2 truths and a lie.

remember that game, two truths and a lie?

I think it's one of those "let's get to know each other" things that camp counselors or trip leaders or michael scott would try to do to get a group of people to "break the ice" or get to know each other.

i decided that i want to play that with you guys today.

except, usually, in "TTAAL", you have to think of three stories (two which are true, one which is a lie) and tell them to the group, and then the group has to try to guess which one is a lie.

I'm not gonna make you guys guess.

1. Truth: I used to have friends

I used to consider myself a fairly "outgoing", extroverted person. I used to (by the time i was in 6th grade or so) have a fairly stable group of friends. I would walk into school every day with the basic knowledge of where I belonged, and the reassurance that there would, indeed, be people there who were at least slightly happy to see me on any given day.

this guy's always happy to see me. i'm his best ball-thrower.

This year has been a roller coaster, to say the least. Last week was my one-year 'anniversary' of going into treatment (for the last time), and kind of a big milestone.

I used to consider my social skills to be one of my biggest strengths. In essays that I might have to write about myself for various applications, etc, I would always write that i could be happy anywhere, as long as I had friends, and that I always had a way of finding friends.

I was never, per se, in the popular group at my school, but by the time i was in high school i never really minded. A lot of my self-confidence came from my ability to rely on  the fact that i was generally well-liked and sociable, and I usually thought of myself as, among other things, a good friend.

2. Truth: None of the above is true, not anymore. 

(it's okay i didn't break the game- that's why i wrote in the past tense!)

In the past year i: went into treatment, began my recovery, learned a heck of a lot about myself, ate, left treatment, started this blog, had a summer internship, started with a therapist (for REAL this time), learned to bake, started my 2nd shot at Junior year, and then subsequently had a total meltdown while seemingly floating above water (or snow) for what seems like a very long time (i'm pretty sure i'm still just floating).

That's a lot of stuff.

Here's a picture to give your mind a break

i forgot to mention that i've also begun a slight love affair with online shopping,
particularly Gilt Groupe. I bought myself this bracelet last week. mmmm. 

 Okay, back to me.

One particularly profound thing that has happened to me this year is that my whole outlook, being has seemed to change in terms of my friends, etc. I used to have friends. I told you that.

When i returned to school this year, it was made pretty clear fairly quickly that those friends were no longer going to be a big part of my life, for whatever reasons. I set out to find new friends.

That has proved to be really, really hard. So hard in fact, that i was about to give up, until I met C.

C is pretty cool. She's new this year too, but also slightly different from the other nyc prep-school (not to be confused with THIS awful television show, although i do[unfortunately] know some of the cast)kids in my class. See, C just got back from spending two years in a boarding-house in Holland. I kind of was drawn to her cause she seemed more worldly & less-dumbly-teenagerish than the other kids. We became friends.

one of my infamous B&N stacks lately. I bought a few, and will certainly share the deets once i 'dig in' :)

Recently, C became friends with a few other girls in our class, let's call them A and G. A and G and super cool. I've always kind of admired G. She's a little intimidating but pretty nice, and totally the prettiest girl in our school (imho)

I got a little nervous. C is my friend. And my only (real, female) friend (at school), if we're being honest here. What if she ditched me? Would i really have to resign myself to spending the next two years being that weird girl who walks around with her earphones in all the time? *shudders*

Then today, something happened, and i'm going to share it with you.

I'm pretty sure that i got royally ditched.

Yup, that's right. 

Gossip girl/skins/whatever teenage-high -school- drama -series -you- want -to- insert-in- here- style.

ouch, right?

Here, i'll tell you the story. Today after school, i went to find C to see if she was ready to leave. We always walk to the subway together and catch up on our days. She was sitting with A. They were planning to go hang out for a bit and then go over to a museum or something. I joined in the conversation and pretty soon it seemed like it would be alright, that i could go too (everything is unspoken, obviously. Aint you ever been in high school?)

