#this whole stupid project has been a clusterfuck and i hate it

[iron-niffler]

fuck group projects. just fuck em.

#this whole stupid project has been a clusterfuck and i hate it #first they don't respond to or do ANYTHING over spring break (we had a 20 page paper due Wednesday after we got back) #then as we're rushing to get everything done they suddenly need to leave to study for exams so I need to pick up the slack #then we split into smaller teams to build stuff and hooooo boy #and my partner is busy with the play all week so now im spending hours and hours every day picking up his slacj #and im staying up till 5am constantly both for this class and to do all my hw for other classes #then shit hits the fan so im up till 4am desperately trying to fix everything and get it to work my laptop has broken in the process #and he's like “let's meet before class at 8 to troubleshoot” #and im like fine #so i show up and he whose done MAYBE two things for this project starts going on about how committed he is cause he's here at 8am #and im just sitting there like ...shut the fuck up #you showed up ONCE you ain't committed to shit #and now we're trying to get the whole thing together and tested and no one else in my team has fucking bothered to show up #and we need to start a test that takes 48 hours like NOW #so... great #fuck these people #fuck everything #bout to write a timeline of all the things that went wrong and made me cry to shove in my sketchbook #titling it “I want to throw this project off a building: a timeline”

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

How I Think The Star Wars Sequels Should Have Happened: Another MrMallard Nerd Moment

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

The Force Awakens:

fine jumping on point. Not perfect, but honestly a return to form in regards to making Star Wars movies fun again. Keep TFA as-is, warts and all - the trick is paying this movie off by the end.

The Last Jedi:

Less faux-Guardians of the Galaxy humor. That's not to say "no humor", I honestly thought Luke Skywalker had the best jokes of the movie, but less "your mother" and less "Finn wakes up from a coma and drips IV fluid everywhere, Wakka Wakka!". The former is corny, the latter is undignified and actively cheapens character development from the prior movie.

Cut the stampeding race-beasts, because it reeks of Disney's "fuck you we're Disney" money, but keep Canto Bight as a whole. The alien designs are charming - it's a nice moment of fanservice, along with the Jizz music. It also serves as a nice character-building exercise for Rose and Finn.

Ultimately, I think it might have been a better idea to kill off Leia in this movie considering Carrie Fisher's passing. I don't dislike her in this movie, and I honestly enjoyed the scene of her in space - my first thought was "holy fuck she can use the force!!" - but I think it would have been better for her to pass on in this movie, both logistically and for her character. That, or they should have scaled back her cobbled together Frankenstein-performance of CGI, cut lines and recontextualised footage in TRoS. Either/or.

Keep the mutiny plot with Poe, but something has to be done with how they treat the secret plan. The resolution to the mutiny plot was the thing that bothered me the most with TLJ, but it's pretty much the only thing for Poe to do in the movie and it adds conflict to the main story I guess. Making the Holdo/Poe seem a little less personal might help? idk. honestly a lot of this storyline felt forced.

Don't try and resolve Rey's backstory in this movie. Keep it as a running mystery. I understand that they were trying to go for a clever subversion in this movie, but it just added another stupid thing that TRoS bad to address and it honestly kinda ruins the trilogy.

Honestly, either cut Crait entirely and make it the beginning of the next movie - bc the movie's already two hours long and it feels like the final battle stretches the movie out beyond its natural ending point - or shorten it a bit and make it a bit more functional. It looks cool, but at that point it's like tacking an extra mile onto a marathon.

Also, don't shoehorn a failed heroic sacrifice with Finn imo. That, or give him more screentime and character development to build up to that moment. Post-TFA, he's really half-baked, and I honestly think he should have been more of a focal character next to Rey. The heroic sacrifice felt like it came out of nowhere, and by thwarting it and adding the Rose Tico scene, it felt like a waste of time even having it in there. It comes and goes with no fanfare.

Honestly, I would have preferred if Luke stayed alive at the end of the movie. I think his death was a movie too soon. Saying that, I think they nailed his death in this movie - if they were gonna kill him off, I think they did it right. Also, don't kill off Snoke. It's a cool scene, but it fucks up the next movie.

Re: Rose Tico - she's not my favorite part of the movie, but I don't actively hate her and I think the response to her character that Kelly Marie Tran had to face was absolutely disgusting. I think her plotline with Finn was a little underbaked, and that scene at the end where she prevents his heroic sacrifice just kinda sidelines them both. I think making her a navigator would have helped her character in TLJ and TRoS.

In short: trim a few excessive CGI scenes, cut a few cornball jokes out, play around with the characterisation and tone of the mutiny plot, dignify Finn's character instead of reducing him to a rehashed coward, comedic relief character and pointless failed Rebel martyr, and maybe keep Luke Skywalker alive at the end. Bring the movie in at around 2 hours max.

Keep Luke Skywalker as-is, bc his character is a highlight of TLJ.

The Rise of Skywalker:

Kill off Luke Skywalker in this movie. Seriously, just cut and paste his death at the end of TLJ into this movie. Work him into a reduced role when Rey junks her ship, like the force projection messed him up and he doesn't have much longer to live, and have him help her when she returns to his island planet instead of adding a phoned-in Force Ghost appearance. Maybe have her there when he passes?

Reduce Leia's role in this movie instead of stitching together a Frankenstein's Monster of a performance. Not to be morbid by that reference - it's just that everything she says feels so stilted and wrong, like you can definitely tell they've thrown all the scraps they have left into her character in this movie. It doesn't feel natural or respectful for her character to spit out non-sequiters for the characters to respond to in an equally unnatural sort of way.

Honestly? Canonise Fey/Rinn, however you want to portmanteau Rey and Finn's ship name. If you give Finn more of a character arc in TLJ instead of side-lining him, and establish that he and Rey are particularly close - which they are IMO - and then pay off that "I have something to tell you" beat with a confession of love. This isn't a stab against Reylo, though I've certainly had words to say about Reylo, I just think Finn/Rey is a more wholesome ship and I prefer this dynamic to the fuckin dark side/light side paradigm of Reylo. I Just don't care for it. Kylo Ren's conflicted nature doesn't have to resolve in romance. Gimme Rey/Finn.

Snoke gets offed by Palpatine. There's no breeding vat for Snokes, but if the movie wants to suggest that he's still just a puppet or a creation, that's fine. That, or build Snoke up as the bad guy, and either follow through on that or have Palpatine be a twist halfway through the movie.

Maybe make Palpatine a Sith Ghost? They do exist to some degree. Or have him stuck in some other limbo that requires him to hijack Rey. Anything is better than that "if I do this you do this, but then I'll do this so you would have to do this, but really I'm going to do this so either way my entire plan was completely unnecessary lmao" clusterfuck where he's a living corpse impaled on a robot arm.

Cut out the macguffins, or make them feel less inconsequential. Okay, so the dagger storyline involves rebooting C3PO. It has stakes and gravitas to a degree. Cool - keep that. What the fuck is up with the wayfinders though? Why are there only two? Why do they need to be so convoluted?

