Disasters.

It's the day after my 21st birthday and I am not okay. It's not enough that my birthday is a sad reminder of how I have no one in my life anymore...but to top that all off, no one cares enough about me to even listen to my problems. Not even Scooter cares,and he's the only person I have left... My problems are already sky high. My parents are divorcing and I'm caught in the middle trying to please both parties. Meanwhile, I have a car with expired tags because I can't pass inspection because my check engine light is on. To add to that, I can't get my car fixed because I have no money and neither do my parents. Even worse, tuition is coming up and I still have yet to land a second job, even though I've been trying. But I was so hopeful that my birthday would be good. I would be voting for the first time, then I'd have dinner and cake at my dad's house, then I'd drink beer and whatever. Instead, I find out I'm not even registered to vote even though I did sign up at the mall a couple of months ago. So, I cast a ballot that wouldn't even be counted. Then after that, I go to my dad's only for him to hide in his room and for me to find out no one even bothered to make me a cake. I didn't even get a happy birthday song or anything. Which of course got to me because on Scooter's birthday, his whole family came over and threw a makeshift party for him...Not to mention he got a buttload of checks and I just got a giftcard that I spent on groceries. I didn't even stay at my only friend's house because I was too dizzy to celebrate. I went home and slept instead, waking up regretting leaving because I wasted the last little hopefully good part of my birthday. But now we're into the real shitty stuff. I go to get my license renewed today and find out that it costed way more than I can even afford right now. I have a whopping thirty seven dollars in my bank account...and I really cannot spend that. So, not only are my tags expired, but my license is too. Then, when I go to tell Scooter what's going on, I break down and all he can do is tell me I'm being too dramatic. Dramatic? Do you have any fucking idea what my life feels like right now? Obviously you don't, or you don't care, because your situation is so much fucking better than mine. You have mommy and daddy who would give you everything you needed if you just asked. I have no one I can turn to like that. Not even you because when I do, you brush my problems off like nothing. It's so unfair to me that my depression is just a joke to everyone.

Unregrettable

Today was the first day of my freshman year in college. Well, community college. As I wandered around to my whopping two classes, I started to think about all of the friends that I graduated with in 2010. It seems like just yesterday, I was a senior in high school. But really, all of my friends are now juniors in college. They have two more years and then they get the honor of graduating as a collective in 2014. It was then that I realized I'm so far behind them, education wise. However sad that fact makes me, I'm actually comforted in another fact. I have life experience. A considerable amount of it, actually. I worked and took care of myself for two years. I have learned so much about myself and how to be productive that it's almost necessary for me to continue pursuing these experiences while still going to school. Granted, I will surely always be sad over the fact that I will never graduate with my peers. I had the chance to, when I was fresh out of high school and had moved to Arizona for college. I found it to be quite lonely, with living off campus and spending hours on campus by myself doing nothing. I cried every single night and mourned my move every single day. I felt heartbroken, too, because I was in love with a guy across the country. Scooter was a junior in high school when I started college, so I knew it was impossible for us to try and be a couple with so much distance and difference in our lives. When I decided to move back to North Carolina, it was a huge disappointment to my family. To me, though, it was my choice. And it was all a matter of being happy with my life and feeling like I belong. As much as I wanted to stay at the school, I couldn't. It was going to drive me into depression. I just knew it. But moving back meant so many things, including being Scooter's girlfriend, officially. We wanted to try and make it work between us, but never date because long distance is so hard. This was an amazing, happy surprise to him and he asked me to be his immediately. I'm going to graduate in 2016, and I couldn't be happier. I'm going into school Asa whole different person than before. And I'm doing it along with my boyfriend, which has made me feel so much better about my decision to fall behind. I think I'm going to enjoy college this time.

To my best friend...

I have few words to say, and those I will write now. I know you are angry but I can't do anything. I've already apologized. I'm sorry if it seemed like we were treating you like shit because that was not our intention. We didn't meant to make you feel third wheel or like we didn't want you there. We only did what you asked of us when we drove you home so you could leave us and we are sorry that it came across like we didn't care. You're my best friend. And I'm incredibly hurt by all the harsh words you have said about me. I'm hurt by your boyfriend's words. I'm hurt by your actions. I'm hurt by the way that you say you're hurt and you can't see that my heart is breaking. I still love you. You're still my best friend. I'll miss living with you and talking to you and being around you. I hope you're happy. I really do.

You Could Say I Knew...

