Currently… in November 2017

 

Well, hello. I guess it’s been awfully quiet around here, huh? Guess I might as well let the cat out of the bag: on October 1st, my boyfriend of 3 1/4 years dumped me.

I hate that I’m “that girl” who gets her heart broken and completely shuts down, but, there you have it.

So I haven’t written anything in a month. Not that I haven’t had anything to say. I’ve had plenty to write about: processing the loss of a love you thought would last forever, being handed walking papers by someone you’re still deeply in love with and devoted to fighting for, apartment hunting for a new place to live while walking around haunted by the mistakes you wish you hadn’t made! Oh, October has been a shitshow, and I haven’t been my usual self.

I can say, though, that my new therapist — whom I met for the first time literally the day after I had my heart ripped out and diced fine and served back to me as Shattered Dreams Broken Heart Crudo — is incredible. Hey, I may have terrible luck with MEN, but I really keep winning in the THERAPIST department! I can honestly say I would not be where I am today without her.

And where am I, you may ask? Having been exiled from my beloved Greenpoint, I find myself settled now in Bushwick. Yes, Bushwick! I finally learned how to spell Bushwick, and now I live here! It’s my third day in this new place, I just decorated (read: hung my pictures and put new sheets on the bed) and I’m starting to feel comfortable (read: walking around with my pink zit cream on my face without caring if my roommates judge me).

I don’t think I’ve quite landed on my feet just yet, but by the time you read this, I’m doing the best that I can. Sex and the City taught me the equation for getting over someone: however long you were together, it takes that many months to get over someone. By 2018, I hope to be back to my “usual” self, but for now, I’m ready to blog again. And hey, that’s something! Please, no pity. Send me only puppies, sushi, and power ballads about surviving heartbreak.

 

FEELING:  Broken, lonely, hollow, pathetic, hopeless, unlovable: reach into the Bag of Sad Adjectives (Sadjectives?) and pull out a few. But also? A little bit…relieved. It was getting to the point where I was emotionally exhausted and getting stomach aches every time my ex was around. Fights gave me diarrhea. Real-life diarrhea. I felt like I wasn’t good enough as a person, because I was clearly not good enough for him. Now I’m out from under the oppressive weight of his disappointment in me, I feel a little bit free.

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WATCHING: I have been watching — you’re gonna laugh — 90-Day Fiancée and Married At First Sight. Because? It’s nice to see other people are worse at relationships than me? And since moving, I’ve been watching Catfish, an old favorite, and it’s nice to do something that’s “normal.” 

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LISTENING TO:  In the beginning of last month, I was basically in a state of near-constant panic attack. I didn’t sleep — at all — for an entire 6 days. Almost a week, without a single minute of sleep. Thanks to my bosses for understanding my delirium when I asked a million questions about spreadsheets. Then, when I calmed down enough to take care of myself, I started to seek out guided meditations. See, I’d done one led by my aunt about halfway through the month when I went up for a visit, and I cried the entire time but felt SO MUCH MORE RELAXED afterwards. I’ve been finding them on YouTube, because I am like HELL shelling out my hard-earned dollars for Headspace. Nuh-uh.

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READING:  I haven’t read ANYTHING this month, are you kidding me? I am looking to start reading again, though, and my new therapist has already recommended a book to me. I’ll let you know how I get on with it, maybe, next month.

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WORKING ON:  Okay so here’s an interesting thing: I’ve been working on learning tarot! Yeah, when I went to Connecticut to visit my aunt & uncle, I had my cards read and immediately after, I felt like A MILLION times better. You know how I’ve been really into Mystic Mondays, the app, right? Well, I had an extensive reading with a really great person and it was awesome to just imagine a future outside of heartbreak and hyperventilating. I realized, whether the predictions came true or not, my tarot reading made me feel like I was going to be okay. I mulled it over for a while, and then I decided that I could do that for other people, too! So I bought a Rider-Waite deck and a very basic book, and have been memorizing the cards six-at-a-time, every day. This morning, I officially crossed the halfway mark, and I know more cards than I don’t know!

