Typical Monday night?

Dear anonymous,

I am currently seated on my bed in a barren room (other than the numerous garbage bags full of clothes and baskets full of crap) blogging about moving out. Am I a stereotypical blogger yet?

This is it. The last night that I will be staying in this place I have called home for the last 8 months. The posters are down, the photos are in plastic page protectors, the fairy lights are wrapped up in a box and the dressers are empty. Tomorrow morning, I'll take apart my wonderful IKEA bed and move the first of my stuff to the new condo I'll be living in. Wednesday morning the rest of it will go in a big 10 foot uHaul.

Wow. 8 months has flown by. I can't say I'll miss it too much. The year has had its ups and downs and living here has definitely has its ups and downs, too. Mostly I'm excited for the next chapter of my life. Fourth year, new condo in downtown Toronto, living with my sister, commuting back to school. It's all going to be so new. I have come to embrace new experiences though.

So here's to a fun move (not!) and lots of new experiences in the year to come!

Love,
Michelle

Parents or parent figures?

Dear anonymous,

Headed out to dinner soon with the parents for their anniversary and it occurred to me how rude I can sometimes be when I am talking about them. A lot of the time when I am telling my friends a story about them, I refer to them as the parent figures. Offensive, right? Well I just realised how offensive that really is. By calling them parent figures, I'm saying that they have no real role as my parents. Instead they're like the figure head of a company, who only sits there to be pretty. In truth, as children they were more parent figures than parents. We had an endless number of baby sitters because they were always working, we only went out with my mom on weekends (if that) and they never even taught me to ride a bike until I was 10. As an adult now though, they're parents to me. I can go to my dad asking for advice, my mom will make me care packages to take back to school full of yummy homemade foods, I periodically get calls from them both to wish me luck on tests and assignments and we spend time together. So I'm vowing not to call them parent figures anymore but, parents. Because that's what they are - my parents.

Love,
Michelle

Are we really friends?

Dear anonymous,

Ethan keeps bringing up a slight mishap from the end of last summer. We had gotten really close so naturally when summer was ending, I implied that I would never see him again. I had many reasons to believe this, the main one being that he had constantly told me he would not be visiting me in my new house. As it turns out, I was wrong and he continuously brings it up.

Tonight at Anita's goodbye get together, he brought it up once again. In a different context this time, referring to my move on May 1st to downtown Toronto. As usual, Ethan said that we would still be friends despite the fact that I was moving. I replied by saying sure and he countered by saying that I said the same thing last summer but we are still friends and see each other.

Can we really call each other friends though? As of this year, we have had approximately one real conversation. Any other real conversations have happened with April present. Not that this is a problem because she is wonderful and beautiful and I would tell her my life story if we ever had a minute to see each other but, it's not a friendship between me and him anymore.

To me, Ethan stopped being my friend when he asked me if I was still self-harming then proceeded to tell me that I no longer had to tell him because he wasn't obligated to care (as my don, he technically was). It's not even that it made me angry but it made me realise for the thousandth time in my life that people only care when they have to and that nothing is forever. I expected our friendship to stay strong and that he would be someone I wanted to tell things to for years and years yet in the span of 2 sentences, all that went down the drain.

If I can't tell him about anything in my life from the most minute detail like getting a haircut to the deepest secret I covet, we are not friends.

So sorry, Ethan, if you ever read this but we are not friends. So you can stop saying that we are going to stay friends after I move because that ship has sailed. At least for me.

Love,
Michelle

Time to reply?

Dear anonymous,

For the past month 25 days I have used the excuse that finals were coming and I didn't need more distractions than necessary. It has come to the point that I feel I need to reply to Josh though. To be fair I am moving in 5 days to Toronto so I could use that as another excuse. As I sit here watching Justin Timberlake sing Mirrors on Ellen though (sidenote: he is sexier than sex), I can't help but feel that it's not fair to not reply to him and keep making excuses.

The thing is... he took 3.5 months to reply to me. So in reality, is it about fairness? I think maybe I'm just pressuring myself to answer because I still don't know what I want. The pressure of replying makes me have to think about everything I don't want to.

