5 July

So it's been a while. Months, half a year or more. Am I happy, has my life changed for the better? No.

I'm miserable, lonely, poor and wondering what the point is.

Christmas was uneventful. I didn't hear from him. I was glad but also annoyed that he wasn't thinking of me.

Another car died and I had to spend the  money I'd  put aside for any horse emergencies on getting another second hand car. I've already had to call the breakdown  company out. So no change there.

I had some decorating work done and its made a huge difference to my home and also to my pot of home improvement money that is now pretty much empty. Which is fantastic as my boiler has stopped working and I've had no hot water for a week. I've spent a couple of hundred pounds trying to fix it and there's a few more parts on order, but I'm facing a bill for a new boiler and that terrifies me.

I've had to move my horses to a new stable yard. It was less stressful than I was expecting and they seem happy enough. But I don't know anybody there so I feel out of place and even more  friendless than usual.

I lost my beloved Alfie on 8 May. He was 17 years and 6 months old and had been my shadow since he was a baby. It was sudden, he took a turn and he had to be rushed to the vets one night. He didn't make it home.  I was broken for a few days but it has made life a little easier as living with an incontinent needy dog was taking its toll on me. I will forever miss him and I feel upset as I type this. But it is what it is and he's now reunited with Ronnie.

Work is shit. Home life is shit. It's just groundhog day with the odd fuck up thrown at me to mix things up.

There have been some good things. Not many, but some.  I had my first ever meet up with a friend I'd made online and it was lovely to meet her in person and I hope we can do it again when my finances are less dire. I also have a lovely friend coming to stay with me for a couple of days in August. The first time we meet will be when I collect her from the train station so that's really exciting and also the cause of some anxiety.

And my sister has had another baby girl. And she's asked me to be godmother. Which is so flattering and such an honour particularly given that anyone that knows me will know how much I dislike children, especially  babies.

So that's me. Almost 2 years on from the worst day of my life and I'm still battling on. Ups and downs just like everyone else. Today is a down day, a really down day and the reason I've headed back here rather than have a major meltdown  at work.

I miss my diary and although it had started to feel like a chain around my neck after writing in it daily for over a year, I always have it to come back to.

Day ?

I don't know what number day it is. 500 and something? 600?

It's fucking groundhog day is what it is.

Every day is virtually the same, just with  varying degrees of shit and loneliness.

I haven't written in here since way before  Christmas, almost 3 months. It's not because I've been ok. It's because I couldn't be bothered. I've got myself into a huge rut verging on agoraphobia. Although I go out to work and the horses, the supermarket, but I always rush to get home.

I don't know why because there's nobody there. No partner, no child, no housemate, no friendly neighbour. No friends full stop. I'm really struggling seeing people go about their normal lives while I'm just a  bystander.

My car died this week. My bad luck hasn't abandoned me. Again I had noone to help, to give me a lift home or to the garage. I've had to buy a new car. No second opinion or advice. I don't have anybody to come and look at cars with me. I feel absolutely by myself.

I can usually keep myself in check but today its been really difficult. I've cried a fair bit. At one point I sat on the edge of my bed and for a brief moment considered ending it all. Which I wouldn't do. But I really wonder what is the point in my existence?

I make alot of jokes about being a hermit but it's a wall I've put up because I'm so crippled with insecurity about my appearance and my weight.  You have to make your own opportunities in life and I'm fully aware of that but.....I just can't at the moment and I'm spiralling behind the jokes and self deprecating comments.

I finally asked the doctor to refer me for weight loss surgery. The answer to all my problems, or so I'm telling myself this week. Of course as it was me and my crappy luck, the appointment was cancelled because of adverse weather so I'll probably never get the referral. It took alot for me to ask for help.

I dont expect anybody to read this as I haven't posted for so long but if anybody does, I apologise. This is the most disgusting self pitying entry I've ever written and it is not meant for sympathy so no need to comment. I hope I can look back in happier times and remember not to let it slide again.

I am my own worst enemy. I know this.

Day 508

It's been over 2 weeks since I wrote my diary. To begin with it felt great, like I was free of it, which is stupid because its something I've chosen to do , needed to do mostly, but I'd hit a wall so I stopped.

But I think 2 weeks is enough as I'm back. And I'm sad. And lonely. And upset.

I've cried quite a bit today. It filled the 2 hour round trip to work quite nicely. I guess it's Christmas. All the talk of shopping and organising and people being busy busy busy.  Then there's me. Alone unless I'm at work, not a bauble in sight. And yes I know I could decorate, millions of solo dwellers do, but for me I feel "what's the fucking point?"

