eyes wide shut unopen

There are times when I am so aggravated with all of this. I want the freedom to do something crazy, to do what I want. Every serious decision I make has to be made with my family in mind. I splurge on what I buy now sometimes because the time in which I will have disposable cash is ever shortening. When I graduate, I will have loans to pay off and my parents to support. I'm sure that their cash reserves will last a bit, but I'm relying on those now to get me through school and my parents through life until I graduate. They will need to buy another house. Or if they live in an apartment, that will cost money too. And sure, this house will sell for something, but still.

There will need to be someone to take care of them, someone to clean, someone to make sure they eat. Help is expensive. Or I'll have to be there to do it. They drive me crazy. I can't bear to be around them. I'm so resentful, I think I really need to see someone, because I just hate this.


It's just, what about my life? What if I want to move in with someone? I can't leave this goddamn house. After I graduate, how am I supposed to pay back my loans, live with someone and contribute my half of the household/apartmenthold, and support my parents? Who the fuck is going to want to be with me and my baggage? It's not like there's anything I can do about it. I'm responsible for them. Who would wait for that? What if I miss out on everything I want because I can't take the steps I want to to sustain a meaningful relationship- because I'm tied down to all of this?

Ugh, this is awful. They're my parents and all I can is resent them. And this is just a huge mess of self pity. Who needs someone to love them, anyway?

More self pity. I'm sorry, I'm just so angry


EDIT:

Oh well. What am I going to do? Everyone else deserves to live their lives too. No one else should have to be dragged down by this and me. I'll figure something out. Being alone won't kill me. I have my whole life. My brothers may be sick. I'm not. It's my responsibility to take care of our parents. Nothing else I can do

with my lightning bolts a'glowin'

In the midst of all this suffering and all of this torture, I've felt lost and questioned my basic beliefs in justice, in how everything works out, in finding happiness and in finding the brighter side of everything.

It's something I've struggled with before, and I'm sure I will struggle with it again. It really should be expected. I strive to be optimistic, but blind optimism is naïve and it's only natural as an intelligent and informed person to wonder at the state our world is in.

Within the past week, a drunk and high woman drove up the wrong side of a highway and hit another vehicle head on. She killed the occupants of the other car, herself, her toddler and three nieces. All the children were under the age of 8. Two teenage boys were driving on a road I've driven on a million times. It was raining and their Corvette hydroplaned or they couldn't see the lines or something and they ended up on the other side of the road, where they were hit head on by an SUV. Both boys died. One boy, the boy who's 'vette it was, just lost his mother in April. His dad died years ago. He left just his brother as the sole survivor of their family. Both boys were going to be sophomores.

All these lives, all these people, gone, cut short, gone before they really started. I can't figure out how that fits into the 'everything works out' belief. Maybe it's stupid to believe that it all works out, but maybe it's incredibly brave as well because you're believing something that you know damn well will be hard as hell to believe in.

However, they also mean that even though life sucks, there's no reason to just let it slip away. It can be gone in a freak second. Might as well make all those seconds before hand matter.

Maybe that's what it is. Every thing works out not because life works out, but because if there's any fight in you, you find a way to make your life matter to you. Everything works out because you make it that way. I will make it that way. We will get through this. We will be okay

my own two arms will carry you tonight, tonight

I don't know what's wrong with me. I had a truly amazing 2 days. Actually, from Friday to today was all really good. Even before that, it hasn't been that bad. My parents have been irking me and what not, but I actually got that stuff all worked out. I'm still worried out of my mind, but I've gotten better at not thinking about it. Nothing else I can do yet, worrying too much can't help anyone. I don't feel listless or anything like that.

But there's just this....this awful ominous feeling. It's not about anything in particular, which is especially obnoxious. Usually I'll have them, but something specific will feel likely. For instance, I won't have a good feeling about my family- maybe not bad, but it won't feel good- or school, or friends, or Chip, or something like that. But this isn't like that. There are things that are exacerbating my worry, but I know that they're not the cause of it, and that my worries aren't intuition, they're just worries. It's just the waiting.

I'm awful at waiting. The relief I felt at finding out I was safe, that I didn't have Huntington's, was the single most amazing feeling I have ever felt. It wasn't instantaneous and it never really fully hit me all at once. I've had plenty of other much more amazing 'point experiences'. I've have equally amazing long term experiences. But that relief...it was so much more than anything I could ever explain. I think a lot of it was just the immense stress from not knowing driving me crazy. I never ever had any intuition about what the answer would be. I tried. It never came to me.

Maybe that's what this is, the waiting. I'm so impatient. I'd rather get everything done right now, right this second, I'd rather deal with bad things now then later. I guess what it comes down to is that I'm terrified of the unknown. Waiting is the most excruciating torture.

And I think that's what my uneasy feeling is. I don't want to go back to school, I'm afraid. I'm angry that I'm afraid, but I am. I want things to change but I don't. I don't understand why I'm so uneasy, so afraid. I have always been able to find happiness. I always make it work somehow. I have gotten through bad things and I have seen people get through awful times and I know people who have gone through so much worse. And they made it out, they're okay, I'm okay, we're all okay.

