Be serenity

I love days like today where I find the inner peace that generally evades me daily. I love the happy thoughts about where my life is, and the excitement to see someone I finally had a little tiny chance to miss. I've really just had a great weekend, I think my parents and I have begun to settle into a more relaxed relationship of grown up mother/father/daughter instead of mother/father/child-who-needs-to-be-taken-care-of-constantly. It's a nice feeling just to have them off my back really.

It's back to reality though now that school has started up again, I need to start seriously looking into finding an apartment, save money for the security, brokers fee (which I really feel the person WITH the apartment should have to pay) and first months rent (which at 1400 for each-split two ways comes to a whopping 2100!) figure out money for next semester, (around 5-6000) figure out Dan's birthday present and if it's going to be big or not ($?) make sure I have money for disney (between 600-1000) and it's just all adding up. I feel really guilty that I just bought an I.pod shu.ffle, I think I'm going to return it (good thing I brought the receipt/packaging back with me) I mean it wasn't too expensive considering but I need to be saving money for other things.

Despite the growing concern for having enough money.. I still feel peaceful and content. It's amazing. I know it's going to leave soon enough and slide back into depression but it's a nice feeling for now. I guess you take what you can get right?

Get it out..

Life has been a roller coaster for the past few weeks. months. years.. whatever. I feel as if everything has built up to some kind of maximum like it has reached to point where it is pushing against this barrier and the barrier is just a whisper away from snapping; I'm a whisper away from snapping.

• I need my brother to come home; his approximate return date is the middle of May. That's like what-six weeks? The anxiety is building as the date gets closer, every day I grow more terrified that something will happen to ... delay his return. I need him here, he is by far my best friend and I miss being able to call him at retarded hours, to tell him the stupid dramas of my life, to hear about his stupid training missions. I miss him and having someone that really understood my mind inside and out on speed dial.

• Talking to the old man (forgive me I don't want to taint this blog with the name anymore than I may have in the past) gave me some closure that I think I really needed but had pushed to the side thinking I was never going to be able to have it. I believe it was good. I believe that it reminded me that he didn't always suck that I did love a guy that had some compassion and that, while he fucked me up, he did care about me and he will until the day he dies. I did mean something.... Pause.

• I feel like I've regressed back into the miserable fuck I used to be; feelings of worthlessness and sadness are back full force, not that they ever really left. I know he'd tell me I'm stupid, but I feel like my own boyfriend just puts up with me because I moved here to be with him, because he feels obligated to make me happy. I feel distant from him, from reality? From my life, I feel like I'm watching it and tapping on the glass trying to get my own attention to tell myself to snap out of it. To fucking wake up and live. And then I think why the hell can't I just wake up and say "fuck it let's be happy," but whenever I do it's just fake. I feel like any progress I made over the past few months in the happiness department has just dissolved like a thin layer blown away by the stress and loneliness of the past few months.

Today I think I suck, and I hate that. Why can't I just be happy? Why can't I just let shit roll off of me and move on? I need to know the recipe...

The world will laugh a little less.

This morning my dad's best friend Wayne died. Wayne was one of the funniest guys to ever walk this planet-always getting into some kind of mischief. He had a great presence about him in sheer size and personality. He was diagnosed with stage four non small cell lung cancer a few months back, by that point it was just a matter of months. But I didn't expect to hear it today. I am just crushed. Wayne was the guy that, god forbid, anything should happen to my own father would be walking me down the aisle. He's the one that when my parents are gone and my car breaks down, comes out at eight in the morning to diagnose the problem. He's the one always cracking jokes and keeping moral up. I think he just got too tired. If you had the chance to meet him, you've been blessed; if you never got that chance then you missed out on something really great and once in a life time.

God Bless Mister Wayne Miller. The world will be laughing a little less without you in it.

SE#5

So in response to cops LTLYM posts I've decided to do self-esteem guided writing post here when I don't have anything to write about. I have, and have always had, a very low self esteem. In previous posts I've written about not being a happy kid or having people tell me they thought I was miserable. So a few months ago I bought "The self-esteem guided journal: a ten week program" by Matthew McKay. I did four enteries and then kind of forgot about the whole project. Buuuut I hate myself so much I'm going to keep up on it here.

