If these are the kinds of dreams I'm having, I don't want to sleep.

I was in the passenger side. Max was driving. Someone was in the back seat. We were driving through a neighborhood. Went to make a left turn and there was a lot of traffic on this street. Very slow-moving traffic. A car parked in the ditch made me look and I saw a person in the ditch. It was a girl I work with lying on top of her son, protecting him. I was anouncing this as i was seeing it. As traffic moved away from that scene, an ambulance came down the opposite side of the road and stopped near her. Cars were swerving to miss something in the side of the street. I saw it was a girl in the street... with a bullet hole in her chest. Then I saw more people on the ground, dead. I looked around and saw blood on the sides of houses. I kept repeating, more hysterically every time, "People got shot! Oh my god! People got shot!"

Leave what's heavy behind

This ain't no time for regret
To witness without mercy but neither to forget
If we keep looking backwards, it'll break our necks
This ain't no time for regret

2016 taught me a lot of lessons. It taught me more lessons than I cared to learn. More than I needed to learn.

The biggest lesson 2016 taught me is that it can always get worse... because it did.

I realized recently that I have done a lot of forgiving this year. I think I can do lot of forgiving in the coming year as well. Other than the one person who will never receive my forgiveness, I think everyone else can pass if they want to reach out. Only if they reach out. I'm not putting myself out there any time soon, and I'm definitely going to remain guarded. However, I will try my hardest not to carry around this hatred anymore. I've made great strides by ways of moving on, and I'm not slowing down or stopping yet.

I had a list ready of all the bad things that happened this year. I was also going to list the good things. I had all kinds of quotes and references I was going to sprinkle throughout this post, but I'm just too tired. And that is how I leave this year: tired.

Good riddance.

That's it.

I'm done talking about.

Winter Hymns

I promise I won't make a sound because I figure you no longer want me around.

You came up in conversation because of course you did. When you show your face and pretend to be friends with everyone, they're gonna talk about you when it turns out you aren't and you're not around anymore. It doesn't matter what was said.

However, it did got me thinking. I remember when I used to be so worried about letting you down. I remember I was so worried about not being enough for you. I was so willing to change for you. I was willing to be whatever you wanted me to be. That's something I've never been willing to do for anyone.

It turns out I wasn't enough. But you're the one who let me down. My friends don't like you. I mean, they used to. The ones who knew you would tell me they thought you were a good guy. They liked you and were happy for me that you were there for me. They liked that you made me happy, especially when I had no reason to be happy. Not anymore. They can see as much as I can that your timing was terrible. You were just another blow to my happiness and my self esteem.

And this isn't about Jonah. Fuck him.

I think about you much less now. I'm thinking about the good things happening in my life instead of the losses I've suffered.

All I really needed was some closure. All I needed was to be told I'm a piece of shit instead of being left wondering what's wrong with me.

I'm trying to recover. I'm trying hard to believe that this new guy actually likes me. I just can't right now. I'm still not convinced, and I'm not sure what it will take. Because, let's be honest, he probably doesn't. He likes sleeping with me, and that's probably it. But he's nice and good-looking, so I'll take what I can get until it, too, damages me.

I still consider myself strong. I'm just experiencing a lapse in weakness... and have been for some time now. It kills me that this could happen to me. It kills me that this could affect me so fucking much.

And when I think of Jonah I am physically disgusted with myself. It angers me how invested I was. It makes me sick how loyal I was.

What wasted unconditional love on somebody who doesn't believe in the stuff... What a cold and common old way to go.

I'm trying my damnedest to never do that again. I will remain guarded until the day I die if it means never feeling so betrayed again. I thought I was smarter than that.

I can only hope I'll be smarter than that now.

I have some parting words for the year, but that deserves a post of it's own. So, without further ado, I'll bid adieu and go back to my private little currently uninterrupted life.

I want you to say goodbye and I want you to mean it

I have so much anxiety tonight that I guess I won't be getting any sleep before work considering it's almost 4am and I feel like crying and throwing up instead of sleeping.

Nothing happened to trigger this. I just can't shut off my mind. I can't stop replaying this year. I was doing so well at forgetting too... for some reason, it's all coming back to me.

If I had a gun pointed to my head while standing in front of a time machine set to 2016, I can confidently say without a doubt, I'd welcome the bullet to my head.

I wish this would quit haunting me.

Everything Feels Better Now

I think of all the things I want to write about when I'm driving in my car. I do all of my thinking when I'm driving. It leads to a lot of unhealthy thinking because I spend A LOT of time alone in my car...

I'm often in a thinking mood... Never in a writing mood.

Some things I think about every single day. Like, the same things. Every single day. Listen, I still think about Jonah. A lot. It's getting better though. I don't miss him. I mostly think about how I loathe him. Thinking about it as often as I have has helped me draw conclusions and find a little bit of closure. I used to wonder why me? Like, why did he choose to drag me into all of that shit? Why did he choose to include me in his life at all when it was never meant to mean anything. Why did he waste my time like that? I still firmly believe it was all meaningless. But I've come to a lot of realizations with understanding his nature as a psychopath and how it's all a fucking game to him.

