Still truckin'

The aftermath has been pretty brutal, I'll admit.

These last four and a half months, they've been a lot of things, but mostly they've been the darkest depression I've seen in years. All the mean things I could possibly say to myself, I said. All the worst things I could think, I thought. I cried, all the damn time, and I stewed and lost sleep and ate my feelings and stopped working out.

I kept messing around with Noah, though, until February. Not that I had changed my mind about wanting him the hell out of my life, but I didn't know how to execute that strategy, and I felt that since he had never done anything overtly unkind (more oblivious and selfish), I couldn't put my foot down that firmly and walk away.

He finally fucked up though, in a way that couldn't be denied, when he ignored me for three weeks and texted me with a straight-up booty call late one Friday night. I didn't respond, and stayed silent even after he "apologized" for his inappropriateness the next day. The following week he decided to tell me he was thinking of me, but again it was in the middle of the night on Saturday. So I let him have it the next day, and pointed out his pattern of only thinking of me late on weekend nights when he's drunk, and that he clearly sees me as a booty call and worth nothing more. He told me that I knew there was "more to it than that," and I set it straight in one message, citing his mixed signals and the obvious heartbreak and healing I've had these past few months. I told him I wasn't asking him to commit to me, but that he couldn't ask me to be a convenient piece of ass either.

And that was it, and it's been two full months since that conversation, and I'm actually starting to piece myself back together. Gradually.

I'm feeling more cheerful, I'm nicer to myself, and I am feeling the motivation to get healthy again and maybe be social again. It's so slow, because I truly think I was shattered. I was rock bottom, I was close to the edge and close to the end, contemplating why the hell I even bothered trying anymore and what the major consequences of ending it would be. Obviously nobody benefits from that sort of pit, but I was stuck in it, and it was awful, and somehow I still managed to function at work and pay my bills.

And I think I might have had a turning point in early April during our spring break, when I took myself on a short solo camping trip in northern Arizona. It was beautiful, I spent time by myself with nature, and just processed how I felt. I didn't exactly reach any conclusions, but I started thinking different, new thoughts, rather than letting the old awful ones tumble around in there. I got some new ideas in my head, and new fodder for my heart, and I think honestly I started healing.

So it's been about a month of healing, I'd say. A month. That's after a break-up that happened at the beginning of JULY. After an abortion the second day of JANUARY. And here I am in May, having dragged myself through another school year while just barely holding on to my work load and my last shred of self-confidence.

I'm grateful for Lisa, who has propped me up and believed in me through this whole process. I'm very grateful for a handful of genuinely strong friends who spotted me in the water and did their best to keep me afloat. I'm also pretty lucky to have spent this year with some pretty awesome kids; they're such nice people and I hope we have a mutual affection for one another, since I'm afraid I'm too much of a hothead for my kids to really love me. But who knows.

Anyway, my new gym membership is on its fifth day, and I've had my 3rd workout already. It's three blocks away, and I can run/bike/drive there easily, and I can work out basically whenever I want and whenever I have free time. I can already feel the winds changing...