*peek*

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW. I'm the WORST.

As the Biff said, how can she stalk me when I never post?! Only ten posts in October? Pathetic.

Fail.

I just haven't felt any creativity lately. Which is silly, because half this blog isn't creative at all, it's just nonsense. And I should be able to do nonsense. I am nonsensical.

So you know...hi! What's up? How's life? Any stories?

I have stories.

Let's break it down.

Job

I LOVE MY NEW JOB! I was so, so scared before starting, afraid I was jumping in to something I wasn't ready for, afraid I wasn't smart enough, afraid I'd fail, just afraid. But apparently I'm pretty awesome at it, because they set me free to work on my own by the end of the week. Weeeeeee! Everyone is super nice, the offices are lovely, and I actually feel useful. It's amazing how fast the day flies when a) you're constantly busy and b) you're done at 4pm. It's like magic. So yeah, super stoked on the new gig. Go. Me.

Boys

Well, things are not as fabulous in my love life as they are in my work life, but we can't have it all, right? RIGHT?! (Please be to not comment if everything in your life is awesome, yes? Yes.) I had lunch with Vegas last weekend, and it was lovely, but I don't really get the vibe that he's all that interested in like...dating. He's a busy Phd student, it's fine, I still love the fact that we actually hung out after we met that one crazy night, and I'd see him again if he asked. But I'm not holding my breath. As for Nicknameless, I don't think I have to work very hard on giving him a nickname, 'cause I just have this inkling that he's over it. I have barely heard from him this week, and my last invitation to hang was brushed aside with a "oh, very busy, maybe later" text. I'm a little sad, but what can you do? If he doesn't see that I'm FUCKING AWESOME, then I don't need him in my life.

Health

Well, I've been going to yoga! I could complain that I should be going more, but something is...something, right? I really do feel so much better when I have a consistent practice going. As for my diet...not so much. I mean, I'm not totally in binge mode. So that's good. But I'm making poor choices, and going with whatever's easiest, and I'm feeling rather....grotesque. When I'm at yoga, it's hard to shut off the part of my brain that notices how different things feel now that I'm bigger again, and how I look in the mirror. But baby steps, right? RIGHT?! I'll get back to my good habits eventually, and for now I just want to concentrate on yoga, and not what I'm putting in my mouth. 

Happiness

I'm trying. I'm really trying to let everything good in my life be my focus, and trying so hard not to let the darkness in. But it's hard. I feel like there are two parts of me, the part that is living an amazing life right now and knows it, the part that is making friends and making changes (however small) and moving forward, and that part knows I should be happy. But then there's the other part of me that just...can't be, the part that berates myself for my flaws and failures, the part that doesn't want to leave my apartment, the part that needs to be medicated. Heavily. The part that thinks I'm worthless. But...I'm trying. 

And that's what matters.

Life, Disinfected

Guys.

I'm on a spree.

I'm so proud of me.

Last night, I left my laptop at work for the first time in ages, and when I got home I actually...did shit. I turned on some stand-up on Netflix (Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, Jim Gaffigan), and I went to WORK. You would not believe the difference in my apartment between, oh, six and eleven last night. It's like magic elves got their fucking magic on. 

Let me walk you through what was going on in one particular corner of my humble abode over the last few weeks, the hallway where my closet and bathroom are located, my little "dressing area". As I've traveled to Vegas and then San Francisco, as I've slowly run out of clothes due to my shortage of quarters and thus inability to do laundry, and so have needed to dig out every old piece of clothing I could find that would fit me...it has devolved into a state of brightly colored carnage. Clothes and shoes and purses were spilling out of the closet. The floor was barely visible. Hangers dangled haphazardly from each other. The cat would often be found perched on piles of clothes, smirking. It looked, quite frankly, like the spitting image of my closet in high school.

I guess I had devolved, too.

AND NOW. It's beautiful. All clean things hanging neatly and color coordinated. All shoes lined carefully in rows. Everything in its place, and the floor? VISIBLE. 

