Lauren’s blog

I am moving to my own blog. Vox, it's been a wonderful run. Thank you for the good times and connections.

And Happy New Year, Vox!

I'm going to have major surgery at the end of this month. Hoping everything goes well, I graduate in May this year. Hoping I get out of my financial hole, I'll be volunteering for two months after graduation. Then, after that, hopefully a job somewhere in L.A... perhaps my volunteering will need to be put off for the sake of needing to start some serious full-time work. Don't know how the economy is doing because I haven't been keeping up.

There's been too much on my plate, and J---- is not reachable at the time to talk to. I feel stagnant and overwhelmed.

Oh well, struggle through it I guess. There isn't going to be some miraculous save in my life in totality, where I get to start again afresh, renewed. Just bite the bullet, eh?

I'll try not to complain so much this year. Though, if I'm not allowed a rant anywhere else, I'm afraid you'll be receiving the fire. Please don't take it as a reflection of the nature of myself (unless those rants are uploaded every day.. then I'd say it's fairly accurate to say I'm an angry person).

Love.

That's what my therapist thinks of me. I will agree that for the most part I am, otherwise I'd have to concur that everyone loves me and I know they don't. However, even the people to whom I am closest cannot avoid my net of paranoia. If you invite me over for Thanksgiving I will think it's because you feel obligated to and don't actually enjoy my presence. If you invite me to hang out with you I will think of any other reason that's negative because for me it just can't be that you enjoy my company because in my eyes I am repulsive.

Where does this come from?

My paranoid mother, who verbally abused me and suffered (and still suffers) from paranoia. I will obsess about how much you don't like me regardless of what you might say otherwise.

How does one get out of this?

I can't trust my feelings. I can't not feel, but I have no solid evidence for anyone's dislike of me, except my feelings.

I didn't think J---- liked me back at all (not even as a friend), and what's happened now?

I can't not feel. I can't ignore the paranoia I just have to choose not to act on it.

I feel like I'm going to make a mistake though. I'm going to do something wrong and then, if they didn't already, the people I love the most will abandon me. Where does this come from? Dad.

I am a character out of a Wes Anderson film, before the film begins-- when he or she is crying and fucked up and delusional about self-worth and goals of acceptance.

And right now I'm feeling overwhelmed by the idea that I am the worst guest ever and my hosts can't wait to have me out of their house, and that J---- invited me for a movie with his family because he felt he had to. I feel repulsive and I just want to curl up and never move again.

I don't want to go back to California in three days.

I don't want to go back to school.

I can't focus because I'm entirely too stressed out.

I have a pulmonary nodule in my lungs and they're doing more testing to find out if it's cancerous.

I am afraid.

In summary.

I'd like to be more involved in my political environment but I am so weighed down by academic responsibility that I feel rather helpless.

So, what's going on?

Stuff.. over-worked and stressed about school and wondering when it will all end, because it's literally killing me with the strain. The exertion is taking a toll on my physical health, and the lack of support is lending to a feeling of pointlessness and despair... in summary, any road. I do have some good things going in my life, but they seem so few and far in between or postponed in their development due to school that I wonder if school is worth it for how much it is physically and mentally costing me.

But then I've been so absorbed in all of it that it's hard to seperate what is within my control and what I need to just let go. I have an appointment with my therapist but it's not for another week and I wonder if I will last.

I am in desperate need of more laughter in my every day.

So, time to play mommy to myself.

Sweetheart.. it's okay. Don't ever give up. I know you can do this because I know what you're capable of. So you don't have the support of L--- or M-----. No emotional support whatsoever but you do have someone who loves you as much as you love him, you have a close circle of best friends, and you have a community of friends that love and support you. You have teachers who care enough to show a little grace, and you have clothes on your back and food in the fridge. The rest of 'em can deny you their love, their comfort, their care, and their ears, but you have your self and you always will and that is something so beautiful and precious as you should know and as others have made known to you by developing such strong friendships.

And the parents, relatives, acquaintances and strangers that say otherwise? Fuck 'em. They don't determine your self-worth and they sure as hell can't squander your potential. Only you can do that. So let go of the baggage. Cry if you need, and I will always be here because I will always love you.

You can't be lost or empty if you have you. Always be yourself. You'll make yourself miserable trying to fulfill anything else.

Love yourself, and never lose either: love and self.

Should you stray, always remember forgiveness, always remember hope. Just wait.

Should it overwhelm you again remember that there is a whole world out there and you are not your thoughts. Your existence isn't confined to the limits of your mind. Life is a gift.

With love,
Lilu

First and foremost: Obama FTW! and Happy November, Voxers.

My family issues are having more of an impact on me than I've been willing to admit.

And on another subject: despite our feelings being out in the open I feel like he doesn't want to see me as much as I want to see him. The enthusiasm seems to be one-sided and that worries me.

So I identify as a Kinsey 5, and he is one of those rare cases. Even if my dad decided that because I'm seeing someone who is male, I don't think he'd be less of any less of an asshole.

And just one >:[ because I am frustrated with having to deal with stoned people all the time and wondering where the food has gone. It's unfair, it's rude, and it's annoying. I miss feeling comfortable at home. Though I doubt very much this is home to me. It's as home as much as any other place has been.. maybe a bit more when it was just the four of us and there was less pot... a lot less pot.

I just need a good cry.. and an adult to tell me that life goes on and it's going to get better.

But it won't if I don't believe it and if I don't try to make it so.

Rest first...

Found my strength with a little help from my friends.

:)

and <3

-Leeeelooooooooo

I am looking at photos of friends' weddings and the bride always looks so beautiful and happy. I don't think I could ever feel that way, and I don't think, growing up, I ever hoped for that much. I've never aspired to be a bride, and I don't want to get married now or in the future... but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have the right to it.

In other news, I will confess everything to J----. I'm coming out! And.. confessing something else as well, that flies in the face of theories about gay-dom. It's not that simple. Who woulda thunk it, but there are shades of gray and even rainbows in a world too often perceived as black and white.

Back to my original point: I live in California and I'm registered to vote. I have a voice that can be heard by the state, and I'm voting no on proposition 8. You cannot legal deny rights to a minority. It's unfair, it's unconstitutional, and don't forget that if it passes you are taking away the rights of those who have already tied the knot. One person's religion is not another person's law. This is about legal rights. It isn't going to change what children learn in schools regarding lifestyles. It's about legal rights, not about destroying your church.

It's just a bit frustrating that this is being carried on the way that it is. Then I'm hearing shit about losing certain tax whatnots because churches won't permit gay marriages even if it is legalized, and that's bullshit. We'll be blamed for the economy and other shit. Hrm.. this rings a bell. Was it "Blame the Jews," "Blame the Blacks," or..? Oh, no, now they're chanting "Blame the Gays."

Way to go, guys. Perhaps education should be reformed.

Oh-hoho.. If this passes I'm going to start bowing like a member of the lower class in a hierarchy. I will be deemed subhuman, and will consider wearing this on my forehead.

Signed,
Future Hell-Dweller
Gettin' my base-tan in this life with global warming! :D 

You remind me that we are in charge of our own happiness, regardless of what shitty or what blessed cards we get dealt. I'll drop my baggage, take care of my self, and catch the train now.

Before the month is out, thought I'd post an update:

Two jobs, fourteen units, in the process of moving, officer positions in two on campus clubs, and a lot of drinking to try to ignore shadowy thoughts revolving around the self-worth affected by my father no longer talking to me because I'm gay.

I'm spiraling down and I'm going to crash soon.

Life is grand, ain't it?

Signed,
Stinker