It almost seems like from the very second I laid my eyes on you, when you were an adorable freshman and I was a junior, that I wanted to know you. I wanted to see you randomly, in all of your infinite cuteness, because I couldn't understand how someone I didn't even know could capture my attention so much. I thought you were gorgeous, and a wonderful actor, but I could have never imagined getting to know you well enough to be considered friends. I was awkward and ugly, and you had a very "famous" brother from the school. I just never thought our paths would cross.

And then you were there. A year later, at Mike's party, and I had a boyfriend. It felt like I had lost every opportunity to get to know you. But I knew I had to talk to you a little bit...but just talking to you wasn't enough. I had to have you sleep next to me. I had to nibble on your ear. I needed to feel you. Something was so different. You were completely irresistible to me. I just knew that I had to have you, one way or another. Boyfriend or not. Graduating and going to college didn't matter anymore. I wanted to be your best friend, know all of your secrets, be a part of your life. A big part.

If you had gone back in time and told me that I would be madly in love with you now, I would never believe it. I was determined to make something happen, but I never thought that you would turn out to be my soulmate. It's like everything in me knew, even though I never did. As if that single moment, when Annalisa pointed you out and said "That's Andy Barrette's little brother. He's literally the most attractive freshman I've ever seen.", I fell for you. But I never realized it until July 20, 2010, when I said it for the first time. My goodness. Love has never felt like this to me before. I have never wanted to be with anyone as much as I want to be with you.

I would follow you to the ends of the earth. I will love you with every fiber in my being, every cell in my body, for as long as I live. I am yours. My heart is yours. Completely and totally.

Frequent Daydreams

I have been having increasingly frequent daydreams of the next few months ahead. I know this whole business with court and money issues are constantly in my mind, but for some reason, I can only look ahead to the positive future. I'll be starting out my new life with Scooter because in a month, he'll be finished with school. That means...living together! He would rather spend his time with me than anyone else, and I him. So living together is obviously a necessity right now.

I'm just so ready to tell him good morning and good night on a daily basis. I'm longing to see his face everyday, hold his hand, kiss him. I miss him like a madman when we're not together. And when we get to have our own place for us and our own space to be free and in love without fear of drama...it'll be perfect. It'll be like everything we want. Just the two of us and that's all we need.

Scooter said the other day that he could just walk off with me into the woods and be content for the rest of his life. I couldn't have said it better myself. We just fit so perfectly together; it's like he was made for me. Our personalities just naturally run the same course and I love it. It has never been easier to love someone than with him and just having him love me back equally is the most pleasant feeling in the world. I'm so goddamn happy that it's over flowing.

For a while, I didn't know if I was going to make it, living without Scooter on a daily basis. But now it's getting easier. I just keep the positive in mind and I know that everything that happens to me will be wonderful.

Conquered.

I always thought that I would struggle with bipolar disorder, but it wasn't until the other night when I was hanging out with a good friend, Kendall, that I realized that I'm really not bipolar anymore. Somehow, I've taught myself to overcome it and I've learned to live without drastic highs and crippling lows. I've gotten better about saving money and I've cut unhealthy things out of my life for good. I deal with things so much better. I'm calmer, I'm happier, and I'm finally the person I always dreamed I would be. I fit the ideal of the girl that I knew was somewhere within me. All the things that I thought a person should be, I became and it feels so good.

It's so nice, in fact, and so natural, that it almost feels like my life isn't even mine. My past doesn't really belong to the person I am now, because she was so depressed and so lost and so forsaken. She was determined to die. But then it's like this life picked up somewhere around the time of turning twenty, and it hasn't stopped rolling ever since.

I just can't imagine where I would be had I not met Scooter. I don't even think I'd be alive today...Most likely not. Anyone who knew me in the past could never have seen what lay under my skin, inside my brain, crawling around my bones all day long, breaking me down more and more. I know what it feels like to lay in bed at night and wish that you would never wake up. I know what it's like to stare at yourself in the mirror and think that this would be the last way you will ever see yourself. I contemplated all the ways I could kill myself and was pretty sure what I was going to do if pushed slightly farther.

It breaks my heart to think about what I used to be. Now, I can't think of why I would ever want to kill myself. That's how I know I'm a totally different person. I never feel the depression anymore, I never feel the highs. I'm not nervous about what my life holds. I'm ready to break free of this place and be natural and new. It's like my life has been given a clean slate and I want to fill it with all the things that make me...me.

I couldn't be happier.

