First off, I just read over this, and it's a STRANGE and LONG journal entry. I must forewarn...hehe.

It's been a week of lots of realizations, most of them good. First of all, I want to share what Mary Guibert (Jeff Buckley's mom) wrote about the tragedy. It's what I was TRYING to get at in my anti-U.S. ranting a few days ago:

"If we dare insist on a new political direction for our country based on understanding our 'enemies' and a newfound awareness of our unintentional participation in their suffering, it might lead us to demand that our elected representatives adopt more humane policies and attitudes in all their dealings with other nations."

Now THAT is what I meant. I've decided not to try to talk about anything political until I become more educated on the subject...whenever that will be. (I'm still not registered to vote and wanted George W. to be President because "he's nicer"...hehe.) "Me, Myself, and I" has come out of the closet as being someone I've never met. I'm still not sure I believe it...I think it may be a friend trying to cover up his or her identity. If this is true, I wish the friend would just come forward. Then again, I could just be paranoid, which is very possible.

Anyway, moving on to my week of realizations. First off, I wrote an e-mail to almost everyone I know, excited because I've finally realized what I want to do with my life! And that realization couldn't have come at a better time. You see, I hated my Psychological Statistics classes. And I hated my Research Methods in Psychology class a few days ago. It was because I felt they were totally unrelated to what I was going to do as a Psychologist. I just kept thinking, "I'll get these classes over so I can get into the real interesting stuff." Well, I realized what I want to do and realized that all the statistics stuff I learned and all the research stuff I'm going to learn is stuff I'm going to use to conduct studies on patients to figure out how various treatments I give them could foster wellness for them (or un-wellness). I'm going to specialize in...drum roll...alternative medicine. I'd heard of it before but never really knew what it was, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. But a girl brought it up in class the other day, saying she was a Psych. major with an emphasis in alternative medicine. Then I realized, "I think that's a word that encompasses everything I spend hours and hours reading books on and looking up on the internet." I went online when I got home and looked up "alternative medicine" on Yahoo, and, sure enough, I found yoga. I found spirituality stuff. I found diets of raw fruits and veggies. I found exercise. I found prana work. I found aromatherapy stuff and herbs and all my "mind-body-soul health" stuff I'm always obsessed with. I seriously will get some idea in my head like, "Wow, I should start a 12-day juice fast" or "Wow, I should go out and write poetry in the wilderness" and will think that this kind of stuff will make me feel perfect and undepressed and healthy. Now, I always go to too much of extremes and end up ruining what would normally make me feel wonderful. But I'm better about my extremes now and actually feel a lot better because I am in touch with my spirituality now and am finally eating well and exercising normally. If I'd have walked into a therapist's office, he or she'd have prescribed me some cure-all pill, and I'd have never realized that I had the power within myself to feel better. This is how our society is. You go to the doctor, and instead of being asked stuff like "Now, are you drinking alcohol or smoking? Do you do any drugs? Are you feeling overwhelmed with stress? Do you constantly foster negative feelings about yourself? Do you eat a bunch of junk food? Do you have some sort of spiritual side in which you can take comfort?"...instead of that, you just get a pill. I went to the doctor a few months ago with my shoulder problems, and he immediately tried me out on pills that made me feel worse and wanted me to have an X-ray. My shoulder problems are almost 100% better, and I'm convinced it's because I've been eating fruits and vegetables and exercising and turning my negativity into positivity. I really think that if people would stop putting bad things into their bodies and taking better care of their physical and emotional and spiritual health that things like cancer wouldn't exist as widely. So *I* am going to be the doctor you can go to and NOT get pills. I'm going to work with my patients in creating mental, physical, and emotional health and balancing all the sides and energies of the body. I believe that most illnesses are either in our heads or products of unhealthy life choices. Now I don't deny that medicine helps...it does. But I think it should be a last resort, generally. Yay to finding my future. Yay to realizing that there's a collective name for all this goofy stuff I'm obsessed with...all my funky, new-age yoga, vegan, meditation shit. Suddenly, I've realized that I'm enjoying my Research Methods class because I'm starting to think, "Now, I'm going to be using this stuff to discover non-medicine wellness techniques for my patients." Oh the goodness of it all!

Mkay, realization number two: Physically, I'm no longer addicted to junk food. I realized this last night. Last night I ran through Burger King's drive-thru and got some fries. I used to eat this way every single night of the week, and though I never felt exactly GOOD, physically, I never got sick from it. Well, this morning I woke up ILL from those french fries. Hence, my body's like, "Um, I thought you stopped putting this shit in me. Must you abuse me this way again?" I do still have many emotional ties to food, and I've realized that almost everyone has some sort of preoccupation, and food is mine. It has been since I was 6, and it always will be. But it's a LOT better lately. I don't binge anymore. I don't starve either. I'm not overly preoccupied with cutting certain foods out of my diet and having extreme order all the time or, on the other end, lack of order. The only reason I'm cutting stuff out of my diet is because of my wanting to respect animals, and it has nothing to do with my strange diet, eating-disorder-ish preoccupations. So I'm happy that my food problems have subsided somewhat (for the time being at least).

