once upon a nightmare

2 examples | everyone's a critic

:: 2011 8 December :: 8.49am
:: Mood: giddy

Guess who has two thumbs and got kissed last night?

...THIS GIRL.

:: 2011 21 November :: 12.04am

My date with Justin was tonight, and it was fantastic. We went to an arcade and played hella fun games. We talked about Star Trek and Skyrim and reading. He picked me up, bought me dinner, and got me an Angry Birds stuffed toy with the tickets we won from the arcade games. When the night was over he walked me back to my door and gave me a hug.

I sent him a text message after he left to thank him again for the date and to say I was looking forward to the next one. He wrote back, "Me too! I'll be in touch. :)"

I'm trying to keep a level head and avoid the rebound trap, but I'm feeling giddy butterflies. I think I might really like him.

:: 2011 13 November :: 5.44pm

a new chapter
I've met someone.

His name is Justin...my friend Madison has been busily playing matchmmaker behind the scenes and finally introduced us at a video game party on Friday night. It went well, and he called today to ask if he could take me out next weekend. To an arcade. Home run, dude.

I'm...excited! Scared, and wondering if it's a mistake, and still so conflicted on Nathan's account, and afraid of fucking things up...but excited. It's been a long time since I felt butterflies, and I'm going to see where this goes.

5 examples | everyone's a critic

:: 2011 10 November :: 12.47pm

Nathan wrote me back last night to say that while he was willing to talk, he didn't want to be friends.

At first I was angry, oh so angry. But that burned off overnight, and today I'm just in a slump. I suppose I have to accept that I'm just not as important to him as I wish I were--maybe I never was. I feel like this is just one more situation in which he's running away rather than facing something difficult. When it counted, he was never really willing to take the initiative and fight for me. It's a painful realization and it makes me feel pretty worthless.

I don't know how to talk to him without being his friend. We know each other too well to just be acquaintances. And so I wrote him back to say, in essence, "Well, ball's in your court, then; have a nice life."

And now...I don't know where to go from here. I feel like three months ago I lost my boyfriend, and yesterday night I lost my best friend too. I'm getting progressively more alone as the months go by. And my horoscope for today read something like "The more connections you make, the harder it is to hang onto the meaningful ones. Your circle of friends may have expanded, but your circle of close friends may have decreased."

Thanks a lot, downer fortune.

:: 2011 9 November :: 8.43am

Today is the day. Three months have passed, and the silence is over. I just sent Nathan an e-mail.

:: 2011 17 October :: 10.57am

I wonder if Nathan misses me.

2 examples | everyone's a critic

:: 2011 7 October :: 8.23am

I think it's time to find a new therapist. The only benefit I'm getting from this one is the prescription, and she's just the go-between on that one anyway. I tell her things and she just stares at me. Doesn't respond. Just stares. It's extremely uncomfortable and I don't know what she wants from me. To eat my brains?

In happier news, I went to a Blink-182 concert, and it was FUCKING AWESOME. I danced my ass off, screamed myself hoarse, and nearly got hit in the face by a flying pair of pants. It was an incredible rush, and the next day I felt tired in a good, worn-out way and not a depressed, hopeless way...first time in months.

3 examples | everyone's a critic

:: 2011 3 October :: 12.28pm

Emo totoro
Nathan reads my LJ, so although I do tend to use it more, this is the only place I feel I can be completely candid. I may begin writing here more often again.

Singlehood isn't getting any easier. Rather the opposite, actually. Each day is more difficult than the last. It doesn't help that he seems to be moving on just fine. A friend of mine made me promise not to look at his LJ or his Facebook anymore, because I'm just torturing myself with the wondering.

Depression is a difficult enemy and it's really got me by the metaphorical balls. All I want to do is sleep, but once I get in bed my mind races and I toss and turn and wake up still just as tired as before. I don't eat unless food is handed to me, and sometimes even then I have trouble stomaching it. Every morning I have to talk myself out of calling in sick to work. I can't concentrate on anything, I don't want to leave the house, I haven't listened to the radio in months. Everything seems relatively pointless.

