Perpetual Smile

I’ve always had a hard time admitting when something is too hard or when I need help. I’m stubborn and fiercely independent. I also tend to get hit with big ideas and goals, and then I jump into them without thinking them through.

During the last couple of months, I’ve constantly felt as if I could barely keep my head above the water. It wasn’t just school. It was also work, my health problems, my relationship with Mike, and a deep inner yearning to toss everything away and get back to writing. Every aspect of my life suffered, and I with it. I kept trying to ignore the problem, kept trying to look at the bright side. “I can do this,” I’d tell myself, and with renewed strength I’d plow on through. But several days later I would be back in the same position, tired from all of the swimming and barely avoiding the waves of my To Do list from pulling me completely under.

Tuesday night I did not sleep. My legs were wrecked with a pain so intense that I could not do anything other than toss and turn. I wanted to scream, but the people in my house slept soundly around me. I lay there for hours, trapped in a prison that is supposed to be my body, until I finally threw the covers back and got up. I did a lot of bitching on Facebook, which I sort of regret (but only because I don’t like showing any kind of weakness).

I popped in the last DVD of Dollhouse Season 1 and watched “Epitaph One” and the original unaired pilot. I watched a whole bunch of special features. And still the pain wore on. I could barely concentrate, and although I felt so tired, I could not fall asleep. Pain like that is maddening, and I didn’t think I could stand another minute of it.

I logged into Facebook again, wandering around aimlessly, when Mike messaged me. He couldn’t sleep either. We had each been awake for hours, fighting our demons alone, but a simple website had allowed us to come together. We talked on the phone for a long time, sharing our thoughts and soothing each other. I asked him the question that I have been longing to ask but too proud to put into words: “Why is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know. I wish I had an answer,” he said, and I could hear in his voice the frustration and pain he felt for me.

We talked some more, and suddenly the conversation turned to school. Suddenly, I could no longer hide the sensation of drowning that I had been feeling for the last couple of months. “I don’t even know where I’m going to be in five years,” I said, possibly unnecessarily morbidly. I confessed how stressed out I’m feeling, and how I just can’t seem to stay ahead or even on track of everything.

“Well,” he said. “I’m not saying this is what you should do, but maybe you should think about dropping out. Take the time to concentrate on finding out what’s wrong. You can always go back.”

There. He’d said the words that I’d been too stubborn to even think about, but had known deep in my heart for several weeks.

“But, I don’t know if it will affect my GPA,” I said, still stubbornly clinging.

“Screw the GPA,” he said. “It’s just a GPA.”

(Twenty-four hours later, my mom and I would have the same conversation, and she would say the exact thing he had: “It’s just a GPA.”)

“Just think about it,” he said. “School will always be there.”

For the next several hours, while I lay in bed not sleeping, and then when I barely slept tossing and turning, I thought about it. I admitted to myself that the stress of all the things I had stubbornly taken on might be making things worse. I admitted that I’m doing horribly in school and that at this point it is probably too late. I admitted that I needed to really concentrate on me, and that only then would I be able to do well in school.

After talking to my mom and then thinking about it a little more, I decided to do what my heart has wanted to do for several weeks now. I began the withdrawal process yesterday, and already I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted from me.

I have promised myself that I am not going to do this to myself again. I’m not going to jump into an idea that sounds awesome without thinking it through first. I’m going to learn to concentrate on one or two things at a time, without overloading myself. I’m going to take care of myself and find a way to find out what it wrong with me. I’m going to stop taking on so much that I end up burning myself out.

And, more importantly, I’m going to do what I love: I’m going to spend the entire month of November writing a novel without worrying about exams and portfolios and lesson plans and math.

I have taken the first step: I’ve admitted that, while I do really love kids, I’ve had doubts about becoming a teacher and going through this program. While I like school, it’s been incredibly stressful for me and I just honestly can’t handle it right now.

And that is okay. Just hearing it from Mike and Mom, that it’s okay, makes it easier for me to believe.

It’s okay, and I’m going to be okay.

As sick as I am of hearing about Michael Jackson being dead and all that, some of the things that people have been saying just kill me. You’ve got the people who idolize him, even though the dude was totally messed up in the head and was a pedophile. Yes. In this day and age, we idolize pedophiles. Because I’m sorry, the man admitted himself that he slept in the same bed with little kids. And if he could admit to that, who knows what else he did. It’s my firm belief that kids don’t lie, unless they want a cookie. They don’t lie about being molested.

