What is my life doing to me?

That is the question that runs through my mind at just about 11:03 a.m. everyday. Before that I'm too sleepy, groggy, consumed by thirst and hunger to care. After that I get distracted by the piddly amount of work I've scrounged up to do in exchange for health insurance, the vast ridiculousness of the intertubes, eating, breathing, blinking, telling the dog to quit whining (for really no reason at all), and loving my love.

But at 11:03 a.m., I wonder where I went wrong, if this "wrong" is a cleverly disguised right, why has this past year gone this way? It is my late-morning moment of panic, followed by the zen of either not truly caring or being too overwhelmed to think of it past 11:05 a.m. If I think too much, I will need to medicate myself with substances the doctor assures me are normal and safe and didn't cause the monkeys who they tested this crap on to completely lose their shit. So I stop thinking; ignore the pills that have collected dust in the medicine cabinet. But deep down, my soul doesn't stop rolling this all around. My life has become some sort of oddity that I could not have conceived on my own.

Last year at this time, as it is with most years in my life, I was completely unrecognizable from who I am now. Sort of. But the me of two years ago would've wondered what the hell I did wrong to end up the way I was a year ago, and she sure as hell would've been confounded, as I am, to see me now. Two years ago me didn't have it all figured out, but she sure as hell felt a lot closer than she is now. But maybe that's not entirely true. Looking back makes that timeframe seem like it was better, but after a moment I realize that I wasn't so happy then, either. Is this the scourge of my life? To eternally be miffed about my state, station, and function?

One year ago I was working far too much for far too little. I traveled every week, barely saw my newly purchased loft (the one I had always dreamed of owning), my sweet three-legged rescue pup, and my boyfriend of nearly three years. My job consumed me, and not in a good way. I didn't come home from work exhausted but happy with what I did that day. I trudged through the days, tied to my phone, my email, my work, without gleaning a whole lot of joy out the experience, and came home exhausted and unhappy. I bought a car that I could barely afford, thinking that a sweet little dark gray convertible sitting in my parking spot would somehow, in someway, make me happier. It did for the half hour I traveled to and from work everyday of the week along the Pacific Coast Highway (if you're going to drive a convertible, it's the road to drive). It did not, however, during all those weekends spent in a crappy hotel room somewhere in America, alone, with a Chevy Aveo rental parked in the lot and the corresponding gigantic key chain rattling in my purse reminding me that Alabama plate ED3 K4J was all mine to loathe. Somehow during that time my boyfriend and I became roommates. My dog and I became mere acquaintances, not the best friends I had hoped and dreamed we would be. My boyfriend and my dog, who were together everyday--they were best friends. I was the outcast who occasionally whisked through the loft with either a suitcase full of dirty clothes or clean ones, depending on which way I was walking through the door. I was a loner both in hotels and at home.

But I had a job. I could pay a little more than one-third of the mortgage with HOAs tacked on. I paid my bills. I bought things, painted the bathroom, gifted myself shoes when I felt it was necessary, walked the dog when I had an afternoon off (usually once a week), and I tried to act like this is how life goes. My boyfriend, the sweet, understanding, team player that he was, always picked me up from the airport. He let me sleep in if I could. He walked the dog twice a day, everyday, and worked from home, always there whether I was or not. When I had the rare weekend off, he would take advantage and go with his friends on a motorcycle trip. He deserved time away with his friends, away from the everyday responsibilities of home. I relished the time at home, alone, with my dog. But then I realized that this isn't how our relationship should be. I did not appreciate my boyfriend in the full "romantic relationship" way. He was patient with me to the point that I felt guilty about it. I didn't have the affection for him I wanted to have. That he wanted me to have. Everything else was perfect in our relationship: we laughed at the same jokes, liked the same music, enjoyed the same things, understood each other, never fought, were best friends… But all those perfect things don't make a perfect relationship. He needed a girlfriend when I needed a friend. I needed him to be there, and he needed me to want to be there with him. Guilt. Constant guilt. Not that he ever made me feel guilty--that was all me. I realized there was a point that I was guilty of taking advantage of him for all his goodness and not fully paying him back. He absolutely, unequivocally deserved more. At what point could I pry myself away from my needs and address his? Soon we realized what had already happened: It was too much time away. Too much living without each other that made us realize that we can absolutely live without each other. When you realize that, it's already gone.

I went to Europe with one of my best friends in the fall. We had planned the trip for months, and it came at the right time: right before I got laid off and just as my relationship with my boyfriend was completely unraveling. The night before I left, he and I had a long discussion about the fact that we were too far gone to resurrect. We ate dinner with tears in our eyes, half relieved to have had the conversation and then the rest sad that what could've been would never be. It was over, but before we could make any rash decisions, I had a flight to catch in the morning. I flew to London and met my friend as she disembarked her flight an hour later. We saw London, we went to Paris, we laughed, we drank, we ate, we shopped, we drunkenly kissed French bartenders after far too many free shots, and most importatly I felt alive. I felt happy. I felt like the me I want to be. No deadlines, no overhanging guilt, no worries, no stress, just me and her traveling around and bringing our special brand of whatever it is we do across the pond. I needed it more than I could've imagined when I booked the flight months earlier. When I boarded the plane pointed west 10 days later, I felt revived, but then panicked as we neared California. The fun, the frivolity, the European carefree me was about to go through a very real, intense American breakup. Division of things. Moving of stuff. Figuring out of life. What I would've given for a big rewind button and a well-timed 'pause' about three days beforehand.

I got home, got un-jetlagged, and we had "the talk." The final talk. The one where I cry because I'm sad, because I feel bad, but I know it needs to happen. The one where he cries because he tried with everything he has to make it work. We cry because we're losing our best friends. But it needs to happen. You can't move on if you're holding on to something. He and I let go. I say I will leave, he says I can stay until I find a place, but not to overstay my welcome. My best friend had never said anything like that to me, and it stings like a bastard still. But he's hurt. If that's the worst I get from him, I consider myself lucky. I go back to work two days later and find out that my job has been terminated, effective immediately.  Forty-eight hours is not long, except for those specific 48. Funny how life can carry on for days, weeks, months with nothing of note to speak of, too boring to even write it down in a dowdy plain-faced journal, and then, like a garden hose that's been left in the sun for too long, it just suddenly breaks loose and your life is flooded with…well, life.

You this this is long? There's more...I'll post it later so that I'm not responsible for your eyeballs straining so badly that you have to call in sick to work and can't even focus enough to watch that 14th consecutive Teen Mom marathon on MTV.