lover alone without love

This journal has seen four years of my life pass, from when I started it at sixteen and angsty through my entire last years as (legally anyway) a teenager.
Four years. That's an entire high school career, a whole undergraduate's degree. Four entire years.
I've seen so much shit in this journal-- the deaths of my friends and family, my first heartbreaks, some of my greatest triumphs...so many things. my friends on this account have watched me go through (and cause) so much shit and drama, it's amazing.

now, though, i feel like it's time to start over. i feel like even if i'm not fully grown up, i've grown up enough that the person i was four years, two years, one year ago isn't quite who i am now, and i want to create a sort of Volume Two: What Happens Next.

so i am going to close this phoenix-moth account, and move to a new one.

i'm not deleting this journal, of course (i still gotta publish it) but it's time to create a new account.

you can find me now at http://whitesheetdawn.livejournal.….

see you there, and i love you guys for sticking by me so long.

in a way i want to tell myself that i am not capable of trying to keep him from coming apart when i'm not sure yet the extent of the damage to my own parts.
i want to tell him how i didn't cry when he told me, because i was singing the entire time. my mouth was open, so it couldn't tremble.
i want to tell him, look. i'm as strong as you. i still haven't cried, though i have the vaguest sense that you died four weeks ago and that's why you're not coming back, and every time we talk i think i'm dreaming again.

i want to ask him where to go now, why he doesn't care what i do with those pictures, whether he's going to keep my books and my notebook. whether he read them at all or if he was too busy being high.

i want to ask someone how to do this properly, so that i don't make any missteps. i'm treating this carefully, like trying to put together a puzzle of thousands of pieces, or slowly assembling a mosaic, a stained-glass wall, without quite knowing what the end result is supposed to look like because it's an entirely novel idea.

but rebuilding yourself, gathering everything back together after a breakup is not a novel idea. and i did not crash to the floor in the first place; i simply lay down and closed my eyes, went to sleep and woke up again the next morning. i am strangely placid about the whole business, not breathing a word to my mother, keeping it from mary like he asked (and when will he tell her?), moving through the day laughing and singing and reading and generally being exactly what i was on wednesday night. as if a part of the floor didn't just shift underneath my boots, and shake me up to the roots of my hair for a second, like the precursor to a quake.

but i feel as if i can manipulate this quake away from me, keep it from jolting me to my knees. and in a way i feel like it should bring me to my knees, if only to strengthen my ability to get back up-- but haven't i done enough falling for now? isn't it time to get up and go?

i sort of wonder why, as i'm trying to get back into myself again, this had to happen now. i had a feeling it was going to happen, but why now?
is it because i am moving to a new place-- is it better that i have it all broken now so i can build completely over again when i get  there? is it "for the best"?

i sort of believe that.

but i wonder now what will happen. i don't have any idea what is going to happen to me. i don't know if a part of his heartbreak is for me, or if my heart is broken and i simply haven't begun to feel it yet-- or if i won't feel this as heartbreak because i was already heartbroken when he went home twenty-nine days ago. because it did break-- my heart-- it cracked so deeply i could hear hissing in my dreams. maybe the reason that i am calm now is because i was already exhausted, and am just too tired now to feel anything more than the vague sensation of another thing added on, another step to climb up out of wherever i was sinking to.

i should tell my mother, but somehow i don't know how to. i almost feel as if i kind of failed her, or myself; my first real, physical relationship, with a boy i could touch and taste, someone i saw face to face, and it ended in two months, without enough memories even to make it a reality. he never sat in the same room as my mother or rode with us anywhere; i shared none of my past with him. i showed him only one of my favorite places and he was always intoxicated when we were there, so he may not even remember it. i gave him none of myself but my body and parts of my heart.

i never got the chance to truly make him a part of me or my life at all, and yet he shook it up. what does that mean for my future? for me? for my future as part of relationships? how will i behave in the future? what will sex with someone who isn't him be like-- will i even be able to have it with anyone else?

it is six in the morning. i am sleepy and thinking about this has made a slow, soft hurt settle heavy in my chest. i think i will sleep it off now.

