It's crazy two months ago today I was just starting my trip. This summer is going by so quickly and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm not even sure how I feel right now to be honest. It was a pretty great weekend, movie night with one of my best friends and planning a camping trip for labor day weekend, then Saturday with my other best friend who was in town from Denver, and then Sunday with my twin and sister. We got pedicures, saw Lion King, went to my twin's comedy show and ended the night with ice cream. Yet somehow today after a conversation that lead me to defend someone's character that has hurt me deeply...I spent the rest of the day in a weepy nostalgic state. I had such a hard time shaking it.
It really sucks missing someone you thoroughly enjoyed talking to...I keep wondering how much longer will I feel like this, how much longer will I miss someone that I no longer have any confidence that I ever really knew them. But perhaps that's the key to letting go... acknowledge that I miss an idea. I met up with a dude I'd met during grad school recently, it was really great to see him, we had a lot of fun, but the whole thing made me emotional and luckily we have enough of a friendship I found myself being brutally honest about my state of mind. I was almost thinking out loud when I told him it felt like I was so stuck on this situation because when it first started nearly five years ago now, it was the first time in my life where I had this feeling of home and being safe and how not experiencing that growing up, I'm sure that was super impactful. I told him I've been trying to ignore the parts of me that believe I'll never feel like this with anyone else by telling myself just because it was the first time, doesn't mean it will be the last time. And he responded "well yeah, if it happened once it can happen again", and I think I sincerely needed to hear that because I hadn't previously thought about it that way.
It can be so hard to be optimistic and hopeful when you're hurting, but I know I'm trying and perhaps that's enough.
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Monday, July 15, 2019
Bad habit...
I'm sitting in a park close to work to eat my lunch and I can't stop thinking about the question that plagued me for most of yesterday and definitely made it hard to sleep... Why is it so hard sometimes to say sorry, especially for the big things where you very clearly are in the wrong? Why is it so hard to just fucking say,
"I fucked up, I seriously wronged you and I'm sorry. I let you become an afterthought and betrayed your trust in me to be a person who has your best interests at heart. I hope you can forgive me. I know it will take time to forgive me if you can at all, and if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, please let me know. "
What is so fucking hard about that? But it is... it'd been a while since I had that gut feeling of "oh fuck, I misstepped, that wasn't okay". I tried to downplay it, come up with all sorts of reasons as to why it wasn't that big a deal, while maybe it was even deserved, that I no longer owed that person anything. But even if the argument of it being deserved had valid points, I firmly know two wrongs never make a right. Yet I was still trying to justify my lack of culpability...even our laws say that crimes that were not premeditated are less serious, so does that count when you betray someone's right to privacy even if it's been your life too?
I wasn't even going to own up to what I'd done, I didn't have to, there was very little chance it'd ever come to light and I definitely knew if I did, it'd probably change the way this person viewed me forever. But even when I decided they deserved to know, I minimized it for what it was, downplayed it and interjected my justifications instead of just fucking saying I was sorry.
In the ensuing exchange they called me calculating and manipulative and that I have no self discipline and I can't stop zeroing in on that because I know that there's truth to that. Even if I didn't have malicious intentions with anything I had done... There were still always desired outcomes, my own agenda, sometimes even at their expense. My dad used to always call out how manipulative I was as a child, something that always made me feel so terrible about myself... I remember growing up knowing I was the bad kid in our family, nice wasn't a word used to describe me, and I know I spent a lot of my adolescents trying to shed that. I wanted to be nice, I wanted to be helpful, I wanted to be good.
Currently it is hard to feel like I am any of those things, but I know this is only a temporary feeling, but a necessary one. One to stew in and decide what needs to change, and how will I do that. How do I accurately assess hidden motives when I believe "I'm just being honest". I definitely believe honesty is paramount in all relationships, but only when it's asked for... Sharing your feelings when someone doesn't want to hear them is selfish and I think that is what has taken me way too long to understand.
I scheduled a therapy session this morning for later this week and I'm looking forward to it. I have no desire to just beat myself up, I want help identifying roots to why I lack self discipline on many fronts...but specifically in the department of understanding that not everyone is an open book like me and that even when someone doesn't explicitly ask me not to share something about their life, there really is this underlying understanding of privacy that I have violated on numerous occasions for multiple people. It usually hasn't been a super big thing, but this last time, it definitely was and this is not a trait or a habit I want to posess anymore.
