Adventures in solitude

Its almost Easter. And there is a touch of spring in the air. Sun through the window today.

Things are upside down and inside out. I wake in the mornings and feel disoriented. The flat feels lonely. I make dinners for 1 and have food left over to bring into lunch. Im still not sure how I ended up here.

I talked to Oliver last night. Practical stuff. My heart ache for making him happy. More than anything its what i think when i speak to him, I just want to make him happy. I know its not my place but I wish i could do things for him. I wish it more than when we were actually together at the end because I was so frustrated with the situation that I didnt want to do anything.

Its funny. Im very sad but im also filled with a feeling that i can do anything. By taking action and changing an unmanageable situation I feel strong. Like it will all work out. By doing this for me I must be set up for life to work out. Or, thats at least what i hope. 

Today is a good day.

(Moomin is my new house god, clever little troll)

How to survive a break up.

Its been a week. The longest week in my life. I kid you not. At 33 you know it gets better, you know you need time so you curl up in bed and wait for that time to go. Tick tock. Its slow when you want nothing than for the days to go, when the nights are twice as long since you dont fall asleep until 4 and when you dont want to see anyone because you are scared of what they see in your eyes.

Then you need some survival strategies. Things to help you get through. Here are mine (and here is a link to another brilliant one)

1. Cry. It needs out. Silent crying in a bathroom at work, wrecking sobs in the sofa, misted eyes on the tube and the tired, no energy, crying in bed at 3 in morning. All of it helps.

2. Watch something easy. No lost love, no new love, no sadness. Watch things that are safe. Im watching Once upon a time right now. Fairy tales.

3. The same goes for reading. Im reading soft porn about highlanders. That has no depth. Perfect.

4. Eat whatever you feel like. You need the energy. I had McDonalds for the first time in 4 years. It was the best thing ever. My other food over the weekend have been cold baked beans out of the can, salad and lamb mince, crumpets and candy.

4. Let someone take care of you. If you have a male friend let him drag you out and remind you how much fun you are. Let him buy you your night food, talk to only you in the too loud pub and put you to bed with a glass of water. I find that guys are perfect for that. They dont try and tell you what would be best, they let you drink way too much vodka and make sure you are ok.

5. Make plans. Talk to anyone you feel like spending time with in the coming months and make thousand and one plan. Dream of going to Amsterdam for a party weekend or plan to go for a walk in the park. Everything helps. They remind you that there are still a world out there.

6. Allow yourself to be selfish and not see people if you dont want to. Your friends want to help and you will get a lot of offers of hanging out. Choose the ones where you think it will actually help you. Dont do it for someone else sake.

7. Live the cliche. Sometimes you need to live it out by re creating every sad movie you ever seen. On Saturday I walked around in my robe all day with mascara lines down my cheek eating beans cold and cry singing to every sad song I could think of. It helped.

8. Create you own sad music list. Write every word you need saying. Read quotes. Become a pinterest addict.

9. Talk to your friends. Text them in the middle of the night or at work. Let them help. See yourself in their eyes. Talk about memories about a happier time. They know you before him and will be there after. They’ve seen you get up before.

10. Allow yourself to be dark as f*ck. You dont have to appreciate the sunshine or smell the flowers. You are allowed to hate happy people. Just remember that it gets better.

11. Put on make up, dress up, make yourself pretty and dance. Dancing always helps. When you are done with the sad music listen to the happy one.

12. Allow yourself to see sings in everything.Your song being played on the radio, its a sign. Your plant dying, its a sign. Your jacket that was a gift catching fire – its a fucking sign. Sometimes you need to feel that the universe understands you. Let it, it does.

13. Respect your sadness. Let no one tell you not too. You are exactly as sad as you feel. Nothing less. And it will take the time it does.

Big girls cry

More than a week now and im starting to feel a bit better about it. That acute, cant breathe, crying myself to sleep state is over. Dont miss it. Dont ever want to see it again. We are done with each other.

Instead I got so much time. And no energy. Ive spent most of the weekend in bed watching an obscene amount of episodes of different series on Netflix. I did go see Kix and baby Alex on Friday and Saturday ran out at 8 with acute lonely angst meeting Tom with friends. We did another of those ‘drink vodka and set the world right’ on Saturday night. Clocks changing and we lost an hour. The day after Sunday roast with the biggest Yorkshire pudding i have ever seen.

