A lot has changed since we last spoke

I told myself I was going to stay single for awhile this time.  And I still technically am. But he and I are ~exclusive~ so... I'm kinda not. 🤷‍♀️ The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, and I really hate that this helps me so much. I'm already sleeping better and eating again. Maybe even... a little happy again? 

(My doctor was concerned about my weight loss. It was the first thing she said when she walked in the room. My iron levels are alert-level low, too. I'm eating more and taking iron).

So, I thought I saw some red flags early on.  I feel like he presents differently over text than he does when he speaks/in person... so we talked it out and I'm back on board. I'm kinda dumb though 🙄, so I'm gonna list the potential red flags anyway in case my intuition was right:

-He comes off as a little controlling

-He was on the way to become a cop at one point

-He is a former marine

-His goal is to find someone to marry and have kids with

-He lives in Milan (where The Worst Thing That Ever Happened To Me is from)

If you presented these things to me without any other info, it would be a HELL NO. 

But

Now hear me out

But we talked about the cop thing,  and he said he ultimately decided not to do it. He grew up in San Diego and was closely around a lot of gangs. As in,  friends and family of his were/are in gangs. I kinda get the military-cop pipeline to escape the gang stuff and not get sucked into it. 

It also softens the blow a little that he is 100% not white. White cops are the worst cops. 

I told him my opinion on cops and why I don't trust them. He took it way better than I expected. 

I've told him marriage is a hard sell for me and I've never wanted kids. He still wants to pursue this for some reason. 

He isn't actually from Milan, so I can't imagine he really knows any of the terrible people there. Also, he's a very large man, and I'd feel so safe running into anyone anywhere next to him.  

He made some comments via text message that rubbed me the wrong way with their tone, so I told him I wasn't sure I was ready for all this. But when we FaceTimed later, he addressed that and made us talk about it to get it out of the way, and he was so nice about it that it changed my mind a little. I'm still on high alert though. 

So, they say if your next person looks absolutely nothing like your ex, then they are just a rebound and it won't last. This man looks nothing like me ex... he does, however, kinda look like a mixture of a couple different people I've dated. So he is "my type" for all intents and purposes.  But he's nothing like the last one in almost every way.  He has some of the missing parts I've been wishing for. 

I'm so very attracted to him,  but I'm still not sure if I'm ready for this.  Perhaps he is just fullfilling a fantasy of mine (he kinda is...). He seems to be pretty into me. And snagging a man this hot (6ft; dark; former personal trainer, so fit/muscular; speaks Spanish 🥵) is a huge confidence boost for me. 

But, ya know,  personality and attitude have always won over hotness. This is my second super-fit, too-hot-for-me, neck-tattoo rebound (refer back to The Boy from 2020).  Let's hope this one doesn't ghost me. He seems like the kind of guy who will be pretty straight up about just about anything (something that scares me a little tbh). 

Let's see where it goes, shall we?

The pain I feel on a daily basis is unbearable. 

I'm not sleeping well. Last night I woke up at 2am and for the next few hours, when I would drift off, it was either sleep paralysis or lucid dreaming. I'm not sure how to describe it. I would immediately hallucinate so much noise... or just dreaming that I was in my room every time and dreaming the noises? The first time I remember, I was lying in bed and the bedroom door was open (it was irl) and it was dark in the rest of the house.  But I immediately heard yelling and screaming from several different voices coming from the dark parts of the house and my body flooded with anxiety/fear. I struggled to wake up out of it, but I eventually did. And the house was (too) quiet every time I woke up.  The next time I closed my eyes, it was super noisy again. I already forget what the noise was and can't remember what I saw but u saw something in my room on the opposite side of the door that filled me fear/anxiety. So I woke up.  This happened many times probably until I just woke up for real at 7am. Everytime I was froen/stuck in fear for awhile before I could re-open my eyes. Every time I closed my eyes, my subconscious was filled with noise and my whole body would tingle with anxiety.  

I don't remember this happening the last time I went crazy. But I slept like shit and now I'm once again awake way too early on a day off with too much open space of time to fill ahead of me. 

I feel like I physically cannot cry if I'm drunk and/or high. And I'm gonna be for awhile. 

You realize a whole lot of things when you're suddenly and unexpected crushed with total grief. I realized that I liked having my fantasies but never wanted to make them realities.  I don't want them. I don't want to see or fuck these men. I don't want to be single. I'd way rather be angry and upset than to feel like this.

You realize how much you still love someone when you find out they no longer love you.  And it hurts deeply realizing they must have quit loving you a long time ago.  That must be why he wasn't trying anymore... which is what upset me... which is what drove him away even further. 

You realize how alone you are because you never learned how to really live with yourself.

The grief of losing my dad has been bubbling back up because I feel like I never fully acknowledged that grief. And thinking of him being gone... and now Lane being gone... and my house being so fucking quiet is very, very hard to handle. In fact, I am not handling it well or at all. I've just been crying a lot.

