A Song Derrick Wrote About Me

"Sounds" By Derrick Calloway
Hear it Yourself

I'm so tired of falling back on the premise that I pin with a thumbtack
On my wall now it's full of scraps, notes, a book I never wrote

Even though I always said I would, it's a chapter away from calling good
So it stays in the keys of a typewriter, in the moment I left it he's kissing her

On the lips just like the novels do, fingertips and sparks in the blue bayou
In the warm summer night they steal away

But that's just a tale you tell your friends, in the moonlight this is how it ends
And I can't lie to you anymore, I'm not sure

And even though you layer on thick, the covers of your bed leave you sick
And you just can't escape the cold

The city waits, drags you down, in the streets and all you want is self-assurance

Welcome to the Sideshow

That fire of being accepted, of being loved for who I am has gone to rot. I failed to realize that no one really knew the extent of my diseases except for Kellen, Ian, Kenna, Priya, Robyn, Derrick, Diego, Mel and my family. Everyone else has balked since they found out.

I wish there was a category on facebook that read, "un-date-able". Then I could at least label myself from the get go and avoid the pain.

I just have a steel rod pushed through my chest right now by so many people, and it just gets cranked every time someone inadvertently brings me down. What a waste of life am I.

I will die alone. It was bad enough when I was the girl who had tumors and a dead mother. . .Now I am completely crossed of everyone's list until I can say, "Oh yeah, I barely remember any of that." But how do I forget something so pertinent to my life?

I'm going to English now, and I am heart-broken all over again. The dreams of yesterday were far more beautiful than these shallow dreams I shall have yet.

All is lost, and as the rain comes down on my soggy gray world, I can only hope that God gives me purpose for tomorrow.

Vivo Una Vida de la Pasión

I just am in love with life. I have learned that I am perhaps not meant for what I thought I was, I have learned that love truly means there for good times and not, and I have learned that suffering only helps me to understand that I am meant to help others relieve their suffering. I am no saint, I would not pretend for a moment that I am, but I am severly in love with life and pursuing a life in which I spread love as much as I can. God has given me this breath to breath out his love.

Haha, this will be the third time I have typed out a blog today and hopefully this time it will not be erased. It is semi-ironic considering what I was trying to put in a blog today.

Life! What a glorious gift! Just reflect on life for a moment and realize how BEAUTIFUL it can be! I am so happy with life. It kicks my ass, but I have learned to really find the humor in that situation. I think it really broke my stubbornness and drive to try and beat life at it's own game. Life will always make me suffer painful things, but I suffer because I LOVE. If I did not care for those that I lose, than life would be nothing!

Godbless life! Godbless my friends and family! No, my life is not perfect. It is far from it, but this pain I endure will only help me to support others in the future.

However, I do have a complaint to issue at this time and it is something that comes with the territory of blogging: I am now afraid that what is here will not be everything that I really think on a topic, and I will have to put that down in my journal instead because some information has caused me only problems and I grow severely weary of being given shit for honestly saying what is going on my life from someone who voluntarily read something I wrote. My blog is not forced on you, but multiple individuals who read this have hurt me using this site as a reason. Natrivera.blogspot.com goes censored for now.

On a lighter note- I was listening to this song, and I will not explain why, but it applies to me on many levels. Please, take humor in my situation and the fact that I am not quoting DISNEY.

On that note, I had this song playing on my computer earlier:

"I won't say I'm in love" Off the Hercules Soundtrack
[Meg:]
If there's a prize for rotten judgement
I guess I've already won that
No man is worth the aggravation
That's ancient history, been there, done that!

[Muses:] Who'd'ya think you're kiddin'
He's the Earth and heaven to you
Try to keep it hidden
Honey, we can see right through you
Girl, ya can't conceal it
We know how ya feel and
Who you're thinking of

[Meg:]
No chance, no way
I won't say it, no, no

[Muses:]
You swoon, you sigh
why deny it, uh-oh

[Meg:]
It's too cliche
I won't say I'm in love

I thought my heart had learned its lesson
It feels so good when you start out
My head is screaming get a grip, girl
Unless you're dying to cry your heart out
Oh

[Muses:]
You keep on denying
Who you are and how you're feeling
Baby, we're not buying
Hon, we saw ya hit the ceiling
Face it like a grown-up
When ya gonna own up
That ya got, got, got it bad

[Meg:]
No chance, now way
I won't say it, no, no

[Muses:]
Give up, give in
Check the grin you're in love

[Meg:]
This scene won't play,
I won't say I'm in love

[Muses:]
You're doin flips read our lips
You're in love

[Meg:]
You're way off base
I won't say it
Get off my case
I won't say it

[Muses:]
Girl, don't be proud
It's O.K. you're in love

[Meg:]
Oh
At least out loud,
I won't say I'm in love

If I could change one thing-

If I could change one thing about my entire life, I would have never let Matt kiss me that day outside Baskin Robins and therefore would have never broken up with Ryan.

