.......

I had a desire to type a text post and then it escaped me entirely.

I suppose things are well.  A wonderful boyfriend that's actually a true story, a good start to an otherwise uneventful year, hm... a new story idea to think about.  But I do have this thing about writing.  I really enjoy it, and I really want to do more of it, but I'm always wary to start it because it'll sound stupid if I'm just like "look at me, I'm a writer, I write things, read this, it's great and completely non-cliche" and I never want to write poetry especially because I was stuck on deviantArt reading everyone's poems that are all modeled off of each other (e.e. cummings being the famous pre-model, I suppose) and now I keep thinking I'm going to write something like that (because all of the "good" i.e. most-viewed poems are basically like that) and I don't want to, but I don't know what to do... meh.

Speaking of that, I don't know anything really about my future, so.  I think being a psychologist would be a bad idea.  I'd like to be a counselor, maybe, but... have a group or something that just does self-identifying things to prevent their problems.  (Like that exists.)  I don't think I could sit there and listen to the cutter-teen whine about their parents when their answer would be so obvious to me.  I'm not that tolerant o_0

I'm taking a writing class at the library (more of a "support group") and I'd like to teach something like that.

And Brandon... yes, he's just... well, we want a future together.  He'll graduate and then get a degree in something and then I'll follow him (2 years behind, of course) and we'll live a happy life.  I know that hard things do happen, but... well, I'm tired of always thinking about the what-ifs.  Things are fine now, and I'm allowed to have a little hope and optimism when it comes to how I want to live my life.

I'm also now an atheist.  No big change, really.  At least I'm not so cynical anymore.  Thank God that's over. :) (ohoho, irony...)

I could talk about a lot of things but I seem to forget them instantly.

What

It has been a while since my last post.  Not much has happened... I learned to make it a habit of double-spacing after each sentence.  Currently sitting in a bed near a beach on a lake.

It's funny.  I've been thinking a lot about my own life so far and where it's taking me.  So far I really don't have much direction, but it's kind of a nice feeling.  I've been reading Sylvia Plath's unabridged journals, which do make me somewhat jealous of her writing ability, but she was open to learning and hungered for it while I cast it away due to social restrictions.

I do wonder.  If I wasn't afraid of being bashed for my intellect, where could I be now?  I want to be more well-read and have a basic knowledge of different authors' literary techniques and backgrounds.  I want to wean myself from the thought that all knowledge can be gained from the internet.  I suppose I expect the internet to house hubs of knowledge of certain types, like a website for biographies and a website for how to deal with life, and that just doesn't happen.  In the end, it's just you, not some website or book telling you how to think.  It's what you learn from them.

I would love to take one of those 10-day meditation classes.  What an invigorating experience.

---

I've kind of thought about love quite a bit.  It's so happy.  For the first time, I want to buy things for someone other than myself... give my full attention because I truly am interested and not because I'm told to.  I tell myself, this will all go away at the end of the day, and it turns out that it does, that nothing is really as negatively important as I think it is initially.  I wouldn't give this away for anything.

So think about society in its infancy.  For the first time, we realize that collaborating with other human beings eventually improve our quality of life.  We don't have to grow all the grain and raise all the animals; someone else is there to do that job, and we all prosper by giving what we can and receiving basically what we give out. (Golden rule, anyone?)  We learn that having other people is a privilege and something almost necessary to our survival.

Love is a lot like that.  And maybe love is what drove us to come together like that and learn that the burden doesn't have to be only on our shoulders in the first place.  That we really aren't as alone (or as naturally selfish) as we think.  And to be honest, I feel pretty good right now.  I spent the last week feeling down and sad and, well, crazy, but as my dad puts it, this is only the icing.  I don't have to worry about where I'm getting my next meal or where I won't be cold or uncomfortable.  I'm getting an education, which is a privilege, and I'm a damn fool if I let something as simple as a little social anxiety get in my way.  I told myself I would never hate, and that in turn has made me hate all sorts of things in all sorts of ways.  I do hate.  I hate that I hate, for one thing, but it's kind of like keeping all of that bottled up made it accelerate far beyond what I ever would have thought possible for someone like me.

And who am I, anyway? (Gahd, typical teenagery question.)

