red and raw

I hate when I feel low and awful about my life. I think about where I'm at right now: coming out of unemployment but my new job is slow to start and my days are still filled with blankness, it's the middle of winter and it's hard to motivate myself to get out there and do something, I'm in a relationship with someone I love but at times it feels unfulfilling and I can't pinpoint where it's coming from, I am still, and probably always will be, unsatisfied with my friendships/lack thereof.

I've often been...sad about my life but I've always pulled through it--talk myself out of it, go on a walk, clear my head, gain perspective. I don't know how to recognize my sadness for what it is. Simply part of my human experience or does it traipse into real and true depression?

When I think about the times I've felt most unhappy in my life I can usually boil it down to boredom and....I don't know...I imagine myself desperately grasping at things I think I need to feel happy, I see others gorge on it, and I can't wrap my fingers around anything solid. I can't hold on to anything.

Sometimes I feel like I'm floating above myself, watching every move and cringing. Sometimes I can't believe I'm here,  that I've lived all these experiences, that this is really where I'm at. It is often unsatisfying.

A life is only small if you're constantly comparing it to others. And I guess I do that and I guess I should stop. It's hard though. It's getting harder and harder to be OK with what I've got and I don't know what to do. Right now I'm wallowing and drinking and it's not great but. I'm sick of telling myself this day is almost over and you can forget it and start over tomorrow because tomorrow is the same as the day before as the day before as the day before

I like to end self-pitying rants on a somewhat positive note but it's starting to seem artificial. Fine. Whatever. I'll be fine. I know I will. It's nice to remind myself I will. It's nice to swim in these ugly sticky dank thoughts but I'll take a breath before I drown.

Write the right way

I was feeling restless, nostalgic tonight. I remembered that I used to write in a journal, I used to write fiction, I used to write a screenplay. All for school, of course. But upon rereading my old stuff that I have stored away in boxes and bins I found I wasn't as embarrassed for myself as I thought I would be. I cannot tell if this is because my ego is a tender little thing that must be gently caressed and reassured or if I'm actually a good writer. Probably a mix of both.

Lately I've been trying to come to terms with the fact that...maybe I just don't like to write. If I really wanted to be a writer, I would write. I would put in the effort, make it a priority. It's simply not. I don't know what is a priority for me right now and I often feel like I'm just floating through my life, letting things happen and not giving a damn.

My enormous problem lies in my perceptions of what the end game should be. It has always been: get published, become well known, make loads of money off of the fruits of my creative labor. A writer writes because she has to, because she wants to, because she needs to express herself. Not because she wants to make money. Wanting to make money and gain recognition are, I think, pretty natural and human expectations when one makes her creative work available to the public but it is not the guiding force and motivation.

I worry I won't ever be able to reach a point where the motivation for my writing is for me and my own emotional health and well being. Perhaps I'm limiting myself into thinking that this is some sort of natural feeling, that I can't train myself into thinking this way. Maybe I can and I'm just lazy. I always say I'll try; I never do. And I'm not sure what changes I need to make to shake myself out of this inertia.

Anxious, unemployed, happy new year

In the beginning of November I was laid off. This was a blessing, no disguise necessary. My job sucked the soul right out of me and now I'm forced to find a new one that maybe won't. My last day was right before Thanksgiving and from then on up until New Year's Eve I gave myself a holiday. I travelled lots and barely looked for jobs. It felt good.

Now the holidays are over and the emptiness of my days stretches out so far I can't see their edges. This makes me anxious. I'm a person who takes solace in plans. It comforts me to know when, where, and what I'm doing because it makes the hours where I do nothing more bearable.

There's not much structure to my days, even though I try to assemble them in one way or another. My anxiety buzzes in my ears and makes my stomach queasy. I've found it easier to take this anxiety and channel it into my relationship, giving my darkest and ugliest thoughts lots of fuel to grow.

I suppose it's not surprising I let myself go sick with worry over one of the only stable and good parts of my life. Is it because I can't let myself worry about how directionless and despondent my job search is? Is it a way of self sabotage? I feel my self esteem shrinking by the day; my insecurities swell, soon to burst. I fear I'll find some way to get out of this relationship so I can avoid fixing myself.

I also fear: losing control getting hurt feeling blindsided.

