Who do I want to be? Or better titled, who do I want you to see?

I've realized now the perception those have of me. Fabulous really.

In one years time I've moved from small city NC to NYC. I've done more recreational drinking than should be allowed. Dealt with the death of a ex. Dealt with the end of a 5 year commitment. Been infatuated time and time again. Fallen in love. Fallen out of love. Fallen back in. Had ice cream. I've quit more than I thought possible and gave up only to take it back each time. I'm staring at my future thinking I should have made a turn on this path awhile ago.

I deserve better than I have given my self.

I will become something grand. That takes time and why can't anyone see that?

I work hard to control the things I feel, impulses that make my heart beat louder than marching band. I work hard to show the love that I feel for so many, but I feel as though my words are weak. That when heard are not being understood. I consider what it would be like to cut all ties again, maybe move to another city, state, or country. Adele writes and every time begs of me to cross the pond. Says she could have a job for me in seconds. Am I doing the wrong thing. I refuse to give up on people, because through their faults I see the person inside, those people inspire me everyday to wake up.

I let my heart guide me, it knows what I can and cannot do. It knows who I am. It knows what I want. It gave me the challenges I needed, and it gave me the strength to face new ones. But I question, have I ever been in love?

Love should know no boundaries and the only fear should be that you are never to see the other person again. Nothing else should matter. Nothing. When you see them it's like regaining your breath. Refreshing. I want my perfect match. I want someone just as crazy, just as loving, just as naive. I want to go through our challenges together, and I'm starting to believe I will never find that.

People say I'm only 22.

These people are usually over 30.

...and no better off than me.

I will never feel bad for anything I have done. The choices I've made were mine to decide. I am far from weak. Every fucking day something new comes at me and I dodge or hit it with my own force.

I just finished watching a PBS special on relationships and how important they are to human health. They did this test where they had created this two fake mothers for a baby monkey, one was cuddly and soft but offered no food, the other one was made of metal but would feed it. The monkey every time chose the to feel comforted rather than eat. Would rather starve but feel loved. That is me.

I want to love and be loved. I want to hold onto that forever. It's to a point where I will do anything to preserve that feeling, I want it from my mother, my friends, my lover.

I can't dance for a damn, but I don't care. I just want to move my body and feel the music flow through me.

I can't sing, but I need to let my thoughts escape me.

I can't paint, but I need to see what I feel.

I can't act, but I need it to hide.

Yet, I can do anything....and I will do everything.

I will show you the light that is inside of me, the colors it can be, the way it can dim and the way it can burn.

Just ask.

When did God give up on me? Was it as early as I think? I've carried the weight of feeling unwanted my whole life, the only thing keeping me going was the small love I carried for myself. I am so imperfect, all I want is to fill my heart and be free.

I am trapped.

I want out.

But to what extreme?

I'm tired of complaints from those who don't know what pain is. Who will never understand what a human is capable of going through with out collapsing inside.

I'll just hide in my head for now.

Où allons-nous d'ici?

Dear Universe,

I wrote to you not long ago and I cannot forget the words that were said. I feel selfish in my asking of the world to change for me. I want my mother to be better, I want her to feel good about where she is in life. I guess I am finding this with everyone that I know. I want everyone to feel better about who they are including myself. There is nothing else in life that is more important than the ultimate satisfaction with who you are.

I am about to be 22. I should be proud of myself for working for the same company for 3 years with little education. Self education is my life's pursuit. I think thats why admire Glenn Beck, he went to college for only one semester, the rest he taught himself. Now he is his own company...thats what I want to be, my own company.

-G

Tout ce que je veux ....

I want to sing a song, I want it to fill your soul.

I want to make you scream, I want it to fill your heart.

I want to play, I want you to pick me first.

I want run, I want you to chase.

I want everything.

I want to drink, I want it to fill me.

I want to smoke, I want it to kill me.

I want dance, I want it to control me.

I want to run, I want to watch you go the other way.

I want nothing.

I went to look for shadows, but the shadows they found me.

I went to swim in the ocean, but I drowned up in the sea.

I want to love my man, but he chose her over me.

I want to be somebody else, I feel I won't be free.

Is this me for life?

Que la musique conduire votre âme ...

I feel extremely positive today. I realized how much of my life is in my own control, quite profound for me.

The day job is getting better as long as I keep my long term goal in mind.

Enjoying the simplest things everyday.

