this was supposed to be a 365 day blog, but i am just going to post some stuff i have in a notepad file that i’ve been hoarding for a couple days. most of them have to do with my complicated feelings toward god. each bullet point is unrelated to the next.
- it’s not the question of whether or not i believe in god that has haunted me all these years. it’s the question of whether or not god believes in me that i have struggled with. i tried to reach him in the night time, but he never returned my call.
- it started, much as these things do, with a want. more specifically, god decided that he wanted, a visceral feeling attributed to beings that didn’t exist, and so the world was.
- i see the face of the guy who sexually assaulted me in the faces of other men and it scares me. i sit there and think “i can’t trust you, i can’t trust you or you or you or you.” i see the face of my best friend who killed himself in the faces of other people and i think “that is your smile, those are your eyes, i miss you i miss you i miss you.”
- i am going to pray to god like i have a direct line. i am going to lie to you because that is my only significant skill; it is the only thing i can do well without shaking. i am going to be what you need even though we both know that i don’t know what that means. i am going to fail, but the point is, the point is i am going to try again until i get it right.
i may expand on some of these later, but for the moment these are the words i have.
I don’t remember a lot of my childhood. It’s interesting the sort of walls your head throws up to protect you and it’s startling to figure out piece by piece what lurks behind them. Of course, I remember bits and pieces of a few good things - making a cake with my mother while I was in kindergarten that would later go on to win a prize, the feeling of sand beneath my child feet - but overwhelmingly there is nothing to do with my home life from about age thirteen and below. Abuse leaves indelible marks on a person and the brain works hard to hide them even if it can’t rid itself of them.
So, I woke up this morning and after I put on my jeans, I realized I had a pocket full of quarters. This would normally not be a big deal, but considering the last place I wore these jeans was the New Year’s block party in Nashville, the extra weight is an incongruous finding. It’s not like it was one or two quarters either - there are about twenty quarters in my pocket and I have no idea how they got there or how I did not notice them before. All the drinks I paid for with dollar bills, so I’m not really sure how I ended up with more money than I should have. See, I bought three jello shots - two dollars a piece - and still somehow ended up with thirty-nine dollars out of the forty that I left the house with.
Maybe I’m looking to far into it. It isn’t like people were randomly sneaking quarters into my pocket and as far as I know there is no drunken cousin of the tooth fairy who burps tequila and gives you a quarter for every bruise you receive. I still wonder where the quarters came from, though.
What if they made bars like they made cupcake shops? Instead of just going to a bar - which I suppose would be the bakery in this scenario - to get a drink, you could go to a chic thing with poof pillows in the corner and fairy lights across the ceiling and get jello shots in every flavor possible. If you were feeling fancy, perhaps you could have layered jello shots. I’m sure this trendy bar would be full of whoo! girls in short sparkly dresses made famous by Taylor Swift and all the men would wear loafers with tassels and maybe they would help their ladies out of the bar, but maybe not.
It would be called shots³ or something not-quite clever like that and the sign would be some cursive script and maybe you could get a piece of alcohol-soaked fruit on top of your shot if you were so inclined and just drunk enough to pay the extra buck for a soggy piece of melon or strawberry, and the toothpick would run through the fruit and into the shot so you could eat the fruit before you loosen the shot. You could come home and the next morning wonder where all of your money went. You would have questions - “Where are my keys? Does anyone have any painkillers?” - but no one would be there to answer them. Somehow you’d find yourself going the next night, but maybe with a different guy or a different-but-the-same dress and begin the cycle again.
Maybe the chic, trendy bar would go the way of many trendy bars before it and fail within the year. Don’t worry, though - you’ll find another one.
I’ve been trying to decide what my first post of the new year should be all day. I have this idea in my head that it needs to be spectacular in order to start 2012 off right, but I think spectacular is something subjective. As if my first post on this tumblr dictates the way the rest of my year will go - and we all know that isn’t true.
I saw this quote earlier today by Andrew McMahon and it really resonated with me. Why do we make New Year’s Resolutions if there’s a chance we might not follow through with them? Because it’s not about the act itself. It’s a beautiful thing when people let themselves hope. I know what hope feels like: it curls warm in my chest and rests beneath my heart and my ribcage keeps it safe. It’s a bit tight inside my chest cavity - I’ve got a heart and a couple of lungs and worry and anxiety and a constant undercurrent of panic, but there’s room for hope too. So this year, I’m not making a list of resolutions. There’s nothing I need resolved in my life right now. I am not a broken person; I do not need fixing. Resolutions feel like an end of something, and this is just the start. I have goals that I’m working towards, but those are goals for life, not just 2012.
So you know what? Fuck it. I already made a list of things I learned in 2011. I’m not going to make a list of resolutions that I probably won’t keep. I’m going to cut out the middle man and just let myself hope that 2012 will be a great year. It’s about time I let myself have higher expectations, right?
And a little bit of housekeeping: if there is anything you’d like to see me write about, leave me an ask. I could use all the help I can get. :D
faq
o1. Well, what’s the point of this blog?
A goal of mine is not to become complacent in my own life. So, of course, I decided to make a 365 Day Challenge blog. I plan on doing a post a day, but what exactly those posts entail I am leaving up to chance. They may be filled with words or pictures or sounds, but I promise they will all mean something.
o2. Where does missedyourskin come from?
It comes from the song Northern Downpour by Panic! at the Disco, specifically these lyrics:
i missed your skin when you were east
you clicked your heels and wished for meThis song has always held a special place in my heart, and what better to pair such a personal blog with than a song that means so much?
o3. Who are you?
My name is Claire. You can find the link to my main tumblr over there on the left. I’m in college studying to become a Special Education teacher. There are things I am trying to get over, and I hope this will help.
o4. What if I have another question?
Well, my ask box is always open. Never hesitate, not with anything and especially not with me.
I’ll see you January 1, 2012. Do something drastic with your life until then.
