It is

There are parts of myself that I have given too much to over these past few days. Parts of myself that I have entertained. The things and stories that you don't tell anyone because of how they would be perceived.

I talked to the woman today, and we talked about a lot of things. We talked about family, about how much I do what I shouldn't. About moving out, moving on. I didn't tell her about my secret though. Not the secret that some people know, but the secret that nobody knows. I told her that I had something I wanted to tell her, but I was too afraid to. And then I went back into the room on the second floor and dipped into my secret. I wrote it into existence. I felt awful, terrible, and sick. I could feel my stomach churning into itself and the shallow breaths wanting to come to my throat.

I wrote it for fifteen pages of yellow lined legal paper. Fifteen pages. Then I sat there with my pen in my hand, and felt numb. I traced in my head the feelings and where they came from. I couldn't let this continue. Deep down, I knew I couldn't keep this secret. My rational part of my head kept getting tainted with the irrational one. They were becoming mixed in the way that children mix their blood when they are younger and become bonded to each other. Like that, but potentially irreversible.

I tried to talk to the empty room. I spoke words that went unanswered. Then, I sought out my confidant after two failed attempts and told them everything. They argued with me as I knew they would. That's why I wanted to find them because I knew they would change my mind. They wouldn't accept this from me, and urge me not to accept it from myself.

There's three times all of the things you've ever known or ever felt or ever wanted out there. There's three times all of this out there, and you have to find it and not worry so much about all these things that you are worrying about.

I grabbed the papers in my hand and ripped them and ripped them up. It took me two hours to do this because I didn't want to destroy the thing I had worked so hard for even if it was killing me. I listened to people talk about things. About creativity, photography. About their life experiments. How they just decided for a year to do something that would dramatically change their life.

And I know ripping up pieces of paper doesn't really change anything. I'm still who I was before. My body has the same things on it and in it and carved out of it. I'm still the same girl I was, and the same girl I wasn't. I watched the little pieces flutter into the garbage bin, and I grabbed a sheet of white paper.

I wrote something empowering, something life changing that I am going to make as my own little life experiment.

I mean I don't feel suddenly happier. Suddenly brimming with energy and bustling with excitement at the possibilities this big old world holds for me.

I do feel hope. This profound feeling that I haven't felt in awhile. Perhaps its always been there, and I haven't noticed it before now. Not hope in a religious, I've been born again, I love God and Jesus and Mary too. Just hope. I hope that things will get better, and I can hope that things will change in my life. Not change because of another person or some deity.

I guess I should note that life changing moments seem to only happen when you are incredibly behind on work and things like that. They do not decide to wait for the day you've submitted your last god awful assignment over the break and can cry and lie in bed until three and eat plain cookies and cups of tea for hours without so much as a late penalty or disapproving professor.

They come to you after days of sleeplessness and horrible dreams like where you meet your lost childhood friends and they do not forgive you for the wrongs you've committed. They shove themselves through the doorway of your cranium and protest and protest and protest until something clicks and you realize that they've been there for hours. This moment has been there for hours and you just made space for it now. There is no space on your desk for chords and post-it notes and rations of water and teacups. Pens and hilighters are abandoned. Pages of books are folded over in the corner, and lay closed and forgotten. Word processing documents stare at you void of the black pixels that make up times new roman font. The kind that you need about five pages of.

That's all ok though. You can e-mail your professor and accept the penalty. You can chalk it up as experience and vow to change the next time around. This all had to happen now. Procrastination led you to this, and you are going to lead procrastination away from you for awhile because of this. You owe this to yourself. To the pen that sits on the desk. You owe this to the empty room, and to everyone who's ever been afraid of empty rooms.

I'm not going to dip this all in honey and say that its some kind of revolution. And its exciting and perfect and wonderful. What does perfect and wonderful mean anyways? They are empty adjectives like empty calories in those greasy pieces of pizza from the restaurants that run like factories. It's not going to be something that I'm going to allow myself to forget so easily. Here today, then gone tomorrow.

No. No. No.

This has to be real. So real that if you neglect it, it will cry. I have to really do this. I need this to all work out, and work out as best that it can work out. So off I will go to complete this paper, this project, and be forever changed.