Confession

So I have a confession to make, and I'm not proud of it, but I really need to come clean (to all 3 people who read this ever). I folded today. Wait. Let me start from the beginning.

Yesterday I kept thinking about it. I'd concentrate on something and then this would take over my thoughts until I was consumed with it. So last night I set an alarm and this morning I woke up eager and excited and ready. I had breakfast and did some reading, waiting for the right time. But as the minutes ticked by, I could feel it starting. An hour later I woke up on the floor under my kitchen table.

You see, I had planned on going Free Hugging this afternoon in Claremont. Instead I got to spend most of the afternoon recovering from a full-blown panic attack complete with a blackout. I told myself I'd go at noon, which turned into 1pm. By 11:30 I was nauseated and when I stood up to make myself a cup of tea I was so dizzy I instantly had to sit back down. Around 12:20 I started having trouble breathing and couldn't stop shaking and then all of a sudden it was 1:05 and I was under the table with no recollection of having slid out of my chair and onto the floor.

I just re-read that and it makes it sound so much worse than it was. Not that it wasn't an awful experience, but I've had these episodes before. (The blackouts are still kind of scary, though.) I'm just upset - ashamed, really - that I let it take hold of me before I could even get out the door. And I wanted to Hug so badly this week but I let my fucking social anxieties get in the way. Again. Bloody fuck. Sorry. I just feel so weak and stupid about today being completely wasted because of a stupid panic attack that could've been avoided if I'd just forced myself to crawl out the door. Then again, I might have had a worse attack once I'd reached my destination and panic attacks in public are waaaaaaaaay worse than panic attacks in the safety of one's home.

The worst part is I feel like I'm continuing a pattern of self-sabotage. And.. God this is hard to say... It's almost as if part of me wants to be like this. I spend every day fighting back all my dark thoughts and at the end of the day fighting to go to sleep but somehow I can't help thinking that part of me wants to keep my D--------- because it's become such a defining part of who I am now. And then at the same time I'm screaming inside that I want all of this to go away so I can be normal again and go back to school and go on dates and not be constantly fighting all the goddamn time.

In other news, I calculated and have just enough money to buy groceries, put gas in my car and pay back some of the money I owe my mother, but my Uncle doesn't have a filter and eats constantly, I haven't slept properly in over a week because of my grandmother's fucking cat, I'm as lonely as ever and I received a final notice on a delinquent payment for one of my old student loans which I can't afford to pay right now. I'm exhausted from keeping up with housework and my job and my "resolutions" and my brother has applied for (and RECEIVED) a job transfer to be with his precious bitch and is taking his daughter with him. Did I mention this job transfer puts him over AN HOUR AWAY FROM HERE? No? Well consider it mentioned.

“It seemed unreasonable, unfair, that a woman so young and beautiful should be so exhausted. Of course, it was neither unreasonable nor unfair. Exhaustion pays no mind to age or beauty. Like rain and earthquakes and hail and floods." ~ Haruki Marukimi, Dance, Dance, Dance (1994)

This has just turned into a royal fuckup of a week, but really, complaining about it isn't going to make it better. I just don't know what will, though.

Touch

After months (November 20th to January 20th is 2 months, right? God, it feels like so much longer...) of tooling around feeling sorry for myself, I finally have a word for the emotion that's been plaguing me for weeks, and it's a scary one: I'm lonely. Lonely! Me! Can you believe it? Me neither...

I'm starved for attention, affection, and touch. I like to think that I'm comfortable with myself, that I'm not a total attention whore, but... My only real companion these days is a 50 year old man who - while usually very sweet - is far from my ideal conversation partner. I've recently added an adolescent cat to my list of companions, but again: he's a sweetie, but not the best conversationalist.

My uncle is painfully awkward, though we manage to get along. I found earlier, though, while he was (awkwardly) rubbing my shoulder what I've been missing so much. I haven't been touched very much this year. Make whatever sexual innuendos out of that you will, but I'm serious. Ever since I left school the first time and went to the hospital... Ever since that awful night my heart broke for the last time and I spent the night curled up next to An-----, I haven't exactly enjoyed a whole lot of human physical contact. I mean, it's one thing to be sexually frustrated to the point of distraction, but pushed to tears by a simple hand on my shoulder? I'm the fucking Free Hugs Girl for crying out loud! Of course part of why I hug is because I know what it's like to go so long without a comforting touch, but... I'm so, so lonely these days.

I talk to my friends, though. I make the effort to see them and spend time with them. It's just... They're busy living their lives and I'm back to square one with mine. Again. R--- is working two jobs and going to school full time, K---- is studying to get into law school and trying to find a job (and has a family she spends lots of time with), and everyone else isn't exactly local. A lot of it has to do with going from a university setting where I was constantly surrounded by people and the ebb and flow of conversation and then getting dumped into borderline solitary confinement.

And I've been dreaming about HIM again. Simple things, like the two of us sitting on the couch curled up watching a movie, or walking to the beach from his house holding hands. And last week really hurt... I was driving to work, minding my own business, and there was a couple around my age in the car in front of me. At the stop light, the driver leaned across to his girlfriend in the passenger seat and kissed her. I had to pull over because it made me dizzy to remember how many times I'd been in the passenger seat, or the driver's seat. I'm feeling a little dizzy now even... But I don't miss him. I miss having him. Does that make sense? I mean, I just want someone in my life who understands how much I need to be reassured. I don't think very highly of myself, you know. It took 2 years for R------ to convince me I was pretty, let alone anyone worth kissing. It's this:

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”

—	Chuck Palahniuk

My personal insecurities aside, it doesn't change the fact that I'm so, so lonely.

I mean, the other day, my therapist made a comment about my lack of social interaction. He asked how my social anxiety has been and I admitted that I still panic a little when I see strangers in my usual solitary haunts. I have to talk myself into going to Knit Night at the yarn store on Thursdays. I have to convince myself that it's alright to accept the occasional offer from my friends when they want to hang out. My doctor said I should find more social outlets. He said, "Well, you used to dance, right? I'm assuming you took lessons, and those had to be local, right? That would be a great way for you to meet other people that aren't ladies in their 40s and older from your knitting group. Guys, too, if you think you're ready to start casually dating again." Dancing? Again? Me? It's one thing to go back to my old salsa routines in my living room as a form of exercise every morning but... Going back to classes? When I know my dance teacher will wonder why he hasn't seen me in almost 5 years? No thanks. Then he asked if my church had a young adult program (I swear he's been talking to my mother cuz she suggested that last week), which it does, but honestly? It took everything I had not to scream, especially because God and I aren't exactly on speaking terms these days. But that he noticed and acknowledged that I'm a sad, lonely, socially-deprived mess was kind of...disheartening.

“In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.”
~Irish Toast

The above is especially disheartening. Because I've stretched out in the past but... I'm always left wanting.

So I suppose this could be interpreted as a cry for attention. And I won't say it's not, because it probably is. I'm just hoping someone out there in the universe will do what I've tried doing as a Free Hugger. I want someone to see the void in my life and make some effort to fill it. And I realize that's asking a lot - I feel like I'm always asking for so much in the last year - but why is it so hard to put my voice to how much I need this?

“And if you want to know the feeling I’m talking about, run your own fingers slowly through your hair, and pretend they’re someone else’s.”
-- I Wrote This For You: The Feeling of Someone Drawing You

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