What I've done for love - Part 1

January 20

January has been gorgeous, but not without its issues. Big sis kicked me out of the house. It sucks to say that I'm not surprised. I know she just can't accept what I'm going through and it makes it hard to trust her. She says it makes her sad that I'm disappointing myself...but she's the one who let me down when I needed her. I guess it's a truce. Stress is a constant part of life- in the past 3 months, I lost my internship, I lost my boyfriend, I fell into a major depressive episode and if it weren't for my best friend, I wouldn't have had a place to stay...again. I could have made better decisions, but I've since stopped sabotaging myself because people have let me down too many times. I try not to think about it that way, but we do have responsibilities over people who love us. And I've never been short on love..if anything, I staved off all other expectations. But trust is impossible without certain boundaries, I'm not doing it to test anybody, but I can't rely on other people for my happiness anymore.

As for Will*, I've been going through the natural phases of leaving a relationship behind and I'm not broken by it. I met someone new and it makes me happy just to see the good in a human being again. My friendships have become really strong and the ones that haven't matured simply fall off on their own. Allana* is my angel; I've
never had a friend who's loved me unconditionally. She does everything to show me that I'm needed in the world. Another thing...Rose is in love - what more can I say about that? We're all growing. I'm going to be 20 in a couple of months and I need to get things moving. I only have 2 months to live off adults before I turn into one myself!

January 24

I slept with Adan* for the first time. He was good. I started by giving him a back massage but he couldn't stop laughing which broke the ice because he'd been surprisingly shy. I love his hands and his eyes. They are a cloudy blue, with a yellow hazel rays around the pupil that almost looks like the sun. Hidden passion, simple, straightforward. I went to my therapist wearing my clubbing outfit from the night before, eyes bloodshot and black from makeup, a hangover and a smile you couldn't wipe off my face. I wasn't sure if I would see him again...until the next day. We kissed in front of most of my friends at a party and got kicked out of a bar for PDA. Well, it's a sweet change from having old horndogs creep in between you and your girlfriends at a club or something. On one of the nights we celebrated Allana's debut in the poetry scene, we met a guy who was studying History and had a
shining bald head. He was cute, and a Libra. I talked up a journalist who was an arrogant asshole and probably sexist, but had a sense of humor and asked him why Mr. Clean was being so defensive and emotional. I found out he had just broken up with his girlfriend. He asked to take Allana home and I totally cockblocked him and took her home to smoke a nice doobie with me instead. I told her he would have just puked and cried on her at the same time while they were doing it. Anyway, we are really blossoming into women of the world. I just had a memory of the burlesque show and going home with the band. Pat, my metal guitarist and fifteen seconds of fame. I never even saw him play! I was still kinda jaded at that time so he just kissed me on the cheek and said he had to leave for a show in a Jewish part of Montreal where he lived. We were all in the hot tub, and some girl was totally sticking her tongue down in his throat anyway. I'm just not down with certain "perks" of being single sometimes. Oh, so my ex took like 20 perverted self pics of himself naked and for good measure, I showed them to my girlfriends over dessert ...I think it definitely strengthened our friendship. We cramped out from laughing. People are so full of shit! It's not always easy finding good people out there.

February 10

3rd day of detox, been eating the healthiest food ever and getting
exercise. This is by far the most effective way of staying true to
self. It's all about how you take care of yourself. I've been mildly
troubled with sleep as I detox my emotional life. I almost feel like
there are times that I use my relationships to fulfill much of my
self-worth. I want to achieve my own needs through other means than
emotional attachments. People are essential to who I am, but they're
not exclusive to it. I want to be truly empathetic, patient and loving.
In love, I want to learn how to be playful again without playing games
and taking on roles that don't represent me. When my needs aren't met,
I don't want to act out of fear and anger to exploit them from the
people I care about...and neither will I let them do that to me.

February 18

Dreams and hopes are coming back to me with feeling. I'm ready for a change.
Everybody's doing their own thing now - Rose is moving in with her
boyfriend and they want to room with me, Allana is leaving for China in
a couple of weeks to teach English and it scares me that Adan might be
going to Iraq in May for the army. William's new girl isn't what I
expected to be, but I think they must understand each other better.
I've let go of the wasted energy to be jealous and bitter. Instead, I
have a startling need for new people and connections. There was a time
my feelings felt too destructive and I thought all I could have was
instant gratification. I'm working for a balance with Adan. Our
energies work well together but he's also leaving and I'm going to need
to go on a solo trip of my own and find my own place. I feel like I
have each foot set on two separate worlds; I'm trying to be an adult
but just yesterday, I was tripsitting people who dropped acid. I made
them green tea and read them a book on lucid dreaming. I feel as if
there are too many male energies in my life right now; I need to
collect myself and know my goals. I'm having a hard time transitioning
from one relationship to the other; I know Allana won't like that I'm
in a new serious relationship and she'll be just as difficult on me
across the world. It's important for all of us to be alone and find
ourselves, discover joy and more things to share. Sometimes I wonder
who really knows me...because if someone bothered enough, they'd know I
work very hard to be happy.

March 11

I want to thank myself for opening myself up though at times, I didn't
trust the life that was in me. I am stronger for finding a small pocket
of humility in all of this that has made me infinitely richer,
attracting good people in my life who guide and convince me of my
beauty and worth. I'm glad I've let go of things that haven't work,
finding my joy finally through friendship.