Maybe have Maz Kanata talk about Luke's lightsaber, and/or have her involved in finding a way to Palpatine. It would pay off her appearance in TFA and explain her importance to Luke.

By making Rose Tico a great navigator in TLJ, her role on the team can be expanded in TRoS and she can do like star charts and stuff for all the different worlds they're going to - she can come along instead of being fucked over by JJ Abrams in this movie. She can even help with Maz Kanata's wayfinding plan. In short - make her a part of the team.

Honestly, fuck the Knights of Ren right off. They're a waste of time. That, or set them up in TLJ - hell, have one of them on Canto Bight and another one on Snoke's ship. Maybe even retcon Phasma into being a Knight of Ren. Anything but bringing them back as a mook squad in this movie, with no weight or character.

Honestly? Show Palpatine surviving the Death Star crash. The retcon is all the more painful for being completely and utterly unexplained. Doesn't matter if you have to touch the source material to do it, CG in a force shield as Palpatine falls through fire and have him hobble to a life support pod that takes him to where he is in TRoS. Literally anything is better than "Somehow, Palpatine returned".

Either cut the healing powers, or leave them in sans Reylo kiss.

In short: reduce Leia's role instead of using cut content and a CGI puppet to stitch together a performance, leave Luke alive until this movie, kill Snoke in this movie OR have him be the big bad, make Finn/Rey a thing over Reylo - again, no hate, I just prefer this pairing over Reylo - write more details about Palpatine's survival, either put some Knights of Ren into TLJ or don't have them at all, get rid of the Wayfinder macguffins and/or work Maz Kanata and "master navigator" Rose Tico into a plot to find Palpatine.

At the end of the day, there should have been a planning committee for the Star Wars story, not for the merchandise. You can see from how the sequel trilogy crammed out merchandise that Disney was clearly asking for marketable merch, but the story is a trainwreck - there was a Star Wars committee, just not where the property needed one.

The sequel trilogy was a worthwhile experiment imo - it didn't pay off, but it was worth doing just to see if it was possible. But even then, I would prefer three decent movies over a couple of experimental trainwrecks retroactively ruining one decent movie.

This post was mostly trying to work with what the movies already have, though by TRoS you really do have to start overhauling shit to make it work. In my eyes, the longest that these movies should run is two hours - any more than that is a slog, especially when the movie feels like it takes two hours. The Last Jedi felt like two and a half hours. The Rise of Skywalker felt like a two hour movie crammed into 80 minutes, despite the fact it was longer than 2 hours. The best way to make these movies more watchable is to make them shorter - cut out superfluous money shot scenes like the Canto Bight chase, have more efficient scenes to balance out the stylish scenes. The sequel trilogy is short on efficiency imo, and without a movie where it feels like progress is being made, the style doesn't work.

So tweak some things to make each movie more efficient.

#star wars #finn/rey for life suck it haters

[anonymous-girl37]

Here is my story.

Most stories tend to start with things being normal, however, for this one, it is honestly a clusterfuck of bullshit with a little bit of normalcy thrown in to give me the illusion of stability. Even when I was only nine, I remember fun and family activities were never really with just her and us- it was always with somebody else there to motivate her. I sort of had to raise Katie and Kylie on my own at some points. She took care of us technically speaking; she didn’t starve us or anything, she just wasn’t available for the emotional side of being a parent. The parts that kids grow up to remember, unfortunately for us.

One of the best examples of her neglectful care for us was around that time... Me being around age… eight? Nine? It all blurs together at some points, but the point is I was young.

My mom always takes naps, they last a whole ten minutes sometimes, but she’s always tired, maybe she’s sick. Whenever she’s sleeping, she says I get to play house with my sisters and pretend I’m the mom. My favorite is when she drives to the store for candy for us because then I make the rules for extra long. I get to make them lunch and play outside. Sometimes she lets me read them stories before their nap time, which is mommy’s relaxing time, so I get the whole rest of the house to myself. I get to make all the rules, dad never lets me do that. He doesn’t know, mommy said it’s our secret. I hate when she doesn’t get her naps in because then she’s grumpy. She went away for a whole week and she hasn’t taken a nap or been grumpy since she got back, maybe the doctors did surgery and fixed her. She’s even taking us to the park while dad’s at work tomorrow.

It’s been a week now, mommy was going to take us swimming but she said her head hurt too much, and the next day we were supposed to play in the woods but she needed to take a nap, and it was almost time for dinner when she woke up. Dad couldn’t know she was napping again, or he’d make her go away for a long time she said. She tells me I’m a good secret keeper. Maybe tomorrow she will let us go swimming.

Mommy’s been back home for two weeks and her medicine already stopped working, I wish it worked for longer cause I miss when mommy was fun. Mommy loves when I play house with my little sisters, but sometimes I get tired of it. I have to listen to her anyway. She’s better than dad because she doesn’t have any stupid rules. All dad ever does is work, we only get to play with him for a little bit after work and on the weekends.

It wasn’t something that stopped, her shitty “parenting” if you can even call it that, never improved. I was 12 years old popping Klonopin like candy, with her permission of course. Not only was she okay with me taking drugs, but she also fueled my addiction with her prescription. At least she was generous with her pills, however, she had plenty enough to share. She got a script of 90 a month from one doctor and 60 a month from another. She was good at pretending to have illnesses for drugs, and trust me, it’s extremely escalated since then. I don’t know who else she gave them away to, but when she ran out she always found a way to get more. Pills were more important to her than us having new clothes, and undergarments. She cared more about pills than saving money to do fun stuff with my sisters and me. She only ever wanted to be high, and she was so good at hiding it. She had our whole family fooled for years. She lived and still does live a life of lies. She sucks the life out of everyone she’s near. She sucked the life out of me. She had me becoming friends with kids who dealt drugs, It was a messy situation all around, I hung around people much older than me, I did drugs with men almost twice my age, however, usually Nicole was around for that part. At least she didn’t leave me alone with strange men, before the age of 13, I guess that was the cut-off. She decided I was mature enough, old enough, to hang out with men 8 years older than me. Luckily I had someone to protect me. Anthony tried to at least, to help me become my best. He wasn’t much better off than me in regards to a mother and he had a terrible drug problem. We experienced the same things in different ways. It felt like everything I went through, he did before me. Our lives were nowhere near identical. He grew up with his grandfather who fucked him out of his childhood, quite literally. I was addicted to Xanax, but that was nowhere near strong enough for his need to forget. Heroin was his kryptonite, he couldn’t get enough of it, but no matter how high he was, or how dope sick he was because he couldn’t find any, he made sure I was okay, he told me he loved me. Every day, that was the first thing I would hear him say. Our entire lives were straight ahead of us. He was poetic and artistic, and everything he said to me sounded like a quote from a book. He wanted his story heard, and he wanted me to be the one to hear it. It feels like I’m now responsible for telling the world. He never wanted anyone to know him, just who he was. He wasn’t all happy, and nice, he was a total asshole sometimes, I’m not sure that he was even aware. The love we had was one I’ll never forget though.

