But everyone keeps on living.

She was never a person I would’ve assumed would take her own life. But how often do we see it coming? Someone is miserable but an expert at hiding it. Or we aren’t listening hard enough.

It made me think. How many happy women do I know? And I can’t name one.

I can’t.

I feel like Betty Draper in Mad Men. At least the first seasons. I have everything but still nothing. I should be happy but I’m not.

My sister is drowning in an angry relationship that is causing her to be extremely overweight and extremely snappy at people.

My mother is drinking too much to drown whatever daemons are plaguing her. She loves her husband but she’s torn between the different countries he lives in and never has time to just sit down and relax.

My friends are getting divorced, or becoming a family wife, resentfully taking care of everything, or unable to find their path. One is extremely unhappy with their work but unsatisfied with going back to school to finish her degree.

I don’t know happy women. But I though she was happy. Even if she wasn’t extremely happy, she was strong, beautiful and so smart. I never saw it coming. And I can read people. Obviously I saw she was sad but I underestimated how sad and now I feel so phony. I thought I was a good friend, and I just got it proven that I’m not. I can’t be there for those who I hold close. I can’t even be there for myself.

I used to love to write. I used to love to design. I used to get my stomach in a knot for the prospect of meeting a cute guy.

I don’t like anything anymore. Sometimes I wonder if this is the best life can bring me and I know it isn’t. I know that a big part of why it is as it is, is because of me. I don’t commit to myself. I can commit to a whole other person but I can’t commit to myself and my own needs.

I am falling apart inside.

Some days I can struggle through the mundane and the adequate and try to see some sort of light at the end of a metaphorical tunnel, but most days I’m gasping for air because the air is to thin or I’m drowning because the tunnel is flooding in.

I always had a tendency to be sad or feel lonely. I remember being a dramatic child. But it was never this bleak. Never this hopeless. Never this hard.

Dad just had to die. I just had to give up on ever being sane. I just had to throw my body under the train that is called selfhatred. I hate it. Most of the time. I always imagine myself doing something about it. I envision it. I pack bags with clothes, sweatpants, gymshoes, large tshirts. But lets face it. I can barely walk in a normal pace anymore.

So I selfwallow. Maybe I haven’t hit rock bottom. Maybe I need it to get worse before I can handle it getting better. But most of the time, I just want to sleep. I just never want to get out of bed again. Is that too much to ask for?

I’m not done with school, no where near it seems, but I chose to work becuase my motivaiton for my education was running dry. Running dry. As if it was ever “wet”.

I just didn’t want to be stuck in a dead end job with a low salary, and miserable for my entire life. Instead I ended up feeling really old and absolutely no where in my life. As if we’re valued by our emplyee status, and lets not forget marital status.

So I’m no where. No mans land. I may have a job, but it’s temporary as the education has to be completed one wya or another. I’m not married, and if I’ve understood my boyfriend correctly, I wont be married for another 7 years. Or maybe it was five. I can’t really remember as all I could think was, wow I will be really old.

It’s not that I care about the marriage part. It’s rather, why doesn’t he want to marry me. Why can’t he commit to forever after in writing if he can when he talks to me? What is so wrong with wanting a ring, a ceremony, tax benefits and commitment?

He got me to quit drinking though. Not forever. With the exception of 2 glasses of wine last week (work dinner, and it was nice) I haven’t had any alcohol since the end of January. Go me. He was threatening to leave me, I had gotten violent. Problem is that my drinking is a reason for issues I surpress. Issues as aggrevatin over a messy home, being the bearer of all economic problems and then there’s my over-weight issue. Which of course was a major cause of the alcohol.

The weight has not improved really. I guess I just substituted wine with candy/sodas. And now I’m hyped up on sugar instead of alcohol. Will this circle never end?

Until a few years ago, the hardest thing I had to forgive myself was making stupid decisions about men. That was it. Forgive me for not going after the ones I wanted and forgive me for letting those I could care less about take advantage over me.

Forgiveness was easy back then.

The year my dad got sick was a busy year in my life. I have to forgive myself for not spending more time with my father. For letting him go through so much alone when I always wanted to be there for him but just couldn’t bare to see him fade away. I have forgive myself for all the harsh thoughts I had. Believing that if only he wanted to live, he could fight the cancer. The cancer that only took 3 months to end his life.

I have to forgive myself for letting myself get completely drawn into the world of alcohol after he passed. Forgive myself for blurring out the remainder of that year, for gaining 80 pounds over a span of 6 months and for wallowing. I have to let myself understand that it was OK to get depressed.

