angelbluediary

[angelbluediary]

In and out of forgiveness for him. Or more like I keep randomly remembering how I felt in that moment he raised his voice and slammed the center console, the moment he cranked the music back up and lit another cigarette, and how I spiraled deep inside myself the whole way home. I’ve already forgiven him but I’m in and out of remembrance.

Last night I had a new needling thought about Saturday night, which was that his explosion had to come from somewhere and maybe had been brewing longer than just that drive home. Maybe he feels more restricted by my presence in his life than he initially anticipated. Maybe I’m a big part of the reason he feels like he can’t do anything. It seemed so completely obvious from my point of view—you don’t turn music up high enough to hurt other people. You don’t expect the people around you to be up for constant cigarette smoke. You don’t subject your easily overstimulated girlfriend to these things when she’s stuck in a car late at night after a long day.

But from his point of view, maybe it is weird to suddenly not be able to freely light a cigarette and turn the music up on your birthday. To do simple adult things like that, on the one night you should have permission to let go and have fun.

It’s a constant tug of war. He’ll be so sweet and considerate and I’ll feel so soft in return. *He* proposes a movie night. *He* wonders aloud what Disney VHS tapes we haven’t watched yet. *He* asks me what I want to watch and I pick something I think we’ll both enjoy. It’s all sugary sweet until I can’t stop noticing him on his phone or getting up to do something or never actually cuddling me and then I’m in my head about him feeling like he has to appease me and do these things he doesn’t actually want to do. Watch baby movies because that’s all I can handle. Then I remember his comment that one day, like a sigh of relief when he realized I wasn’t asking him to watch my favorite film The Last Unicorn with me (because it’s too kiddy). And then I just keep feeling worse about things.

I don’t want anyone hanging around me or doing things with me out of obligation. I’d rather be alone.

I meant it when I told him I can’t just instantly be over what happened Saturday night. It’s not something I want to argue about or let hang over our heads, but now I’m struggling to reconcile the version of him that I know with the man who practically yelled at me and threw a drunken temper tantrum when I was having a quiet meltdown from his actions and needed help. He hadn’t realized how bad it was for me. I told him I wouldn’t just request people not do things I don’t like out of personal distaste like a brat. That I only push past my embarrassment and speak up like that when it’s really affecting my headspace in a bad way.

Then today I found my dirty, smelly jersey in the closet—the tiny closet where there’s no ventilation and all the clothes smell like each other. He had offered to wash it. I don’t know why he just decided to put it in there with my clean clothes ???

I am on my period and I don’t want to do anything or process anything and I don’t know how to be around him today. Last night weirdly hurt my feelings. He was trying to do something for me and it felt so forced, but I’m not the one who asked him for a movie night and he shouldn’t spend time with me unless that’s what he actually wants to do.

[angelbluediary]

.

3 sleeping pills (I am too wuss to push it further).

The teeniest of cat scratches on my hip (can’t find anything that works as good and clean as the tool I threw away back home).

Home. This isn’t home. This is where a fight I didn’t see coming has me waiting for everything to come crumbling down. Not too scared right now. Very numb. We’ll see how tomorrow goes. Nothing matters.

[angelbluediary]

I am a black hole

[angelbluediary]

I am alone in the dark downstairs because I can’t stand to spend another night in bed crying myself to sleep. I don’t know how to regulate myself. How to pull back. How to not take every little thing to heart. I don’t know how to let things roll off my back.

I get choked up multiple times a day. I finally get to a place where I can function and then I’m so easily whisked to the other end of the spectrum where I can barely breathe or speak or think straight. I don’t know how to fake normal. He saw the self-inflected bite mark on my wrist after our heated “debate” about expressing attraction about other people and when it is/is not a big deal—all started because I HATE when he refers to certain athletes as “his girl.” And that is apparently a difficult thing for him to “GIVE UP” as he put it. I didn’t want to get heated about it at all. I felt playful and relaxed at first. But it kept going and he kept digging and finally made me feel awful, without meaning to, about being “in the minority” with my views on partners expressing any attraction whatsoever and—whatever. That set me off. And then we were fine. We were okay. We talked it out. We ate dinner, and then cake. He showered while I posed in bed. I should know by now, if I dress for it, if I bathe for it and use my yummy smelling products, if I am CRAVING it, I won’t get it. He’ll be too tired. I’ll feel undesired and rejected and end the night feeling sore at best, quietly sobbing for hours at worst. Tonight is a crying night because every day lately has been full of tears.

