Dealing

You know, I have tried to not be angry or hurt during the last month dealing with my break up with the person I was dating. I have even tried to talk about what both of us need to do to remain friends but the thing is, I have reached my limit at this point. Because I seem to be doing all the compromising and talking and all I have gotten from him were rather empty, pointless promises.

You see, what I don't understand is how someone who loved me, someone who claimed that they had been planning their life around me was able to find another "sweetie" in less than a month after we broke up? Yes, as he is quick to point out, I broke up with him. But to have watched his relationship with a new friend progress online, to see them flirting, and to have seen this before we even broke up. Well, yes, I am angry and I have my limits. And I believe these are it.

Hear me out: I am not expecting that he has to stay single for ever or that he should not be able to find love (or like or whatever you want to call it) where ever it lays for him. But maybe the most hurtful thing about this is that he is being so open, in front of all his friends.

And the openess in front of me, while somewhat similar to a slap on the face, is more so hurtful because he refused to tell those closest to him that he was dating me; that he even had a girlfriend. He constantly denied it to friends who asked if there was someone special and when I talked it over with him, he always had some diffuse date in the future to let others know.

It has been a year since we first showed mutual interest and we dated (instigated on his insistance) for six months before I broke things off. And never once, did he seem to mention the relationship to anyone. Not even those who knew. You may wonder why I put up with things this way for so long and I have been asking myself that question as well. Truthfully, I loved him and I trusted him. I believed what he told me and I always had faith that he had his reasons, reasons that I tried to understand.

And now, when things are over, I find I have no more understanding. As I have said, I told him what needs to be done to remain friends and he seems to think it unimportant. So, I will start to treat this as unimportant as well. I have been moving forward, taking small strides to get myself to where I need to be, and I no longer have the inclination to extend the effort required to keep him in my life. I just want a friend who can meet me half way, a friend who shows me respect, and without that, I don't think I need to understand anything about that person anymore.

Desperately Seeking

Well, as you guys may know by all the posts and just seeing me around in general, the last month has not been that great for me. To the point where I decided to seek pharmacotherapeutic intervention. That is just a fancy way of saying I went to a doctor and got some antidepressants. So, as of this week, I have been taking a pill a day faithfully, hoping that sooner rather than later I get to see some change. But I wanted to just rant a little about the absurdness of medication in general and specifically, my experience with antidepressants.

For one thing, the package insert has numerous warnings about the fact that "this drug may cause mood change". I am sorry? That's a warning? I certainly was not thinking of taking an antidepressant to lower my cholesterol. Should mood change be so much a warning as a fact? I figure an antidepressants' whole raison d'etre was to change me from being depressed to euthymic. Hence, a mood change!

I also have to change my life style a bit. Right now, about an hour after popping an pill, I get incredibly loopy and tired. But while I am dead tired, I can't seem to fall asleep or stay asleep. I am averaging about four hours of sleep right now and I am not functioning too well. I actually got more sleep when I was depressed and unable to really move out of bed for any reason. When sleeping was the only option to stop my crying.

I have also noticed that I am starting to get light-headed and dizzy in the late afternoons which I dislike immensely. And my caffeine consumption, already exaggerated, is even higher now (these types of antidepressants tend to affect caffeine processing so you need more in order to get the same effects). Add to that my inability to down alcoholic beverages and you can see why I am feeling a bit more keyed up and on edge! smile.

Seriously though, in the end, this is all worth it as long as I am starting to feel even remotely normal. If I can get out of bed and function at 50%, then I would declare going back on this hated regimen a success. But I won't really know for weeks and until then, I have so many things to worry about and do and meet that I am not sure how to handle it all. But in the end, I hope I can and I know I will, with friends beside me

Lucid Dreams

I have had a kind of funny sad night last night. I have been having some pretty lucid dreams over the last couple of nights but luckily, I have been able to sleep better than I have in months. Maybe I have not slept fully through the night yet but I am finding it easier to fall asleep when I do wake up. Except for last night....

Last night, I woke up pretty much every hour or less and everytime I woke up, I had one thought: "my friend flies in today". And that temporary happiness was replaced by the realization that I must be amnesic because he was not coming in after all. I probably had that cycle repeat itself about ten or more times last night and everytime, it just seemed that more crushing when I remembered. Until I woke up at five and decided to just stay awake because there was no way I wanted a repeat.

It's funny because I have come to realize just how much I wanted him here and only after it was a sure thing that he could not come. I realized that I was looking forward to having someone here to distract me, I was looking forward to having a good friend with me during this somewhat trying time, and I was looking forward to just maybe reaching some resolutions or firm conclusions in the end. To stop uncertainity, to stop the hopes I hang on to, to end all the thinking I have been doing. But I am sitting here, with even more thoughts that I had before. And sitting here throwing myself a "pity party" as one of my friends would say

Memories

I have been telling a couple of my friends how I have had to avoid pop culture in the last couple of weeks. Why? Because it seems no matter where I look, I see my problems or thoughts being expressed for the world to see. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something but like an ostrich, I plan to hide my head in the sand for as long as I can.

