so we're reading "of mice and men" in my honors english class now, and its having the one of the worst effects ever on me. and since i cant figure out what to do about it, or how to handle it, or anything really, i'm gonna write, and hope that maybe somewhere between my writing  and my having to do the reading for tonight, i'll find some kind of peace that i'll be able to use to get through at least tonight without going crazy. for the purposes of time and my personal sanity, i'm assuming that anyone reading this will have the same understanding of the plot of the text that i do, having read only til chapter 3.

i didn't start reading it exactly on time. i missed school the day that we got the book, and so i was sitting at home when jenna texted me and asked me if i'd started it yet. and she was actually pretty emotional about it. i asked her if she liked it and she said "eh. its a good book. i just don't like books that relate to my life." i knew then, i knew already. i knew her telling me this was her asking me to read it, she needed me to feel what she was feeling, which of course meant that it applied to one situation only, and that meant kristin. so i knew. and because i love jenna like nothing else in the entire world and would drop every single part of my life for her if she ever asked me, i got up right then and there and went looking for a copy of the book. and i found it, and sat down, and read the chapter, and that started it.

i've never really identified with any character as strongly as i identify with george. every time george gets frustrated i feel like my heart's screaming out at the same time to mix with his voice in my head. every time he shouts that "when i think about the swell time i could have without you i go crazy. i just don't get no peace" i feel like he's taken a part of me, the dark part that i keep down so people cant see but that invariably has the most control over me, and put it out in front of the whole world on display. from the minute the book started the only thing i can think about george is "god, thats me". i had no criticism of his character. i had no concept of malice from him, no recognition of a mean spirit, no sense of dislike for his character at all. which i understand, from a literary standpoint, is a completely naive view of a character. i should be thinking critically and analyzing all parts of him. but how can i when that's me? how can i when my entire soul is there in that character? i feel for him because i have to, because to think badly of him means to recognize my own failures.

when i think of the relationship that i have with kristin, i know that there's pretty much no part of it that's healthy. i love her desperately, way more than i should, way more than i ever wanted to. she can hurt me so ridiculously easily because most days i let my entire world ride on her and one word can shut me down. on the other side of my world i'm frustrated with her almost constantly. in the part of me that i try to keep down i've never loved her as much as i should, i've never been able to convince myself that i don't hate her, i've never been able to make myself not frustrated all the way through. i've always had in my head the dream of freedom that i'd have if i wasn't tied to her. when it's late at night and i'm burned out and frustrated my brain flips to what my life would be like if i'd never met her. that part of me has never, ever, not once in a year or in our 88 days, been honest with her. i've never told her that part of me, i've never even let her think it existed. it fills so much of my existence, pages and pages and pages of paper filled with my tiny cursive letters railing on her, shouting my frustration and anger and desperate need for freedom. that's the part of me that's being punished now. the raw, ragged, open one that's more real than any other part of me but the one i try hardest to hide. that's what i'm paying for now.

yesterday and today i sat in my honors 2 english class and listened to the other students rip on george. i heard them call him cruel, inhumane, evil. i heard them say he doesn't understand, that he has no compassion, that he's a "bad person", if the cliche applies. every word they said against him shot into me and lodged deep in the part of me that hurts the most. i sat there, forcing the tears back and swallowing my nausea down and trying to tell myself that they were shallow, that they just didn't understand, that they couldn't see the other part of george, the part i saw. the part that loves lennie desperately, more than he should, more than he wanted to. i tried to tell myself they just couldn't see. but they cant be wrong. not all of them. not everyone. and if they are right, what do i do? what do i do with myself if they're right about george, about me? how do i live with myself if i'm like that? even jenna, when i went to her, using careful, general words that fought desperately not to lend direct voice to the issue, asking how i should react to the things they say, told me that at first she had hated george too before she realized she was like him. but me? i never hated george. from the first minute i didn't hate him. i understood him and tied my heart to him in a way that God only know i'm paying for now.  i am terrible at dealing with the feeling of guilt. in fact, i'm worse than that because i cant deal with it at all. some of the things that i do or don't do in my life are decided by the potential that they have to create guilt. and i read this book, i sit and force myself to read it, and feel sick while i read because of the guilt that eats me up. i listen to these people talk and i know they're right about george, about me. i read and i listen and i apologize again and again and again for never loving her enough, for never being good enough, for never being able to kill the part of me that could never love her. i hide my face in class and talk to no one because i'm so afraid that if i open my mouth to defend george that they'll realize how much i'm like him. i'm terrified and i'm hiding from everyone that the character they hate so much is me.

i've started thinking about this book in the sense that it's a punishment. that this is the karmic repercussion of my actions and the things i haven't done. that this is the universe distributing appropriate retribution to the part of me that shouldn't exist. and if that is the case, i guess it's hardly surprising. i've harbored these feelings, these frustrations with kristin for full year now. even since we hit the breaking point and had to start over, which was exactly 88 days and one hour ago, i still feel trapped. i've had this coming to me. its amazing that it didn't happen before, its amazing its taken this long. but there's very little doubt in my mind that i'm being punished with this. this book, this experience, feeling this way, is what i deserve for my failings in my relationship with her. and because its a punishment, it shouldn't come as a shock that kristin has chosen this book to become particularly attached to. this, the girl who has hated english since i don't even know when, chooses this book to identify with.  she came to me and told me that she was identifying with lennie. it's not surprising, its hardly ironic. but it virtually proves my theory that reading this book is a cosmic judgment of my life. jenna's come to me with this too, with the discomfort she feels reading it, because her situation is remarkably close to mine. with kristin, i've been desperately trying to avoid discussing it with her.  i cant encourage her enthusiasm because it means discussing the book with her, and i can't hide this if i have to talk about it. with jenna, i've hardly kept it together enough to have a coherent conversation about it. every mention of it has me dissolving into a hysterical state of fear and guilt and a new self- loathing. she thinks i'm crazy, "its just a book, abby", and it is, but i'm developing the guilt complex of the century from it.

