When I was in high school, I loved the song "David Duchovny" by Bree Sharp. I still love it, because it is the kind of song we can all relate to. Who hasn't been frustrated by a fantasy crush on a celebrity? Also, it is a song that is meant to be sung out of tune at the top of your lungs in places like the shower or driving alone in the car or at a Karaoke bar.
Today, I discovered another song by Bree Sharp through my Ani DiFranco station on Pandora. It was a live version of "Not Your Girl." While "David Duchovny" is a silly song about a dream that will obviously never be realized, "Not Your Girl" is a deeper pain. In it, I hear the story of girl in a relationship with a man who would rather be with someone else, but she keeps hoping that he will eventually see her as the someone else he wants.
The frustration and hurt expressed in "Not Your Girl" are very familiar feelings to me. I have been in several relationships, yet rarely do I feel like I am with someone who adores me. When I say adore, I mean someone who finds himself thinking about me every other minute and can't hardly breathe when he remembers the way I smiled the night before. I want someone who would lasso the moon for me even if he knew he couldn't. In sum, I want someone who would be as in to me as I am in to him. I'm aware that this isn't realistic or healthy or enduring, but it is what I recently find myself craving.
In some situations, I have had men express such sentiments early in the relationship. I find this suspicious since they can not possibly yet understand who I am or what they are getting into. Only one man seems to actually love me despite being familiar with my extensive flaws, but he is also completely unavailable right now and possibly forever.
What is further frustrating is that I see many of my friends finding the adoring partners that I want. Tons of men tell them how beautiful they are and how they have never met a more amazing person. Maybe my perception is skewed, but I have only ever heard one man say these things and actually believed him. I suppose that many of the declarations my friends hear lack sincerity as well. Still, I feel unworthy in comparison to them, even when what they have isn't something I want.
The real question I have at the moment is why do I want this adoring man in my life so much more now than I have in the past? Before I could listen to a song like "Not Your Girl" and relate to it, but I believed in myself. The difference is before I would have compromised a lot less for a relationship than I would now. So, what happened?
I believe that once again the answer lies with my family relationships. Before the three months that I had to live with grandmother in 2009, I had not spent any extended period of time with any single family member for seven and half years. I cut off most of contact with them and was secure in the righteousness of what I was doing. But then I got knocked on my ass by my own unwise and impulsive choices and ended up returning to my birth place and seeing my immediate family several times a month. Without being fully aware of it, I ceded control and lost my credibility. Now, the ball was in their court.
On a logical level, nothing has changed expect that I have more complete information than before, but nothing changed the basic understanding I have of my family. I know that they cannot love me and that it does not mean there is anything wrong with me but rather is an indication of the level of their dysfunctionality. However, emotionally, I wanted to believe that I was the one in control and that their hostility would go away if I ever chose to back down from my position. I wanted to believe that I was precious to my mother and father as they said I was despite what their actions implied. But when I had to go back home and be around them, that fantasy was shattered. I realized how truly unloved I am. My family members believe they love me because they are supposed to and they sometimes do things for me in an attempt to show the love that they think they are supposed to feel for me. But they don't actually love me.
I'm not trying to gain sympathy or pity by writing this. And I'm sure there are people out there who will think I'm exaggerating or that everyone's family is like that. And I'm also sure those people are wrong. My family's level of dysfunctionality is much higher than the normal every-day dysfunctionality we all live with. It is not something experienced by the majority population. This is just a truth I need to understand before I can accept it and take the steps to keep it from eroding my quality of life.
Right now, I can see what has motivated my yearning for someone to yearn for me and why I find myself diving carelessly into impossible relationships that I know will not end well. I don't know what to do about it yet, but having defined the problem should make finding the solution easier. For the moment, I think I will listen to "Not Your Girl" over and over again.

Over the last year, I have talked about changes I want to make. I made progress sometimes but I feel I am in a hole right now. I'm stuck in the same place and have gone no further forward. One friend actually called me out, telling me I always say I'm going to do something but then never do it. So, what's the problem?
In a word, shame. I am weighed down by so much shame. It's like a fog over my whole life and I can only see a couple of inches in front of me. Goals, I tell myself, I need goals! I had them before. What happened to them and how did I forget them? Friends and new acquaintances and family members ask me what I will do now that I have graduated. I try to focus and I try to concentrate, but the dreams I had no longer come to me.
I am so ashamed by my poor choices and of the even poorer choices the original poor choices led me to. Granted, some of it was out of my control, but I am good at surviving, at getting through to the next day. Many choices are made with little thought, because I simply want to survive. Sure, I have dreams about the future, but I never took them seriously.
I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Really, looking at the big picture I'm amazing. Right? I used to know I was amazing and the reasons why.
It isn't just the shame. It's the terror, too. I know if I think about it too much I will feel all the shame and the terror and be an even bigger mess than now. I've spent my life running from them and now my resources are exhausted and I can't run anymore. What the fuck am I going to do?

