I am getting happier and happier as the days go by.
Things are changing for the better.
And I’m so excited about this direction.

Right now I am sitting outside of a doctor’s office, by a fountain in the sunshine, thinking and writing.

I’m absolutely excited to see how things turn out this time around.
I’m starting over new. I’m fucking stoked.

I’ve come to realize that I am such a creature of habit. No matter where I’m at or what I’m doing I have a sort of routine.

A few months ago in my old relationship there were definitely routines, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. In the morning we would grab a bagel and then head over to Starbucks to get a cup of coffee. The place where we ate them was usually different, but that was still just what we did in the mornings. And usually the night ended with us at a coffee house, sitting and talking with friends until the place closed. Then we would get in bed together in time to watch Family Guy and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

In some way I feel like those things that I loved to do so much are kind of tainted now… I can’t bring myself to do nearly any of those things that were so normal to me both before and during that relationship without feeling a strange sort of ache in the pit of my stomach. It’s not even a longing feeling, because I don’t miss those people at all. I don’t wish I was still doing the same things with people who are still going to be in the same place for the rest of their lives. Maybe it’s a silly little form of nostalgia that I feel when I do things that coincide with the old. I have some great memories, but now it’s all a part of my past and I don’t miss it one bit.

I would love to be able to get a bagel and a cup of coffee without thinking about the gal that broke my heart. It was all those simple things that I found myself missing the most.

But I was forced out of that routine. I had to get out of it. I had to get over it.

I developed new routines that I made my own.

I make myself a cup of coffee in the morning. I drag myself outside with my coffee, my laptop and a pack of cigarettes and I think and write. My nights are always unpredictable, but I enjoy always having my time in the morning simply for me.

Old habits die hard. I learn this again and again and again. My old routine was hard to break but now that I’ve actually done it? I’m coming to terms with everything. I feel great.

I no longer eat ice cream on Tuesdays, and I’m just fine with that.

So we sat on the beach as strangers, two feet apart.
Two people brought together in the strangest of ways.
Both too scared to make the first move.
When the conversation ran out we turned to the sky in search of starlight
And there was none.
We ended the night with thoughts of opportunities missed.

A week later we returned to the same place.
She kissed me soft and sweet
And for a moment I was lost.
The sky was full of stars,
But I couldn’t bring myself to stare.

I had already found the starlight I looked for that first night.
It was in her all along.
I was just too afraid to look.

19 was good to me. I did more growing up then I thought I would ever have. It’s so crazy to even think about where I was at this time in my life just one year ago. So much has changed, and everything is different.

The only thing that was the same? Saying goodbye to Brigid. Only this time we said goodbye as completely different people, filling new, different roles in each other’s lives.

I spent the entire last year of my life trying to make relationships work. Three separate relationships with three people who I loved deeply. I don’t regret any of it. I have so many wonderful memories. I’m so thankful to those people for helping make me who I am today.

And today I’m done looking back. I’m going to keep making progress. I want to move towards growth and growth only.

I’m sitting at the airport in Portland waiting for my plane. I’m terrified to be back in San Diego. I’m absolutely scared to go back and be forced to face the place where I got my heart broken. I spent the last week hiding a thousand miles away, trying to escape the heartache. Now I’ve got to get back to the life I’ve left in shambles. I can’t hide forever.

I’m going home, just a little bit different than I was a week ago. While my head isn’t clear, I did a lot of thinking. I did some growing.

But the biggest change? I entered my twenties.

So long, 19. I gave being a teenager a good run. Now it’s time to get back in business and continue with this new chapter of my life.

And even though I say this every year? This year is gonna be a big one.

My plane is taking off in a half hour. I’m ready to go home.

Photo by Brigid (SaylaMarz on flickr)

•It is crazy cold. Everybody will tell you that you got here for the good weather. You will see people wearing shorts and tanktops soaking up the sun yet you will be wearing two hoodies and a scarf and still be freezing.

•Everyone will tell you that you must go to Voodoo Donuts. They will also tell you that you absolutely have to try the bacon maple donut. Do it. It is AMAZING.

•There is moss everywhere. Portland is very, very green. You’ll think it’s gross because in California the closest thing you see to moss is algae and fungus that grows in gross, damp places. You’ll think it’s the same thing but it’s not.

