I realized what it is. What it is, when I get into fits of sadness. It has nothing to do with any external factors other than what I perceive to be the lack of love in my life, which stems to a lack of sense of self worth.

This doesn't mean I think I'm worthless; but it does mean that in every day to day activity I ever carry on, that I never truly believe myself to be worth loving- from my parents, to grandparents, to siblings, to extended family, to friends, to relationships.

I have never been loved, and never will be loved, fully. Not 100%. I don't know why. I don't know if it's because I'm not worth it, but there's something about me that keeps people from loving me completely.

And I will never be satisfied with my life until I find someone who does love me wholly.

I never was even adopted by anyone.

I'm incredibly relaxed, which is surprising because I have this epically huge move tomorrow. I hate moving. Hate it. But it's going to be my first ever one bedroom- yay! Yayayayayayay.

So- aside from the yays though, I'm swimming in debt. It's scary when I think about it- and I'm about to rack up another debt against me once I get the bill for how much it's going to cost to repair all the crap my puppy has screwed up. Ugh.

What I need to do is set up a well planned out budget- I already have one, in terms of how much will be coming in from each paycheck and what bills will be getting paid with which check, but now I need to plan out how to spend my money between paychecks in terms of what do I need for weekly food, weekly gas, weekly dog food and miscellaneous expenses like my gym membership and parking expense for my work's parking garage. And from there, I need to figure out how to make payments on which of my debts and which are priorities.

So in the meantime, I'll just hang out, drink some free delicious wine my co-worker gave me and will retire to bed.

Very nice.

I've been to the gym three times this week- Tuesday, Thursday and today. I did a total of 8.5 miles on the elliptical in those three days. That's not that much- I should strive for 4 miles each session, but it's so boring that I can't entertain myself for that long.

Tomorrow I'm moving; I'll be out of this apartment complex after having lived here for 2 1/2 years. I'm not too sad about it, although this particular apartment was beautiful with vaulted ceilings and a view of the golf course with South Mountain set behind it. I'm just moving across the street- to a nicer complex in general, but one bedroom apartment. It's on the first floor, so that'll make things loads easier with my dogs. Also it'll be nice to have a bath tub and take a bath- which I haven't done since October when I was in Cincinnati and before that, since who knows when. Baths are my favorite =)

MY DAY

1.) Called a guy who turned out to be a child molester ...not remotely OK
2.) Stayed at work until 5:30. If you've worked for my company, you'd understand this is an FML
3.) Broke my most favorite pair of sandals; which were beautiful and inexpensive. Extremely rare find.
4.) Had to walk barefoot literally 1/4 mile barefoot because of said broken sandals
5.) Came home to all my Christmas decorations- and decorations in general- strewn across the floor, chewed up, and ground in by my puppy who inexplicably escaped his cage
6.) Discovered that not only do I NOT get a refund from the IRS, but that I owe money. FML. What about the rest of my debt?
7.) Didn't have enough money to cook chili for this night's Bachelor episode with my girls
8.) Have to continue packing to prepare for this weekend's move, for which I am not remotely ready.
9.) FML in general
10.) FML


HOWEVER .

I have the greatest group of girlfriends that ever could exist in Arizona. I have the greatest and most loving grandparents and family support system in general. I am surrounded by nothing but positive influences to keep me afloat in my negative days. I am an extremely lucky girl.

Extremely lucky.

The only thing I need now is to find the love of my life, and begin a new phase of my life.
I sincerely hope it exists.

" Shame on you America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. (99% of people won't have the guts to copy and repost this) "



...It's people like this who I want to tell to get the hell out of America. And I'm not going to explain myself on this, because it should be fairly obvious that this is an idiotic statement.

The end.



So anyway. I have to move next week- and all I'm doing right now is sitting on my butt on my couch in my snowflake pajamas with only half of my living room taken down, and am watching Wedding Sunday on the WE channel and watching my dogs play.

Lazy lazy day. I love <3 ;)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


First tornado watch/warning ever in Arizona since I've been here! Best.Night.Ever.