But I read these stories in the paper, these awful stories of these people who's lives went to hell and I don't get it. I believe things work out in the end. How do some of these things work out? And my life, I'm balancing it just like it is right now. Any movement is catastrophic. I know things may well change when I go back to school. I'm okay with it. I know it will be hard. I hope I really like my job at MGH. If I like it, I can spend a lot of time there. Maybe that will help.

Still, I'm terrified. Even though I consciously know this terror is understandable but stupid because I always make it through. And in my life, everything really has always worked out in the end. Things I thought were awful and terrible- best case in point, when Phil broke up with me- ended up being the best things that happened. I thought it would be awful when he told me we couldn't talk anymore, but I made the decision to move on, and so when I found out he cheated on me, it was all anger, not pain. And I had already consciously decided none of what I was going through was worth it. My life is still fucked up and messy, but I make it work. So why am I so scared?

I don't want to lose Chip. I have had my share of bad choices, I have made mistakes, I have failed. We both have had roughs times, some of our own making, some because that's life. We both got through it. I always wanted someone who was always there for me, never forgot about me, someone who would sort of take care of me. I have amazing friends, and all of them help me by listening, but I always feel like I have to take care of them, and that burdening them with my problems prevents that. I always wanted a me: not perfect but unerringly there. Chip is a me. Don't take him from me. Romantically or whatever, well, that I don't expect. Our paths will inevitably depart in that respect eventually. Will they meet again? I don't know. And that's okay, because there's no reason we can't be friends and then I wouldn't have lost him now, would I?

But don't take him from me. He deserves his beautiful future life far more than I deserve mine.

I feel a little better

See, even just by writing that, I feel a bit better. Food time

gonna get through this

I don't know what else to do other than write.

I know who I want to be, I know how I want to be. I want to be strong, I want to be reliable, I want to be level headed and rely on common sense. I hate being weak, I hate feeling weak, I hate feeling out of control and I hate feeling totally dependent. I hate feeling like everyone has to help me and I hate that I feel like I help no one.

I tell myself I feel so weak because of my family. That I've erected a life around this stupid disease, and if any part of it fails, everything fails. It's like a tower of blocks I haphazardly threw around, and any interruption threatens the whole thing. I tell myself I've never been patient and I can't expect myself to be able to be saintly. I tell myself I resent my family deep down and that it makes it harder to be patient. I tell myself that I'm tired, that I'm stressed out, that my dad takes his stress out in his way and my mom doesn't deal with her stress and that I'm going to slip up sometimes. I tell myself it's okay because I'm not perfect and I never will be and the important thing is that I know it's wrong and I try to correct it.

I can't accept it though. There's no reason I can't be more patient. There's no reason I have to be like this. There are people I have to be strong for and I want to be strong, I want to be so badly, and I just am not. I talk about it to deal with it but then it makes people feel like they have to take care of me and they don't have to and then I worry they'll resent me just like I resent my family and I can't stand the thought of losing them and I still can't be stronger for them. I still can't hide it, I still can't deal with all by myself. I should be able to deal with this by myself.

I tell myself that beating myself up helps no one. It saps my energy in two ways and just makes it harder to be the person I want to be. Some days it just hurts though. I should be able to handle my family with ease. I shouldn't be crying. I shouldn't make people worry about me. It's not that bad. It's just my bad temper and my impatience. I always want to help people, how come helping my family is so hard? It shouldn't be.

I know I need help, I know it's not like I'm drinking or doing drugs, I feel overwhelmed but it never lasts too long. I always find a way to climb out of it. But I don't want people to worry about me. I don't want to be that weak broken girl who can't deal with her own problems, which aren't even all that bad anyway

we're only taking turns holding this world

The visit to the lawyer was rather successful. I can't say it was incredibly enlightening, as most routes they suggested (I spoke to two lawyers together) were just not feasible at this time. I can't imagine the hell my mom would go through if she began divorce proceedings right now. Once Greg and I are gone, who will be left? Matt's never home (who can blame him) and I don't know how she'd cope. Taking the money away from him was suggested, but my mother can't be trusted to pay bills and my father would probably have even more of a fit.

I just think it has to be done fast, all at once. But they were still very helpful. They told me about involuntary committal and now I have someone to call the next time my father goes crazy and gets taken by the police.

It just made me feel better about my family and about everything else going on right now. The entire system is so confusing and vast; it was nice to speak to someone who actually knew what was going on. I've been sick with worry, but now I feel a bit better. I'm still worried, but just a little less. For now, it's a start.

Now, it's just waiting. I need to stop reading into things so much- half the time I worry I only see what I want. My indecision kicks in bad, and I worry equally about reading too much into things and not reading enough into them- I don't want to offend or injure by seeing something not there, but I don't want to hurt by not catching something. It'll be obvious when it's important. I'm just going to feel a bit better and think of how fucking awesome it will be when these things are over

i'll never let you go

I have the beginnings of a plan.