Every time he doesn’t want sex when I do, there are chains and padlocks crisscrossing in my mind with a loud, solemn vow to not give it to him ANY TIME soon. Make him miss it, make him regret every instance he was ever too tired or not as frisky as I was. But it’s all a house of cards. I fold as soon as he touches me. I used to love it but now I feel way too over my head and upset with everything.

It feels like the courting period all but ended as soon as I moved in. It’s been about a month and a half now. We barely saw each other before all this. All I thought about was all the dating and getting to know each other deeper we’d be able to do. And it’s been this instant hard smack of reality with new financial stress that is occupying most of his brain space with me begging “please I need more of your attention please I need to feel more loved please I need more one on one dedicated time with you” and he can’t seem to hear me.

I AM ALONE up here. I am cold and every day is gloomy and I am ALONE.

This weekend was full of spats and heated emotions and choking tears, but I still felt him processing my needs and making a better effort to spend time with me. And then it all ends like this—me feeling rejected, undesirable, stupid for expecting or wanting anything, crying as usual.

It is this wild, manic drive in me. This impulsive voice urges me to walk outside in the dark in my underwear. To just disappear down the street — and then come back— so I can get it out of my system. To take scissors and cut off a single braid. To do something dramatic to make him take notice. To get ATTENTION. I am like a child still. Maybe I will always be so.

He is acting like gradually we will learn to navigate each other and gradually everything will be fine and it’s really more productive for him to focus on finances right now but RIGHT NOW, in the present, I am not okay. Most of the time (for the past couple weeks) I am not at all okay. Most of the time I feel adrift and weak and lonely and confused and small and sad. With this rising mania. I am chomping down onto my small bones as hard as I can in a moment of anger just to regain some functionality. I am not okay and I don’t want to alarm him but I need to be taken seriously. And all I am asking for is love, the love I know he is capable of giving, but now he must be used to me and our relationship, my presence, is no longer exciting. So instead let’s settle down for the night like we’ve together for years and not just a month. Let’s force ourselves into this tired mundane routine before we actually, naturally fold our lives around one another. I can’t say it enough: everything. feels. off.

This is not what I expected. I don’t know why I thought things would be and feel so different, but I did, and I don’t know how to reconcile this. I want to savor the newness of it all. It feels like he is speeding along to recognize this all as tried and true and “the norm.” Dating is not a priority. Finances and where we’ll live in TWO YEARS is the priority. Not being present with me as I adjust. Not communicating with me about his own adjustments during this period.

I don’t know what to do.

[angelbluediary]

I feel so defeated.

Love is the most mortifying, crushing thing.

[angelbluediary]

“I have work at 5” but you could have gone to bed earlier and you chose not to.

“I have work at 5” but we used to stay up late delirious with the feeling of finally having each other and that wasn’t long ago at all but now it seems like you’re already over-used to me.

“I have work at 5” but I am in constant war with myself about having sex with you because of my mental state and our miscommunications but I wanted, needed this, and when you need me I am just excited to be needed, and when I need you you—need sleep instead.

I am so tired of crying. I am so tired of the internal tug of war that never ceases. Each day is a fresh wound followed by just enough clarity and love and good communication to draw me back out and raise my expectations again for something I want and need—ending the night with sexual intimacy. Being held for a certain amount of time. Spending most of the day together. Whatever.

But the expectation falls through and I’m left to crash and it tears the wounds from earlier open again. I feel so manic. Soothed and then rabid. Shut down and then soothed and then rabid. Give me more, more, more. I am a greedy creature but I only want you. Give me more love. Take care of me. My hands are open and my heart is bare and I feel so ugly naked but I stand before you again and again because that is love, I guess.

It hurts.

[angelbluediary]

I am so tired of crying. I am so tired of the internal tug of war that never ceases. Each day is a fresh wound followed by just enough clarity and love and good communication to draw me back out and raise my expectations again for something I want and need—ending the night with sexual intimacy. Being held for a certain amount of time. Spending most of the day together. Whatever.

But the expectation falls through and I’m left to crash and it tears the wounds from earlier open again. I feel so manic. Soothed and then rabid. Shut down and then soothed and then rabid. Give me more, more, more. I am a greedy creature but I only want you. Give me more love. Take care of me. My hands are open and my heart is bare and I feel so ugly naked but I stand before you again and again because that is love, I guess.

It hurts.

