r/nonwild: why shopping on the internet for self-esteem is probably a mistake.

DISCLAIMER: i’ve been writing this post since september, and actually changed the date to october when it took me a month to get it even half done. now it’s almost february. the cliff’s notes version here is that i’m sad. i’ve been sad for a while. i’m feeling a lot better, but things are still sometimes confusing and hard, and i haven’t been writing because i couldn’t. i know that’s not funny, or snarky, or even interesting, but it’s the story of why this post took me almost 6 months to write.

october was a pretty shitty month. i would venture to say (save for that year when i got divorced), that this october was probably the shittiest month i’ve had for a long time. and while no one big thing went awry causing the downward spiral (time to break out the NIN), it was more of a 10 car pile up of tiny awful little things combining into a juggernaut of unstoppable sadness, and self doubt, and too many days spent curled up in my bed with my dog playing internet scrabble and praying for sleep.

i am not prone to depression, not even a little. usually, i’m a joke cracking, bright side finding, pollyanna-grade fucking optimist. i don’t get sad, ever really.  so on the very rare occasion that everything decides to crumble into dust for a minute, sad is this foreign intruder who busts in, makes himself comfortable in my bed, demands snacks, and refuses to go home. i’m paralyzed. i’m useless. so, sad and i curl up in bed together, call my mom, and try to wait it out.

if you like me, check this box.

so back in december when i became all single and jazz, i had a little bit of a dating related meltdown. perhaps you remember it? no?

reader’s digest version: 10 years off the market and i found myself completely  clueless about virtually everything dating related or if i would even be attractive to anyone at 34, when the last time i was open for business i was a nubile 24 year old with a temp job and questionable decision making skills.

but at the time, my breakup wounds were fresh, and the actual dating conundrum could wait. i avoided thinking about it. i shopped my way through the move into the bachelor hole. i focused my attentions on the happiness and well being of my true life partner, kazuki.

but here we are 5 months later, and things are all kinds of unexpectedly different (except for kazuki being my soul mate. that’s forever).

i’ll start by telling you a little story about something that happened a few weeks ago:

valentine’s b-side- loving love is dangerous.

so my real official valentine’s day post belongs to ophelia’s webb today, so you’ll have to go over there if you want to read that mess. but if you’re too lazy to click, the cliff’s notes version is that i love valentine’s day.

when was a little girl, i would spend weeks and weeks making home made valentines for everyone i cared about (long before romantic love could hover over me like a specter of death) and generally just thinkin about all the people i wanted to tell how awesome they are. as a teenager, i wasn’t always great at expressing my love for anyone or anything (picture it- 1992: black lipstick, kafka, ever present scowl), but for some reason, i let valentine’s day be the exception to that rule. and in fact, if i felt compelled to declare my affections to someone in particular, i would often wait until valentine’s day- and spend weeks or months thinking of just the right thing to say that would make them fall in love with me instantly.

this has had varying levels of effectiveness. and has, on rare occasion, gotten me into trouble.

packing it in.

i packed my first box today.

13 actually. 13 paper boxes full of books, dvds, and things that will probably get broken in transit despite their many layered protective newspaper cocoons. theoretically, this should be good news (especially for my breakables). but really, i’ve got 4 days until my movers show up, and i’ve only packed about 1/8 of everything i own. and that was the easy bit. unfortunately, the rest of my apartment is far less square and regular than my book and dvd collections.

and now, here i am, watching netflix and writing instead of playing through the pain and packing up my kitchen implements before i have time to forget that i’m moving and accidentally get them all dirty again.

thing is, i don’t want to move.

bargaining.

so today i googled “7 stages of grief”. what i learned is that there are actually only 5 stages (not one of which is shopping). well, this website says there are 7, but it does so entirely in comic sans- which is in no way a credible way to deal with sadness.

but as i was saying before, i just finished up the shopping portion of my coping process, and am getting ready to start the packing stage. but in between these two critical stages comes BARGAINING. this past weekend, the ex and i spent an entire day walking around the condo staking claim to all of our worldly possessions.

he gets the “dead like me”, i get the “futurama”.

he can have all the bamboo spatulas, but the kitchen scissors are mine.

neither one of us will take ownership of the pink kitchenaid toaster with the broken handle.

it’s weird. now that all the yelling and crying at 4 am watching “sense and sensibility” stuff is over, only the practical sediment remains settled at the bottom. now, we’re both exhausted and forced by time constraints to be all “business time” (not the sexy kind) for a while. i strongly suspect that there will be more late night crying at movies when i’m moved into my new place, and the gravity of this life change smacks me across the face. but for now, everything is oddly calm.

perhaps as a true testament to our lack of compatibility, we split every single thing 50/50 without argument. sure, i was a little misty to see “legend of zelda- twilight princess” disappear in the “HIS” box. and he was equally heartbroken when i reclaimed a number of the entries in his “all paul rudd all the time” dvd collection.  maybe he’s just smug because he gets to keep the tempur-pedic mattress? or maybe he really just does have terrible taste in everything (i did find a copies of “shrek” and “goldmember” that i had hidden deep in a closed cabinet because i was ashamed to let him put them on the shelf- yet somehow i let “k-pax” slip past the goalie).

or maybe, i assert my autonomy too much in relationships to the point where i can pretty much cut and run with all of my stuff at any given moment. this one was a little different. i bought a house (“we can just sell it and split the equity if i change my mind”). i got a dog (“i’ll just steal him in the middle of the night if i have to”). but even that time i got married, i didn’t change my name. i kept my own bank account.

well, this unearths a whole bunch of unfortunate questions about my commitment issues that i don’t feel like dealing with right now. maybe i’ll dive head first into the packing/unpacking stage until i’m ready for the bad internet dates phase. i’m pretty sure that’s where all the good stories are anyway.

that awkward moment…

… when you realize that your ex husband is the most attractive prospect on an online dating site.

let’s just be clear here. i’m not ready to date.

it’s only been about a month now, and the ex and i are still sharing the same space (and to his credit, he is the most kind and agreeable person i have ever broken up with).  i need to focus my efforts on things like moving, working, breathing, and cuddling my dog. i need to not be an idiot and jump into anything before i’ve had a chance to regroup and recover- at least a little. you know, common sense… blah blah blah, good advice… yadda yadda yadda…

BUT.

the sensible path sorta sucks. it’s lonely. and painful. and sad. so you start to try to make the breakup, the newfound single status (set carefully to your facebook for all to casually notice), more appealing than it really is. you dream of the possibilities. you start to remember everyone you’ve ever had a crush on and stalk them to determine current availability (just in case) (for later):