Right now I feel conquered. I feel defeated and destroyed.

I'm a horrible writer, and I use to and still sometimes believe that I'm not. However, I am.

My mom has always been telling me how horrible my writing is. For the longest time, I actually believed what she was saying and gave up. Then, I decided to be unconquerable and work harder to make my writing better. I tried to better myself and my writing. I got tired of hearing her put me down and my writing, so I stopped letting her read/edit my articles and papers before I submitted them.

Then, I got a job at a newspaper where I write about municipal meetings once a month for a local newspaper that gets left out in the rain or run over by cars and no one ever reads. However, the editor is a hard ass with probably no education, who doesn't respect good writing (or this is where I like to fool myself into believing that I'm actually a good writer).

Every single month my editor tells me how the article isn't what she wanted and that I need to rewrite it. EVERY SINGLE MONTH with EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE. I only get paid 40 dollars an article. An article that takes me 2 hours to obtain the information in the meeting. Another 30 mins to call and hassle people to gather more information for an article, AND then either a half a day or an entire day putting the articles together. Where she will inevitably tell me they are all wrong, or I've missed the point, or I need to change this, and it will always result in me being told to, "rewrite" the article.

......This upsets me. Physically and mentally. I feel like a failure every month. I feel like a failure for 80 dollars, and on top of that I am then destroyed because of all the time I then spent writing the articles.

I question if I really do suck as a writer. I question if my grammar does in fact blow.

It hurts to put out so much effort and to work so hard, and to hear nothing but negatives, which then result in doubt.

I think that is my major problem right now with a lot of things.

Another situation. I've been working out, eating healthy, not eating so many carbs anymore, stopped eating after 10 o'clock. Stop drinking alcohol unless I was going out and planned on having more than one drink. I really changed a lot in regards to my health. Then a few days ago my boss told me, "What are you pregnant?" the same day I came home and my mom immediately said, "Wow, someone ate too much this week."

I was crushed. I've been working so hard, I've changed so much for the better, and yet I hear nothing but negatives. It makes me want to give up.

Right now I just feel hopeless. I feel like there's not one thing that I'm great at. There's tons of little things that I'm okay at, but nothing that I am great at. I want something that I am great at. I want the confidence in knowing that I am great at this one thing and no one can take that away from me or try to question it.

I want a ounce of confidence in myself in knowing that I am great at something and not just okay or shitty or worthless.

Yet, I feel like giving up.

What If I'll never feel that feeling again? The one where I felt like I lived in a stationary state of perpetual happiness that no one would take away. I was in love and no one could come close to taking it away from me.

I cried today for the first time in a very long time. I cried as I drove home from work and I was finally allowing myself to take in the busyness of the weekend.

I realized that I've been successfully trying to get myself back to a state of normalcy. A place where I can date again and feel empowered, yet terrified. I've applied for jobs, gone on interviews. Met guys, talked to guys and even kissed some. I'm doing what I'm suppose to do, carry on with life. Move forward.

I'm not searching for love. I'm not even searching for someone to fill the hole I have neatly patched up in my heart. I'm just looking for someone to be my friend. Because if anything, the person that I miss not having is my best friend.

I know I've said this repeated times, that I won't settle for someone. I think that's clear in how I've been going forward with things lately. I won't settle for anything less than I deserve and what I want.

I just wonder...

Will I ever have another car ride where I feel completely at peace with the wind against my skin and going through my hair, with the sun setting in the distance and my hand interlocked with the person beside me, that I've invested all my confidence in. I know that he will carry me to safety.

Will I ever have that person that I consider my best friend. Who knows everything, good or bad about me, yet who doesn't use the bad to destroy me or criticize me. Who at the end of the day I love sleeping next to and hearing his tender, rhythmic heartbeat as it takes me off to relaxation. The person who when I wake up in the morning, regardless of the time, I'm still extremely enthralled to know that he is mine. He is mine and our love is simple.

I won't settle, and I want to believe that I'm not searching for someone to fill the void. I just wonder, if I've already experienced the best life has to offer, is it fair for me to think that someone else can top that?

I am restless. I am still unhappy, and I don't know why.

I am unhappy that I'm still at D&Q. I hate it. I absolutely dread going to work and have absolutely no interest or respect for the company. After going to an interview on Monday at a real company and dressing up and being around intelligent people, I can't even seem to place myself into the mindset that D&Q is nothing more than a joke. A horrible joke I feel like I've been subject to for years now.

