A fair question, I guess, since I’ve really not posted anything of substance in quite a while.
All in all, I’m doing OK. And I mean that. The past two four eight months have been absolute hell, even though I’ve tried to minimize this for public consumption because (a) no one wants to read about me curled in the fetal position on the sofa crying like a baby and (b) I perhaps didn’t want to show much weakness publicly in my compromised state. Mind you, this is not all about the breakup. A lot of it is about the breakup, but not all of it. There has been some other pretty nasty family-related stuff going on in my life for the past month or two as well, so there’s been plenty of suckage to keep me occupied, thanks.
None of this has seemed really appropriate fodder for the website because it’s personal and would require a higher level of sharing than I’m really comfortable with these days. I also wanted to avoid any possibility of passive-aggressive “communication by website” as I realized damned near anything I said could easily come across as either whiny or accusatory, neither of which I really wanted. Talking too much about other stuff would minimize how much of my life has been consumed by all of this, and talking endlessly about my troubles would have emphasized it too much and also would have made for a really unpleasant website. So I pretty much just shut up about everything. Even to my friends and family, which was probably a mistake.
And now? I wouldn’t say I’m in the best of shape, but it’s getting better.
With respect to the breakup, I’m at least coping. I had no illusions that there would be a reconciliation and I concurred completely that we’d reached the end of the line, but there was a long period of mourning for the loss of what once was and for the future I’d hoped we had together. And I’m still in the middle of that. It’s hard not to keep asking myself what the hell is wrong with me and what I might have done differently to keep this from happening. But I’m starting to realize that there’s not really anything wrong with me and that whatever either of us could have done differently is a moot point because whatever it might have been, neither of us did it and it’s too late now anyway. Yes, I think it was a big waste that probably didn’t have to happen, but I can think that for the rest of my life and it won’t change a damned thing.
The family issue (it involves an aging parent) will become a bigger and bigger part of my life in the coming years and that’s what I really fear right now. I could have dealt with either of these things individually, but having them both hit simultaneously has been overwhelming. I essentially lost my two closest family members over the course of just a few weeks, although neither of them is really completely gone. Each is just sort of transforming into a very different individual than the one I’ve known and loved for years, necessitating a significantly altered means of relating to them, and in some ways denying me two sources of support I could really use right now.
I’m learning that staying very busy works for me because it keeps me from thinking about things that suck. I’m not 100% sure this is the most healthy way of dealing with all this. I wonder if maybe I’m avoiding important issues I should be thinking about. But it’s the approach that’s working for me right now and is generally keeping me from “going fetal” on a daily basis as I was doing for a while there.
I’m probably never going to really go into specifics about a lot of this here on the site, although there are a few cloaked posts I may make public someday. But I am going to try to write more and self-censor less in the coming weeks. Rather than sharing nothing and doing the bare “put on a brave face” minimum as I’ve been doing lately, I’ll try to share both some of the happy and some of the sad. I’m still sad a lot. And occasionally just plain devoid of emotion. But I’m at least relatively happy more often now too.