Assessing Facts

I have had all month to fill out my self-evaluation at work and I have successfully put off doing it all month till now when it is due. I still don't know what to write. There is no upward mobility in my job and I don't need there to be. I'm happy where I'm at but every year we all have to go through this exercise of doing a self-evaluation and try to justify our existence. The whole thing has been weighing on me all month and I'm trying to finish it today and just not having any luck. In terms of how I'm doing with my feelings towards the break-up with Ken all I can really say is that it hurts a little less and he's on my mind a little bit less. I don't even feel like that is something to celebrate. Being in less pain, I suppose it is but I don't want to be rid of him. I creep his Facebook profile and he appears to be doing well so that is some consolation. I hope he is getting better cause that would at least mean something positive would come from this huge loss. The selfish side of me cries because it is obvious from his lack of communication with me and how much is going on in his life that he is just fine without me. Which is just my own habitual insecurity reasserting itself since I've long held the belief I am forgettable and undesirable. Every relationship that ends further reinforces this belief. He is just another in a long line of men who thought I was great till they got to know me and then realized I'm not. I reached out through text almost a month ago and he still hasn't even read the message. Despite what a small number of my friends say I can't think of any justification for that other than he is reinforcing the idea that it is over and he wishes I would disappear. Which would mean I was an idiot to believe the things he said that indicated there was a small amount of hope. It is typical of me to believe there is hope. Thinking back I can't think of one example in which this belief was correct. I truly believed there was hope for Vince and I. I couldn't comprehend that a man could be in a relationship with me for two years and not love me. I was convinced he would have an epiphany at some point not long after the break. I remember when he texted me three days after he ended it. I hadn't reached out to him. I was keeping my distance and when he reached out first it sparked hope. Four years later I know that there was never any hope at all. At least my desire for reconciliation with him has vanished. With no new information to go on I am left to assess the facts as I know them: 1. Ken asked for a 'break'. 2. Ken said he didn't feel the same way about me as I did about him. 3. Ken said he wanted to see me at Christmas (if I am amenable to it) to determine if it was just the distance that was creating the problem. 4. Ken has not communicated with me since the day he ended things 5. Before he broke it off he lied to me Fact 1 Nothing I can do about it. I agreed to it but there wasn't a choice to disagree. Fact 2 I went from a man who never once said "I Love You" to one that said it frequently. Both ended in the same manner - me getting dumped. Pretty strong case for me being unloveable. Fact 3 I want to see him at Christmas but I'm hanging too much hope on it because I like to believe in hope rather than believe in the alternative. It all goes back to me having to convince him I'm worthy. I have spent my whole life trying to be good enough for everyone. Always believing I was lucky to get any scrap of affection from my mother, my friends and boyfriends. I don't believe I should have to convince anyone to love me. I know my value though I'm not good at touting it but I know I deserve to be loved despite the insecurities I fight daily that tell me otherwise. I feel like I'm the only one fighting and that leads me to the thought that I need to give up and walk away because for any relationship to work both parties need to be fighting to keep it. Fact 4 When I'm in emotional distress I crave the people that I trust to be around to help and support me. Sometimes they can't be there exactly when I need it but they always let me know they are there. He is in a lot of turmoil and his first reaction was to get away from me. What does that say about the relationship I thought we had? My logical brain says that it means that I don't matter to him. That he doesn't trust me. That he definitely didn't love me. He didn't want my support or my love. The flip side of that is that he isn't like me and doesn't crave the comfort of others. Fact 5 He didn't trust me. So that indicates there was a lot that was broken and he didn't want to fix it. He just wanted to walk away. Walking through all that still hasn't helped me.

