Can't. Breathe.

I. Can't. Breathe.

The worst has happened. After everything I did, after making the commitment to myself to stick out the semester, after resolving to do better, to get better... I can't believe it. And I can't breathe. Why is this happening again? This can't be happening. This isn't happening again. There's no option past this.

I... I don't know what to do anymore.

November

It's November again. Strangely, I don't feel much different than I did last November: a little hopeless, absolutely exhausted, unmotivated. But there's something stirring in me this time. Last time I had completely given up and surrendered to the inevitability of my exit. I ran away. This time, I'm stuck. I can't leave again - that option is no longer viable unless I never want to return - and I can't keep doing what I'm doing these days. Skipping class is so easy and so sensible sometimes. I can't prepare for class since I don't go, therefore I continue to skip since I'm not prepared and unable to prepare because I don't go. It's a continuous cycle of self-sabotage. I go to work, though; that I never miss. I think working grounds me. Working and going to therapy give me a little bit of structure so I get out of bed every day.

I've been reading a lot of I Wrote This for You in the last couple of days (do you italicize the title of a blog or put it in quotes?), and it's made me think a lot about the person I want to be - aside from a person who's alive, of course. I want my spark back, but wanting it doesn't just make it so. It seems I have to go out into the world and bring it back into myself.

Basically, I'm going to start writing again, more frequently, and I'm going to start dancing again every day. I've really let that go in the last year and I want it back. I'm happier when I'm active and I know it, I just need to do it. And I need to work on school but thinking about it still makes me a little...panicky. So we're gonna move away from talk about school temporarily. I'll deal with it, but... Now's not the time if I want to hold on to the small bit of sanity I have left over from last week's suicidal shit show.

In addition to writing here more frequently, I've also started a little side project (because I need something else to do, right!?) for a certain super-special someone. For those who know, there's this amazing, precious, sunshiney 3 year old in my life who means everything to me. Her birthday was a couple of weeks ago and it got me thinking about who she's gonna be and whether or not I'll be around to see it. I don't mean that in a Big S------ way, but things happen: lightning, car accidents, sickness, gang wars, alien abductions, psycho roommates, freak happenings, etc. So if something happens, I want her to know how important she is. And maybe I can let some other people feel important while I tell her. If you feel like peeking, it's after the jump here at Letters to a Blueberry Girl. It's kind of like the video diary for Good Luck Charlie on Disney Channel, but... on the internet. And from her aunt instead of her big sister. And Kenzie is WAY cuter than Charlie, with tons more personality to boot, so there.

I just need to get through to Thanksgiving. I keep giving myself deadlines and pushing them back to get myself through the semester. You see, at first I just had to get past October 8 (the date of the Big Mistake), and then it was November 1st, and here we are. Frankly if I get through the next two weeks I'll have beaten my record for consecutive school in the last year, which is good, but then I have to get through Thanksgiving. And the nightmares that are coming in about 2 weeks or so. That'll be fun. I'll keep you posted.

But yeah, I guess it's November and we can get ready for Christmas and things. Kr---- and I are getting ready to decorate our apartment. She wants a real Christmas tree - I don't want to have to clean up the damn thing - and I want Christmas candles. We'll have to compromise. But it should be lovely all the same. I'm excited.

Oh. And I'm seeing Katie tomorrow. I'm trying to remember how to breathe without a panic attack jumping in. My hands are shaking. It'll be okay, I'm just... I don't know what to say to her. I don't know if I'll be able to look her in the eye or even be near her without freaking out altogether. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Lastly, this is what's keeping me together right now:

"Place your right hand on your left shoulder blade. Keep it there. Now place your left hand on your right shoulder blade.
And squeeze."

- ~ I Wrote This for You: The Clouds

Just keep squeezing; I'll get to you soon.
Willow

“November — with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes — days full of fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees”

- L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle