Deriving Position

It's strange, how the little things in life have the ability to shift our moods ever so slightly, in an almost unnoticeable way. And it's even stranger, when those little mood changes push from one end of the spectrum, past the midpoint, and into unfamiliar territory, and all of a sudden, I realize.

I'm content.

Yes, it only has been a week. A week since I felt my entire world crashing down upon me, a week since I was emotionally in pieces, a week since I felt everything, and then nothing. But I am okay. And is that bad? Is it bad that I've gotten over it so quickly? Is it bad that I've healed from that, that I'm not so broken and hung up on it anymore? Is it bad that I can care about the other aspects of my life, that I can focus on the important things?

Is it bad that I can be happy, so quickly?

I don't know. Maybe in another's eyes, I'm heartless, I'm psycho, I'm a whirlwind of unnecessary drama and feelings. And I can't deny that I'm not all those things. I can't claim that I'm a dropped pin at the center of a standard deviation curve, able to mourn for exactly the right amount of time to be socially acceptable. What I can say, however, is that it is who I am, and I can accept that, because I can accept the feeling of being happy.

And the thing is, this contentedness is due mainly to such minute details of my life. Knowing that I matter greatly as a friend to a number of people, finding out that I'm doing really well in my hardest class, meeting someone who puts a smile on my face, making friends with people who I never expected to before; these are all things that are contributing to my current state. These are the things that make me happy, these are the things accelerating my progress away from the dripping mess I was last week, and it's such a great feeling. It's a great feeling not having to lie to myself that it's going to be okay, because it is okay. Being able to wake up in the morning and not think immediately of what could have been, being able to listen to an old song and not feel a nasty twinge in my heart, being able to just be me again, it's so refreshing. It's so wonderful, and I'm so glad.

So maybe it's been a little fast. But it's good, in my opinion, that it's been this fast. It's nice, to be able to get over something like that with this speed, because now I can keep on with the other things in life. It's not like I don't care about what happened, or about him anymore. It's just that I can live despite it.

Visceral

I don't feel it anymore. The pain, the anguish, the sorrow, the desire, the uncontrollable, relentless, wanton need, I don't feel it anymore.

I've cried.

And cried.

And cried.

And then I stopped, because I couldn't heave another sob out of my body, because I was too tired, too weary, too encompassed in my grief that I physically could not react to the situation anymore. I stopped, not because I wanted to, but because it was the only thing I could do. I don't feel the hurt anymore, because I can't.

I can't let myself.

It ended.

And what's funny, is that I kind of went into the night with that intention in mind. I had plans to call it off, to break it up, because it had been a rough two and a half weeks, because the communication had died down, because I had begun to feel unneeded, unwanted. I had prepped this whole speech about how I needed to be in something where I knew how the other person felt, how I needed to know that he cared about me as much as I did him, how I liked him too much for my comfort, and I wasn't prepared to continue to unless I knew he cared as much.

I never found out, really, the extent of his feelings for me. I don't know, for a fact, whether it is really true, that he really did care about me, that he really did feel about me the way he said he felt about me.

I do know now, however, that I didn't feel the way I said I did about him. I told him I cared about him, a lot, that I really liked him. What I didn't tell him was that he had become a part of my life, that I had begun to let him in, that I was slowly coming out from behind my wall, the wall that I had so arduously constructed over my teenage years to keep myself from ever feeling vulnerable. I didn't tell him that a small part of me had become attached to his presence, had likened myself to his being, had gotten situated with his ideals and interests, and had adopted some of them for the sake of wanting to be with him.

I didn't tell him that, in a small, tiny, self-loathing kind of way, I had begun to love him. And I didn't tell him these things, not because I was afraid, but because I didn't know. I didn't realize how much it would hurt until it started to hurt, until he walked out of my life.

And maybe, maybe I am ridiculous, and silly, for feeling so much after such a short period of time. But I can't help it. I can't change the way my brain has decided to process this situation, I can't alter the way my amygdala reacts to the varying hormones that are coursing through my body. I can't not feel the way I feel. 

But it's too late.

