Today is Thursday.
On paper, this is still a normal week. She would’ve been with her dad anyway, I would’ve gone through my usual routine, nothing about today should feel different.
And in a lot of ways, it doesn’t.
But what’s normal on paper doesn’t always match what it feels like inside.
My daughter is waking up in a hotel in Oklahoma City while I’m waking up in my house, and for the first time since she left, we’re not even starting our day at the same time. She’s an hour behind me now, and by the end of today, she’ll be two hours behind.
It’s just time zones, but it doesn’t feel like just time zones. It feels like distance layering itself in ways I didn’t expect, like even the small things that used to feel shared aren’t anymore. I wake up and she’s still asleep, my day starts before hers does, and by the time she’s moving, I’m already hours into mine. My brain doesn’t just register that, it reacts to it.
At the same time, I’m logging into work. Same desk, same headset, same expectations. Sales doesn’t slow down because your emotions are louder than usual, it doesn’t adjust because your attachment system is lit up, it just expects you to show up and perform.
Last week, I dropped to number two, and that shouldn’t have been a big deal, at least not logically. But with my kind of brain, things don’t stay small. It becomes a trigger.
Not because of who took number one. He deserved it. He came out strong this month, built a gap I didn’t think I’d close, and I wasn’t bitter. I was genuinely happy for him. We were in training together, he’s a good person, a good husband, a good father, and he struggled last month. He needed that win, and I meant it when I felt happy for him.
But that didn’t stop what happened in my head.
Going from number one to number two didn’t just feel like a number shift, it felt like something about me shifted. Like maybe I’m not as good as I thought, like maybe I can’t maintain this, like maybe I’m about to fall off and everyone’s going to see it.
That’s the part of my borderline brain that doesn’t get talked about enough. Two things can exist at once. I can be genuinely happy for someone else and still spiral about what it means for me.
And all of this is happening while my daughter is crossing the country, while I’m checking her location, while I’m watching the miles, while my brain is trying to hold onto something it can’t physically reach. Abandonment doesn’t have to be real to feel real. Distance is enough.
Then last night, after all of that, I got a text, a screenshot from my team leader, and there I was, back at number one for the month.
And I just stared at it.
Because it didn’t land the way I thought it would. It wasn’t relief, it wasn’t excitement, it was more like a disconnect, because the external proof didn’t fix the internal feeling. I don’t feel confident, I don’t feel steady, I don’t feel like I have this figured out, but the numbers say otherwise.
And this still hasn’t fully hit me yet.
Because today is Thursday, and this is still technically normal. She left on Sunday instead of me dropping her off at school on Monday, but the structure of the week hasn’t changed enough yet for my brain to fully register what’s different.
Tomorrow is when that changes.
Tomorrow is when my boyfriend doesn’t pick her up from school and bring her to me, and tomorrow is when the absence shows up in my routine. With the way my brain works, routine changes don’t feel small, they feel sharp.
Because this is what today looks like, she’s waking up an hour behind me, I’m starting my day ahead of her, and we’re both moving forward, just not in sync anymore.
And I’m logging into work with all of that sitting right under the surface.
They say to keep work and home life separate, but there’s no real separation when your office is in your house. There’s no commute, no reset, no buffer, just a hallway. You log in and you’re expected to be fully present, you log out and everything is still right there waiting.
Two things are happening at the same time. She’s out there, moving across the country, and I’m here, trying to hold everything steady in one place.
Four days in, and it still doesn’t feel settled.
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