I hate that I feel like this.  He's creeping back into my pea brain of course. I hate him, I wish I could be brain washed to forget him. But no such luck.

I'm thinking I want to spend Christmas day as though it isn't happening again. Rewind 365 days and I'm saying the same thing.  The logistics with my toddler niece and my dogs are not going to work for me. Last year they stayed in the boot of my estate car all day and came out whenever the baby went for a nap. Which was alot. This year theres no comfy spacious estate and the baby is mobile and not napping. Great. My parents live 30 miles away, I can't pop home to the dogs.  I will have to have a couple of hours of Christmas then go home to an empty house with no decorations while the rest of the world is enjoying themselves.  It would be far less painful if I didn't go at all. For me that is. It would make my sister feel bad which isn't fair as of course her child comes first.

I really feel like there is no actual point to my life. Nobody would miss me if I wasn't here, I wouldn't leave a hole. My family would be upset initially if something happened to me but they'd get on with it I'm sure.  I never hardly see any of them anyway. It's a struggle every day and what's the point. Work to live, not live to work. I'm not exactly living. Just existing, slowly dying each day.

God thats morbid. And I'm also embarrassed as the "family I hardly see" just text to ask if I want to meet for lunch at the weekend. Good old mum, checking I'm still alive.

I think that's enough now. Any more self pity tears and I really will look like The Grinch in the morning.

Day 492

I've been absent for a few days. 5 to be precise.

I've been suffering from a horrible cold so took the opportunity to ween myself off from my daily diary and it was ok. Mostly thanks to the distracting snot, sinus pain, ear and tooth ache but abstinence is abstinence!

Having a cold is so depressing. It's so minor...just a cold. I almost feel embarrassed to be knocked for six by one. I had to stay home from work on Friday it was so bad.  The inability to breathe or sleep does not make getting up at 4.30 in the morning and heading out in the cold to the stables that easy to manage. And of course there's nobody at home now that I can rely on to help me if I'm not feeling well. Not that the help I had before was worth much..but it was more than I've got now. 

So on Friday I stayed off work but still had to get to the horses. I set off around 7.30 having had barely any sleep and feeling really rough. It was not the morning to tolerate men in vans beeping their horn at me for no reason. So I lost it. Whilst in a jam on an almost single track lane, with said van almost beside me, I opened my window and let rip. I can't recall the exact sequence of events but I do know there was plenty of fucks, some twats, almost certainly some dickheads, a moron or two. Not sure about the C word but I use it like I do oxygen so it's probable. I recall I ended my rant with a fucking knob face to which the van full of 3 men broke into hysterics. At this point I closed my window and proceeded to mutter to myself with a lot of head shaking. 

Not my proudest moment and I'm very lucky that I didn't get thumped...or worse. Mind you so are they! 

So the weekend was spent freezing out with the horses then resting up at home and feeling sorry for myself. Not all that different to a normal weekend. Except with added snot. Today I was back at work and feeling much better although it's still lingering a bit. 

It's Alfie dogs 17th birthday today and I'm quite proud that I've cared for him so long although at this precise moment he is whining and driving me mad !!

Thoughts of Christmas Day are creeping in. Last year Gavin phoned me in tears me close to midnight and I was really pissed off. This year I know I will be pissed off when he doesn't phone me. Even though I don't want him to. Life is confusing. 

Day 487

I enjoyed yesterday's diary entry so much that it feels a bit naff to write about how tired I am today etc. So I won't write anything.

Other than to say I've had a lovely response to yesterday's facts and that I'm not the only toe counter!

Day 486. 7 Facts about Me.

This diary entry is going to be something different to the norm.

A friend on Twitter tagged me in a challenge to reveal 7 facts about myself. My first thought was that there isn't anything I haven't revealed about myself while writing my diary.  But with a little more thought I realise that all I have written in my diary revolves around me the poor victim of a cheating partner. Tears, drama, moaning, catastrophes and lots and lots of poo. Of the canine and equine variety I should just clarify.

So this entry is going to be about me. The me that isn't ruled by all of the above as all that shit doesn't really define me, at least I don't want to. Before I get started let me introduce myself. My name is Sarah, I'm 42 and I live in Devon. Here are some facts that you will not know about me. I can't promise they're interesting, but they're real.

Here we go.

Birth
Ok don't panic, this is not going to be a 5,000 page autobiography charting my entire life but the beginning seems a good place to, well, begin.  I was born in Queen Charlottes Hospital in London.  Soon after it was discovered that I had a defect and it was determined to be a form of spina bifida. I don't know the actual name of the defect I have as I never bothered to find out. I spent quite a bit of time visiting Great Ormond Street Hospital as a child and one year my annual visit actually turned out to be major surgery on my back. Again not sure exactly what was what but I believe it was something along the lines of untwisting some nerves or some such. I haven't had too many problems since but I do have a "lump" on my lower back just above my bum and it is unsightly and makes me large arse look even larger. I also have a huge scar.

