You've always been a melancholy child, Mad.

It's raining. 

I look out the car window and watch the kaleidoscope pieces of the sky stuck to the glass surface. The drops manipulate light into shades of black and silver, a thousand reflected worlds.

I see life race past me.

I grip my coffee tightly, trying to absorb the heat, trying to turn myself into steam. I am ready to dissolve. I am tired. 

My mother speaks softly, the boys are asleep in the back. She's talking about music. We always talk about music in my family. Even though we don't talk often while I'm away, and we don't see each other that much, we always have music. 

Tonight John Rzeznik is singing with the other Dolls. 

In my family, you don't talk about feelings. You don't talk about what's bothering you, don't even hint if you're upset. We value logic in our household which is the enemy of emotion, according to my family. I wasn't allowed to cry when I was little, and if I cry now, it's awkward and a mess. I think about the pain I've gone through and what I've had to survive because I'm related to this family. I love them. I hate them. I ache for normalcy in a family.

You've always been a melancholy child, Mad.

My mother told me this once, when I first came home from school as a Freshman. I had been ranting about the stupidity of others (not surprising) and how I feel so different from everybody else. My mom told me stories of how I'd read in a room full of kids my age because "Mom, their problems are stupid and they frustrate me. Do I really have to go play with them?" 

I was a strange child. 

My mom would find me outside sometimes, just sitting in the rain, palms stretched out to the sky. She'd have to make me stop reading to do my homework. Sometimes I wouldn't speak for days. 

In my family, you hide your emotions otherwise you get beaten back into line. Negative feelings aren't allowed, there is no space for pain. You straighten up, little soldier, and march on. 

There is no room in my family for failure. 

I look in the dimming light at my mother while she talks. She talks with her hands and it makes me smile. We're a lot alike. I see the wrinkles on her face that mark her hard life. I know her physical scars but I've never seen her emotional ones. She's beautiful, my mother is. She's lost, I think. I'm lost too. We've both lived in a house with a monster. We've both gotten it wrong once or twice. She's gotten a lot better since we no longer live with him. I can see her healing.

We still don't share emotions. My mom and I know that it hurts too much. But I don't hate her anymore.  I don't blame her anymore. It's unspoken. 

We don't share emotions in my family, we just share music. And it's beautiful music. 

This is My Family. 

~

Things I'm thankful for today:

1. Kitchens

2. Living rooms

3. A really, really big bed.

Nameless Red Shirts

It's always when I'm sitting in the cafeteria that I collect research and data about people and how they work. 

I love people. I'm fascinated by them. I love observing them. But the problem is I always feel like an outsider, an observer, a researcher. I'm always on the outside staring into the souls of people that don't know that I know who they are on the inside. I get a lot more than people think I do. I'm loud, I'm energetic, but I see everything. 

One of the most interesting things to study is body language. How people interact with each other. The micro expressions and the minute shifts in posture. It's incredible. 

Hundreds of faces. 

Thousands of expressions.

A million emotions. 

An ocean of people. 

And I'm the asshole with a snorkel and taking notes.

~

The cafeteria is one of those places that I both love and hate. It's a watering hole for the masses. You can see monkeys chattering, parrots screeching, birds preening, and the strange mating rituals of the stereotypical conservative Christian. Between class periods the place is quiet, save for a few lone hyenas that sniff around the remnants of lunchtime. During the busy hours, the place is a hive of mediocrity. I don't understand what people talk about. It all feels so insubstantial.  

I like to sit in the same place for hours and try to figure out what it is about the place that is so intriguing. What can I learn? 

I've learned that you can sit in a place surrounded by people and still feel alone. It's like there's an invisible barrier between me and them and if I touch it I might die. You can talk with people, you can laugh with people because that's what you're supposed to do. But you can't make yourself feel a part of it. 

No matter how hard you try. 

~

I've decided that I'm never ever going to be able to feel typical. Yes, I know, we're all unique snowflakes, just like everyone else is a unique snowflake. You can insert a Fight Club reference here. 

I've decided I'm too driven for this nonsense. This bullshit of small talk and social media and "Facebook official" and mixed signals and people always wanting something to make their trivial lives mean something bigger. 

I want my life to be bigger, so I'll make it so and I won't accept anything less. 

