10 posts tagged “feelings”
My art show went well. Everyone was really awesome. I met an enchanting Parisian man and his model-esque wifey, If you want to buy my art, you can check out the Show Cave in Echo Park. You should buy it. I want to buy a pink Vespa. I'm not saving for a house because I don't need that much space to die alone in.
I genuinely feel like I've chosen to surround myself with some pretty special people in my day to day-- if I didn't have friends like Ed, Kendall and Slippy in my life I would probably die a broken-hearted mess.
Fuck, you guys. This town is pretty hard sometimes, ya know?
Shhiiitttt...
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I'm a girl full of feelings. Hell, it's the description of this entire blog. Feelings, feelings, feelings.
Recently, a friend kindly broke the news to me that I "might be depressed". No. I am definitely depressed. Depression runs in my family (although the most Irish Catholic of our clan would totally deny it) and I've suffered from it as long as I can remember. Most of the times it's completely manageable, almost like a little game I play with myself to see how even keeled I can stay before everything explodes in my face again. It might sound like I'm playing with my mental health or something, but in actuality, it's pretty much how I am able to survive.
I've done the medication thing (last year when my anxiety had manifested into a beast with multiple heads, arms and legs), I was in therapy when I was a kid for about three years. I don't particularly think that either of those things have been as helpful to me as much as just working through things on my own, allowing the natural changes that happen in a calendar year to build up my happiness and excitement for the future.
Most of my life has been dictated by this depression. My constant need to self-actualize, the writing, the comedy, the partying, the impulsive decision making-- all of these things build walls around my depression, almost giving it a reason to live there, justifying it. If I wasn't depressed, would people still find me funny? Would I still see things the same way? Would I manage to be successful if I didn't have the urge to constantly improve myself? Would I want to improve myself if I didn't hate myself so much? Do I even really hate myself?
All of this came to mind today when I was reading Blurbomat. I truly love that Armstrong family. I've been reading Dooce for years, and last year when I was going through the most terrible bout of depression I've ever suffered, rereading some of her posts about her similar struggles were incredibly comforting, as lame as that may sound. Her husband keeps Blurbomat and today I found a piece he wrote about living with Heather's depression.
I was moved by this piece because it was able to reassure me, at least a little, that I don't have to die alone because of this stuff. There's probably someone who will be able to handle all that I entail and that I won't be afraid to show it all to. Also, it made me a little sad to think that there's no way that anyone who ever spends their life with me will ever have a normal life. I am the kind of person that you occasionally have to struggle to tolerate, let alone live with... but I also realized that that's probably not the worst thing in the world to some people. (And if this person I should hopefully find happens to have the man-urge to climb on the roof and scoop the snow out of the satellite dish for me, that'd be even more amazing.)
I'm sure there are plenty of professionals who would disagree with my tactics, but living with depression is something that I've grown to realize is completely manageable most of the time. I remind myself daily that my happiness is a choice (albeit not chemically, but in my attitude and the way I approach things) and there are always plenty of worse moments in my life to reflect on to gain perspective. After awhile, you realize all broken hearts, failures and disappointments have different faces, but all the same traits. Things in my life hurt less now than they ever have, and wether it's because I'm numb from all that drinking I do or I'm just approaching things with twenty-four years of life experience behind me, I'm not sure... but they hurt less... and when you're trying to wake up in the morning, isn't that what really matters?
If you were ever unsure of how amazing it is to own a dog, you should come over to my house and experience what I am currently. I'm a little tired and grumpy, well, not very grumpy, but feeling kind of like this song:
...and here I am feeling all kind of like that when Wagandstuff takes that as his cue to crawl up under the covers and snuggle the shit out of my kneecaps. If you ever want to die a little bit inside from all the cuteness, get a dog, have a shitty day and allow him to snuggle your kneecaps. It's delightful.
Last night my worst-case-scenario in life came true. I walked in on my ex, who I still have feelings for, on a date with another girl.
I'm proud of the way I handled it. He is such a coward he would have ran the other way down the street, but I like to face my fears, so I walked over, played nice, introduced myself... I was a fucking champ.
I literally have nightmares about this scenario. In fact, the night before last I had a nightmare about that very situation-- walking in and seeing him with another girl somewhere.
I have nothing to say about her... She's very clearly not me, and if that's what he's going for these days, I guess I can't hold it against him. She seemed interesting in the "I went to Smith and now I'm an executive level assistant at Paramount" type of way. I'm not interested in making fun of her... I actually felt bad for her for a minute... like "Oh, poor you, you're the next one..."
I want to stick my head in the oven. I feel very betrayed by him because he ended our relationship because he wasn't ready to settle down... but he's still going on dates? What a dick...
There are many things that I write about in this blog that boarder on "too personal" for me... my man troubles, for one. But there are many many things I won't even touch upon because they are so meaningful or evoke so much emotion that I feel if I were to somehow try and explain these feelings into words that they would be cheapened. I don't write about my last relationship, I don't write about my father and I don't write about Girl Talk.
I have an obsession with Girl Talk that dates back to last Winter. Most people would think I'm just a fan, but his music has influenced me in so many ways that I attribute finding his last record to finding my true self. I came alive when I heard Night Ripper for the first time in a way I hadn't felt alive in years. It was like the first time I read Catcher in the Rye or the first time I really truly felt like I was in love.
Last night I had the opportunity to interview him before his shows at the Echo, both of which I attended with the enthusiasm of a fourteen year old girl at a circa 1999 NSync Show. My universe came together last night. My experience in LA seemed to be capped off. I remember thinking several times throughout the day that I hoped I would die immediately after the shows because I really feel like I've finished up what I needed to do here on Earth.
