The Night My World Ended

The morning after the world ended, I woke up in my best friend's basement. It was Christmas Eve Day, my family was in shambles, and I had never felt so alone in my entire life. The sun was up and beaming obnoxiously through the tiny window above my bed. I cursed the sun for rising.

There is a difference between being suicidal and just wishing you didn't exist. You think that maybe you'll fall asleep and the sun won't rise again because it makes no sense that it would. It's hard to contemplate other people's lives going on like nothing happened to you, like you weren't drowning. 

But despite my muddled brain and full-body ache, I did exist and the sun did rise so I had to do what I did every other morning, albeit in my own house.

I sat up. I put both feet on the floor. I stood, I walked to the bathroom, I showered. I did my hair and my make-up just like it was any other day. I went upstairs and made small talk with my best friend's family over grapefruit and cereal. I laughed.

Because the sun was up. Because I was alive. Because this is What You Do and not doing it would be so much worse than anything that had happened to me. Because all I had were the motions and I was determined to go through them. 

Because, because, because, because.

I sat on the couch and talked to my friend and her mom and made jokes about their evil cat. I made plans with my boyfriend. I ate food. I tried to breathe.

But after two hours of pretending that I had myself under control, I stumbled back to my basement bedroom and flopped gracelessly onto the pull-out bed. My headphones were still hooked up to my iPhone, so I hooked myself up and listened to Coldplay's Fix You about 20 consecutive times, trying to induce the tears that seemed to be stuck somewhere in my stomach. Nothing. I fell asleep with my music still on. 

I woke up to my phone ringing and tears pooling up in my eyes. It was my therapist. We talked for an hour. I found out later that she didn't charge us for that session. 

I was finally crying and it felt good, except for the moment of terror when I wondered if I'd ever be able to stop. For a few moments, I felt bad for myself. I saw myself from the outside, a crumpled young girl on a pull-out bed, mascara smeared all over her face, trying so desperately not to absolutely shatter.

Then I dropped from the bed to my knees and started pleading with God to let me survive this. I made promises, I got angry, I cried, I tried not to scream. I was so caught in between my rage that God would allow something so terrible to happen to me, even though I'd tried so hard to be good, and my desperation to feel some comfort and peace in the midst of my world ending. It was the first time I realized that growing up didn't mean it was easier to manage my emotions, but rather it made it possible for me to juggle so many conflicting emotions at once that I felt vaguely schizophrenic. 

That night, my world continued to crumble. The police picked me up from my boyfriend's family Christmas party. I spent Christmas Eve and early Christmas Morning in a police station, clinging to my little brother and my dad. I spoke to a judge via Skype, and at 4:36 on Christmas, we walked into my house. The tree was lit, the presents were gone, we were finally safe, and we had somehow survived the last 72 hours with shreds of Christmas spirit intact. We went to bed.

And that year, our Christmas miracle was being together. I woke up with the words of the Grinch in my head:

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

And it had come, despite the end of my world, despite my mother's betrayal, despite the fact that I wasn't sure I wanted it to be Christmas.

But it was and I was alive and for a few hours that day, I felt it.

Life goes on and moves forward at a sometimes relentless pace. Sometimes all you can do is wake up in the morning, put your feet on the floor, and tell yourself that you're going to make it through another day. And maybe your world ends, and maybe you have to pick up the pieces and start all over, and maybe sometimes it makes no sense that you would have to do that. And maybe it makes you want to quit.

I'm not going to tell you that eventually it will be over and your life will be wonderful and you can just forget all the bad stuff that happened to you. What I can say is that you is that time will pass, the sun will continue to rise, and you have to continue to get up and give 'em hell. 

Me

My battle with my skin has been a constant in my life since I was a wee lass of eight. Anyone who's had chronic acne can tell you that it sucks. There's nothing like waking up to a giant puss volcano erupting on your nose to make you feel like staying in bed all day.

Naturally, when I was old enough to venture into the world of foundations, powders, and eyeshadows, I rushed right for the concealer. I still remember my first day of high school, standing self-consciously in front of the mirror and slathering my face in whatever CoverGirl foundation was the latest at the time. I wanted desperately to make friends with the girl in the mirror, but she was so difficult to accept because she looked like this:

Actual photo from 9th grade. It's worth noting that I was wearing platform flip-flops, a kimono shirt, and jean capris. Bless my heart.

When I firmly believed she should look like this:

Yes, T-Swift's Love Story was at the height of its popularity when I was a freshman in high school.