[angelbluediary]

It’s like you can’t stand to spend more than half a day with me. I didn’t even get that today. And I’ve been asking for today to be a day you and I spend time together, just the two of us,

[angelbluediary]

Still feeling shut down. Things are fine on the surface. It’s not like he insulted me or said anything too harsh. The misunderstanding itself though—and me, feeling like I’ve explained myself out again and again and am still not being heard—stings enough to stay withdrawn deep inside myself.

It’s a very sad feeling. Not wanting to be close with him or be touched by him for too long. And if it continues on like this, there will be a problem. But I think it’ll mellow out; I’ll soften up again. I’ll get overly affectionate again. I’ll spend my free time anxiously awaiting his presence again. But my hope is that the events of Tuesday sparked a more permanent shift in me, so I can treasure my alone time more, so I can detach in a healthy way and occupy my own time without extending expectations to him on filling it up and making me happy.

But this is where I hit a snag myself. It doesn’t sit well with me that I have to pull back so hard I feel shut down just to accommodate *his* need for space and movement. I have been insecure all along about how instantly I light up for him and crave him with me—like a puppy dog, almost. And now I feel that flame has been doused in cold water and is just a tiny, cautious ember.

I cried myself to sleep again last night because things just feel off. Even though he tried to give me quality time yesterday. Even though he acknowledged I only have him here. There is a new heaviness.

His birthday is fast approaching. The trip I thought we’d take to see my family this summer is not happening. I have to mask hard and pretend to be bubbly and social when we spend time with his sister and everyone else. It all feels off.

[angelbluediary]

Another reason last night’s conversation stung so much was because he kind of threw at me how I’m still working ((wrapping up work)) when he comes home and if it means so much to me to spend time together, wouldn’t I do my work earlier in the day so it’s out of the way? Because I’m only a part-timer.

I spluttered a little bit. He doesn’t know, because I don’t tell him, all the little ways I sideline things I would normally do for myself in hopes of getting crumbs of his time. Like when my skin is crying out for a mask but I don’t usually do my skincare when he’s nearby because I want him to be able to touch and kiss me. How I try to get out of bed each morning before my body is fully rested so that I *can* get as much work out of the way as possible before he comes home each day. How I never work in the evenings because that’s “our” time even though, if I were alone, I would probably be chipping away at my work all throughout the day.

Not like that was fair to throw at me in the first place when my work is online and never goes away and I sometimes have time sensitive tasks and important people contacting me around the clock. I worked late only *once* and that was when Jackie was over for hours and I was in no social mood and had to make up my hours as much as possible since my one-month grace period is up and I have to split equal rent with a fraction of the paycheck.

If he’s home and I’m on my laptop, it’s probably because he’s doing something else anyway. He doesn’t seem to realize that when he reaches for me, I put my work away.

(I also didn’t throw in HIS face that he’s been coming home an hour early every day lately. Even though he’s always stressed about finances, he chooses to give up the hour of pay to come home earlier and… not spend much time with me. And it’s apparently a slight against him that I don’t have all my work finished by 2:30 pm??)

Again. It all just felt so defensive last night.

Argument last night. Or tense conversation is closer to the truth. Something that’s come up enough times when we were long distance—me feeling clingy, needy, while he’s filling his day doing his own things.

He came home just after 2:30 and we barely interacted until bedtime at 9. He had to meal prep yesterday instead of over the weekend like usual so that was a big factor, but I was upset because I felt ignored. It’s weird to live with someone—to have just moved in with someone and left my family and home state behind for this reason—and feel like I’ve barely spoken to them and they’re barely thinking about me, much less wanting to be around me, over the course of a day.

And I laid it out as plainly as I could. I explained it’s not the one day in isolation but the fact that he was gone all day Sunday, I felt ignored Tuesday, then the next day I’d be busy with work all day, then he’d be gone all the next day for a show… and there are always other factors weighing in, too. A trip to see my family that I thought was a no-brainer now feels like a giant inconvenience for him and I don’t know how to navigate it when he’s complicating the fact of seeing my family just twice a year. I’m still handling my weird insecurities around his sister and how close they are and how much louder he laughs with her, how they just click and the rest of the world, including me, gets pushed out when they’re around each other (and she’s been around/going to be around so much). We haven’t been intimate this week. I’m stressing about work as it becomes more demanding. And so on.

Anyway, he really doesn’t get it. But the fact that mirroring his behavior feels to me like I am blatantly IGNORING him and he doesn’t even notice?

