It’s One Of Those Days

I hate days like this, when I wake up and know instantly that although this is the same bed, same room, same world I fell asleep in, overnight, something in my brain has shifted imperceptibly, and now nothing is the same, not even things that should be constant, like the taste of vanilla yogurt and the angle of the light coming through the bedroom windows and the way my toothbrush feels in my hand. I managed to roll out of bed and get in the shower before the paralysis set in, but under the running water I got stuck in an endlessly repeating list of all my failures. I was so crippled by the litany of my mistakes I couldn’t find the strength to squeeze the shampoo bottle hard enough to get any out.

I was ready to burst into tears, go back to bed, call in sick, eat everything in the fridge, throw up, jump out a window, anything to get my brain to shut up. Instead I fell back on an old Sunday School exercise. Naked, soap in my eyes, hyperventilating, I recited out loud a list of people who love me. The walls in this apartment are paper-thin, so my roommates probably heard me and now think I’m nuts, but it worked.

Kanti loves me. Karan loves me. In their own complicated way, my parents love me. My stepmother loves me. Kimmie loves me, Vince loves me, Eli loves me, Rose loves me, Tim loves me, Geoff loves me. Alyssa loves me. Christophe loves me, Aaron loves me. Nani loves me. Tom loves me, Doug and Carol love me. Amanda loves me, Erik loves me. Peter and Nanci and Sue love me. Mauci Meru and Avinash and Autumn love me, and they will teach Priyanka to love me too eventually, but first they’re going to focus on the “spoon goes IN the mouth” concept. Hannah and Alex and Tatijana love me. Jamu loves me. Bear loves me. Deacon Chris loves me. God loves me. Marilee and Jeanie love me. Doug and Jane and Nikki love me. Dadi and Dada love me. Jaima loves me, Kazim and Kalua and Vince love me, and after she/he is born and figures out the spoon thing their baby will love me too. Kusuma and Jamuna love me. Valerie and David love me. Tracy and Natalia love me, Dana and Canyon and Kiana love me, Auntie Janie and Uncle Stanley, who are no relation and have never met, both love me.

I listed everyone I coud think of: family, friends, old co-workers, old clients. Some of them dead, some alive, some on the other side of the planet and some I haven’t seen in years. I still feel screwy, but I’m up, I’m dressed and I made it to work.

I hate days like this, but there is a rare blessing in them, too, when I can remember to look for it. It is only on these days that I remember that when I can’t even look at myself in the mirror, a feeling of belovedness is enough for me to run off of until my inner resources build back up. I cannot think of a more stunningly concrete example of the power of love than that.

Happy President’s Day

Also not sent, but for different reasons than the last one, today, 4:45.

currently in a profound state of weed-induced hornyness. I propose we bone, thoughts?

Ewww, I sound like one of those Texts From Last Night people.

Texting Requires Too Much Responsibility

I have been composing all sorts of unwise texts lately, most of which I’ve had the self control to not actually send to my ex. These are mostly written while drinking or when I wake up in the middle of the night, and when I read them the next day, sober and at my desk at work, I get a painful churning feeling in my tummy as it hits me, once again, how hard this breakup has been on me, and how much more time it’s going to take me to fully heal.

Approximately 6am, today. Not sent.

I miss having you in bed with me when I wake up mid-anxiety attack, like I did this morning. I miss watching you sleep, and letting the peaceful expression on your face calm me down. I miss slowing down my panicked, shallow, quick breathing by matching my breaths to yours. Most of all, I miss being able to fall back asleep because I felt so completely safe with you beside me. I can’t go back to sleep anymore.

I think I need to get a therapist.

Lost

Now that I know how badly it hurts to have things not work out no matter how much you want them to, I don’t know how I’m ever supposed love anyone else quite this way. Is this what people mean when they say that your first love is different from every other? It feels a bit of a stretch right now, but I know on some level I’ll fall in love again, maybe even more than once, but… Will it ever be with the same glorious fearlessness? Will it ever be with the same delicious certainty that what I’m doing is exactly, precisely what I am meant to be doing right then? Will it ever again be so heady I’ll feel myself become drunk with wonder that this is truly my own life? With this boy the passion and love, the complete and utter trust, the willingness to dive in headfirst without a care for the consequences… they all came so easily. My feelings felt like a river originating in some timeless place, flowing through my heart , linking me to all the lovers throughout time and pouring out into the world, and all I really had to do was not block up the way. I’m not afraid that these wounds won’t heal, I know they will, but I am afraid that the scar tissue that forms will lay the foundation for a dam in my heart, and that next time, those feelings will not flow quite so smoothly.

I gave my physical virginity to this same boy when I was 18 and it changed me in its own way, but not like I’d expected. Now that I’ve given myself over to him in this way, years later, it finally feels like I’ve lost that precious, pure, sacred part of myself.  I did not realize how valuable this kind of innocence was until I lost it and I am filled with longing because I now I know, but can never get it back.

Day 6.

164.5lbs. I’m still puking my guts up every morning, but I’ve learned not to eat much in the mornings when it’s worse, and that if I lie perfectly still for at least a half hour after eating (at least an hour if I ate some thing solid) I won’t puke it right back up.

I laughed out loud at something stupid this morning, and felt the tightness that’s been in my chest all week loosen just a little. I’ve gotten over the initial shock, I think, and have started processing my feelings a little.