I'm kind of afraid for this year.  I'm afraid of all the people and the interactions.  I suppose that's just how I am and I won't try to change that (too difficult), but I can at least stop it from getting ridiculous.  Speak up in class and ask questions and just be smart.  I'd rather be revered for being smart than, well... not being revered.  It's my secret weapon. o_0 and look how I can say that so casually.  I don't even have to work for my grades.  If I make anything less than a B, it's simply because I didn't read the instructions right or didn't turn something in on time.  I think they should make A's the new C's - C for average, A for outstanding (ahh-mazing, that is).  It should be difficult.  And what is difficult?  If I'm totally lost, then that's a problem and it's not real learning.  I suppose I just... catch on better... oh well, I'm being elitist and that isn't right.

Looking forward to a new year, a happy sane one with lotsa learnin'.  Peace.

How a 750words Entry Changed My Perspective on Everything

(this was from my daily 750words.com entry that i thought needed sharing here. none of this is edited... it's just my stream of thought.)
__________________________________

i was going to type yesterday (5 minutes ago) but... brandon. i used to think you could keep it all in your head, but sometimes talking reveals things that you didn't know were true. i was putting it all together - today i had two moments that were noteworthy... well, 3. and i could be like Sylvia and tell about all of them, but it wasn't the glory of the place, it was the glory of the feelings. i'll copy and paste my Tumblr post in here since i'm running short on time.

---

today i saw a band in philadelphia’s reading market. it was a santana tribute band, but they also played the beatles and stevie wonder, etc. and there was a man who was dancing up in front. he looked homeless, but he was dancing and waving to the people walking by and smiling and mouthing the words. people stopped to just watch him twirl and skip and dance. he must have been in his 50s and was having the time of his life. there were wrinkled old ladies clapping their hands and young, purple-haired teenagers nodding their heads to the beat. people that would have never even stopped to take a look at each other were all a part of this moment together. it made me smile.

later i watched a planetarium show about black holes, and it made me think how many billions of billions of stars there are in space, and how many infinite galaxies and planets rotating around their own suns that there are, and just how purely insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things… but that we do, in fact, live, no matter what purpose we all serve, and through all of the separation and barriers and roads to cross and miles and miles that we still have to go… there’s still this. these kinds of moments that let me know that people are ok. … but there are still so few… so few. or perhaps i just haven’t lived enough to tell.

---

and i would elaborate on that (i mean, i was watching tv while typing it so it's not very comprehensive) but... i just hope the meaning retains. but i'm stuck between trying to view the world as very insignificant or very important. between viewing people as largely insignificant or very important. i know that viewing it realistically would be more of the former, but... what will make me happier? but i can't ignore logic... it clashes, like religion. so i began to mix the two ideas together like some thought-recipe, the white against the green, and it was suddenly understandable in the cloudy-like way that things get for me sometimes, but there was a leaden question at the bottom of the mixture that only said "why?"... why all of this? what is important?

see, it's kind of like the whole Sophists and Romantics(?) debate. i need to come to a consensus to which i view my life. but brandon brought up the point that the human mind is infinitely complex and is a mystery still - we weren't accidents, so to speak. and... i just realized how lovely this was... "living, breathing things in this universe are much, much better than empty space." so we are more significant than i thought. "i just want to love you. stop talking and let me love you." and the emptiness was miles and miles wide. running out of battery, but... why, life? what is the point?

the purpose of life is to exist and create more, so why? all of this space full of uninhabitable, well, space, and we are a speck just bursting with life. the weeds in the sidewalk. and then brandon said we were meant to feel. meant to feel. we exist to feel. which goes back to his note. "so life IS love."

so the earth really DOES have the view of a battle soldier. the living is sacrificed for the living, etc. we eat the animals that eat the weeds in the sidewalk. but we work ourselves up to this point where we can have a brain, to think, and... to love. so life is love. life is love. from empty space, from stars that harbor planets, some of which containing life (which is a miracle in whichever form), and then OUR planet able to contain life that can love. and that is life's purpose.

and i have just solved the earth's - and my - eternal, everlasting problem. and i couldn't have without brandon. and all of my worrying is gone, and i feel so happy and privileged to be alive that i could just cry. that i am able of crying (out of happiness, who would have thought). that i am intricate and just... i have discovered this and it's beautiful and timeless and i'm no longer thinking of just myself, alone.

