that pit in your chest. supposedly a thoracic cavity? should not feel like a hole. it should feel full with love and contentedness, and, at the very least, echoes of heartbeats. but i feel empty. there is not an instant when i can enjoy a happy moment for what it is–not because it lacks genuine joy or whatnot, but because i can’t help but remind myself that this happiness will be over, that once you reach a certain level of happiness, nothing can follow but bad, bad things.

there are only four words resounding in my head right now (five if you want to get technical): “i can’t do this.” i can’t leave in 12 days. i can’t move on. i can’t survive three months without my best friends. i can’t spend another year loathing myself because of a boy. i can’t fall in love, not with you, not now. i can’t do this anymore. this whole superwoman, heartless crap, i can’t do that anymore. swallowing bitchiness and spitting out sunshine can’t happen anymore. permitting heated kisses to substitute logical explanations can’t happen anymore.

is insecurity pessimism? sure. if you know you can do something, if you’ve proven to yourself with minimal marginal error that your abilities can achieve something, yet you refuse to accredit yourself, then yes, you are insecure. but when you’re the epitome of a hit-or-miss, how can you be sure of anything?

is it really insecurity, though, to fear being hurt again?  humans are programmed to learn from mistakes–if you put your hand into the fire, it’ll scorch and seethe, and you won’t do it again. so why would trusting people be any different? words are just words, after all. why trust someone to grasp a part of your heart if a little piece of you slips through their fingers every time? do you trade the risk of breaking yourself again for the chance of ridding loneliness, or do you opt to protect yourself and forsake the have-beens, what-ifs, and maybes?

to feel hollow, to feel that pit, to remember the words that others unknowingly whip you with–it already hurts, already stings and bleeds. to feel bruised and knocked down, watching those who are happy is bittersweet–it sourly reminds you of what you had, should have, could have had, but reminds you that at least you know one day, everyone smiling will frown, everyone standing will fall. this is not about romance. this is about everything people expect from you–the obedience you owe authorities and parents, the amiability you owe to those around you, the success people anticipate that you will obtain, etcetera. this is about everything you can’t do.

i guess i’m far from fearless. i’m afraid of dedicating my all to one area of my life and completely forsaking the other. i’m afraid of ending up with a fat wallet, seven cats, but no one to kiss me goodnight. i’m afraid to re-learn how i used to love those close to me, in case i can’t deal with their deaths. i’m afraid of being replaced. i’m afraid of heights. the empty air gives me the same droopy feeling. so maybe, for now, i’ll stay sitting on the bottom step looking up, because after another fall, it’ll only be that much harder to pick up my pieces.

merry christmas, all.

“…he had a cold heart that wouldn’t let anyone inside…he would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. It’s lid rusted shut. He would not pry it loose”–Beloved

funny how after two years, so much has happened but so little has changed.

how i’ll let people close. close enough to smell, inhale the tobacco, close enough to shiver from the chilly metal, close enough to hold, shake, feel, but never enough to come in. not even one foot in the door.

i want to watch someone try and shake me.
not shake tears out of me, not to shake the contents in my tin, or have me quivering.
i want someone to drive me down into the ground, pummel my guts, knock me out.
shake me so i can feel.

It feels nice though, this birthday thing, even though it only comes once a year. After a year of having people drill it into you that you’re worthless, stupid, equivalent to the bare scum on the earth, it’s nice to watch the clock tick past midnight, the Facebook messages tumble into your inbox, the sing-song voicemails. When no one’s awake and you’re all alone, the first few hours of the day are peaceful, sacred. For a few hours, you’re reminded that you’re loved, cared for, remembered, three reminders that are too rarely encountered. But that’s only those few hours.

I don’t get why sixteen is such a big number, other than the fact that it used to mark the age of debutante balls and fancy ceremonies (according to Gilmore Girls), but after aging another year, I don’t find anything special with sixteen.

Looking back at the past twelve months, I feel so empty. Nothing has built me up to become more than I was; if anything, this past year has eaten me up down to the very last crumb. Nothing has been significant. Nothing has happened that’s made my parents grin with pride, nothing has happened that’s made me hug myself with contentment. Yet amidst all this nothing-ness this past year felt sated, heavy. Looking back, I think everything just canceled each other out; moments of happiness were quickly nulled by periods of murkiness, luck eventually crushed by fate.

Sixteen. I’m almost scared to hope that this year will be different. I’ve come to embrace the melancholy with open arms, happy to at least have a constant in life. I’m scared to anticipate for too much, but at the same time I know all too well what’s to come. After all, sixteen is just a number, an even age that will have to face all too many oddities.