In the weeds

I am having another day in which thoughts of Ken and how much I miss him interrupt me every five minutes. When I had a therapist she always gave me good advice for coping with these difficulties. Since I don't have her to go to anymore I plumb the depths of my memory to try and figure out how she would tell me to cope with this. When I am in emotional pain my learned response from my upbringing has always been push it away and scold myself for not being stronger. However, my therapist taught me that pushing the pain away isn't dealing with it, it is just delaying dealing with it. I was watching Private Practice last night and Pete told The Captain that "There is no pill for grief. You're supposed to feel it." That reminded me that what I need to do is allow myself to feel it instead of my instinctual reaction which is to run and hide from it. It sucks. It means that I don't go anywhere because I don't want to be crying in public. There also is not guaranteed timeline as to when it will stop hurting. In the past my biggest hurdle was to stop blaming myself every time a relationship fails. I just heap all this anger, hatred and responsibility on myself because I'm unloveable, I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm worthless...this list can go on and on and on. It eventually leads me to being on the subway platform and seriously contemplating jumping in front of the train instead of going home. That is not me admitting I'm going to do it, it is just me admitting the idea has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. What stops me is the idea of traumatizing the person driving the train and the other people on the platform. That wouldn't be fair to them, in fact it is cruel to put that kind of thing on to someone else like that. So don't worry, I'm not about to do that. So that leaves me the only choice of facing my grief and pain and moving through it. In all this thinking that I have so much time to do I have realized that I put too much effort and thought into a particular outcome to this situation. I have several oracle card and tarot card decks and when I am emotionally messy I pull them out and they don't tell the future as much as they show me where my patterns of thought and behaviour are. So the message I keep getting over and over is that putting too much thought and attention on a particular outcome will rob me of a full experience. So instead of thinking about Ken and this broken relationship I am trying to find a positive response to the grief and pain. Which brings me to refocus my efforts on cleaning out my apartment. There is too much stuff everywhere and it is crowding me out. It leaves no room for anything new. I want to get rid of what I don't need. I feel like it is as good a place to start as any. I can't do what I really want to do which is talk to Ken, so I'm going to get into the weeds of digging myself out of the hole I'm in.

