So long, 2020.

I've always liked fresh starts. I bog myself down quite a bit, and have trouble with long-term commitment. Fresh starts always seem exciting, and so black and white. There is a before and after. I imagine myself forty years from now, telling my grandchildren that everything changed on this day. Like my life is a novel, always so neat with a concise theme and direction. I know that this isn't the case...life is messy and unpredictable, and nothing about the movement from December 31st to January 1st can change that. But I still like it. So I'll set some resolutions, and some intentions, so that maybe over time I can step back from the chaos of my life and see some small overall trend, and know that I helped create it. I've decided to commit to one full year of therapy and medication. Most of the time I attend therapy for a few months at best, and then stop attending when things stall. I would really like to see where one full year of therapy takes me, without quitting when I've run out of things to say. One thing I hope to understand more fully are my contradictions. For instance, how much I love other human beings, but also want nothing to do with them on a personal level. I remember vividly one spurned love interest of mine telling me that I am intensely interested in a person until I feel I understand them, and then I drop them like a hot rock. The truth of that really hit home. I've always been able to drop people quickly, maybe because I never held them all that close to begin with. I mean...me typing this is kind of Exhibit A, don't you think? I say I don't have anyone else to tell, but in all reality I haven't looked for anyone to tell, either. I feel like people like me are rare, and that I'll never find someone I'm truly interested in knowing me from the ground up. That thought it so...self involved...that I know it can't be true. I know it can't. But it feels that way. Human emotions are so complicated. We really are the most neurotic apes. The front that I present to other people is stereotypical. I am constantly laughing and joking, because humor is typically surface-level. I don't ever casually bring up my existential dread. I think everyone would run in another direction if I did- at least if I brought it up as often as I'm thinking about it, they would. I can hear my inner therapist pointing out that I'm making an assumption about how other people would act, and not giving them a chance to prove me wrong. But honestly, the human brain is a statistical savant. We run analysis 24/7, and that's one of the reasons we've been so successful as a species. I'm assuming that is how they will react based on past experiences with people. It's not based on nothing. So maybe I am only PARTLY delusional. Another facet of not being myself around other people is because I have no idea what "myself" even means. I am so used to slipping my own thoughts through the filter of whoever I'm talking to that I can't even tell the difference anymore. I am a giant mirror, looking however you want me to look, saying whatever you will want me to say. The approval is a nice bonus, but I've realized recently that it has more to do with ensuring that people don't see ME. They see what they want to see, and then they move on. They don't pause and really LOOK, because I don't want them to see anything. It's a way of further removing myself from connection. Honestly, I'm so bad at connecting with other people that I'm one step away from starting www.bemyfriend.com and hoping for the best. Maybe taking out an ad in the paper. For the moment, I guess I'll settle on paying someone a lot of fucking money to converse with me in the form of a therapist. Maybe she can teach me how to stop being such an idiot. I do feel like the whole messy business of exposing myself to other people (LOL) is not worth my time. I don't feel like I click with a lot of people on a personal level, so the constant painful vulnerability of turning the mirror around and being let down seems exhausting and altogether fruitless. But maybe that's my problem to begin with, always assuming I know how things are going to go. One has to ration one's own emotional energy though...I'm just saying. Anyway, statistically speaking, medication and therapy are the most successful combination for depression, existential or otherwise. I'm excited to move forward with this and see where I end up at the end of 2021. For the sake of comparison, right now I feel like there is no purpose for getting out of bed. It feels like Groundhog's Day again and again and again. I think to myself, "well of course, idiot, these cycles of waking and working and cooking and cleaning and holding your children are what make up LIFE, this is LIFE". And then I think that if this is life, I don't think that I want it. Maybe I've become so stagnant that even the smallest forms of repetition, like doing laundry or the dishes, seem like the straw that broke the camel's back. I think human beings were meant to constantly feel somewhat off-balance, trying to figure some new problem out to stay alive. Living in this benality is making my eyes cross. I don't want to watch this movie for the 400th time because I already know it, line by line. I read somewhere that to combat this, I should take a new route to work. Is that not the saddest advice you've ever heard? It's like telling an animal at the zoo to play with his ball in a different corner of the cage to really shake things up. I'm not sure anything will help except to blow up the fucking cage. It makes me want to destroy my whole life, just so my brain has something to chew on. Isn't that sick? I've taken out ridiculous student loans and have begun pursuing a new career, which seems like a pretty significant shake-up to keep myself occupied for awhile, but it's not. The only thing that has changed is that now when I'm off of work, I do assignments on my computer sometimes. Another piece of advice I've heard is to jump out of an airplane once every few months. Apparently the adrenaline and the illusion of a life-or-death scenario can ease the pain of this for a little while. Neurotic fucking apes. I told you. And I am chiefest among them. Anyway, so I can feel like I am not the most negative human being alive, I'll list some positive things. My children are very cute, and I love to hold them and squish their little cheekies. It is absolutely dumbfounding to witness their brains developing, and to hear them speak words and arrange sentences. I created two cognitive life forms, and that is fucking crazy. I hope for their sakes they won't inherit this godforsaken navel-gazing. Here's to a more positive 2021.

Alien

I realized a few days ago how much I feel different from the people around me. I feel like I belong in the same genus, but a different species. I feel like I think in a different language then everyone around me, and have never met anyone who speaks the language that I do. I look for them everywhere. I never find anyone. Eventually I just stopped looking people in the eye, because I knew I wouldn't ever see what I was looking for. Always looking, looking. There are always things to be done, and the forward motion of the world leaves me car sick. The endless treadmill of dishes and laundry and bathing and working and sleeping and dishes and laundry and bathing and working and sleeping...I just wish the world would stop. I wish it would stop so that I could catch my breath. My biggest fear is that all the time in the world won't be enough for me to feel like I've caught up. It never stops. And there's no one I can tell. I've stopped trying to know other people anymore. But I wish there was someone I could talk to, someone who would know. But I have kids, so I complete my tasks like a jerky, animated corpse. I see myself putting the dishes in the dishwasher, I see myself taking myself out for a walk, I see myself folding the laundry, like it's happening to someone else. And I wish it was. I wish I could be a different person. Someone else whose brain didn't do this. Someone else who could skim through the surface of life and be content, not drowning themselves under the surface. I think about how afraid I am that this could happen to my daughter, and how it would be my fault. I think about how I wish my kids had a mother like I see on Instagram. I wish I could do crafts. I wish I had a more desirable body, less gray in my hair, less lines on my face. I wish I could be a different person. I don't want to die, I just want to sleep. But I can't even picture an amount of time that I could sleep that would seem to give me enough distance from this. That I could wake up and feel far enough away to keep moving forward. Always looking, looking. Same genus, different species. And there's no one I can tell, that I just want to sleep.

