I danced myself right out the womb.

I keep neglecting this thing. It's really bad. I found an online journal from when I was 15(!) the other day. I had literally forgotten all about it, and remembered it out of the blue. I really hadn't looked at any of it in the seven years that have passed since I wrote it. Looking over it really moved me - I have changed so much, and there were so many little things I had forgotten all about. It was hard to believe that it was actually me that kept the journal. And I realized that I really oughta be keeping a better record of things, even if its just for myself.

So hi again, Livejournal.

A LOT of shit has changed since I've written in here. There's no way to begin to recap everything, but I will try.
- I quit my job and started focusing on school and my future career goals - having to live off of my student loans for a while has been sooo worth it.
- I've started exercising again, and getting really into it. Losing weight slowly and surely, but more importantly I feel amazing and sleep really well at night. Actually, I've been taking better care of myself in general.
- I have been smoking/drinking a bit, but not excessively. The stupid depressing benders are a thing of the past, and I'm probably going to quit altogether soon.
- Chris has been doing so much better healthwise and otherwise. The stomach problems seem to be under control with a careful diet, and he's back to work and has been going to school, too. I'm really happy with him, and proud to be with him, and more in love than ever.
- My social life has been kind of blah and boring, but I'm ok with it. There are a lot of people I've fallen out of touch with, but such is life, I guess. Honestly, I'm ready for a new crowd. I expect things to pick up once I'm done with school and move back to the shore.
- For the most part, I feel like I've reconnected with my family. We're still not as close as I'd like to be, but I don't feel weird giving them a call anymore.
-In general I feel like I've got most of my affairs in order and under control, which I can't say has been true for a very very long time. I am most definitely a happier girl.

One of the many joys of sharing your life with a sick person, especially a sick person who is a slob to begin with, is that (unless you really have the time and energy to follow that individual around with a dust buster) your house will become a fucking DISASTER.

His clothing is kept in a big fucking mound in his closet that has become so enormous that it spills out into the rest of the bedroom. I live in constant fear of tripping over a pair of shoes and breaking my neck because they are scattered haphazardly around the house. He has set up an enormous chair in the middle of the already-cramped living room with his computer stuff right in front of the TV. There are crumpled up pieces of paper and various other objects that belong in the garbage peppered on every available surface area, and literally just stupid shit and fucking junk that he won't part with everywhere else.

I like orderliness and minimalism and cleanliness. Living in his mess makes my goddamn skin crawl. It makes me angry, especially when I'm tired from work and already feeling miserable, to have to come back to an apartment where I have to tip toe around and dig through piles of crap to find my own belongings. It's all I can do to pick up the garbage and take care of the dishes and bathroom so it doesn't become too disgusting in here. I could literally burst into tears just thinking about it, I hate it so fucking much. I just want to take a pitchfork and start hurling everything out the window.

And he won't lift a finger. I know being sick is a convenient excuse and I'd be loathe to challenge him on that one, but COME ON. Even when he's feeling fine he doesn't clean up after himself, no matter how much I beg and plead and negotiate and cry. It's just... disrespectful and a shame. I even told him he could move all of his stuff into the spare bedroom and hang out in there and just keep the mess contained and I wouldn't give him a hard time about it, but that room's been empty for two weeks and I still can hardly see the floor in my living room or bedroom. He has been sitting on his ass and smoking weed and watching movies and "looking for a job."

For someone who claims to really love me and wants me to stay, he sure is good at giving me reasons to want to leave.

I'm experimenting with writing again. I still don't have my own style, so everything I write kind of mirrors and mimicks the authors I've been reading most recently. I miss playing with words. Concocting perfect, snare-tight phrases and sentences in my head all the time kind of keeps me sane. I just need to feel comfortable writing them down again. I need my hobby back. It's all I've ever been good at, and I'm ashamed for not really trying or pushing myself in years. The last thing I want is for my natural talent to rust away. I'm sick of wondering what could have been if only I tried.

I wake up again. There is a dream I can barely remember about a girl friend disappearing through a magical elevator. I can remember the girl's face clearly but I don't know what real person inspired her. I don't dream about real people hardly ever. My dreams are full of characters.

He calls me downstairs. "Baby, I need you." He is throwing up on the bathroom floor. Holding a pepto-pink basin full of mucous and green stuff and I know it's bad news. He is covered in sweat and tears and his face is so hot on my lips, like his veins were full of lava instead of blood.

