I think I did ok with this, in the end. Finishing 2012 felt good and the year went out on a surprisingly high note. The last several weeks have been pretty good, but I know that the crazy isn’t going to stop just because December 31 has passed.

The last few days have been a struggle. I’ve been feeling pretty damn comfortable socially lately, but just today everything feels weird. I’m feeling a bit jerked around by a couple of people and it sucks. I deserve better than that but I’m not someone who can just cut people out because they’ve upset me.

Ugh. Instead, I stay in my house for almost 3 days straight, playing music too loud and exploring various states of non-sobriety. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go for a walk or something. 4 months ago

This time last year I had a husband, a really nice house, and a job. None of those things ended up really working for me, but today I wish I could turn the clock back, even to October last year when things were shitty.

I am so lonely right now. 7 months ago

I have the weirdest dreams when I wake up in the morning and then go back to sleep. Today sometime between 8 and 9 am, I watched myself forget that I got fired, went into the office and attended a meeting with my former boss. Everyone was too polite to say anything until the meeting was over, when he asked me “Why are you here?” and I subsequently collected the rest of my things and fled with a deep sense of shame.

I don’t have any fight today. 7 months ago

J came over for dinner tonight and we talked through a bunch of things. The company is still very much in my thoughts because it’s still affecting me and a lot of the people I care about. I’m moving forward, but everything there was so personal that it’s going to be a while before I get over everything. This is totally fine and I need to just be patient with myself, let my brain work through it without dwelling, and move on.

I had a thought during our conversation and asked out loud, “Is C just intimidated by strong women?” I was hardly finished when J responded that yes, absolutely that is the case and that she was just talking about that with someone else last week. I thought about it for a second and then the realization that someone viewed me as strong, vocal, and possibly even intimidating washed over me like a massive happy wave. Me! Sure, the outcome is that I lost a job, but realizing how far I must have come to be viewed that way is actually kind of incredible and in a very strange way I feel fantastic about it.

The next step is to harness that strength so that in my next job I can continue to be strong and vocal but without taking everything so personally and just being seen as a problem employee.

Still happily reeling from this. 7 months ago

This just made my day. It’s all going to be fine. 8 months ago

I’m starting to just accept that 2012 will just be known as The Year My Life Went Crazy, and that’s perfectly fine. Getting on with things is all I can do, and I’m going to be ok. I know that.

So since the madness that was the beginning of last week, I’ve accomplished a few things:

• Met with an acquaintance from Edmonton who I didn’t know had moved here two months ago. She and her husband are very cool and gave me both job and apartment search tips. I’m going to her place this weekend to make a cookie pie.
• I channeled my anger at being let go into negotiating my severance. I got double what they initially offered me.
• With K’s awesome help, I’ve updated my résumé so that it looks like a grownup wrote it.
• I went to Rifflandia and saw a bunch of great acts. Also hung out with the CEO. I assume (but don’t know) that his involvement in the decision to let me go was minimal, but it still had the potential to be awkward. It wasn’t, really, which was good.
• Went out for after “work” drinks with the usual Friday crew. They miss me and it feels good. As a result of that evening I’m now doing weekly cooking lessons with the office manager, as per her request.
• Applied to precisely one job so far and got an interview for it. It went ok; I don’t think I want the job (if they even offer) but the interview was fantastic practice and they did seem to like me.
• Went to my individual counseling session and my therapist told me how impressed she was at how I’m handling things (even though we both acknowledged that she caught me on a good day). Hell, the fact that I’m even having good days is an accomplishment in and of itself.

There are even more things, but that’s enough for now. I’m trying to focus on the fact that I really have been set free from a place that did have a lot of perks and was filled with wonderful people, but was also rife with drama and less-than-stellar (or “seemingly random,” as A put it) decision-making. I still have my friends, I still learned things there, and I’m still employable. Just need to keep breathing. 8 months ago