It’s been a while, guys.

Hey, guys!  I know, it’s been a long time.  I’ve written maybe three things in the past six months, and that’s pretty not cool.  But if you were wondering how I’ve been doing, I feel that this picture pretty much sums it up:

Basically, I have traded in my blood for coffee.

This past semester has been the most difficult that I’ve had yet, and I find myself missing the relatively light workload that I had my freshman and sophomore years.  Junior year is tough!  I basically haven’t been sleeping, and I’ve completely lost motivation to actually get work done and study.  Because of this, I definitely am seeing lower grades than normal.  Granted, low grades for me means that I’m getting more Bs than As, but it’s still two more Bs than normal in a semester.

I’ve just felt like I’ve been rushing with no breaks.  The moment one exam or paper or print is finished, I’m starting another because I’m already behind.  Plus, all of my classes have been more labour intensive than usual, which adds an extra element that I hadn’t really been expecting.

I also moved off of campus for this semester, so I’ve been adjusting to living in a house with Noah and Jess.  Not that it’s a major adjustment, though.  We get along marvellously, I love having a room to myself to decorate and be introverted in, and I’ve enjoyed doing my own cooking.  Sure, I miss the conveniences of living on campus, but all-in-all, I’m satisfied with the change.

This is where I spend the majority of my time not sleeping and instead studying, reading, and wasting my life on tumblr.

Meanwhile, I’ve been having a lot of trouble keeping level-headed and maintaining my weight since August.  I’ve been under a lot of stress because of complications with getting my fake tooth, where everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong, and it put me into a mini depression that ended up rearing its ugly head once course work got rolling.  I spent a lot of August, September, and October absolutely hating myself, and it only started to get better last month.  With every wrong move I’d make, a little voice in my head would just whisper I hate myself. or I hate everything.  I’ve never been the type of person to put myself down in this kind of way.  Sure, I’m hard on myself, but I’ve never felt such a hatred for myself.  It was getting absolutely unbearable, and I’d begin to beat myself for beating myself up.

In the end, I probably needed some sleep.  I needed time to find a sense of self that was healthy.  I needed Thanksgiving break.  Things improved over that time.  I didn’t get ahead on coursework, and I didn’t get a long list done that I needed to in Saint Charles.  But I did get my tooth (finally!), and I picked up a few more articles of clothing that would fit me better, and I finally had time to just sleep and day-dream.  It was such a relief.

I’m feeling a lot better now, but, coming back for the end of the semester is still difficult.  Last week contained most of my finals and papers/projects due, and there were some nights where I literally didn’t go to bed and had to squeeze in an hour around midnight so that I could work during the early morning hours when I feel most mentally awake.

Sunday night: 4 hours
Monday night:  3 hours
Tuesday night:  6 hours
Wednesday night: 2.5 hours
Thursday night: 1 hour

It’s been a bit rough, but I’ve found that I can get a lot done even on very little, if no, sleep.  I know that it’s not healthy.  I know, I know, I know.  It’s just how I operate as a procrastinator and some-what perfectionist.  They go hand in hand, really.  You procrastinate because of the fear that you won’t reach perfection.  But when you don’t have enough time to reach perfection, you self-handicap and say that it’s all right that you didn’t reach the point you had wanted.  After all, you’d had so little sleep last night, how could you have gotten higher than a B on that exam?  (Oh, poor baby.  Bleh.)

I mentioned earlier that I’ve been having a lot of trouble keeping my weight at a stable level.  For the entirety of my life, this would mean that I’ve gained a bunch of weight and am feeling all self-conscious about it… until now.  I don’t know how, but I’ve lost twenty pounds in only three months.  I went from being near 160 to 142.  Everyone I’ve told gives me some type of congratulation as though I’ve been working so hard or something, but I just stand there thinking, But this is not what I wanted!  I haven’t tried to lose weight.  I don’t like that I can’t fit into any of my clothing; I figured I’d be a size twelve for years, so I’d started buying my clothes to last and cost more.  Suddenly, I don’t fit into any of my skirts or pants or bras.  My shirts aren’t tugging in the same ways (hell, I can now wear shirts that I haven’t been able to fit into since I was fourteen).  I look at photos of my face from earlier this year, and I literally can’t recognise myself (okay, this may be because of the prosopagnosia, but disregard that) because I’ve lost so much weight from my face.  My arms look different, my collar bones show more, my cheek bones seem a bit  higher, my legs more defined, my stomach flat.

