The fear

There's been a bit of upheaval in my life, and I only just decided that I would start blogging again.  I don't know if anyone still reads here or even remembers it, but I thought it would be cathartic and besides, I'm starting to get back into taking photos regularly and this is as good as place as any to display them.

Six months ago, I went and met someone and lost my head.  Again.  

I didn't see it coming.  A year of painful, unsuccessful online dating (one guy emailed me about the female orgasm after the first date) was enough to make me swear off men forever.  And just as I was starting to appreciate the solitude, my whole life tilted violently on its axis.

Of my last relationship, the one that ended in a heartbreak I thought I would never recover from, I talked constantly.  After years of having my guard up, I was so determined to experience and live it fully that I waxed lyrical to anyone who would listen.

This time, I am frightened beyond words.  In six months, I don't think I've truly talked about any of this with more than a couple of friends.  I am dumbfounded by the thought of explaining things to my family in detail.  My standard answer whenever people ask me things is, "I can't answer that right now."  Because there are a lot of things that I don't dare to say but I will say this: against my will and better judgement, I'm in love.  And if you've ever been in love second, third, tenth time around, you know just how terrifying it is.  You understand what it's like to worry that it's going to sour or disappear any second, just like the fourth time, the fifth, the seventh.  You've felt the way your heart quickens in the late night darkness when doubt is your only bedfellow.  You know just what I mean.

The thought of having to get to know someone new and growing and learning together all over again can be anxiety-inducing.  This isn't my first go-round.  I know what happens at the end and how difficult things can be.

What can I say though?  It happened.  I'm in love, and he is wonderful.  He was single for a long time too, and things took some getting used to.  After all, we're both older, more wary and all too aware of how things could go.  But that also makes us more careful, more gentle, more willing to try.  In the last half year, we've managed to weather death, job issues, disappointment.  Every day, I'm working on being more practical too, teaching my head to balance out my heart.

Unlike the last time, when I naïvely trumpeted the idea that things would spin out into a dream future, I am now more circumspect, the caginess of a dog kicked one too many times.  But you know what they say: if it's worth having, it's worth fighting for.  And something tells me this is absolutely worth fighting for.

I know that he understands.  "I'm scared," he said suddenly to me one night.  He tucked his chin into my shoulder and I felt the kind of butterflies I had forgotten even existed.  I took his hand, large and warm in mine.

"It's okay.  I'm scared too.  We can be scared together."

Commitment

I am one of the most unfit people I know.  I'm flat-footed and bow-legged.

I spent years avoiding anything that remotely resembled exercise while my friends swam and scuba dived and played rugby and ran marathons.  I never wanted to be an athletic person (except when I wanted to be Michelle Kwan).  On P.E. days, I would run 200 metres and end up with violent stabbing pains in my chest.  The doctors couldn't find anything, but it hurt all the same. 

Some time ago, I left a comment on Grace's blog (I think) about the diffculty I had breathing and Holly, a coach and very sweet blogger, replied, telling me that it was probably because I needed to go slowly and let my body adjust.

And so, I started "plodding" regularly - moving around the neighbourhood at the slowest possible pace without walking.  It was painful.  At first I could only plod for about 500 metres without feeling winded.  And then maybe a couple of 500 metre stretches along a much longer route.  Somewhere along the way, I started plodding for longer and longer bouts until my chest didn't hurt anymore.  I woke just after dawn two, three, sometimes even four times a week and let the morning air and sunrise wash over me.

It was really difficult; everything hurt, from my thighs to my calves to my shoulders.  But my feet, over-pronating and sliding around in £10 shoes from Tesco that I'd bought on a whim, hurt the most.  The further I plodded, the harder and longer my soles ached and I limped around the office for the rest of the day in agony.  Two weeks ago, when the rubber on the heel started flapping off in bits, I finally gave in to buying a new pair.

I talked one of the fittest people I know, my friend Dawn, and she suggested I try Running Lab at Velocity so that I could get proper advice on what shoes to get.  They would be expensive, she said, but worth the price. 

Back in the office, Edie (very sporty) and Shirin (very sensible) agreed. 

"But it's a lot of money, " I said doubtfully.  "What if I wake up one morning and just decide I'm done plodding?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Shirin said, "you've been doing it for what, six months already?"

I sat there for a minute, stunned.  Surely I hadn't consistently been engaging in regular, entirely voluntary exercise for half a freaking year.  But she was right.

So I showed up at the Running Lab last week, tried not to flinch when the man looked horrified at just how flat my feet were and plodded for two minutes on the treadmill in the store while Edie filmed a video and giggled.  Lots of consideration, negotiation and lip-biting later, I was the owner of a neon yellow pair of New Balance shoes with the best socks I have ever had the pleasure to know. 

