It sucks because I'm in one of the most magical cities in the world and there is always stuff going on. I have amazing friends who are always inviting me out to parties or art shows or movies or bars and I do as much of that as I can; I put on pretty clothes and do my makeup and prepare for a nice trip out to socialize because I need that interaction, I need to see the city lit up and beautiful. I hate wallowing in my own sadness, and the only thing worse than fighting off my depression tooth and nail is having someone say "It's fine, cheer up" like I could just flip a switch and turn off my sadness. Shaking it off might be easier for some people than others, but for me it's never come with a particular trigger. I need different things at different times; sometimes I desperately need to cry and have someone pet my hair or rub my back and just be there for me. Other times I just need to lay alone in the darkness and listen to my iPod or watch some stupid movie and ignore my phone for a few hours. I am naturally an extrovert, so I'm not used to hiding it when I'm sad; I will tell the world about my depression, and yet I used to take great care to cover the cuts I was putting on my body. I don't care if people think I'm weak for being this way; it's a big part of who I am, unfortunately, and it's something I fight every day. This last week has been a bad one for me and more than once I've cried myself to sleep. I've eaten too much food, and total junk food, nothing nutritious at all. I haven't been exercising. I haven't been doing much of anything except feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in the sadness inside of me. I'm doing my best now to shake it off and shrug the blanket away, but it's hard. Sunshine comes in little trickles and beams, not big washes of light.
Awhile ago my friend Stephanie and I went hiking in Griffith Park. It's beautiful there, and it was so peaceful and fun. We went up the 'easy' trail and through this beautiful little wooded greenbelt with a brook full of fish and crawdads, and we just talked and watched people and dogs and hung out with her terrier Edie. It was a good day.
I had a crisis of faith between the last entry and this one; I was facing major uncertainty with a lot of things in my life and it's very hard for me to be so far away from my family and friends while going through this. Of course I have friends out here, but the ones in Texas have obviously known me longer and been with me through more. I don't feel confident enough with most of the people out here to really lean on them when I'm stressing and what's worse, I try not to come across as clingy or desperate or anything but I get so needy and lonely sometimes when I'm depressed and don't have people around me. I spent several days thinking about hurting myself, and it's alarming how much I wanted to go back to bad habits. How easy that slippery slope is to traverse.
But standing on the top of the hill at Griffith Park, looking out over the city, I realized that I was where I'm meant to be. Things aren't easy and things aren't this fairy tale that I always hoped they'd be, but Los Angeles is home for me right now. The city stretches out full of possibilities and beauty, and I have to stop dwelling on the bullshit that clouds my mind from seeing how wonderful things can be if I just let them.
Things at work have certainly been interesting. We're in post-production and editing mode for Fear Clinic, which is pretty fantastic. Shooting the movie was an incredible experience for me and I have stayed close with quite a few of the cast and crew members. It's a big family; even when things were rough or we had bad days on set, we always had each other's backs and had someone to vent to or give a hug to or just have a drink with.
As much as Fear Clinic was amazing, I'm really looking forward to the next few projects we have lined up. I've been writing like a fiend and working really hard on coming up with some original concepts, and it looks like something really big might happen in the near horizon. Something that is surreal to me, and a part of me doesn't even want to say anything for fear of jinxing it. All I can say is that this is the life I always wanted since I was a little kid; the idea of creating something, of making something with my own mind that lots of people might get to see and relate to, is insane and bizarre and intoxicating to me.
And I'd be lying if I said things weren't hard with Matt being 2,000 miles away. I had to fly to North Carolina to see him this past weekend, and it was a five-hour plane ride. On the way out I slept, stretched out in my coach seat as far as I could manage, and listened to the new Bastille album, which I've been totally wearing out on my playlist. Once I got there and rented a car, it was another two hours of driving to get to where he was stationed on set for an indie film he'd been working on. I was exhausted and my back was throwing a fit by the time I pulled up outside the address he'd given me. But then the door opened and this lanky, handsome, scruffy guy with a lip ring walked out and immediately every minute of travel time vanished from my mind. All I wanted to do was throw my arms around his skinny ass and that's exactly what I did; I hugged him as hard and long as I could, just trying to absorb him. No amount of hugging him felt like enough, even though it had only been a few weeks since I last saw him in Dallas.
We spent the night together, a nice dinner and a shady-ass quaint little hotel room, and I can honestly say that laying next to him is the first time I've ever been in a relationship where I felt complete with the person beside me. I sleep better with him breathing next to me; I love how it feels when our bodies brush in the night. As much as I hate everything about my own body, I love everything about his. There's a poem by e.e. cummings which I've always loved… the opening line is "I like my body when it is with your body."
I honestly love everything about Matt. He isn't perfect, but he's perfect for me. He makes me feel that much closer to loving myself, to being comfortable in my own skin. The only thing about our relationship that genuinely sucks is not getting to fall asleep with him every night, not getting to wake up to him every morning. Not getting to drive around holding his hand and rolling my eyes over the death metal music he listens to when he's driving, not having him there to give me shit about my dozens of little quirks that I know drive him crazy even if he says they don't. Long distance sucks. I don't know how people do this and manage. I feel like I'm dying of loneliness sometimes even when we're on FaceTime and it's as close as I can get to actually lying beside him in bed.
He makes me better just by being with me.
My weight loss seems to have pretty much stabilized, and I don't have a scale here so I don't know how much I weigh. I probably don't want to know, honestly. I've been eating like shit, like I said before, and not really looking out for myself. Not taking care of me the way I should, for sure. But I am about to stop all that shit and get back on the wagon. There will still be vodka, of course, but there will not be Del Taco or fried cheesesticks at 2 AM or a bag of Doritos when I'm bored. I will stop buying things like Bagel Bites even though they make super-convenient noms when I have the late-night munchies. I have to get back to high-protein low-carb goodness, and I have to make a schedule for working out and actually stick to it. Regain is entirely possible, and not only possible but plausible. I refuse to get hugely obese again. I'm still very fat by a lot of standards, 'the fat girl' in any circle of friends, and I don't want that for myself anymore. I am still seriously considering cosmetic surgery to tuck and lift everything that needs tucking and lifting, but I'd like to lose another 20 or so pounds on my own free merit before I go under the knife for that stuff. However, I was so fat for so long that I know some things are inevitable, and I WILL have to get my stomach tucked, my thighs/ass probably too. My upper arms are a nightmare that will have to be dealt with. And without a push-up bra, my tits are a nightmare; two cup sizes smaller than they used to be and gravity is not fucking kind when you lose 150 pounds.
In the meantime, there are Victoria's Secrets bras, which are kind of fucking magical.
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