briar2003

[briar2003]

high school

I'm listening to a book used to read in high school. its a stupid story about popularity and revenge. listening to it now sometimes it makes me cringe. but sometimes i remember a day freshman year where i was late for first period because my brother overs slept. my teacher always gave me a hard time when i was late and this particular day it would've sent me over the edge so i went to the bathroom and cried in a stall and begged my mom on the phone to come get me. she said no and i kept asking and she still said no so i said i would just walk. and i walked home in the rain listening to this stupid book trying not to let the people driving past me see the tears in my eyes. when i think of high school i wish things had been different. i wish i had gone to football games and had dates to take me to dances. i wish i could've stopped my depression from being so bad that it held me back from having fun. when i was really little i would think about what high school would be like and i was so excited. i thought i would have boys lining up to take me out and friends that i'd drive to and from school with. i thought i would be like the girls in this book. but i wasn't and i'm not. and sometimes i'm so happy about that but sometimes i really wish things had been different. because i would have loved it. it makes me sad sometimes to think about who i was in high school because i know i wasn't happy and i know that the high school version of me deserved better.

[briar2003]

new phone

I think i'm getting a new phone tonight. and it's strange because the last time i got a new phone she came with us to the store to pick them out and we made silly videos and pretended she was part of our family. last night i had a dream she reappeared. and i had to explain why she was there again and it was really stressful and not a very good dream but it feels serendipitous that i had that dream the night before getting a new phone. a phone that she will never see. a phone that i will never respond to her using. a phone that was never used by the pre-parent's-divorce version of me. the pre-break-up-anxiety version of me. the pre-dreaming-about-people-i-used-to-know version of me. the last time i got a new phone she was important and she was here and now i'm getting a new phone and she has very nearly been scrubbed from my life. and i only say very nearly because sometimes i still have dreams about her and sometimes i think about her when i do random things like get a new phone. I miss the pre-everything-is-momentous-because-it-will-never-be-the-same-again version of me.

[briar2003]

worth it

I keep coming back here. I need this to change. I want so badly for him to tell me i'm worth it. That i am more than the differences between us. that when he sits alone i cross his mind. i am tired of googling what love is and why people break up. i'm tired of listening to love songs and watching movies and not fully understanding them. i feel like i'm on the outside of some secret the rest of the world knows. like i'm collecting dust and scraps from the people actually experiencing what i want and pretending that i understand what they do. I feel like everyone else is seeing things in technicolor and i'm in black and white but i don't even know what i'm missing. i think i used to be a lot braver than i am right now. which is kind of saying somethings since i've always been shy and was the kid too scared to show the grown ups what dress up/make believe game i was playing. i just really want more than this. I want to be in on the secret. I want to be worth loving. i want to be worth the risk of heartbreak and ruin

[briar2003]

wine in another world

If i was a different girl i like to think you and i would sneak wine at the dinner table. to me in this life that i'm living, that seems like something people only do in movies or books. right now i'm listening to songs my parents had on our car ipod in 2007 and thinking about who we would be if we weren't who we are. i like to think i would be less stiff, less anxious, more capable of letting myself make mistakes. i have a picture in my mind of us at 16 (because in this alternate reality where we are not us, you and i are the same age and you live down the street from me) stealing a bottle of wine at my brother's wedding and letting the chemicals loosen our moorings. you and i lift off the ground being less and less affected by gravity with each sip we drink, then we dance and jump and hold on to each other like we're children still untouched by the world and we bask in our youth and our togetherness. because in this world that i'm hoping exists somewhere we aren't worried about pleasing a god that won't dance with us. I like to think there's a world somewhere where you and i steal wine at a party and don't think taking a sip will damn us for eternity.

[briar2003]

strangers in a grocery store

I'm a shy person when i'm not with people i know. i become overly aware of what the strangers see when they look at me. i think through my movements ten steps in advance, entirely too concerned about the noise the chip bag i'm opening makes. but i like being in public with him. i like to think the strangers around us think we are what i wish we were. i like to think they see a boy and a girl alone in a grocery store and smile to themselves, thinking they witnessed something quiet, mundane, but still loving. when i'm with him in public i don't think about people seeing me and questioning things about me i can't change. instead i envy the strangers seeing us from the outside. seeing us and thinking we are something we are not. jumping to a conclusion it seems from the inside, you cannot see. idk maybe i'm just rambling and thinking too much like i always do but when i'm with him in public i like that strangers see us and i like that maybe if only in their lives, their minds, we are what we cannot be in mine.

