I have fallen off the wagon. Or  more  accurately, I have vaulted with focus and determination from the wagon of moderation, control and possibly mental health. I didn’t plan it, although looking back I can see that I’ve been leading up to this moment all week. I am prowling the bakery section of a Safeway gazing at the displays of donuts, boxes of cookies, individual slices of cakes and cheerfully decorated cupcakes. My rational voice whispers, (from far back into recesses of my consciousness were it’s been relegated), “Why are you doing this?” And my emotional voice, the one that is in control right now responds, “Because Fuck it. That’s why.”

I don’t even know what I’m looking for, its been so long since I indulged that I can’t even remember what my favorites are…did I ever even have a favorite? I feel sad and a little lost not to have a ”go to” dessert, a fall back indulgence, a fail safe cheat. “What has my life become?” I wonder. “Maybe this is the problem,” I think and I slide my hands into the pockets of my jeans and I feel my new stomach muscles and this provides another opening for the rational voice to say ”Just leave. You don’t have to do this.” And I feel a moment of doubt about my actions, but it is quickly squashed with another eloquent “Fuck it! I’m doing this.” But I realize that I might better be able to control the rational side if I apply some rules to my fall. So I decide that I can get anything I want, as long as I can consume it all in this one night, because Monday I will start over, I will confess to my trainer and get back on the program. And that makes this night of over-indulgence ok. And it feels good to own this choice, this choice to jump into the abyss , and I know then that I will do it.  Fuck limits. Fuck calorie counting and “smart choices” and food journals. Fuck all of it. Rational voice, now pushed further into the recesses of my consciousness  wonders “why now, why this night?” But I’m not about to start inspecting my reasons. I’m excited now – its been months since I’ve given myself this kind of freedom.

“Ice cream,” I think  suddenly, “THAT’s my fall back dessert.” I head toward the freezer section and feel better for having direction.

I start at one end of the aisle and walk slowly, evaluate each item I pass.

I make it to the end of the ice cream aisle without having found IT. I turn and make my way back down. Ice cream cookies…maybe…individual servings of Ben & Jerry’s, a box of Godiva ice cream bites…possibly. I narrow my choices to half the aisle- the half that contains the individual servings of ice cream and the novelties. I’m pacing back and forth, casing the freezer case like an alcoholic outside a bar, waiting for something good enough to justify pulling the trigger. As I pivot on my heel to make another pass at the giant cooler my path is suddenly blocked by a family of plus size individuals evaluating the cheese selections across the aisle.  Then another family stands huddled in front of the ice cream cookies. I look around and realize that the formerly empty aisle is now fairly crowded with people.  “What the fuck?” I want to shout. I am completely indignant that they have interrupted my my moment. I have to bite back the words “Get out of my FUCKING WAY – this is my night, my only chance to do this and you are IN MY WAY!” I’m momentary unfamiliar to myself as I realize how irrational that sounds, but then I don’t care. But I take a deep breath and hover near the Popsicles (not even entered into consideration) until the aisle is again clear and I can resume my pacing. I start to get frustrated that I can’t find what I want, which is because I don’t know what I want. This is no small choice – you can’t fall off the wagon with a Weight Watchers single serve ice cream cup. There’s no glory in that. It has to be big, gooey, overflowing with calories and fat and sugar enough to drown out the guilt, to shut down certain brain functions. It has to be Absolute Decadence. My rational voice whispers ”That’s going to make you sick,” and I know that’s true, but I also know that I don’t care. I welcome it even, because then I’ll know why I feel hollow and gross inside. Which I think would be a nice change from now, when I can’t understand where this vague sense of depression and self loathing are coming from.

Suddenly inspiration strikes and I leave the ice cream aisle and go to the “dessert” case – where the cakes and pies and whip cream are kept…As I evaluate the options I realize I’m chanting Absolute Decadence in my head like a mantra.  Key lime pie? It hardly counts if its not chocolate. Chocolate volcano? It has to be heated up, too much effort. Defeated, I return to continue to stalk the ice cream aisle again. I’m starting to get frustrated with myself and my rational voice pipes up to say “You don’t have to do this. You can just go home, have one of the peaches you bought yesterday and go to bed.” “NO!” I say, almost out loud. “I’m doing this. I’m not going to fail in my attempt at self-destruction on top of everything else!”

