wherever you go, there you are

i was talking with my therapist ... yes i am seeing a therapist regularly which some people will say is a positive choice in dealing with my situation in a healthy way.  while i'm sure other people will tell me is highly inappropriate to discuss in a public place, because i will be judged on my mental defeat, and how dare i admit that i actually need help.  oh i just can't win.  where was i?

oh yeah, so i was talking with my therapist and she suggested that i need to take a break from work.  "just leave," she said, "you need a break.  go and chill out for a month in Bali or something."

while this is a lovely idea in the abstract, i couldn't help but wonder what the fuck would i do in Bali for a month by myself? this would be awful. i'd be in paradise. alone. with all my thoughts. with no one to talk to. with nothing to do. with no schedule. with no structure.  with nothing to distract me from it all. just me, myself and i thinking about how absolutely terrible everything is and how devastated i am and how i feel like my life and everything i hold dear has been destroyed.

i'd still have all that ... but in Bali.

then i remembered that i actually am going to Bali for easter, but i am going with the Fabulous Fifi so that's a bit different.  "you need to go somewhere NOW," Ms. Therapist said.  not in easter.  and then i remembered that i was in fact traveling to thailand the following week.  how this slipped my mind i really don't know. but she seemed pleased with the idea of me going to thailand for Chinese New Year.

she talked about how peaceful it would be and all the opportunities for mindfulness there would be. and she suggested that maybe my days wouldn't all blur together in such a meaningless haze if i pushed myself out of my comfort zone and did something different. maybe try rock climbing.

fine. i am a risk-taker, as they say. these are all good ideas. in my typical overzealous-bordering-on-OCD fashion, i will try all these things. i'll do the yoga and the rock climbing and the stand-up paddle boarding and the thai boxing and i'll take time out each day to do short meditations in a place of natural beauty.

i'll do all the stuff. because dear blog readers despite whatever you might think, i am actually doing all the right things.

so here i am in thailand. i am here. but i'm still me. the sad reality is that wherever you go, you're still with yourself. that's the only person you can never escape.

me pretending to be okay in Krabi

so i'm here and it's the first time i'm on vacation without the Bolshevik. and i know he's on vacation too, but without me. and that's how it'll be from no on. forever. that's how he wants it. everything reminds me of him: motorbikes, crab legs, beach-front tattoo parlors, sunblock, boat rides, street food, bars that sell low-quality cocktails out of plastic buckets, foot massages ... every single thing brings up memories of him and our adventures together. and it's killing me.

and where is he?  he's in malaysia.  he decided to go to the first asian country we ever visited.  where we climbed up hundreds of stairs to see buddhist shrines and we fed monkeys and we trekked through the jungle to see the largest flower and we ate fresh strawberries from a mountainside farm.  where we went to a tropical island and ate dinner at a little seafood shack on the beach and he asked me to marry him.

he. went. on. vacation. to. the. place. where. he. proposed. to. me. let that sink in dear blog readers.  because it fucking haunts me daily.

and i'm here crying because i did one of those fish foot spas and we used to do that together. meanwhile he is traipsing around a country full of our best memories without a care in the world.  that's how few fucks he gives about me and about what we had.

i'm sorry i'm not all sunshine and rainbows

"If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels. If you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it."

-Lemony Snicket

yeah so i'm sorry i can't be all sunshine and rainbows and happy little elves in an enchanted forest for you. but was i ever?

i've always thought from the age of about 14 to 29 i was a bit out of my mind. like, not actually out of my mind, but just a bit unhinged like a crazed teenager. i could never be calm or just be satisfied or just be present. there was a neurotic anxiety burning within me that could never quite be put out.

and then i met the bolshevik. and i was able to let go of all that. i could finally calm down and "just be." it was like i finally had some peace within me.

maybe you don't really know me. maybe you think you know me, but you've only known this one side of me. like plato's allegory of the cave, you thought that was all there was, but there was more to the shadows than you thought. i'm sorry to disappoint you.

and yeah, i just alluded to plato. i'm fucking smart.

the person you knew was content. she had a sense of fulfillment. she was happy and often reflected that life was pretty good and that she really didn't want or need much more. she was living the life she wanted.  in fact, she often thought she was living a life that was way better than any life she could've imagined for herself. and she knew that was a pretty awesome situation to be in.

but that's all gone.  and i'm sorry if that's difficult for you.

so you see me at the staff meeting and i'm all bubbly telling you about some book-themed activity i'm doing, or some training i'm leading.  and i smile and can project my voice above the auditorium and i say something clever and everyone thinks i'm fine. i'm just a little ball of energy! maybe it's charming. maybe it's annoying. but no one complains. people like that girl.

but that is now a facade. it's a facade i put on every day so i can pretend to function and sometimes i get so busy and distracted that for a brief moment i can even convince myself it's real. i'm that good.

but it's not real.

and if that's the story you want to read, then read no further.  because this obviously isn't the story for you.

"And if you liked mischief, a grand old time, or trophies,  you would know which book to read, and you could throw the rest of them away. [...] You should know that the story that follows will be very different from the story of Gary or Emily or the family of cunning little chipmunks [...] the main difference being the amount of unhappiness, horror, and despair. [...] So if you wish to avoid an unpleasant story you had best put this book down." 

- Lemony Snicket, from The Miserable Mill 

girl you better try to have fun no matter what you do

but he's a fool.

everyone tells me how i'm doing so great. "you're doing so great!" they say. "i can't believe how composed you are!" they tell me "i can't believe how calm you seem!" or "i'm so impressed you're at work!"

and then i roll my eyes and think about how the hours would stretch out before me endlessly if i chose to stay home.  how it would be the worst form of torture to be in my apartment alone with nothing but the thoughts and questions of "how the fuck did this happen?" swirling in my head, and all the memories of 9+ years with The Bolshevik Who Shall Not Be Named haunting me.  so yeah, i'll be at work.  it's the only stable thing i have.  what else would i do?

my beloved mother once told me about a time when she hurt her knee and her doctor told her she had to walk with a cane.  not because she actually needed a cane, but to signal to everyone else that she was having a physical issue and that they needed to respond accordingly, treat her with extra special care.

i live my life without canes.

you will never see me cry.  you will never see me break down hysterically wailing with sorrow. you will never see me huddled in a corner clasping onto a bottle of booze while listening to portishead. you will never see the girl behind the curtain. i will hide this from you at all costs.

i am out in the fresh air enjoying a hike?

why? i have no fucking idea why.

the other day i went on a hike with two friends. it was beautiful and picturesque and i cried to myself when they weren't looking. and afterward we had a luxurious multi-course lunch at a seaside restaurant with wine and i even ate dessert.  and they took photos and said it was the best day ever. "BDE!" they said. and as i finished a glass of port and looked out at the rocky islands out in the ocean i thought to myself that by any normal standard this really was the best day ever. but for me it was actually just an exercise in distraction. it was just something for me to do until it was time to do the next thing and then the next thing until i finally get to take a sleeping pill and go to bed.

so outwardly i am doing great. just fucking great. i do all the "right" things, just like i'm supposed to. i am eating healthy (now that i can keep food down) and i am exercising every day and i go to work and i obsessively schedule activities for every waking moment outside of work so i never have to be alone with my own thoughts. and then eventually i tucker myself out until it's a reasonable hour and i finally get to go to bed and it can all be over for a while. rinse. repeat.

until one of these day when i can actually enjoy things again.