•There are no palm trees. There are a million other trees, however. It’s gorgeous

•If you are anything like me, you will not be stylish in Portland. Everybody wears flared jeans. Fashion is much flowier and earthier. People will look at you like you dress weird. You will stick out like a sore thumb.

•The closest thing to a 711 (at least where I’m staying) is called Plaid Pantry.

•Embrace and love the fact that there is no sales tax. Cigarettes are still just as expensive as in California, though.

•You will not use the Spanish language that is so helpful knowing in Southern California at all.

•There are a hell of a lot of homeless people. They’re nothing like the homeless dudes that you see in Downtown San Diego. And they’re honest. Where you’re from the signs they hold up say things like “Disabled, sick, hungry Vietnam veteran. Need to get back to Ohio. God bless.” Here? Their signs simply say “Need more beer and meth.”

•It’s a good town for walking and riding bikes. Since I can’t ride a bike, I’ve been walking at least ten miles a day. I don’t even feel like I need to go to the gym because I’ve been walking so damn much. When you get back to California you’ll feel guilty driving to McDonalds when you could easily walk there.

•There isn’t that ‘California bitchiness’. People smile and say hello, how are you when you’re walking down the street. They have no motive. People are just nicer.

•There are a lot of stores that sell only clogs and Birkenstocks. However, you may not see a lot of people wearing them. There are also a lot of stores that you will wish we had in California.

•It is septum piercing central up in here. The majority of people I’ve seen have em. Same with the bleach blonde and brown combo for hair.

•There are so many cute dogs. SO many.

•Everybody’s car sounds like it has something wrong with it. That just might be the mechanic in me saying that, though.

•Learn it, love it, embrace being somewhere different. Go home to California feeling totally refreshed. Come back again.

Portland was the perfect place for me to go and try to relax and clear my head. I’m flying home tomorrow. I’ll miss Portland, but I’ve got to get back to my life eventually, as much as I don’t want to. I’m definitely going to be coming back, and hopefully the next time I get back over here it’ll be with my best friend. She’d love it.

But my heart is in San Diego, and as much as I love Portland I’ve gotta go chase after it. I’ll be doing just that as soon as I step off the plane tomorrow.

Also? Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be 20.

I am currently in Portland, Oregon.

It’s the perfect place to clear my head. I needed out of San Diego, bad.

I kind of love it here. It’s amazingly beautiful. This city kind of suits me.

Not to mention I’m staying with one of my favorite people. It’s nice.

I’ve been spending a lot of time doing this lately. I sit at my desk and write and edit photos and stare out the window dreaming of better days.

And I know deep down that the better days will come soon enough.

This morning I took a step backward, but then immediately made even more steps towards this new chapter of my life. And my best friend is going to be right by my side all through it. I’m stoked.

I’m ready for today.

Sometimes you get the lucky lottery numbers. Sometimes you get a statement that is supposedly about you. I once got “you will order takeout.”

But today Jessica and I opened our cookies and got the perfect fortunes.

This past week has been all about family. I’ve seen people that I normally only see on holidays every day recently. It’s wonderful, despite the circumstances.

Even though death was what brought us all together again, it’s still be nice having them around so much. One of my favorite people ever has been in town. She’s Jessica, my cousin and we’ve been close since day one.

Earlier in the week we had a big, heavy conversation about our lives and where they’re going. Both of us were feeling completely lost. Talking to her about everything made it so real. All of the thoughts that I had been pushing to the back of my brain, all the “I’ll think about it later and just have fun for now” kind of thoughts were forced to the front and became the only thing on my mind.

For the last few days I’ve just been thinking and thinking. I need to do something with my life. Yeah, I’m young. Everybody’s been telling me nonstop that I have a long time to figure ‘it’ out. And that is true. I (hopefully) have a lot of time and a lot of life ahead of me.

But the thing is I’m not trying to have my life figured out just yet, that would be ridiculous. I just want to work towards getting there. I want to make progress. I want to move in the right direction.

And today I made the first step. With the help of Heather, my best friend, I’ve decided on a direction to move in. Sure, it’s not what I originally had in mind, but since when does life always go as planned?

