So I don't really feel like talking about all aspects of my life. Mental health is in a bad place really, has been for the last two months basically. Not badly, but I just am not on track right now and it's so hard to get back so it's depressing.

My birthday was wonderful, I spent it with a bunch of different friends/ family and just had a really nice day. I'm officially 22. How strange is that? And to think, my blog description still says I'm 18. I have my party happening next week, and Jen will be back for that (the reason I am holding it so late), and it's a joint birthday with two friends, though one of them went into inpatient care today for the foreseeable future so I'm not sure if she'll be able to leave there for the party for the evening or not. I'm really looking forward to having Jen back, i think that'll be really lovely.

Things with the FWB has been good. Sex is so silly but also good and obviously, super fun. It's definitely something that's interesting to think about and I'm happy with where that relationship is and that it's working. I try to check in with myself a lot with it, just because it is an odd situation and if something starts heading down a weird path of feelings, I want to know about it ASAP. Like, last week we hung out four nights in a row, which was nice, but after that it was like, 'wow, now what do I do with myself, it's been so long since I slept at home' and I didn't like that feeling. I couldn't really nail down why which bothered me, because I was like 'it's not because I have a crush and I miss him, is it?' which I was almost certain wasn't true but I couldn't work out what it was otherwise.

Now I think I've worked out why it makes me mildly uncomfortable and it's not about feelings, it's just because I don't like relying on people to be part of my everyday that are only there sometimes. It just puts me off balance and I don't like putting too many eggs in the basket of the person with whom I'm sleeping with most likely for a limited amount of time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly worried that we won't continue to be friends, but it's just the type of relationship type that's less trustworthy for longevity than regular friendship. And obviously, we aren't going to sleep together forever, I personally would prefer it to be over soon, because that means I met someone I wanna be in a relationship with which is goal 1.

I mean, I'm gonna be in an open relationship approximately never.

We talked about it this morning and both of us were basically like, yeah this is still good and working out, and as far as sleeping over too many nights or too much in a row, he was kinda like (and this is something I've also thought) well, it just makes sense, like, if you have the choice between sleeping alone and having someone come over and sleep with you, even if it's just sleeping, it's just nicer, if there's no opportunity cost. So I understand why we do it, I just worry it may make things too intense, even though there is no line blurring or whatever in terms of romantic feelings, the only drawback is the way it makes me feel like something is missing when I don't have it?

Yeah, I think that's the thing. Good, glad I worked that one out. I may have to talk to him again to clarify that's what I meant when I said it was too much, rather than what I actually said which was that it was boundary blurring, which isn't really true, nor what I meant and which kind of sends the wrong message,

Also, things with Mia. She didn't get into Masters, which I feel is going to set things back because we were getting back into a good rhythm, but now I think she's gonna withdraw a lot to deal with her disappointment. It sucks balls that she didn't get in. Like, she can still do 5 + 1 and she was pretty accepting of that a month ago but then i think she got renewed hope so it was difficult for that to be crushed. I really need to do well in Honours.

Oh yeah, I got into Honours. Pretty big deal, I was stressing out. I'm pretty excited to get started. I mean, terrified but also a lil bit keen.

So for the last month, I have been thinking  a lot about the sex/virginity thing.

Obviously it's dumb to hold one specific type of sexual act up as particularly special and novel, like it has some specific meaning and intimacy that nothing else does and that how and when you do it actually says something about who you are as a person and the value that you have. Firstly, just because it's arbitrary as fuck. Secondly, because I know that it's a concept invented by men hellbent on controlling women and any shame and stigma attached are directly linked to that.

Obviously  I've internalised some pretty shady stuff that makes me want to please old, white men by being 'good', even though obviously rationally there's nothing I'd love more than to stick it to those people by being subversive (I'm not very good at being bad tbh). If I could chuck out all expectations and valuation attached to penetrative sex, I would. It's very irritating to me that the ideas and values I have surrounding what I think it's supposed to mean don't detach easily, despite reason.

But anyway, like a month and a bit ago when this FWB thing started, I kind of approached it with a 'I am still kind of a virgin and I want to make sure I make the right choices' attitude. And I totally communicated that and it was totally fine with them, it's all on my schedule and what I need to make it work for me, and so I've been racking my brains ever since then trying and trying to work out exactly what I actually need so that we can make it happen.

It's been very frustrating.

I've written like a million lists and mind maps (you really cannot imagine all the mind maps) and tried to sort myself out with like 100 hours of emotional leg work trying to sort out in my head what my hesitations are. Spoiler alert, there were many of them, some rational, many irrational, all relevant in my considerations. Obviously my goal is to make a decision that I'm happy with, that I feel comfortable with, that I'll be pleased with afterwards and for the rest of my life theoretically. So I had to assess whether I was making a choice for good reasons, not for reasons of grief or sadness or wanting to force intimacy, or for reasons about making myself feel validated or sexy or whatever. I had to make sure I was happy to lose it to someone who I don't love or am in a relationship with. I had to make sure it was to someone I was really attracted to, and that meant dealing with the LucySexualCrisisof2k15 aka this is the year Lucy is into girls no exceptions, so I had to check in and make sure guys still get me hot. Being bisexual is a never ending road of bewildering attraction.

And so then it became about lots of other considerations that were more practical. Firstly, contraception obvi. And where. And when. And finalllllllllllllyyyyyy I've worked out what I want.

Because before I told him, I need to be wined and dined. And I think I kind of had this idea that even though we're obviously not a couple or romantically involved, this one time it had to feel like that in order for it to feel okay. Even at the time I realised that was pushing it and super awkward, but I didn't know what else it was that I wanted. I didn't want it to be nothing, I strive to make things idyllic because I'm kind of a massive idealist. And so I said that was what I wanted and he was like, yeah that's fine (even though I don't think it really is, he probs should of shut me down). I don't want to feel like I'm aspiring for girlfriend levels of grandeur. I honestly, truly am not interested in him as more than a friend. We're too different. Instead, what we have is a pretty good friendship. The kind that doesn't rely on agreeing on everything and enjoying all the same things the way you need to in a best-friendship or relationship, where you have to be really compatible and agree with their major life choices. When you are just friends with someone, you can step back and be like, well I don't agree with what you're doing on that thing and that one part of your life is of no interest to me but it doesn't matter because when we hang out, we have fun and that's kind of all that matters with our level of investment.


That's what this is like. We're good friends with some shared interests i.e. debating and we're super on the same page regarding most major values and social justice issues. That's enough that we have trust, we care that the other is happy and their needs are being met and that good outcomes occur for not just ourselves but each other. That's what you need for FWB in my opinion. We're close enough that trust and companionship is there, but it's not likely to develop into feelings.But, there's no reason to test that and try to slot any romance goals in there. That's not the need that he is there to fulfill, it'd be super weird to want that and I actually don't so???

So, I kept thinking and thinking and thinking, how can I make this sex thing happen, where I get an outcome where I feel really, really intimate and positive, and can say I did it in a meaningful way with someone who meant something to me and that felt symbolic of greater things than the first time I allow someone to mash their genitals into mine.

And today, I finally found an answer. I've actually written this whole explanatory post just to get to this conclusion and see if it makes sense.

Firstly, the idea was that I needed to feel intimate. How do you feel intimate with a friend in a way that isn't romantic? You find something that is meaningful to you and that you want to share with them, and you do it. One of the major reasons that this person and I got close this year is because he was really there for me when Liz died. He was actually the best and I have really strong and vivid memories of him comforting me and making me feel like he really understood and empathised with what I was going through and was hurting too.

Segue but when I was 15 I wrote this story. In it basically everyone was dead, except for me and this guy and in this story, I choose to have sex with this person and I basically have the exact same dilemma, how do I make this meaningful and satisfying? What I do in the story is I took him down to this beach that Liz and I used to go to every year, on our first night of the holidays before sunset, where there was this big rock, like, massive, 6 metres tall. And every time we would climb it, and we'd just sit and catch up and look out at the waves and dare each other to stand up which was super scary because we were kind of high and there was always the sea breeze. In the story I use the standing up on the rock as a metaphor for bravery and learning to let go and the whole talking about our lives and memories and families a way of forming intimacy that isn't necessarily about romance but about shared understanding.


This quote is kind of on point.

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

I always feel like this, but nothing makes me feel less alone and more satisfied than when I feel someone actually does get it, or is trying to get it or at least has some understanding of what matters to me and what I'm built from. My fifteen year old self was on point, she knew what she wanted then and it's actually almost the same as what I want now.

I mean, it's just a story but it did actually spark my idea in conjunction with me thinking that I really wanted to go visit Liz sometime soon. Take flowers to her grave and talk for awhile, you know. I think maybe if I take him with me, get takeaway for dinner and then come back to my place and everything is clean and I look pretty, that's what I want and I'm pretty sure that's something that I can get.

I know obviously that a cemetery date isn't exactly sexy, but you know what turns me on, more than dicks do? People who loved the people that I love, and people that love Liz. People that understand who I am, right at my core and that who I am is because of who she was to me.

I don't think asking for it to go down this way will exert any hardship for the boy, I don't think it is at all romantic, at least not more romantic that hanging out with someone in a meaningful way that you are going to have sex with later ever can be. It's still a weird question, what is the difference between friends that sleep together and a couple, beyond intention? Something to philosophise on.

I am very pleasantly surprised that just working out a way to do this, actually removed a lot of the extraneous concerns that I had about whether or not I wanted to do it. I feel like part of me was at the point of, maybe you should just NEVER do it, its never going to be good enough, and another was like, just get the fuck over yourself and do it next time you see him, who cares if it is meaningful or remarkable. Now I know what I want and if I can just manage to communicate it to him then we should be all g, unless I'm missing something obvious. If I am, I'm sure he'll let me know.