My first boyfriend and I broke up five years ago today. Our relationship lasted about four years, but I let him control my heart for six and a half years total. Of those five years since he dumped me, I have spent only three not considering a future with him to be a serious option. I think an appropriate way to celebrate this anniversary is to explore the positive ways that I have changed since then.
The biggest way I have changed is I do not have many absolutes that I believe in anymore. I can see all the different ways that people show their love for one another that I could not see before. Then, I could only see how I loved and did not understand other people could not and did not always express their love in the way that I did. I believed in things without thinking about them. For example, I did not like listening to a lot of rap or hip-hop because I believed it disrespected women. They had too many references to bitches and whores. Now, I can understand those references are just a small part of the picture. Rap and hip-hop are much more than what I thought they were.
When we broke up, I had almost no sexual experiences with other men. I saw myself as too fat to be attractive. Overtime, I have come to terms with my body and I know there are men who would even call me hot. On bad days, I still think of myself as fat but usually I can recognize having some extra weight is not the same as fat. My ex-boyfriend’s perception of beauty was strange, to say the least, and I constantly interpreted his lack of opinion to mean I was not attractive. I have heard enough appreciative outbursts from drunk strangers (and occasionally sober ones) to know that this is not true. To some degree, I have even begun to believe it myself and look forward to the day that I no longer need to hear from someone else to know that it is true.
Now, I am okay living by myself. I still have a long ways to go to become the person that I want to be, but I know I can do it and I know I can survive the small tragedies in life. I was a mess when I first found myself sleeping in bed alone. However, I have no regrets and I’m glad that our relationship is over.

Searching for meaning is exhausting and confusing. Lately, I prefer immersing myself in the superficial. I love to party and drink too much and wake up the next evening to do it all over again. I’d rather find myself contemplating whether I want green or blue or pink to be the dominant color of my eye make-up instead of contemplating how I’m going to make my life matter or even if I can make it matter considering that past serious contemplations have led me to believe that there is no afterlife.
I want to believe that each individual gives meaning to her own life; that there really is no greater meaning, no greater power than our individual minds. Spending an hour or two painting my face should be just as meaningful as eating an incredible piece of chocolate cake with a glass of wine or writing a story or reading a poem written hundreds of years ago. But it’s not. All things are not equal. At the end of the night, when I come home and my drunken buzz transforms to exhaustion and my make-up is smeared and my hair is tangled, I know I will lie in my bed and feel empty.
I guess the truth is that meaning is painful much of the time. Currently, for me, it is more painful than it is anything else. It requires a level of self-reflection my battered heart does not want to deal with now. So, I suffocate it in layers of foundation and shimmering colors and drown in it cheap and not-so-cheap beers, wines, tequilas, rums and vodkas. I drown out the noise of my own suffering with beats from Lil John and focus on shaking it and dropping it down low.
And I try to convince myself that these things are just as meaningful in their own way until I encounter something that destroys that fantasy. “Taking a Minute” by K’naan is so densely packed with emotions that I can find no logic to try to give “In Da Club” by 50 Cent the same credit. David Sedaris does not compare to John Irving, nor does Pride and Prejudice compare to Wuthering Heights.
The need for varying levels of meaning must be an indication that we all get tired. The superficial must require less energy than the genuine. Not even the mystics can remain in a constant state of supposed divine union. (I don’t see how they can really be experiencing a union with a being that in all likelihood does not exist, but to each their own.) But, still, why do I feel the need for meaning? Why do I feel something is missing without it?

