I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

We all have that one ex who can play us for a fool. Never again. At this point in time, I almost feel like I WROTE this article- every word resonated with me. Brilliantly evocative.

Here I’ve strung together some excerpts that communicate the gist of this brilliant article for those who’re too lazy to read the whole thing. 

“I’m sorry to disappoint you with what is surely the shocking news that I will no longer be your emotional punching bag/shoulder to crysturbate on, but it’s true. It’s far more important now that I collect the slightly-tarnished pieces of my pride and delete you permanently from my address book, and my life. You should be proud of yourself, I guess, for making someone who loved you feel so pathetic over their inability to release themselves from your possession. That has to be an achievement by some standards, and I always considered myself a pretty independent person outside of this particular situation, so it’s not like winning me over in the first place was easy. That window of temporary insanity into which you inserted yourself with the precision of a cat burglar has, unfortunately for you, closed. I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by other people who love me — and don’t just say so when they’re looking for sex or to be coddled for a few hours — and they’ve reminded me that I am worth more than you could offer, even if you were trying.”

“Before you study abroad, they’ll warn you that it might take time for you to settle in, but nobody ever warns you that you might settle in so well that you don’t actually want to go back home. You feel guilty, because home is where the heart is, right? You’ve got a life back there. People to see. You’re missing countless birthdays of friends you’ve known your whole life, not just since the start of the semester. But now you’ve got a life over here as well. […] I love it so much here that I’ve taken to pretending I’m here forever. Or at least for four years. But as the semester begins to draw to a close, change is afoot, and I can’t pretend anymore.”

THIS. SO MUCH THIS. Ugh I’m still in denial because I just can’t face the fact that I have to leave Berkeley in a month… 

“You might think that my family’s native India would embrace its peoples’ beauty and spectrum of skin tones. Alas, you would be sadly mistaken. Skin bleaching is not an uncommon occurrence in many parts of Asia, nor is importing light-skinned actresses from Europe to play parts written for Indian women in Bollywood movies! Such knowledge is alarming; when a population fails to see the radiance of its own skin tones, that population makes it impossible to expect others to respect it, much less to find it beautiful.” THIS. 

continents:

Get stuck. Stay in one place your whole life. Always order vanilla even though the menu is four pages long. Become the type of person who sends back lattes. Save up your money for a plasma TV instead of a plane ticket. Talk a lot about things you know nothing about. Have an affair with someone you don’t even find attractive.

Refuse to forget your ex. Make it impossible for yourself to do anything without remembering that you used to do it with them. Hug your knees under the sheets and think about how safe you felt when they held you at night. Remind yourself daily of how empty you feel. Find new ways to make yourself sad.

Get drunk all the time. Consider no Saturday night, national holiday or extended happy hour complete without a vodka-induced breakdown. Graduate college but keep drinking like you’re still in it. Notice that cheap beer tastes watery and stale when you drink it alone but drink it anyway. Look at old Facebook photos wasted and wonder where everyone went.

Never drink. Never do anything that could potentially be “bad” for you. Treat your body like the temple it is and say no to carbs, yes to wheatgrass, go to bed at ten sharp and turn down cake on your birthday. Take fifteen different dietary supplements. Monitor carefully. Succumb to nothing. Miss out on everything.

Compare yourself constantly, to everyone. Allow the standards of image-obsessed, age-obsessed culture to make you feel decrepit at 25. Scroll through skinny girls on Tumblr feeling wistful and inadequate. Pull at the skin on your hipbones, stomach, and underarms in the mirror. Sigh a lot. Sigh all the time.

Don’t fall in love with anyone or anything. Put an impenetrable wall between yourself and other people. Add a fire-breathing dragon and eight yards of barbed wire. Be suspicious of everyone’s motives. Hold grudges long after you’ve forgotten what for.

Fall in love with everyone and everything. Run after the next best thing like it’s a bus you’re perpetually late for. Throw your heart into every other stranger’s hands and be genuinely surprised to be hurt. Refuse to learn. Refuse to ever learn.