Also, Halloween was ghost-tour WILD and I had a blast leading tours. Getting to perform, and do something I’m good at, really helped a long way towards curing those feelings of worthlessness that plagued me all month.

Oh, additionally, I told a short ghost story for a friend’s podcast, Did You Hear The One?, this month! I was terrified to do it, since I’d never imagined doing such a thing, but immediately after I finished, I was walking on air. I couldn’t believe I’d stepped so far outside my comfort zone, and tried something new! The whole ride home on the train, I thought to myself, “If I can do this, I can do almost anything,” and it was such a boost towards reclaiming my identity.

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THINKING ABOUT:  How to break toxic patterns in my life. What I’m going to do with all this free time. Who am I, if not the one who nurtures and takes care of someone else? Dying alone and unloved can’t be that bad, can it? How the hell I’m going to open these window if it takes one hand each to squeeze in the top parts and a third hand to lift the window from the bottom…

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EATING:  I couldn’t eat without throwing up from sadness immediately after for like, a week and a half? And after that passed, I decided to be kind to my body and feed it whatever it wanted. It wanted avocados. Avocados, drizzled in olive oil, coated in salt. And sometimes chopped-up tomatoes, similarly dressed, on the side. In the past coupla days, I’ve been eating a lot of sushi, since the grocery store down the street from me (now) sells really good quality rolls, and after moving, I was craving protein!

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LOOKING FORWARD TO:  I’ve decided that this year is the year I’m finally going to do it — I’m going to go to the Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving! I feel like the whole last year of my relationship I just sat around, waiting for him to want to do fun things with me. Now, there’s no reason to wait, I might as well just do them myself! Also coming up next month is my annual pilgrimage to Strawberry Fields!   

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MAKING ME HAPPY:  My new bedroom is so tacky and purple and cozy, I lined up all my succulents on the ample windowsill and splurged on brand-new microfiber sheets (I get to sleep on them for the first time tonight!) and strung twinkle lights zig-zag across the ceiling. I can see into other apartments across an air shaft – something I missed from living in Harlem. Peeking into other peoples’ lives is a secret indulgence of mine. It must be one of yours, too, since you’re reading this blog! And now that you’ve gotten to the end of what has been one of the hardest posts for me to write, tell me that my ex is trash and recommend a good breakup song in the comments. Come on. We’re besties now. I deserve this.


Comments

10 responses to “Currently… in November 2017”

  1. chelsea w Avatar
    chelsea w

    I won’t be all sappy, I’ll just say I was really wondering where you were…I was missing your posts. When my ex broke up with me after 5-ish years together, I listened to a buttload of songs from the 70s and 80s about love. Some that were all about the nostalgia of love, and of course, some about kicking it all to the curb. For some reason, Meat Loaf was a recurring artist. I have no IDEA why. I would make some joke here about eating meat loaf too, but I honestly think the only thing I could keep down was cheese and crackers. It’s funny though because I can hear one of Meat Loaf’s songs come on the radio and I will vaguely remember that time of me sobbing into my pillow so hard it felt like my ribs were breaking, but what’s so great is now I am still somehow able to enjoy it. I hear others say certain people (especially an ex) ruined songs for them, but when I think about it, I actually become more sad when I hear a song that reminds me of a happy memory instead of all the hurt that was caused. I don’t really know what I’m getting at here, except I know you’re a big music lover, so I was just going to say listen to whatever you want to and not to songs you know you won’t be able to enjoy later on down the road because of this crap. I hope all that made sense! Sending you good vibes and leftover sushi–I mean, just the good vibes.

