an anniversary

it continues to amaze me when certain thoughts come to me. last night i was sitting in the drive through at wendy's, waiting for my baconator combo. i was thinking about how tired i was and that led to me thinking about how difficult this year has been. i'm not sure how it happened, but i suddenly realized that this weekend was the one year anniversary of my break-up with michael. with that thought came the additional realization that while i spent the past year struggling with depression and fighting to stay alive, michael had spent the year building a relationship with someone he met six weeks after we broke up.

as you can imagine, this has not left me in the best of moods for the weekend. it just feels like i've tried my best all my life to be a good and loving person and this is what life feels i deserve? to be alone with a broken spirit? i'll end with a phrase that has ended a few of these entries and more than a few thoughts. i just don't understand.

running on fumes

this has been a wearying week. in addition to some of the emotional challenges i had at the beginning of the week (from which there are still some lingering effects), the pacing of activity has risen exponentially. as is happening with organizations world-wide, my organization has recognized that we need to reduce our cost structure and is taking action to do so. one of the most immediate actions is a decision to reduce the size of our workforce and so managers like me must begin the difficult task of determining who will stay and who will leave the organization. and it's not just a matter of who will be let go but also determining how we will do the work with fewer people.

i've been given the enviable task of being in charge of how we will do this work for my department of 600+ folks across the country. as you can imagine (or perhaps know from experience), something like this has to be planned to the finest detail. such planning requires untold hours of meetings and now you have a sense of what my life has been and will be like for the next few months.

it's been particularly at times like this over the course of the year that i wonder how i will be able to manage expending so much energy in the work setting without having opportunities to be revitalized outside of it? in fact not only am i not getting recharged in my off hours, there are many times during the weekday evenings and weekend hours that i am being further drained by the depressive thoughts and isolation i'm experiencing.

i am soooo tired. actually, weary would be a better word. i need some help and soon.

more from jason

another track from yes. i heard this song this morning and thought, "lovely sentiment. when did i stop believing this was true for my life?"

love someone - jason mraz

today is not a good day to be me

i am not feeling at all good about myself today. i continue to be haunted by my actions and the virtual conversations of yesterday. i certainly did not put my best self forward and i'm beginning to wonder if there is such a thing left in this broken mess that i am.

the events of yesterday have left me more confused than ever in how to conduct myself in this particular friendship. i've behaved so unfortunately that i'm now scared to reach out and say anything out of fear that i will just muck everything up.

i'd forgotten what a walking disaster i can be in terms of relationships with men. you would think my failure to sustain a marriage to one would be ample enough evidence, but certainly my conduct over the past year and yesterday in particular has added more proof to that perspective.

it's a shame really because i continue to really like this guy.

doing a complete 360

you know how when you're having this conversation with someone about some monumental change in condition or perspective in that person's life and to punctuate how significant the change is they will exclaim, "yeah, i've done a complete 360 on that issue." now, we know that they mean that they've done a 180 which would be a movement in the opposite direction from which they were previously oriented. to do a 360 would mean that they have made a complete circle and are literally back where they started. today, i felt like i had truly done a complete 360.

i am back in the similar place of pain and sadness that i was in a week ago this day. i am thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of how i've conducted myself and reacted to someone who has only tried his best to be a friend to me. has it always been perfect, no. and i know that it has always been well intentioned. even so, i tread over ground that we've been over so many times this year, expressing the same doubts and jumping to the same unfortunate conclusions. and at the end of it all, i couldn't help but just shake my head in disbelief that i had devolved into a crazy lunatic once again.

the plain and simple truth is that the pain of loneliness is not going away. in fact, even as i develop new perspectives on life that i think will help me cope better, it doesn't seem to take more than a few days before it surges anew. not only is it not going away i feel this emotional pain is growing ever more acute. even as i type this the tears of frustration are commingled with this hurt that wants to burst out of my chest.

why does the world have to be such a lonely place for me? i just don't understand.

devaluing myself

something is happening. i don't think it's good. i've been having these thoughts of not feeling particularly good about myself. the first significant evidence of this feeling emerged when i was thinking about my friendship with sean. as i shared with him later, the reflection on our friendship left me, in a word, confused. my brain was having trouble wrapping itself around the concept of why he would want to be friends with me. i just couldn't quite get it.

today the thoughts of questioning what value i have have continued. a few moments ago, i was thinking of my pretty much broken relationship with my mother and that i have no contact with my extended family -- none. strangely enough, my next thought was about the fact that it was a good thing that i didn't want to have children because what would i have to offer them. they would not experience the richness of a family history or familial relationships.

these musings then led to the thought (perhaps inevitably, because it truly is kind of a chain reaction/stacked dominoes effect with me), "it's no wonder you're alone. you're a broken mess with very little to offer anyone." and of course, i'm back to the place where i see events that have and are happening through that lens. it goes kind of like this, "no wonder sean won't let you visit and the planned for meet ups have not happened. no wonder the connections you've attempted to make with other guys haven't worked out. what do you really have to give to anyone?"

it's strange. it's like i  don't see myself anymore. i have no sense of my identity and to use an oft used term, no feel for what i bring to the table. i see nothing but a form of a person reflected back at me when i look in the mirror -- this being that has a broken past, an empty present, and an unknown future.

as i said at the start, i don't think this is good to be thinking this way again. unfortunately, it's one habit i can't seem to break.