Letting Go

 

I shared the previous post because it was one step on my journey of letting go. When I learned my ex-friend was engaged, and then married, I felt anger first, then a sort of dark humor in comparing our situations (which is where that post comes from). Now, months after hearing of her marriage, I just have a feeling of release and I think I'm in a place where I can begin letting go of the pain of that particular time. It took a long time to get here but I feel ready to stop holding onto the hurt because it has been such a heavy burden to carry.

It was almost like she and I were competing in a game. Now that she has what I have always wanted it feels as though the game is over. It would have been nice if I had "won" but I am free of the game nonetheless. I don't have to constantly worry about how I am doing compared to her. I'm free to live my life however it plays out.

But, I won't lie and pretend that I am a saint. I can't bring myself to forgive and forget and I'm not entirely sure she deserves that. I know that seeing her at friends' events, or accidentally bumping into her around town, will still be difficult and uncomfortable. I know we won't speak to each other, or be friends again, by mutual choice and that's okay.

Someday Karma may come back to bite her, or not - I may never find out. But maybe now I can stop dwelling on the past and begin moving on.

O' Karma, Where Art Thou?

I'm finally getting around to My Life Feels Like a Cosmic Joke, Part 2.

The Past

*This first part is a cliffs notes version of one of the worst times in my life and I will never be able to fully convey in this, or any blog post, just how bad it was, so I will stick with a summary.*

My best friend in college up and decided one day she no longer wanted to be my friend. It was literally overnight that she decided this. Her excuse? I was too "depressed". I was shocked as I had never been depressed up to that point. I don't know if she misinterpreted my introversion for depression (I never laughed as loudly at her lame jokes as our other friends did) or if she was taking her hurt over her parents' divorce out on me. Whatever the real excuse she went from warm friend one day to icy bitch the next and no amount of tears or effort on my part convinced her to be anything less than cold and indifferent to me for the remaining three months we had to live together until college graduation. Those final three months were pure torture. Throw a boy into the mix (a boy my ex-friend also had history with), add in some "friends" gleeful for gossip, and you have a recipe for the deep depression I ended up falling into and which took me years to climb out of.

During and after the fallout we continued to share mutual friends. This has meant being brought together over the years for weddings and baby showers, etc. It has also meant any gossip in my life finds its way to her and vice versa.

So, one of the things that sustained me over the years was the old saying "living better is the best revenge".

I was going to have the better life and for once she would be jealous of me.

The Present

If you regularly read my blog then you know that I went from a low-paying job to a crappy higher-paying job, to temp work, and finally back to school with occasional low-paying part-time work. I still live with my parents and, with hardly any income on my part, I am sure to be in their house for the foreseeable future. I don't have a boyfriend and prospects for finding one are rather low. This is how my life stands right now.

How has my ex-friend fared? Thanks to nepotism she was able to land a job she was barely qualified for at a company that was recently voted one of the best and nicest in town. She must be doing okay at it because she got a promotion about a year or two ago. It's a good paying job and she was able to move out of her mom's house just a few years after college. But the real kick in the gut to me was learning of her engagement last year. She came with her boyfriend to our mutual friend's wedding last February and I will be honest and admit that he is decently good looking. As far as I know they were married last September. I'm sure it is only a matter of time before I hear that she's knocked up.

So much for living better and revenge.

One Week at a Time

Just a few quick updates since my computer decided to crash.

The spring semester for school started on Monday and so far it has been a little crazy. I'm taking four classes this semester with two online, one half online, and one that is the regular in-class style. These are my first actual online classes and I'm afraid I really don't like the set-up of them, one of them especially, and it's kinda got me bummed.

In project news I have officially strung two entire tubes of beads and am starting on the third. I found, or rather rediscovered, a way to string a few beads at a time rather than each individually so that has sped things up a little.

The First of the Projects

Like I mentioned in my last post, I am going to try blogging at least once per week and much of said blogging will be about my craft projects.

I really should be starting with the one project I have that has an actual due date (October) since it will take me a long time to do it right. However, that project is intimidating me right now so I've decided to work on something else for the time being.

The Beaded Scarf

This is one of those projects I found in a beading book of mine that I thought looked cool. I originally began the project in 2011 but set it aside while I waited for some beads that were on backorder. By the time the beads arrived I was busy with other things, the project got shoved aside, and eventually I forgot about it. But when I sat down to think of projects I could do the scarf popped into my head again.

There are a few challenges to this project. First, I've never really knitted a complete project. Second, there are something like 38,000 beads in this scarf (I wish I were exaggerating that number). Here are some pictures to illustrate.

I find this white plastic tub is perfect for keeping everything in the project together and it makes for easy transportation (within my house) but most importantly it is great for corralling the tiny beads I am working with.
For those of you that bead, the beads I am working with are size 11/0 seed beads (in the tubes on the right).
For those of you that knit, the needles I am using are size 0000 (that's them on the left).
The red "string" is perle cotton.
That should hopefully give some idea of the scale of this project.

My first task is to string every last one of those beads onto that perle cotton. I already strung one tube of beads back in 2011. Last night I started stringing the second tube (out of five total) and after three hours straight I only got maybe a quarter of the tube done.

At least I can watch t.v. or listen to music while I work on this project because I predict several more hours spent stringing beads.

Endings / Beginnings

Goodbye 2013

Overall I would say I am happy to be rid of 2013. It wasn't exactly the worst year I've ever had but it ranks right up there thanks to plenty of lows and very few highs.
All I can do now is put it behind me and move on to bigger and better things.

Hello 2014

Already this year feels like it will be better. I have several things I hope to accomplish and I am excited to get started.

First on the agenda - my Year-Long Project.

I thought about doing a photo a day but my camera is not doing very well. It's almost eight years old and it's time I replace it.
Then I thought about my current craft projects, and while I realized that none of them will take a full year by themselves, together they might equal a year.
So I decided that my Year-Long Project will actually be to blog at least once a week, but a lot of the blogging will be documenting my crafts (hopefully with pictures if my camera cooperates).

Happy New Year everyone!!!