The puppy had a rough weekend. Thursday night, he scratched open a stye on his eyelid, and after putting socks on his paws to keep him from doing more damage (they lasted about an hour, honestly, but good effort Jady!), I called the 24 hour vet and under their advisement, took him to the regular, not as expensive vet the next day. He got his eyeball numbed and goo squeezed out, I WILL SPARE YOU THE PICS, and now he’s on antibiotic eyedrops for the next ten days/ two weeks. Poor guy. The saving grace of the entire affair is he got a full check up, and the ol’ boy is doing great otherwise. For a 15 year old, he’s spry as a….ten year old? yeah. Maybe a bit slower than his salad days, but doing very well. He’s holding a hell of a grudge about the eyedrops, but he gets them every 12 hours no matter how much we both dislike doing it.

SO. Anxiety has been a creepy little monster lately, and I’m getting fed up with feeling like the world is ending on the daily. I’m blogging, which is good, and charting my meals, which is annoying but necessary if I do want to lose some weight. I’m also working 45 hours or so a week, since my company asked clinicians for a little extra side-work to get our admissions up. I’ll be doing interviews for new residential and outpatient clients, which is not my normal job, but it’s a good way to learn how people appear in my office as clients. It’s also pretty complicated and they assured me they’d hold my hand while I learned all the data entry side of admissions. I’m nervous about messing up (aren’t you always, Jady? Hush you.) but I want to be as valuable an employee as possible, and learning new things is good for your brain, right? Right.

Alas, Anxiety lingers on, not so much when I’m on the job, but in those quiet moments at home when I should be relaxing and not considering the tiny infractions that make me an imperfect and possibly terrible human. I consider myself a perfectionist, but not a particularly good one. It’s simply a feeling like I should constantly do things right, or I am wildly superstitious that things will go wrong and it will be my fault. I don’t really glory that much in my accomplishments….I stressed my guts off during my masters, but graduation was less than spectacular. I got an amazing job, and I feel unworthy almost always. My loved ones love me ever-much, but this time of year, just try to convince me that I’m an acceptable person. You’d think that it would get easier the more I learn about the workings of the brain, or the mind, or the human condition. But I outsmart myself into thinking I’m specially un-special. And knowing/calling out my own thinking errors offer little respite. I’ve even been using my limited supply of anti-anxiety meds, which I LOATHE. It’s hard to draw the line between self-medicating and judiciously altering brain chemistry so I can sleep, at least in my mind. Yet I suggest my clients visit their primary medical provider when their chemistry is out of whack, so perhaps I should take my own advice. (but I’m special and no one can fix me! oh right, thinking error. gotcha.)

There you have it. I need to visit the doctor. It only took one blog to write it all down, read it back to myself, and take the advice I would give to anyone else. My Brain and I are seeing eye to eye, and I’m not about to let things get worse. I’m not playing chicken with my sanity. All nonsensical worry considered, this is a very distinct point at which I can choose to get professional assistance, or I can choose the rabbit hole. Been down there before. Not the greatest adventure. Not fun at all, really. Familiar, sure, but unpleasant. February is happening whether I’m ready for it or not, so I best get my mental self into shape. Or all the weight-watching, blogging, healthy choices galore, won’t pull me out. And then I truly will have no-one to blame but myself.

Fuck. I get that thing about being annoyingly correct now.

But Puppy needs eye drops and I need a tune up, so as my darling mother would say, ‘suck it up, buttercup’. Go to the goddamn doctor. Stop stalling. Take your own advice or return that fancy Master’s degree, because clearly you didn’t learn a thing.

Ugh. I can be such a brat sometimes. I just know I’m gonna be smug as fuck when I get this brain sorted out. Smug to myself and only myself, but still. Smug.

Ok. it’s 9 hours until I can call to make an appointment. time to attempt sleep. Wish me luck.

