A Year in Review – Sickness, Death, Grief, & Being Alone

The other day I was thinking that a year ago I had a lot of things going on. I started out house sitting for a friend at an amazing beachside location, but ended up getting the flu that eventually turned into pneumonia. It took about three months to feel normal again. In the meantime, I had started a new job in home health care and had been on a few dates with Mr. Mixed Messages that turned out to be quite the douchebag. I was also still distraught over Orange Crush, and internally, I was a huge emotional train wreck – which I am pretty certain was part of the reason I ended up so sick.

My fevers ran so high I think I actually lost a lot of memory from that time period, because the next thing I knew, it was April. During that time, one of my childhood friends was murdered by her ex-husband in a really horrific way. Today marks the one-year anniversary. And it didn’t even dawn on me until around September that one of my other childhood friends had passed away unexpectedly during that feverish time; it was then that I actually grieved about it. I couldn’t believe that I had “forgotten” about it until I went through my phone contacts and saw his name. A few others that influenced my life also passed in 2018. And then the client I was taking care of suddenly went into decline and passed away last summer. I just couldn’t deal with that type of job anymore, so I didn’t go back to it.

Throughout the year, I revamped some of the friends I had been hanging around – particularly those that seemed interested in my business, yet weren’t around to lend a helping hand when I needed it. There was one friend in particular that I thought I was close with, but she suddenly stopped speaking to me, and I didn’t know why. I finally confronted her, and one of her reasons was when I had picked up my newest job, some of the people I worked with knew her ex (I didn’t), and she just didn’t want to run the risk of running into him. Huh??? How is that my fault? I wasn’t even hanging around the people I worked with; I just simply worked there. Another reason was because when she’d asked me for an asthma inhaler, I had gone out of my way to bring her an extra one I had. However, I had no idea it had run out; obviously, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to bring her something she couldn’t use. I guess she ended up in the ER that day… and she blamed it on me. Wow. Her excuses really pissed me off, but I realized I didn’t need anyone so fucking selfish in my life anyway.

I was alone a lot last year. I didn’t necessarily want to be alone, because with my home health care job it was like being alone most of the time, and when I was sick I was alone. Being alone doesn’t bother me, but it’s not exactly healthy to be alone that much. I started kayaking alone again, even going back to the same spot that I had fond memories of with OC. In a way I guess it was therapeutic, because I wasn’t going to let the memory of him ruin my little sanctuary… but at the same time it made me both sad and angry. I guess I was still grieving.

By the end of the year, I decided to try dating sites again, because I didn’t want to be alone. What a mistake that was. (If you’ve been reading my blog, you already know this.) I decided that being alone wasn’t so bad, and now I am just used to being alone. Now I am using this time to write, do art, take classes, kayak, read, and catch up on all of the things I’ve been either avoiding or procrastinating.

While it would be nice to have a partner (it would also be nice to have sex!), I’m just going to settle for dating myself from now on. At least I know how to entertain myself… and not pee on the toilet seat.