letter (email) to my best friend from high school

hey girl,
sorry it took me forever to get back to you. this week has been so crazy.

i'm sorry to hear about you and mike. that sucks that he never paid
you back. maybe you could nonchalantly say something about it in
passing? stuff like that is so annoying. i hate having to ask people
for cash over and over again.

it's really late right now... i'm feeling so weird.

micah is in town and it's wonderful to see her, but it's really hard
to me to hang out with her and james. well...actually, it's hard for
me to hang out with james at all, i avoid him for the most part, but
we sort of have the same schedule and micah is only here for a couple
of days and of course she wants to hang out with both of us, so i'm
just trying to play it cool. but it's so hard. i think i might
actually really hate him. he told me that he was moving out...i guess
he's leaving march 2 (thank god) but for some reason....him moving out
just brought up everything. all the pain and hurt and i have felt
over almost year and a half of him living here...it just came right
back and caught me really off guard. i also don't want him to
know...so it's like....i don't know....i've just been really distant
with him, but it's the only way i know how to protect myself. i
really cannot wait until he is out of my life. cannot wait.

it's weird having micah here because she is doing so well and i'm
really happy for her...but lately i just feel so different from
everyone. i feel like a freak. especially since i quit partying my
life has been really different. i enjoy stuff like reading books and
writing to myself and volunteering, and thinking alot, and doing my
homework and researching stuff online and walking around town running
errands, and going to the grocery store and doing yoga. it's
like.....suddenly i feel really alienated because i don't want to go
party, i don't want to get wasted....i want to be alone most of the
time, and when i'm not i feel compelled to talk about really
activist-y issues, but like...no one wants to hear about this
shit....i don't know....when i became...such a downer?? i want to be
fun like i used to be, but i don't feel fun anymore..i feel very
serious about taking control of my life, and it's hard to align that
with the person i used to be, especially when everyone else still
seems to be having fun, and i'm just not feeling it.

another thing is that i go to the trauma survivors group every week
where we learn grounding skill and how to deal with strong emotions.
it's been really awesome, and i'm learning alot, but it's also been
really hard, and very isolating... i mean... you can't really go to a
party and when someone asks you what you've been up to talk about your
trauma counseling... but what do you do when like...that's all you've
really been up to? in many ways it's good, because i feel like i
haven't dealt with this shit in a long time, and it's been seriously
holding me up in many ways. but it's been taking over my life...and i
don't know...i just feel like there is no one that can really
understand.

i've been upset lately, because i feel like i'll never fit in anywhere
(not that anyone ever really does i guess) but like...i feel so
abnormal. like, i can't even date, or trust people, or anything. i
can't even have sex like a normal person, i cry throughout it. it's
gross and awful. most of the time i feel like there are worms coming
out of me, or beetles, or other horrible things....i can't really
explain it, but it makes me feel like i will never again be close to
anybody. i'm just left as this assault victim with an std who will
never be normal again.

i keep trying to figure out what lessons this life is trying to teach
me. what lessons my past are trying to teach me. proper ways to live
that are true to myself. and then i wonder if maybe i'm taking thing
too seriously. or like...what's the deal with me not being able to
work? i mean...i work enough to pay bills, so that's fine, but i work
jobs that i don't really have to be present for, i work jobs where i
can do whatever i want at them, go online, balance my checkbook, run
errands around harvard square. which in many ways is working out for
me, but at the same time i wonder if i'm actually just this really big
loser and no one wants to say anything. i wonder if i have any
direction at all.

i think that i'm going to do this counseling thing for awhile, and
then i was thinking of getting that TEFL certificate (teaching english
as a foreign language) and then maybe i can do that for a year. i've
got a lot to think about.

i guess it's good that life is long so we have time to figure out all
this stupid stuff.

sorry for this long rant, i'm just not really feeling very well. when
i look at james i want to throw up. i hate the way he treats people
and ...you know what...whatever...


that's really cool about the boston rubber shoe company! i've been
really excited about seeing what happens to towns over years.

oh yeah, and it was a boy cousin hitting on me. he was so drugged
out, it was gross.

i hope that you and mike are talking again. we should meet up
sometime soon, and not when i have to run off with the fam. and we
should get burritos this time!!!


xox

love you,

L