“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of True Romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

"what you need is to feel free.."

Something about my current mind-set is off. It's half old, half new.
I could feel worse I suppose.

But fuck. That wasn't supposed to make me sad.

June seems too late
Delayed
Maybe for the better
Imagine us together
Relatively stable
Tentatively able
To say for certain
Whether this uncertainty
Is for sure

Human. Interaction.

I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes because people who care, even when they barely know me, are the nicest thing in the entire world. I'm so tired I can't word things the way I'd like to..but there really are SOME good people out there, and I'm so lucky I get to know a few of them. Thank you Lindsay, sometimes all you need is a new friend with new words.

Words, words, words.
They're everything.

things that make me happy as of 4/28/2010

the sidekicks, the turnpike and how perfect the postal service goes with it and nj skies always being perfect, goodnight/i love you texts from my best friend, cut offs all the time, sleeping in my clothes, the 90s feeling we're striving for all summer, ava house shows, govindas weekly, not planning on growing up ever, talks about chicago, "denise", bus rides, ipod & macbook again, abandoned houses, new friends that feel like you've hung out before, tigers jaw, friends in far away places, being remembered, hoods up, christmas lights year round, whistling, friendly strangers with southern accents (but only in the south), train tracks, dancing, one month til Kentucky with Ash, being dirty and not caring

"because a split second of a moment that holds time, could be worth a whole lifetime of waiting"

013.

This trip....well, I legitimately considered getting out of the truck and hitch hiking home from at least four different cities over the course of four days.

Just once I want to be able to enjoy my time on the west coast, but the minute I'm here I just want to come home. Oh well, at least it's not a real trip. I'll be home in five days and back to the place and people and things I love most. It's just sad that there is nothing here for me. It's the past and not a past I'm particularly fond of.

At least my best friend misses me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edi_Oato70Q&feature=player_embedded

012.

Occasionally I'll stick my hand, arm, head, body out the car window in attempt to remind myself that I'm alive.
Tonight is the first night it didn't work. It wasn't enough.
I don't know what that means. All I can do is hope its just a temporary malfunction.

I'm getting better at whistling lately. I've always been able to, I don't know why I've even noticed this. I just really enjoy good whistlers now. Myself included.
..I am so weird.

I'm upset with myself for current being in a hotel in Indiana and not taking it for all it's worth. I want my friends. If they were here in this room with me, I'd feel so so alive.

Always something to complain about, never enough.


If I had a roof like this I'd be permanently happy:

falling off

"I know you already said you weren't mad, I just want to make sure a crazy girl isn't going to come between us. You're my best friend and I need you, k? k, love you"

There's not a lot that matters. But you, you matter.

I don't need anyone who doesn't want me or make an effort to be a part of my life.
I have a lot to offer, and the ones that see that stick around.

011.

Today/tonight I am in a wonderful place.
I can feel it, I can get there..I'm almost there.
I'm about to be so, so happy.

"and you're so sweet for reminding me of all that i can do alone."

Also, my mommy's plane just landed. I feel like I'm 6, I'm so excited to see her.
I hope we get along- that's always in question.

Connections connections everywhere :)

010.

I think I just understood something.
Not why anything happened..
just why I've felt like this for weeks now.
I changed. Not in a bad way or a good way.
I just saw different options for the first time.
I questioned everything I thought I always wanted.
And I lost a little part of myself, left it behind.


But really, nothing in the world matters other than this song.



And nights 2 months ago with Stace where I was so happy and the littlest things entertain us.

009.

I truly do love my life and what I'm about and I'll be totally happy again some day.

There's someone who's has asked me to hangout literally every day since I got back from North Carolina. A few months ago I would of been so excited at the idea of getting to know him. We've still yet to hang out, I'm full of excuses. It's for a lot of reasons, but still I'm my own worst enemy. I guess a part of it is just don't have the effort to get to know someone, to throw myself completely under the bus into the unfamiliar. I stick to all my best friends because they already know me. It's easier when I don't have to speak or when I can say anything and it's just well...comfortable. Right now most days the idea of having to make an effort to entertain someone feels like too much pressure for me into push myself into. I want change but I'm not willing to do what it takes, again...I do this to myself.

