New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Eve is tomorrow, so you know what that means... Time for me (and pretty much most people) to make an attempt to get their shit together! While I have been having some improvements in terms of my mental and emotional health and know that that will only improve once I get back to school, I still have a long way to go and it's time for me to really put effort into myself. So here goes...

My resolutions for this year are:

• To get a job for the summer. I am trying to get internships right now in Chicago, but many of the places I have applied to haven't even responded to me, which is really annoying. If I don't get an internship by my birthday (January 22), then I'm going to start looking for a job at a place where I could easily be transferred (i.e. Ulta, Sephora, Old Navy, H&M, Forever 21, etc.). I NEED MONEY OKAY!!!
• To work out more often and to eat healthier. I haven't used the gym at my school once since I started school, and I haven't done much in terms of working out while I've been home. My body is only gonna go downhill if I don't get it together soon, and that won't help my self esteem at all! I also want to limit the amount of meat I eat. Since I'm now the secretary of an animal rights club, it doesn't really add up that I eat meat. Ideally, I'd only have meat once a week or so, possibly less. Plus, it'll be better for my health and can help with the whole weight loss thing.
• To become more actively involved with making movies. Duh, this is a no-brainer! It's good for my career and good for me in general.
• To keep up my grades and continue working hard in school. Again, another given.
• To maintain my blog better while I'm at school. I hardly posted at all last quarter, only ever when something really bad was happening in my life. Well a lot of good things would happen as well that got left out of the blog, and I want to do a better job of showcasing that good.
• To think more positively. I'm a pretty negative person, especially when I get into a funk and start feeling the anxiety and depression coming back. Well, I'm more negative about myself and my outlook on the world, I tend to have a lot more hope for other people than I do for myself. But my breakthrough the other week was a step in the right direction, and I think that if I work on these other resolutions positive thinking will come much more naturally to me.
• To be happier on my own. I've been with somebody for a very long time, and now it's time for me to become more independent than ever and to work on finding out all that I am capable of. I am going to leave Andy alone until at least June, where I'll at least wish him a happy birthday because I'm not that cold and heartless. But other than that, I am going to fly solo and fly free. It's okay to not have a romantic thing going on, and right now that's probably better for me.

I think if I really try and put in effort, I can do this and come out stronger than ever before.

Broken Phone?

Ugh. So yesterday I noticed that my phone would keep turning itself off automatically. It had done that about once a week before, but yesterday it just kept happening! I was heading to my cousin's basketball game, and I had just gotten it fully charged. Immediately after I removed it from the charger, it turned off and wouldn't turn back on again! So for about four hours, I was walking around with a dead phone.

When I got home, I immediately plugged it in to see what would happen. It had the little battery charging symbol on it, and wouldn't turn on until it had been in the charger for about an hour and a half. About two hours after it came back on, it turned off again. It didn't turn back on again until about 6:30 this morning, ,and it turned itself odd again about 5 minutes ago.

What is going on with my phone?! And what can I do to fix it?!!

I definitely want to head to the Apple store today or tomorrow to see what repairs may be necessary, and if the repairs are too costly, I may as well just head to the AT&T store to get the iPhone 6.

I can't be having a phone that does all this stuff! So much of my life is on my phone- my alarms in the morning to wake up, my alarm for birth control, the list of birthdays for my friends, all of my messages, all of my music, my photos, film ideas, etc. I need to have a reliable phone, and this won't do, ESPECIALLY when I have to go back to Chicago.

A Brand New Start

Today is the first day of the rest of my life! I love myself, and I refuse to let anybody or anything get me down.

Today has had a lot of ups, and only one down. I took my dog out for a walk in a new park and it was absolutely lovely. She's a very happy dog now! However, I did leave my mom's ATM card in the machine so she's very upset with me. 

She's been having a very frustrating day at work already, and she's having difficulties trying to manage some things at home like making doctor's appointments. Nothing seems to be going her way. I feel bad because her day just keeps getting worse and worse. I wanna make it better in any way that I can, but at the moment I'm not really sure how. I did include a small brownie with her lunch to try to help soother her pain with chocolate. 

I think I'm gonna do dishes and work on christmas cards to make her day better/less stressful. Any little thing that could make things easier for her and give her less to worry about.

I WROTE MY FIRST REAL SCREENPLAY AND ACHIEVED SELF-ACCEPTANCE

I WROTE A FUCKING SCREENPLAY FOR MY UPCOMING SHORT FILM IN 6 HOURS.

GET ON MY LEVEL.

I ALSO REALIZED THAT I CAN LOVE MYSELF AGAIN. 