The plans I had made months ago are done with. Now I’ve changed and so have my plans and I’m actually excited. And it gets even better because my best friend is going to be by my side, along for the ride.

We’re in this together.

Today I saw Jessica again and instead of moping around about how lost we felt we walked up to each other with smiles on our faces. In just this week both of us changed. We were no longer crying and trying to convince ourselves that things were okay because we were in the same boat, and we’d deal with things later.

Today we got to talk about taking action.

And that’s what I’m doing. That’s what Jessica’s doing. And the same for Heather.

All of us are working towards new beginnings. Towards goals, towards dreams. I couldn’t be luckier to have the love and support of these two amazing women. Thanks to these two people I’m working towards making progress. They’re my friends, they’re my family.

I had hit a wall. Instead of standing there forever and wondering what to do next I went searching for a way around it.

Today was a turning point for me. I’m going to try my best to put this new plan into action. I’ve found a direction to move in.

Something about being confined in a musty, stuffy building, using the same machine that someone just dripped sweat all over, while a guy in spandex shorts with veiny, muscled arms as big as my waist stares at my jiggly ass on the Stairmaster just did not appeal to me one bit.

In fact, it still doesn’t appeal to me. But I’ve been going every day.

And yesterday the monthly fees finally became worth it.

It was a rough day. In addition to all the stuff that’s been going on lately, I found out a close family member was dying. I don’t deal with death well, not at all. My head was spinning with terrible thoughts. Everything was just too much.

I needed to clear my head. And it was kind of strange because the first thought in my head wasn’t drugs or alcohol. It was to go running.

I threw on a baggy t-shirt and some shorts, laced up my shoes and hauled ass over to the gym. I pulled into the parking structure way fast, and parked so badly I was taking up two spots. I handed the guy my pass and flew up the stairs to the treadmills, hoping nobody would see that I was on the verge of tears. I put on my headphones, and set my iPod to blast Girl Talk as loud as it could. I got my shit situated so nothing would fall down and fly off and hit someone like last week. And then I ran.

I ran the first mile too fast. My thoughts were racing and so I was I. I was probably running so fast to try to get away from them, but the always caught up. I started thinking about anything and everything as I put one foot in front of the other over and over.

And as I hit mile number two everything clicked. All of the thoughts that I had been trying so hard to get out, to organize and process, to understand. All of a sudden it all made sense.

I felt this tremendous, burdening weight being lifted off my shoulders as the revelations poured in. I stopped the treadmill, turned off my iPod and picked up my cellphone.

“I get it now. I really did love you, and I always will. Thank you for everything. Goodbye.”

And that was it. I walked out of the gym with a big, dumb grin on my face. I got in my car and blasted my favorite songs all the way home and sang off key and smiled at every stranger that looked my way.

I’m starting to find my peace. I’m letting go. Things are going to work out.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; I know everybody makes mistakes. People are always making mistakes. But lately it’s been brought up to me that I never learn from mine.

I constantly make the same mistakes over and over, and I started to think that I was never going to learn from any of them. I was just going to have to accept myself the way I was. I tried to convince myself: this is who I am; this is who I’m always going to be. I’m always going to be this stupid little girl that plays games and tricks and always gets her way until it all blows up in her face. I would never change, so I would have to be okay with who I was.

But the thing I’ve come to realize is that it’s not that I can’t change. It definitely wasn’t that. The fact of the matter is that I wasn’t ready to change. I liked who I was, I liked the life I was leading. I didn’t want to change who I was.

And then, at the best possible time in my life I met the person that made me want to change. I wanted to change who I was to make myself better for her. But it wasn’t just for her, I wanted to change who I was to be better for myself. So I could become a person that I respected, and that I could be proud of.

All of a sudden I found myself hating the life I was living. I didn’t want to keep living my life for me and me only.

All of a sudden I was no longer the center of my universe, she was. And making her happy made me ecstatic. It completely lit up my life.

Suddenly I found myself having hopes and dreams for the future. All my life I never saw past today. Sure, I had those natural goals: someday I’ll have my own home. Maybe someday I’ll have children. I’m going to go to school for psychology. I’m going to get somewhere with my art.

