worse.

Blackbirds may be indestructible, but that doesn't mean we don't feel pain. Sometimes I wonder if that's what keeps us going.