Grief

I have had to admit to myself recently that my emotional distress regarding Scotland has been grief. I didn’t see it coming. Nobody had died. Nobody was ill. It’s grief for the party lifestyle I so wish to be a part of all the time. It’s also grief for a man I should never have fallen in love with.

I have come to realise, that the only way to really manage the grief should have been to walk away. I should have thrown myself into the sensible life and eventually the pain, the ache, the dispair would dissipate. But I didn’t. I returned. Time and Time and Time again.

Every 6 weeks I would come back. I would party again. I would see him again. Over the years casual attachment turned into a familiarity that bolstered up my self esteem and my self worth. The euphoria I felt was like before, when I was younger. It was addictive. I needed it. I yearned for it. Was it really all that amazing or was I just emotionally unstable? I don’t know.

I do know that I ended up a cycle of grief. A cycle which hasn’t quite been broken but has certainly been weakened.

After a week of euphoria I would go home drained. Wishing it didn’t have to stop. Wishing real life didn’t get in the way of it. Knowing that without real life, fun life would be a pit of doom. I would go home irritable. Irritated by the mundanity of real life. Frustrated with the urge to get back on it. But I resisted and eventually the urge would subside a little. I stopped thinking about him and before long, the memory loss I have suffered as a side effect of drug abuse would built a comforting wall of ‘haziness’. I would be unable to recall the exact feelings of euphoria and thus I could move on. I would start to see other normal friends and do normal things.

Then I went back to Scotland. And the euphoria would flood into me. And the whole sorry process would start again. I once went home feeling the grief and I messaged Cc telling her that I felt like a little part of me broke apart Everytime I drove home. She said it was probably the most honest analysis of my feelings I’d ever had. I guess I should talk to her like a real person more.

How did I not see this? Maybe I did see it? Maybe I was just not prepared to admit it because that would mean doing something about it which would mean losing something. I just wish I had realised that by not doing something about it, I was losing my sanity along the way.

The one thing that has allowed this cycle to continue has been my memory loss. I always thought this was a good thing. I thought it was a necessary part of living two lives. If you were always wanting to be where you weren’t then you weren’t living. Forgetting made it easier to transition. Or so thought.

Forgetting also made it harder to make good decisions. It made it harder not to make the same bad decisions as I could never remember the bad part.

Once I was home, I’d forget about Scotland and feel happy I was making the right choice by having two lives. Then once I came up to Scotland I would forget about all the good things I had at home and I would wonder why I didn’t just stay here and have this life all the time.

Knowing this memory loss exists has, at the very least, ensured I don’t make any drastic life changing decisions. I knew I could never fully balance my thoughts about either life because when I was in one life I would forget the other.

Cc and I have chatted about this both sober and on it. Sober recently of course. I always likened my life to that of jumping into different pies. Recently Cc said something that made me think differently. She said the pies aren’t the situations or the ‘life’ in different places. she said I was the pie. I was the pie and I allowed others to be in my pie and that it didn’t matter where or how. In that one analogy she has inadvertently turned my entire sense of self around. I no longer see myself as having two or more worlds where I was a somewhat human being who only existed because of the world I was in. I am my world. My world revolves around me, centers around me and focuses on me. I am me. Not just a product of my surroundings.

This one simple change in thought process has probably made the biggest difference. For that, I will always be grateful to Cc for helping me see it that way.

Maybe now the cycle of grief can start to break down. As I start to remember all of me wherever I am and not feel like I’m grieving the loss of the part of me I’ve left in Scotland.

The only spanner in the works is him. Unless I don’t ever see him again, I may just have to learn to get over him as well as see him all the time. It will get easier as time goes on. Maybe in time when I see him with someone else, I can be happy. Then I will truly know my grieving of the loss of someone I can’t really have all of, will finally be over.