Damn cute shit

Pocket Monkeys! Do I need to say any more?

I think he just finished Thanksgiving dinner...

Shh!... I is an egg with spikes!

My story in other pictures

Nothing lasts forever, so that means that my heaven and my torture will end. What we find so wonderful will inevitably cease, but that comes with the knowledge that what pain there is in the world is not constant. My discomfort and my stress will end, and this small cage that I feel trapped in will eventually relinquish its hold on me, and I will be allowed to walk freely for another day. What seems so awful now will pass... I'll just keep telling myself that.

Sometime next week, maybe I'll have the time. Or maybe I'll pass it off for the week after that. I keep passing up opportunities to live and to have a little spontaneity. I wonder what it's like for those people playing frisbee in the park. They look like they're having so much fun, but I'm to busy to worry much about them. I guess I'll find out what it's like some other time.

You have to kiss a lot of frogs in the world to find your prince. At least, my mother likes to tell me that's how it works. I don't think my ex boyfriends would like being referred to as amphibians- metaphorically or otherwise- regardless of how close to the truth it may fall in some cases. But I do feel ridiculous in general when I discover that I'm not with the right person, so I guess all in all it shouldn't go any further than kissing the darn frog as it is.

Yes, give me liberty. Death is messy, and a bit to tragic and emo for my liking. I don't think going out with a melodramatic bang is the right way to do it these days. Accidental deaths are much more satisfactory- the kind of things that make the people who hear about it sputter in awe and say "shit" like you're a god. You might even make someone laugh, and that seems to be the best medicine these days. So yes, give me all the liberty you've got, and I'll find some poor sod who likes to run with scissors so we can point him towards a jogging path with a really powerful magnet nearby.

What is art? Who said we needed to cure it? What happened to AIDS and the starving children in Africa? Although Duchamp was smoking something when he decided his fountain was a good idea.

Can I think them through? I just want to make it as a stage manager, I don't know if that's too much to ask, but I'd really just like to get a job in the real world. How much thinking it thorough do I need? Does someone have a manual?

Well fuck.

Better Late Than Never

I have decided to get help, in every way I can. It's a scary thought, but I have internalized everything I am for my entire life. I have very rarely tried to figure myself out. Now it is time to try to do that. So when the time comes for me to be with someone else- to be a part of something bigger than just myself I want to know who I am. I want to figure out all the facets of myself .

The Inevitable Journal

Maybe one day I'll be famous, maybe one day I'll be rich.

I can't stop all the thoughts in my head, or straighten them out. I've never thought it would matter, or maybe I have, and I've forgotten. I wish I could have remembered to do that.

Tomorrow I want to start something new, but I always say that. Everyday is a new resolution. A new beginning. Sometimes they last for awhile, but I still don't know how to not be alone.

The Only Joy In The World is to Begin

I am strong enough to make it through... this is my sign. 

I hope you find yours.

Sometimes- Day 40

Sometimes we just can't win. No one is pleased by what you have to offer on any given day, no matter how much time you devote to other people. That was my day today. I just want to curl up with someone who loves me under a warm blanket and watch a good movie, or listen to some good music. But that won't happen. I would easily settle for a hug, but no one give me those. I complain and complain because I can't stop thinking about what was, not what is. 

But at least I dressed cute today. So what if I ended up spilling red tea on my favorite jacket, I had a tide-to-go in my purse, I handled it. And I washed my car, and topped off the gas tank for $5... pretty awesome. And now I'm sipping on wine and venting in my blog, and attempting to catch up on pictures that I should be talking, but I'm too tired to think about it at the moment. 

The list of things I have to do is very long, and I'm just going to curl up in bed now with my music and my wine. 

We Wander and We Wait

Day 39- 

Sitting, waiting in the Writing Center- feeling a bit chilly because there is a definite draft coming in the main door directly on me. 

I have been thinking about what I need to do, mostly because of all the things I got done last friday. So to make myself feel better I want to recap everything that I managed to do on Thursday and Friday:

• Did 3 Design for the Stage assignments in 5 hours
• wrote a solid rough draft of my individual poem explication
• Read the story for my Gender Lit class
• posted the Gender lit homework on Moodle
• Finished my resume for the Clark Merit Award
• Wrote and finished my Personal Narrative for the Clark Merit Award
• Met with my Lit Analysis professor 
• turned in my Clark Merit Application 30 minutes before the cut off time
• Went to the Theatre open house and helped focus lights and place gels
• Helped at the Writing Center open house
• Ate a delicious Mediterranean dinner in the Writing Center
• Made myself look pretty
• Went to Addie's show & cried through almost the whole thing
• Remembered why I am doing theatre and fell in love with my major again
• Went to Perkins for midnight muffins with Lizabe, Aaron, and Ashley
• Fell asleep cuddling between Aaron & Ashley with a tasty Peachy drink
• Ended a week feeling good

Now this weekend I didn't feel like I was falling apart. I didn't NEED to call my mother so that someone could coach me through my panic attacks without seeing me, because earlier in the week I didn't want to be seen. I just wanted to disappear. 

Now I feel strong. I woke up early this morning to take a shower and gave myself almost an hour to play with my hair. I feel attractive, glasses not withstanding, and I like being noticed. I have to say it did help that Matt was gone for the weekend and I didn't see him until rehearsal this afternoon, during which I held myself distant. It didn't hurt as much to see him this time, and I think I can do this now. For now I just have to tell myself that he doesn't exist, until I need him to exist for some reason directly related to my interactions with him in Arcadia. I can be polite and distant. He ignored me in public when I was sleeping with him, there is no reason for me not to do the same now. If for nothing else, other than to protect my fragile heart. 

I can do this.

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?