That wouldn't have changed Ryan's death, and it wouldn't have caused my life to turn out that much differently, but I would have never risked it for a man who told me to be crazy and believe in love. Twice in the last year I have really risked my life for love, and it has really cost me everything, including my dignity.

How do I look back at my life? How do I look back and think, "I was chosen secondarily to war, to marijuana, to men, to the priesthood, to death, to other women." I feel like nothing. Meanwhile, yeah, I have a date lined up, and not that I want a serious relationship, but it hurts deeply to know that there is no where it can lead. It just is.

Also. . .nobody really IMs me anymore. I'm always reaching out. Damn it.

I'm just upset because my weekend was Hell and nobody even gave me a hug over it. Yeah, you're all sorry that my life is miserable, whatever. I'm miserable because my life is miserable. I have a box sitting two feet away from me that i cannot open because inside it there are two 'engagement' rings. God I feel like such a dumbass sometimes.

I mean, I broke up with Ryan! I should be mourning my loss of Ian, or hell, even Matt, but instead all that is on my mind these days is Ryan. Not a single man on this Earth has ever made me feel so loved as Ryan did, AS A FRIEND. He never had a bad thing happen to him, yet he was willing to be there for people that had.

The only time I told him I loved him was once late at night when I knew he was asleep. I wish I could go back, I wish I could go back and tell him how I really felt when he wasn't asleep.

Instead I gambled everything on Matt because he said that he loved me, and even though I had been hurt time and time again by him, I risked it all because that night when he shakily proposed to me on my front lawn and stared into my eyes, I knew he was right. I knew he really wanted to marry me.

I'll never know if that changed or if he just decided it was not worth the effort because Matt never gave me the gift of closure. So I sit here trying not to hate him for making me give up Ryan and then breaking my heart.

I just give up. I cannot trust anyone, yet I know I will.

I miss my friend Ian, I miss him so much. I wish that we could still talk, but I know that it is not possible right now, possibly not ever. Maybe my phone will ring, maybe it won't, but I really do give up on that. I tried so hard last weekend, it took everything I had after he told me hated me and blamed me for his entire life being ruined. I had wanted to die so badly and he didn't even listen at the time and now he hates me for it. . . well I cannot change that. I do not think he can ever even comprehend the fact that for two and a half years he feigned interest in me as long as I was mentally stable. I stood by him through everything, and the moment I fell, he kicked me an threw dirt in my eye. I am not even angry, I would really let him do it again if it would help him, I just feel sorry for him. I loved him enough to even try to tell someone else. It took so much of me to tell him, only to be ridiculed. Meanwhile my roommate was hating me for trying to help her with her problems. My family didn't understand, I practically failed out of college, and now everyone that went out of state for college really doesn't understand why I am coming back. . . ::sigh::

I feel a lot better. My roommate is a Goddess.

I just give up.

Summer

So summer is coming up and I find myself really really heartbroken because of THREE different guys.

I don't think Ian and I will ever be friends. I could apologize but I know I would not get one in return. Follow up, what would motivate me to try and be someone's friend who doesn't want me in their life and made that very clear? I am sick of chasing after him. He only wanted me when he couldn't have me. Maybe it was the chase. Well, whatever it was, it is over because he "only called me because he wanted to date me." So I guess he will never call me again.

Matt is being aggravating as usual, and I am still hung up on that whole situation. It makes me mad that he too only wants me when I don't want him at all. I just wish I didn't want him, that would make life sooo much easier.

Finally, there is Ryan. I climbed a tree barefoot today and realized that nobody really got why I was so into Ryan. He tapped into a part of myself that I didn't even really find until I was holding hands with him during Team America or making Star Wars noises or throwing each other into a pool and shivering for a long time together because we both were chilled to the bone.

::sigh:: I'm sick of loving. I just want to swear it all of for life. I'm tired of the hurt, I really am. I feel myself sliding into cynicism and I hope I don't end up too jaded because of it.

My Grandfather is dying. . .and Ian is not talking to me- Both are equally painful

Ian wants space and despite wanting to call him right now I am not. I feel like I did in middle school when suddenly my Mother turned on me. She never saw that she had a problem, always believed she was right, and expected an apology without giving one in return. She also never saw that she had a problem. Not to say Ian has a problem like my Mom did, but he is severely stubborn and the likeness to Mother/Matt is uncanny. He is also unable to see that I am really injured also and this is not all about him.

I saw Ian's dad and Linda and her children today. It was really good, it made me feel good to have not lost that part of my family even though Ian has disowned me. It really gave me hope. His Dad showed me flowers that were blooming and talked to me for a long time. I felt really at home thanks to Chuck, he is a life saver in so many ways. I completely forgot to check in on the Bettas, guess I shall try to after I return from school in 3 weeks and really try to remember. No doubt I will forget like I always do though. I was really trying to just spend time with Linda though and I am glad I did. Her fighting spirit gives me so much strength and hope. She is my hero right now.

My Grandfather took a really bad fall last week and was on the ground for a hour and a half before he could get the ambulance to arrive. He has not been taking care of himself and is so sickly that it was hard to look at him because he is so weak and suffering. He has sores on his skin and is in pain.