Do I risk putting my heart on the line again? Do I trust him? Is there even a way things can be normal again? What happens if it turns out that he only responded to my letter because he is thinking about breaking up with his girlfriend? Will I let myself be the girl that he goes back to time and time again? There are so many questions. I don't want to face any of them.

Love,
Michelle

Moving on to the next chapter?

Dear anonymous,

I'm done third year! Had my last final this morning and rewarded myself by buying a pair of beautiful white high top chucks.

Anybody else done finals?

Love,
Michelle

Depression: yes or no?

Dear anonymous,

If you've never self-diagnosed with some disorder or illness, I applaud you. It seems like every other second, I am diagnosing myself with some sort of horribly impairing disease or mental disorder. There is always one that I go back to though: depression.

Maybe it's because I'm a psych major and I've gone over the signs and symptoms of depression over and over again while studying mood disorders but, I'm fairly sure I've got it. Probably not major depressive disorder (although I'd say the intensity level is close) but endless bouts of depressive episodes.

Don't get me wrong, I have a great life. My friends and my family are really supportive (for the most part anyway but that's a different story), I have privileges that others do not have access to like school, I do alright in school and I enjoy a lot of activities. It just seems like something is always missing. Or like I hit a place in my mind that is a dark corner.

It's not healthy to self-diagnose. I should just stop. It really seems like depression sometimes though.

Love,
Michelle

Is it time to freak out yet?

Dear anonymous,

Tomorrow morning I have one last final. It is for my adult abnormal psych class where the prof literally talks for 3 hours non stop while we take notes. He doesn't use any lecture slides or handouts. Absolutely nothing. Fair enough, we are in third year so make us work for our grades. Right now I'm sitting contentedly at a 3.0 in the class but this final is worth 40% of our grade. I've not studied more than 3 hours total for this. I don't even feel remotely stressed though.

Am I allowed to freak out yet?

Love,
Michelle

Running away or toward something?

Dear anonymous,

Running more than one blog allows me to blog about different things and thus my tumblr is basically photos that reflect my feelings as opposed to words. I came across one bit of typography that said "I want to stop running away from everything. I want to find something to run toward." Naturally I reblogged it because it made me think.

On my WordPress, I've talked about wanderlust and my love for travel. People say that you find yourself when you travel and though I still believe in this notion, I also believe that it's a way to escape. The only difference is that I used to think that it meant escaping not only my friends and my family but also myself.

As you know by now if you're following my journey on here, I'm not that big of a fan of myself. There are numerous reasons as to why but we won't delve into that too deeply right now. I've discovered however that I no longer travel to escape myself but rather to escape aspects of my life. I seek new places with new faces and new cultures. I seek adventure and thrill and inspiration and love. In all this seeking, I find out a little bit more about myself that I come to love.

I'm still not perfect. I don't like everything about myself but there are aspects that I do like. One of them being that I have a passion for travel and self discovery and that through travel I can discover more about myself. So I guess to answer the question, I'm not running away, I'm running toward. The thing I found that I'm running toward? A love for myself.

Love,
Michelle

Easier being a boy?

Dear anonymous,

I ask myself this question on a daily basis. Would life be easier if I were a boy? Whether or not this is possible, I honestly think about it all the time.

Being a boy would mean I could sleep around and be praised for it. It would mean not having to worry about make up. Boys might have less clothing choices but doesn't that just makes their lives easier? And cheaper? Then there's the fact that they don't have periods. Or pregnancy scares. Or hell, pregnancy. They don't have to push 6-12 pounds of human out of their bodies after housing them for 9 months. If I were a boy I could skateboard. I could play video games all day and be good at it (I truly believe they have an inherent ability to play video games better). Being a boy would mean less drama, less cat fights, less body image issues.

Keep in mind, I know that being a boy isn't always easy. I get that there are the ones that have body image issues, the ones that are gay and get terrorized at school, the ones that are nerdy and awkward, the ones that are genuinely nice guys always put in the friend zone. I still think it would be easier to be a boy.

Love,
Michelle

A defense mechanism?