my reaction to these two people in terms of this book is also embarrassing to me, since i realized that part of punishment is the grace with which you handle it. i need to be able to suffer this privately. i need to be able to deal with these feelings on my own time. i need to be able to step it up for kristin and encourage her interest in this book. i need to be able to discuss it with her in an intelligent and challenging way. i need to be able to be there for jenna, when she's finally showing a discomfort with this book. i need to be able to keep it together to support her, and my own guilt can wait until i've taken care of hers. because part of punishment is the grace with which you handle it, and when the universe is punishing you, all your actions are visible. my mom was skeptical when i told her i felt i was being punished. "you really think God does that, abby?" i don't know what i think about God in this. no, i don't think he punishes like this. i don't think its God who's doing this either. i think, in all honesty, its karma, and the way i internalize the things that happen around me. but that doesn't matter right now, because the fact is that it's happening. now what's left is how i deal with it.

in all seriousness if i can get through this book, this writing, these next few weeks without running away i'll be relieved. not proud- i am not proud of any part of this situation. i'm ashamed, and i feel the guilt strongly. but i will be relieved if i make it through this experience at all.

So i'm writing this out of a sense of hysterical frustration. i'm tired and pissed off and sad and feeling very cooped up since i havent been able to swear freely in about two months. i'm writing tonight about Kristin, which isn't suprising as she's been pretty much my life for the last seven almost eight months. (but hey, who's counting.)

i don't hate her when she uses me. i dont hate her when she makes me solve her problems. i dont hate her when she depends on me for way too much, when she keeps me up late at night, when she gets me behind on school work, when she makes me sad or angry or wastes my time, i don't hate her for that. i don't even mind. i make myself available, i let her use me. i'm good, i'm kind, i sugar coat everything she comes in contact with. i teach her, i guide her, i do whatever she wants me to... and i don't hate her for that.

what i hate her for is when she takes everything i can give her and then turns away from me.

she says she loves me. she says i matter to her. she says all these things and she knows me so well, she knows exactly how to make me believe her. i was so stupid these last few weeks... she said things and i listened, i was so stupid to listen, i shouldn't have done it... and it's not justification but she makes me want to believe her, which is worse.. so much worse...she makes me want to be loved, makes me want her affection... and she says things, she does things, i got so darn close....

and then today. today at the show we all went to see. me, and jenna , and kristin, and a whole bunch of others. and kristin... she was with me when i got there. i got there before jenna. she was all over me, she wanted me to braid her hair, she would have climbed into my lap if there hadn't been people around... it was like the other day, i was at her house, and she kept making this face at me when i was sitting on the other side of her couch, and i kept asking her what it was, and finally she said "i think you should come sit over here", and so i did. later she told me she would have layed down on me if she'd known i wouldn't have been uncomfortable, but i did get up above her to braid her hair and she put her head on my knees...anyways she was with me until jenna came. then it changed. then it wasnt me. then it was jenna, like it's always been jenna, like it has been since the beginning and will be always, no matter how long this goes on, no matter how hard i try. that's something i should have learned the minute i started this whole mess.

and i should have learned it. i should have learned it with jenna, jenna not talking to me when i started cyt, jenna only brushing me off for her, jenna not being who i thought she was, who i knew she was, my best friend, the person i knew better than anyone... one year she was mine, eigth grade and i could call her my best friend without a thought, she was the one person i knew better than anyone on earth, and i should have known when i started cyt that things were different, that i needed to learn...

and if i missed it then, i should have learned it with kristin, from the beginning, from the first moment, i should have known, i should have had it tattoed on my skin or engraved on my skull or imprinted on my cerebral cortex, i should have done something, anything than what i did, which was to pretend it could ever be different, pretend that if i tried hard enough, if i worked hard enough for her, she would let me in, she would want me as much, she would love me... i was so wrong, i have been wrong, wrong for months...

these past few weeks have been the hardest, when we went to  the recital and she danced for me, it was like i knew what she'd been trying to say, i thought i finally knew she loved me... that morning when i woke up and thought i knew... and i thought it was the best day of my life...it was like everything i'd worked for, everything i'd poured my soul into, everything i'd given more time and energy to than i'd ever given anything in my life, it was all worth it, finally it was worth it, finally i'd done it, finally she loved me... i'd made it, i'd finally reached the thing i'd dreamed about for so long....

i was so stupid for thinking i ever could have reached it. so stupid for listening to her. such an idiot for thinking even for a second i'd ever, ever be good enough for her. but i was. i forgot how things are, how things have been and always will be, i forgot and now i'm paying for it, paying in tears and energy and everything....

i left the theater today without telling her goodbye. jenna had gone over to her just as i was going to, and i could either go over too or leave. i chose to leave. she told me she watched me leave... she'd gone outside to wait until i came out and saw me leaving... i felt so awful about it... but... i mean honestly, she was with jenna. and i'm not into self harm. sorry.

and i just... it's not the work i hate her for. it's the nothing that comes after. the emptiness, the way i have to watch while it's proven over and over and over that i'll never be good enough, never be as good as jenna, never be the one kristin wants... that's the part i hate her for.....

but what i hate even more?

is how much i love her, and how much less it would hurt if i didn't.