I'm going to the lawyer who specializes in family law tomorrow, provided I safely reach Hackensack with Buzzer. I'm getting the hang of the manual car- I still stall occasionally, but for the most part, I drive with minimal thought. It's not first nature yet, but it's getting there. I know I need to get guardianship over my family's finances, but I don't know how easy it will be, how long it will take, if it'll affect my financial aid, the process of getting it and so on. I think I'll pursue it when I get home from school in December. I have until March, so hopefully that'll be enough time. Though that's something else I should ask- how it would work when I'm abroad. Perhaps I should consider a co-guardian.

Then I'll talk to my Uncles Jimmy, Stephen and John. I also believe the time has come to institutionalize my father. As soon as the court declares him mentally incompetent, I'll put him somewhere. I don't know where I'll find the money. I may have to ask my uncles for it. I also have to ask the lawyer about my mom divorcing my father so they don't take all the assets from her to pay for the home. I don't know where I'll send him. They have places that specialize in Huntington's patients. I would prefer that, because he'll get the best care. But if I must, I'll put him in a psych ward.

I feel awful, but he has had his chance to make things better. He took my mother down with him as he degenerated and I have to do what I can for her. I think that means getting him out of the house. It'll be tragic if he ends up drugged up 24/7 in a psych ward, but I can't help them both. Not when he doesn't want to be helped.

I don't know whether to move my family to a small apartment or not. I could, then Matt could finish school. On the other hand, where will Greg and I stay? I guess there are apartments with more than two rooms. It'll be cheaper than what we're living with now. Once I have control over the finances, I'll find someone to advise me on whether to invest it or not. Additionally, I need to know how much they've trashed their credit score by not paying bills on time. Maybe they can't buy a house because they wouldn't get a mortgage anyway. I certainly don't have the credit to do that.

I also am thinking about bringing my parents to a neurologist before going back to school. Maybe if I bring both, I can coerce my father into going. I have to ask my mom's therapist if my mom may need a neurological visit. Maybe the problem is deeper than just intense stress. Then again, I'm half crazy from it, aren't I? But maybe it's better to check. If so, maybe there will be drugs to help. And the neurologist can fill out the disability forms, and maybe it'll come through in enough time to help pay for health insurance for my father.

Though, with no income, maybe they'll qualify for Medicaid. Another thing I need to ask someone.

I swear though, I am becoming increasingly hostile towards all forms of bureaucracy. I think it's disgusting how they allocate their resources so improperly and how in order to navigate it, you need a lawyer, which means you need money, but you're trying to navigate the system to get the money. My parents both worked and paid into this system. They paid their taxes, their Social Security, their Medicare, for how long? The system is supposed to help. It's not supposed to turn a blind eye and then hurt.

Have I mentioned how grateful I am to have Chip? I know I can handle this and that I have a plan and that it's not fair for me to dump this on him anyway. But I swear, talking to him for just a few minutes makes everything seem okay, even if we're not talking about the problem. Even just an away message or a few words from him can make my day. He's my best friend and he makes my life good. But I have to be strong for me and him. I don't want him to feel bad for being busy, but at the same time I want to communicate to him how important he is to my life. He always seems to understand what I mean. I can and will get through this. We can and will get through this. He reminds me that it's hard sometimes, but that there are good things out there.

God, I miss his smile and how much he makes me laugh. I am so lucky so have him in my life. He's hard on himself sometimes, but he is an amazing person. He brings such happiness and light into my life, and it kills me when life is so rough to him. He deserves so much better. I try to believe the everything happens for a reason and that it'll all work out, but sometimes it's just hard. It doesn't seem fair.

He's so generous with his time and himself, so silly, the only guy I've ever met who appreciates my quirks instead of just dealing with them, so much fun, so caring. He is incredibly important to me, and I want to appreciate every moment I have. I have someone truly tremendously great in my life. It is hard with my family, but I know he's always there for me. And I need to be strong too and handle it. I need to be strong for me and for him. I don't want him to worry.

I hope these words convey some sense of how I feel- I fear words are simply inadequate, but they're all I have. I love him and I miss him- what else is there to say? At least I have someone to love and miss, someone who is worth crying over and missing. These days drag on, but they're still days we're alive, and that means there's still reason to hope. That has to mean something.

i miss the sound of your voice

So I was out with Katie and Jamie the other night; we went to get some food at the Cheesecake Factory. We were talking and Katie said something that I had never really been able to put into words before. She said how I dealt with problems sort of as if each one was a crisis because I was always in crisis coping mode. I saw what she was talking about, but I also know I try to be laid back and easy going. I would describe myself as a stressed out individual, but I wouldn't say I was high strung or anything. They agreed that I was not high strung now, but that in high school, it wouldn't be have been an inappropriate description.