School
You'll miss it when you're older. Best days of your life. We've all heard it. But do we ever listen? Hell no. I rarely went to school. I was a shit. A demon child and nobody was going to tell me what to do. I was extremely clever and that was half of the problem, yet I left school with no qualifications at all. But I had a good time. I was suspended from school twice and then expelled a month or so before the summer holidays. Gee! What punishment. 2 or 3 months off school dossing about. My poor parents. I cringe now thinking about it.

Feet
Nobody likes feet, myself included. Not even my own. They're big and ugly and I won't mention the h word (sounds like fairy). Yet I have this problem with toes. I have to count them. If I see feet I have to count the toes. I try not to look as I know it's weird and I have no idea where I've got it from but there it is. If you show me your feet I will count your toes.

Soy Medio Espanol
If you use Google translate, the way I did, you should see that I am half Spanish. This is because my my mum is from Spain. I have almost no family in the UK but a huge family in Spain that I don't really know. As a child I was a beautiful olive skinned Mediterranean muneca and it was clear that I was a little bit spicy. Nowadays I am mostly grey and barely recognisable as human.

Alcohol
I enjoyed a drink when I was younger. See school above. Anything I could get my hands on. To this day the smell of red wine conjures up the memory of my 16th birthday and the 2 bottles I had drunk and subsequently puked down my shell suit while I lay on the floor of the village car park. As an adult I'm not much of a drinker for various reasons, so this fact is that I have never tried Prosecco, Tequila, Pimms or even had a  G&T.

Gingers
I'm partial to a ginger and I don't mean biscuits, they're rank! Ginger hair. I always fancy the ginger. I had a ginger boyfriend as a teen. I chased him for months and he finally asked me out. After a week or so he was too clingy so I chucked him. Another ginger I was obsessed with turned out to be doing dirty things with his sister. The poor gingers at school always had a hard time but look at them now with their gorgeousness. I have ginger hair envy. Add in blue eyes and freckles and I'm in!

The hippy hippy break
Not so much break but dislocate. Yes people at the ripe old age of 31 I dislocated my hip. I fell off my extremely mahoosive horse and landed on my feet. Twice. The second time my hip said seeya and snuck out the back. Of the joint that is. A nice ride in an ambulance, the max morphine available and a week in hospital later and I was a minor celebrity.  Doctors, nurses and students kept coming to look at the young healthy woman who had managed to dislocate the largest joint in her body. Who knew it was such a rareity! I spent 3 months wearing a brace that meant I couldn't be at 90 degrees and I never jumped my horse again.

So there we have it. 7 facts about me that don't involve the usual mumbling I present. I wish I was clever enough to include links to the other lovely ladies that are also doing this, alas I am not. I've no qualifications don't you know!

Day 485

So I'm back. I managed one day not writing my diary and I felt like I'd lost a limb.

For a few months, since I moved house I guess, I've not had much to write as most of the pain and drama is behind me and lets be honest, writing a diary about putting the bins out or mopping the floor isn't really that interesting. So I decided to stop as I felt boring and committing it to paper was embarrassing.

But I've realised that I do still need it. Even if nobody's reading I still need to feel like I've  told somebody about my day.

So today for the first time in ages I cried. Perhaps its the time of year, Christmas is approaching. I don't really give a stuff about Christmas, it's one expensive and inconvenient day that's been so totally commercialised that it's become a bore. Other people on social media seem to be feeling it too, maybe it's rubbed off on me a bit, which makes me wonder if my moaning for the past 400 plus days has had an affect on anybody else? Sorry if so.

So I cried loudly for the duration of my 60 minute drive home from work to my empty house and my daily routine. Nothing changes apart from the unlucky shit that happens. I felt sorry for myself, alone, sad, resentful. Thinking about Gavin again, the stupid fuck. It's not that I'm missing him, it's the gap that I have. The hole thats left behind that I usually keep  hidden and covered over with my boring daily life. But it's always there. Lurking.

I hate that I don't know what he's doing. I want him to be lonely and miserable but he's probably loved up and happy with grab a granny or some other skank he's found. I hate that I even care. Arghg I don't  care really I just....I don't know what I feel.  Stupid mostly for still going on about it such a long time later.  I'm his past yet he's still my present no matter how far I've come since last year.

So one day without my diary and I'm a whimpering wreck crying about the same old crap and the same useless cheating waste of space. It looks like I'm back.