I know I’m losing focus, won’t be able to fight the rational voice much longer, so I grab a single serving of Cherry Garcia and Mint Chocolate Chunk and I head to the checkouts. I drop one or the other of the miniature ice cream containers 4 times before I’m out of the aisle. As I walk toward the checkouts I start to second guess my choices, knowing I haven’t achieved total decadence. “Krispy Kreme!” I think and I go past the checkouts back to the pastry section. I arrive at the donut display cabinet to find a young couple standing in front of it, and I’m  immediately irritated. I circle around the displays of cakes and cookies in case something else might catch my attention, but no, it has to be a donut. The girl has wondered off, but the guy is standing there, door to the display case open, blocking the Krispe Kremes, not choosing a donut, but instead staring at them as if he doesn’t know what they are for, and I am completely overcome with a sensation that it is utterly and completely absurd and offensive that there are any other people here at all. I am filled with a ridiculous belief that in this momentous moment I should be alone in the store – alone in my moment. “Fuck it,” I say knowing I’m dangerously close to ceding control of my night to my rational voice, because I’m starting to scare myself with the number of irrational thoughts that are filling my head. And I know that to fail in this mission will be the final straw. I head back toward the checkouts, and see for the first time that no open line has fewer than 10 people in them, including the self check which probably has closer to 15 people. “WHAT THE FUCK IS EVERYONE DOING AT SAFEWAY AT 9:30 ON A SATURDAY NIGHT?!” I scream in my head. And I know, with absolute certainty that  to attempt to stand in one of those lines with my two measly containers of ice cream will put me over the edge – toward rational thought or insanity I’m not sure, but either way, it won’t be pretty.   I consider ditching the ice cream right there in the cracker aisle, but then think “its not the ice cream’s fault,” and so head back across the store to the freezer section. I throw them into the first freezer I get to and, free of my reason for being in the store, claustrophobia begins to set in. The store is too dark, too dirty, I feel like everyone is watching me and its getting hard to breathe. I head to the exit doors on that side of the store, focused only on getting outside. I walk up to the automatic door and nothing happens. I push against it, assuming that the sensor is just too slow, but it won’t budge. I try the door next to it, and it won’t budge either. I take a step back and run my hands through my hair as I suppress a scream and say instead,  ”I’m going to lose my mind!” I turn and now I KNOW everyone is watching me, so I speed walk back across the store to the other exit, wondering when this Safeway became such a dump. I burst into the parking lot, and gulp air as I craft Plan B – the Carvell Store near my apartment. I’ll go there and I’ll get an ice cream sundae.

As I drive over there I acknowledge that it is unlikely I’ll even eat half of the Sunday before I’m too sick or too full to continue. I fully acknowledge, for the first time all night that its a waste of money, of time, and of calories. But I don’t care. Its never really been about the junk food, and I’m ready to face that now.  I am not craving ice cream so much as a definable ill.  I just don’t get why I feel so…bad. So he’s gone. So what? I knew he was going, and technically we broke up months ago, and I’ve already done the processing, I’ve put everything in its boxes and put the boxes away, so why have I been plagued with this riotous concoction of anger, relief, fear, resentment, freedom for the past 2 days which has now simmered down to be just a pervasive feeling of…ick.

And now that I’m finally facing it, I know that its because this time it’s for real and forever. This time he’s on the other side of the world, fighting in a war because that’s the only place where he really feels happy. That’s the only place where his life makes sense to him. I get that now. There is a part of me that’s relieved, relieved because its so clear finally. Clear that it’s not about me, it’s not about how much or how little, or how well or how poorly I loved him. It’s not even about how much or how little he loved me. Its really nothing more than the old fish/bird real estate question: We are from two different worlds – two worlds that can’t be bridged. And so this is it. The real and final end, and I feel it in a way I never did before. And I know it is as it should be, and I know that I’ll be fine, better even than I have been. I know this in a way I didn’t the other times. And that, I realize as I pull open the door to the Carvel, is  why I can have this night, why I need this night of self destruction and gluttony. Because I have to embrace all of it and face all of it before I can fully move on. And if there is one thing that I am confident in, its my ability to move on from Army Guy.

Moving on has been a solid theme in my life for the past 6 months or so. As a result, pretty much everything I’ve done has been viewed through that lens.

