how are you?

i haven't been writing much, have i?

and when i do, i still haven't been writing all that much.

and i think i was optimistic in my last entry.

i'm 29 years old.

i have no idea what i am doing with my life.

my days are fuzzy and underwater.

i can't make myself write about it because i have somewhere along the way picked up an internal censor, chiding me for opening up my insides online in a diary that anyone can read.

maybe it was hearing from vika so many times how vain it is?

dismissive.

i feel like something's missing, though. i mean, not that this is intimate, but i miss opening myself up (even here) and having any kind of response. as if someone was listening.

it's like every minute now is how it is at 3am, on my steps, alone, smoking a cigarette, watching the clouds slide by, listening for trains and ships.

i think things, beautiful things, insightful things, things i want to tell.

but i can't remember how to reach out. and i can't remember how to write about it.

i can't imagine touching anyone else at all. the thought of it makes me hyperventilate.

i can't imagine being close to anyone at all, except for my brother or my mother.

i experience everything at 6 paces back.

being in iowa broke me a little. i met kim and was awkward and scared, unable to really talk to her, even though i liked her immensely.

i met todd and was even worse--i was awkward and scared and cruel.

and after that, i kind of gave up on myself i think.

i came here, i tried as hard as i could to open up, to engage in my life, to feel alive.

i have made the decision to move back to oakland because i fear it is the last chance i have to wake up, crack through my shell, break apart my boundaries.

i am terrified. if this doesn't work, i have nowhere else to go.

i will believe i have truly failed.

and then?

and then.

i don't know what. i am not thinking that far.

but i realized tonight that once again my life has, for all intents and purposes, been placed on hold. i am, again, looking forward to a moment of great change. i can't really plan for the future while i am here because my time here is limited.

and i can't really plan for my future in oakland because i don't really know what's going to happen when i get there.

so i am in this eternal limbo. this kind of graceless and artless in between where everything is fumbling and guesses.

and the part that kills me the most is the loneliness of it. the loneliness and nervous hands.

the wanting desperately to be able to share myself and be close with other people but understanding the danger of it.

the embarrassment of my cowardice and the yearning over and over again to be brave.

the sadness of realizing that all of it is the result of my own decisions, my fear, my lack of belief in my own worth, my certainty that everything i touch turns to stone.

my trusting the wrong people; my half-hearted belief in my abilities.

it's all me.

and i have been thinking about the ones i used to daydream about. and the ones i wish i could have shown myself to. why i want so badly to let someone in, but haven't been able to.

my downcast eyes and self-bitten lips.

it's all a mess, you know?

but i still have hope. i cannot lay that down.

i still believe that if i can just be brave enough, if i can just trust enough, things will be ok.

and that's something, right?

right now, though, i just wish i had the strength to make my bed.