I’ve dropped my bottle and there’s broken glass on the ground now. I guess that’s what I get for being lost in these thoughts. It cut my leg but I can’t feel it. The glass reminds me of him. It reminds me of the night all of us got drunk and they were smashing glass bottles on the concrete. He screams “whoever runs through it gets $20 and this” as he’s holding a ½ empty bottle of rum. And some other guy told him he’d give home $100.00 to do it. So he runs through the things, falls, and has glass stuck from his feet to his knees. I’ll never forget that smell, blood, and vodka. I spent damn near two hours pulling glass out of his legs and feet and bandaging them up.

July Summer 2017

Today had to have been the best day of my life. Anthony took me to our spot, and we talked for hours, about nothing and everything, as always. We’re getting sober together. We’re going to do it. We promised. Today marks 1 day clean. Weed is an exception because fuck quitting that. I would do anything to make this man happy. I’ve known for a long time that he loves me, but today made me realize how much I truly love him too. I’m happy with him. My life is chaotic right now, but he’s my calm. He’s my peace. I can’t wait for the day we never have to leave each other again.

August 11 summer 2017

We’ve been sober for a month today. I want to go to this back to school party but Anthony is being a little bitch about it. I’ll convince him to go.

August 12 summer 2017

He died. On purpose. I made him go to the party and he overdosed. I thought he was just drunk. We cuddled on the porch swing until he fell over into my lap. He laid in my lap for 20 minutes before I knew. He had no pulse. He left a note in my back pocket. I can’t bring myself to look at it. I want to get rid of it.

My god damn room is a mess. Today marks 3 years since I lost the love of my life. I'm already drunk and it’s only 10 a.m. and of course, I, the drug addict, would take pills on a day like today. He would be so disappointed, but it’s finally come the time I read his suicide note, it’s finally the day, I’ve worked up the courage, I can do it. I need to do it. I must lock my door again, I can’t have another interruption. The door could’ve become unlocked. It’s locked, I’ve re-locked it twice now. I never imagined sitting on my bed, reading his note, his last words, whilst I’m a high and drunk mess. You’ll have that though, one of the greatest things Nicole ever taught me was to mask my feelings with drugs. I owe it to him. To read his last words. His voice still deserves to be heard.

Katrina,

I’m so sorry. I can’t keep doing this. I still kneel in the shower, and put my face down, letting the water puddle in my hands as if they could grow big enough to protect me from myself. The pain hits me randomly, it’s like I know I have lungs and I must be able to breathe, but I can’t, the air refuses to come. To this day, I get flashbacks, and I hate the feeling. It’s not normal. These are things you can’t forget. You want to rot because it’s better than being beat than being hurt. I have trouble believing anyone when they tell me they love me, but it’s easier with you. You told me I was your happiness and I gave you butterflies. My depression, my struggle, and my addiction gave you the determination to fight to make me happy. I’m sorry, but things are getting bad again. I should have never begun putting you through my pain. I don’t want help, I don’t want you to kill yourself fighting to save me, and I know you would if I didn’t stop you. You may not see it, and I doubt you will agree, but I’m doing what’s best. You have given me the greatest possible love, you have so much going for you, and you’re still so full of life, don’t lose that. Stay clean for me. I can’t fight anymore. Maybe that makes me a coward, but being a coward to the world is better than the pain that never leaves me, I’m tired of living in my hell. My eyes are full of tears writing this, and I can barely read. I owe my temporary feelings of joy to you. Anyone who knows me knows that if someone out there was going to save me, it would have been you. I can’t go on showering you in my pain, I can see the hurt in your eyes when you look at me. I hurt you because I’m so hurt I don’t know how to breathe anymore. If I die tonight, know that it’s for the best. Know that I haven’t truly been alive in a long time, that’s if I ever was at all. Don’t ruin yourself over me. Tell yourself what we had wasn’t real. Repeat to yourself that I never really loved you until you believe it. I treated you like a project, I manipulated you. Fool yourself into hating me. Because you’re going to see me in every single person. You’ll see some piece of me In everyone you meet. I know you, you’re going to look for me, whether you know you are or not, you’re going to seek me. If all of the words you said were true, you’re never going to give up looking for someone like me, you won’t find him. Find someone better. Find someone who fulfills you. You deserve a man who gives you the world even when he is falling apart. You deserve a love that doesn’t end, I want you to have those feelings again. I’m begging you not to look for me, I’m gone. I’m sorry that you’re never going to stop seeing pieces of me. Look for the good qualities, but I’m sure you’ll find the bad ones too. You’ll find my sense of humor in every funny movie, and all the chick flicks will remind you of our love. You’ll find my eyes in the face of a stranger and you’ll see my smile on little kids playing at the park. I’ll always be here for you whether I’m physically present or not. I was never sober. I told you I was because I knew if I got you started I could live with myself for leaving.

In reading this I thought I’d feel relieved, possibly ready to let the last of him go. But now I’m lost, more so than before. Now I’m angry, not with him, but with the world. You can’t hate someone for killing themselves, but you can hate the world for making them do it. You can hate the god or goddess or gods or goddesses you do or don’t believe in for letting it happen. I want to hate him, but I can’t because he’s not here, he took away my power to hate him, and so now I hate everything else. I hate everyone else. He wasn’t lying when he said I would see him in everyone. I see his good qualities somewhere in everyone, I see his bad qualities in every bad person but, I see him in everyone. It’s like when he died he became the universe, the universe swallowed him whole and he left a part of him in everyone. He picked who got his best qualities as if he knew I would find them. I do see his smile on the little kids playing at the park. I see his eyes in the only other man I’ve ever truly loved, they’re not the same, but the feelings in them are similar. I find his humor in every comedy. Sometimes I think maybe what he said was true, that he’d always be there for me whether physically present or not, because sometimes, on some of my worst days, I feel him. For just a minute, I can let myself pretend he isn’t gone. I can let myself pretend he never left this earth. Then my whole world comes crashing right back down. He swore to me he was sober. He promised. I think he only lied so I would be okay. I resent him for telling me to hate him. Because I can’t hate him, I want to so badly, but It’s impossible. Any pain he put me through was nothing compared to how he felt.

That's enough about him for now, as we're going to have to re-open that discussion later. Peach vodka sounds fantastic right now, I'll have a whipped pinnacle and peach smoothie. I could not have possibly made it any stronger than it is. Thank god for mind-altering substances, because quite frankly, I would be dead without them.

Nicole, if you're reading this, how did you do what you did? How were you content with yourself in the way you raised my sisters and me? Did you plan it all, or did you just go with the flow and lie when necessary? You never left a bruise, hell, you never even hit us. You scarred us permanently though, my sisters may not see it yet, but I do. Instead of giving us scars that would heal physically and show your crimes, you gave us invisible ones. The ones that people will deny us having for the rest of our lives. The ones that will always haunt us when we see you. You gave us scars that we can't get covered up with a pretty tattoo. You may not have hurt them as badly as me, but they don't deserve your games. I don't want them to experience even half of what I did.

