Survived Another Year, Bitches

I turned seventeen this past Saturday.

On Christmas Eve, I went out with a couple of people to celebrate. My boyfriend was out of town, and my real friends busy with family and work things, so I went out with the people I call my ‘party friends’. They’re perfectly good people, and I enjoy there company, but only when it is accompanied by the company of alcohol. They’re fun to go drinking with, and party with, but our personalities don’t really match when the sun comes back up.

They’d been trying to get me to come with them to some lame party, and I only gave in at the last minute, and only because the thought of spending my birthday alone depressed the little hint of party girl still intact, deep down inside me. The party in question was a Gossip Girl ‘concept’ party. One was apparently supposed to dress as a character from the show, and there were supposed to be ‘blasts’ throughout the party, according to the facebook page. What actually transpired was just another lame party. No one dressed up as anyone else, there were no ‘blasts’ and quite frankly, it was as far from the class of the upper east side as possible.

As bad as the party was, though, I must confess, there were bits I kind of enjoyed. I enjoyed sitting at a VIP table, away from the plebeians. The thing I hate most about these parties is consorting with the stupid and the vulgar; a loathing rendered redundant when you’re a VIP. I loved the taste of Jack after such a long time of drinking the cheapest thing on the menu. I loved having a Jack and coke, followed by a Jack and water, followed by Glenlivet on the rocks, whilst the girls I was with took shots and drank their ‘blairtinis’. I loved wearing my new ASOS PERFORMER Multi Buckle Platform Shoeboots. I liked relaxing, not thinking about anything but the moment. I find it hard to relax at parties specially if my boyfriend or real friends are there. I feel most relaxed in a room full of strangers, to tell you the truth. I loved letting go, and just being, for once.

I almost managed to get into the house music. Almost.

I did something quite cool the next day too, but that’s another story.

I Haven't Got Any In So Long That I'm Starting To Delusionally Believe I'm Funny

I think I know what its like to be married.

My boyfriend and I have been working on something together for the past two weeks or so, and we've spent practically every waking moment every day in each other's company. We see each other from about eight in the morning to about ten to eleven in the evening. The other night, we were working till one thirty.

Because we're working, though, and in a group, at that, we spend most of that time being professional and not engaging in any displays of affection.

Occasionally, we take a walk or go get coffee, but for the most part, we've spent all the time in each others' immediate vicinity, just talking about work-like things.

We also unconsciously cover for each other. He had a family emergency about a week ago and had to leave immediately, so naturally, I took on all his work. When someone else in our team commended me for it, I realized that I hadn't even thought of not doing it - it seemed natural. In the same manner, no matter how much work he has, or how stressed he his, he never thinks twice before running to the chemist for some medicine if I'm feeling under the weather.

Despite all that, though, we try and maintain a respectable amount of distance and keep our personal lives personal. Some days, we're in the same room all day, and barely say anything directly to each other.

Plus, we haven't been in bed together in almost a month.

lol jkzz, im so funni.

It's Like I Was Never Gone

It seems that old habits do die hard.
It's almost ridiculously easy to fall back into a routine.

I cut myself today.
I don't feel bad about it yet, but I know the regret is lurking somewhere at the back of my mind. Right now, I just feel... relieved. Painless. Calm.

Cutting's been on my mind this past month or so, but I haven't actually done it till today. Things have been getting hard for me to deal with, and I've had a lot of dark, angry emotions running through me, lately.

I don't have an outlet any more. I don't get high, I don't drink myself into a stupor, I don't even go to my therapist any more.

Today, I felt terrible, almost suicidal. So, I cut. It seemed like the easiest thing to do. 'Drowning my sorrows' (I hate that phrase) in drink would take to long, I didn't want to smoke up even though I had some pot on me and cutting seemed like the only thing that would work.

So I cut.
It strikes me now, how... normal it felt. The same bathroom, same terrible lighting to make my reflection look insane, the same 'cutting music' - Matchbox 20 to convince me I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell, the familiar smell of Dettol mixed with water. It could have been a year ago. I was desperate just like I was this time last year.

I did everything the same. I took a hot shower, to see if maybe, I just needed to relax a little bit. When then was done, and I was still frustrated, I bought myself some time, moisturising. That just served to make me even angrier, though, so I wrapped myself in my towel, got my blade out and looked for a scar-free spot on my shoulder.

