Sunday, February 27, 2011

Quick 'un

Just a short one tonight. I figure its better to get something done than nothing at all.

I wonder if there will ever be another time in my life when I am not constantly going somewhere. Things that never used to bother me are suddenly less pleasant than they once were, and it seems mostly due to the fact that I am on my way to do something.
For example, as I was walking home from the bus stop this evening, it was raining. As I walked, the rain fell harder...and harder...and harder. And every time it picked up the tempo, I found myself getting a little more frustrated.
I find that I am constantly engaged in the battle to not be stressed out. Not because its difficult for me to relax, but because I hardly see a need to be stressed out and so I do my best to avoid it. Unfortunately, I get caught up in the myriad of things I have to do, and sometimes find myself being a little more serious than I'd like. And usually I can tell when I need to simmer down when I start getting pissed off by stuff like rain.
I like the rain. Its part of the reason I moved to Seattle. And I like the clouds that it falls out of, those big dark monsters that always look so full of life. So, when I was on my home from work, and the rain landing on my already disheveled hair started to make my brow furrow, I paused my thought process for just a moment and asked myself why on earth the rain would upset me. I was planning on taking a shower anyway. And its not like I had anywhere special to go. So instead, I enjoyed the rest of my walk getting slightly wet and being shoved by the occasional playful gust of February wind.
Things are nice when you take a step back and remember that life is not all seriousness all the time. In fact, it should rarely be serious. Everything is enjoyable if you let it be.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Moving Forward...

Okay, so I admit that some of my conclusions were rather hasty.
Let's review:
"There seem to be two groups of people who generally find me "interesting"; very small children and men interested in sex."
That's not entirely true. Several days after writing that, I really analyzed all of my relationships with men and found that there are in fact a wide variety of reasons they associate with me. It is oftentimes the case that when I am most hopeless, everything appears in high contrast, black and white the only shades I see. All the grey that the true picture is composed of is washed out and I allow myself to distort reality.
My life has returned to a relative state of stability for the time being.
When I took a closer look at the past few months and the mounting stress that was enveloping my sanity, I picked out a couple key instigators.
My life had essentially stagnated. I was not moving forward, just working. And I am not to a point where I can devote my life to work and be satisfied. Especially when that work is coffee and tea. Neither are really things I see myself making a career out of. Within the last week I have started looking at a community college in the area, and just that little effort alone has given my life perspective again. Challenge and sacrifice are the spice of life.

Again, when I reviewed my relationships and everyone I know and love, it became apparent that I was tricking myself into believing I had no friends. There are people who love me, and those people are the friends I made whilst being myself. This journey in Seattle has opened a lot of doors within myself, and thus far the most consistent lesson I have learned is that nothing is more important than being myself. Really, I do not have to please everyone, and I can make most of my decisions on my own. I value other's opinions, but it is not them that shape me, but I who shape myself. Separating myself from those around me has been difficult, because I so badly wanted to assimilate when I got here that I lost track of my individuality.
There is incredible vitality in being one, being separate, like one marble in whole bag. There are many pieces that make up the whole, each individual, but all together.

Suffice to say, things don't seem quite as bad these days. I just need to keep moving forward.

Friday, February 18, 2011

2.15.11

I am tempted to let the positivity of the last two days elevate my mood, but my want of happiness is quickly eclipsed by the steadfast reality that I am not alright. As it so often goes, life responds to my cries of desperation with a grand display of all its best treasures, allowing me to believe for one small moment that there is still a reason to hope. And as I reach up to grasp the hand that will pull me from my pit of angst, it pulls away just before our fingers touch. The delicate Spring bud emerging from Winter's withered remains shrivels and dies, the casualty of a swift and spiteful frost.
I have been left hobbled too many times by my eagerness to trust, more vulnerable in my fresh hope than at the deepest point of my depression; at the bottom of the hole, there is nowhere left to go. It is the slip of a hand or foot, the plunge after ascendancy, that leaves me feeling beaten. For the first time in my life, sleep does not cure my infected psyche of its many and varied demons. There have been less than half a handful of times when I have laid down to rest an absolute wreck and opened my eyes to find myself in no better condition than twelve hours earlier. Those times scared me nearly to the point of panic -- what if this was the beginning of something permanent and irreversible, a constant state of dissatisfaction and utter hopelessness? Thankfully my recovery never took more than a few days and I returned to my condition of relative happiness with nothing more than a couple scratches.
But here...here I am lost and my delicate mind is tossed about like a child in a crowd. The city is not like a small town. These are the places where hearts harden and people lose faith in each other.
In many ways this is my lowest point.

