Oh look, this blog still exists

And wow, I’m writing in the summer again.

it’s 2019. Still have the cat. Don’t have the job.

I couldn’t find anything after AmeriCorps. It turns out my resume was a lot crappy than I expected it to be.

I’ve been (back) at Starbucks for a little over 10 months now.

I moved.

I moved back out.

No more money. Starbucks hasn’t exactly lined my pockets.

I almost moved home.

I didn’t.

That was a huge relief.

Instead I went back to the place this blog all started.

My ex-fiance’s mother’s house. They don’t live here anymore, but I sure do.

Weirdly it’s a lot better without them here.

No offense to them, but I just prefer their mother’s company nowadays.

No one else reads these, I’m sure of it. So I’m not really offending anyone when I say shit like that. Probably.

So updates:

goals

Something clicked in my brain in December, and I put all my ducks in a row and decided to go back to school for nursing. I’m currently in three summer semester courses because I’m a masochist. I’m going to community college, which I used to look down on ( even though I didn’t logically want to, but I’m a snooty asshole at the end of the day who can’t be bothered to live in the real world until it affects them).

Turns out, community college people work harder than anyone I ever met at a four-year university. Most people are coming back to school, like me, except they have families and full-time jobs and mortgages.

I’m not as behind as I think I am.

I’m doing alright academically- I’m no straight-A student, at least not yet. I want to be, though. I’m willing to put in the work necessary.

I took a test today in anatomy and finished early. I went to get a coffee and when  I came back through the building to get to my car, another student from the class stopped me and laughed about how easy this must be for me. That I could just get up first and turn in my paper and not have to worry.

He’s not the only one who thinks that way. There are a lot of people who’ve made some side-eyed comments about my ability to understand concepts, to participate, to do well.

Fuck, guys.

I’m on campus 12 hours a day, four days a week, and when I’m not in school I’m at work for an 8-hour shift.

Nothing about this is easy. I just put too much of my pride into shit to get things done. I’m an anxious, depressed mess of a person that can’t sleep until I’ve turned in every last assignment.

This isn’t some god-given gift. I’m exhausted.

Anyway, I’m fucking proud of myself. I never gave science a shot because I’ve honestly thought that I was too dumb.

And maybe I am dumb, in a way. Maybe I’m not naturally adept.

But I work for it.

And I’m going to scrape by tooth and nail to get to nursing school.

Lover

I’m still a ball of anxiety and so are they, but it works. I’m way less attachment starved, better at communicating needs. We both are.

I think I’ll marry this one.

It was damn hard to get to a place where I could trust again, but I’m here. I’m trusting.

My love is my rock, one of the most wonderful, consistent and beautiful things in my life.

Cat

She yells a lot.

I love her.

Hair

It’s not quite long on the left side, but I have enough to make a pony tail.

Hell, maybe the next time I type in here it’ll all be back. Who knows.

Prospects

I feel like I’m always moving, always hurrying to the next thing. I have no patience for what life will bring. I want everything and I want it now.

My job isn’t great, and I want a better one. I also want no job, just to go to school and pretend like money isn’t an issue, even though for a while there grocery shopping was forbidden and I bought gas with the loose change in my backpack. whatever.

school is hard and exhilarating. I love-hate it more than most things. When I’m at school, I want to quit my job and just study and drink coffee and work on my laptop all day. I want to pretend that my feet aren’t swollen most nights from standing, that I don’t almost pass out every shift. I want to pretend that I’m not starving for something more.

When I’m at school, it’s like I’m already a nurse. Like I’m taking in everything I will ever need. All the nourishment I can handle.

Food

still hard. I went from 175 to 150 pretty rapidly. Still there, likely not losing anymore, as much as my broken head wants to. Still calorie counting, if just a little bit. Still working out 4+ days a week. I can see my ribs a little bit more. I like the feeling of being sick, of wanting to be too thin. I hate that I like that. I hate that I need the control of food rationing, of purging. I don’t want to be all bones, but an evil, wretched part of me wants to die hollow.

 

so that’s my update. I’m not doing well, not by any means. I’m floating on a life preserver at best. But I’m here and working on it.

