Thanks for Dept. of Eagles!

Today. Okay. Positive. Okay. I went to a Bible study and good things came of that.

I don’t want to be a rational architect.

Wishful thinking is symptomatic of anxiety. okay. I think I’m ruining everyone’s life. No. Stop generalizing just so that you don’t have to make any particular person feel any particular way. I might have ruined my family. No. More specific. Today I called my mom, because a woman at the Bible study talked about her daughter who had Aspergers’ Syndrome (high-functioning autism–trouble reading social cues or understanding social behavior), and I had thought, when I met this woman’s daughter… She reminds me of my mom and my mom’s family! Probably more along the lines of.. Aunt Annette? And sometimes my mom, I dunno, she gets so fixated on houses, building things, productivity… And I got inspired that maybe if my mom figured out that she needed help with social things… or that maybe I wouldn’t feel like I was the crazy one for thinking people’s behavior abrupt/rude/abrasive… So I called her, but I chickened out in saying that I thought she might have it, so I said “your family” and she said, “No.” And I kept prodding around, mentioning Aunt Theresa and Aunt Annette, and she said, “No, you don’t get to find diseases.” Then I was like, “What do you mean by that?” And she was like, “I don’t know” kind of coyly. Then I was confused and halted, and I felt like she’s got this thing built up around me that I’m a hypochondriac. Her and Russ: it’s in your head! Well, you know what I thought of saying after I had hung up and my altruisitc attempt had failed:

Hey Mom, remember that time I thought I had lice and you kept saying “No, you don’t. You’re just imagining it. You’re a hypochondriac.” And then you finally believed me when my entire head was itching and you saw a bug run across my hairbrush???

That’s because I was RIGHT. I was good at deciphering what was happening to me. I’m not a hypochondriac. And admitting that something is a problem is not DEFEAT. Such tight denial.

 

I sat on a builder on the premises of The Yoga Hut and some thoughts breezily unfurled.

Acknowledge that her words led to me feel hurt, manipulated, and misunderstood. The misunderstanding of my intentions perhaps hurts the most, being treated like my curiosity needs to be extinguished.

Don’t suppress the feelings, but now… the most freedom comes from knowing my own freedom of choice, that I don’t have to let pain ripple through my cells and out into my actions against others.

 

I dunno how I feel about blogs and the internet now. It seems like the maximum in social scrutiny. Maybe I could check out of all of this. Maybe that’s avoidant. Hey!

 

But I think my big push away from people is because I’m not setting identity boundaries. Meaning: whoever I’m around, I feel at their mercy, whatever they believe, whatever they’re doing, whatever their opinion about a CD or a shirt we passed in a window, well, disagreeing can’t be as important as our relationship, so I don’t need voice it! Or I chatter incessantly, I say things outside the realm of my good discretion, projecting other people’s opinions because mine aren’t sharply and quickly formulated. and Silence is not. allowed.

BLECHG so much garbage in my mind. Who’s operating the gas grill beneath me? Maybe this is what they mean by Hell. Oh yeah! My theory of God. The kingdom of God is within you. The Bible is a metaphor for the entire inner, emotional/spiritual journey of a single person, and each of us can use it to exquisitely calibrate our inner lives with the richness of wisdom. The infinity stretching out before us is within us. Right now.

cheesey phrases i quietly used

1. Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail (takes you down….), you’ll end up in the stars (builds you up!)

2. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. (shifts focus to present)

3. Take responsibility for your actions. (duh)

4. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength. (repeat)

5. Words like water are easily poured but impossible to recover. (Mr. Patience Of A Flood!)

6. The true journey of life consists not of seeking new landscapes but of having new eyes. (appreciate)

 

I had a dream about my mom earlier in this semester where I said, “You’re an atheist! Admit it!” Accompanying that shout was a small feeling of being unhooked. I talked to Mom spa-side tonight, me in the spa and her in a deck chair, and I ended up saying the basic mottos I got from our family over the lakehouse Spring Break stay.

-Don’t do weird things.

-Don’t do things that stand out.

-Make sense.

She nodded with a sort of deliberating/burn-the-witch expression on her face. Then her gaze moved around like lots of inner tumble motivated it.

“Whatcha thinking?” I asked and pined to know.

Her face suddenly clouded, she frowned, and glared at me.

“I think about lots of things.”

Shortly thereafter she goodnighted her presence from me.