So that was last night. A full on closet reform, plus finally unpacking my suitcase from Vegas and organizing my dresser and doing a single load of laundry with quarters discovered hidden about the apartment. Then today, instead of rock climbing like I'm brave, I went to the grocery store and a) filled my new crazy pills prescription b) bought cleaning supplies c) got quarters and d) got groceries for the first time in months.

WHO AM I!?

TONIGHT: I plan to scrub the everloving fuck out of my kitchen and my bathroom, and do ALL THE LAUNDRY. I have made playlists, and I am READY. 

I kinda feel like I'm disinfecting my life. 

This has happened before. Emotions make me want to clean. I remember it starting way back from when I was fourteen or so, living up in the Bay Area, overwhelmed with something or other and feeling the intense need to organize. And I think, maybe, this is the sign of something good.

A fresh clean apartment, a fresh clean start. 

Because who can feel like a real, productive member of society whilst living in their own filth? No one. 

Back In The Saddle

Whelp, here we are.

It is October 1st.

Another month. Another chance to start again.

Let's just put it out there: I weigh 162 pounds. I have gained 20 since my lowest. I have not exercised in...awhile.

And I am not happy.

It would be one thing if this was just my normal weight and I was living a lifestyle where I was nourishing my body and taking care of it and exercising and loving myself and all that good stuff. Because I don't look bad. Much?

But I am not taking care of myself. I am not nourishing. I am not loving myself. I am abusing. And this is no good.

So...I just have to DO IT. I have to make healthy choices. I have to track my food. I have to put in the effort to take care of my body, and make changes, and move forward. Otherwise this will just keep getting worse.

I'm going back to basics. But I'm not going back to overwhelming myself with insurmountable goals and challenges. I'm not going to fulfill the definition of insanity by doing the same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Small changes. Baby steps forward.

This week:

• Go to my new psychiatrist and change up my meds cause CLEARLY SHIT AIN'T WORKING. (This happens today.)
• Clean my apartment because living in filth makes me feel even more depressed. 
• Track everything I eat because when I don't I can pretend I'm not eating that much.
• Get to yoga at least once. Just once.
• Write instead of eat when I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Okay, October. Be kind to me.

When you're a total cliche.

So I read this today.

It's kind of a smack-in-the-face moment when you realize you're enough of a cliche that the vast majority of items on a generically directed emo blog post written for the masses apply to sad, lonely little you.

Number 1. Duh.

"7. You are constantly doing the things that make you feel like shit and going into a shame spiral about it. There’s no learning curve… yet."

Well then.

When's it time for the learning curve?

"12. You find yourself complaining about the same things you were a year ago."

God, I don't even want to look back at this time last year in my blog.

But let's do it, shall we? It'll be fun.

Sound familiar? And this?

Oh hi, this.

Everything has been stagnant for so long. I feel like so much about me has changed but at the same time I feel like I'm the same as I was at 22 when I moved to LA. I need change. I need something. A new job, a new city, a new perspective, a new brain. Something has to change. I can't keep cycling like this, spiraling, year after year. It doesn't make me happy. And if I'm not happy, why keep living like this? Simple, right? It should be so simple.

I've managed to convince myself I've had periods of health, that I've been getting better, but it's not true. I've been two steps forward, two back. I've been suppressing these bad periods, and they just continually resurface. This is not healthy, it's not the way I want to be. I haven't moved forward at all.

I don't want to just exist, unfulfilled. I want to do more than that, I don't want to just be. I want to be more. Be a better person friend, daughter, employee, maybe girlfriend. Be a better friend to myself.  I don't want to constantly beat myself up and tear myself down and shred my mind and insides up. I don't want to live the way I've been living. I just want peace.

This all sounds like everything I've ever said before. I know this. Believe me, I know this.

I don't know what I'm getting at.

Except that maybe, just maybe, I'm finally hitting fucking bottom. Isn't that what I need? Isn't that what they always say? You can't make changes, true changes, until you really hit bottom. Until you have nothing left.

Maybe I'm there.