Oracle

I have learned recently that I may not know everything. I know this is as big of a shock to you as it was to me. I can't believe it, either. But here we are.

I am an incredibly perceptive person who is very used to seeing things that other people might not know that they are showing to me. I am a very good people-reader. I believe I have an incredible grasp on the inner workings of most humans, and as a result, believe that I know everything you're going to do before you do it and respond accordingly. I spend an INCREDIBLE amount of time assuming I know what someone is going to do and using that to plan my response. I try to control everything this way, to keep myself safe. So I know what's coming. To never be surprised.

The last time I remember being surprised was when I woke up at my then-boyfriends house to another friend gently shaking me and telling me that my parents were desperately trying to get a hold of me. I felt a lightning bolt of fear strike through my gut. I knew it wasn't good. This was the first time my parents had tried to contact me since our big fight. My mom told me she wasn't sure if she wanted me to be a part of our family anymore, because they couldn't trust anything I said. Because I was a liar. Even then, I was trying to manipulate the narrative. Trying to control.

I assumed the day had finally come when they were going to take everything from me. I was a spoiled child- my parents paid for everything. My day of reckoning was upon me. Just as I suspected, just as I predicted, they were here for my Ford Explorer. My cell phone. They wouldn't support me any more. I knew this day was coming. With a deep pang of guilt and shame roiling in my gut, I got up and rushed over to meet them at my apartment. They were frustratingly vague over the phone before I got there. My mom called me "sweetie", which she never does. They were being so gentle with me. They just wanted to soften the blow, I thought. This turned out to be true, but the blow came from a direction I wasn't anticipating. I couldn't put my hands up to block. I didn't see it coming, and it knocked me sideways and off of my feet.

My aunt was dead. She had killed herself- shot herself while she was drunk with the person she loved on the other side of the door, trying desperately to get in. My aunt, who was the "me" in her nuclear family. The black sheep, the outsider, the flake, so compassionate that she was always hurting, so funny that you couldn't tell that she was always hurting, my aunt. I had been corresponding with her throughout the latest ordeal with my family. She had a friend who worked at a bank who would help me set up my finances. She would help me apply for a loan to finish paying for college. She had stopped responding a few days prior. I assumed that she had flaked out on me again. I was used to it- she rarely showed up to my birthdays. I knew she wanted to, but I didn't understand then why she wouldn't show up for me. Didn't she know that she was the "me" in her nuclear family? Didn't she know that she was me? Families are complicated. Getting kicked out of her family for being a lesbian was a wound that never healed for her. I didn't know that then. Abandonment was a wound that always festered in her, until one day it became a bullet.

That was the last time I felt surprised.

My parents took me home to be with the rest of the family. I remember my grandpa passing out his typed multi-paged thesis on why my aunt was a lesbian at her wake. Something about my grandma taking Tylenol during the pregnancy. Everything he viewed as wrong in his life, he found a way to blame on her. He's dead now. I often wonder why that was, what deep pain he couldn't bear to sit with that he had to keep pushing it off on to her. I guess I'll probably never know. What a theme.

Anyway.

I assumed I was over all of this. It was a decade ago (I say it that way to make it sound even longer ago than 10 years). My therapist assures me that I am not. Another thing I didn't know. I guess I'm pretty shite at knowing everything. Yet another thing I didn't know.

All of this control, these predictions- reading body language and vocal fluctuations to come up with some semblance of an idea of what to expect next...it's made me insane. It's paralyzing. I don't respond to text messages sometimes, because I can't figure out how to respond in a way that will steer the conversation in the way I want it to go. I can't figure out when we should stop the conversation. I can't figure out how to not be offended when they decide to stop the conversation, no matter how passing and insignificant the acquaintance. I want to put the burden down. I want to say what I think. I want to even KNOW what I think. I have spent every minute of every day trying to manipulate to keep myself safe, to keep one step ahead of the game, to steer the ship in the direction I think is safest. I almost typed, "to steer the ship in the direction I want it to go in", but that would be a lie. When I'm asked what I enjoy doing with my free time, I don't even know the answer. To pretend like I know the direction I want the ship to go in is laughable. I don't know what I really think about anything. I just know what I should think about everything that will keep me safe. I want to remember what I know, again. I want to be true, again. And I think that starts with the ability to trust myself in a free fall. To trust that I can handle anything that comes my way, without the need for preparation. I am like the 30 year old suburban mom version of a doomsday prepper. Always trying to be two moves ahead. But I don't want to be ahead any more. It's exhausting, and to my never ending surprise, I am not always correct. It's a waste of energy.

This anxiety that's in me, I wish I knew where it comes from. Some part of me thinks it's just biological. I developed a theory a long time ago, watching neurotic elephants sway in a zoo. They were swaying to help alleviate their distress. They were distressed because their lives had become so unnatural. The brains they developed to solve complex problems to help assure their survival were suddenly no longer needed. Colloquially (my favorite word), they started "spinning out". All of these firing synapses with nowhere to go. Humans seem similar, to me. Our lives are much easier to navigate now. Most of us will never have to truly be concerned about where our next meal will come from. We can meander comfortably through life. But our brains won't turn off, won't let us relax, won't let us believe that we are safe. We spin out. I spin out. We develop neuroses...swaying like elephants in a zoo. Drinking. Smoking. Self-harm. Eating. Spinning out can look like a million different things. I wish I knew how to stop spinning.

Anyway, this post is long enough. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Sweet Growth

You know, this getting older thing really isn't so bad. Sure, there are downsides. I have lines where I didn't have lines before, I have rolls before. But I also have this beautiful growth, this amazing confidence that I where I didn't have beautiful growth, or confidence before.

Three revelations that I had today where I had, as Oprah would say (don't groan), an "aha!" moment.

1.) I was driving to work, thinking about that inner confidence and assuredness that some people seem to have. I wondered why I didn't have it. Then I thought to myself, "well, I suppose you have to earn it, and I haven't been through anything big enough to warrant something like that". And then, like a flash of light from God, the phrase "demon slayer" came in to my mind. Now, usually, that phrase does not inspire a sense of holy awe (unless you're at some sort of face-melting death metal concert?). But on my drive to work, I started to cry, and the phrase repeated itself in my mind over and over and over again. And I realized that I was amazing. I realized that I am a demon slayer. I am courageous. I don't ignore my demons, I don't live my entire life frantically denying they exist. I track them mercilessly, and I do battle with them. And I win. I spent...what's 22-7? THAT MANY years of my life (15?) being eaten alive by disordered eating, flogging myself mercilessly for any imperfection. Torturing my body and my mind. But for fuck's sake, I WON. My 18 year old self would never, NEVER believe that I just ate Oreos and drank a beer after dinner. I remember thinking that I would never be free from that disease. And here I am. How amazing. Demon slayer.