!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up this morning only slightly more refreshed. I'm still extremely perturbed from last night- the hurt having faded away to indiluted fury. However, I plan on reading the entire day; nothing else. I feel like my pride, and all affronts to it, is what compromises my happiness; because I'm so easily offended/affronted/upset. I need to find more self esteem, although I'm not sure where to look? I'm 26 years old, for God's sake. Why don't I have it together yet? I still don't have a grasp on who I am. Of course I'm never going to be truly happy until that happens. I'm not miserable, but I could have a much happier state of mind if I figured out who I am and subsequently developed a thicker skin.

This is suuuuuch a hassle.

So I just wrote a friend an email regarding how I feel about our encounter last night; someone who doesn't take criticism well. I guarantee I'm going to get an email/phone call back lambasting me for all of my faults, with no indication of an apology I feel like I deserve. Why did I email her, and not call her you might ask? Because she hates the phone; and when she's upset, she hates it even more. She never would have answered, and there's no way I'm going down without my feelings being known. I'm sick of being walked all over.

Wonderful.

Functionally speaking, I'm semi-well off. Don't mistake that for wealthy, or even middle class. That just means I'm not living in squalor. Beyond that, who knows.

When I get thoroughly upset, it has everything to do with my friends; whether it's been something I feel they've specifically done to me, or to me indirectly, or something I've inadvertently done which they have reacted to.

Ok- beyond that. I never mean to hurt anyone; ever. But selfishly, I would like to find one friend in life who considers me a best friend. I've never found this; I can't even describe how much it means to me to find someone who can satisfy this role. I think this goes back to the whole 'being adopted by my grandparents' thing- who have loved me so well, I have nothing to complain about on that end. But there's a part of me that craves the completion and trueness of a connection with someone else; I will never be their daughter- I'll always be their granddaughter, divided by a generation. I will never be a sibling to my cousins; I'm not even a sibling to my own! I'm only half. Nothing whole. Nothing is ever whole for me.

I've never found this best friend. But let me clarify- I have several friends who I consider my best friends; but only with the disclaimer that no one will get that title specifically because I will never get it from them. I'm not having that one-way best friendship. At least not to their knowledge. I have a large group of wonderful girlfriends who I love; but whom are not so enamored of me as I would necessarily wish. I feel like the third rung on the friendship ladder- due to no fault of their own. They love me well, too; but I just don't feel that I'm ever that go-to friend for them, or for anyone in general. I don't understand why, and maybe this is my problem in life. I want so much to be valued, I really do.

Like I said- nothing wrong with my overall functional life- emotionally is where I seem to be incessantly faltering.

This night was hideous, between my friends, my attitude, who I am, who I want to be, and where I feel I am in my life. All those thousands of negative entries have never had anything negative to do with my lifestyle or the materials I own, but how I view myself in terms of moral worth. And right now, I truly dislike who I am as a person- in terms of my character and moral aptitude.

So in three weeks I'm going to be moving into my first - OWN - place. As in, a one bedroom apartment. Ok- I'm 26, this isn't that big of a deal given that I've been living on my own since I was 22. But this time there are no roommates involved. Don't get me wrong- I loved my last roommate but since she left, I'm no longer interested in maintaining a residence with other company. I might consider it later when I have a house or if I'm going to be getting a house with a friend. But for now- I want to live on my own under my own terms. I'm a huge decorating freak too- so that's my dilemma right now.

Ok- so I'm considering my decorating options. I think I'm going to paint one or two accent walls in my living room an extremely light shade of pink- almost shell pink, barely there. This is because my furniture is dark with a bunch of mature colors, so I can't have any bold colors on the walls otherwise it will overhwelm the room and I don't want to mimize the appearance of its space. So, a light shell pink that will flatter the pink in my two accent pillows and the deep, sheer purple curtains that will go across the patio picture window. I need to get a new dining room table set too because mine is long a rectangular, when I need something square or circular to make it a better fit. So basically the living room/kitchen area will be a mature, feminine theme.

So for my bedroom I'm going to light and airy- completely comfortable. I'm going to paint one or two walls very light blue, to compliment the white comforter (with purple orchids) decorating it and to flatter the sheer white curtains and shelves that I will have. I want it to be a no stress room with non-obstrusive colors.