Because I'm fucking sick of this. Feeling lost. Feeling helpless. Finding the day to day a constant battle. Struggling against a torrent of loathing directed at moments of total normalcy, because that normalcy isn't what I want. Seeing seconds of happiness as precious and translucent because behind them is a dark emptiness that threatens to swallow them up if I blink too long. Sitting still for hours, paralyzed by complete failure to understand what it is I really want out of myself and my life.

My mind works in strange ways. My thinking goes dark at the oddest of times. I can't stop myself from criticizing my way into corners, worrying my way behind walls. And I just can't figure out how to stop myself from repeating these same patterns. Clearly, I can't solve my own problems while still wandering the same mazes.

A brilliant man, that Einstein. Did you know we share a birthday? Well, we do. So maybe, just maybe, if there's any sort of spiritual magic in this world, I absorbed some of his wisdom through our shared anniversary.

Now: how to change my level of thinking?

Suggestions?

Uphill Climb

I don't like going uphill.

I've always known this, but it solidified on a hike with Mantana, a hike she swore "wasn't so bad" as we cruised there in the convertible. She told me did it for a run, speed walked up the hill to the top then jogged afterwards on the path coming down, did it in no time at all. 

Piece of cake.

Or not so much.

I was huffing and puffing halfway up, took a few breaks, and by the time we were nearing the top I was cranky. Because I do not like going uphill. And I do not like having to take breaks. And I do not like feeling fat. And I do NOT LIKE UPHILL.

Yet somehow, I've managed to convince myself I like hiking. I don't really know what that's about. 

The metaphor I'm seeing here: Making changes is a lot like going uphill. Doing things the same, day after day, is going with momentum. Down down down, into my hole, making the same easy, self-destructive choices that I always do. But making good decisions, healthy decisions...those take more effort. Effort I hate to expend. 

All decisions, all choices, they carry weight behind them. They matter. I either have to haul myself uphill with the weight of my good decisions, or let the bad ones pull me down with gravity. But either way, I feel a strain. I'm just going to benefit positively or negatively from it, grow or wilt away, let it build me up or tear me down. 

Going downhill isn't easy either, you know. You start to go faster than you want to, you skid and grasp at anything for a little balance, you claw at the trees and ground and rocks for purchase. It's hard on your joints, going downhill. It wears away at your spirit until you slump.

So, this ramble probably makes no sense. But my point is this. What I've been doing, this downhill slide...it hasn't been easy.

So let's try going uphill for awhile. I can take breaks, I can get cranky...but why not let the weight of my decisions make me stronger, not weaker? Why not change my direction, and try to see the view from the top again?

Finding A Life

No, I have not been doing well.

Well, actually, that's not entirely true. In some ways, I'm doing fantastically. But in others...not so much.

Usually, when I don't post, it's because I'm lost in my own head, wandering the familiar paths of self-doubt and depression that I've worn down over time. And in some ways, this is currently true. But in others, not so. I haven't been posting because I've been...having a life?

What IS that?

In the past few weeks, I've only had a couple of nights spent at home, tucked in bed with my computer and my cat, in my safe zone. I've been out like...doing things. Dates, and plans with yoga girls, and training, and work events. I've gone out more in the past month than I probably have in the past year. And I just haven't felt much of a pull to write about this life I'm creating.

And that's probably because I'm still wandering those paths when I'm alone, eating and dwelling and beating myself up for not being morebetterfaster. Even when things are good, I think they should be different. I can't seem to find balance between my personal and private life, and the life I create in the outside world. It's like the second things change for me, even for the better, I can't hold onto whatever routine I've established, and I go off the rails. I can't seem to have my shit together all at the same time.

Am I making any sense?

I broke down in therapy last night. I feel fat and worthless and like the biggest failure on the planet. I know these feelings are unfounded, I know I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but it feels impossible.

What I need to try and remember:

I am happier than I've been in a long time. These things making me unhappy are inconsequential, unimportant. Weight is meaningless. Time is intangible. Life is long.

And that's what matters, my life.

And I'm finally finding one.

Broken Record August

It's the first of the month! Fresh start! New beginnings! Blahblahblah ad nauseum!

You've heard it all before.

