2013 So Far

So far, I'm not at all impressed by this year.  2011 stole my home and my babies...I thought it couldn't get worse.  Then 2012 came along and robbed me of the security in my marriage, my health, my gallbladder, and my home (again!).  When 2013 arrived, I kept telling myself that it had to be a better year...it is not living up to this!

First, Bryan tried leaving again on New Year's Day.  We'd spent the day with Andy and Ausia at their new apartment, and he'd been acting funny all day.  On our drive home, he picked a fight and then told me he wanted a divorce.  It was a very long two hours while we argued back and forth.  We got home, he packed up, and he left.  That night, Lora came over to help me...but she sat for an hour in silence, on her phone the entire time, and then left.  Kyle was my real saving grace...he stayed up with me until 4 AM (despite having work at 7 AM) just talking about everything.  When he got me onto the topic of biology, I was off and running with a smile on my face.  It got me through that rough night.  I didn't beg Bryan to come back, though...I wasn't going to do that this time.  We talked a bit, but I had resigned myself to the fact that it was over this time.  Instead, three nights later, he climbed back into our bed at 2:30 in the morning.  He'd partially dislocated his hip sleeping in his car and was in a lot of pain.  The next morning we talked things over, he apologized profusely for "being stupid" (his words), and we tried again.

A week later, Lora (who had broken up with Stan right after Christmas) and I went for our normal girly date...we always went to the mall and to get our hair done.  She'd taken a bit of an interest in Kyle, so I was sending him goofy text messages while we were on our way to the mall.  At lunch, she asked for his number, and I gave it to her without worry...she was one of my best friends and Bryan's absolute best friend, and Kyle was my best friend.  What could go wrong?
Well, they got along beautifully.  They started dating, we planned a huge trip to Philadelphia for Lora's birthday, and life was perfect.  I'd never seen Kyle so happy, and I was thrilled for them both.  Lora finally had a guy who wasn't a total jerk...I didn't think things could get any better.
It was around this time that Lora, Bryan and I started talking about finding a place together again...around tax time, the perfect apartment fell into our lap.  It was a beautiful two bedroom with an open floor plan and every single utility (including internet!) included in the rent.  The rent was pricey, of course, but it was totally worth it.  The landlady, Charmaine, was an absolute gem and she loved our pit bull, Moose.  We moved in on February 25th with a lot of help from my family, Lora's family, and Kyle.  That night, I made homemade pizza and the four of us (Lora, Kyle, Bryan, and I) played Apples to Apples while sitting on an air mattress and beanbags.  We had no furniture, no TV hookup, and we hadn't unpacked a thing.

The next couple months were turbulent, to say the least.  Lora had grown steadily more jealous of my innocent friendship with Kyle, but continued to flirt with my husband to her heart's content.  I ignored it because I knew it was just her personality and I trusted the two of them.  Kyle had aired his concerns over it with me, but we'd gotten past them...it wasn't without a lot of tears on my end, though.  He informed me that Lora had said (not once, but twice) that if Bryan wasn't married to me, she'd be dating him.  I was heartbroken but convinced myself and Kyle that it meant nothing.  Lora also started to fall apart.  She'd had knee surgery in early March, right after we moved in, and had to quit her job.  The longer she went without a job, the worse she got.  It didn't help that her therapist was trying to get her to cope with her dad's suicide, which she'd avoided coping with for 12 years.  At 24, she'd spent half her life pretending, and it was rough to start talking about it.  She became addicted to Vicodin, which was prescribed to her after her surgery.

She also found out she'd need a diagnostic laparoscopy to determine whether or not she had endometriosis, so she was an absolute mess.  One morning I woke up and texted Kyle, as was my normal routine.  After a few texts, he informed me that she'd taken a pill cocktail that morning to "try to sleep" and she hadn't answered him in an hour.  He begged me not to go barging in on her, so I simply peeked in her room and saw that she was still breathing.  She'd been suffering from night terrors and wasn't sleeping well, so I left her to it.  Three hours later, as I was working on my prelab assignments for my cell biology lab, I got a text that stopped my heart.

"I need u"

Three simple words (sort of).  Lora never abbreviated like that, so I flew back to her room to see her sitting in the dark, hunched over.  When I turned on the light, she cried out and covered her face.  I turned it back off and sat down next to her.  Talking it over, I learned that she'd taken two Vicodin and an Ambien.  One more Vicodin and she probably would've died.  I got her out of bed and dragged her to the hospital.  She was flushed, sweating, and in serious pain.  The entire way, I talked to her about how she could've died, and she finally said that she knew she could've died and did it anyway.  I realized that she'd become suicidal.

I ended up dropping out of school and losing my job because I wanted to stay home and care for her.  My decisions weren't popular with anyone, Lora especially, but I had to see that she was okay.  I couldn't, in good conscience, let her die.  I became her warden, controlling all the medication she had...or so I thought.  On Easter Sunday, Kyle came out of her room with a look that I could read like a book, and I demanded to know what was wrong.  She'd done it again...this time with the Vicodin I gave him to get her through the night and a muscle relaxant she'd had hidden.  He felt completely awful and guilty, but I was furious.  I fled to my mom's house, calmed down a bit, and returned to the apartment.  When I got back, I collected all her medication, dropped it on her bed, and said "Here.  If you want it, fucking take it."