For a moment I was Cinderella

Earlier this year I reconnected with a high school crush. When I was 16 at my friend's high school dance this really hot guy asked me to dance. I was a shy 16 year old with NO self-esteem. At first I didn't even believe he was smiling at me. That 3 minutes and 59 second dance left an indelible mark on my heart. From that point forward Ken occupied a place in my mind regardless of where either of us was in life. We didn't keep in touch and as I would learn later he didn't even remember the interaction we had at the dance. He dated my good friend for more than a year but that ended at a point in which she meant her husband. Over the years I kept up with what was happening with him from my friends who had known him in high school. I heard when he got married and later on when he had kids. Those things killed the faint hope I had that I would get a second chance to be a part of his life. Even when Facebook became a thing I never sought him out until earlier this year. My friend Heather had told me about a visit she had with him when he was in town for work and it got me thinking about him again. So I went on Facebook and added him. It led to us talking a lot. We are in different cities so that was really the only option we had. When I friended him I was only thinking about friendship because what else could we do with so much distance between us? The conversation quickly escalated to flirting and I thought, we both found ourselves swept away by this connection. Our story felt really powerful. While I had been trying to be cautious and keep myself in check his enthusiasm pulled me in and I threw caution to the wind. He said some of the most beautiful and loving things to me and he treated me the way I'd always wanted to be treated by a partner. Except...he had several very serious issues. I knew what they were. He was open and honest about them from the beginning. I also thought I knew enough from having dealt with others that I had known with this same problems. I was wrong. I wasn't prepared for the abandonment I felt when he would stand me up for phone calls, which was our main method of staying connected. The pain of being forgotten or worse yet wondering if something had happened and he was sick or injured was so hard to cope with. The fear of the unknown became a constant burden. When he chose to get help I was his biggest fan and as supportive as I could be from a distance. More than anything I wanted him to be healthy and happy. I wanted him to enjoy life. I had grown to want a life with him. We both travelled to see the other and on my last visit to see him I thought things were good. Even now I'm unsure if that is true or if he was hiding the difficulties from me. Leaving that time was hard for me. I liked the life I had with him when I was there. He got two pieces of bad news when I was there and I did worry about the impact on him but upon leaving he told me it would not be that long till I saw him next. I trusted this and summoned my strength and went on with it. This period of separation was harder. We had made tentative plans for him to see my play in November and I had set up a dinner date with him and some of my family so they could meet him. Come November I started to feel reluctance from him to talk to me. He would make it happen when I asked but I could feel there was resistance on his part and I didn't know why. This amped up my fear response because I know what this is cause I've been through it before. That shift in the balance when you feel you have become the only one who cares about the relationship anymore. My brain starts spinning trying to find the point in time in which the change occurred and I still can't pinpoint it. It didn't help that as I was feeling this a lot of change was happening in his life that he had very little control over. He was overwhelmed with stress that amplified his existing problems and my requests to communicate with him were becoming too much for him to bear. I just wanted to know what was going on and how he was and how I could help. I felt cut off from him and felt jealousy stirring towards all the people that got to interact with him on a daily basis. I resented them for taking up his time. I resented his living situation for making it harder for us to talk because he rarely had privacy. I resented that I lived so far away from him. I even started looking for jobs there and contemplated moving. I wanted to make this work with all I had because he was worth it. Problems, issues and all he was worth it. Then last Thursday he pulled the rug out from under me and asked that we take a break. This came after six days of silence on his end. I was absolutely anxiety ridden and terrified. I thought I would have heard from him on Tuesday and he would tell me the weekend had been fine and now everything had settled down. When I didn't hear anything I went straight into an anxiety-fueled thought spiral including wondering if he was dead or if he was having an affair but the biggest fear taking up space in my brain was that he was going to ghost me. In desperation I texted his roommate to try and see if there was a logical explanation for the silence. Uncharacteristic of her she was clueless. She told me she hadn't seen much of him in the last few days and had no idea what the issue could be. I immediately regretted the decision to approach her and for getting emotional in my responses to her. At one point I said that if "he missed me as much as I missed him I would have heard from him by now". Having gained nothing but more anxiety from that conversation I vowed to myself I would not contact her again. Thursday when I arrived home from work I saw a text from him asking if he could call me when I got home. I knew in that instant what he was going to tell me. So I took a deep breath and let him know I was home. I honestly had no idea how I was going to talk to him when I felt like the walls were closing in on me. He didn't leave it hanging. I asked firstly if he was ok. He assured me he was but that he had to tell me something. That was when he put it to me that he needed a break. He said that he realized over the weekend that being out of touch from me proved to him that he didn't feel the need to talk to me as much as I felt it to talk to him. Immediate pain cut through me. Here I go again. Another man who can't stand to know me. Who can't love me. Who doesn't want me. All of that comes back. He puts forward the idea that what is going on for him right now is a symptom of the physical distance between us. That he would still like to see me at Christmas and find out if those feelings reignite when we see each other. He told me I could let him know later how I feel about that. When I suggested he may change his mind by then he said that he wouldn't and would still like to see me. He said he was going to get himself better. He told me about the numerous steps he had already taken to do so. I found this hopeful because more than anything I love him and want him healthy. I didn't want to have to let him go for this to happen. I wanted to support him through it. It hurt that he didn't want me in his life. That he had begun to resent my text messages because I was becoming another problem he had to deal with/manage. I felt like I was bleeding out from razor slices that he was administering slowly. Each admission another cut. Slice after slice after slice. At the end of the conversation he told me I could take my time changing the Facebook relationship status. Another slice. I contemplated doing it right away and getting it over with but I couldn't bring myself to do it nor to bear all the comments and inquiries attached to doing so. I finally did it on Saturday. Saturday was my housecleaning day. On the day that Ken broke it off I finally got an ebook that I had on hold at the library for close to six months. It was a self-help book for losing weight but by doing it through improving other things in your life. I read the first few chapters and discovered it's a 7 week course. So I started with the week 1 assignment which is cleaning, purging and adjusting your living environment. So that got me started on 'improving myself' which is the advice I got from pretty much everyone. UGH. I love them. I know they mean well but it feels condescending. Saturday the cleaning/purging was inline with the book assignment and to keep me busy so I wouldn't spiral into sadness and hurtful thought patterns. That was when I changed the relationship status. That left me feeling scared so to ease this fear I sent him one last text message. I wanted him to know that I still loved him and that if he wanted to talk to me he could still text me but I wouldn't be on Facebook. Finally I just said that I would honour his request for space and not message him. Just before I was getting picked up to go and see a friend's play I started crying and feeling upset that there were all these unfinished things I wanted to say. I knew I could NOT message him. Instead I pulled out my stationary and started to write him a letter. So far I have written two. I decided that whenever I have things I want to say to him I've written them down and stuck them in envelopes. Come December depending on which way things go I will either give him the letters or destroy them when I come back from Christmas. Using the breathing techniques my therapist taught me I manage to get through the sadness and anxiety and still function at work. It has become a habit now that whenever I feel those bad feelings rising I just go back to the breathing until it passes. When I'm home if I'm still feeling bad I unpack the feelings and deal with them there. I'm more prepared than I was when Vince broke up with me at least. For the first time I feel like Cinderella. People have jokingly called me that for years and I had never once felt a connection to that character. Right now I feel like Cinderella after leaving the ball. I left my shoe and my heart behind and now I'm locked up in my room hoping my Prince will come and let me out.