In high school, I would sometimes vent my stress at my family out through other things. Case in point, driving. I have never done anything knowingly dangerous or violent with my car. I don't cut people off to prove a point or play chicken or even tailgate much (or at least not to an extreme). But I do scream and curse at them from the haven of my own car. Do I think the fact that some asshole hit the brakes and didn't go through the light is life ending? No. Do I sound like it? Sure. I've always had a fast temper, and I guess I just decided I didn't want to control it in situations like that. I used what self control and patience I have to deal with the bigger things, and vented constantly to people to blow off the building stress.

I do feel that I mellowed out in college, probably in large part because I don't deal with my parents 24/7 365 days a year. It is comforting to know that this isn't necessarily a personality trait, but something that occurs under duress.

Today I really realized how bad the crisis mode I'm in is. I drove myself crazy for about an hour or two worrying that I had misinterpreted a tweet- like, couldn't concentrate, felt nauseous, worried, bargained, obsessed- if neuronal activity was exhibited through heat released from the head, I could have burned a hole through the wall. (Listen, I am bothered too by the scientific inaccuracies and holes in that statement. Just go with it).

I finally calmed myself down with some food and tea and a stern talking to. But that scares me deeply. I suppose a kind person would say that with the amount of stress I was under, it was the straw that broke the camel's back; that it wasn't what I was freaking out over, but the sheer volume of my worries. But all I can see is this: A neurotic 20 year old who can't let things go, who not only made a possible mistake in reading something but then proceeds to harp on her lack of perfection and works herself into a frenzy over two fragments of sentences. What is wrong with me? Why is there no perspective?

I am not going to get better overnight. I must accept that while I strive to be calm, strong, level headed, wise, easy going, laid back, super human, I will never achieve all I strive for. And that's a good thing- I want to think I'm a good person, but I don't ever want to stop wanting to grow. But I must also accept that I need to let things go. That my way of coping with things does not make me weak, but if I have a problem with it, I must simply fix it instead of worrying about it. I talk to people and it calms me down. It's like magic. That makes me feel dependent and weak, but someone said "No man is an island". And while I believe they meant we're all interconnected, I think it's also that we're not supposed to be. If you deal with your problems silently, that's great, but I don't think there's anything wrong with talking about things if that helps.

Right now, I am going crazy with worry. Absolutely. I am frustrated by a system that does not help and only harms me and the people I love. I am stressed out at the magnitude of the problems before me and hobbled by the belief deep down that I should be able to deal with this myself. That asking for help makes me weak. But I need help, just like I need to calm down and get through this. My father is growing more unhinged. Enough of waiting. Well, I have to wait, but at least I can plan. And I have to ask for help. I don't know the relative risks of selling the house now in a down market but before more damage is done vs. the risk of selling it in a better market but in possible more run down condition. I don't know if I should invest some savings or if I should keep it in lump cash just in case. I don't know if the porch can be repaired or if it's better off being rebuilt.

But I have decided this: I have got to calm down. I want to be a less neurotic person. So I'm going to stop beating myself up over being stressed and concentrate on calming down. I want to be able to deal with some things by myself without feeling so overwhelmed- so instead of berating myself for failing, I'll just try harder the next time. My stress will affect my life until this is over, but I doesn't need to destroy my mind too. This disease has done enough damage to two people. I don't need to be it's next victim.

And I don't want to be pessimistic and feel out of control. It's going to be okay.

I also want a hug from Chip. He gives the best hugs.

& shout out please come back

I know what I want. I wonder why it is comforting to have some kind of plan, why people seek to know what they want. Not knowing what you want leads to confusion and angst. But knowing what you want means you can lose it. At least not knowing what you want means you can stumble across something and maybe, maybe it'll become something you need.

I stumbled across something so long ago- damn it's been a long time- and I know I want it. And I can't have it. But I want it in all it's twisted perfection, it's frustrating logic and hilarious illogic. It drives me crazy and I still want it. Maybe I'm crazy. But it makes me happy, so happy.

I find it strangely amusing that I find security in an idea of a plan for the future I know very well (almost certainly) will change. I find it funny how quickly our perceptions change. I've been trying to communicate some idea of what's in my head for the past 45 minutes, but I continue to fail. Can't force what's not ready. It's not ready. And I know not to force it and I don't want to. I will leave it be.

My wants and desires are strong, but require more augmentation to be successful

Wow, I have officially reached the point where I should no longer be able to write. Sleep

the ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in?

I hate my fear of uncertainty. I'm 20 years old. I go to a good school, I'm doing well, I am not sick, I don't have Huntington's, and you'd think that I could look to the future with slightly less fear of all the things that could happen. Consciously I'm optimistic and excited. No, excited is a poor word for it. Anything could happen, anything, and that is a mind boggling fact. In a good way. But subconsciously, that scares the living shit out of me.

I want to be stronger than that.

I'm much better at appreciating the present. I just have to get down the appreciating the future

rain to leave you all alone but keep eyelashes falling

I catch moths in glasses and let them go outside. I love chocolate chip cookies. I am sad. I am happy. I love to laugh. I am old. I am way too young. I know what I want to be, how I want to be, who I want to be. I fear I fail a lot.

