Excelsior in Summertime Sadness...

To read is to cover one's face. And to write is to show it.
Here's mine.

I've now lived in LA for 2 years... and every.single.month. i want to go "home"-back to austin. i can't afford LA and i'm not booking anything thats worth staying here for. But i also dont want to give up too easily. i rather be an "oh well" person than a "what if" type of person. plus, if it were easy, everyone would do it. i knew it wouldnt be easy. i just desperately miss having good hearted girlfriends that will swing dance with me in a dive bar any night of the week after we spent the day reading poetry to each other in a kayak. i miss affordability. i miss eye contact that is 10 out of 10 times followed by a smile.

i miss everyone riding their bikes to the natural springs or to movie in the park. drenched in sweat from the texas heat but still snuggling up next to each other. i miss the city where young people go to retire. i miss safety. today i walked to a coffee shop and asked "is it safe for me to stick around here a bit and write then walk back home, about half a mile?" and all 3 workers immediately responded with no's. "not unless you have a knife or mase." in austin i used to go far into the east side (before people realized it was a hidden treasure) to blues dance. i drove my vw thing and wore my saddle shoes and it held me  

hey little girl wont you dance those
blues away...

together every week. i was the only white girl most nights, the only lights were from the year round christmas trees, and there was free chili in the crockpot on the bar. people in there could hardly afford the $5 cover ... but ... they were happy. swaying their hips to the harmonica and stomping their feet to the drums. an old man in the corner playing the sax to the blues band. there was no place i rather be. it never got old. but in the bottom of my heart i always wanted to act. years went by living there and it broke my heart to leave a city i knew i could be happy in forever to go pursue something that may never even happen. but i did. 2 years later im writing this. 

this month i had to sublet out my place and stay on friends couches so that i can afford to stay in LA. usually on a work break i would take off to an orphanage and play the hokey pokey with children that love to dance... giving to each other joy unspeakable. thats not in budget out here and while staying with friends can be exhausting, im doing what i have to do. yesterday i was driving on the 101 thru hollywood, not having the best mindset on it. a blue ford festiva cut me off. i didnt think those cars were around anymore at all, haha. (the car jim carey drives in 'fun with dick and jane' when he goes bankrupt). this moment was really meant to be for me because i had that car once. in high school. i called it the blueberry, haha. and not only that, i lived in it for part of my junior year. i had a dreamcatcher hanging on the inside and painted "lets go for a starry night drive" on the side. it was tiny. 2 guys would pick it up and hide it

behind the dumpster to scare me, haha. but i made it my home, what was important was that i was finishing school. after lunch breaks i used to ask to go to the bathroom but go down to the soda machines to see if anyone had forgotten their change so that i could use it to buy a pack of tortillas to eat for that week. they were cheap and filled you up.. but needless to say i cant stand flour tortillas now and i was definitely not in shape. that car lasted me a year. i had bought it for $850 from a stripper, and when it broke down a year later i traded it for a c.d. player. how perfect was it for one to cut me off and remind me of that time in my life. while living in that car, i was headed down a path that is nothing like the one that i am on today. i was rescued. funny i called it the blueberry as well... because those are good for you, and that time was really good for me. it was hard being a highschooler and living in a car, but its made me who i am today. im more understanding because of it. youve got to make your mess ... your message. and now i can look back and say, "phew.. right now isnt THAT bad". and all i can hope is that years from now i will look back at this time and laugh as well.

live the questions...

It's strange how a lot of people see having a cold or the flu as a sickness that's not really your fault. But when you struggle with depression it's not seen as a sickness at all.. it's usually just misunderstood. That's why when i'm struggling theres not a single person in my phone (out of over 2k contacts) that i can call and talk to about it. it's not understood. C.S. Lewis says, "Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'my tooth is aching' than to say 'my heart is broken'..."
I do believe in self help and natural healing. But you have to become an expert at recognizing triggers. It's hard when you feel yourself shutting down because all that does is make you more depressed because it reminds you that you're not exactly "ok". But I know that all

seasons pass. You have to stay alive. There are good days and bad days and even if theyre not equal you have to learn to live for the good days. Honestly, the reason I've never committed suicide when i've battled before is because I'm scared that means that I'd go to hell. You can think i'm stupid for thinking that but that's been the case since i was 10, which is when it first started to cross my mind. I know this is a very transparent blog, but i dont want you to feel alone.
sometimes social media can make you feel even more alone. You see every one's 'highlight reel' and compare it to your 'behind the scenes'. We tend to only post the good and the party photos. why would anyone post photos of themselves sad and be a debbie downer? so we forget that others get sad too. but we've all cried ourselves to sleep, we all just want the same thing - to be happy. but all we see are the happy status updates on fb & the bride to be or happy mommy posts. we dont see what's behind closed doors. we dont see that the new mom thats so starry eyed at her child had to apply for food stamps to take on the added expense. we dont see that the lady who posts positive quotes every day does so because she's reminding herself to live as she struggles with depression. we dont see that our happily in love friend still has nightmares about her abusive parents. or that the guy who just got a huge break in his career is also having to break up with his gf of 5 years... maybe a few of these has applied to me, or maybe i know people like this personally... but what its taught me is that no one "has it together" in the way we think they do. we all are really just trying to figure this out. yet we forget and we feel alone.
but im reminding both of us, that we're not.

which one is worth giving up?