I've been struggling to write this for several days now. I seldom have this much trouble putting my feelings into words. I don't think I've done it justice, but I've done what I could for now.
How do I explain what happened to me last summer? I'm not sure I can.
I'd been very certain of a few things - that Aiden and I were made for each other. That I was making the right choice. That things would turn out okay.
When he walked out of my life, I was honestly shocked. So was everyone else who watched it happen. One friend had observed months earlier, "You and Aiden are so close. It's like he just puts up with Shelby."
I felt like I'd been punched in the mouth, repeatedly, with a brick. Not only did I have to deal with the grief that comes with the end of a relationship, but I was facing a devastating lack of faith in myself and my own judgment. If I could be so wrong about something in which I'd had complete confidence...I couldn't trust myself anymore. There seemed to be no point in making goals or otherwise working to improve my life. If I tried too hard, if I put my love and my faith into something, it would only crash and burn.
"I don't know how to be in this much pain," I remember telling someone. I can't describe what it was like, other than overwhelming. The panic and sense of utter failure and hopelessness pervaded everything. I skidded through the bottom of old familiar depression and straight off the deep end.
The damage to my arm healed but the damage to my soul didn't. I've already described the general shape of my summer. I'm struggling to explain what was underneath it and the changes that happened inside me.
Hopelessness is a strange thing. Without hope, with nothing left to strive for, there are no consequences. Without faith or confidence, there's no joy. Commiserating with a friend one night, I described the feeling as having my head squeezed and feeling the cracks working their way up the sides of my skull.
There was a split that I can't quite explain. Not a dissociation - I certainly became a different person than I was before, but I'm not trying to describe the state of having multiple personalities. I think the split was between me and my faith, and I fell through the crack into a world where nothing mattered.
I wandered around the country and sat around and home and did a bunch of crazy shit just to try to stimulate myself, looking for that high - something - anything that would make me feel better. Of course I didn't find it, because that's not how these things work. I no longer had the energy to do anything beyond my category of cheap thrills, though, so I spent a lot of time getting drunk and a lot of time riding my motorcycle - usually not together, though there were exceptions to that.
At some point I couldn't stand it anymore, being surrounded by constant reminders of everything I'd fucked up. I packed my belongings into a storage unit, put some clothes and some camping gear on a motorcycle, and left, in search of anything else. Traveling can actually be easier without any fucks to give.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Begin Round Three
We were seated at a booth in a small, nearly-deserted restaurant. Aiden was clearly nervous, talking so fast and so loudly that the one guy at the bar on the other end of the room must have wondered what was wrong with him. I waited it out, and after a few minutes he settled down.
We chatted about this and that, over a distinct awkwardness that kept me looking out the window over his shoulder instead of into his eyes. I asked about his depression, and when I could actually see it on his face for the first time, I took his hand across the table. He asked about the club, and about the incident that happened at St. Michael's. I haven't mentioned this because I still won't talk about it, but it was one of my lowest points.
"You don't have to tell me," he said. "I just want you to know that if you want to talk, I want to listen, and I won't judge you."
I couldn't speak. He got the hint and changed the subject, asking about my bandmates, but I couldn't derail my brain quite so easily. I stumbled and couldn't even spit out the name of our drummer. Aiden got up from his booth and came to sit in mine, where he wrapped me in a hug.
He felt so good, so familiar and comforting. He held my head against his shoulder while I cried, then told me to face the other way. I did so, momentarily puzzled; then he started rubbing my shoulders, and I melted.
"You haven't let your guard down in a long time, have you?" he asked softly. I slumped back against his chest while he wrapped his arms around me, and shook my head. My life had become a game of scrapping for my comfort and safety - a little here, a little there, constantly moving my walls around to protect myself. My only physical contact with other people happened at work, and it was generally against my will. Somehow it was still all there in Aiden's hug, the complete package - the warmth, the support, the safety I hadn't felt in so long I'd almost forgotten what it was like. I could've sat in that booth for a month.
