Category: :)

oh, another thing… as of this morning, 214. what… the… fuck… that is over 50 lbs removed from my body.

FIFTY!

that’s a bag of cement! that’s a 5 gallon water bottle! that’s 200 apples! that’s 5 bowling balls! that’s 2 car tires!

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

wow… i am… i’m not even sure of the word… surprised? deceived? relieved? happy? sad? shit, i don’t really know.

for the last 18 years i have largely been exempt from most of the household chores. things like laundry, a lot of the cleaning, tidying up, etc… however i was absolutely responsible for a whole slew of other things, yard work, repairs, maintenance and also all of the shopping and meal preparations among other things. anyhow, everything seemed more or less fair to me. k never stopped complaining about never having enough help with her share of the work though. i regularly felt bad, like i was not carrying my weight. at one point we even hired a cleaning lady! i’ve also tried repeatedly to instill a sense of responsibility in the children by incentivizing them to do chores based on their allowance. all the while picking up chores here and there when i knew they needed to be done and i knew i wouldn’t “do it wrong”.

well.. after a week of living on my own, most of which was with the kids, the house has never been tidier, laundry has never been more washed, dried, folded and put away, the kitchen has never been more spotless…

i think i got the short end of the stick for a very long time. sure, it’s work, it needs to be done, but holy hell, it’s not hard and it really doesn’t take much time at all. anyhow. perhaps in another life i was a homemaker.

additionally, i have signed up on “the apps”, just to see. jesus tapdancing christ has that ever been an ego boost for me! wow! never in a million years would i have expected that kind of attention. whether it leads to anything or not, who knows, but it is a nice to feeling when someone thinks you’re desirable, so i’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

back in july i decided to try out online therapy. i went in a skeptic, and to be honest, i still am but… BUT…. i understand the value of this kind of thing a little more now.

so, the funny thing i’ve learned about therapy, is that it is only as good as your therapist, and then also, even if your therapist is amazing, if you don’t want to do it, it’s still going to suck. at least for you, at that specific point in time.

another interesting thing… no one has ever talked to me about their own therapy experiences, until i told them i was trying it myself. so… there is some possibly unintentional gatekeeping involved with this too. likely because most people will consider this something they need to do because something is wrong with them (a negative thing), not because they want to better themselves for the sake of betterment (a positive thing).

in learning about other people’s experiences i have to say i feel rather fortunate to have met my therapist, linda. unlike some of the horror stories i heard about other people’s therapists, linda’s approach was overwhelmingly pleasant. maybe even too much at times, which really is the only genuine criticism i have. it made it feel very fake at first. she’s very much been my biggest cheerleader, my biggest fan, my biggest source of encouragement about everything. so much so that i found myself kind of calling her out on it and ultimately arguing whatever the appropriate counterpoint would be with myself, while she cheers on both sides.

in the end… that’s maybe what her plan was all along because it’s been quite helpful for me and over the last few months. i have developed a habit of kind of doing that exact thing on my own now. it doesn’t always work, sometimes i get myself caught in some kind of loop, but many other times, the thing, whatever it is, ends up getting resolved in my head, all on my own. neat!

that said, i’m finding myself in a spot now with this where i kind of know what linda is going to say when i tell her something and so our conversations are more like friends catching up, except very one sided. and the problem with that is that it is a rather expensive one sided friendship. i don’t really want to put an end to this, because i actually really like my therapist, but i can’t justify the cost anymore. at least not right now.

so tomorrow will be my last session with linda for now. would i recommend better help? yeah, i think so. the platform works well and if you find yourself a decent therapist to talk to, it can be pretty helpful. they make it easy to switch therapists whenever you want, so you can flip flop around until something clicks.

• continue therapy
• reclaim and reinvent my own space
• spend more time with z and l
• lose 25 more lbs
• avoid sugar
• avoid milk/lactose
• eat more fruits and vegetables
• keep learning spanish
• exercise every day 20+ minutes
• 0x nicotine ever
• 6x alcohol per week max
• 2x caffeine per day max
• get 7.5 hours sleep every night on average
• make 1 new male friend who lives nearby
• make 1 new female friend who lives nearby
• play drums 3x per week
• play guitar 2x per week

this year, more than any i can remember, my usual excitement about christmas was definitely forced. there are simply too many things going on this year, too many important changes, too many secrets, too many hidden agendas, too many things missing and too many things just backwards. this seems to be applied universally across everything i know.

