waking up

two things that have been said to me in the last few days that have pleased me:

1. "shivery, only you would have even attempted to hit those high notes when you're coming down with laryngitis."

2. "sometimes, it's like you've just got to make yourself miserable to realize something."

the second one seemed particularly poignant to me given the complete breakdown i suffered at the beginning of the week, and the fact that i'm not entirely certain what it is that i realized. i obviously realized something, as is evidenced by the fact that i somehow managed to avoid slashing my wrists in the aftermath and i am here to write this entry. i think i've narrowed it down to three things:

1. i am an afterschool special waiting to happen, and that does not make me freakish. my tendencies towards self-destruction are not really any sicker or more subversive than anyone else's. i'm a big, fat, self-loathing mess and that's perfectly alright...

2. ...because, it seems, i have people who love me anyway. love me enough to feed me cheese and movies when i'm too sad to move or function and let me cry onto them in the middle of the financial district in the middle of the day. love me enough to put up with my bullshit and talk me down from those dizzying precipices.

3. out there, there is a band that understands, or at least understood long enough to write this lyric: "and sometimes, when you're on, you're REALLY FUCKING ON, and your friends, they sing along and they love you...but the lows are so extreme that the highs seem really cheap, and they torture you for weeks in their absence...but you'll fight, and you'll make it through, you'll fake it, if you have to, and you'll show up for work with a smile..." (rilo kiley, better son or daughter) never before has a song lyric so perfectly captured my life as i see it. either i'm projecting, or i'm not alone.