I need to get out. I really hope I get this job because I can't stay there anymore and inflict upon myself anymore mental destruction.

I am unhappy that no matter how much I work out, and how faithful I am and how well I eat, I can't seem to kick those last 5 lbs that seem to all be located in my stomach. I feel horrible and fat and therefore, It depresses me. I cried last week when my boss told me, "what are you pregnant?" and my mom the same day made a remark about me, "eating a lot this week." Oddly enough, I felt pretty good about myself that day, I thought I was having a fairly thin day, guess not.

I know I'm not fat, nor am I even over weight for my height, but hearing remarks like that when I'm trying my best hurts and makes me just want to give up. I feel like I've already given up a lot. I stopped drinking unless it's the weekend or I'm going to have more than one drink. I stopped eating pasta everyday and have now cut it back to at least once or twice a week. I don't eat snacks after a certain time. I'm trying to eat earlier than ten o'clock at night if I have to work late. I've changed a lot of things and yet I'm still having people make remarks. It doesn't give me much hope or even desire to carry on with these changes.

It seems every guy I meet has some ultra creepy oddity about themselves, coincidence?

I don't even think I'm that picky, I just am meeting all of the social rejects of the dating pool, lucky me! Meeting nothing but strange guys with odd qualities and/or online videos makes me think that I'm much happier single. However, I miss being touched. I'm beginning to wonder if I even remember what it feels like. I know I'm too scared of hurting again and letting someone in, if I only have to lose them all over again. However, It would be nice to meet a somewhat normal, interesting, intelligent, friendly, respectable man, with oddities to keep me enticed, but nothing ridiculously obscure.

I feel vain and naive for my complaints of displeasure. I know that my unhappiness seems to be surrounded by a few minor things like physical appearance, mental stability and advancement connected to finding a job and doing something with my college degree, and the one that bothers me the most, my mental, physical and emotional instability of being in a relationship. Although, I miss having someone in my life who knows me unlike no other, I am also weary of trying again, yet unhappy with being alone.

All of these displeasure's feel like petty, ridiculous, minuscule issues in the greater scheme of things. In the bigger world we live in full of movement and motion and people without parents and medicines and homes. I feel like my worries and the things that make me depressed are absurd, yet I can't seem to get over them. Yes, there are days where the sun seems brighter and the clouds don't have a chance of surviving in the serenest of blue skies.

I just want some element of life to progress forward. One of these situations to change and maybe that will start a progressive change in all the others.

Just like that, the fog clears and the sun rays shine down to expose a pellucid beauty, a life full of endless possibilities.

I thought I was dead to these feelings. I thought I would never feel the wind underneath my skin, providing me with a feeling of weightlessness to endlessness.

I just figured It had died with me long ago, when in actuality It's just been buried.

I admit I gave up. I surrendered everything about me and my drive and goals and happiness. I allowed myself to lose it all, but the reality is, I know that I loved with all my heart if It took me out of the game for that long.

I have no regrets, not even that I chose to give up for a year and a half.

I believe that I had to experience the lows and the depression and hurt and pain and tears to get to right now. To get to the part where I feel like I have an "unconquerable soul."

I am unconquerable, and all of these situations have gotten me to the point where I now realize that I should be enough. I am an amazingly talented, goal-oriented, kind-hearted person and I deserve the best things out there. I am no longer going to carry through life at a mimicking trudge.

Maybe I had to lose everything to appreciate the little things and to value bigger things.

I can say that I am in a different mindset than before, but now it just feels like a second chance. A chance to love myself and my creator.

Life is composed of the relationships we have, and how we handle those relationships.

Life tends to be composed of your relationship with yourself, a higher-being, family, friends and others.

The idea is that we hold our relationship with a higher-being at the top of the list, then ourselves, then family and friends and others.

However, most of us struggle with that sequence of relationships.

Our lives fluctuate with our God, or belief system, ourselves, our family members and friends.

There are days when we don't feel like we've placed yourselves at the top of the list, and instead settle for bottom, those are the days when we feel defeated, and we feel as if we've let ourselves down.

There are days when we don't put our relationships with our higher-being as a priority, those are the days we also feel defeated, as if we've wronged ourselves, others and more importantly, our maker. Those are the days we don't feel whole or even purposeful.

There are days when we put our family on hold, those are difficult days that shift from right and wrong, never noticing that you've put the people who matter most as an obligation rather than an enjoyable priority.