As I wrote about in Moving and Moving on, Part 1 The Inauguration in January was one such events. And moving into a new apartment in February also became about not just the physical reality of moving, but also the emotional reality of moving and of moving on, specifically from Army Guy. It was emotionally exhausting as well as physically exhausting, and as a result, I managed to end up with the flu for moving week, which just made the already awesome experience of moving in the middle of winter that much better.

Major life changes, (ok, small life changes too) have always been fraught with emotional turmoil, and this was not only no different, but it was emotional turmoil to the 10th degree. I was moving out of a place where I had lived alone, and fairly contentedly, for several years, into a shared living space. As a result I was forced to downsize my possessions by a much larger percentage than  I would have if I were just moving into another apartment. Downsizing is a particularly traumatic experience for me because I am, in every definition of the word, a pack rat. I’ve always known this about myself, and I have generally admitted, accepted and acknowledged it with a mix of acceptance and self conscious humor. But during this move I realized that being a pack rat is about more than just not throwing stuff away. Being a pack rat is a result, and to some degree function of, being someone who assigns emotional significance to basically every object that passes through my life. 

As I picked up each object in my apartment and had to decide “keep or ditch”, I would remember why I had it. Generally, it was because I  had deciding that it would make my life better in some way. That I would entertain more, sleep more, eat better, date more, be warmer, cooler, cozier, funnier, more secure, more adventurous, less busy, more busy, more organized, more relaxed, more social, less social, go out more, stay in more, or in some other way move a step closer to the life I thought I wanted, or should want.

And as I remembered the specific expectations I’d imbued each object with, I would then immediately recognize the ways in which it had facilitated exactly none of those aspirations, and then debate keeping it for hope that it might still. This is not to imply that I was, or am, unhappy with my life. In many ways it is exactly what I want, but not always what I pictured. Which isn’t a big deal on a day to day basis, but can create overwhelming cognitive dissonance and painful moments of self awareness when one is forced to confront that gap approximately 7, 416 times while under a deadline. 

Eventually, as I realized my “keep” pile was far bigger than my “ditch” pile, I started to reevaluate my sorting method. I recognized that in many cases I had achieved some of the goals, but often without the use of the object, and without really even noticing. The “keep” piled thined a bit.

Next I evaluated if the aspirations painted on the object were still something I wanted. Pile thinned a bit more. Could I achieve them in another way? Pile thinned a bit more. But there was still WAY too much stuff left, and I hit a wall of emotional desperation.

Sitting in my living room, most furniture gone, surrounded by piles of “stuff” that for all intents and purposes represented my life, real and imagined, I found myself at a complete loss as to how to go further. I had parted, sometimes painfully, with SO much stuff…how could I possibly survive more loss? “Its inhumane,” I thought as the tears started to fall and heaviness settled in my stomach. “This is my stuff, and its good, useful stuff. Who says I won’t make fajitas with this fajita maker?!” I railed as I wiped the inch of dust off of it. “I could need this smoothie maker some day and I won’t have it, and then where will I be?” I ranted as I searched for the missing piece to the spout.

Eventually I forced myself to recognize that this was not really about the fajita maker, or the smoothy maker, or even, the coco-latte machine. It had even moved on from being about the failed aspirations of those items and their counterparts. It was, or had become, about a fear of what the future held, it was about the recognition that I was being forced to make repeatedly with each item: that things don’t have power to predict, or even facilitate my future, or to protect me from pitfalls and disappointments. I’d lived most of my life  with the sense of security that comes from a belief that things have power. But, I now wondered, did I still need that belief system? Where had it really gotten me anyway?

At that moment my eyes fell on my couch, which in theory I’d always believed was too small, but a mental slide show of nights spent chatting cozily with friends or snuggled up with boyfriends, told me that in practicem had been fine. I remembered the moment I’d started to suspect I was falling in love with Army Guy had been on that couch, when it had felt wonderfully cozy. It was on that same couch that he had sat, miles away from me, and told me he couldn’t see me anymore.   

I acknowledged for the first time that in moving out of the apartment, I was moving away from his ghosts as well, and felt both relief and sadness. Sadness because those ghosts of him were the last pieces I had, and in giving up those ghosts I was also giving up the fantasy I’d been quietly nurturing that one day I would again open my front door and find him standing on my porch. And I knew, finally, that it was time to MOVE ON. With renewed focus I thinned my keep pile to a manageable size. 