While my head's in the clouds...

I actually enjoy smoking weed by myself because it gives my brain time to think. And within this time to think, I have to process things without running them by anyone first. I think the break from other people's opinions is lovely and deeply calming. It's nice to know exactly how I feel sometimes. You know? To not care about anyone but yourself? But that also leads me to think of things that are going to make me even happier...

I can't wait to live on the west coast in a couple of years. I just want to be out of this state with its backwards drug laws. I hate living in constant fear that someone's going to call the cops on me. What's wrong with people that a little bit of weed has to make them hate everyone else? I just dislike how this part of the country is. The west coast is so much more open minded. So much more bohemian and loving and free. It's just ideal for me. So I can't wait. And I can't wait to get my medical marijuana card and go to college with my best friends. I don't care if I'm older than some of the people in my classes. There are plenty of people older than me going back to school. No shame in wanting an education, even if you wanted to try out the world for a little bit first!

Another thing I can't wait for? Being with my boyfriend forever. I can't wait til the day when we can come to our apartment and night and just be with each other for hours and hours. I adore his company. His scent, the way he holds me, the way he breathes. Everything about him is relaxing and perfect and wonderful. I take love very seriously. It's the reason that I want to wake up in the mornings and the reason why I try to work through days and days of nonsense. One day, I'll be with him all the time. Constantly in his company. Just the two of us, traveling around the world.

Goddamnit, I can't wait. I never thought my future would be this perfect. I was always dreaming of a flower child like life, caring for the world and actually making a difference...And I'm going to do that.

My life is excellent.

Crying Again?

So I'm back to this, huh? Feeling like I don't belong any place that I put my foot down. Just when I started to get comfortable and really think that this apartment is like my home, I get thrown for a loop and realize that I hate it here just as much as I hate it anywhere. Why can't I just start fresh, away from these people who are suffocating my happiness? Why can't they just disappear, and never speak to me again, because that's what I'd like.

I've done too much soul searching to let myself slip out of happiness. I've gone inside my head and back and realized what a good person I can be if I just tried. And I did try. And I brought myself out of depression and into a whole new life. I'm a whole new person. If you were to meet me from this point and try to be my friend, you wouldn't even imagine that I wanted to die so badly that all I needed was someone to upset me just the right amount...

This whole past week and weekend, I spent completely away from my apartment. Why? Because I can't take it anymore. I can't take the drama. I'm not going to fight back anymore. Hell, I may not even talk anymore. I could just become a stone statue, completely unaware of anyone else's existence but my own. I have no idea what that would be like, but probably more peaceful than I can imagine. Being away from this place made me feel a lot happier. It's as if when I step into my apartment, I'm stepping back into the person that I used to be. And I hate it.

It's mostly because I'm stuck in the middle of a conflict I didn't even start. And I'm being bashed on because I used to be best friends with my roommate and she thinks that I basically forsook her for my boyfriend. She blames our loss of friendship on the fact that she won't trip with me and that she wants to sleep in and all this other drama...if only she knew the truth. I wouldn't be surprised if she read this blog, actually, because she tends to do that. So I won't be worried about having to explain it to her.

After I became an atheist, which I did on my own, I realized that my life was worth so much more than I was putting on it. It meant so much more to me to chase happiness and never look back, because before I died, I wanted to say that I didn't waste my life doing things that I didn't want to do. I wanted to write my own path, not follow the one society thinks I should have. Society was drowning me because I was trying to fit into this mold that I could never force myself into. When I came to this great conclusion, I also came to many others, including what was healthy for my life and what wasn't.

I had to cut out the drama, and to do that, I had to cut out her. It was the only way for my life to be one hundred percent my life. I choose to have the small number of friends I have because I know that even if I'm out in the world for twenty years, I could come back and talk to them. With her, it's always a maybe situation. She has a tendency of changing the person she pretends to be for each boy that comes along and sweeps her off her feet. It just so happens that I can't handle watching it anymore. I can't be friends with someone who isn't happy being themselves. I can't be friends with someone who claims to be happy, but I can see it all over her that she's not.

I can't be friends with someone who doesn't like my boyfriend or my friends, because they're the soul reason why I wanted to change in the first place. I can't be friends with someone who will text me huge messages trying to guilt trip me into apologizing or making amends. I can't be friends with someone who tries to walk all over me. It's the reason I don't like my aunt and it's the reason I don't like her anymore. I feel like she has constantly been in control of the things I do or say or think, even when I know that my true opinions are different. I walk on eggshells around her and I don't want to have to do that anymore. A person you have to monitor yourself around is not your best friend.