Her games have left me empty, shallow, broken, and confused. I'm not confused about what she did or who she is, I'm confused about why. Why wasn't I good enough to deserve her love and compassion? What did I do so wrong? Why was I the one chosen to take on her role and try to fix my own life, and protect myself from someone who was supposed to protect and love me? I was forced to grow up so she could go backward. She wanted to live vicariously through me as if she wanted to become me. Everything I did, she did too. All the drugs I did, she just had to try, sometimes do them with me. Nothing was too far for her. She never told my dad though, "don't let your father find out" she would constantly imbed that into my head, it got to the point where I had become two people. One for my mother and one for my father. I remember breaking down one day, crying to myself because I felt like no one knew me and I didn't know who I was, and it was at that moment that I lost my sense of self. I'll probably never know who I am, or why. I have no clue who I want to be. I don't know how to become someone for myself, I've learned to feel as if I must adapt to everyone else.

Nicole told me everything and I mean everything. You may think, "oh that's not so bad, she's being open." Perhaps there are some things you should never tell your children. Some people should never be parents.

She loved to tell me how she was going to be so lost and sad when her "babies"(children all over the age of 10) leave her(by this she meant to grow up and go to school). How she liked sleeping around with all kinds of different men because it was fun and she was good at manipulating them. She told me about her sexual experiences and I wish she wouldn't have sometimes. She told me all kinds of things about her sex life, even asked for my commentary on the experience. Then later she changed many of her stories and said she was raped which had made me feel responsible if that's what had happened because I knew so maybe I should have known. She told me about the men she was dating and even introduced me to some, made sure I knew them well. Her 38-year-old boyfriend talked dirty to me, and the 36-year-old boyfriend did drugs with me, while we were living with him. He was a big mess, but not abusive. However, as soon as she got tired of him she claimed he beat her. She claimed he was abusive so that everyone would pity her. But, she was a liar. He never hurt her. I would have seen it, I would have known. Once again, she had made me question my entire life.

I know about everyone she hates though there aren't many. Now whether it was authentic or a horrible attempt at making me feel sympathy for her, I truly didn't know. I hate knowing everything and having been forced to be her diary, being forced to let her live through me, but she changed me to be what her idea of a kid was. It wasn't a kid at all. She refused to fix any of her problems, no matter how hard I tried to help her, she just wanted to be responsibility-free forever, and I got in the way of that, so she made me her excuse to act like a child. She forced herself to puke and bragged about it. Talking about how much weight she could lose and how quickly. It gave me my sort of eating disorder of feeling strong or like I achieved something by how much I was able to puke up. Still to this day, it's some stupid competition in my head. Drugs are her favorite, they were then too. At Least then it was just Benzos, weed, and hallucinogens. I was the only one who knew, that was stressful, keeping that secret. She constantly made me be someone I wasn't, and she forced me to be someone else for my dad. But I never did know who I was. There was "party secret keeper" me and there was "the most innocent child to exist" me, but I never knew who "me" was without being forced to put on an act one way or another.

chapter 3: The worst of you.

You broke my heart, but I should have known it was coming. It was too often that I looked into your pretty green-blue ocean eyes just to find them glazed over in a drug-induced haze. The last month with you made up for the years of torture. The torture of not knowing where you were or who you were with. Watching you burst into nothing but rage because you couldn’t find your next fix. I never wanted anything but to save you. And when you offered to be sober so long as I was, of course, I took you upon it. I thought you meant it, though I always had my doubts. 3 am is when most of our story was told. You called me every morning at 3, without a doubt, I could always expect that.

July 21st, 2017.

Time 3:00 am

I wake up in your arms and lay there silently as I’m sure you dream peaceful dreams that match the calm state of your face, I still see the shadow of mental exhaustion under your eyes. I breathe slowly, as to not disrupt your sweet dreams. I love you.

July 22nd, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You open your beautiful ocean blue-green eyes to start the beginning of your new adventure. Our fingers intertwined, our eyes locked as if we couldn’t look away. I couldn't ask for a better feeling. I love you.

July 23rd, 2017

Time 3:00 am

The scent of chocolate fills the room. It happens to be your favorite drink, surprisingly, hot chocolate, a drink no one would expect someone like you to like. A half-smile spreads across your face, the smile that tells me at this moment you’re happy. I love you.

July 24th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

I hold you close, but maybe not close enough, feeling the warmth and comfort of your body against mine made me happy though. You make me feel complete. I love you.

July 25th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You wake me up with a small forehead kiss. You seem to be happy today. That makes me smile. I love you.

July 26th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

The ring sits perfectly on my finger. With it, I promise you I’ll be okay, and I’ll follow our dreams. You have to leave soon, but I don't want you to leave. I never do. I love you.

August 5th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You're restlessly tossing and turning, I’m sure you haven't slept yet, you’re still withdrawing. I lean over and put my arm across you and place my body against yours. I worry because I wake up to the sound of you crying every time we sleep together. I try to pull you into me and you rest your head on my chest and quietly sob, pretending you’re just sleeping so I won’t notice. You’re stuck in this terrible life. I’m sorry. I love you.

August 6th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

Laying on the couch. I could see you staring at the wall, I felt you caressing my hand, softly. You kiss my cheek softly and then give me a warm smile. I see the pain in your eyes. It shatters my soul more every single second I look at you. You have to leave again soon. I want you to stay with me. I love you.

August 7th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You look like you've been crying for hours. I'm afraid you’re not okay again. I know you won’t tell me. I love you

August 8th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

you tell me that you don't want to get out of bed today. You tell me that you love me and that you're gonna be okay. I should know better but I believe you because I want to. I love you.

August 9th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You look like you’re on drugs again, but you won’t tell me that. Your face is pale and you’re always shivering. I love you.

August 10th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

I have yet to see you smile. You look at me over video chat and I know that you're fighting it, you can’t wait to congratulate me on one month of sobriety, and I can’t wait to congratulate you. In-person. Your kisses are always soft but lately, they have a chill to them. The warmth from you has disappeared, I’m worried that you want drugs again. You told me “I’ll always be here for you whether I’m physically present or not.” That makes me feel better. Maybe a party will cheer you up, I have a surprise planned for you tonight. I love you.

August 11, 2017

Time 6:00 am

You died at 1:53 am

I tried to wake you up but you don't stir. The party went silent. The pain in my chest is excruciating. I shook you and your rubber-banded bag fell to the floor. I hugged you harder as if it could bring you back. There is nothing I could do but cry. 15 minutes later I dialed 9-1-1 but I couldn’t speak, I cried so hard that no sound could even come out anymore. The sobs were so quiet they were loud. The ambulance got there, they put you on a stretcher. At first, I refused to let go of you, holding onto your hand, hugging your body with mine as if I could give you the life in me. It was so cold. D.O.A. I love you... The bed feels empty with you gone. The couch feels too big without you next to me. And the porch swing looks like a grave. I can’t go to the party house anymore. My hands feel cold without yours in them. I cried all night. The tears stopped coming out after a while, but I still sobbed. Your scent fills my nose and I cry more. I could have saved you. I'm empty without you. I should have known better. Your last words haunt me. I’m not sober anymore, I’m sorry. The note you left, I don’t think I can ever read it. I love you.

