what a rough week i've had. everybody grab some popcorn and sit down, s-rac's got a story to tell. i'm at work right now, it's dead, and just an hour ago i had very watery eyes. not gonna lie. i was in a room with 4 other people, watching a computer monitor and screening luggage, when iris (yeah, googoo dolls song) came on the radio. i've heard iris 400 times. it's cheesy. it's mainstream. 15 year olds quote it on their myspace to describe there boyfriends and girlfriends. and tears fell down my face, at work. can't help it.  as cheesy and corny as it is, it put all the good things that ashley and i went through together, all the things we didn't get to go through together... everything i'll miss about her if this takes the bad path in the end. i'm gonna stop now because i'm at work and don't need to deal with trying to look like i haven't been crying.... on with my story. i'll start from the beginning.

my name's mike siraco. when i was a kid, they thought i was autistic. i never got to be a child or have any social interaction with anyone because i was always hopped up on all these pills to control my non-existent problem. it was rough, but i'm still breathing. i grew up to be a pretty good guy, with pretty good ethics, pretty good morals, and a knack for making people smile and laugh. i was a normal teenager... hormonal, a little bit nuts, and seemingly all-knowing. ofcourse, i wasn't all knowing, i over reacted to things, and was a crybaby sometimes. i was a teenager.

i'm still less than a year removed from being a teenager, but alot sure can change in five months and 10 days.

i never really found my niche with girls. i dated a few girls, some cool people that i just didn't click with, some cool people i did click with, some i loved some i hated... when you're on the prowl for a girlfriend, it never helps being tall and heavy. not to mention, by the time i figure out if i'm interested in a girl, i'm already that caring best friend. shit.

well of course, dating my ex girlfriend hayley was like the big climax to my emotionally charged teenage years. christ, when i broke up with her, i was a fucking nutcase, lol. i'd apologize if we still spoke. in my stupid little head over two years ago, my life ended, my world crashed down upon me and i was suddenly worthless once again. like i said, i had alot to learn. eventually, and i forget how, i stopped being such a crybaby and i went out, i met some people, i had alot of fun... it was good times. also, i vowed to myself that i'd change and stop becoming such a desperate, clingy fuck. it worked, i'm not.

i met ashley in person when she got a job at target in july of 2006. she was one of the 60000 billion myspace friends i had. i didn't know her at all, other than the fact that we were myspace friends and i thought she looked like a scene girl, lol. we got acquainted at target. i went out of my way to try and get her attention... charm her in the quirky little ways that i knew how. we got to know eachother via AIM and text message. a while ago, her best friend had a crush on me. guess she still did? and she invited me for chinese. i remember flirting with her friend just to see what ashley's reaction would be. it was amusing, it was fun. the first time we hung out was funny, we were really comfortable around eachother... she had no qualms about getting into my car (at the time a 1983 chevy malibu, which was rusty and parts of it literally dragged on the ground lol. it was also loud as a tank because the exhaust broke in half.). we went to the mall, i got shoes and a tongue ring, she met my cousin and his ex-girlfriend, then we went back to my house and ripped the roof off of the inside of my car. interesting first day, i guess. it all snowballed from there.

she wasn't what i was looking for. i can't lie and say that she was. i wasn't looking for ANYTHING. remember, hayley tore my heart out of my chest like a monster in resident evil. ashley defined what i needed in someone. she was 100 times more compatible with me than hayley was. hayley would have been good just as a friend, she was really fun to be with and all but she wasn't what i generally wanted in a girlfriend..after getting to know ashley a little bit, i wanted to be ashley's boyfriend. i liked her for who she was, not what she did. it was such a huge difference for me mentally. i enjoyed the whole experience alot.

there was only one, little, tiny, eency weency small little insignificant thing!

i was going to college. she'd be a sophmore in highschool, even though she was 17 ( i was 18 ) , she had messed up in school due to some circumstances she wasn't able to get over, with her grandmother passing away. her grandmother always lived with her and that was a monumental thing when she passed. i understood that, thought i could get past it.....

long story short, around november of 2006, 2 months after i started college and she re-started highschool, ashley dropped out of highschool altogether. i dropped out of college, knowing damn well i didn't want to be an auto mechanic, figuring i'd rather pay for one semester of useless college than 4 semesters of useless college.

still, no big deal. we were two months into a relationship. we were in love. everything was perfect with us, we were perfect, we were made for eachother, right? it's no big deal, i can just get a job and she can just take 2 days of her time and get her GED. shit, no big deal, it's not like it's hard or anything.

lol.

yeah, we were the perfect couple. we were gonna get married and have a sweet honeymoon. we never fought, we never argued, we were always together, sometimes days at a time. for three months, we lived together. from september 7th 2006 to september 24th 2008, the only time we went more than a week without seeing eachother was when she went to california this summer.

2006 passed, we both still worked at target.
2007 was fantastic. lots of firsts, we overall just felt good and were even better and stronger as a couple. my love for her grew every passing day. she stayed over my house, she was the first 'friend" of mine to do so, ever. i had a phobia, because i pissed my bed until i was like 13, lmfao. she helped me overcome that. lmao. it's just fucking funny to think about now. but anyways, christmas came early that year lawlz..


