Restoring Normality

I'm feeling a little better today. I don't mind admitting I was in a right old state yesterday, over something that ordinarily wouldn't bother me all that much.
I'm still hurt. And I still feel completely and utterly used. Not something I'm used to feeling like. And to be fair, I don't quite know what to do with it.
I suppose my one benefit from it all is that once again, it has enabled me to learn something about myself, and how I'm ever changing to dealing with things.

My usual previous approach to finding out that I was excluded from the wedding invitations after being friends and living together and bending over backwards to help Sarah when no one else would give her the time of day would be to get angry. Very angry and bitter. I'd usually do nothing but gob off about what a bitch she is and how she just uses people for her own ends and then fucks them off when she's finished or they have expended their usefulness.
Which of course is the truth of the matter. But imagine that statement uttered repeatedly in a very angry and threatening tone for hours on end, and then brought back up over and over again, and you would be somewhere close to my usual reaction.
Ironically, without consciously thinking about that, I've progressed from that usual 'angry' reaction to something a little more civilised. Probably something that normal people in this would would react like. Admittedly, I was obsurdly upset about it, which wasn't completely normal, but completely fueled by the evil that is the raging hormones of a period.
I guess what upset me a little too was my inability to actually get angry about it like I would usually do. I know that sounds weird as I've admitted my anger was one of my very bad sides and I've tried all I can to change it, so why in a situation like that want to go back to it? I don't know.

In a positive light, I feel like my general progression over the past few months has been incredible. How I feel inside, and how I react to situations now is completely different to how I used to. I'll do my best, but I don't think I can completely understand it, only offer what I think might be an explanation in some sense.
I would just completely blow my top over the slightest little thing. If something didn't go in a way which I thought it should go, or would have liked it to go, or how I expected it to go, I would just get frustrated, would try to deal with that inwardly, and just end up angry, and project that to the world as angry outbursts. I'd feel like the world was against me. I guess that as incredibly happy and in an absolute bubble of wonder and joy and amazement with FT, in every other aspect of my life, I was far from happy. And in the end, that made the pressure on our relationship too much, and the rest has its story as you know.
I was scared and angry. Not an excuse to be an explosive little fuckwit when I couldn't deal with things, and I'm not trying to make it one, but it's the reason.
I had a real problem with 'society' as it were. The fact that people find it so hard to accept others for who they are rather than for their sexuality, skin colour or gender. And I felt powerless to do anything about it. I just hate the fact that there are these preconceptions about how people should be, and if you don't fit that category, then the fact is you face a harder time in your progression through life. You have to fight for better pay if you're a woman. You have to fight to get a job if you're not white. You have to fight for acceptance or put up with shit if you're gay. And I hate it. I still do. But before, I think the main factor for me was coming out to my family, who have some pretty traditional British views (they're all royalists for christ's sake). I've said it before, but I felt angry that there was even this 'coming out' issue. In this day and age, there sure as hell shouldn't be one. If society presumed everyone was bisexual, then it would come as no surprise, or issue if someone brings home a partner of the same sex.
I've covered this point before, in great depth, but it was the fact that I was scared, and not 'out' to my family, and was so worried about their views that contributed so greatly to my anger.

I'd always of said I was a pretty easygoing individual, fairly chilled, but yes, did have the potential to get angry and go off the deep end. I'm not saying I don't have that now. I don't know if I do anymore. Time will tell.
But one thing's for sure - I don't feel angry inside all the time like I used to. And I suppose it's only really now I can realise how destroying and dysfunctional that was. It's only now I can see just how angry I was. And even I'm surprised. I just really don't feel like that anymore. But my old logic tells me that I should still feel angry because I've lost the one thing that truly makes me happy. Possibly the only thing that kept me from a complete mental breakdown and letting anger and fear consume me completely was FT. I tried to run away from the things that were making me angry. The way things ended up, I had nowhere left to run. And I lost the one thing that was running with me. I feel like I was just running and running, and one day I looked round, and I'd run on without her. I felt like I was lost in the middle of the woods, surrounded by big trees and two paths. One to keep on running, and yes, it would have been on my own. Or one to step forward and stand up on my own and stop running. If I'd run, the anger would just have followed me. And I would have just got even more angry, because I didn't have FT by my side.
I didn't want to run forever. That was never my intention. I never wanted to be the woman who was scared to stand up and be herself, and I never wanted to be angry because I was scared.
I wanted to be someone I could be proud of. And I wasn't. Not by any means.
In my eyes, there was absolutely nothing to be proud of. I wasn't being the real me, I wasn't standing up for what I wanted, or what I believed in. I'd just got angry and pushed the one person I'll ever only truly love as far as she could go.

Metaphorically speaking, I'd lost it all. I'd lost FT. I'd lost my life. The one thing that was stopping me from turing into one big ball of anger. Worse than that, I'd lost my self respect. Only I could get that back.

And that's been my journey. I'm by no means finished, I'm still going. But this is about getting my self respect back, and being the 'me' that I always knew I was inside, but too fucking scared to do it.
And this is why now, I can look back and see why things happened the way they did. I can see why FT and I had to be where we are now. Because I had to do this, and travel this on my own, by myself. My love, respect, faith and devotion to her has never changed and never will (a matter to be covered in my next post), but I'd lost it for myself, and I needed to get that back. And that's what this is about.
Sure, the last thing I wanted is for FT and I to be where we are now. I've always believed we're meant to be together, so not being right now is soul destroying. But I can't change what happened or go back and do things differently. It's not a luxury you get in life. But I can learn from it all, and make damn sure I don't make the same mistakes from here on in that have destroyed my perfect world. Where we are now, is definetely somewhere we both needed to be. And we're getting on a lot better for what we've learnt so far. And we're still learning. We're seeing how things go, and just enjoying how things are right now. And right now, I wouldn't give that up for the world. If we're meant to be together, and end up together, we will be, and I have absolute faith in that fact.

I can't believe that for a few months now, my compulsion to feel angry just isn't there anymore. Not when for so long it felt like something that was such a big part of me and who I was. I think now I really can testify to being 'chilled' and 'easygoing', and I take things in my stride a lot more than I used to.
I had an incident with my £250 Tom Tom the other week, where it completely froze and wouldn't turn off, and the screen looked completely screwed. It can't be taken back to the shop, as when I bought it I had to sign an agreement that if there were any problems I had to send it back to the manufacturer directly. Now the 'old me' would have completely gone off on one, hitting it and slamming it, and swearing and been like 'great, what a fucking waste of £250, and now it's going to be such a stress to get it fixed' etc, with many more swear words rammed in. Whereas my actual reaction was 'oh well, guess I'll just have to try and sort it out, nothing I can do now, just leave it as it is, and have a look tomorrow'. I plugged it in the next day, and it was working right as rain. But that's one example of the change in me, and my reactions. The anger wasn't there, and it made a difference. A big one.

And it's similar with this wedding invitation thing, whereby my old reaction would have been lots of swearing and calling Sarah every name under the sun, because I'd be upset about not being invited, and feeling used and things, and that would result in anger. When in reality, and in actual fact, I don't really feel angry. Just disappointed, and extremely upset. I'm upset that I feel like I've been used, and upset that I had more faith in human good nature than perhaps I should have in this case. But I'm not angry.

Yes, I'm upset, but not angry. Well, yes I'm gutted, and still feel completely used, and in a sense, am wondering why the 'nice guys always finish last' scenario seems to be so extremely true.

But on the inside... at least part of me is smiling... because I'm not angry! And that my friend, is progress! And that's something that no one can take away from me!