I have done battle with my ego, with my jealousy, with my desperate desire to please...the list of my demons could go on forever. I do battle with them all. And eventually, I win. Demon slayer. I am fiercely proud of myself.

Then I started to wonder if I really did win. I did, after all, just begin recently an episode of despair. I caught a glimpse of myself in a dark computer screen, and noticed my newly saggy boobs (thanks, motherhood), my newly saggy face (thanks, motherhood), and remembered that I had gained 15 pounds with no plan on the horizon to lose it. I was despondent. I was scared shitless over the changes I was seeing in my body, in my life, and began to panic that I had no way to change it back. That I would never be young and beautiful again.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized something. Which brings us to #2.


2.) "Winning" meant something different than what I thought it did. I wondered if I had really "won" my battles at all, if I was still fighting them. And then BAM, it hit me: I was winning BECAUSE I was still fighting them. I realized that demons don't pack up and move on the second there is a well-placed revelation to be had from Oprah magazine (and no, I will never stop referencing Oprah). They don't leave. They don't. But I fight with them every day, and every day, they get quieter. They are only a whisper now. They will never stop whispering, and finding their way in to my weakest moments. But I won. And I am winning. Fucking demon slayer.

3.) I think, for many years, something my mom told me stuck with me. She told me that only when she stopped giving a shit if she got fat, did she ever get thin. And I warped that message so badly in my mind. Up until, about 30 minutes ago, for the past decade since she told me that, I realized I did all of the emotional work to heal my eating disorder with one goal in mind: to not care about being fat so that I could finally not be fat. I know that sounds absolutely moronic, but truthfully, I thought that was my magical ticket out. I was driven to heal myself so that I could finally be thin. How fucked is that, right? But it's true. So when I added another 15 pounds post child birth, my thought was- "wait, but I don't care if I'm fat now, so WHY AM I NOT GETTING THIN?? WHAT IF I NEVER GET THIN NOW???" And I realized in that moment that I still have so, so much to let go of. I'm still fighting. Always fighting. But that is so courageous. I am willing to look at every dark corner of myself, I am willing to illuminate it no matter how painful it is, to right what is wrong. Demon. Slayer.

Okay, I lied. There are four things. Another thing I thought about in the car on my drive home (I guess I do my best emotional work in the car?). I realized that I needed to embrace discomfort. I have spent my entire life fastidiously arranging my world so that I can avoid discomfort. I tailor my interactions with others, my life decisions, and everything else in my known universe to make sure that no one has a fucking problem with it. I avoid rejection and discomfort at all costs. And I always assumed that there was something wrong with me for feeling such intense discomfort with rejection, with the idea of making an unpopular choice. My life, as I write about all the time, has been a series of popular choices. I place the safe bet. Always. And I realized that no amount of spiritual awakening would ever make that discomfort go away. There is not much I can do to ensure that I don't break out in to stress sweats when I have to give someone negative feedback on an evaluation. I have realized that I'm going to sweat and feel a bit throw upp-y no matter how spiritually awakened I am. There isn't an easy answer that will suddenly bring all in to perspective, and make me not want to faint dead away at the thought of having to make an awkward phone call. There just isn't a way out of it. It just is what it is. And the answer is not to carefully craft my life in such a way that I will never even be PUT in a situation to stress sweat. That has led to a somewhat lackluster life. A safe life, where I pretend I don't have dreams. The answer is to realize that IM GOING TO SWEAT NO MATTER HOW FUCKING ENLIGHTENED I AM, and I just have to open my arms to that discomfort and walk right in to the fire. There is no other way. There just isn't. My autonomic nervous system cannot be controlled. Just walk in to the fire, and let it burn. And then eventually, it will stop burning. And you will have done an amazing thing.

I will keep fighting. I have won.


Love to you all. I'm going to publish this without proof reading it, because...YOLO (sorry).

Not Again

Somehow I always end up back here. Not sure I'm a fan of always meeting like this, you and I.

After all these years, I still can't figure out what is wrong with me. Why I am always so predisposed to malcontent. I think I've said it before, and I'll say it again...I can't tell you how deeply I wish the problems I have weren't mine. I wish I had other problems. But then, I guess all people have the same wish, for a wide variety of problems. I guess, if we were more honest, we would just say, "I wish I didn't have any problems". I wish I didn't.

I keep going back and forth between what I think my problem could be. Am I living life wrong? If I went on some wild and crazy cross-country adventure with nothing but $20 in my pocket and a dream, would that make this go away? The people who do similar things in all of the documentaries I watch seem so carefree. I wonder if that's the secret. I wonder if maybe I quit my job and became a zookeeper, or something glamorous like a film maker, if that would do the job. I wonder if my house was cleaner and more organized, if I would finally find peace. Previously I wondered if I cut my hair into this cool hairstyle I'd always secretly envied but never had the stones to try, would that fix me? (Sorry- managed to get it cut into said "cool style", and the answer is, unfortunately, no.) I hoped having a child would reset my mindset and make me realize all of the magical things I need to realize to fix my attitude and to bask in the true wonder of life. While my son is, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to me, and the purest, most amazing thing I have ever witnessed- no. That hasn't been the answer either. I desperately want to be better for him. I want to give him a white picket fence childhood, where he always feels safe and loved, where his mom is always coming up with zany arts and crafts to push the limits of his imagination, where he comes home from school every day with a delicious snack and dinner in the oven (always at 7, sharp). He deserves such security. Despite a few bumps on the road (adolescence was a bit of a mountain range, as opposed to a few bumps, if I'm being real), my childhood was idyllic. I have so many good memories. I never doubted that my parents would take care of me (still no doubt). We never wanted for money, so the visceral, lurking fear of poverty never came near us.

