things

i feel empty right now.

(i took a picture of this empty house the other day. the door knocked creeped me out.)

but then, empty isn’t quite the right word for it.

but then it is again.

my brain is confused.

i don’t feel like blogging but i do feel like writing. rambling, really.

i read this earlier.

then laughed because i related on like, all levels. green backpack included.

after that i read this earlier.

wonderful.

so it inspired me to do this.

i’ve been stumbling onto really, really amazing and inspiring and invigorating blogs filled with beautiful writers and even more beautiful words. one wrote a book i bought and she asked her readers to fill a blank page with everything they loved. and, since i feel weird and uncomfortable and tavi mentioned reminding yourself off all the wonderful things in your life when you’re down, this makes sense.

things i love. written in no particular order. the other day. in my notebook. (plus a few added on because why not?)

WORDS. writing. music. nature. trees. hiking. mother earth. yoga. walking. breathing deep. making tea. cooking. reading. connecting. sharing. talking. listening. helping. hugging. kissing. photography. men. women. sam. my parents. my brother. laughing. breakfast. singing. dancing. acid. weed. water. my water bottle. poetry. sunlight. redwoods. nate. victoria. road trips. drug trips. bass lines. my journal. journaling. exploring. moving. chocolate. kale. cake. my hair. my eyes. my eyebrows. my smile. the beatles. animal collective. waking up early. staying up late. tarot readings. traveling. flying. san francisco. the beauty of marin county. orgasms. good food. good company. meeting new people. the night sky. summer. summer nights. mountains beyond mountains. swimming. earring. beautiful lyrics. rings. sunsets. sunrises. spoken word. chuck. old trucks. baking. orange. purple. scarves. indian food. thai food. skirts. brussel sprouts. my sunglasses. gender discussions. this american life. (and subsequently) ira glass.

aaaand i’m done.

what do you love?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: also, i love beauty and the beast. my dad put it on and i’m watching it with him. it’s kind of got a great lesson and as much as i hate on disney, i still like their movies. and belle was always the princess i identified with the most. she loved books. i loved her.)

(p.p.s: adding this p.p.s the day after. this totally worked in helping me feel awesome and reinvigorated, by the way! fell asleep happy.)

self-love sunday: some rambles (it’s been a long week)

sleepy, per usual.

(san francisco at sun down, the other day)

my nocturnal clock is off. (or: i stayed up too late drinking whiskey in honor of st. patrick’s day but mainly in honor of one of my best friend’s birthdays).

this week has been weird. light and heavy in all moments, together. sluggish, too. i’ve spent a lot of time observing my emotions, feeling them out. simply a quiet week, peppered with overwhelming, abundant moments too intricate to explain. the best way to describe it: i am reentering consciousness.

the world looks like ireland outside my window. earlier this week fog ate into the tops of mountains, obscuring them. now clouds mix with blue sky i missed. everything is green. save for the one tree, defiant in holding yellow. i’m contemplating a cup of coffee. i’m thinking, in general.

i miss my friends. i miss sitting around smoking bowls and talking, talking, talking. i miss the closeness. i miss the connection. i miss knowing they’ll always be there. most days i keep the company of an empty house and an over-active mind. often my irrationality tells me i am slipping from friends’ consciousnesses. often i believe it. deep down i question my importance. my therapist tells me i am co-dependant and i can’t disagree. i’m still learning to appreciate my self, still searching for such self-acceptance and self-love in other people. still measuring my self-worth in the number of phone calls and texts and tips-of-the-hat i receive each week. it’s like this: fun things happen and i’ll find out about them later via stories, laugh and wonder why i am not helping tell them instead. wonder where invitations disappear to. wonder why i care.

frequently i wonder, too, “will i ever be settled?”

i think i know the answer. (i know — zoe, stop. we know. weknowweknowweknow. these thoughts are real, though. they’re not arbitrary. they’re as real as your fear of the dark or your fear of heights. let me feel. let me explore. let me process and progress as slowly as i need to. sit on your judgement because i am not judging you and your process.)

