When bedtime is before midnight.

This was originally written on 7/20 and somehow never made it out of the “draft” stage. So now it looks like I wrote it on 7/28 and that’s just a bunch of bullshit. Stupid WordPress. Or drunk Linda.

I just spent $1.29 on a song that was popular in the dance world seven years ago because the part that goes, “if these walls could talk, they would have nothing to tell” and the bridge that has the most emotionality both lyrically and musically and says, “…or could it be, that the stranger is me, have I changed so drastically, is it I want more for me, and you remain the same?” has made me fall back into the crying mess I thought I left behind in NY a few hours ago.

“He would adore me; he wouldn’t ignore me…so I’m convinced there’s a stranger in my house.” But there isn’t. He’s nowhere near my house. Or maybe that stranger is me.

I want me back.

But no worries, now I can listen to it anywhere and anytime I want to. Thanks, iTunes and stupid financial decisions while fucked up.

I love to get 2 on. (The song following it in iTunes.) True story though, these days. “Get faded, turn up, pour it on up ’til I can’t even think no more.”

You know, I used to think hip hop was a great way to not think. Guess I got too involved. Fuck.

/KillSelf.

I’m one sushi up, but I’m a little lonely.

This title is entirely in reference to my…ex?…singing “I’ve got one more sushi without you,” not knowing if he’d only waited a few hours, he’d actually literally be up a few sushi rolls.

That’s not the point of this blog, but I’ve been wanting to write it for *weeks* I tell you.

Anyway, I’m drunk. Like it took all of 30 minutes drunk.

I absolutely had to finish a report tonight because it was due today and my life doesn’t work the way I’ve wanted it to for the past several months so I’m a slave to the midnight oil just to make obligations meet (that’s not a thing, is it?). And then I take like a 25 minute break and 15 minutes in I get the dreaded message that now I have to have “a talk,” and its terrifying and I can’t breathe or eat or get back to editing my report and I have to anyway and I can’t because OMG this is what my brain does. The good news is that I no longer have any desire to ingest food. I’m actually so nauseous that vomiting is a possibility. So I finished my edits. It took forever, because I couldn’t stop taking breaks and thinking about what I might say and what I shouldn’t say and wondering why I feel so far removed from everything.

Like…I did a stupid thing. And that was bad. And then I lied about it, and that was worse. But I feel like I’ve repented and suffered and felt shame enough for all of that and then some. I feel like I’ve felt the remorse of someone whose done worse. So then I feel like a jerk because that sounds like I’m saying I’m not sorry. I’m sorry as fuck, but I know if I had *really* screwed up, I’d be a different level of sorry. Taking four days to myself really helped me realize I was trying to beg and plead and apologize at a level that maybe wasn’t congruent with the offense. Or maybe it was, I don’t know, I’ve never had this problem. …should I just shoot for more sushi? Ugh.

Anyway, I’ve come to the internet to say a thing I keep thinking, and I don’t know why, and usually writing it here gets it out of the big messy space of insecurity and confusion. It’s stupid because it’s like the *exact opposite* of what’s going on. I’m teetering on the edge of having to start from square fucking one, and maybe six hours from now I’ll be at square one, who fucking knows, but until that time (and maybe regardless of it), this remains.

For the last several (yeah, like 8) years I’ve been making a silent promise in my head. I’ve been thinking about the ONE THING that I feel would sell me on a lover’s (lol, I don’t know what the hell else to call someone I’m with…boyfriend?)- a lover’s what? Desire to be with me? Dedication? Loyalty? Fuck, I don’t know. But I *do* know that someone, someday, is going to do this thing. And it’s a thing that takes balls, and actually winds up being a really inexpensive way to win me over forever, and it may be in a year or in twenty, but my heart (stupidly?) believes it will happen someday. Someone, someday, will do this thing and they will show up with a (stupid vanity) thing that leaves me speechless but with an entirely new level of respect and admiration for them.