::sigh:: And I can't call Ian to tell him any of this and I am not sure if he wants to know or not.

Stress is extreme. I woke up today from dreaming that Ian and I were dancing together to me lying in my bed all alone. I wish that I didn't love him anymore, but I do and as such all I can do is not pick up the phone and call him. God I hope that he doesn't hate me forever because I really enjoyed our friendship before everything went to Hell.

I am having breakdowns over the end of the year, going back to Omaha only to say goodbye, grades, an English portfolio on very personal subjects that I am not sure I have the emotional stability to finish, my grandfather, Linda, my meds leaving me completely drained, insomnia, my dog, choosing a new college, finding a place, avoiding certain people who are not helping me better, trying to find employment, trying to find a counselor and psychiatrist here so that I don't miss any treatment, getting surgery over the summer, catching up with friends, and facing the summer without Ryan.

I loved Ryan and I wish I understood how much before he died. I have never met a more pure and beautiful individual. He gave me the best summer of my life and I will never be able to forget it.

Pray for my grandfather please and call me/message me if you want more info.

Cut off.

Ok. . .so Ian stopped talking to me. I guess I don't understand at all because the last time we spoke it seemed like we were going to be not best-friends, but at least friends.

He had said previously that he wants to hang out, but he is screening all my calls/won't return my messages and now has removed me as a friend on myspace and facebook.

I don't know if he is worried that I am trying to get him back, because I'm not. In fact, if he asked me right now to get back with him, even though I love him, I wouldn't do it.

I don't know if is just so hurt that talking to me makes it worse. I don't know if I said something to upset him the point of never wanting to speak to me again. . .

But what I really don't know is why he didn't tell me. If he asked for space I would have given it to him this weekend, but he made it seem like he still did want to hang out.

::sigh:: Just another thing to add to my list of stress right now because now I feel bad about wanting to go see Linda and Ian's Dad tomorrow because it is Easter and I do not want to upset Ian by making him see me, but I don't have a choice because he won't even call me and let me know how to avoid that situation.

I am trying to be a good friend despite the fact that he doesn't want me as a friend. . .What do I do now?

He promised to go see V for Vendetta, and now he's not coming. He told me he'd tell me if he wasn't going on the pilgrimage, and he didn't. I guess I just don't understand why when he doesn't trust me he would respond with lies. It doesn't make sense. . .and it is so unlike Ian.

He has changed so much, I guess I don't know him at all anymore and it doesn't help that he will not talk to me. I just hope that this summer he will be ok enough to hang out with our circles of friends and won't let my existance obliterate his social life.

I just wanted to try and rebuild the friendship, we had been through shit together, and we still are going through shit together, apart.

I guess I'll just go to Ian's house tomorrow and hope he isn't there when I am so that he won't have to see me. There's nothing more I can do.

Too Little Too Late

Disease. It sucks. I know you are thinking right now, "thanks Ms. Obvious," but really it does suck because you cannot just take something and have it go away like the cold, you just have to stick it out and hope it gets better with time and is not a terminal illness. Everyone is telling me to be patient, but it's so hard when I see people and things slipping out from under me.

Last night was Hell. I just burst into tears at my favorite restaraunt in front of my Dad and brother.

Today was pretty Hellish too until I just let go and went out to eat with my new family for dinner. I told Julia that she was my second Mom and she beamed at me. I am getting closer to her and I just want it all to be one family again. I told Diego, in tears, last night that I had really lost the important things, but when I told him that I had talked to my family he said, "No Natalie, you still have your family right there and there are friends who have not walked away. You still have people that care about you." So true, damn the truth.

Brian told me, drunkenly, last night that "If I dream it, it will be real." Personally I think it is bullshit- build it and they will come sort of crap, but that's the proverbeal knowledge from Omaha right now.

Dominic said something profound on the pilgrimage today, (which I will speak of in a minute), while we were walking around the Jesus festival feeling the urge to overturn tables like the man himself down at the Santuario.
The conversation went as follows:
I said, "Dominic is the only one with a significant other. What are we doing with our lives fellas?" Dominic said, "You may not have that sort of significant other, but you have others that are significant."

I didn't know how to respond, he was right. I should say at this point that Ian and I talked and decided not to talk about the shit that went down in the relationship, and I am therefore not going to post those in this blog anymore, because it is not helping anyone to do so, including myself. So don't expect gossip in that department, get your own life because mine is shattered enough without spilling that aspect.

So the pilgrimage- Leanne had a friend of the family die, flaked out. My Dad was on call, flaked out. Melinda and Graham had class, flaked out. Ben was sick. . .I'll let him get away with that. However, two of my other friends really flaked on us today and didn't tell us where they were or even pick up the phone to tell us they weren't coming. So we waited for them for a while and finally had to take off. Throughout the day we kept calling them back, but they didn't answer. Only one finally called me around five and talked to me about it. I got to chill with him (amongst many other beautiful friends that I will no doubt splash into a facebook album), and we are really cool. I finally found out that the other friend was basically deathly ill all day. . . but I heard it from other people and that hurts because he is one of my good friends and it sucks that he never called me back. I just hope he is feeling better and that he gets back into town safe and sound in time for V for Vendetta tomorrow night.

