Dude where’s my blog?

Where’s your blog, dude?

So like, three years. Almost to the day. What a wild fucking ride. And the past month alone has been…. let’s just say, Don’t Stop Believin’. Where was I the past few years? I guess I found healthier ways to process my innermost shit than verbally vomiting it all over the internet. 😉

Anyway. They say finding the right medication can be life-changing.
Oh. THAT’S what they mean.

I was diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago. I am now on meds for Anxiety (fuck you anxiety) and ADHD (finally!). Hole. Lee. Shit.

Shout out to my (virtual) friend (I’ve never met or been brave enough to say hi to) over at ADHD Alien for helping me self-diagnose what many years of therapy and 3 1/2 years of therapy school totally missed!

My prescriber says my brain is running on all cylinders now. I just need to learn how to not run them all, ALL THE TIME.

Anyway, I’m not here to brag about meds. I’m like growing as a person. And it’s uncomfortable. Good uncomfortable, but still.

I’m extending a (metaphorical) olive branch to Cat and Seth. And I was trying to reflect on “what went wrong?” I’m like, there was a time when we didn’t hate each other, wasn’t there? What happened?? And having trouble remembering because healing through grief and trauma is messy, and realizing I’ve been gas-lighted so much that I’m doubting my own experience. Like… things were getting better, right? Weren’t they??

So I tried to work backwards, which is what I always do when I find my thoughts derailing. (See also: ADHD). I work back in the conversation to the point that I veered off and pick it up again. (See also: ADHD superpower!)

Long story short, working backwards, I found myself here to look for clues. When I found this post and started to cry. Yes. There was in fact a time where I was hopeful about growing a positive co-parenting relationship.

Four years ago. Oh. Right after my first quarter of grad school where I got a crash course in sorting through your own baggage! Where did that go?? Part of that healing is what finally led me to feel ready to try dating. But what happened?!?

Right before the pandemic, Seth and I went to mediation. How the fuck did we get from that happy post to mediation? I think I’ve pieced enough together to have a fairly decent idea. But the reminder that I did have hopeful feelings towards them at one time (even if there was still a healthy dash of snark, too) made their absence now all the more pronounced. And sad.

Not long into the pandemic, my perspective shifted, and I realized that our squabbles didn’t feel very important given the drastic shift in context. Recent developments in my personal life have offered me another crash course in communication and human-ing. Now I’m extending an olive branch to see if we can find something like that again.

Ok. Time to go play with my tarot cards and go to bed. Because, apparently, I do that now.

Damn.

So Will just broke up with me.

I didn’t exactly see it coming. But once we talked about it, it made sense. Pretty much the same thing as Paul. He’s just not emotionally available, still processing his last significant relationship. (In his case, his divorce is less than a year, for Paul it was literally right after a broken engagement)

But maybe later if the timing is better!

Story of my life.

I sure have a fucking type. *sigh*

Facing my “hungry ghosts”

So I’m in a class on Addictions for grad school right now, and we’re reading “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” by Gabor Maté. It’s a really good book.

Anywho. A lot of it has resonated with me, and gotten me thinking.  Maté says, “Under certain conditions of stress many people can be made susceptible to addiction but if circumstances change for the better, the addictive drive will abate.”

Damn it, Sid

You’re a therapist, not a …. oh, shit. Wait. You’re a therapist. And doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. (Read: make me cry)

Yes, therapy yesterday, and it was a doozy.

Hello blogness my old friend….

I’ve come to talk at you again.

Jesus, it’s been almost a year. I got a pen and paper journal, which I write in as often as I ever have here. 😛 But I guess it took over, and this fell to the wayside. Also, grad school is plenty excuse enough for not doing a anything else. If not, then I’ll happily use the kiddo as an excuse. 😛

Anyway. I have a boyfriend. And I’m in London.

I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s my boyfriend. I’m not sure what else I’d call him. But we haven’t had that conversation yet.

And I’m on vacation, or “holiday,” as it were. It’s just way more fun to be dramatic and make it sound like a much bigger deal. 😉

Anyway. I’m typing from my phone, which is super obnoxious. So consider this an accountability post.  That is, I will post more soon. 🙂

Aha!

Why do aha moments come late at night when nobody’s awake to hear them?

Last night I was coloring before bed, a somewhat common occurrence. Self care, blah blah blah. I guess it’s apparently a pretty meditative thinky place for me.

Breaking up is hard to do

So two things happened on Tuesday.

1. Seth and Cat got married.
Wait, what?
Yeah.

And the cat came back…

So, remember Paul*? My good taste in bad decisions from almost two years ago?

Well. Here’s a quick recap.

I found out that Seth was dating already, only 2 months after I moved out. So I went on CraigsList. Most of the ads positively disgusted me, but I saw one that was a single dad looking for a single mom, Friends with Benefits sort of thing.
I figured, since I wasn’t ready for a relationship, but I didn’t want a random hookup, FWB was the perfect compromise.

