Rose-tinted eyes.

It's been a whirlwind rollercoaster of a week, and I'm glad it's over. I had almost admitted defeat of finding a job this semester, when as I as signing the paper telling the University to hold my work study money until next semester, someone mentioned that a position had literally just opened up at the library. I jumped on it, and got the job. A few hours later, I had a three hour long panic attack because my mother doesn't know how to deal with me and makes all my emotions worse rather than better. I'm so scared that my life is not going to be perfect.

Chelsea and Taylor might be stopping by on Sunday, which is nice. I feel like I need this weekend to recover and catch up and prepare for the onslaught that is next week. It's a three-day week, which you'd think would be easy, except for I have two midterms to study for and I start work at the library. Thursday after work I am going home, and I cannot wait to be all alone with my mom and cats again.

I can't make you love me.

This has been a high-stress, high anxiety week, as I wish more and more that I were home and seeing my friends thrive at their schools while I am clearly drowning, isolating myself with schoolwork and that natural Massachusetts way of ignoring everyone on the street or to give them all dirty looks. I don't mean to, I try to be friendly, I try to make conversation, I try and try and try and all these things and expectations are built up and I crumble underneath. I cannot handle the stress, I cannot handle where I am in my life right now.

I've been reflecting a lot on my ex-boyfriend this week, thinking about what happened and what I did wrong. But I realized, just as I had blamed him for not being mature enough to handle our relationship, neither was I. I couldn't take his word when he said he loved me, it wasn't enough for me. I wanted big, fancy, grand expressions of adoration, something that he was not capable of and I knew it and I shouldn't have expected it of him. Its been almost a year since our split, and I still miss him a lot. But I need to let go of his memory, I need to stop nurturing and protecting it. I am so young, and I have a lot more broken hearts to collect.

Blood or Block.

I went into this year thinking that This is it: This will be my year. I would make lots of friends, keep on top of all my homework, go to clubs and get a job, and still have time to breathe. Or, maybe I wouldn't want to breathe, because I was enjoying it all so much. This year couldn't be turning out more opposite than that. I'm struggling, I have so much to remember and do and I can't make any real friends. I have so much self-hate and self-loathing stored up inside of me this week that I just don't want to try anymore. I just want to go back home and let life slip by me, watching it go like a film. I'm sick and tired of feeling like a prisoner.

Our Deal.

This week has been full of progress and setbacks. I'm chatting more in class with my peers, exchanging smiles and laughs and anecdotes and names. I feel a bit more comfortable around them. Generally I feel more in control of my life, my priorities, my future. However, I still have yet to finding and securing a job, and each time I am let down, despite my status as a Work-Study student, it gets more and more discouraging. I've got to send my mom a description of the jobs I have been eyeing, hopefully she can help me out with starting the process all over again. Tomorrow I have to go to Merrill and fill out paperwork. I'm just scared that I am going to fail in this aspect.

This song has been stuck in my head for a few days now. Kind of reminds me of my deal, whatever that is.

Call the Shots!

Today was the first cheery day since summer, and I am so grateful for that. I needed a day where I wasn't miserable the whole time. Let's hope this feeling continues! A little sucky that I had to take my pills to make it happen, but at this point, I will take anything I can get.

My classes are alright, I'm starting to warm up to them. I still don't know what the point of my sociology class is, as the professor never came out and said what the subject is really about. He just lists off names of people and that they are important to sociology, which, you know, is really super helpful. I'm starting to really get into my Fiction Writing class, despite how many obnoxious and pretentious people there are. I also think my English class will be good, one of my only friends is in that class so I am excited for that! I'm a little unsure about French. I had a bad start yesterday morning and thought I was going to the right time, when in fact just as I was arriving, the class was ending. Super. But I am not going to let that slow me down, I will just have to work all the more harder next class!

As you can probably tell, genuine optimism is rare for me, but as always, I will just have to fake it until I make it.

Home life.

Last week I moved back into school. It was stressful and overwhelming and I am incredibly lonely there, without a real friend on campus. I decided to spend the long weekend with my family at the beach instead of on campus with my new roommate, who wouldn't have been around anyway. I am encouraged by others around me to step out and try new things, meet new people, even to go to a party or two, but instead of feeling empowered by the opportunity for change I have been given, I am shrinking away from them, intimidated and scared. I wish I had realized how easy I had it last year, instead of ignoring it and wallowing in my other problems. Last year I wanted to be as far away from home as possible. This year, I wish I was there in a heartbeat.

