Hi guys,

wow, its been forever since i posted in xanga! well since this summer anyways. ok so this blog is  in two parts, one is an update and two is a little bit of a rant (certain people are very frustrating to deal with right now. no worries, i'm not talking about you).

UPDATES!

so for those of you who don't know, last year i ended the semester early and took a leave of absence from Ripon. I love all, ok a vast majority, of the people that i've met there, but this last year an a half has been an incredibly long, hard, painful one full of self doubt, self hate and self discovery. i made a great many mistakes along the way, fell down alot,  bled alot (metaphorically) and ended up deciding that: i couldn't stay some place where the only thing keeping me there was people. as much as i love my sisters, and i do love them more then i can say. as much as i love Mari, Jarred, Jeff, Ashley, Lucas, and every one else, i couldn't stay some where that i was miserable. so after much debate, counseling, and talk with my dad i ended the spring semester early and took a leave of absence for the fall. in the mean time i began the fruitless search for a job, and started surveying my options. Culinary school quickly rose to the top of my list of things i wanted to do with my life. a list which, by the way, is very long and still on going. i continued the counseling that i began in Ripon with Kris, a truly wonderful woman who works out of Eagle WI, and continued on the medication my psychiatrist prescribed for my panic attacks. finally after almost giving up hope that mom would agree to let me go to culinary school in the fall instead of Ripon, i received a call from an admin rep at Le Cordon Blue (which amazingly enough had not been on my list of schools). Cady had called and requested information in my name, the little meddler. but within a week i had not only forgiven her, but was enrolled in the next available term. so now i am currently a student here at LCB in the 15 month Baking and Patisserie program. i couldn't be happier!

moving on to part two.

RANTS!

i will admit,  i may be being slightly hypocritical because im sure i have done this before but: it really bothers me when people don't understand something, whether a concept or situation, but think that not only do they understand it, they're experts in the field. 

my room mate is like that. she just turned twenty in early oct. has never had any post high school education and currently attends Brown College which is LCB's sister school. she has planned a degree in criminal justus with an emphasis in social work, but is far more concerned with going out every night then studying or even buying her books. she doesn't try to educate herself outside of the class room and rarely attends classes, even though she only has three days of class per week. then like tonight she presents me with random tidbits that she's read in some article. to nights was "did you know in the 19th century, you weren't aloud to through snow balls, isn't that just crazy"?

so i tried explaining what i knew of the time period to her, so that she could better understand why people weren't aloud to through snow balls. the whole protestant reformation in that general era could have accounted for the lack of snowy warfare. her rebuttal: "thats just stupid man, talk about bullshit. people are such dumb asses, why didn't anyone do anything about it?" 

so i tried explaining that well by that time, it was just normal. you didn't throw snowballs, that was that, no one really thought about it. so then she decides that the normalcy of not throwing snow balls was comparable to murderers finding it normal to murder people. 

since there are several different classifications of murder, and what makes someone a murderer, i had to disagree with her. she had previously tried to explain to me that a sociopath and a psychopath can eventually reach a point of moral compunction (she has never taken a psychology class criminal or otherwise).

so i gave her the comparison of the protestant reformation being similar to the middle class family of a third world country. they both have the basics they need to survive, food, water, shelter, minimal income but some income. and while the third world country family might dream of a better life or want more then what they have, they are to busy simply trying to live then about how to get the 80inch plasma screen TV that wouldn't work anyway because they don't have reliable electricity. like wise the typical protestant family might want more then they actually have, but because they have lived so long with things they way they were, they ended up being more concerned about feeding themselves in the winter then about being able to throw the occasional icy cold projectile. Maybe it wasn't the best analogy in the world but it worked better then the one she presented.

well her response was: "thats just stupid, no body should have to live like that." 

she's right nobody should have to live like that, with out laughter or electricity, but when that is what you know, when that is your normal everyday life, how would you know the difference? in todays information age, yes its a little bit different, you have a more idealistic version of life presented to you in pictures and photos, tv commercials and news shows. but if you aren't privy to that source of information, how would you know? and why would you care when you have to take care of your family before you can even think of moving them, or finding a better life.

basically what gets to me is that she lives in an incredibly idealistic world and doesn't even try to understand the information that comes at her, or seek out information to back up her half cocked ideas of what's happening. she doesn't want to know the basics of what she talking about, but she still wants to talk, forming conclusions out of snippets of mangled and degraded information and calling it correct. then having these radical thoughts that completely screw with your perception of her thought processes.

for instance: her pervious statements have shown her to be libertarian leaning towards conservatism in certain aspects. but the other day she tried telling me that the only way to handle the rising birth rates in third world countries was to "fix" the women there. that it was the women's fault for the over populations and if they would just keep their legs closed then there wouldn't be so may mouths to feed and the countries wouldn't be so third world. she didn't take into account that one: no third world country could afford all of those procedures, two: it would decimate the population and eventually destroy it completely, and three: third world countries almost by definition suffer extreme corruption, which breeds crime. rape being only one of those crimes. ie. a lot of the women having children didn't ask to become pregnant, they didn't whore themselves out, or just keep popping out kids for fun, they were raped, turned in to breeding chattel or sold as sexual slaves to those who could afford it.

ignorance drives me nuts!

sorry for the long rant.

Sarah    

i dont think i realized until today just how much i've closed myself off, and just how much i'm still hurting.

dad is in the hospital, colon polyps that became infected, and hes only getting 90% oxygen wich isnt horrible but it isnt ideal.

i should be more upset, i should be in shut down mode as i usually am when i have to visit hospitals. but i'm not, if anything, i don't feel anything. i'm worried, but i'm not panicking like mom and cady, i'm not visibly upset. i cant even tell if i'm upset. which is how i know something is wrong, just how buried i am. 

i broke down today in Chris's office, talking about Erica and Kim, and how much it hurt, what happened this summer. but only ten minutes before hand talking about my dad lying in a hospital bed i was fine, neutral and cool.

that isn't right!

its not right for me to feel nothing about my fathers life and health, but break down over something so small!

