Feeling like i'm in the middle of a day long panic attack which is unusual but unsurprising considering how freaked i am about a million and one things right now number one being how i'm doing me and i'm barely holding a lot together and then i get ragged on for not doing more here at work or with my friends and what the actual fuck please just leave me alone if i want to go to bed at ten o'clock every night why the hell does it bother you so much and then there's the fact that i can then convince myself that because my life is quieter and less drunk than a year ago that means i have less friends despite all evidence to the contrary like how many people have talked me down in the last two weeks and how many people have asked for my time in the last two weeks i mean come on i'm just freaking out over nothing

and then there's the whole grad school issue that i'm again falling behind on because of a million other obligations not to mention how actually looking at the school i'm most likely going to brought up a lot of unhappy memories from maryland like yeah i got K from that and it was so so worth it for that great love but fuck i was scared and lonely and i didn't fully commit to being there and it fucked me up and now i'm going to do it again but i'm twenty-three and hopefully that means i am older and braver and will fucking approach this with maryland behind me knowing that if i did that and got my love from it then i can do this and get something great out of it as well

let's hope

but i'm scared

and i just want to be with my girls but then there's the issue that i will be seeing K so soon but i am more nervous for this trip than i have for any other and i need to stay on the mindset of no expectations because it always works out best for us that way when we don't expect anything really from each other but the fact that she's worried about this trip being just us has me worried and i don't want to spend a whole week bickering and getting sick of each other i just want to be with her and then i worry that by worrying it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy and i need to just focus on how we've made so much work that of course we can do this

but fuck worrying then i'm so over it

things are going to work out

this i believe

it's the middle part until the things are worked out that i can't handle. 

Growth

I don't know if I'm waiting for you, but at this point I'm not sure I particularly care.

What I will say is that this year, this time, I haven't made any decisions regarding my personal life that I feel guilty about. I wake up in my bed alone every weekend morning and feel okay. I go about my day, spend my time with people, do important things.

And love you.

My life is crazy difficult these days, but it's not in a secretive way and I'm pretty proud.

Also I love you and I'm sticking with this as long as it feels right. As long as you send me surprise presents and call me just to hear the sound of my voice. As long as fighting with you doesn't keep me up at night and we apologize to each other when we're in the wrong. As long as calla lilies remind you of me and yellow roses remind me of you.

Sometimes, I am so in love with you, I can hardly stand it.

And this is from such a distance. What would it be like if we were in the same place? 

My life is comprised of a dozen different aspects, all compiled together. All of which are my own.

Sometimes I think it's hard for people to understand that, except for Best Friend and the Girl.

If I think hard enough, I can remember the taste of that first fall break, for years ago. Is that strange? But I can't describe it.

I could also taste Maryland, but I also don't have the words for that.

So many words today in this head of mine and I guess I'm not going to do them justice by just writing a stream of consciousness.

A student who interviewed me for a biography essay today asked me if i was at peace with my life and i gave the honest answer which is yes and i need to remember that more because too often i forget how good this feels how good my own skin feels particularly on days like this because my god there is such bad in this world but a student wanted to interview me can you believe it i am so honored to be someone this beautiful wonderful girl admires and i wish i could explain to her how much more i admire her. i hate certain aspects of this job and i find myself every once in awhile wishing i was still where i was but my god these kids i love them i love them i cannot find words other than that that they give me so much that i never knew i wanted. i am so overwhelmed by that.

she also asked me if i had ever been in love and i answered truthfully but not wholly because i said yes but i had to avoid using gendered pronouns and that was so hard but it is always so revitalizing to describe to someone how good this someone has been for me. i've been in love more than once i told her but this time now it's different it's better it's so much more than i ever knew existed. i can't ever go back to anything less than this now i told her. this has shown me what a good love can be and how it is so much deeper than i ever knew and i can't imagine swimming higher for less than this. and it lightened my heart to remember that after a weekend of bickering and frustration that at the end of the day this has shaped me in good and powerful ways and i continue to be amazed and grateful for that and its constancy. it's different when you know that no matter what happens a person will always love you i told her. even if this ends which it very well may i will never doubt that they love me and that i love them and that is so powerful i told her.

last night i stumbled across a blog written by an old classmate of mine that i admired so and i was reminded by how much better and more powerful her words are than mine. i am so envious of her talent but i cannot begrudge her for it because she works at her words every single day even when she doesn't want to and i am so afraid of mine and i am so lazy that when i think i should write i don't always, instead going to watch tv or read or just avoid my words altogether. she works on hers every day and it shows and i am envious and inspired because her words are so fucking good i can't get enough. i need to write more and better and i need to stop being afraid of what is in my head because i know better.

dammit this week has been so fucking hard and then there are days like today where i can see so clearly how overwhelmingly blessed and lucky i am and i need to remember that more. how even though i am not in school i am still learning things every day and i am so vitalized by that constant learning that constant illumination god i hope it never stops. also how a word that i keep repeating these days so much more than ever is love love love love in so many different ways but i can't stop won't stop saying it seeing those loves and god i hope they stay.

