Loss

I cried half of the way home today.  I was mourning the loss of friends and family.  I've noticed that several, several people have deleted me off Facebook and are no longer answering my attempts to contact them.  Ok.  That's their choice.  Some were hurtful, but expected.  Soon-to-be-ex-husband's best friend.  I love him, but yeah.  Others though?  Ouch.  Childhood friend, I've known since I can remember.  FAMILY members.  And I don't even know why they decided I'm not worth talking to anymore.  Adultery?  My increasing showing of the fact that I'm an atheist?   Just tired of my potty mouth?  Secretly in love with me and can't stand seeing my beautiful face anymore?

Anyway, then I remembered what Derrick always says to me.  People are going to do what they're gonna do, no matter how you feel about it.  So, take it in stride and don't worry yourself so much.  So, I had my cry, mourned my loss, and then thought, fuck em.  I'm human, I make mistakes, but I'm also generally awesome.  I have a shit ton of people still in my life that support me no matter how much I fuck up.  I have great friends and great family.  So, I want to say I appreciate those people.  My awesome friends--those I made in grade school, high school, at SWOSU, in NOLA, and those who are in school with me now.  You assholes know who you are.  And my amazing family, at least those that are left after the smoke clears.  Especially my father, who can seem to uncaring at times, but really came through for me in all of this and surprised the shit out of me.

So, I had my cry.  Then I picked up my foster cat from the spay clinic and headed home to good African food, a loving boyfriend, a soft couch, a warm doped up kitty, and a glass of red wine.  Now I'm going to go get ready for D's very first American soccer game.  He's super excited and I'm going to enjoy laughing while watching him dance around to Bob Marley in his cute soccer outfit.

2013

A new year. I realize this year more than any before that a calendar date is meaningless, but it is still a time for reflection.

2012 was a time of amazing highs and terrible lows. I had huge realizations and big giant mistakes. I felt so loved and so alone. I started falling in love with someone new and started falling out of love with my best friend. I found out that I could make the grades I needed in grad school. I found out I am smart. I am sexy. I am loveable, fun, and all those other nice things I had a problem telling myself were true.

I started the new year dancing and laughing with my boyfriend, then passing out together in the living room tangled up together. I spent the next day with my family fully enjoying the day. D met my dad's side and it went well. He was great with the babies.

Anyway the point is I started this year the happiest and most relaxed I've felt in so long.  My extreme anxiety is almost completely gone. I have confidence. I have a really cute kitty in my lap.

2013 bring it on!

Fears: Both Irrational and Unfounded

Let's talk about a serious and a not so serious fear of mine today, shall we?

Ever since I was fairly young I've had a serious aversion to certain patterns, especially a regular, repeating pattern of small holes.  The first couple times I really remember noticing them were once on a plane, when I saw a pattern in the fields below, and another time with these awful shoes that were popular.  They were shitty adidas sandals with the rubber pegs that massage the bottoms of your feet, and we wore socks with them *shudder*.  Anyway, sock lint would accumulate in the bottoms and you could pull it out, but there would be holes in the lint block in the pattern of those pegs and it freaked me the fuck out.  Later, I saw an anime in which a villian had a beehive in his back, and an X-Files episode in which someone thought they had roaches crawling under their skin.  So, know, when I see these patterns, I think of maggots, roaches, bees, or other living creatures burrowing out and making these patterns in my flesh.  Fun stuff.  BUT, until today, I had no idea there was a word for it and that it was fairly common!  Trypophobia--but don't google it too much, lest you catch it--because I warn you, looking at enough images of patterns of holes in skin (photoshopped or not) will cause you to become revulsed.

On to the next--not being smart enough to finish this whole school shit I've started.  Seriously, pretty much every day since I started I have felt that I was the worst student in the class, that I couldn't keep up, that I lacked the basic knowledge that everyone else seemed to have.  But yet....I'm doing it!  I've had a few downs, but they are always followed by bad assery.  Yep, got a B and then a C (C is failing in grad school in case you didn't know) in Molecular Biology, but then followed that by A's in both Cell Bio classes (my major, so I better...).  And this semester, we only had one course.  A killer fucking course that was strangely organized and a fucking bitch to study for.  I worked my ass off.  One of our Halloween movie nights was spent with me hearing everyone drunkenly laughing in the other room while I went over and over and over the Wnt, Notch, and Hedgehog pathways.  I spent days (literally, probably around 70 hours) in the library for this last test, not even counting all the time I spent studying at work and at home.  And sure, a lot of that was spent going back and forth between my book and my Facebook....but--that shit PAID off!  89.6 in the class, which rounds up to a god damn A, bitches!

And so, I look toward my general exams next semester....the ones that gave me such horrid anxiety every time I thought of them, the ones that seemed so insurmountable and unpassable...and I think...holy shit, I can do this.