Anyway.

You’ve got the people who write poetry about his death, the people who forgot entirely that Farrah Fawcett died too, and the people who brought racial condescension into the conversation:

Yes. He went there. “Whites will never understand.” WHITES. Like sheep. Like white people are stupid. Like they just don’t get that the guy’s music brought together a whole mess of people and made them happy. Like Michael Jackson is just above and behind the intelligence of the average white person.

I spent two years in a school system where the darker you were, the better you were considered to be. And I hate that kind of mindset, in anyone. I cannot understand why, in 2009, people are still being treated like they are nothing because of the color of their skin, or the religion of their choice.

Maybe I’m white, but at least I know to stay away from child molesters.

PS: Ed McMahon and Billy Mays also died, people. Show some damn respect and tweet about them, too!

I spent the last half of yesterday cleaning, organizing, and going through my books, memories (journals, yearbook, etc), and files. This wouldn’t be such a big deal for most people, but since I live with four to six other people in a one bedroom apartment, it is huge for me. Let me back up.

A little over four years ago I was living with my parents in a three bedroom apartment down the street from my grandparents’ house. To make a really, really long story short, we got evicted even though we had done nothing wrong. You can say we had bad luck with landlords for a while there. Anyway, we literally had no time to find a new place so we packed up our stuff, put most of it into storage, and moved in with my grandparents. My grandparents’ house is a three-family house, with my great-grandmother on the first floor, my great-aunt on the second floor, and my grandparents on the third floor. My parents moved their stuff into my great-grandmother’s living room, and my little sister and I moved our stuff into my grandparents’ dining and living rooms. We were only supposed to stay for a couple of weeks, but four years and some financial issues later, we’re still here. It’s crowded and not what the writers of Full House made it all out to be, but there’s a roof over our heads.

A few days ago my grandparents’ forty-something-year-old refrigerator burnt out — literally. If my grandfather hadn’t touched the electrical socket the fridge was plugged into and noticed it was burning hot (the plastic was melting!), I probably wouldn’t be blogging right now. My grandparents had just come home and my sister, Mom, and I were watching Wall-E, so we hadn’t noticed the burnt motor smell.

So last night we moved the old fridge out and brought the fridge Mike’s mom gave to us home and upstairs. While all that was going on, I decided it was probably a good time to do what I’d been wanting to do: organize all of my books into one storage bin and clean some of the dust off of everything in the dining and living rooms. I’d already hurt my neck carrying my laptop in a backpack on Sunday, so by the time I got finished last night my back and neck were in agony. I took the last 70mg of my amitriptyline to get some sleep and hopefully some pain relief, and passed out.

When I woke up this morning, I felt a little dizzy and groggy but I thought that was normal for amitriptyline. I felt better after getting moving and eating, but I still felt pretty out of it. I took some Zyrtec, since it’s the only thing that’s been helping with my allergies, and left for work. Not long after I got to work I started feeling really woozy, dizzy, and just completely out of this world. I’m super stubborn when it comes to work; if I don’t feel good, I usually try to stick it out as long as I can. I was also determined to finish the website I was working on before I left, so I tried to ignore the dizzy attacks.

It wasn’t working very well. I couldn’t stand, and no matter what I did it just didn’t get any better. I put everything into finishing the website, and then called it quits. I had Mike come get me and my Sunfire is still downtown in the parking lot. I hope she isn’t too mad at me.

I spent the early afternoon in the recliner, and the catnap I took helped a little. I’m still getting dizzy now and then but the worst of it has passed, I think.

I did learn an important lesson, though: Next time, ask Mom first.

It annoys me when people blog and do one (or both) of these things: close comments, or leave comments open but don’t respond to any of them. It’s haughty, and it makes me laugh at you.

I mean, I know we are all busy. I work two jobs, do freelance web design, run a not-for-profit, and work with my aunt on stuff for her business. I also attempt to have a life and spend time with my friends, family, and boyfriend. Sometimes, I even sleep. I totally get it if you would rather sleep than respond to my comment. Sometimes, I would rather sleep than respond to comments. But what, pray tell, is the point in blogging if you’re not going to interact with any of your cult followers readers? If someone takes the time to leave a comment on your blog and interact with you, you’d better be damn sure that you at least reply and say thanks.