Unfortunately, I have had the sneaking suspicion for some time now that the problem doesn't originate from my circumstances. It feels like I've got blue-tinted sunglasses surgically implanted over my eyeballs, and I keep running around frantically trying to change the outside world to make my vision less blue. I just carry the blue tinge with me wherever I go. No matter the hairstyle, no matter my full-time occupation, no matter the existence of a white picket fence, or a cleaner house. I carry blue with me wherever I go, and it won't go away unless I take the goddamn blue sunglasses off. Unless I address the real issue. It's in my brain. My brain is blue, I can't think a thought where blue isn't bleeding through. I wish I could, I wish I could, I wish I could. How do you change the color of your brain? How can I change something so fundamental?

I've been on 20 mg. of Prozac for a long time now. I feel the same. I hope there is some thing, some answer, that doesn't leave me feeling the same.

Intent

You know, I used to be ashamed by how often I posted about my depression. I'm sure somewhere deep down I still am ashamed. I'm not sure I'll ever stop wishing that I was born with some other problem.

Let me tell you what depression looks like for me on a daily basis, without taking into consideration the two months every year that I spend in deep, DEEP despair. I'd never realized previously how much time I spend on my phone, or watching TV. When I get home from work I can literally stay on my phone in an endless loop of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Once I'm done with all three, I'll start back over with Facebook, because there is always something new to read. One hand to God, I can stay in the clutches of that loop for an entire day. I can sit on the couch after work and not move until it's time to go to bed. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Depression for me looks like avoiding meditation at all costs. Trying to lure myself into a meditative state seems very much like trying to dip a cat in a hot bath. My mind clings to the sides of my skull desperately in an attempt to keep from going too deep. I have a Ph. D in running from the present moment. Why? Because I feel like I will drown in it. So I keep skimming on top of the surface of life, never allowing my mind to go too far inwards. I keep busy. I never stop looking at my phone, because if I did, I'd have to sit in the silence that is my house after my husband started working more often and we cancelled cable TV. Silence is a mirror, my friends...always showing you things about yourself that you didn't necessarily want to see.

I can't write more than four words at a time for the novel I have been working on for five years. Why? Because I don't let myself stop and think. And how can you write a novel without some serious stopping and thinking? I flit about like a hummingbird, full of activity, so that I don't sink like a stone.


Sometimes I wonder if it's the sadness I'm trying not to see when I refuse to be still.


I always believed that using my phone was a generational symptom, until I realized how much I dreaded putting it down. I can't even imagine how much of my life I've wasted staring 140 characters from some celebrity. That's time that I could've spent making my life something more in line with what I know the sixteen year old version of me always pictured. I get images of me holding a surfboard, splashing back up onto the beach as the sun sets. I never did learn how to surf. I was too busy LOLing on Facebook. I get images of me drinking coffee in the early morning, hammering out the last few pages of my magnum opus. That hasn't happened yet, either. Then I imagine getting into a car crash tomorrow, and only having just enough time to realize how much I've missed out on. I dwell on that every day.

I guess who wouldn't be unhappy if they dwelled on that every day.



I think I am more in control of my own unhappiness than I let myself believe.


I was watching Penny Dreadful the other day, and heard something that struck something in my heart. I didn't realize it then, but I've come back to the idea so many times now. The central character was visiting a psychotherapist, whose only homework in between sessions was for Vanessa (the central character) to do something that made her happy. I think about that a lot. What a simple idea. Just do something that will make you HAPPY. Those are the only stipulations. I've realized that nothing I do in my life is done with the intent on happiness, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that I don't have much happiness laying around. I make my decisions based solely on what will keep me from being poor in the future. All of my decisions are molded around my fear of not being able to buy what I want. I went to nursing school because I knew I could make decent, stable money doing it. That I'd never be without a job. Luckily for me, nursing also has helped develop my social skills and cultivate a few more human emotions than I had previously. I took that job I'm in currently because it had the word "Supervisor" attached, and I decided that it would be beneficial to have that job title on my resume. I moved to Georgetown, TX because I didn't want to upset my husband by insisting on a move to some far flung state whose politics he doesn't agree with. I didn't want to take him away from his family. I didn't want to fight with him over his homesickness. I didn't want us to eventually hate each other. I have never, EVER, not once, made a decision by making myself still to listen and see how the idea of a thing made me FEEL. What nonsense, right? I pushed myself so hard at the gym, to the point of sickness, because I WANT TO HAVE A NICE BODY FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO LOOK AT. But how did pushing myself so hard make me FEEL? Like shit. The day I slowed down and really focused on how the idea of lifting such heavy weights made me FEEL was the day I started walking my dogs more often for exercise.

It's amazing how such a simple concept can change everything. How something makes me feel actually MATTERS, and all of my decisions based on promoting my happiness will add up to a HAPPIER LIFE. Who. Would've. Thought.



...Obviously not me.

Lumbering

Depression is strange. I wonder sometimes whether or not depression sprang from nothing at all, or if it is a deep symptom of malcontent. Some sort of warning sign, maybe. As if I was going down the wrong road. I've had a tendency to assume the latter, which can be maddening. It seems that no matter which path I follow, the darkness is waiting to whisper urgently in my ear that I am doing the wrong thing. In response to this "warning sign", I hurriedly re-examine my choices to see where I've made a misstep. The answer is usually the same- my choice of career. Nursing has both opened up my heart and stifled it all at once, in the most profound ways.

It has nurtured my compassion and placed me in situations where I feel as though I've truly made a difference to someone. I remember talking quietly with a man who I was introducing to the unit. He had attempted suicide a number of times. He began talking about his children and how he felt it was necessary to take his own life because he was an addict, and therefore could never be the dad his kids deserved. I remember speaking words of love to him, and encouragement. We both cried. He came back several weeks later with a full blown opiate addiction and another attempt to take his life under his belt. I saw him several times after that, always for the same reason. He was like a fly caught in a web. I hope he made it out.

Nursing has broken my heart in that I've allowed the nursing culture to make me feel alienated and strange. Every time a patient gets a glimpse of my large tattoos, I feel like I have let someone down in the same way that I'll always assume that I let my mother down by being myself. This, of course, is not true. And these feelings have little, if anything, to do with my mother or nursing culture at all. They have more to do with my self doubt and insecurity. I interpret things incorrectly as a result of my insecurities. I know that. Sometimes I attempt to re-calibrate. It's a work in progress.

Sometimes I hate my own tendency to look for every reason to break my heart. I hate that I am Kylo Ren, and not bright, bushy tailed Rey. Yeah, I did just say that. I have friends on Facebook who have wild, curly blonde hair and permanent smiles. They are personal trainers and are always laughing. This, of course, is just another reason why I should delete Facebook forever- the need to seek out and compare. Feeling the need to always find myself lacking. Being a downer all the time does get tiring, though. I'll tell you that. I feel it strain my relationship with my husband, who hardly ever has a bad day. He is the golden retriever to my...cat.