Things fell apart quickly after that.  April was a rough month, with her picking a week long fight with Kyle over nothing.  She was mad at him for something he hadn't done, and then got angry that he wasn't there when she needed him emotionally (this was the week of her laparoscopic surgery) even though it was her fault.  I tried to be the go-between for them, at Lora's request, but I was getting sick of it.  The day of her surgery, I sat in the hospital and talked to her mom, who informed me that she didn't think Lora's previous relationships had failed because of the men in them.  We talked about how Lora needed to heal herself before she'd have a successful relationship, and I started to worry about Kyle.
The weekend after Lora's surgery, I went for a Strength and Rebirth Retreat my mom had gotten me sponsored for.  I needed it desperately.  Lora's negativity was draining all my energy, especially since I hadn't yet found another job myself.  We were struggling badly, and it was getting so much worse every day.  I returned feeling a thousand times better, but that wasn't going to last.

No matter what I did for Lora, it wasn't enough.  She grew more and more jealous over my friendship with Kyle, but refused to tell me what was wrong.  Instead, she hid in her room and wouldn't talk to me.  I had pretty much given up by this point.  If she didn't want to talk things over like an adult, I wasn't going to force her.  Finally, in the middle of May, things came to a head and Lora informed me she was moving out.  I asked her to stay and talk things out, but she wouldn't.  She told Kyle he had to choose between me or her, and basically did her best to destroy everything.
Her flirting with Bryan had had exactly the effect she'd wanted it to...my husband thought he was in love with her, and the news of her moving out led him to inform me of that fact.  I broke at that point.  I just couldn't take anymore.  She was attempting to take my best friend from me, hurting both Kyle and I very badly in the process, and now my husband was ready to leave over this.  I couldn't do it anymore.  I moved back in with my parents the same day Lora moved out of the apartment.

The situation is still sending shockwaves through Kyle, Bryan, and I two months after the initial explosion.

Bryan realized (with some professional help) that he wasn't in love with Lora, just jealous of the honeymoon phase she and Kyle were in.  In his mind, she represented that.  He and I are trying to work through things, but we are separated.  We will see where this goes.

Kyle continued talking to me, despite Lora's ultimatum.  She found out twice: once because Bryan told her, and once because Kyle did.  Both times she freaked out and issued the ultimatum again, and both times it changed nothing.  He and I are still friends today, trying to regain at least a semblance of the friendship we had before.  It seems to be getting a lot better, but they are still dating as well, so there are points where we can't talk at all because she's visiting him.  We're kind of in a holding pattern, just waiting to see what happens here.  I truly don't believe it's going to last between them, since it's long distance and Lora has a short temper.  She ruins all her relationships.  I'm sticking around to pick up the pieces she leaves when she dumps him.

I am struggling pretty badly, in truth.  I've had a lot of help to try to recover, but it's hard when someone you've loved for five years...someone you've seen through a million different problems...just turns around and throws your heart back in your face like that.  She betrayed me worse than I've ever been betrayed by anyone, which is saying a lot.  It shattered me.  I went to some pretty dark places, became someone I didn't recognize at all, and took a lot of pain out on people who didn't deserve it...mostly Kyle, since he was completely innocent in all of this.  Bryan bore a lot of my anger as well, but he kind of deserved that.  This mess brought me to my lowest point ever, and I had hammered out an entire plan to take my own life.  It didn't end up coming to fruition, and I'm trying as hard as I can to recover from this.

I've claimed the song "Amaryllis" by Shinedown as my anthem for recovery, and I listen to it whenever I'm feeling negative thoughts.  It's my letter to myself, from the woman I know I am to the broken woman this situation made me.  If I survive the recovery, I plan to have an amaryllis bloom tattooed at the base of my neck with the words "The brightest flame burns quickest" (a Metallica line) curved around the bottom.  I will keep you guys updated on my recovery, among the other things that are about to start happening in my life.

Amaryllis - Shinedown

In a while now,

I will feel better,

I'll face the weather before me

In a while now,

I'll race the irony,

And buy back each word of my eulogy

All the uninvited tragedies

Step outside

Ask yourself now

Where would you be without

Days like this

When you finally collide

With a moment you can't forget

So do I remind you of

Someone you never met

A lonely silhouette?
And do I remind you of

Somewhere you wanna be

So far out of reach?
I wish you'd open up for me

Cause I wanna know you,

Amaryllis

Bloom

Stay a while now

Undress your colors

Cause they're like no others I've ever seen

I could get used to your company

Step inside

Ask yourself now

Where would you be without

Days like this
When you finally collide

With emotions you can't resist

So do I remind you of

Someone you never met

A lonely silhouette?

And do I remind you of

Somewhere you wanna be

So far out of reach?

I wish you'd open up for me

Cause I wanna know you,

Amaryllis

In a while now

I will feel better

I will be better

So do I remind you of

Someone you never met

A lonely silhouette?

And do I remind you of

Somewhere you wanna be

So far out of reach?

I wish you'd open up for me

Cause I wanna know you,

Amaryllis

Bloom

Amaryllis

Bloom

Amaryllis...