But it does hurt. It hurts a lot to know that she was the first person I knew in North Carolina. She was the first best friend I'd had in a very long time. She stood up for me and protected me when I needed it, but at the same time, neglected me when someone better came along. It's like she's my cousin, and now I'm just choosing friends over family. I've done it before; I have no notion that blood is thicker than water. Those people don't know me, and I don't know them. What matters is that she couldn't take my changing and my want to change, and she saw it as other people influencing me. I can be polite to her and I can be civil, but I don't have to talk to her. I don't have to look at her. Frankly, I'd just like to stay out of her way to avoid feeling awkward.

I just can't be friends anymore...

Impossible to feel bad.

I find it increasingly impossible to feel bad for things I say and do. For my whole life, I've put other people before me and it has broken me down while building me up all at once. For so long I was everyone's doormat, just letting them mold me into whatever position they needed at that moment. But now, I'm more interested in pleasing myself than anyone else.

Pleasing myself, however, has brought about some things that I didn't know would happen. I've lost friends as if the black plague was wiping them out. I've lost family, I've lost jobs, I've lost myself entirely...but only to gain a newer, happier me.

But I won't apologize for the way I feel now. I won't apologize for the growing up that I did. I'm true to myself and I feel, for the first time in my entire life, like the person that I always wanted to be. I have few friends who I hold dear to me, I am finally comfortable with my sexual identity, and I have a soul mate...something I was certain I would never find.

I no longer feel like my life lacks a future. When I was thirteen, I could hardly see myself reaching the age of eighteen...then when eighteen came around, twenty was too far. I knew when I was eighteen that I wanted to kill myself. I just needed to figure out when and how. But ever since I delved deep into myself and cut the unhealthy parts of my life out, I have found that even a hundred years of living wouldn't be enough.

To be honest, I have no one to thank other than my boyfriend...I hate when people change themselves after they fall in love, but it does wonders to you. I was a different person overnight, all because I opened my heart up to the impossible. All because I no longer cared about popularity...Just me. He introduced me to the world of my own mind and from that, I gave birth to the person that I am now. I did the soul searching and it has brought me here. It has been a long, and incredibly painstaking, road. But I am so glad that I've come to the plateau.

And I wouldn't change my life or decisions at all.

Getting Comfortable

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Scooter and I, along with Taylor and Brandon, went out to eat at Red Robin. Yes, it was delicious, but I'm in a panic over where my mind was that night. As I've recently noticed, I've been feeling a lot more gay. I don't know what's caused this sudden shift towards my being a lesbian, but I can already see where it's forced its way into aspects of my relationship. Now I'm not saying I plan on leaving him...that's the furthest thing from my mind. But I am saying that I'm struggling to continue this relationship the way it is.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm craving attention to every detail. I want to be told how beautiful I am every time he sees me. I want him to stare and smile and give me affection until I can't take it. I want him to treat me like a girl would treat me. And this also carries over into sex. I've noticed that I haven't been getting off with him recently. This is probably because he's a bit too lazy. Normally I wouldn't mind, but I'm so sick of being done and still feeling energized and not done. I want to please him, but I can't finish on sex alone...I need foreplay. I need making out and touching and feeling...I'm not talking oral. I'm talking intimacy. I want intimacy. I can't finish unless I've been worked up ahead of time.

As many times as I've told him that I love foreplay, I've never told him that I won't finish unless he does it. I usually come close enough anyways, so why not just lie and say I'm all good on that? I don't know why I do...I should tell him that just getting to it doesn't do much for me...but I just refuse to do that. So, my plan from now on is to not hop on it unless he's put in some effort. I will not grow bored with sex with him...but I'm terrified that if I keep just satisfying him, I will.

I don't know....it's just not fair that I do all this work for nothing in return...I think that's why I've been feeling more gay. I know that sex with a girl would send me totally into cum-central. I hate putting so much emphasis on sex stuff, but it's a huge part of why Scooter and I got together in the first place. He's the best I've ever had when he works at it. But he's just not trying anymore. I'd hate to think it has something to do with me, but it very well could. I just need to get the message through to him. No sex until I'm over the moon horny.