but there is a problem. i still can't escape the fact that other people are out there existing and not knowing this... i'll be bothered by it for as long as i live. but life is happiness... life is love. so i will do what i can to be happy. and whether that is waiting, whether that is losing people, and whether that is separating myself from others is all right with me. i have one life. i will not interact with people that i don't want to simply because that is what everyone else does.

i always felt so angry at people for not thinking deeply, for not embracing these thoughts, and that was why i felt so isolated. and i wondered why i felt that way... i was born to guide others to happiness, but that isn't going to happen, so i might as well just leave other people alone. and i was so happy up until i realized that other people didn't understand what i understood... but i suppose the fact that we can understand at all is truly a "blessing," if you will. but it won't be enough to satisfy me.

so life is love. never forget that. the universe exists for it. and perhaps... perhaps people are happy just in their ignorance. there is suffering (the "absence of happiness" in buddhism) but there is kindness. the old woman that spoke to me in the bathroom, the man dancing... it makes me happy to see other people happy, much much much more than i would have originally thought. so if we all make each other happy in those simple ways, then we're all happy and connected, even if some people think differently than others. forgive the ignorance. forgive them, abby. forgive.

so i'm now generally satisfied with my opinion on life now. i don't feel it will be a lasting feeling, but i can reread this later and learn something new that i didn't think about before. what a miracle; even my own mind from even a week ago held things that i never would have thought it did.

so life is love. love is happiness. forgive the ignorance. small moments make lasting impressions. and that is what is is. i am solved for now.

life is love.

Bedrooms

I like looking at pictures of bedrooms. You know, the really artistically-photographed ones where they purposefully leave the bed messy and the pile of books in the corner and dust is everywhere and then put some kind of gray wash over the whole picture to make it look old and faded. I like them because I think a bedroom is a place where you're the most vulnerable... the space that is fully yours. You can tell a lot about a person by their bedroom. Scruffy navy flannel sheets next to a chilled windowpane might be the senior in high school who stops at the Speedway every morning to browse through the discount movies for a $1 for his girlfriend, and they sit downstairs in his finished basement and watch an especially awful one together while drinking hot chocolate with a little choco-liqueur mixed in that he nicked from the liquor cabinet that his parents forgot about he knew about. His girlfriend might have short wavy red hair or long straight dirty-blonde-ish hair and she's got at least 3 piercings, two of which he knows about (probably nose and eyebrow). She might have thick-framed glasses and plenty of moles on her arms and likes to lick the milk mustache off his upper lip when he drinks something dairy while they cuddle with the family Boston Terrier underneath the red blanket on the couch downstairs.

I won't go into any more details because it's late, but I wanted to make a point that I like bedrooms. And I like inventing the people that live there and what they do and how they live. But I only know a few styles of people and they'd all end up being described as "misunderstood" since that's all I know how to make them be.

I did go on another emotional thing yesterday. I felt bad. Then I finally got back on my 750words account and typed the heck out of that day's entry. Almost 2,000 words. I don't remember half of what I said but it's just not important anymore. I read a quote today... something like "forgetting about the mind is the key to happiness" or something, and I was wondering if that was really true. I think at some point you're going to have to sort everything out in your head yourself, but to be honest, my head feels really full and heavy at the moment and I'm just trying to wade through the fog enough to function.

I used to read something and immediately delve into it if there was a part of it I didn't understand... I never put up a mental block and try to wait for someone else to explain it. Now it's like I don't even want to take the steps into my brain to try and learn something new, or get interested in something. Any mental effort at all I shy away from. I just don't want to mess with it. It's like I can't even read the language of my own thoughts, and the words are harsh and soaked with something that laden me down so that I end up wading through mud. Or perhaps I'm just tired. But I've been like this all day and I don't even know.

Brandon's been a real help. I don't normally try to write about him directly here, but... he just... everything. Everything I say or do isn't new to him, and if it is (rarely) then he puts himself in my shoes and tells me what I want to hear even before I know it myself. I guess all this mental strife will go away when I'm older but I've only got at least... 8 more years. 9 more years. 24-25 years old.