“Emotionally… emotionally, I pay people to listen to my problems for 50 minutes a week and to run their hands over my body a few times a year, when the gulf between me and the human experience gets too unendurably vast. Emotionally, I write an anonymous blog and cry every time I hold a brand new baby.

Emotionally, I haven’t even kissed anyone since he left.”

Brilliant Thought Catalog article.

Remember that summer we didn’t eat? We felt absurdly large in our size four swimsuits and cutoff shorts, so we starved ourselves. We climbed over rocks and over backseats. We let the summer sun touch our new skin and the summer boys feel our new bodies. We felt the highest highs and the lowest lows, but we had each other to keep us strong so we would run out into the streets, take the back roads to a field, strip to our souls and scream to the sky.

Remember the fall we didn’t eat? We kept a firm diet of Adderall, cigarettes, and coffee. Our parents’ might have said something, but we were playing it too well. Grades didn’t falter, social lives thrived, friendships strengthened. Ours strengthened, even as our bodies wasted into clouds of dust and our vibrant personalities faded with the leaves.

Remember the winter we didn’t eat? We had to get creative, too many family dinners. We took those volunteer jobs at the daycare center hoping we would catch colds, a flu just in time for the holidays. When that didn’t work, we declared that it was the season for giving and spent our Thanksgiving and Christmas working at the food bank, feeding homeless people who most certainly had more to eat than either of us.

Remember the spring people caught on? Me 5’10” you 5’7”, we both weighed in at under 100 pounds, we were sent to facilities, separately, we were told we could no longer be each other’s best friend. When we heard that we promised to not eat until we could see each other, but that didn’t happen. We got better, codependency stripped from us.

Remember the next year, sitting in a diner when we finally talked about it? You were so much better than I was, but we were both trying, getting our lives on track. You said that cigarettes would kill me, a clinger-on from our past lives. We looked at our meals and said that we were strong enough to eat them; we realized that our love for each other didn’t depend on an eating disorder. We entered back into each other’s lives and this time we took up more physical space than emotional space. It felt liberating and warm. We laughed when we thought about how unreal that year had been, then two girls walked in and ordered hot cups of tea and complained that they had eaten too much the day before, one girl announcing that her diet of an apple and a coffee had left her bloated. We stopped laughing then. Looking at a mirror of our past didn’t seem so funny anymore.

Remember how you told me that even if someone recovers from an eating disorder and continues to live a healthy life they’re still 30% more likely to have a heart attack later in life? I told you that something else would get to us first. I watched you shrink, then I watched you grow back. I watched you run a marathon, and watched you eat a huge meal of pasta and bread that night at a celebration dinner. I watched you walk down the aisle from the vantage point of Maid of Honor. And I watched you collapse on your kitchen floor, as I ran for a telephone, frantically dialing 911. But today I will not watch you get lowered into the ground, because I can’t face you. I can’t face your family or your husband. Because I am selfish and I am weak, and I can’t forgive myself.

Remember all those years ago when I unintentionally embarked on a journey that would kill you? Because I do, and I am so sorry.

My Tumblr rant got published! :)

So my post bitching about being an international student at Cal got published by the Human Journal! And the ASUC saw it and asked my permission to use it for a play for their showcase ‘Perspectives!’

If you’ve never heard of The Human Journal (I hadn’t either), it’s a fledgling publication that aims to “break down stereotypes by giving students the chance to share their side of the story.” Check out their Facebook page and if you go to Cal, you can get a free copy on the ground floor of Eshelmann hall! The stories and poems I’ve read so far have been refreshingly real and honest, plus they have a little Postsecret-type note card thing on every page which I really liked.

Okay time to haul my ass to a library and start cramming Biochem. Just so excited to see my name in print and wanted to share with you guys… It’s been a while since that happened because I never have the time or inclination to write in college :(