This blog often contains uncomfortable subject matter and occasional sexual content. If you don't want to read about it, empower yourself to close the page. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update November 2012 Well, I got a new computer. It connects to my shitty wireless connection more often than BK's, so maybe I can post in this journal more often. Or maybe I will neglect it because I'm twenty-five, and I don't need to constantly cry about my feelings on the internet as often as I used to. I've been thinking a lot about growth, and my lack thereof lately. I want to grow. But I don't want to grow? I'm scared. I can come up with a million excuses for why I haven't pushed myself to become a better, more productive person, but I'll never get anywhere if I can't be honest with myself. I'm scared. I want to take voice lessons, but I never sign up. Maybe piano lessons first, so I can learn music theory. Then voice lessons would be less daunting, and I could join the choir again. But I don't sign up for piano lessons, either. I don't sign up for drawing lessons, don't even try the exercises in the multiple drawing instruction books I've bought. I haven't been working on any jewelry, haven't tried any macrame despite having spent a bunch of money on books about it. I don't even sing in the car much anymore. I tried tonight, and I sounded so horrible. My voice has atrophied. I can't even carry a tune anymore without wavering. I think about all the things I could do, if I weren't hitting this brick wall in my psyche. I could write. I could make music. I could draw, paint, sculpt. I could get my apartment clean, and keep it that way. So why don't I? What's stopping me? The obvious answer is me. I'm stopping me. But why? Why do I hold myself back, stunt my own growth? Am I lowering myself to the intellectual level of my family or coworkers? Do I feel like my achievement would be a betrayal to my family? I don't know. It sounds stupid when I put it like that. There's so much going on in the world, and I keep myself shut out and mostly blind to it. Almost every day, I tell myself I'm going to get better. Tonight I will go home and wash all of the dishes. I'll clean up the living room. I won't smoke pot. I won't pick my skin. I'll do a craft project. But then I come home, get stoned and refresh my high every couple of hours, and play the fucking Sims 2 all night. I spend my life playing a life simulator. And I know that I'm the only one who can change my habits. So why don't I? I'm too comfortable. I know how to be sad, I know how to be scared and lonely. I know how to be a victim and how to make excuses and say I can't, I can't. I don't know how to be productive, motivated, appreciative. I don't know how to have fun, to have friends. I don't know how to live, I just know how to stay cozy in my cell. And one of the hardest things for me to do, is try something new that I don't know how to do yet. Every day, I tell myself I'm going to change, and I come home and do the same thing. What's it going to take for me to finally snap out of this? My youth is not going to last forever. I'm going to miss my chance at a life if I don't start doing things differently soon. I think what really scares me, is that sometimes I think the only way I can grow is to cut BK loose. I don't blame him for my stagnation. I blame myself. But I don't think I can grow when he's around. I don't feel like I can even do anything when he's home. I don't feel comfortable exercising, doing chores, drawing, writing, or basically doing anything when he's home. I either watch him play video games, or he watches me play, or we both watch a DVD. I don't develop when he's here. I can't risk being seen. And I can't be honest. Can't get emotional without worrying that he'll make some implication that I'm blowing things out of proportion, or wallowing in my depression instead of taking action. I can't get mad at him without him accusing me of selfishness when I get scared if he starts to get mad at me too. I mean, "frustrated", not mad. I'm the one who gets mad, so he doesn't ever have to. I'm the one who expresses, so he can pretend that he doesn't feel. The result is that we both feel stifled and bottled up, and we eventually have a big fight that I "start" after he baits me into it by poking at me until I react, so that he can feel like the rational, clueless, and most importantly, blameless boyfriend and I can be the emotional, ranting, demanding girlfriend. Ultimately, I love him, and we usually do pretty well. But when we do have the occasional fight, it almost always turns into a near-breakup, where we have to ask ourselves and each other if we both want to stay together. If we think it's even good for us to stay together, if we're holding each other back. I think I am holding myself back, but maybe I wouldn't do that as much if I weren't in a relationship that felt so important? The stakes are too dire, so I don't feel safe being myself (whoever that is). But then, what would I do if I lived alone? All of my almost-friends are really his friends. They call him, not me. They like me, but they all realized long ago that I'm walled off. They respect my need for space (read: self-enforced isolation) and leave me alone, although they are happy when I tag along with BK to any events. I think that if I cut BK loose, I would be stranded. No support system except my family, and really, that would be more like throwing me to the wolves than throwing me a life preserver. I know that I can be something amazing. I know I can. So why do I have this huge lump in my throat just reading over those last two sentences? During my last therapy session, JDut had me