August 3rd, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I had a dream about you. You looked so happy, your wings matched your darkness. But Seeing your smile, your real one, made me feel good, so good that you are no longer only a dark spot in my memory.

August 5th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I made your favorite, hot chocolate, and a bacon peanut butter sandwich. I wish you had a grave, but they turned you to ash and put you god knows where. Even though you aren't here, the universe still reminds me of you. Even though I know you won't be waking up this time. I love you.

August 10th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I went to our spot today. I cried when I got home, I hurt so bad. I miss you more than anything. I love you. It's almost been a year.

August 11th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

The first anniversary of losing you. I refuse to accept that you’re gone. Just tell me you’re coming for me. Tell me you’re in some 3rd world country just hiding out like we always talked about, and you’re gonna come find me when I’m 18. I want this to all be a bad dream.

August 12th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

It's getting too hard to sleep. I slept in one of your t-shirts. It smelled just like your favorite cologne. I held it just like I would have held you. I love you. I miss you.

August 13th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

Your mom called to make sure I was okay, your parents are back in New England now. They miss you, it hurt to hear her cry. I guess she did love you in her way. I love you.

August 14th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I'm going crazy without you. This isn’t allowed to be real. I miss you. I miss your smell. I want you back. I love you.

August 15th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I visited our spot again yesterday. Remember what you told me? “I’ll always be here for you whether I’m physically present or not”. Those words haunt me, you spoke them the day before left me forever. I should have known. I wish I knew. Maybe then I could have saved you. I love you.

August 16th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I can't stand being without you anymore. I love you.

August 11th, 2019

Time 3:00 am

It’s been two years. I miss you more than I ever thought was humanly possible. Please come back. I think I’m in love again. It scares me, but I know you’d like him.

August 12th, 2019

Time 3:00 am

No one gets that you weren’t the best thing in the universe, that you were an asshole sometimes, you weren’t always a good person. But you were good. You made life something more than it was and you showed me who I could be. You showed me who I am, in your own fucked up way that included you dying. And for that, I owe you.

August 3rd, 2020

Time 3:00 am

I've finally read the note you left me. I read it over and over. I’m crying so much writing this I can’t even see. Come back. I miss you. I love you.

August 5th, 2020

Time 3:00 am

Why did you have to go and do that? This all must be a fucking joke. I love you.

August 8th, 2020

Time 3:00 am

The day that marks 3 years since you left me is coming up quickly. I don’t want it to come. I don’t want it to happen. I don’t want to accept this. I miss our talks at our spot. I love you.

August 11th, 2020

Time 1:53 am

It’s been 3 years. Today is terrible. Come back. I love you.

I guess your anger is just as much a part of your story as your love. You loved me, that much everyone who knew you knew, but you had a funny way of showing it sometimes. The drugs clouded your memory, or at least you wanted me to think they did. Like the time you shot at someone who stole off of you. Your excuse was being high, but not until you knew how much it scared me. I’m not sure what you thought would happen had you shot him, but I don’t think you cared regardless. Maybe you always knew what you were doing, and you were too tired to control yourself. No matter what, a part of me will always be infatuated with you and a piece of my heart will always belong to you. Our story is one I can never forget, but as time goes on I see more flaws, I find more wrongdoings, and I learn to love you less.

Chapter 4

How have we gotten to this point? I woke up today in a great mood, but of course, Nicole couldn’t allow that. It’s been months since I spoke to her, but she’s pinned my best friend and his mother against me. She and her so-called husband say I told them I was going to turn them in. My best friend who deals drugs, and his mother who condones it and takes part. I know what you’re thinking, why the fuck are you, friends, with these people? Quite frankly, I don’t know, I guess I always have been. My best friend, Aaron, was the first guy I ever had a crush on. He was the only person who showed up to my 13th birthday party and he never did me wrong. He took my weed virginity, and he stuck up for me. He didn’t let kids bully me, though they sure tried. He didn’t back down, sometimes it felt like he was the only person on my side. If it weren’t for him my middle school experience would not have been nearly as mediocre as it was. At some points in life, he was all I had, and still, to this day, I can go to him with whatever and he does his best to help. Though, ever since Nicole started her bullshit and I told the police about her abuse, she has been trying to sway him to take her side. She’s good at doing that, she knows how to manipulate just about anyone. She had our entire family fooled for years, had them convinced she wasn’t a terrible person or on drugs.

I guess now is a good time to bring up Josh, the man who took my virginity, if you want to put it that nicely. By that I mean the 19-year-old who forcibly had sex with 13-year-old me, whilst I was high on pills in Victoria’s closet. Victoria was my BFF, we did everything together, mostly drugs. Sometimes random friends of friends would stay at her house, and one time we made a huge mistake. I still remember the feeling, being dragged from bed and onto the ground, through the closet doors. I can still hear how loud the sliding door shut. I remember how it felt, my clothes being ripped off of me, sloppily and just good enough for him to get to where he wanted. He clasped his hand around my throat to keep me pinned down as if I wasn’t already paralyzed by the pills he offered me. Surely I took them, I was too high to know better. I didn’t feel anything, but that was the torture of it. I knew what was happening, and I was unable to stop it. My body was motionless, but he got off on it. His evil grin and cold eyes are permanently ingrained in my brain, I’ll never forget his face because that’s all I could look at. I’ll never forget it because I’m forced to remember. Good thing I never felt it, I’m sure that would be a whole other nightmare. I’m sure you’re wondering how this relates to Nicole, but let me tell you, I told her about the invasion of my body, and she doubted me. I told her what happened and she told me I was wrong. She told me I wasn’t that high, I could have stopped it if I didn’t want it. She told me I wanted it. I the 13-year-old, of course, believed my mom, only to figure out it was sexual assault 2 years later. Nicole of course did absolutely nothing, as per usual. She could have saved me that night. I called her, I wanted to go home because I didn’t feel safe and I thought I was too high, she came and saw me, she told all the people there I was fine, even went as far as saying I was faking it. Maybe she’s the reason I got raped that night, maybe he took my silence as consent because he thought I was sober. Maybe he was rough because he thought my silence meant I liked it. Maybe I only imagined saying stop, perhaps it never came out of my mouth. Or perhaps my pleas to stop convinced him to continue. How could I know anyways? I was in a drug-fueled haze, maybe I remember wrong and I never said stop. I guess that’s the downfall of getting high, you never know what happened. Everything is foggy and the details are blurry. It’s like trying to remember a dream after you wake up, you wonder what happened and the longer you’re awake the blurrier the memory gets. The longer you’re sober, the blurrier your high adventures become. Just because I’ve been thinking about this long enough to write it down, anxiety is jolting through my veins. It starts at the back of my throat, pushing its way up from the inside out, a sting that becomes so much more. The line between what is fear and what is real is becoming blurrier by the second. It feels as if my words are stuck in my throat, stopping me from screaming, from letting my feelings out. This is my brain's way of telling me my words aren’t worth much right now, quite frankly it’s not wrong. He tore my soul to pieces as my pleas ran through his mind as “convince me” “keep going” “I like it”. I can still see his cold, hungry eyes in my dreams sometimes. Imagining his face sends shivers down my spine as I continually play what he did to me over and over again as if something could change the more I think into it. He broke me, crushed my being, my soul, and outright stole my voice. I can’t possibly continue to look at myself in disgust over this man, because it is he who should rot, not me. I’m worth more than becoming the perfect victim, I choose to be a victor. Sometimes I don't think I can do it, my motivation is wanting to be further in life than anyone who has ever hurt me, and I'm already there.