I told myself I want to go into art school but I don't think that'll happen, unless I wandered back to it after a few years of doing something I didn't like. And a year is a long time. The months fly by but still, a year is a long time. I have decades left in my life. And already one factor is decided so I know I'll be happy no matter what I do. But I was thinking about psychology... no math, no test tubes, just the brain and how it works and the chemicals that make it do what it does. I could go into a counseling center and listen to people and not be like those complaisant doctors that are just "it'll all be ok, dearie" all the time. I want to listen and I want to help. Teenagers, maybe, if I get a choice. Or I could just... well, it'd be good information to learn anyway. Interesting to me. Truly the brain is the last frontier.

But. Maybe all this is PMS... I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when all of a sudden I realize that I'm going to die someday... and that I'm going to lose Brandon and my mom and my dad, and I started crying, and then I realized that all I would care about would be losing them and no one else, and then I scared myself in that I put all of my love into 3 people and how sheltered a life I was living and I was just trying not to make a sound because it was late, but I just cried and cried... so whatever this is, it's bad... I don't want to feel that way, to where I can't deal with my head and then go off on these big tangents about how it feels in my mind. It's funny how I can describe it so accurately when I don't know what the problem is. Yesterday it was like I was curled up in a corner and these huge attacking scribbles were floating and moving around me and all I could do was try to separate the part of me that is me from the other... stuff. I don't know what it is. It's just noise. You know in Photoshop where it gives the option of Noise Reduction? That kind of noise. I can't really think clearly at all.

And it only happens every so often but more often than not I'm just in this perpetual state of gray... no overwhelming optimism (or pessimism, now that I come to think about it), but my parents accuse me of being negative when I'm just telling it like it is. I don't sugar-coat things, which is bad because it only reminds me more of how the bad outweigh the good and how things are unfair and it gets me so... wrapped up.

I don't even know anymore. I never knew. But I'm living. Almost all of my eyebrows are gone. But he doesn't care. "My capacity for you is endless. My capacity for you is endless."

My capacity for thought is endless. Let it hit bottom; I'm growing weary of falling. I wonder what I can do.

Trichotillomania

I've been thinking about doing an in-depth post about this for a while. It's gotten really bad as of late... really, really bad... the worst it's ever been. Strangely my attitude is that of contentment, but maybe that's just it... I'll get to that in a bit.

Wikipedia (which I do consider a reliable source, mind you; not with statistics or quotable information, but just as a place to get a general idea of something) states that trichotillomania is defined as "'hair loss from a patient's repetitive self-pulling of hair' and is characterized by the repeated urge to pull out scalp hair, eyelashes, facial hair, nose hair, pubic hair, eyebrows or other body hair, sometimes resulting in noticeable bald patches."

It's monstrous, I know. Don't remind me. But I guess in order to do this correctly I should just start with my personal history and then go on to explain the events that led up to it and how I was feeling at the time.

It started near the end of 5th grade and I didn't really take much notice of it... nobody did, really. In 6th grade, after the lovely gift of glasses and braces were bestowed upon me, it really started to take effect. There were noticeable patches that other kids asked me about. Near the end of 6th grade it moved to my eyelashes as well. I also got a hair cut in 6th grade that was not flattering at all, to put it nicely, so... I looked strange. You don't ever really see a truly ugly person out on the street, but I was the exception. My self-esteem suffered throughout 6th grade for reasons that I'll explain in a minute, but it was the lowest it had ever been all throughout 7th as my eyebrows became patchier and patchier. I went to see a therapist at the end of 7th grade and then somehow picked out the hairs that made up the bottom part of the patches. From a distance, it looked like my eyebrows were perfectly normal, although a little on the thin side. Throughout that summer I semi-resisted the urge to pick and they grew back out semi-normally. 8th grade was a good year for pretty much every aspect that I had been lacking in, both emotionally and mentally (are they the same?), and although I was still shy, things were definitely different. People treated me differently... like I was worth something. And then 9th grade rolled around and the first semester was just like 8th grade, and then some more things changed and I started having all these weird emotional crazy bits starting from about February up until now. But just in the last few weeks I've really done some damage.

