I'm sorry I'm weak.
I'm sorry I don't have my life together.
I'm sorry my apartment is messy.
I'm sorry that my refrigerator was invaded by fruit flies and is basically unusable.
I'm sorry that I haven't cleaned it out yet.
I'm sorry about the piles of dirty laundry in my room.
I'm sorry I'm still in school.
I'm sorry I'm a bad student.
I'm sorry that my job is stupid and trivial.
I'm sorry that I'm terrible with money.
I'm sorry my credit card bill is so high.
I'm sorry I'm lazy.
I'm sorry I'm perpetually late.
I'm sorry I'm not thin like her.
I'm sorry I'm a bad dancer.
I'm sorry I haven't choreographed anything in almost a year.
I'm sorry I'm too sensitive, that I take things personally and hold grudges.
I'm sorry that I get jealous.
I'm sorry that I have so much repressed rage.
I'm sorry that I get clingy and codependent sometimes.
I'm sorry that I love with my whole self.
I'm sorry I allow people to affect me so deeply.
I'm sorry I'm not what you want.
I'm sorry you didn't fight for me like I would have fought for you.
And I'm sorry you couldn't see past these things and love me anyway.
I really thought I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to be in a
couple of years. I wanted to graduate obviously, then stick around for a
year or two to work, build my resume, and save money. Then I was going
to pack up all my stuff and my cat, and move to New York City where I
would choreograph musicals...and win awards...and get drunk with Susan
Stroman on a regular basis. (Okay, I'm exaggerating. But not about the
choreographing musicals part.) The fact that living in New York City is
ridiculously difficult only made me want it more. I was all set with a
basic pathway.
Now I don't know where I'm going anymore.
I'm wondering if I really will end up in New York. Recently, my mind
has drifted off to wondering about going abroad instead. To London,
Edinburgh, or Dublin. (Probably London or Edinburgh if anything, since I
have basic knowledge of the arts scene there...whereas I don't know
much about the scene in Dublin. I just know that I LOVE
IRELAND.)
But there are problems with moving abroad. For one thing, I can't really
fathom the logistics of an international, transatlantic move. I was
having enough trouble figuring out how I was going to move across the
country, let alone how to move to a completely different continent. I
emailed an acquaintance of mine who recently moved to London and asked
her to share her experience moving abroad. Based on her reply, I
realized that I'd have to sell or give away basically everything I own
and start over. Figure out visas and insurance and bank accounts and
cell phone plans. And I have absolutely no idea how my kitty would fare on
a long flight to Europe. But that will definitely be figured out, because there's no way I'm not taking him with me.
The fact that I'm honestly not sure if I even want to choreograph musicals anymore or if I'm cut out for it also complicates things significantly. But that's a whole other topic, I guess.
Not knowing where I'm going is causing me so much anxiety. While my future plans have definitely evolved over the years--I've cycled through wanting to own a dance company, to travel and study dance around the world, to be a freelance contemporary choreographer, to choreograph musicals--I've always had a basic idea of where I would go. This is probably the first time in many years that I have absolutely NO plans, and no idea what the future holds. I really, really hate that.
I'm...in kind of a weird place right now. I'm really just sick of myself. Like, can't stand the sight of me let alone allow others to look at me. I stayed home from school on Wednesday because I just couldn't stomach the thought of people watching me struggle. I literally couldn't leave the house.
I don't feel like a dancer anymore. Dancing hurts. Everything hurts. And I hate it. My hormones are all out of whack, which has made me put on exorbitant amounts of weight. And it makes it very difficult to lose weight as well. I'm at the point where I'm officially too fat to dance. I look fucking ridiculous in class, huffing and puffing, pretending like I belong there. I don't. Feeling like this makes me not want to dance anymore. All my issues with my feet and joints...I'm acting like it's some medical mystery as to why I'm in pain. It's because I'm fat. I need to lose weight, but I can't. I'm dancing five fucking times a week and still embarrassingly overweight...I can't take it anymore. I wish I could give up.
The worst part about this is that I'm barely there in class. I give like 10% at any given time, even in Modern where I'm more comfortable. In ballet, it's more like 5%. I'm not even trying. I have no desire to try because even the little movement that does feel good looks awful when I see it in the mirror. And don't tell me otherwise, because you're lying. The music sounds like it's mocking me, too. Drum beats and piano chords that were once comforting are just oppressive now.
Everything hurts, everything looks horrible. I'm sick of it. I need the semester to be over.
