I'm really depressed today. Nothing has seemed to be going particularly good lately. People say these kinds of things to me all the time...talk to me about their depression and stuff...and I always have something to tell them to make them feel so much better. Why can't I ever make myself feel better? My friendships have been fucking up lately. And I'm starting to wonder if I have ever really even had the ability to have healthy friendships. I feel as though I treat people kindly, but do I really? Maybe I'm horrible to people and don't even realize it. I would hate to think that I treat my friends badly. No one knows how deeply I love them. Sometimes when I see someone I love, I have to fight the urge to bawl my eyes out and hug the person so tightly and cover them in kisses. I feel I love people so much and that it's silly of me to even think that they could love me even a fraction as much. I try to obtain that love from people, sometimes at the expense of other people. I've realized that lately. And I'm so afraid of losing people. Sometimes I wish I could start all over, from kindergarten. There'd be so many things I'd do differently. I'm usually all about not having any regrets...but I regret everything, almost everything.

I also, as usual, am really sick of my constant preoccupation with food...and my FEAR of it. I'm afraid to eat too much. I'm afraid to eat too little. I'm afraid to eat the perfect amount. I'm just afraid. I have no idea where this horrible disease came from. Sickness makes you act strangely...you do things that you know are wrong. When I'm on one of my binges, I eat enormous amounts of food. Often this takes place while I'm working because the food is readily available...and we often don't have very many customers, so no one sees me doing this. I don't pay for any of the food I eat...so, in essence, I'm stealing from my mother. To an extent, it's okay that she feeds me. I still live at home and am don't really have the funds to buy my own food. But I'm sure that during a rather binge-ey week, I consume probably a hundred dollars' worth of food. That is utterly ridiculous. This is why I've decided to stop being pissy at alcoholics who bum money off us to feed their habit. I'm probably even more horrible than they are...stealing from my own mother. I feel ill at this realization...and even more ill at the fact that I'm sharing it for anyone to read. But this is my journal...I shouldn't hide anything. I don't know how I'm not 500 lbs. Maybe it's because some days I don't eat at all.

I'm depressed about my inability to connect with anyone on a romantic level because I'm always sizing people up. What makes me think that I'm so great that I need the perfect human being? Why do I have this list of prerequisites that a person must fall into before I get romantically involved with him (or her, I guess)? I don't want someone who's slept with a lot of people...yet I don't want someone who's a prude. And it seems that most guys who haven't had sex by now are either hyper-religious (which I most definitely don't want) or closeted gay. But I don't know if I could be happy if I date someone below my standards. Maybe I'm really not meant to find a true love and marry one day. Not everyone gets married. But I feel like I'll die if I don't find someone.

I just finished reading I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn. The book didn't grab me and force me to read the whole thing in one sitting the way Jane's other book did. But now that I look back at the book in its entirety, I realize that it was a phenomenal book. It was a really simple story but with such elaborate ideas and convictions. The last quarter of the book kept me turning pages because it made me feel so many strong feelings that I could barely breathe. They were trapped on an island and were miserable for so long. And then something happened to them inside, and they realized they were happier than they'd ever been...and they loved each other so deeply that they could communicate without words. It was as though they were sharing one mind, one soul. I don't know...it's really hard to explain, and I do Jane no justice by trying to paraphrase it, so I won't. But after reading it, I lay on my back for five minutes and just weeped. I always read these books in which the author communicates such spiritual experiences to the reader, and I feel I can never get these experiences on my own. I just get them through the books...or through songs that musicians write. But I can never get them on my own. I always say, "I'm not religious. I'm spiritual." But, you know what...I don't think I'm spiritual either. I put so much emphasis on such unimportant things, such as clothing, makeup, being thin...and I don't think I actually give a shit about things beyond this life. I mean, I do...but I have no idea how to be spiritual. Every so often I can tap into my spiritual side, but it's so rarely. It makes me so ill to think that I'm merely one-dimensional. Maybe that's why I'm always seeking out highly spiritual people...so that I can live vicariously through them. I want to be one of those people who walks around and just gushes out spirituality and love and goodness. But I think all I gush out is cynicism. I need to find God...not some big guy on a throne, not some guy bloody on a cross, not someone present in a little round piece of stale bread...the real God. Then maybe I can write my own book and sing my own song.