And so far?  I haven't quit.  Just taken them for a couple of long, slow plods in the vicinity and enjoyed the support and cushioning that they provide.  My feet still hurt a little but in a good way- feet that are trying to get used to an inbuilt arch where there was previously none. 

It's still hard.  I still struggle while people I know knock out amazing workouts with alarming regularity.  But the one thing I am enjoying is this new commitment to my health and to my body. 

Maybe it's the relationship I've been looking for all along.

Papercuts

Sometimes I think that rather than growing, people are diminished.  That we are all chiselled, or whittled down, by the experiences of life and that what is left right at the end - the shapes, the dark hollows - is what makes the man.

We are only who we are in the moment, until another piece is cut away.

This evening, my mother pulled down a stack of my old notebooks and photos and made me pore through them and decide what to throw away.  They were cluttering shelves we needed for my brothers, she said.

There were pictures of me, a nineteen year old bridesmaid at my best friend's wedding, seventeen and awkwardly smiling next to a crush at a class barbecue, twenty four and pretending to be worldly far away from home.  

There were old planners in which I had made tiny, confessional notes in the margins of the day:

"In which the cab driver looked in the rearview mirror, told D and I 

that we made a nice couple, and I couldn't answer for laughing.  

Later though, at work, he sent me a message that said, "I think he's right".  

There were old letters pieced together from quotes from Beatles songs and catchphrases that I used to throw around with friends that I don't see anymore. 

And there were photos such as this one, of a girl who knew what it was to be loved and held and to be loving, and holding. 

Whenever I'm faced with memories like this, I experience a strange mixed feeling.  One part of me wants to drink them in, absorb them, scatter them on the floor like shards of glass and lie in them so they become imprinted forever; hundreds of tiny cuts on my skin.  Desperate, I want to gather them in armfuls and kneel and weep for everything gone by.

Another part of me can't get away from them fast enough.

At first I wonder if I should save the photos, every last one of them, then wonder what I'm saving them for, if anyone will ever care as much as I did.  I start throwing them out indiscriminately; who cares what I looked like in my prom dress?  Who cares who my best friends were if they're now just shavings on a woodshop floor?

In every photo I see a woman in a new phase of life - a friend, a girlfriend, a first time lover, a newly-minted wanderer - and I see the face of someone who thinks she's finally found her place.  But I put the pictures down and it's back to me, just me, whose priorities and centres of gravity have changed yet again.

The thing about life is that we move through so many experiences so quickly that we have to try and keep something from each one.  And so we think we know who we are and each time, we are wrong the moment we lose something else.

I don't want to juggle rusty razor blades.

What does it matter, I think, if the memories go forgotten?  I don't need reminders of what's been cut away, of who I am not anymore. 

I think that's why I was a serial monogamist, once upon a time.  Each time you move on to someone new, it's easy to forget about what has been left behind.  Now though, there is no dulling the sensation of each cut.  At least I'm finally feeling honest. 

I threw away a great deal tonight.  But I kept that photo. 

Maybe something in me still believes - looking at that picture of a girl who was once loved with a joyful, almost obsessive abandon before it all went sour - that not everything has been lost in vain.

Grub and gossip

If you told me the picture above had been taken in some far-flung part of the British countryside, I wouldn't have any trouble believing you.  The truth is that the stream wends through the less exotic but no less beautiful Bishan Park.  

I hadn't properly been to Bishan Park for ages (exhausted stumbles around in the darkness after the newspaper went offstone don't count) and when I headed there for brunch before Pink Dot last week, I was really impressed by the landscaping.  

There are now bridges arcing through misty green vegetation and an abundance of fish, and I stood over the brook for quite a while, savouring the moment.  Of course, I there to have brunch with friends including my very dear buddy, Kim.

When Kim and I used to work in the same place, we often had great laughs together, sneaking off to pursue stories or have illicit lunches together.  I'll never forget the time our friend, Jamie, and I attempted to work on an undercover story while Kim drove the getaway car and we ended up screeching out of the neighbourhood laughing in nervous hysterics.

I don't think I've ever said though, that Kim was a big reason why I started this blog.  Right after the break up, I was meeting a lot of good friends and trying my best to put up a strong front.  I couldn't help vacillating between tears of despair and anger and the night Kim and I went to Wild Honey for coffee, I was a massive mess. 

I remember plastering on a smile and telling her that I was reading all these books and they were doing me a lot of good, and she calmly leaned across the table, put her hand on my arm and said, "Your books will tell you a lot of things, but your books don't know you the way your friends do.  And I just want to say, as a friend, that you are a really special person."

That simple gesture of kindness undid me - I still tear up thinking about it today - and we ended up talking for a long time about relationships and break ups and how it isn't your fault if your partner ends up changing their mind because you're not in the same place in life.  "You're going to be just fine," she had said, "after all, what are you going to do?  Curl up and die?  That's not an option."

