Okay, ten days is enough for me to start feeling better. I'm not all the way there, but I am definitely feeling better than I was. And I'm looking forward for the next few months, I think.

I am ready to feel better now.

I want to talk to someone. Really talk, for hours, about everything. I hate to admit it, but I'm lonely. Not in a way where I spend all my time in my apartment doing nothing, but that even when I do go out, it's about as satisfying. I've settled into a group of friends - more like Jesse's friends - who are uninspired. Passionate, maybe, but that passion only slips out for seconds at a time.

I think Dana - Jesse's boyfriend - and I were designed to disagree. I barely know him, but every so often, when I see his opinions slip out, they're completely opposed to mine. If I'm being honest, I think I dislike him. Sometimes I wonder if I dislike him because I'm jealous. You know, the stereotypical best-friend envy because the boy is taking up a lot of her friend's time? I might have a little of that. I certainly don't spend any time talking to Jesse anymore. Not even a little bit.

But I'm afraid to get to know him more. I get the sense that he might be stubborn, argumentative, opinionated. I get the sense that he would see me as fitting into a category in a world of black and white - I would be the bad one. Capitalist, too-priviledged. False, but somewhat true. I get the feeling that I would hate him a little too; there are some areas where I have a short temper.

My temper has been worse lately. I'm stressed out, frustrated. I feel stifled. I want to talk.

I want to talk and not feel selfish for talking about me. I don't only want to hear about me; I want to hear your stories too. I want to share them, pass them back and forth. Relate to eachother. But it seems that no one is interested in telling stories. Or hearing mine.

I'm not okay with telling some of my stories. They're sad, angsty. Awful, horrible, joyless. I don't want to share that; I want to share happiness, light. But I wish someone would say "I don't care that this story is sad. I don't care, even if it's something that I wouldn't be sad about, because I care about you. I want you to tell me." I wish they would mean it. It's a friend's duty to be that person, to say those things, but sometimes "duty" is insincere. I want sincerity. Not "should" not "supposed to" but "want to."

I do not have time to feel this way right now. I do not have time for a "me" day. I need to study, to do readings. To write a paper. I do not have the time to waste on being a person.

I hate that life does this to us.

I still find all of these links inspiring:

An Animation
A Poem
A Short Film

It's easier to be happy when I go outside and see the sky. I never realized before, how much effect it has on me, but it's true. When I spend all day inside my apartment, where no natural light ever shines, I get tired, depressed. Yet when I go outside and see the sun, I am filled with a remarkable sense of well-being. I am more energized, more motivated. I am peaceful.

---

Maybe it's the caffeine. I've had limited access to coffee for the past little while, and I think my resistance to it has diminished.

Shh! Don't tell anyone that I told you this, but I think for once, I might be in the right place, at the right time.

Marian!

I'm trying to call you, but apparently you don't have voicemail, which means that I can't leave you any messages! (Well, duh!)

I'm leaving on Saturday for Victoria, and would desperately like to see you before I leave. If there's any way that could be remotely possible, I think we should do that! Call me!

LIFE!

Tina

I would badly like to go back to bed, but for once I have a day that requires me to get things done. I have work in 45 mins. I don't have to leave the house for 25 of those. What do you do for twenty five minutes? I can't take a nap, because I'd fall asleep only to have to wake up again - a painful experience not worth re-living. I could change into work clothes...actually this is a necessary step, but that would only take about ten minutes, after which there's another fifteen - an even shorter, more useless section of time that, never the less, must be spent somehow. Twiddling my thumbs, perhaps.

The thing is, I find time is only good in large chunks. I need a couple hours to kill, not a few minutes. With a couple hours between the present waking moment and the next thing that needs to be done, I can go for a walk, listen to music, write something that might be better than putrescent drivel, or meandering thought, and get home in time to get ready for the next thing on the list of "To Do."

On the other hand, having too much spare time is equally as useless as having none at all; it's impossible to get motivated. "I'll do it later" turns into "Well, it's too late now. Guess I'll have to do that tomorrow" becomes "Man, school's starting tomorrow and I haven't even gotten around to ____ yet!" Time does not lend itself to productivity easily. Much as a tree must be cut into lumber before it can be used to build a house, time has to be divided up before it can yield well...anything you want to be using it for. Equally, pieces of wood cut too small are thrown away for lack of use, so the same goes with time.

Unfortunately, though trees do grow back, time flows in one direction and can never be recaptured.

Today is the first day in a while that I've actually written anything creative. I can't say yet if it's something worthwhile, but it was at least something. Today is also the first is a long time that I've tried to draw anything, and it didn't go absolutely miserably. I'm not good. I know this. But I have the potential to be good, if pushed, if inspired. I could learn to be good - there is hope for me yet.

I can't tell if I feel truly awake or still asleep. Maybe I'm in that state between awake and dreaming, where there are no real thoughts, just the blurred outline of ideas. Words float through my head as shapes or colours, not as stories, and trying to see them more clearly in my mind's eye is more effort than I really want to spend today. I never really know what's going to happen next anyways.

Why is the man in the grey suit arguing with the red-haired woman in the violet dress? I don't know. Why is the seventeen year old girl with raven coloured hair staring at the water, while she stands on the lip of the pier under storm filled skies? I couldn't say. What do you call that feeling that produces a stretched, itchy feeling in your arms, and speaks of steel wool? Why is the young boy with dark brown hair consumed by it, and where is he as he sits curled up in a ball, holding his legs to his chest in some forgotten corner?

Who is this child, this vivacious little girl who is swimming in the laundry fresh out of the dryer? When she surfaces for air, bubbling with pleasure at her strange adventure, I know that there is a stretch of white sheet still draped haphazardly over her head and across her shoulder. She might even be young enough to grab her toes, her legs stretched out in a 'V' in front of her. To look at her is to see golden curls of happiness peeking around her round face. But who is she, and what purpose does her life hold? I haven't a clue. I don't know what she was imagining. I know only that she was completely absorbed in her own little world, that the worries and cares that will inevitably burden her in later life are still at bay, and that she is the embodiment of childhood bliss.

I don't think any of these people are related. I don't think the Man in the Grey Suit lives in the same world as the Brown Haired Boy, and the little girl would be as foreign to them as the surface of Jupiter. So why, just now when I relax my thoughts, are all these people crowding in my mind, showing me pictures of their lives, but never explaining them or shedding light on who they are?

Maybe I am awake. Maybe they just wanted to say "Hello."

I have an apartment in Victoria!