honesty?

For the past three nights I've had the same nightmare.

I went for drinks with my brother last night and I felt safe and loved and understood. For awhile I thought we only became friends because of circumstance. But I realized even after all these months of not talking, he is a real, true friend that cares about me.

Even when I feel alone I do have people. Not a lot of people can say that. I'm lucky. I know it.

My roommate started to tear up last night. I told her how lonely and painful this week again and I could tell how much she cared.
Things will get better.

I don't really know who regularly follows this.
I tend to write in code or try to because I don't want to say anything too real, give away too much.

But fuck it.

A lot of people think seeing a therapist is a sign of weakness. That needing someone to talk to shows that you can't handle your thoughts alone.

Well. I am weak. and I can't handle my thoughts alone.
But its not a sign of weakness.

I'm finally taking matters into my own hands so I can figure out what the fuck I should do.

Seeing a therapist today. Hope it goes well.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

All that stuff happened and then he came over and confused me and then I told him I wanted to be with him and then he told me he wanted to be with me but didn't want to be with me and it was confusing and horrible and I feel hallow. 
I feel numb. 

I legitimately cannot be here to watch him move on. 
My heart can't handle it.

Penguin love.

When I was four years old, I walked into my grandparents house and clutched my brand new stuffed penguin I fondly called, Penny. 
My Pop-pop sat me down on his knee and quizzed me about the penguin, seeing how much I knew about them. 
I was four so I knew very little. 
"That is an Emperor Penguin, darling. Do you know where they live?" 
"They live in the cold?" 
"That's right!" he said "What else?" 
"Theeeey.......hide their eggs underneath their bodies?" 
"Right! But do you want to know my favorite part about them?" 
I nodded vigorously. 
"Penguin love is the deepest most true kind of love." 

My grandfather was a very loving man, but most of that started when he became a grandfather. He was not the most present father and struggled with alcoholism. 
He made up for lost time with his children's kids. 

From the time that he told me about this deep Penguin love until I was thirteen, I was under the impression that Penguins were the most magical animals who mated for life. It baffled me because that is not something even most humans are capable of. 
When I saw March of the Penguins my world was shattered. Not only because of how heart breaking it was, because it was in that dark movie theatre that I realized my grandfather was wrong: Penguins did not mate for life. 

I was crushed. I watched my parents fight and was having enough trouble believing in human love, but now the Penguin love was gone? 

They remained my favorite animal but I was in denial. 
I wanted to believe that maybe the movie got it wrong, maybe it depends on the penguin, like people. 

Then I fell in love for the first time. 
I didn't want to be in love with him because I knew he didn't feel the same way. I distinctly remember sitting in that dark car with him whispering, "Don't worry, you didn't hurt me. I wasn't in love with you anyway." 

I truly believed I didn't love him. 

And then, I fell in love for the second time. 
It was unexpected and strange but months into our relationship I knew it was true. It felt different than before so I still wrote off the first time. 

My heart broke when he walked out of my room and I kissed him at midnight knowing it was probably going to be our last.

When I went back on New Years day, the boy who "didn't" break my heart and I spent some time together. Looking at his face, the same face who so lovingly rejected me all those years ago made me realize something I am only now strong enough to admit: I was in love with him. But I'm not anymore. Of course I felt a love for him, probably a kind of love I'll only ever feel for him specifically, but it was such a weight lifted off of me as we walked through that used bookstore together to know, I use to be in love with him. 

Which brings me back to the Penguins. 

Today I realized my grandpa didn't lie to me. He never said, "Penguins mate for life" I only assumed that because I wanted to believe it and I was four. Or because I was thirteen and I desperately wanted to believe that true love existed.

It does. 
Penguins have it too. 

Penguins do fall in love. For one year they are completely devoted to their counter part. The male penguins protects the egg, while the female penguins risk their lives for their egg and their mate gathering food. 
They find each other again through a special noise that only they know. 
They cultivate their love through the egg. 
And then they leave each other. 

This no longer breaks my heart. 
It gives me hope. 

As we clung to one another he said to me, "If there is one thing I know for sure, you're going to fall in love again. You deserve to have love in your life more than anyone else I know. And the person who gets it is going to be very lucky. I was." 

There's a common misconception that people can only have one true great love in their life. 
That's bullshit. It's all about timing. 

I'll probably fall in love many more times before I find someone I want to spend even more time with.
I love falling in love. I use to think being in love was a sign of weakness. It isn't. And it doesn't scare me anymore.  
And I'll know in my gut when its right.


 

I should have stayed in last night. 

I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times:
I am unhappy here. 

I embarrassed myself last night for all the right reasons.

This place makes me feel like a crazy person. 

He made me feel like a crazy person. 

The one person I always trusted. 

first week.