Yesterday, I worked for 12 hours, and I’m probably doing it again next week at least once, if not twice. I normally work 10 hour days, Monday through Thursday, but we only get 8 hours per holiday (yes, there is a flaw in the system, go figure), so on weeks with a holiday, we make up those two hours on one of the scant few other days of the week. In addition to the holiday on Monday, we are doing ACT training from 8-4 on next Tuesday and Wednesday, still holding classes in the evening, you do the math.

I’m looking forward to being salaried, as opposed to hourly, although the company I work for is generous with their PTO and I’ve been able to accumulate the 40 hours I will need to go on vacation to California this coming May. I don’t, as a rule, enjoy taking time off, tho. Most of my clients are in the early stages of their recovery, and missing an entire week feels like I’m missing a month’s worth of work. I have a 4-day work week and subsequent 3 day weekends almost constantly, so I can do most things I want to do…go to Vegas, take a trip down south for the hot springs when the weather turns…without taking time out of the office. for bigger trips, like California, I will just have to bite the bullet and prep everything that needs to get done a week in advance. And practice mindfulness. And not let my job gobble up my soul with worry.

I did, as mentioned above, go to Las Vegas last weekend, just a quick Friday-Sunday trip down south to see D and E….D lives there now, E was visiting themselves from That Midwest Place Where I Used to Live. I had a moderately good time, for Vegas, although I spent way too much money on beverages, gambled about once in the airport on the way home, and got ditched for poker on more than one occasion. I was on the strip, so loads of people and opportunity for people-watching, lots of alcohol, very expensive bars. I got to experience actual Vegas with D at an Irish pub, off the strip, with particularly delicious Irish coffee on the first night I got there. D looks so good! D seems happy! I think this move was a very good one to make, although I got the idea that we both miss California a wee bit.

I did get time with E as well, although the poker rooms beckoned very persuasively, and E took me out to Fremont Street, which I learned is ‘old Vegas’, and looks like a place out of Blade Runner. So much visual stimulation, so many things bright and weird. So many ways to spend money and not even realize you’re breaking your travel budget by twofold. I honestly reported to my excel spreadsheet when I got home, but I wasn’t happy with the resulting numbers. Maybe when I make *L*CSW money, I’ll go back to that town and light up the place. As it stands, D owes me a visit in quiet ol’ SLC.

I did end up with a hangover, and the strange thing I’ve noted in the last few years is that hangovers manifest as bouts of horrific anxiety. I end up curled up in bed pressing my snooze button for long, desperate hours, feeling like the world is caving in on me and it’s all my fault. Try to sleep it off? Your dreams will set you up for a terrible time. Everything you’ve ever done wrongfully will spring up without ceasing. Was it worth that extra margarita, Jady, was it? I would much prefer headaches and nausea, but that’s just not how my brain works anymore. Plus, drinking is expensive, and I don’t need that shit draining my Entertainment budget. I’ll stick to a beer after work, thanks all the same.

The parents are in Hawaii right now, speaking of vacations, although Mom is being typical Mom and working most of the time there. Her department is recruiting new students, I think she’s presenting a paper or something, and she’s been working on an incredibly difficult report that’s due sometime soon. Still, I wish them both sunny beaches and lovely sunsets, if she gets off the computer once or twice. They’ve been busy busy humans this winter, and a respite is in order.

Well, my sister suggested I write this morning, and I feel better getting it done. This weekend is the Improv Festival I help make happen, followed by a Monday holiday, so perhaps I’ll charge up the iPad and write while I do laundry post-event. Feel free to kick me in the pants if you see me slacking…Sister is particularly good at that, and I do truly appreciate it.

Maybe I’ll see some of you this weekend at the fest? It would be hug-tastic. Looking forward to lots of laughs.

 

What’s this? A Post in the *morning* from Jady? How did you get to be so lucky, loyal reader??

Well, work doesn’t start until 11am, and I sure as hell didn’t wake up early to exercise, so you get a dose of writing and musings early today. Count your lucky stars. Or roll your eyes at me when I say I’m tired and yet insist on waking up long before I have to go to the office. Either way. Your call.

