We’re (More Than) Halfway There

Today would have been mine and my ex-husband’s third year anniversary.

Instead, I am 9 days away from being legally separated for exactly a year. 9 days away from being able to being able to finally get divorced.

And for some reason it has hit me like a ton of damn bricks today. Here I am, thinking about how better off I have been for the last year, how happier I am, how less stressed I am. How I am now in a healthy, caring relationship with somebody who wants to have adventures with me and loves me despite my flaws. All of a sudden, feelings and memories of the past year have flooded back into my life. Instead of being this confident, happier human being I have been forced back into the feeling of not being good enough and wondering what I could have done different. Did I make the right choice in packing up my blue PT Cruiser that fateful morning on June 25th? What if I had just given him one more chance?

And then I stop myself and say absolutely not.

I had already given three years of my life in trying to “fix” this man. I had spent three years of worrying nights, fights, and tears in trying to have the perfect marriage. I spent three years of my life in misery because I thought that his happiness meant more than my own. I had given three years of excuses for his infidelities and his actions. I had stood by his side while he attempted to get his mental health in check, but once it was being used a crutch to keep me from leaving, I finally had enough.

I had given my last excuse, my last chance, and basically my last fuck to give.

In the last year that I have been separated, I have found my voice again. I’ve gained more confidence. I’ve actually been able to stop taking as many anxiety medications. I found how what made me happy and learned to stand my ground. And along the way, I found somebody who loves me and appreciates me in ways I never received in the last three years of my life.

While I am allowed to grieve the future and relationship that I lost (he was my first real love, first well, everything), I am still trying to remind myself that I should not wallow in the feelings that come with grief. I have allowed myself to shed a few tears and reflect on what happened. And then I remind myself that this was a life lesson. I know what to do and not to do with my current relationship.

Then I take a deep breath and continue on with life.

Which happens to include a 12-hour shift because my dumbass volunteered for it. One of these days I’ll stop doing that.

Oh well. Overtime = more money for crafting supplies.

So Far, So Good – A quick update

Well, almost a month (has is been a month? do we even know what month it is anymore?) after proclaiming that I needed to get out of my quarantine-slump, and I’ve been more productive than I have been in a while. I’ve gotten back into my crafting kick with the helps of purchasing a Cricut. I’ve started an Etsy shop and a Facebook page and will hopefully be selling decals and the sort in a few weeks. I have a draft in the works dedicated to my journey there that I will probably be posting later this week.

I’ve been going on more adventures with my boyfriend now that our state has gone into Phase 2. We have our second trip to Tennessee booked for the end of the month and we’re planning a trip to the beach with some friends for some time in August or September.

I still have days where I wonder why the hell I have got to get out of bed, but I put my big girl pants on, get some caffeine in my system and battle through. I think at this point, that’s the best we can do.

Taking it Back

Y’all. I’m exhausted.

I have wanted to write so much in the past few weeks, but I seem to never have the time anymore to do the one thing that I absolutely love to do. I’m always at work, and that keeps me so busy that I barely have a free moment to myself. My hours are crazy and I’m basically working 7 days a week until who knows when. I look at my goals list written in my journal that I had for 2020 and all I can do is glance at a calendar and just wonder if and when I’ll actually get to do anything I planned to do when I wrote the list out 151 days ago.

So far I’ve managed to scrap 2 things off this list – go to a live event and take a trip. At the beginning of the year, my sister and I had gotten tickets to WWE Smackdown! on January 17th. It was my first live WWE event and even though I know it’s scripted and fake, it was the most entertaining thing I’ve been to in a while. We were in the nosebleed section, but just being in the atmosphere of other excited fans was just something else.

In March, right before the world went all to hell and we were forced under “lockdown,” my boyfriend and I traveled 3 hours away to Pigeon Forge, TN. Apparently there’s a perk to living near the boarder of so many states. It was the first time I’d ever been down there and I did not want to leave. I’ve planned out I don’t know how many return trips for the future. I fell in love with a new wine (hello Indian Summer from Mill Bridge Winery), made some wonderful new memories with someone I hope is in my life for a long time, and found out that vacationing in the mountains in spite of living in them can be a whole lot more fun that I thought it would be.

And then everything shut down because COVID-19 and I’m about to die of exhaustion. All I have done is work, sleep, repeat. I barely have time to do simple chores or laundry. Even though I work partial days, I am still going into my work 7 days a week, and it’s mentally draining. By the time I come home, I’ve been cussed at, yelled at, had my head demanded on a silver platter so many times that all I want to do is take my nightly dose of anxiety meds and go to bed, or just sit for hours mindlessly playing on my phone. Because by then, I have already maxed out the amount of fucks I wish to give.

Yet, despite my mental and physical state of things, I can identify that I need to get out of that mindset, right now. SO, here I am, typing out my feelings and giving myself a swift kick in the pants that starting tomorrow, I am not going to wallow in my self-pity and laziness any longer. I will be grateful that despite the circumstances I am still working and are able to pay my bills and what have you. I will actually act upon some of my goals and find a way to make them work, rather than use the excuses of I am home and live in the middle of nowhere to justify why they are not getting them done.

And I will make it my GOAL to document my journey into the remaining 7 months of 2020, whether it’s good, it’s bad, or just downright ugly (which is pretty much how we could describe how this week has gone in America, tbh).

Any tips and motivation to keep in this mindset will be welcome and will be appreciative, because I’m a fish out of water at this point.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

As we close the chapter on Largen Than Life (honestly, one of the reasons I can not make myself write on there is because previous posts seem to be a trigger toward me getting over my ex-husband), we begin a new one in this book called adulthood. Or maybe we’re just starting a whole new book? Who knows at this point.

I thought about deleting LTL as a whole. But then decided to keep it up. Who knows if somebody similar will walk in my footsteps one day and find my ramblings useful in their lives? What if it helps them in their own journey through life? So I decided to leave it be, at least for now.

I have struggled on how to reconstruct my blog and for the life of me, I could not figure out a good name. I’m sure 10 years from now (if we live that long) and I’m still blogging and I’m looking back, I’ll wonder why I couldn’t have thought of a better name. But for as long as I do live, I’ll always be identified as a millennial and I’ll forever identify as a proud Hufflepuff.

So, if you have ventured from my previous blog, welcome back. If you’re new to my ramblings, welcome in general. You’ll get used to my weirdness soon…