The Star-Struck Nobody (or, That One Time I Went to a Blogging Conference)

I think I may be among the last to write this up, but I've had to take a lot of time thinking about it and processing and (as usual) second-guessing myself. 

A few weekends ago I did something daring and adventurous. It didn't involve sky diving or bull riding or mountain climbing or a crazy puzzle-solving chase around the world in 80 hours type thing.  It involved me getting into my car and driving to Northridge, CA to meet 27 other Catholic women bloggers for a weekend of fellowship, networking, and learning. 

I'm sure this post is going to be a little out of order because I'm still processing my reaction to all the amazing stuff that happened. It's an awful lot to make sense of! Also, this post is rather long. Sorry.

Photo credit: Jiza at Olive & Cypress

52 Lists, Week 17

Happy Monday! Welcome to my 52 Lists Project, wherein I feature one list every week for 2015. To join in with your own list, scroll down to the link at the bottom, print out your own list, and then share it however you wish!

Week 17: List the People You Admire
I had to spend some time on this list (that's why it's more than a week late!) because I believe that there is a large difference between people I like and people I admire. I may like someone a lot and love spending time with them, but I may not necessarily want to be them when I grow up, you know? Anyway, on my physical list I just listed their names but here (since I have more room) I went ahead and shared why it is I admire these particular folks.

•  Beth - for her bravery to pack up and move and change her life when it isn't how she wants it, her moral fortitude, and her enduring friendship
• Deneen - her hard work, positive outlook, creative spirit, and loving nature remind me to be a better human being
• Aunt Leslie - she does a hard job really well, and is brave and asks for help when she needs it
• John Green - for teaching us how important it is to imagine people more complexly
• Hank Green - for making science and politics a little more fun and a little more accessible to more people
• Neil Gaiman - for encouraging us to be weird and to make good art
• J.K. Rowling - for writing the stories that will live inside us forever, and for being a model of charity
• Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai - girl warriors
• My friend Harriet - who lived her whole entire life

This week I will honor someone I admire by...
finally sending a letter back to Beth!

So there's my list for this week. I've mentioned my friend Harriet before and I should really dedicate an entire post to her story, because it had a really big impact on my life and my writing. 

What about you? Who are the people in your life and in the world that you admire, look up to, and aspire to be like? Let me know in comments or with a list of your own! 

Love,

Willow

For more fun with 52 Lists, click down on "52 Lists" in the little categories section at the bottom of the post, and go over to Moorea Seal's site to see more!

Check out Moorea Seal's entire project at her blog below:
http://www.moorea-seal.com/p/52-lists.html  
 
 

Adventures in Online Dating

I can't believe I just typed that title. Here we go...

This is a stupidly long post so I've broken it up with funny pictures from my Pinterest. Some of them are relevant and some of them are totally not. I've sourced below each pic.

May Have Mercy

Source: helenkorpa Flikr

May has only been here for 9 days, but - as I predicted over a month ago - it's been a shit-show.  One bloody thing after another. Fate just won't give up and seems determined to pummel me.

From having no money (seriously, my checking account is beyond overdrawn), and minimal job prospects (who wants to hire a 22 year old college drop-outwith no degree or credentials or lengthy experience in anything? No one.) and my mother being more malicious and vindictive than usual, this month's got it in for me. As in, I don't see myself living past 22 anymore.  I mean, my initial freak-out last month was more panic than anything, but after today. . .

I don't understand how my mother can say the things she says to me.  She seems to make it her life's work to make me feel as small and worthless as possible at every opportunity.  I don't understand how someone who is supposed to love me can say such cruel, painful, paralyzing things and then walk away like I'm nothing more than a problem that won't fix itself.  The things she said this afternoon - saying I'm useless, that I need to quit wallowing and do something productive, that I don't have an excuse for not doing things, and criticizing my cleaning skills (neglecting the fact that I live with a 50 year old man who doesn't understand the concept of cleaning up after himself) - were hurtful to say the least.  The tone in her voice though, like I was something less than human she was disgusted with. . . That left me nearly catatonic but for tears when she finally left.

I sought consolation from my brother, who sympathized but wasn't comforting.  All he said was that as long as I live somewhere where she foots the bill, I have to suck it up and deal. He also admitted that, considering my income and the money I owe various peoples and organizations, I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future.

At the rate Life keeps piling shit on me, I expect Hell will break loose by my birthday - but again, at this rate, I don't think I'll stick around to see it.


Tonight I'll just content myself with a few more scars.

“And I hide because there’s more to me than what you see and I’m not sure you’d like the rest. I know that sometimes, I don’t like the rest.”

—	I Wrote This For You: The Remaining Mirrors

Out of the Darkness

Alright, folks, I've got some big news. I've been kind of secretive for the last year, but I've been looking for a cause. Yes, yes, I'm a Free Hugger, but that's not really a "cause" so much as it's a movement and I don't feel about getting into the discussion of those differences. What I'm saying is, I've found it, and I'm stunned at how perfect it is.

As someone who's been living with diagnosed depression for over 2 years now (not to mention living with it undiagnosed for almost 12 years) and gone through the hospitalization and medication and therapy and blah blah blah, I'm kind of shocked how long it took me to find this organization - especially when I've been directly & indirectly benefiting from their influence for the duration of my treatment.

May I introduce: Out of the Darkness: The Overnight. 18 miles through the streets of San Francisco in one night. We're walking for the people we love who struggle with depression, the ones we've lost to suicide, and every single soul that resists the temptation to give up every day. I cried when I found this, because it reminded me that I am not the only one who struggles and that there is an army of people out there who come together to offer each other support.

SO! I'm taking donations. It costs $1000 to participate as a walker (I even joined a team! Team Death is No Parenthesis - from the e.e. cummings poem) plus the registration fee and airfare to get up to San Francisco in the first place. That said, I've been using my position as the Free Hugs Girl to further my cause. I'm there every Sunday anyway, and I have a modest following already, so I might as well commandeer their assistance. Drumroll!

Day 1 in Claremont and the conclusion of my first week of fundraising has elicited a total of: $54.52!!! I've committed myself to $20 a week and all the change I collect to this project, so the total donations I've received from strangers comes to $30.98, which is still awesome! As soon as I register I'll have an online donor page, and I know some of you have already made pledges to my cause, but every little bit helps! This cause has become so important to me in the last couple of weeks... It's put on by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which is an organization that supports programs like the Trevor Project, clinics and early-diagnosis centers at universities across America, and various other programs that save lives every single day.

I'll be posting more next week, with an update on my fundraising status and all the ways I'm getting ready for this. I have 14 weeks until the walk, which is June 9-10. Until then, anyone have any fundraising ideas for me???

February 15th

So I was going to do one of two things tonight:

1.) Post a blog about how important love is and use a bunch of lovey-dovey quotes that I've spent years collecting along with a bunch of pretty pictures about people's shadows holding hands and rant about how I still believe in love and that I'm not jaded or bitter about the fact that I'm single.

or...

2.) Post a blog about how stupid this Hallmark Holiday is and how it's stupid to focus on showing how much you love someone on one day as opposed to every other day of the year and how this is a scam on the part of greeting card companies, florists, and candymakers designed to make millions of dollars and make single people miserable.

BUT

Instead I'm knitting and reading fanfiction and eating Cheez-Its and letting myself be okay with my alone-ness. Because even without the over-use of hearts in the world today, this day really sucked. So I'll blog tomorrow.


Cheers,

Willow

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