I understand that life is hard. Don't misunderstand, I know how hard life can be. People will crush the fire out of you if you let them. Don't let them. We are born with certain things in our life that will always hold us back if we let them. I see so many people that let people and things keep them back for reasons as stupid as sentimentality. 

Cut the cord. Take the leap. Crash through the window. Take the plunge. Barrel through the fence. Look challenges in the face and say fuck off. You have everything to lose. Do it anyway. If it's important enough then it won't matter. 

Let life shape you, not shatter you. 

You want to live for something? Pick something. Whatever you want. But live for it. 

I am the captain of my own fate.

~

This is why I will never fit with people. I love people. I value people. People are beautiful, even if they're all wearing redshirts and are nameless extras. I'm a contradiction like that. But I'm living for something even if no one will ever understand. 

I accept that I will always be the person pressing my face against the glass, looking at a planet with a strange population, wondering what it feels like to feel. Sometimes I can't make myself get out of bed because of the ache in my heart that tells me that nobody cares. Sometimes I am so in love with people that I let them tear me apart on the inside. But all of the time I'm working for something. That's how I keep living.

This is the Spock Doppelganger.

~

Things I'm thankful for today:

1. Sweatshirts from Washington, D.C.

2. Frank Sinatra

3. Relatable Star Trek characters

Some of us want to be abused.

Sweet dreams are made of these. Who am I to disagree?

I don't really know how to start out this post without sounding like an asshole or a whore. But I've decided that I don't care, so I guess I'll just start out by saying that I am a touch-based person. I interpret love in three ways: acts of service, words of affirmation, and touch. I need help, I need words, I need skin. Let me tell you why. I'm going to tell you why because I've decided that this invisible person that I write to should know more about the strange brain that I am cursed with.

Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics is probably one of my favorite songs. Not because it's particularly mind blowing as an overall song but because of it's subtle, poignant words. But if you were to take away my unique, personality defining traits all you would be left with is this song.

I've traveled the world and the seven seas. Everybody is looking for something.

I'm the kind of person who can easily get wrapped up in her own head. I overanalyze, fixate on projects and goals, and spend hours in a day contemplating big ideas that I will never be able to accomplish. I fall in love with ideas and with concepts. This means it's hard for me to engage completely with people, seeming withdrawn. I sometimes feel like I should feel guilty for seeing the world bigger, seeing past the individuals. 

I once had someone I loved scream in my face that I am detached. He was the person I was going to marry. 

I'm afraid he's right.

Some of them want to use you. Some of them want to be used by you.

All day I help other people. I don't say no and I always show up early. I don't talk about myself. I am detached. I am numb. People only talk to me because they need me. Promotions, homework, networking, influence, relationships, feelings. I help them. I don't mind. I like being useful. I like being efficient. I am cold. I value logic. I get shit done. I like being needed. I don't tell people what I need because then I will appear weak. Everybody needs something from me. I get overwhelmed and shut down. I let myself be used. I don't care. I will always help if you ask for it because I love you.

I have to force myself to stop thinking that people don't care, but it's hard to not think that when you sit by yourself a lot. 

It goes like this: Care about people. > People betray you. > No available outlet. > Numbness

Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.

As I mentioned, I'm a touch person. Not not in the sense that I'm perpetually DTF, but I use it to bring me back to reality. When I get it, I ground myself, I am able to care for people. Oh, this person is touching me, therefore they must love me and therefore I can love them. This makes me more susceptible to being taken advantage of. 

When skin hits skin, there is no longer a barrier between us. I can soak up your emotions and I can share mine. My walls come down and I am vulnerable. I feel the energy wash over me and I absorb it through every pore of my body. 

By touch I don't mean having sex with every person I want to connect with. Sex can be a huge part of it depending on the situation. But I'm also talking about sharing each other's space, each other's skin. Fingertips tracing, arms holding, hair stroking, all the cheesy shit. And if I'm deprived of it enough, when my tank is empty, that's when it can get dangerous. 

If I am numb enough, and I am energy depleted enough, I go crazy. 

That's when I need abuse. I need bruising and biting and gasping for breath because I need something to make me feel. I don't even need to know the person very well. 

