Absence & school concerns....

I hate not having a computer I can just whip out and post on. There is something wrong with my laptop that keeps causing it to freeze, which means that until I get it fixed (which I have been meaning to do for months) I am stuck using the computer cluster at school or using my mom's computer at home. Since I only visit my mom every few weeks (she's about two hours away from my apartment), that leaves the computer cluster. I feel really weird blogging from a public area. Not that I'm writing anything secretive, but it's hard to just write when you're in a cubicle with three strangers. Or at least I find it to be so.

My job. Okay, I got a job. Hurray! I'm working at the deli in a local grocery store. It's not too bad, and it pays better than cashiering, which is what I originally applied for. The only thing I really don't like is not knowing what/where everything is yet. But hopefully that will come with time. I've only been there a few weeks and I already know a lot more than when I started. The plan is to work there until sometime in May. Hopefully by then I will have a summer camp position lined up.

I am scheduling an appointment to meet with my advisor next week. I am really nervous. I very much want to go back to school in the fall, but I'm worried that I will mess up somehow. How am I supposed to reassure the school that I'm ready to come back, when I'm not even sure that I am?

I'm not the first freshman to have trouble adjusting to college life. I'm not the first student to come to school with a suitcase full of trauma and mental health issues. I'm not the first kid to have a parent become ill. I'm not the first person to be too scared to ask for help. I'm not the first one to get in way over my head. On an intellectual level, I know all of this. But there's still a part of me that feels I should have "just gotten over it" and "handled it". I'm probably not the only one who thinks that, either. And maybe it would have been okay if I'd somehow tried harder or if I had asked for help. But the reality is that I didn't just get over it, and I didn't handle it. And now I still have to figure out how to move forward anyway.

I think the biggest thing I am afraid of is that instead of saying "These were the issues, they're still there, but I'm coping now", I'll revert into doing what got me into trouble in the first place, pretending everything is okay and telling people what they want to hear. That I'll say "Oh, I had some trouble adjusting, and then my dad got sick, but then I took some time off and he died and I Learned About Responsibility and now it's fine." Bullshit. It's not fine. Just because I want more than anything for it to be fine does not make it so.

Did I learn things in my year off? Yes. But I don't think I learned how to make my problems go away. I think I just learned what they are. And while that may be the first step in the process, it is still one heck of a process.

I don't know how to say all of that in a way that will make the school let me come back in the fall.

Why I don't date

"I got troubled thoughts
And a self esteem to match
What a catch, what a catch"
- Fall Out Boy


Yeah, that basically sums it up.

Stress

So I am stressed out recently, in the way that you demonstrate by pretending nothing is wrong and distracting yourself, rather than acknowledge your brain is making you crazy. I'm home with my mom for a while, which is nifty, and I'm in the process of moving from one apartment to another. They're only about a mile apart, and the new one is a little more expensive, but it means I don't have to live with my ex anymore, which is good because that was stressing me out more than anything else in the universe. So I guess I should be happy that my #1 stressor is not going to be an issue anymore.

Except:
I'm stressed about having to rent a UHaul or take a chance with my dad's crazy old pickup truck.
I'm stressed because I don't want my mom to see what a disaster the old apartment is.
I'm stressed because the lock on the new apartment doesn't open unless you click your heels and say "Open sesame" and jiggle the lock to the left for 8 hours, and I don't want to deal with that tomorrow.
I'm stressed because my old roommates can't afford rent without a 4th roommate, and I feel bad putting them in that position, even though it's necessary for my sanity.
I'm stressed because I don't know what's going to happen between me and my ex now.
I'm stressed because I don't want my new roommate to know I'm a nutjob.
I'm stressed because I'm on academic suspension and have to talk to the dean of my college and go through the whole admissions process again.
I'm stressed because I'm worried about finding a job.
I'm stressed because I'm already starting to forget what things looked like in the house I grew up in.
I'm stressed because I'm scared I'm going to screw up all my plans for myself.
I'm stressed because I'm worried that I don't deserve anything good anyway.
And mostly I'm stressed because my depression makes me stressed, and I really should do something about that sometime. Hmm.


Having said all that, my rottie mix is curled up in an armchair, passed out, and my hound mix is stretched out across the couch, completely covered by a blanket I put on him an hour ago. Only his nose and his front paws are sticking out. So there may be hope for the world, yet.


Moral of the story: Life is stressful, but as long as you have this, things will seem managable.

Encircle me, I need to be taken down

Spelled out your name and list the reasons
Pain of heart
Don't call me back
I imagine you when I was distant
Non-insistent
I follow suit and laid out on my back
Imagine that
A million hours left to think of you
And think of that

Calm down, I'm calling you to say
I'm capsized, erring on the edge of safe
Calm down, I'm calling back to say
I'm home now
And coming around
Coming around
Nobody likes to but I really like to cry
Nobody likes me
Maybe if I cry
Encircle me, I need to be taken down.

- Tegan and Sara, "The Con"

The pain that's soon to come is so necessary, because this is ridiculous, but I am so afraid of it. As much as I would like, in theory anyway, to move on, the actual process is terrifying. I don't want to. I would rather curl up in my room all day and cry and say Oh poor me.


You'd rather be a bitch
Than be an ordinary broken heart.

- The Dresden Dolls, "Good Day"


I wonder what it says about me that all Tegan and Sara songs seem to remind me of our relationship and its demise, and all Dresden Dolls songs seem to remind me of me? Wait - I can think of an exception.


There's a war inside of me;
Do I cause new heartbreak to write a new broken song?
Do I push it down or let it run me right into the ground?
I feel like I wouldn't like me if I met me.
Well I can't stop talking for fear of listening to unwelcome sound
And you haven't called me in weeks and honestly it's bringing me down
I feel like I wouldn't like me if I met me.

-Tegan and Sara, "You Wouldn't Like Me"


Oh, this is going to be so bad.

Take a deep breath.

Most of the time you go about thinking thinking thinking about things, sometimes to the point of overthinking things. And then there's times when you find yourself trapped in a moment with a feeling that overwhelms any thoughts you could possibly have. The feeling that I'm going to die right now right this very moment I can't go on because I can't stop feeling like this but I don't even know what it is but it won't stop and I can't make it go away because I don't know what it is and oh God please let it be over now please please please let me die because I can't possibly go on feeling like this and I can't make it stop and I'm going to die.
And you can't do anything about it except wait for it to pass. And once it's gone, your brain starts to work again, but slowly. So you just breathe, and try to do everything slowly, and do something that is not feeling like that. Anything. And you breathe. And you are glad that it is over.

Just breathe. Slow, deep, easy breaths.


More on this another time.

You're the finest thing I've done, the hurricane I'll never outrun

What does it mean to refuse to be with someone because you think they could be what's best for you?

What does it mean to have one thing in your life that you refuse to risk destroying?

What does it mean to realize that if she's the only thing you won't destroy, it means you are willing to ruin everything else?

If I could

"If I could start again,
A million miles away.
I would keep myself:
I would find a way."
-- "Hurt", as song by Johnny Cash


If I could go back, even partway...I would give anything.