Qulams

It's been over 3 years since that disastrous night with Sean went down and despite coming out of the situation in a better, healthier place...i fucking hate that I am still plagued by that night and the aftermath. I hate that I carry his words with me, even now, even after all this time.

I've been having a pretty shitty couple of weeks. Nothing major, just anxiety related stuff that has made functioning like a semi-normal person a hard task to undertake. Kat is being difficult and needy which only makes me needy and cranky. Last Friday after work we had tentative plans to grab dinner and see the new Ghostbusters movie. Her brother has been having an equally shitty couple of weeks so she invited him and her bf Mark to dinner and the movies. BUT during work that day 'the boy' asked me to chill after work with him. I texted Kat immediately and told her that I would probably have to skip dinner but would meet them all at the movies because something came up (followed by emjoi eyes and a wink). She went batshit and said that I made plans with her first so i couldn't skip dinner cause her brother was looking forward to the night.

Needless to day the boy and I did not hang out that night.

On top of my continued issues with Kat, my mom and I are in the midst of a mother-daughter argument that has brought out the petty 16 year old me who went out of her way to make sure people knew when they were being ignored. My mother is my best friend and that is probably why when we do argue, which is rare, it feels like having an argument with a friend rather than a mom. We've been passive aggressive to each other the whole week. Work, oh work, is becoming stressful because they want me to give me more responsibilities, since I am doing so well at my current tasks.The problem with this is that by dumping more work on me, it has sort of prevented me from excelling at my actual job. I feel like they (and maybe everyone in my life) thinks I am a swiss army knife, capable of performing all sorts of functions upon request. I am definitely not a swiss army knife. I am a tight rope walker: just trying to balance myself on the line so I don't crash into the ground.

Pfft. Splat.

When I am anxious, like i am now, my sleeping habits are terrible. I generally am a perfect sleeper. I am like a cat, I can  curl up anywhere, anytime to take a nap that turns into deep sleep pretty quickly. I fall asleep fast and can clock in 8 hours of uninterrupted shut eye. But that is when I am not anxious. When I am anxious, going and staying asleep is a struggle. My mind wanders, my body is tense, i drum up every single thought and explore it with frustrating vigor. The other night I went to be around midnight (cause the DNC has been killing it this week) and woke up at 3 and could not shut my mind off to return back to sleep. I was miserable and cranky the whole next day and instead of resting peacefully when i  got home the restlessness remained.

Like most things in my life I am ruled by cycles and my general unease and anxiety is almost always related to something in the universe. July tends to be a hard month for me in many ways. It's a humid, sticky, uncomfortable time of the year. I am a Spring baby who loathes the heat and the shine and desire for activities outside of my house and July is the epitome of summer and I just can't handle. But as I was tossing and turning the other night, it finally dawned on me: 'it' happened almost 3 years to the day.The disastrous night at Sean house that could have been nice and murky and disastrous which instead turned out to be awful, swamp-like and disastrous. Over 3 years since "it" happened things said and both unrevealed.

3 years since he showed me who he was like a moth emerging from a cocoon. 3 years since he freaked the fuck out at being exposed and revealed. At being naked and vulnerable and in need of someone like me. And because he felt all those things ( i imagine) he lashed out and said I wasn't good enough, that I would never be good enough out of both honesty and fear. He said I was a mistake and that he never saw a future with me at all because he wasn't a attracted, he was never interested.

3 years since I understood what it meant to pitied for the 2nd time in my life. The first being when Marie died. I knew something was wrong the days leading up to her death. I know that she was in trouble and I kept calling out for someone to take my fears seriously. It would not have prevented Marie from dying but it would, in many ways, have validated that i saw her too, a butterfly struggling to hatch. I saw her too and I knew she needed me. And when she died, I just remember how it felt to be watched by everyone. how they pitied my foresight and small voice.

The 2nd being that night in Sean's car, during our confrontation. There was initial awkwardness and unease when we both made the decision to talk about the night before and everything (said and unsaid) that happened. I began to tell him that I cared for him but that I didn't feel comfortable with everything that happened the night before because he was in a relationship. I told him that unless things were clearer between us we couldn't do what we did the night before. I told him that i saw him, that night, that where i held and caressed and loved, he revealed himself to me. I saw him.  But instead of confronting my fears, validating my voice and maybe even my body he diminished me. He devalued my worth and then looked at me with pity:

"why would i ever be with someone like you" and every ugly thought that i've had about myself, every reason for not wanting to continue and be a person were validated selfishly by him. And it broke me. It continues to break and chip away at me 3 years later. How is that fucking possible. Today is his birthday at date that I hope i'll forgot sooner than later and I am so frustrated by the stupid residual pain left from the mess we both made.

