Avoidance

Well, it's a good thing I wasn't counting on a reply, since there has been none. Whatever.

I'm also majorly avoiding my final papers right now. I just can't bring myself to concentrate. I'm supposed to be working on at least the thesis of them... Sigh. I'm beginning to regret that we never went on the search for our work ethics that we planned in college...

Taco Dip of Holidays

This Thanksgiving was not quite the break from stress I was hoping for. In fact, it kind of wound up being a multi-layered emotional roller coaster. The top (and best) layer was getting to see my family, particularly my immediate family as they don't stress me out. We also had some extended family over. I love all my family, but some times they can wear me out. Plus my dad hadn't told the extendeds about me and SB, so within ten minutes of them getting here, I was face-to-face with the whole awkwardness of the situation. (My dad did have cute and understandable reasons for not telling them, but it made things harder these past couple of days.) And one of my aunts is not known for tact, so I got to listen to her talking about the whole thing all over again when my other aunt called on Thanksgiving and while I stared stone-faced at my knitting and pretended I didn't hear.

The next layer would be shear panic and annoyance about the next couple of weeks and school. Thanksgiving had to come at the worst time this year, and as soon as I get back, I shall have to fling myself madly into work for the next 10-12 days.

I also have decided that there are certain friends of mine that I am tired of making all the effort for. I'm not saying that I expect crazy nice things out of them, but seriously? An email every once in a while, a phone call, a coffee date? Is that too much to organize? It'd be one thing if they just didn't do that. It's when I see them making the effort with other people that I get annoyed. I don't have the mental energy to worry about this stuff. (And if you're reading this blog, I'm not talking about you.)

It doesn't help that all the stress plus the holidays plus the fact our anniversary would have been next week have made me very nostalgic and sad. I did even email him. It wasn't a fluff email (it did have some "I miss you," but it also had some "here's why I'm angry). I just wrote it as a catharsis, but then I decided to send it. I'm not expecting any real response, but it made me feel better. I was tired of having those conversations in my head. I mean, a part of me is hoping for a response, a reconnection, possibly a new beginning. Let's not kid ourselves, here. But mostly, I just wanted it out there.

67 plus 1

As of yesterday, it has been 67 days, the number I thought would be magic (okay, not really. I did recognize that basing my hopes for survival and healing on an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” was not really practical.). And here I am, with freshly dyed and awesome hair, and I’m still sad. I still miss him. And I’m still angry. I’m tired of being angry, although I do think back fondly on the myself of two months ago who was afraid I wouldn’t get angry (the book I bought says you need to work through your anger in order to feel passion again). Both tend to hit me in strong waves, and I just want to forgive, forget and move on. Even more than feeling angry or sad or whatever, I’m tired of thinking of him. Wondering if he’s thinking of me, if he regrets anything. Wondering how long it’ll take the full regret to hit him, if he’ll ever contact me or if the night he broke up with me was the last time I’ll see him. I’m hoping this last wave, which has been stronger than those in the past, is the last one, the last “I’m ridding myself of him and therefore must mourn and process things once more” thing, rather than a “I’m stressed and sick and tired and worn out and thinking of all the things that I’ve got to do, therefore I miss my previous support system” thing.

I have decided that I’m probably not going to meet people in bars, and therefore need to rethink that aspect of going out. Saturday night was one of my friends’ birthdays (or at least her party), and one of her friends and I wandered around a bar, looking for someone I might be interested in (btw, her friends are AWESOME). And I found no one. Which in large part could be because the guys you meet in bars, especially bars in Adams Morgan, are not the kinds of guys I’m going to be attracted to. I do think another part of it, though, is that I’ve realized that I’m terrified of getting hurt. I know, I was all, “I’m ready to date again…” which isn’t entirely not true. I mean, how do you get over your fears except by facing them? But the thought of going through all of this again? Nearly gives me a panic attack.