Some girls don't dance to the beat of the tribe.

Chapter One. Look.

Look.

I'm woken by the decaying morning air coming through the small grate of my window. The cheap linen of my sheets bundle at my waist as I rise up, only to great a grey sky peering in. The room looks especially dismal today as I step onto the grain of the carpet, another day of rain. A sense of wonder comes over me; unsure of how to feel about this I get up too make coffee. I am reminded of how much I want to replace that coffee pot, glass ones always burn the coffee, a taste that won't leave my mouth till the afternoon.

The linoleum keeps peeling in the kitchen. Is it water damage? I bet the sink is leaking again, you get what you pay for supposedly. In New York your not paying for luxury, your paying for a life. My kitchen chair creaks when I sit down in it, a reminder that stand-stills are uncommon in this city. I'll be out of here soon enough.

My shower runs hot. If someone else uses it in the complex, cold. It spits at me while I try to manage it's temperature. As I stepped in, I see someone in the door way. I pull back the curtain, hard enough to here the snap of one the hooks crack and fall to drain of the tub. No one is there. Too live by your self for as long as I have you begin to feel the ghosts of your memories haunt you. "Not now, not in the shower, let me rest." Thinking out loud can also happen, as hearing the sound of any voice is better than none at all.

The cat needs to be fed before I leave. I haven't seen him in ages it feels. Concealing himself under the couch with the forgotten settlements of my day, he's so timid lately. I wish I knew what time it was, I can't be late. If I'm late I'm wrong, if I'm wrong I will never be accomplished...therefore what is the point in life?

I miss the News, the TV burned out years ago I think. I can't remember when, but I miss feeling connected. Am I suppose to work today? Everything feels so heavy. I should lay down.

When did I make the bed? I must be more productive today than usual. I curl up the sheets between my legs, I begin touch myself and turn my eyes towards the window. I squint to see a figure fluttering outside. A diminutive grey bird is struggling to be let in. As I climax I ask myself, why work so hard to be let in when all I want is to be set free?

Je veux que tout ...

I am terrified.

I tried to quit my job. The words actually left my mouth.

Now reality is setting in and I realize I can't actually go through with it.

Am I always going to be a hopeless romantic shop girl? Or will I truly develop as an artist and begin to create my own universe.

Till then, till the day I leave my place of slavery, I have to work hard. If I won't be recognized for the work I've done, I want them to at least regret losing me at work.

This may not happen. Whatever.

I want play, I want to touch, I want to love, I want to see, I want to feel, I want everything.

Give it to me.

D'essayer de gagner votre amour

I debate whether I'm upset that no one reads this, or relieved.

I'm trying to write out this short story and it fucking sucks.

I live in a constant conflict of interest.

How many times can something break before it becomes trash?

I am really fucking pissed at the moment.

Yet I feel that writing this and then reading it tomorrow will only anger me more.

There are days when I want everything to shut off and I just can't reach the switch.

If I'm not the one, then I'm just another one, so I would rather be no one to anyone at all.

I'm going to eat some tuna now.

Quand les mots ne peuvent décrire ...

I could not hold back. Everything inside of me was on fire. I found a passion that I thought would truly never be felt.

To have the desire to want to know every facet of another human being. When the only thing you want to do is make them smile. To give them the serenity that they have given to you. To return to care and love that you feel so strongly.

I went to my roof, with music playing in my ears, I screamed at the top of my lungs. For sometimes I find emotion has no way out, no other expression...then I cried.

However I didn't cry because of sorrow; I cried because I actually feel something.

I feel so many things right now. As joyous as it can be, and as much pain can be found, I feel.

Everything's alright.

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever, I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuck loads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

And i’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
Cause everyone knows that’s how you get famous
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?

Cause I’m being taken over by the fear

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars and cussing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
And that’s what makes my life so fucking fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
And its not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah we're on to a winner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
Cause I’m being taken over by the fear

Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I’m killing them all on my own little mission
Now I’m not a saint, but I’m not a sinner
Now everything's cool as long as I’m gettin thinner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
Cause I’m being taken over by fear

Définir le bonheur ...

I'm sitting here with the intention of writing something positive. Whats distracting about this is the fact I have to tell myself to be cheerful. I question what happiness really is in life.

If it's all just chemical reactions in our brains, then there are plenty of drugs and other things that can be used to stimulate that. But when you break down the human psychology what is happiness?

