"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.