 G comes over. She joins in. The four of us are making plans and everything seems okay until all of a sudden they decide they each want to split and go home and do work. On a friday afternoon. okay...

it's decided that we'll do that and then meet up tonight and go out for a little bit and then tomorrow and then go to the museum tomorrow, instead. Good game plan. We all walk out of school and part ways.

mug of tea, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Larabar & the sunrise.

then, a few hours ago, C texts me and says she didn't realize but she can't do tonight because her parents had tickets to a show that she forgot about. Fair.

Then i texted her to say i didnt want to feel like i was inviting myself to their 'date' or whatever tomorrow, is she sure it's alright with A & G ? She texts me back saying that's not happening anymore either, she needs to be with her grandma tomorrow.

oh.

C never stays home all weekend. I know this about her. I definitely was unwanted.

I got ditched. Royally.

phew. that was a long saga, no? i feel like i'm back in high school again...  

3. Lie: I'm okay.

I'm really sick of pretending to me, to C, to everyone that i'm fucking okay all the time. I'm not fucking okay. I'm not. All of this sucks. so much. I used to be happy and have friends and be comfortable.

My biggest worry when i went to school in the mornings used to be whether or not i should have studied for that physics final (as it should be), not whether or not i'll have someone to sit with at lunch.

And drama like today, well, i'm fucking sick of it. I wish (i think) that people would just reject me to my face, instead of going about it in a roundabout way.

Maybe, you say, i've interpreted this whole instance wrong, maybe C really does have to watch the game with her grandma tomorrow, maybe i'm being overly sensitive.

Maybe. Maybe i am.

I hope i am.

But that's not the point.

The point is that i'm no longer myself. I don't feel like myself.

I'm anxious all the time and nervous constantly. My social skills have totally regressed to back when I was in 5th grade and thought that having the highest pony-tail is what made someone cool.

I recently looked up the symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder, with the fear that i might have developed it. I never used to be anxious about anything.

 Notice that the only "tag" about moods on over there on the right ------------------------------------------->

is "depression", i used to be the opposite of anxious.

i'm sick. stayed home yesterday. made myself pancakes & tea for breakfast. YUM.

EDIT.

while i was in the middle of writing this saga of a post, my friend B called me. 

we just talked for an hour , 15 minutes and 43 seconds. 

i just told her everything. and feel so much better. and like at least i have a friend.

i'm going to post this anyway though, because i feel like this blog could use a kick of reality and real emotion on it. so here goes.

i'm hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

i'll buy you a cupcake if you made it all the way through this post. seriously.

<3

rose

Five facts to break up a self-pity party

i had a terrible day today.

ever have one of those days where just everything goes wrong?

this was one of those days.

First of all, it was 19 degrees out. Not a promising start. 

I have no clothes. Dont ya hate that?

I wore jeans that i hate and make me feel awful, with a dumb sweatshirt that doesn't even fit.

(How can a sweatshirt not fit? I have no freaking idea how, but it just didn't, k?)

Then, i met with my college counselor for the first time and got my PSAT's back. 

This is the third time i have taken them. And i got 17 points lower than i did last year, when i actually did really well.

Apparently i got stupider. 

The PSAT's don't matter, i know. 

It's just that i felt like an idiot. How do you do significantly worse on a test the third time you take it? (And aren't i supposed to do better now that i'm, ya know, eating???)

Next i nearly failed a chemistry test.

All the while, i was tugging at my clothes and cursing myself for picking the worst body image outfit EVER. 

I went to my Latin class and was publicly humiliated (in a class made up completely of my ex-friends) because i had forgotten my book. The teacher said i was "shy" and "too quiet" in his comments that just got sent in the mail. Perhaps there's a reason i don't speak up more???

I took the long way home because i wanted to stall time until my mom answered her phone because i wanted her to come meet me for coffee, or at least at a store so i could try to pick out new jeans.

***I interrupt this self-pity party to show you a boring picture of delicious study sustenance from last night. I call this Lynn Chen style. (lynn, if you perchance read this- Don't hate me, i'm not a creep i promise, i just felt i was channeling you with this photo ;) ***

***back to rose wallowing***

After standing in the cold for ten minutes, she said she couldn't come (understandably, it was cold and she had just gotten inside to our warm, delicious apartment).

I then tried to go to said store by myself and asked the woman to check the balance of a gift card i got  for my birthday last month, so i could know how much money i could spend.