I'm very excited to really create my own place. The patio will obviously be decorated to emphasize and flatter the desert landscape, so I'll buy lots of desert flowers and cacti to put on the ledge of my patio to create a little escape outside with my outdoor dining set. Ok great!

So far, the new year is off to a fairly good start. Now I need to get onto bigger issues like getting my workout together, which intramural sports I want to join, and which organization I want to volunteer for. Ahh, the choices....such a hard life =) I'm glad that these are my biggest 'issues' that I'm dealing with at the moment, and I know I'm lucky that there isn't anything more serious going on.

So far so good =)

So today, a lady busted in on me taking a #2 on the toilet, which was a nice start to my Monday.

Yeah.....so this is has 2010 is going to be?


I am admittedly amused ;)

I had my first day of work today. Everyone there is engaged or married- literally. I am officialy the only single (and non-dating) person. But besides that, I (think) I am going to do extrardinarily well here- if I put my mind to it. It seems to be exactly what I was doing at Maxim- and I dominated that market. I didn't realize how much of a high flying job this is- #1 Most Admired Company? Clearly I did something right to beat out 65 other candidates for this job. I'm quite proud of myself, and quite impressed with this company. I really like my co-workers so far, and the management as well. I have Fortune 500 Benefits, an excellent base salary, and an envy-worthy commission structure. I work in one of the nicest areas of the entire city, and in a beautiful building to boot. Top all this off with the fact that it's right up my skill set alley.

I'm excited to see where it takes me.

I went to church today and felt His presence there - I felt like my heart opened up. I don't know what today means, but I like how I felt coming out. I cried, too- after Communion. I prayed so strongly for everything- everything that went through my head and heart was incredibly genuine as I prayed and prayed and prayed. Maybe that's why I felt Him- I haven't felt Him so clearly in I don't even know how long. But I now know the huge gaping hole that was in my heart was largely (if not completely) in part to me not incorporating Him into my life in any capacity, and trying to go through life my own way.

We'll see what happens.

I need to go back to Cincinnati- NOW.

My Uncle is in the hospital- went in on Friday night and no one tells me until today. No- scratch that- I only found out because two of my cousins posted information on him, NOT because anyone bothered to call me. I'm the only person in the family who can't go see my Uncle, and make sure he's ok, and make sure he's going to be fine. I'm so sad, I'm upset, I'm worried, I'm concerned and I'm just so upset! I AM UPSET! Why didn't anyone tell me? Don't I deserve to know? I love him too! He's my uncle. Come on.

No one tells me anything, and I'm incredibly mad.

Well, I officially suck at life. Here I am lamenting every little thing I can possibly think of, only to see a news article on AZCentral.Com about a woman who, with her husband, survived a plane crash but was burned on 83% of her body. And she STILL has a better outlook on life. She and her husband had four children at the time. But the difference is she's not alone. I'm alone. But I'm also not 83% covered in burns. Another slap in the face for hating my appearance.

Ahh, I need to go to church tonight. Yes, yes I do.

To take a quote from a movie I don't know, if "faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to", then Lord knows I have a lot of faith in a lot of things.

Good or bad thing?

I joined the Catholic Newman Center at ASU. On Facebook. Let's hope I get the courage to make this a membership in real life. Since doing so, I've received an invite to go on a skiing trip in January, to learn how to make blankets for the homeless (on Monday) and that there is a women's meet up ever 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month to discuss whatever book is currently on the agenda. I sincerely hope this will help jump start my self-esteem both in terms of my productivity for humanity and in terms of my involvement with my faith.