It's terribly hard to explain, so try to follow me. You know how when you are eating something delicious, like ice cream, and you tell yourself "just one more bite" and then that turns into 7 or 8 more before you put the carton away? It's like that. Pulling doesn't hurt at all; not because there aren't any nerve endings there, but that the pleasure outweighs the pain. I feel good when I pull out a hair, especially a thick one. It releases endorphins for me.

Trichotillomania has been linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder, which I do have. I set my drinking glasses down several times so that every side of the cup touches the table at the same time... I will brush my teeth a certain number of times on each side until it feels "right." I have packrat tendencies and have thoughts about getting hit by cars... attacking people sometimes. What it would feel like. I've been diagnosed and it's not fun. But I reach up to my eyebrows almost out of habit and brush my fingers against them, feeling for a patch of hairs that don't feel "right," and if they feel wrong, I pull them out. There's a perverse sense of horror and fascination that I get when I glance at the hair that I pull out - I always check to see what came out, if anything. And it's hard to stop after just one, which goes with the ice cream analogy. I have to keep pulling until each hair is gone of that bunch or I feel incomplete... dirty and unfinished and wrong. I've told people it's like there's an itching in my brain that I can't scratch unless I do this, and it makes me antsy if I'm interrupted. I can concentrate on nothing but stopping myself from not doing it, which is hard if I'm writing something down or talking to someone on the phone, when my hands aren't busy doing something else.

So there's my history and what it feels like to pull... and I know that this is strange, really I do. "Individuals with OCD are aware that their thoughts and behavior are not rational, but they feel bound to comply with them to fend off feelings of panic or dread." Exactly exactly exactly.

I've always been obsessive-compulsive, but I was also a tomboy, and around 5th grade I realized that I was a girl (if you want to put it that way). I had a unibrow at the time (damn genetics), and I supposed that the only rational thing to do was to make that go away if I wanted to be liked. I think that once I started messing with that, the OCD took over and kept the trich up. I don't really like to think about it so much now, but I used to think I was depressed... I wasn't, I think. I was just so ridiculously self-conscious, and most of what I felt still lingers today. So many eyes. I used to be smart and raise my hand and be proud to be knowledgeable of things... suddenly that became almost a crime in middle school. But I was still an outcast either way, no matter what I did or didn't do, and I wish I had realized that sooner and stopped caring so much. In 7th grade I lost that desire to fit in because it was just too much to hope for, really. I wanted people to stop looking at me so horribly. They mostly couldn't meet my eye, and when they did...

It's surprising to me how my personal attitude about this disorder has changed over the years. At first I didn't know what was going on and was just so confused all the time, but now I'm just... meh. I don't really invest so much time in others' opinions anymore. I think that's just with growing older and accepting this part of myself, which I never could have done a few years ago. I have people that care about me and that's enough. I can see my trich from a point where it never seems that bad, and to be honest, it's not the end of the world. I used to wear my heart on my face. I don't anymore... I gave it away to people who would take care of it. My wants and needs have changed.

After the therapy sessions ended and I received my accidental temporarily-normal life, I did start to see myself as pretty. My entire outlook on life changed during that time (which made me enjoy 8th grade even more). But I absolutely hate that my life revolved - revolves - around vanity and beauty. If I could change one thing, it would be that. But being happy in my own skin is really the epitome of all of this anyway... I never would have started picking if I hadn't wanted to be noticed in that way. But love is wonderful and kind and I don't know what I'd do without it. If these events brought me to what I have now, then let it be. I know he feels the same way.

There's been talk of me going to a therapist again, and this time I don't mind (as with many decisions I've had to make lately, now that I think about it... I'm quite indifferent these days). I'm not going to be a sheep again and be embarrassed. We're paying this lady to fix me and she'd better fix me the best that she can. I'm going to tell her that I don't really care about my trich anymore because I already have enough of what I wanted so badly in middle school... acceptance.

I'm not trying to make a statement by picking and forcing others to love my ugly face anymore, because that was the excuse I told myself every day before school to try and make myself feel better for something I couldn't help. I'm not proud to be crazy, but I'm proud to be myself and have people listen to me. I'm tired of introspection... I don't want to think anymore. I'm not happy with not thinking, but if that's what it takes to be happy (how ironic) then I'll do whatever it takes.