Gonna try to handle this differently this time.

Which means:

Expanding my boundaries and making new friends.

Writing more.


Amongst other things. But those are two easily achievable goals, things I can focus on within the next few weeks. Time to live this life.

I don't know if I'm allowed to be mad at you and that's an incredibly frustrating thought.

Not to mention that I'm feeling again like I want to walk away from you for awhile but I'm so scared of what would happen if I did that.

I don't want to be someone else who walks out on you.

But come on. I don't know if I can do this much longer.

I love you and I'd choose you and I *hate* not knowing if you'd choose me.

Home.

Sometimes, a lot of the times, I feel incredibly lost. That my life isn't going where I want it to go, that I'm not spending my life with the people I want to be spending it with. And that makes me feel so worthless. There's a lot behind that, a lot of different factors, but yeah. Worthless.

It's really hard to feel like that.

It all came out last night, in a lot of ways that I'm not proud of. As is typical.

But when I left and he walked me to my car, he took my face into his hands and told me more nice things than I can remember.

"You are so cherished and so loved by so many people. You are an illuminating force," among other things.

"You are such a constant in my life," I responded.

"You feel like home to me."

He does. He feels like home.

I just don't know what to do with that.

He feels like home, but I feel like empty and that should probably be addressed.

I found a full-time, salaried position just a month after I graduated. Goddamn. I can't even say how proud I am of myself. Forreal.

I know that luck has played a huge role in this. My entire working career is based off of one job my mother got me when I was fifteen. My current job I got because of a Facebook friend. I am exceptionally lucky.

But still.

I don't want to sell myself short on this. Two years ago, I started considering taking a year off after I graduated. It's been the plan since then, in the abstract. I'm really happy and proud that I'm able to make it work, in whatever form.

I know that this job means I'll be staying in my current location and I'm not thrilled about that. But From the minute I got the call asking for an interview for this position, I've just had a sense that this is what I'm supposed to do. Who knows if I should trust this, but for right now, despite the bittersweetness of leaving my current job and not leaving my state, I'm confident that this is the right choice.

And I'm really fucking proud.

She's a West Coast wildflower and I'm an East Coast rose, but God, just think of the garden we could make together. 

I don't care how crazy it is to say this, but what I want most in the world is to be with you.

It's freaking me out that I can't see a way to make that happen.

I Love Him.

I'll probably never understand this strange mixture of love I have for you, this equal parts longing and attraction, comfort and familiarity. How you are someone I can so easily go gaga over but then look at you the next moment and realize how much of a brother you are to me. You feel like family to me, and then you don't. So many jumbled up kinds of love for you.

Our relationship is so different from one day to the next and even more so it's so different from year to year. And this year has brought about some of our biggest changes yet, and not always in a good way. We went from part-time lovers who slept in the same bed just to be near another breathing soul; to people trying to get back to being friends, which was really hard when one of us felt like the other one would never look her in the fucking eyes; to finally making that adjustment just in time for you to share with me some deep, dark parts of your beautiful insides. Not to mention that even after we stopped allowing ourselves to be comforted by each other, we still saw each other all the time. You do laundry at my house. I have keys to yours. We're a family, babe, our family of Bears. The point is, the us that is is not the us that was even three months ago. Nor are we the us that existed six months, a year, five years, TEN years ago. For better or for worse, at times.

But the biggest change we've been through lately is how you don't seem to lie to me anymore. I know that there are things I still don't know about you, things I may not ever know about you, but ever since you unburdened yourself to me about some heavy things, you don't seem to put in the effort in lying to me anymore. We drove around town tonight, running errands, and you were frustrated as hell. But you told me why. You talked about it. I don't know if it helped you, but it helped me. You don't lie to me anymore and I love it.

So yeah, I don't know if it was worth it, all the changes and heartache we went through that brought us to this point. But I'm so glad that this is the point we're at now. The point of not lying. Of not sharing everything, but of knowing that you can share the big stuff. Love you. Always. Love you.

