Notes from 2010: January 22, 1999.

The fear of the dark thing is no exaggeration. I felt things like that pretty often, in my darker moments. I'm pretty sure there are entries further on that I recorded in the midst of, or immediately after, some of my really fucked up times, when I was at the limit of what I could take emotionally. They're still some of the scariest moments I've ever experienced. Being frightened of how horrible you're feeling, how much you hate yourself, and yet completely unable to turn those feelings off... it's a bad place to be.

And there I go wishing for a family of friends again. A group of people who I could really feel like I fit with, a place where I felt like I belonged. I never have found that again, since my junior high friends. Sometimes I wonder if it's something that no one much feels after they've grown up. And sometimes I'm pretty damn sure that it's unusual for me to not fit in anywhere--that most people have somewhere they feel like they fit in. Anyone out there have any feelings about that? I always wish I could ask other people--do you feel a sense of belonging anywhere? And if not, is that something you long for too?

Notes from 2010: January 21, 1999.

The list-making continues. I still kind of really like number 18.

Notes from 2010: January 19, 1999.

List 1:

Math was never my strongest subject. Physics, which I took in grade 11, was the bane of my existence. Chemistry I could more or less wrap my head around at the high school level. (More advanced, not necessarily, but I did fine in my grade 11 class.) But physics and my brain just never clicked. I passed, but barely, and I had to work my ass off to manage it.

As for list 2:

1) I haven't quite managed this one. Getting in my own way less is something I'm actually trying to work on right now. And as usual, I was wrong about Hannah, who seems better than me at letting herself be happy these days. I'm glad for her, and I'd like to make myself more like that. I can kind of remember the conversation I'd had with her that day, where we'd been out doing something, and she said to me at the end that she mostly didn't feel like she was enjoying her life, and didn't feel like she'd had fun that day. In retrospect, she was clearly trying to tell me that she was feeling depressed, but unfortunately I was too self-involved to see that at the time.

2) This directly contradicts all the assumptions I was making about Hannah in number 1. Nonetheless, I do think this is a good idea, and it is something I still try to live by.

3) I fantasized about telling Izzy off a lot, but I never actually had the opportunity to do it. I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing--if it would have been cathartic, or just starting shit I didn't need to start.

4) This never happened. There were at least one or two times that might have been, for someone else, "real opportunities," but I never had the balls to try to strike up a conversation with Enigma Boy, whoever he was.

For list 3, while I still want (and an trying) to be a writer, I've moved away from the idea of writing for TV or having a comic book series of my own, for various reasons. A lot of these could apply to a novel series or whatever too, though, so I don't write them off. (Except the directly TV-related ones, and, for legal reasons, reading fanfic for an ongoing series in number 11.)

The Joss comment is referencing the significant change in Spike's claimed age over the course of Buffy, which at least once dropped by several decades. I love Buffy, but it did have some have some continuity issues (though I understand better now how that can happen when a show changes course, e.g. with Spike becoming a much more important character than he was originally intended to be).

Notice how I just assumed I would have my own series someday, and that it would be popular and I would be known as the creator--that I'd be a Name in TVland and/or Comicsland. And honestly, if I work hard enough, I still believe that could happen with one or more of the novel series I have in mind. Like I've mentioned, I've always been pretty ambitious.

Notes from 2010: January 14, 1999.

So, ten years down the road--how much do I actually remember?

More than I thought I would. More than I hoped I would at the time, though I don't really wish I could forget anymore. All the shit I went through--the good, the bad, all of it--makes me who I am. And while I'm still very much a work in progress, I feel like where I am now is an okay starting point for where I'm trying to go. If I forgot the bad stuff... I think I'd lose a lot of the strength I've built up over the years. That would in no way be a good thing.

