Be Good To Me

It's official. My period/uterus are out for revenge.

I am doing really incredible things with my life right now and truth be told a boy can only screw things up for me. I just don't see any other possibility. Yeah, sure, they can be fun, they can give me a high and take me to a low but in reality, it's simply a distraction from what matters to me most. Right now, what most matters to me is building my career and my future in that career.

I want to check in with my resolutions, edit them for relevance and make plans and goals to continue completing my goals of self-improvement.

Attend a poetry reading
Get my camera out at least once a month
Run five miles
Have sex at least once a week
Try a new food/wine once a month
Volunteer
Learn to make a new recipe once a month
Write every single day
Lose another 10 pounds
Stick to my budget
Get a pedicure
Continue to learn my own nuances and quirks and continue to develop who I am and love myself unconditionally
Maintain an "A" average in my classes
Learn to shoot a gun
Go someplace I've never been before
Stop using my credit cards
Join a volleyball or softball team
Join the Economics society
Read one book per month for fun
Learn to make conversation with random strangers
Forgive every person who has wronged me
See live music once a month
See a therapist
Buy a good bra
Learn to sing in front of people again.

I have seen live music on several occasions in the last two months and have definitive plans to see more coming up.

My phone has acted as a camera through January; however, my big camera is coming with me this weekend.

I engage in a sexual release at lease once a week.

Last month I made beef stroganoff for the first time, this month I made cornbread from scratch for the first time.

I will have a plethora of time for volunteering over the summer. I haven't made this official yet.

January I tried mushrooms again. I will make a point to buy some wine before the end of February for trying.

I have been writing in some form most every day, whether it be this journal or my paper journal.

Sticking to my budget hasn't been fantastic but it is my focus for the rest of February as well as March.

I think I will see if Maddy wants to do pedicures when I'm in Seattle.

In terms of loving me unconditionally, I think my recent disengaging of dating has been a true testament to loving me.

I nearly have an A average at this point and after my extra credit project is done I should have completed this goal.

Maybe when I go home for a week this summer I will go about this gun learning business.

I'm still working on going somewhere I've never been. Maybe I can convince my mom to go someplace over the summer. Canon City? Royal Gorge?

I'm getting to be much better about credit card usage; however, it's not quite where I'd like it to be. This will go in with my budget focus.

I don't think I need to join a team but if it comes up I will be all over it.

The Economics society doesn't seem to actually exist. So I will make an attempt to find something to replace it.

I am halfway into one book for January and February. I will be attempting to finish it before the end of the weekend.

I'm getting to be much better with my conversation skills. I certainly speak up in class discussions and am less apprehensive about talking to be people.

With the exception of Andrew, I believe I have made exceptional headway in forgiveness. Andrew will take an inordinate amount of effort, mostly because I will have to learn to forgive myself for the mistake of staying with him first. I will never be able to let that go until I forgive myself...

Forgiving myself is what going to therapy is about. I had my first consultation last Wednesday and my first official meeting next Thursday.

I purchased three good bras and now have them in my possession. I also purchased shape wear.

Singing in front of people will continue to come with time and my lack of give a fuck about what other people think.

I will need to purchase a scale before I can determine my progress on that front but I have so far successfully been able to do a back bend from a standing position and back up with out a spotter and that makes me feel like a champion.

I am okay. I will be okay. Everything is working out in the end.

The Shadow Set in Motion

I'm a bit disappointed with how stressed out I feel after what should have been a day leaving me completely relaxed at the end. I feel sad. I feel sad that I have a month less in my perfect apartment before I have a roommate, I feel sad that I'm not doing better in my classes, I feel sad that it is so cold outside, I feel sad that this is my second annual single Valentine's day celebration, I feel sad that it's been a year and a half since I was with Andrew, I feel sad that I have not healed more in my time away from Andrew. I feel sad that I threw up tonight. I feel sad that I have yet to find an internship that seriously interests me. I feel stressed out that I am going to fail all my classes and school and life and I know how irrational this is. Is it okay to just allow myself to cry...a lot? Maybe crying a lot is what I need in order to completely move on in my life. But what if crying is me allowing this thing to continue to chain me down with anxieties and fears? Does one ever truly stop fearing life? I am terrified about the changes in my life. I am terrified that because I have decided that single is the best thing I can do for myself, that I will never find someone. The anxiety is debilitating. I started the day so well and as I continue the day in my own company the anxiety just creeps in over the course of the day until the cold and the dark set the anxiety as a hard ball in the pit of my stomach making rationality nearly impossible. Did I make a mistake by letting Ray go? Probably not. Nothing is permanent. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, keep moving forward and only glance back to re-motivate the reason for my journey, the experiences, which have led me to have what little strength I posses. Tomorrow will be another day and sure, it's Monday, it will likely be greatly difficult to get through with out frustration but I can do it and I will be okay because at the end of the day I am slowly but surely building my life, my self into what I know in my heart of hearts it can be and should be.

I am okay.

On Having Discovered the Meaning of Life

Today I took a huge step in ensuring that I will be able to completely focus on my self-improvement project in the coming months. I don't know that I will come to a place where I am truly ready to have a man in my life but I have to heal from the trials of my last relationship before this can happen and I do believe that even as far as a year and a half later I have only managed to scratch the surface of the pain I left that time of my life with. It seems as though this last year or so I have simply been settling into my life back in Colorado. It has been a whirlwind and now that I am settling into what my life will be here I am recognizing the need to face down my demons and not simply shuffle them into the avoid and forget pile but to actually allow myself to heal.