As sad as I feel most days and as messed up as some of my entries have me sound.. those are really me at my worst, I really do still love my life. It's just getting caught up in figuring how where to go next that pulls that feeling away from me. I live a lot more than most people do. I see things, experience things..things that some people never will. I love the way I live, I'm excited for all the rest of the days I get to know. I'm alive and I won't be forever, I know I'll make the most of my time. It's just totally convincing myself that nothing other than what I have right now, who is a part of my life everyday matters. You don't need anyone, you don't need anything. Life will end and none of this will have mattered. So I can go on afterall.

"Well take me, take me back to your bed. I love you so much that it hurts my head. Say I don't mind you under my skin. I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in. When we were made we were set apart. Life is a test and I get bad marks. Now some saint got the job of writing down my sins. The storm is coming, the storm is coming in."

The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me will always mean so fucking much to me.

008.

I don't want to hate anyone.
I just don't want to care anymore.

I'll always be somewhere in the background. In so many ways.
I just need to be needed, and right now I'm not.
So this is goodbye. Maybe until the future (whenever that may be), maybe until tomorrow, maybe forever.

I'm going on with my life in the only ways I know how.

Earlier Ashley was telling me how I've helped her. How my views and opinions and thoughts have altered her in the course of a year. How I've helped her realize she doesn't need anyone to be happy, that you have to stop waiting and wishing and move on and everything will come together eventually. I've always believed that. I've never needed anyone. And I'm so glad that the things I say actually have made a difference, even if just to her. Even if she's the only person in the world I've ever given good advice, at least I made some kind of small difference in someone's life.

I just wish I could take my own advice. I wish I could follow the words again that I've always believed.

007.

Trying very hard not to let myself fall back down. I swear it's being in this town, that annoying drive back, this house. I just constantly need something to look forward to. And now that this amazing weekend is over, well the end just came too soon.

Friday afternoon until about 7 am this morning though, were exactly what my life is about. Exactly what I live for. Absolutely wonderful.

Philadelphia, Ava house shows, late night walks (skips/hops/runs) and talks with a best friend, getting stuck in the rain, Johnny Rocket's, train rides, hardwood floors, my car pulling through and making it all the way to Brooklyn, swearing (for the second time) never to drive in nyc again, 538 Johnson loft shows, dancing to some favorite bands, meeting new people, making new connections in unfamiliar places (always always always), being recognized "hi I see you everywhere" "hey were you guys at ava house last night?...what are you doing is brooklyn?!", black metal radio stations in new york city at 2 am, sitting at a denny's somewhere off of rt. 18 in new jersey and not knowing what city we're actually in at all..but sitting next to a million juggalos at 4 am in tears from laughing so hard, watching the sunrise while two of my best friends are asleep in my car, how perfect the postal service is on the turnpike, melissa telling me my nose is cute- which actually made me hug her because i've always hated my nose, high fives and the new jersey sky never ever letting me down.

empty tea wrappers, fortune cookie fortunes, notes written but never received, old cookie wrappers, shoes not worn since february snows

perfect timing

"but btw, i miss you a lot. i know we dont talk as much or any of that, theres no valid reason for it and i just was thinking today about how thats the case with almost everyone, not only you but most importantly you. i mean you're still one of my best friends, i just didn't think you knew that lately. i'd much rather be in a car with you going somewhere and actually having fun than around here in newark walking around or something."

I needed that. I needed to be reminded that my boys still love me. That I still mean something to people. That those memories are more than memories.
Andrew Benenati, little brother. Love you forever.

Sitting on the curb by myself waiting for a ride earlier and having Tyler walk by and having it feel like normal (me being found doing something weird and Tyler looking at me like I'm crazy but loving me for it) was so good. He gave me a hug and told me my legs were gonna get run over, and I sat there in the sun.

Feeling like I have my two best guy friends back, two of my best friends in the wholeee wide world, has me all smiles. It's insane how big of a hole was there in me when I noticed their absence the past few weeks.

The people I love make up so much of who I am.

This summer is going to be the best ever.
Oh and rumors of Kid Dynamite at this is hardcore? I'm not even thinking about it. I would legitimately cry.

