bird, you can’t fly no more.

I’ve been learning.
And growing.
And changing.

I’ve decided, for sure, on grad school. I have three people writing rec letters, I’ve signed up for the GRE and I’ve already cried twice while studying the math section.
I’ve been taking my medication (as often as I can remember to), and losing significant amounts of weight while doing so.
And gaining energy. Which is a weird sort of irony.
but I suppose that comes with exercising.

My sleep patterns are destroyed and destructive.
Last night I couldn’t sleep at all. I took a full c. at three a.m. and I didn’t pass out until 5:30-ish (that’s the last number I remember seeing on the clock). That’s bizarre and worrisome. C. is an absolute last resort for me, usually, and I only take it because I trust it to knock me the fuck out within 20 minutes. And I know that I’ll sleep and I won’t dream. That’s the most important part, the dreaming. It makes it more than worth it to suffer the awkward hang-over effects that crash in to me like adolescent waves.

My dreams, lately, more than usual, are messed up.
At first, years ago, when my dreams started to become increasingly bizarre, I was somewhat amused, even fascinated by the unconscious cinema I’d experience three or five times a week.
now it’s somewhat terrifying and always uncomfortable.

The first time I remember being absolutely terrified by my nocturnal subconscious was my sophomore year in college. I dreamt that my mother had died and woke up not knowing reality from fiction.
I spent 24 hours frantically calling my mother, trying to make sure she was breathing.

The other time I remember being uncomfortable from a dream was waking up from one in which I had bled out through my nose on an inclined yard and then washed away the blood with a hose. The word courage was part of the finale, but other than that, and the colors yellow and red, nothing really sticks to my brain right now.
I just remember being incredibly put off by it and immediately writing down every detail I could net.

My dreams aren’t wisps anymore. They aren’t little ghosts that fade out and evaporate come waking.
They cling. My dreams are saran wrap- a preservative.
All I need is a little artificial color and it’ll all make some sort of more bizarre sense.
I’m not sure I want it to make sense.
I’m not sure I’m ready for it to make sense.

I lost control.
I keep getting it back, in fits, but I lose it again.
Tears.
Silent conversations.
Imaginary.
I am losing control.

The thing that terrifies me most is knowing that someone can find this and trace it back to me, no matter how hard I attempt anonymity.
The thing that attracts me most is knowing that writing here keeps me bluntly honest, to a red-button fault.

I just want you to know that this is how I’m staying healthy.
This is how I’m coping.
This is how I’m dealing.
This is how I’m staying sane.

I want my Self to know that.
The self that isn’t writing this, the self that comes back and re-reads this.

I am not insane. I have not lost it.
I just need to get a stronger grip.
And when that happens- and it will, just be strong and keep trying- I will keep writing here and I’ll see my growth.
I’m allowed to be proud of myself.
I shouldn’t hinder that.

stretch

It’s strange how the routine medications instill upon you- mentally, emotionally, physically- can slough off so quickly once you neglect to take them, even for one day.
I skipped Saturday because I had forgotten in the morning and by the time I remembered in the afternoon, I was too indifferent to care enough to get up and walk the twenty feet to my room and open the bottles.

Sunday, though, I managed (thankfully) to slip back in to the routine that hasn’t even been established for a full week, much less taken root in my system.

My body still feels ungrounded- sometimes I’ll feel floaty and dizzy. Other times, rock-heavy and exhausted.
Always exhausted. And not hungry.
Yesterday I ate granola and half a piece of pizza. And then promptly felt sick.
For two reasons.
For eating and because I had eaten.

I’ve also found that the jitteryness that the prozac causes has extended to a mild sort of anxiety (that, apparently, the wellbutrin is supposed to cancel out?). I changed clothes four times yesterday at home and twice at the office (I brought an extra shirt).
This morning, I changed my shirt three times before finally saying “fuck it.” and throwing on a light hoodie over what I had on.

The only other time I can really remember exhibiting this kind of behavior was in high school, when I wasn’t eating.
I would stand in the mirror for hours in the evening and try on different outfits- dresses, shirts, pants.
Am I Thin Enough.
Am I Enough.
Am I.

I don’t want to have to start taking the clonazapan on a daily basis- I did that in high school for a while and last december through this year’s january.
It deadens me.
I feel hungover and unalive.
I filled all of the available prescriptions so that I’d have a small supply for “emergency” moments.
Usually, though, I’m able to tap in and calm myself.

Last week I used a full pill because I was so wound up about something I can’t even remember that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sleep.
So I took a pill at 9:30 and by 10, I was literally dragging myself in to my bed.
I usually only take a half a pill, since my doctor described me as a “narcotic lightweight.”

This week is going to be long- we have a new batch of students coming in for work and a lot of staffing.
Plus my meeting with a professor in the publishing program I’m interested in.
Plus a baseball game that A.C.’s dad had tickets for.