Chapter 5: The Man Who Loved Me Once

The man who loved me once, the one who broke my heart into pieces. Leo tore me to pieces, but I thought I was in love with him. It took a month in a psychiatric facility to conclude that he never loved me. I was 15 with a 21-year-old man. He convinced me it was okay along with Nicole constantly praising me for it. “Damn haha you are just like me”

February 3rd, 2018

I told him to stop, I told him no. I told him I didn't want to do this. I begged and pleaded but that meant nothing to him. He didn't stop, he didn't understand “no”, my begs and pleads for him to stop rang through his ears as “convince me”. His right hand roamed my body, It made me shiver. His left hand went between covering my mouth to shut me up, and pushing me back up against the brick wall. He kissed my lips roughly to silence me, pushing me hard against the wall. His fingers scratched into my skin, making me squirm. I couldn't move much though, the pills he put in my drink prevented me from doing that, what a lovely redo of the last man who hurt me. This one at least did not do it with people around, though it was dark, we were in a public place. He called me baby girl and told me "I am going to fuck you so good". I showered 3 times today, and no one questioned it. I did not eat anything for a few days, and no one questioned it. Maybe you did not mean to hurt me, maybe you thought I liked it. I still love you.

February 27th, 2018

He hit me today, it's not the first time. Hell, it is not even the second or third time, honestly, I have lost count. He loves me. He apologized and then we cuddled and watched a movie. He will change, I know I can fix him. He never means to hurt me. He is a good man and people do not want to try to understand. I have to cover the bruises, good thing it is winter and I can wear a hoodie every day. He makes me sad but he does not mean it. He loves me and I know it.

March 15th, 2018

Today he took me to meet his parents. I had to lie and say I was 18. I pretended I was in college. He made me. He just did not want his parents to give him shit like they always do. He said it was fine that we had an age difference. I trust him, I would do anything for him. I love him.

March 28th, 2018

Today he tried to drown me. It was my fault. I remember passing out and waking up with no clothes. I guess he put them in the dryer because they were wet. He wasn't himself when he did it, I am sure there is just something going on mentally. I can fix him. I can help him. I know he loves me. I know he can get help, I want to help him.

April 3, 2018

I saw him today, our visit was cut short because Nicole wanted me to come home. She knows about him and me, she just missed me because I have been at friends’ houses and with Leo all week. He was pretty mean today, he grabbed me by the throat and I am beginning to think that he needs more help than I can give him. My throat is sore and it is bruised on the side. I will have to wear my hair down. He loves me so much that the pain is worth it. I do not want to lose him. The way he strokes my hair and holds me, while he is apologizing after he has done something that harmed me is so sweet. I love it when he buys me flowers and sometimes he is good for a while. The pain is worth it for the love.

April 8th, 2018

He raped me. He put a glass bottle inside of me, and my vagina bled. He got me drunk, and we started making out, then he fucked me, relentlessly, roughly. He bruised me. In between my legs. My dad picked me up, it was the worst experience of my life. I still love him and I do not want to anymore. I am being punished for it because Nicole will not tell my dad she knew everything. I am being punished for being raped. I am broken. I need help.

April 24th, 2018

I spent nearly a month in a psychiatric facility, it has helped me a lot. My roommate was awesome. I had a nurse in there, a youngish, beautiful, and kind African American woman, she is the reason I am still alive. I am so grateful to have met that woman and another one of the therapists there. It has helped me so incredibly much. I hate that I am still being punished for being raped because I was not, not allowed there. I had permission. I did not do anything without my mom's permission, yet she and my dad punished me for being raped. As in it was my fault. As if I did it to myself. How was I supposed to know any better with Nicole telling me it was okay? I have grown to hate my dad, I make sure he knows it and I feel no remorse for what I say. He sucks and I wish I was just with my mom. I still love Leo, but he never loved me, except once.

I have grown so much since then. I used to think so highly of Nicole. I thought it was awesome to have a mom that helps you sneak around and break rules. I thought so highly of her and I wanted to be exactly like her. I wanted to smoke and drink and be high all of the time because I thought it was so cool. I thought it was normal at that. I just could not realize that she was no good. My dad was the only one who wanted what was best for me, and still to this day he does. He was the one who saw how poorly I was doing and made an effort towards getting me better. He did not even know half of it and from the time he found out and forward, he gave me all of the acceptance and care and love I needed. I regret ever being so mean to him. I know you are wondering what the hell I said to him, so I will make a list.

-I hate you

-You are a terrible dad

-I will never speak to you again

-You are the reason I am so messed up

-I never want to see you again, you suck and I fucking hate you, don't you dare tell me to watch my mouth, you don't get to tell me what to do because you aren't my dad anymore {then I called him by his first name}

-I do not want you in my life

I hate myself for the things I said to my dad. He is one of the kindest, most caring, and genuinely good human beings I know. He does everything he can to make sure my sisters and I can have what we want. He has a job therefore a steady income. He gets us any reasonable thing we want. I am so lucky to have a dad like him because not everyone gets a good dad, I love my dad. He and I finally have an amazing father, daughter relationship and I feel so much better. I wish I never said those hurtful awful things to him, I wish that Nicole never ingrained my brain with lies about him making him seem bad. Now my sisters are saying very similar but even meaner hurtful things to my dad. He does so well for them and they hate him because Nicole is good at brainwashing.

Dad, if you are reading this, I want you to know, it was never your fault for anything that happened. You could not have known, Nicole manipulates well. I love you and you are an awesome dad.

My mind is in a muddle. I can not seem to think straight for some reason. Nicole manipulated me so much I question my trauma. she told my dad and me that I faked being raped so I would not be in trouble. When I went to the party, she said it was real for a while, until it was no longer convenient for her to use. "My poor baby, I feel so bad seeing my daughter shower 5 times a day". Then when it was not getting her attention anymore, she said I was lying.

I wish I knew what to do with the thoughts that are flooding my brain right now. Once you become happy, and you come to be at peace with yourself, you can be okay. However, your demons stick with you forever. Once an addict, always an addict, but that does not make you a bad person. It shows how strong you are when you get sober. Your demons follow you, but you can restrain them, you can imprison them and throw them into the back of your brain. That alone makes you a survivor. Being a victim of rape and having PTSD is just the same. It is hard to suppress the memories, and it is even harder to work through them, but it is possible, I know it is because I am doing it. Your demons follow you, you have to realize that they do not own you.

Nicole is part of the reason I am mentally ill. I hate her for that. I hate her for many things. I wish her the worst. However, I am not going to let her win. I do not hate her, I hate what she did, I hate the way she groomed me into her idea of a good daughter. I hate how she manipulated me into believing my dad was no good, and he drank too much and he ignored us on the weekends for shooting/hunting. I regret not letting my dad have a relationship with me for years. She is not winning this one. I hate everything she did, but I will leave it to someone else to hate her because I am sure other people do.