A not so brief summary

There have been about 214456987 things to blog about in the last week, but… well, I fail. First I was going to write about seeing Haley and her dad, which was awesome. I love Haley. Seeing her always reminds me that no matter how much we might disagree on issues (she’s conservative, I’m liberal), being open-minded and respectful makes all the difference. Every time, I walk away thinking how much I love her, and how much fun it is to see her, no matter what we wind up talking about. Plus, as I believe I’ve mentioned, we’re going through similar situations right now, so the support is nice. Her dad, too, is great. I was entertained by the fact that he was mildly surprised at my parents’ reaction to the break-up, which was more “We’re sad, we liked him,” than “How could he do this to our daughter?!?!?!” (the latter being what he felt was the correct response). His new cd, though? Is going to rock. I’m super-excited about it. And Haley’s going back into the studio, hopefully soon, and that’s going to be great, too.

Then I was going to write about my first date, which was okay. The guy was really nice, but there wasn’t a huge connection. Then I was going to write about knitting group drama, but then I decided I didn’t care enough and that it wasn’t worth the mental energy, what with all the things going on in my life.

Like, for example, the stress of having a prospectus due in a couple of weeks. This is basically my proposal for my oral exams, and I need both advisors to sign off on it and the reading list. It’s due the week after Thanksgiving, which means I have to have them sign it before I leave for Thanksgiving… Plus there is all the final paper stuff and I at one point dreamt that I was suffocating in a sandstorm while in a class (seriously? Mind, can you be a little less literal???). So me=STRESSED. Although I am starting to narrow down my topic, which is helpful. I also had a funny dream about Emily, where her fiancé was going to Tartuga so I wanted him to bring me back Johnny Depp.

I also dreamt about him. Twice about us getting back together, the first where I was so not enthused and the second where I was more hopeful and excited. Plus this weekend was the Dar concert we usually went to every year. That and the stress and the time of year and everything… I’ve regressed back to really missing him. A part of me is convinced he is coming back, but let’s face it. It’s unlikely. CW texted him on Saturday night (we’d gone out, had a few rum and cokes, and were feeling a little mean. Or I was, and she was willing to go along with it), and was surprised to get no response. I of course was not. He never responded to texts. And right now, I’m sure he thinks no response at all is taking the high road. Whatever. I recognize that he has a lot of growing up to do. I think a lot of my problems with the relationship revolved around issues of immaturity. But right now, I don’t care. Except for when I’m feeling angry. Because I’m still in that stage, too…

Lessons Learned, and I Don't Have to Move

I learned many a thing last night, the first and foremost being that it is freaking awesome to be on the winning side of a major election. Not only on the winning side, but in a toss-up state where your vote actually counts. I win! I also love how many people in other countries celebrated and congratulated and basically are saying, “Yay, Americans AREN’T morons…” Gives one a lovely glowing feeling.

I went with some of the other grad students to bar to watch the results come in. It was a good time. Lots of cheering and chatting and whatnot. They had both McCain and Obama shots there. I met some of the first years and hung out with a few more that I’ve met but never really see. HOWEVER. It was the location of yet another lesson. Do not joke more than once with a gay guy about him bringing you men back to the table. He just might do it. And it was thoroughly awkward. I mean, I think I might be ready to start dating again (I keep trying to figure out how I feel. It’s like when you have a bruise and you poke it to see if it still hurts), but not like that. I’m pretty picky and just because I might say someone is cute doesn’t mean I’m actually attracted to them in any kind of real way. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I just wasn’t interested. It didn’t help that whenever he was like “I don’t think she’s interested,” aforementioned gay guy was all like, “No, she totally said you were cute!” I could have smacked him. Sigh.

But still. Much happiness. And I’m dying my hair next week. That’s right, I took the plunge and made an appointment.

Holding my breath

It’s election day, and I’m actually pretty excited. I wasn’t, but then I walked to work and saw the teenagers out with their “Yay, Obama” and “Vote” (with the “o” being Obama’s logo), and it all of a sudden hit me. If we don’t win today… God help us all. And I’m moving. Well, as soon as I get my degree.

