coffee with a shot of tears, roasted. . .

Someone tried to break into my apartment today.

Yesterday I got notified that someone went on a shopping spree with my bank info at the mall in Chicago.

The day before, I found out that my brain is full of veins that are "wonky," with no further explanation or plan or anything except instructions to take a medication I'm allergic to.

Exhausted and dreaming all of these dead dreams and sitting on my floor in the apartment with tears streaming down my face and the dogs sitting next to me and me not even realizing why or what for I'm crying. Watching tears fall into my coffee cup and ripple outwards to the edges. Salty salted caramel. Literally drinking tears. Roasted.

I hate feeling sorry for myself. I hate feeling like this. I hate that it has. . .hit. Me. I'm a fly on the wall. Swat. Hello, emptiness. Hello, emotional pain. Hello, distress. Hello, those feelings that demand to be felt but are so far away that it's like looking through an empty paper tube at something so small and so distant that I need a microscope to really analyze them. Yet as I analyze and dissect, I have no idea what I'm looking at.

Coffee with tears in it. Salted. Roasted.

Swat.

taking it back...

I've missed writing because I've been super busy and felt like hiding away. So here is a long, truly scary confession post for me with *gasp* a photo with MAKE UP ON. 

Triggers here. Fyi.

I don't wear make up pretty much ever. If I do, it's basic mascara and some pink blush used as eyeshadow. Nondescript. Barely there. Fiance is cool with it - "You're naturally beautiful.  Women really are. I wish you - all of you - could see it too." Love him, right? Anyway. We did engagement photos a week ago, and so I did the thing you do and put on my face - and though I look very Jane Austen? I about had a panic attack walking out of the bookstore restroom to go meet up with our photographer.

Fiance immediately asked what was wrong - and I almost cried off my face as I told him I hate wearing make up. "People look at me more. They see me. Men see me. I want to be left alone. I don't want them to look at me." He was confused. And as I thought about it from his perspective - I found myself analyzing why I think this way.

Guy from high school who locked me in his car and threatened to rape me? He wouldn't let me wear make up. Or cute clothes. "I don't want other men to look at you. You're mine." Checking my phone, playing mind games, making me change outfits before dates if I looked "too hot." Don't be seen.

Supervisor who locked me in the janitor's closet with him. He let me go when I stared too hard at him, wide-eyed and more confused than scared. "Close your eyes, girl. What the hell you doin' with those?" Don't be seen.

Ex who repeatedly abused me for two years - "You attract so much attention just because of your face. Especially your eyes. Stop looking at me. Look down." "Take off the eyeliner, you look stupid." "Did you see that guy checking you out? Don't wear that shirt when we go places anymore." Don't be seen.

I've always been shy. Awkward. Looking at the ground. But to have a panic attack because I put on make up? Unable to breathe because my eyes shine? Afraid to show fiance my face when I put this stuff on because he might see something he's suddenly afraid of or made angry by and tell me to disappear? He wouldn't. He won't. But my crazy brain says he might - it's ridiculous.

So guess what? This cleansing confession post now has a DARE. A BIG ONE.

Be seen. With or without make up on. With or without a nice outfit. I'll Be Seen. I'll see others. I'll smile and laugh and walk with my head held high.

I'm taking back my face.

blocked...

I've always found it silly and cliche to call myself a writer.

"Hi, I'm Sarah Anne -- a 20-something volunteer addict who checks out more books from the library than she can read in a month, stresses over everything you can possibly imagine and more, owns a dog, is engaged, and has a bunch of other things she should be doing but is probably watching Netflix instead.

Oh, and I'm also a writer."

It's always an afterthought. Almost a confession, like it's embarrassing to admit because I, like some others, hear people say, "I'm a writer" and immediately do a silent eye-roll while smiling enthusiastically, "Oh, are you ? That's great!" Never asking their genre or subject or storyline. Never offering help or the tidbit about being a 5-star writing tutor for over a year in college. Just the internal eye-roll and the smile.

