When I Can't Hold It In

Excitement like starbursts in my soul. Like smiles that can't be stifled and high wild screams of joy into the night. Fireworks in my blood that make me want to dance and sing and kiss and run. Adrenaline rushing to my brain like a roaring river flooding me with thoughts full of YES and Never Stop and Just Keep Going! A world full of life that I always forget was there and suddenly I can see it and I can feel it all. I can love it all and take it all and nothing can stop me. These moments I am endless and unafraid and invincible. I want crisp air and endless nights and joy that lasts forever with music and light and love and hearts bursting with all of the potential of every single moment.



See Also:  Depression

Depression

 

Depression hurts like bruises trapped in your heart like clouds behind your eyes and scars wrapped around your skin. Anxiety like electricity blazing through your head and worms slithering in your veins. Fear like hands gripping your wrists, tying you down and clamping your mouth shut, but if it opened all you could do is scream because the world is crashing down on you even when nothing is wrong. Mean Reds like noise in your head, driving you away from your life and under the covers. Hide. Run. Don't smile. Don't talk. Cry. Just cry and hide and let the lonely in as the world goes on around you like a ride that's just too high. Just too fast. You weren't invited and wouldn't have any fun anyway. It's your life and it's always just out of reach.

A New Year on Its Way

So I sort of have a new computer. On loan, basically. And I only have it for two weeks before I'm probably lending it to someone else for a month, so... not having my own computer has been an oddly placid hassle. I use the boys, usually, but when he's not home I don't really have the chance to write or work (I'm officially a freelance Editor now, win!). And when he isn't home I tend to feed my Triple Town addiction...

But a new year is on its way, which means a new collage and pages of resolutions in my Bible, hopefully a party where I can dress up and drink champagne, and a short-lived feeling of newness and rebirth come the first few days of January.
But right now, for the first time in quite a while, things seems to have potential. I'm working (a little) and still a substitute teacher (can't wait to get out of that, but at least I get to make my own schedule) and Christmas (my favorite holiday, even as an atheist) left me with a lot of things I really kind of needed. Clothes that I actually like and can wear to work, so I can finally throw away some of the things I've had since I was 14; a new cookware set so I'm not eating bits of Teflon in my soups; and a lot of things I actually kind of wanted: books, blankets, a munchkin game.

Somehow, I feel a very slight, subtle sense of... possibility, for the first time since I graduated college. I even have a little pile of story ideas spinning around in my head that I think are eager to get out, including a fantasy series (comic?) that was originally my partner's idea, but I've evolved and would like to write down, and a dark children's story that I think could be really good.

I'm afraid of this too, unfortunately, because much of this possibility will have to begin with a cleansing of what currently is. 

I need to throw away my scratched and broken pots and pans to make room for my beautiful new set.
I need to throw away the clothes that are torn, don't fit, and I just don't like, and finally make room for a wardrobe that I actually look forward to wearing, and create a more concrete (though still completely fluid) visual identity that I actually like, and makes me feel like me.
I need to redo the office and its contents for the beau's new Drafting Table-- which means his hulking desk is now mine, which is another new beginning to cleanse and start.
I need to reevaluate my living space as a whole to find a way to keep it clean and love it and discourage laziness.
I need to purge myself of laziness and focus wholeheartedly on this work that I really really want to do for the rest of my life, which I'm finally taking baby steps towards.
I need to reevaluate my working life, since I didn't get into grad school and now have a large span of time without a proper plan or indication of what/where I want to be. This is slightly alleviated by the point above, but as my freelance work is small and only just beginning to crawl, there has to  be something else in the meantime.
I need to pour energy into my body (exercise) and relationship (attitude) by letting go of the past and beginning again.

And these aren't even my resolutions. Though now that I've written them they're definitely going in my Bible...

Having said that, I need to get to work. I have a new novel to edit, and I haven't even gotten to the second page.

Wish me luck.

A letter to My Younger Self

Dear Younger Me,

First, let the past go. This is important. It can't hurt you any more, don't let it humiliate you. It is nothing. Those memories are unimportant. It's okay to let it go. To forget.

If you haven't yet, you'll soon meet the boy that will ruin everything for you. Don't let the tears, jealousy, lies, and pinpricks of angry pain get inside of you. The things he'll convince you to do. Don't let it hurt too much.

One day that too-wide, too-thick, too-red smile will make your stomach heave with just a thought. But you'll get through everything.

He's not going to break your heart-- you'll stop loving him long before-- but he will break your spirit. And it will hurt.

But the haze you spend the next few years in will life. You'll say, Enough. After more tears and fear and guilt, he'll be gone.

