11:16am

Good morning blog!

I leave in 14 minutes : |
Can I just say that I'm really bored of working so much?? I'm not even anxious anymore or really feeling that burnt out, I just want to get on with it! I want to have time to unpack the two large boxes in my room, look over my stuff, see what else I need, save money, look around me, work on projects, think about life, hope for the future, talk to people, watch movies, enjoy music again, write things and organize my writings, look at the photos and videos my friends send me. But instead, I am barely fitting in one thing each day (and yessss part of that is my phone, I know. I will delete instagram, and actually I might just do it like now. Not NOW but tonight. And I know Pinterest is still a trap for me sometimes but at least that is productive. At least that is productive . . . it's curating my aesthetic, making me laugh, inspiring me, giving me quotes. Instagram doesn't actually give me anything . . .

So anyway, now that you were here for that big decision, (at least you got to be here for something!) I have to leave and I will sign off. I am worried that I scared off another friend, namely my Japanese penpal because she asked for the story of how I was groomed and I told it to her but I don't know if she knew what she was asking. She isn't really that type of person, she's not judgmental or anything, so I know she could just be busy, but I am beginning to think that the right ones simply will not stay and simply do not exist. Except Rian or Elsa, but Rian and I are the same person and Elsa also went through some stuff like that only recently so I guess I'm just a very exclusive personality. 

Peace out,
-SS

2:30pm

Good morning, blog! 

An update on the blog's look and chapter two (00,000,000) of restarting my life and taking back control and trying to get things done in the remaining hour that I have to myself. 
Because, while this morning I did fail miserably, I also count each new day as a chance to start again. God's grace and forgiveness wipes the slate clean and all my tally marks fall to the ground. In his mercy which is new every morning, I find a new start, without shame or judgement; simply a new chance to move forward. Which is what I'm going to do.
My brain says that if I don't have punishment, I am going to fall back into the same sins, as if punishment is enough to purge myself of the sin into which I find myself so much tempted that in those moments, nothing else matters. But what is actually the truth is that without accountability, I will find myself without a life jacket and continuing to get sucked back underneath the waves. At 4:00 I am supposed to call my best friend, but at 9 this morning I was supposed to head out to a church I have never been to before, and where I chickened out on that, I hope she is still able to call me. 
I am almost finished (sort of??) catching up on my devotional schedule (I just do it because I KNOW that I want to finish the whole Bible cover to cover this year and God is working with that to change me through extensive reading (something I've always longed to do anyway, it is just difficult when pressured by the presence of others, something I really wonder if I will ever be free of 😅) and He is definitely pointing out things in these Old Testament passages that I would not have been able to see before. Or, things I would not have been able to parallel with my own life, and therefore may have, in a way, missed out on the true meaning. I need to experience things to grasp them sometimes, although it's very easy for me to understand things, I can't get the full meaning (no one can) unless I am actually experiencing it.
What is it like to say no to sin? I wish I knew that more strongly than I do. I am always giving into certain areas and it makes me feel defeated. I know that is exactly how Satan wants me to feel, but contrary to the camp leaders' belief, church will Not solve everything. Can I be honest for a moment? I don't like going to church. I love God and I love his people, but it seems that the people in the church are not the same ones I would like to be a part of. I know this is wrong, but I just don't like those people very much and it gives me a headache. Why can't we have church in the evening instead of early in the morning? I don't know, I don't want to be that person, but sometimes I am. I don't like the people around here and I don't like church people around here, and I just don't want to be here, and I don't want to go to church. I would honestly almost rather be back at home, because I still feel like I want to run away. I am living right now, but when will that life begin? The one where I am truly on my own? I want to know . . .