There are days when we question our friends and the spheres of closeness in which we've placed them. Those days are days spent more in reflection than anything else.

The days in which the sequence of relationships is off, even if it's just by one, those are the days we feel un-eased, and therefore those are the days spent in reflection.

----

My relationship with God lately has not been one that I'm as proud of, or pleased with. I feel distant and separated. I feel foolish for questioning certain elements of faith, and therefore that makes me uneasy and discontent.

My relationship with God, and the confusion in which I'm feeling as therefore taken a toll on my relationship with myself. I feel the pressures around me from family and friends, and I know to still stand up for what I believe in and the decisions I know that would be more in my favor, I just feel singled out, separated.

I've never felt so single and detached. I don't feel like I'm at the steady pace of everyone around me, I feel like I'm either too far forward or lagging behind at a substantial distance.

It's like that song by The Weepies:

There’s a world of shiny people somewhere else
Out there following their bliss
Living easy, getting kissed
While you wonder what else you’re doing wrong...

I wonder what I'm doing wrong, but at the same time I know that I'm not taking the chances I should because I know that I'm not in the same mindset of everyone else, "out there following their bliss."

I'm amazed to hear how much disregard people have for themselves. Yet, maybe I have too much regard for myself. Maybe I'm too concerned about hurting myself or getting hurt, that I don't allow myself to follow my bliss.

But, It following your bliss means searching the corners of the city for someone else's protection and warmth. Someone else who is going to solve all of my life's problems and worries, then will that empty person ever be full?

It's a matter of being complete. How do we make ourselves feel complete without the help of another? How do we feel complete if all the majority of us ever do is settle for the wrong relationships in the wrong sequential order?

I've made an attempt to move forward.

I've tried with to find jobs. I work out. I save money. I work hard. I keep things clean and neat. I pray. I love. I offer my help and time whenever possible. I'm finally growing my hair long. I eat well.

I feel healthy for the first time in awhile. I physically feel like I'm almost at my best. Yet, I still feel so empty. So incomplete. I have what I thought I needed months ago, a year ago. I've reached a state that I once yearned for, happiness. Yet, I'm not truly happy. I finally have it all, but something feels off. It doesn't feel quite complete.

I'm back on par to where I was over a year ago, yet I'm still so far away.

I guess all I've been doing was thinking that If I could just get back to where I was before everything, before Dave, then life will be "normal," or "happy" again.

So blinded was I.

Here I am, with all the things I had before Dave passed away, and yet I'm still unhappy.

The reality is that what I've been searching for is another Dave. Another best friend. Another person who gets the ins and outs of me, and wants to know everything about me. Who I know everything about. I've been searching for a person who has similar beliefs as mine. Someone that I can tell my everyday happenings to.

Someone that after a long, dirty week at Bonnaroo, I can come home with and we can take showers and sleep in each others arms until we're rested off the busy weekend. Someone that in those arms, I can say, "I love you" and mean every single word, and know that he knows I mean every single word.

I miss my best friend, that I didn't have to impress or feel out-casted by. He never singled me out, he only took me in, me with all my flaws and oddities.

I thought I would reclaim my sense of happiness if I had connected with everything I once had before September 30th 2007. But, how do you reconnect with your best friend when they're gone?

I can never get that back. I don't even want to compare someone else to that. I don't even expect someone else to become that. I just know that although I feel like I've worked so hard and that I'm healthy and happy, I'm still missing the main part that was me, my best friend, and I won't find that.

So I can keep working hard, and working towards, bigger and better things, but now I know that that's what I'm truly missing. My best friend to confide in. My best friend to talk to. My best friend to vent to, who I know understands exactly what I'm not saying.

That I will forever miss...

"I want so much to open your eyes, cause I need you to look into mine. Tell me that you'll open your eyes. Tell me that you'll open your eyes...Get up, get out, get away from these lies cause they don't get your soul or your fire. Take my hand, knot your fingers through mine, and we'll walk from this dark room for the last time. Every minute from this minute now we can do what we like anywhere. I want so much to open your eyes cause I need you to look into mine."

It's amazing how those lyrics have guided me through darkness in the last year. A year ago those lyrics made me get out of a bed I once was prisoner of. Those lyrics also made me start working out again and feel alive and driven in my decision to make myself healthier.