Let's just say I've helped with far too many terrible writing projects of which the author was over-proud and overzealous.

So now that I have this confession -- I'm a bit embarrassed.

I. Am. A writer.

Like many self-conscious and conflicted students of words, I keep it to myself. Mostly. And, I go through long periods of inactivity. Days and weeks and months of time pass without setting a pen to paper or fingers to keys, because writing? Writing really well?

It's exhausting.

And the thing about writing and writing well is that when you know how to do it, and you've seen all of the ways people go wrong. . .well. You get even more blocked than you did before. You edit as you go -- instead of word vomiting all over the page and saying, "Hell yeah, that's a plot hole -- Ima fix it on the next round. Deal with it." You get paraylzed by the need for just the right word; just the perfect way of expressing all that stuff swirling around inside your head.

Justice is served with the perfect word.

Falling short. Because it's an injustice to the story and the feeling and the experience if the words aren't just right. That's the main thing for me. I can't find the perfect word, the just-right piecing together of the dictionary's tenants into a party that screams THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE ONE!

The sentence of the year. The story of the decade.

It's not that I want people to think that the story is perfect. It's that I want how I feel and think to be expressed perfectly -- for myself. So I can represent all of the twisting mess of feeling and strangeness taking place inside my head.

Why else would I be awake at 3am every night? Unable to sleep because images that need description plow through my mind with reckless speed. Yet, I can't find the words. "Play on!" says Shakespeare, "Play on!" Like an old VHS recording on fast forward, my static-filled mind joins with him -- play on!

But there is Hamlet, standing with his now iconic skull, posed as the Boy in Black. "To sleep -- perchance to dream."

Dreaming isn't the problem. It's sleeping that makes no sense to me.

Because words, words, words are the real issue. Which one to use, which to strike from existence, weighing the options of this one and that one. Literally keeping me up at night. Even the placement is cause for grief. Put it there? Or over there? A comma? A colon? I use that form of punctuation (the colon) and think of cancer every time. Probably because someone I know died of it a few months ago.

What I'd write about?

I'd write about dad's cancer.

I'd write about our cancer jokes.

I'd write about how when I make cancer jokes in public, few and far between people get offended, saying angrily "You shouldn't talk like that, it's offensive!" and I shrug and say, "Well, seeing as my dad is terminal, it's kind of how we deal with it"; and then they just sit there, quiet, like dad is dead instead of dying.

I'd write about my own kind of cancer, the flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder episodes; silent killers that come out of nowhere like a poisonous viper and strike when the sun is out and you're in love and then WHAM. The snake bites your ankle while you stare at it wondering why you didn't see the thing lying on the pavement.

Plenty of colons and commas and heres and theres to satisfy even the pickiest of word readers -- unless of course you're including me in the bunch.

Reading is easy. Writing, and those who can accomplish it -- now, that deserves all of the glory.

...

The tears come in quiet moments.
When the night has fallen and the stars awake in the sky;
when the city goes to bed, and the clock creeps slowly on to midnight.

Finally alone -- and I cry.

I cry for the sorrow, the hatred.
The pain. For the hunger and sickness -- for the loss.
But mostly

I cry for the children.

...

I can't explain my life to you. The pain. The fear. The constant exhaustion that never goes away.
Until it all becomes a sort of fog, where I'm choking, but I don't care.

You can't understand it. You can empathize -- and for your compassion, I am grateful.
But you can't understand.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you cannot.
Because to understand? You have to live this.

I pray you never live this way.

#YesAllWomen...

i don't want to be a victim.
i don't want to be running scared,
walking through the world like there's a target on my back,
worried that someday, somewhere, someone is waiting.
watching.
waiting.
waiting for the perfect moment -- to strike.

i don't want to be paranoid. i don't want to be afraid;
constantly re-living the past. always aware of an unknown -- unseen -- unnamed --
threat.

because that's how i've been living.
that's what i've become.
this is the world that i inhabit, that i understand, that i know appears irrational
-- but i also know to be horribly. nightmarishly.
real.

living with depression and all that comes with it...