In movement I hit someone in the face with a ball and I lost it. I felt horrible. We both knew it was an accident but somehow it triggered something awful inside of me. When we put our hoods on and walked around the space neutrally I cried underneath my hood. My professor kept calling me out saying, "You're slouching! Stand up straight! Walk with the floor!" I wanted to yell back, "I KNOW I AM MOTHERFUCKER, I'M CRYING UNDER HERE."

We were suppose to find someone in acting class we didn't know and stare at each other for a few minutes. No talking. Her and I ended up together because all the people I actually didn't know where taken. We sat down and stared. 
Her eyes were so full. So strong and supportive. As if at the same time, our eyes both began to fill with tears. I felt like we were talking to each other without saying anything. I tried with everything I could to hold it in but I couldn't. She looked at me with tears running down her face and smiled as if to say, "Just go for it love" And I crumbled. I grabbed her hand and started sobbing. I knew everyone could hear me but I didn't care. It was the most connected I felt to someone in a week. 

After class I apologized to my acting professor for being so emotional these first two days. She said, "At least you're not lying about how you're feeling. You recognize it and you're pushing through." She hugged me and then said, "I'm really excited to work with you. I've wanted to for awhile."


Last night I barely made it all the way into Creek because I stopped and talked to a smart and interesting girl who use to live in my room on S. Mountain. 
I had three drinks and a slice of pizza with her and we talked for three hours.

Halfway through our conversation she said we got along because we're water signs. 
She said she loved how direct I about the way I was feeling while still managing to figure out the emotions. 
She told me everything and I told her everything and it was exactly what I needed.

I miss him so much. I'm waiting for the day I can tell he doesn't miss me. 

But I can also tell this is going to be a really important year for me.

SO,

I figured it out. 

When I'm in Southern California I feel like the best version of myself. I feel smart and attractive and interesting and worth everyone's time. 

When I'm in Ashland I feel like a slug. I feel ugly and moody and stupid and not worth anyone's time. 


So.

Where does that leave me? 

I am going to bust my balls for this BFA, learn as much as I can and go back to the sun. 

Only six more months, then three in the sun/Europe, then back to the the cold for three and then to the sun for a month and then back for six and maybe more if I end up doing the internship. 

That's anywhere between fifteen and nineteen months. 

Can I do that?  

We'll see. 

I really miss home right about now. 
Feel like I can't talk about the thing I desperately need to talk about. 
Every one keeps telling me, give it time, it'll get better and I know it will, I just don't know if it will here. 
My mind is with the sun. and the sun isn't here for too long every day. 
I just want someone to make eye contact with me for more than ten seconds and shake me and say, FUCK, yeah. this does suck. 
The lump in my throat just grew larger and larger all day. 
Sometime in the past two years my defense crumbled. 
I realized how good it felt to love and I allowed myself to. 
I still want to feel that. 
I still want to feel supported and cared for. 

I want someone to take care of me. 

Now I'm a romantic. 
Something I use to perceive as weak. 

Now I'm a romantic.

I knew coming back would be a good thing. 

I've realized too many things to write down. 

I still hurt every where. 

I sat in the empty bath long after the water drained and cried. 

I couldn't stop crying. 

He told me he knew it was over. No questions. He came to terms with it just like that. 

I'm still hurting. 

and I'm miles away.

The year I figured out how to love.

JANUARY.
Upon my return to Ashland I realized I felt a lot more than I bargained for. I always thought my greatest fear was not succeeding but I soon came to realize that what I feared more was being heartbroken. We cared for each other deeply but neither of us knew how to say it. I opened up, shed layers quickly to try to show him how much I cared by telling him things about me no one knew. I applied to work on Catalina Island for the summer and I really pictured myself being on the island. I realized I was in too deep with this boy and feared that he would be the one to break me in two. I would be able to put myself back together but how whole could I make myself. These particular girls made me want to scream. I was jealous of them for some strange reason. It made me feel ugly and horrible.

FEBRUARY.
We began to say "I love you" on a regular basis. Saying those words use to feel like toffee in my mouth. My mouth didn't feel natural forming those words and attaching them to sound. But the more I said it the more it felt true. I hated my best friend's boyfriend. He made me feel like a petulant child and would mock my relationship to my face. He infuriated me. I tried to articulate how I felt to my best friend but every time I got scared, knowing that this could be what breaks us up. After that night, the night he got too drunk on her birthday and grabbed my wrist so hard, I no longer felt safe in my house. But I also didn't feel safe in the party house either. Not because of the boy I loved, but because of the people who always occupied the living room. I didn't have a place I felt like I could call home in Ashland anymore. He felt like home because he was my best friend. On the 27th we had been together for a year.