Well that came out of nowhere.

Rolling along through my day and all of a sudden I get struck with this feeling of intense longing for her. Thinking how nice it would be to see her.

And so I text her and think I've let the feelings pass but here I am two minutes later crying because I want her here so badly and she can't be and I can't see her anytime soon and oh god i miss her i miss her with everything in me.

I think of her so often. So few minutes go by in my day without her being on my mind but I don't think I ever focus on this absence of her because if I noticed her absence every moment as much as I notice it now I don't know how I'd make it through

But isn't that a strange thought. I focus on her and her as a person and her as the person that I love but I miss her in the abstract but then moments like this happen and I realize that this is what it feels like to truly wholly miss her and this is the feeling that I avoid as much as I can and in this moment I cannot avoid it

So I sit here and weep and feel her absence so keenly. I miss her I miss her

I sat on my kitchen floor and smiled on the phone with you. I didn't know just how badly I wanted to hear your voice today until I actually heard it.

And I thought, "Oh I didn't know if this would last and I don't know if this will last, but god...

it's lasting."

I should have stayed with you last night and I'm sorry I didn't. I'm sorry. I thought that maybe the frustration of being kept awake by me would have overpowered the knowledge that you weren't alone. 

Remind me someday soon to write a REAL graduation announcement on here.

For the record, the most important thing I did this weekend was drag the boy up to the mountains with me.

It was a rough start, he was grouchy about it, hurt my feelings, and then I was grouchy. We yelled at each other the whole car ride as we are wont to do.

But then we got up there and I just stared out across the valleys that contain our home. He bounded up behind me and gleefully stated, "Let's go watch a sunset!" and so we did. I sat on a wall and leaned back against his chest and we just kind of took in the moment of being up there.

I feel so much solitude when I'm on a mountaintop like that. I told him that it felt still. It does to me and I can never quite explain it.

And then we did a bit of hiking and opened up beers and just talked. About the serious stuff. Stuff that I know he has a hard time explaining when we're not so above the hustle and bustle of the city. He was just so much more open, it was kind of unbelievable.

On our way home, he told me the real stuff. Things I had a vague idea of but that had never really been vocalized. It was scary and hard and I'm so glad it happened.

But also I needed to get up there. I wanted to be away from everything and just be. Our mountains are perfect for that. It was cold and windy and my ears hurt like hell and it was so gorgeous. Moments like that are so worth it.

Trying to remember that feeling to carry me through the week.

Conflicted.

Do you know how much I hate that we don't talk anymore? The fact that we literally haven't said a word to each other in months drives me crazy. We don't acknowledge holidays, birthdays, or even just those random bits that we liked together.

We. Don't. Talk.

And I hate it. And I hate that it bothers me. Because why would I want to talk to you? I wouldn't know what to say to you. 

How about, that girl you thought was a phase isn't one. And she treats me better from 1300 miles away than you ever did from within the same city. How about, I know I wasn't the person you thought I was and I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry you aren't proud of where I'm going with my life. I'm proud and that's all that matters. How about, I really like my life these days. That the last two years have been tumultuous and eventful and better than I ever expected. I love the people in my life, I love how I look in my life, and I love how I'm never able to see the changes coming. My life is better and good. 

How about, I'm really worried that the same can't be said for you. That you're making the same mistakes over and over and you still don't know where you're going. How about, I know that isn't my place to say that. But I wish it was my place to tell you that I miss you, flaws and all.

I miss our friendship. Despite the disintegration of our relationship, how badly we *both* treated each other, how angry I know we both are at each other, I miss you and our conversations and our jokes and I'm sad that a person I met when I was 13 will not speak to me. 

She says we will, someday, can I tell you that? She thinks we'll get coffee sometime and be able to go over everything. I'm not so sure. 

I know you and I know that every time you think of me and think of picking up the phone to just say hello, you get distracted by something. And then you forget. So no, I don't expect to hear from you. Ever. And if there does come a day when you remember enough to text me, I expect I'll be long gone. I think it will happen when I'm in an entirely different state and I think that when I tell you that, you will be shocked to know that I moved without you knowing. 

But that's what happens when two people don't talk. I know it's for the best and I know it's okay. But I do miss you. 

My actual birthday is going to be spent without my family and without the two most important women in my life. 

That's okay though. I need to do this birthday on my own. I need to prove that I can.

Not to mention that I won't be on my own. Not really. 

But yeah. Those girls won't be here and that sucks. 