The frustrating thing is that I think I'm doing the right things, and I'm just not feeling any better. I go to bed on time. I see friends often. I keep up with hobbies I enjoy, even if they're not feeling particularly rewarding at the moment. I honor my commitments and continue doggedly going to work and rehearsals. I set myself goals and plan for the future. I'm making an real effort to take care of myself and avoid isolation and paralysis. But it's not working!

Last week, as an exercise in perspective, I tried to make a list of good things about being single. But I only came up with seven, and they were all variations on the same thing, and it wasn't compelling. So I tried instead to make a list of good things about being alive. That list was significantly longer, but it didn't make me feel better like I'd hoped it would. None of these things make me happy anymore. The best I've been doing is less sad. Which, to be fair, is better than nothing.

It scares me to think that these feelings of hopelessness and futility might not go away. It scares me even more to realize that sometimes I honestly feel I don't have anything more to look forward to in life. I've been depressed before, but I've never been frightened by it. This is the worst it's ever been.

I do want to make it clear that, although I am currently feeling like the scum of the earth, I have no intention to harm myself in any way. I'm just not happy anymore, and sometimes I have trouble believing that will ever change.

:: 2011 23 September :: 9.02am
:: Mood: sad

Today is Nathan's birthday.

:: 2011 16 August :: 1.44pm

Missing Nathan something fierce. The pain is just unrelentless. It feels as though there's something inside my chest, squeezing on my lungs.

:: 2011 10 August :: 9.23am

Dear interblag,

I am extremely sad to report that Nathan and I ended our relationship last night.

He wasn't happy any longer, I felt that I couldn't be what he needed, and we both have just been in long-distance stasis for the past two years, neither of us moving forward because of the other. We both have baggage to work through, and plans to pursue, and as heartbreaking as it is to admit, we were only getting in each other's way.

We walked up into Wildcat Canyon to talk and sat on a trampled patch of long, dry grass. I told him I thought we should end it, and he talked me out of it. Then he changed his mind, and I talked him out of it. Hours and many iterations later, we ended up in my truck, parked by the side of the road a block from his house. He finally said that what he needed was for it to be over, and I can't begrudge him that. I said that what I needed was reassurance that someday we would see each other and talk again, and he assured me that we would remain friends, after we've had some time to heal.

We kissed one last time, shook hands, and said goodbye. I watched until he disappeared around the corner before I started my truck again and left.

I am well and truly heartbroken, but I'm trying to take things a day at a time, concentrating only on the present moment. Nathan and I were together for five and a half years. He was my first boyfriend, my first love, my first lover. I deeply and honestly believed that he would be the only one, and right now it's difficult for me to imagine ever finding another his like. He has made me happier and more self-confident than anyone in my life ever has, and the person I am now is so exponentially better than the person I was when I met him, I would never have believed the change possible. I owe him a great deal of credit for that...it might never have happened without his support and his humor and his unconditional, unwavering love.

I know I need to concentrate on myself now, and figure out how to be single and self-reliant, but everything I see and do reminds me of him, and the pain of that reminder is constant and overwhelming. I fear that this will be a long, slow journey.

:: 2010 16 December :: 11.34am

Have I really not used this journal since August? o_O

Not much has changed since then, to be honest. Hachi is much larger. I've been working as an intern for Leucrota Press, which is neat, and although the internship officially ends on December 31, it may be extended until March. I write blog posts every week for them here:

Leucrota Press blog

Nathan still lives in the Bay Area. I'm still in Sacramento. It's still trying at times, though I look forward to the winter break, when we'll be able to spend more time together.

I joined the West Sac community orchestra in September, and we just finished up our set of Christmas concerts. It's so fun to be playing with a group again, and there must be something about the horn that draws in really entertaining people, because all the horn players I've ever known have been hilarious. I'm currently the third horn in the orchestra, and get to hear witty commentary from the first and second all rehearsal long.