It's not a good thing, I know. It's just how I am and I don't really know what to do about it. 

It's more than just being stir crazy. It's more than just being horny. It's needing to trick myself into thinking that someone cares. I'm a drug addict waiting for my next hit. It's pathetic, but we knew that. 

On the plus side, what is great about me being able to detach is I make a great one nighter. 

I will forever and always be the girl next door.

Sweet dreams are made of these. 

I can't remember the last time I had a good dream. I can't remember the last time I spent time with someone just because they felt like it. I just have to wait until I'm around people like me, and trust me, I'm counting down the days. 

There isn't an encouraging or overarching message to this post. This is my brain being spilled over. 

This is a safe place. This is my place. I can do or say whatever the fuck I want here and I cherish that. 

This is the Confession. 

~

Things I'm thankful for today:

1. Stuffed hippos that smell like cigarette smoke.

2. Boxers

3. Crime shows. 

Oh, this is the beat of my heart.

What's your favorite song? Your absolute favorite song.

I'm not talking about your current "jam," or something off the greatest hits album of a band that you tell people is your old classic rock favorite in order to appear complex. 

I'm talking about music that feeds you; music that you need. 

I mean the bonafide, whoops-I'm-sorry-am-I-crying-all-over-your-sheet-music type of shit. Sound that skin can't contain. The intangible emotion married to a "higher revelation," to quote Beethoven. The music of insane strumming and drum rolling and heart beating and nervous sweating and a riff that you could kiss. Lyrics that bind themselves around your limbs and you wear them as armor. The music that unnerves you and then you can't sleep.

I'm talking about the kind of music that wails on your heartstrings.

There's a beatnik I know that once described the human heart as an instrument that can be played. He's a musician and understands more about the world than I think he realizes.

Heartstrings that can be played until your fingers bleed.

I know it to be true: There is music that can shatter you.

~

This is not to be confused with a music junkie. Some wisp of a person who gets high off the dirt in a guitar. A buzz that lasts until the song ends and then you simply click "Shuffle." These types base it on adrenaline from the "epicness" of a bass drop or a line in a song that "totally describes how I'm feeling right now, man." There is some overlap, but make sure that you get the distinction straight. This is the line between mood music and soul music. I'm not saying it's bad, in fact, I'm a junkie too, so don't misinterpret.

Mood music is for sharing. It's a status update. Useful but not essential. Because we have to face the fact that no one else, no matter how many times you try, will be able to get the same feeling that you get about your brand of soul music. No one person is the same and no one person can be disturbed by music the same way.

Soul music means hitting the repeat button for the rest of your life. It means writing the lyrics on paper, tables, desks, walls, body parts. It's trying not to fall to your knees in the middle of the hall. It means crying because you can't sleep. It reverberates against your eyelids. It infests and infects. It's power.

~ 

Soul music doesn't feel good. It feels right. It's the manifestation of your emotions into something that makes you learn something new about yourself every time the song starts over. It doesn't have to be the whole song. It can be a chorus or a line. It can be the beat or the bounce. Any element of a song that makes you bleed. It's an obsession. It's sadistic and alien but is comforting and natural. It's inherent. 

It's greater than anything we could ever fathom. 

You may think I'm a lunatic. Well, I am. I'm absolutely, fucking insane. But I hope that you, one day, can experience what I'm failing to describe. I hope that you can find the music that leaves you breathless. And if you already have...then I am so glad that I am not alone.

This is the Feel Good in My Soul.

~ 

Things I am thankful for today:
1. Iced coffee
2. Brand new socks
3. Inspirational gingers

Nobody wants to hear me sing about tragedy

I wanna scream "I love you!" from the top of my lungs, but I'm afraid that someone else would hear me.

It always starts with a smile.

Just a simple look and your world shatters and you've been messed up in the greatest way possible.

I've decided that this moment would be the thing I could encapsulate into a worry stone. It's an Irish tradition, worry stones, they're smooth and flat and you keep them in your pocket to bring you back to a safe place when you're anxious. When you get fidgety and nervous you can slip your hand into your pocket and rub your thumb against the surface and you know that everything is going to be alright. I used to have one but it broke in half from me using it so much. I'm a boss like that.

