I Don’t Even Know Where To Start To Title This

I broke down and told M how I felt about everything these past few months. Instead of summarizing it for you I’m just going to copy over the text I sent her. Here it is:

“Ok, I’ve been uncertain of how to address this, but I’ve been feeling this way for weeks so I hope you’re prepared for some word vomit. I’m sure you’ve been waiting for something of this nature for a while now, haha. 
We haven’t been talking to each other since you and K started dating. I knew you would be really exited about him so I consciously slowed my texting to give you more time with him, since I knew you’d only be thinking about him anyway. I knew in the end our friendship would be not anywhere near what it was, I just expected it to happen gradually, over the course of months/years, not almost over night like it did. Because in the end you’ll be married with kids, and we won’t be as close as we were last year, and I fully realize that. That said, I later began to assume that eventually the novelty of K would wear off and we would get back to being good friends again, even if not so good as before. But it didn’t. I even brought it up once, and said that we had drifted apart, over a month ago now I’m sure. I don’t think anything has really changed though.
I know you’ve noticed the distance between us, but I think with K and a full time job to distract you it hasn’t affected you like it’s effected me. I feel like I’ve lost my best friend. I hope you realize that I’m not mad at you or K in anyway, I’m just sad that our friendship has fallen apart (in my perspective anyway) as much as it has. You’ve really only come to talk to me when you’ve had an issue with K these last 3 months. And I know you said you wouldn’t be ‘that girl who is constantly bringing her boyfriend along’ but I think we’ve hung out maybe 4 times without him, and that’s out of the dozen some odd times that we’ve seen each other at all. 
I should’ve addressed this sooner, but talking to you has become more and more difficult for me. I don’t feel like I know you anymore, and the stress of that and the reminder that we aren’t what we once were makes me hate that I even feel this way. You’re the closest friend I’ve ever had (and really the only one i’ve got) and I feel like I lost you as soon as I found you.

And to make matters even worse I started getting depressed again around December, and have been struggling with that alone for months. My social anxiety has sky rocketed and watching Supernatural has been my way of coping with everything. I didn’t want to bother you because you’ve been so happy and I didn’t want to spoil that. I feel crappy for even sending you this.
I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry. For everything.”

We then spent the next couple hours texting back and forth, when I stopped crying enough to text anyway. I was a complete train wreck last night. I haven’t cried that hard in years, if ever really. I’m not sure if I feel better or not. It was kind of nice just to be a mess, but waking up and finding that my views on things hadn’t changed didn’t much help.

M was really gracious about all of it, and apologized for everything and tried to pin this all on herself. I feel terrible for making her think that way. I don’t blame her at all for the distance that’s come up between us. She has a full time job that is at complete opposites with my schedule, and has K to talk to day and night instead of me. She found someone she loves and she doesn’t need or have time for me anymore, as far as I’m concerned. She swears thats not the case at all, but I… I’m far too doubtful.

Today was better for me. I came close to spontaneously bursting into tears for no reason, but I was ok for the most part I think. Watching my garden is always calming.

It was so hot today. 82 was the predicted high, and tomorrow it will be 85. Its been warmer than usual the last few days, and should be well up in the 70s all week, with no chance of rain at all. This is July weather.

In other, completely unrelated news, I’ve decided to go to Spain at the end of August. My neighbor, J, has a nannying job that she’ll be doing over there, and invited me to go along. I was hesitant for a while, but my mom sort of pressured me into it I guess. And I really shouldn’t be going, given that my mom is potentially going to loose her job before the year is out. Its so draining to be your own parent all the time though, especially when the person who is actually your parent is the one encouraging you to make a foolish decision. Ugh. But whatever. I’m thinking that I may fly into London and spend a day or two there before taking the train over into France and making my way to Barcelona eventually. I may go see Italy for a day while I’m there too. I haven’t decided how long I’m going for just yet. Its gonna be at least two weeks.

Alright, I’ve rambled on enough. I just wanted to update you all on my life. In short, I’m suicidal, my best friend is wonderful, and I’m going to Barcelona at the end of summer. 