But today, when I heard them, they provoked a different feeling. A feeling of remembrance and looking back. Those lyrics made me think about how far I've come from last year and how much pain I've gone through and yet I'm still alive. I'm still standing here, alive, yet I feel dead. Today I realized that I've been nothing but dead for the past year. I've neglected myself, my feelings, my dreams. I've pushed it all aside to spend a year healing. A year that I needed to breathe. But, now I need to spend it moving forward, and really living.

I didn't realize until today that I haven't cried in weeks. Weeks! There were days last year when I would wonder when I would get to the moment where I wouldn't spend every waking minute crying, and I've finally reached that point. Now, I want to cry, because I don't cry anymore, because the pain isn't prevalent anymore.

Now, I sometimes think of crying because I've come out alive. The unthinkable has finally occurred.

So, It's like starting all over again, yet I don't know where to start. I don't know what achievements I want to begin with. I don't know where to start when I think about wanting to help others. I want someone else to feel like their eyes are finally being opened, like mine are.

I want other people to experience the personal high of knowing that there's a future ahead with endless possibilities and behind you is the dark room you're leaving behind, the horrible and sometimes torturous past that has now left you empowered.

There's a life out there with beauty and love and bad decisions, great decisions, indescribable smells and sensations, fear and terror...but the main thing is there's a world out there full of all of these things and with each experience, you learn more about your soul, more about your being, more about the person that you are and the strength that you are composed of, and damn it I'm a strong person who deserves a great life!

So I'm going out there and I'm living my life, and I'm going to get the things that I want and try my hardest and live with no regrets even if that means making a fool out of myself and conveying too much information. I'm living it all because I can't stand the thought of dieing again.

A new year...2009.

I'm not one for resolutions or beginning some triumphant new life plan all because we've reached some milestone year. It's not that I'm against such things, I just know that resolutions wouldn't work for me, and having some plan outlined with new goals and expectations just doesn't seem like something I need to do just because its a new year. I think that goals should be set whenever life deems them necessary.

This year, oddly enough life was deemed necessary two days into the new year. In my hell hole of a room, that I've never allowed to get so cluttered and messy before, I set forth to clean. Not only did I clean my room of my dirty clothes on the floor, or the thin layer of dust on the shelves, but I cleaned my room of all things that would inhibit my possible advancement. I found that I grew accustom to the small shrine to Dave that I created with my four walls. When I moved here a year ago, that was my life. That was the face I was use to waking up to. The things I was use to seeing surrounding me. I would even throw clothes on the floor, just so it felt like Dave was still sharing a bedroom with me.

I can now say that I needed all of those things at the time, but a year later...I need to advance myself, spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally.

Mentally, I'm at my best in a year. I feel okay, ready. Physically, I'm terrified. Spiritually I can always afford to advance myself. However, emotionally, I'm also extremely terrified of. I understand that without the emotional investment relationships will always be one-sided. I've never been one to not invest myself into anything, therefore...that's why I'm terrified. I'm scared to invest so much again, to only have it taken away. However, I will invest. I will set myself up for the perpetual emotional destruction or repair that I will inevitably face.

So to this year of 2009, I vowed to take down my pictures of David except for two, one of him and I and the other of him in China on the Great Wall. One will serve as my agreement to advance myself emotionally and physically with the right person. The other picture serves as a remembrance to always embrace life and the spirit.

Whoever thought it would be this difficult? Is the challenge worth the eventual outcome?

If there's one thing I know, it's that everyone's hurting. Everyone's got a scar and a story to match that scar. At the end of the day, we've all got something on our minds, some weight has either been lifted or granted.

Fate. Does fate exist? Is it really possible that some supernatural force is determining our outcome? If that's so, then some days I would feel so much more assured of life eventual outcome.

The idea of fate, makes me stop and question life's stages and the paths we take during those times. If fate exists, then does it matter what decisions I make, because won't I ultimately come upon the destinies meant for me?

The past week has been filled with questions of my own destiny. Meeting people this week and conversing leads me to question people's purpose in a guided life.

Undoubtedly, we are all playing pieces in the game of life. We work in correlation with each other whether we directly know it or not. Every person who comes into our lives, whether it be the mail man or the guy at the bar, we're all interconnected. A simple conversation could spark a lifetime of change in one person, while to the other It could have just been another "Hello" or "goodbye" and carrying on with the day.

This week, as I've been in my more positive outlook on future possible destinies. I met someone who just seemed to put life into a different perspective. A perspective that a week ago, I might not of been capable of seeing.

