Oh hi. I haven’t posted on here in… 18 months so so? Maybe longer. I used to write to help me process things, to process life, but I don’t find myself doing that much anymore.
Life looks so different these days. There’s too much to even begin to cover.. my dads health issues and coming to terms with his permanent disability would take me hours to write. I‘ve tried to prepare myself for his death over and over again this year, with every surgery and hospital stay and diagnosis. Seeing him in a wheelchair, minus one leg, and suddenly looking 20 years older is an image that rattled me to my core. Watching my friends experience the death of their parents has also rattled me to my core. My parents are aging at a rate that terrifies me and there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. I’m not ready, but ready or not.. the inevitable is coming.
I took a different job at the beginning of the year because I was dying under the pressures and stressors of being emergency personnel during a global pandemic. The job was bad enough before. After, it became impossible. For the second time in my 8 year career, I tasted the poison of burn out and I knew I had to get out before it consumed me. Work is much better now.. slower, easier, more peaceful. I only feel a little bit of guilt about that.
I met someone. It was unexpected, meeting someone in the midst of a pandemic. Especially meeting someone who feels so much like home. I used to lie to myself with my ex husband, pretending that he was, or ever could be, my best friend. Pretending that we had this great relationship that was destined to be. Pretending that our love was strong and good and right. And now… everything that I wanted with him, I found with someone else. I used to think I would never find love again. Especially not love that strong. But here I am, proving myself wrong in every way. The last five months with him have been everything I ever wanted, or could want. And yet, I find myself holding back. Out of fear of the unknown, fear of the potential fallout, fear of it all ending again. Fear of screwing it up, if I’m being totally honest. This love is unlike anything I’ve ever had and sometimes I don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes it all feels too easy.. and for some reason, that makes me feel like something is wrong. I guess I got used to a kind of love that was so inconsistent and so hard that anything else feels foreign. I’m learning. I’m trying. Three and a half years later and I’m still putting my pieces back together, but someday I’ll get there.
