It's Contageous.

I had almost forgotten how comforting stuffed animals can be. For the past week and a half I've been falling asleep fast on my left side with the side of my face pressed against Carol [Where The Wild Things Are]. I rarely sleep on my left side. I can't recall resting this well in a while.

ARMOR opens this week. I am filling to the brim with self doubt, and I won't be fine until the show is up.

But the gravity between us will keep us safe.

Tonight I stuffed my face with three crispy chicken sandwiches. Comparatively that's better than last weekend in which I ate one or two pieces of toast a day. Last weekend in which I had no appetite. Last weekend in which I wasn't present in my own brain. Last weekend in which I funneled all of my overwhelmed feelings into an eruption of violent tears of joy when Cyndi Lauper serenaded the audience Leslie, Steve, and I were a part of with True Colors. I feel more collected than I did last weekend in the sense that I can hear myself think, and know how to translate it. But I still am overwhelmed in an undefinable way. I've been home lately only long enough to sleep a good four hours and wake up to frames falling off of my wall and hitting me in the face, to get a big honkin' cup of iced coffee, and to maintain my physical appearance... and even that is questionable.

Despite the fact that I could probably keep complaining about the inconvenient events of this week I think I'd rather not. Jessie and Kailee fulfilled their roles as the two most trustworthy teenage girls I know and let me spill my guts all over them outside of the science center on Wednesday, and in Christopher's car [complete with a fracking Starbucks intermission] I incompletely explored some personal topics I hadn't previously been able to vocalize about. I think that's been helping. Knowledge and self observation can be one of the most beautiful and torturous feelings. When you've got nothing you can do with it, and no one you can share it with it can be like a butcher knife in your stomach. You don't want to breathe too deeply or you'll cut yourself open, and you're afraid to tell people because you don't know how they'll respond. I've just been unexpectedly finding people who want to figure out how to help me remove it. I can feel the butcher knife shifting into a less painful position, but it's still sharp because I haven't been able to get out everything I need to, and it shows no signs of dulling. Meanwhile I've got four scripts swimming around in my head, and non of them are wearing floaties. 


Violent tears of joy were certainly not enough. In the week since, I've been on the verge of breaking a number of times, and I fully anticipate a big nervous breakdown in about a month [and maybe a half] when all of the shows I'm currently working on come to an end and I have all the time in the world to be with myself. I've lately been letting my fears about the coming year get the best of me, which is something that makes me sick - knowing that I'm doing that.

"A play can't hold you at night. But it can ride with you in the car on your way home."  


Right now I'm fully aware of this truth. I can get my fix of human interaction via the shows I'm lucky enough to work on; I just need someone to talk to that wont stop listening, and will tell me what I need to hear and not just what I want to. Someone to pull that knife out no matter what it takes. I just turned seventeen, which means really I've just entered my early late twenties. Curses on whoever decided I need to think as much as I do, and that I've got to feel as sickeningly and regrettably alone as I do even when I'm around the people I care about most. 


The first and last time for what I assume will be a long time that I've felt undeniably happy was sitting at dinner with my family on my birthday. My whole family. Biological and not. It's hard to find that feeling. It is so hard. I need to use my compass to make sure I know how to find it again, and to find other routes to it too.

My thumbnail is breaking.

I don't know where my mind is right now. I've tried to write blogs in the past few days to try to find it but I've realized that as much as it is hard for me to attempt organizing all of my thoughts in a form such as this, it's even harder when I can't find them. Sitting alone, or even amongst people I care about, I can't seem to find my thoughts. It's an unfamiliar, and uncomfortable feeling that I hope will go away soon. I don't know how it got here. Whether it's my subconscious preparing for school starting next week, or a strange filter that emerged from a summer in which I sometimes shared more with people than I anticipated and sometimes kept so much in that I just about imploded. I think it's the latter. It feels awful. I want to be able to talk to people. Because lately when I do, I've been opening up more than I have previously, and it feels glorious.. and at the same time I've been unwillingly shutting select people out. I've got one side of my brain telling me that there's no need to hide, and that now more than ever is the time to embrace the people around me... and I'm getting there. But the other side of my brain is shouting about the coming year. I for the first time tonight internally freaked out about senior year starting, and not so much because I'm dreading the work, and not because I'm dreading it being my last year of public education [believe me I couldn't be happier] but I think because I'm going to have to decide what to do after high school. And I don't want to. Not now. Not now. This summer has been more than I expected. I've experienced so much, and have felt so much love. And I have been happy. I have been so happy. I think I'm afraid of not being happy again. And it wont be because of schoolwork I'll have to do. Being busy is what keeps me going... but I won't be busy around the right people. I think I'm afraid of losing what I've been becoming because of the people around me. I've gotten so used to having everyone I care the most about by my side that when I don't have that... 

I know this in itself is probably unhealthy... to be digging myself into a big irrational hole deeper and deeper via my keyboard, but I just want to know where I am. I can't recall ever being here before... at least not at this intensity.


The sun's coming up again.

Small and multi-colored.

Last night I had the most vivid nightmare in which I was kidnapped while walking down the street during the day, almost raped but eventually escaped, was shot, and then in the basement of my school with my other mother, Kristi, where select children were dying one after another, after which we took their photos and dragged them away. Sitting here now writing this blog I can remember almost every second of the dream. I remember specifically the feeling in my legs as I ran from the rapist's house right before I got shot, and I remember talking about that feeling in the dream later on with Kristi. Carley told me the moral of the story was to not eat butter snaps before bed ever again, and I concurred.

I then had one of the single best days of my summer. It awoke to a text message from Carley informing me that she was "on her way" to which I incoherent morning brain responded, "to my house?" We indulged in bagels downtown, and we gossiped, and talked about my dream. And talked, and talked. I afterward had a meeting with the drama teacher at my school that I'm going to co-teach and direct with, and it went so well I couldn't believe it... but I did. And we talked, and talked. Carley picked me up again later and we went to Dani and Miranda's, ate pizza and played Harry Potter Scene It like fiends, and just marinated in that which is Harry Potter itself. I saw the final camp showcase that I still have mixed feelings about, went to ARMOR rehearsal, and then back to LTW for THE EATING DISORDER TALENT SHOW [which I'm currently stage managing.] I was out till about four in the morning, first sucking down Shirley Temples at the Red Garter, and then stuffing my face with pancakes and bacon at The Grill. And I didn't talk and talk at either place, I just listened and listened, but I was so genuinely happy that I didn't have time to think anything of it. I am still genuinely happy too, and although the past few day's have been similar in that I've been reconnecting with people and choreographing my brains out [generally just...busy, I guess], something about today though just felt so authentic. I realize that the above is basically just a list of what my day consisted of that is most likely so disgustingly irrelevant to other people that they've probably already stopped reading. I suppose I just had to write it out so that I'll be able to look back on today as a sign of what could be to come, and a mood I won't ever forget. That could be wrong too. I could be totally ignorant as to why I'm having to write this out... but I'm doing so, and that's what is important. 


Who would have thought getting kidnapped, almost raped, shot, and surrounded by dying children could have led to such a splendorous day?