So I've been kind of... a satellite floating around this forum for the past couple of months. Many, many things have gone on with me in that time and if I was to split them into all the relevant threads it would cover panic, depression, TMI, relationship and probably a couple more along the way. And it's long, so I am spoiling it.
After the end of my two-and-a-half year relationship, I was mostly fine for a while then spiralled quite a bit. After at first just being sad, but largely fine, as reality has set in the depression has as well. I am better now than I was a few weeks back, but at the moment I am dealing with things better.
Quite often still things are catching me that are upsetting. And one of the main things is the place in which I live. Hodges and I live very near to each other, and this is a small, reasonably rural area of the country. As a city boy I didn't much care for this area when I moved here in the first place, but I am very aware of how tiny it is now. Everything that I would be interested in doing round here I have done, with her, and that means there is nowhere I can go in this town that is safe from the memories. And that most significantly includes my bedroom. I rent one room in a share house, which I have been increasingly resentful of. I have lived in here for three and a half years now and in that time, I think maybe 35 people have lived here at various points due to the high turnover rate. In that time I have made three friends, of which only one I still speak to, and that's because she still lives here.
I am sick of being reminded of what I've lost everywhere I go. Everywhere I go. My home is no longer a safe space for me any more. It is cold, and loveless. I am living inside a tiny box of memories that one day I will look fondly on but right now are hard to take. And I am starting to get angry that I don't live with people I like. When I visit my friends in Leeds, they all live with people they (and I) know, friends of theirs. I live in a house share with one genuine friend and six strangers. It's fucking bullshit.
The other place that upsets me a lot is the local 24-hour supermarket. This might not sound like much, but romance I find is in the eye of the beholder and we spent many a daft, very late night wandering around the aisles of that place confusing the poor shelf stacking staff. She was a health food nut (in the best possible way) and I am finding it very difficult to actually go down the fruit aisle. It fills me with memories. If I go too near the herbs, the mint, etc. I feel like I can smell her hair because I so often wrapped my arms around her from behind while she chose what to buy.
I gave my life over to her so completely that I have almost nothing left now that is only my own. This isn't a criticism of either her or our relationship; it just makes it hard to enjoy a few things that used to be favourites - a TV series called The Trip, for one example; the music of Mansun or Drake; The Apprentice.
However, my life has a very strange yin-yang quality to it at the moment. Shortly after the breakup a couple that I know offered their home as a port in a storm. They have many cute pets (six cats and a dog ahhhhh), they are lovely, intelligent people I can talk to endlessly, and they have a neverending supply of good quality weed. I'm not the kind of person who likes to endorse drugs (much as I think weed should be legal) but given my previous predilection for harder shit I decided it was a better call (look at some of my recent posts and you may see how that element of my past came up a few times because it was on my mind).
I have spent a lot of time at their house, avoiding my own house at all costs. At first I was in their spare room. Then things evolved, and now... well... we're a three. And I am almost certainly going to move in with them in January. One of them works with me, so she could drive me in each day since she goes in at the same time as me anyway. If I pay them, as rent, the value of their mortgage payment to rent their spare room (but actually share... everything) I end up saving over Ł200 a month. I can repay my dad three months early. I can repay the bank, quickly and cleanly. I can build a savings account and start paying into my pension.
Plus, the place they live will fulfil many things that where I live now simply can't. For one thing, it's an actual city. It's urban and multicultural. I need buzz in my life, I need bustle. Small towns don't have that. Even when everyone is around nothing is fucking happening. A number of my friends already live there. It's closer to London so I can visit my friends there more easily. They have a college there that I could, in theory, get a job at. And above all else, it's not absolutely dripping with reminders of my heart being shattered to pieces.
They are both a little older than me (one year and two and a half years) and being on the same emotional level as me means that despite the fact that the three of us are now involved, they don't begrudge me the fact that I am still extracting myself from a prior relationship. They are friends, rocks, lovers, partners.
I think that's everything I can think of for now... any questions???