The heat of his touch was starting to melt my brain, and an old familiar spiral appeared. I knew where I wanted this to go...but he was unavailable, like always. I turned so we were seated side by side again and rested my head on his shoulder, the bridge of my nose against the warm, soft skin of his neck. His arms stayed locked around me. I put my leg over his so I could slide closer.
"How is it always so easy for us to cuddle?" he wondered.
I turned further towards him, hugging so we were cheek to cheek. My skin was on fire and my breath was quick and shallow. My palms started to sweat.
"My heart is beating so hard right now," he whispered, placing my hand against his chest so I could feel it.
I knew this cliff, and I desperately wanted to jump off it, but I was afraid. Not of the situation; I already knew there was no way it could end well. I'd been down that road, and I accepted that it led to the fires of hell. I knew I was going to be alone and there was nothing I could do about it. Heartache and loneliness had become a familiar part of me, a touchstone, comfortingly steady in their own strange way. I knew I could take it, going home alone, wishing it was me while he clung to someone else.
What I couldn't take was if he pulled away, if he said, No, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't do that to Shelby. Leave me alone.
That would've crushed me.
His lips moved against the side of my face, but there were no words, and suddenly I knew. I put my lips on his and kissed him gently, then harder, and he returned my kiss without hesitation. My hand went to the back of his neck, to his hair, to the side of his face. I couldn't get enough of the warm, loving feel of him, thought I might never be able to get enough as long as I lived. All the intimate touch I had in my life was empty, angry, demanding, something I silently screamed against while pasting a big fake smile on my face. The caring in his kiss was such a relief it hurt.
"I love you," he whispered, and I buried my face in his shoulder and cried.
We chatted about this and that, over a distinct awkwardness that kept me looking out the window over his shoulder instead of into his eyes. I asked about his depression, and when I could actually see it on his face for the first time, I took his hand across the table. He asked about the club, and about the incident that happened at St. Michael's. I haven't mentioned this because I still won't talk about it, but it was one of my lowest points.
"You don't have to tell me," he said. "I just want you to know that if you want to talk, I want to listen, and I won't judge you."
I couldn't speak. He got the hint and changed the subject, asking about my bandmates, but I couldn't derail my brain quite so easily. I stumbled and couldn't even spit out the name of our drummer. Aiden got up from his booth and came to sit in mine, where he wrapped me in a hug.
He felt so good, so familiar and comforting. He held my head against his shoulder while I cried, then told me to face the other way. I did so, momentarily puzzled; then he started rubbing my shoulders, and I melted.
"You haven't let your guard down in a long time, have you?" he asked softly. I slumped back against his chest while he wrapped his arms around me, and shook my head. My life had become a game of scrapping for my comfort and safety - a little here, a little there, constantly moving my walls around to protect myself. My only physical contact with other people happened at work, and it was generally against my will. Somehow it was still all there in Aiden's hug, the complete package - the warmth, the support, the safety I hadn't felt in so long I'd almost forgotten what it was like. I could've sat in that booth for a month.
The heat of his touch was starting to melt my brain, and an old familiar spiral appeared. I knew where I wanted this to go...but he was unavailable, like always. I turned so we were seated side by side again and rested my head on his shoulder, the bridge of my nose against the warm, soft skin of his neck. His arms stayed locked around me. I put my leg over his so I could slide closer.
"How is it always so easy for us to cuddle?" he wondered.
I turned further towards him, hugging so we were cheek to cheek. My skin was on fire and my breath was quick and shallow. My palms started to sweat.
"My heart is beating so hard right now," he whispered, placing my hand against his chest so I could feel it.
I knew this cliff, and I desperately wanted to jump off it, but I was afraid. Not of the situation; I already knew there was no way it could end well. I'd been down that road, and I accepted that it led to the fires of hell. I knew I was going to be alone and there was nothing I could do about it. Heartache and loneliness had become a familiar part of me, a touchstone, comfortingly steady in their own strange way. I knew I could take it, going home alone, wishing it was me while he clung to someone else.
