Here we are. Living life and suddenly you realize that it’s just you and your thoughts. There’s no one but you and 4 dogs at home to talk to. They are great listeners, but don’t challenge your thoughts. You start to spiral in darkness that you have created, but don’t realize it.
That’s how my first few days went after my wife left on deployment. Fortunately for me, I had set up A LOT of distractions to get me going on my own. The first was a trip I finally booked that I had been wanting to take since I was in high school. Life kept getting in the way and I finally took control and booked it. The down side was that my wife already had order to deploy and has no interest in music festivals. I also don’t have friends who like this music or would have been able to request the time off. No matter what, I was going to Defqon.1 in the Netherlands. FINALLY. That was a huge distraction for me. It was like being a kid and knowing the night before we were going to Disneyland. It was one of the best trips and hope to be able to plan to go again sometime in the future. If I hadn’t gone then and found out later that we were going to go into a multi-year pandemic, I would have regretted it for a long time. Luckily, for everyone going this year, it looks like it’s going to happen.
Anyway, it was an amazing trip that lasted about 2 weeks. It happened so fast and I was back home. Alone, again, with my thoughts. If there’s one thing I know how to do efficiently, it’s thinking, overthinking and drowning in those thoughts. The only way I know how to get out of this cycle is to distract myself. I was able to talk to my wife here and there when she had down time or when she was getting ready for bed. We had been married for a few years now and now we were in a long distance relationship. I was drowning in the idea that I was going to bed alone, waking up alone, living in this house ALONE. It was driving me mad. I think this is where I started spending way more time on social media than I ever had before.
I started getting updates for all these events happening in the next few months. I said, “Fuck it, I could use the distractions!” I needed them. So I bought tickets to EDC Orlando, Dreamstate SoCal and had tickets to see Bad Bunny in concert for his X 100 Pre tour. I got to meet up with people and get out of the house for a bit. I always had work or school to distract me or keep me busy. Work was slow and I was bored.
At ECD Orlando, I felt free, no weight on my shoulders and just worry free. All I needed to worry about was the music and have a good time. The problem was that I started getting flooded with the reality that my wife wasn’t with me doing all these things. Life was moving and we were both doing our things separately. I would drink and started to feel good, so I kept drinking. At one point, I realized that I had drank way too much so I wandered off and danced it off for a couple hours. Then it was just me, the music and bliss. That energy becomes a magnet to the people around you. Unfortunately, by getting to that point I had broken a promise to my wife. I wasn’t in full control at all times being intoxicated. I felt guilty about it so when I got back to my hotel room, I told my wife what had happened. She was so upset with me and I knew I fucked up. This was new territory for me since we were in an LDR, but I knew we had to communicate better than when she was home. Plus, I didn’t want to be living, what felt like, a separate life from her.
The festivals were all behind me now and we started looking at possibly moving. I was driving way too much to get to work and it was taking a toll on me. The traffic was unbearable. It was end of 2019 and we had no idea what we were walking into, but we ended up starting the process of building a new home closer with less commute. Which meant we were selling our current home and that meant I had to pack up our whole house on my own. Before moving in with my wife, she had already lived there for a few years. It was more her space than mine. Imagine having to pack up 10 years worth of a home. It was insanity. I had family come over and help me just throw things into boxes.
From beginning to end, I was completely overwhelmed. I cried out of frustration and just sucked it up and pushed forward. The house sold in February 2020 and guess what started? The lockdown quarantine. The new house wouldn’t be done for another few months so I had to move to an apartment. For some reason, it was so difficult to find a place that allowed me to rent month to month. When I finally found one, things started to shut down fast. I had no food and was in the middle of trying to unpack at the apartment. All while trying to keep up with my job and the fur kids. I was only able to keep 2 of them with me and the other 2 stayed with my parents. It was so many moving parts to this move. I think back now and still don’t know how I survived it all.
The rest of the time I was home alone, I basically spent packing, unpacking, more unpacking once we got the keys to our new home. Since the house came with no backyard landscaping, I had to plan to get that done before I could bring my other babies home. They were just as anxious to come home as I was to bring them with me. By the time my wife came home, I only had our bed, some of our closet unpacked and my office somewhat put together so I could work from home. Our entire old home was shoved into boxes into the new home’s garage. It was just a mountain of boxes from wall to wall. I did it all with no time off of work, except for a week during the move into the new house. It’s now 2022 and I am still burnt out from all that. Add a pandemic on top and you have a very chaotic year by yourself.
Pray for me or send me positive energy, please. I am still recovering.
–Featured image was taken by me while in Amsterdam in 2019.