i wish i was strong enough to have chosen so many different choices in life.
i should have taken a semester abroad and studied in japan. i should have gone to a college out of state so i could have started my life somewhere different. i should have left this goddamn forsaken fucking state back then, used my car accident money instead of getting a fucking mortgage in this shit-ass trash garbage crime-infested city.
but i could never decide, or i thought way too much about it, and i made excuses, and i decided on no.
i made a choice, one more changed mind, that i have to stick with now, and i'm fucking terrified. i'm not convinced it's the right decision anymore. i don't think i can do it. i'm having serious thoughts about running away. i know i need purpose, and friends, and family, but there is a part of me that is just screaming NO no no no no no what the FUCK did you do.
i don't know anymore how anyone can enjoy this or be excited by it. the more people are excited around me, the more i just want them to leave me alone.


i miss tokyo. i want to time warp back 3 months ago, never leave, change everything.

is it heartburn or depression
i have been thinking a lot lately about being human. not specifically this species but just being allowed to make mistakes. i have always been very hard on myself and unforgiving. stupid stupid stupid! every time i do something wrong. has the self criticism ever helped? maybe i am better at some things now, but somehow it feels like if i'm not the best, what's the point? and the older i get the more i'm quite sure i'm not nor will ever be 'the best' at anything at all, ever.

does being human mean i'll have this little burned out scar feeling in my heart forever? will i be able to accept myself with my errors and imperfections? people talk about loving people 'flaws and all'. i dont care about others' flaws - but somehow i can't seem to look past my own. i mean, my self is what i have 100% control over. right? so i can make it as perfect as possible.

the girls i draw have to be perfect too. because physically i can't. i've learned to -live with- the majority of my physical flaws - the worst of it is on my back, where i can't see. but you can make a drawing perfect. and things like 'accepting' and 'loving' your flaws.. the fuck is that. hippie bullshit. i don't hate myself anymore. but what do i have to offer that allows me to love myself?! yikes! i know all my flaws and screw ups, hard to love someone when you know everythingggg they've ever done wrong.

i've been getting that 'who am i' feeling.. tiny bit dissociated feeling every now and then. like, am i really here, doing this now?

are my stomach issues self-induced? do i stress out about everything and that's making my acid go in overdrive?

sometimes i wish i could be one of those people who believes in god or gods. little buddha, little wiccan altar. looks pretty, would end up being a chore. pinterest religion. tumblr nirvana.

i saw the license plate rek the other day. numbernumbernumberrek. i thought of her. could i ever forget? take your depression, humanize it into a character you draw, give it a name. i don't look like her anymore. funny how i made her immortal, so she is always wishing for death. i wonder, sometimes - and i think it is so - that there will be always a piece of me - dark puzzle piece - made of smoke and acid - water and pills - burning deep inside - that tells me that death is always an option. but now the piece of me that knows exactly how hard it is to accomplish is much, much stronger.

i'm not still alive just because i'm 'content' or mostly happy or generally stable and doing OK. i'm mostly still alive because i toed the line and i tried it and it brushed against me and it was so, so cold and terrible and real.

oh, god, it's been ten years. it's been ten years and i still remember what it was like.

i had this theory that every ten years something -important- happens to me. 1996, parents divorce. 2006, suicide attempt. 2016 - i think this is the most positive by far. i bought a house. sure 'we' bought a house but it was mostly me telling him what to do, making recommendations, paying bills, paying off debt, saving, taking his money so he didn't spend it on idiotic frivolous things. it sounds controlling but we fucking got something out of it. and now i can let go a little bit, but i'm scared because what if we lose it?
and i'm lost because what now? i got the house. i never thought i'd do that. how did we do that? we fucking did it.. fucking christ how the fuck... somehow we bought a house with $6000.

but i feel her clawing back a little now because that was my goal for so so very long, now that it's been attained... i was expecting this amazing high, this smashing happiness but i never peaked. i stayed steady then i got this hollow emptiness inside. like that feeling i get when i go shopping and i buy something i didn't need but something i ~wanted~ except this is on a scale of 960 sq ft so it was a week of emptiness afterward instead of an hour. i made myself stop buying things - started to try to do things for someone else instead - and i got a little bit of a high out of it for a little bit. little bit happy feeling like that feeling when i'm driving through the woods in the summer with my favorite song on. and then a joke and a joke response but i think it was serious and oh hi insecurity there you are. there she is, little pit.

no conclusion, this is just mind vomit.

i feel like people would have missed me a lot more when i was 19 than now. like, a teenager that dies? that's a tragedy. someone who's almost 30 and not really doing anything special? pfeh.

