Slip Up: Falling into old habits

 I have a better outlook on the future than I ever have.  I got a promotion at work, my friends are great, I have a couple trips planned for this summer, and I am healthy.  But, my mind wanders when I’m not busy surviving. And so it seemed like the perfect time to text my ex. Then, there we were, strolling down Hollywood Blvd arm in arm...again.I have no illusions about this.  I know exactly what I am doing. I am spending time with someone who makes me feel comfortable and who also doesn’t want to be my boyfriend.  I felt good when I told him how well everything has been going recently. In this town, career success is paramount to anything you might achieve in your personal life and I capitalized on the small knife twist I could give, though I delivered it with the sweetest of tones. And then it turned into a whole week.  Where did that week even go? It was spent cooking dinners together and cuddling and inhaling each other’s scent and waking up and drinking coffee and wishing each other good days at work.  It’s fine though, I’ll be traveling this upcoming month for work and he’s heading back to New York for most of the summer. Part of life going well means I am very busy. So busy that I am often exhausted.  Being tired begets bad habits, like eating cold pizza at 11pm because I spent 6pm to 10pm with my pants off, scrolling Instagram instead of cooking dinner. I’ll take him because he’s here, while I’m busy; and I’ll be fine and back to normal and ready to meet someone when things slow down.I know how much I can handle and I take my substance abuse right up to the edge.  Just conducting some additional research. Plus, these rose-colored glasses look great with my outfit. None of this is my fault.He tells me the reasons why he’s wrong for me, just like every man I’ve ever cared about has laid out in neat little piles all of the reasons he doesn’t want me.  Because of this I tell none of my closest friends we’re seeing each other again. My social media accounts go blank when we’re together. Being secretive is rather fun I have to say, but when he says he likes it I start to hate it.I choose to forget these parts and make room for the yummy parts.  I fill the space with the ease of figuring out what we want to eat, planning movie nights, and looking at maps of places we want to go.  I’m teaching myself a hedonistic way of living—that this mess is fine for now and I’ll clean it all up later when I’m good and ready. A lesson I think you can only learn later in life, when you’ve realized that some things don’t actually matter. That my self-worth isn’t dependent on silly things like a solid relationship status.I’m living on the no woman’s land between a nunnery and chaos.  It’s quiet here and feels like I’m floating in a zero gravity chamber.  I won’t know it until it happens, but at some point rock bottom will make its way up to meet me in this limbo.  Until then...