Crawling Forward

It's been over a month since the break-up, and I am feeling better emotionally. In fact, my therapist was excited to share that I've trended back down to the same sadness/depression levels I was at pre-breakup. (This is a win, I think!) All-around support from so many people has been so incredibly helpful, and I feel so grateful to have such a good support network and people who care about me.

But I'm definitely not back at 100%, not even close

1. Appetite: My appetite has not recovered. I force myself to eat a full breakfast (steel cut oats, they are the best!), pick at 30-50% of what should be a typical lunch portion, force myself to eat a trail bar in the afternoon for calories, and then hope that I'll be able to eat a regular portioned dinner. Dinner goes better when I've exercised, and far less well otherwise. I really hope this will improve over time. I'm worried that if I lose more than 10 pounds, I'll end up in an unhealthy danger zone. I know that I don't eat as much when I'm sad, so my appetite is a signal of my sadness. While I typically don't weigh myself regularly, I will try to build more of a habit to do so to keep tracking.

2. Loneliness: I feel lonely, often. My friends message me regularly throughout the day, so I always feel like I have someone to turn to to have a conversation with, but it is not the same as in-person interaction. As a remote worker, I spend most of my day in front of screens on video calls, with my dog by my side. If I don't make social plans in the evening on WFH days or visit the office, I will go another day without seeing a human being in real life. I'm also an introvert, so it's a delicate balance of giving myself personal time while also combatting loneliness.

3. Productivity: My productivity at work has not returned to pre-levels. I find myself pretty busy during the day, but am not pushing forward as many big rocks as I used to in a week. After talking with a friend about this, I took a day to address some emotional blockers in my personal life, and also started taking more care to rely on any productivity crutch I could think of to get through the day.

4. Life Logistics: There is so much that needs to be done here before I feel like my condo is a full home again. My condo feels really unbalanced in design/furnishings, and between all of the evening socializing, exercising, and travel, I only manage to cross a few things off the list each week. Some aspects of the condo really need some thought and design behind it, and the next time I will be home for a full weekend is over a month away in mid-September.

I also still need to cross a huge emotional milestone, which is going back to the land on my own. I've earmarked Labor Day Weekend to take that trip. That land held all of our best memories, hopes, and dreams. It will be really difficult, emotionally, to walk those trails knowing that it no longer represents the future we were building together.

Not everything is sad, though.

It's also worth pointing out some positives.

1. Friends and family: They have been amazing (amazing!!!). <3 <3 <3

2. Personal Time: I dedicate a lot of time to myself, and to do things that help me heal and rebuild. This has included a lot of long walks, time outside, reading, journaling, discovering new content to watch, and even building new skills like drywall repairs.

3. Unmonitored Spending: My spending patterns have been pretty atypical with all the travel, but so far it seems like I am able to easily pay my credit cards without a problem while also maintaining my automatic retirement contributions. Having full control and independence over my spending has been really nice. Especially when it comes to gifts; it's been freeing to be able to choose to be generous at times without having to justify or ask permission from someone else.

Taking the long path

I underestimated how much dedicated time and energy it would take to rebuild my life. I'm also not sure whether I have ever truly thought about what my ideal life would look like. So many years were devoted to an extreme version of a career, that my personal life was a bit of an after thought. Thankfully, I have a lot of time on my hands these days to start thinking about this in earnest :)