my heart feels sealed off. frozen in uncertainty, sadness, self-loathing and overwhelm. there are truths there, buried deep and fully-alive though only half-recognized. the me i want to be, the me i am, the me i see, will not come out. she’s rooted. stuck. available to only one or two people in my life.

i crave intimacy and authenticity like i do chocolate and cake and brussel sprouts (lack of such things in my life are some of the main reasons my eating disorder lives). times exist where i sit in the company of someone i love and we stumble into an opening, an invitation to speak, to pour my self out. words warm in my chest, bubble up to my throat, roll out onto my tongue, ready. i think, “this is it! it’s time! say it, say it, say it!” but i rarely do. instead i’ll swallow those truths back, slide them past my beating heart and into their caves where they’ll strip off their armor and wait for the next moment to be brave. it hurts every time.

someone told me recently, “you can’t hold all of that inside“. oh, but i do. i’m not good at asking for what i need. what i need feels like too much. so my quietness becomes my way of screaming. “i’m fine” is the biggest lie i’ve ever told.

possibly the craziest part of this crazy is this: i know my real friends love me deeply and unconditionally. i am the one who chooses to not understand, to not grasp fully what that type of love means. i am the one who nods in agreement on the outside while simultaneously rejecting any iota of love on the inside. i recognize i am generally the one keeping myself trapped and bound by fear.

my insides are all messed up. i will always be cleaning house.

i’ve frustrated and hurt a lot of people because of this persistant sadness i can’t quite figure out. i’m afraid that’s only helped distance me from my friends and my friends from me. i’ve let it swallow me entirely, isolate me fully. i’ve let it infiltrate all relationships. i feel like i’ve let a lot of people down, myself included. so it’s no surprise, really, that i struggle to talk to people. no one really knows me, truly. i won’t let them. because i fear losing everyone.

talk about irrational fears.

the good news (yes, there is some) is this: despite my negative rambling, i am getting better. i am opening up. i am slowly, slowly, shedding my fear of abandonment. the more i talk, the more i release. it’s a practice. kind of like strengthening a muscle. work it a little bit, watch it grow stronger.

i’m not sure when i will be able to separate my self-worth from my friendships but i am hopeful one day it will happen. i am hopeful one day i will see myself as my friends see me — as a whole person, not only flaws. i am hopeful one day i will freely ask for what i need without fearing judgement and complete rejection. i am hopeful one day i will be myself without apology, without wanting to be anyone else. i am hopeful that, one day, i will be okay.

this is my process.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: i wrote this in pieces this week, while floating in a weird, weird mood. today i woke up in much brighter spirits. i blame the whiskey fest and the company of one of my best friends, one i never feel shaky or questionable in front of. that and the sun is back after a week of straight rain. and i’m going on a hike!!)

so i watched demi lovato’s documentary (this one is long)

and, surprisingly, i almost cried a few times.

(source)

girl was honest. at the end i wanted to like, sit down with her and talk and talk and talk. i know MTV showed her in a specific slant but she talked candidly about issues not widely discussed (see the post before last).

she said things i related to. brought up questions i asked and continue to ask all.the.time.

her honesty tapped mine on the shoulder, said, “come on, man, just let it out.”

so.

here it goes.

(THIS IS VERY OPEN)

friends relate to the thoughts. not the extremes. explaining thought processes to their fruition (e.g: ending up over the toilet) never happens. i keep a lot under wraps for a variety of reasons. mainly because no one i know is a bi-polar bulimic with anorexic tendencies. at least outwardly, anyway. additionally, a lot of friends dismiss my worries as needing to get laid or needing to reap more gratitude. not that i disagree entirely but. that hurts. that makes me think and believe my feelings are overly dramatic and childish and not worth discussing or believing. after a while you give up on honest connection and just fucking agree, you know?

i know a lot of what i experience emotionally everyone experiences emotionally. yet, not everyone chooses to hurt themselves. not every ends up acting out those creepy things lurking around in the darkness of your self. and i really don’t want to keep pretending i am not genuinely troubled.

