I think my heart is finally coming to terms with what's happened, but there have been other repercussions and that realization is manifesting itself in some funky and not very pleasant ways.
I'd been doing quite well, all things considered, for about a week and a half until last Thursday, when I experienced my first anxiety attack. It only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes, but there were a lot of tears, a lot of difficulty breathing, and it was not a fun experience by any stretch of the imagination. Saturday was even worse. I was preparing to leave the apartment to spend about three hours at Panera working on my novel when, out of nowhere, I got a second anxiety attack. This one lasted for almost 45 minutes and it was not good. I called my mom partway through and asked her to come over because I just didn't know what to do or how to respond. By the time it all finished, I was shaking all over and had a massive headache from dehydrating myself because of crying for so long.
So that wasn't good.
But then, Sunday I was at church for most of the day and was singing and dancing and being around people I love. And on Monday I spent about five hours in a little corner of a Panera and wrote a total of 6574 words in my NaNoWriMo novel. My brain hurt at the end of it and it would've been nice to say that after writing that much I was at least a few thousand words ahead...but alas, most of that writing was an attempt to catch up after several days of not writing (hey thanks, anxiety attacks). And then, after hours of writing, I headed off to audition for my first community theater show since 2007. And last night, I got a phone call informing me that I got a callback for the show.
So that was all good.
It's very up and down and all over the place right now and as much as I'd like to be able to say, "I'm great" or even "I'm awful," I'm learning that sometimes it's okay to be just okay. It's okay to not be doing amazingly. It's okay to be in the middle of it all and some days being great and some days being awful and some days being just okay.
The last three days have been solidly good. I've been in a good mood. I haven't broken down. I've been hacking up a lung, inhaling cough drops like nobody's business, and had to endure the atrocious disgustingness of Robitussin DM, but other than that, they're really been good.
I'm trying to remind myself that yes, things are hard, and no, I don't necessarily love the fact that Office Boy and I have broken up, but I do believe that the Lord has good things in store for this time in my life. When things get hard, I'm trying to remind myself of the good things that I have had time to do since the break up.
I'm writing again. Like...really writing, not just blogging here and there. I'm writing a book for the first time in ages and I'm excited about it. And I have four other possible plots running around in my head. It's making me realize that maybe I can actually do this. I can actually be an author. Not just a writer. A legit author. And that's exciting to me.
I auditioned for a show. That's something I quite literally haven't done in five years. It's not that I didn't want to. I love to perform, but really, it does take up a lot of time. And when I was dating Office Boy, I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend that much time rehearsing because that would've taken away from the time I could spend with him. And the time I could spend writing. And the time I could spend sleeping. But I finally did it and I got a callback. It doesn't mean I'll get cast, but it's just exciting to get out there and start auditioning again.
I'm getting there. The progress is slow, but these last few days have shown me that I will be okay eventually. It's still gonna take time. I know that there will still be days where something random reminds me of him and I burst into tears. I know there's still ramifications of this break up that I probably haven't realized and I will have to process down the road.
But there's a significant difference between being in a tunnel that seems endlessly filled with difficult nights, tears, and anxiety attacks...and being in a tunnel that still has those things, but also has some visibly good days ahead.
I'm not great yet. I'm not even good yet. But I'm okay. And sometimes, it's okay to be just okay.
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