She looked up at me and said there were zero dollars on it.

I asked her to check again, because i hadn't touched it since i took it out of the card.

She repeated that there was no money on it. 

I was totally unsurprised and just shrugged and walked out because, really, it seemed natural that something like that would happen on the kind of day i was having. Right?

I then started crying and when my tears froze on my face decided that i should just hail a cab and go home.

Most of the things that happened today to make me feel so shitty are things that i can't really describe.

That's why i was a little reluctant to write about this, because i fear that the above list is pathetic and makes me sound like a whiny, wimpy complainer with no backbone.

The truth of it though is that most of the things that made me cry today were merely sideways glances, no glances at all, intonations in peoples' voices, or things that i said to myself in my head.

School is still really hard. It's painful to watch some of the people who used to be my best friends walk down the hallway and pretend i don't exist, just because i'm a junior now and they don't have time for me. It's also really painful to stand in the middle of a crowded room and feel awkward and like i have no one to talk to. Today was just one of those days. I'm not used to being this girl. It sucks.

Things will get better, they always do. 

I just needed to acknowledge the crappy-ness of this day, and everything that came with it. And how much i am sick of high school and enraged by the fact that my peers are going off to college and that i'm stuck a year behind (in a place that i already felt too old for in the first place) just trying to make it through second by second.

Because i am in a better mood tonight, now that i have had time to relax (and go to dinner with my momma) i thought (before i go because i really need to study for my math test!) that i'd share 

five random facts with you.

1. There is no plural for the word series.

I was trying to write "One of my favorite ways to procrastinate is watching tv series(ES) " but of course that didn't make sense and after looking it up i found out that there really is no way to say that sentence in a nice -sounding way. (Ironically this was the first part of the video that i shared two posts ago. And i just ran into this problem today!)

2. The official definition of a Club Promoter (according to Urban Dictionary) :

n.; one employed by a nightlife venue, e.g. a bar, lounge, or club, whose purpose is to increase the hype of the venues (for nascent venues) and maximize the clientele (for more established venues) - that is, attract a wealthy, good-looking, and extroverted crowd - by distributing complimentary passes and contact information at places where such clientele may be found, such as outside a competing venue during closing; the promoter usually gets paid in proportion to the revenue earned during the night he/she was promoting, generally not as lucrative as a bartender, but better than a bouncer; over 80% of promoters are male

I looked this up today because i have never known what a club promoter "really" is. I know people who have 'friends' who are club promoters (in fact, i know a girl who is dating one...no comment) but usually they're just random sketchy (rich) 20-somethings who flirt with anything that moves and are likely to give you the creeps just by breathing near you, and then probably ask you if you wanna do a line. 

3. I have a blonde streak in my hair that i have had since birth. No one ever believes me at first when I tell them because it looks unnatural next to my dark brown that is completely sans highlights, but it's true! (in second grade, we had to make up Native American names for ourselves (go figure) and mine was Golden Streak- i thought i was oh so clever!)

4. i have a dog. His name is willy. He is crazy. i.e., crazier than any one of you or me. Most likely his doggy diagnosis is paranoid schizophrenia with some major hyperactivity issues. You've never seen anything like it, even if you think you know the craziest dog in the world, you don't. I do. He's in a rare moment of sleep under my bed right now. Trust me. He's the craziest. No, really.

5. Oscar Wilde's last words (spoken from his deathbed) were 
"Either this wallpaper goes, or I do".

Ever since reading Looking for Alaska by John Green, i've had a love for famous last words. This was always the best, i think!

Hope you all had a much, much better day than i did! Thanks for letting me whine, and sorry if the self-pity was annoying, but i think we all deserve it sometimes :)

xo 

rose
p.s. the best part of my day??? I had such a NYC moment- i a taxi going home, the cabbie turned around and asked me if i was okay. 
so. cute.

use your words & eat your food

DON'T eat your words and use your food. k?


I wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. Your words helped me more than you know. 
I've hopped back on the recovery bandwagon and am feeling much better because of it.
I'll post more later, after i go out to dinner & hopefully write my religion essay but i wanted to share this poem that i wrote with all of you. 
I had to write a poem based on Allen Ginsberg's Howl for Carl Solomon for my english class.
If you haven't read it, Howl is a great poem. Ginsberg writes about the suffering he experienced and it speaks to the "outcasts" of American society (those who are more focused on love and meaning in life, rather than material "success") and he does it beautifully. We had to write a poem "to someone who understands" (you). I wrote to to a dear friend of mine who i met in treatment. I changed the name for the sake of her privacy, but i thought you all might appreciate it.

Whisper

For Sarah Halper

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by hunger,

Fakeness, lonesome, searching for something beautiful.

Abandoned and unloved, they paint their mouths shut with silence.

Whispery silhouettes run down the sidewalks of insanity,

And stop to glare at grotesque fun-house mirror projections

Of fat and tired limbs,

Glistening with the sweat of hate.

Shells of women who sit on concrete

Smoking endless cigarettes, burning up their lungs

As payback for continuing to swallow air

Organs stubbornly gripping to life

Even when a fragile heart patters like early rain

It beats at the wrong

Moments.

They damn their stupid hearts

For beating at all.

They drink whole pots of coffee

Black liquor, free of sins.

Poured into sad paper cups

During early hours of black mornings

When the rest of the population

Finds solace in quiet minds, minds that

Have not forgotten how to rest, to dream.

Sleepless with self-loathing and malnutrition

They grip fire-hot mugs

Blue-boned fingers, numb and cold

Sipping freedom liquid.

Girls who spend all the seconds

Of melancholy

Photographing mental x-rays

Of beauty beyond their grasp.

Who look at dirt and see holiness,

God and redemption incarnate, sad skeletons.

Twenty thirty and forty-somethings

Trapped in the pain of adolescence

Who never found their way out

Of uncertainty and un-belonging.

Stuck in a sea of mental agony

Riding waves of want

Trampled by harsh, un-caring waters

Hitting the ocean floor over and over again

Choking on salt, gasping for breath

They flail their arms in vain

And No-one sees them drowning.

They hunger for love and affection

Skip lunch, dine on crackers and wine.

Or gorge themselves on cakes of saints,

Stuff themselves to the gills with counterfeit care.

The rumble of their bellies, the pangs in bed at night

Fails to make loneliness seem less Encompassing.

Sarah, I’m with you at midnight

When the crack of light dawns on your kitchen floor

And all before you, you see breads and soups and chocolate

The beginnings and end of your love.

I’m with you in Colorado,

When you play houseguest as your Norwegian father

A connoisseur of disaster

Offers you the finest cheeses,

Not knowing that all you wanted was a second glance.

I’m with you when you read my words

And your mind insists they don’t apply to you

That nobody knows you, that you are not one of us.

I’m with you in Los Angeles

Where hippies disguise themselves as buddahs

And bow down to vegan, soul-less gods,

Chanting the words that will save you.

I’m with you in Santa Monica

Where you hide from yourself

And look to better women of the past

Who might teach you how not to need, not to be so much.

I’m with you inside heavy- closed doors,

When you cry salty tears,

Asking anyone to make you less.

I’m with you in Agoura Hills

Where hypocrisy and beauty made us sick to our stomachs

And we were terrified, tranquilized, frozen in time.

What is beauty? You will ask.

Beauty is the warmth of your cheek

As you embrace my shaking body.

Beauty is the flash of your teeth when you laugh.

It’s the crackle of the fire near my chilled feet.

Beauty eludes us, dear Sarah,

In our search for something unconditional.

It’s a receding horizon, a firefly we’ll never catch.

A glow we can only see in front of us

Never to be held, contained within a see-through jar.

If beauty is love

And love is food

Well then, we are screwed, you say.

I bite my tongue before I suggest

That perhaps, you should come for supper.

You will never be pretty

i'm really really trying to work on my procrastination issues.

it's a long story and its a habit i've had for pretty much ever but i talked a lot about it in therapy yesterday and i really want tonight to be "good", so i'm not going to spend a lot of time online (hopefully).

However, i saw this over at cynosure, and just HAD TO SHARE IT WITH YOU ALL.

Seriously. 

If you do nothing else tonight, please, watch this video.