On the day I dropped the key off at the old apartment, I took a moment and said goodbye to the apartment, to that life, and a final and offical goodbye to Army Guy.  And for the first time in months had a sense of optimism and enthusiasm for the future, whatever it looked like without piles of random crap.

Too bad ”goodbye” isn’t always goodbye…

After I broke up with Army Guy everyone, and I do mean everyone from my closest friends to my accountant, predicted I would hear from him again. Most bets were for 4-6 months. I got an email from him right before Christmas, so everyone lost that bet. But everyone predicted he’d contact me to try to get me back, but in fact he emailed me to see if he’d left something at my apartment.

My initial reaction (aside from almost driving off the road when I saw the email on my blackberry (I didn’t mean to look at my email while driving - I was trying to make a call and it just jumped out at me), and after I pulled over, stopped shaking, started breathing again and got past a brief rush of tears) was that he was shockingly insensative and stupid to email me about something like that. But not trusting my instincts, I took it to a friend, and over tea (the great healer of all things) we decided he was in fact being insensative and stupid and even if he was attempting to reconnect he was doing it badly and so I returned a one line reply that I didn’t have what he was looking for.  

As I told a few people that I had heard from him, and more people voiced their opinion that the email was just a lame cover to reconnect with me, I became obsessed with finding out the truth. I spent many hours playing out the possible outcomes of emailing him and asking him, and decided that the best and easiest response he could give would be to say “no, I was really just looking for that disk.” The answer that would open a can of worms and be messy and hard and scary and agonzing would be “It was a lame excuse to get in touch with you.” So I emailed him and asked him point blank the day before I left on my holiday travels.

I got his response while stopped at a rest stop somewhere in PA, and in typical AG fashion he said “I really was just looking for that disk, but I also used it as an excuse to see how you were doing. Your brief response answered that question, sorry if i caused you any confusion.” What I got from that is that he just wanted to see if i hated him, b/c of his need to always be the good guy. So I just didn’t reply and put it out of my mind.

Then when all of the holiday hoopla settled, I started to obsess on the fact that by not replying it would look like I was disapointed or hurt or whatever. And then I started to wonder why I cared, and on my fourth long car tip in two week, I finally realized that while I’ve moved past the whole romantic hurt/disapointment, but what’s left is a feeling of embarassement born of feeling like I was scammed. For years I managed to see through all those “pleasing your attention Sir/Madam. I have come into large sum of money, but needing your helping for to transfer to USA. Much blessings on you for kindlyness.” And then I got an email with a Nigerian prince with proper grammer and he made a strong case and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find the catch in his argument. Finally deciding it was true, I gave him my bank account information and BAM! promises broken and identity stolen and I’m just left feeling stupid for having fallen for it. But oh well, I’ll get over it.

OK. That was the old – that’s the last moment I’ll spend looking back on 2008. I mostly wanted to acknowledge that everyone was right, and I did hear from him again, just not in the way everyone thought.

Moving on. Here are my RESOLUTIONS for 2009.

1. Lose  at least 20lbs thereby winning the Friends Biggest Loser Contest and winning $1000.

2. To spend more time looking forward than looking back.

3. To actively explore adjunct teaching positions at area colleges.

4. To build new friendships  and grow exisiting friendships.

5. To laugh or dance (preferably both) at least once every day.

6. To call my grandma more (or at all).

Somehow, the below blog didn’t get published – i must have gotten distracted before I actually hit the publish button. So even though its a little old, i’m publishing it anyway, just because I can’t stand the idea of deleting it after I spent time on it.

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I had planned to have today be the “first day of the rest of my life” (i couldn’t find a non-cliché way of saying that). I had set today as the day because yesterday I finished with a big, yucky client that was the last hold-over from my “old” life.

I probably should have know that today wasn’t the best “launching” day because I always feel like a big pile of crap the day after an event and today is no exception. It doesn’t matter how well the event went, I always feel blah.