I want to imbed an image into a stone so I can keep it in my pocket and summon it at will, that way, I'd be able to see the image whenever I wanted instead of stealing a glance at the owner of the smile whenever he's around.

It's much less risky that way, I've decided.

~

You can only blame your problems on the world for so long before it becomes the same old song.

I don't understand myself. Like. At all. I overanalyze every type of relationship. I hyper focus and can't save myself from the tidal wave that will drown me within my own mind. I can't make myself stop and I just can't seem to pull myself out of the rip tide. (I am first and foremost a surfer so I apologize for the analogies.) And it's not until I've dragged myself out of the current and thrown myself into the sand of sanity and rolled in it and gotten some of it in my suit that I realize that I wasn't swimming: I was struggling. I realize that my surfboard of hope has been thrashed to pieces and bits of it are washing up on shore.

This struggle all starts with a fucking smile and it's not just any person that can give the smile that I'm thinking of.

It's confident, it's quirky, and it has just the perfect amount of I'm-up-to-no-good-but-you-like-it.

It's 1,000 watts and the electricity has been shot straight to my core. 

My brain short circuits, I catch my breath, and I'm messed up.

~

Judy Garland once sang a song called "Smile"

Smile though your heart is aching,
Smile even though it's breaking. 

Just a smile and my heart aches, it breaks.

I know that's not what the song is about, but those two lines are the lyrics my heartstrings play.

~

But I can't do anything about it. I am broken, I am shattered, I have pieces of me left under the couch that someone will probably vacuum up later.

I don't just want love. I have love. I am blessed by love. But I wonder when I'll be healthy enough to try this whole in-love-with-someone thing again. I crave touch and trust and taste and a hand slipped into back pockets when walking.

I am a cliche. 

I know it and I hate it. But it's the truth and if I don't speak the truth then what is the purpose of using words, glorious words, to try and describe an image to you?

I am confused. I am torn up. It's probably a sick joke.

I just want to let go, stop hiding, have someone be there because they want to be. Not because they feel obligated or because I'm a coworker or because it's the polite thing to do or to get in these jeans. But just because they love me.

I can't stop.

This is the Heart Bleeding.

~

Things I'm thankful for today:
1. Fall Out Boy song lyrics
2. Purple ties
3. The ability to order pizza without actually having to talk to a person.

Aww, he think's he's people...

Sometimes the complete and utter stupidity of people leaves me speechless. Not ignorance, not naivety, but stupidity. I'm typically a very talkative and obnoxious individual so when I am left without words you know that I'm either extremely angry or I simply don't have the energy to respond to your stupidity and/or overall bitchyness.

Why are people stupid?

This question plagues me every day, almost every hour.

Now, I'm going to preface this by admitting (the Earth shattering admission here) that I… wait for it ...don't know everything. (This is the part where you give up on life because nothing makes sense anymore.)

In fact, I'm not even sure that I know much of anything. The older I get and the more I learn the less I feel comfortable or solid in my understanding of the world. I am unnerved by knowledge.

…I'm also terrible at grammar.

However, some people don't have this struggle. In fact, I am convinced that the most complex struggle that the majority of people I run across on a daily basis is how to make the buzzing noise stop in the empty sphere of fat that resides between their ears.

But it's not even the people who are ignorant. They realize that they're ignorant because they simply don't try. The kind of irritatingly stupid I'm referring to is the kind of dumb that thinks it's smart. The kind of brain numbing, oh-my-god-how-are-you-able-to-breath-and-walk-at-the-same-time kind of simplistic that thinks it's people.

It's like when you see little dogs that wear sweaters and sits at the table because it's psychotic owner wasn't hugged as a child. The dog thinks it's people.

Awww, he thinks he's people. 

This is the kind of stupid to which I mean, the kind where the idiots think they're people.

I'm not questioning their humanity, I'm not questioning their ability to love and help others. I just simply don't understand how they can ask such dumb questions and then wait for someone to tell them that they're right. Because they're not right. They're hardly ever right.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that this person I cannot change. (Paraphrase)

This is Hypocrisy.

~

Things I am thankful for today:
1. Constitutional Law Homework and the Lochner era.
2. Leather jackets.
3. Watson who brings me Reese's in class.

An Attempt

Makes my week.

Makes me weak.

