Since December of last year, when I was at my unhealthiest, I've been trying to develop good habits, and I feel like I have a couple in place now. At that point, I was eating a lot of junk food because "I shouldn't let anything stop me!" but I stopped once A) I lost the taste for it in the quantities I was eating it, B) I was blowing a bunch of money, and C) my clothes were honestly starting to get a little tight. I decided I wanted to reverse what was going on, so I made two decisions. First, that I would walk to and from school every day. And I actually really enjoyed it, because going for a little walk before class helped to wake me up and was some form of exercise into my day. Second, I would only buy junk food on the weekend. I made the rule this way because it didn't seem super restrictive. If I bought enough oreos to last me until Friday, I could eat oreos every day of the week. Otherwise, if I ran out of chips on Monday, I'd have to wait until next Friday (after class) to buy them. This really helped me stop wasting so much money and also allowed me to stop eating so much crap. I settled into a much healthier place, and was a lot happier for it.
For a long time now I've been meaning to work out. I feel like everyone does it in some way, even if they're really lazy about it, and that if I was to become a Normal Average Person, I should do it too. But I never really did. This semester, I started doing stairs as part of a deal with Redbeard- if he took swing dancing lessons, I would improve my cardio to go on hikes with him. For a while, we did stairs a few times a week, in the Ed building. I had actual thigh muscles and didn't get winded walking up the stairs to my apartment. It was great. Then, Redbeard started doing them at weird times when I couldn't join him. This left me with no good place to leave my stuff and no partner to do stairs with, so I just... stopped. Having a buddy really helped me stay motivated, because I could sort of piggyback on his motivation, or steal some for myself, or whatever.
I also downloaded an app this semester in which, whenever I drink water, I water a plant. It sort of guilted me into drinking water (if you don't drink enough in one day, the plant begins to whither and makes a sad face and the saddest squeaking noise ever) but also gave me a little incentive. It helped me track how much water I was drinking, and holy fuck, do I feel so much better drinking enough water (mostly it's just that before I actually had physical pain in my kidneys because I was barely drinking anything). So yeah, sometimes incentives do work. Just getting to click a button that said I had finished my water bottle again was something I wanted to do, so I'd find a way to get there.
Most recently- just yesterday, actually- I decided to harness the power of "reminders" on my phone. They annoy me and the only way to make them go away is to mark them as completed. So now, at 8 AM every morning, a reminder appears for me to spend "15 minutes doing literally any exercise at all." So far, so good- I was kind of tired today, but reasoned that if I could even just do 5 minutes, it would be better than nothing. I ended up getting in 20. I'm hoping having that reminder there will keep me more on track.
For each of these little goals, my motivation was different. When I stopped eating so much crap and started walking to school, I wanted to stop gaining weight (and possibly lose what I had gained to go back to healthy- I was only really 10 pounds heavier than where I'm comfortable at now, but it took me 4 months of doing what I did to get back down there, so it wasn't some quick-tip-fad thing) and also stop spending so much money. When I decided to do stairs, I was participating in a relationship in some way, and wanting to be a little healthier. When I started drinking more water, it was because I knew I wasn't drinking enough and was constantly dehydrated. When I started working out, I decided that some exercise was better than no exercise.
What I've found is that allllll the fitness and habit and whatever tips floating unsolicited through the internet (and by the internet, I mean tumblr) really piss me off. I hate those blogs full of skinny white girls with abs in expensive workout gear and shiny hair and 10 pounds of makeup holding a smoothie, and those same girls in big white t-shirts and little panties laughing with a salad with "messy" hair. I hate those kinds of things- they just make me feel like shit about myself. I get it- they're selling a lifestyle, and some people do find that motivating, they want to look like that... but I just resent the idea that my life isn't pretty too.
This isn't to hate on those artsy blogs with those pictures of skinny white girls with nice hair. Those girls are pretty. I'm sure many of them love their lives, and feel happy with themselves. I'm sure there's also some who hate themselves, starve themselves, restrict, work out too much, or don't eat the day before taking pictures like that.
It would be kind of nice, though, to see a pretty life portrayed as something like mine. Something like the average person. No, she doesn't have a flat stomach, but she makes sure to eat 2-3 square meals a day. No, she's not conventionally attractive, she'll never be a model or grace a magazine cover, but she's still happy. Her life still has substance. She's good at science, she likes swing dancing, she's still working on not hating herself. Her GPA is average, she has a love of dill pickle chips, she's got friends who love her, and boyfriend who does too. I know that it's hard to convey that in a visual medium, while it's so easy to snap pictures of those girls with workout clothes and big t-shirts and perfect smiles and smoothies and kale salads. That also sells, that's what makes money, because people want that.
People lust after that lifestyle. I'm as guilty as anyone. Sometimes I think, if I'd just gotten into makeup earlier, if I just hadn't been so weird as a child, if I wore the right clothes, straightened my hair just so, if I went out to parties, if my GPA was higher, if my abs were more defined, if I could climb four flights of stairs without getting a little winded, maybe I'd be happier. Maybe my life would be all happy sunshine and laughing in big white t-shirts. Maybe I could live in those pictures.
But it's not realistic. I'll never get there. I won't. I just don't think I'll ever be in a place where I care enough to put on eyeliner every day, or do something different with my hair more than twice a month. I don't think I'll ever want to go for runs in the morning. I don't think I'll ever go to a gym, honestly. I'll never be the girl full of healthy recipes and perfect ponytails. I won't. And even though that life has never been sold to me as a happy one, I'm going to make it so.
So: on developing habits. I've found that developing habits because you want to be more like the girls in the pictures, it just doesn't work. It just makes me hate myself for not having started earlier. It overwhelms me with what I think I have to do. The tips reek of shaming (which quite frankly is just my opinion). But when I develop habits because it's something I genuinely want to do for my own well-being, it works. They stick better. When I actually am focusing on taking better care of myself, when I am actually loving myself in that way, habits form, habits stick, habits WORK.
Maybe this isn't for everybody, I get that. I just want to say, it's ok if you're not developing a new habit right now. It's ok if you only develop a new one every semester, every year, whatever. It's OK to be OK with yourself right this second, and decide you want to improve something later. I know this is probably obvious to a lot of people, but maybe others are still learning like me. You don't have to change everything today unless you genuinely want to and that is perfectly fine. Work on yourself at your own pace (or don't work on yourself at all, none of my business). You'll be fine.
yer pal,
swegan
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Saturday, March 5, 2016
When everyone else is friends
This keeps happening to me, and I hate it.