I worry constantly that I am so jaded by the Sean situation, I won't know how of if I am able to open up to someone in that way again. I mean, don't get me wrong the last 3 years have been extraordinary to say the least.  I live in a great place, I can pay my bills, I have friends and a life that I am so grateful and proud of. I am not that girl who Sean looked down on in this car, I am not that girl who people starred at after Marie died. I am different, essentially the same heart but the parts are rearranged. But these affirmations about my life now doesn't mean I don't worry. I am still a girl who lost her best friend. A girl who worries that I cannot hold on to people. A girl who wonders if I will ever be good enough for anyone to stay.

And despite moving on from several bad moments in my life, despite coming out of the other side a little stronger though banged up... I worry and I wonder how much of what I still carry with me might prevent from me from fulling moving forward.

Updates

All of my posts should start with "work is killing me" cause jebsus effing Christmas, this place is killing me. And it's only Wednesday. How is it only Wednesday.

Tomorrow my boss has decided to have a company wide meeting to discuss our progress and goals moving forward. We have these meetings every 4 months where we gather in our big conference room for an hour while he goes over, in excruciating detail, all the things we are doing well and obviously on the things that could still needs improvement.

I hate these meetings. I've only been to 3 since I started at this job but they are the most meaningless things in the whole entire world and I spend most of my time drawing unhappy faces in my notebook. Tomorrow though, my boss decided to mix it up: not only are we having a meeting but it is going to be in the afternoon instead of the morning and afterwards he expects us all to attend a summer party on the patio to revel in his successful career venture.

The meeting is supposed to run from 5:30pm to 7:00pm (excluding the after party) and I am livid that I even have to attend this thing. My role in the company is marginal at best, I am the only one who takes public transportation and my town is so far away that even if I do catch the last bus home, I will still have to pay for a cab or take the train to get to my actual neighborhood. I have already planned an escape route so I don't have to go to this party but there is no way to avoid the meeting. I am dreading this meeting. I am dreading the awkwardness that comes about when there are gatherings of any sort. I want to sit as close to the exit as possible. I don't want to engage in small talk. I'd rather just disappear.

The only good thing about this job is they pay me well or okay enough to live normally. I plan on buying a car in two weeks because i've saved up enough money to purchase one without too much financial worries. It's so weird that 8 years ago, I didn't even think i'd ever get my drivers license because i keep failing the test. I finally got my license a few days before moving to New York but by then I owning/driving a car was not in my near future. And now here I am, only a few more shitty bus and train rides away from owning a car and driving, finally driving.

The idea of how much independence this will give me is overwhelming. I am so used to being the passenger, it will be an adjustment to be the driver. To have a little more control over...well everything. Metaphor for life, I guess.

Le sigh. 5 more hours to go.

Nope.

Don't worry, this isn't from Satan himself (aka Sean, who if you can believe,  I have not actively talked to in almost 2 years!)

This is from my ex-friend Justin. Or Patricia's boyfriend. Now Fiance.

I work with Patricia who hates my freaking guts. When I first started, she actively went out of her way to throw me under a bus to make me look bad. Because I am doing so well at my job she can't find ways to make me look bad so instead she is actively nasty or dismissive of me. All because I told her her guy friend at work was being sort of inappropriate towards me. Le sigh.

Needless to say Patricia and I are not friends and by proxy I am also not friends with Justin who ignored me when I stopped by the store to say hi a few months ago. Literally, I went up to him, said hi and he walked in the opposite direction without uttering anything to me.  I thought maybe he didn't hear me, so I followed him and said hi again. He stopped, shelved a book and walked by me again without uttering a word.

So, I am very confused why I got this stupid email last weekend about their engagement. I only found out they were engaged via Kat who received an email from Justin saying he wanted to let her know first that Patricia gave him an ultimatum (we are getting married or I am not supporting you any more) and that he feels like being with her is a death sentence but he doesn't really have a choice.

And even though i've known about the engagement since it first happened neither Justin nor Patricia have mentioned it to me, despite the fact that I see Patricia every day at work and she has told plenty of people from the office about her engagement while proudly showing them the ring she bought.

I can't imagine gifting Justin or Patricia anything because they decided to marry for the sake of marrying. And who the hell has an engagement party? Especially after announcing to both family and friends via Facebook that you are engaged.

I've been sitting on this email for 5 days, not really knowing what or if to say anything. I weighed the pros and cons. I could go, show my support, make amends and attend a wedding in the fall of 2017 with my friends.

Or, throw subtle shade, burn a bridge that wasn't worth saving and move on.

I guess by my response you can tell which petty road I took.