Thirdly, I've opened my mind a lot this week. I realized that while I am very openminded about most things, I'm kind of selective about what I'm openminded about...hence I'm not really openminded at all since being openminded should be an all-encompassing kind of thing. (How many more times can I say "openminded" in one sentence?) I don't know when I decided to stop being a "selectively openminded" person and truly be an all-loving, accepting person, but I think it's happened. Just a couple things have happened this week that I'd have normally freaked out about and gotten very angry about, but I didn't. I realized that people think differently and are entitled to think differently, and it's not WRONG that they think differently. People go through lots of things in their lives and are a product of various attempts at trying to find happiness. And I don't see why that's so wrong, even if they're trying to find happiness in ways that would make me uncomfortable if I'd try them. I think the big event that woke me up to this was that this one lady, Madeline, that comes into JCM stole a bottle of vodka last night. My mom told me about it. A week ago, I'd have gotten SO angry because that lady pretty much drives me nuts and doesn't take care of her children and sits around drinking all day, etc. etc. etc. But last night I was like, "Wow, she must be really having a hard time with life if she needs to steal a bottle of vodka." And I felt sorry for her and kind of felt like "I want to give her a hug." So I'm really happy. I no longer dislike people as much now. Yay.

Let's see...is that all? Oh yeah. I always have an internal struggle between the person I am trying to be now and the person I was raised to be. The largest part of it is religion. I was raised with a strict set of rules, rules that if I broke them, I was either committing a mortal sin (serious) or a venial sin (not as serious). If I committed a mortal sin, technically I wasn't allowed to receive communion. The severity of this tore me up. Communion, in the Catholic church, is GOD. God is present in the host, the little piece of bread. So if I broke this rule, I wasn't allowed to have God in me. That scared the HELL outta me! How hypocritic! Church is always preaching that God is for everyone...but they must not think so if you have to follow a set of rules to receive "the Body of Christ." Ever since I was little I was always overly curious. And I've always had to have everything in the world make entire sense to me or else I get morbidly depressed and let whatever doesn't make sense to me eat me alive and dominate my mind every second of the day. I remember that the whole "premarital sex" thing didn't make sense to me at all. I knew that according to the church, sexual intercourse was off-limits. But I was confused about all the stuff that comes before intercourse. What act makes it "too far"? Do you stop after kissing? What about oral sex? There were those people who'd go around doing everything but sex and saying, "Oh, I'm against premarital sex. That's why I stop." That made no sense to me. Anyway, I'm totally getting off topic. It's really hard to explain what I'm feeling, but it's definitely a good realization. Like...I've always been so influenced by my really strict, one-way-of-thinking upbringing. There were always two sets of people: people who were Catholic and followed all the Catholic rules...or people who weren't Catholic and lived the way they wanted to and had a bunch of sex and did drugs, etc. etc. etc. So, about three years ago, I realized that nothing was making sense to me anymore and that I knew a whole lot of people who weren't following the Catholic rules but who were still just amazing, spiritual people. And then I went through my two years of horrible, what-the-hell-should-I-believe turmoil...lots of crying, lots of bitterness towards God and institutionalized religion. Then probably less than a year ago, I finally became comfortable with knowing that everyone has a different way of believing and that no way is wrong as long as...it's hard to put into words...as long as...well there's this certain quality you can see in people who have their "spiritual shit together," so to speak...they just seem really carefree and happy and are really giving and loving and accepting. Those are the people whom I think are the closest to achieving their Nirvana...they just emanate comfort and happiness and peace and wellness and spirituality. So I think it's one of those things where whatever they're doing must be the right thing, even if it's different than some church's way of believing. Everyone has his own truth. ("It doesn't matter whether something is real. What matters is whether it's true." ~ Innocence Jane Mendelsohn) So anyway, even though I thought I was done being narrowminded, I just realized the past two days that I was confused because I think deep down, I was still categorizing things as one type of people: churchgoers, no drugs, no sex, etc...and another type of people: non-churchgoers, drugs, sex, etc. I was falling in the middle, and I think sometimes, when I'm trying to "find myself," I think, "Well, I'm definitely not all about strict religion and one set way of thinking. So maybe I should be 'naughtier'." But I've just now realized that even though I'm not a holy-roller, I'm not all about having sex until I find the right person. And I'm not all about drugs. And that that's okay. It sounds really stupid, I know, but it was something I think I was subconsciously thinking. I don't have to fit a mold...I've always known that, but I guess I really didn't fully digest the idea. Anyway, enough of that because I'm sounding ridiculous. Sometimes things make more sense in my head, and I shouldn't try to write about them in my journal...hehe.

Wow, I just found out something that makes me cry and wish I were a better person. Diane was just here, and she was telling me about Madeline stealing last night. Before she stole, she tried to buy Powerade, a loaf of bread, and her vodka. She said the Powerade was for her children, who were sick (Why do people think there is nutritional value, let alone healing poewr in these sports drinks?), and the bread was probably to feed them. Well, she didn't have enough money to get it all, so instead of putting back her vodka, she put back the Powerade and the bread. Well, after that was when the stealing happened. So, anyway, fast forwarding, after the store closed, my brother Dave took over to her house Powerade and a loaf of bread that he bought for her. After SHE STOLE FROM OUR STORE, he bought stuff for her. I'm crying just writing it. My father must have given a bit of his soul to Dave because Dave is truly the most magnificent person I know. He's my hero. I love him so much. I hope that I can one day be even an ounce of what he is. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He won't talk negatively about anyone. And he is good to people who hurt him. HE is what people should be like. I love him so much.

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