I'm reinventing myself..

Things have been moving too slowly, and I have not had ambition for some time, so this surge of whatever this is, motivation, unexplainable genuine contentment, sugar rush, I'm going to grasp it by the horns.

I started the way any 20-something woman begins a journey of this callibre, by doing a face mask and hair mask and whitening my teeth. That reminds me I should probably do some power posing so I can conquer the world with posture as well as complexion. 

It's my birthday, I have the best day full of free birthday deals and bouncing and laughing, planned. But I need to complete my homework before I'm allowed any cajoling. Why aren't I doing it now, instead of this blog post you ask?.. good question!  but I'll have you not interrupt me while I'm going through multiple epiphanies. 

I want this writing thing to start growing in momentum and it seems to have slowed down a lot due to laziness and ingenuity.. no wait the other one, that means the opposite.. ungenuity? Not having any ideas..  So my plan is to live blog post all of my birthday happenings, firstly because writing makes me so happy and I want to spend my birthday doing only things that make me happy, and secondly because it's just the type of push I need. 

Each blog post I will set a challenge for the next post, to keep the momentum going. (I will possibly just do some boring writing exercises at some point). So my next challenge (which will wait until after my homework) is to write a list of blog post ideas that I can complete today. 

Strap yourselves in everybody. This is going to be CRAZY!!

The scales tipped back to positive

I've been slowly but surely feeling more positive about life. This positivity has ebbed and flowed and never overwhelmed me enough to inspire creativity (specifically in the form of blog posts) and so it seems a stark contrast to the bleak shit I've been posting recently. But sure enough my scales are tipping back to even, one happy thought or sad acceptance at a time.

I've picked myself up against the weight of university stress (well, I do nothing on my own, truth be told) by imagining each task I accomplish as a physical weight off my shoulders, and once its done I breathe deeper and say 'see, look how much more room for air there is in your lungs now'.

I picked back up a series that I left off before I knew any of the men that now worry my heart, and before I had tasted any of the rejection that's bitter taste is still on my tongue. It reminded me that I was a whole person before they took some of me, and that I can be that person again, and take joy in little things like television drama.

I'm slowly becoming okay with my imperfections, I covered it up before by assuring myself that I could be a model if I just lost a bit of weight (20 kgs) and tried harder with my appearance, but that did nothing to solve the underlying problem, it just left it til later. I have a scar above my right eyebrow (your left) that's not going away, I'm beginning to get cellulite, and apparently varicose veins are a thing in my gene pool and they're starting to show up. This particularly disheartened me greatly, because I still have that fear that I'm not attractive enough to attract the type of man I want in my life. But at least I know now that I need to accept what I have and not compare myself to my model sisters, and that feels better than hoping (in vain) to look like them (you know, as soon as I can figure out how to contour)

I think I was too quick to speak about the lack of effect giving up trying with guys had on me. Now that I've given it more time to settle in, and gotten used to not jumping straight onto tinder as a coping mechanism, I feel like it was a good choice, and that it will allow my head to clear and my brain to focus on more important things than validation, like ambition and passing uni and being faithful to my friendships and growing in my understanding of and relationship with Jesus and becoming a kind and considerate person again even when its not seemingly making a difference to anyone (this one is an enormous struggle)

To continue this positive vibe, this is a poem I wrote about poetry for my poetry class.
It's called "Poetry Is"

A deep breath finally exhaled after months held inside

letting yourself be lost or found, having tried so long to hide

that soft shoulder that makes it all go away

your convoluted point finally conveyed

stepping into the last gold rays of light

hitting city walls and bouncing off grey pavements

stepping out of the flash of flickering fluorescent

seeing the orange amber sun sucked under ocean line

after staring at a screen all day

drinking in colour after all those different shades of grey

noticing that small child shrieking at the birds reactions to tiny bits of bread

after days of suffocating in, being blinded by, the negativity of your own head

pushing everything off and letting only the swaying shadow of tree branches burden closed eyelids

brief snatches of gentle singing that cause you to pause at your sisters door and be lifted

the sun warming your back on a bitter cold day

the cooling breeze that you open your door to at the end of a boiling one

its the slow and sure untangling of confusion and despair with words

knowing yourself more, exploring that and sharpening the blurred

its looking at the untangled string in sad and steady acceptance

the laughter held back and burst out in the middle of a fight

the hours spent practicing getting the wording just right

being entirely you and letting that flow from your mouth, your pen

Wondering at and appreciating the good the bad, the now, the then.

I'm giving up

I know how dramatic it sounds, but I am so done putting effort and emotional energy into this dating thing. Its making me become super sensitive to the slightest rejection. That guy on the train didn't choose the empty seat next to me, must be because I'm weird and give off a desperate vibe and probably look a bit intense of a person and he doesn't really want that kind of drama in his life right now, plus I smell bad.

I don't try and dress nice when I go to cafes anymore. I don't smile at strangers, I can't let my hopes get up in anyway because it hurts more and more every time they crash to the ground along with my dignity and self worth.

I thought this would free me from getting sad about guys, but it turns out I only feel more depressed. I've given up hope, I've stopped trying to get validation from guys but I still care deeply when I don't get it. I don't really know how to describe this feeling. But I know that all I want to do is lie down and stare into space until I fade out of existence. My brain can't focus on one thought for any long period of time, its all just kind of foggy.