I wrote the other post I published today months ago. Of course I've still had a nagging discomfort about my boyfriend's friendship with his ex and earlier this week I turned to cheesy advice columns to help me work through it. I found a surprisingly helpful one that said you must relinquish control. You must cultivate trust. People are going to do what they want to do. People are going to do what they want to do.

When I reread the draft I thought it captured my feelings nicely; it had a hopeful ending.

I hope I don't  continue to obsess over little things, turn them into monsters, suffer greatly. I hope I can love myself enough to accept and embrace where I am right now, or at least be OK with where I am right now. I hope I can remember that I'm the only one who can make me happy and my happiness is paramount. I hope I keep writing because right now I feel calm and I want to hold on to this for as long as I can.

exexexexex

ughhh jealousy is evil. it's all consuming. it makes even the sanest of us jumpy, paranoid, ugly. it makes me think and believe the worst. it takes form as passive aggression, straight out aggression, sleepless nights, an extra drink i probably didn't need it, a pack of cigarettes i definitely didn't need. it's something i think i have under control--everything is smooth and shiny and looks just right but then. something happens. a text, a comment, a random thought, and the surface cracks and crumbles to reveal a red, burning rash beneath. the smooth and shiny is thin and brittle 

--

my boyfriend is still friends with his ex. they talk fairly regularly. i know this because sometimes i'll see her name pop up every now and then when he gets a text. i know this because he's told me they're still friends. i've confronted him about it--told him i wanted to make sure he didn't still have feelings for her, told him i wanted to understand the edges and boundaries of their current relationship. he said the right things to make me feel better. and yet.

after my ex and i broke up i wanted nothing to do with him. i had never felt closer with anyone than i had with him and when it ended--that sharp, sudden, shock--i couldn't imagine having any sort of relationship with him that wouldn't softly reek of what we once shared. i still can't.

my boyfriend's done nothing wrong. i need to trust him because why wouldn't i. but jesus it's hard. and recently i've been fantasizing about seeing some text from his ex that would validate all my awful suspicions and allow that frenetic energy inside my brain and my veins to take a damning shape and morph into something real.

--

jealousy shines a bright light on my insecurities, my bits and pieces where i feel less than. i'm smart but i don't know enough about the right sorts of things. i'm sexy but it's not kinky or adventurous. i'm funny but it's not the same.

when i confronted him about my feelings, my boyfriend said he invited his ex to his birthday party but she didn't want to come because she thought i'd hate her. i don't know why he told me that. perhaps to make me feel better? so that i'd know she knows about me and views me as some sort of...adversary? i've thought a lot about the comment and this small opening into their relationship. i wonder why she assumes i'd be so petty and i find it interesting that she placed the blame of not attending the party on my perceived hatred and discomfort rather than hers. i don't generally hate people i've never met and know very little about--even if they did used to fuck my boyfriend. i wonder if we'll ever meet.

--

i don’t ignore emotions; jealousy receives my agonizing indulgence and analysis for better or worse. i hate that it's grounded in...nothing solid, that's for sure. just my own messy conjectures. i hate that there's no one to blame for my feelings except myself. i hate that this is something i'll have to continue managing because i can only beg for the same reassurance from my boyfriend so many times before it becomes unbearable. i hate that i'm 99 percent certain there's nothing to worry about but i'm so hung up on that 1 percent.

with clarity and solid mindedness i can remind myself that i'm a pretty cool human being and i'm in a pretty cool relationship with someone who likes me and respects me and all that jazz. if anything is going on, it'll find its way out--it almost always does. in the meantime it's much less exhausting to not worry.

reflections on my twenty-third year

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks and instead of focusing on the awful bits (namely that I'm working the same job with but now with more hatred and frustration) and feeling like another year of my life simply wiled away, I am going to reflect on all that happened month by month. Events and personal growth and all that. Perhaps after I've done this I'll still feel like it was a wasted year but the unexamined life etc etc. Trigger warning: this is boring.