1.your point :: Sibley 2.scarf :: itchy 3.termite :: wood 4.willing :: nice 5.silk :: scarf 6.center :: stage 7.flash :: camera 8.warehouse :: dank 9.costume :: bleh 10.candy corn? :: Eaton's

Wow! it sure has been a long time!

I can't believe it has been four years since I wrote on this blog. A friend's birthday dinner Saturday night reminded me how much I missed writing in my blog. I thought it had been a year at most but four....Wow! So much has changed in my life since 2010. I would say that it has completely turned around. And I don't say that to imply that it just changed one day, all on its own. I have learned, finally, that it doesn't work that way. If you want something to change you need to start making it happen. My problem with that concept prior to this was that it was such an abstract concept to me. I saw it as the universe needing to get around to making things better for me. It was a waiting game. I had to wait my turn. It wasn't that at all. When I last wrote in this blog I had been laid off from a job. I spent a year looking for a new one. It was the saddest, scariest and most stressful year of my life. I applied online, I applied in person, I went to temp agencies and I was even almost scammed by a company that charged you to help you find a job. Luckily, I realized it before they succeeded. I finally got a job by doing something I didn't quite believe I could do. I applied for a management position. I didn't think I had the qualifications or the experience but I got it. My roommate at the time pushed me to try. He was a huge influence. At that point I thought all the problems in my life would go away. At this point the next lesson came. You have to face the root of the problem head on and not try and fill holes with the wrong things to make things better. While I needed a job, the job wasn't the only problem I was having. For a brief time at this job I got to know one of the Lifeguards. We used to chat a lot. He was just one of those people that I immediately felt I could trust and I guess he felt the same. He told me about his struggle with anxiety and it was through his story that I found strength to finally go an see my doctor and talk about my own struggles with depression. This was the step that changed my whole life. I am very grateful to him for the courage he inspired in me. This is another life lesson that I want to hang onto. Every person that comes into your life, whether it be for a moment, a month, a year, or a lifetime has something valuable to teach you, if you are open to learning it. I now try a lot harder to be open to hearing the lessons. The one decision to seek help, opened so many doors for me. My life started to change from that moment forward. I like to believe this is because I was open to changing all the things that weren't working in my life. It is that decision that is the catalyst for change. Sometimes we get so buried in our own sadness that we can't see the way out. The truth is though that no one can rescue you from yourself. Fairy tales and novels have been pushing the idea of love saving you from life ruts and that it will make everything better for you. The thing they never mention in these stories is that it isn't romantic love that saves you, it is self-love. The moment you love yourself enough to change the thing that is keeping you stuck the world starts unfolding for you in ways you previously believed impossible. It didn't happen quickly. It was a slow build but with everything that occurred after...giving up on the hope of a relationship, getting into a new relationship, being bullied at work, work climate changing and dealing with angry and bitter co-workers, new relationship falling apart with no explanation, work getting steadily more stressful, getting a therapist, reading more about my circumstances and coming to understand myself and my thought patterns, my problems unraveling, reconnecting with old friends, being secretly set up with someone that grew into the healthiest relationship I have ever had, losing my job, making the choice to go back to school in something that really gets me thinking and passionate. As you can see there was a lot of negative until I started looking out for and building up myself. But it was me that had to take the steps to get there. No one did it for me. The key is asking for help and being serious about doing what is necessary to get it. I had friends that had been gently trying to push me to get help for a long time. I never did what they were suggesting. When I did, everything got better. So stop waiting for someone to save you. There is no hero coming and the reason for that is the hero is already there - it is you.