Right, so this isn’t congruent with my blog title. It’s a selfish and stupid thought I probably had to make myself feel better in the case that I’m rejected in 6 hours…or in a few days…or a week…or a month…or two. Something tells me I couldn’t last more than two months before I went apeshit and just said, “fuck it, forget it!” but you never know. In any event, I’ve been mentally preparing for the worst. I guess that’s a good thing, right? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst? I’ll tell you my “preparation” isn’t that great, but it’s something. It’s one more step that I never did before, so regardless of what happens it’s progress.

Watching ‘The Night Shift’ was supposed to be a distraction…

…instead it was an awful mess of tears.

Over the last few days I’ve learned that if I’m feeling shitty and I start drinking, I feel numb. I’ve also learned that if I’m feeling okay and I start drinking, I feel awful. I confirmed that tonight.

I have to go away. I have to give up on everything. I have to find a way to get $700 back and give up on my dream Puerto Rico vacation with a man I used to refer to as the LOML. I have to give it all up, because it’s the only way I’ll be able to deal with the rejection that I’m sure will come, because no one waits two weeks (or more) to say, “it’s okay, I love you and I want to trust you and I will give you the chance you think you deserve because I want this to be amazing.” Also, because I’ve been told to.

One of my friends thinks I don’t feel my feelings, but I assure you, that friend, my feelings couldn’t be more real as I write this through blurred teary vision.

Sure, there are other people. I’m sure some of them are nice, and smart, and funny, but none of them are what I lost when I decided to lie. When my knee-jerk reaction was to CMA because that’s what all the douchebags in my life had taught me. When I didn’t even do anything wrong, I still tried to CMA.

This is all so brand new to me. I always wondered what role this boyfriend would play, and now I know: it’s the one who broke my heart for being an asshole. What a lesson I didn’t want to learn this way.

I’m torn, because if I give it all up right now, I have to start living life like a single person. But if I start living life like a single person, I’m sabotaging the tiniest of hope that’s left, and I’m assuring myself rejection. I tried to pretend I could do that today, and I was wrong. Thanks Jim Beam and The Night Shift for reminding me.

Some days maybe a little *more* suicidal than others…

I’m not saying I want to kill myself. I’m saying when I got home at 11:00 tonight and burst into hysterical tears, I didn’t care what would end them. I immediately reached for the flavored whiskey, but it wasn’t a quick enough fix. I texted a close friend I knew would be awake, and she offered several suggestions for distractions. The thing that worked though, was the muscle relaxer I was prescribed for the muscle spasms a few weeks ago. That plus the whiskey was enough to numb the pain. For now. (So…bare with me, this will likely start coherently and end very stupidly.)

I have an herbal back-up plan that I can hopefully support myself tomorrow. Until then my neighbor is my best friend and truth be told, he’s actually fucking amazing. He’s here when I need him, almost always. He spent hours here on a random weeknight this week and I can only think “oh, the irony,” because spending hours just chillin’ with some dude was what got me all fucked up in the first place.

But I’m not writing about my relationship woes, (1) because I promised I wouldn’t; and (2) because I guess if we’re splitting hairs, I’m not in one. Instead, I will write about the things that tear me apart. Because, well, they tear me apart and I don’t know what else to do with them.

Take today. I wake up and I know that my…ex?…is spending the day at a training course. I can’t think about anything else. I want to talk to him 20 seconds after I wake up, but, alas, I can’t. I go home. I order (and don’t drink) the worst DD coffee ever made. I get to NJ and I finally hit a Wawa where I can make my own iced coffee, which is phenomenal (and of course I want to share with him, because he inspired the Wawa make-your-own-iced-coffee phenomenon). But I don’t. I continue home. I sleep, because that’s what I do when I’m not drinking these days. I somehow fantastically manage to catch myself dreaming about my…ex?…showing up and telling me I’m being silly for thinking it’s affecting him this much and that of course he’s here. I catch myself and I wake myself up and say “NO! Stop it. New dream, bitch.” I force myself somehow to sleep again and dream about something else. Fortunately, I don’t remember. I get up in time to shower and try on a few different outfits for going out to see Gina off later, but I start to get a little misty-eyed, so I down a quick glass of the Franzia (trying not to think that he’s the reason I purchased the shit in the first place). I half-work on my report, knowing I can submit it tomorrow.

