Bad Decisions? That's alright...

Welcome to my silly life...

It's been a minute (okay, several thousand minutes...) since I wrote here. 

So much has happened in the last year that I can barely believe it. 

I have...

- Left the job I loved for a more mature career in the financial sector
- Took a pay cut for that job that I ultimately ended up hating
- Dated a bit of a dick who I ended things with quickly (but not quite quickly enough)
- Started writing three books and I've got ideas for others
- Left the aforementioned job in the financial sector for a job that sounded incredible but actually turned out to be a scam
- Become unemployed because my mental state couldn't quite take standing outside for seven hours in the cold just in case I made a sale... 

So yeah, it's been quite a year! 

In 2018, I was amazing with my money. I budgeted, I saved, I bought a Macbook. 

I was so proud of myself. 

In 2019, the pay cut and the addition of a car into my life meant a lack of money and new worries that I really struggled with. 

In 2020, I'm hoping to get my life back on track but the lack of a job a month and a half before January is worrying me. 

It's not all bad though. 

I have an incredible boyfriend and wonderful friends who are supporting me in any way that they can at the moment. 

If I'm being entirely honest, they're the only reasons I'm getting through this. 

I mean, I say this. 

I have been officially unemployed for two days. 

That's not very long but it's enough to be driving me insane. 

The worst part is that there's so much I'm afraid/embarrassed to talk to my closest friends and family about. 

I'm embarrassed I made a really stupid decision and took a job I would end up having to leave due to how awful it was (seriously, it was advertised as an amazing opportunity to be a sales and events management trainee but it was actually just a trick which ended up being more like unpaid labour... Okay, it was exactly like that. You go into their office for 7:30am, spend the morning practicing your 'pitch' (which was really just a script to entice people to buy into whatever you were selling), leave the office in groups of three for about 11:30am, go to wherever you've been sent (I was sent to the freezing cold main street in Portobello), spend the next six hours there trying to get as many people to talk to you/buy into the thing you've been assigned to sell before heading back for 6:30pm - 7pm for a debrief. 
I didn't make a single sale (only one of our group of three did) and it was then that I realised that you only got paid if you did make a sale...

After I found that out, it was pretty hard to find the willpower to continue.

I had to walk away because I was so close to having a panic attack at the realisation that I'd just given up a job that paid me consistently every month for one that would pay me if I forced people into signing up for a direct debit for a charity I'd never heard of. 

I'd been semi led to believe that there would be some sort of base wage. 

I was wrong. 
So. Wrong. 

The next day, I went in for about an hour and then I said I had a headache and I left. 

I got in my car and started driving towards my mum's but she didn't answer so I headed to one of my best friend's flat. 

I couldn't believe I'd been so stupid. 

That night, my boyfriend came over and he was so good to me (he has continued to be so incredibly kind to me despite how sarcastic he usually is) but it wasn't enough to curb my anxiety and I couldn't face going in the next day so I texted my 'mentor' and said I was ill again. 

On Monday (yesterday), I quit. 

I told him I needed a job that would be guaranteed to pay me every month instead of one where I stood outside in the freezing cold for several hours without any guarantee I would get paid. 

He accepted it but told me he was 'sorry I saw it that way'. 

I didn't know what other way there was to see it. 

Since last Thursday (when I left with a headache...), I have been frantically applying for jobs. 

I have maybe three weeks before I'm going to seriously worry about money so I'm desperately hoping I'll find something soon.

As for why I'm embarrassed? 

I made this decision. I got myself into this mess. 

I can't blame anyone else but myself for this. 

And, if I'm being completely honest, if I let myself think about it for too long, I probably will have a mental breakdown. 

So why am I writing this all down here? 

This blog has always been where I've come to with intense feelings. 

I wrote here when my mum (nanny) died. 

I wrote here when my cat died.

I wrote here when I was happy too. 

One day, hopefully one not too far away from today, I will look back on this experience as a mistake that I overcame. 

I don't want to forget how massively I messed up or how devastated I was at the result of my actions 

You can't ignore the mistakes you made but nobody ever learned from having continued successes. 

This was a horrendously bad decision that I made but it was a failure I am going to learn from and come out on the other side wiser from it. 

I know that. 

Now, the other thing that I'm too scared to talk about with my friends... 

My boyfriend is brilliant. 

He is smart, successful and he is miles ahead of me in the game of life (that saying 'Don't compare your Chapter 3 to someone else's Chapter 13' comes into my head whenever I think this). 
He wants to be with someone who is equally successful and I'm miles away from being that person. 