I have to admit that before I actually made the first cut, I hesitated. I had the blade poised on the skin, ready to slice, but my hand wouldn't move the first couple of times I tried to move it. I know this sounds very dramatic, but it's true.

I did end up making the cut, though.

And then, another.
And another.

It didn't happen how I expected it to. It stung a lot less than I expected (or perhaps, wanted) it to, but my breathing did get a lot faster than I remembered it getting. Once, long ago, I wrote a post describing it as 'a set of fleshy white lip parting, beads of blood leaking out, eventually covering the entire canyon, and flowing out'. This time, the blood all came at once. Quickly, but steadily.
The sensation of the drops of blood streaming down my arm came as a bit of a surprise. I'd totally forgotten what that felt like.

When the blood had run its course, I washed it just the way I always did. The smell of Dettol is a real trigger for memories.

I remember so clearly when I used to do this every day, several times a day.
I don't want to fall back into that.
I hope this was just a one-time thing.

That regret's setting in, now.


All day - Staring at the ceiling 
Making friends with shadows on my wall 
All night  -Hearing voices telling me 
That I should get some sleep 
Because tomorrow might be good for something 

I'm at My Best When I'm at My Worst

Today, I realize I look better when I don't wear make up or brush my hair than I do when I spend an hour making an effort on myself. This is not me being narcissistic, by the way, it's just something my friends, my boyfriend and my mother* pointed out.

My friends came over today, and I woke up only an hour before they showed, so I didn't have time to make an effort.

This makes me wonder why I make an effort at all, and indeed, why any of us spend time preening. I realize that a lot of people genuinely look better once they're made up, of course, but what I wonder is why we all, regardless of our looks, feel an inherent need to preen.

I understand the pressure to look good, but where, along the line, does the connect between beauty and beauty products appear?

Is the advertising really that good now? Are we such hopeless slaves to the beauty sections of fashion magazines?

Do we all really believe we need our hair irons, our foundation, mascara, eye-liner, eye shadow and lipstick to be presentable to other people?

I know this post is rather scattered, but there's really just one thing I wanted to say:

I've made a decision to go au naturel. No more ironing my hair, no more dark eye make up, no more bright coloured lipstick, no more 'concealor-ing' every tiny spot on my face.

I'm at my best when I'm at my 'worst'.

* Despite everything, my mom and I have a relatively normal relationship, now.

Self-Hate At Six In The Morning

You're always told "If at first, you don't succeed, try and try again." Winston Churchill wanted us to learn from our mistakes. Oscar Wilde believed that mistakes were merely experiences.

I call bullshit.

I made a mistake, last year. I don't want to go into it, but I did a terrible, terrible thing and ruined things with my boyfriend.

A mistake is not an experience. A mistake is a failure.

That one mistake I made, without thinking, without contemplating upon the consequences, or whether it was wrong at all, still haunts me, more than a year later.
That one mistake fucks with my mind more than anything else. I'll be happy and beginning to like the way life is turning out, when it'll just come and smack me across the face, knocking me down.
That one mistake causes me more pain, more guilt, more sadness and more fear than all the other things in my life, put together.

I had hope, of course, that the pain would fade out.

'Time heals all wounds' is another piece of bullshit you shouldn't believe.

Time doesn't heal all wounds. You can try and try to fix your mistake, hope it'll gently get better and do everything in your power to just make it go away, but it won't.

That one mistake will stay with you, leech out all your happiness and turn you into a suicidal mess.


Confucius doesn't want you to be ashamed of your mistakes, thus making them crimes.
Too late. They already are.

Last Dance With Mary Jane

I have a long and varied history of drug use. I started using marijuana when I was thirteen, graduating to regular use before my fourteenth birthday. Smoking up was my form of stress release. My parents came home from work everyday and had a drink. Me smoking pot was just a variation on the same theme.

Soon, my older friends introduced me to LSD. Now, LSD isn't exactly a teenage drug, nor is it a party drug. It's almost past it's time. It's not the sixties. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Nevertheless, my friends had a steady supply, and we'd drop acid every once in a while, to 'open our minds'. We were all extremely volatile people in our creative phases round that time. Tripping, though I tried it only round three or four times, was one of the best and worst experiences of my life. I haven't thought about this for a long, long time, but now that I do, I realize I don't regret doing it one bit. I wish I would have waited a couple of years, so my mind was better equipped to handle it, of course, but I don't really regret it.