"I fucked up, I seriously wronged you and I'm sorry. I let you become an afterthought and betrayed your trust in me to be a person who has your best interests at heart. I hope you can forgive me. I know it will take time to forgive me if you can at all, and if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, please let me know. "
What is so fucking hard about that? But it is... it'd been a while since I had that gut feeling of "oh fuck, I misstepped, that wasn't okay". I tried to downplay it, come up with all sorts of reasons as to why it wasn't that big a deal, while maybe it was even deserved, that I no longer owed that person anything. But even if the argument of it being deserved had valid points, I firmly know two wrongs never make a right. Yet I was still trying to justify my lack of culpability...even our laws say that crimes that were not premeditated are less serious, so does that count when you betray someone's right to privacy even if it's been your life too?
I wasn't even going to own up to what I'd done, I didn't have to, there was very little chance it'd ever come to light and I definitely knew if I did, it'd probably change the way this person viewed me forever. But even when I decided they deserved to know, I minimized it for what it was, downplayed it and interjected my justifications instead of just fucking saying I was sorry.
In the ensuing exchange they called me calculating and manipulative and that I have no self discipline and I can't stop zeroing in on that because I know that there's truth to that. Even if I didn't have malicious intentions with anything I had done... There were still always desired outcomes, my own agenda, sometimes even at their expense. My dad used to always call out how manipulative I was as a child, something that always made me feel so terrible about myself... I remember growing up knowing I was the bad kid in our family, nice wasn't a word used to describe me, and I know I spent a lot of my adolescents trying to shed that. I wanted to be nice, I wanted to be helpful, I wanted to be good.
Currently it is hard to feel like I am any of those things, but I know this is only a temporary feeling, but a necessary one. One to stew in and decide what needs to change, and how will I do that. How do I accurately assess hidden motives when I believe "I'm just being honest". I definitely believe honesty is paramount in all relationships, but only when it's asked for... Sharing your feelings when someone doesn't want to hear them is selfish and I think that is what has taken me way too long to understand.
I scheduled a therapy session this morning for later this week and I'm looking forward to it. I have no desire to just beat myself up, I want help identifying roots to why I lack self discipline on many fronts...but specifically in the department of understanding that not everyone is an open book like me and that even when someone doesn't explicitly ask me not to share something about their life, there really is this underlying understanding of privacy that I have violated on numerous occasions for multiple people. It usually hasn't been a super big thing, but this last time, it definitely was and this is not a trait or a habit I want to posess anymore.
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Expectations
My thoughts feel jumbled... more often than not I have something swirling in my head for a bit before I have the need to write, but occasionally I just can't seem to land on any of the things going on in there to actually work through them and I have found sitting down to write helps me to process and just work through it, so here I am. I've spent a lot of time with my twin the last few days moving him to Philly. I've been so worried about him for the last few years honestly, but more so recently. He has started being more honest about his state of mind, but has also started pulling away again. It was difficult to not be close and to feel a little bit helpless when wanting to help him, to make things just a little bit easier. We talked a lot the last few days about how different our lives have turned out to be and conversations about how he was treated differently for being a boy, but also for being a sensitive effeminate boy. What I gathered over the last few days is that my twin has spent most of his life being told to dislike who he is because it didn't conform, and lo behold he's now a grown ass adult who doesn't like himself and it impacts his ability to be a functioning adult capable of making decisions because he doesn't trust his own judgement. Even little, inconsequential decisions can cause him to freeze up. I'm so hopeful this move will be the clean slate he deserves to start this new decade on a positive note, to let go of all his limiting beliefs about himself and the prospects for his life and that it could be so much more. It's become apparent he has been so very close to giving up entirely on so many occasions across this last decade and right now I just feel grateful he fucking made it to 30. I feel grateful that maybe I have the chance to help get him to a place of truly wanting to be here, and to be here as him, fully functioning him, not dulled out self medicated on whatever the fuck him.
