Doing my homework…

An antidote to procrasti-baking.

A bit about me…

I’ve had debilitating anxiety for as long as I can remember, and have always experienced very intense negative emotions. However, I was only properly diagnosed and medicated after an extended period of post-natal depression after my second child was born. I had PND after my firstborn too, but that’s another story.

Since that diagnosis, of generalised anxiety disorder, my various psychologists have encouraged me to write or journal my thoughts, but I hate writing about me. It feels so self-indulgent, when I have so many other things to do. I’m also a fucking perfectionist and will probs re-read this a trillion times and find so many typos and grammatical errors and hate myself for posting it.

However, after the last 12 months, I reckon it’s time to challenge my mindset on this and I’m hoping this blog gives me some level of accountability. Time get cracking on my homework…

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

2023

2023 has been one of the hardest years of my life. I feel like I crawled on my hands and knees towards the end of the work year utterly exhausted - physically, mentally, emotionally.

As a single parent to 2 school kids (100% custody during term-time), juggling a full time management job and studying part time, I’m usually pretty tired come the end of the year. However, this year I have found a whole new level of tired. On my last day of work, I had a micro-sleep waiting for a traffic light to change on the 15min drive home. Thankfully my new car has an alarm that beeps at me if the car in front moves off, but I stay still. Damn, I love that car! 🚙

I digress…back to the year that was…

In January 2023 the townhouse I had only just moved into as tenant was put on the market. In May I had to cut ties with someone that I mistakenly entrusted with my heart. In June my work team was effectively halved and moved (yet again) to a different branch. In August I lost a Uni friend very suddenly/unexpectedly. In November my tween was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. If that wasn’t enough… most of November and December the kids and I played tag-team with a nasty bout of influenza.

A professional once explained to me that there are three main areas of life in which you need to feel secure:

(1) home/living arrangements,

(2) work/finances, and

(3) family/relationships.

She said that if even just one of these is rocky, then it can really affect your mental health (and consequently your physical health).

It’s fair to say that I was, and still am, feeling incredibly insecure in every aspect of my life.

To add to this, on 18 December my two kids flew to the UK for 3 weeks with my ex-husband, leaving before I even finished work for the year. I don’t have any family around me other than my kids. So in the week leading up to Christmas, and for most of the 25th December itself, I was alone.

Alone or lonely?

Don’t get me wrong, I joke about being a hermit, but I do enjoy a limited number of  close friendships. I just struggle in crowds, and with small talk, and with the unfamiliar. I love space, and routine, and downtime.

I’ve not wanted to jump into any intimate relationships too fast since my 10-year marriage ended in 2013. It’s also incredibly hard negotiating the dating space as a single mum.

Since my separation, and eventual divorce, I’ve always had more than 70% care of my kids. For the last 5 years I have cared for them full-time during term-time and 30-50% during school holidays. This is not conducive to rest/relaxation, let alone finding time for dating! I don’t have the time or energy to get “out there” and dating apps are godawful places.

This level of single-parenting was not through my own choice: my ex did not want to figure out the logistics of 50/50 shared care and thought it would “impact [his] work and quality time with [his] new partner”. I wonder why I left that marriage… 🤔

“John”

As I mentioned at the start, the reason for writing this down is to help process difficult emotions and thoughts. By far the hardest part of this year was the end of my last intimate relationship. It was by far the best…and easily the worst…relationship that I’ve ever had.

John* and I met at the gym^. He was awkward and anxious in the unfamiliar surrounds, like me. I could instantly sense his discomfort through his body language and his expressive deep brown eyes (He’d be shit at poker.)

*Not his real name

^Also not where we met

John and I just seemed to hit it off and made each other feel comfortable. We were friends for maybe 4mths before John attended my birthday drinks. Unbeknownst to John he had just contracted COVID in the previous 24hrs. Two of my friends and I caught COVID from John that night.

John felt terrible. We were both in COVID isolation, separated by a few dozen Canberra suburbs. Without knowing my fave ice cream, he surprised me with an Uber-Eats delivery of my exact favourite for my COVID-sore throat. It was so thoughtful. Though he made me promise not to post about his very kind gesture on my Instagram, because he didn’t want a fuss (missed red flag #1).

John never really talked about his home life (missed 🚩#2), he would just refer to an “ex girlfriend” and the bad breakup they’d had. He once vaguely mentioned another girlfriend but said she was away at the time, and that things weren’t great. (🚩#3) Anyway, he brushed that off and kept referring to his ex in his stories. For some reason I conflated the two in my head…and John chose not to correct me.

We texted a gazillion times a day through iso…and it became more and more intimate. Eventually, when we were both over the virus, we became more than friends. He came over every day after work. We’d talk for ages about rando stuff, cuddling on the sofa - my head would fit perfectly in the curve of his neck. I loved the way he smelled. We called it “lounge hour” and it was my favourite time of the day. I felt safe to be 100% me.