I did it: I called Subway this morning and let Mrs. Debbi know I'll no longer be working there. As I figured, I felt a little guilty because I mean, I like Mrs. Debbi and at the end of the day I don't hate working there, but all these missed classes and lab hours are going to do fucked up things to my already bad grades as it is and though I already know I'm pretty much going to be dropped from the University (which is another reason it's a good thing I'm preempting them by dropping out myself, el oh el /sarcasm) I figure it's still better to get as many credits as I can so that what can transfer will do so. To do that I need the time that was taken up by Subway and by me not going to class. And I was right about having to still work today, but my shift was 13:00-17:00 so it isn't really even that bad. Five hours rushing around giving it one last go; I won't die, I had to work seven hours yesterday and seven Saturday as well.
I think (do they even pay you if you work less than a week before quitting?) that I've earned something around $200, which is good if I can save most of it for Houston. The only thing I can see needing anytime soon is another loaf of bread and that's only $2.26 with tax, unless I get it at Wal-Mart for $1.97-- but I haven't got a ride, so that's out of the question right now.

I feel a heavy, heady sense of relief-- as if in the short six days I was there I had another weight placed on me that just got siphoned out. I feel sort of drained, emptied, a little remorseful, a little worried about what my mind will do without the mindless chaos of Subway to divert it from its previos occupation...and now all the crap about my gender identity that was bothering me yesterday which I wanted to write about here, but I didn't because I expounded so heavily on it in dAmn that I didn't feel like repeating myself even for the sake of posteri-tah. (I don't even watch South Park and yet I keep imitating some of the things I hear the characters do on radio commercials. WTF.)

Stuff I need to do this week: Algebra homework due today for one thing; tomorrow I'm going to have to fill in all three lab hours, so I'll probably get up at seven or seven-thirty again in order to get there on time; after that which should end around noon I could probably grab a quick lunch with Allison if she wanted or just stick around that side since Lockett isn't far from Pleasant and I hate the McVoy-Lockett walk anyway. The 5, which is where  Allison eats now, isn't extremely far from either one so that  helps. After that, either way it goes, I'll need to go to Sociology and take down notes (Ms. Doucet would pick the end of the year to assign us chapters that aren't covered in our text or in notes, wouldn't she), then I can come home and chill for a while before coming down here to finish my math homework (as I said)...three assignments in three hours. I don't know how much I'll be able to do, but I'll do whatever I can. By the time that's done it'll probably be nine on the nose or later so I guess I'll just go upstairs and bathe and go to bed.
I totally just mixed up my days. I'll need to go to bed after homework today, not tomorrow; tomorrow I'll be free to probably finally resume dumping out/packing away all my crap.

I'm getting irritated with how the janitors utter expressions of irritating when they see me in here. Last time I checked, the computer lab is open for twenty-four hours and is intended for student use, therefore you can shut your fucking mouth, okay Mrs. Mary? (That's her name.)

Ugh. Cleaning out my dorm is going to take ages, even with throwing away most of my clothes and stuff. Doesn't matter, though. And it helps that my adapter is coming this week so hopefully maybe even today I'll have it even though I just realized that since I have to work from one to five I can't get it today because the mail with my pink slips usually comes around one, and the desk closes at four-thirty. So the latest I can check my mail will be eleven o'clock. Unless of course I get lucky and the pink slip is there.

I'm hungry. I don't understand how I've only had a job six days and yet my brain is struggling to comprehend having free time. Maybe that's just my tendency to overexaggerate pervading my subconscious or something.

I really hope that whatever my next job is turns out to be something that I am proficient at and able to keep without panic attacks or schedule issues or confusion (or getting bitched at by a customer who claims I wiped mayonnaise on his sandwich when there is clearly none visible on it).

I'm very sleepy right now. Shouldn't have woken up so early but I wanted to call Mrs. Debbi with enough time for her to find someone else to come in to work if she needed to (though obviously that didn't turn out to be a problem) and for her to be able to rework the schedules to fill in the times I'll be gone now, etc. etc. etc. I know a girl was applying for a job a few days ago so maybe that person will come in my place. Hope so. It's not my concern anymore after five o'clock this afternoon. Now I need to concentrate on these last two weeks of school, on final exams (uuuughh) and on getting the fuck out of Dodge.