I am usually tiptoeing around the word "hate", but tonight, I feel it. I felt the hatred when my parents were being hilarious after too much champagne, and the laugh I gave was so hollow and fake. Somewhere in my brain I knew my parents truly deserved a sitcom, but it didn't touch my spirit. I felt 1,000 miles away from my own body and heart. So far away that nothing I experienced could ever hope to reach either. Feeling like this is also evident in my writing. All creative phrasing and depth of feeling is gone. It's all I can do to slap my fingers around the keyboard heavily.

The Point

I think the idea of satisfaction just refuses to take root in my brain. No matter what I throw at my current circumstances, I am never content. I imagine chopping all of my hair off in response to this insidious summer heat. I imagine that without the hassle of long, frizzy hair, I can somehow be the energetic, free spirit I've always planned on being. I wonder if dying my hair blue will do the trick. I wondered if moving to Temple, or becoming a nurse, or acquiring another dog, or becoming proficient in Mandarin Chinese would satisfy me. Becoming a full-time writer. Wandering the country with my dogs like a vagrant with no material possessions. Walking the entire Appalachian Trail. Backpacking through Ireland for a month. Moving to Massachusetts. Moving to New York. Moving to California. Moving to Washington. All of these are relatively recent ideas of mine that I became convinced would bring me peace and fulfillment. If I could only do THAT. If I could only look THIS WAY. If I could only accomplish THAT. Always something else. I've shaved part of my head, pierced my face, tried to become a hippie mountain woman who refers to her menses as a "moon cycle". I have tried every thing, let me tell you. And I always end up in this same place. Alone, typing on my computer, telling you guys how it didn't work out quite the way I imagined. I think it might be time to up that Prozac.

I wish I knew if this was just clinical depression that required me to pump myself full of medication just to achieve the normal balance that comes so easily to everyone else, or if this was an honest soul-scream, requiring me to take action. I wish I fucking knew. What I do know is that my entire life I've believed it was something deep down letting me know that I was on the wrong path, and if I could just find the right path, this gnawing feeling would evaporate like dew in the morning, leaving me green, fresh, and sweet smelling as grass. I would rather have some kind of destiny than be the person who just happened to be born with an inability to produce adequate serotonin.

Always, always, always, I hear something calling me, telling me there is something more. I've never not felt like I am missing out on something that I should be seeing. How fucking ridiculous. I keep feeling like if all life amounts to is a bunch of hairless apes crawling around the Earth fucking things about, then I'm not sure how excited I am about all of it. I am excited by stories. And I am endless depressed by the fact that the vivid, purposeful world that exists in my books is not reality at all. Maybe other humans feel this call, too. Maybe that's why authors are drawn to write books, and artists to make art. Because they sense some element of something more. They sense something there, and they try to re-create it, to express to world and to other like-minded individuals that they see it, too...that they feel it. That you aren't the only one.

All I'm sure of at the moment is that I'm extremely dubious about a life that requires so much escapism just to function normally within it. Facebook, Instagram, gossip sites, television, apps and video games...all forms of running on a treadmill. Feeling like you're doing something to scratch that itch in your brain, without actually accomplishing anything. All of it seems stupid and meaningless, although I participate like everybody else. Spending 98% of my life working just so that I can spend the remaining 2% of my life complaining about working or drugging myself to oblivion with PerezHilton.com or endlessly scrolling down on Facebook. It doesn't seem like much of a life. I'm just not sure if there is another way to do it.

Growing Pains

Being twenty-four is a big pain in the butt. Being twenty ANYTHING is a big pain in the butt. There's so much personal growth involved. It seems like every other day some bone that makes up my emotional anatomy is broken and re-set. Which is cool. It's alright. It's certainly infinitely preferable to emotional stasis.

I thought I loved someone. Maybe I really do. But he doesn't love me...at least, not anymore. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme. I wish I could tell you the whole long, involved story, but after typing half of it out, I decided that it belongs with him, and with me. I'll treasure our story in the same way you treasure that ugly sweater that your Aunt Harriet gave to you the Christmas before she died. Damn, it sure is ugly to look at, but it's all you have left of a person and a relationship that you owe so much. So you keep it somewhere in the back of your closet to examine and run your fingers over the fabric fondly on a rainy day.

Knowing him for so many years taught me how to like and respect someone so much that you make the choice to love them. Love is a choice, in my opinion. The last few weeks have taught me how to let someone go with love, after slogging through all of the bitterness with painful, leaden feet. I finally understand that he isn't the person I need, and I am not the person he needs. He walked away from me first, I know, though it happened so slowly I don't think either of us realized it until I was desperately pulling at his shirt to keep him with me.

He walked away from me first. I loved him in a way that took years to develop, that never came easily to me. He loved me instantaneously, hot as fire that consumed him and in the end was burned to nothing. I'll never forget the week that I knew he didn't love me anymore. I'd gone to stay with him at his apartment, and all week long, with increasing purpose and urgency, he pointed out my character flaws. I felt his hatred and disdain, a by-product of the guilt he felt for luring me so far into this relationship only to change his mind.

"You see? She's so volatile. Of course you can't love her. OF COURSE. See how she doesn't study until the last minute? So disorganized. You definitely can't love someone like that. I don't blame you one bit. This never could have gone anywhere."

I watched it happen, sometimes silently, sometimes hysterically, rushing around straightening my hair and applying makeup to convince him to love and want me again. What goes around, comes around I suppose. The first half of our relationship he spent desperately trying to get my attention. He'd throw temper tantrums when I wouldn't text him back, or dance with him at a party. Now the roles are reversed. But does that count as a healthy relationship? When you never love each other at the same time? Is that what love really looks like? I doubt it.

I'm still horrifically sad about it, of course. It's hard saying good-bye not only to my favorite person, but to the idea that I really ever loved him at all. To the idea that this could have ever gone anywhere. What I thought was a mature and abiding love turned out to be so cheap and so small, and that hurts. It hurts to be wrong. It hurts to be alone again after I thought those days were over. It hurts, in ways that surprise me every day, to say good-bye to all of the red-headed children we had talked about having. It hurts to say good-bye to a future that I thought for sure was mine. I wish I could've held it in my hand. I wish I could've kept it. I still can't believe something can pass away so quietly, so quickly, after fighting so long for it to exist at all. I wish I wasn't the only one left to wave a sad good-bye to this thing that could've been. I wish he could've waved good-bye with me, holding hands in a silent salute, paying homage to what almost was. But he's already gone, walking down another path that was never meant for me.