Lucy out, hope you enjoyed my latest TMI into the overthinking that goes into my sex life.

-----

So...... I did it. Fist bumps all round.

And I did it just how I wanted it basically in terms of the lead up. We went to see Liz, went to see a movie, had dinner at my house and then netflix-ed and chilled. Voila.

The overall experience was like 6.5/10, will try again. I mean, it hurt a bunch and some of it was somewhere between pain sensation and just outright nerve sensation and I was like, I don't know if I like this, part of me kind of wants to say stop but it wasn't at all traumatic or anything and I know it's all uphill from here. Even though some of it just felt so dumb and silly, I'm glad sex is a thing.

In terms of regrets, I can't say that I have any. And I'm not freaking out or catching feelings or needing reassurance, it's just like... okay so now I've done that, well done me. My friends and I have a Summer Bucket List with 106 sex items on it so far, and I have a lot to tick off ;) My friends and I are also way too kinky for our own good, we were looking for inspiration for items online and were basically like 'TOO VANILLA, TOO VANILLA, TOO VANILLA, errrrrrrrrppppppppppppp'. So our lists have a lot of really out there stuff on them. But me and the FWB are totes up for most of them so I'm gonna win the summer challenge for sure.

I had to leave really early this morning for volunteering which was lame so now I really need a nanny nap and at some point i assume I'll talk to the bae and make sure we're chill. I mean, I'm sure we are, and like, I kissed him goodbye and stuff when I left (he was still sleeping in) but I wish he'd checked in. Even Nathan, the fuckboy one night stand texted me all the day after to make sure I was good.

I mean, I am good. But i would still appreciate a debrief now that it's the light of day :)

So things in my life are pretty weird right now. I have an assignment due in 24 hours which I have no idea when I am going to do due to catching a flight to Brisbane early tomorrow, and I should be doing it now but I just cannot bring myself, it's strange. And awful, because failing now could ruin everything I've ever worked for, but I just cannot bring myself to care, I have assignment PTSD and cannot face it.

Going to Women's tomorrow, which I've been looking forward to for forever. Brisbane with my lady friends, we're gonna have a ball. We're gonna wreck, I'm looking forward to some hopefully good results!

Mia and I are also sort of back on track which is awesome. Last week I was really down about it, like I'd accepted that we were never going to be best friends again, it was too broken. Ben and I even talked about it, kind of. He knew she was dating Ollie and in the first time in history he took my side in anything against her and said it was a shitty thing for her to do, especially since it's her track record, since she'd also done it when she started dating him, despite me having real serious feelings. Which was also odd to acknowledge. I mean, of course he knew about it, probably at the time, but it was an unspoken thing because obviously, embarrassing and awkward. But when we were talking about the whole thing, us not being friends anymore, I think I must have said something like, it's not the first time she's done it and I couldn't let that go, and then Ben agreed and was like, (for the benefits of the others we were with), yeah, since you've implied it, and then went on to acknowledge that whole thing and say Mia treated me badly, which was like woah, did pod people invade?

But this week after some fun gossip worthy events occurs (which I will get to), I decided to message her and entice her into talking to me by spilling the beans on the gossip and demanding a D&M. She didn't reply straight away and I'd basically given up when she did reply and split the whole story, leading to like a 3 hour catch up about everything, and she gave me all the advice I'd needed her for. I mean, that wasn't a lie, I really did need her opinion. She's a psycho but she knows me best and she gives straight up advice. Most people are just like, listen to your gut, and say good luck. Mia doesn't really do backseat friendship, she just straight up gives her honest opinions and while she did tell me some things that I didn't particularly want to hear, it was what I needed. I didn't want to make a major decision without her, she's my best friend and I've never been alone to make decisions about my love life or sex life without her direct input. Is that codependent? Maybe, but she's my best friend, she's important to me and her opinion matters. I didn't want to let something major go by without acknowledging that she should know about it. And it was the right decision I think, to bond over something like this.

Now onto what this is. I've ended up falling into a friends with benefits relationship with one of my male debater friends. We hooked up the first time on Saturday night, he slept over Wednesday night and honestly, in the next few weeks, I'll be very surprised if we haven't started sleeping together. As in sex, because we already sleep together. I mean, we could have had sex last night if I'd wanted it, only I'm still not sure and am waiting until I am. Not that I held back particularly much, beyond lack of penetrative sex lets be real. I still consider myself a virgin, and my lack of experience means that I do still want something special. This is super fun, and we're mates, but it's not love. Oh, did I mention he has a girlfriend. Don't worry though, you may be thinking, fuck Lucy, back to the old standby, are you insane, but it's okay, it's an open relationship so I'm not doing anything wrong except that I cannot catch feelings due to there being no chance of them being reciprocated. I don't have feelings now to be clear, and I honestly thought it wouldn't be a problem at all, but Mia thinks for me, feelings are inevitable and the end will be super messy. And since we are in the same friend and social group, that will be bad. Maybe it'll end like that, but I hope not. And I do have hope that this will go on just as long as I want it to, and when I become bored or over it or I find someone new, I end it gracefully and we both move on no questions asked, no feelings hurt. Hopefully that is not SUPER naive.

I just need a 'for now', and I need experience and fuck, I need sex. The more I nearly get it, the more I realise that I really, really want it. Like, on a regular basis. I want my chance to be kinky outside of my own head or page. And I feel so confident when I'm naked and on top of a guy. I don't know why I find that so empowering but when my tits are in that guys face, I'm like, I really am desirable and this guy is lucky that I am here with him. Maybe if I feel that more, I'll start feeling it in real life too. So yeah, more sleepovers in my future hopefully.

Okay I think that's all my news. Oh, I'm still being really healthy, eating right, gyming a lot, losing weight. I want to be skinny and I will be. And fit. So that's good. And no more shrink (I'm cured, I'm cured!!) because I am doing better and will hopefully be able to continue to handle things.

Xoxogossipgoat

This year so far has been such a strange one. This Summer was one of the happiest I can remember, I had all my friends around me, I was feeling good about myself and being active, I had a job so my bank account was super healthy, and it was summer so of course I was happy.

But as tends to occur, summer doesn't last forever and sweet summer children need to harden the fuck up because shit gets real eventually. Liz died and Mia and Ben broke up and I hated Uni assignments so much that this semester I actively avoid them due to some kind of assignment PTSD, and it was such a confusing time because I don't know how to be sad always or happy without catching a glimpse of the deep dark grief on the edge of the horizon, but I fell in love that Autumn too, deeply, in the calmest, most easy way, that made me feel happy and kind and loving and cherished, even if it wasn't romantic love and I felt devastated when it was over though only for a night, before I began to cope.

That's what this entry is about- coping. How people manage to do it, no matter the circumstances, we go on and on and on because that's all we can do. Or suicide I suppose but that's never something that has ever crossed my radar, even for a second, for which I am grateful, because I know many other people's journeys are not so fortunate.

Something people have told me this year is that I'm strong. That I have some strength that is worth noting, that is commendable and that not everyone has. I don't know if that is true or not but apparently I have low self esteem when it comes to accepting good things about myself, especially things that are pervasive throughout many situations, not just one in particular #therapy

I felt skeptical about this strength thing because I didn't think I did anything anyone else wouldn't do. I coped. I carried on, and didn't let my life fall apart because that's just what I had to do. It doesn't seem to me like a feat of strength to do what you have to do. I actively understood that it would be difficult, and I channelled all my feelings in the best ways I knew how. Me and my brain have been doing this dance together for 21 years now, we have a pretty good idea of what works because I'm a pretty self reflective and introspective person. The most detailed character study I'm ever going to do is on myself and I'm still learning but I knew what I needed with Liz, for the most part. I knew I needed as few regrets as possible and in her last year I did see her a lot and I was there. The last things she said to me were I love you very much and I am so proud of you and I told her I loved her and that she was the best cousin ever because it was true, and even know I can't think of anything else that I could have said that would have been better, even if it bemuses me some of the other random things I told her, things that didn't matter to someone that was dying, but that she listened to regardless and I think she understood. I don't regret seeing her that last time and while I understand why some relatives didn't want their last memory to be sad and of a Liz they didn't recognise, for anyone who was close, it wasn't an option not to say goodbye and it didn't change how I saw her or the wonder of her life, it didn't change the whole story by fucking up the ending, it just made it more complete and final.

I knew for the funeral that I needed the right dress. I didn't know why exactly at the time, it seemed so superficial, to think about how I looked, to care who saw me and thought I was beautiful in my grief but I cared and thought badly of myself for it. I realise now that a large part of it was a coping mechanism that gave me a sense of control over everything by planning out the only aspect of the funeral that I could, and that that heavy black dress that I tried on every day leading up to funeral was my way of feeling in control, that as long as I had that dress on, with its high neck and modest length and soft fabric that made me feel older and wiser and solemn in a way that I couldn't otherwise feel, things would be alright. The dress also made things feel real, which was one of the things I most struggled with. I still think that I am different in that way and believe that grief does change you, and that the world is split into people that have experienced it and those that haven't. But also that grief is just isolating and even among people who share that grief, if I think of Liz in a random moment and look around at my friends who are laughing and smiling, I feel the oddest sense of betrayal and isolation, though it isn't real. No one is sad all the time and of course you cannot expect everyone to share the exact same grief cycle. I don't know how others cope, or cry, or feel lost or who look at me laughing and feel that same sense of disconnect.

