too much

I'm on my period and I've already bled through 2 of my favorite pairs of panties and a skirt today. because I'm not in the best of moods, I really didn't want to write anything tonight but I feel like I have to put down something.

my family is awesome at having huge explosion fights during vacation and I thought I had managed to escape relatively unscathed, but the 17-hour drive home proved me wrong in the absolute worst way.

let me just say that I don't think my mother and I have ever fought as hard as we did last saturday. and I was a complete bitch in the morning, so I deserved some sort of smack down, but I didn't deserve what my mom did to me.

ever since my bike got stolen, my baseline self-esteem has been really low; I locked my bike incorrectly and left it outside for too long. it was my fault my bike was stolen. my haircut is growing out weird and I've been feeling down about myself, especially because of the fact that my parents helped me buy a new bike.

and don't get me wrong: I am the most grateful person in the world that they were willing to do that. but I am so embarrassed and guilty of how privileged I am. I have friends whose bed frames are milk crates, whose parents don't pay their rent, who have worked for everything they have. I haven't done that; I haven't needed to. my parents lived that way and have worked hard so I don't have to, and I really shouldn't feel guilty. but I do, it's like survivor's guilt that I can't shake. and because of that, it has become a trigger for me.

I honestly don't know or remember how my mom got onto the subject of my ungratefulness (we had been fighting about how i had been yelling that morning), but she just kept accusing things like, "you've been given a lot," "you've never been asked for anything in return," etc. and every time I told her that she was going to trigger me, she told me she didn't care. so it escalated until I was dry-heaving on the side of the road in North Carolina, playing an endless loop of all the times I have wanted more in my life and all the things I have ever been given. (guilt over dylan, gitsy, my car, how I used to trash my room, etc.)  after I spent our whole dinner crying to myself and fighting back sobbing, my mom started crying and told me that she was sorry, that she meant it but I was still a "beautiful" person, was afraid she did something seriously wrong. changed her story to say that she meant that I am selfish with time I take to process emotions, that I can't keep it together, that they give me a lot of emotional space.  I told her I deserved it (which I didn't and don't believe) and she said she knew, that her mom "kicked her ass to set her straight" when she was my age and she was so grateful for it.

I just decided that I'm too tired of fighting her over this shit. i've gotten to the point now where, im some ways, i feel more progressed than my mom. she's dealing with a lot at work and in her personal life right now, and I need to consider that when thinking of things she has said to me lately. I would rather let her think that she won, that she was right, than tear my family apart over it. when I am in Chicago I am not guilty or depressed, for the most part. I am given the space to process my emotions when and how I want without being made to feel bad about it.

because I am so grateful for everything I have and the people who are in my life. I'm not an ungrateful person. I don't continually shit on people with my emotions like my mom says I do. I may not have had to work hard for the things I have, but i have had to work through a lot of heavy emotions and tough situations in my life.

my mom has always been one of my idols, the person I look up to the most in my adult life. when I was a kid, I used to have nightmares that I was blind or deaf and would wake up crying because I was afraid I'd never hear her or see her face again. and through the blood clot thing, that all came rushing back to me, because when I was 15, I was a selfish bitch, i was the person who deserved what my mom said to me last Saturday.

so even though I don't think I deserve the things my mom said to me last weekend, I'm deeply hurt by the fact that someone I idolize thinks those things of me. that I did things that made her feel that way. that she would willingly trigger me. and I can tell by the fact that I couldn't even get through this post without breaking down that it's probably going to take a long time for me to get over it.
{{super emotional period feels rant, sorry}}

self perception

i saw this quote the other day that really hit me hard, that "it's good to hate yourself, because if you don't, everyone else will," and it just really pisses me off. sure, coming off as a cocky jerk makes everyone else feel like shit. failing to see flaws in yourself will piss your friends off. but who the fuck could use that logic to say that self-depreciation is necessary for others to love you? That others won't hate you so long as you hate yourself?

Because what i have to say is this: i have my bad days (today is one of them) when i don't feel at home in my skin, when i feel weak and fat and like i'm a spoiled brat for the privilege i have grown up with. but lately, i have fallen in love with me. i love myself when i wake up in the morning and my hair is crazy. i love the way my boobs look when i'm naked. i love the way that my friends come to me when they need help. i love that i would rather pay for 3 friends' dinner than not include them in our plans because they can't afford to go out. i love that i'm a good writer and a good designer.

i don't like that i never do the dishes or take the trash out, that i make literal and figurative messes bigger than i can clean up. that i can be really selfish and lazy a lot of the time. that sometimes i would rather stay in bed all day than go out and live life that day.


but like Blake was saying the other day, i'm the one person i've got for sure for the rest of this life. and i'm proud of myself for where i've come from (a vast pool of self-hatred i thought i'd never escape) and most days, i fucking love myself despite my flaws. and days like today when i don't, i'm nice to myself and i wait for it to pass.