Three Years

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the break up.  I know we're kind of at a point where it's weird that I remember it but: A) it was kind of a major event so of course it sticks in my head, and B) I have a tendency to remember dates anyway, and this is definitely not the weirdest one I remember.  Plus the day of the break up was also Ex-Fiance's last day of school, so we were actually counting down to it anyway back then.

Anyway, it makes me feel reflective to think that three years have passed between then--which was absolutely one of the lowest and most awful points of my life--and now, when I'm probably the best I've ever been.  The change never ceases to amaze me.  I remember telling myself that night, "Give it 6 months.  Survive the next 6 months and go from there."  (Six months because at the time, it was both the longest amount of time I could fathom thinking about and the amount of time I thought it would take for us to get back together).  Back then six months seemed like this crazy, daunting amount of time--and now I've survived 3 years, which is 6 times that original goal.  It makes me so fucking proud I can't even tell you.  There really are no words.

The past three years have probably been the most transformative of my adult life.  I've changed more than I ever thought possible.  I think when you suffer from a mental illness for as long as I did, you kind of become convinced that it's the only way you'll ever be able to function, that you're just going to stay sick until it finally kills you.  I thought that whatever level of mental health I reached, it would be perfunctory.  I thought I'd make it to a point where I could function.  To where I could hold down a job and exert a little control over my thoughts and not spend all day every day feeling like I wanted to rip my skin off of my body (legit something I used to feel, btw).  I never expected to thrive.

But I am thriving.  I'm not just holding down a job, I've got a job I truly enjoy at a company whose work I really believe in.  I'm pursuing a career in an area that interests me.  And I've got a whole other job on top of that one!  I'm financially stable and independent.  I'm genuinely happy to be alive and and looking forward to whatever comes next.  I'm not anxious about time passing or what my future's going to be.  (OK, that's not 100% true, because my 30th birthday caused a bit of a quarter life crisis, but now is not the time to talk about it).

I'm not perfect.  There are still things I'm working on and still things I struggle with.  I need to lose weight and I need to manage my money better, but I'm still ahead of where I was in both those areas.  And I definitely, definitely need to find more time to devote to writing and creative pursuits.  Sometimes I get lonely, not necessarily for a significant other, but just for friends.  It sucks to have all my closest friends in other cities or states.  And yes, I know the obvious solution is to make more friends here in Flagstaff, but I have no idea how to make friends as an adult.  Through work is the big one, I'm sure, but my co-workers are all either married moms or hard partying 20-somethings, and I don't fit into either of those groups.  (Seriously, I never would have thought that 30 would have been more awkward than junior high as far as fitting in).

One really weird thing about being three years out from the break up is that I tend to not realize how much stuff I've done since it happened.  A lot of it is small things.  Like sometimes, I'll be re-watching something on Netflix (because let's be real, I pretty much watch the same 5 or 6 shows over and over), and I'll randomly catch myself trying to remember what my ex thought of it, and then I'll remember that I didn't start watching it until after I moved back to Flagstaff.  And it's just kind of trippy how much life has happened since then, from the small stuff like TV shows to the big stuff like mental health.  Honestly, sometimes it seems like everything with him never even happened, and it breaks my heart to feel that way, because I did genuinely love him.  So many things have come after, though, that that time is kind of buried under all of it.  Even a lot of the happier memories are starting to fade, and when they spring to mind (because they do from time to time), I find myself questioning the details instead of smiling.  It makes me so damn sad to think that how I felt about him has faded away like other memories do.  I genuinely didn't think that would happen, and I don't like that it has, because it just feels wrong somehow.

It's hard to put into words how I feel about my ex and the whole situation three years later.  It's not a consistent feeling.  Most days I don't think about him, but there are times when I inexplicably miss him.  Sometimes there's a trigger, like a song that comes on or something someone says or whatever, sometimes it's just totally out of nowhere.

I can tell you that I'm still not 100% over it.  To be honest, some of that is because I won't let myself let it go.  I can tell you that I'm not angry at him for breaking up with me anymore.  I am angry that he never came back.  More precisely, I'm angry that after I left, and then after he saw that I was getting better, he was never curious about whether it might work between us then.  I'm angry that he never made an effort to get to know the real me.

I wonder, all the time, about that.  I have for three years now.  I wonder what it would be like to be around another now.  If we'd still get along.  If that spark that was there on our first date would still be there, if all those old feelings would come rushing back.  I wonder about him, too, sometimes.  About what he's been up to since we broke up, about what his life's been like, about this experience from his perspective.  Aside from him moving back to his hometown a year after we broke up, I don't know anything about his life now.