What I couldn't take was if he pulled away, if he said, No, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't do that to Shelby. Leave me alone.
That would've crushed me.
His lips moved against the side of my face, but there were no words, and suddenly I knew. I put my lips on his and kissed him gently, then harder, and he returned my kiss without hesitation. My hand went to the back of his neck, to his hair, to the side of his face. I couldn't get enough of the warm, loving feel of him, thought I might never be able to get enough as long as I lived. All the intimate touch I had in my life was empty, angry, demanding, something I silently screamed against while pasting a big fake smile on my face. The caring in his kiss was such a relief it hurt.
"I love you," he whispered, and I buried my face in his shoulder and cried.
Two-Way Street
Living permanently on the road came with its own set of concerns. In a way it was freeing - I was glad to be out of the north, away from the constant grinding pain of existing in the same social circle as Aiden and Shelby. Sleeping in a tent with my best friend was a big step up from the series of terrible living situations I'd put myself in over the last two years.
I had tried to make it work. I even went to a team party at Shelby's one night, thinking it wouldn't be so bad with the rest of the team there as a buffer. But it was. I fought the crushing anxiety as long as I could, but eventually told Ninja we had to leave. We went home, where I fell into a nightmare-filled sleep. People yelled at me all night long until I woke, exhausted. I decided I would never again go to a party where I knew they would be.
Traveling laid some of my immediate problems aside, but encouraged the blossoming of an existential worry - what was I doing with my life? In preparation for the trip, I had unwittingly removed all of my big goals. I was completely lost. I messaged Hawk from a campground in Florida, looking for support, but I think he was too jealous of the trip to be able to see my problems at the size they appeared to me.
Ninja and I were running out of both money and patience. Never knowing where we would sleep next or if we were going to get stranded somewhere or really anything at all was taking a toll on our minds. I couldn't admit it, but a month into what was supposed to be a year-long adventure I was already dreaming about the unimaginable luxury of having a place to live. I never intended to go back to what she still called home, but I had no other destination in mind, either. Living in the wind wasn't suiting me as well as I'd thought it would.
The money crunch came down on us in Texas, and I implemented the easiest solution I had to hand. I went back to stripping. Between the amount of debt I ran up in hotels and bike repair bills, and the fact that Ninja got a low-wage job with a biweekly paycheck, we got stuck. The hotels were costing us more than we could afford, so we signed a lease on an apartment to stop the bleeding.
The first time I stripped, most of ten years earlier, I'd made a few mistakes that left some emotional scars, and I swore I wouldn't make them again. In my first month in Texas, I'd made all of those and more, and had my eyes opened to a level of scum I'd never seen. The psychological drain started before I ever walked in the door, because I really didn't want to be doing what I was doing, and it was all downhill from there.
My first sobbing breakdown in the hotel room scared me, but I pushed through. The breakdowns became a regular thing, happening on average a couple of times a week. One night it happened in the club, and everybody treated it like a normal thing. All the dancers have meltdowns. It's expected.
I learned not to go in if I felt too awful, because I couldn't do the job. I slipped from working four days a week, to three, to two. Progress on paying off my debt came to a standstill. My depression flared and I started to feel hopeless and trapped. I wanted to die, but I couldn't do that to Ninja and my mother.
Through it all, Aiden was a relentless noise in my ear, talking to me constantly, asking me for updates on my life. He never burdened me with things I didn't want to know but seemed genuinely interested in what I was up to. He was one of only two friends from up north who regularly checked in on me. I gave him terse factual updates at first, then more detailed ones. I started telling him about club life. I talked to him more and more, filling him in on bits and pieces of myself. I desperately needed support and was coming to the disappointing realization that a lot more people are a lot more horrible than I ever wanted to believe. It was getting harder by the day for me to trust anyone with anything.
I wanted to hate him for what he had done to me, but instead I found myself dragged into the realization that he was still one of the best people in my life. He listened to my complaints and desperation, offered sympathy while I railed in anger at all the horrible things around me, and never asked for anything in return.