Reading these entries does sometimes trigger a memory I'd more or less forgotten about, and there are some things that are complete mysteries to me now--the odd name I can't associate any face or personality with anymore, some situation I referred to very obliquely that I can't fill in the blanks about. But for the most part, I remember it all pretty well. I can still remember what it was like to feel the things I felt back then. And yes, most of those feelings are only pale revenants of the real thing--but they are still there, locked away in my head. It's not like the half-written fanfics I mentioned, where I'd go back and read the two or three paragraphs I'd written, and not be able to remember where on earth I was planning to go with them. My past is still surprisingly vivid.

Wonder if it'll still be so clear in another ten years?

Notes from 2010: January 11, 1999.

Yvonne was someone Hannah and I had been fairly good friends with in late elementary school and junior high. She'd found, frankly, cooler friends than us by the end of junior high--for good reason, since nerdy was never really her bag--but by grade eleven her friends and my and Hannah's group would sometimes hang out together during lunch and free periods, since we all had some friends in common.

My jealousy of Hannah's easy ability to fit in with Yvonne's friends really shines through here, in all its ugly light. Sadly, I didn't recognize it as that at the time. Though even if I had, I don't know if I'd have had the inner strength to curb it.

Hannah could be a little immature, but I don't feel like she was ever abusive, to any degree. She was just struggling to grow up, just like I was, and clinging to physical jokes that we used to pull on each other longer than I was comfortable with. If anything, I'm pretty sure I was heinously passive-aggressive with her. I'm just thankful that I never did try to cut her out of my life, since I can't imagine not having her as a friend now.

From my current, more objective standpoint, I don't think Yvonne and her friends were especially uncivil to me. As I remember it now, they reacted like a lot of people do when faced with someone painfully shy: tried to draw me out, found it really difficult, and gave up pretty quickly. It sucks for the incredibly shy person, but from the other person's perspective, it's a completely understandable reaction. It can take a lot of work to bring a shy person out of their shell, and if they're not your friend and not someone you're interested in becoming friends with... why would you bother? But I was so, so sensitive about being ignored like that--also for very good reason, since I'd been criticized for being shy for as long as I could remember. (Sometimes I still am, though I can usually laugh it off now.) So in just about any social situation, I was working my ass off to be the outgoing, easy-to-be-with person I thought I was supposed to be. It hurt like hell when no one seemed to notice, especially since I knew that ultimately it was all because I was still doing something wrong.

As you'll see in this and numerous other entries, I would frequently rebel against that feeling that I needed to change for people to like me by declaring that I would never change for anyone. Instead, I would look for people liked me for what I was, and fuck everyone else. Then I would go back to school the next day and once again find myself trying like hell to be the outgoing person I wasn't. I was always trying to convince myself I didn't give a shit what anyone thought of me anymore, because I was sure if I could manage to really, honestly not care about that, I would be able to relax enough to just be myself and not worry about what to say, how to act, or any of that anymore. I was actually thinking along the right lines, but I had no idea how to get there. I never did manage it until I was in my early 20s (and--full disclosure--in therapy).


Finally: anyone who can spot the Buffy quote in this entry gets a cookie.*




*the cookie exists only in Vale's imagination. However, she assures you that if it were real, it would be very, very delicious.

Notes from 2010: January 9, 1999: Entry 2.

The lyrics are from "Dickens' Dublin" by Loreena McKennitt. It's a beautiful song. I still love it, for pretty much the same reasons I did back then. I'm still trying to find a place that really feels like home, and people I have that close connection with. I still hope that I might. I'm still fundamentally a dreamer and an idealist--though I'm not so sure about the optimist part.

I'm surprisingly positive about myself in this entry. It's nice to see.

You can also see my ambitious streak coming through here. I'm still hell-bent today on making something of myself in some way that feels meaningful, and I still have hope I might achieve that. It's always been about proving myself to myself. It still is. I've always wanted to do something that mattered in the world, and I'm still reaching for that goal with everything I do. I guess that's a big part of why I'm here tonight, updating this blog.

