I’m currently working on a three or four part post for here on something that I think really needs to be brought to peoples attention. It might be a bit before I actually post it since I am not gonna do a half-assed job on it, I’m putting lots of thought and research into this and stuff ^^

~Mari

And I’m soo sorry!. Ive been caught up in my life here, spending less time online, more time sleeping, etc. etc. I will begin posting regularly again… I had a moment where I didn’t even want to write anything for a few days, but now I am getting over it. ^_^ I’m feeling more creative and thoughtful and such. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually begin to write poetry and stories again instead of only writing my thoughts and experiences. A mixture of both would be nice – it is what I had on my previous journal.

Anyways, I wanted to apologize for leaving without any word, and to let all my awesome xanga-friends know that I will be checking up on all the entries I have missed, commenting on them and such, hopefully within a day or two. It was bad timing for a break, but I needed it and I’m glad to be back, again.

In other news.. I’ve made some important decisions and revelations, and I have decided to set myself on a better path in my life. Here’s hoping it works out.

~Mari  (I’m not sure if I like this heart or not.. <_<;; I’m used to just doing <3 when I am in a heart mood.)

Today does not feel like a day to talk about what I have done recently, the mundane motions I go through in every day life, things I watch or read or listen to. What I eat or wear or drink. No. Today I’m doing something I don’t do often and I am delving into the past. Because right now, as depressed as I am, I feel very blessed.

I have met some amazing people in my 22 year tenure on this earth. I have also met some horrible people. I have met people who I never want to meet the likes of again and I have met people who I hope to be like someday.  I’m gonna write about some of those good people right now.

Right now I am focusing on when I was in Job Corps and when I was in Florida, because those four years or so were very turbulent. There was a lot of emotional turmoil and there was a lot of unsteadiness.

Irmi was a friend, and a mother, and a wonderful person. She provided guidance and companionship and friendship to a girl she had never met before, let me stay at her place on weekends when I had been kicked out of my home, fed me, let me watch her children for some extra money, and let me practice my german with her. She hardly knew me and she trusted me with that open heart of hers. I’ll never forget her.

One weekend I was staying at a friends place and they were out of food, broke until the next payycheck came along. She was pregnant and her family would not help her out, so her fiancee and I walked a mile and a half to a supermarket to panhandle some money for food. We asked one young woman, who, it turned out, was coming in for her shift at the store. She heard the story and bought us 70 dollars worth of food, and gave us bus money for the trip back to the apartment. I never found out her name.

Sean was a boy I met when I first moved to Florida. I found myself without a place to stay, and he gave me the key to his apartment while he was away on vacation for a month. I had a roof over my head, food, a shower every day. I also had a computer and access to the internet, so I could find a job and a good place to live. He helped me out quite a bit when I was in florida.

Cathy offered me a job as a housekeeper and a dog-sitter after Sean came back. She also offered me a room in her house, with her husband and their handyman. I was with them for about four months, until her husbands alzheimers got worse and he decided to fire me without warning one day. Even though that ended up in me being homeless yet again, I still thank them for the time I spent there.

One time (I was still living with Cathy) while I was visiting a friend on the weekend, I lost my wallet. I had no money and therefore the bus I was waiting on wasn’t gonna offer me a ride to that friends house. Some random person saw me walking around in what turned out to be a really bad neighborhood, and stopped his car. I trusted my instincts and got in. He bought me lunch, gave me fifty dollars, and took me to my friends house. I never saw him again, and I don’t even know his name, but he was another good person.

After Ron (Cathy’s husband)  fired me I had 25 dollars to live off of. I ended up making my way back to the apartment complex Sean stayed in, since I had made several friends there (this was also where my at the time boyfriend lived, but I couldn’t stay with him, that had gotten me into the whole mess to begin with). One of them offered me a place to stay for a night, and the use of internet, and a ride to the next person I met. His name was Vic. He was a criminal justice lawyer and had a really big house. I stayed with him for a week, and that week was very fun. The first night I was with him he took me out to go see a movie.

