I used to think it was physically impossible to be tanned and unhappy, though I probably should have known Laguna Beach disproved all of that at least two years ago.

Yet here I am, feeling not exactly unlike the way I did at the worst time ever™.

I can blame him only as much as I let him in again, cause he's always waiting, and I should know.

And if work goes bust?

And if my family literally disappears?

And I haven't talked to my best friend in the world in more than a year.

Currently 808s & Heartbreak By Kanye West Coldest Winter see related

soon

<3

Currently Take a Bow By Rihanna see related

NYMag, I love you <3

So, let's get into this Nate thing a little. It's kind of crazy how he turned into a douche in the last episode, just over the course of an afternoon. Let's review: He accepted the internship from his grandfather before telling Vanessa, with whom he had planned a vacation. He then acted like it was her fault she was upset, and like she was trying to hold him back from his family or something, even though it was Vanessa who made him get in touch with them in the first place. Then he maybe sorta cheated on her, didn't call her for a week, and showed up at their breakup meeting with a look on his face like, "Let's get this over with so I can go off and bang someone of my caste." Plus 10. TOTALLY realistic teenage-boy behavior.

They say what's happenin'/ we say the facts and if they lie/ we comin' back for them/ they might say/ but they don't know

The morning I had my breakdown I listened to this song on repeat. It's still strange to me that I managed it and not strange because it's so exactly like me to set everything - everything - to a soundtrack. You know, like it's happening to someone else.

I've been around it and around it again and right now I think life is about control. Having it and giving it up. Wanting to give it away and wanting to win it, earn it. Thinking you deserve it and hot, indignant righteous tears when you are pull pull pushing for it and failing.

They say a nigga lost his mind/ but in the scheme of things I never lost a rhyme/ the thin line between love and hatred

It was the longest time I ever went without talking when not asleep and I still think about it. Being talked at, pleaded with. Being pulled and pushed and being willed to ease, and refusing.

Ah, the sweet taste of victory/ go 'head and breathe it in like antihistamines/ I know they sayin', damn Ye snapped wit this beat/  fuck you expect/ I've got a history

Giving up is having control too.. or can be. Quitting is. Letting go most certainly is.

But God don't ever give me nothin' I can't handle

Lust for life. Lost for life. The truth is in the details, truth be told. Not the fall-aparts. Not the meltdowns and tense shoulders and the can't-live-without-yous. The truth is smaller than what you expect.

Currently Be By Common They Say (ft. John Legend and Kanye West) see related

West side apartment grows lonely and dark

Without really realizing it, I've become an adapter. I've been lauded for (and accused of) embracing change easily in the past, but only recently have I realized that it's true. My hair changes - not cyclical exactly, and its style's origins not always easily traceable. What seems like a bazillion different jobs in the last oh-so-turbulent six months. A real love, inherently broken and tender and rough around the edges and sometimes beyond, just like I never knew I always wanted. A series of new shoes (a small thing for some.. sometimes the thing that matters most to me, believe it or not).

I'm easing up on the 'what kind of person am I' 'I am a bad person a good person I am this kind of girl and I always will be or never, maybe' thing.

My e-mail signature is one thing that hasn't changed in over a year. It says 'everything I'm not made me everything I am.' And it does. And it did. And I am.

As for the title of this here blurb, it speaks to a happy realization and acceptance much more than it seems to. "Don't Haunt This Place" by the Rural Alberta Advantage. As for now (always incorporating then, to be sure), the advantage is mine because I have permanent honesty carved in cursive along the length of my left arm, pointing out toward the exit of my hand, stopping short of the veins of the wrist I would never think to hurt again.

Up next, last stop this town

xoxo