Also with him being a narcissist, he left me with photos of us that I guess he assumed I'd want to keep. I don't want that shit. I have a shirt that he gave me a long time ago with a weird little ayahuasca mandala pattern on it that represents his cult. You're crazy if you think I'd ever wear that. I've been letting Bear tear it to shreds, and, man, is it satisfying watching him rip that thing apart. I plan to take the pieces and the pictures and burn them. I've not looked at the pictures since he left.

I burned all your letters; my memory suits me better.

On my typical drive home from work, every single time I make that drive, which is about 5 days a week, I think of another person. The drive always reminds me of him because it's the route I would take when I'd drive to his house. I still get a bit sad when I think of him because he's no longer around, but I've also accepted it. I go back in forth between thinking I just wasn't good enough to thinking maybe he just wasn't who I thought he was. It doesn't matter either way, does it?

I do question what would happen if we ever reconnected. My heart says "yes," but my brain says "no." Second chances are okay, but third chances, as I've said in the past, are much harder to come by. Detached from the situation, I'm apt to side with my brain. Given the chance, in the moment, I'm not sure what I'd do. I'd hate to give someone the power to hurt me a third time. Because shame on me, right?

Shame on me anyway.

It was nice while it lasted though. I was super interested in him and made it obvious I was totally into him. Ya know, I had the confidence to do that. He disappeared though.

Then I started talking to a guy online who I was really interested in, and I knew I was "out of his league," but I was still way interested, ya know? He was seemingly interested in me too. We had skyped, so I know he was at least fucking real. I tried to hang out with him on multiple occasions, but he was flaky as hell and we never met and he eventually quit talking to me for seemingly no reason as well.

I wish I knew what I was doing wrong? This is what I meant when I said the curse has been lifted. I've been met with only rejection lately, and it's deteriorating my self-esteem trying to figure out what's wrong with me. These experiences have really knocked my confidence way down.

So now that I've got this current boy, I'm just too scared to get excited. I'm waiting for him to disappear too.

I'm probably ruining it by NOT caring if it works out or not. I mean, I'm putting in the effort, but I'm really not getting excited about it because I'm still so bitter about all the bad shit that happened this year that I'm not really prepared for anything good to happen. Normally, I'd be over the moon because he's so good looking and nice and seems genuine.

But what do I know? I apparently can't sense deceit.

Signs that he might actually like me. I was out one night and texting him how cold I was. He told me to come over for warmth, so I actually did... at like 1 o' clock in the morning. Around 4am, I told him I was going to go home, but he wanted me to stay and sleep there. So, I did. (Don't they usually prefer for you to leave when it's over? I prefer to leave... so I can sleep alone in my warm bed with my dog. I don't mind staying with him - he wakes up and kisses my hair when he realizes I'm there, which is sweet, I guess - I just don't like staying that long when I'm uncertain of what his intentions are).

Last week, I went to his house expecting it to be the same as usual. But he told me he had reservations for us at a restaurant at 8:15, so we had a little time to kill before then. I wasn't prepared for, like... a date? He held my hand to the door, and it was a very nice evening.

However, I can't help but to feel like I make things awkward, because...

Reasons he probably doesn't really give a shit about me: He's way too good for me and I know it and I am holding back so much.

I have done pretty well about not telling him my past. I've realized it's best to keep most of it to myself. I've told him this has been the worst year of my life, but I haven't told him why. I told him about my E.R. bills, and he asked what I went for. When I told him, "I don't think you're ready for that conversation," he didn't pry.

I'm keeping my past quiet because not everyone needs to know that much about me. It's a bad reflection on me. I let those things happen. I let those things slide. I tolerated too much. And I don't know that I wouldn't tolerate it all again. I don't know that I wouldn't accept worse. I don't know what stupidity I'm capable of at this point.

I know there's a lot of self-loathing I've got to deal with. I've been trying to work on my self-esteem... I guess. I don't know that it hasn't always been this way. I've had bouts of confidence, but you've seen the people I date. You've seen what I think I deserve.

To end this on a good note though, I got a letter in the mail from Vanderbilt basically saying my medical debt has been forgiven. Can you fucking believe it? I owe them NOTHING now! Other than my job and the raise, this is definitely the best thing that has happened to me this year. That E.R. bill was stressing me out because I just couldn't afford it, but now I don't have to worry about it! When I found out, I was so happy I could cry. I told everyone I could about it. At least, all 5 people who even know that I had medical bills. I was feeling so lucky, I almost went out and bought a lottery ticket.


And as the dust falls down, I usually give up so easily
I let my head hang down before I even see a truth that's plain as day, staring back at me
I'm a defeatist but I don't have to be