if i survey my twenty-two years, i can tell you this sadness did not start a mere two and a half years ago. it started in my childhood. i remember being called a cry-baby at age seven. i remember friends distancing themselves from the overly-emotional and very sensitive child, whose contradictory bouts of wild energy caused teachers to speak privately with my mom and a friend’s mom to say something like “i don’t think you should hang out with zoe”. i remember feeling awkward and uncomfortable and worthless by age nine.

i remember friends in middle school telling me i was too sad too often. one girl told me i was depressed and wanted to drag everyone down with me. which was not true. not true. i just felt a lot and was confused and wanted someone to tell me it would eventually be okay. that i would eventually be okay. after that i shut myself up. stopped spilling the secrets buried in my heart. i stopped thinking i was special enough to be heard. i sealed myself off and learned to play the role of “helpful” despite crying myself to sleep frequently. by the end of middle school, my mom asked me one day if i wanted to “see someone” (a therapist, namely). i ignored the request because there was nothing wrong.

but i remember being angry all the time. i remember crying, hating myself so much. once, i jokingly played with scissors and my wrist. i was only half-joking. (i’ve never said that to anyone)

i cried myself through the first two and a half years of high school. the self-hatred formed in my childhood carried into my teens, multiplied and manifested. i mellowed out a lot my senior year. found a group of friends who loved and accepted me. the next surge electrified me my freshman year of college (makes sense). the crying started up again. the depression.

when i read through old journals, i am struck by the deep sadness written in the pages. part adolescent angst, part deep emotion children don’t regularly feel. the words hurt me now, years later.

of course, i’ve experienced happiness, too. i’ve had numerous happy days. i’ve had a lot of people in my life who love the person i am. i cannot discount any of that. however, the heaviness of my sadness often feels extraordinary.

and totally mystifying.

because i know the extent of beauty in my life. of privledge, of love, of abundance. i want to stress too that i never asked to feel the things i feel. i never asked for the thoughts that make no sense in conjunction with the elements that make up my life.

i understand the saying “you are what you think” but, sometimes, my thoughts do not feel like my own. they creep out of shadows. become a loud sound i can’t drown out with happiness or gratitude or a good fuck. even when life goes right, i still struggle. the heaviness never lifts entirely. sadder still is how well i’ve learned to numb it out, to shrug it off and pretend like all is fine (being vulnerable is hard).

i’ve been trying not to overthink. i’ve been trying to talk myself down. but, you know, it’s like, how long can you pretend you’re okay? i can’t do that to myself anymore, deny reality.

example:

one of the syptoms of bi-polar (II) is racing thoughts, ones that make you keep late hours and develop insomnia (because the brain won’t shut up).

and right now my mind is goinggoingoing. i can’t keep my focus on one thought for very long. my heart is racing, too. i’m all panicky. jittery. i feel like i have so much energy but i haven’t slept properly in three weeks (6 am bedtime last night though i got into bed at 1) and wake up heavy and slow. i don’t really feel like i can breathe well. i’m crying, not crying. yet, i started the day over the moon happy. i wentwentwent all day. i laughed a lot. felt light.

yet.

here i am.

inching closer to midnight, exhausted in theory, but feeling incapable of sleeping.

i wrote this for a variety of reasons.

i wrote this for myself.

i wrote this because it’s okay to own your emotions and thoughts, to acknowledge them as real and worthy of discussing and i needed to prove that to myself.

i wrote this for you, sitting there, lost, unable to explain anything you think or do to anyone, even yourself.

i wrote this to show you’re never alone, even if you think you are.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: now i feel naked. metaphorically speaking.)

(p.p.s: and much lighter. talk about needing to let some stuff out, huh?)

(p.p.p.s: i really need to work on talking to people in my life i can physically touch.)

self-love sunday

the right words to start this ramble are not at my fingertips.