And if I try really, really hard, I just might be able to find a way to use "still" one more time in this commentary before I'm done with it. Hey, there we go! Mission accomplished.

Notes from 2010: January 9, 1999: Entry 1.

The book series I reference at the beginning of this entry is the Covenant With the Vampire series by Jeanne Kalogridis, a trilogy that serves as backstory to Dracula. I'm not the superfan I was back then, but I'd still recommend her books to anyone who likes the original Dracula.

I should probably be mortified to admit this, but I can still get that fannishly excited about a story I'm really, really into--be it a book, TV show, movie, manga or comic series, whatever. And relatable characters have always been the most important factor for me in whether I connect with a story. Back then there was the extra layer of helping to alleviate some of my loneliness: I barely had any real friends, but feeling emotionally connected with characters in books helped me feel less completely alone in the world. On the other hand, knowing that imaginary characters were the closest thing I had to friends could also make me feel that much more lonely and depressed when I was in a self-hating mood. But losing myself in stories I loved was one of the healthier coping mechanisms I had, and one of the ones I'm glad I've held onto. When I need it, it still works for me.

"Enigma Boy" comes up again in this entry, much to my current-day chagrin. I'm pretty sure the fear was plain old fear of rejection and making a fool of myself, though I guess I can't say with absolute certainty that it wasn't more than that. Full disclosure: I've done a 180 with the whole "hopeless romantic" thing in the last 10 years, in that I would have called myself one when I was in high school, and barely consider myself at all romantic (at least in the love sense) today. I find it hard not to write off high-school-Vale's feelings in crush entries, because I just so don't think that way anymore. So if my commentary on that stuff seems a bit cynical, that's why. I'll try to keep the snarkier cynicism at bay as much as I can. I don't want to alienate anyone--but I do reserve the right to make fun of myself at least some of the time. I mean, ten years from now I'll probably be laughing at a bunch of the shit I've got up to in my 20s, you know?

One thing that I can still get all starry-eyed romantic about is wanderlust. I still feel like that sometimes--like I want to just jump in my car, start driving, and figure out where I'm going whenever I happen to get there. I haven't managed a cross-continental road trip yet, but I would still love for that someday to come. Who knows, maybe I'll eventually set aside some time to make it happen. I kind of love that that's a possibility now.

"Nihao" means "hello" in Mandarin Chinese.

Notes from 2010: January 8, 1999.

My modern day answer to the question I pose in the first lines of this entry? Pfft, no. Don't be naïve.

The guy I talk about in this entry (and who will, sadly, continue to be mentioned in other entries for a while) was some dude who looked vaguely like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was the entire basis for the "crush": since I didn't know anything about the guy except what he looked like, I could pretend to myself that he was actually somewhat like Spike. (Spike and Faith were my big character crushes on Buffy. Yes, I've always liked the badasses. Still do.) I never knew his name, never spoke to him, never had any actual contact with him. It wasn't even really worthy of being called a crush, but I was lonely and painfully shy enough that it passed for that at the time. Hey, at least I was mostly honest with myself about there being no real basis for my feelings. I've always been pretty self-aware about shit like that.

Once again, I talk about the idea of giving something (but not too much) up for the opportunity to get to know him. I was all about bargaining with my Gods in those days. I still think that way sometimes, those less often now.

Notes from 2010: January 6, 1999.

I mention Go Ask Alice again in this entry. Despite being a complete teetotaler (lame as hell word for it, but I've never felt like it would be quite truthful to call myself straight edge, so there it is), I identified deeply with some of the shit Alice goes through as an addict: how lost she is for most of the book, and how her diary is sometimes her only friend and all that keeps her sane. I know now that the book has been heavily edited and fictionalized to drive home the "drugs are evil & wrong" message, but despite having to take it all with a grain of salt, it's still a book that means a lot to me because it was so close to my heart back then. I still have a copy of it around somewhere, and it'll probably always have a home on my bookshelf.