By the next week I had acquired a job with some amazing people, Jack and Nannette. I ended up staying with them for almost six months, I loved it there and there were many times I had wished I never left there to move in with my ex again. Anyways, they were moving from houston to orlando, and wouldn’t be here for another week, so I needed to find another place to stay, Vic was leaving on vacation and he couldn’t just leave me there alone.

Dave and Christine were very cool people. They didn’t have a big place, and they offered me a place for a week if I would just kind of clean up a little (they were renovating) I had fun there, they were really good people and accepted me in like they would have a good friend.  I stayed with them until Jack and Nannette came and picked me up.

There are so many other stories I could tell. So many other wonderful people who have touched my life in big and small ways to make it better, but I will stop here. I want to thank all these people even though chances are I will never see or hear from them again. You made me believe in humanity again, you made me hope that someday people would be better than they are now, and some of you probably saved my life. Thank you.

~Mari

NO WAY!
So, yesterday I read Spideys entry on How to get a Date(nerd edition) and it was awesome. He had a link in there to his blog entry on nerds. (insert link here. Good grief three links just in the first paragraph. I feel like a link whore or something o_O;) Anyways, I clicked the link and proceeded to check it out. I love nerds. Honest to god, out of the 5 guys and 6 girls I have ever dated only three of them have not been total nerds. And those three were pretty damn close to being what you could consider a nerd. I don’t know why I like them so much, I guess they have always just fascinated me, and I felt a pretty deep connection to them in liking similar things and being able to understand their cute quirks. I think nerds are hawt.

Basically the entry was about seeing if you are a nerd, it has a bunch of things that you add up points for and then you total it up at the end and see how you rate on the scale. I tallied up my score at the end, and to my surprise it was really high. I ended up going over it again with my roommate, because I scored higher than him (he is a complete nerd. Theres no romantic connection there, but he is a fucking awesome person and he’s way cool.)  and he thought I had gotten my score wrong. Well, it turned up had I miscounted and left something off. We counted it up again and my score ended up 30 points higher.

I have ALWAYS wanted to be a Nerd Grrl. I never strove to be one, because I try to keep true to myself and the things I like, but always thought it would be cool if I was one. Sadly, no one has ever considered me one and I’ve never considered myself one.

So, my total amount of nerd points was 168, which gave me this result:
96-110+: Wow. You’re nerdtastic. You probably speak Klingon, have an internet girlfriend [yes. and an internet boyfriend too], find programming and math a great way to spend a Friday night, and suffer from a lack of vitamin D, since you never get any sunlight [well, yeah, but only because sunlight hurts*]. You also enjoy reading or writing fan-fiction [yup, both. and original fiction too, of course]. I highly suggest some sort of socialization. This much nerdery might bad  for your physical or emotional growth and well-being.

My roommate got 134 after we recounted everything. He’s still in shock that I beat him, bwahahahahaha.

Anyways, I never realized how much of a nerd I was until I did this. Seriously. There’s so many nerdy things I have done and still do and I guess I just never even thought about it. Maybe I’m one of those nerds who thinks they aren’t a nerd? Iunno. Needless to say, I’m tickled at this. I can honestly call myself a Nerd Grrl now!

If people want me to (pft yeah, right) I’ll post everything I got points for up here in an edit. Hahaha. Funness.

(*I’m very sensitive to light, sunlight especially, bright light gives me horrible migraines. I still go out and stuff, jsut not as often as most people do. )

~Mari

11:30 pm
So, today was an interesting day. Depression and pessimism have pervaded my thoughts for some time now, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to clear them from my head for a while. I mean, I’m fucking bi-polar, so I know I cant just erase them completely.. but I’ve been manic for a while and the transition is always harsh on me. I hate it. The highs keep me alive and while I know the lows come with them its just… Goah. *sighs* It’s hard.

Anyways, nephyo, my roommate of awesomeness, and I hung out a LOT today. It started with a trip to Circuit City – which is currently going out of business (still not cheap enough to buy too many things honestly, xD) – and that was a failure.. I mean; seeing all the things we wanted but can’t afford just really put both of us in a worse mood. So instead of going home and being depressed at home, we decided to go out, maybe watch a movie, etc. Take our minds off of it.