Dusty Keyboard Syndrom

It is almost a year to the day that I’ve last written here. Things change, as things do. I’m still the anxious, rambling mess I was almost 365 days ago, just a little older. Perhaps more self-possessed? Excruciatingly worn. Forever hopeful.

Sometimes life gets in the way and you forget outlets exist, and then you accidentally click a link embedded in your browser and *boom* it’s last year again.

I’m not going to waste time updating people (aka myself) on what has come to pass, as I’m certain I’m the only one reading this, and therefore already know the things.

So I guess I’ll start where I am.

It’s kinda funny, actually. A year ago I was in the exact same spot as I am now- at my grandmothers, looking for a new job. Granted I still have a job, but it ends September 4th and I now have a rent and a hungry kitten belly to feed.

I’m about as melodramatic as ever. I don’t think that’s changed much.

I’m very into compromising for other people. I’m a little jumpy and I tend to overthink every action and response. I daydream about a the future, but don’t dare mention it to the person I want to share it with, because I’ll scare them away for sure.

I’m in a holding pattern.

I’m also very into bread. It is marvelous and makes me happy and therefore I will enjoy it.

Job hunting still sucks, but I’m more experienced now and my resume looks pretty dang good.

I want to go to grad school, but I’m not sure what kind of program I’m interested in. I’m taking the GREs in two months but I’ve only studied for about ten minutes a month ago.

I don’t really know what I want to do with my life, if anything I’m more confused after this year. I know I’m not interested in law, and that I am interested in medicine but don’t have the capacity for med school. I’m leaning towards Public Health, but also Sociology, and maybe still Psychology, or I’ll say fuck it and go to art school for an MFA and doodle for a living.

I have tattoos now.

I love my tattoos.

half my head is shaved.

I have mixed feelings about that.

I mostly miss my hair, but enjoyed the experience of shaving it off. Besides, it’s only hair. It’ll all be back.

My body fluctuates, but isn’t as big as it was. Muscled, actually. I work out 3x a week. I’m getting into weight training, though I’m most comfortable with intensive 30-minute cardio. Planet Fitness is amazing and I can workout wherever all the time, whenever I get anxious or fixated or just need to do something productive.

I’m doing better than I was.

I have a long way to go.

 

 

 

On the futility of millennial job hunting

The following  piece, while truthful, is full of self- pity and poor grammar. Proceed with caution. 

 

Things I’ve typed into the search bar of job listing websites:

• non- profit
• entry level
• food service
• coffee
• books
• something
• anything

results, over a period of about two months and 20+ applications:

• 1 interview ( job filled up right after)
• 2 responses back that the position I have applied for is not interested
• 4 confirmations that I had sent something in and “we’ll contact you further if we decide to interview, otherwise have a nice day”
• around 13 or so jobs never getting back to me at all.

Each job application takes anywhere from one to three hours to complete- I have to re-write my cover letter, contact potential references, tweak my resume, regurgitate the information in my resume into a form- all before I send it in and inevitably hear nothing back.

2-5 years experience is necessary for EVERY. SINGLE. JOB. I worked at the WC for a year and a half, so I have to stretch that a little further for my competency to even be mildly believable.

Two degrees don’t really mean anything. I knew this going in, and I don’t regret the work I put into them. I have them now, and even though they are more of a necessity than a marker of achievement, I guess no one can take them away from me.

But Dammit if I’m not a little bit frustrated.

It feels like I’m never going to find anything. Everyone tells me that I have to be patient, that applying is basically a full time job.

Can I even handle a full- time job? I’m so tired all the time, depression and anxiety turn me into a huddled mass of blankets and lethargy. It takes so much just to look at a website and not immediately overwhelm myself with my ineptitude.

I can barely get up in the morning.I have to exert a massive amount of energy- perhaps the only spoons I have all day- allocated to begging for a job. For a chance. For an email that isn’t just spam. For someone to look at my words and think that I’m good enough.

Applications on top of applications, hours of emotional labor poured into paragraphs never read by potential employers. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of scanning job websites and seeing very little that I am qualified for, let alone that I would potentially enjoy doing.

