I have made it through Lent without any fast food. Unless you count the coffee that the Dude brought me and another that I bought. I choose to not count it.

I think my fast food avoidance has net me a total weight loss of … a pound. So that’s frustrating.

I’ve had a job I have loved. Adored. And done really good at. You know the feeling of satisfaction from when you know you are just rocking something out of the park and really using all your skills to help others?

I had that.

Until several of my students threw me under a bus to my boss (complaining about grading). That hurt. Not that they complained, but that I thought I had teacher/student relationships built up so that if they had questions they would come ask me. I was actually working FOR them and it bit me in the ass. So the joy of work went out the window.

Then the Dude admitted he cheated on me.

Which.

I knew. I mean, in the way you know without KNOWING you know.

But he told me because, as he said, “If you can forgive me and love me, I want in this with you and I want you forever.”

My heart clicked. I knew I would forgive. I didn’t know when. But I knew I had it in me to forgive at some point. Forgive the past, for the future I wanted. Nothing in my life has ever come without “the bill“. Get engaged, buy a wedding dress, grandma dies. Dad has a stroke, I get married. I get pregnant, Dad gets cancer. I buy a house, grandma dies. This time, at least, the karma seemed to be settling in quickly.

Then the Dude changed his mind. No. He doesn’t want me as his love, he wants me as his friend. Everything I clarified in that conversation about forgiveness. Gone.

I am left with a brand new life. Eventually.

Right now I am crippled with shame.

Yes Brene Brown. I said shame.

I am ashamed that all I want is for it to change. I am ashamed that all I want is him. I am ashamed that I am at the end of this chapter and the page is ragged and old and unoriginal and, frankly, goddamned boring. “Oh, you got dumped on your ass and you are all hurt. Did you not hear the music of DOOM? Did you choose to just ignore it? Seriously? Seriously! and now you are whining on your blog about it like you expect people to give a shit? Fuckin’ A, Dude.”

Today I am petty and spiteful and not loving at all. Yesterday I was drunk. Today I slept. Tonight I will sleep some more.

I have to decide if the Dude gets to be a friend. If he gets to know Alex anymore. I have to decide if he gets a place in our world. That’s the first thing I have to decide.

But first I am sleeping. I am sleeping until I am rested enough and the edge is off this pain. Everything between now and that edge off . . . I am doing well to just keep breathing.