I have decided i need to balance out my thoughts to maintain a healthy mind. Negative, discouraging thoughts must be countered by happy, encouraging ones. My happy thought of the day? I had a dream. About my significant other. I am not terribly sure who he is yet, but i know i love him already. I know that he likes to watch me sleep when he knows i am about to wake up, simply because he knows i hate it when he does that. I know he not only makes me laugh but thinks i am hilarious and the only one who can cheer him up when he's in a funky mood. I know that he loves to squeeze me and tell me how i need to gain weight but secretly doesn't really care. I know i love to rub his back and kiss his neck. I know he gets me. Intellectually he gets me, even when i don't get me.

I know he gets on my last blinking nerve to the point where i hate him more than i could hate anyone else but that that is only because i love him more than i love anyone else and the two extreme emotions go hand in hand and neutralise each other so to speak. I know my mood swings irritate him to no end even though he lies to me and tells me nothing i do could annoy him.

I dreamt that he was here with me. While all this bad stuff was falling all around me and i felt trapped in it all. He came and his broad chest was my refuge. His strong arms fenced me in my sanity. He came and took me away with him. Told me i was beautiful and strong and would get through this. With his help. Listened to how i ' didn't want to talk about it' for about two hours. Let me rub his back for my own gratification. Kissed every inch of me and filled me with his love. All. Night. Long. Until he 'loved' all the pain away and filled me with himself. Mind, body and soul. And i forgot all about the hole in me. I forgot the stress and my migraines disappeared. He made the sun shine in my heart.

Perhaps i am idealistic. But it sure beats being cynical about life. I believe in love. It can complete you and it can break you. But i am not afraid of it anymore. In fact i dare it. I dare you to come knocking at my door. It's already slightly cracked.

Prometheus

I don't subscribe to Greek mythology or any for that matter but there is some literary significance to my referrence of the rebel, tormented god of Greek mythology. Can you imagine what it must feel like to be chained constantly to a rock on some remote mountain and have your liver pecked at by some hellish bird only to have your flesh heal and your liver grow back so it can all happen again day after merciless day? Torture is putting it very mildly. I don't presume to know much about psycho-analysis or terminology and diagnosese ( i am sure i spelled that horridly wrong), but i think that in many of our lives we go through a Prometheus period or stage where it seems life's circumstances keep ripping us open and pecking away at us day after day with no mercy. I do believe that to be true.

I spent the night at the hospital. She was admitted again a few days ago for a procedure and they kept her in there to watch over her. My aunt. I brought lotion and massaged her mangled, almost dead looking feet. I thought it might bring relief to the pain and make her feel better if the dead skin was exfoliated and criculation encouraged. Why must she go through this? It is not fair. Death is a cruel tease. Sometimes it leads one to turn their back on their faith and ultimately succumb to its seductively disguised evil. Death has been teasing her. Playing hard to get. No one wants her to die and most of us are in denial about it because our faith in God refuses to let reason prevail. Yet, how long will she be tormented like this?

I am burdened by her condition as well as my school condition. I went to class today, finally. And i think i have finished with my registration stuff. What a nightmare it has been. Now i am undergoing more of a nightmare. I am wracked with guilt. My parents must be stressed about where they will get the money to pay for it all. I am so discouraged. My fees are out of our limits. And i am no help at all. I should be working three jobs and getting enough money and relieving my parents who have given of themselves since i was born for me. I felt horrid when i was twelve and had all my eye problems, my surgeries and such. It was so expensive and so taxing. They managed but it was such a burden. And then i was still young, and covered by the embassy. I was a kid. I am an adult now, yet i am dependant on my parents for everything and that is not the way it should be. Mom said the other day how proud she was of the person i have become. How can she be though? I am not proud of me. I am viewed as a child by all my famliy. They all talk to and treat me as if i were five. I hate it. Not being taken seriously. I hate feeling useless and being the cause of added stress and worry. I am so distressed, i don't know what to do. I am at my wit's end. I am beginning to consider the unthinkable, just so i can make it. I have to sacrifice everything now. No matter what, i am not going to be a burden any longer. I need to start taking care of me.

In the story, Zues was punishing Prometheus for rebelling and disobeying him. If i am to use that fairytale as an example.....what is my Aunt being punished for? My parents? Me? I don't seem to understand the crimes committed though it feels as though the punishment has ben doled out.

UTA

I go to UT tomorrow. I am so scared. I went to see the school today with my aunt and uncle. It is bigger than Georgia. I have no car. I am so scared. I called Peanut when i got back. I needed comfort and he gave that to me. Shallow as it may seem to the average cynic but he called me beautiful when he picked up and said i belonged at UT and that i was going to be fine. And that made me feel a little better. I miss him immensely. Just talking to him every night. Dare i say it.....i need him to belong to me. I want to fall into him and not have to ever get up. But i know this is crazy talk. "So complicated are the ways of Kismet."