Life Sucks At 19

I came to realize today that my only friend is Amber. M and I have all but completely stopped talking since she started dating K three months ago. Her work schedule changed, so that she goes to work an hour after I leave school, so we never have time to hang out. And if we do, she always brings K along. So I guess its not that we’re not friends any more, its just that we never see or speak to each other. We had plans to go to the tulip festival today, which I’ve wanted to do for upwards of three years now, but M decided she was too tired and because there was a chance of rain it wasn’t worth going. Naturally I had canceled family plans so we could go on her day off (which she actually ended up working anyway), so I got to feel guilty about that without anything to show for it.

I’ve been horribly depressed- well, all year actually; as we’re going into our 5th month now. I’ve always hated the number 19; its funny that this has actually been the worst year of my life I think. I don’t remember ever feeling this terrible. I’m to the point where if I get too depressed I actually get a piercing migraine. It feels like something is crushing the two halves of my brain together. Perhaps its just trying to implode.

Let’s see. I hate school. I haven’t learned a single thing in my Economics of Sustainability course, and we’re three chapters behind. My plant ID course is fun, but gets less fun with each field trip because the two girls I’m friends with, A and K (who were in my group last quarter in Bite Me 2.0, that food sustainability course I took), both constantly talk about doing drugs. A is a recovering alcoholic, who’s rather slutty and does all kinds of drugs. K is an alcoholic who also does lots of drugs. I like A well enough, because I can forgive her past, but then she’ll talk about how she’s going to do this drug or that drug, and she and K will talk about what drugs go best together, and I find all of that foolishness to be wholly repulsive. Which makes carpooling with them and hiking with them very difficult. They call me boring because the hardest thing I drink is coffee, and only rarely drink it. There’s going to be two camping trips the class takes to eastern Washington this year. Drinking is permitted for both of them (our teacher will drink as well), so I think I’ll be skipping them. I’m not going to go spend the night with A and K while they’re drunk. A is already talking about what kind of drugs she’ll bring. These two are 22 and 24 mind.

Math is the only class I don’t completely hate, but I come close to having a melt down in it almost every day. I’m not even sure why. The kids are all fine, the teacher is funny, I understand the material. Regardless I get close to tears more often than not, and have had to keep myself from running out of class at least a half dozen times.

I’m falling apart. Slowly but surely. At first I wanted to take down the walls I’d put in place ages ago, in an effort to try and get better. Now I feel like I’ve locked myself in a very small room in the middle of an elaborate mansion, and every so often I’m able to walk out of that small room I’m surrounded by dozens of doors which all lead to rooms full of even more misery. I mediated and managed to open one once I think. But my mom came home and I had to rush back to my very small room. It’s a prison and a haven, but more of a prison than anything. I only have to deal with people a few hours a day, but I can never escape myself. I often envision myself beating against the door. I’ve never seen a handle on it; it just opens on its own sometimes.

My family and I have all but completely stopped speaking to each other since I told my mom off. The people I talk to most now are my neighbors and my internship boss. I love my internship. Its such fun. I never go knowing what to expect, so the whole day is kind of done flying by the seat of my pants. I love F, the leader/coordinator of the garden. She’s as chaotic as I am, so we get along wonderfully. I only get to go on wednesday evenings and saturdays though (saturdays rarely, but much more consistently after may 11th). This summer should be great though! I’ll probably spend most of my time there I think.

Oh and I’ve almost finished Supernatural. I sold my soul to that show ages ago, and I’m a quarter of the way through season 8!