If I have anything to add, I'll add it later.

a conclusion?

you know, i don't even really want to care how i feel anymore... but in a good way. i feel i'm wasting my time with this intense introspection. as long as i retain some bit of what i consider to be my true self, why eat myself to pieces over emotions and momentary things?

i'm happy now. truly, wonderfully, purely happy. not all the time. not when i wake up early or have a bad meal or have to change my plans, but i still feel ok because i know the good outweigh the bad this time. and i really do think it's because of him. it's something i could sing about someday in a kitchen washing dishes, that's how good it feels.

mom got a new motorcycle, and dad and i tested it out earlier tonight. the sky was turning shades of indigo and he said to climb on so i put on his (mom's) helmet and we sped off into the cool darkness. he turned onto the highway and i put my visor up and just let the wind hit me full in the face and watch the road pass me by right in front of me. i was silence with sound. i was flying.

no revelations were derived from that (thank god), but it was a nice feeling and i feel a little bit giddy even still. i like that feelings last long after the moment is over. i think we take that for granted, mostly, but i'm appreciative today nonetheless.

and life really is about appreciating itself, you know? religions do that. we thank God for things... but being appreciative really boils down to just noticing things in the first place, which is the art of Zen. all religions are alike and teach the same things but they go about it in many different ways. religions are flawed like politics. religions are subject to scrutiny, but Jesus and Buddha really did teach the same thing. and then you could go about saying they ARE the same thing and get into the One and Wiccan beliefs and then you've got another factor in the mix.

not that i'm really talking about anything at this point, but i think that the right way to live would be to have the compassion and caring for other people from Christianity, the meditation and peace of Buddhism, and the karma thing (to an extent) from Hinduism. i don't know enough about Islam and Judaism or any other remotely widespread religion to pick apart the good pieces from those, but... hey, you know? today i was watching THE worst movie of 2010 (When In Rome... the screenwriter had to have been even younger than me, i mean, come ON) and in the end, the priest is doing the wedding ceremony with an Italian accent and says "speak-a now, or forever hold your peaces." then i thought he meant "pieces" and how wonderful a phrase that was...

everyone hold your pieces. and that's what we do. we hold our pieces together. and sometimes people don't do so well and fall apart and then they just need to find the right glue to fix themselves (or have someone else fix them). and that's not really a bad thing, you know, having someone else be your glue (hint hint).

it's 2:30 am and i'm doing all right for once. let this stay. please let it stay. i think i deserve it.

Summer

The summer's going well, I think.

Oh wow. I just got the taste of crusty blood in my mouth. I'm not going to go check a mirror to see what was on my lips.

Anywho. It's been nice, yes. I leave tomorrow for my favorite town (Vermilion, Ohio) and then I'm going to a quilt show with my mom. She doesn't really quilt, but I think the artful designs excite both me and her.

In other news, I've surrounded myself with pretty things. I don't really do anything with them, but it's nice to have them here in case I want to. I have an open set of watercolors and a sketchpad to my immediate left, my Olympus camera hanging off of my lamp, nail polish to my immediate right, pens and pencils behind the laptop screen, and a corral of blank CDs in the corner. I don't really know what I want to do with them - just the other day I kind of went nuts with the nail polish IN the sketchpad and ended up making something really cool (I kind of overdid it, if you ask me) but...

Like I've said before, it's not the same kind of creativity I've had over the last couple of months. This is different. I'm more detached from everything, and I don't really like it. But I guess I can deal. I'll have another shift in a few months and it will be over with.

I'm doing ok. I don't feel that I'm in an air-conditioned prison yet. I don't mind sleeping in until noon and getting on Tumblr for an hour before going downstairs. I'm reading all sorts of interesting things... not waiting hours before someone gets on Facebook for me to talk to. I'm more solitary than I used to be; I just don't include people in my plans or my thoughts anymore. They're always afterthoughts... except for him and her, of course. She tries to tell me that people are her God... people are my demons. I'm not sure how he feels about it, but it will come up in conversation somewhere along the way.

I Torrent'd Woodstock footage and Tommy (rock opera by the Who) so I might put one of those on to watch while I clean my room today. Blind Melon will also work... I don't have any particular ties to any of the songs but it gives a nice colorful mood.