today was chaotic. i worked eleven to six, so i went in there and to my shock it was sort of slow at first-- weird considering i expected the breakfast rush to have absolutely flooded the place, but i guess the so-called "severe weather" we're expected to have chased a lot of people off; i suited up and got a bit of a dressing down from mrs. debbi about my texting on the job (which my mom also admonished me about, so i ended up turning my phone off today and i'll probably continue to just keep it off) and about putting my drink cup on the table where we do sauces, and then i had to change my shorts (luckily i had brought my pants too because i felt unsure whether or not we were allowed to wear shorts-- but i had seen some other kids wear them, so i decided to chance it given the heat we work in, and mrs. debbi was like "don't let what these kids do when i'm not here influence you. they don't  care, and i know they don't, but we do have rules."  which i'm cool with, i get that, i'm just trying to find my way here and such and she understands that so it's no biggie to have to correct any of the mistakes i make) before i could dive into work.

it was slow first, then we started getting them in surges, and at some point jamie (one jamie, we have two apparently) and michelle both left after we had served several people (i worked the register for most of today) and by the time three o'clock rolled around my feet were starting to give me hell. when jamie and michelle both left (they got off at three) mrs. debbi and i wound up alone working the counter through a couple rushes, and it was hectic flying back and forth trying to ring up, wash my hands, suit up (i say "suit up" because it's the phrase that c omes to mind for when i put my gloves on), dress sandwiches, then remove gloves to ring up, then rush back and wash and dry my hands and suit up again and again and again back and forth like that for hours till the last guys came in. every time mrs. debbi started to take off her apron to go on a break somebody else would come in and it was like FFF WOULD YOU PEOPLE GO AWAY. XD but finally it calmed down and she went home, and for a while it was only me working the entire line because Gio was nowhere to be found despite me having seen him for a minute on the eastern side of the store. i'm kind of proud of myself, because for once i did not ruin the loaves of bread when i cut them open for sandwiches and i even managed to get all the way from point A to point Z (that is, from choosing and cutting open the bread to ringing up the finished, wrapped sandwiches) not once, but several times today. i'm starting to sort of get the hang of this, although i messed up a few times when i had to work the register while mrs. debbi was standing right over me which of course freaked me out some, but it got better after a while.

all in all today was a hectic, slightly long, feet-hurting but productive good workday. i'm home now, it's seven o'clock and i'm kind of sleepy.

i'm also getting irritated once again with the fact that i keep hearing 'i'll call, i'll text, i'll' whatever and it does not happen. mary was all fussy last night wanting to know why i removed her and troy from facebook and from my cell phone and i was like...because i'm sick of the fact that every time my phone vibrates anymore, or i see "_____ sent you a facebook message/commented on your status/did whatever" it's not from either of them.  i gave up any hope of communication with troy a month ago, but given all the shitstorm she's raised over the past six months about needing me and missing me and loving me and on and on and on i would have expected mary to be blowing my phone up to the point that i had to shut it off, the way sarah used to. no dice. whatever. they're both out of my immediate mind, so who cares, i guess. it's fucking lonely, but i no longer have time-- or the mental capacity-- to bother wasting my emotions or fuel for my trains of thought on people who don't want to ride them with me. fuck that shit. i've got things to do and places to go now and if they're not coming then i guess i'll just have to go alone.

by the end of the day now i'm tired so it doesn't matter anymore but these mornings of quiet terror and choking back tears make me wish i could sleep for days and standing behind the counter at work sometimes i look around me for a second and realize i have no clue where i am or what i'm doing or what the people around me are saying, i don't know what i'm supposed to be acting like and i can't think or move, can't understand the things being said to me, and inside me this...something...a blindness, deafness, this great surging white rises and blocks my ears and eyes so that for a few minutes at a time i am completely walled off from the world and then i scream inside my head and say don't do this, i have a job to do, i'll get in trouble, i'll fail and be fired and i will be disappointed in myself, don't do this to me. and it breaks long enough for me to smile benignly at some completely oblivious coworker or customer like i'm not coming apart inside.