I was even more desperately trying to make actual real friends and get attention from actual real boys (oh foolish girl) and it seemed to me that covering my pubescent skin with thick, ill-pigmented sludge (and getting a push-up bra) was the way to do it. Little did I know, the sludge may have actually been making my skin worse.

But I persisted. My first foray into the world of womanhood was characterized by globs of CoverGirl concealer, chunky maxi pads, and crippling insecurity.

As I grew older, I experimented with all kinds of drug store foundations, cycling through Revlon, Maybelline, Alamay, and even the late-blooming Neutragena line. I lined my brown eyes with thick layers of black pencil, sometimes only lining the bottom, and brushing on clumpy, crumbly mascara, all the while praying to the beauty gods that I would someday wake up to a face more like a model's and less like my own. I tried different fashion trends-- Uggs with jeans, sweats with tight t's, converse sneakers. I wore bad perfume, complained about being "fat", and developed a habit of saying "like" far too often.

Homecoming 2008

And my hair-- goodness gracious, my hair. I wore it long, long, long until the summer after 10th grade when I chopped it to my shoulders and layered it like crazy. My boyfriend at the time told me he didn't care about my hair or make-up. He told me he loved me for me, and I tried to believe him when I finally sheared my long hair for a short pixie cut the day before my junior prom. A few months later, when my parents announced their divorce, I shaved my head completely. I was in the midst of what I would later believe was a mild mental breakdown, a la 2007-Britney Spears.

Pics or it didn't happen? It happened. 

Gradually, through all my radical changes, I started to accept the girl in the mirror. She wasn't perfect. She had acne. She had too-small ears. Her eyebrows never cooperated. But she was all I was going to get.

By the time I started college, I was fed up with being fed up with myself. My makeup routine was set in stone by this point and I executed it religiously every single day with precision. I struggled to find friends because I struggled to feel good enough to be someone's friend. But a dear friend of mine finally convinced me to be her model for her photography project. I relented reluctantly because I almost never liked pictures of myself.

I waited to see the pictures anxiously. When they finally appeared on facebook, I considered not even looking at them, afraid that they would confirm that I should never ever be photographed. I finally got up the never to look."I look... pretty," I quietly admitted to myself, alone in my dorm room. Because, sure, the photos were a little edited, and yes, my friend was an expert at framing me in amazing light, but darnit if I didn't look good. It was the first time I'd ever considered that I wasn't some kind of terrible freak of nature who needed to be covered in make up constantly to maintain the image of averageness. It was a turning point. It gave me the push I needed to realize that the bigger problem with how I looked was my own perception, not my reflection.

One of the pictures. Yeah, girl. Work it.

It's been about a year since the fateful photo shoot and I think I've made enormous strides on the path to self-acceptance, and, ultimately, self love.

And yes, I still fight with my skin, but it's gotten better. And yes, I still wear makeup. And yes, I still have days when I feel insecure or unattractive or bloated, but I work through them. I can afford nicer makeup now, the kind that's smooth and looks more natural. I enjoy my makeup rituals, painting my face more like an artist embellishing their artwork and less like a 13-year-old trying to mask her entire existence in gray foundation. I still change my hair, but less frequently and radically, and it's gotten longer as I've gotten healthier.

But the girl in the mirror, I love her more these days. Her eyes are sharp and clear and her lips are pink and soft from 19 and a half years of laughing, kissing, yelling, and being gnawed on when she's stressed. I see much more in her than a lack or surplus of certain features. I see strength and courage and heart. I see a survivor and a friend and an artist. I see her for her.

And she's me. I'm me. And that's a good thing.

On the Mend

Hey, guys. It's been... gosh... how long has it been?

I went a little AWOL for a bit. And I'm sorry. I've been trying to write but it doesn't always...work. I don't know how to explain it other than I get this weird selective writer's block where I can write for hours unless I try to blog. Maybe it's something akin to stage fright? I don't know.

What have I actually been doing? I changed jobs, I bought some cute boots, saw some doctors, moved, discovered a little playground across from my house, journaled (a lot), cut my hair, dyed my hair, blew half (give or take... mostly give) my paycheck at the new Ulta, got obsessed with Breaking Bad, and started regularly using moisturizer.

So, no, I haven't been lounging on the beach or anything. I've been busy...ish.

I'm trying really hard to get back to blogging because I actually do enjoy doing this, but in the meantime, here is one of my billion expertly crafted Spotify playlists. (Did you know you could add playlists to blog posts? This is so cool.)