I’m not giving up, I can’t give up. I have to get out more than anything, and the only way to do so is to work, too save and scrimp and claw my way to freedom.

I’m just tired.

So to every other recent college grad who has no clue what’s in store, if anything-

I commiserate with you. lets be tired together.

life change list

2017 updates, to be expanded upon at my leisure ( or never, I get to decide).

• my 3 year relationship (discussed before) has ended more or less amicably. I was in a bad way, and then I was just a little sad, and now I have healed.
• I am in love again and hopeful
• I lost over 50 lbs. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this, but the main thing is that gravity affects me slightly differently.
• I graduated from college with some honors and two degrees. One is rolled up in a tube in my closet next to my high heals and binder full of receipts. the other is on its way.
• I am back where I came from, but I plan to leave as soon as I can
• I need a job

That’s it. That’s the list.

also, I’m not going to be posting this blog to facebook anymore. If people want to read this, they can find it on their own. It’s not really for most of the people I interact with on facebook, so why give them a look into my life if they would rather pretend they hadn’t seen it?

Welcome back, I guess. I’m not trying to be a bad host, the ‘I guess’ was mostly for my own benefit.

okay that’s the post.

On Home

I landed in Baltimore yesterday after about a week visiting my grandmother in Nowhere, Midwest. I was so relieved for the travel to be over, so glad to be home.

Except I couldn’t stop thinking that where I was headed isn’t really my home anymore.

More like a holding tank. Like the 2 1/2 half hour layover from earlier, but longer- with no time of departure.

I don’t think where I live is my home. It hasn’t been for a long time. I’m back in my childhood bed, with the family that (mostly) raised me, but this isn’t my final destination.

It feels wrong to even type that, like I’m  not appreciative of the free roof over my head. I am. I wouldn’t have anywhere to go if it weren’t for this house and the people that let me live here, some of whom let me live in the first place.

But there is also too much weight here, too much dysfunction that I thought I had moved past. This is a site of trauma. I have been deeply and irrevocably wounded here. The woman who antagonized me, who wrapped my life around her little finger, also pays half the mortgage. I didn’t realize emotional abuse was a thing until I left for college and saw how fucked up her dominion had made me.

So I left any way that worked. I grafted my damaged parts onto those of another person and sought refuge in them. A person became my home, and for a couple of years I thought that was enough.

But people are not built of brick but of bone. A flesh and blood human being cannot-and shouldn’t have to- be a home. It is far too limiting to make space within another person, to try to dwell in love, dependency and misplaced attachment. I have made my mistake, and I am scared every day that I will ask of another the same impossible feat. As much as I want the arms of my new lover to become my home, it is not fair. Not to them and not to me.

I was quasi-homeless for a while. I spent a few months living in the borrowed room of my ex’s older brother. My life changed around me while the setting stayed the same. My found family. They are wonderful, caring people, but it is healthier that I left. I wouldn’t have been able to move on if I had stayed.

I don’t know where I will be living in the next couple of months, let alone years. I have a blurry blueprint in my mind- potential roommates, some living expenses budgeted out with no real money for any follow through. My future is in question, and I am frightened of ruining  the blank canvas in front of me.

Maybe I’m still a little homeless. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places- searching for people to do the impossible and take me into themselves, to shelter me. There isn’t really an easy answer. Until I find my footing, I won’t really feel like I belong in the place where I sleep and eat and rinse and repeat. I have no clue when I’ll get out of here, and no clue if the next place is actually a home or just another way station.

Maybe, at least for now, I have to be my own home.

13%

This phone is at 13%.  Im too lazy, it’s too dark and the plug is too far away. I stumble out of bed. I reach for glasses, they are on my face before I realize they are yours. My eyes are too week to see through your lenses. Fumbling, I open the bedroom door. The light from the hallway is a striking contrast from the darkness we have been in for hours. You grumble in your sleep and turn around. I close the door and the darkness recedes behind me.

12%. The world is harsher now, as I head downstairs. 3:31 AM.