Well we went out to eat, looked at movies but most of the places around here are expensive. The only cheap theaters have a pretty shitty selection.  Neither of us wanted to go home though, so after spending a long time chatting around the table we ate at, we got back in the car and drove. We were driving for about two hours, no real destination, jsut went as far away from home as we could go since he has work tomorrow.

It was fun. It was nice. Driving around areas we had no clue where anything was gives you lots to talk about. I learned a lot more about him and he learned a lot more about me. Jsut driving, listening to music, and talking. It’s a very relaxing thing. No rush, no sense of needing to be anywhere.  We talked about whatever the hell came to our minds, watched the different cities we came by, watched the snow… and just hung out.

No one ever tells you how hanging out with someone who is as depressed as you are can actually help. Knowing you aren’t the only one feeling like that. Having enough trust to talk truthfully about things like that. No hiding it because you know they will know its bullshit. You’re on a similar vibe and its comforting, even if a bit disconcerting. It is almost as if part of the reason it is such a comfort is because you’re a little put off. That small bit of discomfort makes it real. It means that you are human and this is happening, and you don’t really wanna stop. You’re okay with it.

Or maybe I’m the only one who feels that way. I don’t know.

So we drove around for a long time. Got a long way from home, picked a completely random exit (It was Crawfordville road, and I remember making a joke about wanting it to be named Crawfishville road. I re-named it that in my head. A laugh was had.) and it surprisingly turned out to go to a pretty nice town or whatever. I think it was called Speedway because that was what was on the cop cars. (No duh. xD) We drove. Went to a gas station for a pit-stop and then just explored for a bit before heading back home in a completely different direction. Thank god for GPS or we could have been lost forever.

Not really actually, there’s a very big road that ran through it and so we kinda knew where to go, just weren’t sure which direction to take. xD

So anyways, it was nice. Just.. driving. No purpose, no destination, no pressure or urgency. Driving and talking and learning more about a friend. Listening to music and not worrying about a schedule or the time, places you have to be or things you have to do. Not really caring where you are or where you are going or where you have been.

And it isn’t as if my depression is cured, that I’m miraculously all okay, but it was a really nice break from life. It was a good distraction for those hours. A nice way to waste time without feeling like that is what you are doing, and to take your mind away from the depression without sinking lower into your head.

I like driving. Well, I don’t like driving, I hate being behind the wheel of a car, but I do like driving like we did tonight. It’s fun.

~Mari

Okay so yesterday/today was a pretty good day.  Im in a really bad mood though, a stupid fucking ZIPPER set me off and my mood has been worsening since. so I’ll write an actual entry tomorrow or whenever the fuck I am feeling well enough to do so.

Geez, I’m pissed. And depressed. Its a bad combination.

If there is one thing I can say I have always, consistently done throughout my life, it is to accept and appreciate the experiences I have been through. Regardless of bad or good, painful or pleasurable, simple or complicated. I was very, very young when I promised myself to have no regrets, and amazingly enough, that has been the one constant thing in my life. It didn’t matter what I did, what was done to me, who I hurt or who hurt me. Nothing I have done have I ever regretted. (is that worded right? I cant tell… stupid cough medicine)

Until recently, that is. And, I can’t honestly even say that because I didn’t actually regret anything, but I thought I would. I was worried I could. The past couple weeks have had me thinking about the reason why I stopped writing. The things that happened to me, the hell I went through and all the pain imbued in those memories and I wanted to forget… I was starting to regret things because even in the better times it was always bad.

That probably sounds pretty ambiguous. Hmm. Okay, let me lay it out for you.  Basically, last year – in about late august, early september – I had a traumatic experience that changed me. It tore my heart out, slashed at my soul, invaded my privacy and in the end almost kept me from ever writing again. (If you want to know what I am talking about, click here.)

That incident has been on my mind increasingly as of late, and has kept me from writing yet again. I kept wondering why it ever happened, why I had to go through that shit, why me?

Before I go any farther, I need to say thank you to two people. The first one is TheBigShowAtUD, who listened to me rant and talked it out with me. He helped me come to a conclusion that I needed to come to and he’s the reason I’m writing this right now. (even though I am writing it for me. ) The second person is Legendairy, who also listened to me and offered support.