This semester, in terms of Being Social, is so much better. The building is still mostly the party krew- I've heard them described as "cliquey" and honestly that about sums it up. They're still nice people and all, and I've had some nice one-on-one conversations with a few of them, but together, they're a group, and they don't need anyone else. I'm still not sure how anyone gets in that group beyond knowing someone in it from high school and liking to go out and party. Dance is great, I have been getting closer with most of the team, and especially with three of the girls (two of whom are very talkative, which makes it easy). Everyone in my lab course is so nice and chatty and we're all in the same boat, which leads to people trying to arrange schedules in lab. Plus having something in common with people, no matter how small, makes it much easier for me to talk to them. I'm really good at small talk now. AND I got invited to a little potluck tonight which was mostly people I've known and befriended in my past few years at the building, and it was actually way nicer than I thought to see everyone again. I even got some advice on apartment renting this summer.
But in each case, there's always been something someone said that lets me know that other people are way closer to each other than I am with most people. "Oh, it's way softer than that blanket I got you for last christmas!" or "If you weren't here every weekend I'd probably never clean my room" or just "oh man, remember last weekend?" "Oh yeah, someone else from dance texted me to let me know!" (while I have the numbers of two people). I know people aren't trying to exclude me, they're just trying to talk to their friends about shared memories. But it really bums me out, because I realize I don't have a connection like that with any of the people involved, just when I finally start to feel like I'm getting good at this, this is normal! Oh, wait, no, other people have the numbers of everyone on the team. Oh wait, other people are good enough friends to buy people presents. Oh wait, other people have more history with each other. Oh wait, everyone else is more outgoing than me.
It really makes me cling to the friends I have who I have some kind of history or deeper connection with. Carina is one example, along with Redbeard, and many of my friends from home. And I know these people still like me, and probably do want to be friends with me, and I know I make that really hard. I swear to god I'm trying to put myself out there but I still feel like I'm just not good at it.
Obviously I can still make friends. I realize very much that never again in my life will I be so constantly surrounded by people my own age who are also growing and eager, grasping at every opportunity we see. I realize people still want to be friends with me and include me. I don't think everyone hates me, it just seems like everyone is becoming better friends with each other.
I wish I wasn't so quiet, so much of the time. It takes me so long to finally open up to people, though I think my average time is getting shorter. And I really do appreciate everyone who takes the time and effort to stick with me and get me to talk. But I also get that sometimes I just come off as quiet and awkward and that makes it difficult for other people to deal with me sometimes because talking to people who are quiet and awkward is no fun at all (there are still people more quiet and awkward than me and I find it so difficult to talk to them), and that just really blows.
I still just wish I knew how to be normal. I wish I had played sports in high school or something. I wish I didn't second guess everything. I don't want to be like everyone else, but... I want to be like everyone else, just with my own twist on it that doesn't involve anxiety. I don't want to be the one who worries too much. I don't want to be the quiet one who can't just make interesting conversation. I don't want to be the one who never knows what to text to people, ever, at all. It feels all at once like I'm doing too much second guessing of how everyone will react to me putting myself out there more, and that I just don't know how people act. I feel like some weird kind of outsider, an imposter who can put on the mask and fake the facade and be happy and smile but inside I'm worrying. They didn't do something like that with me. No one does. Do I really have good friends? Are we just casual buddies? Will they forget me as soon as they leave? Is our entire relationship just small talk?
It would be so nice if I could turn the worry off. Like, for good. Just be myself and try my best and be nice and see how everything worked out. But I can't. Lord knows I try, every single fucking day, to turn the worry off. Maybe I'm just too open about it. Maybe other people worry this much too but they don't say anything about it because it's taboo to say? I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I was more normal than this.
yer pal,
swegan
This semester, in terms of Being Social, is so much better. The building is still mostly the party krew- I've heard them described as "cliquey" and honestly that about sums it up. They're still nice people and all, and I've had some nice one-on-one conversations with a few of them, but together, they're a group, and they don't need anyone else. I'm still not sure how anyone gets in that group beyond knowing someone in it from high school and liking to go out and party. Dance is great, I have been getting closer with most of the team, and especially with three of the girls (two of whom are very talkative, which makes it easy). Everyone in my lab course is so nice and chatty and we're all in the same boat, which leads to people trying to arrange schedules in lab. Plus having something in common with people, no matter how small, makes it much easier for me to talk to them. I'm really good at small talk now. AND I got invited to a little potluck tonight which was mostly people I've known and befriended in my past few years at the building, and it was actually way nicer than I thought to see everyone again. I even got some advice on apartment renting this summer.
But in each case, there's always been something someone said that lets me know that other people are way closer to each other than I am with most people. "Oh, it's way softer than that blanket I got you for last christmas!" or "If you weren't here every weekend I'd probably never clean my room" or just "oh man, remember last weekend?" "Oh yeah, someone else from dance texted me to let me know!" (while I have the numbers of two people). I know people aren't trying to exclude me, they're just trying to talk to their friends about shared memories. But it really bums me out, because I realize I don't have a connection like that with any of the people involved, just when I finally start to feel like I'm getting good at this, this is normal! Oh, wait, no, other people have the numbers of everyone on the team. Oh wait, other people are good enough friends to buy people presents. Oh wait, other people have more history with each other. Oh wait, everyone else is more outgoing than me.
It really makes me cling to the friends I have who I have some kind of history or deeper connection with. Carina is one example, along with Redbeard, and many of my friends from home. And I know these people still like me, and probably do want to be friends with me, and I know I make that really hard. I swear to god I'm trying to put myself out there but I still feel like I'm just not good at it.
Obviously I can still make friends. I realize very much that never again in my life will I be so constantly surrounded by people my own age who are also growing and eager, grasping at every opportunity we see. I realize people still want to be friends with me and include me. I don't think everyone hates me, it just seems like everyone is becoming better friends with each other.
I wish I wasn't so quiet, so much of the time. It takes me so long to finally open up to people, though I think my average time is getting shorter. And I really do appreciate everyone who takes the time and effort to stick with me and get me to talk. But I also get that sometimes I just come off as quiet and awkward and that makes it difficult for other people to deal with me sometimes because talking to people who are quiet and awkward is no fun at all (there are still people more quiet and awkward than me and I find it so difficult to talk to them), and that just really blows.