Im keeping busy, sane and afloat. Im drinking too much vodka. As you do when heartbroken. I also have amazing friends and family. AMAZING! The send pepping messages, call, invite me around and make me feel generally loved. That counts for the world.

Julia sent me the below images from us being maybe 19. So young. And life is so much better now. No matter how tricky its still light years better. Im making myself remember that.

My parents wants me to come to Sweden, im trying to work it out work wise. Will see if I can make it happen. I also have a lot to do at work since i was very useless last week.

Here, a picture of the chilli plant. It has made me open the blinds to the world this weekend, it deserves all the credit in the world.

Big girls cry

Status day 6 – closing the blinds and mumbles ‘it will be better’without believing it for a second. Drinks vodka instead.

I went out last night. Jury is still out whether it was a good idea or not. Needless to say, today I feel shit. Utter and complete shit. I’m working from home and lay in bed eating baked beans from a can. Yup, that’s the kind of stuff you do when it doesn’t matter if it’s sunshine outside.

Last night was weird. I got my head caught in the train door and have a pretty banged up jaw to show for it. The jacket I got from Oliver caught fire and there is now a fist sized hole in it. My internal superstitious medieval lady screams ‘it’s a sign, you relationship is literally going up in flames’. Me and Tommy drank vodka at 3 in the morning and I was wired like a crazy person.

Maybe the verdict is that it wasn’t a great idea. 

I wish I had somewhere to go and just be but I don’t really feel comfortable to do that with most friends here. So I live in bed. I’m toying with the idea of going back to sweden but that means a flight and time of work and organizing stuff. Not my bag at the moment. So, back to bed. 

 Life status: Frikking awesome! 

Tears are my body’s way of saying ‘hey you, I feel your pain. Lets do this together’. And we will.

The first time I cried for as long as I can remember was in my first couple of months with Magnus. I had told him something very hard to talk about and he got so angry at the world and seeing his hurt i cried. It was a release. Being younger i had stopped crying for some reason. When my grandfather died my best friend said ‘you dont seem very sad, you dont cry’ and i wonder what was wrong with me, why i didnt have any feelings. I was 10 at the time and had met my grandfather a handful of times.

It took a long time for me to let crying be natural. When i broke up with Magnus is the first time i properly cried but even then i tried to push it down. I stood with Maggie at a bar on the night of our break up and tried to hide my tears. I remember late night calling Chrisse from some doorway crying my heart out asking if it would ever feel better. But that was only when i was drunk.

When i met Oliver tears became part of my life. Depression do that to you. How i cried. Everywhere. But they were tears of anguish. Impotent and a way for my body to reject how hard i found it to live. Tensed sobbing that tore itself from my body when i tried my best to shut it down. It was painful.

This time im not pushing anything down. I cry when i wake up, at work, to movies, to books, holding Woolly, talking to Oliver. And i think its good. It feels like im cleaning out all of that hurt with my tears. Like they carry the darkness with them. I know ill be dancing and laughing and faking, you have to, but if I can only get this out i think ill come out of this some demons lighter.

How do you not fall apart?

Today will be tricky. I can feel it in my bones. I woke up with a sense of loss. No Oliver, no Woolly. Met Lollo for dinner yesterday and for a second it all felt like it would be ok. We talked, I laughed and i think I almost forgot that nothing is the same any longer.

Today I feel it. How can a house feel so empty? How can the sight of someone’s stack of pens make me so sad. I have hated those pens at times. Now they just make me feel empty and lonely.

My friends keep telling me that im so brave for doing this. Leaving something before the hurt. Leaving when we can still be friends, when no one has done anything that cant be undone. Leaving before there are kids and a life even more entangled. I dont feel brave. I feel small. In my loneliest moments I wish I would have pushed all this hurt to the future. Put my head in the sand and stayed with this amazing man and dealt with this in some unspecified future.

But we didn’t. When you still love someone you don’t want to see them hurt and I knew I couldn’t ever hurt Oliver. So we broke us.

So now im stuck in this grey land of broken memories. I need to build myself again, believe that there is someone for me, get my head out of guilt and start thinking that im worth someone and wont just walk away and hurt them. I’m so very scared of hurting people and I feel like that’s where i end up no matter what I do.

(Im sorry for all the cheesy pinterest quotes but my god I apparently need them. Them and cry all night songs. Like this. I fucking hate this song, it makes me break every time. I mean come on, ABBA? They just put all the hurt in words. Damn you swedish pop geniuses)

Free falling

The worst about this is the sense of free falling. That no one will catch you. To not be safe.