Okay, accolades are done for now lets get back to the subject.

After much thinking, and much talking, and many very sly pushes in the right direction, I realized why. I said it when I wrote about it, and I literally facepalmed upon realization of the reason I had not to regret what happened. My reason is this: if that had never happened, If I had not gone through that one particular, horrible experience.. I would still be trapped. I would be living with people who abused me mentally, emotionally, and physically. I would still be forced to steal every day just to eat. I would be locked in my own house unless given permission and I would be an obedient little slave. Just like I was back then. Having my privacy violated did one good thing – it broke my trust.

It made me see that these people I called friends and owners couldn’t be trusted and in the end, it gave me the courage to escape. It gave me the courage to walk out the door, barefoot and with nothing but the clothes on my back and my drivers license in my pocket, and walk a mile and a half to the nearest place I could go. It gave me the courage to let someone I used to dislike help me to safety. It gave me a whole new idea of the meaning of trust, and it made me realize that not everything is my fault. That maybe, just maybe, I’m not the one to blame for everything that goes wrong.

I was looking for a reason not to regret it, and even though what happened to me made it so much harder to write, it made me enjoy writing less, and work harder to achieve a level I used to be able to achieve so easily….
That one, painful incident made me escape. My reason.

I have no regrets about what has happened to me. None, whatsoever. I can’t say I’m happy it happened, but I understand. I know it had to happen or I would be stuck, and honestly, maybe dead right now.

I do not regret anything that has happened to me or anything I have done even the tiniest bit. A lot of the things weren’t always good, a lot of them were painful to me and other people, and a lot of them were stupid. I’ve done some pretty horrible things in my life, and had some pretty horrible things done right back to me. But I do not regret any of it. I cannot change the past and if I regret things that have happened I am forcing myself to live in the past instead of moving on to the future. It is demeaning my experiences and the things I have learned from them.

So. Again, I say it. And I say it with a smile because I know it for sure and I’ve worked things out. I have no regrets.

And that is how I plan to live my life for the rest of it.
Complete acceptance and No Regrets.

~Mari

I am sick. It sucks. No this is NOT the end of my entry.

I am not used to this, because this isnt normally how I get sick. Growing up, when I got sick, I got SICK. Tonsillitis (so bad I almost could not breathe), strep throat, and the flu all within weeks of each other. Stomach flu lasting two weeks, a couple times. Really bad ear infections, bronchitis. Influenza with a temperature of 104.5. All this before I was fifteen. Walking pneumonia twice, and almost a third time, when I was sixteen. Chronic bronchitis, sinusitis, asthma, many other things.

But I wasn’t a sickly child. Quite the opposite actually. I had a year of being pretty sick, constant sinus infections mostly, with a few very serious things. But for one to three years after – nothing. perfectly healthy. Even when I was sick I would be fairly active and upbeat (ADHD, need I say more?) – even when I had pneumonia, that was what kept me out of the hospital.

During my entire time growing up, not once did I ever get a cold.

When I was 19 and in Job Corps I got sick. Horribly sick. I was miserable, I was lethargic – which is rare for me, I was in pain and I had never, ever been sick like this before. It felt worse than the damned walking pneumonia. I was pretty scared. Imagine my surprise when I went to the medical building, was seen by a doctor, and told that I had a COLD. The look of shock on my face prompted a question from him. “You’ve never had a cold before…?” I said no. He blinked, and laughed.  Honestly I did too – well, I did until it sent me into a coughing fit.

I have had infections that could kill someone, and should have put me in the hospital, and didn’t even blink. Yet there I was, literally crying, from a measly cold. Hilarious. Annoying. Painful. Aggravating. My body didn’t know how to react, I was told. I grew up in fairly small towns, not around a lot of people, since I tend to be a loner. I had my own bedroom once I turned 15, and stayed in it most of the time. Now I was living in a facility with over 650 students, I shared a fairly small room with three other girls, and a dorm with about 80 other girls. Yeah, it was bound to happen.