AND I AM BEATING MY ANDY ADDICTION. HE'S NOT GETTING ANY OF THOSE LETTERS, I'M GONNA BURN THEM. THEY'RE DONE. THOSE FEELINGS ARE GONE. YOU KNOW HOW I GOT THERE?

THIS SCREENPLAY THAT'S HOW.

Andy and I would always share our work with each other to give constructive criticism, talk about what we liked in our work, and overall just to be proud of each others' achievements. I thought about sending him a copy of the rough draft. Thought.

I realized that I don't give a fuck if he's proud of me because I'M PROUD OF ME. All my friends from school are proud of me. My family is (sorta) proud of me. That means more than the attention of a guy who doesn't even want me in his life anymore.

I'm not gonna go out of my way to talk to him anymore. If he wants to be my friend eventually, he's gonna have to want it and better fucking work for it. I am a goddess and I am loved by plenty of people. I don't need him and I don't need anybody else.

Although I do love kissing and being held. Maybe when I'm back to school.

All that matters now is that I have my own back. 

I FEEL SO FUCKING GOOD RIGHT NOW AND SO SO STRONG AND I AM GOING TO DO EVERYTHING I CAN TO MAKE THIS FEELING LAST FOREVER.

Improving!

I think I'm on the come up.

A part of me realized that sitting around and crying and letting myself fall apart wasn't going to get me anywhere with Andy even as a friend, or anybody for that matter, so I've been doing what I can to stay busy, not get sad, and genuinely enjoy my time and feel good about everything I'm doing.

Yesterday was when this started. I was WAY too busy to even think about the things that were bringing me down- I went out to lunch with my aunt and my 3rd cousin and we had a lovely time, I had long drives that were filled with fun, enjoyable music, I cleaned out my grandma's garage (and got paid for it- thank goodness, I am so broke) and chatted with her for awhile, and spent the evening painting and skyping my friends from DePaul. It was NICE. 

Come midnight, I realized that I had officially gone 24 hours without crying, and I was really proud of myself. It may seem dumb, but in the head space that I was in, I could hardly make it through any part of the day without crying or freaking out. my previous record was 15 hours, and I slept through 10 of them so it hardly counted.

Today I really wanted to keep up my streak. I still haven't cried (woop woop) or even felt that sad today. I only had three chores today, and I got them done pretty early in the day. I walked my dog, and the weather was absolutely GORGEOUS! I even made gluten-free brownies! I also painted a lot, and I've been working on a short film that I want to shoot when I get back to school. Pedro also sent me a very long list of upbeat songs that could help me get back on track and help me recover from my slump, and that's been a blessing. 

This is the best that I've felt in a few weeks, and I  really want it to stay this way so I am going to do anything and everything I can to stay positive!

"So you've hit rock bottom..."

The past several days have been a living hell for me. I have had no motivation to get through the days, let alone to stop sleeping. I've even been pretending to be sick so my mom will leave me alone to mope in peace.

Yesterday was especially painful. I pretty much was crying uncontrollably all day. I feel lost, still, but I'm really trying to stay positive and to pick up the pieces of my life. 

I just don't know how. I know that if I wait and ride this out, things will eventually look up for me (like when I finally get back to DePaul), but there's this huge part of me that's afraid, because from here on out everything I thought I knew in life is changing, and I have to reevaluate my plans for the future since they've essentially turned to dust.

Please send help.

I fucked up (aka my Andy problem)

I reached out to Andy this evening about an hour and a half ago. We've been trying to be friends, I really thought we could, but he never talks to me and whenever I talk to him I get the vibe that he hates me and wants nothing to do with me and wants me to leave him alone. Of course, he'd never say this to me because he wouldn't want to hurt my feelings, but after seeing him post a song called "Christmas all alone" I felt horribly horribly guilty. I figured he wasn't trying to call me out because he's not petty and would never stoop so low. I wanted to say that I was sorry for hurting him anyways, I had never properly apologized and I was feeling a lot of guilt from that. So, I texted him this long sad text about how I have been struggling to be his friend because I haven't apologized for the pain I've caused and that I really didn't want him to hate me. It was risky, but honestly what do I have left to lose?

Basically, he doesn't hate me, but he doesn't want me to be a part of his life and never wants to see me again. In a way it's a relief since I won't have to worry about "oh god, what if this is awkward?" and other thoughts like that, but at the same time I just lost my best friend forever. 

I am in so much pain right now and I just want to be held while I cry. I have reached rock bottom.

Parent Issues

The past two days I've been hanging out with my sister and staying out of the house, and that's been great. However, last night was a nightmare for me once we got home.