This is only my second time voting in a presidential election (I was a mere 17 in the infamous 2000 episode), and once again, I voted early. And I’m glad I did. It only took me 20 minutes, I got my sticker, and I got out of there. But there is a strange energy everywhere. It might just be because of my location, but everyone is paying attention. Riveted to the television and internet and antsy to find out the results. And I doubt that it’s just DC; after all, there are insane lines all over the country. For this one moment in time, people everywhere seem to have realized: “THIS IS IMPORTANT.” The rest of the world will judge us for our decision, the rest of the world will be impacted by our decision, therefore the rest of the world is watching with bated breath as well. The news is reporting record early voting, so record it seems as though the early voting this year might outstrip regular voting percentiles from 2004.

It kind of feels like Christmas. But a Christmas where you get a decent economy, improved international relations, and reformation of several social problems (hopefully) if you’re good, and hatred and depression if you’re bad.

Not-so-Happy Halloween

Well, my Halloween was a complete and utter bust. Not because I didn't have plans. I had TWO things (at least) that I could have gone to, and I was totally going to do one. I even had a funny costume idea: I was going to be Russia to my friend's Sarah Palin. The theme: ensuring that everyone had enough foreign experience to be VP. But Thursday night I was exhausted and starting to get a headache. I thought, "It's just a headache, plus I didn't sleep well last night... I'll be fine tomorrow." Friday morning, I woke up still with a headache, but I figured it'd go away. It did not. In fact, it got worse. Not only did it get worse, it was joined my nausea. I hadn't thrown up in a long time for reasons beyond my control. I now remember how much I hate it. It was AWFUL. I'd get up only long enough to throw up, and then collapse back in pain, covering my eyes so the flickering from the tv didn't bother me and then dozing while listening to whatever was on. So, needless to say, I missed my party. Not only did I miss my party, but I actually have lots of work to do, so even though today I again was exhausted, I drug myself out and am now sitting at a cafe so I can download one of the movies I'm supposed to watch for class on Thursday. It's taking forever, and the other movie we have to watch I can only either watch streaming (which given my internet status at my apartment=going somewhere else to watch it) or go to Blockbuster and rent it, which I don't want to do.

Plus the fever has given me strange dreams, leading to me dreaming (of course) about him, in a weird situation where we were trying to be friends but not really and I couldn't really figure out what was going on and how to act. There was also an incident with showers and bathrooms and someone stealing my shower curtain and replacing it with cardboard... And then my family was there and we were doing stuff in DC. It was all... well, weird, and the main thing I remember was that seeing him and then having him vanish made me feel really lonely. Which of course makes sense, since I am kind of lonely, given that he was my best friend and I spent hours every week with him, and now I spend all that time by myself.

Two Steps Forward, 1.5 Steps Back

LL and I went to the Shen Wei dance production at the Kennedy Center last night. It was… interesting and fascinating and surprisingly mesmerizing. I say surprisingly because usually I enjoy dance, but kind of space out and get bored and whatnot. But this… it was like meditating through dance, especially the first half (the piece was Re:). The second half was a physical interpretation of the music, the kind of crazy dancing you do when no one can see or when you’re a kid or whatever. Only insanely controlled. I can’t imagine how strong these people must be. EVERY movement was perfect and interesting. The things they could do with their backs or their arms… occasionally they looked possessed, but in a non-bad way. It was highly enjoyable. (I am repaying LL by taking her to see Carmen with the tickets I got with SB’s gift certificate before he broke up with me.)

Besides that…well, I’m insanely stressed out, what with work and school and being crazily busy. And I’ve started missing him insanely much. I have Sara Bareilles’ song “Come Round Soon” in my head, and a part of me thinks he’ll call any day now and want to get back with me. I know it’s not true and I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t change the way I feel about it. And now all the tiny things are reminding me of him, small phrases, the fact that someone said “cookie,” the fact that it’s fall and we both love fall and he visited me in England in the fall… I miss him as much now as I did when I was overseas and he was not. And that was when things were still really good and when he hadn’t broken my heart (I also have that image from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, when Alexis says that).