I have always been in love with Leo, but as time passes by, I realize that nothing he did was good or okay. He was only ever "nice" to manipulate me. I wish I had known then what I know now. I am slowly getting over him and trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts about him. He was like a drug, and I got addicted.

My current boyfriend is amazing, and I could not have asked for someone better.

Chapter 6: This Is Today

Hypomania can be nice, I was hypomanic for like a month, keyword fucking “was”. I’d like to clear the misconception that mania means you’re happy, it doesn’t. I can’t be confrontational right now because no matter what it’s about I’m approaching it like a fight even if you’re approaching it like a discussion. It’s one hell of a fucking high and if you’ve ever done hard drugs you know that it’s usually not good the whole time you’re on a binge after a week or so. You know it’s more intense the more you do and the less you can function. Mania is such an intense thing that it makes you feel like you are on drugs when you aren’t, and as someone who used to do a lot of them, that’s scary, because it brings back so many memories, and for me, that fuels the mania more, it is just feeding the fire. Okay, so imagine like a 2-month long drug binge or drinking (alcohol) binge with the given random withdrawals and mood swings, The comedowns, and the intense parts where you think you’re on top of the world and life could not possibly get better.. Okay? Now imagine having no control over when you feel like you’re coming down when you feel high or drunk when you feel hungover when you are high or drunk at all. Imagine 24/7 constant torture of not knowing what’s next. Don’t fucking romanticize mania, don’t romanticize this. Here I am, in my bathtub, with a bottle of cheap vodka that tastes more like the smell of hand sanitizer than any alcohol at all, and I’m on 2 bars of Xanax (I was coming up on a year sober). Here I am, hot water pouring onto my trembling body in hope that it will ease my trembling, it feels like I’ve been in here for days and it’s only been hours, yet all of my tears are gone. I’ve drained myself of tears and I can’t seem to cry anymore. It's just a dull sob, heavy breathing, shaky hands, a blotchy face, and a trembling body. You think my symptoms would be numbed but I feel like they’re more lifelike now. I feel trapped within them, as if they own me, just like he owned me. I wish I could say he never did but for a while there I was stuck in his abyss. I haven’t slept in way too fucking long. Yes, I am on meds, no they are not working. I’m talking to my psychiatrist as soon as I can. Last night and these past few hours(it’s 3:48 a.m.) have been terrible, I’ve been up talking and pacing and shaking and crying all night in utter paranoia full of what I'm self-aware enough to know are only delusions, going from laughter to crying excessively to panic attacks that feel like the end of the world, to pouring my heart out to a girl I’ve been friends with for a week and telling her all of my trauma(shout out to you dude thank you) to trying to buy fucking animals(specifically a monkey) off of the Internet. Even though I only collectively have $6.00. Mania is embarrassing yourself publicly or even just within your household and not fucking remembering what you did or how you did it or why. Mania is bad life choices and excessive cleaning and exhaustion and impulsivity, for example: “wanna get drunk” yeah I’m drunk rn but sure why not. “Wanna have sex?” Yeah okay “ I don’t have a condom” that’s cool just pull out or don’t I don’t care. Mania is hurting the people you love because they can see how lost you are and how broken you are and how you can’t see that you need help. Mania is researching, stalking, fucking obsessively trying to find your abuser/rapist on the internet because you’re curious as to how he’s doing. Mania is trying to convince everyone around you that you’re fine because you want to be fine because you don’t want it to happen again until you’re so not fine you can’t avoid it anymore. Sometimes you just get stuck in fucking mania and you can’t get out. Sometimes you get hypomanic and start a book then as it progresses into mania you write more and more *cough* me *cough*.

Life has never exactly been easy, and I’ve always had difficulties concluding that nothing that’s happened is my fault, and truly it is not. However, blaming myself has always been easier than blaming everyone else. In complete honesty, Nicole ruined so much of my life and damaged my psyche. The way I view the world will never be innocent, my innocence is gone and I’m not sure I could get it back if I tried to. How much of my life would have been different had I not been an addict? What if Nicole never was abusive? What if I was never raped? What if I did fewer drugs? What if I never told my dad about Nicole? I could go on with the questions, but that probably won’t get us anywhere. It’s funny to think of who I could have become. Maybe I would be a sheltered little bitch with no sense of humor or sense of self. Maybe I would still to this day be a drug addict. The what if’s don’t matter, because they are simply that, what if’s. They don’t mean anything, but my past means everything. I don’t hold grudges against anyone for anything, I try not to hate, but I do strongly dislike Nicole. I do wish she wasn’t such a raging bitch. I wish she could just stop being a piece of shit. I wish my life wasn’t destroyed, yet I am beyond thankful for how beautifully broken I am.

I'll have such loud intrusive thoughts that they feel like voices. It's like there are two people in my head sometimes 3 or 4, constantly talking over one other, and then me trying to get them to stop long enough for me to hear myself think. I will also have snippets of words, phrases, phantom sounds, or music. I begin to hear whole words, phrases, even random sounds, and parts of songs. Sometimes I don’t even know the songs. “Just shut up, no one likes you”

“do it anyway, don’t be a pussy”

“they’ll think you’re crazy, be careful who you tell”

“secret secret secret”

“stop thinking about him”

“don’t stop thinking about it”

I’m sure the thoughts, the voices I’m hearing don’t sound all that terrible, but they are. You’re probably wondering why I let them bother me.

Just imagine constantly hearing the same things over and over and over and instead of letting the voice become a redundant muttering, it becomes more meaningful every time you hear it. They become more hurtful. They become louder with every waking breath. This form of existence is painful. The world wants me to be the same thing I want to be, but I don’t know if this is even me.

I struggle a lot with that. It makes me feel like I led two lives and honestly you’re one of the only people who heard about a lot of my “high adventures” I’ll call them, and I do apologize for telling you about me doing drugs and stuff, you were too young to be hearing about that(you aren’t too young now). However, because I am an addict I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And I did drugs to cope with my existence and how secret I had to keep anything that had to do with Nicole.

The voices in my head won’t shut up. They scream and yell, and go in circles taking turns talking, seeing who can be the loudest. My head is constantly racing. There is constantly something going on in my head. I just want it all to stop. The only things to drown them out are drugs. Maybe I will start taking benzos again, that calmed them last time.

[thevulernablepreacher]

It’s Sunday. I’v been in my new home since 7/23. Im a completely different person than I  was 3 months ago. I”m using the last time I attended my public speaking group session as a barometer.

I’m supposed to go back in a couple of weeks and all I can think is that I have traveled around the universe several times since then. I don’t want to go back b/c it feels heavy to me. I feel defensive.

They’re the most loving group of women. I just want them to know though without having to tell them, how different I am; how much stronger I am.

My foot is in an orthopedic shoe boot.. b/c I did something really stupid. My big toe had healed after being fractured and then sprained and now it’s sprained again. 