This is something that has happened before, because I recall the feeling memory of open approach and this… hateful… slashing… of my outreach. I mean, there was nothing behind my question, no manipulative or malicious motives, but the way she suddenly recoiled. I had no idea what I’d done. What came to mind as I floated around afterwards was that maybe the last person she trusted was my dad, and that didn’t turn out so well. Then I remembered watching home videos of them together, and she had still been pretty surly, guarded, and sharp in those. Then I thought it might have started with the parents, Grammy and Grampy, good citizens enough but not stellar examples of communicating inner state. And from whom had they learned their habits? Their own family, somewhere in the Depression. Then, as I bobbed in the water, I actually said out loud, “People lived in the Depression and didn’t turn out like that. Some of them know how to talk about things.” They weren’t even very deprived or poor, from what I know. I thought, it’s possible for your heart to survive time.

So I still don’t necessarily have an answer of where it began, and that’s not entirely pertinent to the present (although I am curious)… but golly gee damn, does anyone have any perspective on this? I’m trying not to let this damage me, i.e. carrying on bad comm. habs. Saying “comm. habs.” is more fun.

Frangy and Roossey

I got into about a 2 1/2 hour conversation with brother tonight. It just ended. Mom and I had gotten into a fight over her eating some of my popcorn without asking. Hmm, summing it up like that, it sounds pretty silly. What made me mad was that I brought up that it bothered me if she didn’t ask, and she dismissed that, so I didn’t drop it, so she took it all the way to “Well, I pay for everything so I own your life”. Russell, with his larger perspective, helped me to see how confused Mom was by my snapping… She didn’t see that it was about me wanting her to acknowledge my viewpoint, even IF she thought it was silly… I don’t think I have the energy right now to relay everything Russ and I threshed through; he worked with me thought by thought and, unlike me, he can acknowledge restrictions without needing to push them. So he helped me see what I can do within the set-up of our family and my life. He listened. I want to thank him, but I want to do it with genuine energy later… These heady emotional conversations literally physically wear me out. I think that’s a reason fueling avoidance. But it’s like cardiovascular training. It’s like what my roommate Crystal said last year about her family, “We talk everything out. It doesn’t matter if we have to go into a room for hours, cry, scream, we fight things out and we don’t let things go unresolved.” Her family seems to have developed endurance in this. It was good to have Russ meet me in words, for me to tussle and be weak. To write down the major points of clarity that were reached:

1. If I want to have real relationships with my parents (and I do), I need to be independent of them first. They won’t treat me like an equal until I am. This means graduating, getting a job, and getting out of here.

To this, Russ exclaimed gleefully, “So there! You have a plan!” Aw he likes plannin.

2. Mom and I are essentially mismatched in our natural desires and inclinations. Russ drove home that she just wants me to be happy (which surprised part of me, yeah), and she expresses this by doing things like making a ramp for my dog, setting up washer machines, buying me pants, and folding clothes. While I receive these actions with, “Oh, that’s convenient, thanks”, I emotionally need words of affirmation, which is exactly what she deems unnecessary or finds too difficult to dispense. Meanwhile, what I want from people I care about is emotional accessibility, being informed of their inner state so that I can help them achieve some peace (of course I can’t be wholly responsible). And Mom does not inform! I can often infer, but there’s no discussing it or reaching it in any way where I can use my strength.

3. All that established, we could go to counseling together, and it would most likely be beneficial. Mom has respect for authority figures if not for me, so a counselor would help keep the lines open instead of the shut-down that often happens “I OWN YOUR LIFE”. I’m gonna talk to her about doing this. It could help clear the air for a reset, help us learn what the other wants and expects, and help us create better communication habits.

4. Russ and I got to a point where I admitted: I want to please my parents, and so it’s so…difficult…for me to… disregard their standards even when I don’t own those standards. Like I brought up how Dad thrives in keeping pressure on himself, so it’s difficult for me to relax without feeling guilt.

I said, “If I love someone, I want to do what they want me to do” and “I don’t want to constantly argue with my parents, but if I am myself, I will argue with them, because we are different.”

Russ replied, “Okay. You don’t have to please them in everything… You please Dad in that you don’t kill people, you don’t sleep around–”

I brought up our differing political views and Russ said, “Well, you believe in owning guns, don’t you?” We all laughed. I nodded. So he kept on, “You won’t be a murderer, you won’t end up killed, he doesn’t have to worry about you in school, and you won’t take away his right to bear arms. That’s pretty much it. He’s happy. And Mom, well, hers is even simpler… She just wants you to be happy. They might try to influence you, but…” He brought things down to the basics. He laid out the parameters in such a clear way that I glimpsed safety and boundaries again instead of feeling pulled apart.