Rewind

Yeah, so I realized something else tonight. While all that stuff I wrote earlier today is true, I didn’t stay with him despite it all. I stayed with him because of everything else. I mean, yeah, he occasionally was an asshat. But a lot of the time, most of the time, he was a good boyfriend. A really good boyfriend who would do anything he could to make me happy. And right now, I miss him. I miss him a lot. I just want to call him up and have him come over and watch tv and cuddle. And I know I can’t. I won’t. But I’d give a lot to go back to when I could.

Rehash

Ugh. I found an old diary entry from a few years ago (December, 2005, to be exact). It was describing a fight we’d had, the first time he really let loose on me. And I can remember that fight. I can remember how he just lost it and was nasty and mean. I believe that it was the fight that happened after his friends’ party, when I walked in to see him getting a massage from another girl when he knew I wouldn’t like that. (He tended to suppress negative emotion and then act out because of it.) Though she did give amazing massages. I was still pissed. He also blamed me for stopping him from playing Century Club. Whatever. I didn’t want to spend the night there, and I didn’t want to borrow pajamas from the girl who lived there because we weren't friends and that would be weird.

None of this was a surprise. I had realized all the things that drove me nuts and that were problems long before we broke up. He had been working on some of them (although I never think he REALLY understood why his perpetual lateness made me furious), and others had gotten better and a few I’d just given up on as weren’t going to change (like the aforementioned lateness).

But what I’d forgotten was that he threatened to break up with me, that he’d said that he didn’t plan on doing it like that, but still. (He also told me that everything would be great if I would just change and not mind things.) So how long had he been thinking about breaking up with me? How many times was he so close to ending things, while I wandered around oblivious? He never really could deal with my emotions (I’m crazy, I fully admit it, but I will give you a step-by-step guide to deal with the crazy. Step 1? Don’t make me feel ignored when I’m upset. It will push me over the edge into insanely hurt/pissed off.) and that was around the time when he so nicely told me that I should have not gone out to dinner with his family, despite the fact that I’d used a vacation day and worn a really uncomfortable dress for hours to look nice for his work event that his family had come into town for. I believe his exact words were “It would have been SO much easier if you had just gone home.” I put on a lovely face for his family, but I think they knew he’d done something. Probably because he tried to put his arm around me and I shrugged it off. I couldn’t help it. I don’t know. Maybe those things should have been the clue that he wasn’t the one. Maybe I should have been the one to end it way back then.

Friendness

All the stuff has been swapped, thanks to LL and her willingness to drive me to get my chair in her big car. Which I totally appreciate. Although I did realize today that he still has my framed print of Monet’s Water Lillies. Totally not worth the effort to get it back, although I appreciate the effort my family put into it to get it to me. At first, I felt peaceful. Done. It was nice. All free and stuff. But yesterday I started edging back towards sad and then last night I dreamt about him. Stupid dreams. And so today I was totally sad and missing him.

I have been meaning to write, though, how this has all made me realize what great people I have surrounded myself with. I mean, the support and the loveliness… The immediate reaction of “what the hell did he do, and clearly you are too good for him.” I’d been having a whole “I don’t have any real friends” crisis not too long ago (It sucks how drama from college still effects me). And I still don’t have a best friend out here, but I have a lot of really cool people all around me in all locations. People who text or email or call or invite me places and make sure that I’m doing okay. It’s really meant a lot.
\