I didn't like what I saw on the scale this morning. I don't feel the need to share the number with you, suffice it to say it was more than it should be but less than it could have been. My formerly loose jeans are a big snug on me. I feel sluggish. My confidence is waning.

But it's the first of the month! Fresh start! New beginnings! And so on.

I started out last night thinking of the goals I wanted to set, the things I wanted to achieve, but I stopped myself. When am I going to learn that that never works? When am I going to learn that I rebel against that kind of rigidity? I don't need a list of weights and rewards, I don't need yoga challenges and weekly achievements.

I just need to tell myself this:

I feel better when I'm healthy. I feel empowered when I make the right choices for my body, mind and soul. I am happier when I'm in control.

I will get back to basics: I will track everything I eat according to Weight Watchers. I will go to yoga as much as I want, not forcing it, not resisting it, just embracing my practice. I will be gentle with myself.

And I will succeed.

Back to Basics

Okay.

OKAY.

So, I've confessed to being off track. And this weekend I was intent on turning it all around and getting my ass into gear.

Instead, I binged. Fully and completely and with reckless abandon.

Le sigh.

I don't want to think about food anymore. I don't want to think about how much to eat, or when, or what, or why. I don't want to think about my weight, my pants getting tighter, my stomach sticking out like a pregnant belly, my arms jiggling, my face rounding. I don't want to worry any more about my health, my happiness, my self-hatred, my self-esteem.

I just want to fucking be.

But I can't be. Not yet. I still have to work.

Clearly.

It's time to get back to basics. It's time to rediscover the principles, the core tenets, the things that helped me in the beginning. I need to pretend this is all new to me, not an old familiar song I'm forced to sing again and again. I get so down on myself whenever I feel like I'm starting over, like it's something to be ashamed of, humiliated by. But it's not.

It's just life.

I woke up this morning and went to the grocery store. I got good things for the work fridge, so I should be set for breakfasts and lunches this week. I will get my dinners sorted out tonight. I will clean my fucking kitchen. I will get my shit together.

For the next three days, I will eat as well as I can. I will not track, I will not curse myself, I will not get down if I falter. But I will just try. Ease back into it. Rediscover the healthy habits I know I've had before.

Then August 1st, baby. It's back to Weight Watchers. I know what works, I know what I need to do. I need to track everything I eat, I need to continue with this yoga streak I'm on (five days in a row!), and I need to be gentle with myself.

Back to basics.

I can do this.

I just have to try.

Cookie Cutter Crazy

I'm going to put this out into the universe. Maybe if I see the words on screen, say them to you all, my ever loyal readers, I'll actually hear them, and absorb them, and take them to heart.

I really need to stop eating.

I'm not binging, no. Not really. But I am certainly eating badly, and I am definitely eating more than I need to be. And I have been for quite some time, since my Whole30, really, off and on. But binging, no, I won't call it that. So that's good, right?

You know what I think it is? Despite the fact that things are going mostly well for me right now, teacher training and new boys and fun times, I'm feeling so...unfulfilled. Unsatisfied. I want more of something, and I don't know what, and I'm using food to try to fill whatever this void is inside me. Instead of eating well and nourishing my body and nurturing my soul and making myself happier in the way I know works best, I'm stuffing my feelings down with all this crap I know I don't need, and I'm just carving that void bigger and bigger. Because I don't want to be happy, apparently.

I'm so stereotypical.

I just want. All the time. I want to be happier, but I don't want to do the work. I want more attention, and more validation, and more success, but I don't think I deserve any of it, and I again, don't want to work for it. I want to be thinner and prettier and better and smarter, I want to be more than I am, but I don't know how. I just want want want.

And right now, I really want a cookie.

Just Breathe

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

That's all that's on repeat in my brain, all day, every day. As I do my best to memorize the yoga sequence of a level one class, as I try my hardest to remember the cues that guide every movement, I just think of breath.

Inhale.

Exhale.

That's what will keep me steady, more than anything. In my practice, in my life. If I can just focus on my breath, the one constant I can control, I know everything would be easier. When I panic, when I worry. Just breathe.

But I get so distracted by the chatter. My mind won't shut up.