so being genuinely excited for christmas like i usually am seemed almost impossible. but, as the expression goes, fake it until you make it. and i made it. and many things did work out well. and ultimately i am thankful.

there are a couple very notable things however which i want to recognize.

k has found a house, made an offer, negotiated and signed contingent on an inspection. that is huge. everyone is on vacation until the 6th, however once the inspectors, banks and notaries are back at work, this could possibly go very quickly. the place is currently vacant, so there’s no delay waiting for that… it’s just a matter of signing paperwork. there is some work that needs to be done on the house, but it is largely cosmetic. i do worry a little that k will drag her feet on that and try to stay here as long as possible. which, within reason is fine, but already she was suggesting pushing notary until february and move in till march… just because. i don’t want to be an ass about it, but at the same time, keeping this pot on the stove longer than is necessary with cause the bottom to burn. and no one likes a burnt stew. in any case… progress!

the other thing i want to recognize, a, you are still a beautiful mystery to me and surprise me every single day. what you gave me for christmas goes beyond thoughtful. it goes beyond anything i have ever received from anyone before. when i told you i was speechless, i wasn’t lying or just turning a phrase, i literally have no words to describe what that meant to me, and even now, over 24 hours later, i still don’t even know what to say. you make me happy in a way i have been missing for so fucking long.

do you remember back in school when you had group projects to do? or even if you just had to pair up with one other person for an assignment? usually the first thing most people would do is divvy up the tasks amongst all of the group members. everyone was responsible for their own little part and then at the end you would combine it all into the finished project and submit it for grading.

do you remember the feeling you had when other people were making progress on their part and you hadn’t progressed quite enough yet? awful, right?

but… on the flip side, do you remember when you finished your assigned tasks before everyone else? the feeling of relief, of accomplishment, of satisfaction? you may still need to make corrections, you may still need to help other group members with their parts, you still need to submit the whole thing for grading… BUT… you did your part. there’s something so good about that feeling.

today i bought my stbxw out of our home, now legally my home.

i was worried about this day. i was worried about this step in particular. this is kind of a point of no return, at least financially. it kind of makes things very real. there are legal documents signed. there is a LOT of money that i had to pay out. there are a lot of things made crystal clear that we both had to discuss and agree upon like adults.

i was worried there would be tears. i was worried there would be second guessing. i was worried there would be pleading, or last minute amendments, or any number of uncomfortable scenarios…

but none of that happened, everything is done, and i kind of feel relieved. i kind of feel like i have now completed my part of this specific project and the majority of the remaining tasks are on someone else’s plate. i still obviously have a vested interest in making sure we get a passing grade, but if we do not, no one can say it was my fault. i did my part.

this inverse insomnia shit is getting really old now. being up this early has no advantages really, my brain has not started really functioning yet, my body is still asleep… so i just zone out. not thinking, not moving, just awake. at least when i had sleeping issues on the other end of a good night’s sleep and i was just staying up late, then i could DO something. it may not have always been the best thing to do, it always involved a lot of over thinking and usually a healthy dose of alcohol… but still at least there was something going on. i would play guitar, i would write here, i would read, i would work on things i needed to get done…

anyhow, this is just my reality at the moment it seems. perhaps in the coming months this will change.

i still wonder sometimes if i am making a huge mistake. i wonder if maybe i should just take everything back and live with my sadness, my disappointment, my frustration and feelings of dissatisfaction? would it be easier? it would be less effort. i mean, i probably could spend the rest of my life in that state and just try to find little bits of happiness elsewhere… right? like, lots of people must do that, right?

when i think about this, the worst part is, i am not concerned about feeling like i will regret this or anything like that. i am concerned about the amount of effort that will be required to get there and then maintain this… how supremely fucked is that?

but once the dust has settled, i know i will be happier, even if i never find the love i am after. even if i never find my actual person. even if i spend the rest of my years on this planet alone… i will still be happier because i will not be lying, i will not be constantly worried about managing someone else’s feelings, i will not be compromising myself, my likes, my wants, my needs to appease another. i will not be putting myself second.

it’s going to be interesting coming back to posts like this in the coming months, or even years. fuck i have really peeled back so many damn layers in the last several months. if you would have asked me last year at this time if i could ever imagine myself being in this situation, i would have laughed so hard. but deep down i would have been asking myself “holy shit… i can do that? that is an option for me???”.