purge. july 24th (technically).

i've done well not to write. it's helped keep my mind off of things, if only slightly.


this week was a bumpy one. i had two days at work that started off horribly, but ended well, working with kim and aubree one day, and aubree the other.

it's just crazy. the quinn-free workplace is better, i know it is. having to do her job isn't easy, i knew it wouldn't be. and if i could walk around without frowning, my life would be better.


the transition has been interesting. there's a great disconnect between me and the other employees at that store, but now that only two of the five are left, it doesn't matter much. and one of those two is allegedly on her way out.

i worked 51 hours this week. it was not okay.


the weather was also not okay.

it was a full twenty degrees hotter here this week than it was in florida, which is unfathomable. i biked in it. i walked in it. i worked in it. i drove in it. and my wall unit has been running for at least four days nonstop, with the inability to cool my bedroom below 84 degrees. the rest of the house? SAUNA. cold showers every time. sweating while getting ready. just miserable.

and dealing with work being so hot and broken ice machines in the sweltering heat was a problem i did not want to deal with. not at all.


i've got my work cut out for me. sounds like the perfect time to take a vacation, doesn't it?

because that's what i'm doing. one week after my last vacation.


one week from today, i'll be at my parents' house.

it is so unreal. i can't even imagine it right now.

i know it's happening, it has to. but i feel neither ready for it, or deserving of it, or that the timing is right.


my visit with the shrink the other day was all inclusive.

i talked first about work. because it was easy. it's how i roll when i'm seeing the shrink. easy shit first, tougher stuff second, worst for last.

this was the most i've ever cried in her office. which blows my mind a little bit. and she said she absolutely picks up on my depressed affect.


when i got into going home, the tears started. talking about not being ready to go. talking about the grandparents and moving my sister back. talking about all that idle time.

i am not ready for my sister to leave. admitting to the shrink that the past couple months would have been spent in bed if it wasn't for her dragging me out was a hard thing to say and i had to take my time because i couldn't talk through my tears.

saying that this will be yet another trip where i go home and feel great and don't want to leave and think that moving home is the answer and that i'm going to come back sad made me lose it, too. because i told her, because i know, that it's not the answer. but it always FEELS like it is. when i'm there. when i'm leaving there. it always feels so wrong to come back here. because i always will opt for the easy way. the quick fix. even though i know it's wrong.

it's why i bought lottery tickets on wednesday and friday this week.


and when i got to the stuff about greg? holy waterworks. i knew that going into it. and when i started telling her what i was going to talk about next, it started. and i told her about erasing everything. and i told her that i want closure, that i want to know what happened.

she warned me that, just because i ask him how he feels or tell him how i feel, to know that it doesn't mean i'll get an answer from him. that i need to be okay with not getting an answer. that i shouldn't expect him to tell me what happened. and that i need to be okay with moving forward without ever knowing.

and i get why she said it, because she is absolutely right. but at the same time, i thought it was interesting that she pointed it out to me.

and what's ironic is that, this morning, i decided that i don't have anything to lose. and i took the four or so sentences i wrote to him at 2 am last night when i couldn't sleep for thinking, and with a nudge from nina, sent it to him.

the most important line said something about taking five minutes to tell me what happened so i can learn from this.

and sixteen hours later? fucking NOTHING.


good thing we talked about it. because i was mentally prepared for this reaction, specifically. and yeah, it's still early in the responding window to think that it's not going to happen. but fuck all. FIVE GODDAMN MINUTES? i am worth five fucking minutes.


the hardest i cried while i was there was when i stopped talking for a second, and she said, 'look, tea. this is a huge loss for you.'

having someone acknowledge it was a big deal.

i guess that, to me, from the outside especially, it seems like anyone would think, 'it was so short lived. it isn't a big deal. what is her problem? she is crazy.'

but to have her acknowledge the loss? and say enough about why it's such a big deal? it meant a lot to me.


i told her about my looping thoughts. how i did my best to not talk to nina about it much when she was here. how i didn't write for that week. and how frustrating it is to feel this way in every lull, because it is the old me. that i don't want anyone to have such an impact on my happiness. that i want to be happy because i'm happy. not because someone else makes me happy.