i want to go home the second i leave my dorm in that uniform and the only thing stopping me is knowing that if i quit, that's it. i have no money, i have no distraction and i have no pride. because i hate nothing so much as quitters and liars and i have quit too many times as it is. i can't keep quitting. but god i need someone here with me so much. i have to stop myself from begging mary to come back every time we're on the phone or texting anymore and the thought that i may not see either of them at all this summer is one i can't even handle; i can't handle thinking of troy anymore. i ignore anything mary says about him and if he's there when she's on the phone with me i hang up. i simply cannot allow myself anymore to remember that he exists while the reality of the situation remains as it is now-- that he is there and i am here and it will be a long, long, long time before that changes if it ever does, that i have no means of communicating with him until then and just...i can't think about him. except when i glance at his pictures on my desk, he's all but dead to me-- not because i don't want him anymore or because i don't love him, not because i want him out of my life, but because if i let the full force of what i feel for him combine with the realization that i can't be with him for months, for who knows how many months, i will collapse under the silence. under that weight. under that pain.

mary is all i can handle thinking of.

may (the month, not a typo) is all i can handle thinking until ___. i can't think of summer, i can't think of june or july or any time after it. i can only handle thinking in terms of the time until my job at subway and my school year are done. when i was thinking i'd see troy in may or june it was okay, i had that to look forward to but without that the summer seems like a great big black thing ahead of me and it terrifies me because how much worse will i get? how much more terrified will i become? how much lonelier? how much crazier? when will it stop? where wil it end? how far down will i go before something stops me and what will if i anything? can anything stop this at all? how much longer do i have to go on feeling so bad?

it is thinking of this that makes me want to die. but knowing as i do that i probably don't really want to die, that the bad feeling will pass at least for a few hours or days, keeps me breathing. for a while the thought that i will be with my mom this summer was enough to keep the bad out of my head but...well i shouldn't have mentioned it to christina, i really shouldn't have and i honestly d on't know why i did because we aren't even that kind of friends anymore. but the minute she said "and you really think staying with your mom is going to make it better?" in that are-you-really-that-fucking-stupid? tone i thought of last summer and how lonely and depressed i was then and what if this summer is just like that one? what if this job at the hospital is just as scary as subway? what if..what if... what if. what if i don't see mary or troy all summer, don't meet new people on my own, don't do anything at all? what if i spend this summer exactly like i did last summer?

at times like this i wish i had never opened my door on march thirteenth. it seems like everything got ten times worse the moment i finally got to see how it felt to have someone sleep next to me, hold me, touch me, kiss me, love me. so much worse. so.much.worse.

being without that is like i had the fucking world ripped apart and now i'm pathetic.

somebody in this room smells like my grandfather's aftershave. that really doesn't help and now my chest hurts.

I don't know, the same lines from that Kelly Rowland song keep getting stuck in my head. They have been for years now, actually. And since I don't know all the words it doesn't help much, haha.
I got a job Tuesday at Subway, and the first day was pretty hectic but apparently that's a "slow" day...so I'm wondering what the hell it'll be like tomorrow, especially since the server's back up so people with credit cards will be able to pay for food now. Working the line from assembling sandwiches down to wrapping them is simple enough, but cutting open the bread is still a problem for me and I don't know how to work the register. Hopefully those are issues that will be resolved over the next couple of days so that I can finally settle into doing all parts of the job and get used to it completely. I need it to become like breathing, to work like clockwork without all the hitches and glitches of being the new kid. Granted, I'll be working only until May 15th (and oh my god that seems so fucking far away, it's unbelievable) but I still want my time there to be effective and smooth as it's possible for it to be.

I have to work noon to six tomorrow, then I can't remember what I work Friday so I'll have to ask M(r?)s. Debbie when I go in tomorrow, and I work till seven Saturday I believe and from noon to five on Sunday. I don't know my schedule Monday-Friday of next week, though. That means several straight days of my feet aching, which amuses me because I already feel like some 9-5 college dropout. I've been thinking about how I want to work that-- dropping out of college to work. Ideally I'd like to perhaps sit out a year, work on saving money and getting myself into therapy; I want to work toward becoming more socially and financially independent, developing serious friendships as opposed to passing acquaintances. I'd like to help my mother some, too, and take the comfort of being in a home with a fairly set routine for as long as I can. I worry about some things, like how my mother and I will coincide for such a long period of time when we used to have such difficulties (even this past summer was hard at times), and whether the plans we've made will come to pass or fizzle out like so many in the past...whether I will become even lonelier living in Houston away from what few (and admittedly, unhealthy) friendships I have here-- or will I finally start taking steps toward meeting people who will not be ambiguous in their intentions toward me, who will want to hang out with me and who don't make me feel like I'll never be quite cool enough to really be part of their crowd?