Because now it's no longer about how much time we have for each other. It's not about how little we'd be able to see each other due to our schedules clashing. He got offered a job, a position with a huge possibility for growth and development. Except it's in Australia.

Motherfucking, goddamn, Australia.

8,000 miles. 8,000 godforsaken miles. Even Vanessa Carlton would only walk an 8th of that for true love, so what do I even have to go by? And that's just it. Nothing. I have nothing to go by, because we're young, and we've got different lives and different tasks and different goals and nothing, nothing is matching up, and the moment things started to feel okay, the moment I found an inch of happiness, the world decided to take, not one mile, but 8,000. And for each of those miles is a reason why this had to end, because there's no way, not this early on in life, or in this relationship we had, that we could have worked it out.

I tried. I tried to hold the tears in. I support his decision, I honestly do, in taking this job. It would have been moronic had he decided not to go, because it really is an opportunity of a lifetime, while I'm really just another girl, another insignificant aspect of his life, a series of events that he will repeat again in the coming months and years.

And while there is a part of me that wished I had held on, I know it's better that I didn't. I know it's better that I cut things off now, because the worst thing that could happen is for us to get emotionally invested before such a big move.

The only problem is, that I'm already emotionally invested, and I'm not okay. I'm not fine. I'm not happy with this decision, and I do want to hold on, even if it's unrealistic. 

But I can't. I can't, I won't, because that's childish and irrational. I'm not okay, but I will be. All I need is some distance, and time.

Nuisance

The universe makes me angry.

It's stupid that we're set up in these situations where we trickle through time like tiny, helpless grains of sand. We're moving, we're constantly shifting through the world, but we're also at a standstill, internally, inter-personally. We get into a comfortable place and we stay there, and we hold onto that situation and setup until it's such a pain that we must thrust ourselves out and into the closest refuge, where we establish said comfort again. It's a vicious cycle, a continuity that cannot be broken, a Möbius Strip of 'change' that confuses us to believe that things are different, things are progressing, when in reality, we end up right where we began.

Disappointment. Dissatisfaction. Discomfort.

I'm angry, because I am a part of this cycle. I'm angry, because I realize I'm back where I was before, that after all the tears and emotions and hatred and everything else, I've just followed through on this cycle of being let down.

But why was I let down? Was it because of the situation, or the people involved, being less than what they should have been? Or was it because, once again, I had set my expectations at an unrealistic high, set my standards for a different outcome, when in reality, the input and formula had not changed at all?

Maybe that's why I keep shifting through those phases, from overwhelming joy to debilitating sorrow. Maybe because of the way we were raised to expect the best for ourselves, the way we were told we deserved nothing but that, the way we were shown to inspect everything with the utmost intricacy, as to make sure to catch any error. Because error meant that the thing, the situation, the place, the people, were flawed, and we were always told to never play with flaws. So in a world where everything was supposed to only be good if it were perfect, what happens when one realizes that nothing is? If nothing is perfect, is anything good? Is anything satisfactory? How does one react? How does one deal with the fact that nothing ever turns out the way one might wish, plan, or decide for it to? How do we deal with the margin of error?

These are questions no one ever taught us how to answer. Our parents wanted only the best for us, our teachers, the best from us, and the movies showed the best to us. But then, all of a sudden, we were adults, thrust into this world of wrongs, trying to obtain only rights, and nothing made sense anymore. Our efforts to be the best went to waste as the world began to list out the population by excellency. Our efforts to have the best went to waste when we realized that our potential could earn us little. And our efforts to involve ourselves in only the best relationships, with the best people, went to waste, when we realized that those relationships would never be ideal, those people would never be perfect, and we would never be satisfied, because all we'd be doing was comparing apples to apples.

We are not apples. Life is not a supermarket, sporting only the shiniest, prettiest fruit. The world is not spun from a wheel of cotton candy and silk, and does not follow a Nicholas Spark novel. And in that, nothing will work out the way we want, nothing will be ideal, nothing will be as we imagined, because that's what separates imagination from reality: error. Error is not something that is taught for us to account for until later in life. Error is not something usually included until we get into higher chemistry and economics courses. But error is pertinent to a set of data; data, which otherwise, would be invalid without.