it is how i was that i fight against becoming again. it is me reverting back to nature. my natural state of being. and that i know that it isn't good for me. that it leads to me beating myself up about stupid shit that i can't control or can't change. how i can't stop thinking about it. replaying everything. and not being able to figure it out.

and she said, 'you just have to make yourself stop when you start.'

i was really hoping for some magical answer. 'here... do ____ when you start thinking, and it will immediately stop'. not really like the worry book, but mostly like the worry book.

i admitted that i got off track with that, and that the worrying had come back. but that it really helped when i was doing it for a couple weeks.


seeing her is never a fun way to start a day. it's not how i want to wake up, and honestly, i dread going there most of the time. i don't want to cry. i don't want to do the work. and i don't want to talk about all of the stupid shit i think and feel on a daily basis.

but that day, once i got to work a few hours later, i felt lighter.


we talked about medication. i told her that i want to first ride out the nuvaring wave. make sure that hormones have left my body, but i don't know how long that will take. and then i told her that this depression seems completely situational. and that i don't want to take a pill because i'm dealing with specific problems right now.

and she agreed. and said that i am tough, because i made it through everything divorce related without it, so it seems like i wouldn't decide that i need it now. or that i don't need it now.

but that, at the same time, losing my sister as my biggest support here, there might need to be a cushion that keeps the lows from being so low that i don't want to get out of bed.


again, with the 'keeping an eye on it' thing. i'm fine with that. i'm more open to the idea now than i've ever been before. but it's only because i feel super weak. like i can't do it on my own, even though i was JUST doing it on my own four months ago.

everything happening the way it did has completely changed how i think of myself as a person. i feel weak. worn out. downtrodden. sad. lonely. alone. and the worst is yet to come.

i just wish i could go back (time travel theme much? can i say it again, with more feeling?) to march. before i met the boy who has fucked me up royally. before i needed my baby sister to pick me up and brush me off several times daily. back to the time when i was kicking my house's ass, fixing shit faster than anything. handling work. having fun. fucking boys i didn't care about. feeling good about myself. feeling strong. feeling good about my decisions. feeling like my life was on the right track.

feeling like i didn't want or need some boy in my bed next to me more than occasionally. feeling like i was solid on my own. feeling like i wouldn't want anyone around that much anyway. feeling like i needed a lot of space and time. being comfortable with who i have become. feeling like i don't want monogamy or a boyfriend or to be married in this lifetime again. feeling really good about myself. and not feeling all the feelings that sappy love songs dredge up, or all the breakup songs for that matter.

not having a problem focusing on work. not having a problem with eating a shit ton of shitty food that makes me feel gross. not drinking three beers a day, at a minimum.


i just want to go back and unfeel all of these feelings. to be the super fun, super happy, super carefree version of me.

how could this tiny fucking thing make me feel worse than i remember feeling in the days since i left ever? it's ABSURD. i'm willing to say, without really remembering now, that this is worse than the end when i was still with him. which was the worst. i'm getting a little more sleep than that. i'm smoking a little less than that. all that talking and going through it with him was the worst.

how can a failed first flight of a baby bird relationship hitting the ground and dying (without explanation) feel worse than a ten year relationship/seven year marriage dying from years of neglect and starvation?

it doesn't make any sense.


on the bright side, as just perfectly executed above, my memory is SHIT. and because i did delete, i won't remember most of this in a while. and all i have is this paper journal that i'll probably put in a bin, despite only having a third of it filled, just in an effort to start over, to look back at some day. not much of the details are even in there.

well, i guess i have this blog, too. but i really did a good job of keeping a lot of things out of it in an effort to not put alice in an awkward position. i did a good job until i started to struggle. really, more specifically, until i started to get angry and hurt.


i hate that i keep thinking that i was right, back in may. that when i said, 'i don't deserve this, this isn't what i have coming to me, karma-wise' that i was predicting this. i hate when my fears and anxieties and doubts are affirmed.

for a minute, i let everyone else tell me that i did deserve it. for all of those years of putting up with ever's bullshit. that meeting someone so wonderful was my karma.

