11/30/2000

Recently I have been thinking a lot about my friends. I made some friends at the beginning of this semester through a club. Recently like most things in my life it’s all just becoming more crazy. I would not really normally hang out with these two but we have some circumstances that have us working together a lot. Anyways I really feel like events have us more stressed out than ever. I even had a friend get taken to a mental health facility afterwards. How did I get myself in this situation? Neither of them know how to unfuck the situation we all find ourselves in and to make things worse, they are always arguing. I desperately need to start taking control where I can because if they aren’t gonna be able to figure it out I am going to have to.

Also I am starting to wonder, would we even be friends if our situations were different?

11/22/2000

I only really have one or two good memories of my mom. For the most part if a memory of her is not bad, it is just of her being absent. Normally when she got home from work she would just sit in her chair and drink. When I was about 8 though, she attempted a rehab program. She was gone for about a month and then came back home with what almost felt like a new personality. She stopped drinking and it felt like I had a mother for once. I remember pestering her about makeup a lot. She would always wave it off saying I was far too young to even play with makeup but I was persistent. Eventually she gave in. She bought me this really cheap eye shadow palette, some sparkly lip stick, and then sat down with me showing me how to use some of it. I am sure it was really impressive for an 8 year old XD I had a lot of hope in that moment for the future, that things would get better, that I would finally have that mother daughter connection that I saw my friends have with their mothers. I did not have those words for it at the time but looking back that is what it felt like. She was like this for a couple months until she was caught in a layoff at work and the drinking started again.

10/22/2000

As I see others around me get into relationships and one night stands I can’t help but feel like I am falling behind. It’s not so much that I am jealous but more so that I still have yet to figure those things out. Men to me have never really seemed that interesting. Sure I can point out like a conventionally attractive guy but I never really felt anything towards them. Women on the other hand I have. They are beautiful and much more interesting than I have ever personally found men.

There is another girl I recently started talking to on campus. She is really cute. Her name is Stella. I have been seeing her for a while and when I did I always thought, maybe I should talk to her. This was followed by guilt. What would my friends and family think of me? But last Monday, we got into an elevator together and I knew this was my chance. I said hi and she said hi, I introduced myself and told her I see her around all the time and thought she seemed cool, maybe we should hang out some time. She smiled and said sure then asked me if I like coffee. She told me she knew a good coffee place we could go to. I am gonna meet her tomorrow. As she left the elevator I noticed a pink triangle pin on her bag.

Anyways, all this to say, I think I like girls… like really like girls XD.

9/17/2000

Dark Corners

There are dark corners in your room
There are dark corners in the streets
There are dark corners in the horror movies you watch
There are dark corners in someone’s life

I do not fear dark corners
They are everywhere
I do not avoid dark corners
They are unavoidable
I do not seek dark corners
They find me

There are dark corners in my room
There are dark corners on my street
There are dark corners in my favorite horror movies
There are dark corners in my life.

-Vanessa Strange

9/17/2000

I don't really expect anyone I know to find this site so I feel kind of free to talk about some of the more darker moments in my life. This one is about trauma.

My earliest memories of trauma came from my mother leaving. She’d always had a problem with drinking, but when I was little it wasn’t as bad, it felt almost manageable. Things changed after she lost her job during a round of layoffs. With the stress of no income, she started drinking more heavily, and the drinking turned her mean. She was easily angered and would yell and scream when she felt annoyed or pestered. Home never felt safe again.
Then one day, things had reached a fever point. I was nine and I’d come home from school with a permission slip for a field trip, something I’d been excited about. I asked my mom to sign it and then she spilled her beer across the page. I cried! I had already smelled like her drinks at school, and the kids made fun of me for it. Now this paper just made it worse. Instead of comforting me, she got angry. She yelled, grabbed me, shoved me into a cabinet, and tied the door shut. She said I wasn’t coming out until I stopped crying. Then she drank herself into a sleep, and I was left in the dark, terrified.When my father finally came home, he found me locked away in the cupboard. I remember the anger on his face, then the shouting match that started between him and my mom. That night, he made her leave the house. And just like that, she was gone.