Book thoughts and diary entry

I'm reading the book from Jennette McCurdy called I'm Glad My Mom Died. I really enjoy reading books about well known people. Being a celebrity is a unique experience that can be all-consuming for the individual and I want to know what's behind the curtain. I think it's great that Jennette stepped away from acting and started writing instead, it sounds like that was her true calling. 

And what about my calling? I feel inspired by things. I get images in my head of beautiful places and I'm desperate to see them. I want a beautiful home and to paint beautiful things. My life has rarely felt beautiful. 

The apartments I've lived in have been ugly, and I feel bad complaining because I know that other people have had it worse, and I could have had nothing, and my mom did her best, but I am so affected by my environment that I just can't help but be disappointed. I hate those waxy yellow walls and harsh corners. The patchy plastic-fibered carpet, beige grey and dead. I hate the modern appliances. White silver cold ugly. Dark brown plastic wooden floors. Cold dirty yellow tile floors. Low ceilings and darkness. I've never lived in a place that got a lot of sun. And our furniture wasn't any better. Grey brown plastic-fibered modern and boring. I especially hated the apartment that had a cockroach infestation. And I hated the apartment where I had to leave my dog forever with my mom's now ex boyfriend. And the other apartment where we left my other dog. 

I guess I relate to Jennette in a way. She grew up in a hoarding situation and her mom had issues and she made friends with Carly. For me, it wasn't a hoarding situation but it was always cluttered and small and didn't make sense, aesthetically. Having a mom with major depression, adhd, anxiety, trauma, and exhaustion, meant that we moved a lot the house never felt like a home. It was cluttered, cheap, and mismatched. I made a close friend when I was 5 who I thought was so cool, and she had the coolest family, and pets and an apartment that she was born into that she's finally moved out from 24 years later. She had guinea pigs and cats and dogs and fish. And the coolest older sister ever. I'm an only child and my dad lives in another state. I don't know how many times I've moved. Her childhood home is also mine. 

My best friend got me a fish tank a while ago when I was living with my other friend and her family after I left the dog and I had no contact with my mom for a while. She couldn't afford to take care of me and I was angry at her. I loved those fish but they died one by one. My last living fish was my favorite one, but I started talking to my mom again and we moved into the cockroach apartment together. I gave the fish to my friend and it died. 

Why does my friend (the first one mentioned) get the textured walls and soft wooden creaky floors and rounded ceilings and cool older sister and built-in arches and a green tile bathroom and a tiny window in her closet and two windows in her room and a dad who comes over to help her build her new nightstand and plants and sun shining through her windows- and I get cockroaches and plastic floors? I've always been ashamed of wherever I lived. I rarely invited people over because I didn't want them to know that I was actually ugly. They'd realize that I wasn't this magical person I pretend to be. Most people I meet grew up just fine, so dealing with poverty and deep depression as a kid feels like an isolated experience. I always felt like deep down there was something wrong with me that made me different and weird in every school I went to. 

Things have gotten better in this new place I'm living in. My bedroom walls and ceiling are deep wine red and I have a bunch of cool decor hanging and nice wooden bedroom furniture. I have a cat and a big bathroom and a blue velvet curtain for my closet. But the floors are still that gross dark plastic brown, I still see flashes of the cockroaches skittering across the floor under the couch. The walls are red so that I don't have to think of the cockroach I saw on the pale yellow wall.

The kitchen is stupid. White and poorly painted. Brown plastic floors. Maybe it's real wood this time I honestly can't tell, but it's not that beautiful flooring that I miss so much, the kind you find in those 1920's - 1940's apartments in LA. 

I dream of beauty and I see beauty in other people's lives and I'm starting to see it a little bit in mine but it's complicated. My cat and my red walls and my vintage vanity and homemade jewelry are beautiful. I'm trying so hard to be beautiful but it is hard. It's hard growing up with so much instability and ugliness. Some of my childhood was completely magical, but that's not what I want to write about right now. I hate those cheap apartments and yellow walls and plastic floors. I can't do it anymore. When I walked into my friend's house for the first time recently, I felt right at home in her little 1940's apartment. My soul and my heart settled immediately. Is that so much to ask for, for myself?

I feel like a whiny brat when I tell people that I want a place like that. "They're out of your price range!" "You'd have to move back to LA, and the traffic is horrible!" "You just can't find that type of thing here, and even if you can, the parking is terrible!" it's always fucking something. I wish I could scream FUCK THAT AND FUCK YOU AND FUCK THIS!!! FUCK YOU! But I know they're right and I'm the one being unreasonable and spoiled. 

I'm so tired. I can't deal with the clutter from my partner's stuff on their nightstand. The shoes under the bed the mismatched curtains on the main window the red door that I didn't finish painting the stupid fucking window that only lets in that bright white light and yet somehow it's always dark in my room. But it's okay calm down. I painted the walls red so that my room would feel like a cave. I adapted to not having sun and I prefer the glowing light anyway. Things are different now and I'm getting better and everything will be okay. 

