Part of the reason, I've come to realize, that it's become progressively harder for me to write anything anywhere is the increasing self-consciousness I've developed over the years. I've been a xanga member for a lot of years. Some of my first entries weren't about anything really profound or amazing. Many of them were actually cryptic messages about the confused state of my romantic life. But I wrote. Often and occasionally in depth. I was myself, unapologetically.As I got older not only did it get harder to chronicle my increasingly complicated and tortured thought process, but I began to feel a little like there was something wrong with me. Why did I think the way I did? Why can't I think in some other way? Why don't I do things differently? The increased self-consciousness didn't bode well for writing anything. I felt like everything I wrote was a complaint of some sort, a whiny diabtribe. And some of them were.

It's interesting to realize that you're still trying to get to know yourself. I thought I knew, but a little something changes every day, as is to be expected. I'd like to be less self conscious and just more self-aware. Once you know and accept who you are, and I mean flaws and ugly glaring mistakes and all, it's a little easier to remind yourself who you are on the days when you forget and lose sight of it. You're the best you there is. Period.

Holding on to that can save so much grief, even on those days you're cursing yourself for not heeding your own advice, on the days you wonder whether you're actually learning anything at all, or if you just prefer to make the same mistakes. When you understand who you are you listen to your own voice more than the voice of anyone else, and you feel comfortable that the decisions you made were ones you wanted to, and no matter the outcome the choice was yours. There's a freedom in that I can't wait to taste.

I keep looking for music.

I want music that touches me in some seriously deep way. And I'm not discriminating. Lately it's been a mix of songs from Disney soundtracks and bits by European DJs or a random song by Fela Kuti. I need sound, a piece of life, of someone else's emotion to distract me from mine. I don't quite have the patience yet to abide this healing process in peace. I feel anything but at peace.

And it's distracting, and that distraction is immediately annoying because, despite appearances to the contrary I'm actually pretty busy. I have papers to write and emails to respond to and meetings to attend and programs to plan. I'm annoyed because some people would be able to do all these things without distraction. There'd be a neat little box in a corner of their mind titled "Shit to think about later" and in it would be exes and pain and loneliness etc. I don't have neat little boxes. I have an unnamed basket with no cover with things spilling out of it inadvertently, things on the carpet and hanging over the sides. It's in a corner, so to speak, but I can still see it, and occasionally trip over the stuff on the floor near it. I'm tired of my basket.

But I'm not some people. I'm me. I think that's the crux of it all. If I could get that through my head I'd be ok with my Disney music and my European DJ music and my basket.

And then there'd be peace.

It's December 1st, and right on cue the first snow of the year happened here today.

That would all be well and good normally, but I honestly feel like I've missed something. I feel like I sleep walked through the month of November. I kept saying this to myself over and over this week, after realizing that November would soon be gone and I felt like I had nothing to show for it. I really don't remember much of the month, and it's because I've been re-learning how to be a newly single, responsible human being. I know I'm being a little dramatic. Breaking up with someone is nothing like losing a loved one to death, or divorce. I should be (and I am, relatively) fine. But it's the repetition of events in my life that are occasionally upsetting. And the realization that I am (still!) entirely too dependent on everyone but myself. Let me clarify. I am self sufficient. I fix my own things, buy my own things, and have lived alone for quite some time. I can drive long distances alone, travel alone (though the way I appoach all this and the way I feel about it is changing, but more on that later). I'm not necessarily a princess in distress. But oh, the tears I cried last month during my newly single hours. Emotionally, I'm, in fact, a little tiny princess in a pink fluffy dress hoping for someone to carry her, or at least hold her hand because she just broke a heel and there's mud and it's cold and she doesn't want to do it alone.

It doesn't seem right that December is here all bright and shiny with snow and Christmas-y bells and lights yet. It doesn't. The little princess in me is stamping her well heeled foot in petulance.