I had one of those routine, totally normal, existential crises last night. I wept like a small child recounting regretful choices and lamentable circumstances; things I cannot change bubbled over in my brain and came out my eye sockets. During, it felt pretty damn hopeless and terrible. Afterward, I slept like that self-same little child, and let that be a good reminder to you, loyal reader, that bottling things is stupid and letting yourself feel feelings is the coolest way to live.

Wanting someone to be happy is an interesting concept to me. We all do it, surely. Happiness is an elemental desire for Americans, although it’s something I’ve always mistaken myself into thinking I had obtained, only to look back and, yikes, I wasn’t happy so much as pretty damn miserable if not both. DBT, a modality that gave me great coping skills post-hospitalization, is in essence a study in duality…things that seem totally counter to one another can in fact exist at the same time. You can be with friends and lonely as hell. You can be miserable and happy. You can enjoy your circumstances and yet wish for so much more. Acceptance of both things, black and white, allows you to exist in the gray area of which so much life is comprised. Finding comfort in both sides of things brings peace, and lessens distress. Peace sometimes even leads to moments of happiness. 

So is happiness a moment of time, a state of mind, an outlook? I’m not sure I know. I do know that happiness appears to me more often post-divorce than it did during the breakup, which seems pretty obvious looking back. I know that when I invest in my best of friends, I feel a certain sort of warmth that I associate with being happy, even when they’re the ones with windfalls and life-boons, not me directly. I’m aware that when I do use DBT skills to find peace in the ever-changing and mercurial nature of my life, I feel contentment that blossoms into sunny little slivers of happiness on even the bleakest day. I know when I have a good cry, like last night, I sleep better and wake up feeling a strange sort of accomplishment that I felt feelings and endured.

Back to reality: get ready for work and take the time to do my makeup and wear something cute (armor, dear reader), work today from 11am-9pm; teaching Parenting class tonight and going through my extensive discharge list to get a few people off the roster, catching up with trainings in powerpoint slides that may or may not be boring as hell (but necessary), maintaining my budget by NOT eating out and instead using the salad fixings I got yesterday to eat from the office as per my resolution, go home and sort through laundry to make certain my cutest possible clothing is clean and ready for my weekend trip to VEGAS, touch base with a few friends and family, maintain sanity, etc.

This blogging in the morning thing is actually quite handy for getting myself on track. Hmm. Let’s see if it becomes a habit. Don’t hold your breath.

My depression, mania, and anxiety are never too far away, being bipolar and all. This is not a surprise to me, loyal reader, although the tricky little devils still have a tendency to sneak up on me when I think I’m sailing through life and jump out of the water to rock the boat. Anxiety, pictured above, is being particularly jerky this weekend.

Which makes it hard to write.

Which is exactly why I need to.

I’m still feeling a bit under the weather, even after taking a day off of work and sleeping probably a good half of the long-ass weekend. Of course, my crazy brain starts talking shit about how taking a day off from work is the worst possible thing one can do. People will die! Empires will crumble! Selfish, stupid, terrible, lazy Jady. Never mind the fact that I obviously needed the sleep and rest and medications with which working would be unwise. No, Jady took a day off and the world ended and it was her fault.

I wonder, ofttimes, why in all the great wonders of the universe, some people’s brains are hardwired to punish them for literally doing nothing wrong. I could ask myself over and over again, why do you have to be perfect, Jady? and why does accomplishment mean nothing so much as every miniscule failure? Why do you magnify everything you’re not doing perfectly, and minimize everything you do right? WHY. But asking doesn’t actually make me feel better, and never seems to evoke an original response, so I may as well accept my crazy darling brain and treat her kindly. Even when she’s being a big ol’ bully. Because kindness is something you don’t have to regret, even when you’ve spent it on a less-than-kind entity. At least you did your part.

I spent a large part of my life fighting my brain, self-medicating with ham-fisted inaccuracy, belittling myself and my thoughts, coping with bad relationships and codependency. I simply would not sit in my own distress, and I took every possible escape route one can imagine. It’s a wonder I didn’t cause myself more trauma than I’ve dealt with already, it’s a damn lucky thing that I’m not dead because of my ‘coping mechanisms’, in the past. I made myself several promises during my divorce, by the one I’m sticking to is that I will feel my feelings when they happen. No bottling, no shoving them under the bed. That’s how you get monsters, and skeletons. I will experience myself to the fullest that is healthy and manageable, and I will seek out respite in ways I won’t later regret.