(me and daises yesterday in san francisco sunshine)

this week was weird, right?

filled with heavy energy. i slept in weird cycles, experienced insomnia for the better part of the week, woke up foggy every day. an underlying sadness tinted the week.

i spent hours unloading into my journal. honest thoughts. confused thoughts. too many thoughts.

and saw my truth:
i am only honest in words, in writing.

i have so much to say to so many people. so many thoughts and feelings and conversations i want to vocalize. not necessarily pleasant ones, either. but each time i gather the strength and steadiness to open my mouth, it stays closed. those inflated words deflate, fall back to their homes in my chest, and i implode silently.

i am as emotionally developed as my seventeen-year-old self.

i’m too busy being nice, good, easy, to speak my truth, to find my voice and use it. as i explained to a friend the other day: “i am going through the teenage rebellion i never had.“

(although, ironically, i was very quick to share my opinion when i was a teenager)

or, maybe, more accurately, i am going through the quarter life crisis no one talks about. either way, i am a big ball of feelings with no outlet other than my pen and paper. everything inside me is screaming for release. i can’t be afraid of how other people react anymore. it’s not a burden i need to carry. it’s not one i want to carry. this lack of sense of self has me floating int a weird, uncomfortable, shaky place. i’m running around trying to find my self in other people.

i gotta get over this. i’m not as fragile as i keep telling myself.

this week, i’m shooting for honesty.

off the page.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: remember when i mentioned phantogram the other music monday? well, give the phantogram pandora station a listen. hot damn.)

(p.p.s: i haven’t felt like blogging at all this week.)

clean house, clean heart

i woke up writing poetry i forget now.

(a tree without leaves the other day on a walk)

a song rooted down into my conscious after the words disappeared with the morning fog.

limbs ached to express, to twirl.

(of course i obliged.)

i want to say i am proud of myself but that doesn’t sound right.

blissfully astonished does.

yes.

because i keep waking up.

every day.

i keep recommitting.

keep
breathing
reaching
expanding
shedding.

after dancing, after breakfast at noon, i confronted my closet.

threw away piles of clothing holding
the old me,
suffocating the present me
by living in trash bags just out of reach.

now i have two pairs of pants. three if you count my tie dye ones.

which i do.

anyway…

i’ve got a mountain to explore! it’s sunshiney outside and i’ve got little tolerance for sitting inside when it’s so beautiful out there!

namaste

zoe

music monday + monday lessons

mmm monday.

(san francisco on saturday on random street walks with my friend)

a light breeze, fat clouds, sunshine kind of monday.

i woke up intending to work out the whole day because i ate cake last night and militant, dictator zoe ordered it to be done. under strict authority, i laced up tennis shoes after i slipped out of my sheets and dreamy early morning haze. i skipped breakfast too for good measure. funny how plans figure their way out, though.

because the television spazzed out. and my brother came home sick from school. and my stomach grumbled loudly. and i picked up a pen and undid my tennis shoes. and i wrote into my journal. and i realized: “i still think my weight matters in the measure of happiness. so i still chase it as being the problem of all my problems” (journal quotes). silly anxious and negative self. it’s just cake, not the devil. calm yourself.

so i ate some breakfast, ate some more cake, laced up my tennis shoes, and took the walk i actually wanted. i listened to two pod-casts, did some yoga in the park under the sun, felt the grass beneath my feet. three or so hours later i am home, rested and happy and not thinking about that cake from last night or the cake from earlier. just how awesome my legs feel and how settled my heart is in my chest.

and how awesome this song is.

because i am in love with bon iver.

and mondays, for that matter.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: please don’t steal my photos. thanks!)

i’m not sure about that bottle of pills

on tuesday i woke up at six for a doctors appointment i called salvation a month ago.

