the old chapters: bare

I decided to post some of my most favorited long tumblr posts and poems under the guise of 'The Old Chapters' so people can have a sense of where I came from. 

This is 'Bare': a long blurb from my journal that I wrote last summer. It's pretty interesting to see where I was a year from now and who I ended up becoming. 

Life's a pretty weird thing in retrospect; but without further ado: 

BARE.

This is the longest and truest thing I have ever written in my journal. I use names, places, and things. If you have ever wondered who I am in real life, I would give this a read. If you have ever been skeptical of who the ‘real me’ is, then I would give this a read. It’s long, and you’ll learn something. I can guarantee you that you’ve never seen me be this honest, even if you’re considered my closest friends. If you read it all, I’ll be really impressed with your attention span. 

8/29/12 

Iced vietnamese coffee tastes like burnt chocolate and espresso with milk. I’m sure that’s all it is essentially. Just like all human bodies are simple elements mixed into complex negative and positive charges, and some water. The human body is a Crystal Light trvael pack apres the shake and small spill. 

The human body is also a miraculous thing. Has anyone ever thought about the fact that the body heals itself? That our genetic make-up recognizes a tear, big or small, in what is considered our protective armor and billions of electrodes charge through billions of neurons telling the skin cells that they need to start multiplying or there will be major problems. And we, the ‘id’ we, don’t even need to consciously think about these things, they just happen because our bodies are built like that. 

That’s insane.

It’s insane that I don’t have to think about ho to write or how to walk to Deisel, my body just knows how to do these things because its well trained. My fingers know how to record every word I’m thinking without me having to concentrated on making and ‘n’ or an ‘o’ shape.

Our bodies, physically, are amazing. Not in a way that we say it because we don’t want to say ‘cool’ and sound uneducated, but in a way that our bodies contain so much complexity that it truly should cause amazement.

The past few days have given me time to think rationally irrational.

I realized that I am always thinking. Not about involuntary movements, like blinking or breathing, but just about everything I see all the time. I slip into a constant inner monologue every time I come across something and it’s incessant. I think over my inner monologue, about every day things, and even now, while I think about what I’m going to write next, it keeps going. 

I think I can hear my subconcious. 

I think it’s because I’m never really awake. 

I’ve had a headache for two dys and I thought I was having caffeine withdrawals but its not. I think it might just be because its that time where I get my monthly migraine. That’s a thing that happens to me. I’m really exhausted but I can’t really think about why that’s a thing. I think it’s my dreams. They keep me awake. 

I’ve been having dreams about Joe again which is weird because I hadn’t thought about him in (what I consider) a long time. I’m always still kind of half-hoping he’ll come into Diesel but I don’t think he comes here anymore. 

The only people who come here are girls who wear cardigans and boys who have beards and too many ignorant opinions on indie music. My hands smell like brown sugar and Beyonce is playing over the sound system. I am going to take this as a sign that tonight will be pleasant even thought I am spending it by myself. 

I wrote in this same journal a year ago when I was starving myself that I liked myself better when I’m alone, and I do. 

I don’t know how to be this person around other people. I don’t know how to have these conversations about the human body or about my alternate dream universe or about my conscious sub-conscious because I’m scared of it just becoming me talking and the other person having nothing to say. 

So instead I talk about boys who stopped caring about me weeks and years ago. It makes me sound superficial but at least it gives me feed back. It’s like I’m a front woman in a band waiting for the crowd to respond to my resounding, ‘Yeah, what’s up tonight CLEEEVVVEEEELAAANNDDDD?!’ (assuming my thoughts, feelings, and friends are indeed Cleveland, Ohio) and only hearing crickets. So if I reword it to something sassy like, ‘Whose gettin’ fucked up tonight CLEEEEEVVVEEEELAAANNDDDD?!’ I get a big roar from the thousands of people in my audience.

Who doesn’t like hearing a little ‘pity me’ gossip? 

Me. I hate that.

In real life, I’m not really all that sassy. Being sassy is my personality’s red lipstick and it’s matte, moisturizing, and long wear. Sometimes I get really tired of trying to be a sarcastic bitch when really I just want to law down in the woods and talk about real things and not the sex I had a month ago (which was the first sex I had since Joe.) 

Part of me thinks the reasons I want to see Joe so bad is so that I can blurt out, “Well yeah, I had sex with someone else,” in order to make me sound less pathetic but the fact that I want to see him and tell him that just to feel that satisfaction is pathetic enough of me. 

I just want him to see me and care about me for three days again and then go away. But I think  I want that from anyone who is mildly attractive. 

But hey, I’m mildly attractive. 

I feel really bad about the way I treat Gerald because all I do is talk to him about how sad I am all the time, when I’m not sad all the time, I just feel like complaining because Cleveland. Gerald is essentially my best guy friend and I can only imagine how annoying it is to hear one of your friend complain about your legitimate best friend. I’m blessed that he hasn’t drowned me in a pool of my own vomit collected from that party almost two months ago. 

I need to treat Gerald better because ultimately I’e been a really shitty friend to him in my personal opinion. Gerald is not silent cricket Cleveland crowd people. In real life, I don’t think anyone is, but it’s just easier for me to think that everyone thinks I’m boring because then I can sacrifice actually trying to make friends with people and ultimately letting them down. 

I don’t think I’m a bad friend entirely, and I don’t know if I’m a good, bad, or medium person but I cannot attach myself to people. I know others would scoff at that statement. Guffaw, even. But as stated previously, I just like complaining about people wronging me and leaving me because I occasionally like playing the victim. ALAS! AN ADMITTED FLAW! 

