2018, The Year of Me (and a whole bunch of other shit in between)

In a nutshell, 2018 was like the day I found out Milli Vanilli were lip synchers - total fucking devastation. Like, I'm talking, I whipped my Sony Walkman across the room and sobbed to Blame it on the Rain for hours. No Milli, No Vanilli, I blame YOU for making me a believer. Dicks. 

On the other hand, there was also a lot of magic that happened last year. You know, the kind of magic like when you check your Domino's pizza tracker and you see that Jeff has left the store with your order...and then you get a knock on your door. Total. Fucking. Happiness. 

Let me explain. I realize that those two statements are quite polarizing but truth is I'm on my period, and on the brink of needing an exorcism, so stay with me here. 

I guess the best way of explaining it is breaking it down into different facets of a single, 30-something year old's yes i know I'm almost 40, fuckers. I know my girlfriends reading this are thinking it so I'm just gonna say it. life. I see life as broken into 4 main chapters: Love, Money, Health and Career. 

So let's get started shall we? 

Chapter 1. 

Love: I'd rather jam a fork in my eye. 

"I quit. I hope he gets eaten by a bear." Were the last words I spoke on the day I decided to quit dating in April, 2018. I believe that was the day I melted down and also had an inevitable awakening. (Screaming in my pillow helped.) And I'm so, so thankful that I met that cheap prick, because he led me to the best relationship of my life...with myself. For the record, I put out. 

For YEARS everyone told me that 'you need to love yourself first before anyone can love you' and I literally would roll my eyes and secretly hope the earth opened up and swallowed them and their dumb advice. But, as I was deleting Tinder, Match.com (by the way I want my money back), OK Cupid and E-Harmony (why were all my matches in Buffalo??), a true sense of peace came over me. I wasn't glued to my phone in hopes that someone would message me to validate all of the things I so desperately wanted to feel about myself anymore. I wanted someone to tell me I was pretty, yeah sure, I got that, but it was also followed by 'show me your tits' and a whole bunch of other vulgarities that Satan's children wrote. I also wanted someone to be consistent because the men in my life have never been consistent. Yup, I got consistency...until their next distraction came along. In a dating era of 'but there's always someone better,' it's easy to feel like you're just not good enough.  

I could sit here and list all of the shitty dates I've been on, but my therapist has encouraged me to not revisit trauma. Trauma like the time my date showed up wasted, with beer and drugs in his pocket then called his mom and made me talk to her, then told me he was poor and ordered 5lbs of chicken wings to go after dinner, stuck me with the bill, then when I politely told him he could use my washroom he came out naked wearing my pink slippers. Yeah, like that kind of trauma. But it's Sunday. It's God's day. So I won't go down that dark path.

I repeated the same pattern, over and over and over. For years. It actually felt like a lifetime. And I'm pretty sure that's where my 'what the fuck' wrinkle came from in my forehead. It's deep. God, it's deep. The other day, my mom asked me where I got the scar on my forehead from and I blacked out in rage. I responded 'What scar?' Knowing full well that she was referring to the deep wrinkle in the centre of my fucking forehead. But anyway, I digress. 

But then something amazing started happening as I wiped those apps off my phone....I started living. Doing things on my terms and not waiting for anyone else to complete my happiness. I started living my life in a way that I never had. As the months passed, I literally started feeling like a different person. Well, not a totally different person, I would still stab someone for the last slice of pizza, but you get my drift. 

I started making decisions in my life that weren't hinged on 'but it would be so much better with a partner.' Nope. Fuck that. I'm not waiting around for anyone. I'm living life on my own terms. I make my own damn ass happy. (Jesus, this sounds a lot like a clip from Oprah's Super-Soul Sunday.) 

After months of getting to love myself, I realized I was capable and worthy of making big decisions. Yup, I threw on my first pair of wedgie-free big-girl panties and it's so liberating to not have them jammed up your arse, making you think all weird and shit. So, me and my bad-ass self have decided to move to another country. And as I sit here and type that message out into the world, I feel like I'm going to throw up on my keyboard. Like the good kind of throw up - excitement throw up. 

I got my UK citizenship (and yes, I look like I've come off a 5-state killing spree in my UK passport photo), and I'll be buying my first one way ticket to Bonnie Scotland in 5 months. Am I scared? Shitless. Am I wondering if it's going to work out? Um, yeah. Am I so freaking excited that my heart is gonna burst? Yup. 

Guess what though? Excitement trumps fear. Every. Damn. Time. I have zero idea what's going to happen, how exactly it will all work out, but fuck it. Now's my time. And truthfully, I don't want a partner to fuck with my vibe at the moment. 

Also...

Ahem, ladies, have you seen a man in a kilt? I just tinkled in my panties. 

Join me next week when I write about money and how I have none. 

Love, 

Me