It's 5 in the morning and I still haven't slept. I stayed up all night talking to friends. There is something really comforting about being able to talk to people who have known you for years. At the same time there are still so many stories to tell. I feel a lot better. I'm just really tired and that always makes me emotional.

I'm beginning to think there isn't enough therapy on earth for the level of dysfunction I have. So, I'm in michigan, which on paper makes perfect sense. It really does make sense. It's just so bittersweet. I love tennessee like a long lost lover. Her her golden sunsets and all her twists and curves. I love her. The thing is, I want a masters degree and I want a house. To afford both it's michigan or more to the phillipines or something. I have both good and bad memories here but it's like starting fresh... but I already miss stars and the sound of cicadas. Tennessee is easy. It's got some of the best people I know. It's also controlled by total bigots. I'm so tired. I should be happy. I am happy. I just feel kind of lonely. I hate making grown up decisions. I especially hate making all the decisions for me and kody w/o help. I hope it gets better when he comes home. I left without any real goodbyes this time. I'm so sick of saying goodbye.

Today, I registered for the rest of the classes I need to take to finish my degree. It feels really amazing to finally have an end in sight. I feel like I've been working on this forever. Only two more classes and I'll basically be done with everything that's required and I can get back to things that actually interest me.

I have spent so much time over the last several years worrying about the future that I haven't fully enjoyed each moment as it passes. I think I'm finally in a place where I realize, there is an end in sight and that means that there are more questions about the future on the horizon. At the same time, there isn't much I can do about the future until I finish what I'm working on right now. So, instead of worrying about what I can't even foresee yet, I'm just going to enjoy today. I am allowed to do that. I'm giving myself permission.

Still, I need to decide if I should start looking for jobs or applying for grad schools. Part of me really wants to go to grad school. Another part of me really wants to go on an adventure. I've thought about teaching English abroad. I've thought about working in a national park again. I've thought about a lot of things.

Somehow, letting go of the idea of buying a house has been really liberating. I've been thinking a lot lately about the wheel of life. Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin. When doors close, others open. Right now I'm really grateful for doors closing. I love the friends I have in my life right now. I love the people I live with. I love myself more than I have in a long time, flaws and all. Life is full of heartache and destruction. It's also full of bliss if we take the time to stop and notice the magic all around us.

My roommate said something that stuck with me the other day. I was talking about something family related and she said "See, it sounds to me like you have no voice in that situation. You've just given your voice away." Giving your voice away. What a concept.

It's totally true. I speak up for other people who have no voice... and yet I have no voice in so many situations when it comes to speaking for myself. I don't think it was always like that.

I think that sometimes we allow ourselves to be silent in situations where we don't want to speak our truth. Sometimes truth is hard. Other times we really do have something taken from us. In many cases, I've just opted to keep the peace. The thing is that when you go against your intuition, that becomes habit. It becomes harder and harder to speak and you end up further and further off the mark.

I just have to remember that creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin. For a long time I think I was subconsciously worried I'd screw up and end up in a bad situation. The thing is, survival mode no longer suits me. It's not a useful coping mechanism. It just has to go.

Does LJ work from my phone? We shall see.

So recently, in therapy, my therapist and I had the epiphany that my mother has borderline personality disorder. That makes so many things in my life make more sense. The black and white thinking, people are all good or bad. All the moving. The lack of identity. I picked up a lot of those ways of thinking. I'm shedding them but it takes time and lots of work.

I don't know why I bring that up. I'm sure I had a purpose... but I'm drunk, so... there's that.

Last year I dated this really beautiful, wonderful woman. We weren't a match. She had a lot of working through things to do and I felt like I was getting in the way, while not getting what I needed. We never stopped talking though and in January she had a major crisis. While she was in a pretty serious relationship with someone else she realized she wanted to stop her divorce and go back to with her husband. I can understand that far. That makes sense to me. But then she said that she'd kind of fabricated this whole thing, that she lied to herself. She said she realized she never really liked women. She was just crazy and made the whole thing up. I probably shouldn't have taken that so hard... but to be honest, I wouldn't have been so eager to leap into a new life again if we hadn't broken up. There were obviously other factors. But would I have been so ready and willing to martyr myself for Lisa again if the situation was different? No, probably not. I know we're not right for each other. Still, it's so hard to see her. She's so amazing that I can barely stand it. Few things have ever brought me quite so low. I know it's not really about me. It's about her. I need to let this be about her.