I still think about Liz everyday, sometimes briefly, sometimes for hours on end. I can remember her for 50 reasons in 50 minutes and only rarely am I disabled by it. Sometimes I need a moment, other times I need a cry, or a comfort item like her ribbon in my hair or to do something that she'd have done or would approve of. A lot of the new stuff I've been doing this year are things she did and I remember what she said about it and feel very grateful that her advice is still guiding me, even the same random shit like going to the gym early so you can drive and then move your car into good parking while it is still early. Total life hack. Some stuff I know she did I do know and feel eerie, like I am experiencing something that she did, maybe thinking what she did, sharing a little bit of her life. These are the things that help me cope. Same with the ribbons that I wore religiously for about four months before realising I didn't need them anymore.

For me, strength is just having coping strategies that work for you and the rest is just luck, that the mind and body you have has been gifted with fortitude and grit and a tendency towards happiness. There's a discussion to be had at this point about whether or not we have free will or if our unique mix of chemicals and brain chemistry and experience and protective factors set us up to fail or succeed with complete determination. Honestly I am reluctantly a determinist, who thinks that all of my good qualities, like my ability to get up early and go to the gym and word hard, it's not me, it's just luck, the mix of what makes my mind up. Even if I was to try to improve my mind, change the characteristics that make me up , my mental abilities, the motivation for those changes is innate. All we ever need is the right stimulus or input and we'll get a set, pre determined result. Should people get props for that?

Let's get off philosophy. What I learnt this year, in this year of 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times' is that I do have a profound ability to cope with sadness and loss and not feel broken. I lost Liz, I lost Jen and then I lost Mia this year. Jen thankfully I only lost to distance, and she still plays a role in my life, albeit a reduced one due to not being here to experience it with me. Mia though... Somehow we ended, with a whimper, rather than anything rather dramatic. I still have hope for us. I've called her my best friend for life for far too long to do anything less, but I am also very calm about the loss, knowing that right now the ball is in her court, that regardless of outcome we will never be the same (for better or for worse), and that if we are never friends again, it won't mean that we didn't love each other very much, that she was anything less that exactly what I needed for many years and that if our lives changing and us changing with them was too much for that best friendship then that is okay too.

Every day I grow without her and in a new direction, and as much as I miss knowing which way she is blooming and who is guiding that growth if not me, I feel okay letting it go. I'm pleased with where I am and even more excited by where I am going, and who I might end up being and what I want from life and from people and from relationships and what I expect.

Maybe that is what strength is. To feel okay with independence, with yourself, to be alone and to survive. To make new friends and to make changes when necessary. To water the grass on the side o the fence you are in, not stare enviously at the green grass elsewhere, because the grass is always greenest where you water it.

Fuck it, I'm just gonna say it, regardless if it's self determined or pre determined. I am strong. I'm proud of myself for this year. I have faith that the rest of the year will be better and that I'll reach my goals and end up in places I didn't expect but will enjoy more for their unexpectedness. The way that in some culture broken bowls are put back together with gold to fill the cracks, I'm going to make the sad times of this year mean something, to help guide me through to better times, to inspire me to reach my goals and seek happiness wherever I can. I know that's cheesy. But sometimes cheesy is good. I wanna feel better, and be better, and I have such big dreams, if only I have the confidence and the willpower and the determination to keep reaching for them.

Quick Life Update aka busy as a bee but hella productive

I am exhausted. I've been feeling really good and motivated lately, leading to me making reasonably large life changes in terms of eating well, going to the gym like, five or six times a week, debating literally every weekend this month, plus being exec, plus 10 hours of volunteering a week, plus trying to do well in classes and being more social than I've ever been and have good times making memories plus finding new friends, since Mia doesn't want to talk to me and I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever be friends again. Life is busy.

Like, take today and tomorrow. Today I woke up at 5:30am for the third time this week, and went to the gym, doing BodyPump for the first time. Which is awesome, go me, I was super nervous because I always am when I am not 10000% sure where I am going, what it will be like, if I'm capable etc, but now I've gone once, 95% of that anxiety is gone and I can add BodyPump to my weekly gym roster. Then I moved my car into free parking, walked back to uni and had breakfast, which I prepared the night before along with my lunch due to the 12 hour uni day I was expecting, and then went to Discovery Space where I volunteer all morning, then rushed straight to a meeting with someone from CSE and all of the OrgCom for Easters 2017, which we are preparing a bid for (and expecting to win). Then I had a break, whcih I spent sleeping on a picnic blanket on the Duckpond Lawn in the sun, then had a two hour tute at 3:30. So even though I was at uni from 6am, I didn't actually have any class until nine and a half hours later. Then I was supposed to go to debating for two hours and then possibly Hangdog with friends but then I remembered I had promised Mum that I would cook a roast tonight. Well, I offered, because I want to make sure I know how to do it (hint: I don't really know). So now I'm home, after stopping at the shops to get pumpkin and gravy, and the roast is in the oven, so we'll see how that goes. I just put it in with some oil, salt and pepper which I think is okay???

Then tomorrow is the first day of ANU Spring, one of the biggest debating Tournaments of the semester, at ANU, which is in Canberra, so tomorrow I am waking up early again to go 6:15am RPM which is just my Friday habit due to normally having early tutes, then I am driving to Liz's and picking up Pugsley, her pug (obviously) and Vivian and I are going to take him for a walk around the Lighthouse and whatnot. Then home, straight to uni with my packed bag for the weekend for a meeting with the previous treasurer so I can work out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing, then one tute that I can't miss, and then off to ANU for the first debate which starts at 6pm I think. I assume we will get to the hostel at some point, I don't fucking know, it's going to be a big day and it's only really big because I'm making it big aka gym and pugs, and not just skipping my one tute, but I feel like I need to do all those things to make me happy, but at the same time I'm worried that I'm spreading myself a tad thin.

 And I don't want to stop because everything I'm doing, exercising a lot, eating healthy, socialising, extra curricular activities, are all super positive, as long as I don't drop the ball on any of them. I don't think I will, as long as I have some scheduled me time and a lot of chances to nap. I really like naps.

I had the strangest dream last night.  In the dream, as well as incorporating a ridiculous amount of information from recent events,  up to and including stuff that only occurred an hour or so before I fell asleep, in the dream, I inceptioned, falling asleep within that dream,  where I had a really lovely and wonderful encounter with Liz. I mean, it was dream Liz but what was wonderful was that for a blissful long conversation, I didn't remember that she was dead. I remember knowing that she was sick, but we just had this super regular catch up. I told her about my life,  even though half.od what I told her was just stuff that only was happening in the dream world, like my trip to Western Australia. She told me she was going to see the raptors, to which I was like ... what? And she was like, oh yeah, the veleceraptors,  to which I was like,  cool. Then she asked to borrow my cool new leather pants (real) and i complained about missing half my belt and she lent me one. It was just really nice, the whole conversation, and so easy. We even argued fake dream economics about my flight to WA. And then I grabbed her diary and felt sad because I knew the last entry had actually been sad and an awful note to go out on really, except in the dream there were more recent entries. I still hadn't realised I was dreaming. The realization didn't come until we both went to Uni for two different reasons and once we were there,  she asked if she could come with.me for my thing instead and i said something like 'because your thing doesn't exist, right? Cos you're not actually here?' And then she was gone and it was very Sixth Sense, I see dead people, but not in a scary way, just in a sad way. But then in the dream the same thing happened to my Dad, which was a strange choice really, but we then went to dinner (initially a booking for three, just two once we realised) and talked about it and how nice it had been until we realised. Then I woke up in the dream and found myself in Lizzy bed and realised the reason I must have been adreaming about her was because I was sleeping on her sheets and smelling her while I slept, something that would make her feel more real.

Then after some more dream shenanigans I woke up for real, and then in the shower remembered that I'd dreamed of Liz and I wanted to write it down so I'd remember it for more than just today. It felt kind of real. Not that I think Liz appeared to me in a dream so we could chat fashion but if today I see a sign, we'll I'm not gonna ignore it. It felt like getting one more conversation and it was really special.

So, revelations of the day.

Firstly, that part of the reason why I am mad at Mia is because I'm angry at myself for not going after Ollie when I had the chance, and even though I don't want to now, she got something I didn't have the balls to try to get because she's a pretty brave chick and I wasn't. That's on me and I can't put that on her.

This means that what I was telling myself about her proving that she's prettier/funnier/more attractive/interesting/all-around-better-person than me by dating him is totally wrong. Not only because obviously no boy should have the power to 'prove' which of us is better, regardless of who he chooses personally. He's one person, and his opinion of me isn't important. And the second important part, who knows what would have happened if I'd actually gone after him. It's not like we held a contest where we showed ourselves off and then told him 'pick!'. I never took any extra steps, I never let on how I felt, and the big steps I took, while still awesome and like, go me, still weren't enough for me to say, I really put him in a position to choose me. So the insecurity I feel isn't legitimate and I think I can move past it now.

It was also pointed out to me that maybe one of the reasons Mia's boyfriend likes her is because she and I are similar. After all, we're best friends, we share a lot of the same values and sense of humour, likes and dislikes, goals. Obviously, if he likes her, he's also approving of a lot of stuff I have going for me. Rather than looking at it like Australia's Next Top Model where he's the judge and she and I are waiting to see which of us gets chosen, in like a 'yes, love it all' and 'ew get out' way, we're both great and the fact that he likes her is an indirect compliment to me too, really. Mia and I are great, of course people should like us. So the story I was telling myself wasn't necessarily accurate and while I'm not saying 'well if he likes her, then he should like me just as much!' but rather that firstly, we're more alike than different so even if he hated everything that made me different from Mia, he'd still be approving of most of me, and again, even if he hated everything that made us different, it doesn't mean that those differences are bad. It just means that he's more suited to her than me and there will be lots of boys in the future that are more suited to me. And in any case, I like the things that make me different to Mia, because I like who I am.

Also that there are a lot of reasons Mia has for the choice she made. Mia's confident, but she's not invincible and falling for someone new is a really nice, positive thing and I can imagine that being difficult to resist after a pretty rough few months. I've been dealing with Lizzy and I have been so busy and emotionally distant and teasing her about liking Jen more than her that I haven't been able to be there for her as much as I'd have liked to be. As much as I'd like to think I'm a perfect friend, I'm not. It's true, I don't think I'd do what she did, but maybe I would have. When she and Ben broke up, I had some thoughts re: ben that if I'd have acted on, would have been much worse than her starting to date Ollie. Maybe I would have acted on them if given the chance. So I can blame her, but not so much. Making really noble self sacrificing moves to save friends from hurt is difficult, especially if you can justify that hurt being minimal or subjective.

I think Mia has a possible multitude of reasons for dating Ollie. Firstly that she likes him, that he likes her and that it must be really nice to have someone there, who can be supportive and comforting and fun and exciting. When you're sad, I'm sure that's something that gets prioritised. Also, it must be quite validating to be able to start dating someone new, since Ben had a girlfriend and got over things much quicker than I imagine Mia expected. I imagine that was quite a blow to the ego, and while not a good reason to date someone, I wouldn't be surprised if that played a part. I'm also sure that she's still learning her way around the dating game and this was finally her chance to have something work. She had a bunch of pretty lame dates and one night stands, and Ollie comes with the validation of the fact that I thought he was worth dating. Assuming she values my opinion then it kind of makes sense to pick someone that has my seal of approval as a person, even though he didn't have my SOA as a potential date mate for her. I'm not saying that all this stuff absolves her from choosing to date him even though she knew I didn't approve and it hurt my feelings, but now that I'm figuring this stuff out about why it shouldn't hurt my feelings, perhaps it doesn't matter so much and I can get past it with all forgiven.

I'm also starting to recognise the other path I could have taken, instead of declaring us on a break, I could have just insisted on a long talk about it. Instead, we had a short, angry talk where I at least, was doing very little listening and a lot of just waiting for my turn to talk and then I left and came up with BREAK. Maybe I should have asked the hardest questions and really tried harder to understand. I think I didn't because I thought I already understood it all, and I didn't want to be swayed from my current path and opinion (basically that she was wrong and I was right to be angry).

Now? I think I'm going to go through the next week, and after that, I think I'll message her or call her  and organise dinner. I'll tell her all of this, and if she says the things that I need her to, whatever those things are, then we can be friends again and I'll happily listen to her about Ollie or anything that's going on for her.

I think I understand now that I have no reason to see Ollie wanting to date Mia as meaning anything negative about me. If that holds true, I have no reason to be uncomfortable or embarrassed by him and maybe then I can start being excited for the fact that she's dating someone who not only makes her happy but that I think is really nice.

Update time!

Things are going alright. It's been a really boring holiday period thus far. I really want to do things but I'm flying solo right now so it's really boring. My bffl and I are on a friendship break indefinitely, which is pretty lame. I mean, it's a break imposed by me, so I shouldn't complain too much but I do miss having her around to talk to, even if it's just messaging her something funny that happened each day on facebook.

It's okay, I mean, theoretically we'll just take a month, til mid August I suppose, and then I'll start talking to her again and we'll be friends. It's a super weird situation honestly. She's started dating the boy I was into about six months ago, and while I was over him, that wasn't really the point. It hurt my feelings and makes me super uncomfortable, for reasons I thought were pretty obvious, especially to her, since she's supposed to be an expert in my neuroses (and the fact that we discussed it multiple times over the last few months, that is wasn't at all okay with me), but as she is prone to do, she weighed up her feelings and mine and decided hers were more important. It's whatever. It's who she is.

When we talked about it (as in, I'd found out from another source and confronted her, making her admit it), she knew she'd done wrong by me and I thought I was okay with it, in a 'this sucks and I'm not happy but this is how it is, so may as well get on with it'. But then I said something really spiteful and (I think) out of character about her ex boyfriend and while it wasn't out of line really, I knew it would hurt her feelings and said it anyway so neither of us were winning the best friend game that day. I feel super guilty about it, but also frustrated because it took me from being in a position of moral righteousness to also being a shit friend.

The thing is, I'm really good at being there for people and not letting on that it bothers me. I'm not saying that I'm not a selfish person, but in a lot of ways, in matters of the heart at least, because I never think I'm worth it and I always assume that the other person is more worthy, I bend over backwards to help, even when it's not in my best interests. Like, I don't want to be there for Mia and listen to her excitement over however they got together, or deal with her angst over every little thing, whether good or bad. But if we're friends, I 100% would. Like as a duty of being a best friend, I would. I don't know how not to, because I don't know how to have those kinds of boundaries. Either I'm in something or I'm not. And what I fear, is that that leads to resentment and me being spiteful and saying things that are unkind.

So instead... break. My main reasoning was that I wanted to punish Mia somehow, to find some way to say, we're still friends and I still love you but you did something wrong and you hurt me, and I don't want to be passive aggressive about it, I want to say 'this is what you did, these are the consequences.' I mean, I don't know if that's what got through to her, or if I'm thinking of myself too highly to be like, the consequences are no Lucy for a month.

I didn't know what else to do. How do you punish someone that you love and still want to have a relationship with? I don't want to keep a running tally every time she does something awful and build up hurt and resentment and evidence that she's not a nice person, I want to forgive and then hopefully forget. But are you supposed to forgive people all the time, if they don't change their behaviour? Nothing I do will stop Mia from making this same choice every time. If I was to go back into the past and tell her this was the consequence, she'd still do it. If I told her it was him or me, she'd probably choose me, but obviously that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to be emotionally manipulative and say she can't do things otherwise I'm gone, but I feel like I'm justified to say that there are rules to friendship. When you break those rules, something changes.

In this case, the change does affect me equally, which is irritating but at least I have the power over it. There is something empowering about making a choice that does hurt you, but that changes something. I think it's really easy to just let someone make you feel small and sad but to accept that is has to be that way because you love that person too much to lose them completely over something hurtful, but in the long run, not a huge friendship ending issue. if Mia and I stop being friends, I want it to be because of something massive. I can't even think of what it would have to be. Not that I expect our friendship to end. She's my bffl, we aren't perfect but we love one another and get on too easily to mess it up. I don't think anything I've done this week is going to ruin that.

The other reasons I thought a break would work is that it means she and her boyfriend can have their merry little honeymoon period and I won't have to think about it or hear about it. And I can focus on other things and other friends.

Oh, the other reason that I thought it was a relatively empowering move is that I've been quite sad lately, thinking about my friendships as a triangle. Though now a very broken one. One dead, one on the other side of the world and one on a friendship break (who could have predicted that on the first of January 2015? Not me). I thought I wouldn't ever be able to react at all to Mia because she was my last remaining, close, intimate friend and I'm too much of a wuss to be alone. But not true. I'd rather be slightly more alone than be a pushover forever.

Besides, to be fair, I have a lot of close friends. Not close in that I see them all the time, but emotionally close. There are five people I could text or message right now, and say 'I need to talk' and they would stay up until 3am talking with me if I needed it. Half of them would probably come over. All of them would hang out in their next available free moment if I asked. I've never lacked intimacy with girl friends. And you-know-who probably. He'd stay up.

Another thing that's new as well recently is that I started to see a therapist about my problems. Not because I couldn't deal with them myself, but because help will get me better faster. One thing I was told today was to do this test which tells you what your strengths are. There are 24 all up, and it gives them to you in order. The advice I was given was this-- in your life, you shouldn't focus on bringing up the strengths you don't have, by doing things you hate. It's not about getting everyone to a certain minimum standard or benchmark, the way it is in school where everyone is forced to do a bit of everything. Instead, you focus on your top three strengths, the things that you do best and that bring you the most joy. This was a bit strange for me, because I always try hard to be very well rounded, but it's not saying that you shouldn't do the things that scare you, but that you shouldn't do the things you have tried and really know you don't like.

So, I did this quiz and my top strengths are (drumroll please)....

1) Creativity, ingenuity and originality.... which tbh I knew would be my first one, didn't need the quiz to tell me that.

2) Curiosity and interest in the world.... again, I guessed that one. I take a lot of personality tests, I know where I fit. The other very similar one to this, which I thought I might have third, but actually I got 6th, was love of learning. I think it makes sense that I got curiosity higher than love of learning. I much prefer to just know things, I like to be trusted with things, I like to have a mind boggling question and finding the answer, but I'm not so interested in everything, just because it exists. Jen reads non fiction for fun but I don't. I try, I buy the books, but I can only take history most of the time in stories. If they don't bring it to life, it's not very interesting to me.

3) Capacity to love and be loved.... I wasn't sure I'd get that one. I noticed it and was like... mmm yeah... that sounds like the Harry-Potter-will-defeat-Lord-Voldemort greatest strength that would probably apply to me. And voila, I love hard and I love intensely and I would be such a good fucking girlfriend because I love everything and apparently, I have a great capacity to be loved, however a test can measure that.

