I can do this…because I am still here.

     I can do this. I just had a shower, and I don’t know what it is about showers that make me feel better…but something happened.
    I don’t know. I am not extremely religious, but I most certainly believe in God. I believe in trying to be a good person, and do what I believe is right. You know that poem…where that guy goes to heaven, and he talks to god…and God shows him all the footprints in the sand. There are two sets of footprints, all the way along the man’s life. But the man notices that there are times where there is only one set. the man gets angry and asks the Lord why he left him alone. the Lord smiles and says, "I never once left your side. Those times where there are only one set of footprints, those were the hard times, and that was when I carried you."
     I don’t know what happened…I was laying in my bed, and I tried to think of that. That God was carrying me. But it didn’t make me feel better right away.
     I called Auntie Leigh, but she wasn’t there, so I left a message. I cried some more, and then I called Grandma. She told me that she was going to make some phone calls and then she would call me back.
     But I ended up in the shower. I let myself break down some more in there. I just had my hands up against two walls of the stall, and I was bawling. Then I just imagined God, standing there, holding me, embracing me. As I dug my hands into the walls, I imagined myself digging my nails into his back, and I let myself be comforted…it was fucking weird. Then I started staring at my feet. I thought how pretty they were, I’ve always liked my feet. (Hey, I thought of something I liked about myself that Steve liked, and it wasn’t even b/c of him, I like it b/c I like it…that’s a good feeling!) Anyways, so then I went from there up. I went over every part of my body…every part, and told myself that it doesn’t matter what society has to say about my body, it’s mine, and it helps me live. It’s what God gave me, and therefore, it’s beautiful. I am told that I am really pretty, but that doesn’t matter, there are always things that you don’t like about yourself. I am going to like those things because they are mine, not because people tell me it’s nice.
     I got about 3/4 of the way up, and one of the things Renee said ran through my  mind. "Steve won’t be with you because he didn’t want what you had to offer." I tried to think about how I could turn that positive. I couldn’t think of anything. I stood there and let the water run over me for a long time. Then I sat on the shower floor, and gave it some  more thought. I took about 10 or 15 minutes to do it before I came up with an answer: it doesn’t matter if Steve didn’t want me, because there is nothing wrong with me. Whatever Steve thinks of me, shouldn’t determine my happiness, because all I need is to be good enough for me.
     The whole time we were together, I had false security. I had confidence in me, because someone I loved had confidence in me. I need to find that confidence myself. I think I have known that since we broke up, I’m still not quite sure how to do that, but I think I have just taken the first step.

     Next time someone says something to me that offends me, I need to think to myself, "is that true?". If it’s true, I’ll think about it, and work on it. If it’s not, all I need is to know that. That should be enough.

    I hope I don’t end up like my biological family. I don’t like the way they are. I hope that’s not because I actually don’t like me, I hope it’s just because I genuinely don’t like the way they are.

    I talked to Grandma when I got out of the shower. She told me to talk to Auntie Leigh. There were two messages when I got back, one from Grandma, and one from Auntie Leigh. I couldn’t call them right away though, because my roomates had dumped 4 garbage bags full of crumpled up newspaper all over my room. I am SOO glad I had that time to think about myself, because I might have looked at it as everyone was out to get me, but maybe they were just trying to cheer me up. Who knows?
     They wouldn’t help me clean it up though, I mean, the entire floor space of my room was just covered. Not to mention they filled my guitar case with it. It was pretty crazy. So I asked Krista and Josh to help me. Krista was sure that she could convince me that she didn’t know what happened, but whatever. She did end up helping me, I’m not going to make an issue out of it. I’m going to stick with, I thought it was funny. Because it was.

     Janet, Steve’s mom told me yesterday when we were talking on the phone that Tammy’s friend Jen is going to move into the basement with Steve. She is going to have her own room, but it makes me wonder why she would tell me that so randomly. I don’t think anything would happen between them…it sounds like she is just staying there for awhile and then she is moving out of town. I know it shouldn’t matter to me anyways, but I guess it kind of bothers me a little. Steve is my age, 19. She is 21, or 22 or smth. It seems unlikely, but then, she is friends with Tammy, and Tammy is 28…so age probably really doesn’t matter ot her. I really don’t know what kind of girls Steve likes, I do know that every other girl he has been with was very different from me. Apparently I was the only one that seemed to treat him well. I really believe that. Like I said, I will never forget the day I randomly bought him something, the look on his face like, "wow, why would she do something for me?". He always did stuff like that for me, too. Like the spongebob doorknocker he bought me the day he left me. It’s so weird, I don’t think either of us really saw it coming, but yet we felt it.