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less than three

I got an unexpected, but incredibly amazing, package from A.T. the other day. Except I’m not sure when it actually came to the house because one of my (now four) roommates (up from a previous three) had the mailed piled under a pile of other papers.

In it was a journal.

I love paper journals. I have two live ones right now- one for prose and other musings of the writing-nature (creatively) and the other for more honest and raw notes.
I’m not sure what this new one will hold for me, but it’s nice to know that I have it.

And, of course, snail mail love.
It’s the unexpected surprises like that make me feel loved and meaningful.

ily bb.

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eruliaf

Rejection is such a hard bone to swallow.
The phase of acceptance that comes after it is like a wave of nausea.

The hardest part about it is accepting that you’re not good enough and then trying to move on.
It is impossible to step out of that light without questioning yourself. At all.

The first question (actually, it’s just turned in to more of a general anesthetic statement by now) that comes in to my head is “Not pretty enough.”
Sometimes it’s “Not thin enough.”

And then comes a binge of me trying to rectify all my flaws and becoming frustrated because I can’t do it over night.

The frustrating part is that I continuously put myself in to situations in which rejection is going to happen, and yet I expect it not to.
Does that fit the definition of insane? Where one repeats the same task over and over and always expects different results?

The other answer that comes in to my head is “stop eating.”

I wish I had the self control I had in high school (why do I always want to type that as one word).
I wish I could just stop eating and let my body feed off of my fat stores.
I’m never able to do it as well as I used to.

-

I’ve decided to go to grad school for publishing.

I’m looking at Portland State University and DePaul University.

I’m sure I’ll look at a few more.

My mom told me that she’ll help me stay in Chicago.

I think she wants me to stay here more than I do.

I’m stressing out about getting a job.

I like the Travelocity commercials a lot more than I should.

My boss annoys the hell out of me.

I hate it when she speaks to me in her condescending tone.

I also hate the way she speaks in general.

And her laugh.

The Italian guy staying in Blackstone creeps me out.

table cloths

I ran yesterday.
My lungs became asthmatic, and when I laughed afterwards it always ended in a hacking cough.
My chest is clear today, but it took most of the morning to extinguish the wheeze.

I had an interview today.
It’s for a waitressing job, and while I have no restaurant experience, I believe that my five years of hell at LL prepared me enough for whatever the food/hospitality industry has to offer.
I honestly didn’t mind the work at LL- I liked cooking, I loved the early morning shifts (lots of work, quiet, went by fast, regulated my sleep schedule), even the cleaning wasn’t entirely annoying.
It was the people I worked with that made me hate the job.

There’s nothing like coming in to a work environment where the majority of your coworkers have no intention of going to college and probably barely graduated high school. And to be someone who is (or was, rather) going to college and has her future planned out and is actually quite excited about it… it gives them someone to resent. Someone to shit on.
It didn’t help that my sister, who also worked there, was well liked and I wasn’t (three years of being emotionally stretched kind of sours your attitude).

There was another girl at the interview. We weren’t interviewed together.
The man interviewing me knew my face, knew my name. He stumbled for hers.
He had at least three applications in his hand, and while he seemed a lot more interested in the work that I’m engaged with at my current (and soon ending) job, I feel like it was a good experience overall.

I was nervous, but it was barely noticeable.
It helped that the man interviewing me treated the whole thing like a conversation between friends more than anything else.
People who talk to other people like that tend to be good people in general.
Or at least they can make it pretty far in hospitality.

It could all be a ruse or it could have actually gone pretty well.

All I know is that, finally, my labor of sending out application after resume after cover letter has finally started to pay off.

mantras of late

I will not jump at shadows; if I do, I will run from men.
I will not jump at men; if I do, I will run from opportunity.

I am not at the top of the totem pole, but I am able to rise, and I will if I work hard, learn from others, am nice, am flexible, turn nothing down and keep my mouth shut.

I have my opinions, and my opinions are my power, but they are also my breaker.

Keep an open mind and a hand on the kill switch.

Pond

life is about our experiences.
Even the ones we never had.

It’s about the good ones, the bad ones, the painful ones, the feel-good ones, the weird ones, the normal ones, the new ones, the old ones, the spectacular ones, and the mundane ones.
Small and big, they all shape us.

If I had never sat by a lake a night, I would not have known the pleasure of looking up into the night sky in an area with no light pollution.
If I had never been sunburned, I would not have known that pain.

There are many things in my life that I wish I had never experienced, and others that I wish I could keep experiencing.
But the most significant part about experiences is that they are so subjective. No one experience is ever the same, both to a singular person and to multiple people.

Vanilla can be sweet to someone and bland to another.
Winter can be amazing for someone and horrible for another.

Water can be lovely at one time and annoying another.

I’m channeling Thoreau right now.