August Left

I got a phone call today from Jen. I hadn’t heard from her all day after trying to make some more plans with her this week after being back for a couple days post camping trip. I kind of felt like something was coming, and she told me that maybe this isn’t something she thinks she wants anymore.

She had mentioned that she feels like maybe she needs to keep working on herself and that she might still be too hurt or stuck on her last relationship that didn’t work out. It was a nice way to put me down easy. She offered to stay friends but I know better not to bite at that and wished her well.

So now I’m kind of just sitting here feeling somewhat impartial to it all. Of course there is a little sting of feeling rejected and now again feeling like I lost a connection I thought I had with someone, but in a small way there is relief to know that this sting won’t hurt as bad as the one I had been trying to get over the past 6 months.

This opens up more opportunity to continue to build myself up again and get back to being happy with myself as a whole. I know at least I have the capacity to build relationships with people and I don’t feel paralyzed anymore to do so.

Like I said in my last post, this week has been scattered in terms of my shifts. I worked last night and now am off until Friday. I think I’ll try to use Thursday to do some self care chores and maybe start to figure out a healthier diet.

Money has been feeling tight lately, but that has started to lighten working these extra shifts, and so I might as well use the extra money I have to improve something about my life that will be good for me in the long run.

I still have been brainstorming what to get my brother for his birthday. He has done really well for himself the last couple years and so money is of no issue for him. He could buy himself whatever he wants, so my gift is really going to have to be something he could get utility out of in his day to day. I bought him a speaker a couple years ago he still uses. So this year pragmatism is again the goal.

I’ve been reflecting on life here as a man in his late twenties. It seems like Colorado attracts a lot of transplants. People moving away from lives they didn’t feel like they belonged to, chasing mountains and the feelings of independence that the open spaces here provide. But it feels like to me it also drives this propensity to avoid feeling committed to something.

To be committed is to be tied down. To have your independence taken away from you in someway feels threatening to people who moved here to find themselves. But of course it’s human nature to want to belong to something. To have companionship. I just don’t know if a lot of people are aware of their own emotions enough to know how to navigate both of those feelings coexisting.

I could be cynical. Given everything that has happened in the last year. But it makes me sad. Not for myself, but for others that have to live with those feelings of wanting to be free but also wanting to belong. I imagine moving here to escape also feels very lonely when you’re on the journey to finding yourself. Sometimes it’s hard to sit by yourself in an empty room.

I will say while I have struggled a lot the last year, I give myself a lot of credit for the hardiness I have demonstrated. There were definitely moments I wanted to quit. Quit everything and leave. But I’m still here.

June is Men’s mental health month. And I appreciate it now more than ever. And if you’re reading this feeling like you’re wanting to quit too, I see you. You’re not alone. Keep going. One day at a time.

Thanks for reading.