So today, while I feel the Sunday Dread of another week approaching, with work from last week that I had to leave for a while to make myself physically healthy, I will sit in my anxiety. I will stay with it and not run away to some dark corner to lick my wounds. The only way to deal with a bully brain is to confront, accept, and love yourself. To hell with the weirdo chemicals that make me want to hide in bed for the winter, I am more than my anxiety, and yet my anxiety is a part of me and I love it. You don’t worry about things you don’t care about, so thank you, Anxiety, for reminding me that I love my job, and I care for my clients. Imagine me massaging away the claws in my temples, picture me hugging the arms that hold me to the couch. Try for a moment to believe that self love is stronger than self doubt.

Down to business: Update the budget excel spreadsheet, finish cleaning the house, put away the laundry, work on the lovely journal Sister gave me for Christmas, and go to bed early enough to wake up in time for a shower before work. Breathe, rest, relax. Try not to berate yourself for breathing, resting, and relaxing. Eat something tasty. Cuddle the pets.

Love who you are, not who you wish you would be.

Happy New Years Day, loyal readers!

For this lovely new year, I’m intending to blog more often…and not just when I’m fucking furious and emotional…so hopefully this post is one in many new additions to jadybyproxy.com and its sterling reputation as THE place for all things Jady! I’ve been spending more time on Facebook than on my own writing, which is a flip of the priorities I wish to have. No time like the present, I suppose.

(pardon the spotty nature of this post, I’ve got a different strain of flu than my poor sister did this week, but endless FUN nevertheless, and I’m running back and forth from the bathroom to the computer. I wake up on the daily and throw up due to the amount of phlegm I’ve swallowed during the night. I’m a walking discharge factory. I’m washing my hands so much they’re going to split open any second now. Did I mention FUN.)

How was your Christmas, darling dearest Jady of ours? Delightful. about 30 people and 4 generations in the household at one point, dozens of micro-conversations with simply my favorite people ever ever, and Missoula is a cool town. My parents have done a wonderful job on their ‘cabin’ (read: huge house up the canyon) and it was with great reluctance that I left after 4 days of good food, good company, good times. The only things missing were the cat and the dog, who were in SLC being spoiled by J the cat sitter and Aarf House the dog kennel, both of whom I would roundly recommend to anyone.

So what’s going to happen this year, Jady? What’s the VISION for 2020? (I have not seen that ‘vision’ joke ANYWHERE…it’s MINE;-)…) Well, I have plans and I have goals, and they’re pretty much in line with each other. I plan to budget. I sat down with my mom this afternoon for French onion soup and salad, a nice amber beer, and a very well-set-up excel spreadsheet with my expenses and income for the next 3 months. Mom, for those of you unaware, is an accounting professor, and she’s pretty damn good at this sort of thing. My goal is to spend less on take-out food and ‘entertainment’, more on repaying my credit card. The eventual plan, once I get that sweet LCSW pay raise after 17 more months of supervision, is to set myself up to buy a house. I made the mistake/blessing of not putting my name on my house when I was married, which would have deeply complicated the divorce, but also would have been nice financially…but that’s a very 2019 regret, and I’m over it.   Buying a house sets myself up for having kiddos, which is the eventual EVENTUAL plan, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I also plan on writing more, something I’ve always enjoyed. Behaviorism would suggest that by writing more, I’ll feel better, which consequently will make writing easier, which will make writing feel even better, and so on in a snowball sort of fashion. My goal is to finish the DAMN book, currently 35 percent done at a whopping 150 pages. It’s hard to get myself motivated to work on such a project, mostly because its been so long that I really need to read 150 pages of established cannon for my world of zombies and unicorns, and when I read I want to edit. It would be pretty easy to cannibalize my own writing with editing, so it’d be much better to read that damn book, finish the first draft, and then spend hours pouring over the details, but who has that kind of time? Oh right, I do. Sometimes. When I make it happen.