I do my make-up. I do my hair. I leave and get money. I pick up my friend. I make it to the pop-up beer garden. And let the triggers reign. Two drinks in and I need food. My options? The CHEESE CURD TRUCK or the JAMAICAN JERK HUT. So basically there aren’t any non-ex? options available. I take a picture of the menu at the Jerk Hut, because I can promise him a meal there someday (maybe) via the picture. I hang out, for several hours, but I can’t drink enough to make the pain go away because I’m driving. I can only drink enough to dull the pain, so I just distract myself with conversation about other things and I text a few people just to have someone to text, since he’s not an option.

We leave, and wander across the street to Bob & Barbara’s, a place I’ve recommended to some, been invited to by others, and yet never been. A jazz band is expected to play, adorbs. I don’t have any cash, and I’m not willing to take out more cash AND pay money to do so, so I just chill. I talk to a friend of Gina’s who reminds me of a large homosexual friend of my own, and I think…is this how psychologists meet and click and become a couple and enter into a boring life of validation and understanding and psychoanalytical bullshit? And then he says the magic word “fiance” and it jolts me back into reality, where I’m a fuck up and I don’t deserve anyone’s time, let alone that of the…ex?…I want it from. The jazz band starts to play; they’re fucking amazing. I want to share. I can’t, because 2 texts a day is my absolute limit, when I shouldn’t even be sending 1, and I’ve hit my max. I take a video, thinking maybe someday I’ll be able to share it, but the doubt doesn’t let me believe too much.

I run away from the bar because I know my neighbor and his girlfriend are on their way, and I can’t fathom hanging out with the two of them after the four of us hanging out only a week prior and having an amazing time. I tell my neighbor we’re chillin’ soon, we actually make plans for the next day, we talk about getting me that herbal assistance that makes the torture-dreams go away but make me a brain-dead fuck, and I head home.

I *almost* manage to redeem the night. I text two or three people to help me find a place to go locally that will let me dance, so it doesn’t look awkward that I’m there alone. Otherwise, I can’t bring myself to go out to drink locally by myself. I almost killed a random dude that tried to recruit me to L.A. Fitness the other day; I can’t imagine what I’d do to someone that tried to hit on me in a bar. But no one answers me. I drive around an extra 15 minutes, listening to old school reggae on the radio because it brings me back to a time where I wasn’t emotionally ruined. But the eloquent DJ states that they have to “pay the bills,” and the commercials abound. I head home for real.

I don’t think I even make it in the door. I’ve stopped drinking WAY too long ago. The last song on the radio is “Pills and Potions” by Nikki Minaj. “Pills and potions, we’re overdosin’, I’m angry but I still love you. Pills and potions, we’re overdosin’, I hate it but I still love you.” I drag myself from my car and I stop outside of the walkway to again acknowledge that my neighbors ripped out the trees that lined their walkway only days after we had a conversation that it was impossible for two people to pass each other down that walkway. I think, “why must everything change?” and I push past the thought and enter the building.

I finally get to my apartment, and for some reason a small part of me thinks “maybe he’s here, waiting to surprise you with a positive decision.” I walk in the door, I put my shit down, I say aloud, “fuck, I need a drink,” and I burst into tears. He’s not here. He’s not going to be here. He’s probably never going to be here again, and all of the amazing things I took for granted will just dissipate into the horrible memory that is mine. I suppose the good news is my memory is slowly slipping into Alzheimer’s status, and maybe someday sooner than later I’ll forget the things that ring through my mind today, like the “Her name is Linda, she is my girlfriend…” song that I heard every single day, but never noticed or acknowledged until it was gone.

Regardless, I grab the whiskey. I pour a double. I take a drink. I burst into tears again. I text my friend, she gives me options. I decide “fuck it,” and I slam myself into my medicine cabinet. The bottle on the muscle relaxers says, “may cause drowsiness. alcohol may intensify this effect.” I think, “good,” and I take one. Between that and the whiskey, the tears stop. They’re there. They want my attention. And they can go fuck themselves.