To Prevent a Broken Heart

At this current moment in time, I'm preventing inevitable heartbreak on my behalf. Scooter and I no longer work together, nor do we see each other everyday...We used to. And it used to be wonderful. I was so happy. I loved him like never before...now everything sucks suddenly. But I know why. New schedules are coming into conflict with our hang out schedule and basically, it's breaking my heart. It's like I finally got to love him the way that I wanted to and now, it's being jerked away from me. It's given me insomnia; even with him cuddled up next to me now, I can't sleep.

So my heart is telling my head that it needs protection. I'm too co dependent. I need to stop. So I'm distancing. Not pushing; distancing. I'm mentally making myself love him less and I just...can't help it. If I loved him as much as I did, I would go crazy not being with him all the time. This is awful and I hate that I'm doing it to him, but I just...have to.

I will not cry myself to sleep. Or sit in my living room and cry at 6 in the goddamn morning over this. I used to go days without seeing him and as much as I never wanted to do that again, it's unavoidable. I just wish he knew...or at least felt the same. It's terrible.

The Animal and the Human.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I've been contemplating a lot on my place in the universe. I've been watching documentaries on the vastness of the black hole that we live in on a daily basis. In a split second, anything could happen on the outside of our galaxy that could destroy us without warning. In a few million years, maybe even billions, we're going to fall into the sun...That is unless something else demolishes us first. We're survivors, but insignificant to just how great the universe is. And who knows if our universe is even the only one? It was blown into existence so long ago, and it's just too huge to ever see all of it...But what if it's not the only thing out there? What could possibly be bigger than the universe? Then, I think...nothing. Nothing could be bigger than it. I just cannot wrap my brain around the idea that my life is nothing special and that compared to just how large the whole universe is...I'm tinier than the tiniest microorganism. And I thought I was stuck in a huge world already...There's so much I will miss because my life is nothing in the eye of the whole.

I definitely believe in infinite complexity. I know that there is no simplest form, no start and end point. Forever there will be things that we still need to discover, and it may take all of modern human intelligence to do so. This brings me to my main point. What does it mean when you say that human beings are animals? Yes, we're evolved from ape like creatures which evolved from similar forms as other animals, so technically, we're nothing but beasts. However, our consciousness, our necessity to have language and protection and homes, our ability to use resources productively and widely...That seems to separate us from our evolutionary cousins. To call us anything other than animal would make sense, but we're all made up of the same things. We're mammals, who are constructed of bones and organs, tissues and blood. Our intelligence is what draws us apart from animal-life.

Modern human beings, I believe, are even more so intelligent than human beings in, say, the medieval times. I don't think this is because of any significant brain developments or mental doors being unlocked over hundreds of years; that would be too fast for such a big evolutionary leap. No, I think it's strictly because we've become more aware. We've learned more medically: we know what our bodies function for, we know how we process nutrients and information, we know how to cure diseases that would have once ravaged and killed us instantly. Human beings have discovered more about the known universe and have become more situationally aware. We know that we are not the only thing out there any longer. There are earth-like planets directly surrounding us. Life could be found elsewhere, because the likelihood that it's happened once (and can happen again) is so high. It could be possible that over the course of the universe's life, hundreds of other life supporting planets were born and destroyed. The universe is just that huge and that old and that predictable. If life evolves in the same way, if there's only one way, we may not even be the only human beings out there.

But with our greater knowledge, we've put ourself into a desperate box. Overpopulation is one key thing. As human beings, with human consciouses, we cannot live for natural selection. We will do anything to preserve human life because we feel that it is so special. To be honest, I see nothing special about being a human. We are animals. We live and then we die. But if we are healthy, natural selection would only allow us to live. Any children born with defects would die in the wild. Animals don't put other animals who are brain dead on life support. It's just not how they think. We have such complex and deep emotions, all of which are illusions, but we heed them at such a high cost. The world is not built to sustain seven billion people...but we push her to her limits.

Another thing that we as human beings do, setting us apart from animals, is that we rape the land. We take more than she can healthily give, and then we even expect more. We waste too much and conserve too little. Animals take what they need and they don't overindulge. It's beautiful and it's easy: survive. Human beings are greedy. We don't respect what our mother earth is giving us. We take advantage of her. Saving our planet takes more help than most people are willing to give. It takes a deeper, more animal-like appreciation for our planet.

I like to think that I have a personal relationship with mother earth. I can't say for sure that I will never rely on modern conveniences; that would be ludicrous. But I will conserve. I will spread knowledge. I will treat the planet with the respect that it deserves. It is our home and it won't be here forever, so make the most of it while you still can.