So I have a lump in my throat b/c it hurts and b/c im scared. The thought passed through my mind this morning that I guess by December it will be healed. I hope so. I’m also scared that b/c its the third time in the row I have no idea how long it will take to heal. I sprained it on 8/8, while in the therapy pool for my ankles it’s excruciating to write that, let alone admit it at any point in time. I did it to myself. 

I was told that the big toe represents anger. Well, yes I have a fuck load of that. I don’t know really how to release anger.

A friend of mine and I randomly text each other things we hate that are ridiculously humanizing and true and beyond cathartic to text about. Yesterday my texts were: I hate married people, I hate couples. She is hilarious and texted back: I hate married people too. She is married.

She then wrote the exact text that was in my mind: “I hate women with perfectly defined thighs that do nothing to achieve them.”

That’s probably my next #1 thing I want to text about daily.

I was in choir the other night and im 1000% sure that of EVERYONE in choir practice was thinking the same thing in reaction to one of the members. She is small; petite. She has amazingly perfect small petite person, muscular legs. She was wearing very short shorts. The kind of shorts that 10 year old’s wear. I was deeply uncomfortable and self-conscious and jealous in a way that only God would intend so that I could work through something and arrive at some divine place of never feeling the need to compare my flabby, vein ridden, falling to my ankles, thighs, as I do, daily. Those thighs were a gift to me to let go of my nostalgia for my former thighs; the thighs I NEVER appreciated, the thighs I railed against from the age of 15.

When I was 16 (and this is not at all what I intended to write about) my mother walked into the living room of our rented condo in Queche Vermont. I was lying on the couch reading the Memoir of a Geisha. She lay down on the floor and lifted her exposed legs in the air and said, “Look at my thighs. They are falling. You have ...can’t remember what she said, but “your thighs don’t o this.”

I can’t imagine that this insanity needs analysis here. But can you fucking believe that a 50 something year old woman would say this to her 16 year old daughter?

That was my mother in all her tortured glory. That was my role model. I grew up in a house of mirrored walls and walk-in closets. Ugh I don’t want to write about this. it’s too depressing.

So let’s talk about now. I’m sitting her, deeply lonely. I had the BEST job yesterday. I LOVE to work. I love before and after. I love my work.I really do. There is no better feeling than getting paid in the numerous ways my work pays me. #1 I create immense relief of tension for my clients. I bring them joy. I make them laugh. And they feel like they can manage their lives again after we’re done.

Managing life is a mother fucker. I have zero idea how to do it. I do know when I get overwhelmed that this will change. Just trust. I have to remind myself to return to this.

My new home is quite magical. It’s also a giant clusterfuck and needs a ton of work that I have zero idea how to really proceed with. I can hear my upstairs neighbors breathe. I have to re-do windows blinds (fucking expensive). I have to insulate ceiling.OMFG! Thousands.

Decorating is a blast!!! I knew I loved design but had no idea what I could unleash in myself once I owned my own home. It is mind blowing. 

I want to buy the whole house, cut off the top two floors, create a stunning eco paradise for myself. I want to blow out the back wall and open my home onto the really cool and beautiful back yard garden; already a small oasis of beauty and magic.

I want to trash the nasty exterior and replace with shingles. I want to create vaulted ceilings that shower my with light. I want to  redo bathroom so I can actually sink into a tub. Currently the tub could fit a 5 year old; maybe a small 10 year old. Definitely not a 5′ 8″ (yes, exaggerated for my own well being) adult ( I use that term loosely).

I’m emotional. FUCKING emotional. Every response is emotional, always. I have a 52 years of life experience so I know that about myself.

I know nothing about handy person shit. That makes me crazy. I have all the ability and also the fear. I don’t know how to do this and that and that and that. I want everything done NOW.

My business is building I think..I really think it is. I see writing BIG invoices in my near future and that’s very exciting. I LOVE the idea of managing big projects. 

I had to make this move myself to see how well I manage them. I love managing the move process and the setting up an settling in and connecting to all necessary to connect to to get shit done process.

I have one new big client coming up. she actually told me she wanted to give me a retainer and we’d work off of that. That was thrilling. She’s a wonderful human; beautiful; a queen truly. A soulful beautiful human. So it’s a massive gift and joy and honor and I'm really excited about the bigness of it all. 

I also have a new level of care for myself and what I do not know. I know it’s okay. I don’t have to pretend I know anything. What I know is that I can figure anything out. I’m deeply resourceful and creative and outside of the box thinking and capable beyond what I ever realized. 

Everyone knows this about me. I’m JUST beginning to see it.

My new home is a mix of free (from FaceBook Free page), Craigslist, sleuthing, Etsy, Amazon. It’s sooo much fun. 

I ended up with a gorgeous new couch and chair and ottoman and chaise for 1/2 of original price due to delays and my constantly asking for more off..they oblige each time. 

Sleuthing and clearance are a blast and deeply fulfilling. 

Honestly it’s all a profound profound gift. 

My health is better than ever and will continue in this direction. I have my set backs but I really do feel better than I have in 8 years. That’s incredible. 

When I have both feet working I will be in complete nirvana. And I will remind myself of that when I get there and am hit with the next something big I have to deal with.

I’m going with the adage that 3 times a charm; im speaking of my toe of course.

The air in Portsmouth yesterday blew my mind. I worry that my skin and my health will fall victim to living where I do and not in some clean air nirvana. But wtf...this is my life.

I dream of owning a small vacation home somewhere..who knows.

I’m deeply lonely and I know I'm never alone. I got to swim in the pool ALONE yesterday!!! It was nirvana an of course made me fantasize about having my own beautiful salt water pool that someone else cared for, while I just enjoyed. 

I don’t think that’s my path though. I think the one I'm on is my path..Deeply insightful I know.

Being 52 and single and fickle and Emily is a thing. I know there’s a ton of people out there wishing to God they were single and not with whomever they’re with. I know there’s maybe less people out there that are truly content with whomever it is that they’re with. Im alone. 

I’m always alone. It’s a pain in the ass..it’s been like this for years and years and years. It may stay like this. Sometimes I think my life is in reverse. Most old people lament an face and sit with deep loneliness as everyone dies around them. I think maybe I'm just the opposite. Maybe love is coming to me later in life and it will be the most comforting, wonderful gift. 

This is what has happened for my mother. This gives me enormous hope. I think my mother; I know my mother felt isolated and alone for over 50 years. We’re quite similar in many ways so I wonder if maybe I'm being shown the bounty that is coming my way in this regard. 

I have riches beyond riches now: I have 99% of my limbs working. I live in my own home!!!!!! My neighbors are away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, I'm having a blast decorating. I love my business. I have so many people who love me. I have quiet and light and food and joy and all the emotions of the rainbow. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I wrote this full genius piece in my head the other day while my ankles were being cared for by my physical therapist. I was in that awesome dream state were everything creative flows. It was gone the second I got off the table. 

This doesn’t come close, but it feels like I can breathe again. IT’s been a really long time since I've written. Thank you for this ability, this space, my keyboard, and computer and digits and mind. Thank you.

#i