Absenteeism

He wasn’t there. That’s right. He could not even manage to be at the house when I went to pick up my stuff. Oh, he insured that his roommate was there and could let me in. Or actually, he insured that if his roommate wasn’t there, they’d at least leave a key. But no. He “had to work late.” Which I might believe except that he was in charge of picking the day and time, and he usually knows a couple of days before when he is likely to have to work late. And he had everything all nicely stacked up in an obvious place, but not necessarily the easiest for loading, meaning he had to plan ahead enough to know that there was a decent chance he wasn’t going to be there. He did email me to let me know he “might not make it home in time,” but I didn’t get that email until after I’d already gone. It was not pleasant. Kind of like being punched in the stomach. Plus I couldn’t get one of my chairs in my car (I swear, my car fits a lot, but somehow the doors never quite open wide enough for anything mildly awkward), so I’m going to go by tonight with a friend with a bigger car and get it. I just told him to leave it on the porch, so there will be no real awkwardness and he can continue avoiding me as much as he wants. Which is mildly entertaining since HE was the one who wanted to stay friends and HE is the one who is pretty much killing any chance of that ever happening.

It has helped me to start feeling closure, though. Not as much maybe as if I’d actually seen him and seen how seeing him made me feel, but at the very least it has reminded me of all the times he put his job ahead of me. And I get that his job is important. But when he could never freaking tell them, “No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that at this time because I have other commitments,” it got old. It got old fast. Like when he couldn’t take me to the doctor’s office because he had to go to a meeting on his day off which he told me like the day before and I had to completely rearrange my plans to figure out how to get there. Or how when I did ask him to do something that was insanely important to me and so not optional and his response was, “I don’t know if I can miss work then.” Never mind that he managed to miss work for other people, like family or friends. Or how we could never make any kind of real plans, because “what if.” It made me feel pretty crappy and unimportant, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we did get married and have kids whether or not he would ever be there for them. I mean, who wants to have to see their kids’ faces fall when yet again Daddy can’t be there for their performance or game or whatnot because he has to work late AS ALWAYS?

Declaring against declarations

Well, I go see him tonight. For the first time. I’m a little freaked out. Or a lot. It’s just to get my stuff and he’s being properly abashed about the fact that it has taken so long, but still. What am I going to feel? Am I going to hate him? Love him? Want to hit him with my car? I guess I’ll find out shortly…

I’ve also decided that I probably shouldn’t declare things. No more statements like “I don’t think x will happen to me,” or “I probably won’t do y.” (At least I hedge them, though. I’d make a good lawyer…) But the whole anger thing? I was all, “there is no reason to be angry,” which is still pretty true. Except that there doesn’t NEED to be a reason, which I didn’t know. It doesn’t matter why he broke up with me; it just matters that. he. did. And that pisses me off. He hurt me and that’s not cool. And I know all the logical reasons, I have all those thoughts running through my head, too, things like I wasn’t really happy these past several months, I was tired of trying, too, I had doubts that I never let myself think about or take seriously… But I don’t care about that stuff. If I have to lash out at him and hate him for a while, so be it. Though hating someone while loving them is very confusing. And exhausting.

And I have to go home and totally make sure that I look hot. MUST. WIN.

Two Become One, and One Becomes Two.

Whitney’s wedding was this weekend, and it was glorious. So perfect for them, although I seriously came close to hitting her for her worry over whether or not anyone was mad at her and if everyone was having a good time (Seriously, Whitney. They weren’t mad and they all had fun). It was so sweet seeing her and her new husband together. Neither of them are super PDA-y or anything, and she in particular can be kind of shy about showing emotions and stuff like that, but you could just see the happiness and love radiating. SO sweet. And it was also fun to spend time around her family, in part because it helps me to see why she is the way she is, and in part because I got to hear funny stories about her childhood. I gave a decent toast, although I forgot half the stuff I was going to say, and managed not to cry, either from sappy reasons or sad.

