New Year's Eve 2015
Well here we are
again. Another year gone swiftly by.
So I'll begin where I
left off last year.
To sum it up, I made
the declaration to be healthy, mentally and physically. To pull it together
with drinking, eating and my biggest drug of all time, Mike.
So what happened?
Well, week one of
January was pretty good. I was on a great path. I'd actually started to try to
meet people again to move past Mike.
I'd texted with him
New Year's Eve on the way to dinner but decided that was it, so the next day I
put myself out there again.
Surprisingly it
didn't take long to get a response, and although the guy I decided to talk to
didn't turn out to be what I'd wanted, it was at least nice to know it was out
there.
So I was feeling ok.
Then we went to
Arlington National Cemetery the second week in January to officially bury my
dad. The trip was amazing. I say thank you to my sister Elise and my mom for
making it this way...more my sister frankly just because she really went out of
her way to make sure we were all paid for and comfortable in spite of the cost,
but my mom too for just being strong and enduring what I can only imagine to be
an impossible task. How do you bury someone and leave them behind?
Well, we did. In full
military style and grace. Mom and dads friends showed up too, but the best
thing for me was having Anne there. She was always such a light for my dad and
I loved that she was able to join us in this final act of paying respect to
him.
It was days of
emotion and overwhelming grief for me in the end. On the plane coming home I
had my biggest moment of sadness and loss I think I've ever felt in my life.
When we got back to
Atlanta it was miserably cold, rainy and just awful. I was sitting in traffic
for 2 hours trying to get home crying the whole time, and suddenly nothing
would satisfy me but hearing from Mike. So I texted him, and he responded, and
then it was off and running again.
In the next few
months I "dated" couple of guys, all the while talking
to Mike. Keeping him informed of each move I made. Getting his feedback. I
know...stupid. I think I was trying to make him jealous but that's impossible
to do with someone that doesn't care about you in the first place.
Also, my life in
general changed. In a good way, I was very busy with work, and on the weekends,
I'd most often be with mom. She was,and is, incredibly lonely and it breaks my
heart for her.
I don't go up there
because I feel sorry for her though, I do it because I love her, and I want to
make her happy. Unfortunately, we seem to butt heads more often than not, so
that's just made life that much harder. She wants me up there all the time.
Gotten used to it in fact, but we fight. Sometimes horribly. It's so
unnecessary too.
Part of me feels like
it's because I feel like she has no faith in me as a person. That every word I
say has to be verified by Elise or Beth. It's gotten worse as the year has
passed.
I'm now feeling more
like I owe her something rather than her just wanting me there because she
loves me. It's certainly not for my company. We can't even agree on a movie to
watch half the time. But she wants me there all the same, so I go.
Hey, parents are
human too. I can't necessarily blame her. I just never realized how much she
genuinely dislikes me. It's very sad to me, but I'll still go up and spend my
weekends and do what she wants me to do. I do owe her so if she can't feel love
for me, I'd at least like for her to feel like I understand the sacrifices she
and dad made for me and that I'll work to pay her back as much as I can.
She does like when I
cook for her, and when we talk bout dad. Other than that, I think she'd rather
not know me at all.
If I could be more
like my sisters, and keep my opinions to myself that would probably help, but
she raised me, so I'd think she would be proud of the fact that I have my own
mind. They do as well of course, they just don't speak about it. That, to me
feels like lying. It feels gross, and false, that's not me. I know there is
something to be said about restraint as well, so that's something I'm working
on moving forward.
Helpful or hurtful.
That is where I am now with mom. Will what I say be helpful or hurtful. I try
for helpful, or silence. Hurtful does come out now and then though.
I miss daddy. He
really did love me. He listened to me too. Really listened. There are things,
of course that i never have told him, and maybe that's the difference. I don't
know. I just want it to be better. I love my mom and all I want is for us to be
able to be ok with each other.
My life this past
year has been work/mom/work/mom/work/mom. Any social life I used to have
doesn't exist anymore. I think I've been out a total of 12 times in the past
year and a chunk of that was DragonCon (yay! I finally made it !) and a few
weeks in September when Beth and John had to be up at my folks house to get
ready for their wedding. Which ended in the last, and best night I had in 2015,
which was my last night with Mike.
So what happened with
Mike.
Jesus I'm not sure I
can even talk about it still. I am not as heartbroken as I was at first,
largely due to a new presence in my life, Justin, but it's still there.
Unresolved. As it will always be I guess.
We had a build up,
and finally saw each other again in April. It was like we had never been apart.
Then he disappeared. I got mad and hurt of course, then things started up again
in late August. Then, finally the last weekend in September, we were together
again. When I say night was like a movie it really was. We laughed, we cried.
We even had a moment when my favorite Radiohead song -Fake Plastic Trees, was
playing, where I was laying on his legs and looking up at him and I said,
"do you think we were just bad timing?" And even he ...as much of a
cold hard ass as he is...got teary and said, "yeah maybe"
Ugh. It brings me to
tears now just thinking of it.
