The other night I was talking to a friend. He broke up with his girlfriend about a month ago, but they’re existing as roommates until the end of May. We hadn’t talked in a while, and I told him a little about my current situation. He’s a good listener, didn’t push for more information than I was willing to give. I feel like he respected the fact that I was hurt and that was all I was really willing to say about things. I appreciate it when people allow me to just talk without telling me what to do. After a while, I get sick of my own voice and the story I’ve been telling to people for the last week, then I make the changes. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate when people suggest things, and really that’s what I need. I have to force myself to do the things that I know will make me feel better because my mind is vehemently opposed to doing anything other than wearing sweatpants and drinking wine from the bottle.

Anyway, he asked if I listened to Gotye. Because I’m an ignorant baby when it comes to new music, I said no.  He suggested a song titled “Someone That I Used to Know”” because it’s a perfect breakup song. Turns out this song is apparently played all the time on the radio. I had no idea. I told him it sounded terribly sad and that I probably didn’t want to hear it. But since I’ve started my own version of immersion therapy, I did. The idea is to listen to the saddest things for as long as possible to see how long it takes before I break down. A week ago, it took about two seconds of hearing a Taylor Swift song before I was having a hiccup-inducing sob. Yesterday, it took about eight hours of listening to Gotye and Fiona Apple to produce a quiver of the lip and the welling of tears.

Anyway, I watched the music video for the song and it hurt from the first twenty seconds. I mean that it hit me in my stomach and I felt this heaviness on my chest like somebody had placed a stack of textbooks on it and told me to take shallow breaths. It just stopped me.  My diaphragm felt tight. My arms were sluggish. I kept wanting to look away from the sadness and desperation in the guy’s face. I wanted to look away from his crooked teeth. I lost it as soon as he sang “But that was love and it’s an ache I still remember.”

I was wondering the other night about that. What am I supposed to do with that now? It was love. It is love. I have this enormous amount of love and compassion for this person, but there is virtually nothing I can do with it. What happens to that? Does is it just slowly fade away to nothing? Will it always be a part of me? The ache feels like this nebulous cloud that takes up space throughout my entire body since my flesh still remembers so many details. I have this idea that over time, it will begin to compress. All of these thin, mass-less sort of feelings and memories that I have will condense and compress into a marble that will sit as a part of me until somebody else awakens them. At that point they’ll just explode and I’ll be reminded of him and all the good times. But then these will be plastered over by new memories with someone else.

A week ago, the thought of that would have made me crumble. It still hurts. The thought of being touched, of being kissed, of being loved, or being in any way involved with anyone other than Bill revolts me at this point. I feel a twist of my guts, thinking about letting those feelings and memories go. Being in a relationship means you hang onto those things. They’re important not because they’re earth-shattering, but because they’re a part of the two of you. They’re part of the thing you’ve created. But once you’re no longer in that thing, they lose that importance. In fact, you’re encouraged to push them. Nobody goes so far as to say that you should forget them, but they say that they it will get easier. By easier, they mean you’ll remember it less and less. You won’t be forced to think so often of the incredible friend you’re losing.

So, while I’m keeping busy by seeing friends and doing things (tonight I’m going to a record release party, tomorrow I’m going to shoot a gun), I am acutely aware of this thing I’m trying to balance. I’m afraid that by being too busy, I will suppress the bad feelings and never actually deal with what needs to be dealt with. But I’m also afraid that if I dwell too much on it, I’ll enjoy my pity party too much and never move forward.

For now, I’m glad for my friends who have the amazing ability to tolerate my pity party while being both supportive and encouraging me to move on with my life in healthy ways. You’re all incredible people.

I was going to write a big resentful post about how before yesterday, my blog had received no more than 36 views on a post. And then yesterday’s post got 104. I was going to whine for five or six paragraphs about how I’m vulnerable and all you strangers are feasting on my pain.

Then I remembered it’s my own damn blog and I capitalized on my own vulnerability.

In other news, the Chimpanzee movie was clearly made for children, but I really enjoyed it.

About two months ago, I got bored and decided to cut my hair. I don’t  mean that I took a pair of scissors to my head, I mean that I went into a salon (Mastercuts, because I’m not rich), and told the stylist with awful hair that I wanted to change my hair style. After seeing some old episodes of 30 Rock, I decided that I wanted to go from my mid-back layered goddess hair to a Liz Lemon-styled collarbone bob. The result was a strange shoulder-ish length thing with a bunch of layers I didn’t really know what to do with. I should be more assertive when people (strangers) are messing with my appearance, but I’m not. Out of what I call politeness, I watched while the girl teased my crown and arrange the hair over the matted bump-it to camouflage any semblance of a part.

I liked it for about a week before I started missing my long hair. If I didn’t style the short style, I looked like a confused thirteen-year-old. It’s simply not appropriate for a confused twenty-four-year-old.