    1. Awww thank you! I definitely think exes ruin music, but hopefully in time, I can enjoy the Talking Heads again! I guess it helps that mine & my ex’s taste in music didn’t have any overlap, and he always insisted on playing HIS music because mine was trash (ok in retrospect, this guy was a total snob about A LOT of things). So most of my playlist is okay. I did wake up with a random song in my head: Michael Bolton’s “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You” – and I have to say, it really does feel like that. Like, what do I do with my time, now that I have so much of it on my hands? What am I working towards? What’s the point? ANYWAY, I’m going to look into Meatloaf at your suggestion. Thank you thank you thank you so much for sharing your story of heartbreak as well. Ugh I feel like it’s so hard to admit you’ve made a mistake with your heart, so hard to talk about those breakups where you had everything ripped out from under you because it makes US look foolish for ever having trusted in the first place, SO, I really really really appreciate you telling me about yours. <3 Thank you!!!

      1. chelsea w Avatar
        chelsea w

        ALSO, I Just listened to you on that podcast and you did a fantastic job. I wish I could hear you do more things like that! I’m also sorry about the Talking Heads…(sAME AS IT EVER WAS). Sorry, had to.

  2. Peter Tarantelli Avatar
    Peter Tarantelli

    Hi. Like chelsea w I was also wondering where you were. The last few days especially and it got to the point where wonder went to worry. I am so sorry that you are going through what you are going through. When my marriage of 16 years ended, and I wanted it to end, similar to what you said about “waiting for him”, it was still so difficult. I found that I held on for all the wrong reasons. What did I do? Having children helped a great deal. I found new interests and embraced them tightly! I did things that I couldn’t get her to do. I hiked mountains. I volunteered. I found new friends. I travelled. I visited extended family that lived far away. Be strong. Embrace all that feels good and feels right. And keep writing! Can you share the podcast that you performed in?

    1. Awwww thank you for worrying about me! Thank you for sharing about your marriage, too. This year was particularly hard, in that it seemed like everyone around me was getting married & having babies, and I was just getting more and more depressed and lonely, so it’s a particularly hard one to swallow that now I’m completely alone and starting over. Honestly, it was what drove me to download a dating app! Not that I’m actually GOING OUT and trying to date again (I mean, I hope to eventually, but now it’s too busy and too raw), but it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only “single” person out there, especially when it really felt like everyone around me was happily coupled and moving forward in life. So, thank you for sharing your hardship, it’s nice to know that misery has company 😉

      Oh and I linked the podcast in the post now (smart idea!) but you can listen to it here: Did You Hear The One? My story starts around the 32:45 mark! It’s also pretty depressing, considering I had to pull myself together to do it like three weeks after having my entire life ruined! 😉

  3. O hai boo, I’m glad you’re okay though I’m sorry you were AWOL for such a garbage reason. 🙁 Enjoy that sushi of heartbreak and enjoy going out as a single lady~~

    1. Ohhh thank you. It really is a garbage reason – loving someone who doesn’t love you back, no matter the circumstances, sucks GIANT balls. Worse than balls: sucks hornets’ nests! It’s basically a terribly painful thing to have to reckon with knowing the person you’ve knit your destiny together with starts to loathe you. Ugh! I could go on… but I won’t. It’s done, I’m back, I took my hiatus and now I’m ready to get my groove back!! Thanks for sticking with me through it!

  4. Soldier on! Missed you and glad you’re back. Anything by Amy Winehouse, but in particular, Back to Black, You Know That I’m No Good, or Love is a Losing Game. Hold your head up, girl. We’ve all gotten through it…and you’ll get through it, too! Keep the faith.

    1. Excellent recommendations! I love Amy Winehouse! “Wake Up Alone” is about addiction but it also works, I think! Thanks for sticking by me, I have to say, I am taking GREAT solace in discussing OTHER PEOPLE’s heartbreak. Nice to know I’m not the only one!! ??

  5. […] for most of the past year, in anticipation. I think it was somewhere around the time of my colossal life shift in October of last year — yep, a scant 2 months after my 33rd birthday — I just rounded up for dramatic purposes and […]

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