Things that go bump in the night go bump in the day;

the difference so little that time slips away

-- exhaustion.

more than survival...

"You're always so happy." "You are always smiling! How do you do that?" "It's impossible to not feel loved by you." "Dang -- you just have life figured out!" "I wish I was more like you."

I get comments like this a lot. I smile and nod and say thank you, then rush to encourage the speaker or point out their good qualities. I appreciate their words. I can tell (most of the time) that they're sincere. And I'm grateful for their kindness.

But -- I don't feel like I'm any of those things at all. I don't have life figured out. I know for a fact I'm not always happy, nor always smiling. People say they want to be more like me, yet I'm constantly wishing I was someone else.

I'm not "that girl." I don't have everything under control. I'm insecure and vain and shallow -- I worry about dumb, petty little things. My thoughts are often obsessive, focused on tiny issues that probably don't matter to anyone but me. I want things I can't have -- I do things I shouldn't do.

Honestly, I feel like I'm always the girl who is struggling with something. No matter what I do, something is going wrong that's outside of my control. Either that, or the internal struggles become so intense that I can barely function.

It's a miracle that I hauled myself out of bed this morning. Part of that was because I know need to work so I can pay for graduate school -- fear of massive debt or financial strain is a huge motivator for me. Part of it was because I knew I'd be more bored if I stayed in bed -- and I felt guilty for feeling bad.

I don't feel like I smile very much. I don't feel like I'm a very happy person. Often, I'm shocked that I have as many friends as I do, particularly after I was told that I'm "an incredibly negative person and no one really likes you, which is why you have no friends. People don't like you; they don't like to be around you." Comforting sentiments, let me tell you.

The happy compliments and this absolutely devastating remark swim through my head on an almost daily basis. I hear "people don't like you," and fight back "but she said I'm nice!" And it comes back, "Yes -- but you know it isn't true. Because people don't like you. You don't even like you. Even if everyone in the world liked you, you'd still be like this."

I have no reply.

Whether surrounded by friends or in the comfort of my small bedroom, it's dark. So often I find myself begging to just make it through the day, or even the next five minutes. I'll sit with my head bowed over my desk, willing the tears to go away; I'll lie curled on the floor of my room, physically trying to hold myself together until it passes.

Each time I make goals or attempt new things, I suddenly feel paralyzed. My motivation to progress and do something, anything, is overturned -- and then I'm in survival mode. Just wake up -- just roll over -- just walk out of the room -- just brush your teeth -- just make it back to your room -- just survive.

I don't want to simply survive life. I want to live life actively, passionately, maybe even a little aggressively, meaning not as someone who has things done to them. I want to be the one doing things.

i feel lost...

I never understood why people get so emotional about graduating. In the past, I've listened to coworkers, classmates, and friends express everything from anger to paralyzing fear about leaving the undergraduate realm. Honestly, I can't tell you how many times I've been the shoulder-to-cry-on or the assistant job seeker for people.

When I say I never understood, I mean that I never felt the way they did. People would say things, "I'm just not ready to leave," "I've got nowhere to go now," "I'm so scared that nothing is going to work out," and the like. Out loud, I was supportive, and I could both logically and empathetically see where they were coming from. It's a big step, leaving the campus and people that have become so familiar. Life once again becomes uncertain. On the other hand, I internally wondered why they weren't jumping up and down for joy at the chance for freedom -- for real adulthood -- for graduate school or job opportunities -- for bigger and better things -- CARPE DIEM!! Get me OUT of here!!

With my own graduation ceremony looming less than 72 hours away, I suddenly feel a rash of emotions and sentiments that previous students have expressed. While walking across campus today, I couldn't help but utter a noise of disgust and say, "I hate this place." Surveying the grounds and the pretty pink tulips, I thought, "Well, it's not so bad. But still -- I can't wait to be finished with all of this." Then, as I received my cap and gown, I trudged slowly across campus in tears, thinking, "They're kicking me out. All I did was what they asked, and now they're sending me away to who knows where doing who knows what with who knows who! How could they do this to me?!"

