calories killories can'tstandories goawayories oreos

My eating disorder is starting to creep back into my life. Not like it ever really left or anything, but I find myself lately wanting to exercise to excess and feeling guilty if I only get in an hour of exercise a day. I keep snacking, even when not hungry and then feel guilty about it. I forget what constitutes as a "real meal" and feel guilty if I eat less than four hours after my last "meal." I write strict meal plans and then feel guilty if I stray even a tiny bit from the meal plans. And yes, I do feel fat in these jeans.

Another red flag is that I would rather exercise when I feel like I have eaten too much than do pretty much anything else in the world. Hang out with friends? Not if I had an extra popsicle after dinner. Get some very important homework done? Only if I ate 1500 calories that day and went to the gym. Relax and read a book? Hey, I can read a book on the elliptical.

I am not going to offer some kind of solution to these problems in this post. Because I don't know what the solution is. I just wanna be normal. (But these obsessions could be the "norm," right? Scary.)

old diary entry, now new blog post. imagine that. don't imagine it too much, though.

Somebody distantly related wrote us tonight.

Our blood reaching out, connected. What is blood anyway and how can we claim it as our own? Our family used to eat at a restaurant called "The Claim Jumper."

Oh! Slipped my mind.

Eye of the needle, threadbare.

Threadbare-- long word for something so diminishing. Wants to hold on a little bit longer?

What are the things I am holding on to?

Want to sleep so I can wake up and eat faster (do we eat at the same time if we sleep or if we don't sleep?).

We all sleep alone.

I've started a HAPPY blog

and you can find it at herworldisholy.blogspot.com.

Cheers.

knees and chains... Nietzsche?

Personal statements. What a joke.

How do I sum up my entire college experience (eight years! let's try and make it ten!) in a two page, double spaced paper? Here's how: I fill it with weird jokes about sitting behind potted plants and use phrases such as "metaphorical potassium." Yeah, this statement is about as personal as it gets (what?).

Enough about personal shmersonal statements... Let's talk about the past! No, let's not. Let's bury the past instead! No, let's not. Then what the hell do we do with the past? Leave it in the past? I do not know, honeys. Honies? Honeys. I do not know. Is the past really a "dead end" like you say it is? Or is it just that scab on your knee that you really shouldn't pick at because then it will never heal, but you can't stop picking at it because it's, well, there (and you must admit that you kind of like the pain)?

Is this what the past is? A scab on my knee? But the past was so bad that I think it left me without a knee. Yeah, it wasn't an oops-I-scraped-my-knee incident. Oh no-- it was most definitely an oops-my-entire-knee-just-exploded-and-now-I-have-this-gaping-hole-where-my-knee-used-to-be incident. And how do you recover from something so painful (and unexplainable) as an exploding knee?

Maybe you don't. Maybe you accept that you won't. Maybe you don't move on, but move in a different direction with the past tied to your leg. Maybe you run around trees and bushes and mountains, trying to tangle up the past so that it eventually snaps and releases you from its strings. You'll forget about the strings, most likely, but you'll always have your phantom knee.

And you'll smile outwardly, saying it's okay.

I love Jack. I just want everyone to know. He is my jackpot.

Damn. I mean, darn. I forgot what I was going to blog about. But I am going to continue typing in hopes I remember. Something will come out of this, right? Hmmm.

I didn't know Dave Iba was going to be a dentist. Dr. Iba: The Movie: Based on the book written by Dr. Iba: A Memoir.

I will just copy/paste my Facebook status right now: There's something beautiful and refreshing about normalcy.

Typical Meghan behavior is to change my mind, my style, my life plan, and everything else constantly. Stability is sought, but rarely found.

(Side note: It's weird when people pronounce "associates" as "assoshiates.")

Normalcy. It's time for me to embrace it. I don't have to save the planet. I don't have to live up to an unrealistic ideal. Basically, I don't have to hold my breath.