I feel like a broken record asking for more affection, more time, more attention. I feel like I’m obvious and annoying with it yet he acts like I never communicate or tell him what I need. I kept saying that I wasn’t accusing him of doing anything wrong and didn’t want to make him feel bad, just that I feel ignored when we barely interact when we live in the same apartment and it means the world to me when he gives me a MINUTE or two in between his tasks to just check in with me, give me a kiss, say something—anything. Why is that asking for so much? Why does he act like that’s the most baffling thing ever?

I refused to reach out for him or say “I love you” first last night because it always comes back to me wanting/craving more love and asking for it and it’s fucking humiliating. He can initiate more. I didn’t want to argue or imply that anyone is in the wrong. I just wanted to explain why my feelings were hurt from the events of *one day* and why I was so uncomfortable and it felt like he was really defensive. I’m not trying to take his free time away! His rebuttal is always something like “do you want me to just give up working out and drumming and washing dishes and just spend every minute I have with you?” and that hurts too, because he’s done those things since I moved in but I’ve never minded so long as there’s a little balance and I don’t feel invisible.

I reminded him I have no one up here except him. No place to go. And I just don’t want to feel alone when I moved in with him a MONTH ago.

Anyway—he *did* hold me for a moment last night and say he loves me. He did kiss me this morning before getting out of bed for work. But I still feel stung after crying as quietly as I could and struggling to fall asleep (as per usual lately). I just get so sad. I don’t know how to compartmentalize my feelings. I don’t know how to be less attached but again—I just don’t feel like I’m asking for so much.

All we can do is love the way we want to be loved. I don’t know how to make him understand that I have no issue logically with his routines or “forgetting” about me, not gravitating towards me in the moments in between his tasks/projects/activities… but emotionally it hurts. Which is why those tiny check-ins and precious moments throughout the day help SO. MUCH. I’ve talked about this multiple times. Asked for and requested it, spelled it out the best I can. I do not keep my needs a mystery yet…

So whatever, here we are and I need to eat breakfast and get to work. I do not at all feel lovey and affectionate any more. I’m grateful to be so preoccupied today. I’m willing myself to let this launch a new independent period where I can fill and satisfy my free time with just myself more easily. I’m struggling so hard with feeling like the more attached partner because it’s not in my nature and not what I’m used to.

Another thing that has me realizing I’m nowhere near ready for married life: one uncomfortable conversation before bed and I’m daydreaming about disappearing from his life. Just leaving and vanishing into nothing. It’s a toxic fantasy when my feelings are hurt and I’m embarrassed from wearing my heart on my sleeve and feeling it misunderstood and rejected in any way. And this is a disagreement on easy mode—the idea that my life will be so bound up with someone else that we must weather anything together? For the rest of our lives? Slightly terrifying.

I’m sure this will all blow over soon, I just don’t know how to cope in the meantime because I want, right now, to keep my distance and soak in my own company with zero expectations towards him. And let him miss me in the way I always miss him when he’s not by my side.

Okay, have to get a move on!

[angelbluediary]

Argument last night. Or tense conversation is closer to the truth. Something that’s come up enough times when we were long distance—me feeling clingy, needy, while he’s filling his day doing his own things.

He came home just after 2:30 and we barely interacted until bedtime at 9. He had to meal prep yesterday instead of over the weekend like usual so that was a big factor, but I was upset because I felt ignored. It’s weird to live with someone—to have just moved in with someone and left my family and home state behind for this reason—and feel like I’ve barely spoken to them and they’re barely thinking about me, much less wanting to be around me, over the course of a day.

And I laid it out as plainly as I could. I explained it’s not the one day in isolation but the fact that he was gone all day Sunday, I felt ignored Tuesday, then the next day I’d be busy with work all day, then he’d be gone all the next day for a show… and there are always other factors weighing in, too. A trip to see my family that I thought was a no-brainer now feels like a giant inconvenience for him and I don’t know how to navigate it when he’s complicating the fact of seeing my family just twice a year. I’m still handling my weird insecurities around his sister and how close they are and how much louder he laughs with her, how they just click and the rest of the world, including me, gets pushed out when they’re around each other (and she’s been around/going to be around so much). We haven’t been intimate this week. I’m stressing about work as it becomes more demanding. And so on.

Anyway, he really doesn’t get it. But the fact that mirroring his behavior feels to me like I am blatantly IGNORING him and he doesn’t even notice?