The world stops,

My heart pops.

He smiles.

The PEE Cycle

The Psychotic Extravert Emotion Cycle, otherwise known as the PEE Cycle, is a vicious spiral in which I have recently discovered that I have fallen victim to.

It all starts with a Friday.

For me, the scariest thing about the week is when the week ends and I don't have any place to go or anyone to see on a Friday night because I'm a busy college student and when I was a Freshman I only made friends with upperclassmen because they're smart and mature and I hate people my age because they don't know anything. So now, I have no friends because everyone graduated. (That's a lie. I have friends but they're not the closest of friends and I have to try a little harder.)

Anyway, the thought of being stuck in my tiny, concrete box that is supposed to serve as a dorm room feels like a microwave and I have to fight the urge to start trying to scratch off the ugly, tan paint (that will probably give me lead poisoning at the end of my college career) little by little while blasting music on repeat that screams about how we're here now and thus demanding entertainment.

I need a strait jacket to protect myself from innocent bystanders.

By midnight on Friday night I turn into a shell of the girl I thought I was. In the dark I sit and stir and stew and stare: no one likes me, no one wants to be my friend, I'm single and alone, I'm going to die alone because no one will ever love me, I blew my chance at love, I'll never get married, I'll never get to kiss someone ever again. On and on until it's just one word over and over that is repeated in my mind. Alone. 

Then it only takes something as little as someone uploading a picture of people that I used to call friends. It could be a status. It could be a text. It could be a sticky note I forgot in a notebook somewhere that says, "I will always love you"

I collapse onto my bed, hiding from social media, my computer, my phone, my reflection. Hidden under a thousand blankets and hoodies because I used to be a kleptomaniac and steal anything comforting from people who I wished would give them to me. Other people's boyfriends t-shirts, a blanket that an aunt made for a nephew, a hoodie that someone let me borrow because I'm perpetually freezing, all of these and more smother me like a burrito of sadness and self-pity.

I can do nothing but wait until the sun shows it's fucking obnoxious optimistic yet sadistic bastard face.

On Saturday I try to distract myself. Netflix binging, book reading, homework procrastinating, and killing zombies on an Xbox that won't tell anyone that I'm really playing on easy mode. The cafeteria is terrifying but because I'm broke and perpetually hungry, I go. I don't wash my hair, I don't put on makeup, and I wear the bulkiest hoodie I own. I look like I've never seen people before and that I might start growling at any moment. I respond to people through a series of grunts. Needless to say, I sit alone.

Saturday night I give in and give up trying to distract myself. I watch a dangerous cocktail of horror movies and cheesy romantic comedies while feeding myself chips and salsa and cold medicine in hopes I can finally sleep.

I can't.

By Sunday morning I am the definition of desperate. There's tortilla chip stuck in my hair and I check my phone every 3 seconds to see if someone has decided to spend time with me.

They don't.

Sunday afternoon I take a shower. I feel the desperation and isolation melt away. I am bright red after standing in the scalding water for an hour. I look at my wrinkly hands, sit down, and cry for another hour. Red and wrinkly, I emerge from the steam. I avoid mirrors. I start my homework.

By 3am I find myself tired for the first time all weekend.

I crash and burn hard. I wakeup too early to a Monday. Blessed Monday. On Monday I resume my life of an overachiever. I go to meetings before meetings and prep sessions before classes. I am on the run, I am all over campus, I am superwoman. I can fake it until I make it. I get caught up and overwhelmed by schedules and responsibilities and all I want to do is take a nap. I don't need to define myself by my relationship status or by how many friends I have. I can take on my future one baby step at a time. I can go the distance. I can quote Disney songs to make myself sound relatable.

I make it until Friday.

Then it starts over.

~

I need to learn to not define myself by my success or my failures. I need to not define myself by my relationships. There's only one relationship I should focus on.

I just don't know how to get there yet.

I don't know how to get to wholeness just yet.

This is the Admission.

~

Things I am thankful for today:
1. Skullcandy Earbuds
2. Coffee ice cream
3. People who tell me I'm full of shit.

Baby, get your life together

Sometimes when I'm sitting in the corner of the cafeteria alone, pretending to be mysterious when really no one wants to be my friend, I'll take a break from whatever profound book I'm reading to watch people.

