2011:

My new year's resolution is to be good enough for ONE day to go by without my parents arguing over something that I've fucked up.

Guys, I know that I'm not perfect.

But I'm trying awful hard.

I just want to smile.

I just want everything to be okay.

I know where I get my weight insecurities from.

And a lot of other ones, too.

I wish I could be better.

I wish things were just that simple.

I wish I could believe in God.

But I can't.

I mean, I do.

But I don't think that He believes in me.

Murdermurder Ragerage.

Dude, you are my ex-boyfriend.

We dated.

We held hands.

We kissed-- sort of.

We broke up.

And, you know what?

You're a really terrible person.

There. I said it. I've been bottling it up for years, but there it is, in black and white.

You're a terrible person that will never have a good life, because you'll never grow up and get up off your lazy ass long enough to make one for yourself.

In the past, you'd tell me all the time that you expect to die in your twenties.

Well, you know what? You won't.

You're going to live a long, miserable life.

And it'll be your own damn fault.

Do not judge me based on my relationship with Alex.

You haven't met Alex.

You haven't seen me in years, spoken to me in months.

You have yet to grow up from the same immature, a little funny but mostly stupid, teenager that I once dated.

You have no right to contact me in any way.

You know, I still get scared to look out of windows sometimes?
I still expect you to be standing there, cuts all down your arms and neck and face, telling me that you hadn't cut deeper because hadn't wanted to "hurt" me.

Fucking selfish pig.

I am more than angry.

I am livid, I am furious, I am filled with rage.

One more fucking sarcastic remark from you about my dating life, or about me at all, and I will explode. I will explode, and I will not stop exploding until I make you cry.

Maybe that sounds a little extreme.

But I am sick to death of you and your casual attempts at interfering in my life.

Fuck you.

Fuck your self-imposed "depression."

Fuck your pity-party-of-one life.

Grow up and get real problems, dude.

I Don't Understand Anything.

I have no one to cry to, this time.

Realizing that almost made me burst into tears.

I'm thirteen hours away from anyone even slightly comforting.

I think Alex is mad at me for taking a facebook joke too far.

I think Michael is slowly letting me fade out of his life.

I think Grace is growing to dislike me and my new bitchy attitude.

I think my mom has gotten sicker since I've been here.

I think I've gotten sicker since I've been here.

I don't know how to be around my parents and not regress to the worst parts of my childhood. I don't know how to stand up to my father. I don't know how to make my little brother stand up for himself, or how to talk sense into my older brother.

My worst fear is that I'll get a call from my grandmother saying that Heather left my father and he got custody of the baby and to please come home for a few weeks to help everybody settle down. Because I'll never leave. I'll spend the rest of my life in Many, raising my father's children for him. Looking down a steady line of mistakes, I'll tell myself, "I'll go back to school next year," but it will be another empty promise.

I'm not going to counseling. I lied to you. I'm sorry.

I'm never going to get better-- to resolve my past and move on into a brighter future.

My abuse will always haunt me.

There will never be a day that I don't relive it, and wonder what I could have done differently.

There will never be a day that I don't regret not dropping out of high school to become my little brothers' new mom.

There will never be a day that I don't look at Alex and simultaneously wonder if I'm worthy of him, of if I am just settling for second best.

There will never be a day that I look at my mother with respect.

And, you know what? That's just going to have to be okay.

My other worst fear is that the call will never come, and I will have to be responsible for my own life and decisions.

How do people grow up?

When does one become an adult?

When do I stop being a college student and become an educated adult?

I haven't figured out any of the problems that looked so simple just a few weeks ago.

I don't know how to heal.

I just use bandaids, and hope that someone will eventually take good enough care of me for me that I'll be able to just forget the experience altogether.

The truth is that I don't want to grow up.

It's too hard.

It's too sad.

It's too long a process.

And I just don't care enough to do it.

I'm sorry that I'm a bad girlfriend/ friend/ sister.

I'll do better, someday.

Durpy Doo.

