Style

I explained to my therapist today about how I tend to view people and categorize them, and how I apply this to myself. It's difficult to explain, but after my messy breakup and months of my ex slandering me to anyone who would listen, I became quite controlling of how I want to be viewed by other people, and how I want to view myself. I want to be seen as grown up, sophisticated, feminine, and happy, but more importantly, I want to feel and believe in those things. And I believe it's a fake-it-until-you-make-it kind of circumstance, because while I don't believe I possess any of those qualities, I want to make others think I do, and I want to at least pretend that I do.

My trip to New York a few weeks ago made me aware of this fact, when I saw it reflected in my older step-sister and my step-brother's girlfriend. They have their own ways of faking it, and so will I. It's an important step for me to take control of my life, to be sure of myself and who I am before I set foot back on campus and subject myself to the problems I had last year.

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.

Molly.

I love this cat with all of my heart. After all this time, she's still my shadow, my other half, my baby. She is beautiful and sometimes I feel guilty that I couldn't love another human being the way that she loves me, or that I love her.

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.

Happy medium

Spending most of my time at home and with my cats has had its beneficial effects, such as jolts of creativity and lots of time to spend by myself, and being holed back up in this room has helped me climb back into the soft, comfortable, broken-in personality that I was all throughout high school. I listen to music too loudly, dance around my room, doodle in my planner and create page after page in my art journal, look at things from a different point of view, speak french to my cats, and never depend on a boy to make me happy. If I can hold onto this until school starts again, I may just survive, or I may just have to start over somewhere new.

Today Mom and I went on an hour long walk around our neighborhood, making fun of all the weird looking houses and Mom even cut in on a father and son's basketball game. In all the time I have spent complaining about where I live and how much I hate it, I forgot how peaceful and beautiful it can be.

Sometimes it gets hard to leave the house, but my bravery returns with a shower and a coffee. Routines, routines, routines.