Revelation (isn't just a book)

I'm so... I don't know. There's a general lightness in the air. Things are more enjoyable. I haven't reached the monotony of July, but I'm digging this whole freedom thing.

I realized something today that kind of related to my last post. Perhaps it's just my OCD talking (yes, it still resides with me, occupying quite a large portion of my brain, mind you), but I get this sense of... right-ness whenever I see fashion pictures. Like they've got a whole closet full of the "right" clothes and makeup and how nothing will clash or look ugly. I've finally accepted that's not true.

I was really surprised at by how many photos are photoshopped, whether they look it or not. Virtually EVERY SINGLE PICTURE in the media is photoshopped or edited in some way, even the candid ones in gossip magazines. I saw a before and after picture of the Italian prime minister/president - his fat roll was slimmed down to nonexistence. It wasn't even a glamour shot, just one of him reaching over to grab something on a boat. It clearly was a bad picture. But even that small flaw was erased out.

So I don't see the pictures anymore as lies. They just tell different stories, that's all.

Same with clothes. I went to Target today (oooh yah, fashion epitome store lol) and bought a bunch of clothes, but even the ones that I'd hoped were the comfiest and still shape-defining were skin-tight and... not. So I might just start making my own clothes too, you know. It'd be a nice hobby to get into when I'm older. Hippie stuff.

I like hippies. The simplicity. Not the pot and the laziness, but the enjoyment. Fulfillment. Acceptance. Or perhaps I just apply those qualities solely to hippies because I liked their music.

On my Posterous blog (since I expect the most, albeit little, traffic I'll receive for this post will be on Tumblr), I wrote about The Lovely Bones and your own heaven. Little did I know my own heaven could possibly be a future.

I hadn't really thought about it much, even after I typed that post. But now I know. A little farmhouse with a barn and a pond and a swing on a tree that gives some kind of fruit. The house can be small and simple, but warm and colorful on the inside. A fireplace. The whole house is just jam-packed with little things that I couldn't bear to throw away, things that are me and my life. There's a barn that I've turned into a studio.

I'm married, one or two kids (boys are more fun than girls). He loves me... he never stopped. I love him. On Saturdays we go to the market and buy fresh things and come home and burn everything in the stove and laugh about it. When it snows, we make snow angels. There's a mural wall in the barn we all paint once every year. We don't make much money but we have what we need. We might have chickens. Jackolanters and easter eggs. Family. I've never wanted that before. I never saw my life shared with another person until now.

We find things we enjoy. We find things we need and want and wrap them up into a leaf and swallow them whole. But the flame isn't burnt out just yet. Feed it like a starving artist and it will flourish and grow and burst through the skin. There will be arguments and fatigue and pain and times we're lost but that's all ok and it is to be expected. I will never leave you.

Forgot who I was talking to.

So what I have (am) learned(/ing): life is not a picture. Life is not full of perfect. But optimism is necessary... it is preferred. There's no other way to live. If there's a problem, solve it... it ends quickly.

I am happy. I want you to be happy, too. I want you to feel what I feel and to know what I know. I hope this helps.

makeup

last day of school is tomorrow. i'm thinking of dressing up. so i was lying in bed moments ago questioning... and here's what i came up with.

1. why am i so opposed to makeup?

the answer was a little tough to figure out. i think that by always disliking the popular folk, i've somehow turned every attribute of them into something to despise. i don't wear skirts or heels or take more than 10 minutes with my hair in the morning. and why is that? because i don't want to be labeled as one of them. but why resist? i don't have to necessarily associate with them in order to look nice and feel good about myself. it's as if i make myself wallow in self-pity because i refuse to accept the simple cure.

times are changing. magazines are unreal. but perhaps i've always aspired to be one of those people that wake up beautiful. no one is. no one at all. but i've been blessed with bad skin from my mother and there's still the whole trichotillomania issue... it's now the worst it's ever been. perhaps makeup would make me feel better about myself in that i would at least stop picking. i think i do it out of habit more than anything these days - i've got everything i want right now except a face.

i also don't want to become dependent on it. i want to look nice both ways (natural and with a little makeup)... but i can't do that unless everything grows back in and my zits clear up, yeah. and i don't want to look like an - ahem - slut, with the greasy eyeliner and streaked powdery skin and pouty pink lips dripping of color.