And the people who completely close off comments? You just make no damn sense. Do you enjoy talking to yourselves? Because that’s basically what you are doing.

I can’t stand people who are so arrogant that they do these things. So what if you get over a hundred comments or are a published author? So freaking what? Come back to Earth, you clowns.

I’ve been hustling like crazy trying to get a certain website’s redesign finished. I’ve also been doing some soul searching and trying to figure out what I want in life.

To cut right to the chase: I miss school. I thought I wouldn’t and that I didn’t need it. I thought I was just using it as a safety net. The truth is, I was really enjoying college. Yes, it was a total pain in the ass trying to get everything together for Southern. Yes, I got completely shafted for financial aid, and $1100 seemed like a high price for just one class. But I could have done it. I gave up way too easily.

Every time I talked to one of my friends in school, all I could think of was, “I should be there.” Every time I thought of how easily I had given up, I wanted to kick myself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I want this. I realized that in order to further my career, I need that BA. I don’t want to be another kid with an AA trying to make it out there. It’s not to say that it isn’t possible, but it would definitely be a lot harder. Further more, I realized that with the way the economy is right now, finding a full-time job is going to be nearly impossible. I found lots of freelance job listings but I don’t want to rely on freelance jobs to pay my bills.

In short, I am a total jackass and I admit it.

I love college and I love learning. My education is very, very important to me, and I want to at least get this BA. I will be going back either this summer or in the fall, and I will be majoring in English and minoring in Marketing; I’m starting to see that I have some marketing inclinations that can definitely be honed into killer skills.

Now if only I could figure everything else out this easily.

You’ve gotta love the people who have never experienced life. You know, the ones who are squeamish and don’t want to hear the “bad” stuff. Like the lady at Barnes and Noble.

Last week Nikki and I went to Barnes and Noble, because we are broke and proud. We like the free water, the scent of Starbucks coffee abrewin’ and new books waiting to be read, and we like the plentiful tables that allow us to sit and talk for hours without being asked to leave.

This was the second time we’d done this. We sat and talked about everything from college to grandparents, from boyfriends and to jobs, from the economy to problems and everything in between. The conversation was flowing nicely. We weren’t being loud or obnoxious.

I can’t remember exactly what we were talking about (it may have been something along the lines of elderly bed-wetting), when I heard an irritated voice not two feet from my ear.

“Oh, let’s talk about old people shitting the bed and–”

I didn’t hear what else she said. I turned my head and looked straight at the woman sitting right behind me, who was suddenly preoccupied with the book in front of her. “It’s life, lady. Pick another table if you don’t want to hear about it.”

“Mom,” her teenage daughter, so obviously the victim here, said. She didn’t look up from her own book.

The woman didn’t say anything else. I turned back to Nikki, satisfied.

“Oh! I have to tell you the cat story!” Nikki told me about a cat she’d found in a car. “Was she talking about us?” She whispered.

I nodded. “Like I said,” I rose my voice a little higher, “there are plenty of other tables if she doesn’t want to hear it.”

I like this new, brazen version of me.

Nine Inch Nails makes me feel better. “I don’t feel anything at all,” Trent Reznor sings in “1,000,000.” The truth is, I do feel — everything. When Sarcastica wrote about a certain defamatory group on Facebook, I immediately felt like I had to have my say.

Sarcastica wrote that

Some of the stuff that was said was completely out of line, one guy commented on some girl’s photo saying “two words, down syndrome” and one girl was compaired to looking like a dead baby.

I immediately logged into the account I never use, because I wanted to report this group of people who think they have the right to be derogatory to people with physical and mental disabilities. I reported that group, and when I noticed that there was a mirror of that group, because the group owners had a feeling they were going to be deleted soon — gee, I wonder why? — I went there and reported that one, too. I joined the group long enough to write on their pathetic wall and tell them that they were low and should be ashamed of themselves, even though I knew well enough that I shouldn’t waste my time.

Still, when I get passionate about something, when something pisses me off this badly, I get so self-righteous. I feel the need to let the wrongdoer know that they’re being wrong, and even though I know it’s pointless and apt to start a flame war, I can’t help myself. As Trent Reznor sings in “Discipline” from The Slip, “once I start, I cannot stop myself.”

Perhaps this passionate aspect of me is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. If I do something to Mike, like hang up on him, it’s nothing to me. I tell him to get over it. But if he or someone else does it to me, I get mad. I tell them how rude it is and it irks the hell out of me.