Everything is still, the sounds of my moving body disrupting this silent time. I turn on the corner lamp, and the living room is dimly lit. I promised myself I would sleep once my phone’s battery died, but I broke that promise.

Plugged in, 15%.

Sometimes I use numbers to try to describe how I am doing. I’ve been a solid 5/10 for the past couple of days. Fives aren’t good, but they aren’t horrible, either. Fives are just existing. I want to be an eight, but it seems unreachable right now.

I spent the past couple of hours being emotionally cold. If I distance myself, I can protect myself.

Don’t touch me because you’re thinking of someone else and I don’t want to have them in your head when I am held.

I am heavy, the sinking feeling began in my stomach, was briefly stilted by lorazepam, and creepily returns later. There is only so much a tiny  pill can do.

I needed to be alone, so I wrapped myself in quiet and refused to be touched. We sat, playing video games, for maybe an hour, maybe more. You said you loved me and I said I loved you back, and that is true. My emphasis was too quick, though. Too easy. As if greeting an acquaintance, not professing something deep that still exists. I know it does. I just didn’t feel like letting it out at all. Not right then. Not when love is so huge  it escapes two people and beckons to the wind.

I needed to research. Knowing all of the things would logically make me accept them, help me understand. I have a hard time turning logic into emotional response. I’m working on that in therapy.

I’ve already read the books, skimmed the websites. YouTube videos played earlier, when I asked to be alone. I sat on the sink in the yellow light, picking at my skin. It was maybe ten minutes, inflamed flesh releasing anxious pores. Better than crying.

I had planned to sleep in that bed, in that other bed. I haven’t slept alone in ages, and never because I wanted to. Tonight I wanted to, and that hurt. I wanted to hold you, but when the phone buzzed and the new lover said goodnight, I didn’t want your body on me and your mind to be on her. I must be logical. I mustn’t let it get to me.

This is all so new. Love is boundless and wild and I know better to expect it to play by the rules I was taught as a child. I want to love, too, beyond this love I have and beg to keep. I dream of silky thighs and soft feminine skin, of lovers who’s curves I have yet to explore. I reminisce about ex lovers and what never was between us, doors long closed creak open. I was always one to fantasize about relationships with multiple people, but that was when I was perpetually single. Now I am perpetually paired, yet these seams are unraveling and forming something new.

So why is it so hard to see you fall? We sit together in silence, but for you it is conversation, flirtation and exhilaration. I am not in the tiny chat box on your phone. I am right next to you, but we aren’t even in the same place. When you look up you see me wandering . You ask if I’m okay. I don’t lie. I am just existing.

You will not read this, love. I wish you would, but this kind of thing is not your style. I am not ashamed to put this out there for a few to see. I am airing my dirty laundry, and I am saying the things that I am afraid to tell you. I try to form the words, but you beat yourself up, hate who you are, a part of your identity. And that isn’t fair. I cannot and will not ask you to change. I just ask that you give me time. I will chip away at my chilly fear, fill the pit in my stomach with someting more substantial than empty words or logical thought. I will learn to see your love, accept it and find my own. I just need time.

35%

Saturday morning

5:30 am. Tossing in the sheets. His back is turned away from me, relishing the airconditioning. I fell asleep just a few hours ago, and now here I am, wide awake. I promised myself I would get up early today, but I was aiming for a normal hour. Oh well.

6:06 AM. I’m on tunblr, attempting to make my blog of borrowed jokes and pretty things slightly more enjoyable. A mural of Frida Kahlo. Some puppies. Self-deprecating humor. None of it my own.

7:07. I can’t lay here anymore. I sit up too quickly. Gather some clothing quietly. Slip into my robe. Start the shower. The water pools at me feet. I borrow his brush, mine lays forgotten in a different bathroom. Shampoo, conditioner, brush, shave, step out. I blink contacts into my eyes, my glasses still irreparably broken. Toothpaste. Spit. Dress.

8:14 am. Laying belly- down on the rainbow carpet. Gilmore girls prattles on in the background. I write, then doodle. The birds are awake, the sun is awake, this , too,is the first time I’m really awake. I’ve been sleeping in until 2pm all week. Funny that this changes on a Saturday. I ink in thin lines and call it art. My pen bleeds.

