I'm a twenty-six year old 
I’ve been listening to a lot of Patsy Cline for the past couple of days. For some reason, her songs make me feel better; if so many songs in the world exist about heartbreak, then I must not be as alone as I feel. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wow, Emily, other people get their hearts broken? What a novel idea!” but it’s easy to forget that pain is universal when you’re wallowing in it.
Things have been pretty terrible the past few months. I had met someone who I truly wanted to be with, and I was genuinely, stupidly happy for the first time in a long, long time. But that went to hell, and now I have no idea what the hell I’m doing or feeling. I feel like I’m not “supposed to” hurt, but I do. I’m hurt that someone I believe in doesn’t believe in me, or at least that aspect of me. Hell, I don’t know what he feels or wants, period. All I know is that this fucking sucks.
I’m usually very private with my feelings about these things, but I’ve gotten tired of livejournal in the past few years, and I don’t feel like writing everything out in my paper journal. Besides which, I’m not mentioning names or divulging personal information, not to mention that fact that he doesn’t look at my website or anything anymore. I guess I’m not interesting anymore. I know I’m not pretty enough or interesting enough or smart enough or talented enough. I usually couldn’t care less what people think about me, but it hurts like hell when someone used to think you were something special and then, all the sudden, just doesn’t.
(And I’m not talking shit about him at all. I probably could, and no one would blame me, but I won’t. I’m willing to take my share of the blame for things going on, and just because things have been bad doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. Hell. I wouldn’t care so damn much if he was.)
In about a month and a half, I’ll have been unemployed for two years. Two years. I don’t even know how that happened. I admittedly probably haven’t searched as much as I should have (there’s that word again), but I’ve had other things going on, and so I’m not going to beat myself up. My anxiety has been extremely high over the past few months, and my depression has made another appearance, and I’m trying to take care of myself emotionally rather than financially because that’s about all I can do right now.
I also suspect I am having thyroid problems. I was diagnosed years ago with hypthyroidism and had previously been on medication, but I lapsed. I’ve wondered for awhile if that was what was wrong with me, and finally decided to call my doctor and have bloodwork taken. I’m planning to call in the morning (if I can get out of bed).
You know how you feel when you’re sick, and you can’t pull yourself out of bed because your entire body feels heavy and weak and sore and tired? That’s how I feel all the time. And how I’ve felt for years. I found some lists of symptoms of hypothyroidism recently and I was like, holy shit, other people feel like this all the time? The symptoms are like fatigue (yep), weakness (yep), weight gain or difficulty losing weight (hell yep), hair loss (oh yep), muscle cramps and aches (yep), constipation (do I even remember the last time I pooped? no), depression (no! never!), irritability (yep), abnormal menstrual cycles (yeppp), decreased libido (ye– actually, no).
OH MY LIFE HURTS.
Not to mention that I won’t be going to school fall semester. Again. Eh. I’ve basically reverted to extreme pessimism regarding my life, which has actually turned out to just be realism. Maybe I should start being super optimistic so the results will be extra hilarious. I’m going to be happy! Everything’s going to work out great! Good things are just around the corner! HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!
So maybe I’ll try the disgustingly optimistic thing, à la Happy-Go-Lucky. It can’t get much worse at this point, anyway.
*sounds of car crash*
I just realized, oh, yeah, it was Friday, wasn’t it? This has not been a good week or month or couple of months, so FF can just SUCK ON MY LATENESS, DAMMIT.
Also, I don’t feel like digging through my Etsy favorites! In part because I am just lazy, and also because I have something much, much greater to tell you about:
I AM OPENING MY ETSY STORE IN LIKE A FEW HOURS I HOPE UNLESS SOMETHING ELSE BAD HAPPENS!
I am going to be selling Wordpress themes, graphics, and other web design stuff. Since I’ve had a ton of people ask for various web stuff, I figured this was a good way to provide my services without being totally expensive or pulling my hair out.
So, anyway, as soon as I tweak this one thing, my first WP theme will be up! And hopefully more will follow this week, along with other cheap goodies.
(And, yes, I also run this appleleaf. The Etsy came before the community rename, actually.)
Add me to your favorites and check back tomorrow because I am selling this first one super cheap. Like… ridiculously cheap.