So maybe I need to stop being so damn angry at the world. Maybe I should stop shouting at the universe for being so damn misaligned. Maybe, instead, I should look inside myself, and ask myself what I expect, and why I expect those things, and whether those expectations are realistic.

Maybe I need to consider the margin of error.

Cracked Porcelain

Sometimes I think I could be like fine china, prized and cherished, adored by those who have me, desired by those who don't.

Right now, I feel like a dirty toilet bowl.

I'm insecure. I'm so insecure, but I'm good at hiding it, so good, that people often think I'm conceited. I'm not. I swear. I just have to verbally affirm, from time to time, that I am actually good enough. That I am pretty. That I am interesting. That I am likeable. Because if I don't say it, out loud, so that I can hear it, then I begin to forget. I have to continuously convince myself that I am of value, that I am something people actually want in their lives.

It's frightening, though, when even this doesn't work. When my past comes back to haunt me, when my mind is so sure that I have reverted to the fat, ugly, disgusting self that I was. Even worse, however, is when I'm so lost in this spiral that I'm sure the only reason anyone finds value in me now is because I am slightly prettier, slightly thinner, and thus, slightly more desirable. In those moments, nothing stops me from believing that without this image, I could easily be thrown aside like an unwanted china doll.

I hate myself sometimes. I loathe my body, my face, my being, my emotions, my out of control, borderline tendencies. Above that, I loathe the fact that I loathe myself. I loathe the fact that I can't just accept myself, love myself, that I have to seek outside approval, that I have to be constantly reassured that I am, indeed, pretty, that I am, indeed, funny, that I am, after all, an enjoyable person to be around. And thus I overcompensate, with fake, cheery attitudes and skimpy clothing, just to tease those comments out of my companions.

And I have no excuses. I really don't. I want to say that it's because I got called fat and ugly by my peers, my crushes, my family, even people who I thought were my friends when I was growing up. I want to say it's because I had such a lack of physical acceptance, a lack of actual appreciation in my youth, that now I need to get it back, get it all back, everything that I was cheated of. And I'm sure that a part of me does need compliments and reassurance and narcissistic input for those reasons exactly. But that should in no way be my go to when I'm trying to rationalize my severe insecurity.

I can't love myself.

I don't know how to love myself, because for the longest time I would joke along with those peers about how fat and ugly I was, how shitty a person I was, how ridiculous and insane and strange and unattractive I was. It was the only thing I knew to do to move them away from the subject. It was my only defense, humor. But that humor developed into something so much worse; it got to a point where I would begin to agree, begin to confirm what they said. Where I would see myself from their standpoint, rather than judge my character as I knew it. And now, despite the change, despite the fact that no one ever says any of those things anymore, I still see myself in that light.

To me, I will always be the only one out of my entire friend group who never had a significant other in high school. To me, I will always be that kid whom no one ever crushed on. To me, I will always be the girl who wore a tux to prom, not because I was "cool, and alternative, and independent" but rather because all 13 boys who I asked, turned me down.

I will always be surprised to see the person that I see in the mirror, because I will always expect that round-faced dweeb that I believed I was in high school. And yet, at the same time, I will always continue to scrutinize my little imperfections, my tiny flaws, and I will manipulate those into the reasons for why people I care about don't have time for me.

I'm so broken. So, so broken. And it hurts, so, so, so much.

Chaos

I feel like all I do anymore is cry.

I cry, at least once a week, for anywhere from a few minutes to half a day, over this guy, which, according to all the teen films from yesteryear, is the only indication you need to realize that he is not worth your time. Is he a human or an onion? I don't know, I never see him.

The tables have turned, I care too much, I feel too much, I worry too much, I stress out, I crash, I burn, and I end up in tears.

I hate this feeling.

I hate feeling insecure. I hate people who make me feel insecure, and with that correlative property, I must hate him. But I don't hate him, I obviously don't, because if that were the case I wouldn't be so damn anxious every time I send him a text. I wouldn't wake up in the morning and beg to see a message from him. I wouldn't anticipate dates with him like they were the only thing that mattered in my world. I wouldn't feel, the way I feel, the panic that encompasses me, when I start to feel him slipping away.

