#long personal thing

[middleberry]

I am someone that likes to reminisce a lot. Lots of things fill me with nostalgia, and I love to indulge myself in feelings of nostalgia. There’s also plenty of times in which I wish I could go back in time and relive my years as a child. However, when I think about it...I realize that’s not really something I’d like to go back to. Yes, I had some good times as a child, but I kind of forced myself to forget some of the things that happened to me as a child so that I can look more fondly upon my childhood. The way I look at it, I’ve been bottling my emotions for years and my past memories pile up on each other, and I try to remember good things over bad things, so all of the bad things are at the very bottom of that bottle. I try not to look towards the bottom of this bottle to uncover things that have happened to me, but the truth is that I’ve been really wondering what’s wrong with me lately. It’s like, I have these good memories, but here I am now. Why am I such a sad person now? Why do I manage to get depressed even on my happiest of days? I haven’t really tried to understand why I am the way that I am. I’ve just let bad things happen to me. Maybe I feel like I deserve to have bad things happen to me. I certainly haven’t wanted to try and reach into my bottled up emotions to find out what’s wrong with me. Throughout the course of my life, I have met with three different counselors to try and find out what my psychological problems are. The last counselor I met with was when I was around the age of 15 or 16. With these counselors, things didn’t work out. I didn’t realize how against I was with the idea of digging up things from my past. When the counselors asked me questions, I answered, “I don’t know.” most of the time. I wasn’t willing to look inside myself to find what was wrong. Recently, this is something that’s really been weighing me down. I feel like I’m starting to get somewhere in life now, but I’ve still been really confused about certain things about myself, so I finally did it. By myself, I managed to remember things. I remembered every time my parents fought. I remembered staying up all night to wait for my mom to get home. I remembered feeling relief when my mom got home, and I was able to fall asleep while my dad would yell at her while she was in a state that I didn’t understand. I remembered all the things I was naive about. I remembered how much escapism was in my life as a child. I remembered the times when I tried to run away home (I would pack up my things, but I wasn’t able to even make it out the front door.) I remembered how afraid of my dad I was. I also remembered how many times I got my hopes up with my parents being together and separating and getting back together and separating again. My mom lied to me about a lot of things. I think this is how I developed trust issues, and I certainly have issues with girls because of my mom, especially since she’s been one of the only females in my life that I’ve known. I’ve also remembered other experiences I’ve had that explain why I’ve felt certain ways about certain things throughout my life. What I’m trying to say here though is that I feel like I understand myself a bit better now. Although, now that I can understand some of my problems, I don’t really know what to do with this information. The truth is that I’m a negative person and I’m depressed a lot. I think I’m just a mess of a human being. Even if I’ve identified why I’m a piece of trash, I don’t know how to stop being a piece of trash. It does feel like I’ve been making progress in recent years. I’m still in college. I’m close to finally getting my driver’s license. I may be able to work at my first job soon. Even with all that, I don’t feel proud of myself. I can’t help but look at other people and see how much better they’re doing than I am and how much better they are than me. Something I really need in my life is friendship, but it’s really hard to try and become friends with someone when I constantly feel unworthy of anyone’s friendship. Why would anyone waste their time with someone like me? I’m not a good person. What’s even worse is that I have no confidence so I can’t even pretend to be a good person. I don’t know how to gain confidence. I still don’t even really know how to communicate with people that well. Even if I could communicate, why would someone want to be associated with such a negative person? I can tell some good jokes sometimes, but I’m not consistent. Sometimes, I think I’m supposed to be alone. I think I function better when I’m alone. Some of the best times of my life were times that I spent by myself. So, with all this information, I can understand now why I’m messed up, I don’t believe there’s hope of me getting better, and I think being alone is where I’m supposed to be in life. Another thing I’ve learned now is that I would not like to go back to my childhood. Now I’m tired and starting to lose my train of thought. I’ll just stop typing now.

