Looking back on the things I was writing before The Breakup, it's hard for me to feel safe getting excited over anything anymore. I was so excited about spending my life with Josh, and look where it landed me. I was able to land on my feet, thankfully, but it made the fall from grace no less striking. The house is so empty without him. Everyday life is so empty without him. But I have to move on. For future Me's sake, I have to keep moving forward, no matter how slowly, no matter how meaningless it feels. But what does "moving forward" mean for me now, mentally and emotionally? What can I possibly rely upon now (in the outside world)? I'm not sure if this is healing or just a sad surrender to reality. I think I'm moving on, I mean I'm moving my things into storage pretty easily, but moving on socially is going to take time. I don't want to be with anyone anymore. Things blowing up with Josh has shown me that relationships with other people aren't worthwhile after all, that you can't trust your happy feelings, and that it is better to direct that love towards yourself rather than anyone else. I don't actually know what the hell to do with myself anymore. I'm just living day by day now. I can't expect anything anymore. This is what moving on feels like? It feels more like I'm stuck in a moving quagmire, like a river of sand. The whole wide world feels like a potential nightmare, except for the pretty dreamy parts visible on Instagram. I can't tell what is important anymore. It feels like I am disassociating from reality because embracing it hurts too damn much. It feels like there is nothing to move onto. All my hopes and dreams seem so silly now. I shouldn't have shared them with Josh. I shouldn't have shared them with anyone, except my own damn blog. I feel like I am in limbo now: not ready to kill myself, but also not concerned lest I die. I guess I'll channel this feeling into artwork or whatever. And then one day I'll die and practically no one will care about it, and my ideas will die with me because no one cared about them while I was alive. But for now, I suppose I will go find something that brings me some small modicum of happiness, just to get me through the night. Until that moment that I remember how Joshua dumped me and I feel deep sadness all over again, I'll try to remain oblivious to my own pain so that there might be room for some joy to be had, should I find any.
When I look back over our relationship, it is painful to admit how naive I actually was. I really thought we’d both spend the future together, I really thought I had found the person I was looking for in a partner. I turned out to be so wrong, so all of those times I thought I had things figured out were actually wrong too. I should never believe I have things figured out, even when they seem so certain, even when I’d really, really like to believe I’ve got things figured out, I should always remember that life will always figure things out for me. What Josh and I had was fake— it MUST have been fake, because that’s why it didn’t last. It felt real, but it wasn’t, & ultimately we found that out. No amount of sorrow can undo reality: we were and are not meant to be together. I should have kept my feelings about him to myself. I’m right back in the place I was right before I confessed my feelings to Josh— albeit in a better place now than I was before, so perhaps THAT is the ultimate reason for going through this heartbreaking ordeal. If that is so, then I guess I can understand why it happened, although it still hurts like hell. The truth is, I miss him. I miss the happy, life-loving Josh. In a way he was more of D.’s boyfriend than mine, bc he did all kinds of stuff with her. Stuff he barely did with me. I miss that Josh so goddamn much. But he’s become someone else, someone obsessed with making money, and THEN he’ll allow himself to have a good time again. I just couldn’t handle it. I just wanted to have a good time with him in the now. I wanted to go on more dates, more hikes, more trips to the zoo. I wanted him to be my Pearlian manager, goddamnit. I wanted to marry him one day. Everything I hoped for is in ruins now. What am I to do with myself now that my future once again doesn’t have him in it? How will I ever hope for anything good to happen ever again? How can I ever trust the good things that do happen ever again? I still can’t believe everything we’ve been working toward together crumbled apart so easily. What a house of cards our relationship was, and I thought it was a mountain all the way up until the moment the tower of cards collapsed, when I was forced to see the truth. Why is the truth always so painful? It emancipates us, yet in doing so we are forced to realize that we were not free before the emancipation, and naturally we wonder what sorts of invisible shackles of lies continue to plague us unawares.
I suppose it's not as bad as it could be. Yes, I am heartbroken and yes, reality feels hollow of meaning, but I don't feel an overwhelming urge to actually kill myself to end the pain. I guess I'm kind of numbed out, but it seems like something I should be thankful for, so I am am thankful for it. I'm no longer convinced that death is an escape route, bc it seems very likely to me that the moment of actual death is what determines where one ends up in the next lifetime. So it would not do for me to kill myself out of grief, since the grief would likely just carry onwards into a new lifetime. I still don't know what to do with myself in general, so I keep doing what I've been doing: going to work, coming home to the little dog, sleeping, playing videogames here and there, listening to music, etc. I've also been packing up my shit to go into the storage unit. I feel so much better, actually, knowing that my things are all together in a secure location & I don't have to move them around over and over again as I move around. Closer to the end of the month, I'll get myself a mailbox for the same reasons. Even though life seems hollow, I do have my wits about me, and I am able to act rationally. I feel that getting a storage unit and a mailbox are really smart decisions. With my belongings and my mail taken care of, all I have to worry about then is where Medusa and I will be staying on a daily basis, and with this new lease I signed with Billy, my living costs really won't be going up much, which is nice. Medusa and I will be safe, and she will have Lucy to play with, which will make her happy. Those two little girls really do love each other like sisters. This is a good situation within which I can mend my broken heart. It'll be a new start for me and Medusa, and one blessed with familiar, trustworthy faces, Billy and Lucy. Maybe that's why I'm not feeling as low as I know I could be, because I know in spite of this breakup I am still blessed, and for that I am truly grateful. Now I can focus on healing myself from the sadness, anger, resentfulness and loneliness that I feel over this breakup, for all of them are still quite raw and visceral within me.
Medusa bridge, Lucy river