Anyway, I have wasted so much time, I am always WASTING TIME (and it's because of my phone and I want to curse and swear) but one day I will have all that money (and you best believe I'm starting now), and I will have all my photos physical and I will have all my music physical and I will have all my films physical, and I will have all my Pinterest boards physical and I will change to a landline and a flip phone and a record player, CD player, tape player, mp3, box tv, DVD player, hookup cords, camera, you name it. I am DONE with instagram, Pinterest, snapchat, all these f*&(*ing time wasters. Sucking my life out and I feel SOOO sucked in and sooooo incapable of being a real human and so disappointed and devastated when I think about it too long. So anyway, signing off to get. things. done. ! Will be back later . . . probably 6 days later . . .

2:20pm

Good morning blog! 
I do not feel awful anymore, and since telling the world how I felt, it has since faded. I am revisiting some of my albums that I own on vinyl, and Vanishing Point is definitely one of New Order's best songs. 

Anyway, this post is for my friend Rian. 

Dear Rian
I heard Matilda today and thought of you. I can't wait for you to tell me how you are doing. Over the time that we have been a little absent from each other's lives I have seen the other side and back again. I miss you. Camp was not the same without you and I felt that icky feeling that I feel when something is missing, or gone. Like something was dead, and that always seems to happen. However, I do not mourn my lost friendships, I mourn the memories that I could not add to because you were not there. 
Life always settles back into this rhythm that seems lost in the current but always comes back like settling sand: life is empty of people except for these few I have been blessed to keep so far.
Amidst wild oceans of loneliness, and cold winds of contentment, it is lost among the surfing waves. This reality that when life is normal, and the flags are white and the sea is calm, texts back from anyone are few and far between, and I fall into sin.
I want life to be different for everyone else. I want things to change in this world for everyone else. I want things to be better, but I can't do anything for that cause besides support those I already have. I do this without the expectation that it will return to me, and it does not return to me very much. Still, it is a harvest I have been trying to sow since I was 9 (and considering most of my friends have consistently decided to fade themselves into the transparent background of my life, I seem to have been unsuccessful). 
But I have done all I could do, and I wouldn't do things differently. My advice to you is to always do what you know is right and don't listen to the lies of being conventional or whatever. Just do what you know you should no matter what. Please tell me everything soon - I miss you.

~ XoXo, Belle

I am too tired to continue this post any further.

 9:31am

Good morning blog ☀

Lets just be honest! I feel miserable. I feel really really awful. I do not feel like life is good and great and wonderful, but rather that I do not want to be living it at all. 
Now, this isn't any more fun for me to live than it is for you to read. It feels pretty much like an endless & vicious cycle, right? But I haven't lost hope yet. I just feel one desire - ONE - to go back home. I just want to go back home more than anything else and it's distracting me to the point that I haven't been able to live my own life. I hate going to bed and I hate waking up and I hate doing anything and I just feel scared all the time. I just want to go home. I just want to go home. Even for a month. I just want to go home. 

You see, last summer was beautiful - I quickly learned that I wasn't one much for dwelling on nostalgia. By 14 it felt like it would kill me - so I avoided it at all costs. I rarely entertain it and it scares me, sometimes. I don't like to live in the past. But last summer was the best summer - I really loved it and it caused me to think that summer was my favorite season. But this year, this year it is heat and sun ever present on my eyebrows, going to bed way too early, going to a job feeling sleepy, dealing with more burnout, and being so lonely I don't have words. I just want to go home. That is all I can think about. If someone were to ask me what's wrong, I would say that I want to go home. That is what I want more than anything in the world at this moment. 