But eventually I'll have a decision to make. Do I move out on my own and find what I'm looking for in LA? Or do I stay with my partner, get a dog, and move in with their friend, presumably in another plastic apartment? I don't want a dog. I like my cat. I don't want to live with their friend. Or... rather, I want to be alone. I love the idea of coming home from work and having the freedom to do anything. I can clean, make myself anything for dinner, and stay up late learning about a new software like FL Studio or Photoshop. Or I can play music and turn on the happy lights, drink a glass of wine and practice drawing. 

If I go to LA I probably won't be able to take any night walks. My location right now is perfect for that. 

Sometimes I dream of living in Boston. They have a lot of pretty apartments and cobblestone streets and an ocean and brick buildings and sun and ivy and art and interesting people. I could go to art school and live in a little studio that gets lots of sun. I see myself sitting on the soft wooden floor with my cat. A candle is lit, and I'm gazing out the open window into the night sky. I can smell the nighttime, wood fire and damp grass. The candle flame dances in a kind breeze. I can see twinkling city lights and the distant hills. I squint and follow a bird soaring through the sky. It must be wonderful to be able to fly at night. I shut my eyes and feel the moon's sweet kisses. I can be anything I want to be. But it's just a dream. I know that the reality would never be like that. I'd probably just dick around all day because I'm always sleepy and I'm scared that I inherited my dad's laziness. What is wrong with me? Why can't I be beautiful? And when did weed become a problem for me? I can go weeks at a time without thinking about it, but if it's available, I can't resist. I love the feeling it gives me. Normally I have trouble coming up with ideas, but weed sparks my imagination like nothing else. My memories and what I'm made from are ugly. For some reason weed wipes out the ugliness and I feel like I'm glowing in soul food. 

I don't know what to do. I think I need to be on my own, but if I'm not beautiful, and the apartment isn't beautiful, then I'll just be... nothing. Normal and disgusting. I can't do this. I can't take this next step. I can't choose and I can't handle any outcomes. 

Aurora gives me hope. She is a good person and she creates beauty which is all I can ask for. It's all I want for myself. Her music makes me feel like... me. I've never felt so understood in my life. It's like she's taken parts of my soul and woven it into something that matters. I hear a lot of people talk about her like this and it makes me feel small and insignificant. But then I hear her, and suddenly I'm back, I'm me, I'm strong and beautiful exactly as I am. These days it's hard to listen to her though. She's been #1 on my Spotify for 5 years now but this year I don't know if she'll make it. Right now she's the sun, I feel it and love it but I can't look at it. She's scary. Too close to who I wish I was. Too bright and too far, it's getting sad. I don't idolize her in the traditional sense, I see her as a grounded, complex, imperfect and interesting person. More than anything I just want her to know I exist. I'm trying to be good and live my dreams. But I'm afraid that my feelings are selfish. What if all I want, deep down, is to leech off of her light? 

They're not though. I know that I'm envious and jealous but those things don't control me. I even think it makes sense that I'd feel that way. I can still be a good person, and I think I am, I think I'm a good friend, and I do my best to make the right decisions, and to stay true to myself. However I have realized lately that I am bad at expressing how I feel and that's ironic because I'm in school to be a therapist. I started journaling a few years ago and I think it's helped. But later I reread my first journal and felt sad. It was so boring and messy. Was that really me? I'm so... sub par. 

I'm trying to create a life that is equal parts for myself and for others. I really don't want to be a bystander to all the ugliness that exists. 

I struggle to find the good in my ugly life, but at least I didn't grow up spoiled. I've had a taste of the bottom. When I describe my past, I say, "We moved a lot and struggled with homelessness." People think I'm talking about sleeping on the street in a tent, but homelessness can look like a lot of things. It can look like moving more times that you can remember. It can look like living with friends or strangers because your mom can't keep a job. It can look like living in someone else's garage because everything else is too expensive. I bought my mom a van so that she had somewhere to sleep. That was a hard time. I had to drop my classes and quit college for a year because I was so stressed. But I'm back and I'm getting A's and I'm trying. I've been given a hard life with many resources and opportunities and I refuse to waste that on bullshit. I have to figure this out. 

Aurora inspires me. I have dreams about her sometimes. They're really lovely, sometimes strange, but I always wake up feeling like the colors of a sunrise. My favorite dream is the one where we're at the beach at night in these white flowy dresses, and we're planting different types of candles close together in the sand. The moon is bright and we have the beach to ourself, the ocean waves lap at the shore, and we light the wicks. Music surges and we leap around the fire yelling the lyrics, we're laughing and beaming and the sand is cold and soft on my feet.

I feel like I'm closer to where I need to be and Aurora is a big part of that. She keeps the magic alive.