Hi

I'm still alive, I just started using tumblr instead. I should probably delete this account, but it's cool that someone was asking after me. Bye!

Okay, it's been a while so just a quick update:

1. Turned 19. Woo!
2. Denied admission to Kenyon College. Boo.
3. Accepted at Franklin Pierce University, with a Presidential Honors scholarship and a place in their Honors Program. Huzzah!

There are many other fabulous facets of life right now, but I'm just having a good good day today. :)

Things like that drive me out of my mind

i've been having a great few weeks! It has been snowing so much here, I'm not sure I remember the last time New York had this much snow for so long. It makes things pretty slippy underfoot, so walking around outside is always an adventure now.

I'm excited because tomorrow I'm getting a bunch of packages in the mail, like a real winter coat (which I neglected to buy myself until now, of course), and a big container of jojoba oil and my brand new yoga mat. I've been exercising a lot more and eating waaaaay better than I have been. I can already feel a difference--I constantly feel like my body is crackling with energy. The best way to put it is that I feel like a rubberband that's being pulled taut, but in good way? That's pretty accurate.

I've also been getting lost in my own thoughts a lot lately. I've been perfectly content to stare out of the window at the clouds and just dream the days away. Tonight, I've been watching the snow swirl around a street lamp that I can see from my bed. The lamp has icicles hanging off of it. It looks so calm outside, everything is quiet here for once (apart from the occasional plow that comes along).

...I actually did just drift off for about an hour. Just watching the different ways the snow floats around in the light from the street lamp. All the pondering and daydreaming I just did has made me very tired, so I'm going to get some shut eye for a few hours before I wake up and continue being awesome. Adios.

I think I'm just happy

That is true. In the last week, I've been nothing but happy and content. I'm doing my very best to stay in this state of mind for as long as possible, and I think it's working. I've been exercising a lot and eating really well, and reading a lot more. I'm glad to have a lot of things to focus on again, I was getting very listless and lethargic. Argh! I was doing a very good job of not being a sad, mopey person, but Pandora just had to put on "Tears in Heaven." Oh no, not going down this road today. Counteracting it with one of the most epic songs ever ("Bohemian Rhapsody" of course). I am going to go fry some eggs and work out. I'm determined to have a wonderful day, every day. :)

You showed me a sunset overflowing

What an interesting day I had. Woke up pretty early, floated around the house for a bit while listening to Devendra Banhart (my new favorite musician) and dressed like a hippie. Decided to go through a few of the moving boxes that I never opened, just to see what I might find, and I found some awesome stuff. I found a bunch of my old diaries, which were pretty interesting to read. It's so weird to me that I used to be so mean to myself and other people...reading those things made me really appreciate how much I've changed. I also found shells from Sanibel Island, a few yards of pretty cool fabric, some silk scarves, books I'd been looking for, pictures of things I'd forgotten, glass beads, some art supplies that I stole from summer camp when I was 11, and a small garden gnome.

There were a few things I found that were special and feel something like shining moments in an already really great day. The fact that I even found them is beyond me, as they're small and easy to lose. The first thing I found was a small plastic bag with a bunch of post earrings in it. I was going to put them aside and keep looking through this particular box, but I couldn't put it down and felt like I should look at them (because I didn't recognize them as my own earrings). When I looked closer, I realized that I was familiar with these posts, and then it hit me that they were my dad's. My dad's left ear was pierced, and when I was growing up, he was always wearing either a white circle or a black circle in it. He told me that he wore the white one when he was in a good mood, and the black one when he was in a bad mood. He actually lost the white one a few years ago so I don't have it. I do have the black one, which I'm happy with. After a while (when I was around 11) he stopped changing the earring and just left the black one in (which I don't think was indicative of his mood all the time, although he was noticeably more gloomy). So, now I wear the black one in my left ear (just like him), and a flat turquoise diamond in my right (also his).

The other thing I found of his was a scarf that he wore very often during the 90s. I remember seeing him wearing it during the good years, before he got diagnosed with anything and was just a portly Jewish man with a moustache. It's strange to think about, but when I was growing up I never really paid attention to his weight, but there were times when he was easily 220 pounds, and this year he was down to 150 (maybe even less) right before he died. It's interesting that I never recognized a change in his shape until just before the end.

