florence on repeat

anyone who knows me knows how much i eat. i eat a lot. constantly, haha. but once in awhile i don't eat. sometimes when i need to feel i don't eat. i know it doesn't make sense and I'm not exactly sure why i do it, i can't do it well, i can barely fast a day for religious purposes. but sometimes being hungry helps me feel. maybe it is a kind of fast, a kind of cleanse, i wonder sometimes if that hunger pain helps me think more clearly. it probably doesn't but there is something about the hunger that gives me focus.

i've been in a funk for a week or more. its strange, because i cant decide if its the stress of not knowing what comes next, the complexity of trying to decide where my motivation comes from, or the awareness that i've never really had to deal with my emotions on my own before that is making me so sour. i do not like to be irritable. i become very conscious of being snappy, bitter, and i only act this way towards the people i love most. so its easiest for me to be a loner. just to be alone. so i go off on my own and people don't understand. or more often don't notice. its strange for me. i am so open, so social, so blah blah blah. usually. people see me as people person, i see me a loner. and i process, and think, and cry, and wish so badly that someone I love would happen upon me and see that everything is not quite alright, that i cant eat, cant work out, can't understand if i'm on the right path. it is hard to wonder, hard to decide.

i miss being courageous. it was so much more plausible, or maybe just easier, with a network i trusted, who knew me. im not good at telling, unless you are a stranger, otherwise it must be sucked out of me, pulled out. i want to tell you but i cant. even if you know that i am not perfect, golden, unbreakable, flawless, helplessly optimistic, i cannot tell you these things of my own will. for the past couple weeks i've just wanted to be someone else, someone who has a lot of problems. which is so vague and makes no sense. and i am so blessed. so blessed with people who love me and where i am in life, and i know i am lucky, but i'm tired. tired of always making decisions based on doing the right thing, based on theology, philosophy, maturity, practicality. i want to buy a plane ticket with money i dont have, leave a note behind and eat salt on wind for a month. i want to walk barefoot in mud and get sick from water that isn't clean enough for my soft stomach. i want to walk in rivers and lie on logs, i want to walk in pouring rain and cry until i reach an ocean. i want to dance my heart out with no alcohol involved. its all i want the courage to do.

i'm not sure i ever want to return to the life i have so perfectly crafted. even if it is selfish of me. i know i am very selfish sometimes. and i dont know what my motivations are. if they are really the things that I identify as such. there are parts of myself that i havent seen in a long time. part of that i think is just being on my own. i seem to have lost a carefree confidence tha ti had based on how i defined myself. now that the structure of that definition has melted away into nothing but nostalgia i have trouble knowing who i am. so giving my best self to the world as a goal has become much murkier. i'm not sure what i have to give. what if i lost it. all of the potential that people saw in me might not ever be developed, because im tired, or burnout, or maybe just lazy. imagine that. maybe i am just lazy, and no one wants to tell me but its always been the case. someone should stamp it on me. brand me as lazy. i've branded myself as tired in a way that i cant beat. i cant beat it, no matter how much i sleep or smile or breathe deeply i still cant beat this dreadful tiredness that consumes me.

being stuck is taking its toll. not eating doesn't make me any more mobile but it does allow me to brace imperfection. it allows me to not strive for it, even if i'm the only one who knows im acting out. for all intents and purposes, its almost sad that this is the only small revolution i have to offer to myself. otherwise i am completely entrenched in babylon. crying at any moment when i think i've disappointed someone, and often someone who doesn't even deserve these emotions. i seem to give this layer of high standards to everyone around me and i must live up to it for them, but im not sure they've even earned it. am i a coward. running around like a chicken with its head cut off, like a puppy, trying so hard to please everyone, when i cant. and im not sure why i try so badly because i don't think they even care. if someone kicked me in the side i don't think i would wake up. maybe once in my life i would have, but now it just keeps me spiraling. i see myself kicked in the side and flying across the floor into the wall with my little paws scratching linoleum and whining as a land with a thud against the wall. its a sad sight to see, but maybe i've always been like that and had no idea. perhaps i've never been courageous. and why do i want so badly to be brave? just so these same people can notice, and applaud?

maybe not. maybe im just doing what i love and its hard and so im faltering. but i have a sneaking suspicion that isnt it. i miss the light feeling of being in love. floating through my days with this kind of implausible confidence. for two years ive been on my own, healing, learning, wondering, reflecting. what was i getting, what was i giving, what do i need. i try so badly to get what i need from the people around me. and i think it might be sad. to think that they can give it to me. it reminds me of when i realized everyone cant go with me where im going. but now i scoff at the self righteousness of that idea. where do i think i'm going that is so specific so hard. except i cant scoff because it seems so true even if i dont want it to be. my biggest fear in life might be that i am destined to be alone. not physically alone, in terms of romantically alone. but just alone. in a place where i have to be alone, mentally, spiritually perhaps. i hate having to hold myself up. i hate it. it weighs down on me in a way that allows m to pity myself. wallow privately in my hunger pain.

it is pitiful that this is all i have to say in the face of babylon. i used to think i had so much more to say. so much to fight and i fancied myself able bodied and ready, but now i realize i really am a rabbit hearted girl.