I've always been a shit journaler. I do it. And I stop. I do it. And I stop. And yet I've always viewed myself as a journaler, someone who values the written word, someone who wants their ideas, their thoughts and feelings to be recorded for generations to come. I've always loved the ideas of journals, of opening a book that someone before me wrote in. And I suppose that's why I journal-so someone else can feel that feeling-and, of course, because I'm terrified of being forgotten.

And so, I've decided to journal every single day. If I can't post here, I'll write it down to be posted the next day, or the next. I will journal my way to 2012 and, when the world is ending, look back and say "Ahh, I did something good there."

-Anna

This was previously posted at cloudsoffools HERE on 5/29/2011. BTW, all of the username links are to Livejournal, not Dreamwidth so clicking them will do nothing besides tell you that there isn't a registered user with that name.


I have not posted here in what seems like years. And it's strange, you know? I mean, I started on LJ when I was about eleven with chatterbox0_0 but I was more into Xanga. Then I finally got into LJ when I was about thirteen. I was justachatterbox. And I posted a ton. I loved it. I loved blurting out everything I felt, saw, heard. I loved the community. And then I moved here, to cloudsoffools. And I started drifting away from LJ. I don't know. I suppose I just feel like I'm more...emotionally repressed? I'm not as open as I used to be, not as apt to post the things I experience. But that's not good.

I started posting on worthamass because I felt like people expected something from the Cloudsoffools Savanna. They expected me to be a certain person. And at Worthamass I could just blurt out how I felt because I didn't have many friends there. That's not what LJ is supposed to be about. It's about-or at least I feel it's about-sharing the human experience, about people getting together and understanding each other, connecting, befriending, etc. And even though I don't post here much, I still feel that connection to LJ. I mean, I feel like I wouldn't be as good of a writer. It's strange saying that because I try to write exactly how I speak on LJ and it's certainly not my best writing but I try to explain things to people on LJ. I try to make myself understood and isn't that what writing is about: being understood? I don't know. I feel like I'm rambling here.

So I've started a journaling project. Here and at vogels.dreamwidth.org, I am going to blog 365 days this year. I'll probably cross-post because they're completely different sites but I'll still have the "exclusives". I feel like I've gotten out of touch with so many of my LJ friends and I don't have that openness that I used to have. I realize that I've gotten older, that I've changed but I'm not entirely certain that I like the person I've become. Yeah, I'm funny, cute and intelligent according to my friends. Yeah, I'm the girl who's into anything and everything, the writer, the dreamer, the adviser. But internally, I don't feel like these are the things I am. I feel so disassociated from my external Savanna. Maybe it's because I'm such a train wreck mentally-hospitalized twice and a high school drop-out now.

Oh, I didn't mention that last part, did I? I basically said "screw my good grades, screw college, screw my scholarship and screw school" and dropped out about a month ago. I really just couldn't handle anything and I was about to go into the hospital again. God, I hate that. I really do. I hate that I can't be everything that people expect me to be. I can't be the straight A student anymore. I just can't. I am a mental train wreck. I've spent my entire life doing what everyone else wants and now I just don't know what I want. I'm not the girl who wants to be the Supreme Court Chief Justice anymore, nor the lawyer. Yes, I still wish to be the linguistics professor and the foremost expert on Sanskrit. Yes, I still want to be a novelist-I think that's the only thing I know for sure about myself right now. But I'm just not happy doing what I'm doing and if I keep going on like this well, let's just say I've been suicidal before.

I hate that I've become this walking stereotype of the "girl who had everything and then gave it up". I hate that I'm the "crazy" girl. But I'm still Savanna Snead. I can still talk about Jean-Paul Sartre and Joan Didion and Otto von Bismarck and then start talking about Grand Theft Auto 4. I'm still the fashion buff, the graphic designer (check out my new site: Anna Says Smile, the writer, the artist. These things haven't changed. It's just that I can't do school right now because I'm just not mentally there. It's something that's so hard to explain to people because they don't understand. "Well, how aren't you just there?" they ask. And it's hard to reply. People who've had mental illnesses can understand though. And I'm really glad that I have their support.

I'm just going to get my GED, join City Year-an Americorps program. (I'm an Americorps/Peacecorps freak. Volunteering is my life-overstatement, yes but still. I love it.) I'll write my book this year. That's something I've been working on. I'm forty pages in-I've been working on it the last two weeks. It's something that, strangely enough, I've started from scratch. Usually my stories are so complicated but this is simple and it's nice. It's really nice to write. I mean, it's not shit but it's just simple and nice to read. And I suppose I'm proud of it.