5. I need a base of happiness that is my own. My own central happiness alleviates periphery irritation. I haven’t been establishing this, but I have before and I know I can.

 

Fyi: Russ is an ENTJ. The neat thing about NTs, Rationalists, is that they can see life built from the ground up (Idealists or NFs see life as falling down from an idealized vision). So that makes Rationalists excellent at explaining how mental/emotional processes take place… A book I read compared them to Prometheus, who starts anew each day and must rebuild each day. His liver and that giant boulder, you know? This allows for an explicit knowledge of the contruction process, be it concrete or abstract. Like turtle, at the bad rehearsal, explained exactly how the characterization and projection parts of acting fit together. It was delicious to witness. It’s something I can do sometimes, but my greater (I originally typed “greather”) strength comes from faith and not knowledge… which is more difficult to quantify, but. Here I am! Existing like that.

PS – See if you can get my title!

Journaling On Through

My soul keeps getting mussed. Around people who could be friends/are friends. I think it has to do with being unable to compromise an ideal of interaction for the reality of interaction, and the scariness that something wrong could come out of me if I don’t totally monitor myself all the time. Which turns into the wrongest thing possible. It’s actually the ingredients for narcissism: not depending on others, ever, so that it’s no longer relationships but pawns around you, because there ain’t no give and take. I feel like I’m becoming a hypermoral, legalistic mother superior nun running a Catholic school.

In the larger picture, my actions recently aren’t horrifically manipulative or condescending. Like if there’s a spectrum of behavior, mine still falls into the category of “Oh, she’s having a bad day” and not “Mommie, Dearest”. My mind still drifts back to antidepressants. Sometimes I can restore the color in my world, but sometimes I just feel so bad. Like this gurgling swamp steeps my vision, and I can’t get a breath out of it to correct my path. But I think I can’t move out of it, because these pictures wedge themselves in and take up all my mental capacity: they’re the supposed critical, fixed, zoom-in of others’ eyes on me, so that any movement constitutes a huge risk of shame and embarrassment. Yep.

Soooo…. If I could develop the habit of dissolving these breadth-consuming, self-conscious images, it would free up my mind to grapple with all the regular human stuff of emotions and things coming at me throughout the day. : )

Addendum: I talk about humans like I’m not one.
I cut my bangs asymmetrically. Sara was afraid to mention it in case I’d meant to cut them straight. haha. I think the asymmetry is to stick it to the mother superior growth, maybe, I just thought of that.

Harsh Strings

Here in my Professional Development in Psychology class, my professor is talking about reinventing yourself on a regular basis.  This is something I get the urge to do… but something else is stopping me. This entry is devoted to finding what that is. I hope you injoy enjoy this essay.

When I start to imagine who I want to be ideally, I imagine people claiming that I’m copying others. I imagine myself becoming another cookie cutter in the Denton socialscape.

Ideas are being spoken in class. They’re coming toward me. They’re hitting my ears and funneling into my brain, but this melting force says, “Eventually, you have to stop learning. Eventually, you have to stop at one point.”

What an insane thought. No wonder I’m continually writhing. It’s an impossible requirement, to find one state of being and hold it constantly, all the time, unchanging… and why? To what end? I’m not even sure what it could mean to hold one state forever. And yet I feel this constant pushing down to not change, not change, not change. Am I a point at which all forces lean? If I changed, would the beams of existence come crashing down? I don’t think so.

Steven’s words from Seattle resound: “You tend to heap way too much responsibility on yourself, more than is fair.”

How do I want to change anyway?

I want to be more open. I want to show myself to people instead of living within a construct.  I want to be bubbling up from within myself, outward. Ideas! Kindness! Value of life! Beauty…

The other change-stopper I find is embarrassment. Preservation of my outer-image, eliminating any possibility of another person judging me or laughing at me, is the apex of my endeavors. I shrink in disgust from associating with this belief, and yet it has taken such pervasive root in my character.

I guess I forgot to mention that my mom came to Denton last weekend…

Tapping the Glass

I just came from bursting into tears on a couch at the student housing office in Jones Hall.

