The Aftermath

The night that my first love ended, it seemed that there was a mutual sense of understanding between the two of us, that despite the fact that we once shared a deep love for one another, it was just over. We went back to our bedroom and both started packing my stuff so that I could move out the next day. As we packed, we cried. We would take turns, first I would lay in his arms and cry and once I got it together long enough to look up I'd see him crying as well. It was the most heartbreaking experience I've ever been through. It was the last night we spent together as a couple. The next day we would go our separate ways and tell our friends and family that it was over. The next couple months were kind of a blur. I moved back in with my parents, but wasn't really there all that much. I spent most of my time with friends, or at work, I worked all but two days the entire month of July that year due to a lack of employees. I guess you could call it a blessing in disguise, something to keep me busy, but even when I was at work, I wasn't really there. I was always just kind of going through the motions. It was like I was having a constant out of body experience, it was the strangest feeling.

"Never wanted this, never want to see you hurt

Every little bump in the road I tried to swerve

But people are people and sometimes it doesn't work out

Nothing we say is going to save us from the fall out

And we know it's never simple, never easy

 Never a clean break, no one here to save me

You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand"

- Taylor Swift (Breathe)

 I cried practically non stop for two months.  It didn't matter where I was, at home, at work, in the car, at my friend's house, at the store. My mind was always in a distant place, going over every detail, thinking of what I could have said or done differently to try to save what I had.  This was a new feeling, one that I had not yet experienced, and I knew right away that it was not a good one and that I hated it. It was a sharp, constant pain, all the way to the bottom of my heart. My body ached, hurting over the breakup. I had never felt like this before. Sure, I had been sad, who hasn't? But this was different. It was like a throbbing way down deep in my soul. I felt paralyzed. There were days that I did not leave my bed except to use the restroom. It was pitiful, and looking back one of the hardest times of my life. I couldn't eat. In fact the sight and smell of food made me extremely nauseated. Sleeping had become a rarity, and insomnia had become a new way of life. When I did sleep it was not for long. My dreams were filled with what my reality had become and that was worse than any nightmare I had ever had.

Shortly thereafter, I had slipped into a pretty deep depression and I stopped caring about everything, especially myself. I moved out of my parents house pretty quickly, into an apartment with a friend on Lake Blvd., behind a sports bar. For those of you who aren't from Redding, Ca, it is the epitome of a sketchy neighborhood and pretty unsafe to live there. Especially for two 19 year old girls on their own. This was when my determination to "forget" everything between us started. I was tired of feeling constant pain. I tried so many different things to just numb myself from the feeling anything. Things that, to this day, I am ashamed to say that I've done. I tried everything from obsessively working out, binge drinking almost nightly, making sure I was constantly high, getting intimate with guys I didn't care about, and more. Sure these were all temporary solutions to a much deeper much more serious problem, but nothing ever lasted. I hated it. I hated who I was becoming.

Then one day a few months later, I met someone new. He was quite a bit older than me, 11 years to be exact, but I was instantly drawn to him. He asked me for my number and of course I gave it to him. I suddenly felt a sense of hope that my sadness was coming to an end. I started getting my act together and stopped all of negative things that I was doing prior to meeting him. We started dating and it was great. We had some really fun and adventurous dates, but our favorite was going out for breakfast to Deja Vu. We got along so well and would spend a lot of time together. To us, there was no age difference. We were on the same level regardless of what number "age" we had tagged on our back. For a while, he made me really happy. I was always wanting to spend time with him, but that started to change after a while. We stopped spending as much time together and I soon began to feel that the feelings I had were not being reciprocated. It always seemed like, with him, everything was more important than spending time with me. He worked 4 days on 3 days off and then 3 days on 4 days off, similar to a schedule that a fire fighter has. And although he did not have to sleep overnight for his job, like a firefighter, he might as well have. It was absolutely shocking and unbelievable to me that he could go 3 and 4 days at a time without so much as a text much to me. I would call and text him and sometimes, if I was lucky, he would reply, but it was rare on days that he was working to hear from him at all. It sucked. That was a really good way to make someone feel like shit and extremely unimportant. He told me he loved me, but as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. That was something that he obviously didn't understand. We eventually broke up and it sucked. We had a lot of mutual friends, but one in particular was a dear friend of mine and of his. Shortly after we broke up, they started seeing other. I had never been so full of rage and hatred for anyone in all of my life. Everything started to make sense. I had heard rumors about them before, but never even gave them a thought until this. To this day, I do not know if any of the rumors were true or not, and that is what they remain, rumors. But I don't care to know the truth. What does that change? I am better off without friends like that in my life anyway. I had fallen back into some of my old habits and desperately needed to figure out my life. What do I want out of life, what am I worth, and who can I count on?

It was like a major wake up call. An epiphany, if you will. I had recently moved in with a new roommate. It was a much better neighborhood, and I had decided that I was never going to let myself self-destruct again. What good did that do? NONE!!! It just made me feel worse. I don't regret that time in life, because I learned so much about life and myself in that time, but I was elated to be back on track. My new roomie and her boyfriend were very into their Faith in God. At the time, I was a believer, but not a true follower. I called myself a Christian, but I did not in any way practice my faith, but that was all about to change. I was determined to change. I hated the person that I had let myself become, and I wanted to be better, to do better.

TO BE CONTINUED...