Tag Archives: sadness

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My first boyfriends

26 Oct

When I was nine, I fell in love for the first time. Well, “fell in love” as much as you can at the age of nine. I officially became the girlfriend of a boy in my class, who I’d been hanging out with for weeks. We both went to “Zoo Club” on Saturday mornings (it only strikes me as weird 23 years later that my school took us to Glasgow Zoo on Saturdays). We were also both really into Lego. I can’t remember how long we were officially together. I know that we broke up before my tenth birthday, when I was home (sick with tonsillitis) and he refused to sign my birthday/get well card from my class. What an asshole. Anyway, that guy got married yesterday.

My second boyfriend became one of my best friends towards the end of high school, and then we both went to study at the same university. It was during first year of uni that we officially got together. It was all very dramatic. I think we were more in love with the idea of being in love than we were with each other. We’d fight and then make up with the choreography and hyperbole of a season of 90210. To this day I’m sad that it ruined an otherwise lovely friendship. I broke up with him about a month before our end-of-year exams. Shortly afterwards he started dating a girl we’d gone to school with. Two weeks ago, they got married.

Incidentally, both of these guys have the same first name as my ex.

I guess he’s next.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Baking

25 Oct

Cat-Baking

I’m great at baking. I’m great at cooking too. Another two reasons I am astounded to not be married, and to not even have a boyfriend.

The thing is, after the Pizza of Doom, I kind of gave up on both. I used to bake for my ex a lot. He always referred to the time I first made him red velvet cupcakes as “a significant moment in our relationship”. It was. It was the night we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. After he asked me. After only four dates. Still bitter? Who me? Anyway, I’m sure there is some deep-rooted psychological reason, but ever since the break up I cannot get red velvet cake to come out the right colour. So I gave up. I have nobody to bake for. There was no pleasure to be had in creating beautiful things in my kitchen. I just stopped doing it. And on the cooking front, well, is there anything sadder than some 32-year-old spinster cooking for herself?

I actually did start cooking again after last winter saw me chalk up around 57 colds and viruses. It was time to reintroduce vegetables. I still eat toast most nights. Or kids’ ready meals. But, sure, I’ll make meals and freeze them in pathetic little single portions for when I get in from work at night.

Baking, though, remained untouched. Somehow it’s a much more emotional thing. It’s a “nice to have” a “nice to do”. It’s love, presented in sugar, eggs and flour. And I’ve been losing weight, so the last thing I need is a batch of brownies and nobody to share them with.

Very recently I began baking again. I made a gingerbread brownie thing for a friend, and then took the remains into work for my colleagues. I gave some to Irish Two. Everyone loved them. And I really enjoyed baking them.

I find Saturdays tough at the moment. I invariably end up in tears at some point. And that pain, that deep deep pain, hits me in the chest towards the end of the day. Yet Saturdays are also my favourite days, because I go swimming and take my favourite yoga class. Today I got a mani pedi and chose bright orange polish that reminds me it’s autumn.

And then I came home and baked. Just for me. To make my flat warm, and let my living room well up with the smell of spices and sweetness, and to have something delicious to eat after my homemade autumn stew.

What’s my point? I’m wondering the same thing as I type this.

I guess it’s that, when life isn’t how you want it to be it’s all to easy to deny yourself niceness. It’s all to easy to ask, “Why bother?”. Why bother dressing up when you have nobody to dress up for? Why bother cooking when it’s just you? Why bother going for a pedicure when only the yoga people at yoga class see your toes? Why bother caring?

Well, buddies, you should bother, for this simple reason: a little bit of sweetness can change any situation. Not a lot. Just a pinch.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

What do I have?

14 Jun

confused-cat

I had a couple of weird conversations this week that, frankly, knocked me for six. “Oh, don’t bother listening to people who make you feel bad!” I hear you cry.

And usually I’d agree. Except in this instance it was my therapist and Irish Two. My therapist is a professional. And she’s never been wrong before about stuff. Irish Two, well, I knew he wasn’t being an asshole. He was delivering some home truths.

I’ve always considered myself a bubbly, friendly, happy joy to be around. Turns out I don’t come across that way at all. I come across as “low energy” and “unhappy”. Or, “nice but sad” as Irish Two put it.

So I’m left wondering: was I always this way? I thought I was starting to feel more like myself. Was I ever a bubbly, friendly, happy joy to be around?

Ugh. I do not want to be a big old drain on everyone else’s happiness.

I lost my mind for a couple of days, emailing everyone I know asking what kind of person they think I am. I also had some email chat with a blogger buddy (you know who you are) who made me feel approximately ten thousand times better.

But when I wake up every morning I’m still feeling confused as to who I am and who I’m supposed to be and who I was before the pizza of doom. Through the whole mess of the past ten and a half months I never doubted that I’m a good, kind, fun, friendly person. If I don’t even have that, then what do I have?

Yes, what do I have?

It’s not an entirely rhetorical question. I’ll answer tomorrow.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Don’t you remember?

5 Jun

I’m doing OK right now. Today I had a three-hour client presentation that went brilliantly (if I do say so myself). I came home in the sunshine, and packed to head to Brighton for the weekend tomorrow with my best friend from Edinburgh.

Has enough time passed for me to heal? Maybe. But I’ve also been actively batting away thoughts of him. I don’t allow myself to think of him. At all. Because it does still hurt. It might do forever. But I do not intend to spend the rest of my life being “hurt”.