So day five says, "Nonjudgment with parents and Relatives. Today we're asking you to focus your efforts on parents and other relatives. Think about and visualize your parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and other members of your family. Try to hold and image of each person in your mind. As you focus on each family member, be aware of their traits, tendencies and anything significant you know about their history. Now make a real effort to see that person withough judgment, without any thoughts of good or bad. Explore in your journal how this exercise feels and what it's like attempting to shift your fovus from judgment to acceptance."

I'm not too sure how to go about doing this, so little numbers are going to have to do. I think I'll leave the hardest for last but I'm going to keep this relatively short.

1. Kyle- My brother Kyle is my best friend we used to never get along but when he went away to boot camp we got very close. He breaks my heart though because he is that nice guy that always gets the raw end of the deal. I think he is the easiest one to see in a non-judging way because I would do anything for him in a heartbeat. Whenever he is upset or something is going on in his life I have no problem just accepting it for what it is and helping him work through it in the best way I can. Thoughts about him making the "wrong" decision or anything like that don't enter my mind when it comes to Kyle.
2. Ken- My other brother, Ken is a little harder not to judge because he is different from your typical 27 year old. I accept him because he is my brother and we grew up together. It's a little harder not to think of him as a dork or, as I affectionately call him, the missing link when he gets excited about going to a concert showcasing his favorite video game music.
3. Mom- I have never been able to get into my mother's head. And I will never understand what ever compelled her to do some of the things she has done in the past. She is hard to accept because I grew up thinking everyone else's mom was a lot more affectionate than my own. Maybe she just isn't that kind of person. But it's hard to think outside the stereotypes of what "mom" is and accept that that is just not who my mom is.
   
4. Uncle Jimmy- This is tough. My uncle Jimmy died two summers ago. He basically drank himself to death. Out of all of my aunts and uncles I was closer to him and my Aunt Robin because I babysat their daughter, my cousin Maddie from pretty much the day she was born until 2007 when I got a higher paying job. You never expect divorce or alcoholism or death to disrupt a small family so quickly. It broke my heart hearing Maddie ask for daddy. And for a long time I was angry at Jimmy for leaving his daughter like that. But now two years later Maddy is growing up so quickly and involved in so many things that the lose of her father has not restricted her in anyway. And there is my acceptance for Jimmy. My time in the rooms showed me that some people just cannot handle life. Some people just don't want to get better or are afraid to try. Jimmy was one of them. I still think it's unfair that he's gone, but I find a little more acceptance every time I talk about it
5. Dad- Dad is another tough one because even though we lived in the same house my whole life, he just wasn't around. He seemed more interested playing with the boys than interacting with his daughter. I don't think I've ever gotten over that and I think it may have fucked me up more than it should have/needed to/I thought. On top of this my dad suffers from depression and has for as long as I can remember. The sound of his depressed sighs never meant anything good for the sound level in my house. If you know of the events of late last year you know why I think my dad is just pathetic, and now he has cancer and I don't know if I take that back. No, I do not think he could survive this on his own without going insane, but I still don't know how much I think he should have stayed with her after all that. My dad is tough and maybe the hardest to just accept because I am a lot like him and lord knows I can't accept myself.

Accepting people especially family for who they are is tough because I want them to be how I want them to be or how I think they should be or how society thinks they should be. And it's crazy to me to see how differently I turned out compared to all of them and still be able to accept who they are at the end of the day.
Non judgement is a hard thing huh..

Skin.

I'm going home to Jersey on Sunday morning afternoon for my father's surgery. And I'm starting to feel a little anxious. I understand that prostate cancer is very curable and this surgery is probably one of those "whatever" kind of procedures so I don't think it's the surgery that I'm nervous about exactly I think it's more so the drama.

That's probably selfish. Fucked up.

But I just hate drama and I love love my father but I don't want to go home to a pity party. I want to show support and I want to be there to give him a hug before the procedure and I want my mom to have someone to lean on. I don't want anyone to talk about my dad having cancer, or the months of recovery, or the long term effects.

Being there for other people seems a lot easier than being there for myself. I have no problems showing up for someone else. Dealing with another family, mine just frustrates me to no end, so while I'd like to stay there forever and help out with anything, three days sounds long enough to me.

I wonder if that makes me a sucky person?