So I’m stopping there, writing and budgeting. No health concerns excepting keeping on track with meds and possibly working out, but it is not making the list of resolutions. I’m actually fairly pleased with my current body, who knows how I’ll feel when I turn 35 and have a 1/3 life crisis. Maybe I’ll magically enjoy dieting and exercising, but that’s a pretty cute and unlikely scenario. I like cheese. I’d rather crochet than treadmill. I didn’t gain weight over the holidays, so there’s no extra bumpy lumpy bits. It’s sustainable and I’m content. Plus, all my clothing fits, and that’s something that makes buying fewer clothes MUCH easier. Double plus, I’m cute already. Take that, society.

So, loyal reader, a question for you…what would you like to hear about in the life of Jady this new year? I’m dying to know! I’m only slightly sarcastic! Hooray new year!

The Divorce is OVER.

If he pays what he owes, and if he does so by February, I never have to mention the Shitbag again. If not, we go to court. Where, hypothetically, he gets raked over the proverbial coals for not doing what he agreed to do, in writing, during mediation.

So there’s that.

When I went to Oakland in May, fresh from the breakup, my friends made me a mostly xxx-rated bingo card to complete in my newfound freedom. Some of the lesser mom-scandalizing squares included: ‘Crepes and martinis’, ‘naked hot spring’, and of course two ‘free bitch’ squares. I’ve done a few of the challenges/suggestions, but mostly I’ve been pretty vanilla…just getting my financials in order, working hard at establishing myself at work, buying things to make the apartment a cozy home, building credit and indulging myself in house hunting while I pay off my credit card debts. Stuff that seems pretty damn boring in the moment, but feels like micro-victories to me.

It’s curious to realize how brainwashed I was. I thought I needed to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and if I forgot myself for one moment in wishing my own wishes, I was being selfish and bad. I waited 10 damn years to get ready for a baby because I was ‘too broke’, ‘too crazy’, too much any bloody excuse you can consider. While I put myself (with help from my parents, he didn’t pay a literal dime) through my master’s program, he stagnated and rotted on the vine, and he blamed me for that too. There were ‘no cool people in Utah’, there was ‘nothing to do here’ and ‘nowhere to go’, and I allowed him to spout off his bullshit for years. Sure, arguing would have led to emotional abuse and neglect. I’m learning (my sister helps a lot with this) to forgive myself for letting him be as awful as he was to myself and my home. I pity his ‘friends’ here, who he bashed on the regular, especially those who chose for their sad reasons to side with him despite all evidence of the asshole he was.

I’m sorry I was jealous and vindictive of other women, too. I learned from the Shitbag that women in power, and powerful women in general, were something to avoid and dislike. He didn’t like that female comedian’s voice. Fuck her. He didn’t think voting for women made ‘sense’, it was throwing your vote away, fuck them. Women weren’t capable. women weren’t funny. women were bitches and sluts. They were stupid. their opinions truly did not matter at all.

I’m sad for for the woman (women?) he slept with while were married, and while he continued to sleep with me. I recall going to Planned Parenthood after I found out, to get checked across the board. I was so angry and so scared and alone, and waiting the 72 hours it takes to post results was horrendous. But I had family and friends supporting me, and I had honest, good people on my side, and I wish the very best for anyone who’s best shot at company is that shitbag in their corner. He’s not a good team to be on. I should have known better; I learned that the hard way. It’s a shame other women will have to learn that way too. It sucks being used.

Still, my friendships are repairing themselves, and people who couldn’t stand being around HIM still love ME.

Hell, some of the people I hang out with now never even met the shitbag, and they love me. Maybe I never needed him to make friends for me. go fucking figure.

I am also sad about K’s kids. K was shitbag’s best friend, mentioned previously and quite angrily on this blog, and his daughters are delightful humans. I may not be able to see them again for a long while, although I’d be willing to suffer his presence, briefly, to see those girls again. They’re going to be 18 in a few years and then I wouldn’t even need his go-ahead to do so if they visit. They live in California most of the time with their mom, so they’re only here some holidays and school vacations. But they have my number. We used to spend every Christmas together for years, and I miss them very much.

