Tag Archives: New York

Surprise

6 Mar

I’m pretty confident that nobody will read this post since I disappeared off the face of the earth for 18 months. I can’t just waltz in and out your blogging lives like this.

If anyone does read, I wanted to update you on life because this sad little blog has a happy, happy ending.

And I’m going to write more. I’m going to write my happily ever after. But today – for reasons I won’t go into – I read a few old posts. They broke my heart. For myself. For poor, agitated, heartbroken me just trying to get through the day and living the agony out here on WordPress. And for those who went through it with me, with their own scars to bare. And for anyone putting jaunty little terms such as “How can I get over a broken heart?” into the Google and landing here on Pizza of Doom.

I am struggling to even remember how to use WordPress. It’s been entirely too long.

But the short version of the past 18 months is this: I am living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan. I don’t miss London, but I do miss my friends. Work is great. I’m traveling a ton. I’m getting pretty good at copywriting in American English complete with missing “u”s and “z”s over “s”s. I’ve made great new friends. I’ve put on a humiliating amount of weight, but – hey – the food in this country is too delicious and plentiful. I’ve also met a wonderful creature in the form of my boyfriend. The love of my life – my best friend and absolute soul mate. He was made for me. I truly believe he’s the reason I had to go through everything I went through. To get me to here. Both physically and emotionally. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

My dear blogger cats, I hope you are all doing wonderfully. I wish happiness and love and amazing things for all of you.

And I promise to start a new blog. Maybe something a little lighter like being a Brit in NYC. I don’t think pain and sadness becomes me. Damn, maybe I’ll just blog about The Bachelor. What those girls could learn from me…

 

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Two years gone by

31 Aug

Hmmm. Not sure if anyone will read this post. I’m not sure what any of my readers are up to these days. It’s been a very long time. So long, in fact, that WordPress has kind of changed and I’m not entirely sure how to use it anymore.

As if to prove that point, my screen keeps freezing. But I’ll keep writing anyway. Because that’s what we do.

It’s been two years and 28 days since the Pizza of Doom, dear friends. Is it pathetic that I know that? Probably. But bear with me. I promise, I’ve done you proud.

Two years ago right now I was still a mess. The man I thought I was going to marry had broken my heart. I was about to start a terrifying new job. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. A lot of the time, I was struggling just to breathe. I know that sounds ever so dramatic, but the pain was physical. And deep.

A year ago I wasn’t sure that I would ever get over what had happened. I was frustrated by my inability to move on. I was angry and bored, and I felt that life had let me down terribly.

Well, dear buddies, I stand before you today (or write before you, I suppose) a new and very happy woman.

Have I met someone?

Nope.

I’ve had a few comical dates. I’ve had a bit of a fling with someone. But I feel so detached from the world of relationships that the very concept of having a boyfriend never really crosses my mind.

So here’s what is going on:

  • Work is good. I’ve worked hard, and I’m enjoying it. I’m travelling lots, I’m meeting new people. It’s exciting.
  • I’m exercising. I swim pretty much every morning. I’m doing Kayla Itsines too. OK, I’m only on week 2, but that’s something. I walk about 9 miles a day. And I’m still loving yoga too.
  • I went to Japan on my own for a month. It was incredible. It scared me, and surprised me, and delighted me. It left me unafraid, with an appetite for travel. And sushi.
  • And the biggest news of all – next month I’m moving to New York. I’m transferring with my work and starting over stateside. Am I terrified? Of course I am. But I’ve come to realise that the scariest things usually work out the best in life.

So I wanted to write today, because it is more than two years, just to say that I’m doing fine now. And, if you happen to stumble upon Pizza of Doom because you’re feeling sad and heartbroken and reaching out into cyberspace, then I can promise you that it will get better.

But, remember, nobody else is responsible for your happiness. Just you.

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New York

16 Apr

Manhattan Office Vacancy Rate Drops In Second Quarter

Well.

I haven’t blogged because I’ve been working my paws off.

But.

I also haven’t dissolved.

I’ve been in New York for five days. While I’ve hardly had time to eat or sleep let alone spend quality time in Sephora, I’ve also not had time to think too much about the ex. Or his summer here. When he decided that he’d never been in love with me. Sh**head.

As it happens, my walk from the hotel to my office goes right by a restaurant where we ate in the summer, on a hot July night when he seemed determined to pick arguments with me and act like an asshole. The ribs were delicious, mind you. Whenever I pass this restaurant, I do feel a little stab. But it’s a little stab of anger. Not sadness.

I think I find self esteem in my job. I find my inner Beyoncé. Although I’m writing copy and lecturing people on branding, not hitting the stage in tight-fitting lycra, it is kind of the same. Really. It’s my game face. It’s when I muster up every ounce of confidence and go go go. And there ain’t no space for feeling sh** about myself. There ain’t no space for a man who eats half a pizza before breaking my heart.

So there’s four hours til I head to the airport. Just time for a quick run to Victoria’s Secret and Sephora, and another iced coffee.

Maybe even time for a slice of pizza.

