I was journaling at work again today:

Power...power is something that I just now, for the first time in my 20 years of life, realized that I desire more than everything else (except for maybe a love life, but who needs to hear me bitch about that for the nth time?). A guy just came into work, a guy whom I totally went off on about a month ago when he made sexual comments at me. Today is the first time I've seen him since that instance. When he first came in, I said "Hi" to him and was all nice...but then I realized who he was. I couldn't get myself to be mean to him, though. I wanted to badly! I wasn't as friendly to him, though, than I'd have been to any other person. But, what I'm getting at is that he acted totally respectful toward me, almost afraid of me...AND I LOVED IT! Me having power over some big old guy -- God, it was great. Then I just started thinking about the way I am. I like to have power over every single thing going on in my life. And when I don't, I freak out. I like to know what I'm going to be doing every second of the day -- usually like a week ahead of time, even. That's why I hate last-minute plans. That's why I hate when my friends call me up and say "What are you doing right now? Do you want to come over?" It's because from the second I woke up that morning (probably long before that even), I knew exactly what I'd be doing until the second I went to bed...it's like a plan, and someone calling me up and saying "Let's hang out now" totally fucks up my plan. And I'll not even have anything to do, except sit on my ass...but sitting on my ass will be part of the plan, so it really is important to me. Thus, I'll try to make up some lame excuse to get out of hanging with the person, but I usually just end up giving in because I'm a shitty liar, and all my friends are pretty persistent. And I'll end up having a good time and be glad I went...but then that'll throw off my whole schedule because the "sitting on my ass" gets pushed back a few hours and, thus, the laundry or room-cleaning or whatever else I had planned on doing after the sitting on my ass doesn't get done. And then I get pissy. And the only thing the whole process I just explained is comprised of is my having power over my life. Writing it all out like that makes it sound very systematic and strenuous (and psycho!), but it's something I didn't even realize I did until now. This quality drives me nuts when it comes to being in relationships. I remember in my last relationship in particular -- whenever he and I would talk on the phone, instead of just saying "Goodbye" to him at the end, I'd ask him when we were going to talk on the phone next or when we were going to see each other next. For awhile it was okay...he'd just say like "I'll call you at six tomorrow." But then I got afraid I was driving him nuts, so I stopped asking. (And then he stopped calling, which is irrelevant because the relationship was ridiculous to begin with.) The point is that when we stopped setting precise times that we'd talk, I went nuts -- I had no power over when we'd talk. And I never wanted to call him because I wanted to be the one called, I wanted to be the one that was liked more in the relationship, not the one doing all the liking. It sounds childish, but my relationships have all had the same cycle: they start out great, I start falling for him, I freak out because I think I care more about him than he does about me, I put a wall up and decide to kind of "play hard to get" so to speak and stop calling him and telling him how much I like him, hoping he'll put forth the extra effort to make up for my lack thereof and, thus, build my self-esteem back up, and finally, the guy generally just acts the same, I continue being afraid I'm giving too much of myself to him and will be hurt (in other words, I feel powerless), and I end the relationship. This is how three of my five relationships have ended. I really hope I can snap out of this because it's illogical to think that every single relationship I'll have can be so structured that he will tell me he loves me every ten minutes and always tell me exactly when he's going to call, both of these to assure that I know where our affections stand in the relationship and that I know exactly what course things are taking. God, I must be an obsessive/compulsive loser. No wonder I'm single all the time. Maybe I'm meant to be eternally single. I hope not. The whole power thing also applies to my eating habits, hardcore. I've been trying the whole "no dieting" thing, and I HATE IT! I feel like there's no order to my life because I'm not counting calories and fat grams. This is supposed to be a freeing experience, but I just feel trapped. I hate it. And my final "I need power" thing...when it comes to sex (well, sexual stuff since I'm still a virgin)...I like being in control -- muwah ha ha ha. Anyway, that concludes my speech on power. I think I'll have some chocolate now since I am powerless over it.

Okay, that concludes my store journaling. But I want to add something. I rarely go to Catholic church anymore...mainly because I feel nothing even remotely spiritual there. For awhile, I'd say I was going to church and then go to the mall instead...which was stupid because my plan had been to replace something religious (going to church) with something spiritual...but going to the mall isn't spiritual. Well, the past 2 weeks, I've been going to my father's grave instead of to mass. I know that sounds kind of depressing and strange. I also know that my father's spirit isn't any more in a plot of land with a gravestone over it than anywhere else. But going to his grave and sitting there forces me to think of him and God and nothing else. I'm pretty scatter-brained, so it's hard for me to meditate on a mere one or two things. So going to his grave is a nice thing for me to do once a week...it's very de-stressing. I ask him if he's happy with the person I've become. I also talk to him about the whole mom situation...I tell him to give her some joy in her life so that she's...just not the way she is. Now I'm going to make a confession that is really major and going to make me sound like a really bad, bad person...when I see mom's name next to dad's on the gravestone, printed "Dolores Jean Vogt 1936 -- "...I feel strange satisfaction. It's because I know one day the last number will be filled in...and I'll know she'll finally be out of her misery...and I'll finally be done walking on pins and needles to please her. And I'll finally be able to live 100% instead of just 98%. I'm going to fight the temptation to erase everything I've just written and go now. You reading this, please don't judge me.