That night was an illuminating one for me.  I walked into my house feeling peace for the first time in weeks and I sat down and wrote about it, and wrote, and wrote.

The feeling has come and gone since, but every time I feel on the brink of a breakdown, I close my eyes and go back to that moment, to the sound of the ticking engine as we sat in her cooling car in my estate, and I feel calm again.

This time round, the group of us hunkered down over coffee at Grub and talked about life and love and fear and learning and growing and changing, and friends you trust and people you don't.  And just by talking about it, we somehow set life right again.

The gift of peace is rare and restorative and I don't think I could ever thank Kim enough for it.  I do know that even though we don't meet very often, I think of her a lot and even as she goes through a new phase in life now, I send nothing but peace and love in her direction.

Plus, who doesn't love a girl with a killer sense of fashion?

All off

It sounds stupid but one of the things I was sore about in the breakup was that I couldn't get my hair cut.  

More specifically, I couldn't get that drastic, post-breakup, defiantly fabulous haircut that everyone seems to get shortly after they're dumped.

Unfortunately, I had cut my hair right before I saw my then-boyfriend for the last time and even though I was in the throes of misery afterwards, short of shaving my head (not work approved), there was nowhere to go.

So I stayed with the hair through the straggly growing out stage and found other ways to reinvent myself (knitting, anyone?).  

Lately however, since I was starting to feel more and more like my old self (and also a new version of myself that I hadn't met before), I thought it was time.  And I really wanted it all off.  I thought about all the people I knew who rocked very short hair (Pri, various girls from pole class) and I was absolutely certain I was going to make it work no matter what.

Friends told me to think about it carefully, just in case I regretted it, but I'm not a girl who is married to her locks.  It's just friggin' hair and it grows back, last I checked.  I hack it off every two years for fun and this was going to be no different, except that now, I'm even less worried about what anyone will think and more sure of what I want.

So I made an appointment with my regular guy and I went down this morning.  

It gets wavy and flippy and frizzy and messy and when I run my fingers through it I look like Robert Smith

But I have never felt more attractive in my life.

And I regret nothing.

A life alone

When I first started this blog, I thought it would be a lot of venting and crying and moaning about singlehood.  Instead, while I talk about it now and then, there are also other things I want to share like stories or photos with friends or of places I've been, and I think it's because in some ways, I have been used to the idea of being "single" for a long time already.

It's been long enough after the breakup now that I have mixed feelings.  Sometimes I miss what I thought we had and what I thought it was going to be.  Other times though, I really appreciate my alone time.  More than anything, I've been trying to imagine how all this would translate to living alone in the long term, a thought that used to scare me.  

When I first got dumped, some kindly friends told me that I had to get used to the idea of being by myself, that I had to be comfortable with the person that I was in order to move on.  "Eating alone isn't so bad," one said sympathetically.  The thing is though, they didn't get my despair.  I've long been cool with all those things. 

If you enjoy writing at all, a part of you is naturally introverted.  And for the last two years, being in long distance relationships meant that I spend a great deal of time alone anyway.  When I was dating people who lived continents away, we would sometimes only have a few minutes of contact a day and it never bothered me as long as I felt our hearts were true.  

I have never come home in the quiet of the night and felt empty or lacking because of my solitude.  After all, I'm the girl who loves eating alone in restaurants, who leaves for work an hour early to spend time people watching in a cafe.  I've always gone to movies or concerts alone, travelled solo and I frequently go wandering by myself. 

The thing is, I've always enjoyed doing these things.  I like being in my head and I've never felt the need for a partner or for extra attention.  I've never been one of those people who feels awkward with or by myself.  

The pinch I was feeling, I realised, stemmed from a greater, much further away fear.  

I've always worried about dying unloved.   

My real desire for a special someone lies in the hope that someone will love me enough to want to undertake special adventures with me so that at the end of the day, when it is time to lay down my things, I can say that in soul, in spirit, I had a partner-in-crime.  

Maybe it is vanity.  Maybe it is ego.  Maybe I want this because I don't believe in the afterlife and so I want to grab all that I can in this one. 

Whatever it is, as much as I enjoy doing things by myself and want to continue doing so, I also want to be with someone so that we can be each other's rock when all other life has faded, when my mother is long gone, when my brothers have grown up and have their own priorities.  

At least, that's what I thought until most recently.  Now that some time has passed and I've had a chance to get some perspective, I've been asking myself if an entire life alone would really be so galling.  

Look at the bigger picture: if one enjoys spending days on one's own, then months, why not years?  Ultimately, what is the worst that could happen?  

I can still achieve all my dreams of owning my own house, travelling and learning lots of things.  No matter what I do, my parents and my family will still love me.  And I know I won't have a problem with time, or peace or quiet. 

Even my one big fear, that I will lie dead in an apartment for weeks, slowly being devoured by my dogs (or cats) has become almost comical with the realisation that while it is horrible, I won't be around to be horrified in hindsight.  

