At the end of time

Can’t wait for holiday. Sweden. Family. Home. I’m tired. It’s been a long year. My world have been turned upside down and I’ve just gone for the ride. The arm still has 6 weeks before it’s actually healed which I, well, kind of decide to not think about.

I do what I always do when I’m single – never stop dancing. Find the loneliness hard. Surround myself with beautiful people. Make new friends, kiss sweet boys. Party girl. The boys that care about me ask when I will stop. They look at me with worried eyes and want to save me. They always have. But I smile back and don’t let them close. They can’t do anything, it’s all me.

I’m the only one who can decide to stop hiding behind the ones that are not right for me. To stop closing my heart down on countless dance floors.

 I know myself well by now. What I need to do to move forward. When Ol and me ended I knew it would take me at least a year. I knew I would cry and crush on boys, feel like the queen of the world and endless loneliness. That I would question why this restlessness made me leave when most stays. That I would know it was the right thing and wish I didn’t.

I need time to get there. I need dancing, crashing head first into a wall, euphoria and a bone deep weariness. I need sweet boys showing me who I am and where im supposed to go. I need the rollercoaster to wake up one day and be done with it.

But right now I need my childhood home, my parents, sleep and food.

The Captain of Her Heart

6 months today. This is the date I said to myself I was going to stop counting the months and put it behind me. So i will. I’ve said it before but i’ve worked in time lines this time around and weirdly enough, it has worked for this hippie hearted, no rules girl (i guess woman att 33).

I gave myself 2 weeks to stop crying every night and after those first weeks of nightly tears I stopped and only cried when it really hurt. I mean, I cried as late as last week but at least i didnt do it in that kind of hopeless, I have given up, way. More in a ‘fuck you life’ way. As you do.

I said 2 month to stop laying in bed watching anime and start getting out and hang out with my friends and by the beginning of June I grabbed my colleagues and started life again. Spectacularly. It was like a kick in the balls of being sad.

3 months marked ‘you have to give another guy a chance, at least touch someone’. Lets just say i did.

5 months meant mid vacation and FUN. More than anything I told myself I was going to focus on having fun with my friends, living day to day and do whatever felt good. And survive being toastmaster for Tomlins. I did all of that, I really did. Had a great time in Spain, danced in Sthlm and lived like there was truly no tomorrow at BM (and well, that meant coming home with a raging fever but WTF).

So, 6 months. Half a year of us not being a couple any longer. Clichee but i AM stronger. I know better what i want and im so grateful to myself for letting me be sad over this because i do feel ready to 100% let go and meet someone awesome. You cant half do it, at least not I. I dont want to start something new still dealing with the old. Im way too sentimental for that.

The coming months i am kind of thinking ill date someone for a bit, look at changing jobs, have a lot of fun and then – around Christmas, ill be ready to meet him. Not sure I will but at least my heart will be healed enough for someone to storm in there with a smile on his face. Welcome, we will have shit loads of fun you and I. 

Hello darkness my old friend

Sometimes life happens and its SHIT. With capitals. And you sit in the bathroom at work and cry again and wonder ‘how the fuck did i get here, i was doing well’. And you were, its just that life doesn’t really care and decides to throw you one anyway.

And you breathe, talk to your friends, cry some more in the bathroom and realise that the tears have left lines in the make up but to be honest, you don’t care because ‘life, you know what, you might kick me in the ass but you cant break me’ (you say with a flick off your hair and mascara smeared down your cheeks).

Even if it feels like you are breaking, just a little bit again, you know you’ll deal with is. Because you have to. So you put on sad music, listen to heavy rain in the background and scream to yourself ‘fuck you, i hate you with all my heart right now because you were supposed to be in my corner even if we broke up but you are not. You only look out for yourself and i’m all alone’.

You realise that yes, you are all alone and you HAVE. TO. STOP thinking that the person that you spent the last year breaking apart from still has your back. Because its not fair on any of you. Because that’s what a break up is – you break away from each other. Because you are not a team any longer and because he is creating a team with someone else.

So life, bring it on. Throw me that shit storm and i’ll cry and i’ll rage and i’ll text ALL my friends and i’ll probably wont sleep and i’ll most definitely get too drunk and smoke too many cigarettes but i’ll also have my own back.

(btw LOVE my friends – Sanna sent me a spotify list with all 7 songs with the title ‘kill that bitch’. Yes.)

When I knew we were over

Im sitting in the kitchen door feeling like my heart is breaking. I need you to understand how important this is to me. I look at you but you don’t look back. You are cooking for us and your anger is simmering. That anger you almost never let out but after 4 years I can tell is there.

– Please come. I really need you to come. For me.

I can hear myself choking. I don’t know how to make you understand how important this is to me. How weeks, months, of us breaking apart and discussing over and over again the same things without answers is killing me. I don’t know how to ask you to do this, to give me hope, to make me feel that we are worth keep fighting for.

– Its already been decided. My family will come here. They need me.

