I didn’t end up meeting with Brian on Saturday.

Everytime I thought about meeting up with him, I just felt so overwhelmed. A tidal wave of emotion would just hit me. I thought about it all day on Thursday.

Meet him or not. What made the decision even harder for me is that I didn’t know if my desire to not meet him was linked to my general aversion of people or if it was really the grief doing it.

As you have probably guessed, I have an anxious-avoidant attachment style which means that although I crave intimacy and connection with others, I have a deep ingraved instinct to pull away and self-sabotage…

And now I can’t help but view my feelings of relief, and lack of guilt, under a more critical eye…

Brian texted me back that same night: Ok, that’s cool just let me know.

and then:

Just make sure we stay in touch

He placed the ball in my court - basically saying that he’ll be waiting on me to make the next move… I’m thinking about reaching out to him in early July - maybe after the fourth of July. I’ll text ‘How are you?” and renigte our coffee meet up plans….. I don’t know.. I need more time to think things through.

Last weekend, I had plans to spend my time reading - I did read a little, but mostly I ended up twisting up my hair, and focusing on ways to simplify my life. I’m finding the most simplist task to be so difficult. I’ve gained weight. I can feel it. Instead of going to the store and finding a few items to buy, I instead lay around on the couch. I don’t take walks anymore and I haven’t gone jogging at all since I got back from France. I feel useless. I don’t feel like myself at all.

I need time to stabilize, but nothing is working. I had my french tutoring lesson on Sunday - and it went… okay. I told my tutor that I lost my dad. I found it difficult to communicate this information to her in french so I did a mixture of french and english. She was very sweet and nice about everything but after we finished talking - she suggested that I don’t shoot for B2 in October but instead take the B1 exam…. ugh. The entire reason why I didn’t take the B1 exam exam last week in New York, is because I thought we could get me ready for B2 in October - but she’s saying that she can’t confidently say that I’ll pass it but she knows that I’ll do well in B1… I guess. I also feel pretty confident as well. I’m going to work on making a study plan when I get home from work.

I weighed myself this morning. I’m 223. This is insane. This is beyond insane. Before my trip to france I was 216. When I got back from france I was 220. Now I’m even more than that. I started counting my calories today - this morning. I logged my breakfast and lunch. It was easy peasy. But I remember the last time I tried to do this - I found it frustrating and annoying…. I’m not sure why I thought that before. I instantly felt calmer.

I’m noticing a pattern. I have been very plan focused. French plans, weight loss plans, hair maintenance plan, and today I’ve been thinking about making a cleaning schedule…. what the hell. and I can’t even get upset about it all because I do need to do this - I want to get back to under 200, I want to keep my hair together by doing very low effort maintenance, my house is a mess - I need a schedule to keep things together… and my french progression is very important to me.

I need these things, but I also see that I’m grasping for control while my emotions and behaviors all over the place. I can never predict what frame of mind I’ll be in from this hour to the next.

I sincerely hope the plans will work. So far - the only one I have so far is the hair plan - which includes keeping my hair in two strand twist for a year, washing weekly, moisturing daily, and retwisting monthly. Prefect! Simple.

I’m still building out the weight loss one. I think it includes weighing daily, counting calories, and that’s it.

French and cleaning plan will be developed today. I’ll let you know.

Olivia