Dear anonymous,

Lately every time I have a conversation with Ethan, I tend to be really sarcastic. Especially if he tries to be nice.

Example: tonight told me that he misses living in Roy Ivor, the building we used to live in. In reference to us being able to hang out. In response, I said that the only thing I missed was having a window (I now live in a basement).

Think this is a defense mechanism? Seems like it to me.

Love,
Michelle

Goodbye forever?

Dear anonymous,

Anita, one of the girls I lived with last year, is going back to Dubai forever because she is graduating this year. She's having a goodbye get together on Thursday night.

I'm holding a bit of a grudge though. Earlier this year she went behind my back to get information about me from Ethan, my don last year, about why I didn't get hired as a don for this September. When he told me about it, he said that she was fishing for information about whether it was because I self-harm. And it really got to me. That information was really personal and instead of asking me directly (which she could have done because I never explicitly hid any scars or anything from her) she went and asked a third party. And only because she wanted the information for herself.

So do I let go of the grudge and go say goodbye to someone that made me put up even more walls than I had before? Someone who I can't trust and doesn't care for me in any way? Or seemingly so? On one hand, that whole situation happened and really affected me for the worse (it doesn't seem very bad when it's written down but, it felt like I'd lost any and all trust in her). On the other hand, she is literally leaving the country forever.

I don't know. Maybe this grudge is stupid.

Love,
Michelle

Do I really like being alone?

Dear anonymous,

I tell myself a lot that being alone isn't a problem. My roommates are both in Theatre Drama Studies so they spend a lot of time out of the house doing rehearsal or spending time with people in their own program. They're like a tight knit family - a lot of them have known each other since before university. So I get left home alone a lot, or studying at Starbucks alone, or watching tv alone...

In all honesty, I used to value my alone time a lot. When I lived with my previous roommates, I reveled in it. Mostly because one of them, Anita, was always around and tended to get a little bit clingy. Alissa and Natalie were great but they were distracting as all hell when trying to study. The four of us just never got anything done. So I loved having the apartment to myself and being able to just hang out in my room blogging and listening to music or studying.

Now I'm not so sure. Maybe it's because I'm alone so much that I dislike it now. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I don't want to see anybody. I still have my days where having the house to myself is really nice. But I find myself seeking company more and more often now. Especially since everyone around me has someone.

I think maybe I'm not made to be around others. Like I'm meant to be alone forever. Not in the tumblr-forever-alone way but in the be-satisfied-with-your-job-being-your-life way. Is that possible?

Love,
Michelle

Is it really an addiction?

Dear anonymous,

Reading about addictions has me thinking about my own problems. It may be crazy to some but self-harm really is an addiction. You crave it, you try to heal, you relapse, you do ridiculous things to obtain things to cut or burn or bruise... it takes over your life. Constantly on the back of your mind.

Just thinking back, I can remember one intense situation where I wanted my razors back so badly that I acted insane. I had given them to my don so that I wouldn't be tempted. Then I had a really bad day (I can't even remember what it was anymore) but I really needed them back. I wanted to slash at my wrists and going into the kitchen to grab a serrated knife didn't work. Scissors also didn't satisfy the craving so I decided that it was worth it to get them back from my don.

It started out calmly with me asking him for them back (in the back of my mind, I knew it was a stupid thing because he obviously wouldn't return them). Then he obviously said no so I stormed into his room and began digging through his drawers. Needless to say, he wasn't very good at hiding them so within two seconds I had them in my hand. He was stood in the doorway and I just stared at him and told him to move. There was nothing on my mind except hurting myself and seeing blood run down my wrists.

I swiftly moved to pass him and he tried to stop me by hugging me. I literally tore away from him and ran upstairs to my own room. Thinking back now, that was probably one of the lowest-points of my cycle of self-harm. I still have the urges but I've been "clean" since before December. I can't tell you a particular date because I stopped counting days when I kept relapsing. It would just put me in a negative mood. I'm better for it now though. I have urges but I choose to fight them. And fight them I do. Every single day. I'm getting there.

Love,
Michelle

Dilemma of a lifetime coming to a close?