Kim and Erica! what happened between us doesn't matter, it isn't important. it hurts, but compared with my dad?!

they don't matter!

He matters!

and i hate myself for not being able to feel anything right now but shame and anger at my incapability to feel what i should for him!

Hes my dad.

he raised me! he brushed my hair when i was little, stayed up with me when i had nightmears, took care of me when i was sick! hes one of the people whos has suported me the most through all of this crap the past year. when i told him i couldnt be at ripon anymore he just said "tell me when to come get you and ill be there" no questions asked. he knows what im going through, and hes tried his damnedst to make sure i have everything i could need to help me.

so why do i fell so little?!

why did i shut my self down so much?

how so i stop!?

i dont know how anymore! 

ok so my therapist Chris suggested that i write my thoughts down. which i have been doing, but i thought that i would put one or two entries on here to see what kinds of feedback you lovelies might give me. so here it goes.
~
this year has been a tough one, when it started i wanted nothing more then to go to school and forget about all of the crap in my life. my parents divorce, which was finalized the first few weeks of october, the car accident, and my fall out with Kim, and my arguments with Erica. i wanted them to just disappear, i wanted to leave East Troy and have everything just lay there until i was stable enough to sort it out.
unfortunately stable never came.
in my desperate moments i said horrible things, truthful, but horrible things that i would normally keep to myself. i am not proud of my actions. i make no excuses for them and take full responsibility for the damage that they did. for the hurt my action may have caused people, i am sorry.
But, and this is something that i have to say, i am not sorry for my actions. for hurting people, yes i regret that. but i did what i did because at that time i needed to. like lancing a boil or draining a festering wound, i needed to purge myself of those thoughts, feelings, and of the hurt that i was feeling.
and truth be told, i still hurt. there are somethings that will always hurt, because they were precious to me. and letting go of them was in a way like cutting a part of myself off.
when i got to school, life started to look good. my sisters were wonderful, supportive, kind, generous and caring, and Cady and i developed a closer bond then we've had in ...gods it feels like a lifetime. but that feeling was short lived. with in a week, i was seeing the school psychologist on a weekly basis. my panic attacks were a frustrating and frightening side effect of the car accident. when therapy wasn't enough i went to a psychiatrist and was prescribed and anti anxiety and anti depressant that i am still taking. my drinking took an up swing, i didn't even realize it untill about half way through second semester but i was on the fast track to becoming an alcoholic. im almost four weeks sober now and feel good about myself. whether i actually relied on the alcohol or whether i drank because it was something to do, i don't know. its something that ill have to explore.
Katie has been a God send this whole year. we've shared so many late night conversations about all of this that i've lost count of them. but i love that girl for being such an encouraging listening ear for me this past year. and the same for Laurie with whom i've been able to share laughter and tears on equal footing, while still having a supportive shoulder to help me out when i need it. Danni as well, even though she's over nine hours away, and we haven't talked nearly as much as we should have. she's always been kind, supportive and a willing ear to listen to me ramble.
my mom is engaged!
she went to New Mexico with her boyfriend John last month and he proposed to her there. he wants them to get married in August. im happy for her but at the same time i cant help but feel some trepidation. they haven't been dating for more then eight months tops, and he wants to get married in about four months. its seems ridiculously fast to me, and i've explained all of this to mom. but despite my trepidation's if this is what makes mom happy, then by god i will plan the bachelorett and bachelor parties! she deserves to be happy, and i am long past being mad at her for divorcing dad.
i still get angry, over small and big things. i get angry that it took two weeks before i could talk to Cady about the divorce because mom didnt tell her right away. i get angry about my own failures. but mostly i get angry about Alan.

the panic attacks that mostly went away with the regular therapy and anti-depressant, returned with a vengeance a week and a half before his release date from Hubbert. and as that date drew closer they increased in frequency and severity. Kate (my councilor) was right, Alan may have only gotten eight months in prison, but i got a life sentience. i still have to forcibly calm myself down before driving any where, even the grocery. and i walk almost every where to avoid those feelings. Guns bother me more then ever. i never really liked them to begin with, but now ... now they just remind me of how easily someone can take a life without blinking. Ashley still insists that Alan wouldn't have shot anyone. but she wasn't there, she didnt hear him, or feel what i felt role off of him. that self righteous hatred, and manic possessiveness. he scares me, and makes me furious beyond all belief even now. i know that those feelings will dissipate with time, but right now they are still raw and inflamed like a still infected wound.
i went through my facebook and deleted a whole slew of people. mostly people that i didnt actually know, or people that i just dont have contact with anymore for whatever reason. it was nothing against anyone, i simply didnt see the point of collecting names and faces like some sort of social cyber trophy. i think about 90% of the people i deleted were actually from East Troy. kids from High School, that i never talk to. one i will never delete is Stevie. i miss him terribly, when i went to visit the high school i went mostly to see him and see how Solidarity was fairing in our tiny, uptight, right wing, intolerant town. he was one of the best people i ever had the fortune to know.

~
its after midnight and i should stop now before i boar people to death. ill leave with this.
~
one of the most important things i've learned is that i can never go back. what i mean by that is that what has happened, has happened, what ive done, ive done and the bridges i've burnt are burnt. i cant go back and change those things, even if repairs could be made chances are that the foundations have already been too damaged to bare weight. i cant go back, so i start over, create a new square one and build from there. i cant go back so i go forward.