Oh I know why I brought up the stuff about my mother. See, I have this horrible habit of assuming that other people have a better handle on what I should do with my life than I do. I was thinking about moving back here. She said I should. Now she's not sure she can talk to me without having to "relive the craziest, hardest year of her life". Well I don't know how to say this nicely but... breakups are never easy. They are hard. Sometimes learning to fly takes a lot of falling. And sometimes I wonder why I can see that in other people but it's so hard to accept in myself. Why can't I just be myself?

My LJ is accumulating dustbunnies. It's been so long since I've been here. Moving to Michigan turned into an utter fail, again. I don't know what that means. Yes, I do. I just don't like closing doors. There are so many great possibilities in Michigan, so many things that I could be involved in. For right now, at this place in my life though, it's not my home. It doesn't welcome me the way Tennessee does.

I'm taking a class in social psychology and my textbook made the point that people tend to consider quantitative aspects of decision making more than qualitative aspects. While Tennessee is definitely less than perfect, for me, it feels like cradling hands.

I was at the Unitarian church today and someone asked me, if I could be doing anything I wanted right now, what would that be. I've been thinking about that a lot and I think I'm headed in the right direction. I'm living in a communal situation right now and I couldn't be happier about it. At this point, the idea of waking up in the morning and not hearing people singing makes me kinda sad. I want to be involved in something that involves economic justice and I want to stay somewhere rural. Those are all things that are important to me. I also want to continue being able to afford living a mostly raw vegan diet and I want to be able to support my parents when they need that.

I don't know if I'm going to get all of those things but I'm putting it out into the universe so that it can come back to me.

"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" --George W. Bush, Florence, South Carolina, Jan. 11, 2000

"The great thing about America is everybody should vote." --George W. Bush, Austin, Texas, Dec. 8, 2000

"They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." --George W. Bush, Nov. 2, 2000

"I don't want nations feeling like that they can bully ourselves and our allies. I want to have a ballistic defense system so that we can make the world more peaceful, and at the same time I want to reduce our own nuclear capacities to the level commiserate with keeping the peace." --George W. Bush, Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 23, 2000
(this makes me wonder... now why is iowa a swing state?!)

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." --George W. Bush, LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." --George W. Bush, Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas." --George W. Bush, Beaverton, Ore., Sep. 25, 2000

"Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis." --George W. Bush, CNBC, April 15, 2000

"I was raised in the West. The West of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California." -George W. Bush, in Los Angeles as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2000

"Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better." —George W. Bush, in a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Sept. 24, 2001

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." —George W. Bush, July 27, 2001

"It is white." —George W. Bush, asked by a child in Britain what the White House was like, July 19, 2001

"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." —George W. Bush, at a news conference in Europe, June 14, 2001

"It's amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency." —George W. Bush, June 14, 2001, speaking to Swedish Prime Minister Goran Perrson, unaware that a live television camera was still rolling.

"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it." —George W. Bush, Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 2001

"I want everybody to hear loud and clear that I'm going to be the president of everybody." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Jan. 18, 2001

"See, we love — we love freedom. That's what they didn't understand. They hate things; we love things. They act out of hatred; we don't seek revenge, we seek justice out of love." —George W. Bush, Oklahoma City, Aug. 29, 2002

"There may be some tough times here in America. But this country was gone through tough times before, and we're going to do it again." —George W. Bush, Waco, Texas, Aug. 13, 2002

"I also understand how tender the free enterprise system can be." —George W. Bush, White House press conference, Washington, D.C., July 8, 2002

"I'd rather have them sacrificing on behalf of our nation than, you know, endless hours of testimony on congressional hill." —George W. Bush, Fort Meade, Maryland, June 4, 2002

"Laura and I will thank them from the bottom of my heart." —George W. Bush, Alexandria, Virginia, March 20, 2002

"My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific." —George W. Bush, Feb. 18, 2002

"I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and witness my hanging." —George W. Bush, at the dedication of his portrait, Austin, Texas, Jan. 4, 2002
(man, getting our hopes up over nuthin.)

"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." —George W. Bush, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003

"Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history—revisionist historians is what I like to call them." —George W. Bush, Elizabeth, N.J., June 16, 2003

"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 19, 2003

"See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over." --George W. Bush, chomping on a dinner roll while talking about the Middle East crisis with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 17, 2006

"I was not pleased that Hamas has refused to announce its desire to destroy Israel." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 4, 2006

"No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 22, 2006

"People don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America." --George W. Bush, on the deal to hand over U.S. port security to a company operated by the United Arab Emirates, Washington, D.C., Feb. 23, 2006

"As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself -- not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the Colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, Colonel." --George W. Bush, after visiting with wounded veterans from the Amputee Care Center of Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 1, 2006