I still just wish I knew how to be normal. I wish I had played sports in high school or something. I wish I didn't second guess everything. I don't want to be like everyone else, but... I want to be like everyone else, just with my own twist on it that doesn't involve anxiety. I don't want to be the one who worries too much. I don't want to be the quiet one who can't just make interesting conversation. I don't want to be the one who never knows what to text to people, ever, at all. It feels all at once like I'm doing too much second guessing of how everyone will react to me putting myself out there more, and that I just don't know how people act. I feel like some weird kind of outsider, an imposter who can put on the mask and fake the facade and be happy and smile but inside I'm worrying. They didn't do something like that with me. No one does. Do I really have good friends? Are we just casual buddies? Will they forget me as soon as they leave? Is our entire relationship just small talk?
It would be so nice if I could turn the worry off. Like, for good. Just be myself and try my best and be nice and see how everything worked out. But I can't. Lord knows I try, every single fucking day, to turn the worry off. Maybe I'm just too open about it. Maybe other people worry this much too but they don't say anything about it because it's taboo to say? I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I was more normal than this.
yer pal,
swegan
Monday, January 4, 2016
Gratitude
I'm starting to wonder if I should start a journal for this of some sort. I'm going through a rough time right now (and it's not even me who's directly affected), and I'm thinking maybe trying to focus on all the little good things that happen even in the shittiest of times will cheer me up.
Besides that, I feel it might be wise to develop some... positive thinking habits, or something. The future might be even darker than this (and yes, it is true, it may well not be). From here on out things are going to be tricky and different and scary, at least for a little while, and I have to find some way to get through it.
Thankfully not on my own, since many of my close friends and my family know what's going on. I think I figured out that "a worry shared is a worry halved" thing- when you share a worry with someone, you don't have to pretend you're not stressed around them. Hiding stress from people is really tough. When you tell someone and they offer support, that is one less person around whom you have to pretend.
I'm also trying to take advantage of campus resources. And encouraging others to do the same. I don't know how helpful it will be but maybe just talking about it more will do some good.
Either way, I'm coming out of this. And I'm coming out of it better equipped to handle shit. This certainly won't be the last time I'll face trials and tribulations as a result of loving people. Eventually it will come to some kind of end, whether that be temporary or permanent. I know this hell can't last forever.
Sorry for the dramatics and being vague, but this isn't really my problem to talk about in public. To be clear: someone really close to me is going through a lot of shit, and I'm worried about them. A lot. But it'll be ok. Even when it feels like it won't.
yer pal,
swegan
Besides that, I feel it might be wise to develop some... positive thinking habits, or something. The future might be even darker than this (and yes, it is true, it may well not be). From here on out things are going to be tricky and different and scary, at least for a little while, and I have to find some way to get through it.
Thankfully not on my own, since many of my close friends and my family know what's going on. I think I figured out that "a worry shared is a worry halved" thing- when you share a worry with someone, you don't have to pretend you're not stressed around them. Hiding stress from people is really tough. When you tell someone and they offer support, that is one less person around whom you have to pretend.
I'm also trying to take advantage of campus resources. And encouraging others to do the same. I don't know how helpful it will be but maybe just talking about it more will do some good.
Either way, I'm coming out of this. And I'm coming out of it better equipped to handle shit. This certainly won't be the last time I'll face trials and tribulations as a result of loving people. Eventually it will come to some kind of end, whether that be temporary or permanent. I know this hell can't last forever.
Sorry for the dramatics and being vague, but this isn't really my problem to talk about in public. To be clear: someone really close to me is going through a lot of shit, and I'm worried about them. A lot. But it'll be ok. Even when it feels like it won't.
yer pal,
swegan
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Top of the list
I was considering all the things that happened to me in 2015, and thinking of the most significant ones. If I had to narrow it down to the top 3 most significant ones...
3. Co-authorship
This was something that happened working under a different supervisor in the same lab over the summer. My confidence in the lab also improved and I was awarded a stipend to work in that lab. It was a good summer professionally, I guess? Which sounds like a very adult thing to say.
2. Genetics Degree
There was a moment when I was making my course selection. It was physics, some WGS courses, some biology, and other random things. I remember crying because it looked awful to me, and I had no desire to complete whatever degree this was turning out to be. I'd taken an intro-to-genetics course in the biology department, which had led me to take an intro-to-genetics course in the genetics department (if these are things? I just know the first course was BIOL and the second was GENET), and I realized that despite my previous proclamation of hatred, I really like genetics. Having completed one semester, I have to say it's a hell of a lot easier to put in effort even in the hardest classes when I actually really like the subject material and want to be learning about it.
1. Falling in love
Putting this up here was contentious, but if my ex really wants as little to do with me as he claimed, I'm going to assume he's not reading this. But this is what really happened. I do think I'd loved people before, certainly cared for them a great deal, but I'd never really been in love. It's probably one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life, and the threat of loss is much closer than I'd like it to be. But I don't regret anything. Falling in love was like having a lot of pieces fall into place, and suddenly something I'd thought I'd understood for so long actually made sense, and I was sure. All those stupid songs, and especially all those stupid sayings- if you're in love, you'll know and if you're not sure, it's not really love especially- make a lot more sense now. I've found them to be extremely true. Provided things beyond my control fall in my favour, I have an incredibly good feeling about this. I know it won't be easy, and I don't expect it to be, but nothing has ever made me feel so... secure? Not safe, I've never been more terrified. Just like a puzzle piece of my life fits now. Something like that. It's a good thing, though, despite the underlying, ever-present fear (which in my case is exacerbated for other reasons beyond my control).
Overall, though, 2015 was very good to me. I'm hoping 2016 will be too, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope at the moment. This next semester is going to kick the shit out of me academically, not to mention ... to put it in nonspecific terms, the suddenly not-so-great health of someone very close to me. I'll pull through somehow, but it's not going to be a walk in the park.
Then again... How many times have I thought that before? Didn't I look at my winter semester last year and groan about biochemistry and ochem II and genetics 270? They were hard courses. And I did just fine. I have no reason to expect I can't handle the challenges this time around.
Here's to a good 2016. I wish you all the best, and hope your 2015s are now fond and happy memories (at least some parts of them, if not all)
yer pal,
swegan
3. Co-authorship
This was something that happened working under a different supervisor in the same lab over the summer. My confidence in the lab also improved and I was awarded a stipend to work in that lab. It was a good summer professionally, I guess? Which sounds like a very adult thing to say.