Cooking breakfast in my underwear on a Sunday morning with the sun shining through a slightly grimy window is the kind of holy holy holy I want want want.

And I can have have have it.

I might even make some tea and wear a bracelet.

(Imagine Dr. Iba extracting your molars.)

analyze this

Someone I love "diagnosed" me with something last night, which, after reading the symptoms, makes me wonder what this person actually knows about me. It doesn't seem like they know anything about me, but they do. So who knows who? Who knows.

But seriously, I was an empathetic child who could definitely pick up on social cues and read body language. I wasn't late learning to use a fork. I could understand sarcasm. I never used the word "beckon" over the word "call." And if I had any "unusual facial expressions," it was because I was goofing off and not because I had/still have a syndrome.

Really.

But I still stand by my own self diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. For the most part. Again-- who knows? I have decided I am done with self diagnosing and labeling and pinpointing. Ready for a fairly cheesy line? Okay, here it is: I am not a disorder or a syndrome; I am Meghan. In fact, I am not even Meghan. I am flesh and bones and a karmic stream.

And this karmic stream wants to try out happiness for awhile. Just try it out. I don't even have to be happy yet. I can pretend because pretending is better than waking up with puffy eyes... unless by "puffy eyes" I mean "a million dollars," then it is definitely better to wake up with a million dollars.

feel free to tell me exactly what i should do with my life

Dear Life Plan,
Will you quit changing so drastically on me? You are so wishy washy at times. I think we need to start seeing other people. Wait, that doesn't make sense! You know what else doesn't make sense? The fact that I am again entertaining the idea of becoming an elementary school teacher.

I know.
Yours Doubtfully,
Meghan, I think

and this is what wakes me up

walking the golden backroads, a young girl reached her hands into a puddle and showed me the mud on her palms. barely able to contain her pure pleasure, she radiated and spoke to me with intoxication. i could not understand, so i just said "hello" and "messy hands." i loved her then as i love my previous, tender self. the moment was raw, the moment was holy, the moment captured eternity (next to the dragonflies).

i hate you, don't leave me, and etc.

I must begin this post with a clarification: Although I am a college girl who likes the movie Girl, Interrupted and books such as The Bell Jar, I am not basing my following feelings on trying to live up to some melodramatic cliche of "depressed white girl poet in her twenties." Or maybe I am? I can say with surety that many times I do not know who it is that inhabits my body. But I feel fairly certain about the (bold) claim I am about to make...

I have Borderline Personality Disorder.

Right? I mean, there is a danger (and an odd sort of satisfaction) in self-diagnosing. We could be using the supposed disease as an excuse for behavior. We could be biased, not being able to see things from an outside perspective. We could be wrong.

Yet I feel so right about this diagnosis. And who says a paid professional has to be the one to label me? Okay okay okay-- I have issues with labeling in the first place. But sometimes things need a label in order to be understood and worked with in this world. I know myself better than most people know me, and by labeling myself as someone with BPD, I feel... Less lonely. Less misunderstood. There is actually a name for this personal instability. More importantly, there are solutions.

Granted, I am not sure what the "solutions" are yet. I am guessing they are the same solutions that are given to every other mental illness-- therapy and pills. And fresh air, exercise, fruits and veggies, yadda yadda yadda. Okay, fine. I accept. All I am missing is the therapy. Oh, and the money for therapy. But maybe I'll figure all of that out later. For now, I just want to read more about BPD, discuss it with others, write, think, meditate, stop myself from doing anything too impulsive, write, and maintain healthy relationships with those people in my life.

And honestly, I will probably buy Borderline Personality Disorder for Dummies tonight at, appropriately enough, Borders.

Deep breath.

i suppose being ingnored is better than being slapped in the face with a slice of raw bacon

Isn't it common courtesy to acknowledge someone's girlfriend if you are hugging and talking to their boyfriend?

Yeah, just remember that the next time, anonymous girl.