+/-

+Philadelphia always makes things better. Warehouse shows.
+Unexpected lunch with Tyler Mullen, things feel better now. I knew I missed him, but I didn't realize just how much I missed my best friend/hated being on weird terms.
+Feeling like a traveler :D
+This weekend is so close. Saturday will be amazing. Bolt bus, best friends, loft shows.
+My mac is fixed!!!
+Multivitamins make me feel a lot better. Da madre knows best.

-Fighting off that feeling every morning, I'm making it through the day easier though. Baby stepsss

Let this last. This mood. I don't wanna be sad anymore.

006.

My heart has been in my stomach for weeks, and it's going to drop farther. I know it's coming. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. I'm just trying to pull through. It's so hard to make myself wake up every morning.

History repeats itself.
This round was probably even more fucked up than usual actually.

Today I had the strangest deja vu I have ever had in my entire life. I don't even know if that's what it was. Because what I was living out was something that I experienced in a dream. It was so entirely crazy that I can't even explain it.

At Wal Mart a man with a huge cart full of groceries saw that I only had two things and let me go in front of him. Proving my love for nice strangers. He could of ignored it and not cared. Little things. I need to remember how much I love the little things.

"The tighter I hold on the deeper down I'm sinking."


Melissa just ordered our day passes for the pitchfork music festival in Chicago.

We'll leave around July 14th, spend a few days in Chi-town, see Modest Mouse, probably sit on the ground crying because they'll play every song we want (need) to hear, and then drive 90 mph to Berea, Ohio for the first night of Berea Fest. We'll camp out, go to the second day, and then drive home around the 18th. I'll see Paul Baribeau finally, and Theo is playing and Algernon.
Melissa and me seeing Algernon together in OHIO is easily one of the most in your face "everything in life happens for a reason and everything comes full circle at some point" moments we will ever live. O FUCKING HIO.

Now Nick and Andrew might be coming along for the trip as well. And Stacy (hopefully, I don't know how I could possibly see Paul B or Theo without her next to me) if she doesn't get the internship she applied for. 4 of my best friends in the whole world. In my car, just after my 20th Birthday, in Chicago..states away. I am so so ready.

No matter how I feel right now, this summer I will be alive alive alive. More than anyone else could possibly fathom.

005.

I'm such a mess.
I never wanted to feel like this in a million years.
I don't know where to go from here.

what the fuck.
It's not even that it doesn't make sense, it's entirely crazy. Not sane. Not normal.
Fucking weird.

I woke up this morning 400 times but made myself just keep going back to sleep. Sleep is so much easier than being awake and thinking. Always thinking.
I don't want to cry anymore.
I just want to feel hopeful again, about my life.

Happiness is not something you find in another person.

I called Zoe in tears last night. We haven't been very close since the fall, but I didn't know who else would talk to me on the phone. I don't want to bother Stacy anymore and everytime she asks whats wrong she just says "Tes you're breaking my heart" and Melissa has already done everything she possibly can for me.
The whole needing people thing is so new to me. The way I'm willing to just bare all my emotions out to anyone is the strangest thing. I'm not looking for sympathy or pity or attention, I just can't be in my own head these days. I guess i'm just searching for someone to say anything that will make me feel a little better. Even if just for a few hours, it's like a fix. I don't like it at all.

I went from feeling this way, to feeling better, to feeling this way again.
I was in such a good place, I don't understand how I regressed at all.

This weekend. House shows in unfamiliar places. I just have to make it until then.
Those nights are the only real fix for this. The nights I remember who I am.

"Regression, it's my obsession."

I could move to Philly.
I could move to Chicago with Chrystina.
I could move to California and live with my family.
I could move to Little Rock, because I now have a list of phone numbers for everyone who lives or is associated with the Schiller St house.

Do I leave everything and everyone here behind? It wouldn't be permanent of course, this will always be "home" and where I'll end up. Well, somewhere around the mid-atlantic. But it's tempting, everything here is dead.

"Why am I angry? What am I searching for? Is it a better way to live?"

