Fall on your knees...

For those of you who are familiar with Dane Cook, I've really come to the realization that his theory on events in our lives is bizarrely correct.

We will all cry.

And we will all take painful shits.

I love Christmas, but this is the first Christmas since I was very young that my family won't be together. Recently, my family dynamic has changed substantially, and as much as I try to play up my indifference, the holidays can't help but bring out an emotional side of me that I try very hard to hide. And unfortunately for me, the breaking point happened in the middle of Target. Surrounded by rabid soccer moms.

Don't get me wrong. I'm plenty emotional. But I tend to handle my emotions in a much more visceral way, like saying extremely inappropriate statements at inappropriate times about inappropriate things. Judge me all you want, but it makes me feel better. It is rare that you will ever see me cry, let alone see me cry in public amongst fake Christmas trees, screaming children, and Christmas carols.

But it was the accumulation of those things that brought me to that point. I'm sad that this is the first year my family hasn't gone to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and hearing "O' Holy Night" over the radio did a great job of reminding me of that, and it's as if the artificial trees were screaming "You call the 2 feet piece of wire you have on your table at home a TREE? Whatev." And then they laughed. I'm not joking, in my fragile state of mind, I really thought that the trees in Target were taunting me. And I gave in to it.

And cried.

I cried huge, crocodile, 5 year old throwing a tantrum kind of tears.

I hid my basket of items, went to the bathroom, and sobbed.

I felt like a total tool.

You hear all the time that the Holidays bring out the worst in people, and you see that every time you walk into a Wal-Mart around Christmas. However, my situation brought something to light for me. I am an extremely vulnerable person.

And I'll admit.

As much as it hurt, it felt pretty good.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

P.s. Because I already know you're reeling from that, I'll stop my post before I hit the part about painful shits.

I'm just a penny on a train track.

So every few months I have a breakdown. They vary in severity, sometimes I'll just start crying randomly and after a gallon of ice cream and an episode or two of "Rob and Big" to cheer me up I'm back to my normal cynical, asshole self that you all know and love. But every once in a while I have a big, huge, snot inducing, thought provoking, depression-fueling pity party. Normally I like to freak out by myself, but Steven happened to be present for my most current one. I don't like to cause a scene, especially with Steven. As much as I know he'd support me in anything, I find it very selfish to explain why my life sucks so badly to someone who is quite literally being eaten alive by a disease that has no cure. Luckily for me, he had some stuff to get off his chest too, so for a good 3 hours we sat in his car after eating an amazing pizza dinner and just talked. I realized during our convervation how much we've taken for granted... after 4 years together, things just became a routine. We don't just talk anymore. Kissing each other good night isn't as much of a necessity as it used to be. Being able to fall asleep without them next to you is normal now. We have been living in a constant state of complacency in our relationship that we were fine with... until recently.

We aren't happy people. I'd love to blame all my problems on the fact that high school sucked, I didn't do what I wanted to with my life, and the love of my life with eventually succumb to a disease that people don't know enough about to be even close to a cure. But really, I think I'm not happy because all of those things have made me believe that life can't get any better then this. I hate being 21 years old and at my peak.

I'm probably not going to be in Iowa much longer. I don't know where I'm going to go... I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet. Hopefully somewhere warmer. I'm going to be a photographer, which is something I should've done a long time ago. I decided to go into healthcare because it was smart, recession-proof, and respected. However, I've decided that for my sanity and learning how to love myself again, I'm going to start by changing a lot of things. I want to be a fashion photographer, and hopefully my dreams will end up taking me to New York, or London, or some other place amazing. Until then, I'm just going to start small and work my way up. Steven is going to focus more on his music, and we're actually going to do what we set out to do. For a long time I felt like I was giving up on my dreams of being a musician or actress, but as you grow up your dreams change. It just took me a long time to cope with the fact that I had to let go of my old ones.

So, with this breakdown came a plan. Normally I just go back to my old ways and deal with a life that I'm miserable in. Not anymore. I'm starting over.