I know, for sure, that I still regret screwing up and letting him go.  That hasn't changed, nor will it anytime soon.  I had an amazing man, we were so in love, and I completely fucked that up.  I wish so much that I had done things differently back then.  I may end up completely over my ex someday, I may end up married and spend my life with somebody else, but that regret will never go away.  I'm OK with that.  Corey will always be my one that got away, period, and I'll always wonder what might have been.

I fell in love with him on our first date, and I do still love him.  I would love to just talk to him, about us and everything that happened and where we are now and just see if there's anything still there, because I still feel like I haven't completely gotten closure where we're concerned.  If the opportunity for a conversation ever came up, if he were to contact me, I'd absolutely listen.  As much as I'm sure that'll never happen, I'm always going to hold out a little hope, because that's just who I am.  I'm not sorry for it.

But that hope, and the fact that I would still like another chance with him, doesn't rule my life and it absolutely won't stop me from living my life.  I want that to be clear: I'm not just hanging around hoping/wishing/praying for my ex to walk back into my life.  I've got my own plans and I intend to follow them.

So that's that, I suppose.  Three years behind me and my whole life ahead of me.  I am so excited for whatever the future holds, whether my ex is involved or not.  And I am truly grateful for these past three years, because even though they started with this awful heartbreak, they have been amazing.  I love who I am now and where I am now, and I've loved being able to figure out who I am as a person and embrace that.  I'm happy to be healthy, and I'm happy to be happy!

Las Vegas

So I am home safe and sound and in one piece from my trip to Vegas.  It was AMAZING and well worth how completely exhausted I was at work yesterday.  I love Vegas,  I love Theresa, I love her fiancee (Jenna), I love her future in-laws, I loved this whole weekend!

First some background.  I don't know if I ever actually mentioned it, but I'm a bridesmaid in Theresa's wedding this October, which I couldn't be happier or more excited about.  I feel so incredibly honored to have been asked!  The bridal party is pretty scattered:  I'm in Flagstaff, Theresa's other two bridesmaids live in Las Vegas and China, and her fiancee's bridesmaids are split between California and Colorado.  The China and Colorado people couldn't make it, but 4 of the 6 of us were there.  This trip has been planned since, like, February, so I've been looking forward to it for awhile.

I took Friday, the first, off from work so that I could get on the road at a decent hour and stop in Kingman on my way.  I went to my mom's and she had completely forgotten I was coming, so I unintentionally got to surprise her.  I got to town just before Austin was getting out of school, so I went to the bus stop with her to pick him up.  He was super surprised and RAN over to me as soon as he was off the bus, and totally knocked me over.  I told him he's just getting too strong for me, and he told me it's because he works out.  (True story).  After we got in my car to go to lunch, he said, "I KNEW one of these days you were going to come, Auntica."  I just love him.  We let him pick where to go for lunch, which of course meant we went to Cracker Barrel (side note: I always let him pick the restaurant because I know that's what he'll pick).  After we had lunch, I mentioned I needed to run to WalMart and buy a charger for my phone before I headed out (I forgot to pack my charger, natch).  So my mom said she needed a few things and asked if we could just go together, so I said sure.

Well, I should know better.  When my mom says she just needs a few things, it actually means we're going to be at the store for at least an hour and that we're going to leave with a cart full of groceries.  Groceries that then had to be loaded into my car and then unloaded at my mom's.  By the time I got gas and left Kingman I was an hour behind where I wanted to be, which was disappointing.

Also disappointing was the drive over the bridge to bypass the Hoover Dam.  I watched that thing being built for so long and was looking forward to driving it, but the sides are so high that you can't see anything over the edge.  Kind of a bummer.

I got to Vegas and promptly got lost, in part because I had directions to the hotel where I'd be staying but since I was running late, by the time I got to Vegas we were meeting up with Jenna's parents at their hotel for dinner.  I don't know how I manage this crap, I've only been to Vegas like a hundred times, but whatever.  Long story short, I did eventually get to where I needed to be and found Theresa and it was all uphill from there.

Friday night we (we being me, Theresa, Jenna, Jenna's parents, and Jenna's brother in law) walked over to the Bellagio and watched the dancing fountains for awhile.  Then we went back to Jenna's parents' hotel and played Cards Against Humanity, which was hilarious and very entertaining.  Later Jenna's sisters (AKA her bridesmaids) got there so I  got to meet them.  We ended up hitting the casino for a bit, and then went to our hotel, which was an amazing 2 bedroom 2 bathroom suite (seriously bigger than my apartment).  Theresa and Jenna had one room, Jenna's sister and her husband had the other, and I had the pull out couch in the living room.

