Today’s the last day of no contact. I’m not fully sure what to expect, as this is a fully new experience for me and I’m kinda going into everything blind. I guess that’s how most things are in life anyway. I’m excited for this book on depression to come since I heard someone talking really well about it online and it seemed like a novel and intuitive approach. One of the parts of my life I think I have been neglecting as of recent with all of the interviews and projects was socialization, and I’ve been taking it upon myself to be more proactive in that. I think I’m decently introverted, but still I need that social connection somehow. I’ve been really enjoying playing basketball recently, and I even reached out to someone to play music with them sometime!
Life isn’t meant to be some challenge or some unwinnable struggle.
I feel surprisingly ok. I’ve spent most of my day playing games with friends, all different groups and in different ways. I’ve found that life is not as complicated as it seems, just enjoy it as it comes. Things will work out.
Today I started to feel the familiar threat of depression with break starting. I spent yesterday just playing games till 3:00 a.m. with friends, and I realized how unproductive I feel. I feel like that's a drastic understatement of what I'm feeling, but I don't know how else to objectively describe it. I feel like that spending or wasting the entire day away is starting to already take a huge toll on me. I'm scared for when everyone goes home.
I know that A is going to be here for spring break and I really want to reach out and feel that familiar company. I honestly want an excuse to do anything with them, but I know that a good part of it is kind of along the same lines of dropping an addiction. I've been riding the high of her always being there and now that the rest of life's problems are filling back in I really want to get another hit just to make it more bearable. But I know that that will make it worse than the long run. I don't want to be around them because I don't want to be alone, I want to be around them because I want to be around them. And it's kind of hard to disambiguate while I'm so desperately looking for someone to distract me.
I'm honestly terrified of being alone right now. Or I guess more just terrified of being depressed over this break. I feel like I say I don't want to be alone because that's the easiest potential cop out, of someone else somehow distracting me and making me not depressed – but that's not the answer either. I don't know if I would want to feel content with how life is right now. If I think about that, it feels like I would be setting myself up for a miserable life. I don't want to be content playing leave Legends for fucking 8 hours a day or whatever. But at the same time I don't really have much of a choice right now I feel like and so I guess I have nothing else to do but sit in this nausea and misery.
I decided to use this crisis as incentive to try things I've been wanting to, and one of those was basketball. I already signed up for the novice League again I wanted to practice a bit and have some fun with it as a form of cardio. Today And got a basketball, and since all the main courts were full I went to the Mac. Still all the courts were full but there was one with a guy just shooting by himself. I really wanted to just leave and keep walking around until I can convince myself to leave, but I realized I am being a pussy and this is how socialization happens. It's only unknown the first time you do it. And so I went and I asked the guy and he gave me a thumbs up and so I just had my headphones on and I listened to my podcast while shooting. I think I missed every single layup which is impressive, but at least a few threes went in!
After a while I was pretty tired, but some guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to run fours. I'll be honest I thought he meant 2v2 but he meant 4v4 which I guess was better but another thing that caught me off guard lol. I told him I was complete dog shit and brand new, and he said yeah that's chill and so even though I knew I was going to bomb I joined. For most of the time I kind of just passed the ball back and forth and tried to rebound where I could, and I was fucking gassed out of my mind. After the 15-point game ended, even while sitting down my face was throbbing lol. But it was that easy. And I mean it can't really get much worse can it? I literally threw one of the passes too far and it went out of bounds, I rebounded once, and then I just kept passing the ball back and forth. Halfway through the game I literally wasn't able to run to the offensive side lol. I'm still super happy I did it.
I know the academic studies back me up on the fact how my generation is one of the most rejected, there is a loneliness crisis, and of course my childhood is not doing me many favors there. But I still today at least met and interacted with five new people, and I even made one friend from just being receptive to it. A guy was doing bulgarian split squats next to me, and asked me for advice and I told him I had no fucking clue either LOL. His name was M, and we just talked about a different exercises specifically for the glutes because both of us are weak there lol. I also found out he's graduating and I made a comment about how I'm going to miss the arbor, and he mentioned getting a Subway before classes. I told him about the subway coupon code and it blew his mind, and little mums like this remind me on how unpredictable small talk is, but how easy it is to make friends at the end of the day. It's kind of just a pattern of being open to it, and just practicing being out of your comfort zone. I think I'm most proud of myself for the instances where it doesn't work. Because that means even without the reinforcement I still try. And when it works it feels great! Life doesn't have to be so lonely surrounded by so many people. Just keep reminding yourself about how the people you cherish now are the people you never in a thousand years would have picked out in a room at first. At the end of the day you really cannot know someone until you get to know them.