2007 passed. 365 days. ashley had quit target, got a job at shaws and quit. i encouraged her the whole way to quit both jobs, because they both treated her like scum and nobody should have to swallow their pride and degrade themselves that much for minimum wage, atleast here in america. she was better then that, and i knew it, i was certain. all she needed was her GED to get a better job and improve the quality of her life, quality of the jobs she could hold, quality of everything.

yep, thats all she needed. a piece of paper that was the equivalent of a diploma.

i got a job with the TSA. it wasn't anything extraordinary, but it was a good, secure job that pays 30k a year plus overtime... gives me government benefits... it was a step in the right direction. although i have become somewhat disgruntled with my job, i still know deep down that it's not back-breaking work, it's a government job, my pay is good for a 20 year old.. i have no right to complain.

i started to put the pressure on ashley to get her GED in 2008, this year. after all, it has been two years since she dropped out of school, and there was clearly no reason for her not to have it. but anyways, it was just an afterthought at this point. we went through the first half of 2008 pretty smoothly. i bought her a ring with pink diamonds in it for valentines day. we had fun, but things were starting to change, and i knew it. people started asking me if she got her GED yet, or how her job was going. it was a tough thing to say that she had neither. it was a wakeup call. people implied to me that she SHOULD have one, the other, or both by now... i got angry, i denied it. it was true. no matter how i looked at it. and i looked into it alot. i fucking racked my brain like a motherfucker. for months. months, and months, and months. we talked about it briefly sometimes. we got into a few fights. i would tell her.... "ashley, in order for us to have a future, you need to prove to me and to everyone else that you're capable of handling a little responsibility. you need to show some initiative."

like i said, i was a teenager 5 months and 11 days ago. all of the sudden, i'm technically in my twenties.

a relationship isn't about hugs and kisses. it's about a fair balance. love, responsibility, and compatibility. two out of three isn't enough. i couldn't afford to put a decent roof over my family's head on one salary. this is 2008, and the world is knee deep in a financial meltdown. if i could buy a house in the boston area on a 30,000 dollar salary, you can bet your ass it wouldn't be a nice one.

as serious and as long-term as our relationship was, i had no choice but to scrutinize it. i HAD to think of the future. you never think you'll date someone for two years and then just randomly break up. nobody thinks that, nobody should think that, because then we'd never have any good memories of anything. if ashley was unwilling to clean up our little sad excuse of an apartment, if she was unwilling to take two days out of her time to get her GED, if she was unwilling to call people back for job interviews... if she WAS willing to default on a 300 dollar credit card... .. she couldn't possibly take things to the next level. it started to hit me really hard. we could never ACTUALLY move out together (our apartment was in her basement) ..... she wouldn't have enough initiative to hold a job and pay for the rent with me. we couldn't raise a family... she wouldn't have the initiative to. all this fucking shit raced through my head constantly. i still loved the shit out of her, she still made me happy... but could it be, once again, that a perfect thing has been ruined by a circumstance that's 100 percent completely out of my control?!

the answer, for now, is yes mike. yes, you sad, fat sack of shit. fuck you and any hopes and aspirations you'll ever have, you worthless TSA drone.

fuck me, i'm a mess. let me trudge on with this entry.

we broke up for the first time after she got back from cali. i moved back home, we broke up. we got into an argument, she slammed a door in my face and hung up the phone and ignored me. keep in mind, that my head was full of the aformentioned information. i went into her house, hinted to her lazyness, broke up with her, and stomped out the house. with tears in my eyes, i went and cooled off and drove around with my friend nate for a while. we got back together for two months. i made it very well known now that she needed to get her GED and prove to me that she had some initiative to do something.

she didn't.

i tried every way i've ever known how to motivate her. didn't work. obviously. wednesday was just the straw that broke my back.

nate put all this info, our entire relationship, into retrospect with two sentences; a mock conversation if you will.

Mike Siraco: "Hey Ashley, I'll give you my undying companionship for the rest of my life if you go and get a piece of paper.

Ashley DiFiore: " No. "

Mike Siraco: "Ok, bye."


it's out of my control. the first time we broke up, i thought i had made a terrible mistake. this time, i know it's not my fault.

don't get me wrong. for atleast the next two months, every 11:11 AM and PM i'll wish for ashley to snap out of it and go and get some things done for herself. i'll pray for it until i go to sleep. i'll cry over how much i miss her multiple times per day. i'll remember things, and i'll just lose it. i'm at work right now, and i just did. my heart's broken. fucking shattered. and there's nothing i could do to make the situation better. i'm doing what i need to do. as unfair to me as it is, as hurt and as choked up as i am sitting here typing this... at logan airport... with a knot in my throat , blood rushing to my face and tears in my eyes... it's real life, and i'm not going to present myself as some sorry-for-himself sad sap. i know what i need to do. the world isn't fair, this is just another example.

ashley not getting her GED has reduced me to crying in jet blue's oversized luggage room, spilling my guts out on a public livejournal. and i wonder if she even takes that into consideration. i wonder if she thinks of how bad she fucked things up for me and my life, her and hers.. or if she just sits there and thinks i'm an asshole, all the meanwhile trying to find a new boyfriend.  lest we forget my overdrafted bank account/ run up credit cards due to buying everything for two. good luck finding someone as generous.

i've hit rock bottom.

i can only hope she changes her ways. i can only really, really, really hope with every last molecule i can muster in my body. i'll stick to that until she slams my ripped-out heart onto the ground and stomps on it.


i'm gonna try to dry my eyes before someone comes up to relieve me so i can go home and be even more miserable. adios.