If your stomach is not growling, you are gaining weight.

If you aren't always at least a little bit hungry, you are probably fat.

I've lost a little bit of weight.

I'm going to lose more.

I'm going to be pretty, someday.

I'm working on it.

Today:

I feel vulnerable. I feel fragile. I feel sensitive-- not moody, sensitive.

Things I do not like to hear when I'm feeling this way:

"You were so pretty over the summer." -- Complete Stranger.

"I used to pick on you because I knew you had potential. Now you're almost close to being okay." -- Relative.

*Plays MafiaWars every day, but refuses to text/ call/ communicate with daughter. --Father.

[...leave me alone...] and let me go to sleep. That'll make me happy. --Boyfriend.

And I know that I'm not being fair.

I know that all these feelings I've got already swirling inside me have got me more upset and hurt than I should be.

I just don't understand why he isn't as worried as I am.

Whenever I make passing jokes, he freaks out and gets a little sick to his stomach. But now that the Big Scare is really here, he just brushes off my concerns.

I know he has his own issues to be upset about. I just wish I were with him right now. I've never figured out how to be comforting long-distance. If I could curl up next to him and make him talk out his thoughts to me, I'd be useful. But phones are cold, and so is his tone when he tells me that I can't help him and he'd just like to sleep.

Things I've Decided This Week:

I will seek a counseling when I return to UNO.

Because Alex is right; it's probably the only free therapy I'll ever receive. I should take advantage of the offer.

And Katrina is right when she believes that she deserves help.

And I deserve help, too. This is the first time in my life where I feel that I am worthy of the option to reach out: for my sake, and for the sake of this relationship that I'm desperately clinging to.

And I'm going to overcome this.

I'm a rough and tough girl; I can do anything.

Just watch me.

Katrina Davis Is Really Inspiring.

Her blog, Life., has lately been about her husband's deployment to Africa, and her attempts to overcome a childhood abuse. She plans to reach out to her mother and tell her about this great atrocity, and just kind of let her family know about the pain she's been dealing with.

And I just feel like that's really brave.

Because I've always reached out to my peers with my problems; to people that, I feel, would take my problems at face value and not blow them out of proportion or underestimate them. I could especially never talk to my mom about something important. I'm just not that brave.

I think the single worst moment of my life happened at my father's house. I was sitting on his couch, crying, because he was telling me that I was "walking the wrong path," and that I would end up a drug addict and an alcoholic. This was at a time when I had never smoked a cigarette, never touched a single drop of alcohol, and never even thought about doing any sort of drugs. I was, however, anorexic and abusing dietary pills (which I don't consider to be recreational drug use.) My father had no idea I had these problems, he was just accusing me of doing the things he thought all teenagers did: the things he had done as a teen.

And I'm sitting on the couch, thinking of how unfair it is that I can't even fight back, can't defend myself, because everything I say he twists around to mean something else. I'm flustered and I'm angry-- at him for doing this, at myself for letting him, at Heather for sitting in the next room and ignoring us, at my mother for not fighting for custody of me-- and I can't even bring myself to look at him. I just sit there and think of all the angry words I could say but won't.

And my father ruined our relationship in one sentence, in one moment.

Because that conversation, that hour of me crying and him talking, I would have let that go. I would have forgiven him for that.

But when he looked me in the eyes and said, "You think you've been through a lot, but you haven't. You've been spoiled and taken care of your whole life. You don't know what pain is, yet," I knew that not only did my dad know nothing about me, but he didn't care too.

My dad never asked me about the years of my childhood he hadn't been around for. Didn't bother to catch up on the months he'd been in Aruba, dealing cocaine and living with prostitutes. Didn't know how I'd been treated the year he went to rehab. Didn't know that I had, in fact, been abused. Didn't know what had been going on in my life, and didn't really want to find out.

My dad had a preconceived notion that I had been living this pampered life of leisure, and that was the only reality he would ever accept.

I'm really proud of who I am.