All of those goals were mine. They were mine and mine only, and didn’t involve anybody else. I found myself making plans with her alongside me, we started making plans together. Suddenly it became we’re going to have a place of our own. We’re going to get a Shih Tzu puppy in August. We’re going to have children someday, and this is how we’re going to raise our kids. We were going to spend the rest of our lives- together in pure bliss.

I had this infinite hope. My newfound optimism was noticable by everyone around me. Nobody could recall ever seeing me so happy and so excited. Everyone saw me changing right before their eyes, I was changing into someone I could love, and they loved me for it. They were proud of who I was becoming.

I found myself so excited. I was making progress in my life, I was moving into the right direction. I never knew I was capable of being so happy.

And then overnight I found myself flying solo. The same person that made me so unbelievably happy made me more depressed than I ever thought was possible. I was a complete wreck for weeks. The same people who saw me at the pinacle of happiness were now trying to pick me up off of the floor, because I was at the lowest of lows. In all the years of knowing me they had never seen me so distraught, I had never sunk so low into depression.

I thought my life was over. I was so in love, and felt so completely full. I had everything I ever wanted, and overnight it was all drained out. All the life had been taken out of me. I turned into an empty shell of the girl who used to be looking forward.

I found myself dealing with the newfound feelings of depression in the worst possible ways. I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. I drank myself into oblivion. I turned to the worst of my old friends, cocaine. And that old, terrible friend brought me and the razor back together. My body shrank in size. I turned fragile and frail and pale, and the next thing I knew I was fifteen pounds lighter. I was in the darkest pit I had ever been in. As I poured all of these harmful substances into my body I cut into my skin, aching to feel something, to feel anything; I was so numb.

And I watched myself from the outside, from above: I saw this sad, pathetic little girl laying on the floor with wrists that wouldn’t stop bleeding, a stomach full of nothing but vodka and a brain taken over by cocaine. It was the first time I saw the person I used to be years ago in a long, long time. I saw myself back in the pit that once took me so much drive to crawl out of, only this time I had actually hit rock bottom and remained there for weeks.

But in spite of my lack of romantic partner I found myself surrounded with more love than ever. In those weeks I was reminded of one of the most important things in the world. The universe reminded me who my real friends were and who I could really count on.

And those were the people who helped me out of that pit. They saw me at the bottom and didn’t leave me there and wave from the top. They formed a ladder to help me out. They cleaned up and bandaged my bloody arms. No matter how much I begged and claimed I needed it, they wouldn’t help me get my coke fix. If I was drinking they drank with me to make sure I didn’t overdo it, or do something stupid. They went walking and talking with me to help me try to get out the frustration by exercising. They saw me shrinking and made sure I ate. They had me make promises to them, and they didn’t give up on me when I slipped up and broke them. They never left my side, because if they left me alone they were afraid they’d lose me for good. They loved me and comforted me and spent hours talking to me even though all I could do was repeat the same bullshit that was in my head. These amazing, wonderful people never gave up on me.

After spending weeks with a mind plagued with thoughts of suicide, my friends held my hands and helped me pull myself out. And I had never been so thankful.

In spite of everything that had happened to me, as down in the dumps as I was I felt this new sort of rebirth. It was almost as cliche as a phoenix rising from the ashes. In the midst of all the wreckage, as I laid in the middle of the ruins of what used to be my life I was able to get back on my feet with the help of the people I love.

In all my life I had never experienced that type of unconditional love and support from anyone and it was absolutely amazing. The love I felt from my friends reminded me to believe in magic, and to believe in miracles.

This last month has literally been the worst I’ve ever experienced. It was the darkest time in my life. But when I was stuck in the dark, thinking I’d be there forever my friends handed me a flashlight and showed me the way.

I fucked up. I fucked things up with the love of my life simply because of my refusal to change. I made the wrong choices, I made the wrong decisions like I always have. But this time I’m learning. I’ve learned from the mistakes I’ve made, and even though I had to learn them the hard way I’m still incredibly grateful.
I’ve finally picked myself up of the floor. I flipped the light switch to ‘on’ in the darkest of rooms and walked out of there in style.

And now? I’m ready to change, but for myself. I’m ready to be the person that I want to be.

I’m finally ready to live again.

I’m Xelia. I’m living and loving and learning. Welcome to my world.