The pilgrimage mostly blew. Diego, Allan, Dom and I basically hated it the entire time, because everyone flaked, we didn't have enough time to walk the distance we wanted to, and we didn't get a whole hell out of it except for a day well wasted. I had been looking forward to today for my friends and family and the pilgrimage for nearly 3.5 weeks now, so it was a major bummer that everyone ditched. Whatever, better luck next year.

Ok, so I bowled. I had no intention of doing it, but Phil C. challenged me and I couldn't back down. First game I kicked the boys asses, second game I was just doing stupid things like bowling blind and backwards, but I still did really decent. It was the first time I ever really felt like I could bowl. It felt good to be good at something, to actually be able to do it.

I saw a bunch of friends and it made me realize that even though I absolutely LOVE the people in Nebraska, nothing can make up for New Mexico in my heart. Yeah, I will travel the world but I will always come home to New Mexico.

Home. I drove Home tonight. I was thinking, "damn, I got to get home" when I realized that I actually felt safe and loved and. . . FELT. I could feel. I didn't feel trapped or paranoid or scared, I was just content.

Meanwhile a very fitting song for me was playing on my radio. Ok, so it was being blasted on my radio while I sped along the highway trying to light a cig, but that doesn't really matter.

Anyway, due to circumstances that people say were under my control, I have lost many things that were important to me due to my diseases. However, my doctor never saw that I had bi-polar. I definitely wouldn't have guessed it, so anti-depressants weren't going to solve it. I also believed that I was getting better, and then I crashed and had nothing to pull myself back up with. I still feel like I am in a hole trying to climb up. I am sick. I wish that I could have the things I had before now, but I know that I do not deserve them right now, nor do they deserve me right now. Everything is f-ed up. Time has really taken its toll on me and as I climb back out and just try and reach some sort of semi-level playing field to attempt to play with the amateurs, I feel like it is all a little too late.

I have lost people's trust, I have lost trust in myself and others, and I am really sick of flakey people and/or liars. Incidentally, that song sort of said it all. I hear all these love songs on the radio, or songs about people climbing up but are struggling, and even though they should be inspiring, most music is really bringing me down right now. "Said I'm so sick of love songs so sad and slow. So why can't I turn off the radio?"- Ne-Yo

Ok, so the reason my blogs are not daily is not because I do not have things to say everyday, I have a million things that could be sorted out on paper, but I often do not have the strength to write. It would make me kill myself if I tried to write my feelings sometimes and sort them out. For example, last night.

Speaking of writing things out, I am so unable to concentrate, I feel like I am in the movie Momento. I have to put post-its everywhere or do something immediately before I forget otherwise it will not get done until I can figure out what the fuck I was trying to do. . .often it is too late or days later before I can remember. It fucking sucks. I cannot remember what was said in a conversation only seconds before and I have to reread my blogs so I don't repeat or fuck myself up further.

Saw Linda today, she seemed to be better than the last time I saw here, even though I know she is worse. I hope Ian calls because his birthday gift is just sitting around here. . .I just thought about how funny it would be to make him garlic brownies. It really wouldn't be funny at all if Jake and Kellen weren't there though. Ok, random thought sorry.

It was hard to talk to Linda because she feels like family to me even though I am not technically part of that family anymore. . . damn. Oh well, I just love her, that's all I can do, and continue to pray. I hope to see her again over the summer, i don't know if it will happen or not.

Oh yeah! NMT!!! I saw it on Thursday and it only rectified my fears that the social atmosphere may not be the best one for me to heal in. However, it also might just be the best one. I can't tell yet, but I know I want to go there because of the AMAZING ENVS department. I hope I get a decent roommate next year. I wasn't really worried too much about that because I had Priya, now I have to do it all over again.

Really, I want to just live in a TeePee with Chewie. That would be sweet.

Ok, I am feeling sort of tired, so I am going to try and relax. I will go watch some house, start the water running so it will be hot in about ten minutes (the boiler is broken, as an 8 ball would say: ask again later) and then I am going to try and get some sleep tonight. I have not had more than three hours in a night for the past two weeks. Sometimes I get in a good nap, but that is rare. I never have time and if I lay down and cannot get to sleep I stress out to the point where I start to hyperventilate, so I am pretty wary about even trying to nap and I am also trying to regulate my sleeping pattern. So I have regulated it, basically no sleep. That's probably not good.

::sigh:: Well I will finish by putting in the lyrics from the song in my car tonight, and it pretty much sums up my life right now in a nice clean package for you. Wait for it- Bonus: It is a Barenaked Ladies song.

"Too Little Too Late"
You say, why does everything revolve around you?
You say, why does everything I do confound you?
You say that I pulled the world from under you,
You can’t go through it this time

And I could be good, and I would - if I knew I was understood
And it’ll be great, just wait - or is it too little too late?