I am beautiful.  And I am completely frightened.

I can’t stop losing weight, and I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know if I believe the people who have told me that it’s from walking more with living off campus or because I’m cold all of the time and using more energy to keep warm.  I feel bad every time I look in the mirror and think I look good, because this can’t be healthy.  And then I argue with myself because I shouldn’t feel bad about being happy with the way I look.  It’s just an odd situation that I’ve never been in before, and I don’t know how to deal with it.

I don’t really know how to deal with anything, actually.  But… that’s okay.  It’s been okay for about a week now.  Between panicking and extreme euphoria and an excessive amount of work, this past week has been interesting, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I wish I could tell you more at this point, but I’m still trying to find my footing.  Just suffice it to say that something is going really, really well, and I can’t remember the last time that I was this happy.

So, while I leave you on a note of mystery, I hope it was positive.  Because I’m feeling positive, even with all of the stress that I’ve carried for the past few months.  Sometimes, life is pretty good, and there are blue skies, and you can’t help but smile.

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Analysis of the Mind and Soul

I fully realise that no one looks at what I’m writing, and that doesn’t necessarily bother me. I write for me, for my own personal enjoyment and well-being, and because there are so many things to write. It’s why I’ve kept a diary since freshman year of high school and have filled thousands of pages. No one will ever read those stories and traumas and ideas, but they’re noted down because they represent a portion of who I was and who I am. That’s why blogging for an empty audience is appealing. I can type, which is much faster than my detailed cursive, and I can still write for me.

When writing for an audience, you don’t tell the truth, either. It’s like how, when psychologists are doing studies on people, they try to make everything blind, including themselves. That way, they don’t look for things that aren’t there or try unconsciously influence their study subjects. Well, writing for an audience is similar. You change styles and try to make things different in order to be better liked or received. And that just doesn’t seem very fair to myself, and I like being fair to myself since I feel that I have a very unique and amazing relationship with me.

I don’t necessarily mind if people read this. Truly. I just prefer to write as though there is no audience, even if the style and talking sounds as if I’m speaking to an audience of the like-minded. And let me clear that. I write as if speaking to a great audience (and it’s the same way as in my diaries), but I like to think that the subject matter is uninfluenced by an actual, watching audience. It makes little sense outside of my head; terribly sorry. Just another example of the connection I have with myself that doesn’t quite translate into the material world.

Sometimes I wonder if everyone has that kind of relationship with themselves. If everyone learns about themselves and works with it. Or, if other people are just shells, walking along, following, moving through the steps. Yes, I don’t doubt that we all think and have conversations with ourselves in our heads, but I sometimes wonder just how strong of a relationship we have between soul and mind. Or between mind and mind. I don’t always know which is correct when talking about this subject. But maybe this is all the psychologist in me.

I’m outside right now, sitting in the middle of the quad, under the cover of an oak tree and a maple. Truman’s campus is beautiful, as is the weather of Kirksville during the fall, and other students are taking the same opportunity as I am to enjoy the last moments of sun before the infamous midwest winter comes to play. They’re sitting on blankets, tapping their pens on notebooks, reading, talking, typing. I start to wonder what makes them… them.

There’s a girl lying next to her friend about one hundred feet from me. She’s a hard-core lesbian and makes it known to everyone on campus. I don’t mind this; I admire her strength. One doesn’t have to share a similar view-point to find something amiable about another. The girl beside her is chatting. She is very liberal. Again, I don’t mind this. I like people to believe in something, even if it’s not exactly the same as me. A young man walks passed holding his art supplies and a cigarette. My eyes squint and nose wrinkles at the smell, but it’s not my right to think ill of him. There’s a girl sitting beneath a tree and staring off into space. I start to wonder if she’s thinking the same things that I am. Or who she is. I wonder why she stares as opposed to the four people on cell phones who move their heads but don’t see anything. And, all the while, I can’t help but analyse people. Why does she sit with that posture? Why did he look awkward while sitting on that bench? Why does he turn his head to look behind him every couple of seconds? What are we and why are we? Are we all vast minds, trapped in shells. Or are only some people trapped? Or are only some people empty?

These are too many questions for a Thursday afternoon. But, if they aren’t asked now, when?

And, for the record, when I analyse people, it’s not judging. Judging people for what they like or how they do things is backwards. Judge character. Judge kindness. Judge who they really are, not just reputation. You’ll find it much easier to get along with people who are different from you.

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