I think once I was able to release all the tension in my mind about the problems we were having, I have the room to see things from her perspective a bit more. In the moment for me, it's hard for me to focus on things in her life when I'm thinking about how I don't feel comfortable talking to her about my feelings. But at the same time from her POV I would feel pretty fucking sad if I couldn't share parts of my day or life. Like she won the study abroad photography competition!!! How sick is that!! I don't even know which photo of hers won. In a vacuum that would make me pretty sad if I was her. I'm not saying this to put blame on me, or to feel guilty, but rather as just more information on how bottling things up hurt both of us. I also think of course that there were things that she did too that made it harder for me to not bottle up, but again that's not meant to be blame or guilt provoking. More just an understanding of how we have room to grow as people.
WARNING: BRAIN ROT ANALOGY
This is almost like playing kassadin and constantly fighting, roaming, and never catching waves. 30 minutes in and you're level 14 and you're losing. Next game you understand that resources are incredibly important for you, and you can prioritize that. Or a nasus with stacks, same shit different toilet.
Communication and this comfort is a two way street, and also something that is necessary over everything else – since without this you're just banking on the fact you two are perfectly compatible naturally. Like a learning rate of 1e-6 with a good start has no room for growth while a worse one with 1e-4 can.
What a weird fucking insight into my brain and the experiences I've had. If I want to have a unique experience, I think this life's been pretty damn up there lol.
One of the things I regret saying was how we probably wouldn't have reason to talk after we broke up. I think the things that I had buried in myself mixed into the pool of her in my mind. Once I could step away and look at it for what it is, I realize the big painting instead of a big blob of color. For the next time I want to speak and tell my partner the things I would want them to do before it became a problem that folds into everything else.
I think I would ask a partner to check in on me, especially when I'm going through rough periods. In an ideal world I would be able to just ask for help and I'm working on that, but in the mean time I'd appreciate this help. I'd also want to figure out a way of communicating beforehand which works for us both instead of staying on our tracks until the tension snaps the rope between us. I should also tell more about my love language, because otherwise I just didn't hear it from her.
She is an amazing and kind person, but just in an orthogonal way to me for the most part. It's kind of funny how we are such similar people but with opposite environments growing up, and how that's changed us. I wonder if there's anyone that's not true for.
I also can't help but realize how I had never really asked her for support. I saw all of the conversations talking about how something had hurt me as a softer version of that, but they really are disjoint. I never tried to proactively just take her on a drive so I could talk. That may have been better than waiting for her to ask, but how can I expect her to if it's a dangerous thing to assume.
She asked me about asking about my day a long time ago, and I told her how I didn't like that because some days I did nothing and I felt like a loser. I didn't say it like that to her, but I just tried on that statement since I had seen it before. It didn't really fit but I never corrected that. That's on me. From her perspective that must be super confusing and I can't expect her to be a mind-reader. I only really stopped to clarify that once it was too late. I think we both kept this tension with similar things and expectations and never had a chance to clarify it.
I think we both have room to grow as people, I mean we are young. I always deny myself that fact, but this has shown me how immature I am and how many things are still left to learn. It's a rough overall process but to be alive is to err. To live is to grow.
I got a call today from the recruiter telling me that the team wanted to give me the offer, and that tomorrow they would reach out with the details!!! I’m so happy, if this works out then this is a MASSIVE stress gone.
I went to the gym and I didn't have the greatest workout, but was definitely something I needed I think. I spent a little bit just playing basketball afterwards and listening to a podcast from Andrew huberman.
