Finally Vulnerability

Is this my time to open up and feel? Is that why my grades are  going down and my focus is shifting? The times when I'm happiest and most at peace are while I'm exercising and I've got dopamine and endorphins running through me, and then when I'm reading the Bible at night. The funny part is these are the things I don't look forward to doing until I'm doing them. I dread workouts until I've started, hate them until I've finished, and them love them for the rest of the day. I type in "blogg" into the search bar and then realize I haven't done my daily reading, then I get a little put off that I have one more "chore" to do, and then I start to feel happy and energized when I actually begin reading.

I don't understand what's going on in me for the rest of the time though. I can't really focus on schoolwork as well as I used to be able to, my GPA's dropping towards being lower than 3.8, and I'm overall just feeling lethargic, sad, and a little overwhelmed by some unidentified force. I feel somewhat alone. I feel like I just really want someone to care. I feel like things are intense and my head's been held under water sometimes.

I don't really regret having lower grades, they were a distraction and a religion for a time. Getting into that perfect college just isn't the most important thing in the world like sometimes I believe it is after a thousand college letters and e-mails tell me so.

I also feel like there's a bit of an all-clear happy-mask I put on sometimes. I act content because it's a lot easier than taking on the burden of emotional honesty, which in this case, is usually a kind of profound sadness I haven't really seen the likes of before.

I really hate saying this because it bothers me when it's all certain people can talk to me about, it governs certain people's lives, and it's hard to accept that it might be the overpowering element in some people's lives, but this might have a lot to do with the divorce. I'm upset about it because I grew up never having to really look at the marriage too long. I never had to worry about a divorce because I was repeatedly assured it would never happen. That didn't stop me from crying about it when I wasn't sure what was going on through polluted and out-of-control minds.

Now I feel like there's an emotional manifestation deep within me that I shouldn't suppress and should fight to be honest with myself about, but I haven't been able to muster up tears in a very long time. I can't remember really crying since what must have been March of 2010 and even then I didn't know what it was because of. I still don't really know why. It was after a great day in the city with my mom and my dad, I think the same day we went to Grand Central, and then we were crashing at his apartment in Livingston. We probably watched some Band of Brothers or something, but that wasn't a part of it. Eventually, mom went to bed and I was just laying quiet on the couch with my dad sitting across the room. I don't know what I was thinking about really, I don't know if it was anything at all, maybe it was our most-of-the-time estrangement, but whatever the reason was I started to cry gently, softly, and quietly. It was just a tender moment for me but it didn't feel like happy tears. I was sad about something that still hasn't been fully revealed to me. I can only wonder what took me over.

I don't think I've honestly cried since. I wish that were different. I've had tears well up one or twice, maybe on the road home from Boston Project, but that was different too. I've tried to bring them up a few more times, but it's like trying to make yourself puke. You're sure you're going to do it, but when it burns its way up your throat, you chicken out because you think it's going to hurt or be embarrassing or just generally undesirable. The worst part is that you know you'll be better off afterwards but you still can't quite pull it off.

I wonder if tears get old or rot if they sit in your eye bubble things in the corner too long. Do our eyes make new ones or does a batch just sit in your eyes until you eventually let it out. I don't know, maybe there's not much of a science to it.

I feel that lump in my chest, not the one that comes in your throat and you can hardly breathe or bend your neck, but the one down in your gut when you know something's amiss, you might regret what you're doing, or you're nervous about making some kind of big change. This isn't the jittery kind of excited nervousness, it's the depressed, morbid, and solitary kind. It just doesn't feel right.

I wish I knew what I was doing that was keeping my emotions down. I wonder if this is the way I let them out. Maybe each letter is a tear of its own. I don't know. They say pouring yourself into a journal is therapeutic emotionally. I say that might be true, but it mostly lets yourself out mentally. Prayer lets your emotion out spiritually. I don't know if there's anything other than tears that lets you relieve yourself (not potty-wise.. emotionally) completely and pleasantly. I wish there was. I wish screaming would do something. Maybe it does, but do I really want to wake people up in the middle of the night? Do I really want to make everyone hear me in the middle of the day? Do I want to have to fill out the paperwork of a mental or emotional breakdown? Do I want to soil everything viewed positively about me? Do I want to get locked up in an asylum for the psychologically impaired?

I don't know why I put this out in the open. I think I really want to be understood and if I'm inhibited, it just doesn't work. There's really only one major thing I've ever kept from you guys, but it's really best for everyone if only a select few know. You guys get a pretty good look into me otherwise, though, I really can't complain. Someday people might read through this and really be able to get a grasp for who I am. Theoretically speaking, my written essence is bound to outlive my living essence. Maybe these will be bound up, slightly edited and modified for publishing, and then spread throughout the world one day. I don't know too many people who give such full disclosure openly and routinely. This journal might be one of the best ways people get to know me when they don't already. I'm sure you Russians know more about me than even I do. You could lock me up, plant a look-alike, and nobody would ever know the difference. Have you already? Is the Stevie that everyone sees really just a Russian spy, while I'm locked up and only allowed to write this as a report of what the Russian Stevie's been up to throughout his days as me?

Now I'm getting crazy.

You can see that.

If it gets fixed, you'll be able to see that too.

Is this reminding you of the first entry at all?

Minus the awkward and uncomfortable intro?

I've gotten to the point in the Bible that talks a lot about Joseph, who really was pretty awesome. You guys should read that story, it's golden.

I'll give you guys a simple but meaningful proverb to ponder, it's easy to quote because it's from Proverbs:
"I am teaching you the way of wisdom; I am guiding you on straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered; when you run, you will not stumble. Hold on to instruction; don't let it go. Guard it, for it is your life." - Proverb 4:11-13

Now to clean up my research articles and go to sleep.

We're in for a sleepy morning.

TGIPD.

Thank God It's Pajama Day.