Today I realized that the person I re-opened my heart to, that I love with my whole heart, simply isn’t right for me and it hurts, especially because the last time I walked away from this man was only in November and that was brutal. It took all I had and it’s still so fresh. And so painful. I was and still am one that believes you break up for a reason and it’s best to stick with that reason. I went against that belief because this person came back and told me he understood everything I had been begging him to understand. He said that he missed me, he loves me, that other girls bore him, that he was unhappy without me, that he missed my laugh and most importantly that he wanted us to work. He felt he could be the man for me, that he wanted to be that man.

One thing you must know is that I have anxiety. No, not the kind that pops up here and there that everyone experiences from time to time but clinically diagnosed and medically treated for 6 years now. The kind of anxiety that can ruin relationships if not addressed and nurtured appropriately. This makes relationships more difficult. So when he came back, after all my episodes of anxiety and told me he wanted to be with me, that he realized my anxieties were simply a part of me that he loved, I was shocked. I didn’t believe he could do it. He said my anxiety is tough to deal with but that the good outweighs the bad and he wanted to give it another shot. He said he wanted to take the good with the bad. The bad, yeah.

To hear this from the person I love with my whole heart…fuck…there are no words. Never in my life did I think we would get back together and I tried to say no and ignore him but with his relentlessness, I let him back in. I was and still am in shock. I let him in because although I was blissfully happy without him, deep down I wanted (and still want) to be blissfully happy with him. He said there were a lot of things he regretted with how he treated me and he genuinely wanted to do better. We both agreed we had some things to work on but we could do it together because, well, we love each other.

If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have anxiety. I am the first to admit that my anxiety is overwhelming for me and those around me. I exhaust myself.  I try to surround myself with caring and nurturing people that do and say the right things to help keep that anxiety at bay. I work with a therapist once a week and I work with myself every waking minute of my life to gain control. When people work with me, us together as a team, I am happy as a clam.

Am I at fault for needing that team unity? No. Is that too much to ask? Depends on who you ask. But it’s what I need and what I have begged him for and he can’t quite grasp what that means. He tells me it’s exhausting to keep up with my level of communication and that is true, but it is who I am. I am exhausting but there’s a lot of good that comes out of this person sitting here writing this extremely open post that may or may not be appropriate to broadcast but it’s that human connection I spoke about in previous posts that I so desperately need right now. To feel deprived of that from my own boyfriend is excruciatingly painful so I am reaching out to someone, anyone.

After 3 months of trying to make it work again and a year and a half of extreme turmoil with brief moments of beauty, beauty that I am struggling to let go of, I have realized that we are like oil and water. There’s nothing wrong with either but oil and water don’t mix well and I have once again learned that the hard way. It was rough at first but then it started to get better, until this week. It was inevitable that the volcano that exists in our relationship was going to erupt. We tried. And I truly believed this time was for real, that we would make it. That I would control my anxiety and know 100% that he loved me. But it’s not that easy. I am angry with myself for letting him back in, for giving him so much of myself. I was happy without him. Why didn’t I let it stay that way? Did I miss him? Yes. Insanely at first but it dissipated as I came into my own and rediscovered all the beautiful things I have in my life that enable me to feel blissfully happy and I realized he wasn’t one of them no matter how badly I wanted him to be.

My heart hurts. My heart is broken. But I will be ok. It’s hard to walk away because there was great things about us together. I love him. I don’t know why. I had a connection with him unlike any I’ve ever experienced. I am scared I will never find that again. I am scared I will never find someone that will “put up with my level of communication that is just extremely exhausting.” He did come back after we broke up, after he knew about everything I struggle with. I know he loves me, I know he wants to be the man for me but he does not have the capacity to fill that role. And that, for some reason, kills me.

So here’s to starting over…again. I’ll be fine just like I was last time around, it just hurts a lot more this time. And to move on from the idea that this is my fault. To move on from the idea that if I just changed the way I react to things, then we would be fine. I was faulted for my anxiety. It was always my fault in his eyes. But we can only change so much of who were are before we lose ourselves entirely and I don’t want to lose myself because anxieties and all, I love myself a hell of a lot more than I love someone who faults me for something that is such a big part of me, faults me for something that over the last 6 years I have worked on and overcome in ways he will never understand.

I love deeply. I care deeply. I am open with my emotions, some might say to a fault in that I share my life with the world. I can be a bitch. I can be difficult. I overreact all the time. I obsess. I ruminate on stupid shit. I can be stubborn. I can be exhausting. I can be inappropriate in my expression of self. I am the queen of TMI (too much information for those of you not current with this generation). I am by no means perfect. But at the end of the day, I love all that about me and I hope that someday I find a man that when I need him the most, no matter how out of line he thinks I am being, if he knows it’s driven by my anxiety that I cannot control at that moment, he looks me right in the eye and says, “Kara. You’re fucking crazy and out of line right now and I don’t understand where this is coming from at all but I want to understand. I love you. It’s all going to be okay.”