My First Real Fight With My Mother

My mom and I got into a huge fight a couple days ago, and I don’t think I’ve ever been in a fight of this scale with her before. My sister has, for weeks, been neglecting her chores, and finally we started talking about it. My sister’s only chore in the house has been to do the dishes, while I do the gardening, the dog poop scooping, the vacuuming, dusting, moping, and taking out of recycling, garbage and compost. Seems fair, right? But because my sister is never home, she feels that she shouldn’t be responsible for the dishes because very few of them are ever hers. A perfectly valid argument, but when its ones only chore, I have a hard time being sympathetic. My mom tried to talk to her about it, while I was there, and my sister was on her phone and watching TV throughout the conversation. It was incredibly rude as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t know why my mom tolerated it. I think I said maybe 4 or 5 words throughout the whole ordeal, since it wasn’t my place to say much of anything, and only spoke up when I felt it necessary. Eventually my sister got so frustrated by not being able to get out of her chores she was close to just walking out of the house (she had the door open and everything). I don’t remember what my mom said to make her stay, but she did, and my sister eventually just decided that she would be doing her own dishes and her own laundry and would sweep the house occasionally and that would be that. My mom completely rolled over and gave her a hug and a kiss and $20 to go have fun with friends. I was in complete disbelief at the whole situation.

I went back into the kitchen to finish making my dinner (this whole thing started because everything I needed to make dinner for myself was dirty and I wanted to know what officially was going to happen with the dishes), and my mom immediately turned on me to tell me that I needed to watch my attitude. I didn’t even let her finish her sentence because I was beyond furious that she was berating me after my sisters display. Especially since I had spoken maybe twice, and had eeeeevery right to be mad about my sisters lack of help around the house. She had tried to use the excuse that she was too busy and too tired during the week to do any amount of chores (this is while she’s waiting for a friend to come and pick her up mind). I told my mom: “you don’t get to try and parent me after not parenting her.” She was instantly mad and said: “you don’t get to tell me how to be a fucking parent.” It only escalated from there, and much of what was said I cannot remember in detail. I basically told her that her current “parenting” technique wasn’t working, and that she had just rewarded my sister for walking all over her. I told her that there hadn’t been any form of reprimand or consequences in our house for years, and that it was entirely unacceptable how my sister had been behaving.

She asked me angrily what specifically she should do, especially in regards to me, since I was the one asking for punishment. She brought up the fact that I had tried to buy a dyson vacuum (something I’ve wanted for years) against her wishes but had been unable to do so because of insufficient funds (she had borrowed money from me and hadn’t paid me back yet when I tried to buy it [which I didn't realize]). I told her that she should’ve taken my debit card away, or withheld gas money. There should have been SOMETHING to teach me how to better manage my money, which she has genuinely never sat me down to do. Ever. She basically admitted to not parenting us at all, and that she had not given us chores or anything of that nature when we were younger so we could have happier childhoods. I asked what that had taught us, and she asked me what chores I specifically wanted to do around the house. I said that I was happy doing all of the things I already did, but that because my sister lived with us she needed to have some form of chores as well. And I brought up that it had taken me years to figure out that I wanted a clean house (which I really only discovered because I was tired of living in a filthy home, but I didn’t say that).

She was furious with me for speaking my mind. Oh! Several weekends ago my sister wanted to go on a camping trip with some friends. She got in a big fight with my mom about money and how she didn’t have access to her savings account. After having a large fight, my mom gave her a large chunk of money and bought her a 5th of whiskey to take on her camping trip. Keep in mind that my sister is 17, and that my mom only just finished a custody battle. I brought that up during our fight, and she said that my sister had brought that bottle back more than half full, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, and that I was one to talk because I drink wine whenever I’m with my neighbors. I said that I felt that was different because I was with family friends and that I wasn’t drinking to get drunk, nor was I drinking hard alcohol. And I said that I only started drinking because I had been pressured into it by her, which is genuinely true. She pressured me for years to drink wine with her and the neighbors, and when I went to J’s house immediately after this fight to talk about it, she agreed and remembered witnessing it. My mom, naturally, felt differently. She said that she had never done that and that if I felt that way it was entirely my fault. She swore at me several times throughout the fight, though she never directly insulted me. I find swearing to be unnecessary, and especially in those circumstances, when the goal of arguing is to get the other person to understand your perspective. I’m sure I could’ve been more articulate, but I feel like for the most part I did ok.