It's taken the last five years for us to recognize that circumstances of our childhood, and then being at such different places along the "typical life path" after college, resulted in us losing the closeness we once shared, but that it never truly was something either of us wanted. Even though unlike identical twins, it's very fucking obvious we're different people, we definitely still experienced being treated like a packaged deal. In some cases, it didn't really have a negative impact... but in other times it definitely high lighted things. I loved playing baseball, it was easier to only have one activity for both of us to do, but it was also my first experience realizing being a girl would sometimes limit me from doing something I wanted to do. There were a decent number of other little girls the first two years, then it really dwindled, and my last year in the league, I was the only girl. I started off being third base cause I had an arm, to eventually being moved to Left, which when you're a kid, not too many people are hitting out there... but at least if they did, it was going there, then eventually I was put in Right. It's not like the little boys treated me any differently, I honestly have zero recollection of ever being teased or not talked to or included by any of my teammates, it was the male coaches that little by little decided I shouldn't be there. In sixth grade I switched to softball but hated it because you couldn't steal bases and for the most part to me that meant stealing away half the fun. This was also the same time that kids started making their own lists for their birthday parties, and while my twin and I were definitely still close friends with each other, we didn't share the same friends at school, and while typically a kid wouldn't always be able to know they weren't invited to a party, my brother lived with me, a social outgoing chatterbox that got invited to everything. I know my mom thought what she was doing was protecting my brother from hurt feelings, but making a rule that I wasn't allowed to go to boy girl parties if he wasn't invited just created a situation that pitted us against each other and made him feel pitied when kids invited him after the fact so I could go. So he wouldn't accept, and in the end neither of us got to go, until I started lying so that I could...I sincerely believe overly strict parents just create sneaky kids that hide their lives from you. Like it has never made sense to me adults that automatically expect respect, even though they don't give it...
In the end I think my thoughts have been zeroing in on this acknowledgment that somewhere along the line, my brother didn't learn how to regulate his emotions the same way that my sister and I did and I can't help but wonder how much of that has purely to do with the fact that he's a boy. So many of the things I've been reading and researching the last year or two have been about emotions, and what they really are in our bodies. Like I found it fascinating to learn that all emotions are linked to hormones, either a specific one, or a combo of them, and your body releases these hormones after receiving certain external and internal cues like quickened heart rate or perceived threats, and if all of a sudden you have too much of that hormone in your system, it literally tries to clear it by making you cry. Obviously as a woman, I learned early on just how impactful hormones can be to your emotions and your clarity, I am very susceptible to PMS, and it's something wild to watch yourself over react to something while inside you is like "damn why you getting all upset?", and then the relief when a few days later the biological aspect happens and you get this nice confirmation of "Oh thank god, I'm not that crazy". Like guys never get that experience, that utterly true acknowledgement that we are not our emotions or our thoughts, that they're literally just responses to external input that are heavily impacted by the chemistry happening inside us. And that chemistry is fickle as fuck, and lots of things can force it out of whack that both men and women experience on the daily. Lack of sleep, poor eating habits, stress from work or family or financial woes, all this shit impacts your internal chemistry. I'm not saying that our thoughts and emotions aren't real, they 100% are and ALWAYS deserve to be acknowledged, I'm just saying that they are not always reliable or accurately reflect the reality of a situation. Which is why I think it's super important to try your best to hold out on discussing a conflict with anyone in your life until after the initial emotional reaction runs its course. Obviously this is much easier said than done, but gets easier with practice, and I definitely know I still really struggle with this right before my period but I'm getting better at acknowledging it and apologizing after the fact if I need to.
Right now I feel like I do owe someone an apology for getting swept up in my anger and judging their decisions about their life because they didn't choose what I hoped they would. In such a back and forth situation, I don't think my anger was unfounded, but my judgement wasn't fair. Sometimes I think we have to remember that we can have ideas about what we think would be good for someone we love, but at the end of the day you have to trust that they know what's best for them. I don't think this applies to abusive situations, but for the most part, if someone seems genuinely happy even though things are different from what you had personally hoped for them, well then you just gotta try your best to be happy for them. In a romantic situation, I think it's really hard to not then run through your memories and wonder if any of it was real when someone doesn't choose you back. I think it's really hard to not begin to believe that just a few months ago when they told you that they loved you too, that they must have been lying. I think the real challenge is realizing that while we want the past to mean something in the present, it often doesn't, but that doesn't erase the past, it doesn't mean they didn't mean what they said when they said it, it just might mean that unfortunately you have different definitions of love. And again I keep circling back to that phrase, "Expectations are the blueprints for disappointment". Being in love with a version of someone from the past, or in love with a potential, isn't the same as being in love with who they currently are...So does that mean the love you feel isn't real? I'm not sure, I think it's definitely still love in a sense, but I'm not sure it means it's anything that should be impacting the choices you make for your own life. Love doesn't have an on/off switch unfortunately, and there are parts of me that genuinely believe that once you let someone into your heart, they're there for life, but you certainly can choose to stop feeding that love, and eventually the amount of space that person takes up in there will dwindle, and you'll have figured out how to make room for someone who wants to be there.
