A year ago today, I was shaken awake at 1am. The bait I'd set to catch my fiance in a lie... the bait I'd gone to sleep "letting go of" because I trusted how easily he responded to it... well, it had actually worked. And in 8 words from his mouth, words that only came from fear of being caught, my world was thrust backward so sharply and so suddenly that it still surprises me how *calm* I had been at the time. I didn't go Angela Basset in Waiting to Exhale, I didn't go Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. If anything I went Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats and just... existed. Not necessarily angry, not content by any means, but mostly just overwhelmingly sad. Another failed relationship.
You can only look back and see things in this sort of light, I know that. In the moment I think I may have portrayed calmness but really I was dying inside and my mind was on this hell-bent journey into madness. How can I keep him? How can I push him away? How can I afford my life? What will I do with no one in my life out here?
How will I do this on my own?
I reassured myself that I'd done it before and I could do it again. After-all, I'd been through a horrible break up before and made it out the other side. Maybe that was because of the Golden Year? Maybe it was because I had my network of friends and family with me all the time? So, blindly, I trusted myself that "it'll get better, just keep moving forward."
A week later I was promoted to the General Manager position at Pottery Barn.
Two months later I kicked Derek out.
A week after that I started seeing my therapist, Kelsey, every Wednesday from 9am-10am. There were tears, there was laughter, and after some digging there was more than enough heartache to last a lifetime.
The holidays came, more pain came, I sucked it up and kept going.
It had to get better.
Thanksgiving had me absorbed in work, Christmas was bittersweet, turned 32 and got super sick. Heat went out at the house, problems persisted in my life, and started New Year's Day finding out the house I was renting would be going on the market in a few months.
For the first time since the breakup, contemplated moving home to Wisconsin. Leaving it all here, leaving my job I'd fought to get for five years, leaving the past here, and crawling back to familiarity to lick my wounds.
Decided not to give up.
Started looking for a house to buy. Took it as an omen that my realtor was named Kieren, seeing as the villain in my books is Kieran, and I always like the villain better anyway. At least they're committed.
Looked at 36 houses over the new several months. Made offers on five; three of them $30,000 above the asking, still lost out on them. Heart broke a little more each time. Finally looked at a sketchy house with CRAZY colors that a couple lesbians owned. The house made me feel something the others hadn't... some sort of weird charm. Offered the asking price on lucky #37 and it was accepted.
More stress came. Therapy had dropped to every other week. Reconnected with Derek at the end of April, made amends. Suffered through May and waiting to close on the house. Life spiraled out of control, my paranoia took over, I was edgy and nervous and frustrated and tired.
Signed for the house, and then... it was better.
I moved in and just felt the shift. Going through everything last year with the unstable ground of housing is no bueno. Something as basic yet essential as your shelter should be concrete under your feet, not this weird liquidated mess of moving boulders and swampy trenches, but that's what I had. Timelines. Or timelimits, rather.
I think a lot of what I went through, at least the emotional aspect of it, could have been solved quicker if I'd just moved out of that house we had shared together as soon as I could. Maybe that's the role I just get stuck playing, "the one who stays behind"? As had happened six years earlier, Derek moved out and I had to stay to finish the lease. To be fair I forced him to move out but if the ends justify the means then it is what it is. Staying contained to the walls of a place that was once full of so much promise might seem like a good idea in the beginning, but really it's the worst thing you can do. You're locked in and stuck reliving the past like some broken film reel that keeps spinning and spinning, over and over. How can you ever expect to move on when there are daily reminders to the person with a freakishly strong memory of what had transpired in the house? We laughed over there, we watched movies right here, lay on the floor right there, made love over there.
They are the haunting images of a past life that don't die away, even if the person you lived it with is no longer there. And that's hard.
That's the toughest pill to swallow.
So now here I am, a full year later. I spent the last twelve months sort of counting down to this day, holding on to the hope of "you'll be fine when it hits one year," and I think am. There are still moments that catch me off guard, but they are few. And that's okay.
I'll have my next (and last) therapy appointment at the end of the month, and from there I guess it's time to just suck it up and get going. I have house projects to work on now. I have a kitchen to finish remodeling, and a dining room to put back together, and then a million and one other things after that. Money comes into play, which means more time comes into play, but it'll get there. I'm not the same person I was a year ago, though diving into what that means is saved for another time. I hope I never stop changing. Never stop appreciating the little things, no matter how much the big things hurt me. You can look at the little things as just drops in the ocean.
But what is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?