One day, this embarrassment will fade behind me
And that day I could think of things that won’t remind me
But these days it’s unbearable for both of us
We can’t discuss it this way

I’m gaining strength, tying to learn pull my own weight
But I’m gaining pounds at the precipice of too late
Just wait

I could be good, and I would - if I knew I was understood
And it’ll be great, just wait - or is it too little too late?

Record and play, after years of endless rewind
Yesterday wasn’t half as tough as this time
This time isn’t hell,
Last time, I couldn’t tell
This mind wasn’t well
Next time, hope i’m...
Going to be good, and I would -
If I knew I was understood
And it’ll be great, just wait -
Or is it too little too late?
Good, and I would -
If I knew I was understood
And it’ll be great, just wait -
Or is it too little too late?

Something Kellen Wrote

So Kellen IMed me last night and what he wrote was very poetic, tragic, and somehow, inspiring. I see Kellen coming out of this portion of his life and becoming one of the most beautiful people I know. I can already see it now, but I can't wait until he shows everyone else.

thinking about people I miss

morbidity

dont want to wake you up with my thoughts

depression

went, got food

realized that I have left everything that is important to me in NM or Nebraska

realize also that I miss other things as well

our lives are shattered

broken people trying to make themselves

Catholic school will make you or break you

they left out the part about being broken on the inside

I dont think I was strong enough

a long slow slide into oblivion

ahh if only that were the case

instead the static grow worse

and I scream inside my head

people are perfectly, wonderfully insane

without that

they would die

I am sane

and I am dying

reality breaks us

wow

I need to sleep

I love you Kellen.

Just a Reflection

I wish that on Myspace and Facebook, those oh so self-compromising websites, that there was another choice to put under "relationship status." Robyn Kelly, one of my best-friends, has said on the matter, 'what about polygamy?'

If I could write in anything for my relationship status it would be 'nomadic.' I seem to be wandering.

My whole life has consisted of people I love leaving me, especially during hard times, and I am very exhausted from my efforts to have them stay. One of my girlfriends told me last night that she thinks that she might have feelings for me, but being a staunch heterosexual up until that moment, she could not quite place the feelings in her life. I did not know what to say. She continued on to say that she would act on those feelings but she hadn't had time to really figure them out because I was always "moving too fast. First there was Ian, then no one, then Ian, then my TA or Austen. . ."

So could it be possible that I am unable to find home in people I love because I am always on the move?

Perhaps. But my home cannot be burned down, it cannot be taken from me, it cannot even be hurt by someone else anymore because it exists only in me. I'm not sure if I will ever be willing to share that with anyone again, Ian kind of took my last shred of trust in the idea that you can truly benefit by giving yourself completely to love.

I just need time. I am pretty upset with some of my friends today because last night was really shitty. I continue to not get good sleep because I cannot even sleep in my own bedroom thanks to third roommate Derrick. He and Priya who are currently spooning naked (under a blanket) behind me.

I am starting packing today, I'll be honest, I am truly excited about it. I want to be done with this place SOOO much.

I am tired of the bullshit and I am tired of people not understanding and not even being able to hear what is going on with me.

It's weird, because in choosing to live, I truly lost my life. Everything I had known or trusted or believed in turned out to be false. I don't know what to believe in or to fight for anymore. I just exist. Wow, thank goodness I didn't kill myself. . .If I had I would at least have died for something I thought was right. Now everything is wrong and I know that there is no one waiting for me, no one to help me if I fall back into the hole. . .I'll just disappear.

There are cuts on my wrist. . .::sigh::. . . I have to stop drinking, my psychiatrist said so.

I wish I wasn't single. . .Just so guys would bug off.

To every guy who has wanted to, has, or has thought about kissing me in the last week:
I just thought you should know that I hate that every man who is my friend and knows me, automatically thinks that I am interested in them. I am not.

I just want to fucking finish up this year and get the fuck out of here. So please stop pursuing me and please just let me go. Be my friend, support me right now, because the most you are going to get out of this is friendship.

I am not trying to be rude, just honest. If you continue to pursue me you will be forcing me to take actions that I wish I did not have to take.

Sincerely,
Natalie L. Rivera

I fell asleep, but the only nightmare I found was when I awoke

So my adventures with other men/women these past couple of weeks have done nothing to subside my feelings for Ian, in fact they have only made them worse. I awoke today after a wonderful dream of him and I dancing and then falling asleep together. It was so real that when I awoke I was crushed to be alone in my bed.

I don't think my meds are really cutting it for me anymore. Initially they were better than nothing, and still are, but my body just seems so exhausted with pain.

I am so worried about Linda. I haven't really said it before. It outright KILLS me that my two best-friends are enduring the same thing at the same time. . . Robyn and Ian, I can never pray enough for the two of them.

