5:25 p.m. - 12/18/02
!:the moment I decide not to : abandon me.))*
Can I say something that seriously annoys me? I mean, it is my journal, right? I'm truly annoyed when people have capital and lowercase letters mixed in the same word. For instance: CeLeBrAtE!* - which is a little better than most simply because it has a pattern. My main problem is I always go- oh, wow! what did they find? thinking they're going to create double meaning by emphasizing certain letters and having words within the word. Yes, I have high expectations, even for people who overuse emoticon. I overuse emoticon. Anyway.
I won't hate you if this is something you do. For the record, I'm cooler than that. Yeah. I rock.
So, the entire world (including me, of course) is surprised almost completely by the way I'm handling things. "Things" meaning Hampshire's (in)decision, which, especially on top of all that's going on at the moment, really does seem quite a blow. And you know, looking at the situation, even before the other people in my life started to say things like my response was impressive for anyone, let alone for me, I really did feel proud. I think I responded like the person I want to be will respond, and it's always nice when I manage that as the person I am.
I also think I'm going to manage to finish the semester before break, which is a gift all in itself. There's so much I want to do- no way I'll squeeze it into two weeks- but all the same I love trying to imagine two weeks where I can't think about school if I try. Where the only work I can possibly do is reorganizing my folders and crap for my correspondence class. Talk about a blessing. I'm so completely exhausted. I haven't been sleeping right lately. I start to fall asleep at dawn, and wake during the few hours of rest that gives me. I'm not sure what's up, but I'll be glad for some relaxation time, if I can de-stress enough to use it. I meant to tell the doc about that today, but as usual, I forget important things. I forgot to ask for my cd back, too, but I feel a little better about it than I would- because I see him Saturday. Saturday, then the next Saturday, to help with the anniversary and deal with the fact that next Wednesday's Christmas.
I think I kind of excited him today, though. He told me that he doesn't think I've ever expressed some of the things I was saying today (good things), and I told him that made sense as I hadn't realized them before. I'm seriously amazed with my own reaction to this whole deferrence issue. I knew I would crumble afterward, and I did, which is what I would want to do. I put off trying to figure out what steps to take and just let myself feel it, and I felt it thoroughly, just like I expressed to him: all of the "who am I"s and the "why aren't I good enough"s which he sympathized so fully with, and all of the "what is their problem? don't they realize I'm perfect for their program?"s that still astound me. Mostly, though, I was amazed by what happened afterward, after I managed to shoo away my parents and just lie with my animals and breathe. The one-word realization that clicked like a light-switch in my head, that I was being deferred by my future, not rejected by it, sent insight flooding in. By definition, I'll always be deferred by my future, and if I don't want influences on my life-as-it's-yet-to-be to completely rule my life-now, I had better start putting some of my energy into changing how I am now. I've made my acceptance into Hamsphire the equivalent of my ticket to a different life, my free pass to be myself as of August 2003, and that simply can't work. It gives too much power to all the erroneous WhatIfs that I don't want to matter. The board at Hampshire bought a few more months to try and realize how much of a match we are, but their decision can't decide my life. I need to decide my life, in a strong way, in a firm way, so that no one else can take it from me.
I guess, when you're used to watching me cry and shake and stumble toward progress, hearing me flat-out say I need to leap is a bit exciting. I think I'm too tired to feel that joy right now, but I do feel like it's a good thing. I'm the type of girl who spends her life on the edge of the water, testing it with my toe. One of these days, I need to take swimming lessons. I need to jump in and flail around, and see that- by sheer science- I don't drown. One of these days, I'll float, through practice and pure will.
He asked me how my I was doing with the "beasties" in my closet, and now I have the odd task of deciding whether or not I like that word. "Beastly" yes, but the jury is still out on "beastie." Anyway; if I spend the entire entry talking about words, I won't manage to say anything else with them. But yes, he asked about the monsters, and the struggles- an understandable question considering I described my state of mind as good in spite of my life at the moment, rather than because of it. I told him that the relationshit we'd been discussing had continued to mess with my head for a few days. (I actually had a dream that Billy had continued reading and mailed a contribution to the fund for RMM, answering questions on a form with coded references to recent entries...I was really upset about it in the dream, but when I woke up, I was more upset with myself. Regretful, almost. I don't remember ever feeling regretful about this; it's still very weird to me that I might feel that somewhere inside. I might wish somewhere that he still showed up in my inbox. Fuck. We aren't talking about that right now.) Thankfully, though, relationshit has been solely in my head; nothing awful has happened in the past week, which kind of postponed our conversation on that, as there are other issues with a bit more pertinence.
I told him how the visit with Silje was absolutely amazing, though unfortunately I still haven't really had time to talk about that here. But just imagine: She knows all the people and she makes all the jokes and she says things like "I don't care if it's eating-disordered; I'm not eating a blue giraffe!" and "Once upon a time Buddha was a kitten." She makes places like the fake-capitol-building enjoyable. At one point, I mentioned that we could probably sit down in the street and have a good time, except that we might become a little squishy from the traffic. Oh, and we ate meals together for the first time ever! And the place where we had lunch- where the waitress called us both "honey" which we decided was endearing in close relationships but condescending from strangers- had a sandwich that was *actually* called "Escape To Wisconsin" but neither of us ordered it. And the place where we had dinner also had something named for Wisconsin. A Wisconsin burger or something. We were totally shocked, and loving it. And she gave me a snake that looks evil but is really very mellow- he just guards me by looking vicious- and this guy at the capital asked if the snake would posess his soul, and I said no, he just looked that way to ward off attackers, and basically I'm rambling because, as I suspected, when I start talking about how cool it was to see her, and to see Someone From Rogers for the first time since discharge, I just get very, very excited. Except that I'm sleepy, and don't have this much time to spend typing. So...)