Fuzz Buckets

So i'm here. In Texas. Got here yesterday after having the trip from hell and beyond. I have never had such a.....well....such an experience. I am easily irritated and this trip was just taunting me into insanity. So we were meant to leave Friday at noon. So, we just started loading the UHAUL at noon. Ya. And my goodness, i was soooo irritated. Ok, my uncle is cool and all but one of the most annoying people on the planet sometimes. He is a control freak and a perfectionist and stubborn. And a know it all. He is really clever and all, but it is just too much sometimes. The diplomacy and modesty can be lacking. So i had to deal with that all the time. I couldn't do anything myself without getting criticism from him.....'no you're doing it worng' even when i wasn't. Just cause he didn't do it or tell me to do it. and then he spends time elling me obvious things and i am impatient..............in a nutshell, i didn't say anything but i was very very irritated.

When we finally got on the road it was nine at night. We drove like two hours to Tifton and spent the night at the Holiday Inn. Oh, i forgot to mention Tom. He is the older librarian from next door who agreed to drive the minivan since Uncle D was driving the Uhaul and towing the maroon car. Yeah so Tom is..............limited. So bloody corny and whiney and,......he's like an elderly kid. But not an incredibly bright kid you know? He is nice enough but....i dunno, maybe it's just me. But him and my uncle just kept getting into it. Bickering nonstop. And the thing is, neither one was ever listening to the other and tensions were already high and my uncle with his need to always be right and always have the last word came off overbearing and unreasonable and Tom, with his soft spoken, whiney, 'i'm going to tell mommy' disposition came off slightly challenged. It was so annoying it was laughable really. But i did not laugh. I am getting mad all over again so i would rather not go on about the stupid trip. I do have to mention we had car trouble and spent the night Friday in some butthole town Mississippi and got into Dallas at four Saturday afternoon. Crap in a bloody bucket.


Then i saw my aunt. It's been eight months since i last saw her and she looked horrible then. She looks devastating now. There is no other word for it. Devastating. I broke in half when i saw her. Didn't show it, but i did. She is thinner than i am.....by far. Her shoulders are like hangers. Her face is gaunt and sunken and pained. Her legs and thighs painfully swollen and so heavy for her disintegrated form to lift. She walks slowly. She has trouble getting in and out of the car. She has to go vomit all the time. She is not my Aunty Miriam. I don't know who that ghost is, but she is not my aunt. My aunt was healthy, sprite....i had to run to catch up with her sometimes.....but this woman is not. I am so shattered by the look of her. Her eyes are yellow. She told me today that that was the last stage of pancreatic cancer which the doctors have changed their minds about again for the umpteenth time and said that is what she has, along with the parasites. She is convinced she's dying, even though she doesn't say so. I can tell. I don't know what i am going to do. I can't talk about this anymore.

Jesus, i need you more than i have ever needed anything. More than i need my next breath. Please God. Please God.Please help. Oh Jesus. Oh God. I need you.

OH. MY. GOD.

I have been researching childbirth. Reading essays, stories, looking at diagrams and pictures. Talking to doctors left and right. Watching videos of women giving birth. Oh. My. God. I am petrified. So far beyond conventional fear, i don't know what to do to keep from going hysterical.

The majority of women poop during delivery. Yes, you read right, they poop. The pressure down there makes them poo and/or fart like crazy. And those who opt for the epidural are so numb from the waist down, they can't control it and they don't know they are doing so unless they see the horrified expressions of their husbands and boyfriends or hear and smell themselves. Could you get any more degrading than that right there? Taking a dump in front of a bunch of strangers and the man you are supposed to be a sex goddess for. Let me assure you, i may not have gone through it all yet, but there is nothing remotely sexy about having kids. I don't care what TV says, pregnancy is not sexy yo. And having to face your OBGYN after taking a dump in his face, what is that?

I am shy to so much as blow my nose in front of people i know. I know they say all inhibitions and modesty fly out the window when you feel like you are being ripped open with a blunt pair of rusty scissors, but I think i would just collapse and die. I would be so far past mortified, Webster's would have to come up with a better word to describe it all.

Let's not even talk about having to sit there with your legs in stirrups, open sesame for the world to see for hours on end, feeling like Gibralter is trying to pass through the equivalent of your nostril. And all the pain after the big pain. Going to the loo will be painful for a while afterwards because you're all stitched up. Hell, i think i am going to be terrified to walk or so much as move a muscle down there for fear or ripping open and bleeding to death. I probably will not want to eat at all.

