2008.

What a fucking shitshow of a year.

I know most people wait until the New Year's hangover subsides before lamenting the tragedies of the last year and making empty promises for the next, but what can I say? I don't have a lot going on and I'm a real go-getter.

I have been growing more and more depressed. I only get about four hours of sleep a night before I'm wide awake. My appetite is all over the map. I'll just not eat until someone reminds me that I'm hungry. After the complete fucking meltdown of my relationship with Shai, it's given me a chance to breathe and think about things that I found really easy to ignore while I was with him, struggling to make it all go well.

2008 was a big fat crap year. I was engaged and did the most despicable thing I could do by leaving him while he was in Afghanistan. I should be drawn and quartered, but trust me- my own conscience and complete remorse is enough. I don't know how honestly I'm being with myself when I tell myself why I did what I did. A huge part was him being there. I was in the midst of a full mental breakdown, with a psychologist at my house every other day and hallucinations and panic attacks. I couldn't hack it. I thought I could, but I just couldn't. In hindsight, our relationship was otherwise good, or consistently getting better, anyway.

It's not that I want him back, it's just he was the best I've ever had.

Then there was Shai, the biggest regret of my fucking life. Twice. I'm not that stupid and I let myself act like I was. I should have learned my goddamn lesson the first time around, but you just...hope, sometimes.

Fuck. Never again.

My relationship with my family has shifted enormously. I try to ignore it, but Christmas drives home the point of being an orphan-by-parental-choice. I haven't heard from my father and my mother asked if I would be coming over to her house for Christmas. Via text message. The day after her housewarming party which neither my sister nor myself were invited.

I don't want to, it doesn't feel like Christmas.

I have no passion left. I have no motivation. I miss my cat, and I hate that that son of a bitch has him. I hate the decisions I've made. I hate where I've wound up, in this suffocating town that's always cold and everyone is cruel and petty. I miss the invisibility I had in the city. I'm lonely. I'm seriously so fucking lonely, I feel like I could scream. It makes me panic. I feel like I have lost all control over my own life.

I am trying to cling to my last vestiges of hope that next year will be better, because it's the only thing that's keeping me from blowing my brains out right now.

At my request, Rob emailed to let me know he had returned to Canada.  I feel a lot of things about this - relief that he's okay, remorse at the giant mess of memories left in what was once our room (I am loathe to admit there were wedding planning materials and photographs left behind), curiosity about how he's feeling, some nostalgia and to be entirely honest, there were a few minutes of "what-ifs".

It's easy to remember the best possible version of an ex, especially one you felt so strongly about.  I know in my heart that Rob and I could never have worked, ever, mostly due to our inability to really speak to one another and appreciate each other's company without the lubrication of vodka and sex, but also in part due to the military life that I couldn't lead and he couldn't leave.  These are two very substantial reasons to not be with someone for the rest of your life, and to ultimately feel very little regret over your decision to call it quits.  I suppose there's just this pang caused by my forgetting all of those factors with his return to the country, alive and well.

I don't want anyone to get me wrong (most of all you, Shai!), because I am happy with my decision to be here in Vancouver, and happy with my life here.  I know beyond any doubt that my moving and being with Shai was the absolute right one and I have never in my life felt happier and more fulfilled.  I can't even say that I feel any sadness with this new development of Rob being home, but it does weigh on my mind and heart a little bit in a completely inexplicable way. 

I'm grateful Shai's day ends at 9pm today and he is coming home to me, our cat, and a boatload of kissing. 

Today I was reminded of a major reason I ended things with Rob. His fucking asshole friend Kyle decided to bring the hammer down on me, or at least try the best that his weasley little brain could muster. Apparently, I treated Rob like complete shit and I'm "just a very mean and angry person". I also will never have any friends. He is basing that judgement on next to nothing, least of all my side of things, and it was infuriating to have my whole relationship cheapened and reduced to this being "all my fault". How is it that Rob has taken this totally mature moral high road and his friends have decided it's time to throw down.

I never fit in with the olive drag army wife mold and they always hated me for that. I'm sure they had other reasons, but I never behaved like I was expected to. It's one of the reasons I ended things with Rob, which is sad but true.

Also today I received an email from Rob's mother, who doesn't seem to know what's going on, but assures me that it won't be long and that she knows it's tough for me right now, etc. etc. Not my place to correct her just how long it'll be.

Thank God Shai is home early today. I need some huggin' bigtime.

Today I am feeling very lonely.

The Unfortunate Incident of the Blackout has decreased in embarrassing, and crossed over into downright hilarious. Last night Sheri told me that the spinning around of a strange girl was actually me putting her in a headlock and sort of trying to spin around, but mostly just running in a circle. When she recounted that, I was laughing so hard my makeup was running down my face. I hope you can all conjure the visual that I did, so you might be as delighted as I was.

Going out to the bar makes me feel old and lonely, but instead of my usual reaction of "hey, this guy talked to me, let's make out with him!", all I do is miss Rob. Wah!