I’m back. Well I never really left I just stopped writing. Of course over the past two years when I really had to work through something I knew the only way to work through the feelings I was having was to journal. I would love to get to the point where I don’t only write when I have to work through something or heal something. Maybe that is when writers begin to explore fiction.
Even now the writing isn’t flowing out of me like it was when I was writing consistently. That is to be expected. I’m rusty, my voice is lost in my head again and I’d like to get some thoughts out of me. I’d like to do something creative daily – I’m not quite sure why I got out of the routine. I think I needed to get back to living a normal life and that became a priority. Now I’m ready to come full circle to writing in an online forum anonymously.
A lot has happened in the past two years. I’ve been in a relationship with someone who treats me well. I was fired from my job and then went back to the company I left after 15 years. I reconnected with an old friend who became a best friend. We traveled to Europe for two weeks, got back, and haven’t talked since. My mom is on the road to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. My sister and I no longer speak due to her alcoholism. I’ve made new friends. I’ve joined a new gym. I lost 40 pounds with the help of medicine. My son graduated high school and got his drivers license. He commutes to college and has a part time job at the local movie theater. I play pickle ball every Sunday. I walk with two old friends every Saturday. I’ve traveled to San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Denver. I saw my dad after 6 years of low contact. I’ve spent time at my boyfriend’s cottage in the summer. I’ve read 100 books and spent too much time scrolling on my phone. I’ve rekindled friendships that are still going strong. The point is I am living again and each month that has passed I feel stronger and more like myself from the mental breakdown I experienced.
The 5 year anniversary just passed from the time where I lost my mind, and I suppose it is fitting that what happened yesterday would be the reason I wanted to write. I made a friend when I first came back to the company I worked for before my two year hiatus. Of course it was a bit nerve wracking thinking what would people think. I left as a manager to become a sales rep at another company, and now two years later I was returning as a sales rep. From the outside looking in I took a step down – this of course would cause rumblings between my old employees whether it was my choice or not to leave to begin with. I still don’t freely admit I was fired and as you can imagine that is a whole story in itself. I guess catching up after two years off has given me a lot of content. Anyways, this girl ended up leaving 4 months ago for another opportunity. We were no longer on the same team but she called me to keep me in the loop and I appreciate drama that is not my own so I’m open to listening. Plus it does get a bit boring working from home.
She called me yesterday to tell me that it didn’t work out in her new role. There were a lot of people that moved to this company who I worked with before. One of those people being a girl I managed before, during, and after my mental breakdown. I had told her to tell this girl I said hi! We had a great relationship, she was always so sweet to me and I felt like we had a bond with fond memories. I guess when she did tell her I said hi she had a lot to say, especially surrounding the time where I mentally was unraveling. She had kept a log of all the times I was not online, the times where I took a long break. She told her that she talked to my boss about me and was frustrated when my boss stood up for me. Of course my boss knew what I had going on (to some degree) and knew I couldn’t physically be online. She knew I spent two weeks in the hospital and knew how much it took for me to be healthy enough to come back to work. It felt like a punch to the gut. To learn someone that I had thought so highly of didn’t have the same feelings about me. I don’t really know how I feel about this even today. Sure, work is work but how could I miss that she felt this way? She always seemed happy to talk to me. She was the first to organize and send me a present for boss’s day. I’m now questioning my entire reality. How many other people view me like this? Who can I trust? Am I really that bad of a boss, person, employee?
I don’t have the answers to these questions I just had to get this off my chest. Sometimes your reality is not what is really happening and that fact is easy for me to forget.
I would like to revive this blog starting today. I’d like to make some posts catching you up on what has been going on with me.
What has been going on with you? Person reading this post. Tell me something that is on your mind. Let me know what you would like to read about.
The Girl Without A Face 