What Now??

Staring life over at 26 is depressing. But when life gives you no other choice, and you've officially hit rock bottom, the only thing one can do is move forward. Besides, no matter how much I would like to crawl into bed and never wake up to avoid this nightmare, it's impossible. I've already said this once; even if your world stops, the rest of the universe doesn't. Time still moves forward, the days pass, you're still here and your life is still for you to live no matter how empty it is. It's unavoidable.

I have no family left, no fulfilling career and no place to go home to and call my own. I have friends, granted, but they all have lives of their own to worry about. To top it all, I've come to realize that the only lesson I've learned from my previous mistakes is that I can't stop repeating them.

Reality, and someone in particular, had given me a slap in the face. There are somethings I've been holding onto, unconsciously,  that I should have let go a long time before. I was in awe that I was able to delude myself into thinking that everything was okay and over for as long as I had. When in reality, it has always been in the back of my being, lurking. Accepting that fact was the easy part though. Doing something about it was the other side of the coin I wasn't sure I wanted to flip. But after a series of faking nonchalance and pushing the idea away, I caved. Out of the insistence of two close friends, a certain someone who keep pushing at it and the knowledge that it's not going to go away on it's own. I laid everything on the line and exposed myself completely. It was a risk. I was an idiot. I lived in blissful hopefulness for a couple of days when the door slammed on me a day before my f*cking birthday. It was the best birthday gift I've ever received. I was on my way home when a single text message broke me to millions of pieces. I should have listen to my instincts and not my foolish counterpart. I felt used and unbelievably stupid. I dropped my phone as tears blurred my vision. It was a pain so absolute it broke me.

After days of embracing the pain, I figure I was given a clean slate; at least that was what I kept telling myself. I'm starting over, yet again. At 26 no less. It's pathetic. It took me a couple of days to convince myself that this is not a hopeless situation. Luckily, I've never been one to wallow in self-pity. As much as the hurt consumed me I forced myself to move forward. So I got over it, or the better term being I ignored and place the excruciating ache on the back burner as much as I could, and immediately completed the planning stage of this charade. I needed a goal and directions to achieve it. I started with the basics; a found freelance work that could keep me solvent and job offers that I could consider seriously. I've narrowed the company selection to two and I have the rest of the month to figure out which one to take. Glad to have established solid work experience and a respectable portfolio that afforded me the position to have a choice.

Next phase was housing, as I no longer have the safety net that was my family and childhood home. Thankfully, there are people in the world who took me in and refused to give me a homeless status. I will always be grateful for that. I carry my weight though and am trying to repay their kindness. Despite all this, I am doubly aware that I still need to plant roots. So I'm currently in the scouting phase. It's no easy task given my current resources but I've got help in the search, a great friend who went through the same hunting situation and understands the trial.

I've always known that I can handle the job and housing issues. Those are things I still have control on so I directed my focus on getting them settled. The difficult part to deal with was the grief and the pain. I manage to occupy my time with work, surround myself with friends and do all else in between. But when night falls and I'm all alone, I breakdown. As much as I try to distract myself and no matter how many times I consciously make myself stop and think of something else, it creeps up on me. It's what steals my sleep, appetite and will to live. When morning comes I go through the motions. I do what is expected, slap a smile on my face, try to get my life together and pretend to be strong enough to handle everything. I can only silently cringe at every excruciating thought and feeling that passes, I let it go and save it for nightfall. When I can let it flow and consume me completely; praying that it will eventually end but knowing it won't..

** This entry was written on 11-23-2013. I didn't mean to keep it in stock and I'm not really sure why I didn't publish it when I finished. I'm not sure if I hesitated at the time or if it just slipped my mind. I've been in hiatus for about two months. Not on vacation per se. I drowned myself with work, friends, activities and all else in between. What I avoided is putting my thoughts into writing. I’m not trying to escape from anything at all. I live in the now and I’ve never had a hard time expressing my thoughts. But putting my thoughts into words only solidifies my reality and I’m having a hard time coping as it is.

A lot of things have happened between the time I initially wrote this to now, and that is such a short amount of time, but that is no longer new to me. I’ve become accustomed to my life being a whirlwind of unusual situations that I’ve come to realize that sometimes the only option you are left with is to just go with the flow.