But as I was saying, I move on from people with ease, once people become ‘out’ in my life, I stop wanting them. Even with friendship. I never really miss anyone, even when I say I do. I’m only a bad person because I lie about my feelings. I think the only reason I don’t miss people is because I’m not attached to them, only because they don’t know me. 

The only three people I’ve ever missed are Joe, Alex, and Mallory. Joe is one of the sole reasons I grew up the way that I did and in a way he molded me this way. He knows me without having to be near me because ultimately: parts of me are products of him. I met Alex at one of the most vulnerable points in my life (as adult life as I can say it was) and there was no reason to pretend to be somebody I wast my Freshman year of college. I never had to put up any defense because Alex has always been someone who genuinely cares. Who genuinely wonders the same things as me and understands me on levels that I can hardly understand myself. And Mallory?  I have never felt it appropriate to omit any detail of my mistakes to her. I have every chance to lie to her about my whole life because we’ve never met in person. I choose not to because, like Alex, she just gets me. But in totally opposite yet equally loving ways. “I feel as though I can communicate with her with simply a look.” 

The people that come to Diesel are either actually quirky or quirky in a Zooey Deschanel way or that are Tufts students who want to seem hip. Truthfully, Diesel is pretty hip. Their bathrooms are gender neutral, their coffee is free trade, and the are is by local pretentious wannabes. The collection of hipster lesbians behind the bar changes every four months, at least for me. I always see some familiar faces though. A handful of girls that come here are aesthetically pleased by me every time I come in. I am not a lesbian wet dream. When I was 17 and realized that I can be sexually attracted to girls while simultaneously being sexually attracted to boys, I thought that I was. 

Regardless, I am attractive.
I also have a fat ass. 
I will always recognize that trait about myself even when I have a 14 year old daughter who thinks I’m embarrassing when I play ‘Gasolina’ in the car.

Anyway, I don’t look like the type of person who would spend a majority of her evening in Diesel. At least not anymore. My shorts are hipsterly high-waisted, my button up isn’t tanned over with age, or tea, it’s light blue and wrinkled. My sweater doesn’t look hand knitted, and I don’t have elbow pads and my purse looks fashionable and expensive. 

Girls who look like they kill cows by buying leather bags (thought I’m not carrying a leather bag) don’t normally hang out here. Or at least not by themselves. My hair and face aren’t natural and I don’t smell like amber rose essential oils. I don’t even own essential poils. I don’t own a pair of jesus sandals. I’m judging people by their appearances again, but in reality, I don’t really look like a hipster, y’know? 

I think that if you read this book it would reveal that I might as well have an asymmetrical  hair cut and pretty girl 50s glasses and wear hemp swing dresses and never drink Starbucks. 

Or I could be anybody. Maybe this journal looks like anybody and everybody. 

You know how a lot of thug ladies in high school talk about being real? I’ve been told that I’m real a lot, but to be perfectly honest, I’ve never met anyone faker than me. The same girl who has preached body love but has wretched her dinner up over her toilet twice in the past two weeks, I am more humble than anyone realizes. I am more insecure than anyone realizes. I incessantly talk about how great I am just so I can try to convince myself that it’s true. 

I almost threw up on the girl who came into Aldo to tell me she recognized me from my YouTube channel because I’m not that special. 

I don’t think that I’m special, but I feel sometimes that I could be something of the like, 

I don’t always think that I’m pretty and I don’t think I’m pretty without makeup on. 

I think I’m really exhausting to know as a person and be romantically involved with because I’m high maintenance in a way that I like attention but not gifts or extravagant dates. Andrew can vouch for me being exhausting, I’m sure of it. 

I have a goos sense of style but I don’t always dress the way that I want to. 

I think to think for myself a lot but almost always let other people make my decisions for me. 

I need to grow up and slow down in two totally different directions. 

I need to be able to be the only person I need. 

But I don’t want to be so solitary. I don’t want to be so solitary but I have been so solitary for so long. I am so set on just being the only person who knows this version of me that I haven’t let anyone into my life in years. 

Are there people I know? Of course! 

Friends? Of course! 

People I care about? Of course! 

But I don’t think I’ve made deep enough connections with people to feel like they are people I’ll know (or have known) forever. It’s easy for me to lose touch with people until I go crazy from spending too much time with myself. I’m a friendship succubus. 

But am I supposed to have been able to make these connections by now? Why am I so afraid of people? Why am I so uncomfortable by the thought of making and meeting new friends? Why does that sound so emotionally exhausting? 

I want this journal entry to end on a note where I convince myself where I’m leaving my past behind and turning over a new leaf of me making an effort to be more myself to all the new people I’ll be this year. But I know on the surface that I will Meryl Streep a la Miranda Priestly my way through classes (that will be choking with Freshman) and not attempt to get to know anyone because I am cripplingly afraid of other people and cripplingly afraid of myself. So in turn, I will pretend to be a sarcastic, scathingly witty mature 20 year old who has a demeanor of fucking over 40 men and making them cry. I will pretend to need all the attention all the time and pretend to act like I’m better than everyone else, but I’m not any of those things.

”We are who we pretend to be. So we must be very careful who we pretend to be.“
- Kurt Vonnegut  

I jut wish I knew when I was pretending.
I wish other people did too.

End Scene.

Love always,
the person who grew up since this was written: