Candy Shop

What a mess. I am just starting to come down from it all. In this moment I see the big picture, the forest. Probably when I wake up tomorrow morning I will go back to seeing the tree ahead of me again and will forget what the whole forest looks like from the aerial view I am now privy to. In this aerial view I see the mania of the past month or so. The past month has been the first one in a long time that I have felt well with little to no complaints. I have started living again. But the fear of the past lingers and I have been living each day like I could wake up the next day and feel like it is September again. So what does that translate to in Briana world? Spending a lot of money is one thing. I am afraid to confess how much money I've spent and on what I've spent it on. What I can say is that now as I mentally tabulate it all and question whether it was on anything really important or necessary, I feel like an idiot. But it felt important to buy new clothes when I started feeling like I could look good in them and would be physically able to go out in them. It seemed stupid to wear my winter clothes from last winter when I was heavier and now make me look and feel so last winter, heavy-minded and depressed and laden with my emotional baggage. Now I want to show off my legs and wear short dresses and high heels and crazy tights. I want to wear tight jeans with my hot pink velvet Kate Spade shoes. I want to sleep in expensive 500 thread count sheets. I want to carry my new sexy Beltkier bag that can hold my yoga stuff yet can take me out at night and look right. I want to show my mother how grateful I am to her by buying her a cashmere robe for her birthday. I am getting my sister a fancy Frederic Fekkai haircut for her birthday. I can complain and complain about how much of my money has gone towards unanticipated and uncovered medical expenses and how even though I have a great prescription plan, with the amount of prescriptions I am on, that really adds up. So part of me, the rebellious part, seems to be matching dollar for dollar, the fun stuff that makes me feel good with the important stuff that is enabling me to really feel good. I guess I am still in some sort of denial over it. But since it's working and I am working again, I am celebrating the only way I know how to. And the sick, fatalistic part of me keeps reminding me that my health is a miracle and money is just paper so enjoy life in the way that you want to enjoy it.

Another way this is manifesting itself, this crazed mania over each day being so precious, each day being a gift is my lack of focus. My last blog was last Thursday. I have been unable to focus on anything since then. I started one about S. about how without even knowing me or what I was going through befriended me on my first day of work at the criminal defense firm, January 2, 2005 and was so gentle and so loyal and so nourishing a friend while providing a ray of sunshine in my dreary existence by making me laugh like no one else could. She was the highlight of 2005, meeting her was the best thing that happened to me that year. I started another one kind of related to that about how you can see people so much clearer when you haven't seen them in a while and I haven't seen S. in a while. I was thinking about people and their quirks and how A. and BE have millions yet I couldn't think of any when I wrote that blog about quirks and I could think of a million of Illinois' and S.' and Brooklyn and everyone else I haven't seen in a little while. And that made me realize what S. was for me and what she means to me. I started one about my friendships with my Roosevelt Island friends, specifically A., BE and V. and how we are experiencing some kind of a friendship renaissance almost like we need to renew our vows, that's how strong it is. I have known A and BE since I was 2 or 3 years old and V since I was 5. We have all been friends since then. Obviously all friendships ebb and flow but I had no idea how much I was was missing in them. I didn't know it could be like this. I forgot to remember because life happened and I let mine get in the way. Meanwhile, this is so much better than all that I let to take the place of it; stupid guys, bad jobs, my funks, my stupid rules I make for myself and the list goes on. I think even with them, I held back so much of myself because at a certain point I didn't even know where to start, there was so much I hadn't shared. And now the life that I allowed to get in the way is what is enabling me to realize how important their friendship is, how lucky I am to have people who have known me my entire life and still want to know me and people who are still holding my hand as we journey through life together all starting over at the same time, all changing the shape of our lives at the same time, being honest with ourselves and eachother like we haven't since we were girls and allowing each other to give us strength and courage. I started another one about rebound. AC and I used to debate rebound all the time. Is it necessarily your first relationship after a broken heart or is it a state of mind that you may not be in despite rushing from one relationship to the next with no recovery period.

Basically my head has been all over the place. Ebay, The Company Store, Ebay, Overstock, did I win that Coach bag? Can you order me the Riverhead Michael Kors boots in black in a 7.5? Have I ever been in love for real? Where is AC?? I keep emailing her; we were supposed to hang out last Saturday night and she disappeared then came clean then disappeared again. S. cancelled dinner on me and I MISS HER MISS HER MISS HER, want to see her. I need to call JE back. We have been trying to get together since before Thanksgiving. My aunt is here and I am so happy I got to spend a lot of time with her. Shit, insufficient funds. Need to borrow money from someone who can I ask? How did this happen? What did I miscalculate? Oh, my health insurance check from November 1 didn't clear until December 1. Assholes. At least I am working again. Working again. Working again. Money will be coming in. They asked me to be project manager on this project for an extra whopping $5 an hour. I have never made so much money I think I should go tax exempt for the entirety of this project so I don't get killed on taxes and I can pay off some of my debt. And being chosen to be project manager makes me oddly happy and proud as stupid as it is. I went out last night and partied like a rockstar and kept telling A. and V. that I got my 'sea legs' back so don't worry about me and drinking. I am doing it but won't be indulging again until New Year's so let me go crazy. Well, I drunk-texted about 20 people last night. And not to mention the embarassing things I remember saying which are swimming around in my head making me cringe. Alcohol has a completely different effect on me with the drugs. I don't yet know how to control it. But a very cute guy, in fact the only guy I thought was cute at the first party we went to (in my high school dream boat Ethan Hawke character from Reality Bites kind of way) came up to me after tripping me (or did I trip him) earlier in the night. He said, "my friend and I have a debate over what your tattoo is. He thinks it's a crab, but I said, 'why would she have a crab tattooed on her?, 'So what is it?" To which I replied, "you'll have to check it out again when I turn around and get a drink." Playing hard to get? Not at all. It's just that I finally got my sea legs back and want to talk to the guy, get a drink, chill with my girls and dance, can't spend the entire night at the bar with the hottest guy in the room. Mania I tell you. Need to stay up here in the plane and memorize the forest so tomorrow sea legs intact I can savor each tree that is in front of me.