I love watching people. 

I'm a big advocate of noticing the little things. One of my best friends has a tendency of calling me Sherlock because of it. I'm maddening in an evil genius kind of way and I like to look at the details of people. My friend is the Watson to my Sherlock and I love my Watson dearly. 

You can learn a lot about someone based on the tiny details. 

Sometimes when I'm watching people in the cafeteria, a girl whom I don't particularly care for will walk by, pretentiously proud, carrying a plate of salad that she's doctored up because her mother taught her how to eat healthy and make it yummy at the same time or some other adorable domestic backstory like that. I picture an image of a little girl with a mother (probably wearing matching aprons) helping her stir something "made from love" with a wooden spoon in a kitchen filled with light and laughter. It's endearingly nauseating. 

Said girl in the cafeteria will then gracefully slide into a plastic chair, look at her culinary creation the way a mother might look at her newborn babe, and delicately munch her food. She is a songbird, perched on a branch, tasting and relishing the healthy meal, eating like a lady and laughing at something clever a fellow bird has chirped from across the table. 

I will sit and look at this girl, no, this lady *snort* and think, now this girl has her life together. 

The girls that cook their food at the DIY station instead of going for pre made pizza. The girls that braid their hair in cute styles in the morning. The girls who have metal flowers on their keychains and know how to sew. The girls who have guys think they're sensitive and feminine and don't consider them a "bro"

The girls who will make great moms someday.

These chicks have their lives together. 

When I see couples who are respectful, know the expectations of the other, and are totally gonna be awesome parents. The couples who stay in on Friday nights to watch movies and discuss philosophy. The couples who write each other cute sticky notes and leave them in binders. The couples who kiss each other good bye like it's second nature. 

These assholes have their lives together. 

And then I look down at my plate of nothing but mashed potatoes and french fries because I hate cafeteria food and have the culinary skills of a 3 year old making mud pies and think to myself, I've got to get my life together. 

And I know in my heart that is a load of shit. I'll never be one of those people who "has their life together". What does that even mean? That there are certain people who are better than me because they are awesome at being dependable, or can cook, or can have a mature and healthy relationship? I've created this idea in my mind of what having it together looks like and that idea is a fucking lie. 

All it boils down to is me thinking that I need to be at a certain point in my life right now in order to be a success. I look around me and I see people so content to just exist, do the conventional thing, and then die. I can't help feeling that it's a waste. But I need to realize that it's not a bad existence. It doesn't mean they're better or worse than me. It doesn't mean that they won't help or influence people. They're just different than me. They've had a different life than me.  And that's okay. 

I have to live my day as a series of deadlines. A series of chunks of time to get through to the next checkpoint. If I don't, I get overwhelmed by the magnitude of my responsibilities. I have short deadlines as well as long deadlines. I just keep thinking to myself, if I can just complete task A by this time then I won't have any stress after the deadline has passed. But that doesn't work because by the time task A is completed I've added tasks B, C, D, and E to my list for the next deadline. It's exhausting but it gets shit done. 

I don't have my life together but I get shit done. 

I sit in my corner of the cafeteria and sing to myself the ballad of the overachiever. I selfishly think that I'm gonna be great one day. And if I do end up being great, awesome. If I'm not great, that's okay too. But I can't keep comparing myself to people that "have their life together". I can't help but feel we're supposed to be working for something better, for a bigger picture that not any one person should be able to grasp. Maybe these people feel just the same as me. Maybe I'm a weirdo who likes to do everything she possibly can because she can't sit still. But it doesn't matter, we're all beautiful. 

It's just hard to think that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. 

And I don't think I'll ever completely have my life together. 

This is the Ranting of a High Functioning Sociopath, not a Psychopath. 

I've done my homework.  

~

Things I'm thankful for today:

1. Potato based foods

2. Fuzzy socks

3. Biology major friends who won't let me sit by myself. 

Please leave your dignity at the door

I was once sitting in a psychology class in college when the professor asked the class, "What motivates you?"

People gave stereotypical answers: success, acceptance, approval. Amateurs, I thought.

"Power motivates me."