Ass Burgers

Its no secret that I have difficulty processing strong emotions. They either overwhelm me, or I shut them off. Its funny, there are a lot of psychologists now that believe this is what is wrong with many children on the autism spectrum, especially those with Aspberger's: they feel emotion too strongly from a young age, it is too intense for them, and so they turn it off. Ok, I digress. I'm cycling right now. I'm doing a lot of unhealthy avoidance (not calling my father back even though I had like 6 missed calls from him). I'm very upset, then I'm very content, then I'm completely numb. Yesterday was a lovely day, truly, it was very relaxing and comforting and fun. But underneath the entire day ran a little river of anxiety. I've found in the past 2 weeks that it is manifesting itself by a little prickle at the back of my neck. My neck feels hot, or itchy, or just strange. Its like a little reminder that no matter how much I'm enjoying that minute, there's still so much to fret about. Christmas break should be interesting. I'm not looking forward to most of it, but I am glad to get to see my brothers. And my lovely sisters-in-law. But I don't want to explain anything. I don't want to talk about any of it. I don't know who should know what, and how much to divulge, and what will be said. I feel like the emotional parts of my brain are atrophying. I'm killing them with lack of oxygen. A large part of me would like that, a constant numbness. But I know that's silly, and I need to start the process of cultivating feelings again. It will be painful, it is all so raw and it hurts to even look at it, much less dig around to try to mend it. Plus I have made myself so alone in this--I have people I can talk to about aspects of my life, but not one person right now that I'm fully honest with about everything. I've lost that, and I need to find a way to trust someone enough to gain it back. We'll see.

Clarification

I don't know that I made myself fully clear in the last post. I did not leave my husband for my boyfriend. I was determined that the only reason I would leave him was because I didn't think we could make it work. And this is what happened. It wasn't choosing one over the other, it was realizing that the second one happened because of how bad the first relationship was for me. No one can replace my husband in my heart--no one. He was my first love, my best friend half of my life, and all of my adult life. We went through so fucking much together I don't know how we aren't more broken than we are. I will always be in debt to him for how much he has given me and done for me.

The Story

Look let's lay it all out, even though I don't know who actually reads this and what good if any it will do. I was in a very long term relationship. He is my family, my longest friend. I love him still and I always will, that is for certain. But things were falling apart, slowly but surely even though we didn't see it. I had decided that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this person. I meant that. But in the midst of all my unhappiness, my strong, long-held belief that everything in the relationship that was bad was my fault, and my awful self-esteem I started to yearn for something else. I started noticing that other people noticed me. It started with some fucking fast food guy who flirted with me and called me beautiful when I checked out. Really? Someone could think of me that way? It was stupid but I let myself go a little bit. But then I realized I was being stupid and pulled back before anything happened...this guy was gross. It happened several more times; people talking to me, flirting with me. I have never, ever been the kind of person that gets hit on. Or at least not that I ever noticed. So, it was a very new feeling for me. I had been feeling so miserable and so down on myself that any of it just made my day, my week. So, then there was a guy that was flirting with me who I actually thought was cute, and sweet. It started out fairly innocent but turned after a bit. I started deluding myself, thinking I could lead these two lives. I split my mind, and my personality, to an extent. I wouldn't even talk to my counselor about the other life, he was a part of one and not the other. But I still loved my fiancee. And so I married him, thinking I could keep leading this other life for a while and then figure it out later. By this point, my new relationship had serious feelings involved with it, and so, even though he didn't say anything, I hurt him immensely when I got married. But he did not say anything, even when asked, because he wanted me to do what I wanted and needed to do, without any pushing from him either way. And so, stupidly, I got married while engaging in an affair. It is awful and fairly unforgivable. It is embarrassing and shameful. It ended up hurting so many people. I loved my wedding. It was the best night of my life. I have never felt so surrounded by love, and I have never had so much fun. When I said my vows that day I fully believed every word. I love that man, I really do. But love is not enough, sometimes. Things add up, make this giant pile of bullshit. And suddenly, you find yourself unable to carry on with a relationship that makes you feel like a piece of shit. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't my fault, it was our fault. It was made of up misunderstandings, not knowing ourselves, blindness, ignorance, and apathy. I moved in with "the other man". This was an asshole move, but really, I have nowhere else to go, other than crashing on a succession of friends' couches, which--with school right now--would make me fall apart. Plus, he and I truly do care about each other. We make it work. We compromise, we fight and then make up, we enjoy each other's company. I'm in a new relationship, and yes, all this may pass. We may grow tired of each other, we may not work out. But I've figured out that being alone is not the end of the world. It is far better than staying in a toxic marriage that will make me miserable for the rest of my life. I'm sorry to those that I have hurt, especially my soon to be ex-husband. He is in a lot of pain, and that is killing me. The friends that I know I am losing will leave a hole in my heart. I hate that his family and mine are saddened by all of this. But I just want you to know that although I made awful mistakes, and this all should have gone down completely differently, I do think that where I am now will be a better place than where I was before. And if I'm wrong? I now know that I do have the strength to figure it out and do what is right for me. I will be happy. As for other things, when my husband found out about my affair, I told him things to make him feel better. I didn't realized some of these falsehoods would come back to bite me in the ass so bad. This new man is not a horrible person. He treats me well and with respect. He feels bad for being with me when I was taken. Ok, I've been sleeping poorly, so I hope this conveys what I intended it to. I hope we can all get past this and get to our happy place. I'm an asshole and I'm sorry that others are in pain because I couldn't get my shit together.

Brave Face

Haha, I kid myself. I'm not really that ok.....