journal prompt 50 things

50 things that make me feel good.

1. cats
2. pizza
3. the smell of soapy soap
4. not wearing underwear
5. watching tv
6. going to the movies
7. buying things
8. receiving mail
9. having penpals
10. baking delicious treats
11. creating cards to mail
12. the smell of books
13. the way chicken tastes
14. finding new ideas on pinterest
15. snuggling with my cats and hearing them purr at bedtime
16. see the sunrise
17. the feeling of clean shaved legs against cold sheets when you first get in
18. getting pictures messages
19. washing my hair after it has been cut short after being long for a long time
20. thrift stores
21. going swimming in your clothes
22. laughing with your friends
23. that feeling of being in the right place at the right time.
24. going to the library
25. grocery shopping at night time when there are no customers in the store
26. shopping when there are no children in the store
27. talking to my brother
28. learning how to cook something and it tastes delicious the first time you make it
29. the smell of sunscreen
30. really smart dogs who know lots of tricks
31. walking dogs
32. the first warm sunny day after lots of cold overcast days and the way the sun feels so good on your skin
33. feeling strong and muscley
34. running to have a clear headed mind
35. when people give me compliments on a job well done unprompted.  especially strangers
36. when a stranger tells you they like your hair
37. going on vacation
38. the feeling of cold waves on your toes when you stand on the beach in the sand
39. getting really big boogers out as one really big booger.  [accomplished]
40. that song pompeii by bastille.  it makes me feel hopeful
41. thai glass noodles with egg and chicken
42. wearing my glasses, especially after having worn my glasses
43. putting worms back in the grass from the asphalt after it rains
44. the first time you kiss someone and that feeling of excitement and lust
45. having someone else brush my hair
46. well groomed beards on fellows
47. eating cookie dough
48. being considered the record keeper of all things of old times
49. the way things looked through a camera lens and how it always felt right to be behind the camera
50. learning new things about dogs that I remember and then being able to talk to people about that, and feeling smart and knowing.
51. not having my period
52. buying stationery that is strange, unexpected and special
53. hosting things for people who will appreciate them
54. staying up late at sleepovers
55. texting
56. flip flops
57. reusable shopping bags
58. the way airmail stationery and things look
59. reading and the moment that you escape into what you are reading, but you don't realize that it has happened.  It just happened.
60. the feeling of relief after you have to pee really badly
61. feeling sore after working out really hard
62. cookies, sweets, chocolate, doughnuts, cake, ice cream, cookie dough
63. roll top desks that are pretty
64. library shelves with rolling ladders
65. card catalogs
66. cheeseburgers with only ketchup and mustard
67. the color pink
68. having clear normal skin
69. not having a fat face/being skinny
70. when Trouvez gets scared and turns all poofy
71. when Eleanor meows and it feels like I'm having a conversation with her.
72. the way black clothes are always in style and always go with everything
73. peas with butter on them
74. stuffed chicken
75. gels pens that write really smoothly and don't smear

Endings and Beginnings

We got into again, and I went batshit crazy and I pushed him.  I mean I physically pushed him.  And then he pushed me back, and I slipped and fell down.  I did hurt my collarbone.  It was sore for a few days, but it passed.  Nothing seriously fortunately.  But he told me to get out, and I'm working on it.  I probably should have left immediately considering the circumstances, but here I still am. 

Whatfuckingever I guess. 

Does this make me a battered woman?  Possibly.

So having a very very short time frame to work with, I'm trying to make the best decision I can.  Also not having or making a lot of money is concerning.  A concern?  Both.  So what does this mean?  It currently means I am looking at trailers.  I would be actual trailer trash.  It's funny and strange that I would label myself that and think that of myself, because the other people that I have known who have lived in trailers, I did not have that opinion of by any means.  I mean, when Gramma lived in Texas, she lived in a trailer, in a park.  However there was one significant difference.  It was a seniors only community, and these people had magnificent homes.  Immaculate lawns/lots.  People who cared about their units and took care of them, and were long term tenants.  Ahhhh....that's it.  That's the difference.  If only I could live in the 55+ community.  Shit can I get an older ID?  Who does that?  Crazy people like me I guess. 