MARCH. 
Midsummer came and went and the Mechanical Island was the place to be. Even though the show wasn't good at all, I had a blast. I disliked certain people and their disrespect but I loved my boys. Auditions for the spring shows and I found myself going hard for a part I never imagined I would want. It was like I was facing a fear I didn't even know I had. High School made me dread musical auditions because I knew that I wouldn't get it. But this time, I did. It felt bizarre. The very man who didn't allow me into Acting One was now trusting me to be the lead in the musical. All of the sudden I was cool. I went home for Spring Break and noticed how old my grandma had become while I was gone. My heart ached when she kept saying she didn't know how much she had left in her. I found out I wasn't going to spend my summer on Catalina and my heart broke, just a little bit. I had a meeting with my advisor and it felt as though I was being reprimanded for being successful with casting. I looked at him and wondered why a man who gave me my first opportunity here was now mad that I was getting more opportunities. Now kids, this is what we call FORESHADOWING.


APRIL.
I felt guilty I was succeeding but desperately didn't want to feel guilty. These people didn't know me before, before when I never got the things I worked for. I wished I could walk through the green room with my middle fingers up in the air like I just don't care but I did care. Who cares if mean girls were saying that I didn't deserve things. This is what happens sometimes. But I had to try to keep my composure and not yell, "LOOK HOW HARD I'M WORKING." to them. I hated being in my apartment. That was the place I felt worst about myself. He made me feel like I was the shit on his bike shoe. I would escape and watch different television shows. I would bang on the wall to tell my stupid neighbors to stop partying at 3am on a Tuesday. I went to the gym, ate, class, ate, rehearsal, then sleep. I became a machine.

MAY.
That same advisor/professor began to show me what an asshole he really was. I asked him to challenge me and all he did was treat me different. Different in a bad way. Different in the way that made me feel like they all hated me more. The musical was driving me crazy. I was learning a lot but I didn't feel genuine. I didn't feel like I even resembled a real person. The situation at my apartment got to a breaking point and I finally got up the courage to say what I needed to say about the situation. Unfortunately it was about an thirty minutes before the biggest audition I'd had so far: to get into the Pre-BFA. My mind was stuffed with so much that I went in and for the first time in my whole life, I choked. It was a complete and utter failure. The wait began and ended. My main girl and I got in and that was all I cared about.

JUNE.
The house hunt was in full swing with too many dead ends. Craigslist was my new home page. I only had a few weeks to find a house, move in before I left for LA. I acknowledged that it would have been much more of a headache to handle if I did get the job on Catalina. That didn't make me still crave it any less. We spent the last few weeks together, sleeping in, going on little hikes, avoiding my apartment like the plague. I got an extension on my lease because we couldn't find a place. She moved out and I was sad about it because it really felt like she just didn't give a shit about me anymore. She had picked him, and because he never made an effort to be a nicer person, and not talk to me like I was an idiot, I couldn't ignore it. She moved the last of her stuff out and this wave hit me. I was sad. I cleaned the apartment alone. My sister got dumped by her loser boyfriend who also talked down to me and made me feel like an idiot. I wondered why cool women in my life who I loved dated the biggest jackasses every. A word of June advice: Never date a guy who is not nice to your girl friends or your sister. He will always be bad news. I was heart broken for her because I knew she really saw forever with him. On a whim she flew to Oregon to help me move and to hang out. We drank wine and talked like real friends for one of the first times ever. We moved into The Palace or The California Suite as we call it. 

JULY.
A few days to get settled in the new place. Full of The Walking Dead and excitement/dread of going home. My heart felt too attached to him, and people here. We spent the Forth of July wasted all day, throwing water balloons and drinking more. I couldn't stop holding his hand. We watched the fireworks and after he decided to leave because it would be too hard to say goodbye later. His friends awkwardly stood in my backyard as I weirdly cried because I was going to miss him so much. I drunkenly finished packing at 3am and almost missed my ride to the airport because I didn't set my alarm. Once on the plane I realized I was still drunk. I surprised all of my friends, except for one who helped me plan it. They all arrived at his house at different times and we decided to have "catered surprises" for each person. I felt like a different person but I also felt the same. I loved watching them all talk. We all talked in short hand again and I loved every minute. I had nothing to write about.

AUGUST.
Nannying was sucking all the energy and life out of me. Being with the kids wasn't hard. It was balancing what I believe to be important in raising children and what the parents believe is right. Even if I disagreed with them I couldn't really do anything about it because children are parrots and copy cats. And then I would get fired. I worked at the spa and read Three Sisters thirteen times. When I came home after my shifts I would read the Masha lines out loud. I knew I could get the part. If I tried hard enough. Everyone started leaving with the usual obligatory, "This is my LAST night in town get togethers" which I will always find highly overrated. I left with my dad in the car that I bought.