I'll miss that smug face you make when you think you know everything. I'll miss how much my body liked being close to your body. I'll miss the way your skin smells, no matter how long it's been since you've taken a shower. I'll miss your liquid brown eyes, even though I can't remember the way they looked at me back when you loved me. I'll miss your dry lips. I'll miss your small hands with big veins. I'll miss that moment where you and I were sitting on my couch in the dark, with that dog we rescued curled up in my arms. That was when I knew I loved you, although I never told you how much I treasured that moment. I wish you hadn't changed so much. I wish I hadn't changed so much.

I'll find my way to forgiving you, brother, for walking away, and for misplacing your anger and guilt. We are on two different journeys. I hope we both end up somewhere good. I'll find my way to forgiving myself, if I'm being honest, for somehow not being enough to keep you.

I love you, my friend, my almost-lover, the one I almost chose. I'll cry over what we lost enough for the both of us, and I'll make that sad, silent salute alone.

In Whch the Other Foot Drops

So, my little peonies.

I am dead. I am a soundly crushed thing, so bested and beaten that I can't summon muscle tone, apart from these typing fingers. I really don't even want to get in to why, as any mention of it leaves me cold.

I have spent the better part of my life as a battering ram, daring the challenges to come so I could rejoice in the moment of impact. No matter how bad it got, some combination of attitude and pig-headedness got me through to the other side. I can't fight anymore. There is nothing left in me. Only a resonant, empty chest where every thud rolls from wall to wall like a cathedral. Only brittle, hollow bones like a bird. And yet, there seems to be just a little bit more. Enough to get me out of bed, to see my teeth brushed, my errands run. I do feel at the end of my rope. I'm not much of a crier, but lately I've found myself sobbing like a child, sagging against trees and support beams of bridges, unable to stop myself. The tears of a child who has tried everything to win the game, but just doesn't seem to have anything resembling a winning hand. I am out of things to try. I am out of rose colored glasses to change the tune of the song, when I can't turn off the radio. I am out. I have been wrung dry. I am fucking empty.

I turned off the lights to go to sleep last night, tucking myself in with the last remnants of my stoicism.

"We are fine. This is fine. It's a matter of attitude. Find the blessing. Find the lesson. We are fine."

Over and over again, I repeated this in my mind. But, ladies and gentlemen, we are not fine. I am not fine. Somewhere in the middle of this mantra, the dam broke. Cue the floodgates. Not small tears, but big, juicy, fat ones. Until they were no longer separate droplets, but great sheets of salt water pouring down my face, into my nose and gaping mouth, stretched wide with pain, almost yawning.

I don't think I've ever come closer to suicide. I could have reached out and brushed up against it's plated scales with a finger. Closer, maybe. I could feel it's cold breath like hands on my shoulders, pulling. In all of my years, in all of my battles of every kind, I have never been so close to letting myself be pulled under. Over and over again, images of me telling my family and friends the news would slap up against me like waves, tugging.

What is the plan? What is the plan? All I need to find my way out of this hopelessly tangled necklace is to find the best plan. How can I make the best of this? How can I best survive this? How can I survive this at all? What is my next move? In a quiet moment, sticky with half-dried tears, I realized that I had exhausted my options. There were no feasible maneuvers on the chess board. There was no good way, anymore.I watched my future play out in my mind's eye. It wasn't enough currency. The price was higher still.

I pictured all of the ways I could end. All. Of. The. Ways. I formulated a dozen prototypical plans. After twenty three years of trying to do what I thought everyone else would want me to do, and succeeding, despite all universal interference screaming at me to cut it the fuck out, the straw floated gently down, nestling amongst its brothers before the added weight snapped the camel's back in two.

I knew how I would do it, after an hour or so of bizarre, frenzied planning underneath the covers with wide, panicked eyes. For the second time in my life, I realized that I COULD do it, too. Stabbing down in one swift motion before the better half of my brain could catch up with me, much like ripping off a band-aid. Easy as a dream.

I waited for some idea to flicker into my mind, to save me. One did. I spent the rest of the night covered in snot, planning a move to Massachusetts. My heart started to beat a little faster. Is that a thing that someone could possibly do? I ironed out the details in my mind, as far as my ironing arm could reach. I could pawn my belongings. Pile what was left into a car. Drive. Drive. Drive. Put a thousand miles in between me and this exceptionally sweaty hell on earth, where god has salted the fields, ensuring that no brilliant seed of mine would take root. Where every effort blows away in the wind, weightless. Anchor-less. Drop this degree as easily as one brushes away a mosquito. It's weight on my shoulders would make the dropping easy. Just let it slide down the ol' arm, catching for a second on the fingers, then...thump. So beautiful. To just let this go. To hit reset. To start back where I was before I ever came here and did this forbidden thing out of fear of poverty, and the fear that I would not find my way to successful adulthood unless a pre-packaged way had been rolled out like a carpet before me. Choose the pre-sets, Davis. You can't go wrong.

The universe started giggling when I made my choice, I think. The laughter has surely by now grown into a roaring guffaw. I picked all wrong, and have done, my entire life. I have allowed my incessant worry wart-ism to inform all of my major life decisions. Before I began nursing school, I knew it was the wrong choice. I remember vividly the moment when I realized this, sitting in the front row of my favorite psychology class, in the last semester of my first undergrad degree. I knew I would much rather be going to graduate school for psychology, but I was already so far into my nursing applications,and my mom was already so happy and invested in this future for me. I was afraid to tell her. I was afraid to move on this knowledge. I closed my eyes and hoped it would pass.

I have paid the price for letting my fear lead me by the hand. I wonder how much longer I will have to pay that price.

I wonder what the answer is. I wonder where my muscle tone is. I wonder what to do. I wonder how to do it.




I woke up, this morning.

Dirty Sock

I feel like an old, dusty, dirty sock that someone kicked under a dresser. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am actually very dirty. I haven't bothered to wash my hair in a few days, and I have eyeliner in splotches all over my face. I'm getting through the gauntlet that has been the last few months, but "getting through it" doesn't at all mean "getting through it with shiny hair and a freshly scrubbed face". There must be something cathartic about matching your outward appearance to your inward. Even if people don't know the details, they can take one look at you and know that something is wrong. It's a way for me to express myself, I suppose, without having to ACTUALLY express myself, verbally.

You can't indent paragraphs on this goddamned contraption, and it is driving me crazy.

I just have to put gigantic spaces in between, like this.