(photos of birds i take on long walks)

yet, even as i heard “chemical imbalance” and even when i picked up my first bottle of oblong blue pills, i did not feel saved. just skeptical. and mildly uncomfortable.

the mood swings i swing through scare me sometimes. leave me trembling underneath the question of “is this normal?” (really though, what the fuck is “normal”?)

in conversation where stories of sadness and hardship are traded, i realize how unbelievably human it is to struggle. my problems and issues shrink. i become one in a whole. we’re battling, collectively.

it’s just no one talks about it.

post-tuesday-morning-diagnosis i wandered. i walked. i smoked a bowl and sat in sunshine (because february think its spring). i breathed deep and practiced a few heart openers (got all warm-and-tingly in the chest. good signs). one thought sparked two hours of feverish writing. gentle contentment replaced heaviness. i smiled at the idea of knowing how to process.

but, as i am human, subject to an ever changing scenery of emotion, the mood shifted come nighttime. stubborn insecurities i cannot shake heated up cooled over anxiety. late-night sobs stuck to the hollow of my throat. i cried words and tears over my journal. wrote furiously into pages before occupying the land of dreamers and their dreams.

naturally, i woke up today agitated. to an alarm calling for my attention. to a lack of voice. to bitterness. to another long car ride filled with music and sadness. to a therapy appointment actually scheduled for next week. to more tears, to hands too jittery from coffee i never drink, to heart filled up with fear and loathing…

to, eventually, suddenly, nothing but pure joy.

wednesday morphed into endless laughter, seventy-something degree weather, unbounding love.

and i realized:
the more i feel, the more i release.

and i realized:
sadness is normal. crying is normal. anger is normal.

because i realized:

this is the human experience.

this is okay.

i’ve got a bottle of pills now. mood-stabalizers. if i am being honest, i will say i am scared to take them. i am scared to lose this ability to feel, something i just gained access to after years of feeling nothing. i am curious about this lost anger and misplaced sadness.

also, i’m not as scared of my feelings as i was a month ago, on the desperate day i called around for someone to grant me reprieve from my mind. i just feel more human. and, oddly, more connected to people. i’ve knocked some perspective into my life, opened up the dialogue, listened and listened and listened to friends pour their souls out because every one needs an open ear. simply focusing on the people i love and opening up to hear their frustrations has been enlightening. suddenly, i am not alone. suddenly, this isn’t all about me anymore. because it never was. we’re all going through troubles together. despite those quiet moments of deep loneliness, you are, truly, never alone.

life, pills or no pills, keeps happening.

every second i breathe, i pulse. over the course of my waking hours i am one emotion and another. i am human.

and i think i’m okay with that.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: yes, i am going to take the pills, just to see what happens. it’s an avenue i think i need to explore, if only to say, “yes” or “no”.)

self-love sunday

sleep.

(source)
just, sleep, lovelies.

sleep and love will follow.

last night i slept for eleven and half hours. i crawled into bed at 8:30 and woke up at 9:30. sickness be gone! sleep might be the miracle i forgot all about. in the dreamy REM cycle hours, the body heals. the mind heals. when both body and mind awaken alive and alert, we navigate our lives a little easier.

sound choices come from sound minds.

so indulge in sleep. when you want to do badly by yourself, go to sleep. when your mind starts circling the pit of despair, go to sleep. often times all we really need is a good recharge. listen to your body. when you feel run down, borderline sick, edgy, anxious for no reason, sad…just sleep. often times, especially now, we forgo sleep for other things without realizing that sleep helps us do the things we truly want to do — and well.

it’s sunday. tomorrow starts the new week. sleep well tonight and start the week off on the right foot. your mind and body will thank you.

namaste

zoe

a post today

because i am ill.

(source)
in and out of the bathroom. i want to credit myself for this lovely state of being. and my brother (or, his and my old high school really. ended up 325 kids and 30 faculty got sick. i mean, school was cancelled for the rest of the week man! gnarly shit.). but mainly me.

i hit a wall last night. i ate food i never eat. too much of it. consequently, i woke up nauseous, with stomach wriggling and roaring. i woke up in pain. i went to bed last night fed up. waking up as i did only propelled me into further frustration.

i don’t deserve to feel this way.
i don’t deserve to continually hurt, physically and otherwise.

i don’t think i believed that, truly, for a while.

binges no longer control me. this is a fact i have known for a very long time. their urgency, intensity, and power weaned months ago. i have felt a physical shift. something is happening inside, something is rearranging. i don’t know what yet, but i do know this: i am ready to let go. i’m not scared anymore. i am not ruled by fear anymore.