2013
October
Boy, it got off to a truly awful start. About a week before my birthday my boyfriend of over 2 years broke up with me. It wasn’t totally unexpected but unexpected enough. I have a vivid memory of saying to him, through dripping tears and a sloppy voice, but it’s my birthday next week!! Anyway. In an act of sisterly love, my big sis planned a last-minute trip up to Boston to celebrate with me. That morning at work my boss yelled at me for a small mistake I made the previous day. It turned into one of those conversations about a lot of things I’ve done wrong and other (small! miniscule!) things I had done to disappoint her and that sorta thing is really the true mark of passive aggression. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how absurd the whole ordeal was, and how shitty it made me feel. I take it as a real badge of honor that I didn’t cry in her office. Afterwards a couple coworkers took me out to lunch so I could bitch about it. That evening I picked my sister up from the bus station and we went out to a fancy dinner in my neighborhood.

I spent most of the month as an open wound. The pain from a breakup is like biting your tongue over and over again—the hurt is exquisite, sharp, and deep but there’s very little to sooth it. A few weeks after the breakup I went to his apartment to perform the requisite act of “here’s your stuff” and that was the last time I saw him.

Near the end of the month I developed a burning crush on a man I saw at the DTX platform every day after work. Slight, bespectacled, bearded. I still see him sometimes and it still makes me feel light.

November

I think by November I had stopped crying every day. I organized a big event at work that went well. A friendship between me and the intern with my program began to solidify. By this time it had been a year since I started working at my job and I really started to feel the itch to get out. I had a nice Thanksgiving? I dunno I guess I was just slogging through the days. Ah, I think I may have masturbated for the first time since the breakup. This, I thought, was a big step toward moving on…

December

Still ticking off each month as 1 2 3 since the breakup. I went to Craigie on Main for the first time with a good college pal and ate one of the best meals of my life. Six courses of food inspired by the Alsace region of France, a bottle of white wine and it was maybe the best $180 I’ve ever spent. A few evenings I trekked through the snow with an old work pal to a dark and cramped Irish pub and we got drunk off of beer and whiskey. I traveled home for Christmas and the New Year and felt recharged.

2014
January

Hoo boy. For whatever reason ($$ presumably) my office has their holiday party in January. I got wildly drunk and hooked up with a coworker. It was an awful, sloppy mess. We hooked up in the playground in the Boston Common (lol), took a cab back to my place, and then….merp. No need to go into details; I just tried to type them out and it was atrocious. I also wrote about it in an earlier blog post. So! This incident made work a bit difficult for a little while but I certainly do not regret it.

By January I was (obviously) as horny as a thirteen year old boy. It was exhausting, sizing up dudes everywhere I went. The T was a meat market. I realized how easy it is to spot a man’s bulge through his pants when he’s standing in front of me on the train; it made my commute a lot more interesting. My holiday hookup did little to satisfy my needs as a woman and we had a silent mutual agreement to never speak of it or repeat our actions so I was left to my own devices. Unbelievably, I still don’t own a vibrator :-/

February

February was bleak. Weather wise, life wise. Beginning Middlemarch was my only solace. I cried over my ex on President's day, probably the first time I had done so since November.

March

Oof March was also bleak. I don’t usually take much stock in horoscopes but each one I read said Libras would have a tough month because Mars was in retrograde (wut!). I found out my ex moved to Brooklyn and the news knocked the wind out of me. I felt like my life was at a standstill and going nowhere but he picked up everything and moved to the city he’s wanted to live in since forever. I spent most of this month stewing in self-pity. I started this blog.

(And while it’s not really a month-by-month thing, I spent a lot of time thinking about loneliness, friendship, and my relationship. I spent a lot of time alone. Sometimes I was OK with it; sometimes I wasn’t. I went on a lot of walks and got to know my neighborhood. I finally started to feel at home in Boston. These, I think, are good things.)

April

Maybe April was a turning point. I visited a few good friends from college in LA and had an incredible time. I thought I would hate the city, but I truly enjoyed it and it was so nice catching up with my pals. Must mention that I’m (pretty sure) we went to Bryan Singer gay sex party. And at this party an unbelievably hot and muscular man in a speedo made out with me for about 45 seconds. Must also mention that right before he kissed me I had been snacking on Chex Mix.

Later in the month, when I returned home a little buzzed after a few drinks with a friend, I checked my ex’s twitter feed and found out that he had an OKCupid account. Fuck this, I thought, and then immediately signed up for OKCupid, created a profile, and answered roughly one million questions about my opinions and worldview and all that. I spent the rest of the month obsessing over the site. I went on my first date the last day of April.