I was really upset, because I had started the whole add-drop process this morning when I hit a brick wall at ten hours of credit.  The brainless robot web advisor just wouldn’t let me register for any more.  At first, I thought it had to do with the level of classes.  I tried registering for a lower level statistics class to test my theory.  It, the thing, the programmed thing that doesn’t bend rules, wouldn’t allow that either.  It told me I had to have a housing assignment and to call the housing number… so I did, and I explained my situation, and the lady said that I was under 21 and under 60 hours of credit (I think I have like 56.  ARGGRRHG SO STUPID), so I have to live on campus or at home with my parents if I want to be a full-time student. 

Is this 1930?  I’m surprised she didn’t ask me if I was wearing a skirt above my ankles either.  Or if I was betrothed yet.  I’m over 18…. WHY can’t I live on my own?

Well, anyway, I do live in a house in Denton, so I said that I lived at home and expected that I’d have to supply an electricity bill or something.

“Okay, then you need to fill out a form that you and your parents sign and have notarized.”

 

NOTARIZED?  Me and my parents?  What about people whose parents are dead?  What about people who are estranged, completely on their own?  They HAVE to live in your stupid dorm?  What are you worried will happen to them without you, TWU? 

The university hasn’t caught up to us new-fangled gals.

 

I still thought I was okay, thought I had time to bring the form to my mom this weekend and bring it back Tuesday, but then Sara mentioned that today was the last day for late registration.  EVERYTHING IS AGAINST ME.  Or everything is against change. 

First I went to the registrar and asked if there was any way I could force the registration and turn in the form later.  They kind of laughed and asked their supervisor, who said no, and I kind of said, “This is so fucking stupid” and they sent me to Housing.

 

As I walked across campus to get to Housing, scenes started filling my head, swirling around in a high-pressure whirlwind… Sitting at my dad’s dinner table on a visit home as he asks, “How many hours did you take this semester?” and I nervously twirl spaghetti and say a number less than twelve and try to act like I’m okay with it, which actually only adds to his conviction that I’m a lazy, directionless slacker hippie daughter.  Then there’s the puffing up like an agitated bird, my dad, a self-proclaimed “hard ass”, whose approach is generally to “get tough”, because people only make decisions based on their diligence or lack thereof, and it’s not possible to be confused, only to be a manipulating-the-system shirker.  He’s too accustomed to the environment of raising my stepsister, I think.  He’d be like, “Ange, that’s not okay.  We’re giving you money every month, because you’re supposed to be going to school full-time.”  But the disapproval will only make me feel like shit rather than uncover my extortionary plans and make me say, “You’re right, Dad.  Glad you’re here to keep me in line.”  Because he got a hypersensitive daughter who wants to please her parents, disapproval destroys her and makes her nervous to the point of breakdown. My mom would take a similar tough stance of “get yourself together”.  A sympathetic bunch.

Although now it only takes the possibility of disapproval… that’s when I started shaking and getting teary as I walked across campus, imagining going through the entire semester of shame. 

It’s not pressure to graduate sooner or anything.  It’s just them and the rest of my family.

“Oh, Angela, you’re a smart girl, why aren’t you living up to your potential?”

 

I made it to housing, though, and kept my voice from cracking long enough to explain the situation, that there was no way I could get a notarized form to them by 6 pm today, and they said I could talk to a higher person who could remove the hold but reinstate it later if I didn’t turn in the form.  It was exactly what I needed (and exactly what I had proposed to the helpless registrar people).  The dam was about to break, though, from all the pressure that had built up in the last twenty minutes, so I couldn’t even say thanks, I had to walk downstairs really quickly to retreat to a couch in the corner.  I made a plan to go back up later and say, “Sorry if I was rude.  I was just upset.  Thanks for your help.”

 

The fact that this made me so angry/frustrated/anxious/nervously-wrecked shows how fragile I am currently.  I wouldn’t have gotten so upset about something school-related a few years ago.

A Full Day

I got up today with the idea to catch that silvery wave of fresh awakeness that washes over you in first consciousness and hold onto it all day.  I shot through my house like a tidy bullet, dishes, start laundry, sweep, mop, clean bathroom, burn incense, put those clothes in the dryer… putting things in their place and letting the comfort of neatness and routine sink into my bones.  I cleaned myself, too, and I wore one of my favorite outfits, a sky blue Camp Surf t-shirt that Uncle Paul got for me from his friend’s sister and my pair (or single, however you want to look at it) of Old Navy khaki board shorts that have lasted me since I was seventeen!  I just now realized.. that was three years ago.  Anyway, I enjoy the outfit because it fits so well and comfortably and summerrily (merry in a summery way).  The lines are so clean… it makes me feel like a breeze.  I dug in my garden this evening as the sun went down, defining its parameters so that, I think, tomorrow I can actually plant some things.  I ate mozzarella toast for bre–lunch–and angel hair pasta with marinara sauce for dinner, and they were both delicious and satisfying… and I just polished off a bowl of brownie and ice cream, which was earned with the day’s endeavors.