Friday, February 11, 2011

2/11/11

So for the first time in a great while I am sitting down at my table to write a post. I figure that if I want to achieve any semblance of mental clarity I must sit down with some regularity and hash out these issues. Tonight, I feel the need to address my growing suspicion that there are few people in Seattle who actually like me. I can't figure out what it is about me that people don't like, but no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to get along with many of them. As usual, I blame my age for part of it, because apparently no one wants to be caught in conversation with a nineteen-year-old. Apart from that, I'm not really sure where to place the rest of the blame. This disconnectedness is doing bad things to my self esteem and it seems the only real fix is to go away. All my attempts at friendliness, at caring, at relation have all failed and continue to fail despite my endless attempts. When I'm stuck behind a counter with the same group of people every day, it'd be nice to relate a little. I didn't think that was asking for too much. But, if its not working it must somehow be my fault. If they don't find me interesting, then so be it. I can't make them like me. And in the end, what else am I supposed to do? Can I just clam up and not talk? It might be best that way honestly, since I seem to be better at listening than talking.
I've always made friends passively. Turning the tables has not worked well for me.
I'm convinced that if I just disappeared from the circles I inhabit here in Seattle, there would be few who would miss me. Really miss me. Perhaps every now and again for a month they would wonder where on earth that awkward, round-faced girl disappeared to, but after a few moments they'd shrug their shoulders and move on.
I'm no role model here. Just another girl who doesn't know the first thing about anything, including herself. I've tried so hard here to find other people, other people who I can relate to, who I can befriend, who like me as much as I like them but nothing has panned out. There seem to be two groups of people who generally find me "interesting"; very small children and men interested in sex. The very small children enjoy me because I entertain them. I like the children the best. They don't discern between the ugly face and the beautiful one. There is not much to be said of the men...they come (literally) in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of charming words and feigned interest. To some extent I believe that it is my numerous bad encounters with such men that make it incredibly difficult to create and maintain a normal, friendly relationship with a man.

I found one man in Seattle who likes me. He is now my boyfriend. And of all the people I know, he makes me feel the most inadequate. Not on purpose, but because of how inherently great he is. I constantly feel like I am living in his shadow, my own endeavors and feats eclipsed by his unintentionally more impressive ones. Everyone I know here knows him as well, and he is hands down the favorite.
Darren has not been showing up at jiu jitsu for more than a few months because of a combination of bad events that kept him away. Meanwhile, I was still showing up and nearly every time I would attend class there would be another person asking me where Darren was, when Darren was coming back, how come we never see Darren anymore. They had a right to ask that question, but after awhile I just didn't have answers anymore and those people looked disappointed in me that I couldn't tell them when he was coming back or why he wasn't around. I keep trying to be friendly to everyone, keep trying to ask them how they are, what's up, but no one seems to want to answer. Is it just me? Do people just not want to tell me how there lives are? I like Darren very much and each moment I spend with him increases my happiness, but each moment is also a reminder of my inadequacy. He is so much more than I am, everything I wish I could be and more. But instead of being my own person, I end up walking on a leash in his shadow, tail between my legs, cowering behind him so no one can see how truly inferior I am. Darren doesn't even know he makes me feel this way.

At this point, I can't really try anymore. Its wearing me down too much and I don't have time to maintain the relationships I try to build. Everything needs time, and I don't have time for everyone and everything.
I suppose the only thing I can afford emotionally right now is to remain passive and hope that somewhere, somehow people who care will show up.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Brainstorming

I'm giving blogging a go on my phone. It's nearly always with me and so it allows me more time to try and write. I had success with it while I was vacationing in Hawai'i, so I see no reason why it won't work at home in Seattle. My teachers used to constantly spout the benefits of brainstorming, but I never believed that it helped. Then again, I never really gave it a chance either. I have since seen its true worth during very rare moments of clarity. So much has happened and is happeningng in my life currently and I have been so completely busy that I have hardly had a chance to write. The less I write, the more the thoughts accumulate, and the bigger the pile, the more stressed out I become. Writing was largely my only emotional outlet for a very long while, and to suddenly be unable to find the time for controlled emotional relief has been unsettling. This whole brainstorming thing is proving helpful, though. By organizing my thoughts and writing them down as they come to me I am actually able to keep myself partially sane. We'll see how this pans out.
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