Recently, I have had some serious family issues come up. I always have family issues because my family is severely dysfunctional all of the time and downright abusive a lot of the time. During the past month, things have been coming up a lot with them. At some point, I will have to deal with it all but right now, I don’t have the extra energy it will require. In the meantime, it is taking an emotional toll and making my regular every-day activities harder to perform. Therefore, I have had to apologize to quite a few people recently for flaking out on them. When I offer an explanation of the current problems I am trying to deal with, they inevitably try to give me advice on how to deal with the situation.
Frequently, when we give advice, we fail to see the intimate nature of the issue. Additionally, most issues people find themselves dealing with are complex. There are no simple solutions. For example, I am working on a project for a client that is now five days late. I told him I am having family issues and he asked for more details. I told him that my mother is telling lies about me that make me look bad. This is an extremely simplified version of the situation. Yet, he now feels he knows enough to offer me advice. He says I should go to see my mother as soon as possible, let her know how much I love her and everything will be fine again. As if.
It amazes me how everyone tries to offer such simple solutions to me. It also amazes me that they try to tell me it is no big deal and I shouldn’t let it bother me. Well, then, what is a big deal? What should I let bother me?
As I contemplate this, I begin to wonder if it is possible that most people just have not encountered a person as crazy as my mother. Maybe everyone just thinks it’s so simple because they were not raised surrounded by insane people. This is very difficult for me to understand. My upbringing and the key, influential people in my childhood have led me to believe that most of the population is dysfunctional. Before, I assumed that if people were offering simple solutions it was because they were dysfunctional themselves and were uncomfortable confronting dysfunctionality in others. I still think this is probably true in a lot of cases. But I’m also beginning to see that maybe they haven’t ever had a close relationship with a truly crazy person and therefore have absolutely no idea what I’m up against. Shockingly, they may actually think the simple solutions they are offering me will prove successful.
I spent almost every single day of the first nineteen years of my life with my mother. I know crazy very well. It colors my perception of the world. So, I find it hard to believe that dysfunctional people are not the norm. And since I cannot yet discern between dysfunctional people and people who just haven’t experienced crazy, I think I will err on the side of caution and continue to consider everyone dysfunctional, including myself.

Today, I woke up overwhelmed by my own neglect of my responsibilities. I couldn’t decide what the best choice was. Should I stay at home and work from there, using all my energy to on working instead of trying to go somewhere? No, I decided, looking around my apartment. The mess would be to depressing. So, I forced myself into the shower and shaved my legs. I put on jeans instead of sweat pants. I considered make-up but decided finishing everything I need to finish right now would take a long time and it would be best not to have my pores suffocating the whole time.
I packed up my bag and went to my friends’ apartment. Immediately, the stale, smoky air ruled it out as option for a place to work in. I drank some orange juice and a can of V8 and left for campus. As soon as I got Qdoba, I realized I had left my mug at my friends’. I had planned on drinking mug after mug of Good Earth energizing black tea to keep me going. Warily, I ate my burrito, which was unremarkable and disappointing.
Finally, I arrived at the library. My ex signed on to MSN Messenger. Now, I’m sitting here with tears ready to fall. My entire body aches. I couldn’t even force myself to smile right now. Why did I even bother to get out of bed?

It is yet another sunny day in the middle of February in Eugene. The weather reports say it is supposed to stay sunny with temperatures getting into the high 50s until Tuesday, when it will begin to rain again. I love these sunny breaks that happen during the winter. The rain starts to feel like a burden after a few days or a week. The sun seems to make everyone happy. Even though it still feels cold outside, a lot of people dress in shorts and T-shirts. Not me. I’m still wearing two jackets, sweat pants and a scarf. Of course, I am sick and worried that exposure to the cold air will make it worse or last longer.
Sunshine and blue skies do seem to hold a promise; one that says things will not always suck and they will get better. But then the rain returns and the heavy clouds weigh down the sky again and it seems to promise that the good times are never permanent either. Is life always going to be an emotional roller coaster?
I know that it does not have to be. I have many friends whose lives are much more stable than mine. Sometimes I contemplate their everyday routines and what their priorities might be and I ask myself would I be happier living like that? Then I consider the reasons why I am unhappy right now. In both the long term and the short term, the majority of my unhappiness is related to my family. Realizing this, I know that I have three options. I can find a way to become immune to their dysfunctional behavior and beliefs, I can push them out of my life or at least into a smaller corner of it, or I continue in the same pattern of misery with them. The third option is the easiest to accept in the short run, but intolerable over an extended time period. The first option doesn’t seem likely to happen for years to come. The second option has the highest chance of success.
However, I think part of implementing the second option is once again believing in myself and my values and not feeling so vulnerable and doubtful all the time. To be honest, many of the things that happened between June 2007 and March 2009 eroded much of the strength I had built up. Since then, I have had little faith in myself and my abilities. It would have been impossible to try to heal during this time because it seemed that one trauma was immediately followed by the next. I have spent the last year getting used to not constantly navigating my way through one problem just to find myself amid a new one.
Now, I am in a position to feel again. And I am unhappy. As I said, a lot of it is because of family issues but then there are problems I could have avoided. I fell in love with an unavailable man. During the entirety of our relationship, I completely understood how unavailable he was. Yet, I allowed myself to pursue it and get more deeply involved. The more involved I became, the more I lost sight of how unavailable he was. And then it all came crashing to an end I wasn’t ready for. Now, I am stuck with a sadness that I could have prevented or at least lessened by not getting so involved.
I guess, then, I am in the process of figuring out how to become stable without becoming bored. I need a lot of stimulation. But maybe once I begin to allow myself to deal with things instead of avoiding them I will find that I no longer need the same stimulation.