My mind is swirling with so many thoughts that I don’t know where to begin. It’s like my thoughts are combined in a circle that has always existed, so there is no beginning, no easy way to start.

I think all the time. I hear about people who enjoy not thinking for periods of time during their day just so that they can give themselves a rest. I don’t believe them usually when they make these claims. I think to myself, “Well, they are still thinking, they just choose to render those thoughts as insignificant enough to forget. So when the time has passed, they don’t bother trying to remember what went on in their heads. If you don’t remember, it’s like it never happened to you. Therefore, when they’re asked what they were thinking about, they call it ‘nothing.’”

I, however, choose to keep every single thought in my head as close to the surface as possible. I hope to keep my subconscious very shallow so that there are no surprises in me. I hope to keep my behavior intentional and not a reaction to whatever may be going on deep inside the inner workings of my mind. I’m pretty sure that it is impossible for me to eliminate my subconscious, but I keep trying. Thing is, sometimes I think that the more I try to deny myself the truth that there are thoughts and feelings I cannot understand within me, the deeper my subconscious. I end up completely lost in this dark world in my head that is as frightening and frustrating as a fun house filled with mirrors that distort and swirl. I end up going back and forth between not knowing what feelings are natural and which ones are voluntarily chosen. I try to be honest with myself, but sometimes I think that I talk myself out of being happy. Sometimes, I can’t tell if I’m being healthy. I think that my over-observation of my feelings, my open acknowledgment and verbalization of my reactions and thoughts, helps me to know what I want and what I need to be happy. Then I wonder if I’m doing just the opposite. What if all that acknowledgment in turn leads me to be more complicated and sad than I want to be. Am I ever living? Am I always angry that the world I live in does not match up with the world I dream up?

Sometimes I think that by knowing myself so well, I make myself simple. I don’t sit around, suck in experiences and leave them to sort themselves out later in life when I should be done and over with it. No, I experience, I rationalize what just happened, and then I put it there on my big bookshelf of “resolved issues.”

But maybe I’ve been completely wrong all along. Maybe experiences don’t just pile up in your subconscious as a big problem that you need to work out in therapy later. Maybe I’m MAKING life complicated rather than simplifying it. Maybe I’m MAKING issues out of things that are just daily life happenings. Maybe not every single thing has to be an event, a learning experience, a lesson, a clue, a foreshadow, a piece of a puzzle to solving some mystery about another person. Maybe if I just let things go, they don’t pile up, but rather they dissolve. I role it off my shoulder, and then I move on. Then, maybe I could be happy because I’m just living life and moving along rather than concentrating so damn hard on what a person just said and its meaning. Maybe I look too much for meaning in a place where there is not that much meaning to be found.

If this is all true, I don’t think it means that I’ve been mistaken my whole life in how I handle things, but I think that I just now need to learn how to decipher between those important moments and those that I should just forget. Look at me. Ten years of extensive journal keeping. Sure, it’s priceless, but am I really that much happier or healthier than ANYONE ELSE? Have I really come to be a better person because of it? Would I be who I am if I had not dwelled so much on so many details that I take on as catastrophic or colossal? What if I just started to look at things as not that big of a deal? Would I still be me? Would I still be special?

This new concept was set off while I watched Vanilla Sky. I looked at Penelope Cruz’s character, Sophia, and I thought about how much I wanted to be her. Before Cameron Diaz’s character, Julia, went totally crazy, I saw myself as her. Sophia is the woman that I pretend I am a lot. I think that I am Julia though, and that kills me. Julia is beautiful. She has a sophistication about her. She is sweet, she is sexy, and she seems so aloof. You can see that she isn’t so put together, but she is trying really hard to make herself seem that way. It doesn’t matter how hard she tries though. It wouldn’t matter if she were an excellent actor. There is a chemistry, a truth about a person that will always come to be known, that will always shine through eventually, and if that person is insecure, complicated, and full of shit, then she no longer will be attractive to that person she’s tried to lie to. People look at her and think she is a dream woman, but she knows, and the one she loves knows that she is not that. She lives in fear of that wonderful woman is actually is all the things she tries to hard to be. She loses her cover when she comes to realize that her nightmare is more than possible, but probable. I feel that I am Julia. That breaks my heart about me.

Sophia was so beautiful. She has the hair that falls naturally. She is pretty when she sweats. She is sweet and undemanding. She is carefree and elegant in such a lovely and gentle way. She is a product of the earth rather than a result of society. She can change a man. She can make cold soul warm. Her every detail is flawless in a light manner, not an organized one. She glides. She doesn’t think about being perfect and this is the secret to how she has achieved perfection.

I work so hard on being what I think is irresistible. I can see it. I think that all this talking to myself, all this analyzing has led not to knowing myself, but to lying to myself. I talk myself into believing what I need to believe to be a beautiful person. I know that I’m full of shit.

However, I think that if I’m not so self conscious, men I date would feel at ease in return and then enjoy my company more, which would spiral everything upward instead of downward. I feel like I know this to be true based off of my history with staying friends with ex’s. It is not coincidence that I have friendly and comfortable relationships with whomever I’ve hooked up with or dated seriously. I have never covered my face in shame when seeing an old hook up come in the room. I am friends with every ex I’ve ever had. NO, it is not because I’ve been lucky enough to have open-minded boys as hook-ups and boyfriends. Not at all. It has been ALL MY DOING. I don’t feel uncomfortable or embarrassed around hook ups. I don’t care how far we went, I know that it was fun and it was all it was for one good reason or another. They in turn feel comfortable because I give off no feelings of awkwardness or regret. I truly feel that way though, I’m not acting. I go up and say, “Hey, what’s up?” And they realize that there’s no problem here. With ex-boyfriends, I allow them to know that there is no reason to hate each other just because we’re not meant to be a couple. I make it easier on them, and then we can learn to appreciate each other as people. The psychology of these interpersonal relations is so fascinating, but what’s so ironic is that the knowledge of it doesn’t help anything or give you power because it all comes down to truth and nature – how you REALLY feel. Understanding it is just…cool, not all that beneficial.

I am ONLY happy when I think I’m wonderful. Look at Nate. He thought I was perfect, but that did not make me happy. It’s the inner glow. Look at how when it rains it pours. People think it’s coincidence, but it is not. People think it’s when you stop looking that love finds you, which is true, but they think it’s a weird twist of life. It’s not. It’s straight up psychology. When you don’t care and finally find self-contentment, it is the most attractive quality in the world. And everyone will come flocking to you. You’ll find love then if you bump into someone who is just as self-content because he will be attractive in that same way to you. Once again, this is only when it’s true, not when you try for it to be true.

I have my friends and family. I should just spent all my time with them to hold onto whatever certainties I could find in myself because they love me unconditionally like Mike, Katie, Laura, Dave, Jim, Erin, Aine, Oly.

I’m going to get into my bed right now, pick up Harry Potter, and read until I fall asleep without ever thinking about him once. Operation Distraction and Self Renewal.