Oliver was my safe. From the first time he hugged me on the steps and made me feel at home in a hug with a stranger he has made me feel safe. He took care of me when I burnt my leg, held my hand through my depression, he gave me a home and a family in a new country and he believed in me and that made me feel utterly and completely at home. I explained us to people by saying that he was my string and anchor to my bobbing helium balloon. He let me soar but kept me safely connected to the ground.

I dont anymore. Im not safely connected to anything. I know that’s all up to me. Be my own person and all that and im not really scared of being on my own, I know I can do it. Its the worry that i will just float without anyone to give me a home that scares me. I dont trust myself. I tend to turn flipper ball when no one is there to catch me. And no one is any longer.

When your dreams stop you know your mind is trying hard not to exist

Another day done. Yes, im keeping track. Another night of 5 hour sleep. Im starting to look like an old tramp. Ive decided to not be alone for a bit though. Apparently thats bad for you. I cant see how sitting on the sofa crying and reading soft porn about Scottish highlander could ever be bad for you but they say it is.

Im bad being on my own. Im nordic gloomy. Left to my own my mind goes bananas. I dont like me very much if i think too much. I definitely dont like my choices. So im planning to pinballing myself between friends. Until ill collapse in exhaustion. Probably around Sunday.

Going out with Unibet crew tomorrow. Tommy is my wing man. He is sending me pepping texts about how awesome I am, how much fun we will have this summer, how we will laugh in the face of life in 20 year when we sit on a beach drinking cocktails being happy we narrowly escaped being tied down and instead travel the world. I need that. I need someone who keeps reminding me ITS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.

(yes, im trying very hard to see the positives here. Dont mind that slightly forced tone. You do what you have to do to survive. In the light of my latest reading habit (seriously, scottish highlander might even be better than vampires) i feel like Braveheart screaming Freedom (well, he died but i will survive screaming ‘Ill be fucking alright’ from the top of my lungs))

All thats going down

Im thinking I shouldnt be writing here too much, that its self indulgent and no one cares and then i think ‘fuck it’. This is my space. My place to deal with Shit. That. Is. Going. Down. Like breaking up with your boyfriend. That is shit of epic proportions.

So, here goes. Another mind vomit of heart broken nonsense. Yes, still there. Still only 3 days. Even if this hurt makes it feel like its been at least 2 weeks. How can i still only be 3 days in? My calendar says it will be better in 3 months and that is another 90 days. I hope it starts getting better before that, i dont think i can do 90 days of this. My skin is broken up in pimples, my stomach hurts, my eyes are puffy from tears and I dont sleep.

I feel a bit numb. Like this isnt real. Like ill come home and miraculously it will all be fine. My house wont feel achingly empty and Oliver and me will smile at each other and say ‘how silly we are, of course its supposed to be us’. But its not. Deal with it.

Work. What a joke. I cry in the bathroom and pretend to care when my team mate asks me about emails. I dont. At all. I want to go to a dark bar and drink too many beers and smoke cigarettes and have a friend that says ‘its enough now’ and helps me home to put me in bed and put a glass of water by my bedside. 

I remember last time i was here. I kept thinking that i can never do this to myself again. It took 3 years before i let anyone in. I remember being angry at my friends telling me to stop, the ones i trusted to be carefree and stupid with me told me that this wasnt the way. Drinking until oblivion and behave like a kid wasnt the answer. I wonder if i will be told that again?

My thoughts go along the way of giving up. That maybe, finally, im allowed to. I fought my way through my depression, therapy, the realisation that something needs to change. I fought through it and just did it. Got out of bed, went to work, functioned. Am i allowed to not now? Ive taken the hardest decision of my life. Left what kept me sane and entered the fear of falling back into chaos and nothingness. Am i done now? I guess not.

Words churning. That is what they do. They dont help. Time, its only fucking time that will heal. I wish there was a short cut, a bear hibernating cave, an eternal sunshine on a spotless mind machine, anything to make this go away. Instead  I collect quotes on pinterest, listen to sad songs, cry to silly movies and read fantasy to try and make sense, chase away the demons and survive.

The things you do to survive

Setting reminders in my calendar. Every week that pass is a step closer to better. I cant see it now but I hope that those reminders will make me feel that when i see them.