You'll always feel guilty because of him. Dirty. But allow yourself the beauty of your strength. Your determination. Your heart. You'll pick up the pieces and move on. Not always in the right directions, but at least in better ones.

And one day things will just click. The past won't matter so much any more. It will still hurt, but it will be dull, distant, forgetting.

There will be a lot of tears and depression, and many boring days and nights, but life will be better. Not the way we'd like, but better all the same.

With all the love that I have,
Older Me.

1/29/2012

With a Whimper

This new year isn't promising.

Last year felt like an all time low, almost every single day, especially the second half of the year. But I don't even want to think about it.

I want to move on. I want to get better.
I want to make this year better.

So I started with my journals.

My Bible was neglected for a while, but it's picking back up.
So fast, in fact, that I'm starting to think about my next little black book.

Once again, I wrote down my wishes and Resolutions for the new year.

They're mostly the same as last year, but much more determined.

More money. More fun. More adventures. More laughs. More gym time. More water. More writing.

Then Dan bought me these adorable little mini-journals from Target, each with a national monument on the cover, maps of city undergrounds along the inside, and adorable little pages ready to be scribbled and doodled on.

I turned it into a Daily Log.
Did I exercise today?
Did I drink four glasses of water? Eight?
Did I do chores?
Did I kiss Dan?
Did I have fun?
Did I laugh?


I hope it becomes my nightly ritual.
Cross legged in bed with a book and a pen, checking off my day.
Did I write today?
Do something new?
Do something fun?


Hopefully these two things will give me the structure (and boost) I need to get through the first few months of the year, paycheck or no paycheck.
Since even though looking for a job and working and exercising are on my check list, so are laughing and kissing and pampering myself, maybe I can make sure my life is a mixture of work and play, which hasn't been the case this past year. It was work mixed with laziness and self pity, with the occasional bit of play.

This year, I want to be better. Fitter. Happier.

Resolution.

I never really go for resolution season.
I might say I'll go to the gym more or be less lazy or quit doing things that are bad for me (junk food, late nights, etc), but I'm pretty average about giving up a few weeks into the new year.

But this year my resolutions aren't about giving things up or forcing myself to do anything. Instead, they are about making my life better for me. About making me happier. And about being better all together.

I think this is a great thing to put in my Bible, showing what my primary goals are for my life (to be happy, duh!) in simple, practical ways.

I also made a list (below) of more vague things I want to happen in the 2011 year. Because those desires are what ultimately fuel what I will and won't do, so they're important to keep track of.
I don't think it's finished, but I still have five hours left in the day to think about it.

Again, Happy New Year.
Let's make Two Thousand and Eleven a beautiful year.

Wednesday

The wind is so cold it's like ice is caressing my face and pulling at my clothes. I pass the days without work, which are many this month, reading a girl's journey through the world without hope, written in beauty.

My Bible has lain stagnant, but I'm working to renew my inspiration and fill it with beauty and hope and life.

My totems are a pair of pink striped plastic heart earrings, a delicate silver heart necklace a family friend gave me a long time ago (to remind me to love myself), and a TokiDoki heart and crossbones necklace Dan gave me for my birthday (to remind me that I am loved by others).

College is officially done, and I have no desire to return in the coming years for a higher degree. Two bachelor's degrees are adequate for now.
But jobs aren't easy to come by, and without proper connections I can't imagine getting a real (good) job in the publishing world.
I'm looking though, and there are days when I come very close to praying to the gods I don't believe in.

I got two new FLB books this week. One-- Blood Roses-- bought off Amazon after a few weeks of considering, the other-- Wasteland-- stumbled upon at the local used bookstore. With the temperature creeping in through the foggy windows and nothing much else to do but clean, I'm sure I'll have them done soon.

Christmas is coming, and all of my presents are bought except for Dan's. The simple act of wrapping colored paper around boxes and books makes me feel busy and artistic and wonderful. I'd wrap everything in shiny paper and plastic bows if I could.
Every time I glance around my bland, beige apartment I consider buying more christmas lights-- some to string across the walls and wrap around the lamps like little colored reminders of theoretical happiness. But just the idea of going out into the night's 18 degree weather makes me curl up into a ball and go back to my books.

It's strange being content, yet still unhappy. Something about the world, or myself, right now leaves me unsatisfied
I want to write a new list of "How to Be Happy", a winter edition that takes into account frigid gusts of wind and foamy cups of cocoa and hot buttered rum. Lovers and Puppies cuddled on the couch, hiding from the cold.

"Just like any woman,...we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same.."               ~Francesca Lia Block