Too many oddities.

Happy birthday, Me.

i really really really hate you. i’ve been thinking and there’s nothing, not one thing i should be thankful for from you, nothing i would reminsce and say wow that one really good thing you did totally makes up for all the crap you made me put up with. nothing. you’re the sickest person i’ve ever met, that has the guts to lie to my face thinking that i’ll never find out about anything, but i do find about things–i’m not as oblivious as, oh let’s say, you are. who the hell steals someone else’s ex? so what if it wasn’t official, you knew every single fucking thing that went on, how much he hurt me, how much he meant to me, how we meant the world to each other at one point and you think its all right to take you and your army of cousins to step in and ruin everything. if it weren’t for you, we’d be fine. i’d be fine. i wouldn’t be worrying about what you two might be doing next, i wouldn’t be worrying about how truthful the last three lines you IMed to me were. when i’m in tears and in shambles, i should be able to turn to you and ask for comfort, for help, not be scared that you’ll expose everything about me in a matter of seconds and have you just turn right around and tell me how shitty of a life you have. i dont need to be trampled on by you just because you have a psychotic family (you’re included in that) and i don’t need to try to dig up words of sympathy that you just completely twist around then try to make me seem evil as anything. i don’t need try three times as hard to win back a guy that was mine in the first place because you pulled some snazzy trick out of your ass to woo him when i wasn’t there. yes, i did confide in you at times of desperate measure, but who knew you would threaten to use that against me? and since when coudl you tell me who i can or cannot hang out with? if you dont’ care enough to adhere to promises you make with me, recognize me and treat me even as a plain acquaintance, why should i even bother dealing with anything you hand over? i don’t need you diagnosing yourself with mental illnesses everytime i ask you a question or talk to you; i don’t want to hear your bipolar accusations or rantings when none of it is true. do you know how outrageous your paranoid statements are? you send at least a chain of five people in a whirlwind, fighting then clarifying everything and every conversation ends with “so she lied.” tell the truth. i don’t lie about people asking me out, i don’t lie about my relationships with people, i don’t lie about things i’ve done, and i’m not scared about what people think about my truths. your lies may boost you up this disgusting social ladder, and since you have no conscience, i hope you enjoy it. i don’t want to hear your bullshit anymore, about your humble braggings about how everyone thinks you’re pretty about how upset you are that so-and-so is so obsessed about you–you think i’m dramatic? take a look at yourself, honey. your life is not a teen chick flick, not a romance novel, not a foreign drama that won a Grammy award. live your own life instead of trying to make one up. truth is beauty, you dipshit, and as pretty of a face as you might have, you have no beauty.

why am i analyzing blue. i dont’ know. i’m feeling blue. which shade of blue? i don’t know. but definitely not cerulean and definitely not bright blue.

i like you. i really do. but you’re making me periwinkle blue, and that’s not cute at all.
i want to be cerulean blue.
i want to be dark blue.
i want to be a peacock, dammit.

let’s put valentine’s day aside. just take a look at the average high school as a whole and count how many couples there are holding hands one day and throwing fits at eachother the next. what is their “love” based on? a temporary chemical in their brain that makes them so deeply intrigued with one another for, what, a few weeks? we end up dwelling on words and impulses alone, and what we think we thought was so completely rational, so completely flawless is so completely shattered after a simple “i’m sorry, i just don’t like you anymore”. can you imagine if the lovers of American society had the same mindset as we do now (well, put celebrities aside) ? divorce attorneys would have a field day as people just divorce right and left because they simply don’t “like” each other anymore. oh yes, totally logical.

you start to think if there is anything even minutely substantial in the relationships we have today. don’t get me wrong, i’m not completely shunning it; i mean, if you really think you’ll marry whoever you have your eye on than go for the gold, but is there anything that we get out of it? i guess besides an ample amount of experience, you also get an adequate supply of precious heartbreaks that rip you apart, and tears that could’ve been saved for something so much more worthwhile. you get drained of rare emotions that should have been saved for someone down the road, someone that meant more to you than 20 days of phone calls and empty words. high school puppy love is like a toddler walking on their own; sure, you can go for any amount of time, but some where along the way, you will fall, and you’ll realize that you need so much more than your own instincts to create, then sustain a real relationship. funny how i say this now, but time and time again i catch myself doing the very thing i’m saying that we shouldn’t do–i rush into things, i act on impulse, i follow emotions but not logic, and then i trip myself, blame myself, then do it all over again. i don’t know what it is. probably because i’m so scared of being lonely, i take up on any decent chance i get, afraid there might not be that jackpot at the end of the rainbow or my prince charming on a white stallion waiting for me a few years later. then approaches the question of all questions: what is love. do you truly love someone only if you are up to par on everything 1 Corinthians 13 lists? what if love is really just an illusion, something so intangible and so obscure that we chase after it relentlessly because we know we can never have it? i won’t give my answer or any other answer actually, because there’s no definition of love or means to pursue it except your own. so have fun with that.

okay, so this entry was a bit too serious for a holiday like valentine’s day, but it was at least somewhat relevant. right.

right.