[whitegingerspice]

I have a notebook that has the beginnings of a book that quickly deteriorated into nothing and a couple character ideas into it as well as a page so emotionally charged everytime I see it. This notebook is the notebook that I carry on conversions with myself about my problems and once the problem has passed I burn the page it was written on. This is also the notebook I quit bringing to school and leave under a counter because one time someone tried to look in it. This is the notebook that has a page that will probably never be burnt. Add now I add another page that will most likely live on in it. Never being burnt.

[demilouve]

2013: the most not terrible year ever

i’m not really one for writing a lot of “year in review” pieces, or really for even blogging about my life that much. but the more i thought about this last year today, the more i’ve realized that this was easily the most not terrible year of my life, which is really a noncommittal way of saying that it has been the best year.

one year ago right now, i was jetlagged and sick-feeling, wandering out and about montpellier alone, trying to find dinner and booze. i would eventually find some indian food and champagne and ring in the new year by watching half of slc punk! alone and then going to bed. i did not think of it this way at the time, but now i am deeply impressed by the symbolism of spending the very beginning of 2013 alone. don’t go thinking of this as a complaint; quite the contrary. if i were to give 2013 any kind of name it would be the Year of Me, the first year i spent learning how to make myself happy and then doing it. this was the year i learned how healthy it can be to be selfish sometimes. how to say "no" to shit i don't want to do. how to accomplish what i want to do without waiting for someone else to tell me to do it.

in 2013 i moved to another country and made friends there, ate new food, spoke as much french as i could, and spent some amazing time alone. i traveled. i carpooled, hitchhiked, and couchsurfed. i rode a camel, swam in the mediterranean sea, and stayed up all night dancing. i kissed total strangers. i allowed more than one toxic person into my life and then realized how and when to kick them out. i finally, finally began to feel like i deserved better.

then i came back to the us, and i hated everything for a while. but once the reverse culture shock abated, i began to recognize that my being happy in france had less to do with france itself and a whole lot more with me. at the age of 21, for the first time in my life, i realized that i had learned to be happy.

armed with this knowledge, the second half of 2013 was just as good as the first. i've seen some amazing shows, been to some great parties, stayed up way too late talking. i moved into a house with three strangers that i now adore. i met a boy at a concert in brooklyn who quickly became one of the single most important people in my life. i've figured out at least something about what i want to do with my life.

in the last 12 months i've cried for joy and for sorrow; made new friends, kept old friends, and cut people out of my life; learned how to be happy and how to cope with being sad; been hurt, recovered, and fallen in love; been both terrified and accepting of the future; and learned what i need to live.

i don't make new year's resolutions; i find them pointless, and more than a little cheesy. but 2013 has been good to me. and all i have to say about 2014 is this: i am ready for you, but you are not ready for me.

[theprivatelifeofsherlockholmes]

never asking a man out for coffee again, i feel like molly hooper

So, years ago, I was at pub, I meet this incredibly charming man who knew a friend of mine; we hit it off immediately, and I'm thinking he's flirting with me, but I suppose I might just be assuming this, until he says, "It's a bit forward, I suppose, but can I ask - do you have a boyfriend?"

And I'm surprised, unfortunately I'm in a really complex on and off-relationship with a bloke, who was a friend at the time - not a friend anymore really after all the rubbish he spewed out to me (an absolute classic statement said during a festival, while he was wearing a poncho and obnoxiously drunk, "We can't be together, because you're on a lower intelligence level than me," of all the insults I've ever gotten - that hit me the hardest). 

Anyway, so I'm more or less going, "No - well - kind of, it's complicated."

"I can't persuade you of being otherwise I suppose?"

"Unfortunately not right now," and we part later that evening, with the whole, "Maybe I'll see you at another opportune moment," with a wink, which basically charmed the pants off me, more or less. 

