Not sure how this happened but I ended up listening to a Nancy Wilson song and feeling all pensive/sad and simultaneously grateful. This feeling has a physical manifestation in my new tattoo - I'm glad because it's original and it's mine and it's beautiful, but it also really hurts right now. 

I'm feeling really lonely now that Robert and Ashley are gone and Nick will only be in town again for 6 months or so before he leaves, and Jennifer is planning to leave after this year, and Greg and Paige are an hour away. I'm getting sad and desperate for company, and I feel like nobody wants to be actual friends with me. Acquaintances sure, but nothing else. With the zillions of people I know, Erik is the only one who offered his moral support to me last night while I was being tattooed (even though I begged on Facebook multiple times).

The women in the chorus are nice and I could really be friends with some of them...but they are always so busy, and I'm finding it hard to break in, even though I'm really fond of them and am definitely liked and accepted. It's just...I've always had lots of friends and this feeling is really shitty. If I was comfortable enough with my body to have a more intimate relationship with someone, I would be dating right now, just in the hopes of finding someone to hang out with at night. This all sounds so pathetic.

At the same time, I'm glad I have my family - fucked up though they may be - to be there to talk to and support me. And though my job makes me crazy on a daily basis, I'm lucky to have it, for a lot of different reasons.

Money stuff has been bothering me. When I graduate in December, I'll have a few courtesy months, and then I have to start paying on my student loans. I have probably $55,000 to pay off. And I need a car. And sometimes the toll of living alone and paying all the bills, doing all the cleaning and cooking, having 100% of the responsibility for everything in my life that can be controlled is just too much. 

My intent was to have this be an upbeat post, but it's sort of stubbornly ended on a glass half empty note. Sigh.