It’s hard to forgive oneself. It’s even harder to think someone who has passed would forgive you.

In the long run, I have to forgive myself for never taking care of my body. For letting it balloon up. Sometimes I give myself such a hard time for it, but in the end I just have to forgive myself.

Read all I’ve got to write about here.

Growing up with my parents weren’t easy but it wasn’t hard either. My mother is a strong woman, who knows how to get her needs across. In some ways that was both positive and negative growing up.

As a woman, having a strong woman raise you is bound to give you a sense of strength and pride in yourself but as a child trying to get along with other kids, having your mother dominate the community you live in can be extremely stressful. Especially if you live in a community abundant with men who aren’t accustomed to listen to a woman. My mother however earned their respect.

My dad on the other hand wasn’t as strong, at least not in their relationship. Don’t get me wrong, my dad wasn’t weak, he just couldn’t hold a candle to my mother. My mother the superwoman. Or so she seemed.

They were married for 20 years, of which I remember hearing my mother wanting a divorce for at least ten. Ten years of understanding that my mother was unhappy and that my father tried to please her but just not didn’t try hard enough (or was unable to please her). He loved her I am sure.

My father died five years ago. He and mom had been divorced for five years. I remember him crying when he laid in a hospital bed and received a call from my mother that she didn’t have the time to see him just then. She did however sit with him when he passed away.

My father was 24 when he married my mother (she was then 30). My mom always says, if we had been business partners we’d be millionaires because we are a well oiled machine. And I have to agree. We never lacked anything. We never noticed the period when both were out of jobs and we were brought up to be well adjusted individuals. Intelligent, well fed, funny, compassionate individuals. But we were bruised when it came to relationships. Especially me and my sister.

We watched our parents, they hardly hugged, they rarely kissed. They were usually civil. Sometimes they fought. My mother was miserable. She was dominant in everything she did, she didn’t want to rule our house.

I love my mother. She is still alive. When dad was alive I would call him, crying after another fight with mum and he would tell me You clash because you are so alike. I miss my dad everyday. I wish I had spent more time with him, told him I loved him more often. I wish I had forgiven him everything I felt he needed to be forgiven of. My mother is still the strong one. She is remarried and happy. She is like a best friend and a mother at the same time. I wouldn’t bare losing her too.

Read the entire list over here.

Well I found something, or actually my sweet Mr Man pointed out a quality about myself that I was unaware of and once pointed out I realized how much I loved it.

I’m extremely competent in reading people. I never thought about it before, but I can usually tell when someone is lying. I will not call them on it because more often than not it’s a tiny white lie, but sometimes it’s something big that will hurt me. Like my mother, sometimes she will say something encouraging but I can tell she wants to fill it out with something else.

It was usually just something I thought was my own insecurity, that I over-analysed, because that was what my mum used to say I did. Towards her, or my sister. But Mr Man pointed out how often I’d end up being right, and how often I had been spot on regarding people and circumstances. So now I don’t doubt it any more. I always was a killer at knowing which guys fancied my friends…

Read the whole list here.

One day I asked him for a photograph and I think I held on to that picture for ten years. Not because I always loved him, but because it was the first love. The first boy I really loved.

There isn’t much to say about it because I don’t remember much about it except that I was jealous when he played with my friend and I wanted him to play with me instead. I suppose many people wont call that a love because you are too young to understand the concept, but I believe love exists without understanding and what I felt for him sure enough was love.

Why else would I still remember his name, now twenty years later?

Want to read the complete lists? Go here.

The inability to love myself.

It’s not that I hate myself, it’s not that I ruin my life. It is however a deep seething inability to love myself that make me constantly trip over my own good intentions.

I have wants, and needs. I want to lose weight, I hate the way I look. But I constantly manipulate myself into destroying the good work I do. I lost 50 pounds so I felt I was entitled to… stray from my diet. I never turned back to my narrow path and soon the 50 pounds with an additional 10 had fixated themselves all over my body.

I do that constantly. Try to fix what depresses me, and then I think but I deserve…and I end up destroying my good efforts.

I quit drinking and wasn’t even longing for a glass of wine, so I went out and had one with dinner, which was followed by another the night after. Soon enough I was back to my old alcoholic ways. Or I stayed away from sugar for a year and never really longed for it but everyone was praising it so it must be good, or maybe that cake tastes better, or everyone else is eating it…

Or what about the time I smoked so much pot I hardly ever left the house?

I don’t do mediocre. If I get hooked I decide to take it to extremes.