ED trigger alert: The dieting stuff. I've had body image issues pretty much since puberty, and I definitely ate to comfort myself as a teenager, though I didn't think of it that way at the time. I always felt fat and unattractive, and had no confidence whatsoever in my looks. I was constantly making resolutions to diet and exercise more, following them for a short time, then giving up. I did tend to lose weight during musical, since rehearsals kept me busy and I probably didn't have as much time to sit around and eat, but I gained it all back as soon as the musical ended. I was also a late bloomer with fashion and makeup, so I was just starting to get into that in tenth and eleventh grades. Sadly, my body image bullshit hasn't changed significantly in the past decade, and has been compounded by an ED-NOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified--i.e. doesn't quite fit into any of the official eating disorder categories--for those of you lucky enough not to know the lingo) that I'm somewhat recovered from. Logically, I'm aware that I'm in much better shape now than I was as a teenager. But I still feel fat and ugly most of the time.

Notes from 2010: December 30, 1998.

This is my final entry from 1998 and the first part of eleventh grade. A bit of a pensive entry, but not too down. I talk about being depressed, but there's a lot of optimism here too, which is nice to see.

It becomes obvious in this entry that I'm not American. Hannah had taken the SATs because she was fairly certain she wanted to go to a US university, and had scored very well. I was considering taking them because I wanted to option of applying to US schools. I didn't end up taking them at that point; and if I had, there is no way I would have beaten Hannah's score--she is extremely smart and well-rounded.

In this case, I did follow up on the idea some years later, scored reasonably well, and got accepted to an American college for a second degree. Despite all my bitching and moaning in this entry, Hannah has been one of the ones to reassure me that just because I didn't ace the math section of the test doesn't mean I'm bad at math, and that I underestimate my non-arts intelligence. As you'll hear me say over and over: she's a good friend.

I did study film for a while, and decided it wasn't for me after all. I never did go to school in California, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I would be eaten alive if I tried to find my way into Hollywood. I still fucking love the weather in L.A., though.

Notes from 2010: December 26, 1998.

Clearly the idea of an older guy I respected possibly having a thing for me seemed all "ooh, exciting!" at the time. I am absolutely confident that Brodie had no interest in me. I'm pretty sure he had a serious girlfriend. But it was a minor confidence boost to imagine that someone could maybe find me attractive.

As embarrassing as this entry is, at least it's an up moment mixed in with the down ones. Hence including it (and others like it), despite being tangential to the main theme of this blog. I don't want this to be all depression, all the time. There were other sides to my life too, and it would feel dishonest to exclude those entries. I want this to be as full a picture as possible of who I was as I can manage, while keeping this anonymous.

The "ex-c-guy" I mention was some dude I "cyber dated" for a month or two, primarily because all my friends were into that and I didn't want to be left out. Not a relationship I put much stock in, even while I was involved in it. Thankfully, I don't think he particularly did either.

Notes from 2010: December 23, 1998.

I was attempting to co-author a Sailor Moon fanfic with someone I'd met online, which is the writing I talk about at the beginning of this entry. Sadly, I procrastinated too much to uphold my half of the story.

I also talk a little about magick here--"call to her with my mind and heart" and all that.

Even then, though I thought of myself as a "hopeless romantic" (which is far from the case these days), there was a limit on how much I was willing to consider sacrificing for love. I have usually drawn very strong lines between crush feelings and actual love, and unrequited and romantic love (though you'll see them blur in my mind with my crush on Mark in future entries), and there have always been things in my life that are more important to me than finding "true love". The potential for success, for instance. The ability to write. There are things I would never give up for the love of anyone, and that's always been the case. Some things are just worth more than that.

"Oyasumi nasai" means "good night" in Japanese. "-chan" is a Japanese diminutive used for young girls and close female peers.

Notes from 2010: December 22, 1998.