“and really, shouldn’t you know by now that men do rule the world? they are better.”

if you google ‘battle of the sexes’ or ‘superiority of men‘ or ‘unfair treatment of women‘ not only will their be a slew of jokes, crude comments, and explicitly drawn cartoons, but you’ll see facts. for example. recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has recently admitted that women outperform men in all levels of education. even though this statement is, oh just a few centuries overdue, it’s nice to have an organization that thinks so. nearly 51% of the medical field today are dominated by women, and according to Forbes, women now own 46% of private businesses. everyday, 420 women start their own businesses, twice the amount of men. women-owned companies now generate $2.5 trillion in annual sales and employ 19 million people nationwide. even politically, i’m sure everyone knows that nancy pelosi is now proudly representing not only democrats, but women as well, as the speaker of the house.

even stepping away from the serious side. men complain constantly about their 80 hour work week and come home and totally laze out, but have they ever considered the fact that stay at home moms have a 118 hour work week with no pay, healthcare, or contract involved? they have no time to themselves and prioritize themselves on the bottom of their list, after “children” and “husband” and “groceries”. men? they’re at the top of their list, then comes “family” and “football” and “poker”. women are the more emotional of the two. guys can go complain that we pms too much, but you know what? emotions show that we care and have more of a conscious heart than you do, and our pms at least shows we can carry on your bloodline. and really. even if men were leaders of the world, who got them that far? without teachers, them majority being women, you little boys would still be mulling over paper boats and marbles since you guys wouldn’t have the knowledge to do anything better. so in the females’ defense, i close my statement with this:

“It’s really no wonder, though, that females’ verbal skills have continued to pass that of males, because the majority of a guys’ time from the age of 5 is dedicated to playing video games, fuming to themselves, and breaking the silence only to banter with each other about their superior proficiency and yell at the television when they can’t pass level 2.” –The Daily Iowan

then there’s the men. if you think about this carefully, there has to be a catch to this dispute. if men had no good qualities to them at all in the beginning, then why would they have been destined as leaders to begin with? why the bias? okay i know claud and dena will hate me for mentioning these points at all, but in all rationality, i have to. let’s start at the beginning of time. Jesus was a man; God is referred to as a man; and i think i can say that in at least the religions of Judaism and Christianity, those two figures preside over the universe. since the most important leaders of time and space are portrayed as men, then it would only make sense to continue this trend onward–hence the creation of man before women (yeah i guess you could say that men were rough drafts and God kinda screwed up, but then again God doesn’t screw up so depends on how you look at it).

then look at what women admire most about men (or at least what i admire most)–their physique, their mass of muscle and ability to protect. true, we need brains in the government, but with just intelligence and no security, our country is just about as doomed as it would be without intelligence. people argue and say that it’s really unfair that women can’t take any real positions in war, but i would like to think that the males of the government took into consideration our pretty faces and didn’t want to see them marred in battle; i’d like to think that they were thinking of our health and detriment to our nation if we settled for just average soldiers; i’d like to think that the sexist portion of their mind wasn’t working. men speak significantly less than women. instead they just think it in their heads instead of vocalizing it.

but guys and girls, really step back and look at the picture and realize something. men wouldn’t exist without women, nor would women without men. without nurses in the army, the soldiers would never carry on. without the strength of men like prince charming to rescue aurora from the tower and the dragon, she would’ve never lived to tell the story. it’s the enveloping protection of men and their quiet, yet irresistable, allure that makes us lose our breath and our natural spontaneity and perpetual thoughtfulness that melts their hearts. women run the household, but there’d be no house if men didn’t work while we were on maternity leave. men own the football field, but they’d lose their motivation to play if there weren’t head-turning cheerleaders rooting them on or motherly volunteers making them nice protein filled meals to build their muscles. men get sick twice as often as women, but women tend to be more concerned about their health and are there instantaneously with a thermos of chicken noodle soup and tylenol. men grasp a situation as a whole and think globally, while women think locally, relying on details and nuances–you can’t change the world without changing a city; obviously both are equally important.

there’s a reason why women and men were different, or else the theory ‘opposites attract’ wouldn’t be valid. for us to rival with each other as to who is better and who is worse defeats the glory of each sex and is totally unnecessary. neither is better than the other, and men need to realize that women should be treated fairly while women need to realize that men are working on it. nothing is everything, and everything comes in moderation. women and men were put together on this earth to live in harmony, each to fill the other up in areas they lack.