So that's what's been going on in my life. I've been going to graduation parties all week and I just got back from my friend Christina's. It was fun. We played Uno, Balderdash and ate dessert. Also, I might be going to Minnesota with some of my friends there. I have to check with my mom because they're leaving tomorrow. Sure, I probably won't go but, still, it's nice to at least check out the options. So expect posts from me-and lots of them because I'm going 365 days with this project.

Today was graduation.

I didn't graduate.

I woke up sore from yesterday's 'exertions' with Tanatswa. We cleaned out her garage. The best part-besides seeing my best friend for the first time in well, months-was destroying a wooden desk with a shovel. We yelled out names of the people and things that had caused us so much despair, anxiety and rage over the last few years-"Nathan!", "Abbey!", "Josiah!", "Scott!", "Chris Flynn", "High School". It was very therapeutic. To top it off, Tanatswa ended it with "And to all the mother fathers who thought they could screw with us." before slamming the shovel into three inches of wood. I think that my dramatic side is rubbing off on her.

It was an almost ritualistic process of destroying that desk. I felt at peace afterwards. It's strange how physical exertion can solve your problems. When I walk, I talk about the things that bother me and I feel better afterwards. I suppose there's probably some science to that and, if I truly tried, I could go into it but I'm not in the mood. But I've always loved the way that going on a walk or running or destroying a desk can make you feel so damn good.

After cleaning the garage, we headed over to Allea's graduation party. We were nervous. This was a party that would be filled with dregs. And we, apparently, don't like dregs. I find them annoying. They're boring to me. I don't really have a problem with the drinking and the drugs as much as Tanatswa does. I just find them to be predictable and uninteresting. There's nothing about the dregs that make me go, "You know, some of you could make really good friends.". Tanatswa feels that they are all on the wrong side of the tracks and thus will peer pressure her into doing weed, which will then push her to doing 'crack cocaine' because it's a 'gateway drug'.

Anyway, Allea was very nice. We played an intense game of Miss Mary Mack and I got down on one knee to give her her gift (after which, she couldn't remember my name, haha). The food was quite good-potato salad, chips and cake. We left after fifteen minutes. I felt like Allea was glad to have some normal people at her party. Only about ten of the dregs were there, plus her family. It was a very mournful atmosphere. I started to pity her because all her friends are assholes. Next was Kristen's party. This was Kristen C., whom I ate lunch with freshman year. Alex, Ashley and their mom were there. We at cookies and chatted with them before loading our bags with the free candy from the candy bar and getting the hell out as fast as possible.

And finally, the party that we were waiting for: the Foreign Exchange Student Farewell Party. This party was at Chase Sullivan's pool house. Really. In the middle of Iowa and we go to someone's pool house for a party. His pool house was bigger than Tanatswa's actual house. His actual house? Well, color me shocked that we have such mansions in little ole Iowa. The party was really an excuse for all the popular kids to get wasted. We took pictures, hung out by the fire and pretty much just chilled. I didn't say much because I was completely out of it from not taking my pills. Got home, mom asked me if I smoke any weed because I was so dead (I'm pretty sure she was convinced I was drunk) and then fell asleep to A Very Long Engagement.

Today: woke up at about elevenish. Checked facebook to see when and where the graduation parties of the day (Abbey's and Tia's) were. Same time, different parks. Headed over to Noleridge to meet Tia. Had to listen to Quinn tell me that I had no pride for going to see my friends at their grad parties when I wasn't graduating. I get there and no one is there. No one. There's another grad party and guess who's there? Chase Sullivan. I looked completely hungover too. That's what a day of heavy lifting plus not taking your depression/anxiety pills does to you. So, I wandered around the park like an idiot, trying not to cry because my head was so fucked up because I hadn't taken my pills. I walked home, getting lost on the way and, by chance, meeting Coral who dropped me off. She told me that she was there for me, to remember that I had friends. It was very nice.

It's very troublesome thinking that you're worthless. I get up each morning and I think "What for? What's going to change today?". I'm too fucked up to do school and I'm too teenagery and unskilled to get a job. I'm just hoping for Americorps. It's what I really want to do. And I don't know if I'll get it. I keep having to remind myself that I am, in fact, pretty, skilled, talented. I'm a fucking writer. I have forty pages done that I've written in the last two weeks. I am not worthless.

And yet, when I have to hear people tell me that I'm making dumb decisions, act like I haven't truly thought things out, as if I'm not intelligent enough to make my own choices and tell me that I'm ruining my life, it gets to me. It really does. I hate this high and mighty thing everyone around me is doing. They all have opinions on what I should be doing and yet no one asks me for mine. It's "do this", "do that". And I can't do that right now. I know what I'm capable of right now. My head is too fucked for me to do anything besides what I've been trying to do. And my pills just aren't working. I want to try without the pills, just to see if I work better that way. I want my head clear. I just don't know how to do it.