(It was kind of hard going back there; it’s where SB and I met and started dating and lots of the places have memories and echoes of him. Like we went to a winery that I LOVE and did a tasting and a tour which was awesome and it made me think of the time we went there and how I’d always planned on having their wine at our wedding and how his favorite wine from there is their soft red…)

The whole thing just reminded me of how much I adore Whitney. She really has taught me a lot about being a real person, how to accept me for myself, how to be full of joy. Basically, she = awesome. And she totally needs to move out here. I even saw an ad for a company trying to hire people like her husband…

There was kind of an interesting twist in that I made out with one of their friends after the reception. I know, it sounds horribly tacky and I was all “it has no appeal to me,” but… it happened anyways. I would feel guilty about the tacky aspect, but a. it’s Whitney and b. Whitney did everything she possibly could to cause it to happen (which is not to say she’s responsible, as I am a big girl and am in charge of my own actions). As for the having no appeal, it didn’t appeal to me, but it also intrigued me. I think I wanted to see what making out with someone randomly was like, and I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, I could be a part of that world if I so choose. I mean, it’s one thing to say you don’t want to do something when in all honesty the opportunity to do so never comes ups. It’s another to have done it and then to turn down opportunities to do so in the future. Plus I’d never even kissed anyone else. I wanted to know what it was like. I also was hoping that it would help me to fully realize that it’s over.

That said, I don’t think it was wise. And not because of anything to do with anything more than my emotional state. Because now I miss SB more than ever. I had gone days without crying over him, but now… I feel like I somehow cheated on him or something, which I know is ridiculous, but still. And, let’s be honest, that’s a part of the reason I did it. I wanted to do something that I knew would hurt him if he found out, and a part of me is plotting ways for him to find out. It’s not a noble part of me, but he hurt me and I want to hurt him back. I don’t care that I’m sure this is hard on him too. I just don’t care. He chose that pain. I want to cause pain that I’ve chosen to cause. Again, not a part of me I like, but I can’t deny that it’s there. Which makes me not want to care even more. I don’t LIKE wanting to hurt someone, I don’t like feeling hurt. I just want to not be in love with him anymore. And Saturday night just reminded me that I still am.

My Grown-Up Break-up List: Like Amy Grant, but Totally Not

Okay, so while I’m sure I don’t really hate him, I do right now in the unreasonable side of myself. I said earlier that there wasn’t really anything to be mad about, and logically there isn’t and I still recognize that. But I hurt both heartwise and pridewise and it’s his fault in that he initiated and, as Allison (CW’s friend, who is AWE-SOME) said, he clearly did not recognize the full awesomeness that is me because otherwise he never could have left. So I’m okay with hating him for right now, in the recognition that it will fade, too, and then I can just remember my time with him fondly and without anger or sadness. And I am so glad that I didn’t break up with him. I know there is the whole pride thing of him choosing actively to not be with me, and that sucks, but will be remedied if and when I win the break-up. Whereas I can freely hate him and I don’t have to second guess myself because there is nothing to second guess. And I don’t feel embarrassed because I didn’t do anything like beg or whatnot. And I am free to write the following rather cruel list, which I may or may not still want later in life, but which currently contains my hopes for him.

I hope the next several relationships are crap for him. I want them to be empty and annoying and meaningless with dumb girls who have nothing interesting to say and who contribute nothing to the general population. Either that or they can be super smart, but also super mean, the kind who feel the need to prove that they are better than everyone else and who can’t be supportive. I want this to last at least a couple of years, or until after I have married someone else, preferably someone hotter than he is.

I hope (and this is particularly vicious) that at his happiest moments, I flicker through his head and make him wonder “what if.” I always wanted to be someone’s one regret. So this one is evil, but unsurprising.

I hope his friends and family all gossip about how letting me go was a huge mistake, and aren’t really satisfied with her when he does find someone else.

I want him, before he embarks upon the miserable dating life mentioned above, to not even be able to find anyone he wants to ask out. A long while of absolutely no new person in his life.

I’m sure there are more things I could wish, for him to not be able to buy a place, to not get his promotion at work, etc., but I don’t really wish for those things. Just the bad things around the personal stuff.

