plans (and maybe something more, and definitely things that i will regret writing later)

tonight i planned to get good & drunk (2 shots & a beer and i was far more gone than i'd anticipated i'd be), write and sketch the outline for my zine while listening to music, and watch mulholland drive & ink some of my sketches while i sobered up. ("write drunk, edit sober" ...i'd never tried it & thought it might help stimulate flow of words i was hesitant to put down)

right as i sat down with my sketchbook, i got a notification that tj had tweeted something & it was about how he was crying on the train & didn't know what to do. so i pulled on some clothes and walked my drunk ass to the train station to meet him for coffee.

it turns out his big ex, his dylan, had texted him out of nowhere asking if he was happy and it was just too much for him to handle. the kid who listens to death metal and mercilessly destroys all life in halo every time we play, and he was sitting with an empty cup and eyes full of tears when i got there.

i don't know what i'm getting at here. i just hated seeing him broken. and it's not like i havent seen him break down before, but it just hurts. it's something ive been thinking about a lot lately in the making of this zine, how this city has done so much for me, how i blossom here and am driven by what surrounds me, and how he wakes up every morning wishing he were somewhere else.

i like to think that i'm the type of person who fixes things. i always have been. even if i'm sheepish about it, i do what i can to help. the other day i listened to an HRC rep on the phone for 15 full minutes before telling her that i really have no spare change at this moment in my life but to please call me back this summer. today i gave my uneaten snacks to a man on the train with a teardrop tattoo and dirt-caked fingernails who was apologizing to strangers as he asked for charity. i couldn't make eye contact with him or speak while i did it, but i listened. and i'm the only person on the train who acknowledged his humanness.

so maybe that's why everything with dylan has affected me so much. why it's been fucking forever and there are still tiny pieces of me shattered on the floor, why i can't let myself get close to any of the boys who have taken me out to dinner, bought me sweet wine, and opened themselves up to me. i have always been a guilt internalizer and i feel bad for what i did to dylan. even though he could be so dismissive and emotionally abusive. i still feel bad for leaving him when he was at a low point because ive seen what that does to people.

this semester i've built a shell around myself that surprises even me sometimes. daniella has tried at least 3 times to talk to me about how tj is leaving school and i straight up closed the bathroom door & told her to stop talking to me last time. lately when i'm down, i don't call anyone. i pretend i'm not down to everyone but me. i don't let myself even write down half of what im feeling because i don't want to admit it's happening. but i'm a little bit tired of that. it's hard to be like that all the time.

so this is an open apology to dylan because right now i need to get it out of me:
i am sorry for leaving you when you were at your worst. i am sorry for helping break you. i am sorry that i wasn't there to put you back together. when i broke us, it was my intention that we would get to know ourselves better & after that, things would be ok for us to be together again. and then things got too hard. but know that it was never my intention to leave you broken--i wanted to be there for you again.

i am not sorry that we are apart, i am not sorry i called your mom when you told me you tried to kill yourself, i am not sorry that i lashed out when we worked together last summer, i am not sorry that i texted you saying sorry so many fucking times. i'm still fucking pissed at how you and your friends treated/treat me. the way you publicly demonized me multiple times on facebook was inappropriate, cruel, and immature. but even then, i am training myself to look to the future without picturing you somehow back in my life, and it's fucking hard. i debate with myself all the time about whether i should give a shit or not, and maybe i'll never know what's right. but im sorry for leaving you when you were low. i'm sorry for being the type of person who walked away when someone needed me.

genetics

i just finished writing a paper i'm really proud of (completely last minute, about fat & beauty and (in particular) this stunning, bizarre photoshoot of priscilla ono for slink magazine) and was stretching my arms and neck, thinking about how happy i am with the paper.

i caught myself in the mirror and saw my dad's self-satisfied grin on my face, a smile i've also seen my three-year-old cousin carter pull when he thinks he's got you tricked.

it just made me really happy. when i was younger, i looked a lot more like my dad than my mom. my hair was straight until my teens, and my natural hair color matches his, not my mom's. i was a total daddy's girl. i still am to some extent, because my dad and i have a connection over music that i don't think my mom or brother will ever understand.

now that i've grown up, people always say how much i look like my mom. sometimes it's just nice to see my dad in there too.

wanting someone

lately i've been feeling lonely, something i really haven't felt for a while. the downer days a couple weeks ago really threw me off kilter & tonight is another low. i'm just tired of holding it all in, of being the only person to really love me in the way that i want to be loved. i'm lonely. and i know i'm not going to find someone i want to be with long term on some idiotic site like okcupid, but i'm not really sure where to look other than that, and it has me feeling helpless. people at my school aren't attracted to me. i'm just stuck in a rut i guess. i'm in no rush, god knows i have forever. i just don't want to be alone right now.

