P added me on facebook today. I guess he still exists. Somewhere.

Today, the winds were really strong. I watched a dust storm sweep across the entire northern hillside, erasing it and the view of the distant city from the horizon for over an hour in an opaque cloudy brown haze.

As each day passes, I am considering actually doing two things:

An ouroboros goddess arm tattoo and shaving all of my hair off.

Ironically, gaining the strength to do this has involved watching LOTS of Sinead O'Connor videos. I will look a lot like her when I do this. It will be "permanent" at least for a year. I am ill, relapsing, and don't fully have the strength to do what I want to do anymore. And I'm tired of pulling my hair out and trying to hide it out of fear of being judged by stupid people. I know I have a beauty mark above my left ear. My mother loved that beauty mark when I was an infant. When I do this, it will be visible again for the first time in 26 years.

One thing this break is doing is giving me time half-way through the semester to reassess my place in the world and my illusions about myself and everything else. My illusions that I've tried to maintain that I'm doing okay. Being okay at 27 years old is not managing to go only to school and back home. I really should be able to live on my own, get the help I need to live independently, and do things on my own. I can't even feel okay about going for a walk outside. And my mom wants nothing to do with caring for me anymore because she is getting sicker. She told me she is telling my counselor on Friday that she is no longer responsible for me and that the counselor and my doctors (whoever these people end up being other than the imaginary ones I I've currently got) have to find me adequate care and treatment to live on my own.

So yeah, I'm losing it.

I've tried to maintain the illusion of normality, partly for people who like that illusion maintained, because I often like being one of those people. Normality is great, but it isn't real. I love the illusion of normality because everything I have ever really loved involved illusions, even writing. Reality is too often unbearable. But every person has something wrong, whether it's physical, emotional, or psychological. Normality is an illusion. I'm not saying my disorders aren't real, but that the reasons aren't real as to why I shouldn't have friends or someone in my life to love me and to stay. Because I'm not doing anything wrong to hurt anyone. I'm just not functioning very well and everything is new to me still, making it harder.

One thing I've decided is that it is not an illusion that I'm a writer. I am. But I'm a writer with serious untreated disorders that affect my writing and my ability to keep up with it. This is not unusual nor is it my fault. And just because I can't focus well enough to write most of the time, doesn't mean I'm not a writer. Many ill artist's do their art in between the breakdowns. I'm no different. Besides, I didn't know till two years ago that I could really have a chance at this. I really didn't know, I thought my writing was horrible and unprofessional (it is compared to Plath and Kafka) until my experiences at college showed me otherwise. Josh felt he had a chance at this stupid annoying career when he was a teenager. Writing was something I did at that age to try to keep sane in the unbearable solitude � to reinforce that I either was or wasn't real. I never considered a real chance at a career with it until 2 years ago when I realized I have a gift of affecting people through what I write. 2 years isn't that long of a time to know you've got something unique and figure out what to do with it.

I wish I had the strength to do everything openly and say to someone who has an issue with me that if it bothers them that I can't maintain the illusion of normality then they can go maintain that illusion somewhere I'm not.

I think the thing that is frightening me most is that I'm not relapsing in the ways I previously have. I'm doing so fully aware of each step and the consequences and meaning of it. Being conscious of what it is to lose everything again and to say to myself that I accept that because I don't have the strength or enough support to fight it. I'll relapse being this new person this time around, with greater understanding of myself, and a mother who is too sick to deal with it.

This leads to my other realization this week. I AM different. I have changed very much. I think that because I have changed (not necessarily "grown" just changed) I'm not really sure what it is that is coming next or how I will react. Not only does the world remain for the most part "new" but I am new as well. Maybe 'new' in relation to me isn't the word. It implies re-birth and cleansing, and I am not new in that sense, as I've gone against my own beliefs many times trying to get better. But I don't want the same things I used to want. I have suffered the consequences of getting things I once could only dream of. One thing hasn't changed though. I don't understand the same things I never understood. Why being sensitive is such a weakness in this world. Why being ill or "different" is such a bad thing and worthy of being shunned over. We are adults, yet from my experiences those false beliefs and superstitions haven't changed since the 1st grade. I am not okay, at all, and why is it bad that I admit it? Why is bad that I admit that I cannot get through life without "family" type of support? It isn't my fault that I have no family in the world other than my mother or that I have to rely on strangers. I didn't ask to be born. Don't punish me as if I asked for any of this.

More than grandiose dreams, I just want what almost everyone else has: A real chance to know what it's like to live my life. And a person or two to stick around for the journey.

~e