damn good feeling
November 07, 2003 @ 6:04 p.m.
Lately I've been thinking about how much I've changed since I've come back from Indiana. Because I have changed a lot, really.
First of all, I appreciate my family so much more (both immediate and extended). I have come to appreciate many of my aunts and several of my cousins. I love my aunt Pat, aunt Connie, aunt Marisue, and aunt Colleen. I also love spending time with Ashley (that's been a constant, though) and Sara, and love holding and cooing at my second cousins Samantha and Anders. I'm also much more tolerable of my other cousins.
I think that's due to me becoming more laid-back and easier to get along with -- although I don't enjoy it, I've gotten better at bullshitting, and that helps as well.
Another thing that's different about me is that I'm more centered. Granted, I'm not perfect. I still have my emo days where it will never get better, and I will just die alone and rotting in my own crap. But usually I smile, and think good thoughts.
More importantly, I've lost the ability, for the most part, to harm myself. I had a slip-up about a week and a half ago, but they're slip-ups now, not the norm. I find cutting doesn't help when I'm upset -- and I don't get upset that often. I'm still struggling with asking people for help, and for physical attention, because it's always been a taboo subject in my family. "It's just always been known we love each other," says my mother. "We don't have to show it."
Losing my mood swings, however, has cost me my poetry. I write best when I'm weepy about unrequited love, and since I'm not particularly weepy, and have boys looking my way now, it's pretty much faded. I've been trying to shift the focus, but any routine is hard to alter, especially when it's been my free therapy for the past ten years. I've been trying, though.
Lastly, I am so much more tolerant of Iowa it's frightening. Not to say that I want to live here for the rest of my life -- that's hardly the case. But I don't mind being here. I smile at sunsets and full moons and tease about the corn, instead of just despising it.
All of this change doesn't mean that I'm perfectly content with my life -- of course not, I think that would be asking too much. And I don't know if it's just because I'm becoming more complacent or if it's because I'm becoming more satisfied. But, dare I say, I'm happy most of the time now.
And damn, is it a good feeling.
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- - March 22, 2010
always the same - July 01, 2008
b-a-n-a-n-a-s! - December 25, 2006
elementary again - October 29, 2006
I don't like you, but I love you - October 03, 2006