I guess more has changed than I thought.

:: 2010 29 August :: 9.51pm
:: Mood: happy

Kitten!
Last week I adopted a little black and white kitten from a vet's office in Wilton--she was surrendered as part of a litter of seven, all needing homes.

She'll be 5 weeks soon, and she's the sweetest little thing. I've been taking her to work with me and she's a big hit with the kids, unsurprisingly. She's so friendly and curious and playful. I truly love her.

I've decided to call her Hachi--her namesake is a character from the anime/manga Nana, but hachi is also the word for eight in Japanese, which I find appropriate, since I got her in August.

Picture below! Read more..

The day before yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my father's death, and probably thanks in large part to Hachi, I'm doing pretty well. In his honor, I bought a telescope to look at Mars, which on that same day was closer to Earth than it has been in 60,000 years. It didn't work out, unfortunately. But at least I tried.

:: 2010 19 August :: 1.43pm
:: Music: Sweet Disposition --The Temper Trap

Panic attack woke me at 2:00 a.m. last night. Paced trembling about the house for what seemed like ages but may have only been half an hour--I didn't look at the clock again.

My sleep has been fitful and easily disturbed lately, which is odd, since I haven't had any sort of caffeine in weeks. I've been shying from the idea of consulting a psychiatrist, not because I have anything against psychiatry but because I'm tired of having to pay for medical appointments. It has not been a healthy year for me. Still, maybe I should. Things don't seem to be improving all too much and I'd rather not continue suddenly waking in terror in the middle of the night.

In other news, I'm getting a kitten next week, one of a litter surrendered to a vet's office in Wilton. I'm very excited and have already started to stock up on kitten supplies. I will prove it happened with pics once she comes home with me.

:: 2010 22 June :: 7.50pm

Some notes.
I've been ill. Some weird stomach thing that started in February and has been getting steadily worse since April. Blood tests have revealed nothing. I can identify no patterns. I've been on anti-nausea medication for about a week and yesterday for the first time was able to eat a little without it. It's frustrating because it comes and goes, so I never know what to expect; and it's terrifying because vomiting is my worst and most long-lived phobia. Of course being exhausted and weak from lack of food does not help my general mental state.

The truck is home at long last. I picked it up yesterday. The people who had it really did an impressive job--it looks and feels as good as new. It's so nice to have it back. I'd grown unused to it from driving other cars for so long, but even so, driving it feels like coming home after a long absence. I love this truck, and every time I look at it and know that now it's truly mine, I feel a pride so intense that my breath catches in my chest. All the same, the reunion is a little bittersweet. It's difficult to explain, but I feel as though it's somehow selfish for me to be happy about having it for my own. I used to feel like there was something of my dad in the truck, watching out for me...now I wonder if I've lost that privilege because I was too irresponsible and didn't show it respect when I had the chance.

Starting in July, my hours at work will double and I'll also get a dollar raise. It's encouraging to know that my work is good enough to warrant rewards. I just love this job, and it keeps getting better and better. I'm provided with lunch every day, now--we have a new cook, and if what's on the menu isn't vegetarian friendly, she makes something special for me.

One of my closest friends (one who lives in LA, so our only contact is online) has really tossed me to the wayside in the past couple of months. His girlfriend is moving back home to the midwest, which spells trouble for their relationship. He's been spending every waking moment with her, which I understand, and I really do sympathize with his position. The thing is, he's been one of my best friends for years, and I've always made time for him when he needed it, even if it was a little inconvenient for me. Lately, things have not been good for me, and occasionally I've really felt like I needed his support--but my texts go unanswered, my IMs are ignored, or I'm told that he can't talk because he's with the girlfriend. It hurts, and I'm getting really sick of having friends that are only interested in talking to me when they need something or can't be with their SO for whatever reason. I try not to take it personally, but constantly being Plan B starts to damage the ego after a while despite my best efforts.