It's a Wonderful Life

Things have been super crazy hence the lack of updates. It seems like everything is coming at me in quick waves of awful events and honestly I'm not sure how much longer I can hold up my side of the street. There is so much to do that today I'm sitting back and realizing how much I've missed doing the stuff that I really enjoy doing like pleasure reading, listening to music, writing this blog, calling friends and emailing my family. There just hasn't been enough time in the day for all of it. I have been reading a lot of different blogs lately and though I don't have much of a message-if any-to carry, reading them makes me miss writing here.
I have a lot of friends that over the years have been able to rely on me for anything and I don't regret helping them one bit but our problems are getting so much harder and much more personal that as time goes by we're around if we need each other for sure but I think we're more afraid of reaching out and asking for help.
That fear reminds me of my stint in the program and always being afraid of asking for help because I didn't want anyone to know how bad or not bad I was. I was afraid of never measuring up to the "worst" addict in the room that I probably didn't get as much help as I could have. But I always felt like I was stealing from them anyway.

Moving on.

My dad has prostate cancer-a very slow progressing and curable cancer. But still scary. Cancer. Scary word, puts knots in my stomach, gives me panic attacks, makes me want to sleep instead of face the day. The doctors say the scan showed everything was contained and that surgery should fix it and chemo won't be necessary. And isn't that a breath of relief. My dad's best friend has cancer but his prognosis isn't so promising. The lung cancer went undetected for a while so well.. you know. In situations like this I always find myself looking at both sides I look at Wayne and his wife Dawn and I look at my mom and dad and I wonder if Dawn is cursing the injustice, and then if she's cursing herself for wishing the roles were reversed because who would wish that on someone else?
I look at people a lot. I feel for them often. I try to put myself in their shoes, I try to understand what they are thinking and lately that empathy has led me to a lot of emotional anguish. I really feel for people and all that feeling really makes me sad. I need a way to deal with all these emotions. I need a way to allow things to just be and not effect me so much. Maybe a way to not feel so much?

Next.

School. Pretty lame. Lots of reading a few papers here and there but not much to say on top of that in the academic department. Dorming sucks. It's not going to get better and I don't want to hear it, I mean come on I'm being FINED because a couple of children on my floor had a party and got sloppy. Not cool.
I guess an upside is, not that I've ever lacked the ability to speak out, but I'm learning the self reliance needed to live away from home. I actually had a conversation with my RA to express my... concern with this fine. It's not that paying the five dollars would have really set me back it's the principle of the thing. One, I guarantee 97% of the people on this campus are here on financial aid or have mommy and daddy paying for anything. Two, I work close to 40 hours a week to pay back every single penny of my loan. Three, I avoid this place like the plague, I wasn't on campus for six days starting the day before the 'incident' happened. I go to class, go to work, see my boyfriend, come back go to my dorm, do my homework and am generally asleep by midnight on school nights. When would I possibly have had time to make a mess with my hall mates. Because really I'm the social butterfly that made friends with a bunch of partying fools. Yeah that's me. Seriously. Not.

I'm just looking forward to being a big kid and living on my own, and being able to keep creepy people out of my house. I mean for real these kids just walk into my room. Have you heard of knocking? Let's be serious.

College is like a different world and I want the next train home please.


Peace out.

Butterfly

I wonder, quite often, how different my life would have been if I had been more outgoing or had friends in high school, you know-if I had been popular. I wonder if maybe I’d have 700 pictures on facebook from all the times my friends wanted to snap a picture of us; I wonder if I’d be prettier, skinnier, more capable. I’m not deluded I know having crazy outgoing friends or playing a sport or having all those pictures on facebook doesn’t guarantee happiness or good looks. I know that it is just silly to think that the popular life is blessed with shitting gold. But I’ve always felt left out.

I look at my roommate and her friend and they are just so involved with life playing sports and goofing around with their friends and I feel old. I feel out of place on my whole floor, I feel like some one is looking over my shoulder and watching me the whole time. Not like the paranoid someone is coming to get me but I guess I don’t know how to explain it. I feel like some kind of idiot weirdo because I just follow my 18 year old roommate around. She’s cool but definitely just out of high school if you know what I mean. I just feel like I should be able to take care of myself. I really really need to start working so that I can make some friends that are like me.

I understand that view point is crazy and that I one, can’t expect to know where everything or anything is in this brand new state and two that you can never tell just what someone is going through by how they act but some part of me still can’t helping wishing I was a little bit more like them and a little bit less like me. I guess I’m really just a little more than miserable living in this dorm room. I will never live on campus again it depresses me already.

 

ugh.