False Optimism No Longer a Positive

Again, I'm having this urge to write, but nothing solid to put down.  I'll start here--

Emily and I got these Q&A A Day books where there is a question each day for a year, and the page has 5 slots to answer per question.  The book lasts for 5 years so you can go back and compare how your life has changed with each question answered each year.

August 24th's question is:
"Write your recipe for creativity."

My answer:
"Depression/worry/motivation for change seem to fuel creativity for me.  Music, writing and collaboration of ideas can also inspire creativity."

My urge to create/write/draw, etc. usually comes on strongest when I'm feeling low.  There is a fine line, however, between feeling low and motivated/artistic and feeling low and only wanting to be laying in a dark room doing nothing...  Lately I've been finding myself in the latter category besides occasionally writing.

Because of the "theme" of the blog, I usually try to keep my negative blogs to myself, but I'm pretty much done with the fake optimism.  Like I said two posts ago, I'm kind of tired of keeping my chin up.  I've had to be so strong for so long (a year) on my own, and I'm exhausted.  That's the best way I can put it.  I'm emotionally exhausted.

I feel like I've half been lying to myself by saying that I'm so happy and everything is working itself out up here when it really isn't.  Everything between Dan and I is great.  Better than ever, really (aside from our future being put on hold, currently), but everything else is not okay.

I'm not okay with no one coming to visit me or see where the fuck I live, now.  I'm not okay with my family not visiting me or my "friends" not even attempting to make plans with me.  It's been a fucking year.  It's as if they don't realize that I can see facebook and watch their lives play out in photos and status updates talking about all of the other trips they somehow found time to take and all of the other plans and friends they put effort towards.  First it's money, then it's a car being out of order or a house problem or lord knows what else...  Why do I keep trying?

It shocks me on many levels to think that all of these people have zero interest in how I'm doing up here, especially after what I've gone through for/with some of them.  It's like a joke.

And maybe the reason I haven't been able to find new friends up here isn't because they have nothing in common with me.  Maybe it's because I took on this new outlook on life-- this lie to yourself and pretend you're positive and happy as much as you possibly can, until someday, hopefully, you start to believe it.  I never tried that way of thinking before and I seemed to get on with life fine.  I wasn't always happy, but I'm not now either.  Maybe that way of thinking is what I needed to get me through the first hump of moving--  before I really knew I had lost so much back home.

Now, I need to see clearly and I need to be honest.  It isn't pessimism, it's honesty.  I can't lie to myself any longer.  People upset me.  I've had to take Xanax for actual anxiety attacks, not just insomnia, more and more frequently.  It's all really due to not dealing an denying and pretending.

I can't change others.  I can't change the fact that I had shitty friends to begin with before I left Baltimore, and that I couldn't see they were shitty until I did leave.  Come to think of it, they were shitty then, too.  People are users.  They will use you up until you're dry if you let them.  Or, you find out the hard way like when it's your time to be in need, and you see that there's no one there.  Especially not the ones who seemed to need you the most.

But I can change me, and I need to get back to being myself.  I need to get back to being honest above all else.  I do have positives in my life, but they are real and not fabricated.  I have Dan and I have friends that aren't too far away.  I need to focus on them and let go of the rest.  It's hard, and I will more than likely need to seek out therapy to work my way through it all.  I don't know what the future holds, but I know it's not going to be fulfilling if I'm faking my way through it...

I'm not forcing the glass to be anything, anymore...  This is just where I am, currently.  Forcing myself to be honest.  Forcing myself to live in the moment.  Forcing reality.

Here goes nothin'...

xo,
Rachael