christmas eve

Here I'm sitting in church waiting for midnight mass to start. I'm reminded of the Christmas eves that I have spent here singing with the choir. Two memories came to mind as I was walking in today. One Christmas in which I was so sad and lonely that I started crying while singing silent night.

I remember how I felt and how hopeless things seemed for me then. That was a Christmas that wasn't so good. Another reminder was of one Christmas eve that was so cold outside that the car key snapped in my hand while I was walking to the car. I thought of walking home but I probably would have froze. I ended up calling my mother to bring me the spare key.

When I think of happy Christmas eves they were all the ones that I spent with my Grandparents. I miss those most of all.

Untitled by author unknown

Did you ever love someone,
and know they didn't love you?
Did you ever feel like crying,
And thought what good would it do
Do you look into his eyes
And say a little prayer?
Did you look into his heart
And wish that you were there?
Did you ever say "God I love him"
And never let him know?
Did you ever need a friend
And have no place to go?
The price you pay is high,
If I had a choice between life or death
I think I'd rather die.
So when I say don't fall in love
you'll get hurt before you're through,
Believe me my friend I ought to know
I fell in love with you.

Criticalmasscast

Starting this week I become a regular host on the podcast Criticalmasscast! I'm so excited! I guest hosted on an episode a few weeks back and then Greg and Ryan asked me to join them. I'm so excited about it!

We get to talk about some Glee and I came up with a cool idea to discuss our favourite movie endings. I already have mine in mind. Looking forward to sharing it. Hope you will all check it out!

You can download the episode probably on Thursday or Friday of this week at http://www.criticalmasscast.com. My first episode of it is here: http://criticalmasscast.com/?p=665

The new chapter

It's official, I've moved. I am now sharing a condo with Michael. Its so beautiful to wake up each morning with a view of the lake. It just makes me smile to see it. Its amazing!

The move went off without a problem and I'm lucky to have so many friends that came to help. We were all moved in in no time. I left a bunch of cleaning supplies at the apartment so that I can go back to clean it before handing it back over.

I went there today to check the mail and grab a few of the cleaning things. As I was putting my shoes back on to leave I felt my heart catch and I almost started to cry. I had a moment where all these happy memories of me in that place raced through my head. it was strange because I am going back there to clean still but it made me sad for the loss of a place that gave me my start here.

Will I come to love my new place as much as the old? For all its beauty will I still make happy memories in it? Only time will tell I guess. It is one way to mark the five year anniversary of my move here. It is definitely a new beginning.

Broken

Busted
Rusty
Outside
Knotted
Emotionally
No hope