I actually get a little egotistical in this post. I'm almost impressed that I could still get that up myself at this point.

I don't think I ever saw Skylark again after this entry, so the whole becoming friends thing never happened. Probably for the best, really--I have no idea what she thought of me (though I'm reasonably certain she knew I was a girl), but unless she happened to be queer too, I was probably creeping her out. Whatever the case, she was never anything but pleasant to me.

I did continue to identify as bisexual, happily, and I became increasingly more comfortable with that as time went on. In 1998, still very early on in my coming out process, I would still have taken the mythical "straight pill" if someone had offered it to me. A year or two later that had already changed, and I wouldn't have given up being bi for any reason. In the present day my sexuality is one of the parts of my personality I am most confident in, comfortable with and certain of. (I actually prefer to identify as pansexual now, though I'll still call myself bisexual for simplicity at times, depending on who I'm talking to.) Looking back on the early days kind of makes me smile.

Sadly, the note about being glad my unrequited crush wasn't "an IRL thing" was prophetic. And, yes, you will get to see just how pathetic and awkward all that gets in some later entries. God, does all that make me squirm now.

Notes from 2010: December 5, 1998.

I mention Iris for the first time in this entry. I'm a little surprised that it's taken this long for her name to come up, but I like to think it's because I had so few issues with her, she didn't have a place in the more ranty entries.

Sheila was a c-penpal I can't remember anything much about anymore.

You see my independent streak coming through again here. I was, in the moment, dead serious about wanting to do everything myself. But because I was always speaking in anger when I swore to make it completely on my own, I was never much for the follow-through. I never did get my first paying job until the summer after I graduated from high school.

I also mention the school musical for the first time. I was in the extended chorus--i.e. the people who had to be included because the staff in charge wasn't allowed to turn anyone away if they wanted to be involved. Witness my amazing talent for performance. Musical rehearsals were, more often than not, miserably lonely for me, especially since Iris had to drop out of the chorus due to lack of time. I stuck with it--to this day, I'm not entirely sure why--and that becomes important later on in terms of some people I meet through rehearsals, and my big (silly) high school crush, which I developed there.

Notes from 2010: November 30, 1998.

I had my positive moments. I still like this entry, and the quote that starts it off.

Notes from 2010: November 22, 1998.

The first lyrics I quote are from the song "Nothing Beautiful" by The Odds. The second are from "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan.

As I recall, it did break my heart a little every time I went to Izzy's house alone to feed his pets. There were so many memories there, of a friendship and a closeness that I'd lost without quite understanding how or why.

The message to my future self at the end of the entry is a little strange to read--kind of sad, and kind of sweet. Some of my wishes for myself have come true. Others haven't. Some of these entries do make me feel sad for the girl I used to be, and some make me laugh with or at myself, depending. The quote from Toy Story at the end makes me smile.

All I can say to my past self is... I'm still working on it. I'm still unfinished. But things are a hell of a lot better now than they used to be. And I have hope that they'll only continue to get better. For now, it's a good place to be. It's a good place to start.

Notes from 2010: October 28, 1998. TRIGGER WARNING

TRIGGER WARNING:

So this is the first entry where I talk blatantly, if briefly, about cutting myself. I'm fairly certain I started self-injuring as a coping method near the beginning of eleventh grade, so it would still have been a pretty new thing for me when I wrote this entry.

Full disclosure: I got the idea to start cutting from a magazine article I read about people who did cut and why it was a bad thing. So even stories intended to deter people from engaging in unhealthy behaviours--which is part of what I'm trying to do here--don't necessarily have the effect the writer hopes they will. Nonetheless, I think it's important to admit that, while I recognize that cutting was (and, in the moments when I give in, still is) an addictive behaviour and a terrible, self-defeating coping mechanism, I also have to admit that in the worst moments of my pain--it did sometimes help. Not always. And it did nothing to deal with the underlying issues. It was a prime example of treating the symptom--the pain in that moment--but not the disease--the underlying depression that cutting couldn't take away.