I have two dogs — Toby and Baby — who live at my parents’ house. Baby is a dog we rescued in the summer of 2002, and Toby is a three-year-old chow. Baby was around 6 or 7 when we found him, which would make him now 13 or 14.
I went home to see them this afternoon, and found that Baby had passed away. My mom had saw him come inside the porch (they are outside dogs since my mom is severely allergic, but have a glassed-in porch that they have the run of) and had checked on him just moments before I got to the house. She said he was definitely breathing. A few minutes later, he was gone.
It seems like he held on until he heard me come in the house, and then let go. I honestly believe that. He didn’t run away or hide when he knew he was dying — he came inside to be near his family and our other dog.
He hadn’t been himself for several days. I noticed yesterday that he wasn’t eating, and he wobbled a bit when he stood up to greet me. On the way over to my parents’ house this afternoon, I began to think about my other dog, Blackie, who died about four or five years ago, and I was suddenly struck with this feeling that Baby was going to go soon.
I’ve not let myself cry yet. It’s still not real. I feel like if I go home, he’ll greet me at the door with a happy yip and rub his head on my leg.
I don’t want to remember him as I saw him today. I want to remember all the beautiful, sweet, wonderful things that made him so unique — how he and I bark back at one another; about a week ago when he sat next to me and we howled together; him prancing around the yard, his ears flopping up and down; the way he kind of bounced off of his front legs when he was happy to see me; how he took care of me when Blackie died; when Toby was little, and he and Baby used to curl up in Baby’s bed together; the day I found him and called, “Come here, baby!” and the name stuck fast; watching him nap; how damn good he was and how he always let me bathe him and hold him and love on him. He was the sweetest, funnest dog, and I loved every minute I had with him. I miss him horribly, and I know that pain is only going to get worse as it sinks in (because I am in horrible denial), but I know he lived a full, wonderful life, and that he is Somewhere, catching toads and having an entire doggie bed to himself.
- You know how sometimes things happen in this amazingly coincidental way, and you think, “There is some reason for this,” and then later, you’re like, “Uh, what exactly was the reason behind that?” That.
- How is it that I’ve had so much damn shit happen to me, and yet I still absolutely believe that not only is there a God, but that all of this happened for a reason? Is it because I’m lying to myself, or is it that you have to go through hell on Earth to become closer to God?
- I’ve discovered within the past few months that I can, after all, bawl like a fucking baby. I thought I’d lost that after my grandfather died. It sucks, but it’s nice to know that I can still feel that deeply. I’m glad to know that my heart wasn’t dead. Just comatose, apparently.
- God doesn’t always show us signs — sometimes they’re bumper stickers. True story.
- I read the other day that by embracing your spirituality, you can become a calmer, less anxious person by believing that everything is happening the way it’s supposed to. That gave me more comfort than anything has in a long time. Maybe there are no wrong choices, just choices, and somewhere along the line, we become who we are supposed to be. I absolutely believe in free will, but I also believe that there are paths set out for us in life. Maybe there’s only one path, and every single choice we make leads us to the place we’re supposed to be. I don’t know. But I do know that believing that I can’t falter makes me feel safe and calm and taken care of. Whatever is happening now is supposed to happen, and I can do no wrong.
- Just because you see me acting a certain way doesn’t mean my behavior is a direct reflection of what’s going on in my head. Just because I do one thing doesn’t mean I’m not considering the other. Just because I say one thing doesn’t mean that is my only train of thought. Maybe it’s a childish, trite thing to say, but I’m not sure that anyone truly gets me. But that’s okay — I don’t even get me. Besides, how boring would life be if we always understood one another?
- Perfection is for boring people, and I never expected perfection in anything. I like my flaws, my life’s flaws, and your flaws. I am okay that things never work out exactly as planned. I’d rather go through shit and end up happy than go through nothing and end up bored.
- How the hell is it possible to simultaneously hate and love oneself? I don’t know, but I’m pulling it off quite nicely.
- “What you know you have or what you think you want, it’s never perfect.”
- I recently reconnected with the guy I was in a relationship with for four years. And I am genuinely happy that he’s ended up where he is. There is not one bit of bitterness in my feelings towards him, what happened between us, or where he is now.
- TWO DOLLARS!