Somehow I got off track. It happens to all of us. We call it different things. Some of us require a diagnosis- a fancy name to validate our feelings- or our lack of them. 

Seasonal affective disorder. Acute stress disorder.  Panic disorder. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Major depressive disorder. Adjustment disorder. 

Perhaps its the disorder that we should be paying more attention to. Not the disorder that doctors and trained professionals diagnose, but the dis-order. The lack of control that sometimes takes hold in our lives and tears us apart. We all fall down. And we all forget how to get back up sometimes. Neediness is not a character fault when we need help. The challenge is asking for help. Being able to ask for it, and then finding out how to ask for help. 

We are fragile, and we break. Those that would help us gather up the pieces and begin the attempt to rebuild are the true angels in the world. Our saviors do not always know that they have helped us. Sometimes it's merely a smile from a stranger in the local coffee shop, 0r a song on the radio, a play that touches our hearts. Sometimes its the physical presence of a friend curling up in bed with you and holding you while you cry out all the injustices in your soul, the comforting touch of the kind hand pushing a curl of hair behind your ear, the wet tear marks on their shoulder. 

Our destroyers are everywhere. We must face them every day- in the looks, the whispers, the absences. The failures. The lies. The truths. The rumors. They do nothing but seek us out with the intent of making us break- becoming the drop of rain that breaks the dam. There is nothing we can do but guard against the catastrophic disaster that waits for us around every corner. 

We must walk tall. We must walk through the fire. For although there are those who line the halls of this hell waiting for us to fall, to laugh at our mistakes and failures. There are also those who are waiting to catch us, our guardian angels, who do not know their capacities or their strengths, because they are walking through hell with us, they are on the same journey. So we keep our chins up and we do not look left or right, because the only thing that matters is where we are going, and all the beautiful things we are capable of. 

I have missed many of the days I should have taken my pictures, but this is not a failure, this is just a gap in my life that is not recorded. That didn't need to be recorded with pictures, because words and tears and late night phone calls are enough. This failure, this catastrophic break, this path of dis-order is etched on my heart and my soul, and it needs no more record than that. 

Time will soften the edges of the wound, and it will become a soft scar with a story, someday. Tonight it still hurts, and it still bleeds when I'm least expecting it, when I am barely brushed by insensitivity. But I know that there is nothing wrong with the blood, or the failure. There really is no failure, only a place where the path of live was obscured and I couldn't find a safe place to put my feet. I tripped and fell, and stayed on the ground- laying on my back and looking up at the sky and everyone living above me. The world is a sad place when you only watch from below it. I stood up somehow. I'm getting back on track somehow. 

I'm getting back on track with the power of red, with light, with sunshine. Soft guitars and vocal harmonies. Chamomile tea and soft pajamas. Disney movies, action movies, musicals. Smiles. Kisses. 60s music. Getting up each morning and turning up the radio and singing along with the country music because maybe I am always singing with the sad cowboy who is singing about the one that got away, but there's always the one that makes everything perfect in the distance, there's always happiness in the melodies and the reprise. 

Happiness. Beauty. Smiles. Tears. They are all there, and they are all a part of my history. 

I will never again change who I am because of other people. I never want to mold myself to fit some idea of what I need to be to be accepted by anyone. I am who I am. I can become better; stronger; more resilient. The glass walls around my soul can shatter when they have been replaced by soft India rubber. The dis-order that abounds will someday merely bounce off of me and not break me. 

I have walls, and I will keep them. For now. I know of no other way to live. I do not know how to face the world naked, without control. I will remain on my own terms. But I will try to be better. I want to be better. I can't go back. I won't. I will smile with the new day. I want to learn how to open up to people. I want to learn how to do this so I can handle it when it matters most. Someday it will matter, but it won't, because the right people fit well enough that there is no pain when the walls come down. 

To anyone who will change my life. I love you. I may hurt you with my jagged edges. I will hurt myself with them. But I can smile and I can laugh even when I cry, and I can love you with all my heart even when I hate you. 

Day 38- 

Addie's show changed my life. I had forgotten why I loved theatre, 

why I was devoting my life to it. But now I can remember. 

I can again be proud of all this work I am putting into a future that I can't predict.

 Thank you Addie. 

Day 37- 

The bomb from Matt's show.

The Chernobyl girl's dolly.  

Cyrano's mask. 

Day 36- 

John has become a comforting amusement in my life, and I am so happy that he and Taylor make each other happy.

Day 35-

Looking at the lighting I designed for the 'Belfast bomber scene'

Lighting design for Cyrano. 

A wider shot of Cyrano. 

Goodness, more Cyrano. 

'War in heaven' lighting- 

"I died the day I was born... on that day... became and angel... I am here by mistake."

Day 34- 

One of the first of many Arcadia rehearsals. 

Day 33- 

A quiet moment on the steps of Marquis after rehearsal, just watching the campus and enjoying the warmer weather. 

Day 32- 

Something that I had to draw for Design for the Stage. Maybe someday I will really enjoy this class, right now it's too tedious to fully enjoy. 

Day 31- 

I didn't seem to have a reason to smile. 

The dirty mirror just seems poetic now. 

Documenting one of the few days with blue sky. 

Stairs...

I looked down and saw a picture 

I walk through this door everyday. 

Day 30- 

Hookah in Colorado at Pita bar. 

The Air Force Academy BX- how original of me.

Day 29- 

On my way into Peterson to go work in the WC.

More of the same...

Day 28- 

The Writing Center seems to have become a habit of mine. 

Day 27- 

A picturesque tree on a gloomy day. 

Day 26-   

More working in the Writing Center. 

Day 25- 

Model of the Arcadia set.

Day 24-

Working with the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, and the beginning of my breaking.