SEPTEMBER.
I returned to Oregon and reunited with him. When I drove up to his house we hugged and didn't know how to speak anymore. He was thinner and slightly sadder. It was his first summer alone, as in, without his mothers cooking. I began to hear stories of the summer that I didn't hear from him and got increasingly uncomfortable. He put my mind at ease but I was still somewhat confused. I couldn't wait for school to start so I could put my everything into getting cast as Masha and working hard for the BFA. I had my best, most prepared audition and then my best, most prepared callback. Seven of us were called back for Masha and after we did one round of monologues five of them were dismissed. I was one of two left. And it was mine. It was all mine. I knew he wasn't expecting me and I knew he was intrigued. At midnight there were four actors left at callbacks. And I was one of them. But I saw what was happening. He was switching back and forth between me and the other girl for Masha. It was close. I went to the list and my name was not next to hers. I broke my rule about showing emotion at a list. I broke down right then and there. I felt like I was in a daze. I was completely confused. I was mortified that I was crying in front of a piece of paper. But she was on the list so I was half crying tears of joy and tears of confusion. My roommate and I bought a bottle of tequila and I chugged about four shots worth in the parking lot of the liquor store. It didn't make sense. I soon came to find out that a man who I trusted told the director he shouldn't cast me. I was furious. I wanted to throw things at him but he wasn't in the state anymore. She turned 21 and I snuck into the bars and danced and drank and didn't recognize myself.

OCTOBER.
I remained angry. I kept lashing out at people. Maybe because I was sad, maybe because my grandma was in and out of the hospitals and very day I was scared that I would answer a phone call from my mom and that would be it. My movement class frustrated me but also inspired me because I was so bad. My acting class just frustrated me. He was in the black box and had to kiss a prettier girl than me and it felt personal and horrible. Everyone kept looking at me like I was crazy and I felt crazy. How could I not. Somewhere halfway through October I realized we hadn't spent a night apart. Our bodies were so use to curling into each other. And for once, we both wanted it. I began to realize that I wasn't crazy at all and he wanted me just as much as I wanted him. His mom came and we saw the show together. Before the show just the two of us got ice cream and we talked like friends and I realized how much she liked me. I tried to play off that I didn't mind the kiss but it was horrible to see so close. The next weekend his dad came and I could tell once again how much he liked me. After seeing the show and spending time with us I think he felt bad he hadn't been there for him enough. He thanked me. Which was... interesting.

NOVEMBER.
She was amazing in the show. She finally got what she earned and I could not stop smiling thinking about it. I selfishly got teary eyed when they did the scene I did about seven times in callbacks. I still thought I could have done it. I FINALLY turned 21. I was still being mean and felt awkward for feeling sad that no one through me a birthday party. I felt even more dumb when they through me a surprise one. Since when did I become a person who wanted a birthday party? The showcase was going well and I started actually enjoying myself with it. Also my play was coming a long. The thing I couldn't think about was not getting into the BFA. I freaked out in class one day and cried and it was embarrassing. I got a bunch of callbacks and didn't get cast again.  I had to pack for Portland and go spend the weekend with his family for Thanksgiving and as excited as I was, I just wanted to be home. Thanksgiving was a blur of family members and dozens of glasses of wine. It felt nice being so welcomed into the family. The showcase RULED. I finally felt back on my feet. I loved the line, "People fear me even though I have spent my entire existence helping them on their way. I'm happy now, at last, to rest."

DECEMBER.
It seemed as though now everyone else was having their own freak outs about getting into the BFA sequence. I had already had mine and was busy making back up plan after back up plan. A professor I liked told me I was "perfection" and even though it wasn't constructive it made me feel good. We decided to go out to one of the fanciest restaurants in town instead of giving each other presents. It was the night before I left and the night before the list. I was half avoiding going to a party with thirty people who were waiting to find out their fates and half just wanting to spend some quality time alone. One of my "older brothers" was leaving and I knew it was going to be one of the last times I would see him for awhile. We took a shot of Makers together at the bar and he told me I had no where to go but up. The email never happened that night. I was sloppy drunk but I needed to be. The car came for me at 5am and I was still drunk on the plane home. We said goodbye. His face felt warm and comforting. When I arrived in LA I immediately attempted to fall asleep because it felt as though I hadn't slept in a year. I couldn't relax so I went and got a massage and when I woke up after an hour my phone was full of texts and emails. The list was here. But she wasn't on it. I'm still hopeful she will be...The recent night at the bar put many things into perspective. I'm glad I didn't peak in high school. He told me he wanted forever and my heart sank. I knew I couldn't promise that. When I got back to Ashland I felt strange until we talked about it in person. He held me and I cried because I knew in my heart he was going to tell me that it was over the next day. He did. I spent the rest of the day crying and I impulsively bought a ticket back home. I hurt everywhere. My heart aches. I ache. I know its the right thing. It just feels so horrible. 

New Years Resolution: Find myself by myself.