Is that too much to ask? I hope not.

At the end of the day, I realized that I lost my love of self. I hate who I have become in loving him, in trying to please him, in trying to control my emotions. I hate the needy, neurotic, insecure, dependent person I have become because that is not me. I have blamed myself for everything and I am sick of doing that because it always takes 2 to tango. So with a heavy heart, I move on again in my life without him, having learned more about myself than I ever thought possible.

I am on Cloud 9 right now. Not only did I get my certificate for Precision Nutrition in the mail…

Yippeee!!!!!!

But more amazing and totally awesome….

I got to do lateral jumping at PT today!!!! Holy moly did it feel good!!!! I haven’t done any real jumping since before surgery…like 6 months!! To say I’m excited is an understatement!! My PT wrapped a bungie around my waist and set up 3 cones. One slightly in front of me and to the side, one directly to my side and one slightly behind and to the side. I was facing in the direction so that my right leg was the dominant leg starting off. My PT explained what I was going to do and as I stood there listening to him, I scrambled to visualize what exactly this was going to be like. Was it going to hurt? Would my muscles fire properly so that I didn’t fall flat on my face? Would my hip be able to stabilize on one leg while I pushed off it to fly high in the air and not to mention landing back on it as I jumped back towards the bungee?????? Ready???

“Jump! But don’t put the non weight bearing foot down.” Holy crap people.  The beauty of the bungee is it made it hard to jump away from it as I put all my weight on my right leg to do so, but even harder to resist it pulling me back in as I leaped off my left leg heading back towards the attachment of the bungee to the wall and hoping to all hell and back that when I landed on my right leg (please hip don’t fail me now) I would be able to stabilize without pain. And guess what????

I DID IT! It didn’t hurt one bit! And I kept at it for one whole minute!!! Oh man the smile on my face. 🙂 Next up was the left leg which was a breeze since it’s the strong side (left side, strong side right??). All in all 2 whole minutes of jumping!!! I got out of that bungee real quick as I bent over trying to catch my breath. I stood up, patted my belly and said, “Welcome back.” Holy core workout. I then patted my quads and said the same thing. Welcome back body. It’s nice to see you, and feel you again; to feel that burn in the muscles.

After I completed my two minutes, I was embarrassingly out of breath but boy was I proud of myself as I high fived my PT. I think he is proud of me too. He’s watched me since the first day I crutched in with Dora after filling out the evaluation form, answering every question with the “extremely difficult” option and feeling pretty discouraged. He watched me start to make progress towards getting off my crutches and building back my strength. He watched me as I began to get off two crutches and move around with more ease. He then witnessed my set back when I smashed my hip into my door and how frustrated I had become as the hip went into spasms for days. I almost cried at PT that day. As the hip calmed down, he watched me progress back towards two crutches weight bearing, then one crutch, then no crutches, then lunging, squatting with a ball, sliding around on the slide board, jumping on the leg press machine, balancing like a pro on the wobbly disc and finally lateral jumps with my new best friend, the bungee. 

Ah life feels good!! It’s amazing what makes me proud now and what gets me excited and happy regarding my fitness. Since I’ve started “working out” again (some weeks its only 1 day and some weeks it 4 days depending on the hip), I have dropped about 3% body fat. Normally that would get me giddier than anything in the world but not today people. Not today. Today I am proud I jumped around with no pain. I look back on where I was mentally before surgery, to after surgery and how gross and incapable I felt and I am extremely proud of how far I have come. The mental and the physical. Life kind of fell apart last November but I super glued it back together with a little help from my friends, my family, my PT and my surgeon.

It’s the journey that matters. It’s the small accomplishments like jumping around with a bungee chord on your waist that I never would have dreamed would make me this happy. It was literally the highlight of my week and if that’s all it takes, I’d have hip surgery any day. Just kidding. But I wouldn’t go back and change this process for all the Malbec in the world. Again, I am totally kidding. I’ve slowed my life down. I’ve learned to appreciate the little things. We all go through our ups and downs, I recently was on the down swing but if there’s one thing I have learned, “that shit don’t last.” There’s always a way to be happy. It just depends on what you choose to focus on. It’s not easy, trust me. But once you find what makes you happy, oh boy is it the best thing in the world!

Here’s a throw back to when I could actually jump. Look at that right leg go! I can’t wait to do that again!

And with that I get ready for girls night! Dinner, Malbec and dancing baby!! Let’s see how the old hip holds up on that dance floor tonight. I have a feeling after all that jumping around, it will be juuuuuuust fine. 🙂