It took me years to get there, but I eventually did. I've talked a lot about my childhood with Michael, who had to work hard to make me realize that the things that happened were not my fault. It was a rocky road that I had absolutely no adult guidance on.

John Scaife will never know about what happened to me. And, you know, that's okay. It's none of his business.

It's not like he was ever a real father, anyways.

Sort Of For My Mother:

In America, we have this weird thing where we think that aging is our fault, and that we can somehow prevent. And if you don't acceptably prevent your aging process, you have somehow failed yourself.

I think that's a load of crap.

I know that I've told you already, but my mother has a confirmed, medicated case of early-onset Alzheimer's.

Yesterday, when I told her that she is pretty, she responded with a list of things wrong with her appearance.

I giggled, because most of the things she listed were age related: wrinkles, gray hair, and the like.

But when I told her that, she just gave me this blank stare. So I clarified: "Everyone that's born has to eventually get old."

And she laughed and brushed me off and said something about hair dyes and plastic surgeon.

Something about it just really struck me: my Alzheimer's-stricken mother is seriously considering plastic surgery so that people won't know how old she is.

How silly is that? That this natural process is something that our society has made taboo? That our mothers and aunts and sisters are indoctrinated against?

I think we should all grow our gray hair out.

I think we should encourage wrinkles: they're a sign of wisdom, you know.

For that matter, living long enough to get old is a sign of wisdom.

Why is that a bad thing?

Show off your intelligence, relax and reap the benefits of all of the life lessons you've learned. Don't try to cover them up, don't try to escape into a younger generation.

You won't fit in there.

You're above them.

ACTIVATE: WILLPOWER!

I am so determined.

You have no idea how skinny I'll be by the time this break is over.

I really like Texas.

I really like how dry it is, although my nose is going to start bleeding any minute now.

I really like my 6 month old puppy, Ubu, who is smart enough to step back over her leash if she gets her feet tangled up in it (oh, and she can balance dog treats on her nose.)

I really like my mom, all the time.

I really like Grady, when he's being nice.

I really like working, surprisingly.

I really like dieting. It makes me smile and feel like I'm finally doing something right.

I really like this "available 24/7" coffee maker I've got sitting on the kitchen counter.

I really like skiing (jk, you guys, I don't know yet. But I really like the idea of it.)

I really like our fireplace.

I really like my "bed."

I really like... well, a lot of things about being in Texas.

What I Do Not Like:

Missing Alex.

Missing Grace.

Missing Danny.

Missing Scott, Jonathon, Pope, Cody, and everyone.

Having nothing to do at my most active hours (Midnight.)

There are hundreds of channels and NOTHING to watch.

Being sad, sometimes, and not knowing why.

Getting angry and not having a means of expressing it.

Ubu will not sleep with me at night. She comes and cuddles for a few minutes, but won't stick around.

I've got goals for this break.

I'm going to get shit done.

I just, you know, want you know that I'm okay, and that I'm going to continue to be okay.

Confession:

I have an anger issue. When I get angry, I become this nonsensical mass of rage and hatred, and nothing can calm me down. I become self-destructive and, in rare cases, violent (geared towards myself, never others.) This is a recent issue-- as in the last year and a half-- and it's one that really scares me. I've never really been an "angry" type of person.

When I was younger, I would get really upset about things that didn't even matter. I would literally cry for days at a time about stupid, petty things. Instead of growing out of that, it's just become progressively worse. I began to bottle up my anger, of which there was an abundance.

And now, now that I'm finally happy and content and have every reason to be the poster-child for success and smiles, that anger is draining out of me in the form of these uncontrollable outbursts.

I hate it.

I hate feeling like I don't have any sort of control over my own emotions.

I hate feeling like I'm a stereotypical "woman:" all sass and attitude.

I hate knowing that this is negatively affecting my relationships with my friends, family, and boyfriend.

However, I can't seem to think of any sort of solution.

It just feels like I'm all alone in this angry little bubble, and there's no way to pop it.