I feel like a broken record asking for more affection, more time, more attention. I feel like I’m obvious and annoying with it yet he acts like I never communicate or tell him what I need. I kept saying that I wasn’t accusing him of doing anything wrong and didn’t want to make him feel bad, just that I feel ignored when we barely interact when we live in the same apartment and it means the world to me when he gives me a MINUTE or two in between his tasks to just check in with me, give me a kiss, say something—anything. Why is that asking for so much? Why does he act like that’s the most baffling thing ever?

I refused to reach out for him or say “I love you” first last night because it always comes back to me wanting/craving more love and asking for it and it’s fucking humiliating. He can initiate more. I didn’t want to argue or imply that anyone is in the wrong. I just wanted to explain why my feelings were hurt from the events of *one day* and why I was so uncomfortable and it felt like he was really defensive. I’m not trying to take his free time away! His rebuttal is always something like “do you want me to just give up working out and drumming and washing dishes and just spend every minute I have with you?” and that hurts too, because he’s done those things since I moved in but I’ve never minded so long as there’s a little balance and I don’t feel invisible.

I reminded him I have no one up here except him. No place to go. And I just don’t want to feel alone when I moved in with him a MONTH ago.

Anyway—he *did* hold me for a moment last night and say he loves me. He did kiss me this morning before getting out of bed for work. But I still feel stung after crying as quietly as I could and struggling to fall asleep (as per usual lately). I just get so sad. I don’t know how to compartmentalize my feelings. I don’t know how to be less attached but again—I just don’t feel like I’m asking for so much.

All we can do is love the way we want to be loved. I don’t know how to make him understand that I have no issue logically with his routines or “forgetting” about me, not gravitating towards me in the moments in between his tasks/projects/activities… but emotionally it hurts. Which is why those tiny check-ins and precious moments throughout the day help SO. MUCH. I’ve talked about this multiple times. Asked for and requested it, spelled it out the best I can. I do not keep my needs a mystery yet…

So whatever, here we are and I need to eat breakfast and get to work. I do not at all feel lovey and affectionate any more. I’m grateful to be so preoccupied today. I’m willing myself to let this launch a new independent period where I can fill and satisfy my free time with just myself more easily. I’m struggling so hard with feeling like the more attached partner because it’s not in my nature and not what I’m used to.

Another thing that has me realizing I’m nowhere near ready for married life: one uncomfortable conversation before bed and I’m daydreaming about disappearing from his life. Just leaving and vanishing into nothing. It’s a toxic fantasy when my feelings are hurt and I’m embarrassed from wearing my heart on my sleeve and feeling it misunderstood and rejected in any way. And this is a disagreement on easy mode—the idea that my life will be so bound up with someone else that we must weather anything together? For the rest of our lives? Slightly terrifying.

I’m sure this will all blow over soon, I just don’t know how to cope in the meantime because I want, right now, to keep my distance and soak in my own company with zero expectations towards him. And let him miss me in the way I always miss him when he’s not by my side.

Okay, have to get a move on!

[angelbluediary]

.

Sometime within this past week, we had sex with a condom and it tore me just a little. A micro-tear. Just small enough to be uncomfortable, nothing terrible. There was a strange feeling in my chest that night and I couldn’t sleep for a long time. It reminded me horribly of that December night in the hotel with C when I felt physically used and numb inside and stared at the dark walls while he had slept peacefully beside me.

Not that I have ever felt used with Z—the internal feeling was just somehow similar.

The next day, I told him I was physically sore and we should abstain from sex for a while. I meant more than a couple days. And for just a couple days, we did. He came in my mouth one night. I came with him in my mouth another night. And then last night things kept escalating in the way they so easily do when boys want one thing, and then another, and none of it sounds disagreeable so I agree until it’s too much and too late. He kept asking to taste me. In the dark, cozy and aroused from kissing, I agreed: just a taste. I had to pull him up off me when “a taste” was becoming an entire oral session. I had told him earlier to slap himself against my (clothed) clit, that’s on me. He did, it felt good, and then I had that feeling of “oh, I’m tired. I’m ready for this to be done now.” So I should have said that and I didn’t. Because we’d agreed on no sex until I felt better. So I thought it would naturally end any moment—you would think I’d know better by now.