"Yogash chittah vritti nirodhah." Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind, but mine is always on overdrive, unless I just focus on the breath. But that's just harder for me than I care to admit.  It's hard for me to let go, to stop thinking of the past or the future, to just be in the moment and breathe. I'm always thinking of me, myself, I, what I'm afraid of or proud of or looking forward to or avoiding. I let the breath fall away and let the brain take over. My "chittah vritti", my monkey mind, it's in control.

This is my new focus. This is what will center me both in yoga and in life. Focusing on the breathing, taking in positivity, pushing out negativity. Breathing in the good, out with the bad. This will bring me  the kind of peace I seek.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Belly No Belly

I noticed something this morning.

I got out of the shower, and stood in my ladythings in front of my closet, contemplating the contents. I glanced to the side. And what I saw kind of surprised me.

My belly? Is less bellyriffic. 

I mean, it's still there, obviously. But it's just less...protruding? Like, where it used to be fully rounded in a near pregnant-tummy shape, it's starting to...flatten? Maybe?

This could be due to the lack of carbs.

I stared for a while. Sucked in, pushed out. 

Then I shook it around a bit.

I got dressed, and marveled at how slimming the outfit I chose is. I let my ego fluff up a bit. I strutted into the office this morning, and almost immediately got a comment from my Silver Fox coworker that I'm looking great.

Go me. 

I mean, I won't be winning Miss California or anything. But progress is progress. And we're saying bye to the belly. 

Tomorrow

There's a feeling I sometimes get when I'm alone, a rush of optimism or motivation that overtakes me, and I know I can do anything I fucking set my mind to. This feeling of power is intoxicating and exhilarating and all those things you want a good feeling to be. It's the promise of change. It's the idea of a new beginning. It's everything I've ever wanted.

It's hope.

It's usually found later in the evening, after a couple of hours of nothingness, time wasted, spent face to face with a screen. I get fed up with myself and my monotony, I get bored, and I'm struck with the desire to do more. Be more.

And I swear, tomorrow's the day. I get to planning. I make schedules and lists and I imagine all the ways it could be. Google calendar and I become great friends, my iPhone alarm clock is set just so. I plot.

If I could bottle that motivation, that feeling, I'd make a gazillion dollars. I'd never be lazy. I'd would never again disappoint myself.

Tomorrow's the day, I always say.

Let's see if it is.

Change and Chance

You know what I've realized?

You can desire change all you want. You can ache for it, dream of it, plan for it carefully until you're so sure its on its way because a + b = c and math never fails, but then...there is nothing. No difference. Your plans crash and burn, your hopes are dashed. You're the same person you were before, just maybe a little more disillusioned.

Because you cannot will change, true change, into existence.

Change doesn't come on command. Change is not something you can summon with a deep breath, you cannot call it to you like a dog. Change is more like a cat, when you yell its name it may look over at you with a smirk, but very rarely will it actually approach.

Change is gradual. Change is slow-coming. Change takes its own sweet time, it's on its own schedule, and you have no idea what that may be.

I want change. I have been changing, yes, in some small ways, in some big. I'm not discounting my successes. But there's still this overhaul I want to happen, this complete turnaround of my fundamental being. I feel myself aching for things to be different, better, brighter, but I can't quite make it all the way there yet.

Because I'm not totally ready. The winds of change have yet to blow, and I can't force them to. And the more I try, the more change runs away from me, just like a cat who really could not give a fuck about my love.

I can't fundamentally change my personality just by wishing it so. I cannot change my ingrained behaviors and habits in one day, through sheer willpower or force. I cannot change who and what I am overnight, just by hoping.

No, life does not get better by chance. Change is what we all need to grow and improve. But I think change has an element of chance in and of itself. The timing has to be right, your efforts and hopes have to align with the moon and the stars, your head and your heart need to be ready at the same time.

And as we all know, you can't control your heart.

So if you're like me and you beat yourself up every time you can't seem to push past one of your self-constructed walls, if you can't seem to turn something around or get rid of a bad habit or push past a flaw, try to be gentle with yourself. Change will come when it's ready to. All you can do is want, and try.

And this realization has let me take a breath, take a pause.