Each year flies by faster than the one before and all we have left is the ability to embrace change as not only inevitable but also beautiful. The meaning of life is to know what moments in life will create a fantastic memory and embrace them, knowing that each moment is simply fleeting. And embrace the moments of pain as the learning and growth opportunities they are. All things are temporary. It is knowing this fact that brings meaning to our lives.

I will be okay

Dirty Paws

I saw a therapist, today. It was nothing more than an appointment to gauge what my needs are as patient and who would best fill those needs. And just barely opening up about the things in my life that I'm struggling to heal from caused a massive meltdown. It seems like a referral to the phoenix center for the women who have been in abusive situations really just brought the whole thing back into perspective for me. I thought that I had healed when, in reality, I just put it behind a curtain and hid it away from view. It's so hard for me to grasp that this is something that happened to me and not who I am. I have a terrible habit of making it about me, justifying and making excuses for his actions I am bigger than this thing that I have experienced because I survived it having learned from it. And now I'm trying to close the wounds that remain and minimize the scar tissue that builds. I realize that he is not every man and every man is not him but somehow I can't shake that every man who has any desire to have a place in my heart will be required to climb the guarded wall around my heart and pass the red flag litmus test to even begin to create a soft spot for themselves with in the confines of my broken heart.

I Needed A Job And Here We Are

I want to take a moment to talk about my future and how I embody the person it is that I truly believe I want to be. I want to be someone who stands up for what I believe in, who isn't afraid to hear all sides of the story and re-examine my own thoughts and feelings, and someone who is not blatantly hypocritical in my own beliefs. This means that I can not and will not advise people in the terms of love to allow men to do the things I allow them to do to me. My range of tolerance in terms of a romantic partner has tightened immensely.

Moving on to the important things. I am going to be successful in my life and I will not settle for less than I know I am able to accomplish and I know I am able to accomplish anything I truly desire to accomplish. On that note, however, I need not be afraid to scrap plans that are not working and try new things. I need to never let spent cost keep me from moving onto something whose opportunity cost outweighs what I am doing now. Because in the end my life will be a fantastic story and if I allow myself to fall in line with what others want me to be I become dull, un-animated, my characteristics which make me who I am fall away and I become a shell of who I know I am. It's the saddest thing I have ever allowed myself to experience and I can not, and will not do it again.

I truly believe that lying within my generation is a new level of hope and idealism about what the world can be. There are so many grassroots movements across the country to step in where political leaders fail us. People who start community gardens on unused land plots so that inner-city residents do not fall prey to a food desert environment and that kids have an opportunity to dig their hands in the dirt and plant a seed and literally experience the fruits of their time and labor. It's no longer in the abstract but something they can feel and experience. Experience, really, is the best thing we can do for ourselves. Far too often we spend on things. We throw things away, we spend more to store them, we get fat on our things. Why? Why not use our resources to create memories. Memories are not thrown out when new memories are added, we are not constantly keeping up with the Jones' memories but creating our own and finding happiness in what we have instead of seeking fulfillment in those things we have not. People are creating bakeries, and gardens and playhouses and coffee joints and places to rebuild the idea of community because we know from watching our parent's and grandparent's ruin the idea of community that it is the epicenter of the survival or our society. We must crash into each other and learn from each other's differences instead building walls around our units and lapsing into an identity which is afraid of our neighbors.

I can change the world by building communities. I have finally come across the way that I can contribute to the world we live in and change it for the better and it is through city and community planning. It feels so amazing to be truly be passionate, still, about what I want to do with my life.

You remember, right?

I am in such a mood right now. Maybe it's the incredible amount of snow. I have no patience for Ray. If I don't hear from him before tomorrow I will not be seeing him again. That's it. I'm not going to be anyone else's fuck buddy. I don't even know if I want more than that but I am not going to be his. I deserve respect and will not tolerate anything less than what I deserve. If I can not be completely who I am with out freaking you out then you do not get to have me in your life. I don't know how to be anything less than who I am and apparently I am more than any guy seemingly is able to handle. Is disappointing, you know? It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me. Sometimes it becomes increasingly difficult to handle being book smart enough that I have intolerable quirks and socially smart enough to recognize that this bothers the opposite sex. I just want to be completely straight forward with people. I don't like dating games. They make me crazy. I don't want to beat around anyone else's bush.

I'm not going to see Ray again. I'm not going to play another DLR game. If you want me, you will make an effort to see me. Plain and simple. I don't have time for this. I don't have the patience for this and I don't deserve to deal with this. So I am not going to. Why should I? The sex is not good enough and you bother me too much for me to continue with this.

I adamantly do not believe that there is someone out there for me. Not here, anyway. And though it makes me a little sad, I understand the benefit of never having to compromise on my life. I understand that I have spent so much of my recent history compromising for boys that maybe, just maybe this is the best possible outcome for me, for now. I don't need or want an anchor here in Denver. I want to be able to go where I want or need to for my career because my career is where I will be able to leave my biggest mark on the world. I don't want to be in a position where I am helping a man chase a career and just making do where he ends up. I don't want that life for myself.

In terms of Ray, I'm a little relieved he fucked it up so quickly. And just as I was typing that message I did hear from him. However, until he initiates conversation with me again, I have nothing left to give that.

In reality, I don't know that I have much to put into a relationship at this point anyway. I want to a partner in life who is equal to me; we will do the same housework, we will contribute to the household equally and he will not put me in a position to resent him for doing more than he does. I don't want a man who will ever hold me back from doing great things with me life.

Tomorrow will be incredible. The concert of the year is tomorrow night, and tomorrow afternoon I'm going to the incredibleness a.k.a. Santiago's. My life is amazing. Things are happening that I never thought possible and I made them possible for me. It's a level of satisfied and happy that I never dreamed I would have in my life until I made it a reality. A boy can only screw that up.