and now i'm back to thinking that ever was in love with me and i broke his heart when i bailed on him, and that this is just a tiny fragment of the heartache he went through, what i'm going through now.


i get it, karma. it's cool. consider my ass sufficiently kicked. to undo a year's worth of hard work and stress and determination in a few short weeks is a gigantic setback.


but just like before, i'll do it again. with the assistance of many distractions.

it's almost three. i'm not even sleepy.


i did something so fucking horrible today that i can't even think about it or i'll lose my mind.

in cleaning off music files from kit's laptop and putting them onto my new one, i inadvertently cleaned off whatever files itunes uses to make playlists. i double checked all of the music files as i moved them, making sure i wasn't erasing anything, and making sure everything was moved as i went. it was a triple check system.

but when i opened itunes an hour ago, to fall asleep to my favorite mix, everything was gone. itunes was like, 'hey. buy music. you have nothing in here.'


i hadn't emptied the trash, so i was able to pull a file out of it regarding my library. but the music files didn't come with it.

so now i have a list on the lefthand side of itunes that tells me the names of all of my mixes. but every single list is empty. and itunes thinks it's hilarious to tell me to add a song to my playlist. on every single one.

all of it is gone.

ALL OF IT IS GONE.


tomorrow i'll start the amazing process of rebuilding every playlist on my new laptop the right way, by making folders. i needed to do it anyway. i just hope my ipod doesn't crash out on me in the meantime, because it is the only place where the playlists exist.


the laptop. man.

my sister, in the singlemost beautiful gesture ever, surprised me today in a huge way.

we spent last night, late, shopping for laptops online. i was looking for something under $400. trying to see the most i could get for the money. and spent some time justifying buying it before i go home, where i'll be in dire need of a way to write.

and we found this deal that was super sweet. $350 for a 300 gig. i had pretty much decided to get it in delaware, maybe even on the way to florida on our drive. i was trying to do mental math, how much money i'll need for the two week vacation. how i'll swing it. if i can afford it, all of that.

and this morning, i was cleaning the kitchen. and aubree went shopping for the party we threw for kim's birthday tonight. and i didn't realize how long she was gone, because i was up to my eyeballs in cleaning preparation. and she came home, we unpacked everything. got the kitchen finished, got showered, and went to get kim.

and we get back to the house, and she tells me to help her out by grabbing the stuff that was in the trunk.

and i was confused, but dumb as usual. and opened the trunk. and there was the laptop, in its box.

and i am nearly sure i tilted my head sideways, confused as hell. and it slowly started to filter down. and i looked at her, and said, 'what did you do?'

and she laughed. and smiled. and i said, 'aubree? what the FUCK did you do?'


and i started crying, of course. because that is what i do at any new stimuli in recent days.

and she hugged me and said it was the least she could do for letting her stay here all summer, and taking care of her, not making her pay rent.

my parents didn't even buy it for me. my BABY SISTER did. with her first paycheck, that she waited all summer for.

because that is just how fucking awesome she is. she said something about fixing my problems one at a time, the ones she CAN fix. and i jokingly handed her my phone and said, 'here. fix this one next,' referring to that boy.


and when i took the laptop box up to my room, and started pulling it out and unwrapping it, i was so overwhelmed i started crying all over again. and went back downstairs to hug her and thank her again.


it feels good to start fresh. i spent the entire evening tonight, while we all drank and talked and while pam played with aubree's hair at the slumber party, moving everything off of kit's laptop and my old external hard drive onto the new one. and then spent a lot of time going through all those old files and deleting shit i never want to see again, or that i never will need again.


i'm getting really good at deleting these days.

if only it was so easy to delete feelings. empty emotional recycle bins and trash cans.

purging.

cleaning house.


figuratively, literally. this is what i do. when my head is fucked up, i clean. if i don't clean a room, i clean myself. doing dishes, taking a shower.

things are getting pretty clean around here.

i'll close this out by putting this out there:

i really hope that with all this cleaning and deleting and purging, that my mind follows suit. that i can let go of the things that are holding me back.

that i can do all the things i did before that made me strong and independent.