I felt an unreal urge to go to the synagogue this weekend. I am scared and I want to ask someone to come with me, but I know that I will never really make this conversion unless I make it for myself. Yet, I know going into this conversion that there will be some aspects of Catholicism that I will never be able to give up. For example, even if one does not believe in their miracles, all of the Saints were amazing and inspiring individuals who I have always felt comfortable reaching out to, to help me pray to our Lord.

I guess the worst part of my life really comes down to the fact that I know I will never love someone like I love Ian. I spend everyday just wishing I could tell him I love him, and in theory that should be enough. To be loved and love in return, which we do. But as Ian so bluntly put it, "sometimes love is not enough." I don't really need your sympathy, or your kind words in regards to this situation, because the fact is nothing can change the way I feel and it is because I love that I suffer. It is because I love that I have to step out of lab and cry and pretend like it was nothing when I come back in. I am continually saving face, but why? It is not like I have pride left, that was all taken by this fucking disorder.

I really enjoy smoking, and it is cruel that I am so comforted by the smell because it reminds me of my grandfather, which reminds me of my mother and better times. It also sends me back into Ian's arms, his smokey breath breathing on my neck while we spooned.

I never want to make love with anyone else. Ever. I never even want to kiss anyone else, although doubtlessly I will. I really did and do want to spend my life with him.

Irony? Now I actually want to survive for a long time. . . and it is without him.

I am in love and I would never ask for it to stop. . . I just wish it were enough for something to be different than now. I can only hope that I will find better days as will Ian.

Another remark on Ian, apparently one of our friends read something I wrote in a blog and reported it to their mother. You know who you are, and I am severely pissed at you. If I really thought Ian was out of control with his drinking, do you really think I would have simply typed it and said nothing to him nor to his family? That is fucking ridiculous to believe. I love that kid more than anything and would gladly die for him, so what would stop me from trying to protect himself from himself. But the fact is, he doesn't need protection except from you, the individual that ratted him out for a crime he was not guilty of.

To the above individual, please stop reading my blog.

Matt has not talked to me since I made things awkward. . . . Oh well. My TA never responded to my email. . . Yet he talked to me today and did not even mention it, jerk.

A "small penis guy" age 28 randomly found me on myspace. Who the fuck are these guys and how do they find me? Really, I want to know because there has been one Jason Fink on Facebook who wanted me to see him because he was in an open marriage. Then there has been firefighter boy from Omaha on myspace and another 30 year old from Omaha. What the fuck????

I guess I should feel attractive. . . or that I am putting out some sort of trashy image. Perhaps they go for anything that moves and I should not be taking such offense or notice of these moments. Yet. . . Why can I only get shitty guys and why can't I hold on to the good ones??? The obvious explanation is simple. . . I haven't figured myself out yet. I just want my heartache to stop and I want Ian to punch these guys in the face. Not because I want some sort of chivalrous rescue by the man I love, but just because I know Ian knows how to punch them really hard. . . . is that mean?

Foy and I had a super awkward conversation. It was so awkward we just decided to end it and hopefully it won't be so awkward tomorrow.

I dyed my hair last night. . . or rather, Robyn did. It is oober blonde. We are going to stick some pink in it.

I realized that my blog entries have gotten longer because I do not really have anyone to talk to me the same way that Ian used to. I guess I just don't have anyone to share all aspects of my life with anymore.

I know this is going to come off as a really creepy ex-girlfriend comment, but I really hope that I end up with Ian. I cannot imagine anyone else making me as happy as he does because he is my best-friend. I really will, truly and honestly, try to be the best-friend I can be to him and maybe someday he'll decide not only to kiss the girl, but kiss this girl.

I guess I am seeing life from his side of the fence. I really cannot wait to go for a hike with him. Nebraska has never made me want anything more.

Also, this whole depression thing has made me a lot less scared of everything, and I cannot WAIT to try skiing/snowboarding. I cannot wait to fall on my ass and be back in the cold. Because now I like the cold, but only on occasion, not for weeks on end without any relief.

It is either ridiculously hot or ridiculously cold in this room. It has only been comfortable a few times, and then Priya and I disagree on it and change the condition of the room anyway.

I love being a smoker. . . I have met some of the best people on campus. They are so ridiculously laid back at night outside, and we all just gather round and joke. I will miss this in New Mexico. Not to say that I cannot smoke in New Mexico, but the collection of people will be entirely differnet. The reason is because our collection of smokers here is very very unique. Because of the cold weather, we all gather right outside the doors of buildings so that we can slip inside asap, but frequently we stay outside just for our friends anyway. Basically, thanks to our addiction and the weather, there is some sort of respect and loyalty to each other that goes beyond the tobacco we bum off each other.

All of my non-smoker buddies continue to give me hell. I don't really care anymore. I enjoy every single one of my cigarettes completely, and they are total hypocrites for wanting hookah anytime they feel like it but giving me hell for smoking outside. I am outside more and about 30 times more active than about 90 percent of these individuals. When they can hike up the Sandias with Ian and I, I will let them talk shit to me. Until then, they can bug off.

