How Time Goes By...

I have become horrid with keeping this thing updated. Life has been a whirlwind crazy-fest. Since my last post I have had three different jobs. Soon after the last post I landed a job at a local thrift store. It was a good job but I was sorting through incoming donations that oftentimes involved mold and mildew. I stayed sick the entire duration of working there and eventually quit. After taking some time off to recover, I went to work at my 3rd Sears location. On Christmas Eve of 2015, my wistful dream had come true. I began a relationship with my neighbor, who I'd been lusting over for the better part of the previous 5 years (minus the time I was in a relationship! Although honestly I went chasing after that particular relationship to try to get my mind off of my neighbor because it seemed like a relationship with him was never going to come to fruition.). Things were amazing! We were madly in love, and longing to make up for the last 5 years. He was finally on the same page with me, perhaps a little more.

I was miserable at Sears since my location had revamped my position to include the work of everyone elses' positions. Since we had been talking about marriage, my boyfriend began encouraging me to quit because he wanted to take care of me. Then by March 2016, we had gotten serious about getting engaged, had already picked out my engagement and wedding rings. He wanted us to go to NYC the next month so that he could propose. Also at the beginning of March, he became serious about me quitting...basically he wanted me to quit to prove that I loved him enough to rely on him. I was happy to quit, especially since it addition to how crummy the job became, it was a long commute for not that great of pay. ...but the pressure from him to do it was bothersome but I decided to ignore it. There had been some dumb arguments and temper tantrums he'd stir up prior to then, but I dismissed it as a part of a "condition" his mother always used as an excuse for his behavior over the years (oftentimes I figured she was exaggerating since she had a tendency to do that). By late April, we made our way to NYC and eventually got engaged while there (his temper tantrums and rages continued on the trip). At this point he had also moved in with my dad and I because his mom kicked him out. Why? Because he was spending a lot of time with me and often over at my house.

Things were getting worse, yet I was trying so hard to ignore the negativity because I was loved him and that's what you're supposed to do when you're in love. I was always questioned for the dumbest things because apparently it meant that he was more in love with me than I was with him. If I didn't exactly say and do the things he expected me to at the moment or exactly how he expected them, then he obviously loved me more than I loved him. Apparently I wasn't pulling me weight in love in the relationship. Things still progressively got worse. Despite living with my dad, the Fiance would become furious if I had any interaction with my dad, especially if Fiance wasn't right there. He was trying to seclude me from everyone but himself and his mother. Then he started the most idiotic, paranoid accusations that still make me sick to think about.

It's hard to go into details about it all but basically, the toxic relationship came to an end. Thankfully. I ended up learning a lot about narcissistic personality disorder and the world of emotional abuse...

But during the engagement, I had begun knitting what would be my wedding shawl. I stopped working on it for a long period of time because habits had changed (I hardly did anything that I used to during this period of time). I intend to do my next post about this project but I'm happy to report that I now have another job and begun knitting again.