It wasn’t just sex. That was a spectacular added bonus to the talks, walks, and adventures we went on together. We’d always pick up our conversation again straight after sex anyway…cuddling and chatting away…never getting bored of each other or running out of things to talk about.

Lies, damn lies…

One night, John and I were at drinks with our mutual gym friends when someone walked up and congratulated John on his impending fatherhood.

I was utterly dumbfounded. Sad, angry, and completely shocked I went to the bathrooms and cried.

How could I have missed something so huge? Why had I trusted John? How could he do this to his pregnant partner (who it turns out he lived together with in the house they jointly own).

I confronted John - let him have the full spray. I ended things, got very teary and drunk with other friends. Then I went home. I’d only known John a few months. I’d get over it. Been there, done that, right?

Except John caught an Uber to my house and begged for forgiveness: “I didn’t lie, I just didn’t know how to tell you…Things aren’t great at home…I thought having a baby would make my partner happy and things would get better…If we can’t be more, can we please just be friends as I really value the time we spend together…I feel like I can be myself with you...I don’t want to lose you.”

I said I’d think about it.

After a few days we recommenced “lounge hour” in the afternoons. Albeit from opposite ends of the sofa. No cuddling.

Then a week or so later the cuddles started up again. We professed our love for each other…and I subsequently abandoned my core values of honesty and integrity.

We picked up exactly where we left off with no regard for John’s pregnant partner - something which will always be one of my greatest failures, and biggest regrets.

The future

John brought extra clothes, shoes, toiletries and other stuff over to my house. I gave him closet space and a set of my house keys. However, he rarely stayed over.

In my defence, John was incredibly convincing. He would talk about our life together once he was able to gently let down his partner. He wanted to “do it the right way” by “helping her come to her own realisation” that they weren’t meant for each other.

John and I would talk about the farm we would buy together and the veggie garden we would tend to. The little tractor we would putter around on. We’d send each other links to farms for sale around the local area and discuss the properties’ pros and cons.

Once we even went on a little mini holiday together.

Promises

We solemnly promised each other that if either of us ever stopped loving the other, or wanting to be together, that we would be completely honest and tell the other person straight away.

Whenever I would start to doubt what we were doing, John would tell me it was 100% my choice to stay or to go, and that he would “support me if I needed a break from us”. In reality, whenever I communicated that I needed some time apart or that I wanted to end things, John would break down over the phone crying. He would still send texts, videos and emails telling me he missed me and that it hurt so much when we were not talking or seeing each other.

I tried to end things 3 times in the first 6mths.

The old, alcoholic lesbian

Then one day in late 2022, John’s partner found out. Of course John lied about me. He also gaslit his partner, telling her she was crazy for thinking he was cheating on her.

First, I was a lesbian - so no threat at all.

Then I was an ex-alcoholic who he was supporting through recovery.

Lastly, I was a desperate older woman who had latched on to him. Yes, he’d gotten carried away and we’d had sex, but it was just meaningless sex and he was trying to let me down gently (presumably because of my alleged rampant alcoholism and questionable sexual orientation?)

I think it was the last one that hurt the most. That it meant nothing, and that he was trying to let me down gently. If that was true, then the whole of the previous 12mths had been a lie. This relationship, this person who meant more to me than anyone I’d met before, was not real. Thats a massive fucking bitter horsepill to swallow.

I know that last paragraph sounds really self-absorbed given the trauma we’d both put John’s partner through, but he’d painted a very dire picture of their relationship and her behaviour towards him. All lies, but I didn’t know the true extent of John’s deception until one day his partner rang me out of the blue…

Hard truths

John’s partner and I talked and texted on and off over 3-4 days trying to figure out the truth of our respective relationships with John.

I realised that I did not have a future with John. He now had a beautiful little family and his partner was prepared to forgive him.

Work work work

It hurts that John betrayed my trust.

It hurts even more that he betrayed our promise to tell the other person straight away if either of us stopped loving the other. John insisted to the very end that he still loved me…and it was just “the universe” that wouldn’t let us be together.

It’s taken me almost 8mths, and many therapy hours (and $$$) to get to a point where I no longer try to see the best in John, or to romanticise the time we spent together.

Thankfully i’m also no longer spending sleepless nights trying desperately to figure out the line between reality and fiction in my time with John.

I now realise that I don’t need to know whether the relationship, or John’s feelings, were the truth or a lie. The important thing is that I was real. My feelings were real.

However, the most important realisation from all of this is that I need to spend some time getting reacquainted with my core values. I also need to figure out how to live by these values every day.

Thanks for taking the time to read my mind.