I am very angsty tonight, and I am sorry for that. I do hope that this blog finds you all in good health and that the stress you are enduring currently will soon pass. If you are in the 505, I am coming back into town a week from Wednesday and you must give me a call. I have a list of things I want to do while in town that include:

1. A short hike in the Sandias somewhere
2. Chimayo Pilgrimage on Good Friday
3. Taking my doggy to get pampered
4. Getting Boba/Pop-Pop's
5. Seeing as many of my loved ones as possible
6. Visiting with my grandparents on Easter
7. Seeing Linda
8. Playing some sort of ridiculous boardgame/wizard/charades
9. Drinking a dirty martini/Smoking a good cigar
10. Having a long talk with my dad about life
11. Seeing V for Vendetta with anyone that wants to go/anyone that has not seen it yet
12. Continuing to take my meds without fail

S for Sushi

I sit here typing this with ease. At my left hand is the remains of the sushi I just finished and a quarter of a baguette that will soon also find its place in my stomach.

It is rainy outside, beautiful, dark, and misty. The smell reminds me of home, just barely, the scent of fresh cut grass and rain is enough to send one through the tunnels of time and space to the first time we experienced such a grand and glorious smell.

I just went to see V for Vendetta for my third time and it occurs to me that perhaps I enjoy the letter V in the title of movies. My second place movie is the Village. Yet, as V so eloquently put it, "like God I do not play dice and I do not believe in coincidence."

Today I read for about thirty minutes purely for pleasure. It was the first opportunity that I have had in a while to do so and had the patience in order to do so. It was a book that Ian gave me. At first, I will admit, I could not read the book because it was about something that Ian wanted to do with his life. Something he wanted to do with his life, alone. It is about crab fishing off the coast in Alaska, the single most dangerous job on the planet. It would fill my eyes with tears to know that he wanted so desperately to perform jobs that could, with high probability, cost him his life. The last time I had to consider this was when he was working very hard to get into the United States Military Academy. He abandoned that idea when he realized that he had a life he could not afford to leave. I do not know if he will decide that he now has a life that is affordable to leave, or if he will decide that in the future. I only hope that his voyages would be successful and that he will live to enjoy his profit. I know that he would enjoy that sort of life very very much, and I wish him the most happiness I can with all my heart.

Every time someone hears a part of my life story here, at Creighton, they are taken aback. For a long time I remember Amanda Pena having angered me for what seemed to be a callous remark of the time, "If my mother died, I would not be handling it like you, I would be a total wreck." Now it seems that everyone says that. Robyn remarks it to me on a near regular basis. I feel as though I am some sort of new species, some discovery made along the way. I feel as though I am on stage yet have been given nothing to perform.

I have watched several best-friends die. I have lost my mother. At times I have been left on my own to care for my younger siblings. If this were a nation in some sort of peril, I would be an individual that others would turn to, others would be inspired by. I would be the leader of a revolution.

But these deaths and hardships of mine fall under the category of "coincidence" and are discarded like rubble by the side of the road. Here, I too am discarded and left to continue my life like everyone else, forced to forget these hardships because there is no place for them in the life I lead. How would it benefit others if I were to dwell on these fine lives that have ended before my eyes? How would it help for me to understand why I have been chosen to take hardships that those close to me, even my older siblings, were free to pass up? What good can come of my bad? There is none, and as such I forget what it means to have lived. I endure this world with a mask on. I am neither villain nor hero under the mask. I am simply dead. My feelings can no longer go deeper than the surface when it comes to my life. There is too much pain underneath that I cannot handle. That others, who love me with their entire souls, cannot handle. So I enjoy the surface and do not dare dive further because there is nothing to be gained from that attempt, for you or me.

So I say this today, if I endured what Natalie LouAnn Thomas More Rivera endured, I would be a wreck also. Luckily for us all, no one has to.

"I love you too, and I will always wonder what could of been" -Ian Luders

So I took a long hard look at myself in the mirror tonight, and I cried.

I have been through many things and have done many things in this body, with this face, but I did not recognize myself.

I had an incredible breakdown tonight and and I lost control on wednesday night. The result was injury to myself and some phonecalls/texts to people in a frantic voice. I have moments where I completely feel as though I have no control over myself.

What pains me truly is that I cannot feel nor express love in any form sometimes. I have loyalty still to all of my friends and family, but I feel like they are so far away.

I feel as though I am cripple and continually people are helping me to my feet. I make it a few steps then fall again and am not strong enough to stand on my own. At least I know I am down though.

I am suffering truly, and it does not help that I am hating myself, truly hating myself for not being able to be there for my friends when they need me.

I was smoking tonight and I realized that the girl who lost her mother, the girl who lost her best-friend to a car accident, a girl who fell hard for a man who joined the army, the girl who recently was completely smashed by the ending of the best thing that ever happened to her. . . was no longer someone I could remember.