9ish. Frosted mini wheats and a banana in a bowl of almond milk. I pull apart the banana with my fingers and place it alongside the cereal, I like the peices to be big and well-spaced. Gilmore girls, the great-grandmother dies in this episode. I like the way the squares get soggy. I don’t drink all the milk.

10:00 am. I count down the minutes until the episode ends. Pause autoplay. Close my journal. Find Facebook. I am upside down, feet on the couch, skirt slipping towards my belly. No one else is around, modesty be damned. I read some blog posts and wallow in self pity. Why don’t I ever write? Why do I feel so dull, like everything happeneing to me is boring and unecessary to write about. I still feel shit, but I write anyway.

10:25 am. I write these sentences. Cars zoom by the open window. The birds are getting louder, but it is still quiet in this house.

 

 

How do people deal with having nothing to do?

I find myself in this conundrum often. I have either waaaayyyy too much stuff going on all at once, or there is a period of nothing, absolutely nothing happening. I don’t think I’ve ever found that happy medium for myself.

I’m restless when I have no plans. I sleep in super late after hours of snoozing my alarm.

maybe I go to Starbucks all day and doodle in my journal, plugged into Netflix. Episode after episode, doodle after doodle. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes I mix it up by not going to Starbucks, and instead stay in bed all day, doing the exact same thing. Doyle gets home at about 9:50 ish, we hang out a little, watch more Netflix, and I fall asleep well before he does. We both wake up anywhere from 10 Am- 2pm. Half my day is spent wandering dreams.

I swallow my pill. I hop in the shower. I dress. I put in contacts. I brush my teeth. I pack my bag. I go to Starbucks. I sit at the table I’m currently typing from. I doodle. I read a little. I watch Netflix. I stand up and stretch. I order coffee. I walk around the block.

It becomes night. Doyle gets a break and we spend short moments together, talking about his shift, his sore feet, the customers frustrating him, his hijinks behind the counter. I ask questions. I show him what I’m working on. We laugh together. He rests. He’s back on the clock. I’m back to my headphones.

It’s not a bad time. Sometimes I need to make space for myself to do nothing of substance in order to actually create something. My best art comes out of boredom. I get to hang out with other coffeehouse patrons. There’s this one kindly old man named Ted who can tell you stories for hours. Linda always has a kind word. Ricky hangs around on his days off. It’s kind of like a strange family here. So I’m not really sad to come to a space and do basically nothing. At least not all the time.

 

 

 

 

Time for a break, but not from bloging

Hi everyone

I guess this is the other side.

The semester is finally over. I scrambled around today trying to finish things that I forgot were due yesterday. I actually thought that I finished last Friday, but I missed some important things and now have to deal with my incompetence when it comes to deadlines. I usually am pretty clear with those, so it feels extra sucky to mess up on something so trivial that I usually take great care to meet.

Anyway, good or bad, the semester is over. I already have two grades in and they aren’t terrible. I’m really just happy to be done with this hellish year. being a  Junior was incredibly taxing; you’re so close to being done, but you still have a full year of work ahead of you.

For a great deal of this year I have been spiraling depression wise, so getting a real break feels fantastic. I was so isolated for a while there. I realize that I have become very attached to background noise, as I have a difficult time dealing with silence. being alone with myself was really difficult for me. I know that I wasn’t actually alone. I have a few friends, a partner, all that good stuff. It was still rough, though. Single dorm rooms are great for privacy, not so great for making friends. I don’t think my suite mate and I exchanged more than a few sentences all year long. I used to have the company of my partner, but since his journey has led him to leave school, I was very, scarily alone.

I’m back in a safe, noisy, loving home now. I am surrounded by loud, beautiful people. The silence isn’t nearly as much of a problem as it has been this past semester. Still, I find myself needing to turn on Netflix in those brief moments of solitude. I’ll work on that.

I have some really awesome news, though! My Jewish Identity Reader is all done! There are a few typos here and there, but I’m not worrying myself over that too much. I’m just glad this actually happened.