I can't force change.

It'll come when it's ready.

Defatting the Facebook

I got some sort of bug up my butt last night, and started untagging and deleting pictures off of Facebook.

Specifically, fat pictures.

I mean, it's drastic. The change as you're clicking through my photos, and it goes from now, and last year, to the year before, and all of a sudden it looks like my face is hidden, frozen under a layer in dough. My body looks out of proportion, too wide for my height, and it looks in almost every image like I'm caving in on myself, slouching, trying to appear smaller. There's a shame in my eyes. It's sad.

So click click, remove remove.

The impetus for this decision was the exchange of last names with TS, and the thought that he could potentially friend me on the Face. And then my Sekret Shame would be out there for the stalking before I'd get to confess, "Hey dude, used to be fat." I mean, not that that has to be some big reveal or anything. But that's another post.

Look, I don't want to entirely erase my past. Just...erase the parts of it that make me sad. The pictures that are so opposite of the person I see myself as now. Happy, and healthy. Ish.

Maybe I'll regret it, removing those memories from my digital trail, but maybe I won't.

And it's not like I can ever truly whitewash my past, for lack of a better term. Thinwash? It's not like I've wiped the slate clean. I was big for all of college, and I am not getting rid of all the good memories, every picture that shows me at a size I didn't want to be. Just the ones that do nothing to flatter, have no wonderful vivid emotion attached to them, serve no purpose in the FB-sphere other than to remind me that, once, I was sad.

And I'd like not to be.

So, yes, if TS, or any future guy were to stalk me thoroughly on Facebook, there'd be no mistaking my body has changed. But I feel much better about the image of myself that's out there now vs. the one that was there twenty four hours ago, and that's what counts, right?

Training Day

I'm up early, buzzing with excitement.

The day has finally come.

IT'S TRAINING DAY!

I've just been waiting for today. Anxious. Unsettled. You all know me and know my crazy by now, when there's something looming in the distance I have trouble processing the time up until that moment hits. I've been on hold, in limbo, the waiting room of life.

And today, I step through the door into a whole new chapter. Room.

Okay, it's not a perfect metaphor.

From here on out for the next eight weeks, yoga will become my life, and I cannot wait. Wednesdays I'll have training from 8-11 PM, and Saturdays and Sundays from 2-5. On top of that I need to practice at least five hours a week, but I'm going to aim for six. I can get doubles in there, restorative, morning classes.

It's not like I have other commitments.

I want to immerse myself in this program and get every drop of benefit out of it that I can. I want it to be as transformative as I know it can be.

I cannot wait.

Let's do this.

Welcome to...

Ah, June.

The first month of summer, officially. The month in which my yoga teacher training begins. A fresh new mois to do with what I will, full of opportunity and potential.

In June, I hope to...

...get myself back on track and end the month lighter than I started it.

...spend less money.
...post every day.
...be brave.

...rediscover my passion.

Winnie the June

Thank GOD tomorrow's June.

You know me, I'm just such a psycho that I absolutely track my moods and motivations with the waxing and waning of the moon, the turning of a fresh calendar page. I've been simply aching for the start of a new month, the fresh newness of a "Day 1" on the calendar.

I am such a dork.

I love being able to wipe away my misdeeds and claim, "Oh, well that was last month. This month will be different, absolutely." I love being able to just...let it all go mentally, and pretend it all didn't happen. Even though, you know...it did.

So today's the last of it. The last of the dark, the dreary, the dank and depressing.

No more of this.

It's time to turn it around.

Pooh Bear knows what's up.

My Solution

I've been slipping.

I have slipped.

I've found myself rediscovering old habits, old pains, old familiar secret shames.

I don't know why, I don't know what's changed. I want to change it back so badly. My mom has returned, my support system is in place. So what is it? WHAT IS IT?

Laziness?
Complacency?
Frustration?
Boredom?
Hunger?
Psychosis?

Of course, the thing is, this is natural. This is normal. I can't expect to just make some grand turnaround in the space of a few months, and never again meet the darkness that I've become so friendly with over the course of the last few years. Did I really think the addition of a few happy pills into my daily regimen and some therapy would make me an entirely different person? Did I think I was all better?