I once again don't know how to fill this silence or empty space. I wake up, and I am filled with anxiety because there is too much day ahead of me to have to get through. 

He always has the luxury of his support system because he is always with his family. I have people who are supportive, sure, but I am so, so alone in this.  And I feel like I must be taking it way worse than he is because I'm on the receiving end. He initiated; he is feeling relief and a load off for sure. It kills me when I'm on this side of things. I asked if we can stay friends and he said be still cares for me and hopes that we do. What a nice thing to say in the moment. I don't believe that we will be friends.  He doesn't want to see or talk to me. He hasn't wanted to for a long time. Don't think I didn't notice he chose the word "care" not "love." It struck a chord. 

I still talked about our future. Lots of "we"s were thrown around when I talked of goals and plans. But now I'm re-blueprinting everything.  

The not eating or sleeping was immediate. I'm self-medicating with whiskey+benadryl, which helped last night.  But I still woke up just before 6am on a day off. The flood of anxiety that immediately released with consciousness did not allow me to go back go sleep. 

I go sit on the back porch when I can't breathe. It doesn't help, but I always think it will... I've done it 5 times today before noon. 

I still love him. I know not being able to talk about things is my biggest flaw, but I wish he had at least tried talking to me about this before springing it on me. But instead, he did like me, and let it fester, I guess. I would have talked... it just has to be wrestled out of me.

I started therapy last week and didn't tell him about it. I was hoping it would help me get passed my own shit and learn to communicate,  so I could communicate with him how I had been feeling. We just broke up 2 days ago. So I guess I'll have a lot to talk about in therapy but the goals will be different. 

I'm really trying to change this time. I'm doing therapy now. I'm writing down goals in my phone. I do want to be better. I can't stand this and I can't stand myself. 

I kept writing in here that it was pretty much over and I wanted something different. I also suspected at the end that he was somehow reading this or my messages or something. Maybe it was guilty conscience or maybe it was intuition... or maybe it was nothing at all and he had entirely different reasons. But all I really wanted was for things to be better. Sometimes I thought that could be accomplished only with someone new. And maybe it will, but if not what I want right now.

I wasn't ready for this, but I did deserve this.

(As soon as I posted this, the doctor office called to reschedule my therapy appointment to next week, so I have to wait even longer to get help for this and I'm kinda panicking. Thanks, universe.)

Just here to say that I've given up on so many things. I'm all out of energy to care anymore.

And I can't stop thinking about so many other things...  

He is out of town as usual. He doesn't communicate with me as usual. And I truly haven't been upset about any of it. I think I'm finally out of fucks to give.

I'm experiencing my third major illness in three months. First it was bronchitis in March. Then it was Covid in April. Now it is something that presents like strep (worst sore throat of my life, fever... the coughing didn't start until the sore throat subsided) but I tested negative for strep and everything else.  It's so bad that I dragged my ass up to a clinic. You know I never do that. Called out of work for 2 days. You know I never fo that either. But I got some stuff done as soon as I saw the slightest bit of improvement. 

I've been having Nick work on my car since he is an actual mechanic. He offers to do it for free because he is still into me after all these years. I pay him anyway because I don't believe in doing what you're good at for free. And I don't want to "use" him. We both like the excuse to see each other,  although I know I am very good at not letting that on.  He knows I have a boyfriend.  I know he has a girl around; he told me. So, we just talk, mostly about my car and the state of the world. Neither of us ever mention the significant others.  After today, I realized I am more physically attracted to him than I originally thought while I watched him move around the shop to switch out my tires...  But we both pretend like it's nothing. And that's all okay for now. I know I am way too much of a devil woman for him and I know he doesn't know that. He is deeply religious these days, wears a cross on his neck and everything. And I am too mentally unstable to acknowledge any of this right now. 

Speaking of, they had me fill out a questionnaire at the clinic yesterday.  Completely unrelated to why I was there. But since I had a high score on the form, they offered to refer me to behavioral health specialists. So I accepted the offer. Who knows if anything will actually come of it.

I've also been talking a lot to a boy I met in 2016 who I had the briefest of flings with after The Disaster. He is also super into me but definitely remembers things differently than I do. I haven't corrected him because I don't want to shatter his fantasy. He lives states away, so I've been entertaining him.  He is well aware of my rationship, of which I remind him often,  so he knows the boundaries. It's probably not healthy of me, but it's nice to have someone to talk to. 

I hate to put this in writing, but I have been thinking it.  I just realize I am not as attracted to someone who doesn't have a job. Lane hasn't had a job since February. I've tried to be cool about it, but I have let some bottled up emotions spill out from time to time. I still love him, and on some days I still feel it, but I've been so down lately that I don't feel much of anything. I think about how I would feel if it ended, and I know I don't want that yet. Though,  when he is gone (as much as he is lately), I let the idea sink in that this is what it could be like all the time... and it doesn't scare me like it used to.