4) This one was super lame, but forgiveness and mercy. I think I got that one because I kept thinking about Mia and what a pushover I generally am, with all my forgiveness and endless capacity to give everyone a million chances. Honestly, I think this one needs to be moderated. I love people, even the ones that hurt me and while I don't think I'm going to be an abuse victim, you-know-who did teach me that I definitely know how to romanticise hurt and disregard for my feelings as signs of tragic love. I like to think that this strength is a benefit in moderation, when it's sensibly dolled out.

And last but not least, 5) Citizenship, teamwork and loyalty. Basically, I'm a good person. Not the most interesting, but I'm a team player, I do my fair share and I'm loyal.

I don't really know how you combine those into something useful and fruitful long term, like a career. I personally think the way is to become J K Rowling, by finding something that I find so curious about the world and the human condition and write something so endlessly fascinating and creative, that I get millions of fans and can spend my life connecting with people and being a source of good in the world. Voila.

Or teaching. Kids are curious, I'm creative and I'd get to form meaningful relationships with 25 kids each year.

I need to work out how psychology fits.

Anyway, good talk. Until next time.

It's been about ten weeks since Liz passed and I feel so confused about it.

Like, genuinely, confused is the only way I can describe it. I don't feel particularly sad about it. I could, I think, if I tried. Of course I understand that it is a very terrible thing and there is so much grief there, it's just that it's locked away somewhere I can't - or don't want- to access.

Now when I think about Liz not being there in years to come, it just doesn't feel real. It feels like she's just on a long trip somewhere, but she'll come back and then life will go on as normal. Because I don't feel sad, her being gone doesn't feel impactful, it's just like, yeah that's a thing.

My friend Orion and I were talking about her on the train the other night. Well, he was, he brought her up and I didn't know what to say. I told him I can discuss her completely emotionlessly. Who knows what he thinks of that, considering how important it was to me that he and everyone understood how desperately important to me she is as she was dying and after the funeral. It's just true though, I feel like I just took all the emotions out of dealing with her death. It only makes me uncomfortable when I have to say 'death'. I just tried taunting myself then, telling myself that she's dead and her body is in the ground and that freaks me out and if my mind didn't automatically shy away from all of that completely, I think that would make me feel something.

I don't know. Even when I got my dress for the funeral, it was when I was shopping with Jen for a friends birthday present and we just stopped in at the clothes store because she mentioned she needed a new black dress (in a 'every girl needs a little black dress' type way) and I was like, yeah I really need one too, for the funeral. That didn't make me sad, I just did it. Maybe I wanted to shock her a little bit when I said it because I wanted to talk, I don't know, I have no ability to deal with talking about Lizzy in an emotional way with other people. Not in real life. I could say, with no emotional investment, that I feel sad, but I couldn't feel sad while talking about feeling sad. It's like I'm too chilled out. I don't have a trigger to release all the bottled up feelings. I think of her because of a lot of random stuff but she still just feels so present, because I'm doing so many things that she did and loved, all my friends are people that she knew and that we talked about, so much of the gossip and drama is stuff that she was still around for, and the TV shows I watch are shows we watched together. When I condition my hair I remember conversations we had about conditioner, when I think about my hair I remember that she helped me dye mine, the only time I dyed it. When I think about a movie I just watched, I remember that we watched it together, a long time ago. When I listen to Hilary Duff's new album, I think about how many times I forced her to watch the Lizzy McGuire movies and how she must have known all the words to 'This is what dreams are made of'. When I stumbled upon Nikki Webster music, I cried because I remember her suffering through me watching DVD's of the music videos. She commented on all the fashion choices and because I knew nothing about fashion, I took everything she said as legit and never forgot. I remember going to the Easter show and listening to 'Never Been Kissed' on what must have been my Walkman, with her.

Her being really sick and dying feels like a dream, like a story.

I barely believe it, that's the problem.

Like I said, thinking about that just feels confusing because it doesn't seem real. It's like, why am I focusing all this mental attention on her, she's fine, you can just text her if you want to talk to her. Only I can't, and I haven't really worked that out yet, not deep down.

It's frustrating to feel like I'm not doing this right, that I'm both feeling too much and too little and in the wrong order. If I could just... I don't know... have a long cry and feel devastated for awhile, maybe that would help, but I cry all the time already. I've been to her grave. I wear her ribbons every day. I don't know how else to grieve to make things seem real. It doesn't matter what small choices I make, because it's all supposed to be in reaction to the ultimate thing, death of a loved one. I have to react, because I'm human but I only know how to react in human ways, with changes of behaviour, and no action is big enough or loud enough. Even killing myself doesn't seem like it would be a big enough gesture. Nothing I do feels like symbolism, it all just feels like one of the millions of small actions that we make every day. Move this limb here, perform this action, speak to this person, eat this, get through the day, it doesn't matter what action you take in the aftermath of a death, it's all still action, it's all still proof that while everything has changed, not everything has. You still go on. It should be a binary switch that when one person dies, everyone dies and all feelings, and hopes and behaviour ends.

Every act of behaviour I do, even the stuff that is supposed to commemorate her or express my devastation just feels like a tiny action in the face of the universe, that I'm belittling the sacrifice.

I can't explain it better. All actions just pale in comparison to dying and anything I could do would fall short.

I don't know what to do apart from keeping on keeping on, especially because as concerned as I am and as convinced as I am that the truth is in focusing on my feelings and whatever else I'm avoiding in my noggin, I don't want to do that. It's hard to explain but it feels so exhausting that I can't manage it, truly.

I've been thinking about what I've learnt this year. Though I remember the first of January as though it were yesterday, it is actually almost midyear and so, so much as happened.

The first thing that I think has been growing, not just the last six months but particularly now, is that I'm learning to be comfortable with being who I am, liking what I like, being annoyed by what I don't, without being ashamed of it. I mean, little things. I spent most of high school apologising for who I was, for what I liked, for as much as I tried to be myself, to stand up and say 'this is what I like' I don't think I ever managed to do with without apologising for it. I have always liked things intensely, and unfortunately for my thirteen year old self, or my nine year old self, I very rarely seemed to like the things other people thought were cool. I was obsessed with pink, pink anything. I loved fairies and when boys teased me about it, I'd be so defiant that I'd say they really existed and were 1000% real. I don't think I believed it but I've always had a problem backing down sometimes, when I feel ashamed. It's not the worst thing in the world to be I suppose, defiant. But defiance is only really positive if you believe it yourself-- that you really believe that what you like and enjoy and want isn't shameful and that no one has the right to tease you about it.

I wasn't popular ever because I liked the wrong things and was either too dumb or too smart to be able to pretend otherwise. Dumb because it really just never occurred to me to try, at any level beyond the superficial. When all the other girls had Bratz Dolls and I wished that I fitted in and could play too, I didn't ask my Mum for one. It really didn't occur to me. In a way that was because school and home always felt so separate that I'd forget, but also because I really thought Bratz were silly and I never really put effort into looking or dressing like someone who was popular in primary school, I just did me and never thought about it, not because I was particularly confident in that person, I just didn't know any other way.

It sounds like of contradictory but I don't mean it to be. I cared what people thought but I was so young, I hadn't really put together that you put effort into being someone else until they like you so I cared, and when I got teased, I got ashamed, but in my twelve year old way, I told them to go fuck themselves aka 'you're mean and stupid'.

In high school I had more confidence, because I had much better friends and I was very happy, but high school really isn't the place to foster self confidence because there is so much about fitting in, about being liked, about having friends and being thought of as pretty and funny and interesting because you're developing into the person that you feel like in your final form and if you do it wrong, you're terrified you're going to be a person that is wrong forever, that people won't like. Puberty is like waiting and seeing if you're going to be a butterfly and have all your dreams in life come true, or if all the flaws you suspected in yourself were going to stay long term and mean that you are going to have a shit life. All the single data points start creating a pattern, until you have labels like 'shy' 'introverted' 'not popular' 'not funny' and you think that's all you'll ever be.

But university, at least for me, it's given me time to build only the relationships that I want to build, to choose what interests me, to give myself labels that make me happy to be me and take a lot of the bad labels and shake them off and take away the shame. You can't accept yourself if you are ashamed that you like Taylor Swift, that you like pretty dresses and girls and red lipstick. You can't be ashamed that you are an introvert, but that you also like to drink and go out and party and if you can find the right friends and the right music and atmosphere and the right city, you'll just shine. High school makes you feel like you have to be one thing or another, even when you have to be both. You feel like you have to be innocent, but also sexy. You have to be intelligent, but you also have to be at parties on the weekend, you have to be goofing off in class, you have to be someone the boys like and have crushes on.

I learnt years ago now, but more and more every day that everyone is so much more complex than that. I spent so long trying to look so innocent that boys would find me sexy, to be a virgin but laugh hardest at dirty jokes, to be something more than I was because I couldn't choose which label I wanted and couldn't bear to give up either, lest I be judged or teased.

Now, when it comes to sex, I have no shame. I am who I am, and if that means I'm a virgin, so what? That's something I'm willing to stand by because this is my life, it's how I want to live it and it doesn't say anything else about who I am as a person except for someone who chooses for herself what she wants. When it comes to feminism, I don't hold back what I have to say. I don't keep it non threatening so that boys can joke about me being the resident feminist without being off put. Now, I'm still working on fighting for my opinions without nerves but I do it, and I'm confident that just because the other person isn't me, that they don't necessarily know better. I don't think that anyone else has things any more together than I do, that they have any more wisdom or ability to judge.

I think now, more than ever, I'm willing to fight for the right to say things like 'bae' and have that be respected, as no more right or wrong than anything else someone wants to say. I'm less willing to stand by bullshit social conventions that say be ashamed of liking silly things. The day I realised that no one else's music choices were better than mine were a revelation, it's all just music and the people that like it. No one can tell me that my heart and mind don't react more passionately to T Swift and Fall Out Boy than theirs reacts to Arctic Monkeys. I think some of the stuff I used to hate on principle was so dumb and that people that are still in that cynical judgemental stage of life still have so much to learn, to the point that I find them exhausting and wouldn't be friends with those people.

Not because there is anything wrong with them, I've definitely realised that it is a stage that people pretty much all go through, but once you're out of it, it's so freeing to let all that negativity go. I think this is where I meant to get to when I started typing out this post. I don't have as many friends as I did in high school. Well, fewer that I see often anyway. Even my close friends have drifted, for the most part. I'm almost at a crossroads, in that I've hit the point where I have changed so much without my friends changing with me that we almost don't fit together anymore. I don't know what that's going to mean. I mean, I'm not going to send anyone a 'sorry not sorry, our friendship is over, see you never' letters but some friends I'm worried that we don't have anything much in common anymore except for love for each other, and many happy memories.

Ever since I was five and I have my three best friends (first best friend, second best friend and third best friend, I've never been able to think about my friendships without some level of measurement, without some idea of where they stand around me, how close we are and who I like most. I don't think that's something that is particularly good, but unfortunately that's just who I am and how my brain organises itself. I feel very blessed with the friends I have. I consider a friend to be someone that I could message or text without it being like, a thing. Like, if it's about organising a car pool or something for an event, that doesn't count. But anyone who could send me a 'hey, what's up' text, they're a friend. Or maybe they're good friends and friends are people you would stop and say hi to if you saw them in public. I have actually gained quite a lot of those friends, that I could have a really awesome conversation with when we're together, but converting to the personal conversation and plans level is the hardest leap I think.

Oops, off topic. What I meant to say is that I've started having a lot more opinions about my friends than I did before, or just about people i know, and about which ones I really want to know. When I'm being myself, and that's something I think -- and hope-- is happening more and more, there are some things that make me really happy and things that are really boring or annoying and I think I'm at the point now of not doing things just to make other people happy. I'd rather just find people that enjoy doing the same stuff as me and have fun with them, you know? Because like, the thing is, you can talk to anyone, and have an okay time with anyone, old friends in particular, because you are really comfortable and know each other really well, but at what point is being an old friend not enough?

It still sounds like I'm trying to ditch my current friends.

No, what I mean is I think I'm at the point where I'm willing to be myself all the time, and I really just want to not censor myself for people who wouldn't like who I am now. I don't think that any friendship is worth it if you can't be yourself and be proud to do that.

Motivational speech of the day, you are welcome.

Whenever I see that I haven't updated my blog in nearly 2 months, I feel really guilty because I love my blog and want to keep it a record of my life. I'd feel more guilty if I hadn't written any posts in the last few months but I totally have, most of them were just posted for really short periods of time and then unpublished for whatever reason and now sit in my drafts.

I suppose that's because a lot of my posts have been about Jen lately and the girl checks my blog so its a bit of a weird situation there, in that she finds out things I haven't planned on telling her/ haven't told her yet. Like, when someone tells you something that upsets you, I think it is super normal and the right reaction to hide that, at least partially, so they don't get upset about upsetting you. Like, I'm learning to accept my Hufflepuff ways in that the most important thing to me is that other people are happy. I don't even mean that in a selfless way, I'm really not selfless, I'm hella selfish, but it's just easier to prioritise other people I think. Like, that's something you can control. If you get told something terrible, that will inevitably make you feel bad, that's out of your control, it's just a fact, but you can make it so no one else has to feel bad because of it. So like, of course I support all the decisions my friends make that I think will make them happy.

But I still like to blog about it with my feelings. Blogging is my outlet. Some philosophers theorise that we need language in order to have thought, because we think with words. I'm not saying that is necessarily true but I do think it allows us to think much more complexly. When I blog I take a lot of feelings that don't really lend themselves to intelligent conversation and I explain them with words, which allows me to then define them and understand them. The way I word things now is how I'll look back and remember them, once the feeling is gone.

Anyway, lets get on with the recount of my life for the last month and a half.

It's been... I don't know. I want to say really good, but I can just imagine like a smaller version of me on my shoulder giving me a '... really?Really bitch, you're gonna go with that? Really?' I mean, a lot of shitty stuff has happened, and exams are always hell and its been like a 'when you're going through hell, keep going' mentality tbh, but at the same time, I've seen a lot of good movies lately, like Jurassic World and Mad Max, I've watched a lot of TV series, like Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs (hell yeah british period dramas), I made the Grand Final of a debating competition (what the fuck, I know, I'm still in shock but it went so well omg), I had some hella gay moments with some hella pretty girls, I told Jen I was in love with her (hella brave, I am so proud of myself for expressing feelings), Mia and I are planning to go to Melbourne, exams are half over, my hair is growing long (I dreamed last night that it'd been cut off, I woke up, stared in the mirror, thought 'oh thank god' and fell back asleep), I've had some really nice meals out with friends, and lovely conversations, I've been making friends with people that I never was as close to in High School as I wanted to be, I even went back to Zumba last week and have been writing so much fanfic. Like, things could 1000% be worse.

Obviously the bad stuff has been exams, and Jen going, and feeling sad about Liz, and having a lot of confusing feelings about not wanting things to change, but feeling out of control because everything is changing, but I suppose that stuff isn't so bad. It's just hard to talk about. If any of you guys were quick enough to read my post about Jen going before Jen saw it and I took it down, you'd know my feelings there, even if they were brief and settled into resigned acceptance the next day. I don't miss her or anything. Like she's still around, even if it's online. Lizzy I still think about all the time and that's very confusing. I message her on facebook a lot. Like, I tell her jokes or I tell her that I got my skin checked for melanoma or I tell her about debating, or that I miss her. I don't know, whatever I feel like telling her. I wonder where her phone or laptop is now. I'd love to go online and see everyone that has been messaging her. Maybe just me but maybe not. Jack and I talk about her in a really chill way, like jokes about her being dead or we just are like 'fuck, Lizzy would be so helpful right now' or 'what the fuck liz, why did you keep every set of lecture slides for every subject since first year'. I think I like that we talk like that, because it's not sad. I mean, he is her brother, I can't imagine reacting like that if Tom died but maybe it's the only way we know how to face it.

I'm still not much of a fan of the way life just goes on. I don't feel angry at people for doing so, but I feel such grief sometimes, that Liz won't get to see season 5 of teen wolf, or know that Jon Snow got killed on Game of Thrones. She'll never know if Hilary Clinton becomes President, or  what the next fashion trend will be. She and I never discussed much about Jen as anything more than a friend but I know her reaction would have been amazing if she'd been around for that drama. She'd have loved it. Whenever I hear new music, I think fuck Liz might have loved this. And I hate that I've started to call her Liz, because I never did but now she's dead and I only talk to other people about her, not to her, and they all say Liz, it feels wrong but now i'm going to go the rest of my life calling her liz. I'll tell my children about her and I'll be so used to saying Liz that thats what I'll call her and that'll be her name in history.

I don't want to talk about the other stuff. You know it can just be mentally exhausting to talk about things that get you down. They get you down enough in your head that actually focusing extra time on them seems exhausting. I'll get to it one day I'm sure.

I feel so, so, so sad and upset.

My best friend Jen, who I am completely, ardently, in love with, she's going to the UK in like a week and a half and guess what, she's decided not to make it a holiday after all, and she's not going to come back.

God, I just can't believe it. Well, I can, but I don't want to. I'm not upset with her, it's her dream and it's what she wants but I'm just so sad for me because of my triangle of intimate friends, I have Mia, I have Jen and I had Liz. A month ago I lost Liz, and now I'm losing Jen. How can this be happening? What did I do to deserve this kind of karma?

And now I only have two more weeks of us living in the same country, after that odds are we'll never live in the same place ever again, unless I move to the UK too, and then choose a city based on where she is, and I don't want to be that person that follows. I just wish I had my own dreams and people who were willing to do what it took to make things work, rather than me always making plans based on other people's independent decisions.

I thought we had another six months before she was leaving. Five months wasn't enough. Everything with Jen was going better than it ever has, and we were hanging out all the time and it was always wonderful and unlike any other friendship I've ever had and now she's leaving and it's like, why let me see how good things could be if it was just going to be taken away immediately after?

I know some friendships only last a season and its not about longevity, it's about enjoying time together and making the present count, but I'm just so upset, and for once words are completely failing me. It's not that Jen and I won't continue to be friends, of course we will, but knowing we'd be apart six months and then she'd come home is one thing, knowing that she'll never come home, that we'll never be together again except for holidays, I'm so devastated I can hardly stop crying long enough to think.

It just seems like a complete goddamn tragedy and this year has been everything I thought it wouldn't be. I just wanted things to go a certain way, and I was so happy going into this year and its just all fallen apart and I hate it all so much.

I know it may seem like an overreaction to a friend moving, but it's not. If Jen moves in two weeks, I don't think we'll ever be close friends again. I don't think any friendship can survive a life long separation, let alone a friendship that has only existed for about 16 months, six of which were spent apart, no matter how good it was or how much it mattered or how sure I feel about it, no matter how much I feel that I've never connected with someone so fast or so deeply. She's a soulmate friend and it's not going to be enough because she's moving so far away. I can't survive on monthly skype calls and letters. I need people who can be there all the time, just as much for maccas runs and late night adventures as for conversation and advice. LDR don't work, either romantically or friendship wise, not when it's a close friend. If you really love someone, it's not enough to see them once every two years and talk once a week. I can't do that.