As I sat there talking and laughing and smiling with this stranger. I realized that all maybe fate was playing a role in it all. As I got to know more about the stranger to left, I discovered that he had gone to my second choice college, same year. Immediately, I wondered, what If I had made the choice to go there. Would I have met this person? Would either one of us of given the other the time of day? Would we be able to offer each other a sense of hope, like we did the other night when we openly talked about our troubled pasts? Or was it destiny that we were suppose to meet in this type of setting, as broken as we both are and possibly affect each others futures?

I'm not thinking relationship wise or anything like that. I'm thinking, maybe regardless of whatever path I decided to choose, I was destined to meet this person, however it was more so destiny that we met when we did and he could offer me a state of hope. A new outlook on a positive future.

It wasn't until the other night that I realized, Dave never gave me any compliments. Dave never told me how my hair smelled great. He never told me how he just wanted to pick me up and hold me. He never told me he wanted to just stand there and kiss my neck, and here some stranger is telling me these things. I lived with a guy that I called, "The love of my life." That I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with, and I had never received a compliment like that from him. I didn't even know how to respond when I got any of those compliments. And in that instant, this stranger who had chosen the path that I didn't, made me realize that I deserved so much more. I deserved compliments. That fateful stranger, made me realize that there's someone else out there who is better for me.

Not only that, but then I just let my mind wander and think how many people we each affect with simple conversations and compliments. How many lives are we all affecting with our interconnectedness? How simple of a word or statement or comment do we need to make to change a life for the better? Clearly, it's quite simple and amazingly beautiful.

I'm ready to get back out there. People said, "you'll know when your ready. It will come naturally."

I didn't believe it. I wasn't able to comprehend the idea of knowing when I was ready. But, it's true.

One day, the tears still fall, but they're not the salty tears symbolizing loss, instead they're the tears of new beginnings, preambles to a new novel about survival.

It's amazing how even just being positive and outgoing can alter a persons outlook. Everyone out there is different. We're all similar in so many ways, but a relationship, a connection, a friendship with each person, is individually different. There is no one out there that will be like Dave, and for the first time ever, I like that.

I like that at a time in my life, Dave was exactly what I wanted. He supplied me with everything I thought I deserved at that time. Right now however, I need more than what Dave was giving me. I need someone who's not going to play games. Who's going to be honest. Someone understanding. I need someone who makes me have a good time and laughs, because I haven't laughed in over a year. I need someone who compliments me, because I've never been complimented and I don't like the fact that I don't know how to take a compliment. I need someone who understands life's struggles, but appreciates them at the same time and knows that everyday could have something greater in store.

Going out and having a good time, and meeting people isn't bad anymore. It isn't sad. It doesn't hurt. It's uplifting and provides me with hope and curiosity for what's next...

Thin. You had a thin upper lip, that at times seemed perfectly straight, having no shape. Those times were usually when you were sleeping, unaware that I was watching.

Your bottom lip however, packed enough pleasure, that it could take my breathe away with the slightest peck.

Your lips seems designed for me. Mimicking my every move, like you were inside my head, knowing exactly how I wanted to be kissed.

I was mesmerized by the small freckle above your top lip. So small, so light, but prevalent. So beautiful.

Your stubble, although coarse and annoying at times, provided you with a more masculine, worn look. I loved that look.

You had your ears pierced. Normally, I don't like that on a guy, but on you, it was different. It gave you a look of toughness, which although you would like to think you were, you didn't possess a single tough bone in your body. I remember the day you took the earrings out, because the woman at Nordstroms told you it was unprofessional. You immediately followed suit to what she said. I respected and mourned that decision.

Oddly enough, I can still feel the metal in my mouth, as I kissed your silver hooped earring, located in your right ear. I enjoyed turning you on by kissing your ear and neck.

That brings me to your neck. Ha, remember when your boss said if you go to work one more time with a hickey, you'll be sent home. I'm sorry. I was sorry then, and you knew that. Yet, that last time, I sent you to work with a hickey, luckily..you didn't get in trouble. You knew it could get you in trouble, yet you never stopped me. I think you knew I was too comfortable there in the folds of your neck and shoulder. I could lay there and your chest all night and be content. I would lay anywhere that I could feel the steadiness of your quickly beating heart. A heart I wanted to believe beat only for me.

Hypersensitive. To my surroundings. To my emotions.