1. Eat papayas without holding my nose shut.
2. Learn to cook French cuisine, and maybe even creme brulee.
3. Build a solid igloo in the snow for once that will not collapse on me when I go sit in it.
4. Have an extensive vocabulary, using words like ‘qat’ and whatnot, so I can easily confuse people and get them to acquiesce to almost anything (:
5. Learn how to play the guitar, preferably acoustic. Drums won’t be bad either.
6. Speak fluent Russian.
7. Be able to shove down a teaspoonful of wasabi along with my sushi and not end up crying.
8. In reference to number 7, be able to eat sashimi without cringing along with that wasabi.
9. Visit every country in the world, especially the run-down ones that I didn’t even know existed, and befriend all the natives.
10. Go three days without food or juices, just water.
11. Learn how to ballroom dance.
12. Attend an exquisite party at the Met, preferably in a MiuMiu dress arm in arm with my dashing, successful hubby.
13. Design a portion of my own wardrobe and actually wear it on a daily basis.
14. Along with number 13, concoct an interior design scheme for my own house and have it presentable to guests.
15. Take a road trip to all fifty states.
16. Stand at a nice height of 5’10″ and weigh a dandy 115 lbs
17. Be able to compile a lengthy book of personal philosophical theories, including a long chapter dedicated to defining love and life.
18. Have a normal biological clock that permits sleep from 10 pm to 8 am.
19. Talk to either the President or UN Secretary General one on one.
20. Wean myself off of coffee and learn to cope with the lack of Starbucks five feet away.
21. Be able to fake a nice Irish/Scottish/British accent.
22. Bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
23. Muster up the guts to tell my some of my family that I do love them.
24. Learn how to play poker (shame, I know)
25. Adopt a kid. After getting married, of course.
26. Do four pirouettes in a row and not fall on my face.
27. Go on a reality TV show.
28. Ride bareback on horses up this mountain in the motherland that’s really pretty.
29. Six-figure salary please.
30. Finally settle on one favorite flavor of ice cream.
31. Find three words to describe myself, so next time when I have to fill out a stupid questionairre on “Describe yourself in three words” I won’t be the idiot looking at their paper like a retard.
32. Watch the stars or the sunrise on a rooftop.
33. Promenade in Central Park while it’s snowing.
34. Watch a horror movie on my own without pissing my pants or hiding under my blanket until someone comes to save me.
35. Be an internationally known runway model.
36. And hopefully number 35 will come with posing for the cover of Vogue or Elle.
37. Publish an article in the New York Times.
38. Maintain a clean room for a time span longer than a month.
39. Stop losing my socks behind the washing machine/dryer.
40. Read the entire Bible
41. Find a way to tell the difference between Chinese/Japanese/Korean, Viet/Korean, and Thai/Filipino
42. Learn how to ski/snowboard.
43. Go one month in public without makeup.
44. Take part in a mosh pit.
45. Explain my theology on baptism and maybe, hence the maybe, get baptized if reasonable reasons are given.
46. Get a tattoo. Then remove it after my mother beats me with a broom.
47. Rid my fear of acting.
48. Participate in a rally or campaign.
49. Die young.
50. Drive at an insane speed by myself on the deserts of Arizona.

Everyone was talking to me,and I couldn't understand a word they were saying.
Then their voices became a blur and soon I couldn't even recognize their faces.
They were like these blobs.
Then they started to grow fangs and their eyes became green.
I knew I had to run away.
I packed my knapsack,got on the train, looked up at the map,and decided that I wanted to live in Coney Island.
I thought it was gonna be a real island and I could hide away there like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Imagine my surprise.
The Teacups was the only ride they'd let me on by myself.
I got on it and started spinning myself round and round.
I feel like I'm still there, spinning round and round and round, and the ride won't stop.
And I won't dare get off." -Uptown Girls

I wouldn't mind a ride like that.
and for once, brittany murphy actually speaks some truth.
i really have to stop indulging in chick flicks when i should be outlining french history.
i wonder who actually reads this thing.