There are some days I want to run away. More often, I just want to win the lottery. I realized the other day that I traded in a food court for peace from bratty kids last summer. I believe I got the better side of the bargain. I'm feeling very random tonight and I have no idea why so I'm rolling with it.

Maybe just starting all of it will make this all easier. Maybe it's the uncertainty and the limbo that's getting to me. That's what got to me last time. The waiting that took so damn long drove me crazy. On another note, I need to stop spending so frivolously. I don't need all that Starbucks. It's so good but I don't need it. Or new shirts. A pair or two of shorts, maybe a skirt, a pair of sandals and I should be done.

Oh and a car. That will be hot

Maybe it will be reading times now. Yes, reading times

EDIT: On the plus size, books next semester will be cheap!

I've read a bit and I still feel antsy. I'm not completely sure why it took me so long to discover The Fray. There are so few bands that don't try my patience, particularly when I'm like this, contemplative. They don't irk me when I'm sad either and they don't depress me when I'm happy.

There are parts of my life right now that just suck. There is no more eloquent way of putting it. But the rest is excellent. It is odd, the schizophrenic nature of it all. I fear I dwell often on the present and to some extent the past. I analyze and I think and I ponder. The more I think about what's happening right now, the more I realize there is simply nothing more I can do. I have to get guardianship. I have to find a therapist. I have to get a car. I have to save money. What more can I do?

No, I'd rather think about the future. Not next semester or next year but three, four years from now. When hopefully this craziness is more manageable, when I have a job and a pet and freedom. It's oddly frightening and exhilarating. I've always had a plan, known what I wanted to do next. I altered it when something came up, but it's not like the feeling a lot of my graduated friends felt- the "What the hell do I do now?" feeling. The boundless variety of options are both terrifying and exciting. Being tied to my family is therefore both a burden and a blessing. I know where I'll be. Too many options can be crippling. If there's an option I want that seems like it isn't open to me, I'll figure it out. But it at least narrows the field down a bit.

I think a great deal about the future and yet not at all. I think about how I want to get a job in research, I want to get my masters, maybe a PhD, I want to do Huntington's research but that I don't want a career more than I want a family. I want a beautiful house and an amazing husband and kids. I want to redo my life. I will never let my house fall into disrepair or forget how to parent my children or fall into this semblance of a life my parents have going on. I don't need a huge amount of money, I don't need to be massively successful. I just want to be happy. And I know what makes me happy.

At the same time, I don't really think all that much about it. I don't want to set out some vision in my head of how it should be, because I'm fully aware it probably won't work out that way. The sheer amount of different things that could happen are fully mind numbing. I simply cannot grasp it all, and I don't want to live so fixated on the future that I forget to enjoy now. My father will die, I will fight with people I love, I will cry, I will break up, get back together, break up, break down, build back, fail. I will be overwhelmed and frustrated with the situation and myself for not dealing better with it. That's life.

I want to think of the nice things that could lay before me. And I want an idea of what I want. But I don't want to constrain myself. I want to love whatever happens or deal with whatever happens and not bemoan the fact it isn't what I thought it would be. When is it?


Ah this is all such nonsense. More reading. No more torturing other people and myself with all this

when all i need is to turn around, to make it last, to make it count

I consider myself a fairly intelligible person. I possess a decent vocabulary and a grasp of the English language, including it's grammar and nuances. I am capable of having shallow and deep conversations and am adept at manipulating the language I've spoken for twenty years.

Still, there are days (and nights) where the words simply fail me and I am struck by the inadequacy of words alone, words I used to believe so much in, to properly convey the breadth and depth of the half formed emotions and fragments of ideas in my mind that I dearly want to communicate- if only I could find the words.

Perhaps, however, it not the words, but the emotions and fragments that have not been resolved properly into concepts that can be expressed with the tools I have at hand. Is that a fault in the concept or in the way in which I wish I express it?

I need to sleep more.

the violins make no sound & i begin to feel the ground

The unfairness, tragedy and irony of life is sometimes too great for me to believe. I desperately want thing to work. Things to make sense. And I believe that whenever I feel unsettled, depressed, disheartened or generally at odds with myself, I go through a million different things as to why that could be. And typically, it's a different situation every time. But it basically always, in my experience, ends up being the exact same thing at the heart of the matter: It shouldn't be this way.

And I won't spend pages lamenting things I cannot change and I will not let the uneasy sadness get to me. I understand that that is life and that no amount of raving or ranting will change this very nature of life. But I refuse to simply accept it. I will not let it get to me, I will not be crippled by my anger, but I will not pass it off. Don't get me wrong; I acknowledge the futility of hurling myself against facts of life that are beyond human control and will never change. I have learned that part of dealing with something is getting beyond the inherent unfairness, because agonizing over it will alter nothing.