We went to the movies together the day after that (yesterday), because we had originally planned to go the day of the fight. She asked if I hated her, like she always does after we have any sort of disagreement, to which I always reply no. I asked her the same question, and she told me that she was proud of me. I struggled to keep from laughing. I’ve lost all respect for her I’ve realized. She consistently rewards appalling behavior, and takes no responsibility for anything. When your child is telling you there aren’t enough rules in the house, and that they think they should be punished for their own bad behavior, and you laugh in their face and tell them that everything is fine, something is extremely wrong. She joked about some of the points I made during the argument, and said that if she really was a bad parent she wouldn’t have stood up to me. I just see it as being thick headed and stubborn. I’m sad more than anything. This ordeal made me realize that I’ve truly outgrown my mother, and that I actually have been more mature than her for some time. She has no control over this house or her children, and often puts down the one who sees whats wrong and is willing to speak up about it (me) instead of the child who is misbehaving, doing poorly in school, and is drinking irresponsibly and doing drugs.

Depression, It Never Ends

I’ve gotten rather depressed again. For the last 4 or 5 days I was a ‘new’ kind of depressed, where I seemed to have no emotion at all. I felt like a zombie. There was… just… nothing. I had no real emotions, nothing more pressing than eating to act on, and I slept as often as I could. If I wasn’t sleeping I was just laying in bed and staring into oblivion. Yesterday I made a huge effort to force myself out of that and went to a volunteer meeting thing with a couple friends from class. I can’t remember if I mentioned it, but a few weeks ago I volunteered for a few hours collecting signatures to try and gain the support of state representatives so that we can get initiative 522 (the labeling of genetically engineered foods) passed this coming november. It was really fun last time I went, and I knew I would have fun this time, even though it wasn’t the same kind of thing at all, but I did end up going. The three of us had a good time and mostly just goofed around for about three hours. The meeting was entirely pointless as far as I was concerned, but the time with friends was crucial I think.

M and I went out to lunch today. We hardly talk any more. Ever since she found this boyfriend of hers, K, she hardly speaks to me at all. And despite her promise to not be one of those girls who brings her boyfriend along to everything, every single time we’ve talked about hanging out she has mentioned bringing him along. I’ve only hung out with her twice without him (three times counting today). He’s nice enough. I can’t tell if I’d get along with him better if he wasn’t constantly being forced on me. M is greatly concerned with whether I like him or not, but to be honest I don’t really know how I feel. I’m remaining distant at this point because talking to her any more exhausts me, and I’m sick of having to be interested in K. He met her dad this weekend. I’ve been friends with her since the 6th grade, and I haven’t even met her dad (her parents are divorced and he lives out of the state, but still).

I just feel like I’ve lost my best friend, and what very little motivation I had for life is gone again. I have a huge pile of homework to do, and I’ve continued to put it off for far too long. There are only two weeks left in the quarter. I just don’t know what to do with myself. And more importantly, I don’t seem to care. The only person I would talk to about this kind of stuff is M, and she’s too busy with work and K to talk to me. She works until 10 usually, and he goes home with her (they both work at the Y together) and doesn’t leave until 5am, if at all. Which means she’s too tired to talk to me during the day, or too distracted to talk to me at our usual 11-1 am time after work. I’m alone again. I haven’t been truly alone in, well, over a year now. I’d forgotten what it was like. Sure, I have friends, but don’t share that same deep connection with any of them like I did with M. And the real trouble is that its made me realize that I really am not an important piece in her life. I will always be a friend, and never family. I’m not mad at her at all. This isn’t her fault. She’s wanted a boyfriend/husband and children for longer than we’ve been friends, and I can’t blame her for being whole-heartedly excited when that’s finally come into her life. She and K have been dating for just over a month now, and everyone that works with them is talking about marriage. I do too, just to try and show how happy I am for her, even though I don’t really mean any of it.