I don't watch TV much. I can honestly say I watch 4 shows total. Entourage, The Colbert Report, One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy. I find it interesting how I feel like I'm getting my fill in those four shows. I've got humor and the obsession of celebrity lifestyle and materialistic worth in Entourage. Therefore, by watching Entourage, I'm staying afloat with most Americans and what their desires are. The Colbert Report offers me a humorous outlook on the current issues plaguing our country. One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy. Oddly enough these shows got me hooked in their simplicity and mindless nature. They offered me the opportunity to unwind after a day of work, my life drama's, and I could watch from a distance others endure pains and struggles, week in and week out.

I've watched both One Tree Hill and Grey's since they aired, years ago. One started at as just another high school drama/love triangle/square/octagon while the other was yet another hospital show filled with love sagas and drama. Mindless, they were for me. Mindless for awhile they continued to be. The characters became my friends. Friends that I couldn't wait to see the next week and catch up with (I hate to admit any of this, because I hate to think that I'm as absorbed into a television series as the creators want me to be).

However, the odd thing about One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy is that they aren't mindless anymore. They've begun to echo my hurt, and my pain. They both put words to the things I am in capable of getting people to understand. Not only do they put words, but they act it out so perfectly, that I can feel the hurt that their character endures.

Lately, both shows that I once watched with anticipation have addressed the issue of loss. Of personal, young loss. In one show it's the loss of a close, best friend. In the other it's the loss of a fiance. In both shows you watch the characters deal with the hurt, pain and struggles that death leave you with. Oddly enough, for it being some cheesy, American sitcom, the way both shows portray loss, is spot on. They both do an uncanny job of showing how loss, especially loss of a friend or of the love of your life, can break you down and that the pain doesn't go away.

Ironically, this week on both shows the two characters most affected by the loss of the individual had moments where they were talking to their deceased party. One on one talk, and it was to them like the person was in the room with them, arguing, touching, laughing, watching them.

It makes me think if Dave is still in the same room as me. If Dave's still around. People always offer that reassuring statement of, "He'll always be with you." but what they don't tell you is that, "with you" feeling will change. There were months where I had no doubt, Dave was by my side. I could feel him and much as the fake portrayals of my fictitious characters talking to their deceased parties. Now...I can't feel it so easily.

I wonder if I've tried to separate myself from it so much, that I've made it harder to feel him, or if I'm too scared to feel him. How can I move forward, If I don't let go? and how come I can't see him like the stupid movies? I get angry at that. I get angry that he's not standing in front of me in what resembles his human flesh. I get angry I can't hear his exact voice talking to me, as clear as day. I get angry that all though these shows can portray the hurt that I feel and that others feel and the magnitude of loss, there is no exact guide line or book to follow on coping with loss. There's no exact time on when the hurt goes away and when the pain is officially gone. There's actually never a time when the pain is/will ever be officially gone.

It's all mind blowing to me. Nothings mindless about death. We as a people know the effects and the feelings connected to loss. We know them so well that we can act them out in movies and TV shows, but we can't even begin to rationalize it's reasoning and how to deal with it.

"Faith is seeing the seed in every flower."

"Faith is knowing that things will turn around."

I don't think I lack faith. I lack understanding. I'm trying my best to overcome, to move forward, to turn things and my life around and I can't. I feel hopeless. I have the faith to know that one day all of this will make me stronger. One day I won't even think about the hardships I'm enduring now. I possess faith, but I'm weary. I'm walking aimlessly in what feels like a desert that I've been wandering for years.

I don't understand how I am suppose to move forward when I face continual set backs. I don't understand how I'm suppose to have the strength to wake up everyday and try. When I say I'm "tired" or "run down" I don't usually mean physically. I'm emotionally and mentally stripped of all my senses of empowerment. I feel rejected on many levels, and due to those rejections I'm losing confidence.

I don't know what lesson I'm suppose to gain from these feelings of rejection and defeat. I would like to say I'm an incredibly optimistic person, after all I've made it this far without giving up. I can't do it anymore, I can't be around negative people. I rarely voice the troubles or the pains I'm feeling, because I rarely know how to put them into words. Although I'm hurting right now, and I am finding it hard to understand and I feel nothing but defeated, I have not given up. I will not give up. Others, have, and those others I can't converse with. I feel no progressive movement in my life right now. And with every opposing action, I feel a little more defeats and I can't have anymore negative energy around me. Others negativity, Is hindering my progression, because I put my all into others well beings and their growth.