It's okay. Really. 

There are reasons why you're still a good thing and this is one of them.

I texted you first and even though I said that my car was backed into in a parking lot you called me the second you got that message. You didn't even think.

I said hello and you went, "You okay?"

Didn't even think.

And then we were getting off the phone and you said you loved me and I responded and then there was a pause and your voice got quiet. And you said, smally, hesitatingly, vulnerably,

"Love you."

I know. I really do.

Don't think I don't know that you got scared because I do. I was in a car that someone hit and even though it was less than a fender bender, you couldn't stand the thought of me being remotely close to hurt.

But also don't think that I don't feel exactly the same way about you. Right now I don't even care whether or not I should feel that way, but I do.

"I meant the kind of beauty that consumes another person. It's a surprise that you're so beautiful and that your heart is swung wide open."

Maybe it's me that's left this bad taste in my mouth. 

It means a lot to me. More than you know. Too often the people that are close to me disregard how I feel or act because they think it's unjustified and ridiculous. And most times I laugh it off, but it's rarely fun to have parts of myself dismissed like that. 

Best Friend never does it. She always makes sure to listen and respect what I'm saying, no matter how off the mark I may be. She'll tell me when I need to tone it down but she never dismisses outright how I'm feeling.

And it's huge to me that you don't dismiss me either. That you still don't quite get why certain things are a big deal, but you'll respect it. You are so good at making me feel validated and I'm so grateful for that.

So, yeah. It means a lot. And it feels like, whatever weirdness we're in right now, you're still good. This is still good. And different. And GOOD. 

Thank you. 

Vivid.

It was that second night. When we were so desperate just to touch each other that we ran out of the building, searching for somewhere to be together. Pushing each other into the bushes and kissing hard and laughing and just pushing closer closer.

And being in the open air with you. How it was so cold on that December night but we didn't care, we just kept stripping each other so we could be closer closer and out in the open. How the wind kept rustling through the trees and how I was staring up looking at the stars through the lattices but then looking down to see your grinning face.

And how it felt to be afterwards, with my head against your chest and knowing there was nowhere else I'd rather be. Feeling completely soaked up in you and in that moment and being so filled of you of us of that togetherness.

It's things like this that I'm afraid of letting out and of writing about. Because this is the good stuff and if I start I won't be able to stop and now I can't stop thinking of how freeing it was to be with her that night in that place and I can't get caught up in this because then I'll drown. 

These are the good words and these are the words that scare me about writing these days. 

For the record. I can't remember a single song that played that first night but I remember the way it all sounded and it was the perfect soundtrack and god I wish I could remember those songs. The soundtrack of that night is still on an endless loop in my head.

Other People's Words

Where you used to be,
there's a hole in the world, 
which I find myself constantly
walking around in the daytime,
and falling into at night.

I miss you like hell.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Augh. These words are not good ones, man. Not good writing. It's embarrassing.

The problem is I'm afraid. I'm afraid to write the truth because if I did then I wouldn't be able to stop and I can't handle that right now.

But my words are suffering because of that fear and I can tell.

The Sound of Silence

The one thing they don't get
is how much I crave these hours when I'm alone

They look at me like they're worried like they pity it
and they don't believe me when I say no no
I need to sink into this feeling my ears need to recognize the sound of aloneness
Because I spent so much of my life fearing being the only one in the room
and I'm still getting comfortable with this feeling of solitude
but I love it and I need to like it and that's more than okay

and I don't want you to see the tears that still come regularly
because they're mine to wipe away (or should be wiped away by the lost girl)
and so I need to be here alone to feel these things that are here

So don't pity me for needing to be comfortable in my own company.
I need this, I do. 

The rug was pulled out from under me (by my own doing) and I'm still standing.

I'm gonna make it through this, I promise you that.

It's Okay.

My family is here.

It's okay. Because they are my family and they are here. The girl who I call Best Friend. The girl who I live with and who saves me a dinner plate. The boy who lets me choose what movie we watch at the end of a long week. The boy who takes me to breakfast on the weekends. The people I make cupcakes for.

I always knew they were my family and they were here. But it's okay. I remember.

Weekends like this are pretty representative of my life as a whole right now. Some disappointments, some heartbreak, some loneliness, but a lot of fun. Pushing myself not to be a hermit 100% of the time, but also allowing myself to be alone when I needed to.

I was surrounded by people I love this weekend and that's what's important. It's important that I have people here who like my company. It's important that I was able to say today, "If I stayed here for another year, I would be alright with that." It's something that I need to wrap my head around as a possibility. It needs to be accepted.