Saturday was dress shopping day.  We started with a Starbucks run, then had an appointment at a bridesmaid dress shop in Henderson.  The place was honestly a little meh, we did find some things we liked but the issue was that they didn't come in the right colors (particularly the green that Theresa wanted for her side).  We ended up picking dresses, but decided to go to the later appointment at David's Bridal just to see how that went.  Between appointments we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, where I'd never eaten before, so that was fun.  It's a good thing we don't have one of those here because I'd be freaking fatter than I already am.

The David's Bridal appointment was much better than the first appointment, there were a lot more options as far as dresses, and we all got to just pull whatever we wanted to try on, so we ended up with a huge variety of dresses to look at.  (Plus the bonus of hearing Jenna's mom offering her opinion to the couple girls there who were trying on wedding dresses, it was hilarious).  As much as I hate trying on clothes and then essentially modeling them, it was actually fun.  We chose dresses there (the same dress for each side, in different colors) and I LOVE the dress we picked.  Plus the price was legit half of what it was at the other place, so bonus.  (Side note:  I totally teared up while we were dress shopping, because . . . I don't know.  This is a whole new experience for me, and it's so awesome to think that randomly meeting years ago led to that, y'know?  I don't have a whole lot of friends from college, and I've burned a lot of bridges, so to know that there is a person I met in college who still likes me, who likes me enough to want me to be in her wedding, was kind of overwhelming.  I don't even care how lame that makes me sound, it's true).

After the dresses we had dinner at a buffet, which was completely empty because it was fight night.  At some point after dinner, Theresa and I and her future brother in law went back to our hotel to change or something, and I left my wallet there.  So when we got back to the other hotel/casino to gamble, I had no freaking money.  I was so mad at myself!  And since it was fight night the traffic was horrendous, so going back to get it was absolutely not an option.  In retrospect, it's probably a good thing because I ended up spending way less money than I anticipated, but it still sucked.  After awhile Theresa and I just went and people watched on the strip, but that was kind of terrifying because it was so packed (again, fight night) so we went back inside and people watched.  Still entertaining.

Sunday morning we swam at Jenna's parent's hotel and had lunch there before we headed out.  I ended up leaving the same time Theresa and Jenna did.  I stopped in Kingman on my way back and got to spend some time with my dad, which was nice.  I ended up getting home way later than intended (Jenna and Theresa got back to SLC before I got back to Flagstaff so . . . yeah).  Work yesterday was just pure torture but it was worth it!

Overall, it was just a fantastic trip with some fantastic people, and I'm so glad I got to go.  Theresa and I have had a lot of great experiences together and we have a lot of great memories, and this weekend will definitely be one that stands out.

2 Years of Evolution

So I was actually going to write this post back at the end of the May (around the 2 year break up anniversary), but then . . . I just got busy and it got pushed to the back burner and I ended up not getting around to it then.

But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that today—the first of July—is actually a more appropriate anniversary for this journey I've been on. Because, even though it was on May 25^th that Ex-Fiance told me he didn't think we should get married, that relationship didn't truly end—and I didn't truly start to focus on myself and getting better—until I moved back up to Flagstaff. And that happened two years ago today.

Honestly, it's hard to even know where to begin when I talk about this. I've changed so drastically since that day two years ago that I barely know how to put it into words. I've talked about it a lot on here, in bits and pieces, but summing it all up is a challenge.

The day that Ex-Fiance drove me to Flagstaff felt like the worst of my life. To say I was miserable would be a pretty major understatement. I remember the anxiety and numbness coming in waves: my stomach knotting up, palms sweating, heart racing, and then a sudden detachment, a sense of almost nothingness, like I was outside of my body and all around not a part of what was going on. I didn't want to be in Flagstaff; I kept thinking that there was no way I was ever going to get better in the place where my life had completely fallen apart. I kept thinking about my nephew and and saying goodbye to him and how awful that had been, and how bitter I was at being forced out of my hometown and away from my family. At the time I had a crappy job and really didn't know how I was going to survive financially. I knew I needed a full time job, but I also knew that I wasn't mentally well enough to hold down a full time job . . . and I wasn't going to be able to afford treatment without a full time job. (How's that for a vicious cycle?). I didn't have a car and I was dreading having to depend on the bus system. And on top of that I had just gotten dumped; I was with the man I loved, the man I had fully intended to spend the rest of my life with, the man I was supposed to have married just the day before, and I knew that at the end of the day he was going to leave. I remember that he stuck around for a few hours, and that I felt like I was going to throw up when he finally said he needed to get going. He kissed me and told me he loved me before he left; I stood on my porch and watched him drive away and wished that I was dead.