He said he just wanted to help me, but I knew it wasn't fair for me to use him like that, even if I hadn't asked for the help. With great apprehension one day I returned his "How are you?" with a "How are you?" of my own, something I hadn't done since before we broke up. I never asked him questions because I was afraid of breaking a dam and getting inundated with information I didn't want. That didn't happen, though. He said he was fine and thanked me for asking.
The lack of terrible results made me more courageous. Every day I tried to reach out a little more. I started with easy questions, about the yard and the chickens. I really didn't care how they were, so it felt like low stakes. I asked about his mom; she was fine. I asked about his son. I avoided general questions, and I never asked about Shelby. That was way beyond anything I could deal with, and he seemed to know it. He rarely mentioned her, and when he did it was only in passing.
Back when we were dating but lived apart, he would occasionally message me that he was tipsy on margaritas or cosmos or whatever the drink of the night was. I usually got annoyed and stopped talking to him for the evening. Distance drinking felt like some kind of slight.
When he started to send me those messages while I was stripping, though, I really couldn't be upset. I drank way too much myself and had no right to give anyone else any crap about it. We kept talking. I realized that he was sending me those messages an awful lot, and one evening when it had been several days in a row, I asked a new question.
"You seem to drink almost as much as I do these days. Are you okay?"
He didn't answer, and I saw a big red flag. I told him he didn't have to answer then, but I'd be waiting for an answer in the near future. Several days passed without further comment. He kept chatting like things were fine, but I knew something was up. I waited.
Maybe a week after I asked, he decided to explain. "I think I'm depressed. I don't know how to deal with it." He listed several typical signs of depression, and my heart reached out without permission from my better judgment.
"That sounds a lot like my experience of depression. I'm sorry you've found that place. It's shitty."
"The world is so used to me being 'on' all the time no one knows what to make of depressed Aiden. That's part of why I wasn't super open about it. You have enough strife emotionally. I didn't want to dump more on you."
"No worries...I just don't want to be using you as my support and not have any idea what's going on with you. I don't want you to pretend to be okay for me; that's unnecessary and unpleasant."
"So we can try this a bit differently going forward."
It was so much easier to connect with him after that, possibly easier than it has ever been in all the years I've known him. There were many times in the past that I felt like I was screaming at a stone wall in my attempts to communicate with him; he always listened, but rarely seemed to hear me. But the new Aiden had a level of understanding that the old one didn't. While I felt bad that he was depressed, part of me was grateful for it, for the change of perspective it had brought him. His old bouncy, irrepressible, bordering-on-obnoxiously optimistic attitude was toned down to something closer to my own reality.
I offered my emotional support to him in the past, both in general and anytime it seemed he might need it, but he rarely did. To have him finally accept my help was almost a relief, something it took me a while to put words to. I felt needed.
When I told him I was coming up north to visit family for a couple of days, he asked if he could take me to lunch.
My first thought was, Here we go again.
I had tried to make it work. I even went to a team party at Shelby's one night, thinking it wouldn't be so bad with the rest of the team there as a buffer. But it was. I fought the crushing anxiety as long as I could, but eventually told Ninja we had to leave. We went home, where I fell into a nightmare-filled sleep. People yelled at me all night long until I woke, exhausted. I decided I would never again go to a party where I knew they would be.
Traveling laid some of my immediate problems aside, but encouraged the blossoming of an existential worry - what was I doing with my life? In preparation for the trip, I had unwittingly removed all of my big goals. I was completely lost. I messaged Hawk from a campground in Florida, looking for support, but I think he was too jealous of the trip to be able to see my problems at the size they appeared to me.
Ninja and I were running out of both money and patience. Never knowing where we would sleep next or if we were going to get stranded somewhere or really anything at all was taking a toll on our minds. I couldn't admit it, but a month into what was supposed to be a year-long adventure I was already dreaming about the unimaginable luxury of having a place to live. I never intended to go back to what she still called home, but I had no other destination in mind, either. Living in the wind wasn't suiting me as well as I'd thought it would.