We did meet at a later moment, with him charming as always, except a bit more inebriated, and me a bit standoffish. I don't ever want to be anyone's last resort, especially when lines such as this come slurred out, "You know, you've got the eye of every man in this room - you're a godess," which is charming well-spoken, but not when the lad seems like he can't walk on his own. 

We meet another time, when he's less drunk, and after that become friends on facebook. Fine enough, I get to spy on him - always fun, and then - then - I ask him out for a coffee, instead of unexpectedly meeting him like I've done repeatedly. 

He never replies, and three weeks later I meet him again, I don't breach the topic of coffee, he does, "Oh, God, I'm sorry, I haven't answered - I'm moving to Israel - so I've been swamped, really," and I really do believe him for a second, of course the message doesn't ever get a reply, as he then says, and I forgot.

Years after...

Today, I was waiting for the tube, listening to music, when some bloke approaches me, and I feel I recognize him, but I can't remember. 

"Hello!" he says cheerily. 

"Hi," I say confused. 

"So."

"Err."

"Oh, I - we've met right, at the party at (insert name of a person I have no bloody idea who is)?"

"Err - no."

"Really?"

"Yes."

AND THEN I REMEMBER. 

"You're sure, since I wouldn't forget a face like yours."

"I've no idea who they are."

"Oh - well - that's weird - I'm sure I know you. What's your name?"

"Emily."

"Right - you sure - that party at --- really?"

"Yeah, quite sure."

"Oh, right - right. Well, I'm very sorry."

"Oh, it's not a problem."

"Well, goodbye."

I know, I should have informed him of who I was, but how awkward wouldn't that be? I'm the girl who asked you out on a coffee, but you never answered. He couldn't even remember it was me, and thought I was someone else - probably myself - but really confusing stuff.

The worst part I think he lives in the neighborhood, so I am probably going to meet him again, and I really hope he doesn't try to say hello again. Though I've sort of won really, haha, by "not" knowing him. I'll just be the cool girl who asks people out for coffees. It's the first time I've ever done that too, which makes the whole thing even worse really. He's also ridiculously good looking, the bastard. They just have to be, right? 

[turtlesinlowearthorbit]

So I have this friend. She's what you call a "best friend."

I met her freshman year of high school. We shared English class and made stupid jokes about Odysseus and Penelope and the weird love they make through the ocean. She was kind of one of the if not the first person who liked me more than they liked any other non-family person (at least I think she did) and I shared the sentiment wholeheartedly. I love her to death, I really do. We hung out all the time, we sung stupid improv songs in the back of her parents' car, and we tried to convince waiters that we were actually twin sisters despite obviously being different ethnicities. I was overjoyed when I found out she was going to the same college as me, specially since I'd been worried that I wouldn't have any friends from high school going to school with me. I was pretty much right, and as such I'm fairly certain she accounted for 90% of my social life freshman year as I spent 70% of my life in her dorm. And she spent another 20% in mine.

I don't know what happened next, but stuff kinda stopped working after that. I went to Barcelona for a month, and whenever I was feeling homesick I'd try and message her, but she was never available, and when she was she would disappear after saying one or two messages. But that was whatever, 'cause you know, different time zones. She doesn't have internet at home. Understandable if extraordinarily annoying.

Next semester rolls around, and we're both living in different apartments that are literally a 10 minute walk away. Very much like our situation in the dorms. And yet, I barely see her.

At all.

Like, once a month might be a little generous.

And you know, I understand that she's not taking any of the same classes I am, and our class schedules are complete opposites of each other and that her now main circle of friends are in completely different zones as me, but I still wanted to hang out with her because she's fantastic to hang out with so I made an effort to make time. It's not like I had much of a life anyway, so I'd text her a lot. "Hey, you wanna do blahblah this weekend?""Hey yadda happened yaddayaddayadda.""Wanna homework tonight?" Yadda. Half the time I got a reply, usually saying something on the lines of "I can't". The other half was no reply at all. Nothing. Nada. I don't know what was going on there because I'm pretty sure her phone worked fine because I saw her texting other people constantly when I actually was with her, so is she just ignoring me? That doesn't sound right. Am I being clingy? Goddammit I just want to spend time with you and do nice things for you and know what's going on in your life and be there when you're sad and share what's going on in my life even if not much is happening because 90% of my social life isn't there anymore but I just want to see you and act like we did last year why can't we just do this?