I see my eyes and they are bluer than I ever remembered or noticed. Sometimes they seem to have a fire lit in them. I know that when I get my emotions back I will have to deal with my broken heart and face my life alone without Ian. I know that I will never have a mother to turn to. I know that my only environmentally aware friend is gone. I know that I will most likely die single because I am not sure I can handle more heartbreak even though I would love to be, and would make a great mother. I know that my mirror has fallen.

But I am not that girl. Things happened to that girl. That girl did not make things happen.

That girl wrote in her blog about how abandoned she felt. That girl could not understand what life was doing to her. That girl could never face what I am going to.

I will face it. Tonight I cried in the shower for about three minutes and just thanked God with my entire being for having survived. Yes, I only feel pain, but I am still here to feel it.

There was a tornado here on thursday. It was only about ten blocks away. God saved me and my family here. God has saved me through it all.

I do not know what I am doing yet, but I am going to do it well. I am suffering so bad my friends, and every night I go through withdrawl from my meds and face immense loneliness and panic and the desire to kill myself. Every night.

I just do not want to be worse for surviving. I do not want to be cynical. I want others to see my fire and let it help them also.

I talked to Ian earlier this week about our relationship and what happened. His words have been burning in me ever since. "I will always wonder what could of been."

While I love him and I am so crushed and most likely always will love him, I will never wonder what could have been. The fact is, I am nearly positive that any slightly different choice in all my different opportunities would have been the death of me. It's not much, but I'm here, and at least he will always have someone who loves him, even if I never am Mrs. Luders.

My throat burns from my out of hand workouts (for ex: biking several miles, jogging, then sprints) and smoking.

I am ridiculed for my smoking yet I am finding new people that feel the same feeling of discontent towards those that are so judgemental.

I talked to Matt online on thursday. I had said many terrible things about him throughout my time as his friend and otherwise. I realized that I still had feelings for him and tried not to let it show while he told me of some crush he had on another girl. Something I have never really give Matt credit for, even to other people, is that even while his movements have brought him in and out of my life, when he is in it, truly in it and caring about me, he is one of my biggest supporters.

I have not gotten to talk to Kellen recently, but I really want to. I must make it a point to call him tomorrow, but undoubtedly I will forget.

Kenna has been amazing to me. I have never really had the opportunity to be there for her, yet here she is, calling me or texting me everyday. I have never felt so close to someone as I do to her sometimes.

Robyn's Grandmother (takes some explanation, but not actual biological grandmother, but that is an unnecessary point to make) has been told that she only has two weeks to live. I am trying to be there for her, but I do not know how.

I was thrown out of Austen's car last night in a shitty part of town in the rain after him and i got into a massive argument. It was raining, I was in a skirt. It was one of the worst things I could have imagined him doing to me. Incidentally, I later helped him put his stuff into his car so that he could leave Creighton early this morning and avoid saying goodbye to anyone. People like their goodbyes and some of our mutual friends were hurt by his choice of departure. However, I understand his perspective as well and even though I am not really happy with him, he is a good guy and I know he is going to do well.

Foy has been really cool to me lately as well. I love hanging out with him and doing random crap like jamming out to weird Al, or watching tv. The dogs at his house make me so happy, I love dogs and it helps keep me positive about seeing my babies at Easter. I cannot wait to take Chewie to get a haircut on Holy Thursday!!!

I have a crush on my TA in biology. Tomorrow I am asking him out. It is the first person I have had a firey, butterflies in my stomach type, crush on since Ian. I can barely talk sometimes around my TA, it is pretty ridiculous. Most likely he will turn me down. Not like I am new to dissapointment and I am expecting rejection, but I will accept anyone willing to wish me luck!

I stood in the rain early on thurs. (before tornados-ville), and Amelia saw me and exclaimed, "what are you doing Natalie???" Amelia is funny to me because I understand her completely, in a nutshell. Meanwhile, she has told Robyn that I am "a creature [she] can't understand." Derrick says that she has never met anyone like me before.

I am going to start a self-potrait tomorrow. The two sides of Natalie. It will most likely be awful, but I feel that it will get part of my pain out to do it. When the weather is better I will work on it outside.

I have seen V for Vendetta twice now and am seeing it again on Sunday. It is amazing!

I am happy/sad/hyper/exhausted all the time. My moods are radical and my emotions are always on edge. There have literally been moments where I have been laughing with my friends and ended up sobbing only seconds later. It really has taken away all my pride. It is like someone who cannot control their bowel movements, I am dependant on others and have to continually explain my inability to control to sometimes complete strangers.

I came back to God tonight and I came back to myself. I have vowed to both our Lord and myself that I will fight this through now. I pray that my strength will not give out.

I love you all and I want you to know that even though I am changing I hope only to come out better for this. I know that right now you are putting up with all of my shit and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart for doing so. I am sorry that I have been so angry and sad for so long. I hope that when I see you that we will laugh, dance, and sing together and that I will will truly feel the joy of the moments we spend together. I look forward to tomorrow and the chance to talk to you all again. Thank God I will have that chance.

I realize this is a random compelation of all my different thoughts right now, but I just wanted to give whoever is still reading this a part of my life right now. With that said, I love you, goodnight.