I feel so low, I can't study, I can't concentrate or feel in any way motivated or hopeful that I will succeed at uni this semester.

Maybe its not that I'm a perfectionist, and so would prefer to fail something than hand up something mediocre. Maybe its that I have no desire to succeed, because it won't bring me joy, because nothing brings me joy or satisfaction or fulfillment anymore.

Metaphors for how I feel. A cup with a crack in it, thats being filled slower than the water is leaking out of it. A bird without feet to land on. floating in the ocean but whenever i try and swim to shore i get further away, so there is a violent struggle every few minutes and then I give up because my efforts are not only futile but negative, and i can only float, waiting to die, A jar thats saved for some mysterious purpose but never used. A young 20-something girl who has no idea what she wants in life and so spends her times flitting between passions and goals never being able to settle on one and so ends up exhausted and nowhere. Someone who can't decide between chinese or indian food and so walks back and forth between the two restaurants for hours.

Limbo, I'm in limbo between so many different destinations. I don't want to be single, but I don't want to make an effort to date. I don't want to fail uni, but I have no real desire or motivation to succeed at uni, I don't want to be isolated but I don't want to embarrass myself socially and beat myself up for weeks afterwards (aka be social), I want to be self destructive and make myself fat and ugly but I also want to get fit and be confident. I don't want to live at home anymore but I don't want to leave.

The immense complexity of life and how all I can talk about is boys

The more beautiful, amazingly crafted, intelligent novels I read, the more inadequate I feel to in any way attempt to become a writer. That poorly constructed sentence should really be evidence enough.

I have recently been worried that there aren't enough beautiful things in the world to wonder over, and there aren't enough complex emotions to explore, and that all of the stories have been told again and again, and there is nothing worth writing any more. But what it actually is, is that I'm blind.

My narrow view of the world, through this lense that only cares about validation in the form of the approval of men, is making me bored with life. But the world is full of a million things a hundred times more interesting and more important than romantic everlasting love. There is love in all its other forms, there is the feeling of connectedness and belonging to the web of family or society, there is isolation. There are so many feelings that I am completely unaware of. Its like out of all the flavours the world has to offer I've only tasted sugar and vinegar.

I have a friend that's a chef, well friend, ex lover whom I hate, whatever, and he introduced me to all these different spices to cook with and how to mix them together. My life is enriched. I want to find this in the real world, find the tumeric and paprika that I know I'm missing out on.

Turning 24 soon, means that I've already experienced most of the emotions I'm ever going to feel. I've had anxiety which means I experienced ridiculous amounts of panic and fear, I've experienced the confusion of the sudden onset of depression, through which I felt numb, detached and like nothing would ever ground me, where self harm was my only relief, I've been massively and intensely heart broken, I've felt a relief to know what it was to be sad over something tangible rather than the ellusive highschool mental illness, I found that it didn't make it easier, but made it make more sense, I've experienced the depths of depression where at random points I would fall on the floor crying, I've been betrayed and lied to, I've experienced insane jealousy and murderous cravings of revenge, I've been pulled into a spiral of self hatred and and of taking  the heart breaker back, which made less and less sense until it was a confusing self destructive love hate torture I would subject myself to, I've experienced being convinced that I would never be happy ever again as long as they remained together, I've experienced cutting ties and the slow process of healing, I've experienced waking up one day to be surprised that I had a whole day happy, I've experienced someone else saving me, I've experienced feeling loved and cared for by my family, I've felt desired by men, I've felt rejected by men, embarrassed, ashamed, guilty, sinful, achieved, excited, overwhelmed, in awe, thirsty, quenched, lost, found.

I haven't experienced grief, no one super close to me has ever died, I've never experienced childbirth or the loss of a child or the joy of having a child, I've never experienced feeling secure in a relationship, or the feeling of someone else loving me, but I have experienced the happiness that comes about with love, and the grief that comes with it being unrequited, and the healthy solid feeling of a proper breakup rather than a cycle of destructive confusion and best friends.

I want to write about what makes life beautiful, and right now I can't see what that is, Because everything beautiful is tainted with death and grief and ugly. Children die, and poverty exists at the same time as multibillionaires, and lovers leave, and your body deteriorates, ever growing closer to death, and the world is polluted and the bees are dying and the love I show other people is wasted and does nothing to help anyone and nothing is new or special or magical anymore, its been shone with the light of cynicism and mistrust.

Happy endings come down to connections and belonging. They love each other, they find their family, whatever they won meant that those people they know get that thing they wanted, they made a difference to someone.
I don't know about my connections. Even from my family I feel detached. A friend attempted suicide for the 2nd or 3rd time and I couldn't feel anything for it, its happened so often (a few times with other friends) with no resulting death. Do I believe in God anymore, well I believe but do I know him anymore, am I in any kind of relationship with him, is He really all that is missing from my lack of connection to the world. Jesus, why did I leave you for mortal men? Mortal men suck, and you have undeserved, unending, unfathomably large amounts of love for me. Sex is a powerful deceiver in that it gives me exactly what I want for about two seconds (or 20 minutes), I get to feel connected and close with someone, and my presence makes a difference to someone. You can't give me that type of connection, you can't even hug me. Your love is better, but different, why do I still crave the lesser?