It’s like I’ve entered a different life. I never thought my ex would cheat on me, but he did. I thought we were going to get married, have kids, buy a house, travel. We only lived together for 6 months. The happiness only lasted 2 weeks before living together turned into hell when he first brought her up. I ended up moving back home to my parents during the shutdown, and I felt so alone and isolated. I can’t tell you the amount of times I just sat in my car and blew up in crying fits because it felt like the world around me was ending. I wanted to distract myself from what had happened to me. I had to stay home and suffer with my dark thoughts. I was forced to quit my job to move home, lost my apartment, my safe space. A month later my grandma passed away due to sepsis because doctors refused her surgery due to COVID. Her bladder was literally outside of her and they refused her. It felt like life wasn’t real, and I really thought about suicide. I’ve thought about it years ago, sure, but never like this. I’ve never been in this dark of a place. Things are better now, but I still have moments where I’m sitting in my car and wishing the world was back to normal. Wishing my grandma was alive, wishing I had a space of my own. I’m still fighting for my happiness, and it’s hard. I don’t like this new world, I hate change, but I’m adjusting. Ive found ways around it.

My best friend and I hang out at her place, we get spritzers and go up to the mountains. Now that I’m home, I see her more than ever. My boyfriend and I take drives to the middle of nowhere at night, we just sit in the car at the lookout point looking down at our hometown and reminiscing when things used to be normal, and what we did with our lives the 3 years we were apart (we were best friends in high school and dated for a short 2 months before we broke up). We’re all just trying to get by with life, and it’s hard. It’s so hard.