And then there was this shit with living situations. Tangent needed. You may recall from earlier in this rant that each year we have lived not with each other. This was not without lack of trying. First year was whatever because her scholarship required her to live in a certain dorm with other people that won her scholarship and I'm not exactly going to say. "No, I'm needy; get rid of your full ride scholarship so you can live with mee." But next year, definitely. We'll get an apartment together. So we look around a bit but not seriously, spring semester is halfway through and I mention oh hey, we should probably really look for an apartment now so we can just have that done and she gets real sheepish and says she'd already made plans with somebody else. Fuck, wait what? You wait until now, for it to just come up in conversation, to tell me this? But what about...why? I still don't really know. My very loose conclusion seems to be that her mentor needed an extra roommate and my friend just said yes because she's non-confrontational and apparently that also means that she couldn't say "Sorry, I already told my friend I'd room with her." 

And you know, I honestly don't know if I've fully gotten over that yet. I mean, it ended up working out because one of my friends in Japanese had roughly the same thing happen to him so we room with each other now, but me and her never seriously talked about that because well fuck we're both non-confrontational. But it's okay Tina, my new roommates are all going to graduate next year, so once they graduate, we'll room together. Really this time. It'll be great.

Off tangent. I was clinging onto that, I think, and I knew if the same pattern repeated itself, it would kill me. I knew it would, but I trusted her to not do this again because four years of previous experience of her being awesome tells me that she wouldn't do this again.

But she did.

And it killed me.

And she had reasons, and they were legitimate. She's allergic to cats, and the other roommate she wanted to bring in is even more allergic to cats, and I have a cat. I understood. I was willing to do absolutely everything in my power to make sure their lives weren't too inconvenienced, but I understood.

Doesn't change the fact that she'd always known I had a cat and the cat wasn't optional so she should've known all along living with me was just not an option and we'd actually lost the chance back in freshman year with the dorms.

Also doesn't change the fact that I felt like shit.

And I'm not going to get into that can of worms (because there was more not-her stuff going on; this is just what really popped it open) but I got out of it realizing I'd wasted an entire semester and next semester I just need to busy myself and do things and not try and wait around for her to make time for me. And anyways next semester had to be better because we compared our schedules and lo and behold, we actually have time to spend together. And hey we're taking the same online class so we can study together!!

Except we don't, not really. We see each other a bit more than we did last semester, but that's not exactly saying much. But I don't know, I thought I was going okay because I had taken my head out of the ground and actually did things and enjoyed stuff and wait is that a friend or two I just made what's going on here? Sure we were still doing the circle of me asking if she wanted to do stuff and her saying no she's busy, but you know, I felt okayish about it. I thought.

But yeah, today I was on campus and so was she (for different reasons) and I shot her a text saying "Hey I need a ride off campus at 4, can I has?" because I didn't want to wait for a bus and she replies "Sorry can't. I'm leaving at 2 and then going home."

And that shouldn't have set me off. Shouldn't have made me thing about all this other shit. It shouldn't. So insignificant. But it did. I couldn't deal with the fact that she couldn't wait 2 friggin hours for me because she wanted to go back home, I just left in the middle of my thing and got on the bus and left.

And I know I'm being unfair about all of this. Just because I feel ridiculously attached and miss her doesn't mean she has to reciprocate the feeling. I guess it's just...I can't tell if this is a Rory and Dean thing where the relationship is all one-sided and doomed or if this is an Amy and Rory thing where Rory only thinks the relationship is one-sided but it's not and it works out. I think if I could figure out which one it is I would feel better.

But I don't know.

Continue with your business.