If something is going well, I decide to destroy it. I don’t mentally decide, lets destroy this good thing, I just think my efforts have entitled me to deviate from the plan. Each time I know the cost and what the result will be. Yet I convince myself this time will be different and I deviate.

Somehow I feel, this is because of my inability to truly love myself. If I truly loved myself I’d let me be happy, let me enjoy my successes and stop ruining things for myself.

This is something I need to work at, I just don’t know where to start. Once I’m happy again something inside me will say “you deserve” and when my other self try to keep me on the narrow path the evil me will heckle and say What are you afraid of, you’re strong now. You can do this and still continue on your narrow path. But I never can.

To see the full list of daily subjects go here!

While surfing around Cerebral Lunchbox I read that Witless had her own little blogfest, one that suits me perfectly… (for those with 300 followers or less, I think I have one follower). This recent topic, someone who took advantage of you (or someone you took advantage of) is in honor of Thanksgiving, so while spilling my guts I guess I should confess, I’ve never celebrated Thanksgiving. It’s not as shocking as you might think, I don’t live in North America.

Anyway, towards our topic. Took advantage of me. I bet I can think of a couple of stories to tell you that somewhat follow into the right category, even though at the time I was fully aware I was being used, and I let myself be it. However, when trying to think of a time when I didn’t let myself be royally screwed over(but still got kicked while lying down), it’s harder to remember a single time. Not because they didn’t exist, but rather because I seem to have completely wiped the memories from my mind. I remember feeling used, humiliated and angry but I don’t remember the event that had led me to those feelings.

I wasn’t aware that I had blocked something from my past like this until this topic came to light, so I’ll write about one of those moments when I was letting myself be used and maybe it will trigger some sort of flashback.

It was a couple of years ago. I was in my early twenties, looking good, the best I ever had, feeling even better. Still I was unsure of myself, as I always had been, but I was not going to apologize for it any longer.

I started working as a mail-carrier. It was an easy if somewhat exhausting job. At my workplace was a man I instantly fell attracted to. Instantly wanted to get to know. His interest in me was obvious too.

We soon got to talking, we became friends, and I was very clear with my intentions. I wanted him.

He said he wanted me too but he kept me at an arms length.

He made me dance after his tune, I helped him with his job, I helped him with his friends. I listened to him when he told me about other girls in his past. He wasn’t ready for a relationship.

He led me to believe he wanted me but wasn’t ready.

After a night out with co workers, we ended up in bed together. I was ecstatic. I thought we were moving forward. I was so wrong, so mislead. He said he wasn’t ready for a relationship. He wasn’t ready to commit.

A week after I heard about his new girlfriend.

Needless to say, they only lasted a year and that was all the time I needed to put some distance between us. I made this short and concise because it still pains me today. Five years later. I really liked (I don’t think I’d reached love) him, and he never trusted me enough or wanted me enough. He always claimed he was my second choice, but I never understood after whom he came second since all the other men came after I realized I couldn’t have him.

I guess men play games as well. Since that guy I am as straight as an arrow. When I met my Mr Man I told him what I expected, what I was willing to give and what wouldn’t be accepted. I think that is exactly why we got along so well.

But we categorize ourselves through these things. Age, sex, location. After that, we look for other things to relate to, other characteristics.

I’m almost thirty. A few months left until I reach an age where I no longer can pretend I’m not an adult. I fear adulthood. I don’t feel mature, secure, in control. I feel like a teenager stuck in an ageing body with no say in how fast things are moving around her. I wish there was a pause button.

At the same time I’m extremely happy to have left the insecure early twenties behind me. To have learned when to say no and that I decide over me and my body. To know that my happiness is just as important as everyone else’s, not just assume it, but to truly feel and believe it.

I’m no a social person. I don’t have a lot of friends. The few friends I have though are truly dear to me. I cherish them. I take care of them. Sometimes I miss my childhood companions but there’s always a reason we no longer hang out and that is either because we don’t get along or either of us don’t care for what the other has become. Usually they don’t care for whom I’ve become. Someone you can’t push around.

I don’t do things I don’t want to do. Usually that means I don’t attend all parties, I don’t watch you while you jump through hoops. I’m dead set in my ways and my time is precious.

I’m on my last year of college. But we don’t call it college where I’m from. In may, I’ll graduate, getting my masters in Business Economics. What I fear the most right now is that I wont get a job within my skill level and will have wasted 5 years in school for a minimum wage salary.

To wrap this up here are some words that characterize me… insecure, clever, observant, stubborn, compassionate, in love, overweight, lazy, funny, loyal, loving, depressive, cuddly. I could go on, but for now you get to settle for that.

To see the full list of daily subjects go here!