2. Genetics Degree
There was a moment when I was making my course selection. It was physics, some WGS courses, some biology, and other random things. I remember crying because it looked awful to me, and I had no desire to complete whatever degree this was turning out to be. I'd taken an intro-to-genetics course in the biology department, which had led me to take an intro-to-genetics course in the genetics department (if these are things? I just know the first course was BIOL and the second was GENET), and I realized that despite my previous proclamation of hatred, I really like genetics. Having completed one semester, I have to say it's a hell of a lot easier to put in effort even in the hardest classes when I actually really like the subject material and want to be learning about it.
1. Falling in love
Putting this up here was contentious, but if my ex really wants as little to do with me as he claimed, I'm going to assume he's not reading this. But this is what really happened. I do think I'd loved people before, certainly cared for them a great deal, but I'd never really been in love. It's probably one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life, and the threat of loss is much closer than I'd like it to be. But I don't regret anything. Falling in love was like having a lot of pieces fall into place, and suddenly something I'd thought I'd understood for so long actually made sense, and I was sure. All those stupid songs, and especially all those stupid sayings- if you're in love, you'll know and if you're not sure, it's not really love especially- make a lot more sense now. I've found them to be extremely true. Provided things beyond my control fall in my favour, I have an incredibly good feeling about this. I know it won't be easy, and I don't expect it to be, but nothing has ever made me feel so... secure? Not safe, I've never been more terrified. Just like a puzzle piece of my life fits now. Something like that. It's a good thing, though, despite the underlying, ever-present fear (which in my case is exacerbated for other reasons beyond my control).
Overall, though, 2015 was very good to me. I'm hoping 2016 will be too, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope at the moment. This next semester is going to kick the shit out of me academically, not to mention ... to put it in nonspecific terms, the suddenly not-so-great health of someone very close to me. I'll pull through somehow, but it's not going to be a walk in the park.
Then again... How many times have I thought that before? Didn't I look at my winter semester last year and groan about biochemistry and ochem II and genetics 270? They were hard courses. And I did just fine. I have no reason to expect I can't handle the challenges this time around.
Here's to a good 2016. I wish you all the best, and hope your 2015s are now fond and happy memories (at least some parts of them, if not all)
yer pal,
swegan
Thursday, December 17, 2015
"It costs nothing to encourage an artist."
"Oh sure, you can be an artist, if you want to starve," my parents told me. As I remember it, I was 6 years old, sitting in the back of the car. We were in Calgary, driving around, and I mentioned again that I wanted to be an artist. At 6, I thought painting was the most fun thing in the world. It was all I ever wanted to do. I wasn't particularly good at it, it was just fun. I'm sure my mom hated it because painting with a 6 year old and her 4 year old sister couldn't have been anything but messy, but at 6, it was all I wanted.
Of course, at 6, I also did not like the idea of starving. My parents went on to inform me that it was very hard to be an artist, that they didn't make a lot of money, so they never had enough money for food. I sighed and it was in that moment that I gave up. After all, I wanted to eat, and I wasn't good at painting to begin with.
After that, I took up writing. My parents seemed to be more okay with this. I wrote endless, endless stories, about everything. Some of them were a little off kilter, and those I kept hidden or destroyed when I found them years later. My love of writing was encouraged, and I became mildly famous for it at school. I wrote every chance I got. Once I got a computer of my own, I wrote even more. My mom told me about NaNoWriMo, and I participated with glee. I finished my very novel, at 150 pages and 180,000 words. To this day, I have never edited it. I wrote two more novels as sequels to that one. I made cover art. I daydreamed about what it might be like to have my novel become a hollywood movie, who I might cast as the actors, how it might inspire people quietly everywhere as many other books have done, how nice it might look in print, a real book with my name on the cover.
This was after my parents had also informed me that being a writer was very hard. It was no better than being an artist. "Hey, [swegan], I heard a joke today. 'What's the difference between a writer and a park bench? A park bench can support a family!'" and I laughed along because at that point, I had accepted it was true. Writing was just something people did as a hobby. Sometimes they got good enough at it that they made money on books, but writing was just a hobby. I should get a good job so that I could have time to write, they said to me.
In 12th grade, in the midst of taking piano lessons, volunteering, 5 diploma-level courses, 2 history research papers, and applying for schools, November came again. I went into it as I always did, with the ideal that I could do it if I just tried hard enough. After all, it had been just a year prior I had gotten in trouble for staying up too late writing on my computer and told to go to bed.... and I had simply waited for the light to go off in the hallway before pulling my computer back out and writing an hour more. If I had that kind of pluck, that kind of spirit, why couldn't I do it this time around?
Most of what I remember from that month is crying. I was so stressed. At 17, I had 5 things going on at all times, constantly, and I felt I had to perform well at all of them. Volunteering was important to me, and I needed it to graduate with my IB diploma. My courses were important, because I wanted to get into school. Piano was important because my parents were paying for lessons, so I shouldn't be slacking off. My research papers were important, and I couldn't leave them all to the last minute. And my writing was important. I wanted to get to 50,000 words. I wanted to win.
It was sometime in this month that my parents sat me down and explained that I could write at any time! It didn't have to be now. Right now I should just focus on the important things, like school and piano. I could write over christmas break! (I spent it doing a lab report we had been assigned to do specifically over the break). I could write in May, once I'd finished my world exams! But what happened was that I quit, and it was like shutting a book on the way I'd been before.
Grade 12 was hard. I don't really recognize the girl who completed it, that empty shell of a person who existed only to perform, at everything she did. I had friends with me, and they helped me along more than they'll ever know, but once all of it was done, I realized I had nothing else. May 17, 2013, was the day of my last IB exam. I had only one class after that, and getting an excellent grade in it wasn't important (not that that stopped me). I went home, I stayed home, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. I began spending more and more time on the internet, on my computer, alone in my room, because I had been alone in my room on my computer before for the entire two years prior, and I didn't know what else to do.
Maybe I quit too easily. I know that the fault of this can't lie with my parents, but it can't be entirely in me, either. I feel like before that year, I was a different girl... I would stay up late at night when it was summer, often until 4 AM, writing. I would write in class when I had spare time. I would write at lunch. On graph paper, on the backs of old tests, in notebooks. I wrote endless stories. I carried notebooks with me everywhere. I kept journals. I doodled bad poetry in the margins of my history and math notes. Writing was the one thing I could not stop doing. Now it is the one thing I cannot start.
I trace that back to November 2012. I tried NaNoWriMo the next year, in my first year at university, away from home, and got tantalizingly close, around 40K. I don't remember if I even tried last year. This year, I spent one day putting in 2000 words, and then quit. I had too much other stuff going on.