The money crunch came down on us in Texas, and I implemented the easiest solution I had to hand. I went back to stripping. Between the amount of debt I ran up in hotels and bike repair bills, and the fact that Ninja got a low-wage job with a biweekly paycheck, we got stuck. The hotels were costing us more than we could afford, so we signed a lease on an apartment to stop the bleeding.
The first time I stripped, most of ten years earlier, I'd made a few mistakes that left some emotional scars, and I swore I wouldn't make them again. In my first month in Texas, I'd made all of those and more, and had my eyes opened to a level of scum I'd never seen. The psychological drain started before I ever walked in the door, because I really didn't want to be doing what I was doing, and it was all downhill from there.
My first sobbing breakdown in the hotel room scared me, but I pushed through. The breakdowns became a regular thing, happening on average a couple of times a week. One night it happened in the club, and everybody treated it like a normal thing. All the dancers have meltdowns. It's expected.
I learned not to go in if I felt too awful, because I couldn't do the job. I slipped from working four days a week, to three, to two. Progress on paying off my debt came to a standstill. My depression flared and I started to feel hopeless and trapped. I wanted to die, but I couldn't do that to Ninja and my mother.
Through it all, Aiden was a relentless noise in my ear, talking to me constantly, asking me for updates on my life. He never burdened me with things I didn't want to know but seemed genuinely interested in what I was up to. He was one of only two friends from up north who regularly checked in on me. I gave him terse factual updates at first, then more detailed ones. I started telling him about club life. I talked to him more and more, filling him in on bits and pieces of myself. I desperately needed support and was coming to the disappointing realization that a lot more people are a lot more horrible than I ever wanted to believe. It was getting harder by the day for me to trust anyone with anything.
I wanted to hate him for what he had done to me, but instead I found myself dragged into the realization that he was still one of the best people in my life. He listened to my complaints and desperation, offered sympathy while I railed in anger at all the horrible things around me, and never asked for anything in return.
He said he just wanted to help me, but I knew it wasn't fair for me to use him like that, even if I hadn't asked for the help. With great apprehension one day I returned his "How are you?" with a "How are you?" of my own, something I hadn't done since before we broke up. I never asked him questions because I was afraid of breaking a dam and getting inundated with information I didn't want. That didn't happen, though. He said he was fine and thanked me for asking.
The lack of terrible results made me more courageous. Every day I tried to reach out a little more. I started with easy questions, about the yard and the chickens. I really didn't care how they were, so it felt like low stakes. I asked about his mom; she was fine. I asked about his son. I avoided general questions, and I never asked about Shelby. That was way beyond anything I could deal with, and he seemed to know it. He rarely mentioned her, and when he did it was only in passing.
Back when we were dating but lived apart, he would occasionally message me that he was tipsy on margaritas or cosmos or whatever the drink of the night was. I usually got annoyed and stopped talking to him for the evening. Distance drinking felt like some kind of slight.
When he started to send me those messages while I was stripping, though, I really couldn't be upset. I drank way too much myself and had no right to give anyone else any crap about it. We kept talking. I realized that he was sending me those messages an awful lot, and one evening when it had been several days in a row, I asked a new question.
"You seem to drink almost as much as I do these days. Are you okay?"
He didn't answer, and I saw a big red flag. I told him he didn't have to answer then, but I'd be waiting for an answer in the near future. Several days passed without further comment. He kept chatting like things were fine, but I knew something was up. I waited.
Maybe a week after I asked, he decided to explain. "I think I'm depressed. I don't know how to deal with it." He listed several typical signs of depression, and my heart reached out without permission from my better judgment.
"That sounds a lot like my experience of depression. I'm sorry you've found that place. It's shitty."
"The world is so used to me being 'on' all the time no one knows what to make of depressed Aiden. That's part of why I wasn't super open about it. You have enough strife emotionally. I didn't want to dump more on you."