Lately I keep wavering between being so excited about my life and the future and then suddenly almost without warning feeling like I'm right back where I was, devastated over losing someone. Someone I had a genuine friendship with and I thought understood me and the things I had been through and sincerely wanted and loved me back. However the fact that these "sad sads" are starting to feel more annoying than anything else feels like a really good sign. I think what remains hard is when I get the urge to know what he thinks about something, like the latest season of Black Mirror or whatever other stupid shit I've somehow connected to him in my brain. When you've been talking to the same person everyday for a couple of months and then it just stops, I think it will just always be hard to stop that internal moment where you have the desire to share the good and bad with them. I really do think time is the only true answer to that one, cuz just finding someone else when you're not quite over it, will never be anything more than a distraction, and will never be fair to that other person. I think perhaps what has kept me in the loop of this never gonna be a happy ending situation is that the longest stretch of constant communication was 5 months, and I wasn't even local at the time...I guess to me it will probably always feel like we never really tried. However I think I have to admit to myself that the opportunity to try has come and gone and he didn't take it, and that should be my answer.
Shortly after I left my ex-husband I wrote this, and I still believe this and I'm trying my hardest to believe something like this is still waiting for me.
"When you decide you want to spend your life with someone you're saying that's the face I want to wake up to everyday, those are the eyes I want to lose myself in, that is the smile I want to make my heart swell, those are the hands I want to comfort me, that is the laugh I want to hear when I need it most, that is the mind I want to try my best to understand, that is the soul I want to create new life with. You are picking someone to share the burdens and joys with. You have to adore them so that when they eventually annoy you, all they have to do is smile and the annoyance is gone. You have to be able to have fun with them or else the hardships of life will become what's front and center. You have to be able to be unapologetically yourself when you're with them because across a lifetime together, it's impossible to always be what you think they want. "
It's taken the last five years for us to recognize that circumstances of our childhood, and then being at such different places along the "typical life path" after college, resulted in us losing the closeness we once shared, but that it never truly was something either of us wanted. Even though unlike identical twins, it's very fucking obvious we're different people, we definitely still experienced being treated like a packaged deal. In some cases, it didn't really have a negative impact... but in other times it definitely high lighted things. I loved playing baseball, it was easier to only have one activity for both of us to do, but it was also my first experience realizing being a girl would sometimes limit me from doing something I wanted to do. There were a decent number of other little girls the first two years, then it really dwindled, and my last year in the league, I was the only girl. I started off being third base cause I had an arm, to eventually being moved to Left, which when you're a kid, not too many people are hitting out there... but at least if they did, it was going there, then eventually I was put in Right. It's not like the little boys treated me any differently, I honestly have zero recollection of ever being teased or not talked to or included by any of my teammates, it was the male coaches that little by little decided I shouldn't be there. In sixth grade I switched to softball but hated it because you couldn't steal bases and for the most part to me that meant stealing away half the fun. This was also the same time that kids started making their own lists for their birthday parties, and while my twin and I were definitely still close friends with each other, we didn't share the same friends at school, and while typically a kid wouldn't always be able to know they weren't invited to a party, my brother lived with me, a social outgoing chatterbox that got invited to everything. I know my mom thought what she was doing was protecting my brother from hurt feelings, but making a rule that I wasn't allowed to go to boy girl parties if he wasn't invited just created a situation that pitted us against each other and made him feel pitied when kids invited him after the fact so I could go. So he wouldn't accept, and in the end neither of us got to go, until I started lying so that I could...I sincerely believe overly strict parents just create sneaky kids that hide their lives from you. Like it has never made sense to me adults that automatically expect respect, even though they don't give it...
