I Rarely Drive Steamboats, Dad

03:43 pm

One. I need to stop being a drama queen.
Two. I need to not fear being vulnerable.
Three. I need to stop channeling my hurt into self-loathing.
Four. I need to stop thinking you hate me for this.

07:16 am

When things got bad, I used to walk outside at night and look up at the stars. When I was hurt, scared, feeling completely alone. Orion was my anchor point, the thing that could always make me feel more real. If I could find it in the sky, stare at it for a while, everything was okay. It was a reassuring constant.

But it's summer now, and Orion isn't up. There's nothing left to do but feel empty for a little while, then go about rebuilding.

09:53 am

Most of my posts this summer are probably going to be here--I've resurrected the summer blog, and fallen back in love with Blogger's user interface. So go, read, and be merry.

(I'm in the Netherlands and I love it.)

05:29 am

This is the first time I've seen the pre-dawn sky in a while. I like it just as much as I always have. Sunrise looks better from this side.

04:17 am

I've reached the point where social events just leave me sort of disappointed and depressed, and I don't actually like being drunk, and I wander around the room talking to people and usually end up in the corner just watching the world go by.

I need to snap out of this.

03:33 pm - Rather Be Anywhere Else

Let's see.

My wifey got me sick (chills, slight fever, congestion, inability to sleep, headaches, full body aches...the whole nine yards).

I have an exam at five that I'm not prepared for, even though this is the class I've been working so hard in. I thought I was on top of math, damn it, but it turns out I don't know it as well as I thought I did.

I have a paper, a written final, and a logbok due Monday afternoon. That evening is my chem final (which I'm somewhat prepared for, but I still need to review the material...)

My CS exam is on Tuesday. I'm so royally fucked I don't even want to think about it. I'm trying to negotiate something with the teacher--something like I take the final, get some extra time to make up some work, I explained how hellish the semester's been...but at this point it's looking like I either withdraw or fail.

God damn it.

I suck at life and am a talentless hack with no personality. Why do I even pretend anymore?

What I want: to be locked in a padded room full of books, all alone, maybe with a computer so I could read the Wikipedia. Actually, even that might be too much thinking. I kinda like the idea of just sleeping forever, even though last night I had strange and terrifying dreams. It's still better than trying to deal with life and always failing.

If you can't tell, I'm having a downer day.

----

[Edit, 16.39:]

Well. I've calmed down, and I feel more prepared for my exam. Here goes nothing...

11:26 am

Right. So.
You heard it here first.

I will officially be spending the entire summer working in the Netherlands. I will have my own place of some sort, so any of my friends and relations who are in Europe should take the time to swing by Eindhoven and say pay me a visit. Weekends are mine.

I cannot believe this is really going forward. I'm buying tickets right now.

01:08 am

There are moments when I feel better. When Rahele stumbled around the balcony with her hood up pretending to be blind. When she and I spent twenty minutes making fun of sorority girls. I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe, and in that moment I felt real. I felt the most real when Lindsay just held me.
But then it swings back down thirty seconds later and I end up curled in a fetal position, freaking out and almost crying, thinking I'm honestly going mad.

So what it comes down to is that I need to get help. After four years of fighting this, it hasn't gotten any better. Every time I think I've beaten it, it comes back with a vengeance. My freakout today was as bad as my junior year. I haven't felt that in so long. It scared me. I can't spend entire days barely able to function no matter how hard I try to will myself to get out of bed, pull it together, and go on with life. I just can't. I can't take it anymore.

09:59 pm

It's hard to describe. Like there's a bubble of stagnant air around me, preventing me from making contact with the outside world, preventing me from feeling or participating in anything that happens around me. It feels like it's imploding in on me.

This is all so melodramatic, but I really do feel like I'm going crazy. There's no rational foundation, no logical basis for the way I feel. The line between reality and what's in my head is getting a little bit fuzzy.

I hate this.

12:59 am - Renewals

I'm feeling a lot more myself. Not so stuck, so desperate, disliking myself so much.

Silly music, good friends. Life is better.

08:23 pm

I've been feeling like a nuisance, a bore, and a burden. I should just leave and let everyone get on with their lives, because it seems all I do is cause drama.
I want to sleep for days. I want to curl up and not think. And while I know this is the depression talking, that doesn't make it any less real.

You wouldn't like me if you met me.

05:00 am

A year ago I got rejected from NYU. That rejection changed my life forever, and for the better.

03:53 am

I'm at the bakery with Mottmann again, eating half-frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. I was a little worried, after coming clean about being in love with him a few weeks ago, we wouldn't be able to hang out anymore, I'd sort of been steering clear of him, but tonight I ran into him in common space and...well, he was finishing up food orders, and I was getting cotton balls to clean my lip piercing, and I said hello and wandered off...and as I left the room I suddenly realized there was so much caffeine in my system I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, and the wheels in my brain were still turning, so I cleaned my lip and went back downstairs and sat down next to him and asked if I could come to the bakery with him.

So here I am. Things are so beautifully comfortable. We talked the whole way over about the Big Problem in my life, and he is one of the best people in the world to talk to, when we really talk.

I still miss October, but I'm so glad I haven't lost him as a friend. I'm even happier that everything's in the open now.

03:00 pm

Well, I'm making progress. I think I may actually be able to do this.

I've been wondering, lately, whether I should maybe try to get treated for this depression I keep finding myself stuck in, because it's really starting to fuck with my life. It worries me.

09:46 pm

I don't want to jinx this, but...
It looks like not only will I be staying at CZ for the summer, I'll be working from home.
This summer is really looking up.

03:53 pm - Ze Haircut

03:35 am

I am so fucked. I can't even think at all anymore.

11:54 pm - Hearing My Heart Beat Faster

I shouldnot be feeling this much at loose ends, I should not be having this much trouble writing, I should not have thsi intense physical need to hold someone right now. I should not. It should not be eating away at me like it is.
I feel jittery and completely unable to function.

And then I get another silly, possibly flirtatious email from Peppe (he started emailing me two days ago, and we've been in fairly constant contact since then) and my heart starts beating faster and I get all fluttery and I get this stupid grin on my face...how can that boy still do this to me? Everything is so very very good at this moment, but I know in another thirty seconds I'll just be feeling so alone again.

Really, though. Peppe and I have talked more in the past two days than we did all summer. And I really do think he's maybe flirting with me. Now I'm all happy inside. Maybe he's not such an unattainable.
Of course, there's that little thing where he's in Italy and I'm not going back this summer.

But still. Squee.

08:25 pm - Visions of Lesbians Dancing in my Head

I'm having so much trouble focusing. I don;t know what it is. I sit down to work, my mind clear, I begin to read, and my brain just fogs up. My fingers move more slowly, the words stop making sense. I'm so far from done, and I don't think I have the energy to stay up all night, and I know my professor won't accept a late paper. I'm not sure, even if I work really hard, I can get this in on time. I've barely started the logbook entries, my paper is still just a swirling mass of thoughts in my head, and I just can't think. At all.

Eric said he might be coming up to study in a bit. I'm kinda hoping that helps me focus--having another studious person in the room.

09:42 am

So much for going back to Italy this summer. I was planning my life around it, but I got this email from Claudio this morning:
For this year there is no possibility to have internship.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board. Looks like I'll be in the Bay Area this summer after all.