"No worries...I just don't want to be using you as my support and not have any idea what's going on with you. I don't want you to pretend to be okay for me; that's unnecessary and unpleasant."
"So we can try this a bit differently going forward."
It was so much easier to connect with him after that, possibly easier than it has ever been in all the years I've known him. There were many times in the past that I felt like I was screaming at a stone wall in my attempts to communicate with him; he always listened, but rarely seemed to hear me. But the new Aiden had a level of understanding that the old one didn't. While I felt bad that he was depressed, part of me was grateful for it, for the change of perspective it had brought him. His old bouncy, irrepressible, bordering-on-obnoxiously optimistic attitude was toned down to something closer to my own reality.
I offered my emotional support to him in the past, both in general and anytime it seemed he might need it, but he rarely did. To have him finally accept my help was almost a relief, something it took me a while to put words to. I felt needed.
When I told him I was coming up north to visit family for a couple of days, he asked if he could take me to lunch.
My first thought was, Here we go again.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Wiping the Slate
It was strangely easy to tell him no. I knew it was the right choice without thinking about it. My friends all said they were proud of me, but that "no" was the easy part. It really didn't take any strength at all.
Which was fortunate, because I didn't have much left. I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. I lay awake most nights until dawn, sick to my stomach and shaking, then forced myself through the days on coffee and spite. I bought a new motorcycle. I ran up thousands of dollars in credit card debt. I traveled around the country on the bike. I drank. I stole things. I planned vindictive sprees of vandalism. I fucked off at work until I thought they'd have to fire me, but they never did.
One of Aiden's friends messaged me one day to say that they were worried about him, that he was taking our breakup very badly, that he wasn't eating or sleeping and looked like a zombie.
The fuck do I care? He chose this path. If he doesn't like it, he can go cry on the girlfriend he still has.
I thanked the friend for telling me; it wasn't a discussion worth having.
I decided that dating was only good for making broken hearts, and that it would be best if I just accepted my life as a single, lonely badass. Harley was stronger and scarier after the Joker attempted to kill her.
All the fucks I gave about pretty much anything disappeared down the drain. I told a friend he was gullible, and when he got offended, I laughed. He never spoke to me again.
Before we split, Aiden asked what I would do if he stayed with Shelby. I told him I'd leave my team and quite possibly move out of town, because I wouldn't be able to be around him. I think he doubted me; my bonds to my team were very strong.
In September, I wrote in my journal:
I'm coming unglued, piece by piece, in a slowly marching progression of crazy. I feel like my head is under pressure, and cracks are starting to appear in the corners and work their way up the walls. My anthem is Habits by Tove Lo. I skipped practice on Tuesday to stay home and drink. This is the shape of my life now. If this summer could be summed up in a hashtag, it would be #zerofucks.
I've been a ridiculous ball of rage lately, angry with everything from pedestrians to poorly functioning technology to, well, almost anything. Aiden asked me yesterday why I thought I was so angry. I responded with, "What are you, my therapist?" And he said, "No, but I am your friend." That put me off, and I realized later it's because he's great at talking about being supportive, but when it's come down to the wire and I've really needed help, he's let me down as much as he hasn't. He chose someone else over me, repeatedly and hurtfully, and then just wanted me to act like it didn't happen. That is not how a friend acts. My true friends have been there for me through everything.
I told Ninja I was leaving, and she said she was coming with me. In October, I had a falling-out with Zoe about the apartment and moved unexpectedly into Ninja's living room. Through November and December I worked 70 hours a week at two different jobs, saving money for the trip. I had to pick up a few things from Aiden and Shelby's house one evening, and he told me they were leaving for Hawaii in the morning. I didn't take the bait, just grabbed my bag of things and got back in the car, trying to avoid his awkward hug. As I drove away I started screaming.
"Hawaii!" I said to Ninja, and she understood every ounce of my boiling rage. It was lucky for everyone that I could barely keep up with work and sleep and had no time to activate any of those vindictive vandalistic plans.
