I've decided not to do any more work until after the weekend, for my own sake. I'm heading for a crash and if I don't do something to lessen the load I'm going to wind up hitting rock bottom in the last weeks of the semester, when I can afford it least, and right before the holidays, when I won't be able to enjoy them. I've been writing like crazy. I haven't had so much flooding out of me since before high school. It feels good, and I think I'm becoming addicted to the feeling. I can't write at home -- I can't work at home, really, never could -- so I've been spending a lot of time in local coffee shops. The other day I was finished classes at noon, and I spent the entire afternoon just writing ... two hours in one place, about an hour Christmas shopping, and another hour writing. It was the most peaceful afternoon I've spent in a very long time. Today I had a couple of hours to kill after a coffee date with a friend so I went to the library to write for a while. I had a class though, so I had to stop, and the whole time I was in that class I was ansty, distracted, anxious and becoming steadily more depressed. It was the longest hour of my life! I stopped for tea on the way home and wrote some more, until I didn't feel like bursting into tears or screaming or giving up. In two days I think I've filled half a notebook. None of it is very good but it FEELS good, and it's the only thing that feels good right now. Every time I sit down to write it's because I need some kind of release, but when I stop, I feel as full as when I started. And I just can't work in my residence, I have no idea why but I can't focus and no matter how badly I may want them to the words just don't come. In the evenings I get so depressed all I can do is lie in bed and wait for the morning so I can go back out and be at peace. I don't feel like I belong anywhere but in my head and on the page. Writing is the only thing I feel FREE with. I can write what I want, it can be as long or as short as I want, it can be as messy or as neat as I want and it doesn't have to be judged by anyone else. The only thing I'm confident about, 100% confident about, is my writing. It's all mine, it's ONLY mine, and it's the only place I can be myself. It's the only thing in the world that's pure ME, where it's okay if it's not perfect because it's miraculous for just being there. I want to feel like that all the time, or at least some of the time. I wish I could feel about myself the way I do about my writing. It's such a lonely pursuit, too. In truth, I wonder if it's not more isolation on my part, if I retreat into my writing because the real world is too much to face.

Everyone is so miserable right now. So tired and stressed and anxious ... it's the end of the semester and we're all scrambling to finish. I've got that too, on top of the usual depression, and it's weighing me down. Writing is the only lightness I have, but it never lasts, and it doesn't get me anywhere. If anything, it just puts me further behind because I'd rather be doing that than my work.

Sorry to vent ... I can't sleep and I feel like my head is going to explode with all the stuff swirling around in it right now.