a few days ago jenn gibson, of roots of she, wrote a beautifully articulated post entitled “the importance of honoring your needs and feelings“.

though i connected to the entire piece, two sentences gripped me:

“I’ve felt upset and happy and excited and confused. Up and down, every day, for no real reason other than because that’s just how I’ve felt.”

and

When you let go of something big, something that has held a place of power over you, it creates space.

nearly every day i move up and down, feel upset and happy, excited and confused. for no real reason. it all makes sense though in conjunction with the second sentence. i am letting go of something big, something which no longer holds power over me. it’s created space. a big, wide open space. for life. for love. for opportunities i cannot yet fathom. no wonder i am emotional.

all the doubt i experience comes from questioning the validity of my beliefs, of my steps in life. consistently wondering “is this the right way?” when i know in my heart it is does nothing but postpone the beauty in life i am entitled to, the beauty i want to share with other people. there is a big space inside of my right now, one i no longer wish to shove full with whatever is nearest to me. i want to be curious about this opening inside, be picky in what i choose to fill it with.

i am beautiful. i am worthy. and i am tired of pretending like i don’t believe that. what purpose does that serve? what am i contributing to every time i fall into negative, self-detrimental thought patterns? i am sending a big ‘fuck you’ to all those sources who tell me i am anything less than. this is my life. this a gift. i deserve to celebrate what i have been given, i deserve health and happiness. i deserve to do well by myself.

today i feel different. funny too, because my horoscope today said: “self-esteem changes. learn tactful new forms of self-control” and “become aware of any conflicts that exist between your feelings and your will. make sure that you are acting in a way that contributes to your own security.” i feel that. in my bones. in my heart. in my limbs. i am ready to move on, to commit fully to self-care, to commit fully to life.

shit is happening. and i am excited to participate. i am excited to begin my journey to wellness, truly.

…but first i need to heal my stomach. dear god.

namaste

zoe

i think…

i think i spend too much time on the computer.

or, rather, in front of a screen.

i enjoy life the most while out engaging. experiencing. exploring. busy sunlight hours, peaceful moonlight hours, my ideal schedule. lately though, life’s pace has shifted. late nights lead to late mornings. early afternoon mimics a typical morning and ten p.m plays early evening for a few hours. sleep comes in the first few hours of the new day, gently releasing me an hour before noon. sleep exists in broken hours and splintered dreams. i am always tired. inside, my spirit vibrates, grows restless in its dull cage, the heavy limbs and heavy energy its nuisances, its keepers.

i am not paying much mind to self-care. the word ‘stagnant’ burns in my mind like some endlessly dying ember. stagnant routine. stagnant energy. stagnant thoughts. the spirit i mentioned? asks for something different. asks for risks. asks for yoga. asks for connection. for rest, laughter, love. but i live in hollow buildings built on old beliefs. i lock myself into rooms of ideas too full to accept any one new. i am not comfortable here, pinched between these old fears grossly inflated by their sense of importance.

for the past number of months i’ve focused so much and so hard on mentally caring for myself, tending to the emotional wounds. i forgot physical care mattered, forgot self-care stitched together many squares of fabric for its quilt. i forgot self-care included resting regularly, drinking enough water, moving appropriately. i forgot it included meditation, deep breathing, stretching.

instead, i’ve been sitting a lot. watching life instead of being in it. i am not tending to my physical self. i’ve been spending a lot of time away from home, late nights outside of my bed. my body is still catching up with the zealousness of my spirit. it feels heavy in a sense outside of weight.

this is a really long winded explanation for saying i-am-backing-away-from-the-computer-for-a-bit, simply. there is too much sluggishness circulating around my system for me to sit here, in front of a screen. it can be easy to get sucked into the blog world in favor of the real world (and the internet in general). and i need to spend a little more time caring for my whole self. so that means diving my time differently.

i was feeling so well in the early weeks of january because i was still caring for my whole self. i want to move back into that space. that felt healing. this feels…counterproductive.

namaste

zoe