Anywho, I'll be posting again soon (I hope.)

Enjoy.

Update

It's been a long time, and for that I apologize.

What you have to understand is that my life has been in a near constant state of turmoil and I am just now getting back into a "normal" routine. So I guess it's time for a lightning round of...

What the Heck I've Been Doing this Past Month

1. I took my finals around the middle of April. Finals are awful, but they brought my first year of college to a close, which felt pretty good, I guess.

2. I moved out my my apartment, which was a hellish experience. I hate, hate, hate packing in a way that I can't fully explain without sound effects, facial expressions, and falling on the ground crying. I think that in the two day period between finishing finals and moving out, I said more curse words that I had in my entire life up to that point. I also had to do a top-to-bottom deep-clean of the apartment, which involved spraying more chemicals into small, poorly ventilated spaces than can be healthy.

Highlights, for your amusement: Me, running around the apartment in a bight pink bra and soccer shorts, screaming at my (recently stubbed) toe when my roommates were both still taking finals; Me, crying in my closet because I was sweating too much and it was making me mad; And me, finally walking out if that blasted apartment for the last time, thinking, "I am literally sweating Windex."

3. I moved back home for the next 8 months. It's been a transition, but things are looking good so far. I spent the whole first week sleeping (because MEMORY FOAM MATTRESS), and the second week job-hunting.

4. I got a job at a toy store! I start training tomorrow, so let's all hope that goes well. I've already freaked out a few times and I haven't even started yet... Hmmm...


Anyway, that's just a brief update. I have lots of wonderful posts on deck that should be posting in the next few weeks. Thanks for sticking with me! I love you guys!

The Greatest Fear

There's that quote that's thrown around all the time.

Something about how what we fear most in not failure, but, in fact, our own majestic, glowing potential to do good and be good and vanquish our own weaknesses.

And yes, perhaps that is valid for some people. Maybe one of you harbors a deep-rooted terror of your own excellence. If that is your cross to bear, your own brand of hamartia, then it is real to you. I'm not trying to discount that.

But for me, my shining potential is a million miles away from my greatest fear. More pressing fears include spiders (and any possible spider mutations allowing them to fly), tight, crowded, and/or loud spaces, enduring a Russian prison sentence, accidentally joining a gang, the candiru and the myths surrounding it, getting lost in a city at night, sharks, riptides, people who lurk, any situation that would cause me to be portrayed as a victim on an episode of Law & Order: SVU (which is a great show, but also kind of terrifying), and having to repeat high school.* 

In the grand scheme of things, I think fear of greatness falls somewhere between my fear of choking on a mini-marshmallow while drinking hot cocoa and contracting rabies from a rabbit bite. 

So, no, not a big fear of mine. 

My biggest fears are the stuff of cliches, yet I wonder sometimes if things become cliche and over-used and mocked because they're actually essential human truths that we're too scared to admit plague us because they're embarrassing. Because they reveal too much of our gooey centers and put dents in our glossy, scared-of-our-own-perfection topcoats. 

Isn't everyone scared of being alone? Scared of turning out to be tragically insignificant? Scared of losing what they have?

Hasn't everyone, at some point, laid in bed contemplating how small they are and how infinite the universe is and how totally unfathomably minuscule they are in the grand scheme of things?

Regardless of religion or level of devoutness, we all, at some point, allow ourselves to wonder what happens when we die. What if, by some tragic turn of events, this really is all there is and death is really the end? What if we all end, with the crisp finality of a lobbed-off ponytail, and end up 6-feet-under with no way out?

These are the fears of madmen and heretics, the fears of kings and soliders... the fears of the human condition.

We want to matter. We want to be relevant. We want to be unforgettable. We want, we want, we want. We spend our lives, from our first breath to our last, wanting.

My greatest fear, I suppose, is that no one will be willing to look up from their wanting long enough to see me, really see me, and say, "I see you. I need you. And you're enough."

And I guess I'm also scared that I'll be too consumed in my own wanting to do that to someone else.

I do not fear my potential to be great. I fear my potential to love and be loved. We all do.

So we face that fear everyday.

We learn to look past wants as we decide to see others as we so desperately need to be seen. We love, not because it is easy, gentle, or painless, but because it is something we need. We love because we know the glittering paradoxes of the human condition and know that acceptance is the one thing that cause ease the nausea when the glitter goes to our heads. We love because we are human and because we know we must face our fears.

We love because we are scared, but also because it is the one thing that seems to make us feel safe.

We love, we love, we love.