Wednesday was the worst emotional day I have had since the break-up two weeks ago. I lost it in a monumentally huge way and spent half the day crying, screaming, and feeling the hatred/resentment stage coming on. I even destroyed some nick nacks in a fit of calamatious rage. I just had to literally break some things in order to vent. It all started when Matt told me that our former next door neighbor, Carrie (not her real name) was pregnant.
Now Carrie met this guy through her job and started dating him in February of this year. She moved in with him in May. They got engaged in June, and in August found out that she is pregnant. Carrie is on top of the moon, and blissfully happy. She met her soul mate and is just thrilled beyond belief. Now, I know (logically) that her relationship has happened at Superman speed and who knows if they will last because they really just met, but my emotions don't care about any of that logical stuff.
Oh no! All the emotions heard was "She's getting married to her soul mate and having a kid and living in a new house and you are not and you are 9 years older than her, you childless old spinster bag you who's just been dumped by your non-committal boyfriend of 3 years." Again, it's all insecure irrational break up emotion but that is what bubbled to the surface: my humanness.
The news of Carrie was then the tipping point to comparing myself to everyone else I know and what life changes they have experienced in the 3 years that Matt and I have been together.
My brother had triplets, and moved into a brand new house on a golf course. My best friend bought a house. My other best friend had a baby and bought a new house. My childhood friend sold one house, and moved to North Carolina where he bought two houses and then got to keep his Silicon Valley salary in a place where the standard of living is far cheaper so he lives like a king. His geeky friend whom he tried to set me up with, met a woman in Canada and they got married. Two of my friends achieved Vice President status at their companies.
In the last 3 years, I have had 3 jobs, and got fired from one of them. I didn't really want to go back to Corpse-rate America but I thought I had to in order to make others happy. I have been living like a poor college student scraping by renting a cheap run down apartment because well it's cheap. My parents have been giving me money to live. Matt had also been supporting me financially as well, and his patience was wearing thin, and I don't blame him. When I visited my folks I always brought my laundry because I hated washing clothes in the coin operated communal laundry at the apartment complex. Mom would take me to the grocery store to buy me food. I gained 25 pounds. All this I went through and sacrificed so that I could pursue my dream of creating my own media company.
Okay, can you see now why the absolute worst thing you can do after a break-up is to do a status check-up against your family and friends and start comparing yourself to them. It's a mistake of gigantic proportion because all it does is suck you under quick sand of misery and self loathing. You start to resent everyone else for their happiness and get pissed off at God and scream at him, "Why are you punishing me? I've done everything you told me to do. I've done the hard healing work. It's been 6 long years. I took the leap of faith onto a new path, and destroyed my old life in order to build a new one, and this is what I get? It's not fair. It's not fair at all!" And thus, I curl up in the fetal position in my love seat clinging to my red fuzzy blanket Matt gave me for Christmas two years ago.
Bubbling up from the surface was the pain, the hurt, and the anguish
that has been lingering for awhile. It's the ugly stuff that even
strong, do-gooding people can feel when hope starts to wain thin. This
is one reason why it is good to have a fantastic therapist who will let
you scream out the pain so it can pass. Sometimes you just need to say
the feeling out loud so it can die. Deep down in my soul where it is
calm and knows the truth, I know that in the long run I will have all
the things that I have been dreaming of. It's just not happening in the
way I pictured it would.
A big part of me still doesn't understand why certain things in my life are such a constant struggle when it comes so easily to others. But again, there are things that happen for me with effortless ease that are a struggle for others. I'm blessed to have a support system in my life that allows me to be human especially during the times when I feel like life is unfair.
