Drinking.

I stopped drinking.

For myself.  Because I can, and I feel lucky for that.

Where I am.

I don't know how to move forward from here.

I'm doing great.  Awesome even.  People keep commenting on how well I'm dealing with everything - I'm just pushing through, not laying in a bed with the sheets pulled over my head and a melting tub of ice cream sitting on the floor.

And one could even offer that I have nothing to be upset about.  Nothing happened, and here I am, and nothing is happening again.  Except the first nothing is a big fat something, and the second is a void.  A void that is becoming less of a black hole and more of a fence post hole.. but it's still kinda big.  It's a big fence post, k?

Maybe none of this makes much sense.  I've found that matters of the heart cannot be discussed using words.  There really isn't a word for love... which seems stupid, since obviously, there is.  But I can't really explain to anybody what is happening with me right now.

I'm doing active recovery... except with my emotions instead of my muscles.

You can't go back once you see a certain side of a person.  Or many different sides.  Often you only know the good of a person, and you see that one back thing that just breaks it.  In my case... I only knew the reasons why I didn't like a person, and then I saw reasons that made it for me.  And it's hard to go back from that.  I'm used to being the dreamer, the planner, the pusher.  And for once I was shutting down silly ideas, listening to plans that someone else came up with, and walking in the opposite direction (well, at a decreasing rate of speed as time went on).

And it was really nice.

I was being treated way better than any guy has ever treated me.  I felt like *one* person to somebody, and coming from a family as big as mine... well, even an overabundance of love doesn't really make you feel like *one* person.  Thing is, I love being surrounded by people, so I normally don't mind.  And I guess I never should have given in to that feeling, because it led to me feeling "too important".  And maybe I did.  Maybe I just needed to feel important, or maybe I just wanted to.  Not really sure what happened there.  But I sure as heck DIDN'T feel too important, I just wanted back whatever feeling it was that I had lost.  And maybe that's what it was.

Man, I'm really putting it out on the table tonight.  Well... I guess only people that actually care about me read this thing anyway.  So... well, you already know that I'm weird anyways.  And extremely ADD at times.  Hey, it's 1:30am.

Anyways - active recovery.  It hurts some days.  I'm still mad for most of them.  I'm not really sure what I'm angry about, so I'm assuming that that emotion is on the way out the door, which is nice.  I worry about what the future of this is going to look like all the time.  And I should stop, because that is the ammo that will destroy a friendship.  I just really wish this weren't happening.

My hope comes from the Lord

Psalm 147

 ¹ Praise the LORD.^[a]   How good it is to sing praises to our God,
   how pleasant and fitting to praise him!
 ² The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
   he gathers the exiles of Israel.
³ He heals the brokenhearted
   and binds up their wounds.
⁴ He determines the number of the stars
   and calls them each by name.
⁵ Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
   his understanding has no limit. 
⁶ The LORD sustains the humble
   but casts the wicked to the ground.
 ⁷ Sing to the LORD with grateful praise;
   make music to our God on the harp.
 ⁸ He covers the sky with clouds;
   he supplies the earth with rain
   and makes grass grow on the hills.
⁹ He provides food for the cattle
   and for the young ravens when they call.
 ¹⁰ His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
   nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
¹¹ the LORD delights in those who fear him,
   who put their hope in his unfailing love.
 ¹² Extol the LORD, Jerusalem;
   praise your God, Zion.
 ¹³ He strengthens the bars of your gates
   and blesses your people within you.
¹⁴ He grants peace to your borders
   and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.
 ¹⁵ He sends his command to the earth;
   his word runs swiftly.
¹⁶ He spreads the snow like wool
   and scatters the frost like ashes.
¹⁷ He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
   Who can withstand his icy blast?
¹⁸ He sends his word and melts them;
   he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.
 ¹⁹ He has revealed his word to Jacob,
   his laws and decrees to Israel.
²⁰ He has done this for no other nation;
   they do not know his laws.^[b]
   Praise the LORD.

I don't understand a bulk of this psalm.  Mainly because I can't get past the part where it says to put all of my hope in God's unfailing love.  Why can't I get that tonight?  I think that in the midst of feeling like another humans love is failing, it is so difficult to understand that God's love doesn't do that.  And maybe it is because I am so used to guys just "deciding that they do not love me" that makes it so impossible for me to accept it when I find someone who is trying to.

Love shouldn't be this hard.  I don't understand why I can't just let go like I've been doing for the past few months.  I can't understand why this is so different.  And I can't understand why there are a million reasons why this has to be so much harder.

My life is overwhelming right now.  I'm not giving up, I'm not stepping down, and I'm okay.  But the amount of strain that it is putting on my relationships is tremendous.  My life is full of amazing potential, but as always, I am the exception to the rule, and trail blazing my own little path is just... difficult.  Thankfully, people have faith in me, but their faith in my plan is lacking, which makes everything extremely hard.  I feel so incredibly blessed that I have the amount of support that I do, but it's funny how no amount of support can make up for the lack of support that you receive from someone else.  Which only proves that my focus is not on the Lord, because his support and approval are all that matters.

Which is exactly what I'm going to keep telling myself.

I'm going to beat this.

I can't even blog about most of the problems in my life, because I don't want to start stuff or spread crap.

But I need prayers.  And a lot of them.