Suddenly, things don't look so bad.  I'm starting to think that I can imagine a life of solitude, not with defeat but with great optimism.  I'm even looking at the idea of moving away for a bit because of the tranquility that it promises.  

Long story short, I'm finally reaching that point that all broken-hearted people yearn to reach one day.  If I meet someone suitable, great.  Sound the trumpets!  I'm sure it'll be every bit as fulfilling as I imagine it to be.

But if I don't, cool.  I think I can totes handle it.  I'll be spending most of my time as I do now anyway, and that's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.  

In the meantime, I'll just keep all my pets well fed.

Stupid cupid

"I don't believe you will always feel that way," she said to me as the three of us sipped on our swanky drinks in a swanky speakeasy.  

"When someone feels about love like you do, that they want someone to meet them halfway, they don't just stop feeling like that.  I think right now you're probably just resting, recharging your batteries.  But you'll come back."

I think she's right.  I also think that I'm really starting to recognise just how important the resting period is, the time by myself, the time to think and heal and grow.  

Maybe one day I'll feel like I'm ready to let my guard down again, to let myself think seriously about the prospect of "together".  Right now, I have friends who take me for meals and drinks, and family and the barristas at Starbucks who say, "Happy Valentine's Day!" and hand me a free Belgian waffle that they've been saving for when I come in at breakfast and fill my mug with a golf-ball sized dollop of whipped cream.

Whaddya know?  It's enough.

Report card

It's been a pretty productive day.  I've half packed for a work trip, cleaned and polished two pairs of shoes and of course, this whole morning, I was occupied with the last day of the student conference I'm chaperoning for.  

I'm was just sitting around decompressing, and it hit me that it's been several months since the break up now.  I still think about it a lot (obviously) but things have changed a little bit.  For one, I don't even remember now actual date, which is probably a good thing because that means I can't and don't keep a running count.  And though I spend a lot of time feeling sad and angry, some people (ex included) tell me that I'm handling it great.  And even more surprisingly, with grace.

The truth though:

Number of days I was fully non-functioning:  Two, but only right after.

Number of days I was sort of non-functioning:  About ten.  I faked my way through.

Number of days I bunked off work: None.

Number of days I broke down at work: One.

Number of times I've lashed out at him: About three.  

Number of times I've done other related undignified things: Two.

Number of times I've broken down in front of friends: Countless but probably not in the last two months.

Number of people I've told the deepest, darkest secret about this whole ordeal: Three, and they've kept it so far.

Number of times I've broken down alone:  Countless.  And on-going.

But the amount of time I think about it on average each day: 20% - 30%

I guess that even though I'm really not in the best place ever, I've managed to fake being close enough.  I spent a lot of nights crying (and worse) and at the time, if you had told me that this veneer of dignity was the best thing I could've done for myself, I would've spat in your face.  The pain was bone deep and I wanted to throw things.

But now, a couple of steps removed, I can see just how much pretending grace means.  I can hold my head up high (even if I don't feel like it).  I slipped up a couple of times, but beyond that, I decided I wouldn't allow myself anything more.

I can say that I didn't Facebook stalk or badger my ex about his whereabouts or his love life.  If I ever felt insecure about any of those things, I fought it out with myself.  My friends love me enough to grant me the tears that I needed when I needed them, but I can say that I stood on my own at times as well.  

And even though I'm all raw and cut up and I really don't feel very dignified, I can actually say that I did most things with class.  

For someone who is as emotional as I am, that was a surprising lesson to learn.  And it was also startling to find that the more gracefully I behaved, the more graceful I wanted to go on being.  No matter how angry I got, or how much I wanted to send nasty texts, I sat tightly on my hands. 

I suppose that people are right about living honourably.  I have a long way to go and there will be many chances to fall along the way.  But I guess to all visible intents and purposes, I've been doing okay after all.

Rag week

One thing about getting dumped is that it really does a number on your self-esteem, particularly if there is no ostensible reason for the break up.  

I've never had the best esteem to start with, but I'm pretty good at faking it.  After all, you have to be thick-skinned to have once started a blog about what you wear every day and even more thick skinned to have told people about it.  I don't actually like being in front of the camera a whole lot, but my love of clothes and my interest in dressing better overcame that.  A hugely healthy sense of humour helps.

After the breakup though, I sometimes struggle to feel good about myself or see the humour in things.  I won't lie, I strut through life a lot and people don't realise how affected I am, but large chunks of my day are devoted to an internal monologue along the lines of "What the fuck is wrong with me?".  I'm trying to accept this as part of the healing process and just get on with life.  

It sounds completely frivolous but feeling good in your clothes can be a real boost to your self esteem.  It's not even about fancy clothes or new rags.  It's the difference between lying in bed and crying (which let's face it, I've done my fair share of) and putting on some fabulous armour and blazing out the door and through the day.  