I carry this with me everywhere. It feels like a piece of my soul is still dead, but hanging around, refusing to leave. I haven't lost the will to live, just the will to write, but it feels the same way. People around me have stopped mentioning writing things, finally. I like it better this way. Being reminded of something that once brought you so much joy so easily, so naturally, all the time, is very painful. Trust me when I say that nothing hurts more than being reminded of an old identity that no longer describes you or brings you joy.
If there is one regret I have in my life, it is quitting. If I'd just kept going, if I'd just said "I can't win, but I can still write," maybe I wouldn't have stopped. Starting writing when I was 8 and everything was wonderful was easy. Starting writing when I'm 20 and scared about grad school every waking moment is a lot harder.
I don't really know why I'm writing this. I've written this a thousand times before. But if you have something that brings you joy, no matter how impractical it is, no matter how foolish or frivolous, please do not stop. I'm not saying it has to be your job. I'm not saying it has to trump other things. Maybe now and then you have to pass up an opportunity to do this thing, maybe you must do less of it when other things are present. But please, please, do not quit. Quitting seems easier, but the cost I have paid in the long run has never once been worth it.
I am still happy. I have many things going for me. I started dancing again. I volunteered to give science demos to kids in elementary schools. I pursued a degree I wanted above classes that would have kept me on a med-school track. There is so much light in my life, please don't get me wrong. But this thing, this one thing, haunts me to this day. It is never overpowering, but that almost makes it worse. Maybe if it was, I'd get it back.
yer pal,
swegan
P.S. I also don't mean to villainize my parents in this. I may not agree with everything they do or did when raising me, but their love and support means the world to me to this day. And look how much writing I did when they encouraged that.
Of course, at 6, I also did not like the idea of starving. My parents went on to inform me that it was very hard to be an artist, that they didn't make a lot of money, so they never had enough money for food. I sighed and it was in that moment that I gave up. After all, I wanted to eat, and I wasn't good at painting to begin with.
After that, I took up writing. My parents seemed to be more okay with this. I wrote endless, endless stories, about everything. Some of them were a little off kilter, and those I kept hidden or destroyed when I found them years later. My love of writing was encouraged, and I became mildly famous for it at school. I wrote every chance I got. Once I got a computer of my own, I wrote even more. My mom told me about NaNoWriMo, and I participated with glee. I finished my very novel, at 150 pages and 180,000 words. To this day, I have never edited it. I wrote two more novels as sequels to that one. I made cover art. I daydreamed about what it might be like to have my novel become a hollywood movie, who I might cast as the actors, how it might inspire people quietly everywhere as many other books have done, how nice it might look in print, a real book with my name on the cover.
This was after my parents had also informed me that being a writer was very hard. It was no better than being an artist. "Hey, [swegan], I heard a joke today. 'What's the difference between a writer and a park bench? A park bench can support a family!'" and I laughed along because at that point, I had accepted it was true. Writing was just something people did as a hobby. Sometimes they got good enough at it that they made money on books, but writing was just a hobby. I should get a good job so that I could have time to write, they said to me.
In 12th grade, in the midst of taking piano lessons, volunteering, 5 diploma-level courses, 2 history research papers, and applying for schools, November came again. I went into it as I always did, with the ideal that I could do it if I just tried hard enough. After all, it had been just a year prior I had gotten in trouble for staying up too late writing on my computer and told to go to bed.... and I had simply waited for the light to go off in the hallway before pulling my computer back out and writing an hour more. If I had that kind of pluck, that kind of spirit, why couldn't I do it this time around?
Most of what I remember from that month is crying. I was so stressed. At 17, I had 5 things going on at all times, constantly, and I felt I had to perform well at all of them. Volunteering was important to me, and I needed it to graduate with my IB diploma. My courses were important, because I wanted to get into school. Piano was important because my parents were paying for lessons, so I shouldn't be slacking off. My research papers were important, and I couldn't leave them all to the last minute. And my writing was important. I wanted to get to 50,000 words. I wanted to win.
It was sometime in this month that my parents sat me down and explained that I could write at any time! It didn't have to be now. Right now I should just focus on the important things, like school and piano. I could write over christmas break! (I spent it doing a lab report we had been assigned to do specifically over the break). I could write in May, once I'd finished my world exams! But what happened was that I quit, and it was like shutting a book on the way I'd been before.
Grade 12 was hard. I don't really recognize the girl who completed it, that empty shell of a person who existed only to perform, at everything she did. I had friends with me, and they helped me along more than they'll ever know, but once all of it was done, I realized I had nothing else. May 17, 2013, was the day of my last IB exam. I had only one class after that, and getting an excellent grade in it wasn't important (not that that stopped me). I went home, I stayed home, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. I began spending more and more time on the internet, on my computer, alone in my room, because I had been alone in my room on my computer before for the entire two years prior, and I didn't know what else to do.
Maybe I quit too easily. I know that the fault of this can't lie with my parents, but it can't be entirely in me, either. I feel like before that year, I was a different girl... I would stay up late at night when it was summer, often until 4 AM, writing. I would write in class when I had spare time. I would write at lunch. On graph paper, on the backs of old tests, in notebooks. I wrote endless stories. I carried notebooks with me everywhere. I kept journals. I doodled bad poetry in the margins of my history and math notes. Writing was the one thing I could not stop doing. Now it is the one thing I cannot start.
I trace that back to November 2012. I tried NaNoWriMo the next year, in my first year at university, away from home, and got tantalizingly close, around 40K. I don't remember if I even tried last year. This year, I spent one day putting in 2000 words, and then quit. I had too much other stuff going on.
I carry this with me everywhere. It feels like a piece of my soul is still dead, but hanging around, refusing to leave. I haven't lost the will to live, just the will to write, but it feels the same way. People around me have stopped mentioning writing things, finally. I like it better this way. Being reminded of something that once brought you so much joy so easily, so naturally, all the time, is very painful. Trust me when I say that nothing hurts more than being reminded of an old identity that no longer describes you or brings you joy.
If there is one regret I have in my life, it is quitting. If I'd just kept going, if I'd just said "I can't win, but I can still write," maybe I wouldn't have stopped. Starting writing when I was 8 and everything was wonderful was easy. Starting writing when I'm 20 and scared about grad school every waking moment is a lot harder.
