Everything has felt out-of-body lately. I feel like I'm watching my life, and it isn't necessarily bad, I just feel that I've changed. It's very noticeable in my thought process, and in my esteem and the way I act towards people. I've felt sad, and small, and not quite good enough lately, and I hate it, and it is so unlike me. I feel like I should apologize to all of the people in my life and say "I'm sorry I've been such a basket case, thanks for sticking it out, and I swear I'll be better soon." It is just very difficult to reconcile who I was, who I am now, and who I wanted to be. There is this weird and vicious cycle where some nights I swear I would die to hear someone tell me I'm worth something, but when it is said I can't hear it because it's from the wrong person, or I know I shouldn't need to hear it. You'll have to excuse me, because I've never felt this way before. I've never really gone through these feelings of self doubt.

I met this guy, and he is so great. He is a good person, he has all of these amazing qualities and I've tried but I can't find anything in him I don't like. I mean really, there is not a thing about him that bothers me. And I can tell that being with him would be like breathing fresh air, but whenever I think about him too much I start feeling like the most undeserving person, and I get very panicked and start thinking about everything that's wrong with me that he'll discover or that he's already noticed and I feel so self conscious. And even this much thinking into something is so heavy, and so unlike me. The last person who had my heart did a number on it. And it's stupid, I mean, I get it. My value should only be determined by me and God. I know that, and I've always felt that way. And I'm tired of this, I hate being a shell of the person I usually am. I hate that I let someone, especially a man, make me feel like I am not a worthwhile person and not as good as she is. I can see myself feeling this way and it's annoying even to me. I am so, so thankful to the people in my life for weathering this storm with me. Especially Melisa, my best friend. And I swear I'll get through it soon. And I'll sing Here Comes the Sun and feel it in my soul.

Amor amor amor,
Katie

The truth is that I wanted to grow up to be someone else. I had better plans for myself than what these past few years have turned up. And now I feel like I can't even think to make any more plans, get my heart set on anything else, because I can't deal with another disappointment. Like I am so paralyzed by fear and a broken heart that I can't even take a step forward. Everything hurts now, every word has some connection to something I dreamed about that never materialized and it is too damn painful to let my thoughts go there. I've become so guarded with everything, I've strung all of these safety nets and put up all of these walls and I never thought I would be this girl. I thought I was stronger. And I keep looking for you in all of this. It's so strange, I know, but I have these hard days and it seems so unnatural for me not to be telling you all of this... my heart doesn't understand why you're not there for me and why you don't care that everything has been dark for me lately. And this isn't who I am. I'm orange and yellow and happy and I live and breathe in sunlight. And why don't you care? Because you should care. Someone should care that I am drowning and flailing and that I can't figure anything out. I feel like I can't be eloquent anymore. I wish I wasn't like this, that I didn't feel everything so deeply and live so manically. I just can't breathe lately and everything feels worse than it's ever been before.

Each year, the Edge Foundation (www.edge.org) poses one question to elite scientists and leading intellectuals from around the world. This year it asked "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

David Buss, psychologist, University of Texas, Austin; author of The Evolution of DesireTrue love.

I've spent two decades of my professional life studying human mating. In that time, I've documented phenomena ranging from what men and women desire in a mate to the most diabolical forms of sexual treachery. I've discovered the astonishingly creative ways in which men and women deceive and manipulate each other. I've studied mate poachers, obsessed stalkers, sexual predators, and spouse murderers. But throughout this exploration of the dark dimensions of human mating, I've remained unwavering in my belief in true love.While love is common, true love is rare, and I believe that few people are fortunate enough to experience it. The roads of regular love are well traveled and their markers are well understood by many—the mesmerizing attraction, the ideational obsession, the sexual afterglow, profound self-sacrifice, and the desire to combine DNA. But true love takes its own course through uncharted territory. It knows no fences, has no barriers or boundaries. It's difficult to define, eludes modern measurement, and seems scientifically wooly. But I know true love exists. I just can't prove it.

I've felt so strange lately. I had this moment in my car the other day while I was driving home from work where I realized how badly I wanted something and tapped into this emotion I've been ignoring for years... it was quite staggering. I've felt very delicate I guess. I've spent the better part of the past three years feeling like my heart has been dragged through the dirt by the wanting of something and then not getting it, and I don't feel strong enough to go through that again so soon. It is completely overwhelming. And I don't want to feel this way. I just want to stand in the ocean without anyone around, especially people with all of their histories. I want to go somewhere I can be anonymous, somewhere without ghosts... I guess what I am saying is that tonight, all today and last week really, I've felt very sad and alone. Like the only people I can relate to are Ondaatje and Neruda. I'm sure this will pass soon, but it would just be nice to feel like I had some more stability in my life.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=89L86yWdWkg

Blood never forgets but who protects the memories when we bleed each other from the vein

I wish that men could be better men. I wish that, as a gender, they would all just put a little more effort into being better people, into treating women with more kindness and respect. Be better friends, better dads, better boyfriends, husbands, lovers, uncles, brothers etc. Of all of my girlfriends I only know one who doesn't have issues because of her father. I don't think men realize how much they can screw up their daughters. Or how much it could make their daughter's day if they just listened to them and at least acted interested in what they had to say or even better, they initiate the conversation on their own. Just saying "Hi. How was your day?" every evening and then listening to their answer and the shrink business would be cut in half. Fathers leave, or they abuse, they yell, they don't protect, they don't provide, they provide but they don't listen, they love but they don't like. They are experts, licensed to tell other people how to work out their relationships but they never say a word about the girl in their own home whose heart breaks every time she tries to tell him something about herself and he brushes her off for the television, for work, for someone else.

I wish that men understood how difficult it is to be a female. How it feels to be constantly and publicly critiqued for the way we look and act. How it feels to walk down a street and have men yell obscene things, look you up and down, follow you, touch you. I wish that the men who don't do these things could understand that these kinds of things do happen every day to women. And I don't just mean every day to some woman somewhere, I mean to each and every woman, every day they walk outside. I wish men had more respect for the fact that our gender has more crime against us than any other minority in America and that leaves us feeling scared and defensive.

I am a strong female. I have lived, traveled and worked by myself. I can, and do, stand up for myself and for others. But I can't be okay in certain areas of my life because of certain men's actions. Girls are petty, and we hurt each other and we hurt others, but none of my girlfriends have ever been hurt so much and so deeply by each other than they have by men in their lives. Some of the women closest to my heart are absolutely crippled by that pain.

I know many good men, let me say that clearly, but they are few and far in-between. And you can just tell that they are good, that they are compassionate and kind and honest and protective. They've been family, friends... I've even dated some. And when things don't work out with them you get that sinking feeling in your chest and your head hurts and you can't breathe for a few seconds and sometimes you cry that very quiet, watery, painful cry because you know that one of the few truly good men in your life has left.

I wish I could say this all a little more eloquently. And it is nothing new... I just wish that men would step it up a little bit and take some more responsibility, or even give a little more recognition to my gender and their effect on us. I wish I wish I wish.

K

Only to say...

Adventures are surely afoot.

:)