Big D

why does depression take the people I love away from me?

everything with dylan, leah is in the hospital on suicide watch, and tj is transferring back home.

this week has completely wrecked my emotional stability and my motivation. all I want to do is sleep and cry. I haven't spoken to daniella in days, I can't eat, I can't sleep when I try to, and I can't focus on my design work, for school or for work, and deadlines are crashing all around me.

I am lucky that my bouts with being depressed are fixed with therapy sessions and changing my thyroid dosage. i get depressed sometimes but i do not suffer from depression, and I am so grateful for that. but it doesn't make things easier when I'd rather sit under my desk in my room than interact with daniella or even gitsy. since last week I've been lower than I've been in a while and I'm just scared because I don't know how it's going to get better.

I feel like tj let me down. I just don't want to talk to him or see him or think about him. I feel betrayed. and that isn't really fair, but that's how I feel and I can't help it. I feel alone.

needing/wanting/getting

today i was a half hour late to class. i fell asleep working last night and hadn't set an alarm. luckily with most of my work done, it wasn't really a problem. still, i didn't get a chance to eat breakfast, so when i finished my daily iced coffee from the school cafe, it left me empty feeling...hungry, clear-headed but still feeling deprived of sleep. and i realized how much i like that feeling.

of being sleep deprived to the point of feeling like a zombie because i stayed up so long pouring my soul into a piece of art for days beforehand. of the empty, healthy feeling of a growling stomach by 4pm because i chose a salad for lunch instead of the french fries i really wanted. of sore muscles one day because i did the whole 20 minutes of Jillian michaels 30-day shred the night before without putting down the 3 lb weights.

of being single, going through the slight inconvenience of occasional loneliness, because i refuse to settle for someone who isn't going to love me as much as i love myself.

the feeling of doing what i have to to get what i want. of making sacrifices, pushing myself to my limits, creating the change in my life. it's not a way to live long term or day-to-day, i'm sure i'd keel over from the stress. but sometimes it's nice to taste that little bit of bitter in your pink lemonade.

(not a harlem shake video, i promise! rather, a song by the band the Harlem Shakes that fits the mood of this post)


SPEAKING OF, i'm officially in training for my first 5k! i'm starting this weekend to prepare for the Hope in Motion / Run in Color 5K in Evansville on April 20 (which I'll probably just walk/jog with my mom) and then i've got the actual Color Run 5K that i'm going to RUN, not walk (a big goal for someone who has never EVER been a runner, even as a kid), on June 16! i'm really, really, excited about it. so here's to actually sticking to my new year's resolution for once

tonight is a low night,

one of the lowest i've had in a really long time. binge ate twizzlers & cried in the shower & have been lying in bed since 10 and i still don't feel any better.

i'm tired of this cycle, of having this same fucking thing creep up on me and drag me down whenever it pleases. sure, my nights of panic attacks and crying and wondering if i've completely fucked up my life and any chance i'll ever get at love used to be a nightly thing, and now they only come every 4 months or so. so i'm getting better. but i just don't want to feel this way anymore, i don't want to doubt myself and the entire foundation my recent life has been built on just because of some nagging fear that i'll never get anything better, or even as real as, what i pushed out of my life.

i have nowhere to put my love, it just sits there and keeps on loving.

so glad to see blake on here again!

(those 5 pageviews were from me, haha!)

and glad to be back on here myself. i actually sat down to draft a post between my 9-12 and 6-9 classes today but got caught up with other things (gitsy & i went for a walk and she jumped into several puddles of mud, so i had to give her a bath which is always hellish).

anyways! yesterday i got a weird chat invite from my ex on a new email account, and i messaged him despite not really wanting to. i made a promise to him that the lines of communication would always be open on my end if he needed anything, because i don't see myself as the type of person who could completely turn her back on someone--even after having gone through so much because of them. so i messaged him and he messaged back, and i didn't get that weird heart-racing feeling (the goodbad kind, like when you get an anonymous message and wonder if it's going to be  friendly or make you cry), and i'm really proud of myself. especially after not having seen or talked to him in over 4 months. so all is good there.

school is good in that i have less of a workload, but i've been thinking seriously that i might have seasonal affective disorder (funny you mentioned it too, b). it's like no matter what i have to do, all i want to do is sit in the shower or sleep. i constantly fall asleep on the trains. all i want to eat is sweet things and bread. sometimes i literally have to choke back tears when i look at the forecast and realize i have to wear my coat and scarf and gloves just to walk to the station. i've gained at least 10 lbs. and that's all incredibly frustrating to me, which makes it worse. i feel like i'm just empty. i miss the sun and warmth and not having to wear a gigantic coat.

but not to complain
i'm doing a lot of work, and therefore making a lot of money. like having enough money for NEXT rent even though my rent check has come out. and that's awesome. i'm getting to spend money on things i've wanted for a while, and i'm really happy about that. school is easier than it's been in a while, and i think i'm finally winning over my type teacher.

ugh
i have so much more to say but a lot of work to do tonight
so i'll finish this later!