Anyway, I'm not sad today. I don't think I will sad for a bit. Finding these things felt so good. It was better than finding a Rory Gallagher song or a picture of a day that I don't remember. I didn't start crying the way I did for everything else, I smiled and felt happy. I got some form of closure from today and it only means that I'm healing and that I'll be okay. Life is good

Woke up about an hour and a half ago, went downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. On the table I saw that there was a large piece of mail for me from the hospice services that took care of my dad right before he died. At first I was really angry because it was about the grieving process, and I felt like I was coping fine on my own. Every time I get condolences it just reminds me about everything that happened, and that never makes me feel better. Every time I try to forget about it, I am reminded in some way and it feels like I can't escape and go back to being normal sometimes.

Anyway. I did wind up reading the thing (it was like a newsletter with advice from "bereavement experts" and locations of local grief counseling, which is no help to me because I live in New York). It was an interesting read. I've spent the last four months thinking that I've been doing really well and that I was advanced in my grieving, but it looks like I am actually where bereavement experts expect me to be. That wasn't the part that got me though. There was a whole section called "How to Assist the Bereaved," which is just tips on what to do and what not to do when comforting a "mourner" (they call the people left behind "mourners"). Going through the dos and don'ts, I thought back to the end of August and realized that I didn't really get any of it. I got one phone call. I want to be mad at all my friends for not being there for me and yell at them and tell them how shitty they are, but I know it's not their fault (my dad happened to die during move-in week for all colleges), and besides, that's not who I am anymore.

There was a tiny little bit in the package that pretty much captured everything in my head on this. It was about losing your partner, but I think it does still apply here:

"The hubbub of the funeral or memorial service has receded. The friends and family who visited 'until you feel better' have returned to live their unchanged lives.

Friends call less frequently. The dinner invitations have declined. The numbness has begun to wear off. Each day feels longer and longer. What do you do now?

It's OK to spend some time alone, but don't isolate yourself. Let friends into your life and accept their help--even if you think of yourself as self-sufficient."

I mean, there are some differences. There was no funeral or memorial service. My family are a bunch of idiots preoccupied with themselves, so none of them came to visit or even called me or emailed me until a few weeks after he died. My great aunt Helen just died and there it's a huge deal apparently. Everyone keeps talking about how important it is that she's dead. Okay, cool. She had a huge family, she had a huge funeral, and my family is still talking about all this crap. I lost 1/2 of my family when my dad died and none of them spoke to me about it for about two weeks. None of them even bothered to actually call me, but Aunt Helen is dead, get out the phonebook and call EVERYONE and talk about it NON-STOP. Nice job. Not that I ever felt like these people liked me that much anyway. The way they talk about me amongst themselves...they think I'm some kind of junkie or failure, which I'm not.

I would continue, but I'm a positive person now and I wouldn't want to say anything I would regret later. So I'm putting on Red Hot Chili Peppers and dancing around in my room. Life is way way way too short to sit around in dark in your sweatpants crying. Peace and love!

You saved me, I was almost dead

Ah yes, another one of those days. I was doing great until about an hour and a half ago. I was just rummaging through my room when I came across a CD with my dad's handwriting on it. It was labeled "New New Driving Music" and I had a sudden rush of excitement because if it was my dad's driving music, there was probably that Rory Gallagher song on there. I didn't know if I wanted to listen to it because I didn't know what kind of effect it would have on me. Would it depress me or deepen my link with my dad? I put the CD in my laptop and it turns out that there was nothing on it. Before, I felt sad and crushed, like a little bit of paper. Now I just feel sort of empty. I thought I had discovered some sort of message from him from the beyond, like he was trying to help me find the song I was looking for or like he was trying to comfort me because he knows I'm very sad lately.

No bad without good, though. It is true that I have moments of deep sadness, but never of despair, and always counteracted by large doses of great happiness and joy. I have the most excellent friends who love me, I'm 100% healthy, and I have my entire life ahead of me, one that I don't doubt will be colorful and adventurous and amazing, like it already has been. I'm very happy with my life and it can only get better with each day.