In the Murk

It has been a long time since my last post.  So long, in fact, that it is really difficult to be motivated to write something because I feel like I have to condense a month and a half into a few short paragraphs.  I used to be the kind of girl who wrote in a journal at the end of every day.  I poured my heart out onto pages and pages of blank lined paper, detailing every thought and feeling and worry.  There are stacks of these journals in the corner of my bedroom.  I don't remember when my life got so busy and complicated that I stopped having time to write anymore.  I miss it.  I think it helped me sort of the murk that is my mind.

Since my last post, I have completely relocated to Raleigh.  It has been the scariest thing that I have ever done in my entire life.  At any given moment, I feel as though I could have a complete mental breakdown.  Every day, I think about packing my things again and moving back to somewhere.  The thing is, I can't figure out where I would go.  There is nothing left for me in the city that I came from.  The only thing there was my job, which I gave up to take this one.  I wanted to get away from Rat Bastard, and more importantly, I needed to get my child away from him.  I felt as though that place controlled me; I cannot go back there.  In that city, I could not breathe.  I wish that I could live closer to my family, but my family is so scattered that I am forced to pick and choose.  My mom still lives in my hometown, and there would be little to choose from for me as far as a career.  My dad is in the process of moving back to Michigan to be with my grandfather.  I am still absorbing the death of my grandmother.  It feels like a fresh stab in my heart everyday.  Part of me wants to go to Michigan, too.  Part of me wants to know what it is like to be surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins.  I don't know how it is to celebrate holidays with the entire family; I have never been able to do that here.  I don't know how it feels to not be alone.

Kylie has had a hard time with the move.  She has not adjusted well to not seeing or talking to Rat Bastard.  She is having a hard time making friends.  We no longer live on a street with neighbors to play with.  She is struggling with everything.  I feel incredibly guilty for doing this to her. She is having trouble at the summer camp that I put her in.  She gets in trouble almost everyday for yelling at the other kids or the counselors.  She throws things.  She has epic temper tantrums.  She destroys her room.  She threatens to run away.  I look at her and do not recognize my child.  It is terrifying.  I have set her up with a psychiatrist to see if I can find some answers.  I know that she is angry and sad, and she blames me for everything that is wrong.  She does not understand that I am the one person who would do anything for her.  I am the one person who will never walk away from her.  This is so heartbreaking.  I am here alone, and I am trying desperately to handle all of this by myself.  All that I really want is for someone to tell me that it will be okay, that they can help me.  I am falling apart, and it is really scary.

My job is slowly coming together.  It is taking time to adjust to it, just like I knew that it would.  It is challenging and awful, but there are enough good moments sprinkled in that it keeps me there.  Yesterday, a customer came in with her daughter that recognized me from my old store.  She also had transferred to the area from Winston, and when I asked her how she liked the area, she gave me the same sigh and shrug of her shoulders that I would have given if she had asked me.  She said, "It's definitely different than Winston."  Yes, it certainly is.  At the moment, my job is the only thing that is keeping me grounded.  It is the thing that I can march into everyday and feel as though I have at least a little bit of control.  Someday soon, I will hopefully love it as much as I loved my old store.  I think that I miss my old team more than anything.  We had all worked together for so long that we were all great friends.  In my new store, I am the outsider.  Obviously, it takes time to build relationships and friendships.  I am just at the point where I need friends desperately.  Mine is a lonely existence right now.  

The boy broke up with me two days ago.  It really sucks.  I can honestly say that it was one of the best relationships that I have ever had.  Even though it was really short compared to those of my friends, a three month stretch for me is like an eternity.  I really thought that I had found someone who got me.  He met my parents, I met his mom.  He helped me move.  We went on a vacation together.  All of the big things that mattered, we did.  Everyday, I looked around and thought, "Wow, this is really happening!"  I was happy.  I couldn't believe that I was with someone so amazing who was seemingly so happy to be with me.  But then there was a moment, a rift when everything shifted.  As much as I tried to ignore it and make it go away, it remained between us.  When it came down to everything, he could not handle the stress of my life.  He could not handle me not loving my job.  He could not handle Kylie's not instantly adjusting to her new life.  He was really stressed out about things in his own life, and he told me that he could not take on the added pressure of me.  Last night, for some stupid reason, I called him.  I guess it was because it felt weird not to call him after three months of hours of phone conversations everyday.  I suppose that I am just a glutton for punishment.  He was angry that I sound sad on facebook and that my friends are bashing him.  He is the good guy, after all!  Of course he is, or so I thought anyway.  Now I realize that he thinks that he is always the victim in everything.  Nothing is ever fair to him.  He never gets what he deserves because he is the good guy.  At the end of our conversation last night, he said to me, "I care deeply about you, but when I look to the future with you, I just don't see it.  I don't see myself spending the rest of my life with you.  It just isn't there."  I don't think that anything anyone else has ever said to me has hurt as much as that comment.  Maybe it's just because everything is just so raw right now.  Maybe a month or a year from now, it won't sting as badly.  But right now, it burns.  

I know that anytime a relationship ends, people in general have a tendency of blaming themselves for everything.  I am in that moment where I think that it is simply never going to happen for me.  I think that my life is just too much for anyone to handle.  I think that my job and my child and my ex-husband are simply too much for anyone to take on.  When I was growing up, I imagined myself at the age that I am now with 2.5 kids and a husband and a dog.  When I got married and divorced for the first time, it completely sucked, but I picked myself back up and thought that there was still time.  Then, I imagined myself at the age that I am now starting over.  I imagined myself remarried and having another baby by now.  I still wanted a chance to have the family that I wanted.  I wanted the opportunity to not be alone in all of this.  But every time that I think I have found it, it gets yanked away from me.  I can't figure out what it is that I'm supposed to be getting out of all of this.  I look around at all of my friends who are getting married and having kids and they're happy.  They are really truly honestly happy.  I am happy for them because I love them, but I want to find my happy, too, and it's just so damn elusive.  Right now, I am stressed and sad and angry and scared.  I wish that some of this made sense to me. 

Deep down inside, I feel like I was really meant to make this move to Raleigh.  When I started the new job, I hated it, and I thought about quitting every single day.  But it was then that I met Rob and everything seemed perfect, and I decided to make the move because I thought that things would work out with him.  I convinced myself that even if the job didn't pan out, I might have found the person that I was meant to be with, and that other jobs would come around.  Now I don't have him, but I have the job, and it all seems so backwards.  I am sure that there is a reason that I am here.  Perhaps God used Rob as a lure to get me here because He knew otherwise I would not have come.  I keep telling myself this.  I keep telling myself that I didn't make all of the wrong decisions.  Last night, my friend Kelly reminded me that I would hate myself if I quit now.  She told me that I couldn't back out of all of this because that isn't who I am.  She is right, and I have to remind myself of that.  I have to hope that things will get better and I will find my place in all of this mess.  I just hope that it happens sooner rather than later.