I'm still focused on "enough" and trying to know that I am that. And I do believe that the events of this year thus far are going to help me in pursuing this goal. The place the girl and I are at right now is not a good one, but I think it's a necessary one. She's still a good influence, still treating me right. Pushing me to my best. And my best right now needs to be that I am enough. On my own. What we're dealing with is absolutely pushing me towards that.

This weekend was a good period of time of getting towards enough. Because enough, for me, means dealing with those disappointments, heartbreak, loneliness, and still being okay. I am enough.

And, today, I sat in the sunlight and read an old favorite and felt good. Felt enough.

If you can tell me that one mistake doesn't define who I am, then you should believe that one mistake doesn't define our love.

I believe that. I hope you do. I desperately hope so.

Turning over and over in my head the fact that I asked you last night if we could ever get over this and you refused to answer. Changed the subject. Don't think I didn't notice. And I remember that you were still completely cognizant and determined not to break me. You've still got my back, even now.

I know you, love of mine. I still do.

I miss you, I miss you.

Please don't ask me how I'm doing because I'm afraid I'll tell you the truth.

Which is

heartbroken. Shattered. Utterly and completely heartbroken.

Please don't ask because then I'd have to tell you that I cried in my car on the way home today. 

Weird looking at some pictures from certain periods of the last year. The pictures where I think I look the best or the skinniest are from strange times.

Like, I look at them and wish I was always that skinny. And then I remember that at those points I was, at most, eating 600 calories a day. I literally wasn't eating. I just wasn't.

Surviving off a diet of anxiety and applesauce.

And that's not even a little bit healthy. I may think I look good in those pictures, but the anxiety isn't worth that.

Filed under, things to remember when I'm dissatisfied with how I look.

I wanted to be the one that would never hurt you. That's not quite realistic though.

And when you were telling me that this was the first time I've genuinely hurt you, all I was thinking of was the quote from that book that we love. How we don't get a choice on being hurt in this world, but we do have a choice at who hurts us.

I DO like my choices. I really hope you like yours.

And you're wrong, you know. I will grow from this. I promise.

I love her, I love her.

No matter where this is headed, she's a consistently good force in my life and I'll always be grateful for that.

I can't quite bring myself to regret everything that happened last semester. I handled my emotions and feelings fairly poorly over the last few months, but I think I needed to go off the deep end for a little bit.

I feel like I needed to know what it felt like to self-destruct. What it felt like to avoid and ignore things to the point that I reached last semester.

I'm not saying all of it was good, in fact most of it was the exact opposite. But it was the sort of bad that I needed to experience, so that I'll know what it looks like the next time I start down that path.

And in the long run, I'm glad that I knew when to stop before I caused irrevocable harm, albeit with the encouragement of Best Friend. I'm glad that period is over and that I have a better idea of what I need to do now, now that I've decided to deal with these things.

Because it was okay for a semester to drink my weight three times over in rum and wine and to fall asleep most nights in a house that wasn't mine next to someone who I never really wanted to be mine. But I'm glad that's not my forever life.

It's time to focus on what is mine, or more specifically who I am and how I want to live *my* life.

I am enough.

I Did Not Write This...

... but reading it reminded me of some people who have influenced my life. Furthermore, I adore T.S. Eliot and I am wholly willing to adopt this concept into my thinking on why we harm others.

"Half the harm that is done in this word
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.Or they do not see it, or they justify itBecause they are absorbed in the endless struggleTo think well of themselves."
By T.S. Eliot. 

For me.

But also. For the girl who describes me to people as, "she's going to save people's lives through books."

It's okay that I'm sad. That I'll miss the comfort he brings. At least I'm acknowledging and confronting the underlying sadness now, instead of burying it under the covers with him or trying to drink away.

The point is that she's worth it. I truly believe that. Which means I have to start acting like I do.

I'm really sad. And three months too late, I'm going to have the courage to confront it.

Enough

I don't know when things stopped being enough for me. When I started always wanting more. More of EVERYTHING, in the worst way. The girl who is quite possibly the love of my life loves me enough not to kiss someone at midnight for two fucking years in a row because I wasn't with her, and for some reason that display of love isn't enough. I'm still here, looking for other sources of affection. Not to mention that I never seem to be okay with who I am and what I'm doing. That I oftentimes feel dissatisfied or unfulfilled.

So that's my resolution for 2014. What I have, who I am, is enough.

I am enough. Time to start believing that.