I spent the time I didn't use looking goofy over the Silje-visit talking about how it was upsetting to return to D!@#$%^ afterward, not by any virtue of the town we met in, but because it was so amazing to talk with her, to talk with someone I'm that close to, and to talk about people I care for so deeply. And she was leaving from her visit to go speak at Rogers, so that was sparking terrible hope inside of me. Even though it seems impossible now, I really was primed to just hop in her car and go, too, and I really think I would have (or I thought I would at the time) if I weren't so bogged down with exams this week. I was convinced that it was time to go visit, though; even though, having returned to hell, I'm not so sure. He asked if the pain had something to do with the contrast between her moving on to visit with people who would fill her up inside, and me returning to, well, this. And I said, partly that, yes, and partly that they were the *same* people who would fill me up, the *same* people who make me all happy and queasy inside, and I wasn't the one going to see them. It amplified a lot of my "I miss them and I'm all alone and I always will be" sorts of feelings. Even though I've been doing a really sweet job of fighting the isolation (as much as one can in rural nowhere, with no car, no driver's license, and a fear of the closest place one has friends.) My new rule of "whenever I feel especially lonely, I will write three e-mails to friends and (shut up) one to myself" is spiraling nicely into something resembling good communication skills. Or it would, if I weren't back-logged like a month on e-mail. Inch by inch, row by row, hey?
I also told him that Sara's really struggling, and I'm scared. I told him about all the stupid things I want to say that I can't say becuase I *know* how not helpful, and actually hurtful, they are. And yet, I just want her to be ok so badly, for both our sake's. It's not like I just want her to not have an eating disorder; I also want her to not need one, but if the ed were under control, she could work through the other stuff, and we wouldn't have to both be terrified that her electrolytes will decide to do bad things. I told him that she's trying to figure out what she needs, that there just is never any money for hospitals, and that I don't give advice mostly because I don't know what to say. So I listen, and I bite my tongue against the, "please don't" comments that I can't say, and instead express that I love her, and I'm here, and it helps *me* to talk to her. She knows I'm terrified because she's terrified, too, for herself and for her friends. (She lost Tracy, too...) That's all she needs to know from me. I don't need to make her decisions.
And like I said, we talked about Hampshire's (in)decision, and he seemed to dig all my oh-my-god-are-these-actually-healthy thoughts.
I also told him about the way my head caves in every morning about an hour or two after I wake up, which I guess is relevant considering that it's been going on at least since I was in New York this summer. I'm not really sure when it happens; it's either an hour or two after I wake up, an hour or two after I take my meds, or an hour or two after I eat breakfast. I like to think it's not the latter two, as my meds are helpful and I've been on them longer than I remember having this problem, and breakfast is a very good thing. Besides, it occurs no matter what I eat. But yeah. About an hour or two after waking, my head crashes in on itself, an image that he asked me to explain more linearally, but all I could come up with was, "I feel crazy. I feel like something in my head is spinning, or something in my head that *should* be spinning has stopped." I told him it wasn't fun, and he said in this really nice way that it sounded horrible, and I said, "yeah, well, it always goes away eventually." I deal with it in different ways. Sometimes, I just ignore it and keep up what I'm doing. If it's a particularly violent dissonance (because it *is* dissonant: it's like something's screaming in me but the room is silent, or vice-versa; it's suffocating and explosive all at once) I tend to go into crisis-control. I get ice or use lotion to keep from hurting myself; sometimes I lie back down for a little while. A lot of times just turning on music helps, especially if my parents aren't home, and I can turn it on loudly. I reminded him that music can always center me somewhat. Even in my worst shame-states, going to choir practice always alleviated some pain for me, in part because the breath control required to sing is so helfpul in fighting anxiety. But anyway, such are my strategies. He said it's interesting that it routinely happens at the *beginning* of the day, like I'm overwhelmed with what I have to face. I've thought of that before; it makes sense to me. Not like I don't struggle at night, too (usually when I'm home alone) but it isn't every day. I told him that is true for me, but I think it's gotten a lot better. I still feel like horrible things are going to happen (after all, horrible things *do* happen), but lately I feel more capable of dealing with them. He asked how that's happened, and I told him I have a lot of tools now that I didn't used to have, that I have strength I didn't know about before, and practice using it to my advantage. I know how to ask for help now, from people who can really give it, from the people I need to ask it of...and even though I can lean on that fully, it's still kind of a miracle to me. I'm still amazed that I'm really not alone now.
And also, since what happened to Tracy happened, nothing seems unbearable. Everything that hits me with a force that seems like it will obliterate is mild in comparison. Nothing hurts worse than that, and that hasn't destroyed me. So, I live...
I'm positive we talked about more than this, even though it was a shorter, and fairly light/intellectual session. But I've gotten so exhausted (I left during this entry and picked it up again; it's nearly 10 now, and I haven't slept well in four days) that I can't think. So I'm off to my bed, which has sheets on it for the first time in months, to sleep with animals who love me almost as much as my friends. Yes.
oh and- I didn't like the picture (and I think I'm more mysteriously-layered than I am locked below a tough exterior) *but* - I'm hidden beauty. in case you were curious.
love-
chord
*if you read the lowercase letters backward and rearrange the capitals, you can find "tree" and "cable" which would almost be Christmasy, if it weren't too busy proving how crazy I am.
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