close my eyes. She told me to visualize my pain, what shape it was, what color, and where it was located in my body. I was able to do that. Then she told me to pick a healing color, and I said green. She told me to imagine a healing green light going through me and making the pain weaker. I couldn't do that. I got panicky, so she switched to a different visualization. She told me to imagine a safe place. Any place would do. This place would be, in my own fantasy, a place where I could completely let my guard down. No danger. I couldn't picture that place. I tried really hard to keep from crying. I felt pressure to play along, so I just picked the nature park, in the trees, on one of the wooden bridges. She said to imagine myself on the bridge, relaxing, and feel the anxiety slowly melt away. Instead it got worse. I kept thinking, this doesn't feel safe at all. Nowhere feels safe. I started crying and told her I couldn't keep going. I didn't tell her that it was because I couldn't really imagine a place that felt safe. I don't know why I couldn't tell her that. I don't want to be like this anymore! I don't know what to do, but I am going to keep trying. I am going to do whatever I can, little things each day, to try to have a real life. One of these days, maybe I will have built myself up enough to go out and do something. Finally make BK proud. And maybe one day I will even grow for myself, not for him. Tonight, I'm going to force myself to wash the dishes. It sounds stupid that dishes are even a challenge for me. But it feels like an accomplishment, considering the state I'm in tonight. I just have to keep telling myself, even though every time I say it I get this lump in my throat and have to blink back the tears, that one day I can be something amazing. 7:07 p.m. - 2012-11-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Updates, blah, blah Stuff's been okay, off and on. I've been gradually sliding back and forth between depression and the usual neutral apathy. But I got promoted a few weeks ago, so I'm making more money. BK finally bought a car, so he can quit saving up for a car and start paying his portion of the bills (let's see what excuse he comes up with this time, and what excuse I come up with for him). 9:02 p.m. - 2012-02-22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grandma V Tonight I'm feeling anxious, lethargic, depressed, and lonely. The last few weeks have been rough. Grandma V is dying. She was acting extra crazy for a while, but the last two times I've seen her, she just seemed weak and exhausted and sad. The last time I saw her was Sunday, the 11th. She whispered to my mother that we should go home. She didn't want us to see her this way. She didn't let us stay to talk. The nurse even tried to talk her into letting us stay, but she came back out and told us that my grandma had still refused. It's really sad. The nurse told us that the night before, she'd started crying, saying that she wanted to see her grandchildren. Of course it's hard seeing my grandma like this. But even sadder, is how awful it must be to feel like you have to turn away your loved ones when you need them most. I have such mixed emotions lately. She needs to die. She is weak and in constant pain, and she's afraid all the time. She sees FBI helicopters landing in the nursing home parking lot. She thinks the staff are running both a jewelry smuggling ring and a drug ring. She has, on multiple occasions, called out for my little cousin OMS, when OMS wasn't even in town. She is tiny now. She can't swallow food. They have to put a thickening agent in her water so she won't choke. She's in too much pain, so it's kind of a relief to know that it won't last much longer. But I feel guilty when I dread visiting her. I feel bad when I wonder which of her belongings will be offered up to me. I feel guilty for not being a better granddaughter when she was still in better health. She was always so depressing to talk to, "So and so died, Such and such has cancer." It was hard to be around her, so I didn't spend much time with her, didn't get to know her. Now I feel like I cheated her out of being a grandma. She has had such a tragic life. When aunt J died at age seven, I think something broke in my grandmother. My mom told me that my dad told stories of how every morning, my grandma would lay out the clothes that she wanted to be buried in. And, years later, my mom told me that around the time my grandma tried to subsist exclusively on candy (which quickly landed her in the hospital, possibly near death), she had been looking at the picture of aunt J in her coffin. Her whole life, she's kept this picture, and who knows how often she looked at it. Uncle L took it, and I will never understand why he took it, or why anyone would put it into my grandmother's hands. Her only daughter dies as a child, her kids grow up and move out, her grandkids don't visit often enough (despite living two blocks away), and then her husband dies, leaving her alone. In failing health, both physical and mental. I just feel really bad for her. I wish I could rewind and get to know her better. Now she's too far gone mentally, and too weak to talk. I missed my chance, and I don't know how to cope with that. On top of all of this, BK's been working double shifts all week, so I haven't seen him for more than an hour or two each day. I miss him, we haven't had many chances to talk or be affectionate, and we haven't had sex in a while. I don't think I'll get to spend much time with him tomorrow, either. Work's been stressful (busy season again) and I know the both of us could use some comfort. On a positive note, I have a story that I want to record for