Sigh.

I also miss my dog, crappy little monster though she was, but I don’t really feel up to writing about that just yet. I’ve never given up a pet before. I don’t think I can do it ever again. It hurts. It’s the only reason I keep the little family tree painting I made, with Corms, Dante, Shitbag, me and little Moro.

Fuck. I can’t talk about this yet.

SO ANYWAY. My year is coming to a close, and all I got out of it was a career, degree, friends and family that love me to pieces, an adorable apartment, my self confidence and freedom and happiness.

Cheers!

Yesterday, I got a text message from K, the former husband’s best friend (at the time of our breakup).

“Hello Jady – I thought I’d reach out to you see if you were interested in talking with me now that things have cooled off. I understand if you don’t – it would mean a lot to me if you did though. 

Regardless I hope you are doing well.”

Well, since it’s my anniversary, and since we’re STILL legally married (definitely still separated), let me get something off my chest in the form of a rant:

Hi there, K. SO glad to hear from you at a random time at which you’ve decided I might want you back in my life. I see you’re still bullshitting and making assumptions rather than owning up to your own shit. Speaking of which, HOW THE FUCK HAVE THINGS ‘COOLED OFF’?  Tell me, please, exactly why I’d want to talk to you. Are you planning on apologizing for covering for my husband during the year-long affair? Do you think it would be helpful for your sake to chat it out? Are you lonely now that someone who considered you a friend and confidante and treated you as such wants nothing to do with your lying self? Please, explain to me, as you did months ago, why I was the one who should have known what was going on, tell me again how you want to be friends with both me and my emotionally abusive ex. I’m dying to hear your plan for glossing over betrayal and deception for months on end. Riveted. I’ve had very little gaslighting in my life since you, he, and my terrible roommate were ejected from it, so PLEASE, do go on. Bring me back to the worst I’ve felt since my sister died. It’s so very worth it to me, for your peace of mind.

I hope you’ve changed. I also hope you’ve gotten the help you need for your addictions and your demons. But I’m not your therapist and I’m not welcoming you back. That social work thing they teach you over and over, unconditional positive regard? That doesn’t exist when you help, knowingly, ruin someone’s life situation.

 

So yeah, I didn’t text back.

 

 

Remember when I was thinner and happier and full of hope for my life with someone I thought would love me forever? Yeah, that little whippersnapper is gone now.

Things always seem so nice for other people when you don’t get the full picture. I was thin because I lost about 70 lbs during a physically, mentally, emotionally, everything-ally crippling bout of mania, for instance. I was happy because I thought getting married meant you knew who you’d grow old with and devoted your life to them, and that was a silly, silly notion. (You grow old with yourself. A companion is nice, but if you work on them and not yourself, you’re in for a world of hurt).  I was hopeful because I believed that this person I chose was a good, red-flag-less man, and that’s the real kicker, because looking back, the flags were there and goddamn rosy.

But around, say, 7 years, 11 months, and a few days ago, I threw caution to the wind and got married. Caution wasn’t in the wind, really, caution didn’t exist, because I was in love and no-one could tell me good advice without sounding like a Big Bitter Fuddy-duddy. The worst part, by the way, of realizing you’ve made a huge tactical error in life is that–at least for me–everyone around you knew it was a debacle waiting to happen, and they didn’t even just let you do it, they supported you because the alternative was YOU being a bitch and telling them and their common sense to EFF right off. I was blinded by love. Stabbed right in the eye, more like.

This picture represents something very important to me, which is namely that no matter how good I look (to myself), I might be really unhealthy….and no matter how chubby and plain I feel I look NOW, I’m healthier being where I am, in the present, without everything I thought I had/wanted/achieved.