Feeling small

So I FINALLY heard from him this morning. I say finally because I’ve been trying and trying and trying to get a hold of him so I could get my stuff. I was totally pissed off and thinking about trying to break in or just show up and hope that someone was there and taking what I cared about and saying screw the rest. And then I called him. And he screened me, proving that he was indeed in town and by his phone and therefore had gotten my 23587923457 texts, voicemails, and emails, saying that it was really important for me to get my stuff, that not having my stuff was making things harder on me. Besides, one of the things he has is my nightstand. Currently, all my nightstand-y things are sitting on my desk chair, which has wheels and is rather precarious. It’s making it harder for me to get my room all situated, not having all of my furniture. So I got REALLY pissed off and texted him that he was being a jerk and that I didn’t get it.

Then, after again not really sleeping all night (second night in a row. yay.), I get a text 20 minutes before I have to get up that he was out of town on another trip. Which makes me feel like I am this big. Not because I feel guilty for how I reacted (although I probably could have not texted his friend. I don’t want to bring his friends into any of this, they don’t need to be in any of this, but I was trying to cover my bases. Plus I was really mad.), because either way he could have told me he was going back out of town. Because even if we aren’t together, that’s not how you should treat someone you supposedly care about. It’s not like texting someone to say, “hey, I know I have your stuff and you probably want it back, but I have to go out of town again” takes several hours and there is no way that you have time to do it. Unless you text REALLY slowly.

But it makes me feel so tiny because how much then could he have been thinking about me? To not really care how it was going to make me feel. I’m sure wherever he was had internet access. Did he not get my emails, was he ignoring them, did he just not care enough to check? What does it say that he couldn’t even be bothered to let me know it was going to be a couple of weeks more before I’d hear from him again? No answer to that question does anything but hurt me, anything but make me feel stupid for caring.

He’s supposed to email me today. (Which also pisses me off. I mean, seriously. I’m not calling to chat. You’d think by this point we could actually talk on the phone.) I have the feeling he’s probably pissed (unrightfully, I feel), so who knows what that email will say. Probably just logistics.

Not ready

I hate it when self-help books are right. Especially slightly cheesy ones. One of the break-up ones I got keeps telling me that "The head gets over things faster than the heart. Your head will be telling you to move on long before you're actually ready to." Which has totally been me the past few days. A part of me is all, "OMG, GET OUT AND DATE BOYS, NOW!!!!!" I go to happy hours and parties and want to meet someone immediately and be all happy again, and then am sad when it doesn't happen. Seriously? Self? Shut up. Of course I haven't met anyone. I am so not ready to meet someone. If I did meet someone, I'd be awful and a mess and that's not something I want to do to whomever I dated. Besides the fact that I don't think it would actually make me feel any better. Although a part of me wants to do it just to be mean to him. All, "oh, I've already moved on. What? You mean you haven't? Well, that's awkward." Of course a part of that attitude could come from the frustration of me wanting to get my stuff back because I need that closure, and not having heard from him. Though I'm not 100% sure he's in the country. Still, though. I can't think about him calling or about seeing him. I just can't. I need to get my stuff and work on other stuff.

It doesn't help that I'm TIRED of feeling like this. I want to be over it. I want to be happy. I'm bored with being sad (not that that stops me from being sad). I think about calling people and chatting, but then I think about the fact that no one wants to hear about this kind of stuff that often. And the few people who cross my minds are the ones who are insanely busy. I don't want to put all that on them. Not that they wouldn't be happy for me to, but...

Just break my rib already.

I’ve been told that every day gets easier. In some ways, I can see why you’d say that. More survivable. But at the same time, I’d say that from my current vantage point (which clearly isn’t very vantage, since I’m right smack in the middle), it’s not better, it’s just different. Before I kept swinging from agonizing pain to a kind of forgetful numbness. The agonizing pain was balanced by the numbness, giving me breathing time.