I don't really know why I'm writing this. I've written this a thousand times before. But if you have something that brings you joy, no matter how impractical it is, no matter how foolish or frivolous, please do not stop. I'm not saying it has to be your job. I'm not saying it has to trump other things. Maybe now and then you have to pass up an opportunity to do this thing, maybe you must do less of it when other things are present. But please, please, do not quit. Quitting seems easier, but the cost I have paid in the long run has never once been worth it.
I am still happy. I have many things going for me. I started dancing again. I volunteered to give science demos to kids in elementary schools. I pursued a degree I wanted above classes that would have kept me on a med-school track. There is so much light in my life, please don't get me wrong. But this thing, this one thing, haunts me to this day. It is never overpowering, but that almost makes it worse. Maybe if it was, I'd get it back.
yer pal,
swegan
P.S. I also don't mean to villainize my parents in this. I may not agree with everything they do or did when raising me, but their love and support means the world to me to this day. And look how much writing I did when they encouraged that.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Disappear
So, on the weekends I get really lazy about eating. Also about leaving my room, showering, and putting clothes on. Unless I'm expecting to see people, it doesn't really matter, and I mean, I guess most of that is fine, except for the eating thing.
And it's not even that I'm intentionally not eating, I just get distracted by other things and then think "shit I should do homework" and only when my stomach is like "swegan, food" am I like "oh shit right" and head into the kitchen to make a bowl of oatmeal and today that is what happened but then I went down for dinner. I ate a good amount, wanted to eat more, and suddenly I just felt ill. Like, if I took another bite, I was going to gag. Which usually happens when the texture of food is off, but this was beef stew, and it was really fucking good, and I wanted to eat more but at the same time my brain was just not having any of it. So I ate what was left of my rice, debated dessert before hearing my parents' voices in my head saying "If you're hungry enough for dessert, you're hungry enough to keep eating" and realized I didn't want dessert either because the thought of eating any food at all just made me feel nauseous. So I quit and came back upstairs.
But like,the sick thing is, I know I don't eat a lot, but there's still some fucked up logic in my brain of "this keeps you skinny." Like, whenever I see a body positivity thing, I'm like hell yeah good for you and see all these women loving their bodies, whether they are fat or chubby or whatever, and I am proud of them and happy for them but still on some level, glad I am not them, and afraid of becoming them. Which is really, really unfair to everybody, those women and myself.
It's almost like... I'm happy about body positivity, but glad it doesn't have to apply to me? Like oh thank god I don't have to struggle. But then there's a little voice in the back of my head saying yeah, but if you eat a certain way, you might. People might make mean comments about you in public or look at you in a judgy way if you dare to do something as shocking as eat in public. And don't forget the criticism about how you let yourself go. You were so skinny once. What happened?
It's this paranoia, this fear, that's always at the back of my mind. I worry sometimes it drives more of my decisions than it should. And I buy candy a lot (not recently since I've been so busy), but whenever I do I have to tell myself so much that it's ok, and I still feel guilty about it. Like, first of all, this isn't healthy for you, second of all, it's going to lead to this condition you are afraid of. For no good reason. It's not like if I wasn't this skinny I'd be any less smart or kind or loved or capable, but I'm still afraid of it.
And it makes me so jealous of boys. Do they even get this shit? Maybe now they do, I don't know, but when I'm around boys and men they just seem to... eat. And like, not make comments about what they're eating. I watch the girls in my building and notice how they often comment on their food, or their general eating habits, even when they generally like to eat a bunch of food. The girls are all aware of how they interact with food: how much they eat, when they tend to want to eat, whether they're always hungry or always full. Boys don't comment on that nearly as much as the girls do. And I feel like some part of that is just because they're not really aware, they don't really think about it too much.
And then even with my boyfriend, we have a class together around lunch three times a week, and his lunches look good but I know there's no nutritional value in a lot of them and so even though I want to make myself lunches like that, I can't let myself. And he always just says "food is important" and eats and I'm left there trying to make myself feel not-guilty because hey, there's vegetables in my soup, and those are good for you.
I know some of this must be from getting raised by a mother who was once a dietitian, but it's hard to draw the line between where I'm concerned about the nutritional requirements of my diet and where I'm just concerned about how much food there is at all. Like there shouldn't be guilt associated with eating, should there? I've never wanted to be one of those women who says "oh, I'm so naughty, I had a whole piece of cake at lunch!" or who just orders a salad with dressing on the side or who won't order dessert unless someone splits it with her or who will refuse cake at a party or who says things like "I've been so good today that I deserve to eat this cookie/bag of chips/piece of cake/other kind of junk food" but like that attitude is so tempting when it is surrounded in the language of "oh, but it's about health- I still eat, I just eat healthy" except now the guilt is about making unhealthy choices rather than just making choices. Which I guess is better because it means people are eating, but... it still sounds so fucked up that people should feel guilty for eating something. And then that last comment gets into vegetarianism/veganism which is not the issue here.
All I know is that I wish I could just exist without devoting so much brainpower to worrying about what goes in my body. I mean, maybe there is an advantage to that- I will feel better if I try to eat better- but I wish you could have that mindset without the guilt. And I wish I wasn't so afraid of becoming fat, even a little bit.
Which is the most fucked up thing of all, because on these weekends when I don't eat, some part of me says that's better, because it's better for me to lose weight than to gain it. Like that me losing any weight at all is a good thing because it's always better to be smaller, if possible. Like how little I eat is something I get to brag about, how small I am is something that is just how life works for me, aren't I so lucky. It's better for me to be tiny, tinier than I am now, than it is for me to dare get any bigger. And that is the part that worries me. I don't even really know what a healthy weight is anymore. Does my BMI even matter? How is it that at the size I'm at, my BMI is closer to overweight than it is to underweight? Why am I so hyperaware of this? Why do I care?
I don't really have any answers. I just know that I have to keep eating to live and function properly. So I will, and I'll try not to beat myself up about it. And try to work through all my fears that are so unfair, but that I don't really think are my fault.
yer pal,
swegan
And it's not even that I'm intentionally not eating, I just get distracted by other things and then think "shit I should do homework" and only when my stomach is like "swegan, food" am I like "oh shit right" and head into the kitchen to make a bowl of oatmeal and today that is what happened but then I went down for dinner. I ate a good amount, wanted to eat more, and suddenly I just felt ill. Like, if I took another bite, I was going to gag. Which usually happens when the texture of food is off, but this was beef stew, and it was really fucking good, and I wanted to eat more but at the same time my brain was just not having any of it. So I ate what was left of my rice, debated dessert before hearing my parents' voices in my head saying "If you're hungry enough for dessert, you're hungry enough to keep eating" and realized I didn't want dessert either because the thought of eating any food at all just made me feel nauseous. So I quit and came back upstairs.