So how is life right now, honestly, you ask. Well, I’m working on setting up a budget, since my paychecks are getting to feel like the rule as opposed to the exception, and I’m living wholly on my own (not saying my parents haven’t helped out substantially with obtaining living quarters, giving me furniture and support and helping hiring movers, but I pay my own rent, thank you). In any case, money is coming in, which is helpful for digging myself out of the hole I made throughout graduate school with the former husband lifting nary a finger and sharing nary a dime to pay for my education. We never shared a bank account other than a CU for our wedding gift money that we spent almost entirely on the honeymoon. Or I’m pretty sure we did. kinda let him be in charge of that one. Red Flag.

Money is happening, yes, but I’m admittedly terrible at finances. I’ve lived my entire adult life paycheck to paycheck, apart from the savings I got at my last job in San Francisco, which I spend almost entirely on moving here, while being jobless for a hot minute, and suffering a few heady relapses into bipolar hell. I worked for a home healthcare company for a bit, buying stuff for the house I no longer call my home, and little by little, money trickled out of my coffers. Finally, I gathered up the gumption to go back to school, and as we all know, that’s basically inviting Debt in for tea.

I don’t blame any one person for this, but I do feel deeply enabled, and gaslit.

I’m more stable now than ever I was with the former husband, and I think that frightened him a little. You can only sit at home polishing your armor so much when the damsel’s out getting a masters degree before you feel a bit out of touch. I think he was scared that I’d find him useless, stagnant, underutilized. So he did the ‘smart’ thing and got out first. Then told me I’d be better off without him, which is a fancy way of saying, ‘I won’t fight for us. Neither should you. But it’s mainly your fault for succeeding.’

What was I talking about? Oh right, budgeting. Since I’m on my own buying a house now, I need to start saving, and lessening debt, and basically being an Adult. I also spend some time shopping redfin.com much in the way kids look at puppies in the windows of pet stores, I WANT ONE, but aware that I have chores to do to earn it. Do I eat dinner at the pub sometimes? Yeah, I do. Do I cruise amazon.com looking for treats? Sure. However, I’m disciplining myself to coffee and cream from Winco rather than a flat white at the coffee shop. I’m buying groceries that last for a while. Hell, the only reason I go to Costco is for dog and cat food, and tell me you can beat their quality/price ratio. Go on. LIE to me.

Did I mention I’m hosting 2 halloween events with friends? A Haunted Porch and a Halloween Party waaaaaay west in Stansbury Park? We’re going to craft and be hostesses and investing in friends right now feels like a big win. I’m dressing up the day of the party (this weekend), as well as Halloween itself, so I got myself a family-and-work friendly halloween costume with a tiara. I’m confident enough in looking sharp for the big day(s) that I’m not even wearing something needlessly revealing, and that’s probably a first for me since early high school. Mostly because my clients don’t need cleavage in their faces, but also because I’m not here to fucking impress you.

Wow. what a long and rambling post. I sound like a Big Bitter Fuddy-duddy. Maybe they were right all along.

I considered (and am, I suppose) writing to the X today, the day before our tenth anniversary/his 35th birthday, because tomorrow is going to be busy and hard and possibly frantic. We haven’t spoken in person since May 20th, and it seems as if he’s making a lot of life changes, so I don’t really know who I’d be speaking to anymore. We’re still technically married, so this is still TECHNICALLY an anniversary. But honestly who cares what a random person you used to know hears in passing on the internet. Even if the person talking is their wife. Even if the writer knows this person well enough to know they’re suffering, not undeservedly, because of bad decisions.

Full disclosure, I blocked him online, and on my phone. My email is still accessible, and if he wanted to talk he would find a way. That’s another life choice that hurts me, but is ultimately not my business. I should stop asking about his welfare, he’s not my partner anymore and his life, however it spins down the drain, is not my concern. Yet I linger in maybes and assumptions. This person I used to know intimately is not a part of my life anymore, and cannot be (healthily) part of who I consider myself to be.