posterity. On Sunday, when BK arrived home from work, I almost immediately started crying upon telling him about my attempted visit to my grandma. I was really upset and of course he listened and held me. I said I wanted some time in the bedroom to cry and he went out to the living room to eat dinner. While I was in the bedroom, I remembered that BK had brought me a chocolate chip cookie from work. I thought, that will be good comfort food. Too bad we're out of milk. And then immediately started crying even harder, because there was nothing that I wanted more at that moment than cookies and milk. I actually ended up seeing the humor in the situation (cookies and milk pale in comparison to one's grandmother dying) and went out to tell BK the story. And without being asked, he offered to go to the store and buy me some milk, and any other comfort food I'd like. I really do have a very good boyfriend. 10:22 p.m. - 2011-12-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update November 2011 I seem to only update this blog every few months nowadays... I'm trying to remember what all has happened between the last entry and now. LJ got arrested in August, for throwing noodles at my other neighbor and breaking every window in her apartment. No, I don't know if the noodles were raw or cooked, and I don't know what kind of noodles they were. Nor do I know what compelled her to throw the noodles at this guy. Last I heard, she was in a mental hospital. No idea if they'll let her out anytime soon. As long as she doesn't come back for revenge, I'll be satisfied. Anyway, since she was supposed to get evicted in September anyway, I haven't seen her since the arrest. I have a whole new batch of neighbors now, and while they can get just as drunk and loud as some of the previous bunch, things have been a lot less stressful around my home. The biggest news is that BK finally quit his job at the music store. He was able to get his job back at the sandwich shop. He's making less money and getting less hours, but he's happy again (as happy as he's capable of being, anyway) and he has more free time. I've been enjoying his presence at home more often. We actually have time for sex again. It has been very nice. I've decided that since I make a lot more money than him, I will not insist that he pay half of the bills. We're going to figure out how much each of us make each pay period and divide it up based on our income rather than splitting it 50/50. At first I felt like that wasn't fair to me (after all, it's not my fault he seeks out jobs that pay less than mine), but the more I thought about it, asking him to give me almost his entire paycheck isn't really fair to him either. And since he can never afford to pay half of all the bills, I end up feeling resentful. Perhaps this new arrangement can curb some of the resentment? In other news, I have been feeling depressed, lethargic, and unmotivated for the past month or so. My therapist is pretty sure I've got seasonal affective disorder (called SAD, isn't that cute? What a convenient acronym to use to convince people to buy antidepressants). She keeps harping on me to buy omega 3 supplements as well as 5HTP and evening primrose oil. And she wants me to spend a bunch of money on a light box. And start exercising. Haven't really done any of that yet, except for the occasional brisk walk. Oops. I forget how awful depression can be until it fully kicks in. I mean, I usually have a mild depressed demeanor anyway. But when it comes in full force, I just feel awful. I don't want to get out of bed. Every weekday morning, I debate whether or not to call in sick. At work, I can't focus. My productivity and quality have gone down. I get irritable and angry more quickly and easily. I just don't want to do anything most of the time. I have my good days, though. This weekend was pretty cool. I called in sick on Friday because I had forgotten to ask for that day off. BK and I went to JesD's parents' house to celebrate his birthday. They own a liquor store and have quite a bit of money, so they provided free food, free food, and a place to sleep. Most of the time was spent in the garage while the band practiced and recorded. Then we had a bonfire and eventually took a dip in the hot tub. We stayed up until after 5:00 in the morning. I got to know the singer, B, which was cool. He seems to really like me, which is flattering because he seems pretty smart. I was worried he'd find me annoying or something. I am less and less nervous around BK's friends every time I hang out with them (took me long enough!). I've found that they all seem pretty comfortable opening up to me, and when I share a little bit more about myself than I normally tell other people, they don't seem to feel uncomfortable about it. MM and B both came right out and admitted that they have social anxiety and use sarcasm and offensive jokes as a defense mechanism. To my surprise, I admitted that I have social anxiety (although, DUH, it's pretty obvious) too. I still find myself surprised when I speak honestly about myself and am not met with rejection or disdain. Throughout my (so far) short adult life, I've come to realize that I really did just grow up in a shitty town, with a shitty school, full of shitty people. My hometown's reaction to me is not an accurate reflection of my worth as a person, and there are people in the world who are willing to at least try to understand me. It's very refreshing to be able to let my guard down a little (even if I can't do it fully yet) and interact with people as myself. 4:35 p.m. - 2011-11-06 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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