Ludicrous.

Healing is process. Health is ongoing. Change is gradual.

Deep breaths.

I can do this.

Spastically Shy

It may come as a surprise to those of you who have met me in person, but I'm actually incredibly shy.

I just hide it really, really well.

My personality is a lot like my writing---loud, all over the place, whimsical, witty. (Is my writing any of those things? I have no idea.) In new situations, I'm chatty, I make jokes, I laugh often and with great enthusiasm. I talk to strangers, I'm friendly to cashiers, I smile at people who cross my path.

But a lot of that is, if not quite an act, a "show", if you will. It helps covers up the fact that I'm petrified of being disliked, of people thinking I'm obnoxious, of being out of place in the world around me. I live in constant fear that who I am is not enough, or too much, so I work hard to overcompensate by being me, but on full blast. Nothing I do is inauthentic, it's just...practiced.

Wednesday in therapy the discussion turned to my childhood, because, of course, obviously much of my crazy finds its roots in sad little pudgy Taylor in her round purple glasses and Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt. As you know if you've stuck around my blog for awhile, I moved around a lot as a kid. Four times before the age of twelve, again in the middle of high school. I was always "the new girl". Always.

I spent my formative years constantly worrying about being liked. Trying to be liked. Thrust into new situations where I was the odd person out, always needing to prove myself, having to learn the new slang and what was cool and what wasn't. Always having to try to make people want to get to know me, try to be what they wanted. I've always been desperate to fit in, desperate to be liked and loved.

It's no surprise that living my childhood like that had an affect on who I am as an adult. I am still that desperate, needy twelve year old who just wants to be accepted. I am still unsure.

Just identifying this made me breath a sigh of relief, even though it should have been obvious all along. But it wasn't, really. I always wondered what it was that made me feel so different, what it was that made me feel so out of place and uncertain. And I think I've figured it out.

It physically hurts, to feel so goddamn socially awkward. To constantly worry about what I'm saying and doing. To spend my time obsessing over everything I've said and done. To wish so hard for people to like me, embrace me, open up to me.

But then, when people do, I'm totally oblivious to it, or I retreat, thinking they're just being nice for the sake of it.

I'm quite the conundrum.

I just want to be me, authentically, without this constant battle afterwards. I want to stop feeling like I'm constantly putting on a show, and just be my naturally sunny self without forcing it because I think it's what people want to see. I want to say what I feel and think without regretting it and wishing I could take it back. I want to just not give quite so many fucks.

Part of me thinks that, knowing that I am how I am, all I can do is move forward and try to change. Obviously I'm not happy as I am now, so I have to choose a different path. Maybe I can try to take a bit of a pause before I act. One problem I think I have is that I speak before I think, I rush to join in, aching for acceptance, then regret it immediately because I didn't think it through. If I do take that pause, speak less, quiet down, then maybe I can at least curtail some of my self-judgement, and know that no matter what I've said or done at least I gave it a little consideration beforehand.

But then the other part of me says, why should I have to change? So I talk a lot, I make random comments, I'm a bit of a spaz. Is there inherent badness in that? Maybe I just need to accept it, be me, and not care who doesn't like it.

I don't really know how to fix me. All I know is I want to be happier with me. And that's the first step.

A New Day

I'm sorry for my lack of posting lately.

I don't know what it is. I'm fine, or you know, fine-ish. I know when I disappear it's usually 'cause I'm at rock bottom, but this time it's not rock bottom.

Maybe that's why it's harder.

Starting over from scratch has an inherent romanticism in it. A purity. There's something so lovely about beginning anew.

But I'm not beginning anew. I'm just...being. And that has just seemed a little bit frustrating. I'm not totally off the rails like I would have been in the past, but I'm not being my structured, healthy self. I'm definitely not doing well, but I'm not beating myself up every step of the way. So I don't have to make some dramatic shift in my personality or behaviors, I just have to...reset.

And hitting that button is not as easy this week as it's been in the past.

And so, I have been hiding. 

But you know what?