It's quite the rollercoaster. I don't recommend it.

Lately, I've been having nightmares. I mean, I usually do, but these are different. Often when I sleep, I dream of a void: me suspended in empty, crushing darkness. There is no up or down, no point with which to orient myself and determine where I am, or even who I am. Nothing is familiar, and I am alone. I've had these kinds of dreams before, but never with this intensity or such lingering effects.

Waking from these dreams leaves me in a fog of uncertainty. I go throughout the day as though still stuck in that dark, cold emptiness. I felt it again as I unwrapped my wrinkled, too long, navy blue graduation gown and untangled the gold tassle strands. Running my fingers through the tassle strands, it suddenly hit me -- the dreams and lingering feelings come from my feeling of placelessness. It exists so strongly in me that it manifests itself in my dreams. I truly feel lost, along with a decent amount of panic.

As I've thought more about this, I've concluded that this sort of anxiety speaks to feelings of displacement based on my changing position in the world. Though I do have places that are important to me, none of them are permanent. Everything in my life is transitory right now: graduation this week and finishing school in June; leaving the university I've grown to know well; acceptance to graduate programs that I'll never actually go to because they're online; leaving a student job and needing to find other employment; even my housing situation is in flux. My present places are quickly becoming my past places, and future places are presenting themselves -- though some are not really places; more like virtual experiences.

It's an unknown -- it's a feeling of anxiety that occurs even before losing an important place. Facing graduation, loss of employment, and an almost place-less form of virtual graduate schooling creates that anxiety in me.

Of course, changes like these aren't a bad thing. They're actually very good things; things I've worked for and looked forward to for a very, very long time. The emotional effects, though, are incredibly real. Being displaced from the undergraduate experience, employment, and people is a lot to handle all at once. It's kind of like when someone is forced into homelessness or made into an exile through war or foreclosure. I don't mean to minimize these events by comparing them to my current transition; losing a home or a familiar place because of such traumatic events is without a doubt much worse. I use that comparison because it's the only one that makes sense to me, that I can understand.

Graduating is turning me into a school-less (and somewhat reluctant) migrant student -- an exile from everything I have known for the last three years. While my exile is partially by choice, and the graduate program I've chosen to attend does provide a new place to go, I'm still being displaced. I have met the requirements for graduation, and my diploma becomes both a celebration and a pink slip.

I don't like change. I don't like losing the places and the people I have come to know and appreciate. However, I am human, and so my body must move. It must change and move and go new places, do new things. I of all people understand this now: after spending nearly a month in bed recovering from a surgical procedure, I've learned that staying in a room too long really can make a person go crazy. I wanted out! I wanted to move and change and go to other places. And I could not.

It was hugely frustrating.

None of us is meant to be stationary; movement of some sort is necessary. Still, the emotional distress that occurs from losing place is real. I'm feeling it in a big way now. I feel a mixed bag of loss, excitement, anger, sorrow, anxiety, betrayal, anticipation. These places have been critical in forming who I am and where I will go in the future. It's probably universal: places affect us and shape us. Perhaps the fact that places are key formative elements is what makes the displaced feeling distressing. We know we must move on from certain things, but letting go is difficult due to the ties to the place we grew and changed in.

For me, my feelings of loss over my current state and place are helping to spur me on to the next experience. I mourn the loss of familiarity and worry over the new places I must find, yet these familiar places help me realize that I can't stay. Current places have shaped what I do, who I am, and where I will go. My experience as an undergrad student, while coming to a seemingly abrupt and frightening end, has created that desire to move to a new place because of the experiences I've had in the place I now leave.

It's a strange, almost cyclical phenomenon: loss of place creating sadness and anxiety over the loss, while silmultaneously pushing us to find new places, which also creates uncertainty and grief. This constant shuffling of place is what makes us grow and change. Memories of old places shape our interactions with the new. Both types of places directly influence who we are, how we think, what we will become, and where we will go in the future.