Getting lonely.

This week has been one of the most stressful ever. It is now sinking in that I will not greet Chelsea at our dorm, I will be living by myself for an undetermined amount of time. Shopping for dorm supplies has been stressing me out beyond belief; I want to give up and just not show up at school on Tuesday. I'm scared, I'm anxious, and I'm sad. I hate not knowing what I'm getting into, I hate going into situations blind-folded. I hate change.

My deal.

Yesterday was a tough day; it was the lowest I've ever felt, the ugliest I've ever felt in a long time. Luckily, my friends were there to buoy me up and were supportive and understanding when I kept delaying our meeting.

Today I have a lot of sorting to do, packing for school starts today. This is always a scary and stressful time in the year, and its even harder when my mom isn't there to support me. I am only 19, I can't juggle all of these things on my own.

Also, this song pretty much sums up my summer. Depressing, right?

Head first.

Something has snapped. I can't handle any of this anymore. I had such a great day yesterday with Kelsie, one of my closest friends, and we talked about everything and how we wanted the future to be, how we ourselves wanted to be. I felt so hopeful then, so full of promise and potential to be whomever I wanted. A mere 24 hours later, I've slumped down into this rut, where the walls of all the things I have to accomplish this week are towering over me and I am shrinking away from them, afraid of being suffocated under their importance and intimidation.

But I need time for me too, I've been running myself ragged all summer and I need to get down off this absolutely absurd level of anxiety I have been teetering on for the past four months. I think I'll try doing some yoga tonight.

the fear of god.

Today my brother, father, and I went to Plymouth Plantation, visiting the Native Americans (who are native to the area and whose tribe have lived in Massachusetts for 12,000 years!); the role players and their tiny, smelly houses and overgrown gardens; and the livestock they keep there year-round. I took this picture of a goat sniffing my camera! It was really interesting, coming back after all those years I had spent there as a child, being bored and not taking anything in and trying to trick the roleplayers. Now that I can appreciate the place, I found it so interesting.

Lately my patience has run short with distant friends and aquaintances who want to get together before the summer's over. I appreciate and am flattered by their interest in keeping me in their lives, but I go back to school on August 30. I have an almost dehabilitating form of anxiety. There is no making plans with me before that date. My schedule up until that point is already packed full, and I am not going to try and squeeze them in anywhere, so they'll have to wait until Winter Break like the rest of my friends. The only thing they're doing for me right now is increasing my stress.

Louis

Today we threw a party for Mark's graduation/going off to college, and it was so great. Great family and friends, great food, great laughs. The two wine coolers I had loosened me up just enough to be able to relax and laugh, without feeling anxious. It was a very loving, happy day in all.

I asked Dr. G today if I should send Ryan a letter, letting him know I'm doing okay and that I hope he is doing okay as well. He said that Ryan is still too angry and bitter to accept any kind of graciousness or kindness from me, and will resent me even more for it. I just want this to be over, I just want to move on with my life free of these hostility ropes that are tying me to him. I just want to send the olive branch, and be done with it forever.

Also, I decided to move forward with Derek. He's technically single, and I need to stop worrying about everyone else's opinions and feelings and start thinking about my own. This is my life and I'll make my own mistakes.

Hollows

I need to start somewhere; I need to find a place to find my footing and climb. I called Dad today, asked him about possible vacations, and then he tried to place the blame on me for not picking up the ball fast enough. I'm sorry, I didn't know that I was running this show? And it was impossible to make plans without first knowing when I was leaving for school, and a vacation with you is not the first item on my list of things I have to readjust according to the time schedule change.

That seemed to only create more stress, so tomorrow when I talk to dad about scheduling these mini vacations I'm also planning to ask about money for the things I need for school. Because there are a lot, and I am broke, and I'm already having high anxiety about going back to school as it is, so it would be a great comfort to me if everything I needed was taken care of before I go off gallivanting with you.

One day at a time. One step at a time. One breath at a time. One problem at a time. I can only do so much.