The doctor told me my body wasnt used to it. It might sound weird but it makes sense to me. My body has been used to dealing with severe things, and when something so simple as a cold finally wormed its way into my immune system it didn’t do shit. I can jsut imagine my white-blood cells talking to each other, “What’s this?” “Oh some little piece of virus or something, it’ll go away on its own. If it doesnt we’ll jsut deal with this later.”

Then BAM it hits. Literally. I went from sniffling and a slight headache to a full-blown, in your face cold in less than one day. Overnight.

It lasted two weeks. I was miserable. Especially because it happened to hit on those two weeks of my BREAK. Why couldn’t it have gotten me while classes were still in session?

Anyways, I digress. I had sincerely hoped to never experience it again. not only because its miserable being this sick, but its embarrasing. I have survived walking pneumonia TWICE. I survived a horribly dangerous case of Influenza when I was 13 – I didnt even go to the hospital like I should have, I mean come on, 104.5 is fucking dangerous as hell. Just like I didnt with the pneumonia although the doctor told me I should. We couldn’t afford to, we could barely afford the doctor visits, and I didn’t want to. I lived.  Yet when I had that cold I wanted to bawl my eyes out and sleep forever. Sheesh. Pathetic. I remember thinking I’d rather die than ever have a cold again. I was serious.

I bet you’ve all guessed why, exactly, I am writing this entry. Yep, that’s right. I have a cold. Again. It’s kicking my ass. This one’s actually worse than the last one, especially because I cant sleep well. Guh. I hate being sick. I hate knowing that a stupid little cold is kicking my ass right now. I feel like crying, I have ever since I woke up the day before yesterday, realizing I was suddenly a LOT sicker than I had been the day before. I haven’t been well for a while though. This is one of those sick years. It sucks. Grrrrr…..

Stupid colds.

I may love the cold, but I hate colds. Colds really suck.

Yeah. I’m on medicine right now. About to make some more theraflu. Maybe take some nyquil because I’m tired and I wanna sleep and I can’t sleep. My throat is dry and sore, and breathing hurts, not my lungs but my nose and my throat. Guh. Sickness sucks. I hope I get over it soon. Really soon. I can’t afford to go to the doctor for a stupid cold.

Stupid colds.

~Mari

my roommate made me do it. blame him.

I really shouldn’t be writing right now. My hormones are whacked up, it’s past 3 am, I have no coherent train of thought to follow, I’m jumping between incredibly manic and extremely depressed… But I feel like writing so I will. Whatever comes out of it… blah. xD I cant even bring myself to finish that damned sentence. Like I said, no coherent train of thought. Although I can remember that sentence pretty well…  (Why is it that when I misspell ‘like’ as ‘liek’ the word I mean to say isn’t even on the spell-check list in Firefox?)

I have a feeling (just a vague one but a feeling nonetheless) that this might just be a random blurb about my thoughts and my mood swings and my mental whatevers.

Damn I’m already getting sleepy… I might just save this in wordpad and finish it later…. Curse you Xanga for not having a “Save Draft” button or something! It would be sooo much easier to write, knowing you can pick it up at a later time and finish it.. instead of having to open a document and type it in there, or whatever other things people do. (I personally am an idiot who writes my entry in the entry form, not bothering to save it to a document.. luckily, firefox has saved some of my entries for me when it crashed.. not always, but sometimes.. I don’t know how or why but I am thankful to it. Thank you Firefox for being full of Win. *bows her head*

Oh, I’ve been watching Invader Zim again. I loves that show. Its so stupid and childish and hilarious. GIR is adorable.

Yeah this is gonna be odd, the first thing I’ve written that is just randomness in my head being put on paper like… well not PAPER, but on the interwebz or whatever. I write crap like this in my journals all the time when I remember to keep them.. (usually I keep paper journals for a little more privacy, and because I use a desktop PC, and not a laptop (don’t have my own, lol)… don’t wanna get up just to write some crap down when I can write it in my journal and then type it out on my xanga or something)

I’ve been having some strange dreams lately… Oh, speaking of dreams. Yesterday.. well not yesterday as in the last time I woke up, but yesterday as in thursday, since I woke up at about one pm and this is still today even though technically its tomorrow and today simultaneously because when I wake up tomorrow it will still be today and not just because I call it today but because its today right now… Um.. oh yeah, anyways. Thursday I woke up from a “flashback” dream.