I can't really complain at the moment. Well I could. However it's pointless, being I can see a solution in each of my problems so what is there to truly worry about?

I remember Will used to want to find the ultimate high. He was so interested in drugs, from an intellectual standpoint as well as recreational. I always wanted to find personal Nirvana. My own state of mind where I could complete the things I wanted accomplished, be with the people I loved, and find personal serenity in simple day to day tasks.

I started by beginning to appreciate less noticeable parts of life a few years back. But it wasn't until I had nothing that I truly understood what they meant to me.
For instance, socks without holes in them. Seems silly right? Well for me it's a luxury I don't always have. If I want to paint I have to think in only a few colors, I can't afford to buy new paints as I once did. However it makes going to the arts supply store so much more rewarding.

I prefer to take my coffee with half and half. I can only afford milk so in the few times I get it, it's almost a treat.

I really enjoy my life this way though. There were times when I had less finacial responsibility and more income and was so miserable I had nothing else to do but watch myself spend money on things I would forget about within a week.

No one really has gifted me before either. My Mother and Stepfather would usually buy me new clothes for my birthday and at Christmas I would receive clothing and usually one gift that was not something of necessity. My father would ask every year what I wanted. It was so impersonal I just started to ask for cash instead. Will never could really give much, and he tried very hard to at least give something when he could. Last Christmas was my first in a cold climate. I was completely unprepared. All my socks were thin, my coats were old, I didn't have gloves for a while, it was unpleasant to say the least. I had gotten Dom a hat from his favorite store because I remembered he had lost his. The place was stupid expensive, but I was just so happy that this was a thoughtful gift, that he did love. I received lingerie from him. I was a little hurt by this. He knew very well of my situation and chose to get a gift that was really more for himself than me.

Anyway, so I'm honestly not used to receiving gifts. In any form. Even the smallest things being handed to me take such a hold on my heart. Sometimes I'm so taken aback by it that I don't even know how to vocalize my appreciation.

So when someone gives you happiness, how do you say "Thank You"?

Rêver de lui...

Notice: To anyone I know that may read this. This entry is not up for discussion and I even prefer if it was not read.

I fell back asleep this morning for another two hours. I feel like every time I do this I'm guaranteed to dream, and usually of something I'm worrying about. However this morning was something I hadn't been thinking about. Now that I pick through it and really think, it's entirely possibly and feasible. Fuck.

This is the one thing I hate about connecting. I feel completely exposed. I constantly have a feeling deep down that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am insane. I will not in anyway deny this. But the crazy ones are always better. I don't know how I'd react if or when something goes wrong. I guess it would depend on the situation. To be honest I don't see myself staying in New York. Once I get the money. part me wants to get a backpack, some bus tickets, and hit the road. When did I become so independent? How did I lose the ability to trust people?

Oh! Now I remember! Because everyone I've ever loved has fucked me over! Alright, now I get it. So back to the point, fuck this. I just want to understand, why is everything so Goddamn complicated. I'm trying so hard to be a good person, but am I hurting myself in doing so?

Every friend I've had has cost me something, to a point where I know have one friend, and I plan to keep it that way.

I'm just hurt. I remember when Will told me he no longer loved me. I thought that pain would never leave, I guess it hasn't. Even though I was the one to end the relationship and still have no feelings for wanting to go back to it, it still hurts.

There are so many times in my life that I've wished I could go back and just hold myself, because no one else would.

Menteur...

What do you see when you see me? I did some reading on mythology today. I read about the Phoenix. How it would create it's nest and home and then burn it to ashes only to start anew. This stood out as profound to me. The idea of once a sense of home was created it was to be destroyed so that it once again it could be brought to life, as though giving it a sense of purpose.

How many times have I destroyed what I had, only because I could.

I felt that several months ago this way of acting had left. That the obsession for pain was gone. However, I don't think it will ever really leave. It's always there, I feel it almost like a magnet, a temptation to just play with it. What can I create to destroy? So many sketches, so many paintings, so many lyrics, I've penned with no other intention than to watch it burn, crumble, and fade. Even if I was a good painter I could never sell my art. To give someone a piece of myself is disturbing, and they would never understand it.