How are we expected to go back to normal after such? How will i be able to look him in the eye after he has witnessed a gross, bloody, squirmy, slimy baby squeezing through door number one and out of door number two......well...number two? Ew. He is not going to be there. i can't take it. Mom might be, but i do not want him near that. I do not want him to see me like that. It's bad enough he has to see me going through nine months of rancid puking, funky sweating and God knows what else is to come. I think i am going to hurl at the anxiety of it all.

Oh. My. God.

Overdramatic

I really believe i have issues yo. Is is possible i may need to see a shrink for real? How friggin' ironic would that mess be? I mean damn.

Hurting

I don't mean to sound so negative all the time. I really don't. I hate that i am perpetually like this, but this is my journal. It's not intended for entertainment or public consumption, it is me. My thoughts and my feelings and i can not help the way i sound.

I am hurting right now. Hurting, not in a sharp, obvious way. My pain is a numb, dull ache. And those are much more frustrating. I can't keep doing this. I am so tired. So drained from it all. I feel like the girl who's been window-flirting with her neighbor across the way. I got terribly excited when he first waved to me and i shyly waved back, a little surprised. Then it was every night he was waving at me and i got bolder and started waving back more confidently. Then one day i bumped into him by accident and my heart fluttered. I boldly approached him and introduced myself only to find out that all this time he had been waving to the girl who lived right above me. He didn't want to hurt my feelings, so he just thought i would magically disappear one day. And my wounded self folded back into herself, refusing to come out and face the humiliation.

I feel hurt. That is the emotion i am experiencing right now and it is overshadowing everything. I got ten minutes. I had the initiative and did what i said i would not do, and i was given ten minutes. There was something far more important than me. A book to be precise. A book. Given the option, he preferred the book. And that stung just the slightest bit. I have been trying so hard, despite the guise of nonchalance i perpertrate. I have been a liar and a fool. I have availed myself to the utmost. Given all i could, more than i ever should and i have gotten nothing. And i am hurt right now. I want to talk to someone, but i don't. I do not want to have the same conversation over and over again with my friends. I get tired of listening to me. I just want to die right now. Or cry. I never cry. I always say i will, but i never do. But i want to cry right now. I am feeling so bad. I just wish i didn't feel so bad.

The Game of Love

When you are a little kid, life is summed up in three basic actions. Eating. Sleeping. And playing games. Why do we as adults assume we grow out of the latter when we never grow out of the two former actions? I think that playing games as children is sort of a prep or a practice run for adulthood. Because once we cross the threshold into adult land, isn't it all about playing by the rules or breaking the rules or making your own rules up? Rules to what? Life. Love. Relationships. What we as adults live for. To me, it seems that love is all a big game we play. Many of us go through it losing a lot at first because there is no official rulebook one is allowed to look through and find the answers in. You have to get to a certain level before you are allowed insight on how the game is played. And some win. Many lose.

I haven't really been in the game long enough to make any educated statements on the mechanics of the game, but i have sat in, watching others play and have subsequently learned a lot. I have learned one of the most important rules of the game. You can never have partners. It's a game of solitaire. Sure you would think that love is a game you play together with different (wrong) partners until you find the one right partner who will cross the finish line with you. No. From what my young and inexperienced mind had gathered so far, love is a brutal and cruel game that never ends. And you play it alone. Others may be in it with you at any given time but, essentially they are looking out for their own and trying to win. The competition is fierce.

Where am i going with this? I was just thinking about the mind games adults play. The calculations and the strategies. You can't even plan a simple date without drawing up a gameplan and reviewing it about a thousand and three times. And when something unexpected happens to throw off your game you panic and freak out. And for what? Why is there so much pressure? Who's rules are we all playing by? And if these rules are so effective, then why do we keep losing the game?

I was told i was a very calculating individual. I can't say i was thrilled, but i can't pretend i was shocked either. I am calculating. And though i run the risk of conforming to the stereotypical female role, i must admit that i have an agenda. I play mind games. With everyone. I relish in creating mazes and watching the people i interact with trying to get to the center, or the prizeroom. It tickles me when they think they are on the right path and they get excited, only to hit another wall. And yet, quite hypocritically, i despise games.I loath being toyed with, the very thing that i do to people, especially men. But i realised that we are all always playing games with each other. All the time. It never ends. We have been preconditioned as children to approach life that way. And whether it's in our careers, our friendships, challenges or whatever the case is...we apply games to them in order to win. And the many games of love are no different.

