Ive been out of touch with life for a while.... Jackie, once more, delayed paying the internet bill until it was cut off. And she had no money to pay it off and get our internet back; its been out for more than a month and a half now, and its still gone now. I haven't had the cash to get it back, I'm busy paying my own bills and getting my own finances sorted out. But without that connection to the outside world, without this journal, life has truly been hard. Surviving has been easy, I suppose. I mean I've always had enough cash to survive and make it to tomorrow... but mentally, its been hard. I've been working a sales job for the summer, doing extremely well there.... in the weeks before Shambhala I was reliably the either the first or second place producer every day, so the money was fine. But the hours were long; I left the house at 11am and wouldn't get back until 9pm at the earliest.... so all the time I had for myself and Demitri was the morning. Weekends were mostly taken up with Demi because Jackie would be working. I feel disconnected from my life... like I'm just drifting and dying day to day.

I've got nobody I can truly confide in, I feel. I know that there are people who care for me, who are more than willing to listen.... but it feels weak. I don't want to let myself go, I don't want to show the weakness that is all I feel these days. I am someone that people look to for inspiration, for strength, and I don't want to show them the side of myself that is weak. Vince is here for me, I suppose. But although I have more faith and trust in him than anyone else, I also look up to him. More than anyone else, I want him to see me as strong. I know he wouldn't judge me, he might actually respect me more for the show of humanity, but I can barely bare the idea of showing that side of myself to him. I might have to though, lest it eat me from the inside out.

Shambhala was amazing but also wholly unsatisfying at once. It was just as magical as I remember, comepletely welcoming and friendly.... a small city of people all working together to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves. But I still felt alone there, somehow. Distanced. Which is probably my own doing.... I'm scared of being rejected, so I reject myself. Even surrounded by thousands of beautiful women at Sham, I couldn't bring myself to flirt with any relaxation.... the few attempts I made were awkward and felt almost forced. It was embarssing.

I still miss Kat so much and I hate myself for it. I hate the world for it. I hate her for it. Because even the best moments with Amanda couldn't compare to how I have felt about Kat for years. Thats a big part of why I gave up on Amanda I think.... I just didn't feel that connection. Maybe I was wrong for giving up on her. Right now I feel so down that I would give anything even just to lay with Amanda and see her smile. Just to feel that I could make somebody happy. Kat destroyed me, so completely that every time I feel like I'm finally doing OK things fall apart in my head again just to show that my repairs were merely superficial. Or maybe I don't miss her... maybe I just miss what she represented to me; somebody I could trust, somebody I could confide in, somebody who loved me. A deep, true love that kept us happy in the darkest of days. I don't have that. She was someone I could show my weakness to. Someone who would hold me. Someone who, even when I was feeling everything rot in my life, would tell me that they knew I'd find a way to get through it. That sort of love and understanding inspired me all the time her and i were together, and she had such a direct line to my heart and soul that they both were shattered quite completely when she left the way she did.

She harmed something so deeply tied to who I am; my willingless to connect with others. I'm so terrified of rejection these days. I have been since I moved here. I have moments of bravery with people, but honestly most of those are me overstretching myself and expecting to fail.

This is useless. I'm not getting anywhere with this. I'm just rambling, on and on, about how damaged I am. About how hard things are. I feel like an angsty teenager whining about pointless crap that isn't actually so bad. After all this time I felt like sitting down with this journal and getting things off my chest would make me feel better. But it hasn't.

The only thing that can make me feel decent again is love. But with all this anger, and nervousness, and fear, I doubt anybody is going to fall in love with me for some time.

I suppose there are things to look forward to though. I'm just nervous about them. A few weeks ago I met a girl, Vicki, on the bus. She caught my eye and I flirted her up, we exchanged phone numbers before we went our seperate ways. We flirted a bunch via text message, and before I went to Shambhala we hung out and had a movie night at her place. This is where things get confusing though... she's playing the field at the moment, and she's seeing another guy too. She made it pretty clear that her and I are not 'dating' at the moment, but she also made it pretty clear that she's not 'dating' him either... and that movie night hangout was definitely not a romantic one. It felt sort of like she was testing me out, seeing how comfortable she was around me. We've continuyed to text a whole bunch, and she's off at her friend's wedding at the moment with plans for another dinner/movie deal when she gets back. I'm so confused as to where I stand with her, whether or not I'm actually in the running at the moment... but I don't want to outright ask, that seems rather boorish. I'll see how that upcomming dinner/movie night goes.

She makes me nervous though, which is good. When I tease her, she teases back... and thats not something that I'm really used to. Its really sexy to have a girl really push back... and she's cornered me a few times in our back-and-forths, which I'm really not used to. A girl who can corner me in a conversation is sexy indeed. If things go anywhere between her and I, I definitely see serious potential for success. It just depends if anything goes anywhere. Which brings me back to the point; this girl makes me nervous.

I'm so bipolar with stuff right now. One half of me is still torn over Kat and everything that happened, and the other half just desperately wants to move the hell on and get on with life. But the fear of rejection is weighing me down.

Once internet returns, I'll have a new post and you'll see how things have gone.