# 9 - day 12 of solitude- some revelations

Okay, first off I'd like to say... This morning I was listening to the playlist and It's great! Thanks to everyone who added to it : )

Okay, so here's what I realized today. I wanted to spend 15 days in complete solitude...aside from work, of course. I wanted to take the time to have a lot of quiet time and work this thing out. But now that I'm a few days into it, I realize that where it's okay to have solitude, it's definitely not okay to have 15 days of silence. My friends, at least the good ones, are a very integral part of moving on. They're always here to talk to me, make me laugh, and make me feel like "Hey shit- maybe I'm a decent person after all". Sitting in silence can lead to groveling in self pity. Now don't get me wrong- it is important to spend time alone, and it's especially important to not jump into dating a slew of people, but your friends? That's your support system. The good ones, anyway. I mean, take this blog for example. The morning after my first posts, I woke up to emails from people who could relate to what I was going through, and people had already started reading this blog. So healing has been a great process for me, not because I've been alone, but because I had the support of all of you. But not just that- I was able to lend support to others. So...that's that. I will certainly still spend 15 days in complete solitude, not attempting to make new romantic connections. I will also not seek new friendships by posting ads on CL for friendship- every lesbian who does this (me included) is secretly looking for more and we know we are! But I will cherish the friendships that I've made with people who can relate, and I will certainly cherish the companionship that my friends have offered.

That being said, I'd like to share with you a little advice that my friend Carlos gave me last night. As I said, I talked to my ex yesterday, and for just a moment I allowed her to pull me with her "I love you's" and "It's miserable living without you's". Not two hours later she was with her new friend again, and I was once again looking and feeling like an asshole. I didn't get it- I called her yesterday about a bill that she's to be paying, I wasn't emotional or sappy- I was strictly business. Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend that one week after the break up- voila! I'm magically over it. But I will say that I'd found healthy ways to cope and felt fine with never being involved with her again. So why she would pull me back in...I really didn't understand.

Then I talked to my Carlos (Yes, that's right- MY Carlos, lol). And he told me that this is what people do during break ups- they pull the other person back in so that they can have control, and seek comfort in knowing that if they're ever having a bad day, you'll still be around to have sex with, er, comfort them. She may have no real interest in truly dating me again- okay she has no interest in dating me again- she just wants to know that if she ever wanted to, I'd still be there at her feet.

Thank you Carlos! I'm an Aries and therefore need some form of control. I certainly am no ones lady in waiting. That alone was enough to push me back into reality.

Second thing he said: Break ups are like dieting. You do really well for a little while, eating all your little fruits and vegetables faithfully, but then one day, your old bestie the jelly filled donut fills you with desire. You try to fight it, you want to avoid it, and dammit you know it's wrong! But you eat that thing anyway. Then you figure you've blown your diet, so you keep on eating donuts and other bad things. But there is another option. You can realize that you slipped up, but also realize that one slip up does not a diet destroy. So though you ate the wrong thing, you can just simply go back to doing the right thing and try harder to stay on the right track. Adriel was that donut. But the diet is still on, baby!

And lastly...If you had to have your finger chopped off, would you rather it be done with a machete, and done in 1 second, or severed off with a butter knife, a process that would take three days? Same goes with your relationship- once the lies start pouring in, it's time to acknowledge that it's over. Whether you end it swiftly or slowly, it's still going to hurt. But the faster you let it go, the faster you can begin to heal...and the cleaner the cut.

And lastly, from my very own advice vault- I realize now that what hurts most about being single is well, being single. It's not really Adriel that I miss...it's coming home to someone every day, the companionship, having someone to do fun things with, not having to hunt for sex, and knowing that when sex happens, it's going to be good. Okay, so I've never actually hunted for sex, but you get the point. I saw red flags very early on, but chose to ignore them. And yes, I fell deeply in love, but had I taken heed to the warning signs- things like going away with your ex for a week to a resort, less than a month into our relationship, and swearing to me that you're not sleeping with her. You know, little hints like that... you could seriously avoid disaster. So next time- heed the warnings! It's okay to be alone, and it should certainly be better than being mistreated.

So, that's it for now. I'm going with my best friend to a Disney Audition for her son. Wish us luck : )