I feel I’ve salted the earth with tears overmuch, and I will cry more, but I’m a big believer in knowing when to stop wishing and start doing. My good choices may not always result in good actions of others, but at least they negate the possibility of knowing I could have done better to honor myself and my kin. I’ve been an utter shitshow for the last week, health wise, and I need to stop pretending that what I put into the universe is a wash. I am in control of what I choose to do and who I chose to be. I’m still furious, and grieving, and I need to stop taking those emotions out on myself. It’s only going to hurt more to look back in another ten years and recall being an idiot because I was in pain. So self-care is a priority.

Part of my self care is forcing myself to acknowledge that the last ten years were not a waste and love was not always a lie. And knowing that this belief only sinks in when I accept the facts that I did love someone AND I can’t bear to interact with them now. DBT would suggest that these two ideas are incongruent and yet both true. The suffering of the psyche exists due to not allowing one or the other to exist in the brain and heart. Struggling to make only one side true, that is where my training and therapy have been underutilized and ignored.

So I will not be salty and mean, to someone who will probably never even read this. It’s never good to curse someone. Comes back to haunt you. I’m plenty haunted already.

I spent a good time yesterday sitting listening to the rain with my dog in my apartment. It was deeply peaceful to have that connection and to feel as if the world was ok.

The traditional ten year anniversary gift is tin or aluminum. So for your birthday, husband, I wish you a rainy day under a tin roof, with time and silence and sobriety enough to truly consider what you’ve done in the last year to promote a happy, healthy life. I wish you the sound of a thunderstorm to drown out your demons. I wish you healing, because you have wounded many, yourself included and not the least.

For the two of us, I wish for peace and growth. In the next ten years, and forward.

They say that the best revenge is living a good life. They fail to mention how difficult that simple adage can be to follow. Especially when I’m losing sleep, I’m stressing out, I’m barely keeping my head above water because I’m drowning in rage.

I cannot describe how angry I am that the former husband still makes me this mad. Mad as in suitable for a madhouse, mad as in please don’t test my temper, both, likewise, whatever.

Last night, I had my very first bout with sleep paralysis. It literally feels like something is holding you down against the bed, you can’t move, you can barely breathe. I felt phantom hands crawling over me and grabbing me and pulling me down to hell. Very unsettling.

Now I’m attempting to write my feelings, because staying awake until 3, having a nightmarish night, and then trying to sleep the night after you had an incubus on your chest is fucking difficult.

I should head to bed.

I should be sleeping with a smile because I’m no longer in an emotionally abusive relationship, and cut ties with shitty friends, and moved out of a house that did nothing but hold me back. Yet I sit here typing, wide awake. I can still mull over these feeble words for another good hour and a half and still be asleep before I made it there last night, but that seems like a horrific idea.

The fact that I would feel better if a certain someone else, however awful a person, was feeling as bad as I did…that’s a bad feeling. It’s not something I want to be.

But there’s no closure. There’s not a drop of it in a vast ocean of grumbly tummies, tearful nights, tiring days, forced cheerful interactions with well-intentioned acquaintances, feeling broken and fucking BORING because I can’t shut up about someone who is very clearly Over It. Every time I think I’m moving away from feeling so wretched, something sucks me back into an undertow.

And I know you’re sick of hearing about this, loyal reader, because frankly I’m sick of feeling it. I know just enough about human nature to be a goddamn danger, because I’m feeling this all in the moment and maybe, just maybe, bottling was a good idea from the very start, but it’s too late now. The floodgates aren’t just open, they were never fucking installed in the first place.

I also can’t NOT handle this, because it’s happening and it’s my damn life. I’d love to say I refuse to lose this fight, but the fact is that when you’re cornered by grief, you don’t fight your way back to sunlight because you’re brave, you just happen to claw blindly towards the light in a panic. Because the dark is worse. Because the dark is something you don’t come back from once you give up.

I’d rather be bruised and bloody than beaten and bitter.

The anger, though, is suffocating my flame. I need some source of fresh air, and I’m at a loss as to where to find this literal inspiration.

As for now, I need to sleep. Hopefully rest, too. Not another night of terrors and my own personal lineup of demons. Serenity, courage, wisdom, etc.

One night at a time, loyal reader. Be patient with me, and I will try to do the same.