In the spirit of blazing through the week, I took pictures of everything I wore this week to make sure that it was at least semi-presentable and I could go to work with my head held high.  And what d'ya know, I felt better almost instantly.

Last Sunday, I promised my students I would wear my Iron Maiden shirt (I'm quite a big fan) and attempted to make it more formal with a lace blazer, my H and M chinos and Timberland loafers.  Feeling guilty about looking so casual, I slunk around a bit, but then one of the senior teachers stopped me in the corridor and said, "Your outfit is so cute", and I calmed down.

I went Diptic crazy on Christmas Eve - I'd privately agreed with my friends that we'd dress festively for work, so I broke out my pink/red cropped pants from Uniqlo.  The earrings were a present from Becky and have little paintings of birds in them.  So cute!  Balto the sock monkey came with me to class for show and tell.

An overcast Christmas day with wellies, a hooded dress and a gingerbread man my mother got me for my birthday.  (That's me going nuts over the Christmas fern if you can't tell.)

Wednesday was a long day and I was still half asleep in the morning so I just grabbed the zebra shirt off the top of the pile and spent the rest of the day lying low.  The students liked it though.  Those are the same H and M chinos I wore on Sunday, yes.  I have a couple of pairs in different colours and rotate them a lot.  They're functional, super comfortable for bending and tiptoeing and relatively work-worthy.  Plus they cost less than $30.

On Thursday, the last official day of my work week, I went with a maxi dress, see-through sweater and the Zoroastrian farvahar David got me when he was travelling.  I'm not a religious person but I don't mind wearing religious symbols when they come from people with a lot of love and good wishes for protection.  After all, love is the basis of all great religions and something all humans subscribe to.

I do a lot of this cosy sweater over other less cosy stuff thing because the office can be freezing.

And yesterday, I wore this when we went out to watch Les Mis (which I think was hit and miss).  I'm very much a jeans and t-shirt girl and if I could wear them 90 per cent of the time, I would.  I get a lot of flak from people (particularly those in my parents' generation) for wearing these ripped knees and they do look a bit silly but they are so comfortable that they are my go-to jeans.  The wash has long since faded from blue to almost white, the little tears have become huge holes and the fabric is soft and breathes and makes it easy for me to bend and kneel.

I attempted to dress them up a bit with tomato red heels and my beloved LV bag.

Now, we're back at Saturday and I'm about to commence doing some work at the kitchen table in some very unglamorous sweats and a loose cotton tee.  You know.  Because I can.

Over if you want it

I can't be the only one who marks the advent of the holiday season by Starbucks' range of Christmas merchandise.  It's the one place where I feel the spirit, hackneyed and commercial as it might be, with its candy cane handled mugs and softly melting Toffeenut Lattes, a shiny whipped cream ski slope into fragrant foam.  

I don't do holidays very well and apparently right after a break up, they're even worse.  In the first place, my family doesn't celebrate the end of the year.  While others hold gatherings and enjoy ham and turkey and warmly lit trees and good cheer, we chill on the couch and my father, a staunch atheist, grumps persistently at the various functions.  When I was much younger and belonged to a cheesy female acapella group, we were invited to sing at midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.  I thought how lovely it would be to be surrounded by song and laughing people for once.  I wasn't allowed to go.

In 2010, on Christmas, I met with some new friends from around the world on a snowy, desolate English campus.  There was no roast but we made our own magic with alcohol and instant Chinese food and a mini tree dangling with wooden baubles.  One of the boys drank a noxious mixture of rum, hot water and pepper to stave off a cold and the kitchen made my nose prickle.  We fought, fiercely happy, in the thin layer of snow on the lawn outside and came in panting, long past midnight, drunk on being young.

Last year, when the ex and I were still together, we lay in bed and Skyped and laughed.  He texted me a picture of his parents smiling and hugging on the couch.  He showed me all his stocking stuffers and the Kindle that I had convinced him that he should get.  It became a running joke between us, that the guy who had shunned the thought of electronic reading out of principle had become an even bigger Kindle advocate than I was.  He joked that he was so in love with me, I could convince him to do anything.  In January, I was going back to graduate with him in England and everything in life was looking up.

This time, my parents won't be at home for half of December.  One brother will be finishing school overseas and the other will be leaving for four long years of University halfway round the world.  The house will be empty and too quiet and I will be imagining people thousands of miles away, celebrating the season with everything they have ever dreamed of and everyone they've ever loved.

And I will work through the whole of December as I always do, to try and rack up leave for Chinese New Year or another festival that is more meaningful to me.

But I don't say all this to earn pity points or because I want to wallow.

Rather, if there's one thing I've come to learn from the grief process, it's that the fear of things is almost always worse than the things themselves.  I can't be any sadder than I am when I'm grieving.  Not as its happening.  After all, what is worse than already reliving the moment again and again?  And even though these weeks will be difficult and occasionally lonely, dealing is invariably better than dreading.