Then he asked if he could just rub himself against me for a bit, which sounded fine, so I agreed. Told him to be very gentle. It was erotic like that. An isolated experience, no expectations of it leading somewhere else. But then he was pushing inside of me, deeper and deeper. It always happens like that—so fast, the lines so blurred between what I want and don’t want, what I’ve allowed and haven’t permitted, that I become confused and complacent. Even as my chest tightens. Even as I feel myself deep inside growing small and distant like I’m starting to disassociate.

Worse, I was trying to thrill myself into enjoying it by pretending I was being assaulted. Framing it in a kinky CNC lens so I could try and trick my brain into properly enjoying him moving inside of me. But the conditions weren’t right, my headspace was strange, and as I was grappling with the words I knew I needed to use (my tongue feeling swollen and heavy in my mouth) he leaned back and asked if I was okay—like he knew somehow.

He was very apologetic, and gentle afterward. Took accountability and held me as he fell asleep. It helped ease some of the tension in my chest but I still felt—feel—that small fracture inside myself.

I never learn. What good are all the painful lessons if I never implement them?

Even now I feel emotionally torn, like I don’t deserve to feel sad about any of it. For the first time I’m with someone who cares so deeply about me, someone who takes accountability for their actions when they could easily pin it on me (I was acting a little frisky last night. Sending mixed signals, probably). Someone who holds me because they know it’s comforting for me even though they quickly overheat. He loves me right.

There’s just so much sorrow stored in my womb, in my hips, and nights like the last open me up to all of it. I feel like I’m sitting in a stagnant, cold pool of painful memories and injustices done to the most sensitive parts of my body. I have a hard time getting out of that water. I still don’t know how to move it, where to drain it, how to dry off.

[angelbluediary]

I know there is truth to the idea of gratitude bringing good things into your life, or helping to adopt an attitude that sees the good things more naturally. But in times I’ve tried to handle my sadness gracefully and pray to the universe I was left in despair. And in times I’ve been bitter and angry and could only complain, I met the love of my life. So. 

Sometimes a girl just needs to vent.

The nearly 2 year chapter of living back in my hometown with my family draws to a close in ~3 weeks. It’s almost over. And then I’m off to the biggest new beginning yet. So maybe that’s why things are starting to feel unbearable again. And then all these things crop up. My space has never been my own here, but my time is also not mine. I am at their beck and call when something goes wrong and I am the only one they can depend on. But it doesn’t feel like it earns me any points. It feels like it’s just expected of me.

This started when I was in grad school and asked to pick up M and keep him with me so he didn’t have to be on campus longer than he absolutely had to be (nevermind my undergrad experience). Became an even bigger thing years later when I moved back to that city after the breakup and then was asked to let M spend the night here and there each month. My AC only stopped working when I was having to drive him all around and back and forth from the college to my place to our parents’ place, and then I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in sweltering 90+ heat on one of the busiest highways with no cool air, constantly. Didn’t get any kind of pay for it.

And since I’ve been back here I’ve been asked to do similar things because it’s more convenient for our parents. Take B to their orientation and spend all day on campus and driving them around. Be woken up early and roll out of bed straight into my car to drive for my mom when she has car issues, like any time out of her 3 wrecks in the past year alone, or today when my dad’s car stops working and I have to drive an hour out half-asleep to take M to school in godawful traffic and then back to pick up my dad and bring him home and then he takes my car back out. I had JUST filled it up with gas. And who knows when my car is going to blow? It’s the most used out of anyone’s. That’s so much wear and tear on it I otherwise wouldn’t have to introduce it to. Thousands of miles on that car, the majority of all the driving I’ve ever had to do, because of my family and familial obligations.

When I’m not here, they’ll have to make something work. And they will. And it’ll be fine. And my siblings won’t have to lift a finger. At least that’s how it feels. If M and his bf end up getting an apartment an hour away like he said they were thinking about (and who knows when that’ll happen when neither even has a car!) maybe then he’ll be relied upon by our parents to do these errands and driving favors. Or not. Because he’s not the eldest. And that’s always what I’m told when I start to point out the difference in treatment: “you’re the oldest!” Like that makes it all natural and okay.

When my dad brings my car back, I’ll have to go out again. I still haven’t caught up on the sleep I missed the other night. I feel borderline sick. I have a yeast infection. My day is swallowed up by driving for other people.

I clean the bathroom, it’s covered in dirt and hair the next day. Or 10 minutes later. The house reeks of dog. I’ve never not worn socks here because I won’t have my bare feet on these dirty floors covered in dust and dirt and dog fur and peoples little hairs. Rotted food in the kitchen. It all makes my stomach turn.