Dear anonymous,

This is a story about a boy. His name is Josh. For just over 8 years we were best friends. In grade 5 we met in our French immersion class and that was it. We spent late nights talking on msn (it was a thing back then), we would hang out all the time at school, text at all hours, hang out at his house, spend time with his family, spend time at our church youth group together. We were inseparable. As all stories go, I fell in love. It never even occurred to me that it could happen but there it was one day. Staring me in the face. I wanted to spend all my time with him, know everything about him, have him know everything about me. And he might not have loved me back but I knew he liked me at least a little bit. Maybe more than a little bit.

This is grade 11 now and he's dating a girl named Sarah. She always hated me. I think she was threatened by my friendship with Josh and being a girl, she could probably see the love pouring out of my ears. Josh and I stopped talking a lot that year because of her. The next part makes me a little bit of a homewrecker. Okay... maybe a lot of a homewrecker. I told him one night that I loved him. That I had always loved him and that it killed me to see him with Sarah. I told him that I wanted him and only him and that nothing was going to change that. He broke up with her the next week. And we shared our first kiss later. And then again. And he told me he loved me. But then it was time to go to university and he was going to Ottawa while I stayed here in Toronto. So we said our goodbyes and told each other that we would still stay best friends and let whatever happen happen.

Enter first year and things got hectic. We broke that promise of staying best friends. By November, I hardly knew who I was anymore so I pushed him away. I guess I pushed a little too hard. We fought one night. It was the fight. The one that tore everything apart. The one that made me cry for weeks on end because I knew it was over. Our friendship. The love he said he felt for me. Just gone.

For the past three years, I have missed him more than anything. I miss getting a good morning text, I miss having someone to talk to at all times, I miss having someone to tell all my secrets to, I miss being hugged, I miss feeling like someone cares about me, I miss his family telling me we were going to get married, I miss his dog (and I don't even like dogs). Anything and everything there is to miss about someone, I miss.

In December of 2012, I sent him one last letter. There was no return address, there was no signature. He would know it was from me. It was closure for me. Finally time for me to move on. So I sent it off never expecting to get anything back because how could I?

April 1st, 2013. Inbox on Facebook. From Josh. And boy was it long. And heartfelt. And sincere. And everything I had always wanted (minus an apology for the fight - it was his doing - but he did say that there was no apology that could right everything he did wrong, so there's that). With an annotation saying it wasn't a joke (April Fool's!).

I think I'm still processing it. Processing the feelings associated with him and all our memories. To tell you the truth, I don't even know what I want. It was because of him that I began to hurt myself. It was because of him that I cried more tears than I've ever cried at a funeral. It was because of him that I have these incredible, impenetrable walls around my heart. Maybe I'm being a little too harsh. Maybe it's not all because of him. Yet as much as I know myself now, I know that a large part of my miserable, angst-ridden, self-deprecating self is his doing.

He taught me that I am not good enough. He taught me that I can't trust someone who has been my everything for 8 years. He taught me that I am worthless. He taught me that I can't be loved. He also taught me that I can love so wholeheartedly that the world stops spinning for a moment. He taught me the meaning of friendship, of belonging, of faith. He taught me to appreciate little things in life like sitting and watching television with your family. He taught me that people can care for you.

He wants to try again. To be friends. But how do you bounce back from three years of lost trust and unbelievable heartache? Do you listen to your head and say no? Or listen to your heart and say give it another chance? He broke me more than anyone ever has and yet he put a light in my heart for so much longer. So what's the right thing to do?

Love,
Michelle

Still searching for me?

Dear anonymous,

Welcome to another angst-ridden blog by a young girl searching for her identity. Yes, I may be 21 years old and entering my last year of university in September but, as it turns out, I'm still a little bit lost. The world is a scary place, we all know that. I guess I just want to have something out in the world to look back on in the future, with as much anonymity as I can get from a public blog. So this is for me. And it's for you, too. Everything on here is going to be full disclosure. For your eyes only. I'm shying away from my friends and my family and telling you about my life. So here's hoping at least some of you will follow me on my journey.

Love,
Michelle