But what follows
doesn't. We went on taking, flirting, making plans, but never could seem to
work it out. Finally, after what was suppose to be a real date weekend, where I
was meeting his friends and he was coming to Elise's Halloween party with me,
none of which worked out of course, he texted me on November
2nd, (ironically
the anniversary of his mothers death) and just apologized for being busy that
weekend. Then I just never heard from him again. Literally.
I wrote him for a
couple of weeks. At first assuming he needed space for the time of the year
etc, then thinking something had happened to him, I got panicky. No response.
For all I know he might be dead, or in jail, but most likely, just Mike. Mike
who instead of being able to say goodbye has to just fucking bail and break me
half, leaving the shattered bits again and again.
To be fair, I went in
with my eyes open, it just felt like it was really going to happen. Like we
were so close to getting back together and all the crying and heart ache and
waiting I'd done for 2 long years had been worth it, and of course, meant to
be. Not so much.
I finally stopped
texting him. I did, in December, finally write him a long note on messenger,
basically stating how unnecessary this all was and also, that he was a coward
and a user. Words I'd never said to him out of fear that he'd get mad and never
talk to me again, but words that needed to be said, because they are true, and
he knows it.
I did it in the midst
of my recovery from my last surgery...which has not gone well.
This leads me to my
current state of being. Surgery.
December 2nd was my
last hoorah of surgery. The big daddy of them all. The thigh lift. The risks
being higher than any of the previous ones due to where it is, and the fact
that it's rarely done.
I had many moments
where I thought seriously of cancelling this surgery. I even talked about it
with Mike right before my pre op. We had just been together and I asked him
flat out if he thought it made a difference, or would make a difference, and he
said , to his credit, that whatever he thought didn't make a difference.
Even though I know
he's right, I can say, especially now, as I sit here 4 weeks in, with a giant
gaping wound in my left thigh millimeters from my lady parts, if he had said
even one thing that made me think he'd have been ok with me just the way I was,
I'd never have done this.
Miles in debt before
this but even more so now, this has been the worst experience in a personal way
ever. More so because I have to do it alone. Financially it's broken me. The
cost of bandages alone weekly has exceeded my budget so much that I'm just
maxing out the last credit card I have until I can't use it anymore.
Ironically if I'd not
had the issue...the explosion...I'd be doing really well as most of the wounds
are healing very well.
12 hours in I knew
there was a problem. Massive pain and my left leg was tight as a drum. Long
story short, the next night it exploded with a giant hematoma behind the
incision right at the top of my thigh in my groin. I had to have emergency
surgery to close it in the middle of the night.
Once again, a
hospital bill of 22,000$ of which I have no idea what my crappy insurance I'll
have to pay, but I know whatever it is, I can't pay it.
Meanwhile, the
re-closed wound opened again a week later and this has been the scene for the
last 3 weeks. Peeing standing up, I don't even want to talk about the other
mess. Bandages multiple times a day, and it's not getting better.
Well, maybe it
is....a little , but it got worse before it got better. I'm having to pound 200
grams of protein a day and I'm going to try going back to work in 3 days with
no idea how I'm going to deal with going to the bathroom, or not being able to
wear jeans and ummm underwear, and leaky bandages, and a slew of other things.
I need the money desperately too, and I think I'm losing Home Tour America as a
client as well. It's unsure, and might in the end be the driving force to get
me to solicit more clients, but still, right now I just need stability.
There's nothing
steady,or sure about my life right now.
I have a few warm
lights. My family of course, my few friends who I hold dear, and a new presence
in my private life, Justin.
I'm pretty sure we
will be friends in the end. I like him but we're very different, and I think
I'm probably a filler for what he really wants, and he might be the same for me
as well. But I will say, he's here, now, (well not here WITH me now) but he
hasn't bailed through all this. We got together
2 weeks before my
surgery and I told him then he might want to revisit this in January, but he's
stuck around. Talking to be daily either on the phone, or texts, or both, and
coming to see me a few times a week.
Granted the visits
are a little one sided in his favor, but I do enjoy his company so I really
don't care.
I wish I could say
something about what I want this next year. I seem to do that every year and it
really never makes a difference. It's either there or it's not.
Tonight I'm not
happy, but I'm not sad either. I'm home alone, healing. Yeah I wish I was with
Justin, or if thing s had worked out, that other one..
And I really wish the
neighbors would shut up and stop firing guns...
Ok one thing I'll say
I wish for this year. I want to move. I want to get my house in order enough to
get the hell out of here for good. It might take me a year to prepare for it,
but I really am sick of this crap. My nerves are shot and I just can't deal
with all the crap that comes from owning a house by myself anymore.
I don't think I'll
ever get married. I don't even know anymore if I will even ever be in a long
term relationship again, or ever live with a man. I'm getting older every day,
and that dream just seems to be getting further and further away.
I'm not trying to be
negative, just realistic, and frankly, if I'm going to be alone I'd better
start accepting it finally so it won't hurt so badly anymore.
So it's almost 2016.
I'll text Justin in a minute and wish him a happy new year. I'm in bed,
completely sober, anxious from the stupid gun shots, and really, all I can say
I want in my immediate future is to get well and get back to work.
Beyond that it is
what it is.
Happy new year.