Grrr I'm just feeling so frustrated.  Frustrated in life and .... well that's it really.  I am life frustrated.  I am life disappointed.  I am life sad.  I am life failure.  I am a little leeeetle bit out of it.  Hahahah.  Whatfuckingever. 

I guess I always thought that I would amount to more.  That's what is truly disappointing for me.  I thought there was the potential for more.  I always wanted to avoid the "plan" that so many took.  The "path" that was prescribed by our standings, backgrounds, incomes, families.  I just never thought that if I deviated from the plan, that I wouldn't be able to get back onto it at some point in time.  Shit.  That is like the most genius fucking thought.  That's it.  That is what is the disturbance.  I always thought that I would be able to get back onto the path, and now the path is so different from what I ever expected and from what I ever thought would be possible, that I don't have the slightest idea of how to get back to a place that is moving forward to an end goal that I want.

Ohh!  Brain idea!  What if it doesn't matter what the path is?  What if the end goal is always the same thing?  What if the end goal is just to be happy?  Just to explore life and experience shit and be?  Hahahaha.  Well it can't be that because I don't like just being.  I like having a plan and being able to create a way to move forward.  Why are there no white people?

Stormy Weather

Everything between Mike and myself has been going well lately.  We are getting along as roommates and hanging out some and it's been good.  But not today.  We got into a silly argument over cat hair.  It's such bullshit.  I have been compromising everything to be here, and he seems to think the opposite, and that I give up nothing and still somehow am demanding everything.  I have stopped doing the nice things I had been doing for him, because I feel like he didn't care. 

Yes it's fun to be here, but I'm also getting kind of tired of being here and I miss my stuff.  I told him that yesterday, and as usual, instead of understanding me or attempting to listen to me, he told me, "It's just stuff."  Of course I know it's just stuff, but I'm surrounded by your crap in your tiny apartment that you don't do anything to take care of, and I have a suitcase of belongings, stationery, and the cats.  I miss my stuff and my life and my belongings.  I don't know how to make you understand that.  Is there something about that idea that is difficult or that you seem to misinterpret?  I feel like I am being pretty clear.

Honestly, I don't know why I blog anymore.  It's really stupid.  I would probably get more out of writing in a journal. 

I'm trying to take control and it's time to move along.  And go get some dinner.

Reading/Admissions

Lately, I feel like:

• I can't get enough of realness and literary readings and mail. 
• I'm sending as much mail as possible and trying to write as much mail as possible. 
• I'm spending a lot of time alone.
• I'm thinking about what I need to do keep moving forward.
• I talk to the kitties and have them cuddle with me.
• I could be losing my mind, but if I was, wouldn't I not know it?
• I'm looking for jobs and dealing with unemployment.
• I'm walking dogs almost every day.
• I have puppy fever. 

Some of these things are new, and some of them are old.  Some of them are recurring and ongoing.  But it sort of all feels new nonetheless. 

I read that a good writer should spend time writing every day.  I want to write every day but without any inciting incidents in my life, it is hard to come up with stories.  Stories that aren't about my cats.  The more alone time I spend, the deeper I delve into crazy-cat-lady-ness.  Don't get me wrong, part of me really loves it, but there is a part of me that knows it is a little sad as well. 

In regards to writing every day though, I had this thought, maybe perhaps more accurately described as a dream, about writing movies, which is silly.  I have no stories.  But if I did, the process that it takes to actually be the writer, I think I would be good at that.  I guess now I just need a story.  Thankfully I am not pretentious enough to take my large laptop to coffee shops and sit and work on a word document like I am important.  Thankfully I don't need $5 coffees to inspire my thought process.  Actually a place like that would really annoy me.  Just driving today was annoying.  However, I partially blame that on being hungry at the time. 

Is it more important to remember just the memory or the time of the memory?  Something I've been thinking about.

Is it a worthy venture to record all memories just for the sake of having them as opposed to letting them go?

Story

I have been avoiding writing in my blog because someone said something that I had deemed inappropriate to say about it regarding my own thoughts and ideas.  Regardless of what you think, this is my blog and I  am allowed to write what I want in it.  So I ended up punishing myself and not doing something that I like specifically because of someone else's opinion. 