Days like these are good days.  I didn’t really worry about anything, lots of motion, a good rhythm, enjoying the world in all its robustness and delicacy… I experienced things in an undistorted way, pretty much.  I was transparent, quiet, and calm.  My thoughts especially were very quiet.  It was a respite from a long period of ulcer-worthy internal intensity.

Also… I enjoyed being alone.  Solitude is what I’ve craved for so long.  It’s not that I’m anti-social.  There’s such thing as distance for a time, with people waiting fuzzily out of focus on the outskirts of my existence.  I got afraid of wanting to be alone for awhile.  It makes me wonder if it will encase me in an insurpassable seal of aloneness… but I’ve decided I don’t think that’s true.  I can’t just be endlessly, obliviously, facelessly social.  I have to withdraw sometimes and reset myself, assess people, events, emotions, ideas, beliefs.  My mom acted like that was a bad thing, when I would tell my friend across the street I didn’t want to play.  But it’s part of my functioning and part of how I stay alive.  And she pretty much sucks at understanding how people work. Heh.  Good at other things.  Sucks in introspection.

The Semester of Suckitude

So basically this semester has been a lot of screwing up. 

I think I’m learning from all of this.

I suddenly want to apply myself in college.  If I only concentrate on what I have to do at this moment, it’s quite feasible.  I can do well in classes.  Not just pass, make the Dean’s List!  Yeah.  Let’s do that. 

You figure out what to do with all the learning at the end of the road.  I’m hardly to the middle.  Barely anyone my age has an explicitly outlined plan, yet we can’t all massively fail in the years to come.  Right?  Somewhere you must grab onto the next rung and move into… life.  Or maybe I’ve always been there, in life.  But somehow I move out of the only constant structure I’ve known so far in my life, school, into some new area which seems to involve work.  I don’t really like that.  I think I’d like it to be church, community, something more purposeful than just my day determined by a schedule.

Angela 3000, new and improved.

It’s more like Angela 2008, learning to live with my limitations. ly ly ly

 

I was straightforward with my anger today in a new effort to be truthful and open.  Michelle accidentally snapped at me when I had come to visit her specifically at the computer lab.  I had picked up a stapler and clicked it in her ear to get her attention, which happened to annoy her tremendously at that moment in her frazzled mood.  Her and her friend jumped on me.

“That is not cool.  Way not cool.  That really hurt my ears.”

I just blinked confusedly.

Robin, the friend, said, “Yeah, stapler.  Not a good noise.”

Michelle grabbed my arm suddenly when my bewildered look continued and said, “Sorry!  I just snapped at you!  I’m just trying to think of how I’ll get all these things done.  BLAH.  So busy.  It’s good to see you!” in this panicked, unhinged sort of way that really reminded me of my old insanely stretched-thin choir teacher whom I hated.  So that was not a good entrance for either of us. 

“I just thought I’d make a noise to get your attention,” I said.

“Yeah, it was just–”

“Staplers.  Bad noise.”

“Yeah.  Bad noise.”  Robin and Michelle finished me off, and I silently walked away to sit at the computer I had checked out.  Gazing at the monitor, I wondered why I was there if the person I had just come to see had made me feel like shit over something entirely insignificant and then blown me off.  I checked various accounts, mail, Facebook, whatever, heard Michelle leave to give her sick boyfriend some food, and then left as silently as I had come, save that fatal click of stapler and save whispering, “I was at number thirteen” to the lab attendant. 

On the way home, I consolidated my anger into the above phrase, “making me feel like shit over something insignificant.”  I decided that, however stressed and overexpended a person was, that still didn’t excuse hurtful behavior.  I also reasoned that if I had behaved in such a way, I would want a friend of mine to take her stand so that I would make amends… standards for each other, you see… because I’m pretty sure my friends and I hold the common value that the way you treat others is more important than anything else in life.  And I also realized that I had been hurt, not gravely but still hurt, and why were my feelings less important than theirs? 

So when I got home and Michelle, who was departing, said “Hey”, I sort of ignored her.  Naturally, she got the picture very quickly.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Yes.”  I think this may be the second time I’ve directly told a friend that.  If I remember correctly.  That doesn’t mean I never got mad at friends in the past.  It means I kept it in.