Growth. I know mine is in jeopardy. I just don't understand how to connect anymore. I don't understand who I'm suppose to connect with. I feel devoid of all "butterflies," confidence... love. Everyday I read books, news stories, listen to the radio, read updates on people's Facebook wall even, and I can't connect. I feel like I'm on the outside of the glass wall looking in. When I go out in public, I don't get the rush and the satisfaction I once received from hanging out with friends and meeting new people and going new places. It's difficult to remember the feeling of what it all once felt like, being alive in an electric atmosphere, rather than dead.

Contradicting, I know. That what makes it even more difficult to overcome. Overcome and difficult. Words that have defined my life the past few years. I understand life will always possess its difficulties, and I believe that I will try my best to forever overcome those difficult times. However, I needs life to ease up, or some positive progressive movement to begin to happen, because I can't take this stagnant position.

I am completely and utterly run down.

Although the past two weeks have been amazing with the Phillies winning the World Series and Barack Obama becoming our 44th president, I don't feel like I'm capable of fully rejoicing as much as I want because I am exhausted.

I repeatedly tell myself that I am capable of handling a lot of hours at work, but 11 hours a day and not having off in 8 days is destroying me. I am physically exhausted, although I'm....

I'm rambling. I hate rambling about nothingness and pointlessly relapsing the day. That's not journal writing. This is not journalling. I am beyond my means of mentally and physically healthy, I am divided and just trying to get by.

Although I'm working out again and having fun on my days off, I am incredibly unhappy. I am lost. I am angry. I am annoyed. I am hurt. I am confused. I am tired.

Everything isn't black and white, but what if it is when it comes down to love?

Putting aside all the questions and the confusion...what if love is really just black and white.

What if love is as simple as, a yes and a no.

What if loves as easy as leaving everything behind to go out in search of love.

I think that we've complex individuals. Over complicating everyday situations and tasks. We value complexity because then things seem more fulfilling and satisfying. We enjoy the busy days of work, maybe with a complex task, just to make ourselves feel accomplished and intelligent. But, what if we've created complexity. What if we've taken everything that was once so simple and easy, and made it complex. What if love can still be so simple, so easy...so natural, why over complicate it?

Love doesn't have to be a million shades of red, when it can be as simple as black and white.

Yes, I do love you and all that is you, and all your faults--I love you unconditionally.

No, I once loved you. I once loved every crevice of you, but I can not and do not any longer.--I have falling out of love with you.

No, I am not in love with you.

Love becomes too complex when too much emphasis is placed on it. Love becomes demanding and over strenuous when both parties aren't on the same page. Hence, once can be black, the other white. Although, the love is now stressed, its still as simple as black and white.

I guess, I would like to think that love is as simple as black and white...

It's weird how a person can just sense things. It's bizarre how in a split second you can feel that something is off, not right. Driving into work today as traffic slowed down, I immediately got this overwhelming flush of sorrow, pain and fear. I didn't even have to look ahead of me to know there was a terribly accident a mile up, because I knew something terrible had happened. A mile out, and away from the ambulances, fire trucks and police cars, I knew that the outcome wasn't good as the hairs on my arm began to stand on edge and I got chills down my spine. I didn't have to check a news report or look a few lanes over to know that lives were lost, because I could feel it. I could feel the sorrow and the pain, as I tried to fight back tears.

It didn't matter that I didn't know any of the individuals involved or what had happened, because I looked at the larger picture. The families of these individuals and how even months later they'll still be crying like they will today when they get the news. The news, the hardest, most terrifying thing to hear. When everything before you becomes insignificant and months seem like hours. What I wouldn't give so that no one else had to feel the hurt of premature death.

As the traffic was detoured for the remainder of the day and the road is still closed due to the extreme nature of the accident, I couldn't help but think about last September 30th when I found out about Dave's accident. Was tonight going to be like it was for me? A night surrounded by loved ones, where your head goes a million miles per minute. From pain and anguish, to fear, to what seems like normal. As I drove home, almost getting into 3 car accidents myself, swerving from a semi-truck, to almost getting clipped by a UPS truck and finally a car that cut me off, while running a stop light, I wondered what people were doing the night Dave passed away.

I drove home in the darkness of night, with a beautiful white moon shinning overhead. I got a sense of peace, as I felt that everyone from the accident had finally gone home.