But I've been thinking a lot about story.  It's inspired by an audio book I have been "reading" by Donald Miller.  I am a terrible character in my own story.  I am the antagonist in my own story.  How awful.  More on story later....  More pressing thoughts are weighing me down right now.


Dear Blank,

I think about you every day.  I even miss you every day.  I wonder what you are doing and how you are doing in a new place that almost doesn't even exist to me because I've never been there or heard of it.  Is that even possible?  It's like the flatness of the land beyond what I can see, so it must just stop existing. 

I haven't seen you in...jeez 2 years next month, which is crazy to think about.  I haven't talked to you in maybe a year and a half, but it feels more like a lifetime.  I had to stop talking to you because I felt so hurt by you, but I still hurt without talking to you.  I don't know what telling you these thoughts would mean.  I don't know what you think about me anymore.  I've heard what you thought about me in the past.  That hurt too.  Of course I'm much too sensitive and much too weird for most people now.  That probably includes you too.

When time passes, we are supposed to heal, but you are like this wound that never heals.  Actually I think I may miss you more now than I did when you left.  But I still felt like you were my friend then.  You miss your distant friends differently than you miss your friends that you have lost.  You have turned into a friend lost.  It does still make me cry.  It does still make me hurt.

All I remember are the good things about you.  That's all we really want to remember about people anyways.  Part of me feels like you are the only good thing that ever happened to me.  Part of me believes that I should be with you because my parents liked you and approved of you, and I don't have my dad here to approve anyone anymore.  So why should I keep looking?  Sometimes I feel as if I am more broken from losing you than I am from losing my dad, and that was very very hard on me.  Right next to impossible to do. 

It is strange that I don't feel like I am getting any better as time goes on.  I've only ever felt like the best version of me when I was with you.  Now I feel lost, and I just keep wandering aimlessly.  It's miserable.  I just want to be near you again. 

I'm so sorry.

Over stimulated

I am kind of sick of technology.  Sure, it's great that I can text my brother anytime I want, and it's nice to be able to call my mom while I am driving around, hands free in my car, but I constantly don't feel like I am busy enough.  I want to watch TV and browse the internet.  Text message on my phone while cooking in the kitchen.  I'm just always multi-technology-ing.  It's just overwhelming, and I'm over the feeling of it.  I want to unplug.  But I've already unplugged socially. 

I'm only writing this as I'm watching TV, shopping for stamps, checking Facebook, which I also hate, putting things away, petting my snuggle kitties, texting Steve, writing letters, relaxing in my jams. 

It's so funny how we all think that people care what we have to say, but honestly people don't really care at all.  If I did, wouldn't I be a more avid blog reader?

I'm on week 2 starting tomorrow of my medicine change, and it's going much better.  I'm not tired all the time.  I'm not sleeping all the time.  My weird freaky dreams are becoming less and less in nature.  I have had a couple of good positive days back to back, and I'm feeling more optimistic.  At least there is that. 

It's strange, I don't really feel the need to post on here all that often, but I also don't have the need to journal much either, although I think I would probably get more out that what goes on here.  I used to really enjoy all of that.  But I am crazy about my letter writing. 

Dear people of the world who stumble across my blog, let's become correspondence friends. 

Love You, Mean It,
Courtney

Still?

Someone asked me how I was today.  I hadn't seen them in a while, and quite frankly, I feel terrible lately.  I am physically exhausted, mentally bored but overwhelmed and continuously sad.  When I gave my usual answer that is the one that makes people the least uncomfortable (the slight stink face combined with the half lopsided shrug) he responded with a look of astonishment and the question, "Still?" 

I was offended, defeated and completely deflated in that one syllable nightmare of a word.  Could the undertones have said more to me in that moment?  You can't just turn off that feeling with antidepressants or drugs and be happy again?  You aren't immediately fulfilled even though I'm telling you how busy and great it is going at work without you?  You still feel sad? 

I want to be happy again.  I want to laugh and have girl friends and go on adventures and outings and dates and take pictures and have fun memories again.  I miss that.  There are moments that happen that are good here in Illinois, but not enough to make the sad go away.  Not enough to turn the hurt off. 