I’ll be spending the summer working in a lab, learning to drive ( I know I’m 20, please don’t judge), and hopefully seeing a therapist. More than anything, I’m going to try to relax a little bit. I think I really need this down time to get back to myself. I have a list of books that I want to read, a few shows to catch up on, a new journal to break in. I know that I can make the most of this summer by just letting myself be. No real pressures, no intense obligations. Just experiencing life at a slower pace, and enjoying my long neglected hobbies. I’ll also be writing here, semi- often, as a challenge to myself, but also as a way to grow. Thank you all for sticking with me through this rough bit of year. I hope you all have a wonderful summer, and I’ll be popping in to talk throughout it!

 

How do you deal with trolls?

So here at UMBC, there was a recent scandal involving some sexist stuff that went down at URCAD, the annual Undergraduate Research thingy that happens here. A really cool student was censored for having a diagram of female anatomy on her poster, and people got rightfully upset about it. If you want to learn more about the incident, read this awesome post.

Anyway, the administration, including the president (!) of the university, has apologized and faculty/staff has written a letter to show solidarity to the student who’s work was unnecessarily censored. Things aren’t perfect, but It all seemed like at least some resolution was worked out.

Than this *bleep* had to come and write they’re little “SATIRE” piece…

I’m just really mad. I don’t get trolls. I know that if I comment on the blog, they’ll retort in a demeaning and frustrating fashion. I know keeping silent is just feeding into they’re sense of smugness. I honestly don’t know what to do about this kind of stuff.

You’d think after spending some time on the feminist scene, I would be accustomed to figuring out comebacks, but I’m really not. I just never know what to say. so I’m going to deconstruct this ass****’s funny little article and kind of figure it out for myself.

The article began with an advisory note. That part seemed pretty tame, so I kept on perusing.

Seriously? A Cunt joke? The only reason that I’m typing the word itself is because it seems relevant to address this head-on. It is totally not okay to make this kind of joke at the expense of the affected party. Sure, the author sidestepped with the last line, but for comedic effect, not because they didn’t mean such hurtful things about the student who took it upon herself to stand up for her peer and combat blatant sexism in our community.

I want to begin with this huge chunk over here started at ” in addition”, and ending at “oppression”

How are student’s possibly capitalizing off of an infringement of their rights? Off of speaking up when sexist shit is happening to their friends? This is the kind of person posting that prides themselves on loving free speech and is anti-censorship, but when it becomes a feminist issue, they are willing to say that censorship is A-OKAY!

Dude, here’s the thing. People legitimately felt oppressed. They were silenced and humiliated at an event that was supposed to be a capstone of their achievement. People are actually angry ( I mean, here I am, angry as hell! And check the Ancient Studies Facebook page, you’ll see some very angry people there, too!). They are in the right to be angry. You’re thinking in binarism and you are belittling competent, brilliant students who spent countless hours on their research.

And that’s just the first paragraph.

I’m sorry that you think vaginas and Gynecology are completely and inherently sexual. You obviously have never heard of menstruation/childbirth/PCOS/ anything else that gynecology, a huge medical field, is important for. I’m sorry that  a human body part, in a completely academic setting, is still just a sexual object to you. You can continue to think whatever you want, but it’s not going to make it true.

There is so much more that I can pick apart about the post itself, but  I want to move on to the comments, because oh man are they a doosy.

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UGGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGGGGGGGG

how can people be so gross? this is literally an academic platform,  and someone jokingly sexualized nipples in a super skeevy way.

I agree, the author is too shitlordy to be an SJW. Shitlordy is a really good term.

I’m pissed. It’s not funny when it’s at the expense of a student researcher who has already gone through hell over her project. It’s not funny when you demean a bunch of good-hearted people who were  just trying to do whats best and take a stand.

It’s not.

Maybe someone else could have chuckled at this, but I don’t think it’s possible for me to find this even remotely funny anymore. Maybe if the author hadn’t stooped to picking on student activists, and instead stuck with discussing administrative corruption. But no, the author continues to blame the oppressed party for getting upset that they were oppressed.

I am so not feeling UMBC pride right now.