Good Riddance

I was thinking about it before, and honestly I’ve never been happier in my entire life than right now. For some reason I find that busting my ass and having nothing to show for it is incredibly rewarding. I have friends who are getting married, friends who are buying houses, and I don’t really envy them. I think at one point I was pretty depressed because I felt like everyone around me was so far ahead of me in life, and I was alone, but now I’m really happy that I’m not tied to any of those things.

More importantly, in a few days it will be the one year mark of the time I kicked out the worst influence on my life, for good, finally. I’d been having horrible nightmares after years of being berated and manipulated by this person, and I really just wanted a resolution so that I could go to a mutual friend’s wedding and not have a major panic attack from being in the same room as this person, who at other times would call me up in the middle of the night and tell me they missed me or that no one else was like me. Well, this particular day, he told me that he’d be happier if I had died than Osama Bin Laden (Osama was killed the day before) and that if I showed up at the wedding he’d ridicule me in front of everyone. That was honestly the worst day of my entire life, but not nearly the worst things he’d said to me. (Fortunately I had one of the best people in my life come to my rescue that day and talk me off an almost-not-so-theoretical ledge.) But enough was enough. To be treated so inhumanely that I had to sacrifice going to a wedding of a dear friend for my own mental sanity was really painful for me. While this person was in my life I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to drive my car into a tree or off a bridge. He made me feel like I was an awful, worthless, horrible piece of shit.

The longest period I’d gone without this person in the last 7 years was about two months. But in three days I will have made it a year, and I think it is no coincidence that I am the happiest I’ve ever been. I have no definite plans for the next year, only hopes. I own nothing of substance. I have not found the love of my life (that I know of…). I bust my ass for $13 an hour and come home smeared in ketchup, and I love every minute of it. I barely have time to study, but I manage to pull it off. I can no longer buy every piece of clothing I fall in love with. I’m allergic to nuts! And I love nuts! And now they make me throw up.  I can’t even go to the doctor because I have shitty insurance and I need a referral first and that is a pain in the ass. I’m fat. I’ve never been this out of shape in my life, but I’ve never felt more confident. I find myself talking and laughing to myself while driving. I find joy in little things like the geese couple I pass every day on the highway having little gosslings. I revel in little epiphanies like this photo: the fact that someone positioned this bear on top of my shelf and that I just now, after two days, noticed it.

I don’t worry about what’s going to happen in the next year and who is going to think what of me, and if they’re going to think I’m a failure because I live at home and I don’t have a masters or a really high paying job. I like my life now, with friends who are genuine, people who think I’m funny, customers who want to adopt me, managers who appreciate the 150% I put out every day, people who appreciate and recognize when I go out of my way for them, and someone to fall asleep with who has never, not once, said anything mean to me in the two years I’ve known him even when I’ve let my inner bitch out. I’m going to have to skip every college friend’s wedding for the rest of my life, and I don’t care, because I’m not going to poison my happiness with that kind of evil.

I don’t wish ill on anyone, and for a long time I just wanted the best for this person, I just wanted them to be a better person and I was willing to do anything to help them get there, and that’s why I let myself be dragged around by this speeding train-wreck of a human being. And now I just really don’t care. And it feels amazing.