… I do not expect life to be perfect anywhere, but I should be able to expect a clean home, and decent sleep most nights. And not tumbling out of bed to jump into my car to help out my parents with things as they pop up all the time. I have been asking and asking my dad for help with taking a couple large items from storage to the dump, just so I can finally make some way in there and start going through my stuff as I so desperately need to do. Storage is 2 minutes down the road and he keeps making excuses and saying he doesn’t have time. But then I am woken up and asked to be in the car for 4 hours on a random day that mirrors other days I’ve done similar things!

I can’t feel like a loving daughter or sister here, not when I live up close to them. I do not want to attend M’s art show. I know I’ll be expected to. Z was originally supposed to come down on that date and I have to pick him from the airport so I had an ideal excuse, but now I have nothing. The last time was one of the worst days I’ve ever had living here. It’s my Achilles heel. I can’t spend the evening in my brother’s shadow listening to my parents and other people ooo and ahh all over him and talk about how incredible and talented he is, as they so often do, in the very building I used to take my own classes in and those classes were of no interest to my parents who wouldn’t even respond to my college day stories when I’d come to visit them. And anyway just later this week I’ll have to drive the hour back and forth to attend M’s performance and that will take up my night. I’m happy to do these things but not when it’s all back to back to back and it feels like I DO these things for other people but they won’t DO anything back for me. M won’t even ride with me in the car when I want to make a quick trip half an hour away. But I’ve so often put my entire day or weekends on pause for him and his needs.

I can’t wait to be far away from here, obligations CUT OFF, only expected to do my own thing and live my own life. I feel grateful to M for basically giving his room up to me while I’ve been here but as of right now I can’t really extend it to my parents when it feels almost like me being here has been more convenient for them than anything. I was able to step in and help so many times when things stopped working the way they should or someone needed a lift somewhere or they were too busy to do something that needed to be done. But I’m strung out when it feels like I’m not able to really do anything for myself here and when I spend so much time in the car it’s all this wear and tear for the sake of other people.

I cannot wait for a peaceful, blissfully selfish life. Making tea. Stretching and doing yoga. Taking up space in the quiet, happy way I do. These little things make me want to cry. I ache for my rituals and my furniture and my STUFF. I ache for clean coffee mugs every morning. I ache for a floor I can put my bare feet on.

I’m going to explore and do fun things with someone who DOES pour into me consistently and give me reciprocal attention. I can’t even reciprocate all he does for me. I’m going to get my money up and thrive. I’m going to be healthier. I can spend however much time I like in the bathroom and in the shower and even be able to just clean my body off with bar soap which I can’t do here. I’ll have all the things I need right in front of me to feel orderly and good. Address my skin and haircare needs. Take care of myself in a way I can’t here because I barely even have space to put my hairbrush down here. Without SOMEONE who keeps using up my expensive shampoo/conditioner no matter how many times I calmly and clearly address it and ask them to fucking STOP.

Ginger will have so much room to roam about and play and run and climb and lounge in the sun. We’re both going to expand and be so much happier.

[angelbluediary]

H

Well you know. Whatever.

[angelbluediary]

Sooooo painful to read through my 2024 entries on Z. But I won’t take them down at least not yet. I want to remind myself that I am an unreliable narrator and have no objective view on the world and on people, and I was operating for so long from a deep-seated fear of intimacy. I pick into people, it’s what I do. I looked for reasons not to get involved. I spun tales of how everything should be and set myself up for so many little failures.

Here’s my update and here’s what matters: I’m so deeply, irrevocably in love. We are in love. He IS my ideal. He is so good for me and treats me so well and lights me up. When we’re together, it just gets better and better. My parents knew I was in love before I even told them because of the way we looked at each other when he met my family on Christmas Eve.

I LOVE the sound of his voice. I now laugh at my notes that first night we met when there were misunderstandings and exhaustion and unpleasant obstacles giving both of us an instant not-so-great impression. I wonder at the entries where I talk about having to force myself to reply to his messages and not wanting to talk to him when I’m freaky crazy about it now and can’t stay away from him, talking to him is all I want to do!

I want to marry him.

I see my future with him.

We complement each other so well, and he’s dedicated and trustworthy and honest and thoughtful and funny and just so, so good. We’re compatible in every way that matters. He’s not perfect and I’m not perfect but we have such a strong foundation and beautiful arc of a love story and I adore him. I’m really excited.