One of my most pressing issues is my spiral into complete insanity. I'm sure you can see how this constitutes as a pressing issue. To summarize, I have lived every single one of my twenty-three years with this FEELING. It's that feeling you get when you know you're supposed to be doing something extremely important, but you can't remember what it is. It keeps beating on the door of my brain, reminding me that I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'm not doing whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing. If I were a Christian, or a Muslim, or spiritual in any way, shape, or form, I could reconcile myself to this idea. I could understand it. I would think to myself that the Almighty must have big plans for me. I could take comfort in the solidity of that. As you all know, I also watch too much Oprah. I've heard her say so many times, "life will tell you that you're going in the wrong direction gently, at first. Eventually, if you don't listen, those lessons will turn in to disasters. Eventually, it will beat the door down to get your the message". This is exactly what I've felt since the day I was born. Those of you who have known me longest have seen it for so many years. When I was a kid, I tried to find my life path by trying every hobby available to me: violin, tae kwon do, sewing, painting, volleyball, singing, writing, counseling, film making, even nursing. The list goes on and on. My entire family will always make fun of me for my lack of commitment to any of these things. But in my head, it was like this:

"Look at that woman play the violin. I wonder if I'm supposed to play the violin? Is that the thing? I'll take lessons. I'll bet that violin is totally the thing. I'll bet that's what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm throwing myself in to this. I can't believe I've finally found the hand to scratch this itch. I've found my path."

2 weeks later...

"Nope, no. No. This doesn't feel right. The violin is so beautiful, but this isn't the thing. This isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. I have to find it. I can't believe this isn't it. I have to find it."

I can't imagine myself without this fever. It's been chasing me around since I was a kid, and I never get tired of it. Unfortunately, where it was only a dull thud of a knock in the back of my head all throughout my childhood, it has now grown into an absolute THUNDER CLAP. I can't ignore it. It is beating SAVAGELY behind my eyes every second of every day. WAKE. UP. WAKE. UP. YOU KNOW WHERE YOU NEED TO BE, SO GO. WAKE UP, AMBER. SMASH, SMASH, SMASH.

Now, let's just say that I am buying in to this, that there really is some unexplained force trying to get my attention. Which, of course, I don't. But if I did, I do think I know where it wants me to go. I have imagined myself living in every location on planet Earth, and have landed on Massachusetts. For various reasons, all of which I am too embarrassed to discuss here. Now that I've found my latest inclination, I am so hungry for it. I'm like a starved dog, straining at the leash. Every day of nursing school in between myself and Massachusetts is a torment. I can see the thing that will finally make this horrible emptiness go away, and I am desperate for it, panting, shivering, whimpering. Absolutely desperate.

When I talk to my parents about it, I think they are mildly alarmed by my intensity. Hell, I'm mildly alarmed by my intensity. For the past few weeks, I've used this unexplained desperation for Massachusetts as evidence that I am finally on the right path. I'm finally going home. I've finally found it, and once I'm there, I don't have to keep running. I just needed to find my home, is all. I've searched for it in hobbies, people, and places. I'm afraid of what might happen if Massachusetts turns out to be another violin lesson. That will mean, of course, that this profound sense of "WRONG" won't be the violin, or nursing, or Massachusetts...it'll be me. I've just carried the malcontent with me wherever I go.

Don't get me wrong, I am moving out of the South, regardless. Emotional Brain wants the move as a way to find my true purpose, which could be complete and utter bull shit. Luckily, Logical Brain also wants to go away. So, even if I move there and end up still having this incessant itch, at least it will be an improvement on my current situation.

The South makes me feel alone. 99% of the people here disagree with me on every platform there is. I want to be surrounded by like-minded people, much like everyone else. I respect the popular views of this area, I just don't share them. I'd rather live in a state with laws that I agree with. Simple as that.

Nursing makes me feel alone. You are told to look and act a certain way. If you don't follow those rules, you get kicked out. Which I get. As my dad says, business owners are allowed to hire you or fire you as they see fit. If they feel you don't represent their company from an aesthetic standpoint, then it's their right to fire you. I see that. I do. It doesn't make me feel any less isolated, though. I have to wear a mask every time I come to work. It feels like trying to fit in to a sorority all over again. Covering all of my tattoos is something that I both love and hate. I love covering them because it's usually the only time when I don't feel like I am being judged way ahead of time. I hate covering them because I resent having to pretend to be someone else in order to receive a patient's trust. Diversity is one of the most miraculous things about the human race, and it is being beaten out of us as we enter the job market. We all look the exact same, and pretend to feel the exact same way about everything. It's maddening. We're all a little bit forced to cover up the miracle. From a Christian standpoint, I'd imagine the Christian god made us all so different for a reason. We spit in a creator's face by sweeping his masterpieces under the rug, where no one can see. No one seems to mind this. Just me. If I ever verbalize this distress, people just pat me on the head and tell me that it's just a part of growing up. Untrue. It might be part of the ritual of "growing up" that humans have created over time, but it isn't the best way.

So, what are my options? Flow with the river of things that I love and lose my job? Get stared at? Become alienated from people who are threatened by differences? Or paint myself into a different box, and be "loved" by people who haven't even seen me? Keep my job and the salary that I depend on? Which is the better option, here? What is the answer? I really couldn't tell you. I get pulled in both directions. That seems to be the trend, these days. The Davis family motto is "Hold fast". I think I'm going to have it changed to "I don't fucking know".

Meditations on Perfection

The attainment of perfection has been on my mind a lot, lately. Actually, it feels like it’s been hovering around buzzing like a bee in the back of my brain my entire life. I have struggled mightily my entire life to become perfect, clean and pristine in several realms. First and most importantly, you have to have flawless body- shoulders of a ballerina, waist of Scarlett O’Hara, hips and boobs of Sofia Vergara, defined, yet delicate jawline…the list goes on. The toes must be manicured, the eyebrows must be expertly shaped, the hair must have no split ends, the makeup must be applied. On top of this exquisite physique the house must be clean enough to drop a piece of fruit on the ground and be able to eat it without fear of contracting some tropical disease (this is Houston…it counts as tropical as far as I’m concerned). The dog must be walked every single day. Grades must be at the top of the class. It is mandatory to be both wise and ethical to a fault. It is mandatory there is always such an unmistakable sense of direction and purpose that you’ll never once wonder if this is really the path you should be walking on. The social calendar must be full, and each and every event attended with the effortless social graces of a southern belle.