[briar2003]

memorable

I guess i dont think of myself as a memorable person. I feel like i'm the one looking back and remembering people. not the other way around. today i saw a girl i went to school with. we were never really friends but today she tapped on my shoulder as i walked down the hall. she asked about my brother which is kind of on brand for people in this town. and then she said the other day she was talking to some girl from school who i've never interacted with and said they were talking about me. and idk maybe its just me but i'm confused by the whole interaction. i feel like i'm not memorable enough to be a topic of conversation between two people i barely know. but apparently i am.

[briar2003]

valentine's day

Every year i feel the same way on february 14th. sad, self conscious, lonely, and mad at myself for feeling that way. mad at myself for letting another year pass by without changing. I'm supposed to go to my friend's house tonight but I kind of feel like bailing. I know thats bad. that I'm passing up a chance to feel better but idk I kind of just want to lay in bed, watch a movie, maybe paint my nails, write in my journal and hope that next year i'll feel different. I really hate this feeling. I really hate valentine's day.

[briar2003]

observant

I know i'm not supposed to take things so personally. I know i'm not supposed to let it affect me. but i'm having a hard time trying to see past it. its hard for me to not question what about me is so off-putting that no one is ever interested in me. It feels like i am surrounded by people in love. and i know they probably aren't looking down at me but sometimes it feels like everyone can see all of my flaws like they are written on my face. and as hard as i try to not be a third wheel or a fifth or seventh sometimes it feels like that is my destiny. sometimes it feels like i am only ever meant to observe. never participate. and i know i'm not supposed to put so much weight on being in love but can you really blame me for wanting it? am i so pathetic that people don't even register that i am an option? I mean i don't want to be an option but i do want to be wanted. i want to feel like the people my age. i want to feel strong and beautiful and responsible and worth it. i want to feel like a real person. not the friend that you question why they are so lonely. not the friend you can't even imagine being in a relationship.

[briar2003]

False Spring

It's february but it feels like spring. the other day I woke up dreading the fact that my eyes were open and begrudgingly got dressed to go through the motions of my day. i hated the fact that I was leaving my warm bed to go out into the cold world but as i opened the door to go to my car i felt the breeze. and i say breeze because it didn't feel like a february wind. it felt like a warm breeze in the end of april, walking home from elementary school with my friends. and it felt like a sunday evening on the cusp of june, when my family was still a family and it still felt like a good idea to ask for bubblegum flavored toothpaste at the dentist's office. it felt like riding my scooter in my old neighborhood with the warm air playing with my hair and my favorite song playing in my ears from my pink ipod shuffle. and as i stood there feeling the warm breeze in february for a moment i forgot that it was winter and i forgot that i should have been suspicious of the false spring. the false spring that disrupts the natural progression of the seasons and teases me with hope. that shouldn't exist. that takes away the feelings i hate for just a moment. that gives me a breath of relief of the crushing thoughts of winter. that i foolishly trust blindly to give me just enough of a rush to get me through the coming weeks until i eventually crash again.

[briar2003]

Falling back in time

I feel like the world is falling back in time. the people in charge are doing things to push the world backward instead of forward. they are master magicians, holding the world's gaze while swindling us and making our freedoms disappear. and while the whole world is reverting back to a time i don't want to live in I can't help but feeling like my mind is doing the same. every time i make a mistake i get a tightness in my chest that i can't ignore. and then it seems like everything i do is a mistake and my chest gets tighter and tighter until i'm curled up in a ball in my bed feeling like it would just be better to stay there than face the world. and when i am laying there trying to tell myself i am more than what i am not, i remember when i was in middle school and i couldn't get up in the morning and everything started going down hill. and then i remember high school when i would drop out for months at a time because it got so bad. and then i hear a thought in my mind telling me to do it again. that it's already bad enough and there's no point anyway so why not give up again? I am trying so hard to not get stuck in the spiral but it feels like the world is falling back in time and i don't know how to stop it. i don't know how to stop my brain from doing this again.

[briar2003]

slipping up

I saw someone walking across campus and for a second my mind slipped up and thought it was you. I'm trying hard to let this go but sometimes when i see someone walking with their hands in their pockets without trying my mind thinks its you. i told my therapist the other day that i feel like all my songs say the same thing and she said she liked my songs. And i like them too but every time i sit down to write something my fingers land on C and my mouth spills out words meant for you. I need some new material. and i need to stop slipping up and thinking about you.