How can I still be sad?  Because I can't stop picturing the beeps and blips on Dad's monitor moments before he had a heart attack and Casey and I had to make a decision to have the hospital staff revive him.  But his body was still lifeless and unresponsive.  His small arm with its thick layer of stiff curly hairs fell off the bed lifelessly.  I sobbed uncontrollably.  Mom was gone.  When she came back and the family came in, and the decision had been made to take the breathing tube...the life support out, we stood and waited not knowing how long it would take.  We watched him take smaller and shallower breaths and with each one I wondered if this is the moment?  Oh thank god, another one!  Is this the one?  I spent so much time wondering, I don't remember it.  Mom never looked at me.  She didn't touch me or hug me or say anything.  It was like I didn't exist. 

When we took her home, I undressed her as is she was a child and put her in bed and wandered around downstairs in my brothers house.  This is it?  It's over now?  I don't feel anything anymore.  I just felt numb.  Maybe I still am numb?  I still am? 


...


I think that writing these things will make me feel better and have some kind of catharsis to the many changes that have happened.  The things that have stolen my little dreams, the standard things that every girl should have.  I should have just stayed in school in the first place so he could have seen me.  I don't know how he could have fulfilled my other little dream or how I could have made different choices that would have even made it possible.  I guess that's on me.  It's guilt that sits on my shoulders that I regret. 

I just want to be happy again.

I hope changes are on the horizon.

Late night posts are my thing

I am searching for jobs right now.  Applying for some.  Not excited about any of them.  The idea of everything happening, and happening so quickly really freaks me out.   I also need to turn in an official notice to the office that I will not be renewing my lease.  Not under any circumstances.  Well maybe if they like decreased my rent $200 a month, that would do it.  Ha.

I feel like crying, but I can't because my medicines keep me from being able to.  I didn't think that would happen again, because it didn't for a very long time.  If I get really really upset, I can, but just a normal, need to get it out cry: impossible.

My whole body aches. 

I can't believe at 27 that my knees and joints ache when it's cold outside. 

I want more, but I don't see it every being possible. 

The Truth

The truth is that I am lost and scared.  I do not know what I want, and even worse, I don't know how to get what I want.  The truth is that it is after 2am, I have no real job, and still worse, no motivation because like all the relationships in my life, I am scared to try anything because I don't want to be hurt again.  "No one likes working with you." 

Even finally hearing the opposite from the supposed person who didn't like working with me hasn't reinstalled my confidence.  What am I good at?  What should I be doing?  Not just as a career, but in my life?  What goals am I working towards anymore?  I have no clue.  I'm not really working towards anything.  It's a good day if I wake up and remember to brush my hair. 

It's as if I feel all this pressure from the world in general to become a mother.  That is not in my plans by any means.  I am willing to make allowances for changes.  After all, I said I would never eat meat again, and then look, six years later...mmmmm beef.  (I know how to cook beef now!  It's such a big deal.)  Where are the other proud, single and non-maternal types?  I know they are out there.  Why can't they be my friend?  And we can rejoice over how thankful we are to sleep in all day, to walk around naked, to not vacuum (shit, the day I move someplace with hardwood floors, I swear I will throw a block party!), to swear, to watch soft porn on TV after dinner, to never eat at the table, to eat dessert and junk food first before dinner...where is that person?  Why are you hidden from me?

But then there is the guilt.  I have the baby guilt.  I want to think that I'm enlightened and empowered by wanting to work (I'm using the term loosely as I am not currently working).  But is the opposite of that looking down upon those who choose to stay at home with their children?  Still when I look at my peers, I don't feel that way about everyone.  Certain people who give themselves up in order to be some ideal housewife they wished their mom had been or dreamt that they would be do come to mind.  But other strong focused and educated women I know choose to stay at home.  But then I wonder, how do their husbands not resent having to take care of not just themselves, not just a wife, but a whole brood on one salary alone?  It almost isn't fair in reverse, because I am no where near a career that could support a family.  Hell, I can barely support myself in this snooty forsaken money pit of snobs that is the North Shore.  And for some reason I soo desperately love and want to stay in, but that is just nonsense.  This place isn't really for me. 