Now, it's been years since I was that girl who thought she knew what love was and who didn't believe she was good enough for the boy she wasted that 'love' on. 

But my boyfriend is so unbelievably brilliant that I oftentimes find myself wondering why he's still choosing me every day. 

He's there when I'm at my lowest and he comes over to be with me when I'm struggling. 
He makes me laugh and roll my eyes (often in the same sentence...). 
He's not perfect but he makes up for his mistakes without me asking him to and he always comes through for me without thinking I'm crazy. 

I'm not saying I'm not good enough for him because that's not fair on me and all the work I've done in the last couple of years to improve my opinion on myself. 

I'm just worried. I don't think I've ever been this scared of messing something up. 

Anyway... 

That's just my life at the moment. 

Honest, raw and completely a mess. 

But I'll fix it. 

I have to. 

Love, 
Jess
xoxo

Five Stages, Four Weeks, Three Moments

It's strange how quickly time passes.
One moment, you're a child getting a hot water bottle and soup when you're sick and the next... You're an adult.

It's felt a bit like I'm watching my life from the sidelines, recently.
Oscar died four weeks ago today and it's three days until the fifth which will be the official '1 Month Anniversary'.
It's odd because I don't normally have 'out of body experiences' but it's been a long few months.
Oscar dying has affected me more than I could ever have known and I cry now. Randomly. At least twice a week.
I'm a terrible over-thinker and anything could make me cry.
Thinking about him for two long, hearing a bell that sounds like his, the fact that his food bowl now holds my keys...

They say there are five stages of grief. I kinda figured they'd come in order and that, once I hit acceptance, I'd be okay again. That doesn't really happen.
My experience has been a learning curve.

Denial: I've never really been good with denial. For some reason, my brain just won't let me deny the unfortunate facts. The only times I've had moments of it has been whenever I think I hear him. Even if I'm seconds from falling asleep, I'll get out of bed and go to check - just in case.
He's never there but I have to make sure.
I always return to bed disappointed.

Anger: Again, this isn't a major stage for me. I'm not an angry person because I hate the feeling I have when I'm angry, It's a wasted emotion. It doesn't help you get better. It just helps you be mad. If that makes sense.
I have had moments where I'm mad/sad that he's gone. I just don't get it. I don't understand why he's gone when there were so many things we had to do together, so many years I needed to be with him. It doesn't make sense.

Bargaining: The amount of times I've begged God to swap my sister or myself for Oscar is embarrassing... I don't mean it in a nasty way. I just want him home. I want my baby back. He never comes though and God never answers. If God hears me, he's not replying.

Depression: Sadly, this stage is the one I have the most experience with. I suffered with depression after I stopped being friends with two of my best friends back in 2011 and it's never gone away entirely. The only difference now is that it's not as powerful. I'm coping better.
Sadly, it does mean that these last four weeks have been a really difficult struggle.
There are times when I just don't want to be here because Oscar's in heaven and he's 'waiting for me'. It comes and goes like the tide but it's not really gotten any easier. Like I thought it would. I have hope though.

Acceptance: Strangely enough, I do accept that he's gone. I accept he's not coming back.
I just wish he was. I want to hold him and love him and bug him constantly. Coming home isn't as fun lately. I don't rush, I don't get excited. I used to call his name whenever I'd come home and he'd rarely respond but coming home to him made every hardship I had that day or that week seem a little easier to handle.

There's nothing I don't miss about Oscar. Nothing. I don't expect that to ever go away.
I just wish I had more videos of him. I snapchatted him constantly but that's not the same.
I burst into tears last week because I couldn't remember the way his meow sounded.

The three main moments, mentioned in the title, have been:
The day after he died, the one-week anniversary and the day we brought his ashes home.
Each of those days were significant because they were moments I truly realized he was gone. The day we brought him home was almost as hard as the day he died. I had him, in my arms, in a box. A box. A little, round, green box with his name on it.
I'll never forget that day. I collected him and burst into tears. When I got home, I took him out and just held him while I talked to my mum for about an hour. I didn't let him go for one second.
He sleeps on my bed now, with his collar beside him.

I have amazing friends though. The girl I met at college has listened to every part of this journey and never judged me - even when I've said ridiculous things. I love her for that.
And my best friend from school? She messages me every single day to make sure I'm okay.
I have other friends who have sent their condolences and shared experiences and it does help.

I just have to accept that this chapter of my life is going to be the hardest but it will get easier, with time.

Until it does, I'm going to keep being that weird girl who carries her dead cat's collar around wherever she goes but I'm okay with that.

Let's just hope June is better.

Jessica
xoxo