I'd wanted so badly to let go off the anxiety and sadness I felt and it has been hard to be
good through it. It has given me insight on the real nature of
vulnerability and what makes people strong, which is their faith and
will to love.

I want to thank myself for risking to love someone and for seeing the good in that person while making mistakes and
showing my flaws - it turned out that realistically it was frightening,
but I was far from being broken inside.

I am happy I am taking responsibility over my health moving with excitement and rest while
showing off my beauty - my inner beauty - and thankful people have seen
me as happy and loving.

I am proud of myself for cultivating a real friendship sweeter by time and distance - for this, I can't thank
anybody but God because he blessed me. Thankful for all the rejections
I faced because it protected me in the end. Now I can let love in
again. I am thankful for my tears because they carried me to this
moment.

I will never go against myself again. I will be me, never running out of love.

Life is too short. In that miraculous balance of minutes, there is always
hope. Feeling this good about myself, being this loved, finding this
much happiness in and out of all the confusion only used to be a dream
before. If I could talk to my younger self, I'd tell her to trust. I
wouldn't change a thing about myself. I'd tell her to love as much as
she knew how, destroy as much, get hurt and get up, be stronger than
the void that wants to swallow you whole, spit back at it, create as
much energy and don't judge it - it's all been part of the same fear.
The worst lie you can tell yourself is that 'you can't, you're not good
enough'. Only that much darkness can truly open itself to light - the
dark sees the beauty, feeling its full prowess.

My purpose, what I love, what I want to be my greatest talent is to appreciate and love
every moment, person or experience. Times when I have paid full
attention to life has lent me my success, given me real rush. No one
can take away that piece of inner strength inside of me. I have so much
to work on to become independent and fully gracious. But the real soul
search begins now that I can feel my soul yearn again. I am truly happy.

I am safe.
I trust myself fully and completely.
I don't need to struggle or strive for love. It is already complete inside of me.

I deserve the best. And I have it.

March 15

My birthday is over. I am officially 20 years old! Two decades of pure
existence and I've been nothing short of blessed every single minute of
it. I am the luckiest girl in the world; I can't believe I didn't see
or accept it before. Life just requires the strategy of grabbing as
many of the gifts that's out there for you and to surprise yourself
each time. Maturity follows when you treasure what you have. Every
single day feels like my birthday - there's not a day I haven't felt
loved lately. Adan comforted me when I cried because I missed my
family. He loves every inch of me and he treats me right - I do my best
to reciprocate his love. I've gone a long way though from needing to
seek approval. People are seeming to notice my new glow and it's when
your inner beauty is reflecting onto others that people take heed. I
trust the energies. I haven't been given any reason not to lately, and
I'm building my faith so I can remember it even when my strength is
failing. My life has just begun- yet it feels like I already have
everything.

I had the sweetest birthday ever. I swear I'm loved. We went out to Kettleman's for breakfast with the parents, Travis and
Adan, talked about the new condo and Travis' plans to move out west. I
got millions of messages from Allana and Olga from China and local
birthday greets had my phone going off the hook. Adan and I stayed in
bed for half the afternoon and he took me out for seafood. Ten close
friends stopped by for drinks and cupcakes I made. It felt good taking
care of people I love, working the room, catching up, seeing everyone's
smiles. I love my friends! To top it all off with a very big cherry, I
heard my nephew's voices on the phone and it filled me with joy and
hope and love.

March 21
Adan told me that I've showed him who he really was, and it melted my heart.

March 23
Welcome to your 20s; my gay best friend has had his first kiss, an innocent Catholic plans to lose her virginity and asks for my sexual advice (have I gone that far astray?) and the skankiest of my
friends - a term of endearment - now insists on living a shamanic
existence in rural Mongolia. Another girlfriend plans on marriage after
graduating on the Deans list while the extent of intimacy for someone
else is to help an ex-lover smuggle drugs to Asia but wrapping weed and
sticking it up his ass. To each her own! Miss Independent seems to be
happily attached to a dealer, in what almost seems like a co-dependent
relationship...had he doped her too much? (still joking..) I myself am
dating a soldier fresh out of a two year fiasco that landed me in an
emergency room when I should have been landing a big job in the
government. What if Adan does leave for Iraq six months at a time? My
best friend and I were making more frequent trips to police stations
and hospitals than is average as soon as we were bold enough to break
curfew. She was the first face I saw when I became conscious and the
one who dialed 911. We made friends and flirted with male nurses and
cute doctors who assured me I was too young to lose hope and a man
named Andree who raced us to my new room at the third level after two
days of being celebrities at an overcrowded emergency ward. But the era
of the depressed artist in me is long gone...the first thing I did when
I got out was to bring my nephews to Cosmic Adventures. I had
underestimated what it's like to enjoy the simple things in life. The
way I see it now, I'm simply being elegant with what I have. I'm simply
trying to find myself. The best part of letting go of your expectations
sometimes is that you never know what's actually going to make you
happy. In the meantime, Rose and I are making preparations to live with
the boys for a month. Used condoms and puke mixed with ugly fags on the
driveway don't faze me. Your 20s can get messy.