But I will not cave in either. I believe that if one loses sight of the irony, if one fails to see a better life, that one may live more contentedly; they undoubtedly suffer far fewer nights of tossing and turning. However, without realizing the tragedy of life, one cannot seek to make it better. If you do not have to fight against the harsh reality of the world to be happy, then I wish that you never have to. And most of the time, I've become capable enough that I do not have to. But in the times when I do, when it all seems so shallow, so dingy, so fragile to the point that hopelessness threatens to consume, it is then when I decide that life is that way- but that it is what we make out of this place that matters.

I am broken and I am messed up in more ways than I probably know. I would like to be a strong and helpful person, someone to rely on, a good friend, a good person, intelligent, resourceful, caring. I know in some, if not all of these ways, I fail. Maybe it's lying to myself, maybe I'm just sugarcoating, perhaps this is indeed why I am so deft at rationalizing. I see the atrocious things the world has to offer- the sadness, the pain, the irony- and the quieter but far more frightening things- the loss of hope, the bleakness, the emptiness, the loneliness- and I know there are depths I have not seen and hope to never see.

That world is real, but so is the happiness, the friendship, the lazy day spent cuddling in bed, the numbers that save you and the drive to find a way to make something better out of this mess in front of us. I want that life. I don't want to look ahead and see only despair. I don't want to settle. I don't want the stomach turning feeling. I am tired of being sad. I am so sick to death of fighting, of worrying, of nothingness. I recognize that these things are never going away.

So I do what I can to minimize them. I do what I can do to ignore them. And I swear, living in the dual world of recognizing and knowing but ignoring, of understanding and not accepting, of knowing I will never change life but seeing no reason to stop trying, it's difficult sometimes. It is not fair. It never will be. This post doesn't make any sense does it? I've gone back and forth between sad and happy, between resigned and optimistic, between understanding and mature and furious and angry.

Nothing ever really makes sense though, not unless it's in a text book. So you know what I want?

I want life to be fair. In lieu of that, I want to wake up happy. I want to be okay when I'm sad. I want to never, ever look ahead and see only bleakness and despair. I want to be surrounded by the people I want to be surrounded with. I want to keep the people who make the emptiness go away. I want to laugh, I want to scream, I want to spin around in thunderstorms and I want to be filled with the intoxicating feeling of being alive because when I'm not, I remember how starkly unfair life is. Life is awful but being alive is too multifaceted to be explained in any trite phrase. I do not want to be afraid. I do not want to be weak. I am resilient but not strong. Does that make sense? I want to be both. I want to be happy and stay happy. I want to suck everything I can out of life because it tries to suck everything it can out of me and the people I love.

It should be me. I sit here and I honestly believe those words, for mainly selfish reasons.

I want love and I want passion and I want laughter and I want warmth and I want brilliance and I want anything and everything that I can find beauty and happiness in. And that's an awful lot of things. I will never stop being 5 and I never want to be. It is so hard to find perspective sometimes but it will get easier. I don't want to lie and pretend till I'm almost certain it's a beautiful world. I want to believe it.

& you, all of you. you help me believe it. you do. thank you

as she laughed and danced through the field of graves- there i knew, it would be alright

HOs make double stranded breaks and it's sad, but the recombination afterward is more important anyway

Live forever and you'll go crazy

I swear, biology is pretty much everything a religion should be. It has answers (that tend to be right) and if you look hard enough, guiding moral principles! Except ignore Hardy-Weinburg laws. Especially about the parts about random mating. Hardy-Weinburg is not a good condition to be in. See? It even has parts to selectively ignore, like how many people ignore the tolerance part that all the holy books.

Goddamn, there was something I was going to write about and I have forgotten. What the hell? It wasn't bio, that was a random interlude. Oh I know.

You know, Grapevine Fires is a really good song. Shiznit, more random interlude. I lean on people a lot. Particularly involving my family. My pride doesn't keep me warm at night and I know that keeping it all inside doesn't help me. People be damned if they say it makes me weak. Talking about things makes them seem less scary. My head is jumbled mess of neurons firing at speeds that probably approach the speed of light, as my head makes time and distances seem less and more than what they really are. (Shit, I hate you physics!) After talking about things, I feel noticeably more organized, more calm, more collected. Sometimes it's helped by the fact that I got advice, but a lot of the time it's just because I talked it all out. I examined the situation from my side and the other side. I talked myself out of self pity and came to some conclusion.

And I'm not going to stop talking about when my father is screaming or Matthew is acting like a selfish brat or my mother is making me worry that I have to drop out of school to support the family. It helps me. I don't want to keep people out. I like them. I trust them. But I worry sometimes that I lean so hard I verge on knocking them over. That they take burdens from it that they shouldn't. And I'm sure it's not just me and I'm sure it's not just them. But I can handle all of this.

It's overwhelming to go home. Dealing with it day in and day out makes you numb to it. Counting the number of times you got called a bitch or a cunt or told to fuck off becomes a game. It all starts rolling off you, like rain on a windshield with Rainex (I think that's what that stuff is called). But I'm a big girl. I dealt with worse in high school when I was younger and had far more problems. I have more reasons to be happy. Lots more reasons.