But also, and this i didn’t see coming, I seem to have taken a step backward in my attempts to get over Army Guy. Actually I don’t know if backward is the right word, I’m just not over it yet. I’m usually over it much faster than this. I did have a revelation recently though, which might explain it. In general I’ve been pretty unhappy with my life as of late. In august, had a mini-break down over it with my parents, decided on some changes. Came back to my life, and started trying to make the changes, hit some roadblocks, accepted some distractions, and didn’t really achieve a whole hell of a lot. And then I met Army Guy.

The main motivation for staying the course of making a life change was that I was unhappy. Army Guy made me happy. Motivation for change…changed. Which isn’t to say a roadblock -  he was all for the change – he cooked up a plot that had me spending a significant amount of my time writing. I like the idea of that – of the writing, but also of him supporting me in doing that. For the first time, I kinda got the idea of what it would be like to have a “partner” in my life. So its not like I let go of the plan just because I met him. But the urgency, the sense of desperation that I’d felt previously was gone b/c the heightened sense of misery was gone. He made me happy. He gave me a million little bright spots throughout my crappy day. So much so that I hardly noticed how crappy my day was. If I was in a frustrating meeting, or stuck in traffic, or stressing over getting all my work done, at minimum I just had to think of him and I’d feel better. At best, I’d have an email, a phone call, or a plan to see him to get me through. Rushing to get work/housework/ errands done so I could have time to see him: easy. Rushing to get work/housework/errands done just so I can do more work/housework/errands: crappy.

Yesterday/last night at my event, every time something happened that stressed me out, or upset me or made me feel too tired to do another thing, my mind cast around for something good to think about – sort of like forcing yourself to eat your veggis by picturing the piece of cake you’ll get afterward. But there as no cake waiting at the end of my day. Just an empty apartment, a car full of shit that has to get unloaded, and a pile of work to attend to. And everytime my mind cast out looking for the “cake”, I thought of him, then remembered he’s not my bright spot anymore, and felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. This happened so many times over the course of the 14 hour event, that by the evening I was literally physically ill – as if i had actually been kicked in the stomach 37 times. (which mean a perfectly good dinner of crab cakes was wasted – BUT on the bright side, the venue had really nice bathrooms).

This sounds so pathetically “without a man my life is worthless” I want to kick myself in the head. But that’s not it. It just turns out that the thing that was my bright spot was a guy. Its an easy bright spot to have – lots of emotion and hormones make it a good pick me up.

I don’t want it to sound like I have nothing in my life that I enjoy or that I’m grateful for. I have so many wonderful people in my life, a fact I’ve been reminded of so many times recently. And I’m not sure why being aware of my blessings isn’t enough right now. In an attempt to be logical and avoid being any more dramatic, the only answer I can come up with that I miss?/want?/need? the adrenaline rush that comes from something new and fun in my life like a new man, which in honesty has been my drug of choice for years. But I’m also older, and my heart really is broken, and I just don’t have it in me to run out and find a fling to distract me like I did in my 20’s. But I think that if i can find something else to focus on, follow my own break-up advice and find a project to focus on, something that makes me happy, even if just a little bit, I might do better.

And I think if i keep reminding myself that I’m missing the symbolic role that AG had in my life, more than him personally (which on some level is definitely true), that should help.

_________Post Script____________

Before I could post this blog, I had to take a conference call and then I went on a walk and in general now I feel much better about everything, more specifically I feel more able to face the rest of my life – whatever that is. Mornings seem to be my “bad time”, so maybe I shouldn’t blog when I first get up :) A few minutes ago, I was looking through some pictures to find new ones to put on my eHarmony site (onward and upward!), and I came across some pictures of me and AG, and while I had a slightly nauseated feeling, I didn’t throw up, or cry, and I think that’s an improvement. And then I deleted all of those pictures. :-)

I was doing ok today, overall. I was processing quickly, and I was having revelations about myself and I was finding the lessons and I was doing ok. I was intellectualizing. I was focusing on the fact that I’m not scared to be single, I’m not mourning the loss of the relationship, but the loss of him. Army Guy.