I still have this gut-wrenching feeling of having failed. It feels like my heart got run over with a giant piece of farm machinery (something like this hay baler, perhaps?). I still can’t believe how awful I feel and I’m still reeling from the realization that even though I gave this relationship everything I had, even though I faced down so many monsters, so many fears and doubts and insecurities so that I could give myself to someone else as fully and unreservedly as possible, even though I communicated as honestly and openly as I could no matter how tired or how hurt I was, even though I loved him with all my strength, all that still wasn’t enough, and now we’re done.

Thanksgiving

My parents’ divorce is a Godzilla in the Tokyo of my life. And the fucker just smashed Thanksgiving into so much scrap metal. The thing is, though I’ve spent the last hour alternating between weeping in an armchair, sobbing on the floor, and crying under the covers, I am grateful for those tears, because not so long ago, I would have been in the living room smiling as hard as can be, wearing long sleeves to cover the band-aids on my arms and drinking a glass of sparkling cider to wash away the bitter aftertaste of stomach fluids that self-induced vomiting leaves in your mouth.

Thoughts While Perusing My OKCupid Matches For 4 Hours

1. Why have you posted a picture of yourself with another girl on your dating site profile? It does not make me think you are cool, nor does it make me want to contact you. It makes me think you are stupid/lame. I am clicking away from your profile as fast as possible.
2. DAMN YOU ARE HOT. Wait, you’re 27? Why are you so old? Did I not specifically state that I am interested in ages 18-23? Why would OKCupid present me with something so utterly darling, totally delicious and then rip it away from me?
3. What douchebag sunglasses!
4. Why does everybody on this site love sushi? I hate sushi.
5. Why do you have a picture of you with 5 girls? See #1
6. That is not a profile. That is just a bunch of pickup lines strung together, masquerading as a profile.
7. I was halfway through writing a message to you when I noticed you “actively dislike children” Message deleted.
8. You are kissing a yellow flower in your profile pic. Why?
9. You look just like that guy I didn’t mean to have sex with that one night.
10. There is more product in your hair than hair on your head. Change your profile pic.
11. Your username is J-Nasty420. The answer is no.
12. I guess it’s good you know what you’re looking for, but might I suggest removing that last bit, where you say I should only message you if my thighs don’t rub together when I walk? That kinda comes across really, really badly
13. You’re a model? Really?
14. Are you sure you’re a model?
15. Your primary long-term goal is to build a submarine. You sound really cool. I want to be your friend, but I don’t think I want to see your penis.
16. Dude, are you from Budapest or something? I can’t figure out why, but your profile makes me think Budapest.
17. Wow, you are sooo my friend Amary’s type

Best Friend

A few days ago, I happened upon an interesting realization about myself; for the first time since I was four, I have no best friend. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of friends to hang out with, and a double handful of really good friends that I can call in a crisis and talk to about anything, but I don’t have a single, individual best friend.

This is weird for me because my whole life, I have been half of a pair, one of twosome that everyone knew and nobody questioned. In elementary school, it was Hannah. We met on the 1st day of kindergarten. On the 4th day we traded bracelets, and we were inseparable until 13, when we were split up to attend different high schools. Hannah and I stayed (and still are) good friends, but the geographical distance (approximately 40 miles) meant that the role of my day-to-day best friend was empty. I didn’t have to wait long, though. By the end of freshman orientation, everyone knew that Shoree and Sarah were a package deal. Other friends came and went, as they tend to do in high school, but Sarah and I faced all the bad fashion choices, embarrassing moments, desperate crushes, and gut-wrenching college rejections together.

It’s funny to realize how much I have been defined by whose best friend I am. This realization has prompted another realization; as much as I miss having a best friend, I miss being a best friend even more. Lately, I’ve found myself grieving that old me, who never had to look frantically around when told to pair up, who had one phone number memorized from calling it so often, and who knew exactly where her loyalties lay.

It’s really, really scary to realize that I have lost that comfortable, safe identity. I could say that I’m excited to discover who I am when I’m on my own, or that this it is an opportunity for personal growth. Intellectually I know these things are true. Inside though, the little part of me that will always be a 7 year old girl, the part of me that writes these entries, just wants to know why it is that when she holds out her hand, there is no one else’s hand there the way there used to be.

Things That Make Me Cringe And Twitch Violently

• People with the tag sticking out of the back of their shirt neck
• Dr. Pepper
• The scum ring that grows in the toilet at the water line
• Mold growing on leafy green vegetables
• People who don’t put the cap back on the toothpaste tube
• The smell of licorice
• Japanese food
• Old toothbrushes with bristles pointing in all directions
• Blue Jolly Ranchers and Slurpees
• 48 Hours Mystery

A Quiet Kind Of Bliss

This week has been full of unexpected moments of contentment and peace, the kind of moments that bipolar disorder takes away in a manner so sneaky, you don’t really notice those moments are gone until you get them back. I remember the first week after I came out the hospital, I was blown away by the realization that is was possible to have multiple good days in a row. In the same way, I’ve found myself caught by surprise over how good food can taste, how fascinating people are, how vibrant colors can be (especially flowers!) and how peaceful it can be to be alone and quiet, without being plagued by the constant chatter in my head, of to-do lists and anxious what-ifs and heavy, gray depressing thoughts. It sounds so silly and cliched to say, but I feel like I’ve just woken up, and the world is far more beautiful than I remember it ever being.