In the end I think my thoughts have been zeroing in on this acknowledgment that somewhere along the line, my brother didn't learn how to regulate his emotions the same way that my sister and I did and I can't help but wonder how much of that has purely to do with the fact that he's a boy. So many of the things I've been reading and researching the last year or two have been about emotions, and what they really are in our bodies. Like I found it fascinating to learn that all emotions are linked to hormones, either a specific one, or a combo of them, and your body releases these hormones after receiving certain external and internal cues like quickened heart rate or perceived threats, and if all of a sudden you have too much of that hormone in your system, it literally tries to clear it by making you cry. Obviously as a woman, I learned early on just how impactful hormones can be to your emotions and your clarity, I am very susceptible to PMS, and it's something wild to watch yourself over react to something while inside you is like "damn why you getting all upset?", and then the relief when a few days later the biological aspect happens and you get this nice confirmation of "Oh thank god, I'm not that crazy". Like guys never get that experience, that utterly true acknowledgement that we are not our emotions or our thoughts, that they're literally just responses to external input that are heavily impacted by the chemistry happening inside us. And that chemistry is fickle as fuck, and lots of things can force it out of whack that both men and women experience on the daily. Lack of sleep, poor eating habits, stress from work or family or financial woes, all this shit impacts your internal chemistry. I'm not saying that our thoughts and emotions aren't real, they 100% are and ALWAYS deserve to be acknowledged, I'm just saying that they are not always reliable or accurately reflect the reality of a situation. Which is why I think it's super important to try your best to hold out on discussing a conflict with anyone in your life until after the initial emotional reaction runs its course. Obviously this is much easier said than done, but gets easier with practice, and I definitely know I still really struggle with this right before my period but I'm getting better at acknowledging it and apologizing after the fact if I need to.
Right now I feel like I do owe someone an apology for getting swept up in my anger and judging their decisions about their life because they didn't choose what I hoped they would. In such a back and forth situation, I don't think my anger was unfounded, but my judgement wasn't fair. Sometimes I think we have to remember that we can have ideas about what we think would be good for someone we love, but at the end of the day you have to trust that they know what's best for them. I don't think this applies to abusive situations, but for the most part, if someone seems genuinely happy even though things are different from what you had personally hoped for them, well then you just gotta try your best to be happy for them. In a romantic situation, I think it's really hard to not then run through your memories and wonder if any of it was real when someone doesn't choose you back. I think it's really hard to not begin to believe that just a few months ago when they told you that they loved you too, that they must have been lying. I think the real challenge is realizing that while we want the past to mean something in the present, it often doesn't, but that doesn't erase the past, it doesn't mean they didn't mean what they said when they said it, it just might mean that unfortunately you have different definitions of love. And again I keep circling back to that phrase, "Expectations are the blueprints for disappointment". Being in love with a version of someone from the past, or in love with a potential, isn't the same as being in love with who they currently are...So does that mean the love you feel isn't real? I'm not sure, I think it's definitely still love in a sense, but I'm not sure it means it's anything that should be impacting the choices you make for your own life. Love doesn't have an on/off switch unfortunately, and there are parts of me that genuinely believe that once you let someone into your heart, they're there for life, but you certainly can choose to stop feeding that love, and eventually the amount of space that person takes up in there will dwindle, and you'll have figured out how to make room for someone who wants to be there.
Lately I keep wavering between being so excited about my life and the future and then suddenly almost without warning feeling like I'm right back where I was, devastated over losing someone. Someone I had a genuine friendship with and I thought understood me and the things I had been through and sincerely wanted and loved me back. However the fact that these "sad sads" are starting to feel more annoying than anything else feels like a really good sign. I think what remains hard is when I get the urge to know what he thinks about something, like the latest season of Black Mirror or whatever other stupid shit I've somehow connected to him in my brain. When you've been talking to the same person everyday for a couple of months and then it just stops, I think it will just always be hard to stop that internal moment where you have the desire to share the good and bad with them. I really do think time is the only true answer to that one, cuz just finding someone else when you're not quite over it, will never be anything more than a distraction, and will never be fair to that other person. I think perhaps what has kept me in the loop of this never gonna be a happy ending situation is that the longest stretch of constant communication was 5 months, and I wasn't even local at the time...I guess to me it will probably always feel like we never really tried. However I think I have to admit to myself that the opportunity to try has come and gone and he didn't take it, and that should be my answer.