2. ... why?

why do i keep picking... it feels so good. i'd rather it be my hair than the obvious parts of my face, especially my eyes. he tells me i have beautiful eyes and sometimes i just want to scream at him that it's not true. i'm no longer afraid of what the stranger thinks... i just want to be pretty in my own eyes. get rid of the 8 or so pimples around my mouth from where i hold my hand when i'm in uncomfortable situations (like art class) and grow everything back out. a shorter haircut would give me an excuse to use eye makeup, but it'd have to do it right and, knowing me, it wouldn't work.

i don't know. i'm just tired of feeling so... drab. unworthy. he's too good for me and i'm waiting for him to realize it. i want to be who he knows i am... somewhere inside. hiding. and the first step is to fix my appearance.

at least i'm not fat. there's my vain moment of the day. i have to wake up in 6 hours and shave and put on a skirt and foundation and all that crap just to be like them for a day and feel special and protected and more self-conscious than i've ever been in my life.

it's a crime to feel good, you know. it always has been.

not reading this over for any translations lost between my brain to you. i just don't work your way.

I'm Better

I feel much better. I think it's a weekly thing where I end up feeling so terrible. But there's a story I'd like to document.

Yesterday my friend and I were sitting in gym class, clad in sweatpants and dirty tennis shoes, when we noticed there were a lot of ants on the floor. Both alive and dead, there were at least 50 or 60 scattered about... some kind of infestation problem. But one bug in particular crawled towards where we were sitting, missing several legs. It's crooked wings wobbled feebly as it inched along.... it was no bigger than the width of my index fingernail and yet I felt so sad for the poor creature. It writhed around on the floor, attempting to stand up, and after looking at it for a while Chelsea suggested we put it out of its misery. I agreed.

She went to step on it... I looked away (being the wimp that I am), but when I turned back around, it looked as if it had been cut in half and was rolling around on the floor in fits of what looked like sheer agony. I turned away, and this terrible screaming filled my ears... this white noise that penetrated every fiber of my mind. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I started spit out these choking sobbing noises that sounded oddly like laughter. I felt like I was being ripped apart.

The whole ordeal lasted about a minute and a half, but it felt like hours. Thankfully I wasn't embarrassed about crying later; nobody really cared. That's the thing about today - people watch but don't say anything. But then I was fine. Cleansed. I no longer feel a weight pressing down upon me.

... that could be because it's Saturday, but...

I feel better for a lot of reasons. I won't be too specific, but I'm happier in several areas of my life now. 2 weeks until summer, Westest over, I probably won't have to take any exams...

What I notice the most now is that I don't have a group of friends anymore. I have a few, but I don't really hang around the same people anymore. I like it, I think. I could go on explaining, but I just really don't feel like going on and about every single reason. I just lost sight of myself and now I'm ok.

I also seem to go through terrible bouts of intense pessimism that will suddenly switch into overwhelming optimism. I'm currently trying to decide which of the two end up affecting my life the most. They seem to occur with the same amount of frequency. It just depends on how I feel about society or the human race at the time... strange that I let that affect me, eh? I'm trying to learn how to completely ignore those thoughts so my mood remains happy. I'll never have complete faith in... us, so I just need to stop thinking about it. I can't force myself to believe something that isn't true. I'm not surrounded by people that persuade me otherwise, and until I am, I'm just going to shut it all out.

Burdened.

Anyway, my trichotillomania started up again, but I have a completely new attitude on it. It's funny in a very laughable way.

Hair's doing alright, I think I want it shorter.

And I'm sitting here listening to Dream Theater and things are going ok. Still don't have a new phone and the current one is pretty much broken (the screen is completely black, but I can still get calls. Apparently it's a pretty common problem with texting phones. Who woulda thunk it). So I'm supposed to be doing some chores today to get money for a temporary phone (one that at least has a screen that works, hehe) but I just really feel like sitting around and listening to music. I've been without it for a long time, with just a small taste of the songs I enjoy on my pathetic, one-gigabyte ipod.

What to do... what to do... what to think...

I'm thinking of him.