Sure, it'll be tough, but I'll have Starbucks, and silence and moments for reflection and writing.  I'll have friends and thunderstorms and fleece ponchos and scented candles in every flavour.  And I'll get the rest that you so badly need when you're trying to make peace with yourself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if someone out there is reading this, if you're going through the same thing, hang in there.  We're all doing it, alone together.  It's not a bad thing to just sit with the sadness and let it work itself out.  And no matter how bad the idea of the holiday seems, thinking through, writing about and ruminating on things can end up being unexpectedly healing. 

Facing your hurt head on can be pretty tough.  Often, it's instinct to push it away or sweep it under the carpet just to keep the pain at bay, even if it just balloons there.  But now, instead of expending all my energy trying to fend off the thoughts, this Christmas, I'm just going to go there.

Waiting for morning

I'm starting to write this at 1:30am.  I've just finished Nanowrimo Day 8.  It's incredibly gruelling for someone on a full-time work schedule, but I've been keep to it so far.  I remember someone telling me that you need to do something 21 times before it becomes habit.  Maybe this means that by the end of the month, I'll be in the habit of writing 1,600 words a day! 

After I hit publish on this, I'll crawl into bed.  It'll probably be two.  I'll put on a soothing YouTube video and if I'm lucky, I'll be out by two-thirty.  

I'm not usually lucky.

I've had insomnia for as long as I can remember.  I hate it.  It makes me cagey, out of control, and deathly sleepy in exactly the wrong places.

It manifests every time I'm stressed because I have the kind of mind that chases itself in circles.  I was an obnoxious child with very few friends and by the time I became a teenager, I was beating myself up over every little faux pas.  This is embarrassing to admit.  I was a massive Backstreet Boys fan (that's not the embarrassing bit) and I was crazy about Kevin, the oldest member.  When they announced on the radio that he was getting married, I didn't sleep the whole night.

I can pretty much recognise now what the triggers are.  Feeling bad about something that happened that day.  Loss.  Anger.  Pain.  Fear.  Stress and anticipation.  I couldn't sleep for days when my grandmother died. 

And of course, when we broke up and I lost that safe anchor, my sleeping patterns began to drift as well.  

Oddly enough, the exhaustion that comes with Nanowrimo hasn't exactly helped.  My current schedule is that I wake up each morning at about nine.  On late days, work (I'm a teacher) finishes around nine thirty at night.  I come home by half ten and decompress, sometimes for up to an hour.  Once I'm showered and calm, I start on leftover work and eventually work my way up to Nano.  Sometimes, sleep only hits at 3am.  It's a ridiculous schedule, and I have eyebags on top of eyebags, but I don't know how else to do it.  

I haven't found a cure-all for insomnia.  I listen to relaxation and meditation on YouTube.  Sometimes that works.  Sometimes I stay up and watch Bob Ross paint, or listen to Mister Rogers talk about being friends.  Sometimes, I try for complete darkness and silence.  Invariably, one night out of two, I'm still wired.  Now and again, I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to bed for an hour.  People get texts from me at six in the morning. 

So, I have no advice for you.

Mainly, I've just found that when the problem evaporates, sleep returns.  This breakup will take a long time to sublime.  He was a great, steadying force for me.  Knowing that he had my back in the waking world, I plunged into the sleeping one with ease.  I hate myself for getting so used to it.  For peeling my armour off and telling myself that just this once, I could have something to rely on.  But maybe I'm just human. 

So I continue to struggle and plough.  And at times, friends stay up with me.  They write, or text or sometimes, if they happen to have the next day off and planned to sleep late anyway, they carry on conversations.  Not many know of my trouble.  Some think I'm just energetic.  But it can help to know that in the big, dark night, you are not alone.  

Insomnia is fear itself.  It is painful and prickly and can turn you inside out with anxiety.  It is repeating things that happened over and over in your mind until your eyes sting with tears and you are less sane and more awake than ever.  

Yet, knowing that somewhere someone might be awake too can collapse uncontrollable insomnia into the tedious, but much less threatening, task of waiting for morning. 

Writing gratitude lists in my head can also turn looming dread into a chance to be thankful.  Here are a few things that I was grateful for today.

Victoria's Secret bath and body products.  I splurge on expensive skincare because nothing belittles nightmares like waking up and smelling something freshly, heavily luxurious.

Beautiful costume jewellery earrings that my mother bought me when she was on work in the United States.

The enormous Salad Stop! salad that I quaffed today.  Chock full of orange segments, pomelo, olives, lettuce, cucumber, corn, grapes, carrots, edamame and drizzled with a nicely subtle Japanese miso dressing.

The view from my office window.  Nothing beats watching a heavy storm descend when you are warm and dry inside.