Basically, last year (2008) I did a lot of stuff. I’m not going to list it all right now, but various illegal substances, one of which was acid (aka LSD). The first time I ever used it, my now ex-boyfriend sent me into a bad trip. Well I say “a” bad trip as in the entire night after that was one long bad episode, but there were many, many trips (visions, dreams, what-have-you) within the bad trip I had. Now, that was my only ever bad trip. Every other time I did it I had great trips and it was very fun. (I do not do acid anymore, I saw it royally fuck up my friends and probably myself too, and even though its fun I know firsthand how it can change you and screw you up, how dangerous it is.)

Anyways, I get these “Flashbacks” sometimes. They could be triggered by a song I listened to on a trip that I hear in the present, a voice or phrase I hear, a scene in something I watched or played, numerous things. I hardly ever have them, however, unless I am dreaming. More often than not when I wake up from an acid dream its bad, its from that one bad night I had and all those bad trips I had during that night.

The thing about acid flashbacks is, you don’t only recall the things you saw and heard, you recall your feelings, your emotions, your thoughts and how your mind processed things at the time.

But they aren’t like they would normally be, because when you are on acid, these things are a thousand times stronger than they are when you are not on it. You are completely absorbed by these emotions, feelings, sights, sounds, thoughts. They are intense and mind-blowing in their strength and density, they completely and totally overwhelm you, and you cannot do anything but go along for the ride. Resistance is futile, because you cant even think about resisting.

On the occasion that I have a good flashback, I wake up feeling amazing. Happy, content, euphoric, giddy, loved, blinded by pleasant things, and having an orgasmic rush from the overabundance of positivity. The feeling can last for hours.

However, when I have a bad flashback from that one night… I break. Every single time. I wake up crying, sometimes screaming silently. The dream-trips in and of themselves seem harmless, not too sad, not too frightening. But the emotions associated with them in the trip are often frightening, sad, depressing, painful, empty, lonely. I can wake up sobbing, and empty, feeling like someone literally ripped my heart out, filled with pain and depression and emptiness, wondering why I am being forced to exist. Other times I wake up frightened out of my mind, my heart beating way too fast for way too long, my body in pain, my mind in pain, stifling screams of terror into my pillow and still crying. Nothing to be scared of, which makes it worse, not only while it is happening but afterwards too. Other times I wake up with a mixture of both.  I always feel isolated and alone, completely, totally alone, which is one of my worst fears. Not just being alone as in by myself, but feeling like I am the only thing in existence.

Just as with the effect of my good trips, the feelings can last for hours on end.

Needless to say, Thursday started out horribly. I’m honestly still feeling the effects of it. Thinking about it, my hearts beating faster and I start to feel that terror, the fear creep up into my chest.. Okay, no more thinking about it.. *sighs*

The mental scarring from that night comes back up to the surface each time it happens and its been happening increasingly more often. I guess it doesn’t help that I only stopped doing this when I moved to Indiana a few months back, and started it two or three months before that. It hasn’t been long at all… I did so much.. Hah. wow. yeah…..

Hmm.. this is the first time I’ve ever written about them. I’ve talked about them with people, but never actually written anything about my trip-flashbacks before. Honestly, I don’t even remember thinking about it when I started this silly thing…

Oh well.. I’m very sleepy now and just a little messed up from thinking too much.. *sighs* This was interesting and maybe some of you got a look into my fucked up head… although today I wasn’t really messed up mentally at all, I’ve been pretty damn good today, especially considering.. huh… Oh well!!

Um, talk to you guys later… I’m probably gonna be ashamed of this entry later, but I won’t take it down, I don’t think. I’ve gotten past doing that.

Tschau!
~Mari

(Yes, I bumped it. I finally wrote something that, although pretty useless and meaningless, I somewhat like.  Of course I want people to read it. )

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY!!!!!!