I wish I had recorded so many more happy moments, and caught all the times I found myself leaning further and further to him. But at the same time, it does feel like it happened so quickly. October was devastating. I felt in a sense like I was dying, and a part of me was. It was so painful realizing how deep in it I already was, how I didn’t want to talk to anyone else, how entertaining the idea of anybody who wasn’t him felt so empty. I felt so vulnerable. It made me upset. I’ve been looking for every reason we’d snag and he’d say “okay, you’re too much, I’m done.”

He never has and I’ve secretly, terribly, tested him again and again. Only met with patience and communication and a need to understand my needs.

I’m moving in with him in April :) what a wild turn from what I used to write. How I used to feel. All a part of the journey. This feels so right and strong and like this is where my life has been heading towards.

There’s so much to do till then and it’ll propel me forward over the coming weeks. And I’ll see him in just a week for Valentine’s Day! Nervous about flying alone but I know it’ll all be okay.

~

In other news, I plan to quit the hotel very soon (sometime once I return from my trip). I have things I want to work on, like creative ideas for passive income, and selling some things in storage before the move.

I think just a little bit more about my diet and the nutrients I’m intaking on a daily basis. Just enough to be more mindful. Little changes in my routine like drinking collagen with my coffee every morning, using witch hazel toner again, eating dried pineapple before bed, protein shakes and veggie drinks in the fridge.

It’s all gonna work itself out. Even when the paychecks stop rolling in, at least I won’t be spending half of what I had been making on DoorDash to keep myself fed during shifts. My legs won’t be in perpetual pain. My nervous system will start to heal. I can turn my focus to this very long and intensive hiring process for an incredible remote job (that I am somehow 2/3 of the way through, not dwelling on it, just letting it be for what it is…), clearing out storage items as well as I can, spending more time with my family before I leave them, collecting recipes, planning planning planning… there’s so much! It’s a lot but it’s really exciting!!!!

I’m so excited to end the long distance thing. It’s wrecked me. I didn’t anticipate how hard it was going to be on me, and I think I will be SO much more secure and happy just being around him, in the next room or in the general area, ending my days with him. Not glued to my phone and getting antsy (and cranky) to hear from him.

Space to stretch and exercise and just be! Space for Ginger to run and lounge and play! Intimacy and dating on the horizon. We talked about it recently and I said I’m actually so thankful it all worked out this way, that it’s wild we’re at the stage we are—planning marriage down the line—when we haven’t even gotten the chance to date. We skipped those beginning steps but soon we’ll get a beautiful reset and experience the butterflies and sweet fluttery moments all over again, for like the first time really.

Sooooooo many more jobs up there, too. So many. So hopefully I won’t be left without for long even if this current … thing… falls through. I’ll still give it my all in the meantime because I owe it to myself when presented with such an opportunity.

I’m grateful for everything that got me to this point. The hotel, living with family, feeling stagnant and trapped and so upset for years. All of it.

[angelbluediary]

Today I:

-cleaned the bathroom

-did 2 loads of laundry

-cleared out a lot of clothes in the closet and took things to storage

-took pics of storage and started brainstorming what to get rid of

-cleaned the inside of my car

-submitted 3 more job applications

-started a new book

[angelbluediary]

The constant ups and downs throughout each day, getting triggered by small truly meaningless things, feeling my mood randomly plummet over NOTHING and all the made up wounds in my head. I feel like I’m slashed open and made to bleed out and when I try to signal to someone for help I look down and there’s nothing. But I still feel it, feel the blood pooling out of me and the cuts stinging with every breath. I keep trying to stitch myself up—and he helps because he listens and he cares, but there is a limit and I do NOT want to find that limit because it will devastate me.

Is it the month? Is it the ache of almost-almost-not-quite-there? Shouldn’t having new goals and new blessings make me happier? I went from aimless to pointed and excited. So why do I feel so ruinously sensitive lately? My throat is always aching like a ball or a bird is lodged inside. I feel static and stings only. Comfort and warmth are close by but when I reach out my hands I feel only the hurt and the hurt feels like it comes from me.

He is so good and so good to me and I cannot ruin this. There has to be a limit to what I share when I’m on the cusp of multiple breakdowns a day.

Wasn’t it so much easier to point at a lover who didn’t really love me? Someone whose little hurts could replace the little hurts I give myself? Now there’s only me to point at and that hurts too.