On that day my life just didn't make sense. I looked at it from all the angles I could, and it sucked from every single one. I don't think I'd ever felt more defeated than I did that day. My future—to me, at least—looked bleak. Very, very bleak.

Today, two years later, I am happier than I've ever been. And it was just a normal, busy day; I got up, went to work (at both jobs), and came home to Jerbs and my dogs. That's probably the best part about being mentally healthy—that the normal, uneventful, everyday kind of days are happy ones. When I was sick I hated being alive, hated having to live through every day, but now I'm truly engaged in my life and myself. It's such a good feeling.

I've come so far in two years. I got an amazing full time job, and I've been excelling at it for almost 18 months now. I feel like a lot of my personal growth has come from my job at MHC, for a lot of reasons. The financial stability has been great, and has led to a lot less anxiety about money. I've also been able to start getting my credit on track. Aside from that, I feel like I've become a lot more confident about myself since I started at MHC. I've taken on more responsibility there than I ever imagined I would; some of the things that have been added to my work load are things that, when I first started, I didn't think I could do or would want to do. But now, I'm pretty sure I could do anything that was asked of me at work; I'm very confident in my abilities. And the confidence that's come from everything I do at MHC is what let me to be sure I could handle a second job. And let me tell you that having two jobs makes me feel absolutely amazing.

It's also been a great experience to work with people who don't know me as being sick. My co-workers like me, and just think of me as me. And it's been nice to be looked at like a normal person, to have been able to make friends and just . . . I don't know, show people who I really am. When you think about it, my MHC co-workers are the first group of people who have ever met me without knowing anything about my mental health history. And I'm definitely not saying that I feel like other people in my life have been judgmental; I'm just saying that it's kind of nice to have people in my life who never saw me like that. They make me feel normal.

I've stopped overreacting to things. I feel like in the past, things that were pretty small and insignificant would make me freak out. Like changes in schedules or the store being out of something I needed or whatever. Those little things would just make me go ballistic and ruin my whole day. Now, those things just don't bother me. And even bigger things that happen don't bother me as much. Like the flat tire on my way to work last month. Old me would have lost my shit. I'd probably have cried and screamed and kicked my car. I wouldn't have had the money to pay for a tow or new tire and I'd have made Jerbs wake up and meet me so she could take care of it. I probably would have been so upset that I'd have called in to work because I wouldn't have been able to focus after freaking out. And then I'd have come home and thrown myself a huge pity party and thought about all the reasons my life sucked. But instead, I rolled my eyes, grumbled a little bit (because no one WANTS to get a flat tire on their way to work on a Monday morning), and took care of it. I joked with the tow truck driver, passed the time at the tire shop playing Angry Birds on my phone, and then went to work. And that was just that. It didn't even remotely ruin my day.

I've stopped focusing on other people's lives and letting them effect me. Before I dreaded reading Facebook statuses because every little thing just . . . I don't know, made me get all over analytical about my own life. Any time a friend would get engaged or get married or move or get a job or really succeed in any way, I'd have an anxiety attack about the fact that I wasn't succeeding. I felt like a failure and everyone else's successes just reinforced that over and over again. It got to points where I wouldn't be able to focus on anything else and would get far too wrapped up in other people's lives for my own good. Now when I hear about good things happening to other people on Facebook, I'm just happy for them. I'm doing well enough in my own life, at this point, that I can come back to it easily. And even more than that, I want to come back to it. No matter how well anyone I know is doing, I like my own life better. I used to dread the future but now I'm excited about it. I see so much potential in myself and I know I'm going to accomplish great things.

I've stopped feeling like I need to define myself and become more OK with all of the parts of my personality co-existing. Before I felt like I had to pick who I was and whenever I did anything I wondered about how that fit into this over arching definition of me. For example, I remember once I got to thinking that I hadn't done a sewing project in a while. So I decided I wanted to sew something. And what should have been as easy as picking a pattern, grabbing some fabric, and setting up my machine turned into a massive anxiety attack because I just didn't know if I was the type of person who sewed. Does that make sense? My head made it a far bigger thing than it was, I guess. I just didn't know how to reconcile all the things I enjoyed into one personality. It seems so ridiculous now but it was a very serious issue at the time. And now I really get that I can be all the things I like and it's all just part of who I am. I sew, I write, I read, I hike, I work out . . . and it's all fine. I can do all those things without worrying about what they mean.