It has occurred to me that certain friends have been written about on this site and that they have access to it as well. I guess that they probably don't read it, because it doesn't seem they are aware that I am aware of certain information. Who knows, I frankly don't care anymore. And that's another thing - I don't care about anything anymore to the point that it is almost dangerous. I am concerned, but don't really care that old friends ignore me or give me weird looks or respond unaffected when I say hi or look at them at camp. I don't care that I am wearing my kidsaint jacket and people are thinking things about me and looking at me with those looks. I don't care about how I am perceived, I don't care what songs we sing, I don't care about anything anymore. Life just lives and I just am a piece on the board - but I don't move. I don't even care about how much money I spend - how counterproductive is that?! And we came to my apartment first so I didn't get to grab anything I left at home and I want my CDs and the shirt I left behind and that means that when my sister wakes up she'll take my younger sister and they'll leave because they want to get home and I'll be left alone until about 3. 
So when I say that I don't like my job, because it is wrecking my life, it's because I feel too tired to do anything before work, or after work, or at work, and I am being pushed, and normally that would be fine, but I am not a robot, and that's how I feel I am supposed to be at this job. But also not - I don't know and I don't like it. Everyone has jobs they love and this is not the job I love. I don't have to think it's the best job ever, but it is affecting me greatly. And I won't go running back home, so no one can judge me for what I decide to do here. 

I am moving on from emotions for now to mention that I purchased artwork from my friend Elsa Wahlstrom - she has a substack called Elsa draws for you, and the picture I bought is called "I forgot how to ride a bike". I adore it so much. Here is the post with the picture that I bought.
I will breathe. And maybe I shouldn't dissociate but I don't know what else to do with myself in situations I don't want to be a part of. I feel like Adrian - everything I do is my own thing and nothing I do will ever correlate with another human being and I will never fit in and I will never even slide into a spot where I pleasantly stick out; I will just go to the grave difficult and strange and ugly. And as Job says somewhere in his own words "even death will not have me". 
I may feel like Adrian, but I can't even die like he did. I just couldn't do that but sometimes I am excited for  that day because I am just so tired. 

I'm a lost cause, and a bad guy, and real damn soon you'll realize, i'm a loser, and a problem, that you don't quite care to solve not anymore . . .

Original lyrics to Alina's newly released song "14U". Gorgeous song, btw. I plan to cover it with one of the choruses being the original lyrics instead.
My insides feel weak. 

But seriously, why do I stay alive and live through this horrible feeling period of my life??????????
Because in the future I might relive last year. I might. I might even meet J's family as unlikely as it feels sometimes. The stories take faith and faith takes strength, but if I can keep up that strength, I will always try to do my best. Instead of "doing it for Johnny" as Dallas Winston would say, I do it for Adrian. It's crazy to me, and heartbreaking, that Adrian was a  real guy. He really sang those songs and he really wrote those words and he really lived. 
I always tell myself that maybe I just need to eat or sleep or get alone for a moment. And then I do those things and feel the same way; or I feel even worse. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I can win. but we just have to keep trying, I guess. 

4:50pm

Good morning blog   : ) : )

So I got my Kidsaint jacket!! And I pasted a new cover onto my Bible!! And I posted another message for J on the unsent project. 
But I think he is in Korea now. And for the summer. I am not afraid of anything because I know that I live through all my fear. I was so crippled with fear of life in general the past weeks but I know that so far into the future are things we just have to believe will happen. We just have to believe. And life doesn't always make itself up to you, but it sometimes weakly tries. And maybe everything I want will come true. But why am I always the romantic one??

I was so happy and thrilled about this jacket, and she posted my reviews on Instagram and her husband commented "🔥🔥🔥" and I felt so cool in the coolest jacket <3

And here are pictures of my recovered Bible <3

My fourth post to J on the unsent project, because they have 4 different shades of green and I wanted to finally do all 4 shades for him. He will never know, so I single them out before they have a chance to bury themselves too deep.

Lyrics from The Sound

And realistically, I am fully aware of how stupid I am; of how much I rely on both faith and fantasy; and I am more than fully aware of how completely pathetic, empty, and pointless it feels sometimes. But when I wake up in the middle of the night, or have a random vivid dream all of a sudden, or I go to sleep with a remembered vision . . . I remember . . . 

I remember, and life won't let me forget. I can believe and I don't believe that it is stupid, as stupid as it feels. 

So I get to be covered in "I am safe inside uncertainty" and forge ahead. I believe. I believe. I believe.

-SS