I like him. A lot. Too much. So much, that it hurts me, because I don't know if he feels the same way. We live in a generation where people utilize these "dynamic relationships" as a means to waste away their time, as a means to have something to do when they're bored, as an easy way to get laid.

But I don't want that. I want emotional attachment. I want a relationship, a real one, one where I can feel confident in my place, confident in what we have, where I can rightfully freak out over the idea that he might be seeing other people, even if he isn't.

Because no matter how much I try to suppress it, I am not a chill person. A chill woman doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a cool girl, as the movie "Gone Girl" so aptly put it. That's an illusion that men desire as a means to get away with fucking up-they want someone who's chill enough to understand their views and desires and mistakes and stupid, stupid actions, someone who'll only be there when they want and a ghost otherwise.

But I can't do that. I can't just feel secure when there is NOTHING proving that I should. When everything is so far away, when he's so far away, when I'm the one who's texting first, when I'm the one making plans, when I'm the one who feels like I'm putting in all this effort, and for him, it's a situation of convenience. Am I not worth making time for? Is that why?

I hate him. But I also really don't. And it's such a fucking struggle, it's a struggle, because most of this is internal imbalance, is my own turmoil, or is it? I don't know. I don't fucking know.

The Elephant in the Room

I'm fat.

I'm not, actually, or at least, not anymore, but that's still something I think to myself at least 20, 30, 50 times a day. What others may see is a pretty standard young woman in her early twenties. What I see is a variation of that; I look at my flat stomach and only see the extra inch of flab hanging over my waistband. I look at my face and where others see contours, I see only rounded chubbiness. But most of all, I look at my thighs, and all I see are stocky, jiggly, stretch-marked trunks, huge and unappealing.

Elephant legs.

That remark first came out of my mother's mouth when I was six-six! To be teased, in front of my mother's good friends, and their sons, about my thick legs, by my own mother; it was more than enough to leave a permanent scar on my self image. From then, I tried, I worked, so hard to lose that weight. I would buy pants, much too small for me, and squeeze myself into them, willing that perhaps my thighs would condense from the pressure. I desired for that elusive thigh gap, and cried from joy when I first saw it first appear. I obsessed over legs, to a point where my gaze would immediately drop to someone's thighs upon meeting, something I still do to this day. I wanted more than anything to be thin, to be small, to stop being, in my mind and my mother's, the elephant in the room.

It was difficult. I was fat, obese at one point, in high school, and a boy in my grade took it upon himself to ridicule me for that. He'd make fun of my size, to a point where I got used to it, and would joke along with him-I didn't even realize, until years later, that that was a form of bullying.

I was so used to being called fat, by others and myself, that I'd accepted it as if it were a reality I deserved.

Since then, a lot has changed. Immediately after high school, I bounced to the other side of the equation, working out like a madwoman and starving myself, until I lost almost 40 pounds. I got to a point where I couldn't think straight, I had no energy, where I thought I'd pass out from any slight physical exertion. But I was finally beginning to like myself. No matter the means, I was finally being noticed, for reasons other than my pancake face and my barrel belly and my tree trunk thighs. People cared more about what I had to say, treated me with more respect, and actually began to lust after my body. MY body! It was such a strange experience, and I was addicted to it.

But it didn't last. It couldn't last, because it wasn't in anyway rational or reasonable, and I gained a few of those pounds back, and since then, I've slowly yoyo'd around, gaining and losing the same 10 pounds. It's what some might call normal. I feel like I could qualify for normal.

Now, I just want to learn to be happy with myself.

I want to love what I see in the mirror. I want to appreciate my cheekbones, my toned arms, my flat stomach, my muscular legs. I want to stop looking at other people's thighs and comparing them to mine. I want to stop looking at my reflection and thinking "ew." I want to stop hating the little imperfections. I want to stop being insecure about these stupid, trivial aspects.

Because they are stupid, they are trivial. And I am not an elephant.
I am not an elephant.
I'm not.