When I think about it, the only way to find out is of course to go ahead into it. I'm going to have to go ahead and pack up all my stuff and leave here for Houston. I can't come up with any real reasons that I might want to stay here; the most important familial tie I have is to my mother, who is in Houston, I have no real friendships here in LA that would stop me going to Houston (aside from Andrew, but he and I spend more time texting and Facebook chatting than face time anyway), there isn't anywhere for me to live anyway and in terms of the scene, I don't do shit. And more musicians come to Houston than to Baton Rouge, too. (Plus free art shows all over the place from what I saw in the culture magazine while I was there this summer, hello!) If I really put effort into it, learn the Metro system and don't stay in the apartment all the time, I feel like it's possible that I could really enjoy living in Houston. I'm just afraid that I'll shrink further into myself and into the depression and the paranoia that have been plaguing me for so long; I don't want to bury myself deeper and deeper inside my own head like this. I don't want to be like this forever, I really don't. I want to be a person, for god's sake, I want my good traits and my talents and everything to come out and really be evident instead of being hidden behind my coat and my insecurities about myself and my hatred of my body all the fucking time.

Whew. That was a lot.
I'm nervous about work, I'm sleepy and I'm really chomping at the bit to get out of here. The issues I'm having with Mary and Troy have blessedly been pushed to the back of my mind at last, so that's one stressor that for the moment is not too huge a problem. (We had a test recently in psychology concerning the two ways people tend to cope with stress; I seem to be using the less favorable one, but until I tie up loose ends regarding my living situation I don't intend to attack my relationship problems because honestly with the two of them off in Oklahoma that shit can wait. It really can. It has to.)

Since my mother has apparently been reading this I'm going to keep locking them into Facebook so she can get to them. Hi, mom, this is what's going through my mind right now.

the lack of updating to this makes me slightly ashamed. but the simple fact is that due to what was going on i have not thought to write here.

the panicked, wild rage that beset me while mary and troy were here sharpened into a constant, blind terror the morning that they left, when i awoke later that day. i remember it distinctly: i went to sleep calm. i woke up in a panic, feeling that distinct jagged rip inside me that comes from missing. not just missing someone-- missing. i woke up eviscerated.

for the next thirteen days straight i alternated between a rigid frozen terror of unnameable things, that same rage as before, and tentative blasts of calm like spurts from a slit hose, washing me briefly in stability before i dried quickly under the massive crushing onslaught of that fear, that paranoia, that burning-ice bruisedness of my internal organs that would not abate no matter how many times i whispered to myself to calm down, that it would be all right; no matter how i distracted myself with homework when i could focus enough or with cleaning or eating or being outside. i plunged further and further out of my own control-- until yesterday (thursday), exhausted from the crying and the inability to sleep, chest tight, all of me sore, i answered my phone and found my next two hours spent in rambling, stammering, broken sentences poured into my mother's ear one after another, quite likely turning her stomach with fear at every hyphen and period from "i don't know what's happening" to "i tried to kill myself to" i-and i-...um. i cut myself too." and my mother, my poor beautiful mother struggling to push the pieces of my shattered consciousness together and hold them against one another at least until she could find glue strong enough to keep them there.

she must be exhausted.


in the end the decisions were made that i am not returning to college in the fall; that i will live in houston with her for a while, get a job and get myself up, hopefully into an apartment of my own. college will become an option again perhaps later. maybe  i'll finish out general education requirements at a community college there and then move to a university again, but right now i need to put my head back together.


i also told my mother, finally, that i need help. therapy is possibly in the future.

that, in a nutshell, is the last two weeks of my life. it is now april sixteenth; i'm sleepy beyond sentience, somewhat cold, menstrual (thankfully not pregnant as i briefly feared despite having taken all precautions (hey, people get knocked up even using condoms and contraceptives properly, don't they, and i was afraid i was one of those unlucky sods for whom not even a condom prevented it.)) and waiting for a game to finish so i can either go to bed or play some more. my body aches, i still can't use tampons and i'm waiting for something to reveal to me the proper way to go about explaining to my mother that i'm transgender, pointing her toward being more informed about it instead of retaining the common misconception among my relatives that i am a lesbian.

but that will come later. now i just want to wrap this up-- i needed to make sure i keep it up to date, as i still intend to make sure this journal retains a record of my life for as long as i can keep it going. for myself, if no one else.

