i think i'm done talking for a while.

a year ago i woke up and found my dad four hours into a stroke, dying right in front of me, and something scary broke inside of me.

i always knew something like this would happen. i watched my mom die when i was so young. humans aren't strong and mighty. we're so fragile, so weak. the moment we're put on this earth we begin to die and nothing is going to stop that. so i always knew that i'd have to be prepared for when something else bad happened because it would probably be up to me to be the anchor. but the panic shut me down and i screamed when i called 911 and cried and cried and cried because it's easy to be strong when life is going well but it's hard not to be weak when the entire world is shattering around you.

i've always been a worrier. but i've never had an anxiety the size of a monster inside of me like i do now. sometimes i call my dad twice a day to check in and i keep my ringer on full blast when i go to bed and sleep with a ponytail on my wrist in case i have to race to the hospital at a moment's notice, even though i have a phobia of my wrists falling off from lack of circulation like a pig's tail. at school i started checking to make sure lauren was breathing every night before i went to bed and demanded that my brother check in with my dad if he sent a text with a few misplaced words for fear that he was having another stroke.

it's a strange thing to watch your life come apart and be completely helpless in stopping it. one year ago today at this very moment i was hoping for something incredible to happen. and then it all went to shit. and as the year progressed, it went to even more shit. and it just kept happening and happening and happening and there was nothing i could do to change it. i'm so tired. i'm so so so so so tired and life isn't going to get any easier. "fall down seven times, stand up eight." how about i fall down seven times and take a nap instead.

i used to want to share everything. now i want to share nothing. you can only word things so many ways before you realize that people are never going to understand. so i think for now i'm done trying to explain this ocean inside of me and why i always get sad when i'm out with my friends. i suffer from anxiety and depression and athazagoraphobia and i don't know how else to describe the way i am to people who aren't really listening.

words are the biggest weapons we own. and sometimes they're the most powerful when we take them away.

a playlist for when it's 3 am and you're really, really sad.

my words have disappeared and i don't know where to find them.


i have never loved someone - my brightest diamond

loss of a twin - brian tyler

what makes a man - city and colour

in this shirt - the irrepressibles 

hanging by a thread - jann arden

expression - helen jane long

buy the stars - marina and the diamonds

signs (saycet remix) - bloc party

the sound of silence - brooke fraser

make you feel my love - lea michele

the a team - birdy

bel air - lana del rey

jesus christ - brand new

so cold - ben cocks

all i want - kodaline

now go to thenicestplaceontheinter.net because there is nothing nicer than a stranger giving you a big comforting hug.

i know it's true, that visions are seldom all they seem.

i've always loved fairytales. i've always believed in fairytales. fairytales had magic, and i thought that if i believed hard enough, if i truly believed in the deepest parts of my heart, then i could have the magic, too. i wanted a fairytale happy ending so badly, and for some silly reason i always believed that i would get one.

i used to believe in everything. i believed in the stars and my books and the flowers that grew out of the cracks in the sidewalk. i used to believe in my dreams and in this world and in myself. life changes people, though. and the truth can be so incredibly brutal.

last thursday i went to the premiere of maleficent with lauren. the story of sleeping beauty has always been my favorite fairytale. she most certainly is my favorite princess. aurora. to me, she had the most beautiful name of them all. "the dawn." a new beginning. my favorite time of the day, when the sun kisses me and the stars goodnight and i fall into my own slumber as the rest of the world awakens. maybe that's why she's my favorite. we're alike in a lot of ways. i'm the one asleep for a hundred years, while everyone else around me is wide awake. i feel like that a lot. as if i'm walking through life in a dreamlike state, waiting for someone to come wake me up and make me feel alive again. it's like maleficent is life and the darkness is trying to pull me into an eternal slumber. but i'm not sleeping beauty. and happily ever afters are just words on a page.

as soon as i heard the first haunting notes of lana's version of once upon a dream, i fell in love. disney's version is so light. and i loved that version when i felt like life could be just like that fairytale. but life doesn't work that way. it can be so cruel and so very, very dark. maleficent. the literal meaning being "menacing and foreboding." the truest form of evil portrayed in the most wicked villain of them all. what's not to love?

and while i adored the movie, i will say i thought it could have been so much darker. i was almost disappointed; i didn't agree with some of the plot changes, but sleeping beauty will always be sleeping beauty to me. and light or dark, it will always be my favorite.

i don't know where i'm going with this whole thing. all i know is that i haven't written a post since november because the words have hidden themselves deep within my mind and they disappear before my fingers can even touch the keys. but i think it's become harder to keep everything inside than it is to fight it out of my messed up head. so this is the result. baby steps, as someone anonymously commented on one of my flickr pictures one time. but the dawn is on it's way and maizie is snuggled up on my lap, so i guess it's time for me to give up and go back to dreamland. maybe i'll meet my prince there.