So I guess I need to learn how to focus this energy on Facebook trolls with low self-esteem, or maybe just keep my damn mouth shut.

Anyway, if you are a member of Facebook and disagree with the use of the C word and discriminatory, defaming and derogatory remarks towards others, please report this group and its “backup.” Please note that they also don’t exactly discourage racist remarks. People like this should not be allowed to treat others the way they do. I hate to bring any kind of attention to them, but I really feel that they should be booted. At the least, their little group should. Please remember that you should always treat others the way that you yourself would want to be treated and — as my mom loves to say — if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Period.

For the first time, I saw someone badmouth TWLOHA. (In case you haven’t heard of them, TWLOHA — To Write Love On Her Arms — is a charity devoted to helping people struggling with depression, self-injury and addiction.) In a thread on Absolute Punk announcing Renee Yohe’s book Purpose for the Pain, someone said

This ‘charity’ doesn’t make sense to me.

and someone else said

as sketchy charities go, I think this one is way up there and I don’t feel the need to support anything that they do. if the girl wants to write a book then fair play to her, she’s got an easy route to do so and a ready made audience. the poetry section looks dire though.

I’m not sure how TWLOHA doesn’t make sense, nor am I sure how they are sketchy. I’ve seen sketchy “non-profit organizations” (namely on MySpace), and they don’t do any sort of public speaking or any other kind of activity. The people at TWLOHA write blogs, talk to real people, attend concerts and speak in front of the audiences about depression/self-injury/addiction, sell merchandise and donate the money made to different charities, run internships, educate people about not only depression/self-injury/addiction but also other things (such as the crises in Uganda, other non-profits that are making a difference, and are currently campaigning to save 1-800-SUICIDE.

Now tell me, how does any of that sound “sketchy”?

Maybe I’m biased, because I’ve struggled with depression and self-injury, and I know people dear to me who have struggled with addiction (and lost the battle). Maybe these experiences make me blind, and my blind self is contributing to the scam that is TWLOHA. I don’t believe this at all. I haven’t seen or heard anything to make me question the people at TWLOHA and their intentions. I haven’t doubted for one second their passion for this cause. It makes me so angry to see people say such slanderous, stupid things. Maybe it’s because they’ve never experienced the pain of depression. Maybe they are some of the lucky ones out there who have never wanted to take their own lives. Maybe they think that people who cut themselves with deadly-sharp knives and burn themselves with cigarettes and lighters are just looking for attention. (Because hurting myself like that is gonna make me so fucking cool, right?) Maybe they think that this is a fad that’s gonna pass.

Depression, self-injury and addiction are not fads. I have seen first-hand, through myself and people I love, what these three things can do to your life. I have known the pain of self-hatred. I’ve lost a friend to addiction. I’ve almost lost family members to addiction. I’ve almost lost a best friend to depression. I’ve seen boyfriends become addicted to alcohol and several drugs. I’ve seen and heard so much about lives being destroyed. Every day I read posts on Letters of Love, and read letters and emails about depression. These are real feelings. You will never know what it is like until you are already there, and by then it’s too late. I am so sick of people judging other people. I am so sick of people who are depressed being put down by those squeaky clean members of society who think they are above everyone else. Of course they don’t “get” TWLOHA. Why would they?

These lyrics from the Flobots song “Stand Up” remind me of what we fight for.

Stand up, we shall not be moved
Except by a child with no socks or shoes
If you’ve got more to give than you’ve got to prove
Put your hands up and I’ll copy you

TWLOHA is mainly about helping people, about reaching out. This charity is the whole reason I started Letters of Love. It’s about reaching out to others and being there to listen. It’s not about fame or glory, or a fad. It’s not about attention. It’s about real people, with real feelings. I know; I’ve been there.

So when I see these comments, like

Eh. Anything having to do with TWLOHA makes me a little wary, to be honest.

or

This “charity” is pretty weird.. I think I read that only 10% (Maybe it was 25%, but still) makes it to actual hotlines and other resources… The rest of it goes to you know, expenses… like their house. and their bungalow. and their trips to the UK so they can spend 5 minutes reading a poem before Switchfoot goes on. It just seems ridiculous to me that everyone buys into it. And the fact that some of the money goes to faith-based charities irks me too.

I just have to laugh. If you don’t get it now, you never will.

We shall not be moved.