Thinking about it in this way is helping to turn my feelings of terror (yes -- terror) about the coming changes into excitement. I won't lie. The fear is still very real, as is the deep loss I can't quite understand and never expected would occur. However, it's being tempered with curiosity and excitement for the experiences and places that lie ahead of me.

Though don't expect me to be all hopeful all of the time -- I'm desperately hanging on to any happy thoughts to keep myself from falling apart!

back to school...

This is a whiny post.

Basically I really, really, really, really, really do not want to go back to school. I don't want to go to class. I don't want to sit in those ridiculous little desks. I don't want to take notes. I don't want to do homework. I don't want to have my life controlled by assignments and busy work. I don't want the anxiety and the stress.

Man, I'm pathetic. I don't want to go so much that I'm crying.

Don't get me wrong, I like to learn. I enjoy discovering new things and expanding my view of the world. What I don't like is the absolute utter exhaustion and anxiety that comes from the way our education system works. I don't like being a grade point average -- I don't like having my future rest on some stupid letters that stand for how well I did at something.

I'll get it done. I always do. I guess this last semester has kind of killed any love for college that I may have possessed. And I'll tell you a little secret -- with the exception of Economics 110, I got straight A's. I knew I wouldn't do super well in Econ, and I only needed a C -- I got a B- and was excited because it was way better than I thought I would do. What bothered me is this: this was absolutely the worst semester of my life, and I felt that I slacked off completely. I didn't feel that I deserved any of the A's that I got -- and I almost feel angry that my lack of effort was given straight A grades.

My half effort was rewarded as excellent. I procrastinated every assignment because the depression was so intense that I could barely function. I skimmed reading assignments and left classes feeling more confused than I was when I went in. I studied like crazy for exams, but never felt confident. I felt that everything I did was pointless and pathetic, and I expected that to be reflected in my GPA.

So what does that make those A's, anyway? Somewhat worthless, if I'm honest. Maybe I'm being ungrateful (actually, I know I'm being ungrateful), but I really do feel like those grades are total lies.

I was mediocre. My papers were excellent, and my professors want me to publish. But the work I put in? It wasn't excellent. It was rushed, last-minute, pathetic.

That's why I don't want to go back to school. I don't want to do the work, especially because I know that even when I don't do as good a job as I should, I'll get outstanding grades anyway. It's like lying.

What I should do is put in more effort and be proactive in my education. I, however, would rather watch Chuck on Netflix, go take photographs of beautiful things, write poetry and articles on things I'm interested in, spend time with the people I care about, sing and dance and play, learn the piano again, read real books, sleep when I can and for as long as I need, and work at a job that actually does something worthwhile (like the one I have).

I suppose this is why there is a thing called retirement. Although...that may quickly become a myth.

what happened...

Have you ever looked in the mirror and been shocked by what you saw? Staring at the face you see every morning and night while brushing your teeth, or applying mascara, or brushing out your hair, and being astounded by the change in the reflection -- a change you didn't even see happening.

This happens often now. I look at the face I thought I knew perfectly, because it's mine -- the change is terrifying.

The eyes no longer sparkle and smile -- they're dull and frightened. The forehead is no longer smooth -- it's scrunched up and worried all of the time. The lips are chapped and pinched, instead of soft and full. All of the skin is tight with anxiety, the cheeks are hollow, and the eyes are only bright when they're filled with tears.

It's a face I don't recognize.

I sometimes stare at this stranger in the mirror and wonder what happened. When did I become so frightened, so sad, so hopeless?

"What's happening to you?"

I've literally asked her this question. The girl in the mirror offers no response. She just stares back at me, until I'm completely freaked out and I shut myself in my room, far from any reflections or reminders.

I don't even know who I am anymore.

i don't get it...

Often when discussing personal problems, I get told, "Just be grateful for what you have and then life will be happier for you."

It's always seemed like great advice, and so I've taken it multiple times. Given the numerous stories and testimonies shared on the subject, it seems like it should work great.