The things that helped

'Tis the season.  I know more than a handful of friends whose relationships have recently come to an end, just like mine.  

I've been through breakups before, but never one that affected me on this scale, and as eager as I am to come across as cool and self-sufficient, I won't lie.  Coping has been hugely difficult.  Sure it sounds trivial and frivolous, but I've been through loss and death and all kinds of nasty out-and-out pain and nothing has derailed me quite like this.  

It's really about more than just the guy.  For one, it was the end of a lot of dreams and plans that we'd made, and a lot of hopes that I'd harboured secretly.  It is terrifying to wake up and find that someone you thought would always love you doesn't love you anymore.  

Everything that I'd been indirectly working towards was pulled from under me in one fell swoop.  It followed the end of the best year of my life when I was away doing my Masters degree, a slightly tumultuous change in jobs and the deaths of both my grandparents.  I'm not a big fan of uncertainty.  Now, each day holds uncertainty in spades.

And unrelated to this most recent fiasco, a whole lot of resentment, hurt and fear that I'd never quite dealt with over relationships prior began to surface.

So I have a long way to go in getting back on even keel again.  But I've spoken to all my friends about this - all the friends who chose to walk out on years and years of commitment, the friends who took seven months to stop crying, the friends who had picked out rings and houses.  And we all agreed that there are certain things that help staunch the pain, just a little, just enough to carry on putting one foot in front of the other till consciousness takes over again some time down the line.

I'm not at the stage where I can talk about healing grief yet.  But I know that when the wounds were freshest, I'd have loved a big ol' post like this to tell me where to put my energies and my attention.

So here's my contribution to the ever-growing museum of broken relationships: a list of the things that helped me right after the event.  Maybe they'll help someone out there too.

Changing Up

Trust me, girls, shopping has it's place and time.  There's nothing like a brand new dress and neon shoes (speaking from experience here) to make you feel like you can take life on the chin again.  Before that however, there are a few other things I think it helps to buy.

Two days after the fact, I went on a mad rampage and threw out and replaced things that remotely reminded me of him.  Not things like pictures or letters, you understand, prosaic things that needed a clean slate.  My daily planner for example - previously it had been littered with special days and dates that we had set aside.  I also changed the SD card on my camera because I couldn't bring myself to either curate the pictures or delete them and bought a blank sketchbook to replace my old journal.  Doing simple things like that - changing the background picture on your phone, even switching your perfume because scent holds so many memories - can make you breathe easier in a few minutes flat.  

Fun and Games

One of the things I jumped on almost immediately was getting into new hobbies.  Lessons or classes in particular are a great way to focus your mind on something new and while away time productively.  Because I'm such a "handsy" person (meaning that I get very restless if my hands are not occupied; not to be confused with "handy" because well, I'm not...) I signed up for knitting classes and started making blanket squares as I watched The West Wing on DVD with my family.  The need for concentration stills my mind instantly.

TV on the Radio

I don't know about you, but I love music and planning a soundtrack for my day used to be something I relished.  Now, unless it's Taylor Swift singing about how we will never get back together (ever ever ever!), I can't listen to a damn thing.  Because the radio at my workplace has indie ballads that turn me into slush on repeat, I had to figure out a nifty way to plug into something else.

These days, I listen to the BBC constantly.  It's amazing - there are two hour-long news podcasts a day, countless documentaries on everything ranging from gay couples growing old together to the Iranian currency crisis and even a hilarious short programme that collates the week's newspaper headlines.  The newsreaders are just the right balance of proper and dryly witty and while I couldn't tell you what's top of the pops right now, I can actually hold a conversation about the Somali elections.  If you ask me, that's two for the price of one.

The right programming

It's also natural to want to wallow and watch tonnes and tonnes of TV, but I quickly discovered there were some genres to be avoided at all costs.  No one wants to watch sappy romcoms or depressing dramas so it's best to stick to things that emphasise independence and are light-hearted, witty, comforting without being maudlin and if possible, even a bit camp.

In my humble opinion, there is one show made for just this purpose.  At the end of Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy kills her demon boyfriend, Angel, and sacrifices him to the Hellmouth.  This makes the start of Season Three the perfect companion to anyone who's just lost a lover - Buffy runs away to a different town and changes her name, grieves, and then takes emotional revenge by calmly creaming every demon in a five mile radius.  Great for stirring those indignant girl power feelings.  

Also highly recommended: The Golden Girls, an '80s sitcom about four women who move in together following bad divorces or being widowed and their lives together as they travel through fear, sorrow, joy and the societally shunned idea that there can be love and life in one's golden years.  

Sherlock recently took me through an especially bad patch.  I love Jeremy Brett as much as the next purist but while I have issues with the newest iteration of the Conan Doyle canon, Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of the brilliant but emotionally tone deaf super-sleuth really cheers me up.  Watching him and Watson stalk across London alone, solving fiendishly difficult puzzles, while being beholden to nothing and nobody calms me down. 