I would never, never recommend self-injury of any kind as a way of trying to handle pain, for many reasons: Any relief is very temporary, and, if you draw blood, not worth the messy clean up. I was always afraid of the consequences (being forced into therapy? institutionalization? being forced to take medication? my family and few friends being horrified by me?) if someone caught me in the act or saw fresh cuts on my body. The scars--believe me--never go away. It is not bullshit to call SI addictive, and once you start it is very, very difficult to stop: it took me more than a decade to almost never cut anymore, and in bad moments the temptation is always there. The act of cutting can trigger suicidal thoughts at moments when you weren't actually thinking them yet. And, as I said, it does absolutely nothing to help you work through and move past the pain that makes you feel like hurting yourself in the first place.

But at the time... it was the only way I knew to help myself, as sad and awful and pathetic as that is. So I did it. I don't advocate it, and if you can convince yourself to never start at all, you'll save yourself the never-ending battle to stop for good. But SI was and is a part of me, for good or for ill. And I'm not going to hedge about that in this blog.

This is also the first entry where I mention finding it difficult to cry, even when I feel like I need to. I've read since then that that's not so unusual for a person who is severely depressed. I've never gotten back to that point again, and I'm thankful for that, because it would scare the hell out of me if I did. For me, it was a sign of how bad things were getting inside my head.

On a slightly lighter note, naming my diary and referring to it as "you" is something I picked up from the book Go Ask Alice. I read that for the first time when I was 12, and re-read it any number of times as a teenager. It broke my heart and left a huge impression on me, and even though drugs have never been my issue, I felt a huge affinity for Alice and the shit she was going through. Hell, maybe that's part of why I'm blogging my diaries today, since reading her journals meant so much to me at the time.

Finally: Yes, I did actually write out anime-style happy faces by hand in my diary. Yes, I do have to snicker at just how frigging nerdy that is.

Notes from 2010: September 30, 1998.

The September 30 entry is prefaced by a two-line entry from August 30, which for some reason I never had a chance to write more of.

I have no idea now who this millionaire friend of Izzy's was supposed to be. For the record, he never ran away with her either, since from the sound of my entry he'd apparently been considering it.

The parenthesis where I clarify that I don't hate living, just how my life is, are my words at that time. I was trying to keep those things separate in my mind because I hadn't yet given in quite enough to self-loathing to actively consider suicide, and I was afraid of getting to that point if I started thinking that it was, in fact, myself I hated.

I talk in this entry about wanting to go somewhere else and start over completely new, by which I meant, be someone completely other than who I was. I hadn't yet learned that it doesn't necessarily work out that way--at least, not if what you're running away from is, like my shyness, and intrinsic part of yourself. A few years down the road, I did have an opportunity to start over fresh as a university student, in a city where I barely knew anyone, and it didn't exactly go as I'd hoped. I did manage to work through a lot of my issues around being shy eventually--seeing a psychologist worked very well for me, with that--but it wasn't until I started therapy that I started making the changes I wanted so badly. Before that, it was like Social Distortion says in "Ball and Chain": "But wherever I have gone/I was sure to find myself there/You can run all your life/But not go anywhere". Sometimes it still feels that way. But I do like myself a lot more than I used to these days, and I have a lot more confidence that I am able to change the parts I don't like, if I put my mind to it.

The sign-off I use, "jya-ne", means "bye" or "see you later" in Japanese. I was all about boosting my otaku cred. At least in my own mind, since by this point no one else much gave a crap. *L*

Notes from 2010: August 25, 1998.