But I don't want to lose Jen and I feel like that's what her news really was. She may have said 'I'm staying in the UK' but all I heard is our friendship as we know it is over. I can't handle this kind of dual grief and unlike with Lizzy where everyone acknowledged it, no one will ever acknowledge that this means our friendship is over, it'll just happen slowly over time until I look back in a decade or two and think about the friend I had and that we lost contact and I'll feel vague regret but know that I couldn't have done anything because there was never any hope of maintaining it forever, no matter how much I love her and she loves me and all I wanted for her and I was to be the kind of friends that lasted forever, no matter where life took us. But I think I'm kidding myself when I think about living in the UK, I can't practice psychology there and I love Australia. I can't move overseas, never permanently. So it's over.

God, fuck. Fuck this, fuck everything. It's just a goddamn fucking tragedy.

Lately there is always something. Jen was the one friendship I had right now that I didn't have something holding me back from. Mia is my bffl but I can't deny that I've had doubts with her, that even this year I've had serious misgivings, serious thoughts of 'maybe we need a break', and there will always be those things there, even as we love each other and support one another. With Megan, we just aren't half as close as we were and I don't know if I want to be, I don't know. I love her to death but she doesn't feel like home anymore. It's not quite as comfortable as it was once. A lot of my friendships feel like that, like I'm uncomfortable where I didn't used to be, where things that I once found funny and exciting I now just find lame or boring and incompatible because everyone is growing up and changing, especially me. I found someone who felt like home and I loved them with everything I have and now I've found out that I can't keep it and I'm really, really, truly, desperately sad that I'm moving into a world that doesn't feel safe and secure, that I'm not going to have people to fall back onto that love me and that I can go home to, it's all just me alone and that's the scariest, realest thought I've ever had.

I want to write about Lizzy but I don't know what exactly about her I want to talk about. Every day I am a bit better I think. I still think about her often, a hundred times a day easily. But it's never with like, the stabbing pain of grief. It's hard to describe without feeling like I'm letting her down by saying that things are fine. But it's not anything like the panic or grief that came on in the weeks before she died, when I was walking around feeling like my heart was going to burn out of my chest, or crying in the toilets of a club because I couldn't deal with music that reminded me of her, or the numb acceptance over Easter, that cumulated with getting so drunk I cried on every shoulder and passed out barely to remember being cared for and put to bed so I didn't die of alcohol poisoning or choke to death.

Apart from the last one, which scares me to death that I don't remember any part of getting sick or that anyone else came to help me, it's comforting to know that I grieved 'appropriately', that I had a spiral and that I was heartsick and I was impacted heavily.

Now, it's like this. I wake up, I remember. I get dressed, still normally at least partially in black. Nobody told me to wear black, but I find it ridiculously comforting. It makes things easy, and I feel like I'm doing the right thing. It helps me remember and maybe help others remember what I'm going through. I wear either black ribbons in my hair, or gold ones that were Liz's. When I listen to music, I skip through until I find ones that remind me of her, because that's all I want to hear. I haven't found anything particularly satisfying, but I can't stand to listen to anything else, I don't want to hear music about romance or dumb, inconsequential shit, because my cousin died and people die and the rest doesn't matter. Of course, I understand that that is a perspective that solely belongs to me and is brought on completely due to me still grieving, and that I can't judge the rest of society for not stopping because of how this tragedy has affected me. All the same though, I can't listen to a lot of music right now.

I cried at her funeral, briefly, but not really since. I could I suppose, if I put my laptop down, curled up, put my blanket over my head and let it out, but I don't want to. I don't need to.

Her funeral was the strangest thing. I was at the front of course, in the second row, behind her brothers and sisters/ Mum and Dad, and her white coffin was right there. The one thing that stuck out to me was how small it was. Not small in that she was like a child or whatever, but just that it was probably not that roomy in there. No one alive would like to be put in a box like that. It made it very real, that her body, her real, physical body was in there. Everything I knew of her was hidden inside that box, only metres away. It was very disturbing and upsetting. It made it hard to focus on anything except that her corpse was right there. I hate the word corpse.

It's not a nice thing to admit I guess, but I try to have a few pretences on this blog as possible, but I tried to look as pretty as possible for the funeral. I had the most beautiful dress, I got a haircut, I shaved my legs and wore high heels and did my makeup to perfection and painted my nails and curled my hair and wore brand new ribbons... etc etc. It was like the only part of the funeral I could prepare for so I obsessed about it. It felt so good to have the dress bought, the day before she even died, because it made me so much calmer. Social events are hard enough without the anxiety over not being dressed appropriately or being uncomfortable in something I'm wearing. I'm grateful I managed to avoid all that. But also, I did just want to look pretty. Almost everyone I knew were there. My family, my friends, the people I have crushes on, the friends of Lizzy's who I didn't know well but that I needed to impress and prove that Liz loved me best, and show that I was calm and dignified and a proper host, someone who could say thank you to everyone for being there, and act as spokesperson from family to friends.

It was really nice how many people came. Liz was of course, well loved. With a large family, from a large parish, with active membership in multiple clubs at uni, from a large local high school, it made sense, but it was still touching. Even just of my friends, Mia, Megan and another girl friend came down from Sydney, just to be there, as well as Jen, who I asked to be there, despite her only meeting Liz twice, both in the last three months. If I could have anyone there, I wanted Jen, and all I had to do was ask. It was overwhelmingly nice of her. Not to say I wouldn't have done the same, but having friends that will drop anything to support you, even if it means sitting in the back of a church where you know nobody, in a ceremony for a faith you don't believe in or agree with, for a girl you don't really know. Jen did that for me, even though it's not like she could sit with me or offer more practical support, it was actually enough to have her there at the back. It comforted me to know she was listening to the same ceremony I was, that she could probably see the back of my head, even if I couldn't turn around and see her, that she was going through the experience with me.

Of course, I felt equally blessed to have the other girls there as well, and Mia's support has been invaluable to me, but I've known them going on ten years now and best friend-ship from them is par for the course almost. Jen I've known almost a year and a half and she's so well wrapped up in the fabric of my life now that it's hard to imagine life without her, but it still is new. Like any relationship, we're still in the honeymoon phase. Mia and I get our seven/ten year itch now and again, but Jen is still a joy in the way where you can't imagine things being different, though of course, I'm sure one day we'll fight and we'll grow to love each other enough to be irritated with each other's annoying quirks, but that's not a bad thing, it's just a different stage of being in an intimate friendship that involves accepting that they aren't perfect and that we can love them regardless.

That's how it is with Mia anyway. She isn't perfect but I love her, not just in spite of her flaws, but because of them. When you grow to know someone's flaws, you also grow to understand their insecurities, their problems, their mindset, and though that isn't always shiny and bright, it's also much more uniquely them. Everyone can be perfect, for awhile, but not everyone can be your best friend.

Though I do have many best friends and now Mia is super jelly of Jen. It's difficult because I am of course, head over heels for Jen, and being in the honeymoon period of our friendship, where things are still changing and growing without strict patterns or definition, it's quite different to Mia and I, as our friendship is, though still changing as we grow up, much more ingrained, requiring less words, time spent together and less affirmations generally. Only with Mia and Ben breaking up coupled with my close new friendship with Jen, suddenly our dynamic of Mia being my Number 1, and Ben being Mia's number 1, has switched to Jen being my Number 1, while I am Mia's number 1.

At least in Mia's mind. For her, it's like she's lost both her top people, and though it's not necessarily true that Mia has lost me as her Numero Uno, it's not out of the realm of reality to suggest it. I like to think I love them equally, though differently, but I suppose that is still a demotion from first priority, to equal first.

And I do not judge her at all for any insecurity. I have been known to get jealous whenever she hangs out with a girl more than twice, lets be real, though as I've grown up I have realised that having more friends doesn't in any way lessen the love for any of those individuals. Practically though, it does change how much you talk to each person about each issue and that not all people can be apart of each shared experience. Again, life, and Mia has had Ben for so many years, I've never been her first priority in that way, so I learnt that that was okay, eventually. Of course, I am also kind of enjoying Mia being jelly, because being in demand is always flattering. Of course, I don't actually want her to be hurt or insecure, but a few weeks of 'boo jen, we hate her' playground type joking around from her isn't going to hurt anyone in the long run, it's just an adjustment period.

Anyways, bed time. Seeing my cousin Jack tomorrow, we'll see how he is. i doubt he'll admit to many feelings but I'll ask him how everybody is. Especially my Auntie, who everyone is most worried about.

xoxogossiplucy

Recounting adventures

Gosh, so I had a weird night.

Jen, Jen's bffl Tilly, Mia and I all went out together last night, which was good times. We pre-drank at mine, which wasn't the original plan, but at like 8pm I wake up from a nap and decided to order pizza and then Jen was like, hey are you keen to #getrkd and I was like, but nap and pizza, but I was quickly convinced. I've been at home too much lately and it's nice to do things that make me happy, rather than be sad always. I didn't rule out the possibility that drinking would send me into a cry fest, but it didn't.

Anyways, I ordered my pizza and when it was ready, I realised both cars were gone and I had no way to pick it up, so I begged Jen and Tilly to come over to mine and pick it up on the way, which they did #ultimatebaes.