I listened to Halestorm non-stop, worked 12-hour nights, rarely slept, rarely ate, and over and over again I talked myself into speeches I never gave [to Steve]. I let myself get so strung out I lost a pants size, dropping to less than 140 lbs, and became amenorrhic. I got into my car after shifts and just screamed. I fell asleep on the floor at both my jobs, once while sitting up. I stayed awake for 35 hours at one stretch and consumed obscene amounts of coffee.
And then one day both jobs were over. I slept for 13 hours, and then started my new life, unscheduled and directionless, headed for fresh new stretches of hell.
Which was fortunate, because I didn't have much left. I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. I lay awake most nights until dawn, sick to my stomach and shaking, then forced myself through the days on coffee and spite. I bought a new motorcycle. I ran up thousands of dollars in credit card debt. I traveled around the country on the bike. I drank. I stole things. I planned vindictive sprees of vandalism. I fucked off at work until I thought they'd have to fire me, but they never did.
One of Aiden's friends messaged me one day to say that they were worried about him, that he was taking our breakup very badly, that he wasn't eating or sleeping and looked like a zombie.
The fuck do I care? He chose this path. If he doesn't like it, he can go cry on the girlfriend he still has.
I thanked the friend for telling me; it wasn't a discussion worth having.
I decided that dating was only good for making broken hearts, and that it would be best if I just accepted my life as a single, lonely badass. Harley was stronger and scarier after the Joker attempted to kill her.
All the fucks I gave about pretty much anything disappeared down the drain. I told a friend he was gullible, and when he got offended, I laughed. He never spoke to me again.
Before we split, Aiden asked what I would do if he stayed with Shelby. I told him I'd leave my team and quite possibly move out of town, because I wouldn't be able to be around him. I think he doubted me; my bonds to my team were very strong.
In September, I wrote in my journal:
I'm coming unglued, piece by piece, in a slowly marching progression of crazy. I feel like my head is under pressure, and cracks are starting to appear in the corners and work their way up the walls. My anthem is Habits by Tove Lo. I skipped practice on Tuesday to stay home and drink. This is the shape of my life now. If this summer could be summed up in a hashtag, it would be #zerofucks.
I've been a ridiculous ball of rage lately, angry with everything from pedestrians to poorly functioning technology to, well, almost anything. Aiden asked me yesterday why I thought I was so angry. I responded with, "What are you, my therapist?" And he said, "No, but I am your friend." That put me off, and I realized later it's because he's great at talking about being supportive, but when it's come down to the wire and I've really needed help, he's let me down as much as he hasn't. He chose someone else over me, repeatedly and hurtfully, and then just wanted me to act like it didn't happen. That is not how a friend acts. My true friends have been there for me through everything.
I told Ninja I was leaving, and she said she was coming with me. In October, I had a falling-out with Zoe about the apartment and moved unexpectedly into Ninja's living room. Through November and December I worked 70 hours a week at two different jobs, saving money for the trip. I had to pick up a few things from Aiden and Shelby's house one evening, and he told me they were leaving for Hawaii in the morning. I didn't take the bait, just grabbed my bag of things and got back in the car, trying to avoid his awkward hug. As I drove away I started screaming.
"Hawaii!" I said to Ninja, and she understood every ounce of my boiling rage. It was lucky for everyone that I could barely keep up with work and sleep and had no time to activate any of those vindictive vandalistic plans.
I listened to Halestorm non-stop, worked 12-hour nights, rarely slept, rarely ate, and over and over again I talked myself into speeches I never gave [to Steve]. I let myself get so strung out I lost a pants size, dropping to less than 140 lbs, and became amenorrhic. I got into my car after shifts and just screamed. I fell asleep on the floor at both my jobs, once while sitting up. I stayed awake for 35 hours at one stretch and consumed obscene amounts of coffee.
And then one day both jobs were over. I slept for 13 hours, and then started my new life, unscheduled and directionless, headed for fresh new stretches of hell.
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