Does it get better?

You know, 2020 was a pretty shitty year. I mean for everyone but if I can be a little self-absorbed, it sucked for me too. 2021 only became an extension of that. 2020 was supposed to be the year of possibilities, travel, and hope. Instead, it was the year of a pandemic, the loss of my career, and the beginning of the end of my three-year relationship with the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. During my eight months of unemployment in 2020, I had worked out, started writing again, got aligners to fix my teeth, finished a degree, and went back to school. I was feeling pretty good aside from my career becoming a bust because the entertainment industry took a massive hit.

Then I got a new job and changed that for another new job and my partner moved in with his parents to help them prepare to move and things started to feel uncertain. I was determined to finish a new degree so I could one day start a new career. I started thinking of all the things that my partner and I could do together. I wanted to move in together, I started to learn Korean thinking it would give me bonus points with his parents if I finally met them, and also I wanted to, especially since I wanted to visit Korea one day. I wanted to move to a day job so we could some normalcy in our relationship again and so I could focus on school a little better.

My dog was diagnosed with cancer beginning of 2021. My aunt and uncle both wound up in the hospital. I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis and a thyroid problem and a possible fertility issue. My car broke down, suddenly I was finding myself broke again. Two weeks before my birthday my partner decides he’s had enough of me and needs to start over new with a new life somewhere else without me. All of this happened in the course of three months. And more kept coming. It seems like it all just keeps coming. I mean I sit here at two in the morning writing this all out on my birthday. The one day of the year it’s allowed to be just about me.

I’m heartbroken. I haven’t felt this kind of pain before. I feel anger, betrayal. I feel so many things and I feel lonely. I stayed in my hometown after I met him because...well because I thought this was it. I figured when you finally find the person you want to spend your life with everything was supposed to come easy.

I’ve waited my whole life to find that person. Granted it may not seem like a long time but after my track record, it sure felt like it. I’ve imagined my wedding day since I was 12. It became more defined as I got older as did the person I imagined I would end up with. The wedding and reception would take place in a beautiful vineyard, string lights, and candles. My colors depend on the time of year, the one thing I couldn’t decide. The bridesmaid dresses elegant and tasteful. Me in a beautiful Vera Wang gown. During the reception, I would trade my heels for white converse, a nod to my dad who had done the same when he married my mom. My husband and I would dance to two songs that I won’t say because I can’t bring myself to think about it. Our wedding cake, my mom’s famous Italian wedding cake she perfected many years ago. We would drive off in a vintage car at the end of the night and honeymoon in France. I had a whole board on Pinterest dedicated to my many ideas. I know it’s not in the cards for me anymore and while I can’t bring myself to even think about wedding dresses, I can’t bring myself to delete it.

I’ve pushed so many people away in my life. I lost contact with so many and I feel immense guilt about it. Truly. I kick myself every day wishing I could be the person everyone wants. But I’m me and I have gotten to this point that I think moving forward is all I have left. You can’t make someone stay. Can’t make someone love you. I can’t even seem to get out of bed before ten when I’m in a bout of depression. So I pretend. I get out of bed when I finally can. I turn the TV on to drown out the noise in my head. I get dressed for the day, try to eat, shower, and go to bed. Repeat. I’m buying books and listening to podcasts on how to deal with heartbreak and how to be alone. It’s supposed to help but mostly it just makes me feel it even more. I wonder to myself how I got here and I’ve gotten to this point where I have no one to blame but myself. I put three years of my life into someone who ended up wanting nothing to do with me and it hurts a little more every day that I continue to think about it. And I try to keep distracted and most of the time I can keep it out of my head. It’s when it’s quiet and I have nothing to do and nowhere to go that I really can’t keep the thoughts at bay.

The thing is you can read all the books in the world and eventually time will dull the pain. That’s really all it ever does. That pain never really goes away and that’s because you never forget. The memories are still there and that’s all you have left. I always considered myself to be a hopeless romantic. I’m a mate for life kind of gal. I always knew if I could never find my person, if I ever tried to get married it would end in divorce. I accomplished so much while we had been together. I lost weight, graduated and went back to school, started new jobs, I was growing into the person I needed to be. I was losing bad habits and gaining better ones. I felt happy. I hadn’t felt good about myself before but I was starting to really feel less insecure. Of course, I don’t need a man and I don’t need him to be happy. I mean I have to find happiness without him...apparently. I just happened to have been happier when we were together. And I certainly can live without him, I’m not dying or going to die if we can’t be together. I learned that in my teen years when I thought getting dumped would kill me.

And you know it’s crazy because despite all the things I’m feeling I still only have nice things to say about him. I mean my heart feels shattered and I feel slightly empty inside. He took a piece of me when he left. But I only think of the good things. Is that part of the grief process? I don’t know. We never fought, we never even argued a little. And I think everyone always puts this cap on how long the grieving process should be. This is always wild to me considering they weren’t the ones in the relationship and so how could they possibly tell me how long it should take for me to get over something. Especially when I thought it would last longer. How can one person suffer so much and another person be totally fine and just move on? Do time and love and everything mean more to one person than the other? Well, honestly I’ve had it. I can’t go through this with someone else. It’s never been made so clear to me that I wasn’t meant for that vineyard wedding. Which breaks my heart all over again. How does a person cope with that? Where do you even begin? I don’t know if the books and podcasts will help me. I don’t know if moving back with my parents for a few months will help either. I just know that living with this ghost following me wherever I go is not going to let me heal. I don’t know if I ever will truly heal. Maybe bandaging and guarding my heart from now on is the answer, I don’t know. I do know, I don’t want to fall in love again. I can’t. Maybe that’s the grief talking and maybe it seems dramatic. Love seems so ridiculous right now that I think I’m going to be messed up for a while. Happy Birthday to me.