I say how cute they are together, and how they’ll be married by August (she’s always wanted an August wedding), and the jokes they’ll have to play on their kids. K’s 22 and owns several acres in Idaho, which M has been to see already, and she thinks its gorgeous out there. She jokes that if they get married I’ll have to come and live out there with them. I hope I wasn’t too obvious about being completely against that idea. I don’t ever intend on leaving Western Washington. And if I do, the only place I can even imagine going is to the UK. And even then. I am not a city dweller I don’t think.

I feel so useless. I just want to be needed again, even if it is only by one person. I don’t feel needed at all at the moment. No one’s world would stop spinning if I suddenly wasn’t here. Not that I’m seriously contemplating suicide. I haven’t got the strength for that at all. It requires far too much planning and work. I have written out a suicide note or two in my head, just to organize my thoughts into how I feel about the people around me. Trying to summarize your feelings for someone in a short letter really makes you evaluate your relationship with them I think. And then who all would I write to? My mother, my sister (if only to tell her to stop being so incredibly stupid in everything she does), M, my neighbors, my aunts… I suppose my cousin would deserve one too. She and I always got along best, because she was a book worm like I was for many years. Oh and Amber of course! I couldn’t forget my dearest Amber. Fortunately those 7 letters are far too many to write, and I can’t be bothered to write a summary of the book I just read, so writing out all the nonsense I think of those people would be far too much. Its so much easier to just lie in bed and not think about anything. To have a perfectly empty mind. *sigh*

Alright. Its late and I really haven’t finished my summary/response to this reading that’s due tomorrow yet, so I’m going to sign off now. I’ll talk to all again soon. Though hopefully not too soon. I seem to only post in my most desperate of times I feel like any more.

Oh, and this is my 777′th post! How exciting!

Emotional Breakdowns Are Us

I’ve just had an emotional breakdown. M and I have been drifting apart for weeks, and this, compounded with her budding new relationship with her first boyfriend (who’s real name is K but whom I always call Alan), the stress caused by my dying fish, my lack of motivation for school and for life, Sam’s now day to day degeneration, the stress my sister causes, and my lack of perceived worth in my house, has caused me to all but completely give up on life. Which, in all honestly, is basically what I’ve done. First and foremost on the above list is my relationship with M. We used to be closer than close, and now her work hours and my school hours prevent us from spending any time together. She also has started dating a guy from work, who seems to be quite perfect for her. Its completely unfair of me to feel any kind of resentment towards this, but unfortunately I am, and slightly jealous as well I suppose. She and I have been lost together for most of our friendship, but now she’s found someone, and I’m just lost on my own. But its completely unfair of me to place any kind of blame on her, or any kind of anything, because I don’t resent her for this at all, and I am glad that she’s found someone. I’m just not happy that I’m back to (perceivably) alone in the world. I really only have M to talk to anymore. J (classmate, daily carpool buddy, went to japan together, etc) and I barely talk, even though we see each other every weekday morning. J (neighbors roommate) hasn’t been around in weeks because of family troubles, and will be leaving in a few months to go nanny in Spain. Those two are my closest friends, save M.

My winning personality and general love of new things have also been a great help in making new friends (that’s sarcasm). I’ve grown to be quite introverted over the last couple months, to the point that I now hate crowds outright, and talking to people I don’t know is almost painful. I used to know when someone I would get along with well or not was around, just by looking, but I only found those people on rare occasion, and came to just assume no one would get along with me. And when I say ‘get along’ I mean that we would be friends for more than just the quarter we were in class together. I grew to dislike everyone, because I didn’t think is perfectly compatible. I’ve been trying to come back out of my shell these last few weeks, with this food sustainability course I’m taking, and I have made a new friend. We aren’t perfectly compatible, but we did go to the seattle aquarium today. It wasn’t as stress free as it could’ve been, but it was fun. I think I got to a point where I was trying so hard to avoid stress that I completely shut everything/everyone else out. Which is something I’ve felt I would need to do for years before I would be able to properly change. I have such hard time asking for help, especially when it comes to personal problems. I feel like if there was anyone who really cared they would be able to take a look at me and see exactly what needed doing and would step in and fix it. Obviously no one has, or I wouldn’t be such a mess, haha.

