Good。

I've been doing pretty good lately.  I think the Wellbutrin is really kicking in.  I feel like I want to do things and my general attitude is positive about things, just like it used to be.  I've worked out my feelings for Annie and come to terms with them.  I like her a whole lot but I realize the situation that I'm in and am dealing with it remarkably well.  I don't hide my feelings and I don't intend to hide them.  I also don't plan on asserting them simply out of respect.  The lab is bullshit without her.  She's a positive light in a sea of monotony and senselessness.  Her silly jokes and pretty eyes give me the energy to push on.  It's strange to me how a person can be so influential in my life only by accident.  It's been a long time since I felt this last.

Lately I've been super nostalgic.  We finished moving out and Mallory and I are staying at my aunt's house until we can move into our place on Saturday.  Jeff and Jane and I were packing and cleaning on Sunday when they left.  They said bye and suggested that I keep in touch.  It felt like they were just leaving for the weekend since that's frequently what they do when they are gone.  They are actually gone forever, though.  I've lived with them and Dave for 4 years now and it's extremely sad to see all those great times come to an end.  I hate how real life snatches you up when you least expect it.  I'm at my weakest at the end of the best 4 years of my life.  I met Jeff and Dave, my best friends ever; I met Allie, my first true love; We all had numerous adventures that I can only recall now like an old man; I learned more than I ever bargained for, but not in class.

Now that this chapter is coming to an end it makes me terribly sad.  I felt like those times would never end.  Now, when I have just emerged from a horrible cocoon, it's all over.  I wish I could do it all over again with a more sane mind.  Honestly, I have many regrets.  I don't regret what I learned but the pain still carries more weight than the good memories.  The most painful memories are of Allie and I catching raccoons that one amazing summer.  Just typing about it makes me get choked up and teary eyed.  Whenever I talk about jobs or birds or research, I inevitably reference that summer.  I have relived it many times in my mind; so much that it hospitalized me.  It was definitely the best summer I had ever had.  It speaks volumes for Allie because even during that time I was probably depressed and it was the best time I'd ever had.  I can't imagine how I would have felt without her.

Moving on to present day, I have many problems.  I always thought that people were supposed to get better with age.  I have fallen down the stairs that I had striven so hard to climb.  I'm behind everyone else emotionally, academically, and... whatever else.  It's incredibly painful to realize that the best years of my life are now suddenly over.  No more playing in the snow storm and catching raccoons with Allie, no more getting drunk in the dorms with Jeff and Dave, no more random downtown adventures, no more new exciting experiences.  Things can be new and exciting but they will never be what has been.  Those memories are embedded so deep inside me.  It seems like I compare most things to them.  I return back to similar thoughts of wishing Allie was with me these past 2 years to experience all the fun I had... of course it was bittersweet without her but I still have that part of my mind that says "Oh, It'd be fun to experience this with Allie" whenever I do something new.  There are so many traditions and jokes and hobbies that I feel like no one else gets.  Even though she didn't like some of them she was always caring and loving in the most honest sense.  Now that I lost that, it's the only thing I look for.  I am afraid that I will spend my life looking for that caliber of love and die having never rediscovered it.  Through my own mental-illness-driven actions I threw that all away.  Of course I now realize what I had now that it's gone.  Since I got out of the hospital everything has been gone.  All of the things I used to love are gone.  All of my hobbies were wiped out.  Every goal that I had ever had for myself vanished.  It's hard living life when there is absolutely nothing to live for but your medicine prevents you from taking your own life.  You end up in a state of nothingness.  A state where there is no future or past and no desires whatsoever.  Imagine having friends that you don't recognize, hobbies that aren't yours, and a life that seems artificial.  That's what I've been for the past 6 months.  Lately it has been getting exponentially better but I am still deeply scarred.  I am grateful for anything positive in my life now.  Annie's simple interaction with me in the lab and bird watching were seriously the only things that made me get up in the morning since early May.  My sleep is all sorts of fucked up so I wake up early and have trouble falling back asleep.  It seems as if every cute bird tries their hardest to wake me at the appropriate time.  If I were a religious man I'd certainly attribute it to an act of God; it was that striking.  The final week I spent at my old apartment a Chickadee would sit on my windowsill and sing everyday at 9am - just the time my alarm was set for.  It's definitely one of the more cute and touching songs/calls of any bird.  The past 2 days at my aunt's house I have been woken up by a male Eastern Wood Pewee calling/singing loudly outside my window.  He's another one of the top 5 cutest and best songs of any Missouri bird.  It's as if my favorite birds have taken an interest in me and have done the simple, yet incredibly important job of waking me.

Waking up to my favorite birds shouting at me always causes me to wake up in a great mood.  I wake up with a smile.  It reminds me of waking up with someone I love:  so gentle and sincere.  After I wake up I am greeted at the lab by Annie - a type of girl which I have never known.  Her smile, voice, and mannerisms always ignite a joy within me no matter what the day holds.  She reminds me of a better time... a time in which I was at my best and life was kind to me.

I am completely certain that without these two things I would be dead.