At times the only thing that stopped me from drinking was the fact I had no money. I even reasoned with myself that I could afford one drink, but really that would never be enough. So few people have gotten to know me. I've kept it this way for a reason. How many times can you really share yourself? If you see me cry once, it has an impact, if I cry all the time it's unimportant. I spent a great deal of time with a person who knew very little about me. I got a sick pleasure out of the fact that he would never know my thoughts. Never pick up on my lies, and never see the person inside.

I think my fear is that once you really know me, and you can't love that person, than what greater rejection is there than that anyway? At least when I was with someone who had no clue as to who I am, the relationship in of it's self not working couldn't be because of who I really was.

It was because of the person I wanted you to think of when you saw me.

Or maybe they're the same. A duality that I would have to live with.

Mon esprit peut parfois pas échapper....

I cannot count the nights I spent falling asleep with my headphones on and my music as loud as could be. Sometimes it would be difficult because of how badly I would want to fall asleep to a specific song and I would have to continue to repeat the song on my CD player.

I received my first cassette player at around 8. At this point the only music I knew of was that of what my parents listened to, and they weren't very musical to say the least. I think at 11 I got my first CD player, and having at this point developed quite a movie nerd way about myself, I bought soundtracks to my favorite films. The first ones that I can remember would have been "Empire Records", "The Craft", and "High Fidelity" soundtracks. All three to this day contain some of the best songs that have had such a great impact on my life.

I had music for every situation and when I slept at night I found that instrumental was always perfect. It allowed my imagination to wonder some where new. That my thoughts weren't trapped by the sound of my mothers TV in room next to mine. There was a song on the "City of Angels" soundtrack I must have listened to over a 100 times. I remembered the story I had created for it. I would be standing on a cliff above the sea and at a point in the song I would jump. As I crashed to the bottom of the ocean I found I had no need to breathe anymore. I swam to the bottom to find a door. When I opened it I was in an orchard, its bright and warm out. I walk through it, smelling the fruit growing from the trees. I start to panic at this point and begin to sprint as the sky turns grey. The rain hits me and I feel as though I'm running as fast as I can yet am moving extremely slow....by this point I would fall asleep. I never understood where this came from, but it relaxed me each night.

When I was 14 someone stole that same CD player from me, I left it on top of my book bag in the auditorium of the school before my theater class. I couldn't believe it, this thing was so beat up, it had duck tape holding in the batteries...none the less I felt lost with out it. Later that day I was in French class and I saw some of the students passing around a "Bride of Chucky" soundtrack. Okay, these weren't particularly the type of kids you'd see listening to this. At that point one of the kids stood up and decided to ditch class early. He had my CD player. I don't know what came over me, but I got up and followed him out, my teacher yelling at me as I left. I walked up to him and stated that the CD player he was currently listening to was mine. He was so shocked I had done this he handed it right back and apologized. I walked back into class and gathered my CD. I avoid confrontation at all costs, but this was one time I refused to. I held onto that CD player for 6 years.

Till this day my closet in my parents home is still wallpapered with all the album covers of my youth.

Le premier verre....

This story will seem vague, I warn you. Not out of fear of recognition from any reader, but out of the fact that everyone has had one of those nights. Yes, it's a drinking story. What makes this important to me is not what happened exactly but why it happened.

Lets start with the first time. I was 13, and like any 13 year old I was not enjoying it. I was a weird child with limited "friends". The night was interesting to say the least and a little on the odd side for a normal 13 year old girl. Regardless myself and a "girlfriend" made the decision that to make the nights conversations move more smoothly we would drink out of my parent's liquor cabinet.

This was the first time either of us had done this. I remember loving everything I tasted and I felt stronger with each drink. I became confident and arrogant. I couldn't care less what was going on.

She stopped drinking after a half a bottle of Kahlua. I didn't.

I found a love that night for Gin and especially Vodka. The pain of drinking it only brought me more pleasure. The warmth that it gave me was such a comfort I had never felt before. The sexually urges I had became more intense with each drink. Everything inside of me felt alive. I felt normal. As the night grew on and my belligerence got worse I became aggressive, especially towards the person I was with.

Inevitably my mother caught us in the most inconvenient of times...

Inevitably this story will follow me for life. Of course.

For the next two years I took diet peach snapples, that my stepfather enjoyed so much, and I would pour half out and fill the rest with Gin, Vermouth, and Vodka. I would sit in my room each night by the side of my bed and drink these, I usually didn't have enough to last me longer than a week per bottle, but as long as I had this I felt better. Fear of getting caught brought on it's on dilemma.