We returned home during the middle of a "meeting" of all the local Republicans my parents are friends with, which was basically a loud gathering of a bunch of loud drunken adults. I was okayish at first, I had taken some food and hid up in my room, but then my mom called me out to our upstairs balcony asking me if I was registered as a Republican and then telling me that I need to register as one so they could count on my vote in primaries and for when their friends were up for election.

This really really bothered me. It upsets me that my parents think that they can just use me as a pawn to rack up another votes and that they think that I'll just blindly follow along with whatever they tell me politically. In general the fact that they restrict me from being myself causes me a lot of pain. How do you BEGIN to talk to your parents about that?! I have no autonomy over myself, and I freaking should already! I am a legal adult, I am in college, and I am a good person so why on earth do my parents think they have the right to take away all my freedoms and my ability to express myself?!

At first, I was really really afraid about having to talk to my mom about this, but then, I saw it as an opportunity. This could be my chance to come clean and maybe establish some sort of meaningful relationship with them. I want to tell my parents that I'm not gonna sell myself short anymore, I WANT to tell them that I don't believe in God and that I don't identify as a Republican and I want to show them my work and have them be proud of me for how far I've come in just one quarter at school, but I'm really fucking scared. I'm afraid that they'll be furious with me, I'm terrified that they'll reject me as their daughter and cut me off and that I won't be able to go back to DePaul, I'm scared that they simply won't love me anymore. 

But for all of the potential negative outcomes, there's the chance that none of those things will happen. There's the chance that I've really been torturing myself over nothing and that I'm going to be okay and that my parents are going to love me even more for being honest with them. That's what I'm hoping for, at least.

I decided that i would only say something to my parents if they brought up the issue to me first. While I was afraid of this happening, a big part of me was hoping that they did so I could just get this over with. This morning, my mom was acting like nothing had happened last night, although she was extremely terse and there was a lot of tension in the room. There's been a ton of tension between us today though. Like I'm feeling sick so I was having some saltine crackers for breakfast and while I was eating she says to me "Tuesday is a holy day of obligation." in the coldest way possible and gives me a look that could probably kill an animal slightly smaller than me. It made me feel awful, like she already knows or has her suspicions about me and is hoping to force me into changing back into some good Catholic girl. It made me so uncomfortable that I've been balking at the idea of talking to her in general.

For the first time, I feel ready to come clean. However, I am NOT ready to make the first move, it has to be my parents. I just don't want to be depressed whenever I'm home, that's not how home should be.

The Great Cat Rescue

Yesterday while making my way home from another dismal day of attempting to find a job, I nearly hit a cat with my car. I thought that I had hit it, so I got out of the car to check. It came running out from underneath it meowing its cute little head off and started rubbing itself up against my legs. It was so freaking adorable, I couldn't just leave it in a field! Plus it wasn't in good shape; it was extremely dirty and its fur was matted in a lot of places, it clearly hadn't eaten in a long long time, and it looked like it had recently been in a fight with another critter somewhere. So I scooped it up in a blanket then drove home so I could put it in a cat carrier. I decided that I would take it to the county SPCA, but when I got there they were closed. There were people inside, but they told me to go away and come back tomorrow. So, I went to another shelter in the area that specializes in cats. They wouldn't take it either because they're a private shelter and all of their space was full. 

I was worried that I was going to have to let the poor thing out somewhere and I didn't want to do that since the two of us had gone through all of that together and the cat really liked me a lot. My mom wasn't about to let me bring it home, even if it only stayed in our garage for the night. I called my grandma, and she said she'd let it stay in her garage for the night! Today my grandma and I are going to take the cat to the SPCA again so it can get cleaned up and have a proper place to stay.

I feel good about what I did, and while I wish I could keep the cat myself I know it'll go to a good home sometime very soon.

Keeping Positive Day 2

Today was a lot worse than yesterday, but it isn't completely irredeemable. While the weather was gloomy and shit, I had a ton of chores, got yelled at and berated a lot, had hardly any luck with the job search, and I'm being forced into going to a football game on Thursday, there was at least one decent thing about today.

First, I was added into this group of aspiring filmmakers at DePaul in my class who are trying to get together to help make each others projects a reality. That'll be nice, and throwing myself into work and having things that I can put on my reel/portfolio/resume/iMDB page would be amazing for improving my chances at a career and also be a great way of avoiding drama in the future. I talked to a few of the people about an idea for a web series I have and got a lot of positive feedback so that made me feel better! Plus it's nice to have something that I can look forward to while I'm home. 

Frankly, that was the only really positive part of the day, but on the bright side, I didn't cry at all even when I really really wanted to and I think that's an improvement right there.