I think I said this before just agree with A, but I really do believe it now. One thing is we have different communication styles. Before, I would say this but I thought that what I was doing was right and what she was doing was wrong. But I absolutely realized that was nowhere near perfect either. Speaking with the Prof M helped me understand that me trying to be kind and gentle by being passive was what led me to finally be aggressive in the fight that we broke up over. I absolutely was aggressive, and I just could not see that before. This was the direct cause of me not properly communicating beforehand, and I am not blaming myself solely for that, but at the same time I absolutely could learn and practice being more assertive without being passive, nor aggressive. Me being so passive was something that led to this incompatibility. At the end of the day, I cannot blame her at all for this because I equally have problems in my communication it's just harder to see when it's yours.
But also, there really was problems on both of our ends. It's easy for me to fixate on her problems because they're not mine lol, but I absolutely do have a lot of problems that I just kind of masked up and that caused friction. I don't think that having problems disqualifies me from connection, but at the same time I need to acknowledge that I really accept that on past just a service level. I think it's unfair to both of us if I just think that I did not let any of my issues leak through.
I think one of the biggest problems for me and how I've neglected social connection, and I think that directly led to a lot more friction than was necessary. I think me also having the conversations to help of needing to confront and address every issue was pretty conflicting to her preference, which is just a difference in communication style. I think I was also too concerned about how she may feel in reaction to something and that led me to self censor and that was unhealthy for both of us.
At the end of the day, we both absolutely had our fair share of problems in several aspects, and those unfortunately those end up kind of conflicting and I think we both have our work cut out for us in the long term. But the nice thing about this is we can both be happy in saying that we tried and it was a good learning experience, for both of us. And we can still be friends, while knowing that My personal styles don't match up for a relationship. But that doesn't mean we still can't do stupid shit together, and be friends.
From the weirdest place I got some incredible support and advice. The professor for the class I TA texted me to check up on me, and then insisted on coming to pick me up to go get ice cream and talk/cry. While I was trying to figure out how to say no to her text, she called and we ended up talking for like 40 minutes. She surprised me with how much she knew about communication and relationships, and how she had also been broken up with from a 6-year relationship. She told me a lot of good things, but I think a really big takeaway for me is at the end of the day we will not have compatible communication to the point where we can effectively resolve big problems. And because of that there is a limit to what is healthy and sustainable for us right now, and that isn't at a relationship. I know that being alone is terrifying, especially when you're hurting so much. But at the same time it will destroy you to constantly keep things inside due to the communication barrier. That will do more harm than good. It may be rough, but it is important to make connections rather than numb the problem of loneliness with a relationship that isn't meant to be. Yes this is absolutely fucking horrifying, but necessary.
A shift is safe in its harbor, but that denies it its purpose.
There's been a weight in my chest and a nausea that has refused to leave. I tried to throw up just now, I took my shirt and my glasses off and I kneeled over the toilet bowl and retched and heaved but nothing came out. Just saliva. The weight did not go away.
I feel such a crushing weight of loneliness. During the relationship I became aware of this fact, because I realized how I had neglected socializing and as a result I didn't have many IRL friends, and a lot of my online friends were busy in life. But with a relationship, I wouldn't be alone ever. Since she was always there, and since since she was always just a text away, I wasn't alone. But now that I have to face a life without that certainty, the loneliness has set in without the comfort of that being the norm.
I spent a lot of today talking with different friends, trying to understand how I'm supposed to move on. I sat alone with my thoughts, and then the loneliness would set in. And then I wanted nothing more than to reach out to her and be in her arms. I needed to talk with friends to remind myself on the bad parts also so that I could understand why this happened.
I think the way it works is combined you both have some amount of emotional capacity. That emotional capacity would would go to whoever needed it, and the problem was in this moment we both needed it, and we needed more than we had. The part that cuts me right now is I stopped writing because I started thinking about how it could work. If I had been more explicit about how I may not be able to be there for her, and if she could be aware about the things that would pull from my cup, then maybe we could manage our problems. And maybe the problems are lighter because no more finals, no more job interview, and I have some time to grieve my mom. But that's a risk, and I don't think it's one that should be taken. I think what would work best for us is the softer version of that, without so much expectation from both sides.
I just wish I would stop hearing the radio head in my head. And I wish I could have worked out. But it didn't and it won't. It sucks because it feels like the only person that understands everything is her, and I want to talk with her about how much breaking up sucks.