Then a new friend introduced me to smoking.

So I put the two together....ah...love.

Now at only 13 I had my first two copping mechanism.

The most interesting thing that out of all my cravings. The one to create was always the strongest. I wanted so badly to paint, to write, to photograph...but never felt I had the resources. I had not paints, nothing to photograph and my writing was so poor it was just an embarrassment for even only myself to read. So I became obsessed with music. I would create playlists and burn mixed cd's. I would cut pictures out of magazines and use nail polish to create collages for album art. When I finished I felt whole and accomplished. Even though I was using other artists work, I manipulated it into my own.

I gave these to only one person, a girl I fell in love with at age 14. The first person other than my family that I said "I love you" to. I got the opportunity after I moved to see her again in New York.

She still had the cd's.

Par où commencer ...

I guess one of my biggest fears is for someone to find out I'm a fraud. In the past year I've realized how much effort I put into disguising who I really am. To a degree this is partly due to the fact I don't fully understand myself.

If God(or any form of it) would come to me and say "Here is your life written in volumes. Choose to read what you like and take from it what you can.", I wonder what I would find...

I have no siblings. A disadvantage I can only live with, and one that if not there, may have helped me progress faster in reading between the lines of my life. I have no childhood friends to call upon. I moved so frequently and rarely received consistant contact with another person growing up. For me, life was vast only because I would allow my mind to escape reality so frequently.

However now, 21 years 10 months and 2 days later, I'm determined to get to know who I am, and hopefully fall in love with the person I want to be.

For how can I ask for love from another, for a person I cannot show love for myself.

I can start by analyzing when I began to notice I was falling from the group, in a sense, starting to think I wasn't like everyone else. I have to accept that I can't change anything that has happened, only to hope that the knowledge I might gain will shape a better future.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't like myself very much, but not the same way I felt a year ago. A year ago I would tell you I'm uneducated, unattractive, and unambitious.

Well, I teach myself what I can where I can. I read when ever I get the chance. If I don't know something I take a mental note to research and have actually developed more passions from things springing from a lack of understanding them.

I am attractive. Okay, to even type that makes me cringe. But I know how I look, I know the effects it has on others and I know that I've used it in the past to bypass someone really seeing who I am. But the sense of insecurity brings me to a stopping point at times. Points where I want to destroy the image people see to maybe understand what I see inside.

Ambition. According to Webster it is the ardent desire for rank, fame, or power. At around 14 I lost that drive. I wanted to sink behind the curtains, dreaming of being the person on stage, rather than actually doing it. Yet, in April of 2009 something happened. I wanted a voice. I didn't need to be heard yet, but I wanted it to at least exist. I realized where I lived at the time I would never develop one. It got to a point that the pressure in my chest was so great that if I didn't leave as soon as I could, I would die of a broken heart. I may have continued to actually live, but what ever small flicker of life that was left in me would burn out.

I did not think. I just acted. I had the money, I made the connections I needed, and so I fled. I knew no one nor cared. I started over. I became who ever the hell I wanted you to see. This temporarily led me to be a not so great person. Someone who was reckless with a constant fear of falling. And for to me, if I was gonna fall, it better kill me. I put myself in situations in a way of testing how far I could go. Curious to see how destructive I could be. I was a Goddamn idiot.

But I felt alive, scratch that, I actually felt something. Eventually that gave me enough to decide that maybe I can feel something other than pain.

I had spent the previous years of my life half alive. Only doing what needed to be done, trying to find anything to fill a void. I ordered things from around the world and watched as many foreign horror films as I could, even trying to learn the languages, because I never thought I would able to see these places. So instead I immersed myself in anything and everything that I wanted to see and do into the four walls I spent the majority of my life in.

To actually be at a point to ask myself what I want, is an achievement in of it's self. For me it means this is the first time I actually want to listen to myself and that I care about how I'm doing. And for the first time, I'm trying to listen to others. Because I realized I'm really not as different as I think, but never having someone to share these things with made that I was unaware. I find it hard to understand sometimes where others are coming from, because I have so much I have not worked through, how can I be of help in anyway? But really, no one can help me, I share the things I share to be comforted and maybe at times thats all I need to do. Hopefully this will progress and maybe writing what is in my head will at least make it that I can sleep. I just want make someone happy, to make them laugh, to maybe brighten someone else's day even if mine is shit. To put my self aside and care about another human being. I just want to be a better person.