Then we talked briefly, got it all squared away, had a hug, and….

I love it, developing these good habits.  Much of my childhood and adolescence were spent in the shadow and pressure of restrained emotions and opinions, but I find that outside of my family (with people to whom I feel more akin), it is possible to have things like anger, disagreements, sadness… it is possible to acknowledge and deal with them and keep going!  Wow!

Now if only I had done that with someone else… Would there be more conversation budding and less mystery?  I feel a little numb right now, as if someone has put that anesthesiological liquid that they use when cutting off moles all over me, inside and out, emotionally, mentally, physically.  I was just thinking of times when I could watch myself touch my skin but not feel it.  Likewise I watch myself get up, go to work, chew blueberry waffles, bathe dogs, shovel shit, defiantly talk to my theatre teacher when annoyed, but I don’t know how much I feel.  I definitely recollected with the anger incident.  Interesting, the lift that came from working through that decline.  I feel as though Michelle and I have both gained a little strength.  How cool.

Feeling like a loser

Feelin’ likea loooooserrrrrr

Ate some great spinach alfredo pizza.  with garlic butter.  watched Clockwork Orange for first time ever.  sinking into brain.  strange.  not traumatized as Michelle predicted.  do i seem like such a delicate flower?  even though Sara did call me a “delicate flower” a few years ago.

Had dreams last night in which I painted my face whilst screaming ever and ever more furiously at people.  reminds me of last time i had depressy shit.   lots of angry dreams.  woke up feeling unrested because i expended so much venomous energy in reverie.  this last dream kerfuffle was between my stepmom and me.  will the five-years-of-age association of blame and stepmom continue forever?  will cheated emotions always exist?  are they something i must deal with all the time?

Well, yes, maybe yes.  it just dawned on me that i might have to nurture myself like a plant, always.  tend your baobabs.  resurfacing of the past is natural because you’re still the same person with the same filling…  i keep trying to ignore it …. no wonder getting swallowed up in the untended weeds.

*Memory* makes possible learning, identity, and depth.  If your memory were wiped away every single night, who would you be?  An empty sack?  A clear vial of pulse?  Mammoth droplet of water?

Wrote something of a song that goes like:

Hey there, I didn’t mean to

run into you repeatedly

I know you’re trying to stock the Grape-Os

It’s just that I really want some cereal

but I’m indecisive

Indecisive

Indecisive

I did not intentionally stand in your way

when you were trying to get past

the cereal crane

I just don’t know what’s in

granola today

Wish I were back in Holland

with Caramel Cruesli

Cruesli

Cruuuuesli

(I know it’s on Stuff White People Like to miss foreign food but who cares it’s true for me personally and not because I’m white)

That was the best cereal ever.  Caramel Cruesli.  Awk.  So good.  You were eating through the little grains which had a slight ring of cinnamon and you were like, “Hmm, yeah, crunchy, pretty good”, and then you hit the first CHOCOLATE COATED NUGGET OF CARAMEL and suddenly it’s an EXPLOSION OF FLAVOR and you realize, “This is the BEST CEREAL EVER!”

Like a Vacuum, This Semester Rolls Forward

I got my midterm grades back from my terrible aural skills exam: 79 on the sight-singing and harmonizing portion; 68 on the written.  I have a 75 average in the class right now, not counting what I assume will be a devastating deduction for my number of absences.  My teacher recommended that I drop.  If I drop aural skills, I have to drop music theory as well, because they are tied together by college of music law.  That means that I will have a grand total of 3 hours for this semester.  This entire situation is pathetic. 

I’d just like to say

STUFF SUCKS

!

It is my fault, but it doesn’t help that I had a medication slowly accumulating in my bloodstream from the beginning of the semester that has, by now, made me more clear-headed and able to function.  I just feel like everything is going too fast.  Why did I have to sign up for twelve hours worth of crap when I didn’t even know what I wanted to do?  Why can’t I stop and breathe?  I wanted to take this semester off due to my uncertainty.  And now I virtually am.  Unless, when I talk to my professors tomorrow, something new develops. 

Mostly I’m afraid of breaking this to my mom.  All I can imagine is the cold steel blade of her disapproval cutting through me, maybe snide jokes, the pushing….. I can’t take it.  Which makes me want to hide the whole ordeal from her.  Which is not what she wants either. 

I was just so exhausted at the beginning of the semester… the flu, other crap… blah blah

Yeah, I think I just won’t tell her.  If she’s on my back for the rest of the semester, it’ll just make everything worse.