Anyway, I finally just broke down and texted M tonight to tell her that I felt like something weird was going on between us, and I was ready for it to be done. She said she had noticed it too (but my guess is that her new boyfriend has been a sufficient enough distraction that she didn’t really look into it like I have), and was glad I brought it up. My response was “lol, blunt is what I’m known for dear. I love to watch the politics of friendship on TV, but find it irritating in my own life. Its like dancing, or sex. Its pretty to watch, but when I’m required to do it I look like an oaf.” The only funny part of the conversation unfortunately. She asked if her new relationship had anything to do with it, to which I replied with a half-truth. I said that if it “was making an impact i couldn’t say how exactly. And I wouldn’t ask you to do anything differently anyway because that wouldn’t be fair of me at all.” Because she truly hasn’t done anything ‘wrong’, like talking about him non-stop or forcing him on me/inviting him to every single thing we do. Well, she actually has done that, but only because our time schedules work out that we all have free time at the same time. And we’ve only had three times that we’ve gotten together in the last month.

Blah. I think I’m done blogging about this for now. I’ve addressed the subject with her, and spent the last hour writing this out, and feel a lot better. Now its time to go and finish this three page essay I have due tomorrow (technically later today) because its the first essay of the quarter, and I have no idea how to do it. Its a personal essay on our relationship with food.

Being Thankful Despite Cancer Through the Holidays

I think that with the awful elementary school massacre having occurred  in Newtown, Connecticut today, Cameron Von St. James’ post about being thankful for his wife and child is something that everyone can connect with even easier. He has decided to let me choose when to post his story, and I think today has shown us how terribly easy it is to loose a loved one in an instant.

This is his story.

Being Thankful Despite Cancer Through the Holidays

In August 2005, my wife Heather and I welcomed our only child. Our daughter, Lily, brought so much joy to our lives. A few short months later, we were looking forward to the holiday season with much excitement. See, the holidays were always a special time for me, and having Lily complete our little family made them even more special. Heather and I spent a lot of time excitedly discussing new traditions we wanted to start with Lily and how special that time of year was going to be now that we had our baby girl. Little did we know that the holidays that year would be far from the perfect celebration we were hoping for.

Three days before Thanksgiving, when Lily was only three and a half months old, our happiness was taken away from us when Heather’s doctor informed us that she had pleural malignant mesothelioma, a rare and very deadly form of cancer. The little I knew about mesothelioma was enough for me to know that our future was very uncertain. I was no longer happy and thankful and looking forward to the holidays. I was angry and upset, overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t feel that we had a reason to celebrate, but we celebrated anyway.  After all, we were facing a possibility where this could be Lily’s only holiday season with her mother.

Heather’s family came to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas that year, and as we dined on our holiday dinner, we had the conversation I’d been dreading for a while. We discussed our finances and how we would pay for everything through Heather’s treatment. Every debt, bill, and asset we had was talked about. We discussed what we could liquidate, what my in-laws could afford to pay for on our behalf, and how we’d manage to keep our heads above water during that time. Heather and I both had jobs, but the bills just kept piling up what with the medical expenses and travel expenses we had.  I was mortified and embarrassed, and it would be years before I could look back on that day with anything but shame.  However, I eventually realized how mistaken I was to look at it from that perspective.

My pride may not have allowed me to see this at the time, but I actually had a lot to be thankful for that holiday season. I had a family who was willing to give up everything they could in order to help us out when we needed it the most. They made incredible sacrifices to be by our sides and they helped us through it in so many ways. This holiday season, I am thankful for that. I am also thankful to have more time with my wife so that my daughter and I can make as many memories as possible with her. Even in the darkest of times, there is always something to be thankful for this time of year.

Heather and I have been able to spend seven Christmases together with Lily since then, and there are many more to come.  She has beaten mesothelioma, despite the odds, and for that I am most thankful.  I hope that our story of success can be a source of hope and inspiration to all those currently fighting cancer this holiday season.

 

Cameron Von St. James