Just today thought, watching people, amazed me. From people who were legitimately concerned, to the people who made a joke out of it. From working, to sitting in traffic, to going grocery shopping, to going to a bars, eating dinner. I guess today was just an eye opener to me. When I found out about Dave, my world came to a complete stop, and I felt like the rest of the world around me did as well. I never would've thought that there would be some other girl, driving on a road, looking at the moon, and thinking about how my loved one was now in a better place. If you would've asked me last year if the world had come to a halt, I would've answered yes. I wondered how the family members of the people involved were doing. I wondered if they would even remember the cool, crisp 60 degree weather tonight and how clear the sky was with crystal like stars glowing off in the distance. I wondered if they would get the chance to see the moon as it appeared to be so close, but was still so far off. I wondered if they would be at peace with the night like I was tonight, or would they be like I was a year ago, crying and numb.

There’s a dividing line in this household. A line between young and old, that can also be coined as Democrat vs. Republic or Obama vs. McCain.

I’m sitting in bed hearing the distant hoots and hollers from my mother down in the living room, as she watches the Republican National Convention. I can’t help but feel like with every cheer, she’s rooting away my future. With the sound of every yell, I think about how in a few more years they’ll be more yelling, but this time it won’t be cheerful. I think about how every clap being heard at the Republican National Convention, is another repeated strike of a missile or a gun going off, in another unjust war.

I can’t support a man, I don’t trust at all. I can’t support a man who seems like he’s still interested in playing toy soldiers, but who is completely unaware that the game isn’t played with plastic green men, but real human lives.

It’s all a show to me. It’s who can out-do the other. Who has the bigger brains, better ideas, and more money. Who can restore our America, a country that use to stand for freedom and Independence.

I fear that our leaders have confused the idea of justice. Our leaders have gotten caught up in the deceptive lies they’ve told us, where justice now means creating wars to make others pay for our suspicions. Justice means watching billions of dollars waste away on false notions of “weapons of mass destruction.” Justice now means, being fair and reasonable to the suppliers of our military weapons and commander-in-chief (which is undeserving of capital letters stating importance).

I can’t see myself living in a democratic country that believes, freedom and independence means instating their rules on other countries, in hopes of providing them with a democratic nation. If we as intelligent and educated Americans in the 21st Century, can’t seem to figure it out, what makes our leaders think other countries will be able to better themselves. We can’t even truthfully state what our current economic failures are, using the word recession, in place of what it truly is, or at the least on the way towards, a depression.

I don't want anything to change. I would freeze time if I could stay in that serene instant. Feeling the cool touch of wind hit my bare skin. Looking at the glistening stars thousands of miles away, but feeling like they are within inches. Everything is simple. Everything, even down to the effortless sounds of the crickets and bats as they attend to their nightly endeavors. Nothing feels like it can disturb my moment of bliss. For that second, I don't have to be anywhere, because there's nowhere better. My body is free of the debilitating stress, that's been beating it down all day. I am free. I am rid of all bearings.

Why can't I keep this feeling? Why does it only last a few moments of everyday?

Why am I so unhappy?

I feel like I'm constantly being pushed down, taken for granted, losing hope, and just when I get over the perpetual beat down, I regain hope and strength and stand up...only to experience it again. I'm not saying that I can't take the continual disappointment, but I can't take the fact that there's no end to my tunnel, and there's clearly no light.

Maybe it really is as easy as letting love rule. Maybe love does conquer all, all if you believe that love can be that powerful.

Maybe, love is worth giving up anything and everything.

There will be hard times, and bad days, but the love that's being shared in between those terrible times, seems to be worth it all.

Love can be so strong, that it can diminish all wrong. The only time love doesn't repair its broken threads, is when the love is gone. Unfortunately, the way it seems to work is that the love leaves one person and not both at the same time.

I have to believe in love. I still, whether its based on fairy tales or not, I still believe that some people love each other so much, and honor each other so much, that they will not stray away from one another. I'm resistant to being a product of my own making. I can not and will not follow the same footsteps as my parents.

I can't sit here any longer, pretending that I don't need love. Pretending that I will be happy and content alone. Trying to convince myself that I won't get hurt if I'm alone. Because the reality is, if there's any chance of falling out of love, I will get hurt. I will be the one to invest anything and everything, and risk it all on love. I am the gambling romantic that has all of her chips on love, risking it all.

I risk it all on love, but when I'm hurt, I know its real. I know that I gave it my all and for me, it was real. Unfortunately, my love is so real that the pain is just as real.

I don't regret an ounce of the love I gave or received. Therefore, I don't think it's possible to say that love ever steered me in the wrong direction. I can't regret any of the situations I've been in, involving love.