that's about all for now, i think.
my mother...our relationship is different now it seems. slowly i'm learning to talk to her. i hope it continues.

i dreamed of them.
we were on a bed in a large room and i was asleep. i woke up and they were making love behind me. and i just stared; at first i could not process it, and it took a very long time to understand what was causing me to feel angry. it finally clicked toward the end of the dream after i said something aloud-- i said "i thought you said he couldn't fit? you sure seem to be having no problem now." and mary gave me this smug look, just watching me while he continued to slide in and out of her, not noticing me in the least. she just kept that bland smile and watched me and i thought, i've lost the last thing i had to myself.
but what made me angry was what i thought next (what i thought expressed the thing that i felt angry about, that is): that i had begged them over and over not to fuck when i'm in the room because being near people having sex freaks me out for unknown reasons. and i glared at them for a second and started to climb out of bed with something in my arms (a blanket?) and troy lifted his head and said "if you want to be made love to, you should...vocalize it." and i just glared at him and i was in the process of saying "that is not even what the fuck i'm upset about" but i woke up.


i have that horrible wrenching in my stomach again. i'm tired from crying this morning and it's hot and freezing in here at the same time.
playing john mayer on repeat is a comfort, and so is swallowing hard and staring at the wall and telling myself that it was just a dream...at least until i remember that the vast majority of my dreams like that manifest themselves, one way or another, in reality.

on the other hand.
this song is making me feel much, much better, and this is yet another reason i love john mayer; there is almost no pain that listening to him for long enough cannot soothe.

i closed my eyes and found that once again it was violent and sharp and i felt confused; why is it suddenly so good that it hurts, and where did it come from? is it somehow because of him?
strangest of all is that i stroked myself to a second orgasm and he entered my thoughts as my mouth opened and i thought of only a couple of nights ago with my mouth open like this, against his ear, and suddenly i was not crying out in pleasure.
i was just crying.
john mayer was turned up in my headphones so i could hardly hear myself but there was no mistaking it.

it's almost six in the morning and john mayer's playing and i'm laying here crying and staring up at the sky that somehow burned blue in the space between my blinks and there is hardly pain, just this sudden shaking sobbing seizure underneath these blankets alone in my room again.

i hate that paranoia won't leave me alone. i hate that as my hand hit the waist of my pajama pants i heard it whisper that you shared his body, but that does not mean you share his heart. as if nothing i told myself, nothing i was told, nothing i realized, meant anything for a millisecond.

it went away, but does that mean it will stay away? will i never have faith in anyfuckingthing?


why did it take me until six o'clock in the morning-- nearly twenty-four full hours later-- to burst into tears? what use is it now?
what is he doing now?

i don't feel sad. i just want to cry. i want to cry and cry and cry, to empty myself and sleep.
maybe i will.

today he leaves.
today i will take a bath in the morning/afternoon depending on when they leave; i will come out of it, and step into clean clothes, and lock myself into my dorm room and curl up in my bed.
i will sigh deeply, drawing the smell of him into me, and i will sleep, because i am exhausted. i am tired from 3-D films and cigarette smoke and drunk tweens, from arguments and gnawing panic and frustrations, from midnight burger king runs and too much food and ice cream, from driving down to the river in the middle of the night; from conversations that break off at the wrong moments like pieces of quartz under pressure; from sex. i am tired from being in love, and now i will need to sleep for a very long time.

i am going to sleep. and  then i will get up and clean up everything, and probably sit down at my desk and turn on music on my computer and begin to reform things with these new parts of myself exposed, gone, added, teaching my life to rework itself around this updated version of myself, teaching this version of myself to acclimate itself to my life. i will wake up having shed skin and selves.

and i will wake up knowing that i have been loved and hurt and broken and healed and tossed and tumbled (quite literally after tonight's speeding ride in the parking lot pinballing me in the backseat so my body slammed into the doors on either side of the truck), that i have spoken and been heard, been spoken to and listened; i have lived a little bit, and that life will never not have happened because it's already done.

here i am. here i was. here i come, here i go.
troy, you have come into me.
life, you have come into me.
pieces of me are forming, breaking, resizing and -shaping. i am growing in bits and pieces.

maybe this means i'm growing up.