Then we hung out for awhile, Mia came over eventually, cos I invited her and it worked quite well. We're still working on the foundations of our friendship as a quartet but I have faith. It's weird because Mia and Jen are my best friends, and Tilly and I are Jen's best friends. All we need is Mia to become best friends with Tilly and then everyone will have two bff's in the group. But basically as it is now, it's like Jen and Tilly and then Mia and I, though since Mia came late/left early, we got to explore the OT3 of Jen/Tilly/Lucy which was pretty great too.

It was pretty much the gayest night of my life. Jen and Tilly are super homo, all the time. I mean, not actually gay, as in Tilly has a boyfriend and Jen at least is straight, but still, Capital G Gay. Mia's not into that, but that's fine, I don't particularly want that kind of friendship with her so all g. But there was lots of kissing, which I liked, mostly after Mia left, and then we went full frontal skinny dipping, and then came back to mine and showered together, which again, was pretty lovely #galpals. We lit candles and then just sat down in the shower for ages in the warm.

Then we fell asleep pretty much straight away. Jen and I held hands literally all night long, and woke up so sore omg. Like, my arm was pretty much numb. I was like, I think we're still holding hands but I can't feel anything below the elbow. But it was super nice to wake up holding hands with someone I love. I think holding hands is very underrated as a form of affection. Actually, Mia and I need to bring that back. And cheek kisses, I'm a big fan of all kinds of face kisses.

It's nice to be here, to have this be my life. Of course, there are things I don't much like about my life, and I'm still very much grieving for Liz-- right now I'm sad that I can't tell her any of this, because she'd love hearing deets of me kissing girls and kissing two girls at the same time and all the nude shenanigans but unfortunately that's not a side of me she's ever going to get to know and I'm really sad that just over a year from now, I'll be older than she was when she died and I'll have the chance to get a million more experiences, of all kinds, and she'll be forever cut off at twenty two. Considering how much new stuff I experience in a year, that's such an unspeakable tragedy, because it's quite immeasurable how much stuff she's missed out. Like, come the beginning of May next year, that's when I'll have as much time living as she did. Anything past that is bonus round. And considering how much my life has changed for the better since 12 months ago-- I have so many new friends, I've done so many new things and changed so much, I can only guess where I will be in mid 2016.

But anyway, it was a nice, weird, vaguely surreal night. I'm glad, it was a break from all the dull panic and sadness of the week.

Things continue to be very strange. The funeral was yesterday, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be and not as sad either. But in a bad way, like it just continued to feel somber and weird but not like a twenty two year old is dead forever type bad.

And having the wake at her house just felt wrong, because Mia was there and it was like, I've done a million of these family gatherings, for lots of reasons before, but with Liz as my buddy. And now it's not her and it's never going to be her again. So being with Mia instead, and seeing her picture on the table and kind of understanding that we were there because she wasn't, that this was her event, her day, was... strange. Underwhelming is the wrong word because it did hit me and I haven't stopped thinking about it, but it wasn't overwhelming either, like it just occurred to me and I thought 'oh' and then I kept on keeping on. Like the saying 'You die twice, once when you stop breathing and twice, when someone says your name for the last time.' I always pictured that as like someone in some far off place hitting a gong and the reverberations are felt faintly by everyone-- not enough to know why, but its still a very significant moment. That's how it felt to see her picture on the table.

~~

Things are still progressing in an expected way. I'm still very sad, I'm still very confused, but I know it's all still normal to feel disconnected from the rest of everyday life at this point and to jump around when it comes to thinking about Lizzy and that she's gone/ having hope that she's not.

I think apart from struggling to have interest in other stuff, I'm okay. I hate that things are the way they are, and I feel like her death put a lot of things in perspective. I had a few intrusive thoughts of the 'if I knew there was an afterlife, I'd kill myself so she wouldn't be alone' variety, because it does kill me to know that if any part of her survived, like her soul or whatever, and she's living on somewhere by herself, that if I were her, I would be very, very scared and I would want someone with me. Like when Rose died in Titanic, it was okay, she was coming home to everyone that she'd loved, but when you die before everyone else, I don't think it's like that.

I mean, I don't think I believe in an afterlife, but especially now, it's not a very firm belief. I want to believe that Liz is in heaven. I want to believe that she's watching over me, that she hears my prayers, that she is still out there thinking about things and it's not 'what she would have wanted' past tense, but that she still wants things and has opinions, we just can't talk to her about them anymore. That's comforting and I'm willing to believe that right now. It's too much to believe that someone that was just as much a person with thoughts and feelings and opinions and emotions as me, is suddenly gone. She was still here two weeks ago. A month ago she was writing in her diary, just like I'm blogging right now.

When I go out, I keep thinking what would happen if I died in a car accident and suddenly I was gone too. I have a lot of morbid thoughts actually. Not super intrusive, not like clinically a problem, but still there. Just like being aware that life ends quickly and randomly, and when someone dies, nothing ends except them. Or you.

I don't know. As useless as it is, I just want Liz back. I miss her.

I spent so much time knowing the end was coming. From the time she got cancer until the time she died was about a year. It was just always so frustrating because nothing ever happened, she never looked sick. I just wanted it to be like a movie, where she got noticeably sick and lost her hair and went to hospital for treatment but then got better and stayed better. Instead it was just same same same until suddenly everything went much worse.

Like, it's probably the worst thing I thought in the last year but I just wanted her to get sicker, like actually looking sick, because I thought that was the only way to get her completely better. You go down to go up, you know? But instead, it just remained theoretical. Like, Stage $ doesn't mean anything unless you actually can feel side effects. For the most part, she never felt anything from the tumours, and it was just the drugs that made her sick, and that made it hard to conceptualise.

I don't know what I want now. I want to talk about her, but also I find it very difficult not to be glib when talking about her with other people. I just have the urge to be hyper realistic about it, to just state facts and say that I'm fine, or at least doing alright and not wanting to talk about it. I don't think that's how I actually want to talk about it but I don't know how to express myself. Maybe I'll never get the real chance to talk about it in the conditions that I want to. Because a) I don't actually know what I want, and b) maybe it won't be what I want anyway.

Like I said, this is all very strange.

Dear Lizzy,

                   I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I love you.

Lucy

The End

So Liz is gone.

It finally happened.

I've been waiting for a long time now and I'm not unhappy that it happened, because it was always going to and now she's not in pain, now we aren't all waiting on tenterhooks for the final eventuality that was always certain, even when everything else wasn't.

I feel very shaky, mentally at least, like I don't know what to do. I can't tell anyone yet, and I won't upload this until after I can, so this is just in preparation. I don't feel different, considering the fact that Liz's consciousness, her own little body with it's infinite mind is no longer out there somewhere, ticking away. I thought that would scare me more. I thought the love would be gone, like if two people hold onto a rope and pull as hard as they can and suddenly the rope is cut at one end, I thought it would suddenly drop, and be done.

I thought that it would be like when you break up with someone and you know you'll never be able to see them or talk to them again, the relationship is completely void and for nothing, but it doesn't feel like that at all. I still know she loved me and I love her, I know those feelings exist, as long as I'm still here to comprehend them, maybe even longer. It's all static now, but it's like a good book, you can still hold it and touch it and reread it, even though the story is done. It's still tangible and you don't regret reading a book just because it's over.

I'm going to miss her of course, and I miss all the things we were supposed to have done together. I'm going to miss her texts, and her picking me up and telling her when I do things of note, and bragging to her, and ranting to her when I was fighting with friends and she'd always take my side.

She's not going to be able to do that stuff for me anymore.

I don't want her to be a side note in my history, the way married couples eventually learn all of their partners stories and compile them. She's too present for that, but I'm worried that ten years from now she won't be. I want her to feel like she'll still be important to me in a decade, or five decades. I don't want her name to get mentioned in passing once a year, I don't want people to just remark, oh how young, what a tragedy, and move on in two sentences, because that's not all there was, she isn't just a name and an age of death, she was a fully fledged person, who had a good side and a bad side and hopes and dreams and fears and envies and loves and passions and opinions and all of those things matter except no one I meet new now, no matter how important they become to me, are ever going to know all of that, and I don't know how heavily I'll be able to impress it upon them. I don't want any relationship with someone, even if it's when I'm 35 and I'm settling down, where the cousin Lizzy is just a factoid to remember, something I might give them hell for not remembering, but not anything of any real, emotional substance to them.

I'm worried also that it'll turn into that for me, just a fact of my life. I worry that it'll never feel like agony, like at each stage it was just like, okay, turn on the realism, this sucks, but we'll deal with it. And even now, finding out she's passed away doesn't feel any more shocking than finding out she was in palliative care, or that she had a few days left. In fact, because I knew for sure it was coming, it just felt like, okay. It's like, there was never grief, not a knockout, just a hard blow every now and then. Maybe that's just how sadness in the real world is. I don't feel strong for not feeling sad though, I just feel like I must not have loved her enough.

If it wasn't for my strong conviction that I know that isn't true, I'd be really angry with myself. As it is, I'm just sad. Just tired. Just down.

I bought a new black dress yesterday for the funeral. I didn't want to wait for her to die to do it, I thought it'd only be harder that way. It was an expensive dress but it's exactly right. It goes to my knees and it's conservative, but also soft and comfortable and classy. I'm glad it's one less thing to think about. I don't know what the funeral will be like. I've been thinking about it of course, for awhile. Every time I saw Liz in the past year, I always was kind of putting her eulogy together in my head. I know that's morbid. And I very much doubt I'll be speaking at all at her funeral... but I want to. If I could. I'd do a good job, I'd do her justice. She gave the speech at my 21st, I would like to return the favour if I could. I'd probably cry but I'd write it down and I'd make it really good.

But if I don't get a chance, that's fine too. She knows everything I want to say, and for everyone else it's just a performance.