Wrong.

Maybe it's that I'm naturally pessimistic (or as one professor called me, a true nihilist -- I still resent that), or maybe it's because my world seems incredibly dark right now. Or maybe I'm trying too hard?

For some reason, counting my blessings instead of sheep not only keeps me up at night, but it also triggers high levels of anxiety and ever more frequent feelings of emptiness. As counting sheep merely bores me, I've started preferring that to listing good things that happened during the day or ticking off the things I've been given -- boredom feels better than emptiness.

Saying that it's simply listing good things isn't the process, mind you. You've got to sincerely foster an appreciation for the things, people, and opportunities placed in your life. And I've tried that. I've tried looking around at my life and truly appreciating what I have -- sometimes I even find myself thinking, "Wow. Look at you -- you're one lucky girl." And I believe it.

Then, right after that, the pain starts again, the emptiness becomes a choking cord around my throat, and the dark closes in, heavy and cold.

Somehow, being grateful for good things brings horrible, devastating guilt. It's as though by attempting to feel happiness, the sadness deepens. Light and joy seem far above my head, and either the floor beneath my feet is dropping at a rapid pace, or my arms are shrinking: either way, I can't reach what I desire. Instead of feeling my chin lift hopefully, I feel a weight increase until I can barely stand, arms wrapped tight around me as I hold myself together on the floor.

Why? I don't understand it. I don't understand how searching for happiness -- maybe not even happiness, but just some relief -- and doing all of the good things I can do only makes things feel worse.

I don't get it.

counter attack...

I keep finding a thought spinning around in my head.

"Wow. Look how much you've lost this year."

In some ways, it's kind of true. I have lost a lot. Often it seems that every time I turn around, some big, awful thing happens that leaves me feeling as though I've been decked across the face. 

I've lost important, meaningful things. I've lost a lot of my freedom that comes from living on my own and having a car at my disposal all of the time. I've lost opportunities, I've lost time, I've lost money. And worst of all, I've lost people I never dreamed I would lose -- or prayed and begged the Lord to let them stay.

But amidst all of that gone-ness, there are so many things I've gained. I've gained new friendships, new opportunities, new responsibilities, new dreams, new knowledge, and maybe even new wisdom. I've gained a better understanding of the Atonement, and I've gained a greater sense of the Holy Spirit's whisperings. I've gained patience and compassion, strength and resolve. Well -- maybe less in the patience department, but more than I had before.

I feel as though I'm closer to my family and to God than I've ever been in my whole life, and that's after all of the mistakes I made.

Admittedly, I'd like to give in to the anger that keeps working it's way into my heart. I'd like to curse and cry and scream and let the whole world know how much my heart is hurting -- but I won't. I don't need to.

There are bigger, more important things in this life. I'm holding out for them.

...

Lately when I think about writing, I feel sick. Then again, that's how I feel when I think about most things.

I'm often ready to bolt into the nearest restroom because my stomach turns and twists so much. I'm always (not an exaggeration) on the verge of tears. I can't sleep.

The worst thing is that my happiness for other people's joy is tinged with a deep pain. It isn't jealousy; I know how jealousy feels -- mean and angry and bitter. This is different. It's more like a quiet, aching sorrow, one that I don't want the happy person to know about because I don't want to detract from his/her joy.

And yet, I sometimes wish they knew, just so they could give me a hug and a job to do so I can help bring about their special days. It's better when I'm working, especially when I'm working for others.

It'll get better. Honestly, it only can get better from this.

I'm lucky, really. Lucky that this is happening: I'll be more aware of others' feelings. I'm learning to be more forgiving. I'm learning to take care of myself for me, not to please someone else. I'm understanding that what I want is just as important as what someone else wants (although I still often do not have opinions, which some of my friends mistake for not sticking up for what I want -- sometimes, I just don't care what we're doing because I'm with people, which means I'm not alone). I'm getting better at telling people the truth regardless of the consequences. I'm practicing asking for help.

I'm growing.