I tried cocaine once, at a party. I mustn't have done it right, because it didn't really feel like anything.

Apart from the occasional stint or two, though, I've been mostly drug free for the past two years or so. When I first started dating my boyfriend, I made up my mind not to alter my state of consciousness any longer. He's very sure of his stand on drugs and, well, it's not a very tolerant one. Of course, I still smoked the occasional joint when in social settings, and once, when things got very unbearable for me, depression-wise, I spent about three weeks straight, high.

For the last year or so, though, I haven't even thought about smoking up. I've left most of my 'unhealthy practices' (thrapistspeak) behind, actually. No more cutting, not more getting high, no more drinking every day. It also as something or the other to do with my boyfriend, of course.

I do, however, want to get high one of these days, for just one last time. I have one last nugget of wild to get out of my system before settling into a 'healthy lifestyle'. I want to just let myself be calm and carefree for a day.

Just one last dance with Mary Jane. One more time to kill the pain.

Love In The Time Of Adolescence*

My life is not perfect.
I went through terrible child abuse right up to the age of fourteen.
I have bipolar disorder, psychotic episodes, an anxiety disorder and some sort of borderline personality.
I have no real friends.
I have brains but no will to use them.
I could be pretty, but I stress eat.
I cry myself to sleep, most nights.

But every once in a while, I look into my boyfriend's eyes, and all the pain vanishes. I look back and wonder how I ever survived without him. It's hard, now, to remember a time when he wasn't the only face I saw in a crowd. I know it was less than two years ago, but I can hardly imagine not being in love with him.

He makes me smile, and laugh and feel beautiful even when I'm feeling ugly. When he laughs, is whole face lifts up, and he looks like the happiest man in the world. His hands are never a normal temperature - they're always either freezing, or burning up. He's one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, and I admire his mind so much more than anyone else's.

He almost makes me wish I was religious, so I could thank God for him.

*Because yes, adolescence is a disease comparable to cholera.

Fashionistas The World Over Would Weep

I just realized I use my single Marc by Marc Jacobs bag primarily to store and transport food and drink.
I also wear my sole pair of DKNY booties to the park.

In fact, my most worn item of clothing is a black Quiksilver t-shirt that actually belongs to Le Boyfriend and is at least about three years old, closely followed by a pair of shorts that cost about 200 bucks.
And sometimes, I pretend spoons are jewelry.

Lost And Found

I suppose an explanation is in order.

A little while ago, I logged into blogger to find that my blog had simply disappeared. I had no idea what had happened. I still don't. I suspect it was a blogger glitch, though the tech I wrote to denied it. I still have most of my writing, thanks to an ardent fan (stalker is such a strong word) who kept it all in word documents, so not all is lost.

I feel a little cheated, of course, that my writing won't be here for posterity like I originally intended. More than two years of this blog has come down to these two posts, now. It's kind of sad, really.

I stopped writing for a while because I was so distraught. I know it sounds very unnecessarily dramatic, but when your only outlet gets ripped away, it hurts.

Eventually, all the stuff I needed to say kept backing up in my system, clogging up my memory space and making me slower, so I just logged in and wrote a post.

No more dramatics.
I promise.

Did you exchange a walk on part in the war
for the lead role in a caaage?

Redemption

My head hurts.
My neck hurts.
My throat itches.
My back is killing me.
I hate the way my hair smells like smoke.
I hate that my skin's all blotchy and painful.
I hate how painfully dry my lips feel.
I feel like crying.
I wish last night hadn't happened.
I wish I didn't drink that whiskey.
I wish I'd at least realized how much I'd drunk.
I wish I didn't need to prove to myself that I still have some wild left in me.

I don't. Even one night, even with just a couple of girlfriends, is too much for me. I can't get into it. I can knock back the drinks as well as the next girl (probably better), and I can smoke a pack in a go, even attempt some hip wiggles, but I can't get into it.
I'd just much rather drink one scotch, not half a dozen Jack and cokes.I'd much rather spend my time reading The Grapes of Wrath, and not fashiontoast. I'd much rather just hang with my boyfriend than talk about sex with my girlfriends.

I may be growing the fuck up.


Remember when you were young; you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.