When and if I'll ever stop feeling like this. It's been almost six months since the breakup and I still hurt. I only feel the tiniest bit better. My heart repairs itself at a damn snail's pace.
Whether I'll ever be able to listen to music like Matt Nathanson and Rufus Wainwright and a million other artists ever again without feeling lightheaded. For fuck's sake, I didn't even associate Rufus Wainwright with him before we met. That makes me really angry. Half my music is still un-listenable, but I'm sure he's fine. Listening to all his music like we never shared anything. Because nothing was ever ours.
Is finding somebody else the only way to get over someone?! Because I can't do that right now. I'm still not ready to dive into a new relationship, nor am I the kind of person who can pick someone up at a bar to have revenge sex with. Sorry, social norms, but I can't do that.
I'm really sick of feeling like this. And I'm really sick of being the only person that feels anything, ever.
"There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep;
Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks.
Then it walks, then it walks with my legs
to fall, to fall, to fall at your feet."
--Florence + the Machine
"I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself, 'So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more.' It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then."
--The Hours
1/16/11, JFK, 5:51 PM
I'm completely heartbroken. My entire body HURTS; I'm in so much pain that I can't think straight. Which I suppose doesn't matter, because so many things are running through my head that trying to sort through them would just hurt more. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we intertwine our lives with someone else's if it's all not going to work anyway? Everything is so complicated, and is only made more complicated when everyday things become associated with one person. Everything makes me think of him. I can't breathe, I can't think, I can't deal with this. I don't know HOW to deal with this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to feel. And I wish that he was the one. As much as I love him, I know in the back of my mind that we are probably not meant to be together forever. But whoever that person is, I wish that I could find him. Because this hurts too much.
I've never been a "dater." Ever. I never understood how my friends could just move from person to person like it was nothing. I don't trust easily, and I don't open up easily. And I mate for life. When I love someone or something, I love with my whole self. Which is why I don't make friends easily, either. And it's why Steve was basically my first relationship.
This all hurts like hell. I can't stand it.
LATER, Airplane, 9:10 PM-ish
By myself in a plane full of people, 154 miles away from PHX. The captain just said we should be on the ground at "40 past the hour, and at the gate shortly after that." The woman sitting behind me is traveling with her dog. I'm sitting in the window seat, and if I tilt my head to the left towards the window, all I smell is dog breath. I just watched The Hours. I love that beautiful, sad movie. Then I watched the "Maps" music video, which I love so much that I actually bought it off of iTunes a long time ago.
I always associate that song with people leaving. Every time someone leaves, it feels like a death. Like I'm being abandoned for something so much better. People go away to their new lives, and "Maps" runs through my head. WAIT -- THEY DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE I LOVE YOU. Everybody leaves me. They leave me and go somewhere else. But I stay here, alone and stuck.
I remember before Derek was accepted to Cornish, him and Christian and I were going to move into a house together. I can still imagine what our house would've looked like--probably one of those cute, small houses near campus, with hardwood floors and warm light. The walls covered in photos and memories and art and the silly things we collect. It would be a little scary living in that area, I guess, but I wouldn't mind because I would be safe with my friends around. Inside jokes and singing the theme to Three's Company. Derek and I doing Greek homework while Christian has her latest art project spread across the coffee table.
But none of that actually happened. Derek moved to Seattle and Christian got a job at The Loft. She found a whole new group of friends, a new identity, and a new apartment. While I slowly started to fade away and float around campus like a ghost, not sure what I was doing or where I was going. Then I made the decision to transfer schools, and had one of the best years of my life preparing. Dancing, writing, taco/movie nights after class with Todd and other dance friends. Then I moved, and things felt both terrifying and wonderful. The ASU Dance program was kooky, just like me. I got cast in Kiss Me Kate, discovered the theater scene in Phoenix, met and started dating Steve.
One day before Karen's modern class, one of my classmates named Stephanie looked over at me and said, "You look really pretty today, Katy. Really happy." And I was. I felt like I was glowing. I had finally broken out of a years-long cycle of Tucson stagnation, and found my own deliriously happy place to start doing great things in.
And then everything fell apart. I fell apart. Suddenly, I couldn't get up for class anymore and couldn't figure out why. I fucked everything up. Or rather--my body did. I worked so hard to get to that great place in my life only to enjoy it for one semester before my body completely betrayed me. My health abandoned me. Then everyone started leaving again.