No space in my brain for stupid, happy memories. No room to relive the stress of last summer. No reason to hurt myself by going over and over the worst time of my life. The shock. The grief. The falling apart.

It’s all packed away in a bit of my brain I don’t care to visit.

Except the one thought I can’t bat away is whether he thinks of me. How he told me he’d spent his whole life looking for me and would never let me go.

I must have meant something to you.

Don’t you remember?

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Breaking the connections

29 Apr

images-12

My keys arrived this morning. Sent from the ex in a package addressed to a friend at work (as requested). Wrapped in tissue. No note. He had already told my friend who was good enough to email and organise the whole thing that he wasn’t putting in a note as he assumed I didn’t want any communication. I wouldn’t have minded a note. I’d have liked an apology.

But the main thing is, I have my keys back.

Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, I logged onto LinkedIn and saw an update of him connecting with some blonde lawyer girl. My stomach lurched. Clearly this was his new girlfriend. There could be no other explanation, right?

Craziness set in as I came over all Nev from Catfish googling the poor girl on every social network. Turns out she’s married to someone else, so not his girlfriend.

I took this as a sign. It’s time to step back from being mental. I deleted him as a contact on LinkedIn.

There is nothing left connecting us. Nothing at all.

Except the memory of the happiest time in my life. And the pictures in my head of him, our walks in the park, his family, his friends, drinking negronis, kissing (lots), waking up together, blurry Sunday mornings in bed, and that safe, warm feeling of being totally besotted with my life.

And the horrible realisation that is was all fake.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The crazy hours

23 Apr

crazy-cat

I love coming home from work in the evenings. I love kicking my shoes off, putting on pyjamas, microwaving a kids’ meal, and spending quality time with my TV.

I look forward to it all day.

And yet, these are my crazy hours.

Because when everything else stops, the bit of my brain obsessed with the ex and my absolute terror re being alone forever wakes up.

And taunts me.

So every night I go to bed and find my pillow soaked from tears as I’m falling asleep. But when I wake up in the morning I don’t want to go to work at get all busy and distracted. I want to lie in my bed. It’s so comfy. Mmmm.

I go to work, and count the hours until I can go home and relax. Yet it’s not unusual for me to get home, put my key in the door, and start crying before I even get into the building.

I don’t have a point tonight or even a message.

I think I’m just a bit nuts.

But it’s been a hell of a nine months.

Aren’t I entitled to be crazy?

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Your life just changed

6 Apr

hqdefault

Goodness gracious. Weekends should really be at least three days long. This one has just flown by, and I really need to get organised for going to New York on Friday, but I feel very much not at all organised. Not one bit. Distressing, because life is about to get very busy for the next few weeks with work and trips and visiting friends.

It makes me think how different my life is from how it was last year at this time. And from how I thought it would be right now. And how I thought it would turn out in the future.

I’ve been talking to a new breakup buddy, which makes me think back a lot on the early days after the pizza of doom. The days when I actually wanted to die. I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but I did. I would never have done anything drastic or silly. But I wished to just not wake up in the morning. Tricky when you can’t get to sleep in the first place, mind you.

Anyway, the thing with break ups is that nobody has died. Your relationship has died. Or – as it can feel under certain circumstances – it’s been brutally murdered. I think one of the things I found hardest to deal with was the guilt. How could I feel so sad and cry so much and wish myself dead when the rest of my life was just fine and dandy? Shameful. Shame on me for feeling so sorry for myself over a boy. I still feel that way now.

But back in those early days one of my friends said something very true and very useful to me. When I was sobbing on her shoulder and hating myself for doing so, she told me, “It’s OK to feel this way. Your whole life just changed. Forever.”

She was right. There isn’t one aspect of my life that wasn’t affected by this. One conversation – one unexpected conversation – and everything got turned upside-down, back-to-front, rattled around and ruined. I’ve had to piece certain bits back together – finding my confidence again in my job, starting my new job without his support, making my peace with being the only one of my friends without someone, trying to reimagine myself in my own family as a single unit.

Hardest of all, I have to rethink my future. Because the future I thought I was going to have, and the future I wanted more than anything, is gone.

My whole life has changed. Forever.

You can’t underestimate how hard that is. But you can hope that one day you’ll realise it’s for the better.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

March

31 Mar

Springwell 2013 029

When I spoke to my ex on the phone, five weeks after the pizza of doom, I cried a lot. I tried to express to him how unbearable the pain was. How deep the shame, the disappointment, the loss.

He kept telling me I would be OK. Condescending asshole.

And when he did, I cried even more and said, “I know I’ll be OK, I just wish I could wake up in March.”

This was back in September. After the break up at the start of August.

It never crossed my frazzled little mind that by March I would still be crying every day. That things would lift, but still feel ohsolow. That I would still think about him all the time.

No, I figured by March I would be fine.

It’s the last day of March. I don’t feel fine.

But tomorrow is April.

April is my month. April is springtime. April is lighter evenings and sunnier mornings and smells of grass that’s freshly cut. April is the run up to May. And in May I go on holiday. April is my birthday. April is Easter and visiting friends in Edinburgh.

And when my ex wakes up in the month of April, I know he’ll have to think about me – seeing as it’s my name and all.

I hope it hurts.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Keep. On. Going.

31 Mar

cat-mountain

I just stumbled across this picture while doing some totally legit work. Seriously. My job is that silly.

Anyway, check out that furry little beauty. Look at that determination in her eyes. And she must be freezing her whiskers off.

Let this be motivation to us all: however cold life feels at times, run don’t walk towards the sunshine.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries