February came and went, and the little girl inside me who hates winter barely had a chance to mourn. February was spent in little itchy segments of growth, cutting ties with old so-called friends, pulling the stitches that tied me to my old life. I took the Roommate off my instagram, I deleted old text barrages from the Bad Friend, and I dreamt dreams and dreams of the X, unfortunately. 

Bad Friend’s daughter caught me idling, asking me in a short sweet email if she could see me when she visited for spring break. I told her I couldn’t speak to her father. “No fair”, she replied, and indeed it is not, but I just told her I loved her and I was sorry. You lose children in divorce sometimes, in my case a very roundabout way, but lost nevertheless. I feel selfish and cold, but I cannot speak with the person who knew the situation the entire time it was happening, and chose not to let me know I was being played for a fool. I hear about him from time to time, I saw his face online when scanning over social media, that’s how I chose to delete Roommate from my feed. I don’t need to know what’s happening at my former house. I don’t need to see my former friends gathering. I certainly don’t need reminders that they moved on so easily and effortlessly from having me in their lives. 

Dammit all, I still dream about X, he’s replaced ‘losing all my teeth’ and ‘being caught barefoot and lost’ as my stress dream, and this last month was stressful. March hasn’t yet had the chance to be anything but a slow Sunday thus far, but February was fast and difficult. Growing is a jagged pill to swallow, one expects it will be linear and positive, but I’ve found it to be deeply unsettling. I was growing when I did my Master’s program, and that was uncomfortable as can be. I grew when I left the X, and that was mightily miserable. I’m growing now, and finding that cutting tethers to maladaptive people, places, and habits, is still painful. Even, or especially, when they’ve grown so stagnant that all you’re doing is trimming dead branches, it hurts and feels however briefly like a part of you is dying. 

Don’t worry, Loyal Reader, I’m aware that this is a good sort of pain, I’m just sore and heartsick with the knowledge that the people I loved most for a good few years were and continue to be poison. It scares me to think that I trusted them; it makes it nigh impossible to trust new people and situations. I believe it’s affecting my friendships and my job. I feel an impossible loathing for the people who lied and omitted the truth when it would have saved me months, possibly years of myself. 

And the anger. Oh my goodness, the anger. I was going to have a baby. I was happy to think that I loved and cherished the father of this child, I valued our relationship to the point of blindness to the fact that he really didn’t think much of me. My cup overflows with biting rage at this notion, this idea I let myself believe. Now I make snide remarks about how much easier it was to get divorced without a child in the mix, and the words taste rather bitter. I have no room in my life, as it stands, for the family I thought I was building and nurturing, and I have no words for the fury that comes from realizing that. 

So forget baby-crazy jady, forget dutiful wifey, forget finding my soulmate at any cost. This winter has been a test of survival and blossoming in the snow, only to be cut down again and again by the cold. I don’t trust the way I used to. I won’t love that way again for a long, long while. Thank goodness for old friends and family who are grandfathered into my good graces, because it’s going to be a trial for the ages when I feel someone is worth vetting for a place in my heart. 

Keep in mind, before you lose all hope, I’ve made friends in 2019, and they’re a few good eggs in the lot. I’ve dated a bit, and I’ve spent time with nice people, and I don’t think everyone is out to ruin me. I just have to maintain high standards for myself or I’ll have no-one else to blame if things turn out the same as before. I’m aware that I’m not to blame for the bullshit of the past, either, but damn was I young and dumb. I swam in a crimson sea of some truly epic red flags, but i just kept treading water and assuming it had to be that way, for love. 

So I have learned the hardest possible way, short of a threat to my own life, that such things are not love, are not romantic, are not tragically beautiful. You are worth more than a person who abides you killing yourself for them. You deserve better than spiteful words and deeds. You are beautiful whether or not that person, whom you think you love, will ever tell you so. This applies not only to me. 

Damn, though, I wish trusting and meeting new people was fun again. I miss that more than I can say. There are a few exceptions, but mostly it’s been a long, cold season. But I’d rather be cold than warmed by hell.