He sent me something of an apology/explanation email today. And I sat on it for several hours, going through my day and turning it over in the back of my mind, trying to decide what, if anything, to write back. Late this afternoon I finally sat down and wrote a long email back. I said everything I wanted to say, and I felt good. Better than I’d felt in a few days actually, because I’d known something was wrong for a couple of days. And I kept that good feeling with me for a while. And I talked to my brother and processed intellectually. And I had dinner with a girlfriend, and I processed intellectually. And I talked about him. And I see now that that was an act of keeping him with me for a little while longer. And my girlfriend and I got off the topic of him and my relationship specifically and we started talking about abstract concepts of war and politics and the military as an institution. Her boyfriend is military, and we talked about what she knew from him and I talked about what I knew from Army Guy and it was a good conversation because it let me invoke him in an abstract way, but it let me keep him with me a little while longer. And I felt good. I felt whole for the first time since he told me he couldn’t see me anymore.

And then we exhausted that topic of conversation, and we talked about a few other things, and then my phone rang, and I didn’t take the call, but I remembered my phone – my blackberry, with email. And for so many weeks that blackberry has been my main connection to him. For so many weeks I’ve pulled up the email screen with only one thought “Will there be an email from him?.” This was my thought when he was here and we emailed several times a day because it was always a bright spot to get an email from him – to see what funny, or sweet, or interesting thing he had to share. And I thought this when he was traveling and I got intermittent emails because it was my connection to him. And I looked at my blackberry tonight, and I knew there would be no email from him. I knew, without doubt, he would not reply to my email b/c he has made a decision and he will commit to that decision and follow through on it in the way that Army Guys do.

And yet, a pang of disapointment when I scrolled through my emails and didn’t see his name. And then the pang became consuming, and I started to shake. There will never be another email from him him. There will never be another phone call, there will never be any more Army Guy. And I realized that the feeling I was having, the sort of anxious, nervous, itchy feeling, was the feeling I got when I was waiting for an email from him when he was off the grid or traveling. And I realized that I had a window of time where I could go without contact with him before I went into withdrawl.

I’ve developed a dependency on him – not literally, but emotionally. I can only go a few hours before I need a hit. I fooled myself today – I carried the unopened email for 2 hours. I contemplated my response for 4 hours. I spent an hour writing the response and 2 hours talking about him. I was tricking myself into thinking I still had him. But the empty blackberry reminded me of the truth. And I was literally in withdrawl. Shaking. Heart racing. Eyes burning. Itchy on the inside.  Its ridiculous. Its withdrawl. Its heartbreaking and aweful.

I wish my biggest issue was a fear or sadness at being single, because there are things to be done about that. Plans to be made to find another man. If all I wanted was another man to fill the void, I could have an action plan and that I could focus on to get me through the next few days.

But I don’t want any man. I want him. I want his deep brown eyes, and the shoulder that fit my head so perfectly. I want his soft voice with the twinge of southern drawl on the phone tomorrow morning teasing me about “sleeping in” until 8:30. I want to know what he thinks about the debates, and I want to hear the laughter in his voice when he provokes me with a conservative statement. I want to see him in his khaki t-shirt sitting on the edge of my bed while he laces up his boots before work. I want him. And he doesn’t want me. And there is a part of me that accepts that, and a part of me that just doesn’t. That doesn’t understand how he could walk away so easily. I know, because he’s army guy, that he was faced with a decision, he bulleted the salient points for each side, made a decision and acted on it. Its an adaptive skill that every career soldier developes. It is literally a survival skill. I get that intellectually. But emotionally, I can’t accept that. I think he’s crazy. I think he made a mistake, not just b/c I’m the jilted one, but because I think he made the decision for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. In his own words, it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the fact that he had invested more time into that relationship and had an opportunity for a do-over, and he was taking it. Nothing to do with me. How does that make sense? And how is that fair to her? And how is that going to work? And why do I care? I care because I care about him, and i can’t just turn it off. I’m afraid that he’s making a mistake and he’s going to regret it. And because I know that if that were to be the case, he would not be able to come back. I would not let him. But he knows that, and so he won’t try to come back. If it doesn’t work with this girl, I’ll never know. And its probably better that way.

I’m rambling. I’m intellectualizing, because it makes the shaking stop and distracts me from the feeling that something is missing from me. Its an actual feeling like I’ve misplaced my phone or my keys. But its just him that’s missing.

If i’m honest, I’d predict this will only last another day or so. I’d say its exaggerated b/c i only had about 4 restless hours of sleep last night and that if I sleep well tonight tomorrow will be better. It has to be. I have work to do. I have to get back to my life.