I hate being needed. My primal fear instincts take over and I want to scream or run. I swallow my feelings and go grab him clothes. Sweatpants from boot camp, socks, underwear, a tee shirt. He keeps choking and wailing and lying facedown on the floor and it makes me so sad that it just manifests in anger. He is so helpless, and so in need of support, and I must be evil and self-interested for not giving it. I feel like a demon sometimes. Thank god I'm not a mother yet, because I would be awful. I shake it off. I'm just tired. I stumble over and pet him on the back. It's okay, I tell him. Stop crying. Put your clothes on, and I'll take you to the hospital.

He decides an ambulance will get him there faster. I argue about the cost but really I am kind of relieved. The boop boop boop of his monitored heart is burned into my brain forever. Hell is a white sterilized floor, a nauseating pink curtain and a human with a medical degree playing God. I don't want to sit in that molded plastic chair and watch him in pain right now. I am unsure whether I'm a good person because I'm just so sympathetic that it kills me inside, or if I'm a bad person because I run away, I abandon, I let him go through this alone sometimes. I feel like I should be there to hold his hand, and kiss the tears off of his hot cheeks. But I just can't, sometimes. Right now I'm drained, tired, and sad, but I'm unfazed.

My uterus is cramping and I know that my bitchy, cold and selfish feelings have a lot to do with my surging hormones right now. This is just one of nature's many little gifts, and while the tendency is to treat it like an inconvenience, I have a love for my female cycle; it reminds me of the cycle of the moon, her comforting and protective presence in the sky. While I feel crappy and drained right now, I know that in a few days I will feel renewed, released, ready for a new beginning.

I'll be heading to the hospital in a little bit to make sure everything is okay. I need to drink some coffee first. Take a hot shower. Put on some clothes, fix my hair and my face. I know it's purely psychological, but it makes me feel attractive and powerful and capable. My plain, makeupless face and natural messy hair make me feel lazy.

This is just something I wake up to sometimes. Just like the strange dreams I fall asleep to. 

It's hot and sticky and grey. I woke up to the orange dawn light breaking through thunder clouds. I know pretty soon the rainy patch we're in will break, and then the next three months will be sticky humidity city, USA. And now that I'm a freaking hour and a half inland, I can't spend every waking moment I'm not working kicking at the waves and feeling the salty breezes.

I miss being from the beach. Sigh.

I finally registered for classes, haha. I don't know why I had soooo much anxiety over it but I woke up today with knots in my intestines and I knew it was time to just get my ass in gear, take a deep breath, and do it. No more fucking procrastinating!

I feel like such a bump on a log, ugh. I always get the feeling of supreme stagnancy in the summertime, and always a weird loneliness that I can never shake. The last year has been profoundly lonely. It's like... I suddenly realized that the word "friend" doesn't mean a whole lot to too many people anymore, and I have always been my own favorite company anyway. I used to worry that people think that I'm just some anti-social weirdo, which is definitely how it appears on the surface level, but it's just not worth it to me to feign a connection with people I don't really connect with. And I'm not worried about what people think anymore. It's not the end of the world if my social life is a little bit... dormant right now. I have a feeling in my guts that I'm going to come across some kindred spirits once we get the hell out of Jersey's armpit.

I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire. It was a pretty good movie, and the fucking Bollywood dance they do at the end had me cracking the hell up.

Every once in a while, for one reason or another I'm compelled to take an extended internet hiatus. I haven't updated livejournal, or twitter, or myspace or fuckfacebook or even checked my e-mail in ages. It's kind of refreshing, sometimes. Other times I miss being super plugged-in to the internet. I guess I have to try to maintain some sort of balance.

It's summer and I'm out of school and I've pretty much been just working, still at the bank. The grind is boring, and depressing at times - a constant stream of customers, transactions memorized and small talk all pre-programmed and thoughtless. But I'm comfortable there. I'm getting enough to pay the bills, especially important since Chris is out of a job right now... Things have been tight, and while I've certainly done some grumbling about all of the fun and luxuries we've had to do without, I'm really proud of how thrifty and resourceful and careful about money we've become. I just hope that once we have a decent income again we don't go back to being super indulgent and wasteful.

Not vegan anymore. It's been impossible to make food that Chris can digest on a very strict budget. Shopping and cooking for two very disparate diet plans was just an enormous time suck and a money waster. I'd consider it again, though, but only when we're not living paycheck to paycheck.

He's been sick, still, but it's getting better. Our lack of a diagnosis has led some doctors to the conclusion that it's simply chronic IBS. There's really not much we can do about it, other than following a very careful diet. His weight loss has slowed down a bit, but it's still going on.

Things are kind of lonely, lately, too. I've grown apart from virtually every good friend I've ever had, but I have to recognize it as the natural process that it is. I've changed an awful lot as a human being in the last four years..

I AM THE MOST INTERESTING PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

I have a lot of internetting to catch up on, ttfn...