Shortly after I left my ex-husband I wrote this, and I still believe this and I'm trying my hardest to believe something like this is still waiting for me.
"When you decide you want to spend your life with someone you're saying that's the face I want to wake up to everyday, those are the eyes I want to lose myself in, that is the smile I want to make my heart swell, those are the hands I want to comfort me, that is the laugh I want to hear when I need it most, that is the mind I want to try my best to understand, that is the soul I want to create new life with. You are picking someone to share the burdens and joys with. You have to adore them so that when they eventually annoy you, all they have to do is smile and the annoyance is gone. You have to be able to have fun with them or else the hardships of life will become what's front and center. You have to be able to be unapologetically yourself when you're with them because across a lifetime together, it's impossible to always be what you think they want. "
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Transformations
Dang and just like that two weeks have gone by since I was in Madrid. I really can't believe the trip is now something I'm no longer looking forward to...but on to the next trip. I think what I learned above all was that what you experience in life is so much more dependent on your internal perspective than any thing else. If you believe that all of it is pointless and none of it matters, well than that's how it's going to feel. But if you believe that every moment you get is a gift worth being grateful for, well than that's how it's going to feel. It's super easy to feel grateful about where you're at in life when you're on vacation with beautiful scenery all around you. It's much harder when you're stuck in traffic or late at night when your thoughts can't stop looping on a person you miss. I've been trying to be more mindful about allowing myself to dwell in the negatives and as soon as I recognize I'm entertaining that realm of "woe is me" to instead find anything, even a really small thing to be grateful for. The more I do it the easier it gets and the things I find myself getting stupid happy about have now even made me laugh just adding to the happy, it's kind of ridiculous, but in the best way possible.
Like last night when I got home from an awesome softball win, I realized someone else must have been just as annoyed as I was that they removed the trash can right in front of my door when they updated them to solar powered composting and a separate recycling. The closest one for a few months has been across the street. But low and behold I walk around from the back lot to see a brand new one right in front of my door and exclaimed out loud with my hands in the air "Whaaaat??! I have a trash can again!?" Who gets genuinely excited about a trash can??! I started to laugh at myself and was still giggling as I picked up Lady for our usual greeting.
Yesterday was a great day to be honest, I mean it started off finding out I got a raise "for continually working above and beyond expectations" so can't beat that. Then after work I was able to have some one on one time with an old co-worker turned dear friend who is largely responsible for me having a job that I love. It was really nice to genuinely catch up and I was finally super honest about everything I've been going through the last few years after they shared some of their own struggles. For a long time I felt beholden to protect, to keep a lot of it to myself because much of what I was privy to wasn't public, but it's been my life too and I'm so done with secrets.
Even though a softball win will always be a favorite of mine, my true favorite part of yesterday was that it took until the late afternoon for me to realize that the 1st was once a day that meant a whole lot to me. It took Facebook memories for me to realize it was 11 years since my first date with my ex-husband. I'm still floored I forgot, I've got an impeccable memory, especially for dates, and Sunday night my only thought about the next day was how much I liked that the first was coinciding with a Monday. I gave that man six years of my life and now, unless directly prompted, I never think about him and I'm not sure I thought that would happen.
It honestly made me so jazzed to realize that something that substantial to my life really has started to become a blip. It made me think that this current heartache caused by a situation, I can't even fucking call it a relationship, that was on again off again and honestly never anything substantial should really be a piece of cake to let go of. It made me think, well fuck if I really just give myself the chance to forget instead of always holding out hope, always being so quick to forgive, always so willing to try, that I'm gonna be able to move forward from this much more quickly than I ever thought.
For the longest time I just couldn't stand the thought of giving up, and people close to me would say I need to let go, but giving up and letting go used to always seem synonymous to me. But I think I finally feel the difference. Giving up is what happens when you stop trying for something when there's still something to fight for, there's still another willing party. Letting go is acknowledging that there stopped being something to fight for, that you found yourself in a one-sided situation.
I let myself believe that just because this man made me feel things I'd never experienced before that nothing else would ultimately make me happy because I'd always be comparing to that. When I have a bad day, it's definitely hard to not believe that to be true, but on good days I can remember that just because someone is the first person to make you feel truly seen and understood doesn't mean they'll be the last.