I also deleted every inch of Ryan from my life. I deleted him off my Facebook and blocked him from being able to search or contact me (like he would, he never uses that thing). I also deleted and blocked his sister (who is so sweet, but is subsequently connected to him and the whole point is to be as if I never existed, so that he can be as if HE never existed), and also his (who used to also be my) friend who originally introduced us (nothing personal with this again, but he and I have ceased to be friends and become more so as if we were acquaintances through Ryan). I feel like this was necessary- I feel like a large part of my self-loathing is due to my break up with Ryan and how he made me feel about me, us and our relationship. He tore me to shreds without even realizing it; and by telling me he didn't know if what he felt for me was ever really love, I think it killed a little part of me. Killed a part of me, but also verified what I secretly knew all along- I'm not worth loving. There's nothing about me that's worth loving. And that's a mind set that I would like to get out of, desperately. I want my self esteem back. And in order to do that, I need to eliminate anything that is a source of negativity in my world. And that's what Ryan is- a link to a time filled with false memories, false happiness, and false love. And yet secretly I still wish he would reach out to me and tell me that he does, in fact love me and that he does in fact eventually want to get on the same page so that we can be together. Stupid. I'm ready for love- real love.

I don't know what else I need to do to pick myself out of this miserable mentality, but I swear I'm going to try and figure it out.

I need to know what is wrong wth my world. What is wrong with it? Why am I sad/unhappy/hateful? I'm so off the wall these past four months. Some days I'm fine, some days I'm happy, some days I'm at peace with where I am both physically and in life in general and then other days I'm inexplicably angry. Horrifically angry at anything and everything- animate, inanimate, drivers, cars, the country, my job, my college, everyone in my world, everyone not in my world who doesn't understand my world, my birth parents, my siblings, my friends.

Why?

Today is one of those days. I am having a hard time finding value in my existence. I feel like my only value to anyone is in how I look, which is why I think I'm so obsessed with my weight and doing whatever it takes to keep the weight down. I don't like myself. I don't like my personality (because I don't think I have one) and I don't like that I have no direction- and that when I do think I have direction, I lose focus of whatever it is almost immediately. So if I don't have a personality worth anything, what else am I going to be able to offer anyone? Nothing. Even if I was beautiful, that would only be superficial usefulness. So how do you fix something that's screwed up internally? And why is it screwed up? What happened to take my happy go lucky self and send it swirling down the shitter? When? When did I lose any sense of my self that I ever had? And how do I get it back? Where do I get the motivation to get it back? Where do I find the belief that I'm worth anything to anyone? - as a friend, as a girlfriend, as a daughter, as a cousin, as a sister, as a granddaughter ... I am nothing. My existence is nothing. My life doesn't help anyone, and therefore what is its purpose? Why must I continue being around if I have no point? And why can't I find a point? I don't need to self medicate. I need to figure my life out. I need to find myself/create myself/do something. I don't want to have a horrible temper, and I don't want to be hateful for no reason, and I don't want to be miserable anymore. I want a purpose. I want to believe that my life is worth something and is helping someone. All I see in myself is that I'm a body occupying a space on earth. I feel like a lost moon- orbiting nothing at all, yet continuing to orbit whatever it was that used to be there- but still, ultimately, with no purpose. (yes, that's an analogy I picked up from a book- but so appropriate).

Well, I got a full time job working as a recruiter (again) but with a substantial pay raise starting Monday. I think I wrote about this, actually. And the seasonal company was actually very understanding about it.

In the meantime, I procured an SUV. A 1994 Isuzu Rodeo- (in)complete, missing the entire interior panel on the driver's side, the entire carpet flooring, a back board for the trunk, bolts to hook the tire onto the outside of the trunk. On top of the 'missing' items, the driver's side mirror is propped up with a PVC pipe, the passenger side mirror only works half the time (sometimes it wants help going up) and the trunk mirror and door are ghetto rigged by a wire. And I completely love it. So here's what I've done so far: I went to a junk yard and got the carpeting and trunk panel, which are now attached. I still need to vacuum the carpets and place the mats that I bought. It already looks like a completely different creature. I LOVE IT. So, now I just need the interior panel and it'll be (aesthetically) complete. I also got white touch up paint and covered up all the scratches around the body. The white paint is still noticeable on the old paint, but it's much better than black scratches. Eventually I will be getting window tints, and hopefully a new paint job. But- before I do all that, I want to fix the driver's window (they have power locks!!!) and make it so that the trunk door actually opens- those things will be great to have done. I'm not trying to restore this car into anything fabulous- I mean, it's a nineties SUV, but still- it's an SUV. And it's mine.