May

My mother and sister came to Boston for my cousin’s college graduation from UMass Amherst. This is our family’s youngest cousin and I got sentimental watching him receive his diploma. His college band, Pocket Lint (!!), performed for the last time at a house party and after much back and forth and drama with transportation, my sister and I went to the party. They played in the basement of a dirty and dingy house; drunk college grads took glugs from bottles of vodka, wine, and growlers of beer. I wish I could describe the experience better than saturated college but oh well. That's what it was.

But lo, the highlight of the month was my first date with my current boyfriend. Our first bit of interaction was a little awkward--we were in a crowded bar, we couldn't find seats and at 6'4" he towers over me so anything I said to him had to be repeated after he bent down to my level. But we found a spot at the bar and despite all that initial fuss I was at ease around him and a I felt a sort of warm reassurance that we'd have a good night.

June
June is a blur. The only focus I can muster is Aidan. After our first few get togethers and hookups it became obvious we liked one another, that we were exclusive. (I should mention [to whom?? w/e] I am still at my godawful job and I am always sad and depressed and downtrodden about this.)

Right before I left for a big family vacation, we stamped official names on our relationship. It was inevitable but it still felt...unnatural. With my previous relationship we had a solid friendship under our belts before things got ~romantic~ With Aidan, we were strangers and then very quickly we weren't. It took a little while to comfortably settle back into the girlfriend role.

July

Big family vacation. Slowly starting to apply to more jobs. Getting to know Aidan.

August
Slowly starting to apply to more jobs. Getting to know Aidan.

September

Ah so here we are. The last few months were pretty uneventful (and I started to feel pretty lazy). Still applying for jobs but they're few and far between and I've heard back from NO ONE. 

Soo...

After this lil memory experiment (or whatever I just did!) what do I think of my twenty-third year?? It was perhaps the most introspective year I've had, what with being single (for most of it) and having so few friends (for all of it). Spent a lot time by myself and in my head. And I feel good about that! It certainly wasn't perfect or exciting and there's still so so much about my life that makes me anxious and frustrated but. This past year wasn't wasted or wiled away WOW THANK GOD.

As a gift for reading through this mess, you are now allowed to follow me on Twitter--hey thanks!

On trust

Starting in the pit of my belly, it oozes its way through my bloodstream, through my organs, muscles, tendons, fat, leaving all of my messy insides feeling hot and prickly. My breath becomes shallow. I stare off at something, anything-- an old piece of mail on the chair beside me, the two books on my shelf that need to be switched so as to keep them in alphabetical order, the shoes on a stranger sitting across from me on the train. I've never been good at hiding emotions on my face. Unhappiness paints my eyes with unease and my mouth with disappointment. You will not see me smile. You will not hear me speak unless spoken too. But I'm silently begging you to ask me what's wrong so that I can mumble back don't worry about it.

My mind is a tangled mess; I'm too impatient to work through the knots and besides, it's easier to let things worsen than make them better. Each new tangle results in a new sludgy thought. It's throbbing now, pushing up against my skull and I want to tear at my hair, my flesh, I want to claw my way through anything to find some relief. I want I want I want.

Yes woman

One of my closest friends at work often says I'm too quick to say yes. This is in regard to a few different scenarios: when my boss asks me to do something I don't have to do (I can't say no; I never say no; I'm a goddamn pushover) and getting drinks after work. I will always and bitch I mean always be down for a drink at 5:00 p.m. sharp.

When she says it relating to drinks, she does so with a smile and a clipped laugh -- playful but not quite free of judgment. And my gut sort of falls. Is that supposed to mean I'm too available? Is it so bad to be available....always....? I like to have a good time, man.

I recently went out for margaritas with a coworker whom I don't usually spend one-on-one time with. And it wasn't awkward because of tequila! Also because complaining about a job is an endless waterfall of conversation.

I've started dating someone but I'm still a yes woman. I still have all the time in the goddamn world so yeah what the hell I'll get a drink or three with you. I don't think that's so awful. You should be so lucky to find yourself on the receiving end of my weirdo anything goes drunk conversation. You really should.