I just want to listen to Defiance, Ohio.
Live in a little vegan house.
Have a puppy.
Cook friends and loved ones breakfast in the mornings.
Smile.
Have little shows in my basement.
Ride around on my (non-existant) bike.

It wouldn't take a lot to make me happy, I just don't know how to go about getting there yet.

004.

Last night completely and totally felt like 2008. Devils Road trips, PA back roads, sing-a-longs. Melissa Stafford, Nick Broujos. It's funny how that happens every so often, and it's fun while it lasts..but then in the morning, well it's not 2008. It's 2010 and I'm on the way to being 20 years old and things are much, much different. My life will never cease to blow my mind, even just looking back on a week ago. So much happens, I make so many wonderful memories and have so many stories to tell. Everything is so fast paced.

It's April 10th, this time exactly a year ago I was in the kitchen of my grandma's house finishing all the vegan cupcakes I made, along with everything else, for Cut Short's album release and then driving to Tyler's to pick up his drums. He had just moved into the basement at his dads. (I remember this because last March is when I helped him move and we spent days driving around looking every where for boxes) All that baking with one person in mind. I loved that night so, so much. The things that happen in one year.....
mind. blowing.

Going on day 11 with Melissa, hahah
I think Ashley, Lizzy and Chris might come down to Dela tonight. I need to knock myself into a better mood. Hopefully the rest of the weekend will end up fun. I'm not going to know what to do with myself next week when everyone's spring breaks are over.

5 weeks
2 weeks
3 weeks

time time time time time time time

003.

I haven't worked in a good 3 months. If it's still raining in the morning, I'm quitting the chase center and just not going in. I'm not interested in doing anything I don't want to. I just want to sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.

Other than that whole mess though, today was swelllll. Philly with Melissa and Brett. More near-death experiences. The weird shit I attract never ends, I've learned to love it. Our bus driver on the way home had to have been on pcp or something.

+/-

"I feel reborn when the sun gets warm."

+I have been/lived with Melissa Stafford the past 9 days and it will continue tomorrow.
+Apparently I still work at the Chase Center, I got two days this week.
+Silly little inside jokes that are the only time I'm truly happy. "DJ S.G. Whistlez", "Mentally, Physically, Spiritually on da bike", "AY GURRRRL TRYNA FUH"
+Sitting on the trunk of my car in gas station parking lots FEELING far away from home, so content. Those moments. Exit 18.
+I know I can travel this summer, I got that feeling back.. it's the only thing I can feel anymore.

-My sunroof is stuck open.......................again
-Always
-sick
-to
-my
-stomach
This isn't right.

I just need to keep reminding myself though, these are the moments that matter:

002.

La Dispute at Charm City last night was a pretty good time. Driving Joanna's car, windows down, screaming Tigers Jaw as always, getting there hours early and sitting/laying on the side of the road in Baltimore in the sun forever.

x

They played all the songs I would of asked them to. I literally think I lost my mind during Damaged Goods.


I wake up everyday sick to my stomach. This is getting so, so old.

+/-

+New friends/people interested, for whatever reason, in getting to know me
+Ashley telling me I looked tan
+Getting lost, for the second time in my life, trying to go home from Ocean City, NJ while I'm not driving and ending up in Toms River (this deserves an entry of its own, haha)
+Finally feeling the urge to read all the books I want to read
+The ability to let go completely, and just not give a fuck
+Drinking water
+Totally being able to predict the future in some weird, uncontrollable way
+Cut offs
+Icees with Melissa everyday
+Laughing so hard I can't breath
+Learning to love being independent again, and actually getting irritated when people constantly attach themselves to you when you'd rather wander alone.

-My car being a piece of shit
-My 2 best friends in the whole world barely speaking to me lately, when what I need more than anything in the world is a real hug from them
-Nights that are still too cold
-How much changes in just twenty-eight days
-No money evarrrr
-I want a bicycle more than anything

001.

I guess I don't care.
That's a damn lie.
But I'll keep saying it.

The worst part is when I stop thinking, something fucking random pops up to remind me. Sleep was my escape, but now it just follows me into my dreams.

I need out of this tiny state. I remembered why I loved it last week, now I remember why I keep trying to leave.