What I love about Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) is his pure love of music, his desire to do nothing more than to just share his gift with others. He seems not to seek fame, just good times and good people to share them with, that's all. He is a true genius, an artist and a REAL PERSON. He could sit next to you on a plane, he could let you cut him in line at the grocery store, he could ask to use the dryer after you at the landromat, but he brings the mother fucking noise every single night all over the world. How amazing.
I'll never be able to truly explain the way I feel about his music, and I can't even really try much more than I just have. It makes me sick to think about the fact that I've starred my idol in the eye. Most people live their whole lives wondering if they will ever meet the person who moves them in the way he moves me... and I haven't just met him, but he knows my name, he knows my face, he remembered our past introductions. It's not a case of being star struck... I think some people feel this way about the Pope. It was a confirmation of my belief system and the way I live my life.
My life has been changed forever.
There's been a heatwave in Los Angeles the last two weeks that has been pretty much unbearable. One of my friends that I spend the most time with doesn't have air conditioning in his beat up Beamer, so I have been subjected to many 120 degree car rides recently. My apartment doesn't have air conditioning and I've been forcing my dog to sleep on the other end of the bed from me. His furry little body isn't exactly comfortable to have on top of you when you're drenched in sweat. It's similar to how comfortable you'd imagine sleeping in a pile of wet wool socks would be. Today I woke up and the air had that fall crispness to it that lets you know the world is continuing to turn. People say that Los Angeles doesn't have seasons, and while there's no drastic switch in the weather, I can definitely feel that things are changing.
There was one day my senior year when I went downtown with my high school boyfriend, Kevin Jordan. I remember that we walked out of the Copley T stop into the middle of the city, I could feel the fall weather all over my body. I used to hate that feeling-- it reminded me of the first few weeks of a new school year when you're all uncomfortable in your new clothes and there's so much uncertainty about the year ahead. Now that I'm done with school, I welcome this feeling and I welcome the changes that may present themselves in the new year.
It's been a year since I settled down in Koreatown and I never thought that this is where I'd find myself. Still in Koreatown, but living a whole new life free of my ex-boyfriend and whatever stigmas I thought would follow me from Boston hasn't (or I've been able to quickly rid myself of them). I don't like Los Angeles, but I am thankful for the live it has afforded me to live. I'm definitely living a life outside of what I would have dreamed for myself-- I never thought I'd have an opportunity to work with people whom I have admired from afar, I never thought I'd actually get paid to just be myself... I am remarkably lucky and if this is where changing will continue to lead me, then bring it on.
1) I am inhumanly messy. I often have ashtrays and Diet Coke cans stacked on my nightstand for a couple days at a time (used to be weeks in college). I do my dishes so sparingly that I often just throw them out and use paper plates. I have well over a thousand articles of clothing, much of which is stashed away in plastic containers in my closets, but a great deal of it sits in piles on my floor waiting to be cleaned. I still haven't unpacked from when I moved in two months ago. There are taped boxes sitting in a stack in my living room. These habits are not something I inherited... I think my mother is secretly appalled by the messes I create for myself, but allows them because she doesn't have to live in them.
2) I have a fear that all my male friends are only my friends because they want to fuck me. This wouldn't be so upsetting if the vast majority of my friends weren't male. I admit that it sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's awful strange that many of my "friends" have turned to me after either one of us have recently got out of a relationship. It's usually in some grand way, too. "I have always been so attracted to you", "I knew you were trouble the day I met you", et c. Shit that's really hot to hear, usually. The kind of stuff that you dream of someone whispering into your ear after a night of wine and deep conversation... but not when it's your friend who you've seen vomit more times than you can count on one hand. Not when it's someone whose ex girlfriend you've partied with. I'll admit, I've taken the bait more than once, which has perhaps only sealed my position as Rebounder or Reboundee, but many times these incidents feel more like the loss of a friend than a compliment. That entire last paragraph felt entirely too self-indulgent.
3) I obsess over random people and things. Sometimes I stumble across a random blog or website and walk the stalker line for a few months or even years. I've joked around that it's almost like Rainman and Whopner the way I gravitate to and obsess over some of the most random, unrelated things. For example: I have read the last five years of this woman's life... not once, not twice, but three times. What does her blog have to do with me? Is she a particularly good writer? Sure, actually. She's pretty darn good. But then there's this one. Terribly written, kind of boring, clearly exaggerated for "comic effect", but I kind of love it. It's not just blogs, either. I've spent months researching Scientology, LDS, and other religions I believe to be cultish and harmful in nature. There was a long period time in which I considered myself to be a historian of sorts for the show Degrassi: Junior High and all of it's delicious spin-offs. Basically, there's a really good chance I'm a little retarded.
4) My hair has been nearly every color possible. Including grape purple. My natural hair color is brown with blonde highlights. I get pretty vivid blond streaks naturally from the sun. I think had I appreciated that more when I was 14, I would have never started dying my hair, but I was a teenage girl desperately trying to force some sort of change. My mom let me do a reddish color that was supposed to wash out in 14 days. After that I started highlighting it light blonde and putting in purple streaks every summer until I was depressed over a college boyfriend and dumped a bottle of dark brown color on my head. Since then, it's been varying shades of blackish brown. I think it's the color I like best. It makes my eyes stand out and it's not something I have to do regularly. If my roots grow out, it could look worse.