What do I mean about the universe trying to show me something? Well, characters on television say the things that I have been longing to say to the person I dated. Their thoughts and situations seem to smack of things that I am currently going through. Except on television, their problems end within an hour while mine just keep hitting me again and again. There is no respite for me - no commericials to break the monotony.
So, I have turned to books. I have even stayed away from chick lit or other such fiction to give myself a break. So I start reading a gothic horror novel. I enjoyed it at first but in the end, it was not truly a gothic horror novel; it was all about love lost and being able to move onwards once it is lost. It was about hanging on and how we hang on to the idea that the person we loved must be trying to hurt us, trying to keep them in our lives in our own way, when truly the person who hurt us before has no such intentions any longer and has probably moved on. Feels nothing, means nothing towards us. Maybe it was a horror novel in its own way.

So I sit and listen to music while working on my computer. But perhaps the choice of music could be better. I have sat there, listening to the lyrics of the song and wondering how I could have missed it. With words like "Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend" or "And I am not as pretty as those girls in magazines", my life is interpreted through song. And none of them have happy endings.

So, I have shut myself inside for now. I watch things that do not touch my soul, I read dry historical books and papers, the only songs are the ones I can not stop running through my head, and I am trying to immmerse myself in work. Because if I could stop seeing the meaning behind everything, then maybe I can stop feeling as though there is meaning to be had. In the end, there are somethings you are not meant to understand and there are somethings you perhaps are not meant to have or hold on to. But even so, sometimes you need to hold on a bit longer if only to save yourself from drowning no matter what the cost to yourself or others. Maybe some ideas are always meant to be salient and intrude upon our world because we recognize them as truth, even if we can not own them

Feeling Good

Whether it is because of the lack of sleep or the simple fact that I have been a bit down all day, my mind keeps circling around and around the questions that I have of myself and others. As you guys know, I broke up with someone a couple of weeks ago and since then I have been doing alot of talking and fighting and hurting, but in between all that, I have been trying to figure out the whole relationship. What was it for? Why did he want to be with me? Did he really love me? And if he really loved me, then how did things go so wrong? How did the little things escalate into insurmontable obstacles?

I can't say I have any answers to those questions. On days where I feel close to normal, I think he must have loved me. The way he spoke to me, the tone of his voice. But on days where everything is grey, when I cry because I am standing still, those are the days I feel thrown away. I let someone get closer to me than anyone has ever been, I really truly revealed the person I am, and he threw me away. Not in so many words - but in all the little things he did. Or failed to do.
"When you love, you entrust to that person your sense of your own worth and if that person throws you aside, you believe utterly and profoundly that you are worthless." This is how I feel. It has not been easy. My friends ask me questions of him and I truly do not know. My friends ask me about online flirtations he engages in and I ask myself those same questions. Am I so utterly removeable that in three weeks, I am all but forgotten. Replaced by someone else shinier, newer, better.

I am no saint; I have never claimed to be - a halo isn't meant to grace my head. But somewhere, I believe that I am a good enough person that I should deserve some happiness in life. But things happen and I wonder why I over reach; why I let myself believe in happy endings and forever. Because in my life, forever is not permanent. Forever is a way to pass away the time, to enjoy the scenery, and to move on when things have lost their novelty. I wish I had answers to questions instead of just loud musings and this ever present pain in my heart, but I don't. And maybe I never will. Maybe some things are never meant to be known.

As I Lay Me Down to Sleep

I wish I could say my life has not been especially crazy the last couple of weeks but it has been a doozie as most of you know. Between breaking up with the person I was dating and then waiting for him to show up here so we can actually sit down and talk to the normal crap that happens in grad school to dealing with alot of emotional baggage, I have been having a "fun" three weeks (yes, that would be biting sarcasm!).

Now add to that my current inability to sleep and the crappy sleep I have been getting in general, and I am a bit peeved. I miss sleep. I miss dreaming. I miss being blissfully rested when I wake up. Instead, I am cranky when I am awake or sad and unable to control the crying or else insanely happy for no good reason. Saying my affect has been labile the past few weeks would be an understatement. And I know sleep would help. Alot. But there is no sleep in sight or even a sandman to be seen.

So here I am, at almost five in the morning, pondering deep questions and writing about the mundane. There is so much I would just like to clear off my head and just not have it weigh me down anymore, and I can't. My sense of propriety and wariness in general prevents it. So, I am sitting here, struggling how best to move forward and not really sure. Does moving forward mean going back a couple of steps? Or should I be hanging on so keenly to what I have lost? For I have lost it. It being a myriad of things but I have lost it all. I know that. Perhaps I always have in a way and that is why I can't sleep or dream anymore. Dreams are hopes, wishes, fantasies that we allow our selves to have when our guard is down and our thoughts are free to wonder. And I no longer have hopes and dreams or even know where or what they are anymore. I seem to just have sorrow. And sorrow does not make for a happy bedfellow.