Funny, how I forget that growing physically comes with pain, too -- joints enlarging, muscles stretching, bones lengthening -- keeping me awake when I was little as my body changed into the 5' 2" person I am now. Why should mental, emotional, and spiritual growth be any different?

Perhaps because the pain, for me, is enhanced by other things in my life, such as the long-time struggle with depression, and the more recent appearance of quite severe anxiety. And part of it is my personality: two of my friends were talking to me last night, and they reminded me quite firmly that my loyalty to others has often placed me as less important -- that it's time to stop taking the backseat. And they're right -- while being loyal isn't a bad thing, strengths can easily be weaknesses if used the wrong way.

I'm lucky in friendship. Lucky that I have people in my life who care about me, and who stick with me no matter what's going on in my life. I'm lucky that I have people who celebrate my successes, and who lift me up when I've hit the ground.

Georgie's just lucky, I guess.

i feel...

Some of my friends know that I often struggle expressing how I feel. I learned a way of dealing with this last semester -- and that is to make lists.

I really am a list person. It's how I keep my life in order. It's how I remember things I don't want to forget. It's how I brainstorm. It's how I do things.

Here is my expression list.

i feel...

...ignored.
...selfish.
...cold.
...angry.
...sad.
...shaky.
...busy.
...overwhelmed.
...tired.
...used.

And then, once I've listed it out, I understand it better.

It makes sense in my head.

when...

this world can drive you mad.

we see and hear and feel and live in a world
of mad people,
driven to a never ending insanity
by sights and sounds and touches,
a pulsing fever of thoughts -- like a heartbeat.

questions.
what is real.
what is not.
what should be said and what should be kept
(tortuously) quiet
 -- keep them from going mad.
like you.

I am Nobody. are you -- Nobody -- too?
who. are. we.
the madness of wondering and worrying and waiting and watching -- something -- that will never come.
the world and the wold (for the mind is such a place) and the window closing -- closing -- closing.

don't tell. don't tell, don't tell, don't tell -- keep it secret.

keep it safe.

destruction...

What is it about us that makes us so violent?
Not in an every-single-person-in-the-world-is-going-to-buy-a-gun-and-kill-innocent-people kind of way, but in an oh-my-gosh-I-suck
kind of way.

Imagine. Imagine
every
single
mean,
cruel
lie you have ever told yourself as a
fist slamming against your soul.

Ouch.

I am not a violent person. I cried when I hit a bird while driving, and I cried harder when I saw a mother hit her little boy at the zoo. I can't kill spiders, both out of fear and out of sorrow for crushing them. I can't tell someone how I think because I'm afraid I'll hurt the person's feelings. I don't like conflict of any kind -- yet conflict has entrenched itself in my brain.

My soul is black and blue with lies.

Black and blue, splotched and scarred. A jumbled residue of impact over a decade.

It began one morning when I looked in the mirror and became aware of myself as flawed -- as imperfect. No longer the little angel who thought only about ponies and princes and puffy ball gowns. No longer daddy's princess and mommy's little helper.
It began one morning and it

never.


stopped.

I would say that mirrors are the culprit -- with no mirror, no reason to pick things apart. But it's
more than a mirror.

It's the mind.

The mind recognizing self as lesser,
seeing pictures and programs of better, of ideal.
Of perfect.

The mind believing those things -- believing the lies and accepting them as fact. The mind punching and smacking and hurting
the soul in which it resides.


The soul is strong -- so is the mind.
Battered, battered souls and shattered, shattered minds -- why?

Why are we so destructive? Why do we kill and kill what we are in favor of what we think we should be? Because think we should be may never be who we are -- or who we are meant to be.

all in the phrase...

Words. put the individuals together and form a phrase -- because even Words are stronger together.

The hardest thing...