[briar2003]

thinking too much

sometimes I think that I’ve made up my mind. Sometimes I think about the possibilities. What would happen if I was brave. Or you heard my thoughts somehow or had your own that you wanted to act on. Sometimes I make up my mind and start to decide how to say it. But then i keep thinking and thinking and eventually my mind is unmade up again. My friends told me the other day they think I think too much and if they only knew the mental gymnastics I think through every night they would be exhausted for me. I want to be one of those people that decides things and follows through. That say how they’re feeling and aren’t afraid of the fallout. Sometimes I think I’ve made up my mind and for a split second I am one of those people. But those split seconds don’t last very long and I’m back to thinking too much and waiting for the next time I think I’ve made up my mind.

[briar2003]

Sleeping

I keep trying to go to sleep earlier but no matter how hard I try my mind won't shut off until 1-3 am. and i hate it. i wish i could lay down and go to sleep but the second my head hits the pillow my thoughts start drifting into dangerous waters. like what's happening across town right now and what thoughts keep him awake. I know i need to sleep because every day i still wake up tired but sleep still evades me. i wish i could fall asleep before midnight for once. and i wish i could shut off the part of my mind that spins around and around like a car stuck in mud; stuck on him.

[briar2003]

"I miss typing"

Today i visited my dad at his new stroke rehab place. it smelled awful and from the moment i walked in i wanted to leave. the whole time it felt like i was seconds away from running away and calling up friends to tell them my secrets and spill out all of my thoughts on to the floor in front of them at their feet. i wanted to have someone i could show my ugly parts to but there in that moment all i could do was sit in his poorly lit room on the uncomfortable bed and lie to my dad and say that i've been ok and that the place doesn't seem too bad. when we walked into the hall and stopped at the nurses desk he turned to me and said the saddest sentence i've heard all day, "I miss typing". he used to work on his computer all day and i remember when i was little watching him type and thinking he was the fastest typer in the world. now since the stroke his left arm doesn't work so he can't type at all. I know i'm selfish and i know i should be grateful he's still here, and i am, but i also can't help but wish he was still able to live on his own and i wish that i could still watch him type and i wish he was still the fastest typer in the world.

[briar2003]

driving myself crazy

I've been in a strange state of mind the past few days. trying not to think about certain things/people then failing miserably. i keep wanting to do something that would make my life feel different. today i cut my hair. i've been growing it out for what feels like years and today i cut a lot of it off. i thought that maybe if i change my hair it will stop this feeling of offness that is winding around my heart. and in a way it may have worked. i like how it looks and it feels so much healthier but i still keep thinking about what he will think of it. and i'm trying really hard not to think about him and his opinions but its so hard. i need spotify to take away the friends listening function because i check what he is listening to more often than i'd like to admit. and i just want to know what he is thinking while he listens to mazzy star. and if he will like my haircut. or the songs i'm trying not to let seem like they are about him. i want this to go away. i want to be able to function. because i'm driving myself crazy and i don't know how to make it stop.

[briar2003]

Songs from middle school/bad dreams

The other day my brother discovered an artist I used to be obsessed with. All my favorite songs when I was 15 are now all he is listening to and it makes me feel strange that now the songs sound less special and I keep thinking they are too long. It's strange how songs that used to be important to me are now sounding juvenile and overdramatic. I heard a different song the other day that I loved when I was a little bit older and hearing it back I could see the way light filtered in through the windows of my old room on the first warm day of the year when I was 17 and dancing around my room feeling weightless and clean. The song nearly brought tears to my eyes because I will never be in that moment again. Or that room. Or that house. I think this is what prompted the dream I had that night where I went back to that house and the new owners wouldn't let me leave until a solved a complex puzzle exactly right. I kept trying to figure out this puzzle over and over and I couldn't get it right so I stood there in the kitchen that I used to laugh in that now I didn't recognize and I drove myself crazy trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle while trying to not look at the house that will never look familiar again.

[briar2003]

Christmas Cards

I always loved opening the christmas cards people sent to my family. even if i didn't know the family that well I would study the faces of the happy smiling people and read about their yearly updates. I always wanted my family to be a "christmas card" family. and a few years there we tried to be. a few times we got pictures taken and sent them to people in the periphery of our lives. but it was always a caricature. always a way to try to convince each other that we were in fact happy and smiling people. I still love to open the christmas cards people send to my family but since they split there has only been a few each year. for some reason people think after a divorce they don't want to see what happy people look like every year. but i mean if i can't be part of a "christmas card" family, then i at least want to get them in the mail.