Dating is harder now, because I know what I'm looking for and have no patience for those who don't. This past weekend I bailed on two different dates because finally I'm in this head space of knowing if I'm tired of meaningless I have to stop accepting it into my life. If I'm not super pumped and excited about a date well than it's not worth my energy, because my time and energy is the most important commodity I have and I'm done knowingly wasting it.
Thirty feels good is all I can say. Was able to make it to my frisbee game tonight when I no longer had to attend a night meeting and we won! Saw a bunch of faces I hadn't seen in a while and even though I had to run through the down pour to my car, I was smiling the whole way. I love that community and even though I know I've stepped back from my group of friends in the last year, I've found a way to start truly getting involved in the organization and volunteering my time and it feels really good.
Right now I am super pumped to help my twin move this weekend and just feel it in my bones that being able to have regular contact with him and repairing that bond is going to be transformative.
Like last night when I got home from an awesome softball win, I realized someone else must have been just as annoyed as I was that they removed the trash can right in front of my door when they updated them to solar powered composting and a separate recycling. The closest one for a few months has been across the street. But low and behold I walk around from the back lot to see a brand new one right in front of my door and exclaimed out loud with my hands in the air "Whaaaat??! I have a trash can again!?" Who gets genuinely excited about a trash can??! I started to laugh at myself and was still giggling as I picked up Lady for our usual greeting.
Yesterday was a great day to be honest, I mean it started off finding out I got a raise "for continually working above and beyond expectations" so can't beat that. Then after work I was able to have some one on one time with an old co-worker turned dear friend who is largely responsible for me having a job that I love. It was really nice to genuinely catch up and I was finally super honest about everything I've been going through the last few years after they shared some of their own struggles. For a long time I felt beholden to protect, to keep a lot of it to myself because much of what I was privy to wasn't public, but it's been my life too and I'm so done with secrets.
Even though a softball win will always be a favorite of mine, my true favorite part of yesterday was that it took until the late afternoon for me to realize that the 1st was once a day that meant a whole lot to me. It took Facebook memories for me to realize it was 11 years since my first date with my ex-husband. I'm still floored I forgot, I've got an impeccable memory, especially for dates, and Sunday night my only thought about the next day was how much I liked that the first was coinciding with a Monday. I gave that man six years of my life and now, unless directly prompted, I never think about him and I'm not sure I thought that would happen.
It honestly made me so jazzed to realize that something that substantial to my life really has started to become a blip. It made me think that this current heartache caused by a situation, I can't even fucking call it a relationship, that was on again off again and honestly never anything substantial should really be a piece of cake to let go of. It made me think, well fuck if I really just give myself the chance to forget instead of always holding out hope, always being so quick to forgive, always so willing to try, that I'm gonna be able to move forward from this much more quickly than I ever thought.
For the longest time I just couldn't stand the thought of giving up, and people close to me would say I need to let go, but giving up and letting go used to always seem synonymous to me. But I think I finally feel the difference. Giving up is what happens when you stop trying for something when there's still something to fight for, there's still another willing party. Letting go is acknowledging that there stopped being something to fight for, that you found yourself in a one-sided situation.
I let myself believe that just because this man made me feel things I'd never experienced before that nothing else would ultimately make me happy because I'd always be comparing to that. When I have a bad day, it's definitely hard to not believe that to be true, but on good days I can remember that just because someone is the first person to make you feel truly seen and understood doesn't mean they'll be the last.
Dating is harder now, because I know what I'm looking for and have no patience for those who don't. This past weekend I bailed on two different dates because finally I'm in this head space of knowing if I'm tired of meaningless I have to stop accepting it into my life. If I'm not super pumped and excited about a date well than it's not worth my energy, because my time and energy is the most important commodity I have and I'm done knowingly wasting it.
Thirty feels good is all I can say. Was able to make it to my frisbee game tonight when I no longer had to attend a night meeting and we won! Saw a bunch of faces I hadn't seen in a while and even though I had to run through the down pour to my car, I was smiling the whole way. I love that community and even though I know I've stepped back from my group of friends in the last year, I've found a way to start truly getting involved in the organization and volunteering my time and it feels really good.
Right now I am super pumped to help my twin move this weekend and just feel it in my bones that being able to have regular contact with him and repairing that bond is going to be transformative.
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