But like,the sick thing is, I know I don't eat a lot, but there's still some fucked up logic in my brain of "this keeps you skinny." Like, whenever I see a body positivity thing, I'm like hell yeah good for you and see all these women loving their bodies, whether they are fat or chubby or whatever, and I am proud of them and happy for them but still on some level, glad I am not them, and afraid of becoming them. Which is really, really unfair to everybody, those women and myself.
It's almost like... I'm happy about body positivity, but glad it doesn't have to apply to me? Like oh thank god I don't have to struggle. But then there's a little voice in the back of my head saying yeah, but if you eat a certain way, you might. People might make mean comments about you in public or look at you in a judgy way if you dare to do something as shocking as eat in public. And don't forget the criticism about how you let yourself go. You were so skinny once. What happened?
It's this paranoia, this fear, that's always at the back of my mind. I worry sometimes it drives more of my decisions than it should. And I buy candy a lot (not recently since I've been so busy), but whenever I do I have to tell myself so much that it's ok, and I still feel guilty about it. Like, first of all, this isn't healthy for you, second of all, it's going to lead to this condition you are afraid of. For no good reason. It's not like if I wasn't this skinny I'd be any less smart or kind or loved or capable, but I'm still afraid of it.
And it makes me so jealous of boys. Do they even get this shit? Maybe now they do, I don't know, but when I'm around boys and men they just seem to... eat. And like, not make comments about what they're eating. I watch the girls in my building and notice how they often comment on their food, or their general eating habits, even when they generally like to eat a bunch of food. The girls are all aware of how they interact with food: how much they eat, when they tend to want to eat, whether they're always hungry or always full. Boys don't comment on that nearly as much as the girls do. And I feel like some part of that is just because they're not really aware, they don't really think about it too much.
And then even with my boyfriend, we have a class together around lunch three times a week, and his lunches look good but I know there's no nutritional value in a lot of them and so even though I want to make myself lunches like that, I can't let myself. And he always just says "food is important" and eats and I'm left there trying to make myself feel not-guilty because hey, there's vegetables in my soup, and those are good for you.
I know some of this must be from getting raised by a mother who was once a dietitian, but it's hard to draw the line between where I'm concerned about the nutritional requirements of my diet and where I'm just concerned about how much food there is at all. Like there shouldn't be guilt associated with eating, should there? I've never wanted to be one of those women who says "oh, I'm so naughty, I had a whole piece of cake at lunch!" or who just orders a salad with dressing on the side or who won't order dessert unless someone splits it with her or who will refuse cake at a party or who says things like "I've been so good today that I deserve to eat this cookie/bag of chips/piece of cake/other kind of junk food" but like that attitude is so tempting when it is surrounded in the language of "oh, but it's about health- I still eat, I just eat healthy" except now the guilt is about making unhealthy choices rather than just making choices. Which I guess is better because it means people are eating, but... it still sounds so fucked up that people should feel guilty for eating something. And then that last comment gets into vegetarianism/veganism which is not the issue here.
All I know is that I wish I could just exist without devoting so much brainpower to worrying about what goes in my body. I mean, maybe there is an advantage to that- I will feel better if I try to eat better- but I wish you could have that mindset without the guilt. And I wish I wasn't so afraid of becoming fat, even a little bit.
Which is the most fucked up thing of all, because on these weekends when I don't eat, some part of me says that's better, because it's better for me to lose weight than to gain it. Like that me losing any weight at all is a good thing because it's always better to be smaller, if possible. Like how little I eat is something I get to brag about, how small I am is something that is just how life works for me, aren't I so lucky. It's better for me to be tiny, tinier than I am now, than it is for me to dare get any bigger. And that is the part that worries me. I don't even really know what a healthy weight is anymore. Does my BMI even matter? How is it that at the size I'm at, my BMI is closer to overweight than it is to underweight? Why am I so hyperaware of this? Why do I care?
I don't really have any answers. I just know that I have to keep eating to live and function properly. So I will, and I'll try not to beat myself up about it. And try to work through all my fears that are so unfair, but that I don't really think are my fault.
yer pal,
swegan
Monday, October 26, 2015
you stupid, stupid girl
It is exhausting to not get things. Trust me, i am the world's leading expert.
I don't get when people are joking. Like not when they're like "okay, I'm gonna tell a joke" kind of joking, but when they tease me. I mean, I guess maybe I am, but it happens a lot. I don't know, maybe it happens a lot to everybody, maybe I'm just a big sensitive baby who's making up all her being upset with this. All I know is that I figured out one day long ago that the boys who were mean to me did so because I reacted. I still react. And it just bugs me when one of my family members says something annoying and I don't catch on that they're kidding and my first instinct is to defend myself and nothing is worse than looking up and seeing that they're smiling and everyone else at the dinner table is smiling and I've become the butt of the joke because ha ha swegan takes everything seriously.
I don't know, maybe I am too sensitive. I like that my dad does this thing now, where he'll put on this dramatic voice when he says something blatantly wrong, and he'll make sure to make it really, really wrong, and then I look over at him and he's grinning at me like "eh? eh?" and I get it, and that makes it easier. But what really bums me out is that one thing earlier this year when I was at my grandparents' arguing back about something and someone was like "it's just so fun to bug you because you react" and i'm like great, how does that make this any different from when I was 12?
But then if I start reacting too much then I'm being the big fat too-sensitive crybaby who took it to far and it's like what, do I just take nothing personally? ever? ha ha everything is a joke ha ha swegan is short and opinionated and thinks she knows everything about the world and in reality she is just a little baby lamb who knows nothing about anything ha ha guys we can't talk about this around swegan, she is too innocent/she'll get offended by it because she's politically correct and it's like can you stop being an asshole OH WAIT BUT YOU WEREN'T BEING AN ASSHOLE AND I'M TOO STUPID TO TELL.
I know people love me, but I know I'm a pain in the ass to put up with. I really hate that I get teased all the time but I hate that I can't handle it, everyone else on the planet can handle it swegan, why can't you? You're just being too sensitive. And it's like yeah, you know what, I probably am. And I can't tease anyone else because I am too worried about hurting them and maybe that's because I know how much teasing bugs me and I only know what it's like to be me and not to be someone else.