You are stirring the food, furiously. I can see how me asking you is getting you all worked up. You want to make everyone happy and once again you have put yourself in an impossible situation. Everyone won’t be happy. Not this time. I need you to come to Sweden with me, to choose me since every day for the last couple of months you’ve been telling me you can never choose Sweden if I need you too. So this become my one hope that just once you will do this for me. Come to my country, to my family, to the place most important in the world to me. I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks how important this is.

But you don’t see. Maybe you don’t want to. You keep telling me you can’t. That it’s already been decided you are staying here. That your sister needs you. That you’ll come next year. Or when we have kids. You will come for the kids.

I start to cry. Crawl up in a ball on the floor and ask you please over and over again. What about me? Why can’t you do this for me and only me? You are hurting and get angry. Tell me that it’s unfair of me to ask that of you. I can see how it tears at you. How the last weeks have made you guarded. How you know you should do this for us but don’t know how. So you take the easy way.

So do I. I dry my tears, get up from the floor and scream at you that ‘you know what, I don’t care. Stay here with your fucking family. I don’t need you anyway’.

Then I go in to the bedroom, close the door and know that we are over.

Harsh Light

I love this text by Sandra. I also loves that its written 11 months after the break up. It gives me perspective on my 4 months. That maybe its ok to still have bad hours/days/weeks when im so very sad we didnt work out. To not know how to get through the day. To come home drunk, look at myself in the mirror and scream because i dont know how I ended up here, how this became my life.

It goes up and down and some days im fine, I feel hope and plan for my future. Im happy.

Other days I wonder what im doing. I can see the sadness in me by how desperately im trying to do anything but be with only me. Jules and me spoke once on how you know you are not good with yourself – when you cant stand the quiet to actually have to listen to your own mind. When there is constant music in your ears, series on the TV and the phone in your hand.

That is me. Plus add booze.

How I agree with the above ‘you are so broken its not enough to drink tea and eat cakes to get over someone’. It doesnt work to sit at home. I tried. It doesnt work to take endless walks or just hang with friends. I’ve tried that too. You always have to come home to that empty flat.

Drink to forget and push that head into the wall. That works. For a while. Until you have to do it again. Go all in kamikaze on your life and do everything with that desperate edge that makes things blow up. Meet the eyes of the people who can see that in you and look at yourself in that mirror. Calls for another drink.

Ive been here before and I know it needs to stop eventually. My mind is getting tiny holes where the sadness seeps through. Every time i drink there is more of them. I try to wall them up but they are too many. And then i do stupid shit and there is a big f**king crater with an avalanche of negative thoughts.

Im not sure what to do. Previously I kind of get to a point and then just stop. No more. But that need the hurt to go and if I look really close (which im desperately trying not to do) im still all torn up about all of this. I cant even meet someone to rebound on becaue I know that’ll mess me up even more, Im no good with that.

So, I drink and try to not feel.

4 months and im slowly getting there

Hey, its been 4 months tomorrow. Shit, times flown by. Its like they say, time do really heal all wounds. Im actually ok. I never thought that would happen day 2 when my heart was breaking into a million pieces. Or, I knew it would get better, the way you ‘know’ these kind of things but i couldnt feel it. When my life consisted of crying and endless hours of anime I thought i would be sad forever. I really did. I couldnt see myself ever smile again.

Slowly i got out of the worst bits and summer hit me full force. Instead of hating of the flowers of spring I started loving the green of summer. I switched my ‘when it fucking hurts’ music list to my ‘HAPPY’ one and started wearing cute clothes again feeling alive. I danced in a club in Prague with my sister and felt my heart healing.

I kissed boys. I felt like I could maybe, potentially, like someone a little bit again. My dreams went from being killed every night to those of holidays and sun. I started daydreaming again. How i missed that. Suddenly I saw cute boys and made up a whole life with them in the space of a tube journey.

More than anything, my smile came back. I had people telling me my smile can make anyone happy, that my dancing is pure joy and that im the coolest person they know. I became me from that sad, worried shadow.

But a better me. A me that’s realised more about myself. A me that wont hide from my feelings any longer. That won’t try and control every aspect of my emotional life but fight to let go. That doesnt come naturally. My life has been a series of ‘this is not good for me, Ill chose the right thing. Ive just decided this is ‘right”. Im not saying thats been wrong but there has been a big thing of saving myself from getting hurt by hiding behind complete control over the emotional situation.

No longer. My goal is to try and let go and maybe meet someone who is not ‘right’ from my controlled point of view but maybe right by making me not so scared of my feelings.

So, 4 months later im getting there. Im making plans, trying to grow and of course, worry the shit out of myself about the whole being single, baby thing but im sure that will work out (gaaaaaah)

Lullabies for barflies

Its been 3 months since we broke up and my calendar tell me that its time to stop crying and start living. I’m not sure why 3 months felt like the magic number but in my first week I remember thinking that by then it should all be a little easier.

It is. Everything is easier than that first week. I don’t feel like i lost half of myself and Woolly and me sleeps soundly next to each other every night. I’ve even seen one or two boys making my stomach do back flips. I know in my heart this is the best that could happen for Oliver and me.