I turned to Pinterest for inspiration only to find that the latest craze in hair styling was the sock bun which requires longer hair. I decided to try braids which made me look like an elementary school child. I tried a french twist which immediately fell out. I tried a side-ponytail which was a failure. I tried the bang poof which deflated. I tried curling it in smaller curls which made me look like I was attempting a strange white-girl fro. I tried straightening it which only made me look like that stylist. My long hair gave my confidence, making me feel womanly and powerful. I felt sexy twisting it into a chignon, only to pull the pin out a few hours later, letting the hair fall down my back in big barrel curls.

This haircut has prompted an episode of self-loathing. I look in the mirror and see a chubby-faced girl whose eyebrows need plucking. I don’t see the beautiful college grad who only needs a pair of pumps, a coat of mascara, and a flush of blush to feel ready. I see everything that’s wrong with me – my flabby arms, the pimple on my cheek, the bra strap that constantly falls off my shoulder, the weird spot on my earlobe, and the way my nose is too round.

Frankly this is pissing me off. I look virtually the same as I did two months ago, minus about six inches of hair. Why do I allow one change affect my self-image so much? It’s a haircut. It’s not permanent. I’ll take daily vitamins and wait for my hair to grow. I’ve heard that it takes a lot of confidence to rock a short hairstyle. I always thought that was in reference to pixie cuts and short bobs, but apparently it’s true for the shoulder-length ones too.

It’s shaken me up more than I’d like to acknowledge. I think that confidence is closely tied with accomplishment, so I tried to examine when I feel I’ve accomplished something. I started to think of significant things – like completing a draft of a short story, finishing a 400-page book, or biking 20 miles on a sunny day. Then I tried to think about the small daily accomplishments I’ve had – participating in discussions in classes or finishing an assignment before the due date. Since I’m no longer in college, I had to think of other things. These things sort of bothered me. I like baking and decorating cookies. I like to paint my nails. On weekends when I don’t have anything to do, sometimes I’ll sit in front of the mirror, putting on makeup and curling my hair just so my day doesn’t feel like a waste.

So my day doesn’t feel like a waste? It’s like I use my appearance as a consolation. “You didn’t do anything today, but you sure look good!”

I have goals. I want to lose twenty pounds. I want to bike 100 miles. I want to read War and Peace. I want to learn about biological anthropology. I want to publish essays and stories. I want to publish a book. I want to have a successful writing career.

Instead of doing these things, I make myself look pretty. I could blame society and all its evils that tell girls their worth is in their appearance, but frankly, I’m not willing to use that as an excuse. It’s too easy to absolve myself of responsibility. The fact is that I’m not always willing to put in the hard work to accomplish the things I dream about. It’s easier to make my face look pretty than it is to sit down in front of my computer and force myself to write. It’s easier to complain about a bad haircut than to face the fact that I’m not willing to face my writer’s block. It’s easier to give my boyfriend three dozen cookies than to admit that to publish anything, I’ll have to submit work that will probably be rejected by a dozen small presses. I need to constantly remind myself that great things don’t come without a great deal of work. Great things don’t come to those who wait – they come to those who work their butts off.

So instead of having a pity party because my hair is shorter than I wish, I’m going to throw on a headband, and write a draft of that story that’s been bouncing around in my head for weeks.

I got an e-mail from somebody at the university inviting me to write an essay on the subject “This I Believe”. Don’t get excited for me, it wasn’t a personal invitation, but rather a mass e-mail to the university community, inviting us all to participate in this project. It’s a small part of a national project, where people write a short (350-500 word) essay about what they believe. It’s an opportunity for both publication and for recording.

I got excited about it. I had heard about this project month’s ago, through This American Life. The essays featured on that podcast were This I Used to Believe, which inherently have more purpose since the concept itself necessitates a conflict. If you’ve spoken to me in the last seven months, you know that I’m mildly obsessed with the show. The best $3 I’ve spent in the last year was on the archive app. But anyway, that episode was one that really stuck with me.

So I started thinking about topics for the essay. I was at work, so I jotted down concepts on post-it notes, and by the end of the day, I had four of them filled with terrible ideas. At the end of the day, I threw them in my purse and have since lost them. I was hoping for something quietly brilliant – something most people encounter during their lives and something I could also personalize. Basically, I wanted to write a good personal essay. Which is what I always want to do.

I’m still stumped though. What do I believe in? Right now, I believe in sitting at a cafe and drinking both coffee and chai. I also believe in listening to Goldfrapp on crappy headphones. I also believe it’s strange that at the table over, there are two guys having what looks like a business meeting on a Sunday morning. These are awful topics to write about, even to mention in a silly blog, so I’m trying to ask myself more specific questions: What are my

I believe that I’m responsible for my life and destiny. I’m a little bothered by the word destiny since it implies a sort of fatalism, and I’m not sure I believe in that either. I think that things happened and we’re all forced to play with the cards we’re dealt (and to use cliche metaphors, apparently). I believe in tolerance of other lifestyles and belief systems. I believe in maturation – I find great comfort in the fact that people are dynamic. We’re notcore beliefs? What gets me through the day?