You worry too much, you worry too much. Yes, yes, yes I do but are you really surprised given that my mother came up here to deal with what happened on tuesday by forcing me to go to the police who can't do anything because no crime was committed? I regret that. I wish I had never gone to the police because it turns out the whole deal was a big fat fucking nothing that, again, they couldn't do anything about in the first place. My parents worry. My parents worry so much, they always have, my mom still does, she'll make these little comments that sound like she's considering a reasonable bad alternative to a situation when in reality she is just worrying and it's like yeah, ok, my parents are overprotective, are you really surprised that I worry about everything? that i'm scared of life? like, literally everything about it? are you really surprised?
I get that I am a naive idealistic baby sheep, okay, I got it. I get it. It sucks because it means constantly going through life being treated like a child who doesn't know what she's talking about, even when she's writing something like this, because I know I'm making a big deal out of nothing and god forbid any member of my family sees this because they will talk to me like "swegan you know we are just teasing right" YES YES I KNOW THAT OKAY I AM NOT THAT FUCKING STUPID i am just upset just let me be upset. why is it that i am always overreacting when i am upset. why.
I know it is hard to deal with me because I am so sensitive you can't treat me like a normal person. I know real life is going to slap me in the face, it already did when some guy asked me for $80 at 7:30 AM and I gave it to him without once considering he might not be a good person. I still think he is because his story lines up, but I'm still out $80 and having to tell that story to the police 500000 times did not help because they always ask why. Why? he didn't seem threatening. I just wanted him to go away so I just went along with him. You are a big scary police man you don't understand what it's like to be this short and young and female. which implies that i felt threatened but i didn't, just wary, just not sure what to do but continue on like nothing was wrong and at least it was only $80 that got taken from me. I don't care that he promised to repay me, I just want everything to go away, I just wish I could wipe this whole mess away with a big whiteboard marker.
I'm just upset and procrastinating. I'll be fine. I'm always fine. I'll go home for christmas and get teased some more. Which makes me sound like a victim and I'm not. everything is fine. everything is fine. I am just upset right now everything is fine, i will be fine, I always am, I always am. This is hardly the first time I have written a crazy post on here that concerned people but trust me when I say that this too will pass, it is just me being sad and being sad is ok, everyone is sad and I will be ok.
yer pal,
swegan
I don't get when people are joking. Like not when they're like "okay, I'm gonna tell a joke" kind of joking, but when they tease me. I mean, I guess maybe I am, but it happens a lot. I don't know, maybe it happens a lot to everybody, maybe I'm just a big sensitive baby who's making up all her being upset with this. All I know is that I figured out one day long ago that the boys who were mean to me did so because I reacted. I still react. And it just bugs me when one of my family members says something annoying and I don't catch on that they're kidding and my first instinct is to defend myself and nothing is worse than looking up and seeing that they're smiling and everyone else at the dinner table is smiling and I've become the butt of the joke because ha ha swegan takes everything seriously.
I don't know, maybe I am too sensitive. I like that my dad does this thing now, where he'll put on this dramatic voice when he says something blatantly wrong, and he'll make sure to make it really, really wrong, and then I look over at him and he's grinning at me like "eh? eh?" and I get it, and that makes it easier. But what really bums me out is that one thing earlier this year when I was at my grandparents' arguing back about something and someone was like "it's just so fun to bug you because you react" and i'm like great, how does that make this any different from when I was 12?
But then if I start reacting too much then I'm being the big fat too-sensitive crybaby who took it to far and it's like what, do I just take nothing personally? ever? ha ha everything is a joke ha ha swegan is short and opinionated and thinks she knows everything about the world and in reality she is just a little baby lamb who knows nothing about anything ha ha guys we can't talk about this around swegan, she is too innocent/she'll get offended by it because she's politically correct and it's like can you stop being an asshole OH WAIT BUT YOU WEREN'T BEING AN ASSHOLE AND I'M TOO STUPID TO TELL.
I know people love me, but I know I'm a pain in the ass to put up with. I really hate that I get teased all the time but I hate that I can't handle it, everyone else on the planet can handle it swegan, why can't you? You're just being too sensitive. And it's like yeah, you know what, I probably am. And I can't tease anyone else because I am too worried about hurting them and maybe that's because I know how much teasing bugs me and I only know what it's like to be me and not to be someone else.
You worry too much, you worry too much. Yes, yes, yes I do but are you really surprised given that my mother came up here to deal with what happened on tuesday by forcing me to go to the police who can't do anything because no crime was committed? I regret that. I wish I had never gone to the police because it turns out the whole deal was a big fat fucking nothing that, again, they couldn't do anything about in the first place. My parents worry. My parents worry so much, they always have, my mom still does, she'll make these little comments that sound like she's considering a reasonable bad alternative to a situation when in reality she is just worrying and it's like yeah, ok, my parents are overprotective, are you really surprised that I worry about everything? that i'm scared of life? like, literally everything about it? are you really surprised?
I get that I am a naive idealistic baby sheep, okay, I got it. I get it. It sucks because it means constantly going through life being treated like a child who doesn't know what she's talking about, even when she's writing something like this, because I know I'm making a big deal out of nothing and god forbid any member of my family sees this because they will talk to me like "swegan you know we are just teasing right" YES YES I KNOW THAT OKAY I AM NOT THAT FUCKING STUPID i am just upset just let me be upset. why is it that i am always overreacting when i am upset. why.
I know it is hard to deal with me because I am so sensitive you can't treat me like a normal person. I know real life is going to slap me in the face, it already did when some guy asked me for $80 at 7:30 AM and I gave it to him without once considering he might not be a good person. I still think he is because his story lines up, but I'm still out $80 and having to tell that story to the police 500000 times did not help because they always ask why. Why? he didn't seem threatening. I just wanted him to go away so I just went along with him. You are a big scary police man you don't understand what it's like to be this short and young and female. which implies that i felt threatened but i didn't, just wary, just not sure what to do but continue on like nothing was wrong and at least it was only $80 that got taken from me. I don't care that he promised to repay me, I just want everything to go away, I just wish I could wipe this whole mess away with a big whiteboard marker.
I'm just upset and procrastinating. I'll be fine. I'm always fine. I'll go home for christmas and get teased some more. Which makes me sound like a victim and I'm not. everything is fine. everything is fine. I am just upset right now everything is fine, i will be fine, I always am, I always am. This is hardly the first time I have written a crazy post on here that concerned people but trust me when I say that this too will pass, it is just me being sad and being sad is ok, everyone is sad and I will be ok.
yer pal,
swegan
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