Dear readers,
I want to introduce this anonymous submission from a friend of mine. He broke up with his girlfriend of two years, a couple months ago. And on my suggestion, wrote a piece today about his feelings. Please show him your support!
@ReporterandGirl or Facebook or G+.
What kind of fucked up, dark, twisted question is that? What does that even mean? I’m asking, seriously. What defines someone? Our actions? Thoughts? Beliefs? What I do when no one is around? Or better yet, what I do when everyone is around?
When you break up with someone, there’s this pressure to reinvent yourself. To find out who you are. But to me, having to deal with a breakup feels a lot like dealing with a loss of a loved one. But the loss of a loved is not the same. Your loved one is out there loving someone else and there’s nothing you can do about it. And you get to hear about the loved one often, and you want to ask but you hold back because you’re told it’s unhealthy to ask.
Losing someone brings out the worst in me.
I can’t eat.
I can’t think.
Drinking helps.
It blurs out the shit feelings that have been following me like a 12 o’clock shadow. A 12 o’clock shadow is seen by no one except me. I’m standing on it. Very close to me, not very visible. Just enough to surround my feet and remind me that no matter where I go, it will follow.
Bad choice after bad choice after bad choice. Who gives a shit and why? Keep them coming, I’m in this for the long haul.
One drink
Two drinks
Six drinks
I wake up in my bed.
At least I got a night of sleep without waking up in the middle of the night. It’s the only way I can fall asleep without tossing and turning. It’s the only way I sleep without waking up every hour reminded of all the good times we shared together.
Women come and go too.
One woman
Two women
Six women
I wake up alone in my bed.
“I’m not like that” some weird fuck tells me. “I’m not?” I ask myself. Maybe that’s exactly who I am. Maybe it’s not. Maybe that question is simply too complex for me to answer. It’s an unfair question to begin with, because it assumes we can fully understand ourselves. Society keeps pressuring us to find ourselves. We need to know ourselves before we are able to be the best version of ourselves we can be.
Fuck.
One drink
Two drinks
Six drinks
I wake up in my bed. At least the hangover distracts me from the emptiness I feel in my chest. It’s like an anxiety ball that keeps moving just enough to remind me it’s there.
Constantly.
Always.
Never leaves.
It lives there, at the mouth of my stomach, and plays around the bottom of my rib cage.
“Focus on the pain.” “Embrace it”. “Experience it”. Fuck, just writing about it makes my hand shake. As I’m writing this, my hand is shaking. Right now- I’m feeling it. Just the thought of it drives me crazy.
Deep breaths.
In. Out.
In. Out.
I tried meditating yesterday. Fucking impossible. The recording kept telling me to relax and take deep breaths. It kept telling me to relax and release the tension in my body. Just let it go. I couldn’t do it. I simply could not let go. I slept three hours last night.
Again, one drink
Two drinks
Six drinks
I wake up in my bed. It’s the only way I get a full night’s sleep.
Everyone keeps telling me it will be OK. It will, I know it will. But it’s not right now and that reassurance doesn’t make the anxiety ball go away. I think about all the good times and my heart dies a little.
I’ve given up on me. When I lower my standards, things come easy to me. But comfort is not happiness and it’s definitely not the marker of success. I’m settling for less. Again and again. It’s just easier to cope this way. I want to settle for less and convince myself this is who I am. But I know I’ll never be happy this way.
Never.
It’s not because I know who I am, but because I know who I’m not. And maybe that’s the key to answering the question.
I have so much anger bottled up in my chest it makes me crazy. I miss her so much it hurts. I miss her companionship, I miss my safety net. I miss having someone to call at any time just to shoot the shit. Just to check in. To learn about what’s going on in her life and actually care about it more than what’s going on in mine.
Keep digging into me. I’ll get up and heal. At some point. A couple of years back I learned a valuable lesson in the army. We can give so much more than we think. We can push our bodies that much more. The secret is willing to let your body go. Caring more about giving it your all, than being able to get up again.
One more push up.
One more kilometer.
One more drink.
One drink
Two drinks
Six drinks
I wake up in my bed.
And here I am, without being found. Just me- trying to figure it all out. And maybe this is the beauty in life. We don’t need to figure ourselves out. Just go out there and experience emotion. Love, laugh, be sad, get embarrassed. Appreciate all this because after all, I’d rather feel than not. Even if those feelings are negative, at least I know I’m alive.
–Anonymous