my art skill hasn't really improved for several years now. i come home and just waste my life. i waste my weekends. i'm too scared to change anything, to move, to quit my job. i tell myself i'm lucky to have a steady income, to be living in a 1st world country, to be able to afford little things here, little things there. but none of those reassurances really make a dent in the overall feeling of dissatisfaction with life. this is it? this.. day to day.. boredom, waste, nothing. why am i doing this again?

tried yoga. tried buddhism. tried alcohol. tried being sober. smoking, quitting smoking. tried eating all of the food, recklessly. tried being vegan and calorie counting. long hair, short hair, fat, skinny, fit, lazy, going out, staying in, reading more, drawing more... painting this, drawing that, digital, acrylic, watercolor, ink, calligraphy, markers, pencils, furry, anime, realism, pop surrealism, natural illustration....... nothing really kills the killing soul of day to day with a meaningless job.

i quite honestly feel like i've failed myself, that life has no meaning, i'm going through the motions, and not really enjoying much of it. blame it on dysthymia, maybe, whatever. the most exciting parts of my life where when i was suicidal, alcoholic, constantly broke, and feeling horrible, but at least things were fucking interesting.

the only reason i'm not trying anything is because i now know how much a suicide attempt actually hurts and severely fear that pain.

i'm still pretty afraid i won't make it to 28..

when i was 19 i was hoping everything was gonna be fixed, it was gonna be ok. when i was 20 and 21 i worked and i felt better and maybe i was better, i would do anything to keep from coming back to this fearful place.

but now it's almost ten years later and i'm miserable again - maybe i'm still miserable, maybe i was never happy? maybe i just had enough med residue running through my brain to stave off the complete dissatisfaction for a while.

i feel like i've run through the entirety of it. i've finished college, i've gone to therapy. i've gotten meds. i've lived with my best friends, and taken care of my favorite felines. i've traveled, i've petted tigers. i've gotten married to the only person i ever wanted to really commit to. i have a solo art show in a month and a half.
my family is moving away. my grand mother died, one who i wasn't particularly fond of. if all this happy stuff happened, and only a little bad stuff, i must be a weakling to be affected this much by the usual negative things that happen to the population.

in hind view i want to believe i was happy for a while there. maybe i was, i can't tell now seeing as i can't experience past emotions retroactively.

i am stupid, and my talent is useless and will not get me anywhere, and i will never be good enough. i ruin everything for myself, i can barely manage a 9-5 job. i probably have dysthimia which means i will make life miserable for myself and my family until i'm dead. i made stupid decisions for a long time and i'm still making stupid decisions because i'm scared and i always go the safe route. i could change my life, i could quit my job and live in an RV and just do art full time, but i know i won't. and even if i did, i know i wouldn't magically be happy because of it. my dissatisfaction from life comes from within, not from my environment.

i wish he could see. i wish he could read me and i wish he understood depression. he doesn't get emotional mental illness, just the solid ones - are you having hallucinations? yes, then let's get some help. but being sad all the time? nah. stop feeling sorry for yourself and making your own life miserable.

i'm tired of writing things eloquently in this journal.

the ocean is scary. it's deep, and you can't see the bottom. it's cold, it takes you on current. every death is lonely. every death i could have would be sad.

i'm here again, that means something's wrong.

i used to, do more
i used to, it used to try, be easy, letting go, or was it ever? do i even remember right?

you don't want me to talk to you anymore tonight. my phone is dead anyway. maybe there's something else that's greyed out, a plain surface, a flat sheet thin underneath my feet. things feel like they're changing but i'm really just too afraid to make it change myself.
do i patch this up? or am i just too afraid of getting depressed and falling into the deep and the waves overcoming, after being on my own?

Don't need the promise of heaven
Just faith I'll pass twenty seven

i've felt the worst today than i have in a long time.

alone, alone, alone, alone,
alone above a raging sea.

i step out and the wet hits me in the face, heavy rain and high wave spray. i wander along the shore, rocks rolling in the stormy surf, waves roaring, lapping upwards, trying so hard to reach, to reach, to touch my black heels, to no avail. i wonder how cold the water is and how long it would take, just for a moment. but with each high thunderous wave, the fear of death rears. i just stand there, eyes and hair full of rainy salty wet.

i wonder if i really should be alone. i wonder if you're turning me into this, or if i'm turning into this myself. i wish i didn't think of leaving every day.

i need to escape

squinting eyes
silence
huff breath
cold dust air
crunch crisp leaves beneath
shadows of trees, lowering sun, fading distance
numbing fingers, chapping cheeks
rusting throat
what am i looking for?

transition

a snuffle crunch, not a crackle,
cold snow underboot
candle highlighting
light silent flakes
huddled
waiting for nothing

i can never leave here

andromeda/stromata
andromeda : chained / to be punished by gods for beauty touted by others. not by own actions. also: constellation.
stromata : in part, strict adherence to religious dictations of marriage. also: structure of cellular/connective tissue.

there is a connection in there somewhere, but...