My mom calls them the Collectibles

Today I officially became a girl with her own private therapist. It was awesome. I paid her $100 and she gave me the name of a book to read and told me that I need to journal more. Shit, I could blog and buy It's Called a Breakup Cause It's Broken off Amazon for $11.99.

Her main point was that all the symptoms I'm struggling with is due to me holding things in and never asking for help and never releasing whatever I'm feeling. She even picked up an Incredible Hulk doll and pulled the string. "I'm about to get angry!" shouted Bruce while his plastic eyes blinked red.

"If only someone hugged him more and told him to write his feelings down," she cooed while cuddling with the awkward-looking doll.

So, whatever, I'm going to try it. I'm going to write it out.

In other news, I'm experiencing a Facebook phenomenon called All of my ex-boyfriends see that I'm single and have contacted me again for the first time in years. So far I've heard from commitment-phobic Conor, self-absorbed Jack, emotionally unavailable Christopher, and manic-depressive Poet.

The one that I'm excited about? Hot Christopher. But I'm not supposed to be thinking about boys. I'm supposed to be absorbed in some serious me time, reading my therapist-approved self-help book and acting all nun-ish. And not having dinner with Poet tomorrow.

Which I am.

Things You Need To Know

1. I was laid off from my job on February 4th, 2009. If I hear "Due to the poor economic climate..." one more time, I'm going to rip my ears off and shove them in my mouth.
2. The day after, February 5th, 2009, my third biopsy of my thyroid came back inconclusive again. The big C-word was being whispered around. I was scheduled for immediate surgery to have my thyroid removed. When I cried (about paying for the surgery. The idea of spending money while unemployed freaked me out more than the big C-word did.), the doctor said this would be a great time for surgery "because [I] had nothing better to do." 
3. The pathology lab came back a few weeks later and said that all the tumors on my thyroid were benign. I finally had a diagnosis, but it didn't really make me feel any better. I sort of feel like I went through the whole thing for nothing.
4. I had to stay with my mother following the surgery to recuperate. Scott didn't have a driver's license or a car, nor did he schedule the day off for my surgery, so he was pretty unfit for taking care of me. When I ended up in the emergency room for complications of surgery, he told me that my problems were psychosomatic and that I needed to snap out of it and come back to the apartment. He said that his surgery was worse and more painful and he got through it, so I shouldn't be such a wimp. I tried telling him that this wasn't a patch job, that my entire endocrine system was screwed up, but he hung up the phone on me. This had no bearing on why we broke up, but it always gnawed on me that when I needed surgery, he wasn't capable of taking care of me.
   

Flames

When issues with Scott and me became public to friends and family, they rallied around me and literally packed up my apartment in 3 hours. I was too hurt--too out of it--to be much help. "Well breathe for you," said my closest girl pal Harvey. I just had to point to what was mine and it was gone.

Two days later everyone sighs and smiles. "Sarah is safe," they congratulate themselves. But the phone is silent and all of a sudden, no one is here to breathe for me anymore. They forgot about me. I'm supposed to be feeling better and I've never felt worse, or lonelier, or more confused. I listened to them and I lost my best friend, the one who always would call...

And it makes me want to run back as if I were on fire. Because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

*Sigh*

I have about a million long stories to how I got here, but this is the gist: Scott and I are no more. I had to do a quick move to my mother's house yesterday. I'm 28, unemployed, and living at home. Sexy.

I'm about as okay as I can be, and thanks for your thoughts.

Hi.

I'm sitting here trying to figure out when exactly did things go horribly awry. My heart is pounding so hard that I don't know if I'm going to vomit or have an anxiety attack. But I do know that today will be the hardest day of my life, and by night I'll be safe. And possibly on my way to being happy again. But that's going to take a little while longer.

Making My Way

My mom made a friend for me. There is a woman at my mom's work who my mom really gets along with and they discovered they had daughters the same age that live in the same city who both enjoy knitting and sewing. So they passed our numbers along and I called (er, messaged through Facebook) and set up a lunch date with a visit to a local yarn shop. The first meeting was awkward—a bit like a blind date—but we kept calling each other and kept making plans and after the third time around, it seemed like a normal friendship, not a set-up by our mothers.

So now, instead of spending Friday nights on my couch with my craft books and materials, I'm sitting on her couch with my craft books and materials. I feel like this dramatically drops the loser quotient. One: I'm being social without actually having to go out. PJs is still an acceptable wardrobe. Well for her because it's her house; I have yet to cross that line. Two: I have living proof that I'm not the only single girl in my age bracket who isn't out drinking, but engaging in hobbies. And three: she has a subscription to crafting magazines and I don't, so I feel like I'm not the geekiest person out there.

Because I made the effort to network, I had another opportunity come my way. I was out to lunch with friends at and all-you-can-eat sushi buffet the other Friday and my friend brought her brother and the brother's girlfriend. Brother's Girlfriend asks me if I like to knit. I flashed her my scarf and she invited me to a once-a-week group stitch and bitch that knits for charity. So now I'm meeting people with my own interests and doing something to help others. Another reason I'm not feeling like a loser anymore.

Also, at the same sushi lunch, a guy friend revealed he had two front-row seats to Cirque du Soleil and would I like to go with him? I clapped in response, never having been to any form of circus before. It was fucking fantastic.

Naked

I've become somewhat of a light sleeper. Scott's nightly work schedule has him up and wandering the apartment at all hours of the night. Lately I'll wake up to sounds of the TV, frying bacon, or the small wind chime tied to the front door that the dog rings when she wants to go out. I usually identify the noise, holler at Scott to keep it down, roll over, and go back to sleep.

Last night I woke up to Scott getting out of bed at some early hour in the morning. He walked in the closet, flipped the light on and looked confused. I figured he was looking for the bathroom but went in the wrong door, as he often does when he gets up from deep sleep. He then walked out of the closet and back into the bedroom where he stared at the bedroom floor for a moment, and then he brushed back the curtain to leave the bedroom.

Ah, he found the bathroom, I thought.

Then I heard the wind chime tied to the front door jingle as he unlocked both locks and left the apartment.

Did I mention he was stark naked when all this happened?

I realized he was sleep walking, something he hasn't done for about six months- long enough for me to forget about his habit. Remembering all the traumatic times when I woke him up in the middle of it, I counted the seconds and debated how long I should wait before I retrieve my nude boyfriend from wandering around the apartment building and possibly getting arrested. Just when my nervousness peaked, the bell chimed as he came back in, locked both locks, came back into the bedroom and brushed the closet light off before collapsing back into bed.

"Um, baby?"

"Mmm garble."

"You awake?"

"Nyuhgh."

He was in deep enough sleep that my suspicion has been confirmed. I got up and went outside into the building hallway to spy any evidence of what Scott was doing outside, but found none. I can't wait till I get home from work today to tell him what he did last night, but whatever he did will remain a mystery.