I've spent the entirety of the morning playing Hangman with the Santa Bot on AIM. What's wrong with my life?

Today was my first day of a seasonal job I got as an on-site manager and recruiter for Shutterfly. It's not my dream job, and it's working weekends for 12 hour shifts, but I'll be managing a team of 150 employees, which I'm sure will keep me busy (which I like). So, on a day to day basis I'll be plodding through that drudgery as I try and find a more permanent opportunity. I have one in particular in the pipeline, although it's literally walking into a position as an account manager- exactly what I didn't want to do while working for Maxim, so I'm not sure whether or not I'll be pursuing that. I have to be honest- I haven't seriously been pursuing employment opportunities since I got this particular stint lined up- I've been lackluster in my attempts at anything resembling life lately.

So, I'm still sad in general. I had a huge argument with my friend on Saturday, simply because it was a long day for all of us involved and we were all just crabby. It's not something I normally would worry about beyond that actual day, but because she takes everything incredibly seriously, I now have to too. It's frustrating- I don't think it's a big deal, so why does it need to be? It's just a case of bad moods. I don't think my employment status has necessarily affected my melancholy mood. I just am downtrodden because I still don't have a direction. I know I'm never going to figure it out unless I take that first step (i.e. actively looking for a career); but I'm struggling with where I want to begin that search- Ohio, California, Arizona?

I have created a life for myself out here in Arizona. It's not much, but it's better than a lot and it's something I am proud of. I have, however, had some of the.worst.memories.ever happen here; but I've also had some of the best of my life here as well. It's due to the accomplishment that I've made out of successfully maintaining a life here which scares me in terms of deciding whether or not to pick it up an
d do it again. I guess what everything boils down to is that I'm scared- I know I need a change in my life, whether it be a new job (obviously), a new location, a serious look at my psyche in general.. whatever. There are several things in my world that cannot continue to rotate in this direction, but I'm scared to try and figure it out, and I'm afraid of getting overwhelmed while I figure it out.

I want so much to be a good person, but I find myself having an incredibly hard time doing so. This doesn't mean I'm a crappy specimen of humanity, but it means I'm definitely not on par with the type of person who I would like to be. Who is that person you might ask? That person is someone who is deeply in touch with their faith, and not lazy about it- someone who can control their temper (in and out of the driver's seat!)

**(Oh my dear sweet God in Heaven- I nearly deleted this entire entry. For the first time, I would love to thank LJ for maintaining it as a draft while I nearly gasped in unbelievable agony, because I know I could never re-write this)**

...Continuing, the person who I want to be is someone who can love and not judge, and who can be loved with no qualms or suspicions about the person giving out the feelings. I want to be someone who doesn't spend a majority of her time fretting about her food intake and weight, someone who is comfortable with her skin palor and hair color, someone who preaches what they embody and embodies what they preach (a fantastic quote from someone, which I read on one of my friend's profiles). I want to do something meaningful, and be someone meaningful. I want to have a career I can be proud of- one that I enjoy, and one in which I genuinely put my best foot forward, every day. I want to be someone who has limited complaints, and someone who can be grateful for what they have. I wish I could be someone who did not care about what her ex-boyfriend thought of her, and I would like to be someone who didn't mind that they never loved her at all. I wish I was someone who knew how to figure out what was going on in her head and sort it out. Ok, I realize that might be asking for a lot- but I'd at least like to be able to make a decision and then be completely okay with it- and not fret about it ever again. Basically, I wish I could trust myself.

I wish I could own up to nefarious parts of my family history which is embarassing to me- and recognize that it's not my fault that they are who they are, and that it's not THEIR fault either.

Ah, I've written so many things so far. And I could write so many more. But, for now, I choose not to. This has been (superficially) enough for the moment, so I'll save the rest of the morose writings for later. But real quick- I'd also like to be someone who is just as quick to share happiness as sadness. That would at least (hopefully) provide some type of counter-balance. But alas, I cannot do anything in equal measure.