I shut my mouth, regretting immediately what I had just let slip. Now everyone will know I'm crazy AND ambitious. Not many people understand my ambition, and when people do find out they often get uncomfortable with it, they get uncomfortable around me because they assume that I will require them to match my ambition and my thirst for influence. 

~

Power. It's a scary concept. And then it becomes terrifying when you add the word "ultimate" in front of it. Ultimate power. 

One of the biggest fears I have is the feeling of being powerless. I like doing things for myself because that means they will get done and get done well. By assuming power and remaining in control, people are less likely to disappoint you.

Or so I had originally assumed. People are people. There is no normal. People will let you down, but people will surprise you. Don't give up on people.

I don't have a car on campus. This means I am forced to rely on other people if I need things. It's not always a struggle when I legitimately need things. But often times when I feel that the bubble of an overpowering, faith-crippling atmosphere is closing in around me and trying to crush any type of light I have left, I start clawing at the walls. 

What I wouldn't give to be able to just drive away. Not even forever, but just 10 minutes would be nice.

But I can't. 

But the feeling of wanting to do something that I can't has festered inside my stomach for years. I haven't always been able to stand up for the people I care about. I haven't been given a voice. I haven't been given a chance. I've been repeatedly told I can't.

I don't like being told "you can't" because I'm secretly 6 years old and like doing exactly what you tell me not to. What people don't realize is that when you tell me that I can't, in my mind, it really means "I don't believe in you." Call it warped, call it unhealthy. It's what happens. I am convinced I will never grow up.

But the frustration of not being able to go out for milk and chain smoke on the way whenever I want is so mind numbingly irritating that I find myself nearly wanting to peel off my own skin. I am a grownup (at least, I think I am) and if I want to fuck myself over by ingesting dairy products and give myself lung cancer, then dammit, I should be able to. 

But life doesn't work that way. And I will eventually kill myself working myself up over the things I can't do or the things I cannot change. 

I can't drive off-campus when I'm having a bad day.

I can't go get milk even though my doctor says it's bad for my skin.

I can't chain smoke out of my window.

I can't make him talk to me.

I can't pick up a pizza because I'm the only one who likes mushrooms on it.

I can't fast forward to graduation or at least to a part of my life where I have more going for me.

I can't fix my score on the LSAT even though I know it's all about the preparation.

I can't run away from life.

I can't fly.

Me feeling powerless is more than being able to steal 10 minutes of my day away from a place where I'm convinced is a time-warp of psychotic, brainwashed plebeians.   

It's about feeling like I can't change fate. Which I can't. Which is irritating. Which makes me want to peel off my skin. 

What I can do is hold the world with open hands. I can let the changes of everyday life wash over me, run past me. I can't let the good and the light soak into me. I can concentrate on the things I can change. I can ask for serenity. 

This is the Beginning.

~

Things I am thankful for today:

1. Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

2. Nyquil

3. A therapist that makes me make lists of what I am thankful for.

Hi, my name is- WHAT?! My name is- WHO?!

This is the part of the song where I say, "Hi, my name is *wikka wikka* Slim Shady."

Kidding.

My excuse for this blog is simply that "everyone else is doing it"

Kidding again.

But I've come to the realization that if everyone else is allowed to have a shitty blog then dammit so am I.

~

I'd like to say that I think that I have decent things to say. So, if you're reading this, I hope you think so too. And if not, that's okay. The world is beautiful because no one person thinks the same one thing at any one time.

I'm Mad. Nice to meet you, Internet. I like drinking good coffee, reading mind-blowing books, discussing controversial issues, pursuing justice, smoking American Spirits, and discovering God in odd places.

Yes, I'm one of those, but I didn't start out that way. Sometimes I speak in cliches and sometimes I just talk at walls.

The beauty of having a blog no one knows about is that I have absolutely nothing to prove to you. But if you are reading this and hate everything I've said thus far, that's okay. But just know that I love you. I have never met you and may never meet you but I am convinced with every fiber of my being that you are loved. Don't ever forget that you are loved, that you are precious, that you matter, and that I may have stolen some of these words from someone I no longer speak to. I am a hypocrite. I am insecure. I am a hot mess. I am 20 years old. I am Jack's raging bile duct.

A beloved professor once called me a "happy malcontent"

I'll take it.

This is the Introduction.