The list goes on, and on, and on, and on. Forever. Infinitely. I think I assumed (and am working my way out of currently assuming) that if I manage to achieve perfection in all facets of life, I will be happy. Life will be good. How could it not be? It’s perfect- beautiful and blameless as a newborn. Everyone will love me, and I will love everyone with a gracious and humble heart. No one will have a single word to say against me. Ah, sublime.

The only issue is that this, of course, is an impossibility. I have exhausted myself to the point of probably five mental breakdowns in my life in the tireless pursuit of not having a single thing wrong with me.

To someone as anxiously OCD as I am (though I hide it well), flaws in the plan are not to be endured. And yet, there they are. Life has never once been perfect. Not a single time. And so I won’t allow myself to be happy in those moments that are truly good, because while good, there are still things wrong with the bigger picture. I am still not small. I still can’t cook. My boyfriend-who-isn’t-my-boyfriend refuses to commit himself to a title yet demands all of the accoutrement of it. I’m not sure if I want to be a nurse. I’m not sure if I should leave my boyfriend-who-isn’t or if I should stay because he has enriched my life in so many stupid, impossible, unforeseen, happy, giggly, delightful ways. I can’t focus on school work because the only thing I’ve ever cared about is the class that occurs outside of a classroom. The amount of things that I don’t know STAGGERINGLY outnumbers the amount of things that I know for sure. In fact, I don’t think there is a thing that I know for sure. Not a single thing. It feels like trying to run a marathon on the ever-tilting walkways of a fun house. To be so unsure of everything is so uncomfortable for me. It isn’t perfect. It’s a fucking mess. Every decision I make is one that I’m unsure of. I haven’t had a boyfriend-who-isn’t in so long; will he still want me when he knows that I can barely boil an egg, or when I gain ten pounds because I eat too much ice cream, or when I try to push him to be a boyfriend-that-actually-is? Will my friends still want to know me when they realize that my apartment is at times a disaster, or that I never return phone calls, or that I’m the most anxious, question-filled person alive?

…Am I doing it right?

To not have an answer to that question…that deafening silence of a response is just insufferable. And yet, that really isn’t something that will ever go away. No matter how old I get, I’ll never be certain. So what really needs to happen is that I need to learn how to relax into the discomfort of imperfection- crack open my tightly clenched, quivering little heart and just let the desire to control everything and everyone around me to achieve optimal circumstances GO. Just let it go. In twenty-three years it hasn’t taken me anywhere I dreamed I would be. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Nothing does, and nothing is. The stunning, improbable miracle of life is so incomprehensibly beautiful on its own that it really is enough to have lived at all. I’m grateful for the opportunity to watch this life, and to actively move around in it. Hopefully now I’ve begun the process of letting the idea of becoming comfortable with imperfection trickle into my skull layer by osseous layer. Cross your fingers that one day it’ll make it all the way down to my brain.

Dear body:

We are having issues at the moment. I know you can tell. My heart is pounding a little bit, and my mind is racing. So I'll just come right out and say it.

Why can't you just look like Kate Moss? I feed you well. I give you spinach and carrots and kale and broccoli and bell peppers and onions. I take a multi-vitamin. I take fish oil. I go to the gym and lift heavy weights, and do cardio. I walk my dog to promote venous return. I go to therapy so that I won't ever abuse you ever again, so that I won't throw up or starve or deprive you of anything that you need. Sure, I eat ice cream occasionally, but COME ON. I DO EVERYTHING. I take such good care of you! I just don't understand how I can still look the exact same. I get no credit. Even when I was the fittest I'll ever be in my life, I still looked exactly the same. There was MAYBE a one jeans size difference. On a good day.

Are you trying to tell me something? Is there a message that I'm supposed to be getting? The answer, of course, is "yes". I already know what you want to tell me. I get it. "Accept that you look the way that you look, and move on". But just hear me out. There is a boy at the gym who is an Adonis. He's a medical student. He works at Ben Taub, the best trauma center in the Medical Center. He has so many muscles and he covers them with a sexy white lab coat. He's so beautiful that he would only go for Kate Moss because he CAN. He can be picky. He's probably already dating some attractive Christina Yang med student who looks exactly like Kate Moss. From the waist up. Because my understanding of Kate Moss is that she is caucasian.

So you see, I'm rarely physically attracted to men. And I'm attracted to this one. So can't you do something? You're replicating my DNA 24/7, can't you just remodel me a bit? CAN YOU PLEASE JUST DO THAT? Because I already feel like I will never get married...so why are you narrowing the selection pool? Why can't you just make me universally beautiful so that at least I stand a chance of snagging someone that I am attracted to?

Really, though. You don't understand. Ordinarily I wouldn't have much of a problem with the way that I look, but I've been born into a world that doesn't agree. I was born into a world that will never stop letting me know that my body isn't appealing enough to be on TV. When all of my favorite books get turned into movies, I see that you can't live an adventurous, happy life unless you've got a BMI of 17. In every love story I've ever seen immortalized on the big screen, you can only have a beautiful romance if you have slim hips and wear a size zero. I live in a world that continuously tells me that I am not okay, that I can not be happy, that I can not have a fairytale wedding. I've never seen anyone that looks like me do anything that I want to do.

So what's a girl to do? I can't develop an eating disorder. That kind of pain and torture is such a pain in the ass that no amount of impending singledom could force me down that road again. So that's out. But the rules of TV and movies and cheerleading and popularity and envy all tell me that I'm just a genetic rotten apple. I guess the only productive thing to do is to rewrite the rules, eh?

Because it's like this: my viewpoint is the only viewpoint I'm ever going to have. Whichever way I decide to tint the world, I'm seeing it through the lens that I choose. The entire world might be confused about what is truly spectacular, but that doesn't mean that I'm not entitled to my own opinion.

And really? Honestly? My opinion is that I'm a fucking catch. Sure, I have wiiiiidddeee hips and a huge butt. Sure, I have bowed legs and just generally look like a giant put his hand on my head and gently smooshed me down (that's a hilarious visual).

But I'm smart. I learn everything that I can...not just when I have to, but every other hour of every day, too. And I'm good. I work so hard to do the right thing even when nobody is looking, because I know that's the only way that goodness is worth much at all, when it's real. I love to entertain people and I love to laugh. I love to go outside. I love to go adventuring. I try hardest, I think, to understand the world around me, even though I'm not sure what good it'll do.

I may eat a lot of ice cream, but I think all of those things make me pretty fantastic. If only someone would stop to look.

Welp, I'm glad that I just wrote an entire blog post to my body as if it were a seperate entity, and exposed my just SUPER intense bouts of insecurity to the world. Hopefully no one will ever read this.