In general, my mind just feels more mine than it used to. I feel like I didn't used to have a lot of control over where my thoughts would go and what they would do; it was to the point that I couldn't really read books or watch TV or movies because I never knew how they'd effect my thought process. It sounds crazy but it's true. I was so afraid of the anxiety or depression or mania or whatever might come up that I just avoided anything I hadn't read or seen before. And it's silly but I missed those things, and having them back is a small victory but a victory nonetheless.

One thing that I haven't talked much about on here is that I've found my faith since I started this journey two years ago. I used to be a staunch atheist. And while I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all, my views in that area have definitely shifted. I don't know that I'd call myself a Christian, and I haven't read the Bible, and I don't go to church, but I do believe in God. I feel like my faith is something I want to experience on my own terms; I pursue a personal relationship with a higher power and that's that. I will say that I pray a lot, and that I feel very blessed. I see God at work every day in my own life. Like I said, I don't talk about it much, because it's very private.

Right now, I really do love my life. It's not perfect but it's wonderful, and I'm happy. I love where I live, I love what I do, and I love who I am. I am aware, every single day, of how fortunate I am to have gotten where I am from where I was. And I am thankful, every single day, for everything that got me there: for God, for my family, for Jerbs, for my ex, and for my own determination.

It hasn't been an easy journey, but it has been a beautiful one. As much pain and struggle as there's been, I don't think I'd change a thing.

Farewell Summer, Hello Fall

It's felt very fall outside lately, and it's pretty glorious.  This whole past week actually reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving Day in Kingman--fairly warm but with a chilly breeze and a definite cold bite later in the day/at night.  There are a lot of golden leaved trees right now, and dead pine needles all over the streets.  I absolutely love it.

I've gotten to wear my cute heeled boots to work a few times, my evenings consist of thermals and fuzzy socks, there's an extra blanket on my bed, and I bought an amazing fall candle for my office.  (Pumpkin Carving from Bath and Body Works=highly, highly recommend).  I also got the Autumn Day BBW scent for my car.  Sheer awesomeness.

The craft stores have all kinds of fun fall and Halloween stuff out, and it all just makes me wish I had my own place that I could decorate the crap out of.  Not that Jerbs wouldn't let me decorate as much as I wanted to, but something just doesn't feel right about decorating someone else's house.  (One of the many things I miss about living with my ex).

It's just so beautiful right now.  I love this time of year.  Something about it just makes me happy.

Life Is Lovely

Yesterday was just one of those days.  And I mean that in a good way.  One of those days where I just felt happy and content and where I was very aware of exactly how amazing my life is now that I'm mentally healthy.

I slept in but still woke up at a decent hour, and spent the afternoon cleaning out and organizing my closet.  That sounds so boring but I've been meaning to do it for a couple months now.  I definitely have a tendency to just throw things into my closet and never really put it away properly, plus I have a bunch of clothes I haven't worn in at least a year (all of which is being donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters), and there was still a good amount of Jerbs' stuff in my closet that I wanted to move.

Then I picked up Jerbs from work and we had dinner at Ruby Tuesday, then wandered around the mall.  Hot Topic was having a sale where everything in the store was buy one get one half off, which was exciting.  Jerbs bought me these three bracelets:

LEGIT--because it just makes me laugh.
On Wednesdays We Wear Pink--because Mean Girls
is freaking awesome.
I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good--because Harry Potter
is even more freaking awesome than Mean Girls.

Then we went to Old Navy to see if they had any good sales going, and to Cost Plus World Market because we hadn't been there in forever.  Then we came home and just hung out, and ended up watching The Breakfast Club (which I have now only ever seen twice, and which Jerbs knows every single line to).  

It was just such a lovely day.  I felt very content, and very contained within myself.  I know that sounds odd but when I was sick, I used to have a lot of problems with dissociation and derealization, and I spent a lot of time feeling like I was sort of outside of my body, like I was watching my life from a distance but not actually living it.  It was one of the most uncomfortable things I'd ever felt--that I've EVER felt, still--and I hated it.  It was when that feeling was strongest that I would really start thinking about killing myself.  So now, to feel like I'm actually HERE . . . it's pretty awesome.

I love days like that.  Life's not perfect but it sure is better than it used to be!