Good as Gold

When my ideas and my thoughts become so abstract and translucent (which, is an abstract thought in and of itself), they manifest themselves physically as an aching in my chest, a knot of anxiety for fear of not being able to feel the ground beneath me. When nothing is concrete, when I have nothing to anchor myself to any one place and my anxiety has no place to channel itself, it turns in on itself- I become a black hole of worry, a self-destructing vacuum that eats up and processes everything it can, transmuting it so that any random thought is victim to fear and panic.

And the worst part is, I have nothing to show for it.

back home.

I've made a decision to go running daily, to ease back into a workout routine, and to go through every single item in my room. I'm throwing everything out, I'm starting over, I'm ready to be me again.

This past week my family went to my uncle's house on Long Island, which is beautiful, right on the water. I brought along Erica, who I felt immensely guilty and sorry for while she had to awkwardly deal with my panic attacks and fights with my family. After Wednesday, I couldn't handle them anymore (I couldn't handle the number of people and the volume of noise) and I wanted so badly to leave. I feel terrible for partly ruining Erica's vacation with my temper tantrums and crying and mood swings, but my family doesn't understand my anxiety, and my mother will never learn how to help me.

I won't cry anymore.

I remember the look on your face, the moment I saw you truly loved me- when I asked What? and you just shrugged your shoulder that wasn't pinned to the bed, because we were laying on our sides on my tiny dorm bed, and then your face broke into a grin and you leaned over and kissed my cheek. My heart aches for that moment back, for every moment. Because I loved you so much, and I still do, for some reason. I still love you, but I am still wrapped around other boys, I still crave their attention and affection and adoration. Because one heartbreak is not enough- I need more, my heart is greedy, it takes everything it can get. I miss my boyfriend. I miss feeling loved. I miss being in love. And that is the worst part. I am afraid to be alone.

what I've given up.

My morals have completely shattered; I have turned into this empty, hollow, shell of an actual human being who has no regard for other's feelings and takes, takes, takes. I don't know what I have gotten myself into, but I depend on it to get me through the next two weeks, until I am back at the nest, back in my mother's arms and with my best friends and people who actually care about my existence and don't just want to get in my pants.

I allow all of this to happen. I could have been firm, I could have said no, but I have no objection to pain and heartbreak anymore and crave the attention and affection of any male that comes across my path. I am destroying relationships across the globe, and I show no remorse. This is the life I have come to, these are the choices I have made. My path has been determined. I am useless, I am a cynical, murderous bitch. You are no longer here to keep me anchored, and my calm, serene sunshine has turned into a dangerous hurricane. I pray that this hurricane reaches you, that the evidence and gossip makes you stop and feel the slightest amount of sadness for the pain you've caused me. You have created a monster.

Something in me has snapped. For now, at least, I am no longer yearning to be back in your arms. Rather, I would like to lash out at you for everything you've done to me, everything you've put me through. It takes almost all my strength to remain composed and amiable while I talk to you. I promise you empty words, Of course I'd still like to be friends, but in reality I do not want anything to do with you from here on. You can't have everything you want, and up until now I have been providing and enabling all of that for you. But at the bottom of everything, you broke my heart, and that isn't something you "cool off" from.

I ended up tricking myself into believing I could do any of this without you; into believing that I could move on. I'm completely lost, I have absolutely no idea of anything I want anymore. I need other people to remind me to eat, to give me my pill, to take me to class, to move me out of the way of people and pavement and moving cars.

Going home makes me afraid, but nevertheless, I have to do it. I have to go and retreat into my house with my family and my cat and the love that I had before you. To remind myself that it's still there, it will always be there.

Some days, I can't wait to get away from everything and go to college. To start over, to have four classes a semester and a new life and new friends. And then I look back at the amazing summer I've had so far, look back at you and our friends and our lives together, intertwined. And this is what I've wanted all along, so why am I not happy?

We kissed inside of your trunk, our hands fumbling in the dark, our legs entwined together. I am reminded of your dogs cuddling with me because they are afraid of the thunder, of Cody holding me back from running outside to greet the gardener, of my crazy neurotic brain and being too much for you to handle. But it seems, for the moment, that you can handle me just fine.