printing

I smell like cumin, incense, and indecision.

So, I've been trying to get a firm grasp on whether or not I'm emotionally doing alright right now...part of that process is being able to look back and get a good feel for how I've been expressing myself and whether or not it has been generally healthy. One big problem. Sometime in between the time that I had just gotten back from Japan and now I stopped posting for a good 8 months. During this 8 month period of time, a lot of things happened. I have some journal writings from Europe which I guess I could put up....if I really wanted to search back through them, which might not be a bad idea...but I'm not sure if they're the type of writing that I need to be looking at to figure myself out.

I just want to make sure that I'm moving in the right direction.
It's hardly ever as easy as it seems...

Prozac Nation

I think that Prozac Nation was harder to watch than anything else I've ever seen. Harder even than grotesque violence. Harder than really bad B-movies. Harder because the entire time I was seeing the familiar. Those lines weren't just some abstract screenplay that had something to do with someone else. It was my life. Those were my fights with my own mother. That is my life up to this point. I think, somehow, that I'm on the tail end of it...but to watch it...to see it...to recognize again just how close to the very bottom I was and to know that I could be there again...I could cry. All night. I won't. I won't because that's what not being depressed is about. It's about recognizing the difference between reality and theory. In theory I could cry. In theory I could have been devestated by my experiences. In reality, I know that I have to pull myself together and continue functioning. Functioning is what keeps me sane when there is nothing else left. That and keeping myself entertained. I look back on the times that I was a lot closer to crazy...and I guess I am just thankful that even though I didn't always feel supported, there were people around me who didn't give up. If you have ever done that for me or for anyone else...you should know that it's not always easy for someone to recognize how much you've helped them or even to say thank you, but you should know that you changed someone's life. You saved someone's life.

grudges

I hate that I constantly feel the need to smile.
I hate that people can be such idiots sometimes.
I hate that I am one of those people.

Um....today was a good, fully bursting day in which I really accomplished most of what I was supposed to do, did a lot of extra fun things, and felt good about it.

Why don't I feel better, then?

five minutes of library paranoia rambling.

Sometimes I want to retreat into the life going on inside of my head and completely forget about everyone around me.

I really hate other people sometimes. I know hate is a strong word....and I know that anyone who knows me knows that I only very rarely allow this "hate" to escape into my daily life....but sometimes I can tell.

Today I am feeling extremely aggressive. I guarantee it's because we are in that lovely week that falls between Valentine's Day and my birthday, notably the most awful week of every other year of my adult life that I've participated in so far.

How do I feel this year? Like I want to retreat into a small space in my apartment, read 4 Harry Potter books, finish at least 2 significant books that I've been reading, scribble things into a journal, and wait for someone to notice that I've been missing for a few days.

But I, being a responsible "good kid" have classes, committments, and meetings that I am too lame to skip. I tried the whole "giving up" thing last semester. For two weeks I did absolutely nothing I was supposed to. Honestly, I felt motivationless, purposeless, and helpless.

I know that I wish that I wasn't motivated by all the "stupid" school shit I have to do sometimes....but I guess some motivation in some direction is better than being a stagnant pond of sloth.

The ideal would be doing without thinking....and thinking because it's fun....but somehow when I shut my body down, my mind soon follows.

Today I want to embrace something really good in life.
I may start with distillation. : )

friend is a four letter word

I would not say that I trust easily....but maybe I do. All I know is that I repeatedly get demolished by people I count among my closest friends. Maybe I have a hard time reading people or people have a hard time being honest with me...I'm not quite sure. I have always thought that I was relatively approachable, and I generally make it very clear to people that I am close to how much I desire honesty over all other things. Seriously, I would rather someone say things that hurt than to say one thing and do another.

Right now I'm just in this weird place. I know what's best for me isn't what I've been doing, but it just felt yummy, healthy, promising. I love developing friendships with people that I'm close to and ending up in a good place where there's a bubble, a safe zone, of trust. I think that before this week started, I didn't have much faith in that bubble, but for some reason I decided Monday or yesterday that it really was fine for me to put my trust into it and believe in it. Big mistake for me. Now, after having spent an entire semester trying just to protect myself from feeling abandoned, alone, worthless...I manage to do it all in one week without even having someone to abandon me in the first place.

I don't always take things like this well. In fact, I would say that most of the time I take them extraordinarily poorly. And I would also say that this time of year, the last week of classes, the moment before I need to be buckling down and doing well with work, this is not the time when I need to be making my life any harder with these issues. Sadly, we don't always get a choice in how our life plays out.

I guess this just hasn't been my year. I think, this year, I will actually make some resolutions for new year's, and hopefully stick to them.

in the beginning...

mood: godly

there was light, but I am guessing it wasn't at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
Sometimes I think that's where my life is, though a damp, dreary passageway through which I have to crawl on my knees. Either there or hidden somewhere another six years down the road and to get to it I have to take all of the right turns and not miss my exit. I guess of course that what I have now is a life, but sometimes it just feels too monotonous to be real. I seem to exist now outside of my body 60% of the time, but the rest of the time I spend being depressed by the things that continuously hold me back: lonliness, low self-image and self-esteem, fear of failure, some need to be desired and successful. I still haven't figured out who I am or who I want to be or what I consider success. I feel sometimes like I am simultaneously committing myself to two very different lifestyles which are completely contradictory.

In the middle of it all, I keep waiting for something earthshattering to finally give meaning to everything and show me the path which I must follow. Satori. An impenatrable idea which may be within my reach or may be several lifetimes away.
I feel so close sometimes. I have lost a sense of self. I have lost my voice. It almost seems unnecessary in the world I have created for myself. But still, I desire it so much. I wish I still had the words to describe what it is like to watch a fiber floating up through the air as if propelled by the heat from my body. I wish I had something to say about love and loss and sickness and health and forever and forever and forever.
There never seems to be the promise of forever in the thought of tomorrow. Half the time there seems like no tomorrow. But perhaps that is what forever is. A cessation of continuation. A definite stop which itself continues eternally. Or waking up from a dream. Realizing that we ourselves do live on past the point when our minds stop dreaming. I seem as equally disappointed in my dreams as in real life, so sometimes it's hard to tell which one is more realistic.

I'm making no sense which makes me happier than I've recognized myself as being in a while. Happy enough to close my eyes and float away and perhaps dream a dream of reality happening to me. Perhaps tonight the tunnel will shorten or the road become straighter or the one choice on my mind more apparent or the feelings that I am feeling more earnest and clear.

What is love about? Is it about stability, surreality, trust, truth? Is it percievable, perceptive, or an ancient art which has long been lost along with faith in something greater than a single nation or god. I have searched for the answer by believing in it, but believing blindly until I've trapped myself in my own ultimate (for the time) question. If you are busy believing in the idea of love that you've created for yourself, is it possible to notice when the real thing actually comes into your life or leaves it or does one get so stuck in their own idea of love that they live a forever limited life of what can be contained by their own mind? I used to think that my love grew everyday beyond my grasp, yet now it seems that it either grew so great that I cannot comprehend it or it exploded into nothing. I love nothing, it would seem. I feel no passion a good bit of the time and wonder whether I outgrew it or it outgrew me. I'm getting cryptic, which is okay with me. I understand myself, you see, as long as I don't say too much.

Currently Reading: Absalom, Absalom!