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Scaredy cat

10 Apr

DJ+CAT+NYC+2iks2x

I have so much to talk to you lovely people about and so little time in which to do it.

For now I will tell you this: I am going to New York tomorrow.

And I’m scared.

I’m scared of how it’s going to make me feel. I know I’ll be washed over with memories of my time there with him. And the knowledge that, well, New York’s kind of where it all fell apart. For him, anyway. I was sat at home in Hackney being miserable, pining for him, crossing my paws that he still loved me.

My counsellor says that I will feel weird when I get there. Really weird. But that I must try and “meet the feeling” rather than let it “dissolve me”. Hmm. I think I have a tendency to dissolve these days. If “dissolving” means breaking down in tears every hour or so and forgetting that I have mascara streaked right across my face.

But it’s my business trip this time. Because I do sh** like that – flying across the Atlantic on business. People pay for me to do it. I’m just as important as him. I’m just as good at my job as him (OK, maybe not, but I’m definitely quite good at this particular aspect of it – presenting and stuff – it’s my favourite). And, hell, I’ll spend as long as I like browsing in Sephora, thank you very much.

I talk a good game, but I’m genuinely a little petrified that this trip is going to erode me further still.

I guess I’m just a massive scaredy cat.

Meow.

 

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Saturday night

5 Apr

I’ve had such a nice day visiting a friend outside London. We laughed a lot. I came home in the early evening because I’m tired and wanted some time to relax in my own flat before getting some good sleeps.

It’s the first Saturday night I’ve spent alone since the start of the year.

I seem to be unable to stop crying.

Next Saturday night I’ll be on my own in New York.

Goodness knows what my heart’s going to do with that situation. I’m packing plenty of tissues.

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For good?

6 Mar

I didn’t end things with Irish Two on Tuesday. I will on Saturday. Much more to be explained, but on Tuesday I made him talk to me. Really talk to me. About his exes, his family, his friends. Trying to get a sense of anyone he’s connected to.

It made me realise with renewed ferociousness how our relationships change us. Forever.

I am changed. Changed through my relationship with my ex. Changed by our breakup. In all kinds of ways, and I’m sure even more to come that I haven’t even realised yet.

I used to be a huge fan of the musical Wicked. It’s harder to be a fan now. That last weekend my ex and I were together in New York I got us tickets to see it on Broadway. We held hands through the whole thing. It was a clammy July night. We rode the subway back downtown, drank cocktails and ate oysters on Water Street.

Not being able to listen to the Wicked soundtrack – just another way I’m changed.

But tonight I let myself listen to the song ‘For Good’.

I knew it would hurt.

Of course, the song is about best friends, not a couple. But much of it rings true.

He’s still with me, like a handprint on my heart. So much of me is made of what I learned from him. And, whatever way my story ends, I know he has rewritten it.

He’s changed me for good.

But not for the better. I’ve done that on my own.

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The Reclaiming of New York

28 Feb

Today I found out I’ll be going over to New York for work soon. Not ’til April, and just for a week, but it’s always nice to get time in a different office and do a bit of travelling.

This particular trip is very, very important, however. It’s The Reclaiming of New York.

The last time I was there was the summer. I was visiting the ex, when he was working there for the summer, when we were still very much in love (or so I thought), when he would set his alarm so he had time to cuddle me before getting up to go to work every morning. I was there for ten days. Six days later he got back to London, ate half a pizza, and broke my heart.

Obviously while I was in New York he made his decision.

Stupid man.

Since then, I haven’t liked to think about New York too much. Even catching up on the final season of Gossip Girl made me a little queasy. While I love my weekly dose of Girls, it reminds me of the day I walked to Brooklyn, missed Williamsburg somehow, ended up in the ghetto and was nearly assaulted by an obese man. When I saw my ex that night I was tired and told him my tale. He couldn’t have cared less.

This time New York is mine, baby.

I’m going to walk the length and breadth of it making new memories. Memories about me. For me.

I might even make it to Williamsburg.

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Somewhere over the Atlantic

15 Oct

I’m writing this from somewhere over the Atlantic. Which is kind of fitting, really, since that’s where my relationship fell apart. While he was in New York deciding that he had never been in love with me, I was in London falling even more deeply in love with him. And so, somewhere over the Atlantic, it broke.

I hardly slept last night (despite having some great new bed sheets with dogs on them). There’s something about visiting the US that makes me miss him even more.

It’s silly, because at home in London we live about a mile and a half apart. Yes, I think about him constantly. But why should it hit me even harder when I’m travelling 4,000 odd miles to a different country?

I’m thinking about last January when he had to go to New York for three days on business. I remember how happy we both were when he got home. How much he said he had missed me.

I’m thinking of the morning he left for the US back in May. How we said goodbye and then I climbed back into his bed for an hour and smelled his smell on his pillow. How secure I felt.

I’m thinking about his flight home, the day of the pizza of doom. Did he already know when he got on the plane that he was going to break up with me? Did he decide when he landed in London? Or was it something that happened somewhere over the Atlantic?

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