I made it through my first week back at work more or less without incident. I found it easy to jump right back into my duties. I have not really experienced any depressive episodes over the past week and my mood has been about as good as it can be. I believe this is because I've started chatting online for a few months now with a woman. It may lead to nothing, but we're going to just chat like this for a while and see where it takes us. We check in with each other every day, and sometimes spend extended periods chatting. We've even shared intimate details about ourselves as well as pictures and voice chatting. This is probably stupid of me, but I'm already starting to daydream about meeting her. It almost feels like I'm developing a bit of a crush on her, which I've never done online before. I'm apprehensive about it, but I also hope for it.

And then I realize that I'm getting way too far of myself, and I have to remind myself this will never amount to anything even remotely resembling a real relationship. I'm just setting myself up for heartbreak. I don't think I can withstand that kind of pain, not at my age. I should just end it now, but I can't bring myself to do that. I'm stupid for allowing this to happen. I don't even have the excuse of youthful inexperience, as I'm in my late thirties. I'm just an idiot. It's just whenever I feel good about something like this, it's always been immediately followed by heartbreak. So I fully expect heartbreak is imminent. I'm totally at the mercy of my feelings and I hate it.

And I feel so ashamed of it in part because it's purely an online relationship, we haven't even met up once, not yet.