Am I on the fence?  Am I truly going to be a childless or child free woman?  Will a meetcute happen in my future, and I will want to ovulate a baby into reality just to change his diapers for two years, have him learn the best I can, and then they grow up to hate and resent me?  Will I find someone who also doesn't want children and then some sort of biological clock with deafen me with the need to reproduce?  Just for those unbeknownst to the lingo, childless = negative biological connotation, child free = positive choice driven connotation.

I read something the other day that has actually stuck with me.  It was a quote about how we shouldn't compare our biography to another's highlight reel.  That's true.  I feel the truth in that.  In a world fully connected constantly by social media and the demon that is Facebook, I only see the highlight reels of everyone else.  Somehow I'm compelled to only highlight my shit storm days.  To be fair, in the past 18 months, there have been a lot of shit storm days.  Times and events that I feel like no one I formerly knew can relate to.  Things that I know other people have been through, and I still feel like I can't connect with them.  I think inside my head, "Shut up.  I want it to be my turn to talk, and I want you to shut up.  I want to keep talking and I want you to listen and nod at the right moments.  Whisper that you understand and that it is hard."  Is that asking too much?  Apparently so because I can't get it. 

I never ever mention my dad to my mom.  I never bring him up.  She only brings him up to measure how the time has passed "since before Jerry was sick" or "after Jerry was sick."  And that's it.  Casey used to talk about it with me, but I've just let it be still.  What could there possibly be to say?  I'm jealous and angry that you are older than me and had more actual time with him.  I regret not being better at CAD and being in the family business, but it wasn't what I wanted to do.  It would have made me miserable.  I'm sorry they chose to only have the two of us so far apart in age, and I probably was a mistake in my mother's mind, but I don't doubt that my dad wanted me because I've heard that he wanted more children? 

I avoid my mom and Indiana like the plague.  When she dies, will I be this grieved?  Will she get sick and slowly change the way Daddy did?  It's morbid to think about it, but I do.  Why lie?  It's the truth, and isn't that what this whole thing is supposed to be about?  I'm not self-medicating anymore.  Which is a good thing I think.  It's a lot easier to be clearer now.  It's a lot easier to experience stuff.  Even with the numbing of the prescription antidepressants that I hate to admit to help me.  I hate that I am that person who can be fixed by drugs.  But what is better?  You may not be in support of big pharmaceutical companies.  I'm not.  Maybe that makes me a hypocrite.  I'm trying to be okay with that.  But which choice is better?  Wanting to die and vanish from existence OR feeling slightly numb and unable to cry but able to feel, survive and exist?

It's a really shitty question.

Really though, what is even the point of crawling over this information again and again in my mind?  It's like pure torture of not knowing what I want or what I should do.  Shouldn't there be some kind of feeling of what direction I should be heading in?  Was $43,000 of school debt really worth it to still be so confused?  I don't think so.  Can't someone else help out there? 

I guess it's not a very good truth, but it is the truth that I am hung up on.  People around me are having careers, having friends, having babies.  I don't have any of that. 

Staying up this late is bad for me.  Usually around now at 3am I start to get a little dizzy.  I'm not exactly sure what it is though.  I guess it's a sign to get some sleep.  But my defiant brain thinks that it doesn't matter because I don't work, and I can sleep in the day, and so I do.  A lot.  All the time.  It's a sad existence right now, but usually I think at least I'm still existing.  That has to count for something right?  But how many days should pass before that really doesn't count for anything anymore?

The kitties bother me when they are hungry, and they bother me when they want me to come to bed.  Trouvez (Insert accent down-up over e) is circling like a hawk.  "Come to bed and snuggle with me lady!"  I'm just positive that if his tiny meek little meows could be translated, that is what they would mean.  So, to bed at 3am I go.

When I read a lot, I want to blog a lot.  I want to be a better writer, but I'm not sure I am a very good writer in truth.  I just let whatever is in my head spill out of my head.  Maybe I will fix it and organize it later.  That is how I made it through college.  But maybe I won't, and it will just be this trivial nonsense I type out at night.