For the same reason, I imagine any kind of murder mystery would suffice - think Alfred Hitchcock, that series of extremely fey movies starring Peter Ustinov as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, or even something laugh out loud funny like Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery.

And this is going to sound cheesy but when all else fails, clips of Mr. Roger's Neighbourhood on YouTube restore my faith in mankind.  

Pick your poison, just make sure it doesn't involve french kissing.  

Talking to people

Though it may feel like the least desirable thing in the world, I cannot overemphasise the importance of speaking to your friends and loved ones.  Get up and get out of the house - even if it's just to get coffee from down the road - and it especially helps to dress up a little while doing it.  In the two weeks after I was unceremoniously dumped, I planned to meet a friend for dinner, lunch or brunch every single day.  It was just the thing that kept me from going over the edge.

Of course the key here is looking to people whom you know will make you feel better:

1) People who don't ask too many questions.

One of my guy friends drove straight over to my house and sat silently with me on the curb as I cried for a full hour.  Later on I would be ready to discuss the whats and what-ifs in greater details with my girlfriends, but just then I needed someone who wouldn't make me relive the drama while it was raw.

2)  People who make you laugh.

Mel, one of my best friends, sent me a picture of a stuffed animal on her desk because she thought it was so cute that it would make me feel better.  When the animal she indignantly claimed was a raccoon turned out to be an African meerkat, I almost fell off my chair laughing.

3)  People who genuinely care.

My friends have been so unbelievably incredible through this.  They've offered to drop everything to come straight to my house, bought me several expensive sets of dark chocolate, brought me out for coffee and long drives and sent me postcards and emails from faraway lands.  You will be humbled and overwhelmed by just how much people care for you and you will come away feeling better for it.  Every.  Single.  Time.

The worth of a book

The last thing on this list, but by far the least, are a couple of books that have helped me tremendously.  Friends and loved ones will do everything in their power, but books can be there for you in the dead of the night when you are torn between tears and propriety.

There are two in particular that I would recommend and I have not hesitated to buy them for friends who are going through the same things.   I feel like these two books work in tandem and that one tends to pick up where the other left off.  

It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken by Greg Behrendt and his wife, Amiira Ruotola, is the kind of book you want to read when you're so shattered you can't get out of bed.  It's written in an infectious, high-energy cheerleading style that helped me find resolve when I thought that I had none.  It's the book that got me through work the first week because I read a chapter every evening on the train home.  It reminded me that I was better off without someone who didn't want me - something that is perfectly commonsensical but easy to forget.

The second book is the one I offer for the hurt that runs darker and deeper and unrepaired from disasters long forgotten.  Getting Past Your Breakup: How to Turn a Devastating Loss into the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You is a book that treats your sadness as grief and makes no bones about it.  Consequently, the advice given teaches you how to get over that grief through slowly gaining new perspective on old happenings.  There are serious workbook exercises that you can disregard (I have nothing to lose and will try anything once) and the author, Susan J. Elliott, who has been through everything and more, takes an empathetic but no-nonsense tone that would make your mother proud.

Best of all though, for those who are hesitant about dropping cash on the book, there is a Getting Past Your Breakup website right here.  Whether you read an article every morning before you hop out of bed or join the chatter in the comments, there is relief and peace in knowing that you are not alone.

If you're reading this, if you've stumbled upon it because you've gone looking for something like it, I hope this list helped at least in some small measure.  I hope that you'll build a list of your own because having a stockpile of things to turn to when things get hairy is precious beyond measure. 

And most of all, even if it takes a long while to come by, I hope you find your happiness.

Calling a spade

I've understood for a long time that it's important to be at peace with yourself and to fully accept the idea of a life alone.  For everyone.  After all, minds change, people die and nothing gold can stay.  But I've never quite had to put it into practice.

I don't mean that I've never felt lonely.  Rather, and I'm ashamed to admit this, but even when I've known in the back of my head that we're all one-man guys, and even when things have been the opposite of okay, there has always been someone, somewhere that has made me think: Hmm.  Dying alone?  Maybe not today.

Things are different now and, I don't think, in a bad way.  But for lots of us, it's an adjustment.  To realise that no matter how close your family and friends are, it's necessary to find eventual peace with yourself.  We have to be okay with that.

Every time there is upheaval in my life, I find comfort in starting new things.  New hobbies, meeting new people, new blogs.  It's hard to let go.  People love agency, comfort, control.  We're a race who names our hurricanes, for Pete's sake.  People aren't built to go solo but sometimes life happens that way and for self-preservation, it's useful to be prepared.

Often, the most important comfort zone is the self.  No matter who we love or who we're loved by, it's important to take the time to remember who we are and face this slow search for peace, or whatever, alone.