Meet Paul.

Sid was able to dissuade me from hooking up with him by saying, “Yeah, you could do that, and you might not be in crisis. But your recovery would be at risk.”
Your recovery would be at risk.
All day before our date that was running through my head.

Yes, we still went on the date. And yes, there were some make-outs.
But ultimately I sent him home without sleeping with him, telling him that while I wanted to have sex, it was a bad idea, because I would just be using it to distract from my feelings–specifically the grief of my divorce.
He was glad I told him, wouldn’t want me to do anything I didn’t want to.
He went home, and I continued drinking to excess, figuring I had made one good decision that night, and that was enough.
Well, I haven’t had a drink, since. I woke up the next morning and thought, “maybe I shouldn’t be drinking.”

About a month later, in a moment of weakness I messaged him again, ultimately looking for a hookup. He reminded me, “you said no for a reason.”
Damn it, Paul. I mean, damn it at the time, but also way to be a good guy.

Last week I went out for drinks with my classmates after the last day of classes. (To the point above, I stuck to Coke.) Lots of good talk about relationships and life in general, and hell, we played never have I ever.
The whole experience got me thinking, and feeling more open and willing to put myself out there.

So on Saturday, I reactivated my OkCupid account. This is something I’ve done sporadically on and off, I’ll use it for a while, get frustrated, and deactivate it, only to come back a little later and start all over again.
But I was really starting to get frustrated with the lack of potential dating options.

Anyway, I was like, if I’m gonna do it this time, I may as well go all the way. So I paid for the stupid upgrade options.

Maybe an hour later, I’m looking at my matches.
Hey, wait. That looks like Paul. *click* OMG, it IS him!
This is only significant because I know he’s been in a serious relationship since not long after the last time we hung out. And I know this because we’ve stayed FB friends, though practically no interaction.

A 91% match!

So I messaged him on Facebook. He remembered me, and apparently I made an impression. (So did he!)

We’ve hung out twice since then… the second time was, oh, my! NSFW.
And we’ve been chatting online pretty much nonstop since then.
Plenty of sexy talk, but also lots of other stuff, too.

So that’s my big news. 🙂

O hai

Well, I got quickly sucked into my second quarter of grad school. I think it’s going to be like this every quarter. Just trying to survive to the end, and enjoy some break in between. Of course, this “break” involves a trip to see my Dad and my Mom… so definitely not a vacation. 😦

Oh, I also (finally) moved into the house. Well, all my stuff is here, only about half of it is unpacked so far. Grad school and toddler don’t leave much time for house stuff. But this is the last week of the quarter, and I only have one paper to write. Then I am done! …until next quarter. Yeah. “Only” one paper to write.

It’s my weekend off, so I’m hoping to get a lot of organizing and unpacking done. So far that included wall mounting my TV… realizing I broke that one in the process, and buying a new, lighter, TV and wall mounting that one. 😛

In other significant news… Emma was diagnosed with Celiac Disease this week. She’s been having tummy troubles for a while, so in some ways it’s a relief to have a diagnosis, especially one I’m so familiar with. But, it still sucks. I was hoping she would avoid that branch of my genetics. =/

Well, that’s my quick check in. The house is coming along, work on the kitchen starts soon. Grad school continues to kick my ass, and will likely do so until I graduate. 😛 And Emma is amazing. ❤ More so now that her tummy doesn’t hurt all the time.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

No, actually, you really don’t. Trust me.
Thanks to germs presumably from daycare, I have Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. It sounds more serious than it is, it’s really just annoying bumps/rash in those three places. But the mouth ones are pretty awful. Like, liquid lunch used to mean something very different to me.

Oh, and I had to miss both classes today.
I thought I might have felt well enough to go (I didn’t) but I didn’t want to infect my classmates. It’s relatively contagious.

On the plus side, it seems to be getting better. I was able to eat some eggs today, with lots and lots of sour cream.

In other news… Mr. Handyman is an idiot.
Like, seriously, that’s the only conclusion I can come to. I told him flat out that I liked him, and he said, “can we just stay good friends?”
Like, what??
And then the last time he came to my house, he was still just as friendly and whatever as always. So I think he is just legit dumb, and didn’t realize how flirty he came across. Given that, and his poor grammar I was trying to ignore, I don’t think I’d want to date him anyway. 😛

Anyway. Lots of fucked up things have been happening lately. Orlando. Cops killing black people. A sniper killing cops. Black Lives Matter. Blue Lives Matter. All Lives Matter.
Bastille Day in Nice. Now Turkey.
Oh, and side note, UK: WTF, Mate? “Well yeah I voted ‘leave,’ but I didn’t think it would actually pass!” . . . . *sigh*

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about all this stuff going on, but I’m actually writing this stuff in a journal for class.
Basically, it’s all scary and it all fucking sucks.

I want to do something to change things, especially here in the US.
What? I don’t know. But when I figure it out, you bet your ass I’m gonna do it.