By the way, it truly aggravates me that Tufts can't give me a good registration time. What the fuck? I want my classes, motherfuckers. If it works out, it will be so nice. So lovely.

But I did get the research job in a Huntington's Lab at MGH (!!!). It's amazing. Ever since I found out freshman year, this is what I've wanted to do. It was nice, coming to college and knowing exactly what I wanted. There is a security in knowing. Nothing else has ever appealed to me as much. It's bio or nothing, baby. Okay, or being a mother. But I intend to do both. And now, after so long, after telling myself for years through bad nights and bad days that it would be okay, that I was going to get through it for the work, that this was the bigger thing than me, after holding onto it as the one thing I could count on, I finally have it.

It's a scary thing, losing your dreams. It's the biggest relief in the world to get them back. It is indescribable. And actually getting your dreams? Well, this isn't even so much of a dream. It's determined purpose. So actually getting determined purpose?

It must be like buying your first house.

Okay I should do German now. It's so weird having a normal amount of work. I could get used to this. Very used to this. But first....what are you supposed to do with this "free time"? I went to the gym, I ate, I saw some friends, showered, read the NY Times, FML, facebooked, watched Scrubs last night...

Okay, time to go look for some new books to read

we'll fight, we'll fight for your musicals and dying cities

Though this is no way a legally binding document- in fact, there is no way to even prove I ever wrote this- if I ever, god forbid, am in a coma with no brain function, do not keep me on life support.

Do not waste the money, do not consign yourself to the endless waiting and uncertainty, the never knowing. Unless a doctor can tell you there is some chance I will come back, let me go. I am not there. You will be left with exactly what you had before you pulled the plug- the memories you have and whatever else you have of me. You can't ever lose me because if you care, then I affected your life, and so I am always a part of it.

But seriously. Let me go. I'm an organ donor for a reason.

five day forecast brings black tar rains and hellfire

This is why I stay away from politics.

After reading over my post from this Friday, I could only think "oh that should be changed...well, technically...that's not fair..." and so on.

Sometimes I feel it's viewed as indecision; sometimes I attribute the quality to myself. Honestly though, I just never feel that I know enough to make a sweeping call on anything. After what I've seen and experienced, I've learned one big thing- that you never really know. About people, about situations, about solutions. Maybe it's fear of being wrong, maybe it's the desire to know exactly what I'm doing at all times, but most times it's just this: More than fearing being wrong, I fear making a mistake.

You can be wrong about a person. That's okay. Making a mistake- not seeing something in someone you should have though- that's not okay with me. Or less okay, because being wrong about them in the first place bothers me too. You can be wrong about a belief or in a solution to a problem. But making a mistake that results in losing someone, in hurting people, in keeping you up at night- I desperately fear that.

It's also the science in me. It's be hammered into my head- you test everything. You hypothesize; you publish papers about you think is going on. But until you test it exhaustively, until you know, you don't really know. And I don't want to take some position and stick with it no matter what unless I know. If I don't know, I want to hear other things, other sides. I'm fascinated. I want more. Always.

But still, I was frustrated and it was soothing to write. And who reads this anyway? So no harm done by my antagonism and faulty thoughts, where ever they were

baby i've been here before;; i've seen this road and i've walked these floors

Ah, Friday nights.

Now, I don't usually get too involved in politics. I read about the issues and I'm fairly well informed of what's going on. I can have intelligent conversations about most things going on to a certain extent, but I tend to not get overly involved. The problems that most people talk about today are so multi-faceted and overwhelming that it seems sometimes that the system can't fix it. The issues are so cumbersome, so massive, so intrinsic and so deep rooted that sometimes I think that it should just be scrapped and started over.

I would have voted for Obama, had I actually gotten my absentee ballot. I think that the other candidates were not better qualified to handle this mess; truth is, I don't think anyone really is. And I think he is doing as well as can be expected. Hm, lately my grammar has been much worse- I think my over thinking of German grammar is negatively impacting my English sentence structure. Anyway.

But it seems sometimes like there is so much and so little that can be done. It's so frustrating to watch this happen. What prompted this post, actually, was this status update from this random kid I used to do Student Congress with. The fellow in question is a (presumably) Republican who I often was at odds with, one of those people you're friends with because you technically know each other and have no reason not to accept the friend request though you haven't spoken to them ever about anything besides the reason you know each other.

Anyway. His status ends up my newsfeed the other day about how they should send Berneke to jail for not disclosing beneficiaries of the bailout and let G.M. fail. I wonder, sometimes, how people make these decisions- the politicians, I mean. Here is a company that is not and has not been doing well. It produces a product that many do not want and it has been irresponsible in not seeing this and altering their path. Given, they couldn't have predicted the high gas price craze of this past summer and the current crisis that has made people desperate to just pay their bills and their mortgage. Who's thinking of buying a car?