And now? Now, the pain isn’t so much like being stabbed with a rusty sword, but more having a broken rib. It’s a constant sadness, a constant melancholy of missingness (I don’t care that it’s not a word. I’m making it one). The constant tearing up, rather than violent sobbing. I just can’t accept that he is going to be out of my life for good. And now is when little things reminding me of him has started bothering me…

It doesn’t help that I’m a couple kind of girl. I liked being in a couple. I liked the comfort and the companionship and the warmth. I can be on my own; I know that, and I know there are good things about being single. But I’m not the kind of girl to hook up, to go out with lots of guys at once. Honestly, I’m hoping that I meet a guy I want to again be in a couple with. Maybe not the next few guys I date, but after that? That’s the thing that sucks. For years, I wasn’t ready to get married. I felt too young, too immature, too busy trying to figure out who I am. And now, I feel ready. Which just sucks, and is another reason why I’m annoyed with God. (Not in any kind of faith-damaging way. More in a “this really sucks, you’d better have something amazing waiting for me out there, and there had better be a purpose for all this, or else I’m going to be pissed off” way.)

Valley

I think I feel even sadder than before. Not in the sheer shock, I can hardly believe this is happening, agonizy way, but just legitimate sadness. Depression, even. I no longer break out into horrible sobs, but instead am constantly near tearing up, usually over small things. A song. A thought. A strip mall. I saw a picture of us from when he visited me and we went to Wales. And the sheer happiness in that picture. You could see how happy we were. And that was even after a week of oppressive togetherness (I don't do well with oppressive togetherness. I tend to get cranky), and the least planned, most frustrating trip to get to Wales. I miss that. I miss it SO much. And that gets me thinking about other things I miss. I miss when he wasn't stressed out. He could make me laugh so easily. He had no embarrassment, no worries about looking stupid. He made me take myself less seriously (I laugh at myself pretty easily, but I like having control of how other people think of me). He would have done anything for me, anything to make me happy. What happened to that? How did it just vanish? I know we had our problems, but every relationship does. When did he stop loving me like that? It's getting very hard not to take it personally. Which sounds stupid, I know. How could anything be more personal than breaking up. But the thing is. The thing is we had something special. Something great. I loved him and he loved me. He could never keep it inside. I remember once, at his friend's wedding, we were chatting with another friend. And all of a sudden, he just hugged me and said, "I love this woman."He used to do things like that all the time. Why did he stop loving me that much??? Have I changed? Am I less loveable, at least to him? I just don't understand what happened.

What becomes

I went home for the weekend, a part of the reason why I haven’t updated. Going home was… nice. I mean, in some ways it was completely lovely. And it was nice to have food to eat without effort (who knew getting food could be such an effort?), and it was nice to be surrounded by people and it was nice to be somewhere safe. Somewhere with very few associations (he never visited my parent’s new house). But. At the same time, it allowed me to foster my delusions. Since I’m not used to seeing him there, it was easy for me to pretend like we hadn’t broken up. Like I should have a text message or a voicemail from him at night.

I did get to see Haley, one of my friends from high school who is going through something similar. It was nice to have the support, although we eventually wound up talking religion-stuff, and I’m a little jealous of her type of faith. Because she keeps getting confirmations from people that this is the right thing, that things will be okay… I mean, confirmation from strangers, not people just saying that things will be fine. I don’t think I’m really going to ever have that kind of faith. Not that hers is better or worse; I just think I’m always going to have to struggle for those things, that God is not going to provide me the reassurance I want, but instead will force me to dig deeper into myself and become stronger. It would be nice, though…

The other reason for no updates is much less exciting. I don’t want to. Not that I don’t want to, but anything that takes energy is apparently beyond me right now. Doing minor activities (sending short emails, making soup for dinner, calling someone on the phone, making plans) just takes too much effort. I’d really just like to curl up on the couch and hibernate there for the next few months. Though I’m still not sleeping (will have to get some valerian pills, per whit’s suggestion), and so sitting there might remind me of the no sleep and therefore depress me. Though what that source of depression would really change, I don’t know.