Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:49:29 GMT

"I am cruising currently right now. I'm cruising because I have dedicated to all that is creative and destructive in my life right now, and I'm equally in love with every aspect of my life, and all the ingredients that have caused me turmoil, and all the ingredients that have caused me glory. I am the living whispered warning in a Roman general's ear, 'Glory is fleeting,' and in that verb, that active verb 'fleeting,' there I live, there I reside in this moment." - Timothy Levitch

"My gurnal. I write my thoughts in it every day."

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:58:37 GMT

MOSTLY private. Some friends only.

don't know why I didn't post this here initially

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:39:38 GMT

I really wish I had the energy to write this in pen, and I probably do, but there are so many different happenings and feelings to get down it seems a little overwhelming to be penning. But rest assured that if I did it would be blue… blue blue blue.
I had a pretty shitty start to this summer. Everything that I learned this year at school, all the wonderful things I came to realize about myself, have been put to the test being back home. There were some expectations reawakened by the change of scenery, from my parents, Naomi, from myself. Regardless, we know I haven’t been good at tuning out what other people think. The Matt situation, while he may not deserve the significance he’s had on me this summer, has been (and still is) the bigger, more pressing trial. I’m a little sad and embarrassed to say that I’ve never really had a sober relationship with a guy before this. I’m even more embarrassed that I think my fear and naivety paralyzed me, and I’m really astounded at what I’ve led him to see me as.
But I’ve been learning. I finally got into therapy and have decided that my eating disorder is not my priority. That issue is only an extension of my real problem(s), which are being really quickly lazered away both in therapy and by just living.
My first problem (this is a doozy) is my overemphasis on what other people think about me; my biggest issue in life has been doubt; a big part of me believes that if other people’s minds and opinions are just as powerful as mine (be them misjudged), denying the desire to cater to those is difficult. They have just as much say as I do.
The reality of it is, though, to be so perceptive as to feel that pain, is making myself so much vulnerable than I ever should be. It should make sense then that at my lowest, I take such great comfort in an exchange that Abby and I had last semester. We got to a point in our understanding of each other that we could ask each other, tell each other anything. I asked her once, “Do I have any reason to do what I do to myself?” And she just said no, in a way that no one could replicate. I heard “no,” but I felt, “You’re so exhausted, aren’t you? Just drop it, just drop it. Drop it and leave it behind you.” And as the winter melted away that feeling sunk into me, and I think tonight it’s just a whole new level.
I would say that my second problem is my tendency to overanalyze, but I would never trade that up. I just need to externalize, to relish, to look at how beautiful the big picture is.

I should describe tonight. In fact, this whole week has been great. Molly and Erin went to Molly’s house in upstate New York, and I spent a lot of the weekend with Ryan and his friends. We went to the beach today, came home, did Adderall, talked our faces off and just had so much fun. Dave, Eddie and I were the key players, and we just kept delving deeper and deeper into conversation until it was all just so beautifully abstract and personal and true. We talked about everything I’ve said here; how we think, why we care, ignorance, religion, how we define our existence. It would not and could not translate to any other setting, but it was so nice. Dave even took me and Ed aside in the hall and was just like, “It’s really rare that people open up as easily as we do.” And later tonight as I was letting him smoke, he just said, “You are one of the coolest people I know. Seriously. You’re easily on my top five people.” And I know it’s so cheesy, but I felt honored, validated even. I felt like that kind of understanding is rare, and it’s something that can’t be forced. And to get hung up over maybe missing that with someone is just so horrible. It’s like expecting every day to match your mood; some things just won’t match. Rainy days still bog me down, but there are more days.

This needs attention, although I don’t want to end on this note. If every wave of good contains some bad, this was tonight’s heaping of bad. Naomi came over and I saw her here and there but I was pretty caught up in everything else. We noticed that Tim and Naomi were alone upstairs, and when everyone wanted to relocate, I was the first up the stairs. Naomi was lying opposite Tim, and when she saw me got up and left really quickly. I followed her and confronted her; she was crying and just blurted out “I looked through your phone and saw that you’ve been texting Tim all summer.” She broke off into a sobbing howl. She might have said something about Jake, but either way I know we were both thinking it. I brought her outside when I heard someone coming down the stairs, and she collapsed on the sidewalk hysterical. The words are all a blur, but the energy is so perfectly clear and vivid and horrible, like a dream. I was looking at myself any given day at Hamden High, pouring my soul out in front of my house at 2 a.m. Everything she said was so miserably familiar and I still didn’t know how to comfort her. I didn’t know that I could, that to return to that place so soon after I had been so liberated by escape would be the worst thing I could do for myself.
I think she felt, and I did too, that the comfort I extended was empty and trite and so unlike how we used to be. I could hear it, but I couldn’t change it. She got in her car sobbing and fucked up starting the ignition; usually we would burst out into one of those loud Whoopee cushion laughs, but she just cried harder. And with an energy comparable to Katherine Scahill’s breakdown freshman year, drove off.
I called her later and explained to her that I will never be able to handle seeing her that way, that she doesn’t deserve this and, as impossible to swallow as this may be, it’s all just such horrible timing. It’s freaky, so freaky how things have done a 180 for the both of us. I accepted she wasn’t equipped to help me halfway through our friendship, and bitterly stuck it out for the next two years for fear of complete isolation. I’m done with that part of my life, I have been for too long. I’m doing what’s best for me, and really best for her; we weren’t good together, we weren’t good for each other.

Not counting the horrible Naomi situation, I declare August 10, 2008 a personal holiday. It even felt so fresh when I wrote it first. I’ve been known to overreact, and I hope this isn’t one of those times, but I can also detect “lock-it-in” moments like it’s my job, and this is most definitely one of them. I have a small fear that I’ll lose this memory, that the level of comfort and connection I felt tonight will be lost. That would be so so terrible.

SIDENOTE from conversation with Eddie:
SOLUTION: realizing that to expect to connect with every person is absurd (The Liz Morrow Complex: some people do not possess the “home life” of Cat’s Cradle). I’m starting to realize that my happiness is never going to be if I allow myself to define myself by standards that (a) are impossible to achieve and (b) really don’t matter. I will never live up to my own expectations unless I trust myself. I think I’ve been so late in getting there because I haven’t had many people understand me and just validate what I’ve been getting more and more sure of every month.
1. OD (overanalysis disorder; self-diagnosed). I realized tonight that a lot of the doubt I developed growing up is being slowly lazered away with each person I meet.

ktp

"My gurnal. I write my thoughts in it every day."

don't know why I didn't post this here initially