What scares me is that I'm at the point where I almost don't want to feel better. I don't want to work hard to get my life where I want it to be, only to completely fall apart again. I can't do it.
We've landed.
1/21/11, Bedroom, 12:31 AM
This is the predicament I'm in. I experience things so deeply. TOO deeply. And I never get over anything. I realize that pain and loss and change are all normal parts of life. But I feel like at some point, people deal with it all. It might take time, but they eventually heal. I don't heal, regardless of how much time passes. Things that have happened 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 14 years ago still hurt like they happened yesterday. I'm only 23, and have an entire lifetime's worth of change ahead. But I can't keep experiencing these seemingly normal life things over and over again, because they destroy me so easily. Even as years pass, small parts of me are still baking cookies with Christine and Margie. Still remembering how cold and waxy Christine's skin felt when she was lying in a casket. Still 12 years old sitting at a parent-teacher conference with my Mom, listening as all my teachers listed everything I was doing wrong. Still dancing to "Nothing Else Matters" on Utterback's huge stage. Still drinking Dr. Pepper and pulling all-nighters in Graham-Greenlee. Still watching Twin Peaks and eating Del Taco with Steve on weekends. Still walking around New York City watching Steve be perfectly fine with everything while it takes me every ounce of energy not to cry all the time. And so on ad nauseam. I never really move on. I'll always be doing Greek homework in the adorable house that never actually happened. I can't get any of this out of my head.
What I really don't understand is how and why I got here. For years, I watched my friends find their little niches and desperately wanted to find my own. And I did, after working hard to get there. Only to get sick and ruin everything. I'm not doing this again. I'm not going to get better just to plummet all over again. I feel like I'd rather give up and succumb.
I hope to go into a little more detail later, because there's so much to explain.
But basically, Steve and I broke up last night.
While he was the one to initiate the conversation, it was definitely a mutual decision. And an amicable one. As far as break-ups go, I'm so thankful that ours was relatively smooth (for lack of better words). It wasn't messy or bitter or mean. Very painful and very sad, yes. But not messy. And I think we were more open with each other than we've ever been. The fact is that the core of our relationship is spending time together, and the distance just grew to be too much. But we love each other and care about each other very much; we still want to be in each others lives, be there for each other, and remain close friends. But we just can't be together. I know everyone says that they want to remain friends as a futile way to make it all sting less. But that's not how this is. I believe that we really will be friends. I have absolutely no idea how to do that after being romantically involved for over two years, but I know I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.
That doesn't mean I'm not sad, though. I know I'll eventually be okay, but I'm very sad right now. And I wish things could have been different. I'm feeling a million things at once which is why I can really only give headlines right now until I process everything. The only expression that sums all this up right now is I don't know which way is up. Which made me remember exactly how I felt the day I dropped him off at the airport. I realized that the last thing I wrote on that day still applies now, just in a radically different context:
I don't know if you've ever felt both happy and devastated at the same time...but it's very strange. I have no idea which way is up right now, but I know that I'm just following my intuition and entering a new chapter of my life and our relationship.
Meredith: I was swimming. I was fighting. And then I thought...just for a second, I thought, "What's the point?" And I let go. I stopped fighting. Don't tell anybody... Denny: Okay.
--Grey's Anatomy #3.17: "Some Kind of Miracle"
That's all for now. Update soon, I hope. I haven't really felt much like writing recently, even though there's been much on my mind.
One notable thing from today, though, is that I finally withdrew from my last class. I hate that complete withdrawals have to be done in person, mostly because I can barely bring myself to leave the house during the day. But I finally dragged myself down there because the deadline is tomorrow. I wasn't sure if I felt relieved or gloomy afterward, but now I guess I feel a combination of both. Glad I got it out of the way, but just gloomy about how everything has turned out. My classmates have been posting videos of their final projects on Facebook. I can't bring myself to watch them, but just seeing them pop up on my news feed literally makes my heart hurt. That's the only way to describe it. My heart hurts. And it spreads through my entire body until I just hurt all over. I wish I could've at least been able to make it through the rest of the semester, then I could take next semester off instead. But I knew I couldn't continue. There was absolutely no way. Doesn't stop my heart from hurting, though.
But at least I have weepy Grey's Anatomy episodes, ice cream, and sad bastard music to keep me company while I wallow for a bit and start trying to figure things out. I discovered this extremely morose band yesterday called Susanna and the Magical Orchestra; they cover songs that are already quite morose and make them even MORE morose. Excellent.