How often has this phrase crossed my lips:
This is the hardest thing I've ever done...age 13, watching all of my best friends walk away...
This is the hardest thing I've ever done...age 15, suffering a nervous breakdown...
This is the hardest thing I've ever done...age 18, disappointment -- not good enough...
This is the hardest thing I've ever done...age 19, working through the scars of abuse...
This is the hardest thing I've ever done...age 20, "a mission is not for you"...

hardest things, hardest things, so many hardest things -- "this is the hardest thing I've ever done."
Words that fit the circumstance at the time.

I look back and shake my head,
those are not the hardest things.

my Words evolve and change according to the hardest things of the present. No --
not the hardest things anymore -- look how far you've come! Yes --
how far I've come against the next hardest thing.

This is the hardest thing I've ever done...until there is something harder placed in my way.

it's all in the time of the phrase.

when I went for a run because I could...

Some storms begin with a small drop of water falling from the sky -- a slow sparkling crystal descending from the clouds to land with a slight splattering spread on the pavement. A storm that appears gradually, misting the earth and blocking the sun with its fog.

But this storm began without shining crystals or pavement drops bleeding into one another to create a single shining slate of asphalt. This storm began in her heart.

She felt it before she heard it. A cold, hard stinging inside her chest; a sharp, tight pulsing in her brain.

It's going to rain.

Down from the sky-- barrage of hammers on the rooftop --
down from the clouds -- volley of bullets against the walls!

Down,
down,
down
down!

Out, out, out -- out into the rain.

Running...running. Bare feet against the pavement.
Running...running. Hair plastered to her cheeks.
Running...running. Clothes clinging as though naked.
Running...running. Skin screaming with the sting.

Run. Run. Run. Run. Repeating
in her mind, racing through the storm. Racing through the storm running from the rain through the rain to the rain
the rain the rain the rain

The rain.

Cold, biting, stinging rain -- rain that is alive.
Cold, biting, stinging rain.
Cold. Biting. Stinging.
Cold. Biting.
Cold.

Cold.


Cold.

She can feel it. Feel. the cold. the bite. the sting.

the life.

Time -- what time? No time -- running. running. raining.

Hair streaming, hands shaking, feet bleeding, lips speaking
words she cannot hear. Stumbling, tumbling, crumbling on the porch
wet
wet
wet
with rain.

The rain.

All she wants is rain.

the me I was...

After a couple of hours spent trying to sleep, I've given up for the moment.

I keep thinking about who I used to be a few years (or even months) ago. In a lot of ways, I'm haunted by the image of the old me and wish desperately to go back to who that girl is. And at the same time, I'm just as disturbed by the pain I feel when I see all of the changes in my life.

The changes have been for good. I no longer starve myself. I no longer do a lot of things that were really quite bad for me. Yet I'm dissatisfied.

I look at myself in the mirror with contempt. I despise what I see -- the thickened waistline, the fuller hips and breasts, the presence of more me everywhere. I hate that.

I feel like I've completely lost control -- I can't go without eating anymore. I get so sick when I don't, most likely because of the years I spent keeping myself to under 1,000 calories per day, if I made it even close to that. I see pictures of myself from just last year and compare them to how I look now, and I want to cry.

I want to cry because I'm "not skinny."

How stupid is that? How ridiculous is it that I berate myself for every thing I put inside my mouth? Even as my brain says that I need to eat, and that eating is good for me, my brain also screams to stop because I'm FAT.

My diet isn't bad. I eat a lot of good foods, and I go for walks several times a day. That's about all I can do right now, as my body still gets worn out very quickly. I'm not complaining -- there have been times when all I could do was lie in bed and pray that the pain would go away. Walking is a joy. The pain I experience after a long walk is worth it, because I'm walking. And not a slow stroll walk either, but actually walking to have some sort of activity in my life.

Despite it all, my pants still get tighter. My shirts aren't baggy. There is more of me than there has been in years, and I have to force myself out of a panic when I feel myself starting to get hungry (also a new development -- in the past five years, I forgot how to feel hungry). I have to make myself be calm and remind my brain that if I don't eat, I'll get sicker.

I miss the old me. I know it's stupid. I know it's wrong. I know that weight isn't the important thing.

But I don't believe it. And I wish that I could go back.