I mention Wicca, magick and praying to a God and Goddess for the first time in this post. Izzy, Alyssa, me, and a couple other friends from school got interested in Wicca in eighth grade. As I recall it we were primarily inspired by The Craft, though we had heard about Wicca before that. But after we saw the movie, we read more about the religious and magickal aspects, started identifying as Wiccan, decided that four or five of us were a coven, and tried to perform some spells. I recorded a lot of that in my diary at that time, which is what I'm referring to when I talk about how people would think I was crazy if they read old entries. (For the record, I no longer identify as specifically Wiccan, though I do still like a lot of the beliefs. I also don't worry about people thinking I was crazy for believing what I did anymore, since in retrospect being severely depressed and suicidal was a lot closer to crazy than a belief in magick.)

I mention my brother Colin for the first time in this entry. I have another brother, Brock, who I'll likely mention at some point as well. I think Colin had broken up with a girlfriend recently, hence needing extra love and support.

I also reference an old fight with my mother that was still bothering me. I can't remember what that was about anymore, but it sounds like I tried to open up to her about something and wasn't thrilled with her reaction.

My issues with my father are expanded on somewhat here. A little extra background: My parents got divorced when I was in late elementary school. By the middle of junior high, my father had started a relationship with a divorced woman who had a family of her own. He got very involved with them, and his relationship with his own kids suffered as a result. I had set days of the week when I saw him, and since Brock and Colin were both too old for that, realistically I think they saw him much less often than I did. Unfortunately, by the time I was 14 or so, our visits weren't very enjoyable anymore.

Dad spent most of our time together with his girlfriends' kids, and I was just expected to tag along, hoping he'd notice me now and then. I still don't think it's exaggerating to say that he acted very uninterested in my life, and my brothers' lives, and didn't bother to get to know the people we were growing up to be. I'm sorry to say he still doesn't make much effort, but I'm more or less reconciled to that now. Sometimes it still hurts my feelings, but... he's an imperfect man. He did the best he could.

He's often gone off on ideological kicks, incorporating ideas and beliefs into his worldview that may or may not be a part of it six months or a year later. At the time of this entry, he was on a "never apologize, and never do anything for someone without expecting something in return" kick. I can't remember how long it lasted, but it was a bit disturbing to witness. I'm glad I was skeptical enough not to buy into it. It never seemed to make him particularly happy.

This is also the first entry where I talk about feeling like I might rather die than live. I backtrack immediately-but the thoughts were already building.

Notes from 2010: August 3, 1998.

There's a pretty big break between the last entry and this one. That will begin change in the fall, once I start back at school. I always wrote more during the school year because I felt that much more alone when I was in a big crowd of people all day, and convinced none of them knew I existed.

I mention Stacie for the first time in this entry. She's an old friend of Hannah's who Hannah knew when she was really little, and who'd moved back to town after living away for most of elementary school and junior high. Her whole family was friends with Hannah's, and they'd visited each other over the years, so they clicked as friends again immediately. Stacie went to a different school than Hannah and I, so I saw her more during the summer than when we were in school. I have no idea what she's up to these days, though as far as I know she and Hannah still keep in touch.

I'd also like to note that these days I'm more much aware of how lucky I was to have extended family who could pay for my university. I feel extremely blessed not to have student loan payments, like too many people I know. And in case I don't continue this blog into my university years: yes, I did stay in my hometown for university. No, I don't regret that. I blustered in my diaries, but in the end, a free ride was too great a gift to pass up, even if I meant I couldn't go where I really wanted to. For me, it was worth it to stay.

Near the end of this entry, you'll see some of my early assertions that I don't need friends, or anyone except myself. That's something I still try to convince myself of in lonely moments, even though I've never yet managed to make it a reality. I've always wanted to be as independent as possible. But while in many ways I am (not surprisingly) more independent now than I was when I was 16, I've never gotten past the desire to have friends. I may be shy, but I do have a social side, and I doubt I'll ever be able to excise that from personality. No matter how much I sometimes wish I could. Maybe that's for the best, but I have to admit, it does still piss me sometimes off that I can't control that side of myself. Ah well.