I survived these three first months. I got through crying and not sleeping. My skin has cleared up and my hair is back to normal. I no longer dream of being raped and killed every night. I have stopped listening to my sad music list and i don’t get panic attacks when i get home to the empty flat. I have laughed like I meant it and danced with people I love. I manage on my own.

But, things are still shaky. Of the less obvious kind. I get too drunk when i drink. I’m scared of meeting someone new, of risking my heart. I don’t dare to take any decisions, afraid that they’ll make me sad again. I want to turn to Ol with everything even if he is not mine. I’m angry at myself and the world for me being here. I’m jealous of my friends having what i want and I feel very alone. I still watch anime and do nothing.

3 months. I have stopped crying but I’m not fully living yet. I’m not sure I can. The thought of meeting someone, caring, feels very far away. I need to defrost and dare. I need to meet someone that makes me smile from my toes and gets my skin tingling. Even if its only for a little while.

The first (and only) Oliver is a bastard post (because he is really not)

Ol told me he met someone else yesterday. It felt like getting punched on a bruise. That is what my heart is, its not broken any longer but its a healing bruise and i felt like a big fist smashing right into all that barely healed purple tissue. Opening scabs and oozing blood. I fell to my knees holding a beating, bleeding heart in my hand.

We had dinner, we laughed, I paid for it (because im nice), I told him im here for him if he need me and then he told me that he has moved on, met someone else. Its been less than 3 months since he was mine. It feels like seconds since I was supposed to be the most important thing in his world. I held him when he cried – he was afraid that he would lose my friendship. He told me he wanted us to be honest with each other, that he didn’t want to lie to me. I wanted to scream ‘don’t hurt me then you bastard. Don’t you ever fucking hurt me’.

I know its not supposed to be us but it still hurts that i was so easy to leave behind. My pride and vanity want to mean more to someone Ive spent 4 years with. One day this day will only be a fading memory but there will always be a little mark left in my heart from the boy who cried while he hurt me.

Its been 3 months on Monday. The day I decided to stop being sad.  I guess I have to walk away from this without looking back. I know I can do it. I had started to genuinely smile again and i will be happy. Oliver and me will be fine. My life will be were it should be. But, I still have 5 days left.

Happy friendship day

It would have been Olivers and mine 4 year anniversary today. When i looked at my phone this morning photos from the previous years pop up. We look so happy. Happy and in love.

Today makes me sad its not us any longer, that we didn’t work, but seeing those pictures it also makes me happy we had the time we had. That we were good together and that I loved him. That i met this funny, geeky, kind, weird English guy and as my dad always say ‘you will always have the memory of the good ones’ (well, to be honest, he doesn’t say that but something similar in about 100 more words so ive made up some wise saying out of it) and Oliver is a good one.

Oliver said that next year we should celebrate this day as out friendship day instead and i like that. Its a bit too dark to choose our actual breaking up day but to make this day into something fun is a nice idea.

I will be sad over us today. Its allowed. I’ll probably drink a bit too much with the Unibet crew and cry into Woolly’s fur tonight. That allowed too. But i will also be happy that there can still be an us even if that’s as friends and not only allowed but good for my little slowly healing broken heart.

Are you ok? No, im not.

A very important thing i have learned about grief these past few months are to be allowed to be sad. For people to not try and fix you or tell you it will be better.

Most friends i meet tell me that it will be ok or start talking about single guys they know, or how I should go on tinder. I want to scream to them that im still sad, that im still mourning my relationship, that im not ready. But some people only know how to comfort by fixing the ‘problem’ or by hearing your words having to tell you of your coming happiness.

I do think it will be ok, this is only heartbreak, it gets better, but right now its not. Right now this is not just a break up from any guy, this is my broken heart that cant believe i had to let go of someone I love. Its me trying to get back up where i have energy for more than lay on the bed and its me realizing im not where i want to be.

This is the first time in my life i have let grief feel as bad as it does, when i have allowed myself to be as sad as i am. I tend to shrug it off and get on but I read somewhere that breaking up with someone can feel like someone dies (Sandra wrote this achingly sad) and 5 years ago I would have laughed at that.

It does. Even if Oliver is still in my life WE have died. That is what I mourn. Us. Our dreams, our future, our hopes. W’s face when we hand him over and walk separate ways. My never ending nightmares and the fact that it feels like im falling. That we will never be more than friends than talk once in a while and that i will have to believe again.

I read the below text on Facebook and she puts it perfectly. Even if this is a much deeper sorrow the feeling at the point of sadness is the same.

‘I have learned that I never really knew what to say to others in need. I think I got this all wrong before; I tried to assure people that it would be okay, thinking that hope was the most comforting thing I could offer. A friend of mine with late-stage cancer told me that the worst thing people could say to him was “It is going to be okay.” That voice in his head would scream, How do you know it is going to be okay? Do you not understand that I might die? I learned this past month what he was trying to teach me. Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not. When people say to me, “You and your children will find happiness again,” my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, “You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good” comfort me more because they know and speak the truth. Even a simple “How are you?”—almost always asked with the best of intentions—is better replaced with “How are you today?” When I am asked “How are you?” I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear “How are you today?” I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.’