Holiday denial with a side of blue balls

When you’re amidst a heartbreak, every day is different. One day you’ll wake up and want to embrace your singlehood, put on a cute outfit, explore your new city and find some man bunned hipster at a brewery to flirt with. Other days, you discover the “deleted voicemail” section of your inbox and hear your ex’s voice for the first time in months (saying gut wrenching things like, “Hey baby, there’s an accident on 68 so please be careful, I picked up your dry cleaning and it’s hanging in the closet, call me later I love you!”, *insert gun to face emoji here*), and decide that listening to BB King for hours and pouring yourself a whiskey at 2:30pm while it’s dumping rain and you’re still in pajamas (HIS over sized tee and sweat pants, seriously, where is the gun to face emoji) is a good idea. Today, unfortunately, is the latter.

Going through an intense breakup and getting over a broken heart is like mourning a death. And what’s worse, is that they haven’t actually left the earth, they’re around and alive. And not only are they around and alive, but they’re flourishing, they’re in love with someone new, and you’re sitting on your ass drinking whiskey at 2:30 on a rainy afternoon in the strange city you ran away to, feeling like it just happened and seriously questioning how, if even possible, to go on.

Holiday season is upon us like a cheap slut, and just because you feel like your whole world has ended, the other part of the world, the real, rest of the world has not. Life goes on for everyone else and holidays will happen this year, despite my mental protests. Inevitable holiday season engagements and pregnancy announcements will arise (OH the horror), and I’m starting the psychological prep now, just in case one of those announcements happens to be from him. 

Let’s just bypass the whole holiday season. I can’t afford it, literally and figuratively. Santa, unless you’ve got a hot, emotionally stable, financially secure, non asshole adult man with good arms for me, just fuck off and don't bother this year.

Another side affect of a gut wrenching breakup and new found singlehood in a foreign state without any “old reliables” to depend on for random, I-need-to-relieve-some-aggression-and-make-sure-my-vagina-still-works sex, is the incessant horniness and extreme sexual frustration.

Fucked up, really-- you’re in a relationship for almost three years and have access to the sex at all times, and then towards the end you don’t want it anymore because everything’s gone to shit, then it ends, and you’re regretting all the access to sure-thing orgasms you had for so long and totally took for granted. Ah yes, a classic case scenario of never truly realizing what we have until it’s long gone and fucking someone else. 

Of course, self completion is a thing, but does it really relieve anything? Lately, masturbation just makes me angrier because of the painful realization that there isn’t a male body on top of me, as much as I try to fantasize it. My new vibrator broke 2/3 of the way through the other night. $100 of my unemployed dollars and one less orgasm I’m not having, RIGHT down the drain. Talk about blue balls. Oh the pain. 

So what have we learned today? Stock up your liquor cabinet, re-up your Valium prescription and for gods sake make sure your new sex toy has a warranty. It’s going to be a rough, lonely, sexless holiday season.

The Comeback

Well this is weird. But also, totally exciting and intellectually arousing, as I’ve been wanting to start this baby up again ever since I stopped.

So, before I have time to further doubt and soil myself out of immense terror and anxiety of re-exploiting my personal life almost five years later and as a grown ass woman approaching 30 (life’s issues are far more important and daunting than they were at 23. I thought it was bad then?! Shit.), let me give you a little update on where we’re at:

I am rapidly approaching 28 (WHAT), I’ve been unemployed for seven months, am fresh off a blind siding, slap-in-the-face double decker heartbreak (explanations to come), and I’ve been squatting in my good friend’s guest bedroom for the past month and a half in Portland, Oregon, where I ran away to after my life completely went to shit.

[Sidenote: I am living with this friend and her brand new fiance, they just got back from a month long European extravaganza and she just started school to become a certified yoga instructor while he is a successful tech engineer. And again, for emphasis: I AM LIVING WITH A COUPLE WHO JUST GOT ENGAGED, BACK FROM THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME, ARE CELEBRATING FOREVER LOVE AND HAVE REAL LIVES. REAL, SUCCESSFUL, GOING PLACES, I-HAVE-A-DIRECTION-IN-LIFE, LIVES. To put it simply, I am Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids. Should I just end this piece now?]

Getting back on subject of my current shitstorm, I am also poorly (literally, you need health insurance and a lot of money or something to deal with a debilitating disease, who knew?) managing a 25+ year rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, resulting in a knee the size of a head of cabbage and temporarily losing the ability to walk. Now I realize that coming to Portland for the fall and winter seasons where it rains almost every day for months was not my smartest move, as drippy weather has a very negative affect on my bones (I swear I’m really 27, not 87).

This, in addition to a declining bank account and the competitive job market in Rip City leaving me unable to secure work is likely to end my attempt at conquering Portlandia and send me right back to where I started: the Monterey Peninsula. Essentially, a graveyard of all my failed relationships.

This is one of those small hometowns that the longer you’re there, the smaller it gets. You run into people constantly, most of which you’d rather not run into. Dodging ex people and the women who date them is a sport in Monterey, one of which I am highly practiced at. Everyone knows everyone’s business, and everyone has dated or hooked up in one way or another (and if you haven’t, you’re friends with someone who has). Basically, Monterey is one big borderline incestual web of people connected by common sexual denominators.

Alright alright, so it’s not all bad. My nearest and dearest are there, it’s my home. But unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that everywhere you go-- different stores, restaurants, streets, neighborhoods-- just remind you of memories you’re trying to forget. Or at least, move on from. Ok, forget.

I’ve been trying to mentally prepare myself for the inevitability that I will have no choice but to return to the beloved hell hole I abruptly fled. To quote a frantic and desperate Julia Roberts in the climax of My Best Friends Wedding, “IT IS NOT. GOING. WELL.”

And all this shit going down RIGHT BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS?! (Because, naturally, when else would there be a better time for this to happen?) TAKE ME NOW LORD.

So, that’s the synopsis of where I’m at in life. I made a terrifying yet brave decision to move to a new, unknown area to heal my heart and soul, and now it’s looking like I will likely have to come back home to the place and people that broke it in the first place. (See? Nutshelling is far less entertaining.)

And what better way to jump start your dead blog than a full fledged, pre-holiday life crisis to write about?!

In closing, on a serious note: whoever you are out there, thank you for reading this. You might be someone I know but never met, you might be an old friend, a current friend, a family member (who could possibly be taken aback by my brutal honesty and oh so eloquent verbage, sorry fam), an ex, the current girlfriend of an ex (it’s happened), or a complete and total stranger who came across this blog by chance. Whoever the hell you are, I am immensely grateful to you for taking the time out of your day to read my babbles. 
It is my hope that this blog will continue, flourish, and get me in as little trouble as possible. (Emphasis on that last bit.) I hope to be a voice that you (whoever you are, whether you’re in my generation or not) can relate to and possibly even find some solace in, knowing that you’re not alone and holding onto your sense of humor, especially in the darkest times, can save you, as it has me.