list 123go

• emailed jonathan saying i felt some chemistry there & we should get coffee
• this happened because i spent 2 nights waiting up for some okcupid guy to message me back about the date we were supposed to go on
• there is currently a circus (literally) happening 100 feet from my apartment
• i have way too much work to do
• im halfway (maybe) done with my dress for halloween
• it kind of looks dumb but its a good first try considering i made it from a vintage pattern
• it'll look fine once i figure out what to do with the skirt
• i have 2 concepts due for tuesday, progress on a poster due for wednesday, and a final project due for thursday
• also a midterm on thursday
• i'm not really worried except for the posters due on thursday cause they're watercolor and i skipped last class so i dont even know where to go with it
• i need to buy art supplies when i go to the loop
• aslo a pink cowgirl hat and a white turtleneck
• i kinda wish i'd gone out this weekend
• but i cleaned my room (shoved most stuff in the closet)
• hmm ok back to work

baggage

i feel weird writing so much lately about dylan and things surrounding our relationship because i am over him, i have been for a long time. but i guess i'm not over everything that happened, and doing more artwork about that recently has helped me realize that i might not be for a long time, if ever. the fact that he tried to kill himself hurts me. the fact that i helped put him in the dark place he was in hurts me. it might always be a soft spot for me, because i loved him and he was broken and i hurt him.

right now i'm working on a type project in which we have to use text we write (representing two separate memories) and an outside source of text in two posters on a theme (most people are using an emotion or set of circumstances). i decided to use moments that i look back to as critical periods of growth; moments that made me more Real either because they built me up or stripped me of everything i had known. the first memory i'm using is the night i texted dylan's mom and told her he had tried to kill himself, and the second is a night i spent with ivy and dustin lying on the pavement by the riverwalk, talking deeply for the first time after a year apart at college. when i got up to talk about my theme, i couldn't keep myself from getting red-faced and no matter what i did, my voice shook and stuck in my throat.

when i was at ivy's this weekend, we were drinking and ivy kept telling dustin & i to go dance with boys, that she'd introduce us to the ones we thought were cute. we told her, and she ran off the find them, and i immediately felt scared and nervous and guilty. all of a sudden i didn't want to be there, but more importantly, i didn't want to be in my own skin. i didn't go talk to the guy, so nothing happened, and the feeling went away.

tonight i was thinking about that, wondering why i got worked up like that, and i remembered some stuff that i had forgotten (or maybe blocked out) about the last time dylan and i had sex. and maybe this is too much to be writing about on a blog. but it made me panic for a second that i could have forgotten, and then i felt the tiniest bit better. i probably still need to go have a good cry in the shower about it, but i'm finally dealing with things that i don't think i was able to process when they happened. and i'm hoping that doing so will allow me to move on and to open back up so that when someone good and kind walks into my life, i don't have all this baggage keeping me from making a connection.

fucking dreams

I'm at Ivy's for the weekend & I just woke up from an exhaustingly long and horrid dream, crying. I'm going to try to sleep for a bit more and make this feeling go away but I'm just sad & I can't figure out if I'm justified in feeling this depressed over a dream or not

perspective

i follow this plus size fashion blog of a girl who lives in chicago, in the thick of it (here) that i like a lot because
a.) she's close to my size and shape (around 220 lbs, 5'9", pants in the 16-20 range -- she looks like she has a smaller waist than me, but most fatshion blogs i follow are of girls who have a much different body than me, so i like this blog best)
b.) she's edgy in her style & does a lot of thrifting/bargain hunting, which is what i'm all about
c.) she lives in chicago, so i know the places she shops at & am able to frequent them myself

i kinda talked in my last post about how i haven't been feeling quite right in my body lately. i've put on about 10-15 lbs over the course of the past few months of being stressed to the max and not sleeping, and then being too tired to bike or run like i was doing last semester. i had been maintaining about 205-215 since the end of freshman year of college, and back up to 225-230, what i was in high school. and it's not a huge change, especially for someone as tall as i am, but it feels huge. i feel huge. and the fact that something in my mind is relentlessly tearing me down about it has made it really hard to change my habits; i'm an emotional eater & always have been.

so anyway. i was reading this blog today, and the girl is in london. in her most recent post, she said that in the UK, most places stock up to a US size 20 in the regular departments. and i had to do a double take. i just think about how my life, my perception of self-worth, would be drastically different if i lived in a place where i could find clothes that would fit my body in almost any store i walked into. it just amazes me that our culture's fucked up perception of size normality could permeate so deeply into my psyche that i spend every day sitting in ways that make me look thinner, stressing out about every calorie i eat or every time i take the escalator instead of the stairs, guilt tripping every day i take the train instead of riding my bike.

anyways, i lost steam with this & i have work to do, but you get the point, which is ~brb moving to london~

good enough

this weekend was wonderful. my parents came up to see my first show & it was just so good to see them. since the beginning of this school year, i've been so fucking overwhelmed that i haven't felt like i could catch my breath, and my self esteem has been suffering greatly. it's nothing like the sadness that gripped me around the the beginning of february last year, but it's been a significant problem for me lately. it's like no matter what i'm doing, there's a voice in my head telling me that i'm not good enough: that dress is too short, everyone is staring at you because your clothes don't fit, your hair is messy, your work is sloppy, you shouldn't have said that, he isn't into you, you can bike faster than this, you're weak if you have to stop running now, you've gained weight, you should be working, you should be working, you should be working.

it's just been relentless, and it was good to have my family here supporting me and making me feel validated for a little bit. at the show, i drank with my classmates and i felt so popular; people were hugging me and telling me my work was awesome. it feels really good to finally be "in" with the STA kids & seniors in the VCD department. being a designer is all about making connections & i'm finally doing that.

i hadn't looked at any of dylan's social media in a really long time & i did earlier, which was dumb of me because now i'm thinking about everything that happened again. he's dating someone else now & i'm actually happy for him; she's really pretty and seems like a nice person. i was even proud of myself because my heart didn't even do the dumb floppy thing or sink down in my stomach; i didn't have a physical reaction or even really that much of an emotional reaction & that feels more amazing than i can probably express.

i think sometimes that i have worked so hard to prove to people (who? i have no idea) that i came out on top; that i was not broken, that i'm ok. i was pretending to be alright for a long long time and i realize now that i thought i was still pretending, and i don't think i have been for months. i look around me and i have a 2 bedroom apartment in the 3rd biggest city in the US with my dog & a wonderful roommate, i am thriving at an amazing design school, and i have literally everything in front of me open to opportunity. i could up and move to london after school if i saved up enough for a ticket and had a job waiting. i live an amazing life and i don't have to prove myself to anyone, not even myself.