Why should the taxpayer be responsible for the mismanagement of a firm like that? A perfectly legitimate stand. On the other hand- how many people does G.M. employ? Sending them out of business costs the taxpayers money too. It will drive up unemployment numbers and won't do anything to stabilize the stock market. Those people who are now jobless will stop spending money, causing a drop in demand for consumer goods, which will hurt the companies who produce the products, who might not hire more people or lay people off. The laid off people from both companies will then need unemployment, Medicare/Medicaid, social security. They also won't be paying taxes. The government is out even more money.

And besides for the money, what about those families? The stress money issues cause, the things they won't be able to buy. How will they pay their mortgage? Their children's college tuition? Are they to be punished for the bad decisions of their bosses? And if you're a selfish bastard who doesn't care because you're sitting pretty on a better job and a savings account that hasn't taken a hit, do you want to be punished by having the pay for their benefits and lose the money from their taxes?

I also take offense to Wall Street insisting that their executives need their billion dollar salaries and if they're not offered, no one will work there. Since when did 500,000 become a small amount? Now, I am aware that other companies may continue to pay more- but maybe they'd drop the salaries they offer to keep in line with the now lowered salaries. May I point out that I know plenty of people who pursue medical degrees to become a wealthy doctor- making maybe 200,000 a year? What kind of society do we think we're running when we think that 200 grand is enough for a surgeon replacing people's hearts, but 500 grand isn't enough for running a company? A lot of people look to medicine for lucrative careers. At first, will people leave the financial sector? Maybe. But will people come back? I would certainly run a company for 500 grand a year.

Plus, what are you doing complaining that you're 'only' making half a million a year? You have a job. You have to prove yourself before you get to walk away with more. It's disgusting how top traders and analysts at companies, traders and CEOs and analysts who caused the companies to fail, walked away with a safety net, while the people who supported them- the secretaries, the assistants, the janitors and the lower level people- walk away with so much less. Man up, crybabies. Millions of years of evolution, and this is what we ended up with.

Speaking of evolution, you think someone would have figured out how to run a health insurance system that actually, you know, worked. I go to the doctor, I get a test done. It takes 5 minutes at most. The ingredients in the test are cheap (I know) and it only requires a microscope to look at. 30 bucks. My father is ill. This has produced so much stress on my mother that she probably has an anxiety disorder. She can't find a job. I don't think the anxiety helps. But she can't go to a psychiatrist- they cost so much money. And health insurance barely covers mental health. My parents would have been beggared had they not had insurance when my father had his heart attack and then needed surgery, stayed in the hospital for a month and then required rehab. We still get bills from it. Now that my mom lost her job, her health insurance coverage is going to disappear soon.

I need to get my wisdom teeth removed. I have to get it done before it expires. I can get insurance through my school. So can my younger brother. My other brother will have to buy into insurance with my mom and dad. But my dad has a heart condition, a neurological condition, a defibrillator, expensive heart medications every month, had a stroke a year and a half ago, had cancer as well. Who the hell will cover him? And at what cost? If he gets on disability, it's covered- I think.

The whole system is a complete mess. Companies will aggressively market new and expensive drugs. Patients get them- except the new drugs are far more expensive than the old drugs and don't work as well. You need health insurance most when something catastrophic happens- and that is the time you are least able to deal with the mess and bureaucracy that plagues what should be a basic human right- to go to a doctor, to be able to be diagnosed and treated.

People make a profit off of the suffering of others. Your knee hurts? MRI time! That'll be 700 dollars please. What? Listen, I know the machine cost a lot. The films cost money. The time to read them also costs money. But 700 dollars? Oh, you didn't find anything? That's great. I understand there needs to be profit. I will probably buy a house one day off of the illness and pain of others. I get that that is the way it works. But it is brought to a sickening degree. A doctor orders something and needs to get it okayed by an insurance company. They can just say no.

Do they have medical degrees? No. That CEO is bringing in how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and they're bringing middle class families to their knees and bankruptcy from medical debt. It shouldn't work like that. It shouldn't. Not in a country where 8000 dollars is spent per person per year on medical care, more than any other country. You should get out what you put in.

I just don't get how and why these things happen. People by nature are such vicious loving bastards. I get it. And I don't.


But seriously. The next pretentious ignorant naive uncaring middle class private school graduated college student I hear who starts saying they should let companies fail without a single mention or acknowledgment of the untold suffering they are causing to thousands of workers who did nothing wrong while they sit in their 40,ooo a year school dorm is going to get beat down.

we just want to sleep tonight

You know those days where you just feel lost? The kind of days when as long as you stay away from your emotional maelstrom you're okay- but as soon as you get close to it, you get sucked in? And talking about it only seems to make it worse and worse, whether you're talking about it logically or just bitching? And the only result is you getting pulled farther in, making you feel even more out of control? And the maelstrom, it spins you around so much you're disoriented, unaware of what's right and left or up and down, which makes it even harder to deal with?

Yeah. I hate days like this.