Number One

Hello world,
I write to you today from a very dark place.

This is my first post here, and it feels good to be here. Everyone needs to spill their heart somewhere, and this is where I've chosen to do it. The past year has been the hardest of my life, and the only person who truly knew that, just dropped me like a hot potato.

Honesty.

I began to suffer from something they call generalized anxiety disorder a little over a year ago. I drifted from most of my friends, kind of tuning out of life. I met a guy. We started dating three weeks later, I knew I loved him after a month. He was my first love, and he changed me in ways I will never even know. He helped me immensely in those ten months we were together, he was my rock, I anchored myself to him. I cried on his shoulder and he held me back when all I wanted to do was run and run until I collapsed.

Over the summer I went on anti-anxiety medication after absolutely refusing it for a year. I reached a point where I just wanted it to all go away. Of course, it didn't. But it helped, eventually.

Fast forward to August 31st. I moved into University and my boyfriend came with me. I was really anxious that day, but he was there for me, and he stayed with me until I felt okay enough to sleep that first night. We had a tradition of always talking to each other on the phone before we went to bed, and that got me through my first couple of nights.

At my first floor dinner on the first night, I met a guy, Ian and we clicked instantly. Over the next few days we became best friends, I opened up to him like I had never opened up to anyone before and he understood me. He just got it. It was amazing. While this was happening, I met his friend from highschool, Kevin and their mutual friend Inger. We all became tight quickly, and I still (a month and a half later) am really close with all of them - I don't know how I would have lived through the past month without them. Anyways.

The boyfriend. He had been my world for ten months, and I wasn't planning on changing that anytime soon. He came to me one night, and told me he had danced with another girl at a frosh event and hadn't told her he had a girlfriend. Apparently, she really liked him and he felt really bad about hurting her feelings and he was sitting there, in front of me, crying because he felt bad about hurting her feelings. I was sitting there, trying to hold it all together, and making him feel better. What the fuck. I'm the one who should be crying, my boyfriend decided he'd like to dance with other girls, and I'm the one consoling him? What's wrong with this picture. After that night we drifted, and the easiest relationship in the world, became strained. I asked for a break, because I needed some time to clear my head, and somehow we ended up breaking up, which was not something I wanted. I didn't know how to live without him.

For two weeks after our break up, I somehow continued living mostly normally, I was sleeping in Ian and Kevin's room every night, because I did not want to be alone, but other than that I felt mostly happy. Steve and I were hanging out as friends, and things were okay. One day out of nowhere, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. He was gone.

I fell apart.

I spent countless hours crying all over Ian, and crying myself to sleep. One night at one am I took an hour walk across campus, crying. I tried talking to Steve but he didn't really want to hear it, he was out. End of story.

That hurt and still hurts more than I could possibly describe. After loving me for ten months, we had one bad week and he decides to throw in the towel. He didn't even want to fight for it. I was there, I was ready to fight, to work, to take things slow, to do whatever he wanted. But no, somehow he decided I wasn't worth it. It shattered my world.

I went to classes, I hung out with the guys down the hall, but other than that I was dead. I texted Steve one morning and asked if we could talk. We met up during my anthropology class a few hours later. He was so cold and distant, I tried to talk, but I just didn't know what to say. He seemed to not even care, he asked me what I wanted, and at that point I could do nothing but respond, "Nothing" and walk away in tears. That was last Monday.

On Thursday I was having a really bad day, I was feeling really down about Steve and I had to escape, so I went off campus and went to visit my cousin/best friend Anna who lived about five minutes away from the University. I camped out at her house for a few hours and was starting to feel a little better when my cell phone rang.

It was my mom calling with bad news, my Grandad who lived in England had just passed away. Everything came flooding back and hit me like another ton of bricks. I am struggling to keep it together, but I just want all this pain to go away. I want the happy days Steve and I had together to come back, I miss the person I was two months ago.

My grandad taught me how to play pool. He was a very tall and very loud man. He told the best stories. He lived a long and full life, but it's still not fair that he's gone. It's not fair to my Grandma, my mom, my aunt and uncles and their kids. I want more than anything to be able to fly to England with my mom for the funeral, but it would cost $3000 dollars and I have three midterms this upcoming week. My mom is going to be away for thanksgiving and miss my commencement. I don't even want to go to my commencement, Steve will be there with his whole family, my best friend whose decided to hate me will be there, and my mom won't be. Everything is just wrong.

When I think of Steve as my ex, it just seems wrong. The world has stopped making sense.

Somedays, I have good days, I don't get too depressed or anxious, I don't feel the need to cry. But those days have been few and far between.

I know it will get better over time, I'll stop wanting Steve back, and I'll stop missing my Grandad so much. But I don't want to stop wanting Steve back, he was the best thing that had ever happened to me, how am I supposed to move on from something like that?

I feel like I'm just running and running, trying not to be consumed by everything. But I'm not going anywhere.