I wonder if we play with love in order to make it seem less intense, take some of the pressure off. Because if we regard love as a game, it is much easier to deal with losing at it. And the mind games protect us from revealing too much of ourselves and exposing our nakedness, thus making it easier to bruise. But it begs the question: what would happen if one day we decided to call it quits? Stop playing the game. If love was less calculated and strategized, and it wasn't a matter of losing or winning......would we be happier? Or would we end up more depressed?

The Dukes of Sexy!!!

Just came back from watching the Dukes of Hazzard. Thought it would be a really stupid, crap movie but it was one of the best i have seen in a while. i loved it. And Johnny Knoxville is soooo sexy. I know i am really late with that discovery but he is too sexy. I love bad boys. Theoretically. They are a lot of fun, seemingly. Just not when you're involved with them. But then again how the hell would i know?

I have decided to go buck wild in Texas. I know, my word choice is impeccably appropriate isn't it? Seriously though. Safe is boring and having too much free time on my hands makes me think too damn much and that is my biggest problem right now. Thinking too damn much. Ok, so maybe buck wild is not exactly right. I just want to live it up for once in my life. Before i have to officially be a grown up. So Texas is going to be my playing field. Yeeeee-haaaaaw!!! Ok. So i am still in post movie mode. I was inspired to go crazy.

I am not bothered about my love life right now. I am excited. I am not looking for anything serious. Now, i am not going to be stupid and say i am going to be single and happy forever. But just cuz you're single doesn't mean life has to be completely shit now does it, excuse my language. No. Knowing me and my inability to play nice with other boys and girls, i need to be footloose and fancy free. Raise hell. Be someone completely opposite from me. For kicks and giggles. It is really bad when a Christian girl discovers the liberation in making mistakes and living in the moment instead of hiding behind the bible she's pretending to read. I am totally devoted to God, no doubt. I stand by all my beliefs, i may falter every once in a while but i am grounded in Christ at the end of the day. But i was put on earth to live life. Not simulate living life while analysing and studying it alone in my room. There's got to be more to life than going to church and reading the word and preaching on top of your soapbox to the lost sinners of the world. And there's got to be more to life than hanging out, going crazy and completely ignoring the fact that you know deep down inside you there most certainly is a God and no matter how smart or rebellious you imagine yourself to be, you can't fool yourself into believing He doesn't exist or hiding behind your ignorance and lack of initiative to get to know Him because other human being put you off Him. There is a healthy balance and it has become my quest to find it and live it.

So Texas means a new start, shedding inhibitions and letting loose and rediscovering my faith in Jesus. It means not obsessing over love. Not worrying about being pretty. Not stressing over having little to no money. And not depressing over friendships or lack there of. It's about me finding out who the fuck I is. Should be simple enough.

I want to be a model

But i am too much of a realist. Pah. OK, i was awestruck by watching all of 2003's America's Next Top Model episodes on a VH1 marathon today. I was packing and home alone and i needed some noise in the background and that was it. Needless to say, no packing was done. I do not like reality TV shows. I hate watching other people do nothing really important and pass it off as entertainment (especially famous people. i really don't like celebs....or rather the stigma around celebs and everyone's fascination with their every action.....but i digress) but for some inexplicable reason, i was sucked into this show today and lo and behold......i was....... riveted. The women are stunning. They have presence. They have soul. They have hair and make-up people. I believe if i had beautiful skin (which i soooooo don't. I think that is heaven's ongoing joke.) and was at least three inches taller....i would seriously want to be a model. I hate people who stereotype them. They are not bubbleheaded idiots. They are very impressive women, some of them. And perhaps if my outer beauty was a thing brooded over and recognised, i wouldn't have to do all the brooding and self degredation and i would have enough incentive to work on the inner moi. Probably not, but modelling looks bloody fun. And every girl wants to feel beautiful sometimes.

I had a talk with the Whore of Babylon today. You know who you are. Anyway, we had a very interesting conversation where we went around in complete circles. I was talking him up to himself and trying to make him see that he is the bling in the object of his interest's eyes. And then i chucked everything i told him to do out the window when the convo unfortunately turned it's lights on naked, unprepared me. And i played the role of bumbling hypocrite with an elegance and grace that i'm even apalled at. Seriously. i had an ultimatum. Talk to Peanut. I honestly did try. I had a prelim talk, just barely broaching the subject of definition with Peanut. And i realised that he was not going to take me seriously. So i am not talking to him. Period. I am not having the dreaded "CONVERSATION" with him. I am going to let sleeping dogs lie. And cry myself to sleep. Not over Peanut. But over.......i don't quite know right now.

I have to go. I can't see the computer clearly anymore, my vision has become blurred.