Soviet Slim Down: An Introduction

Weight, it’s something we don’t openly talk about how we struggle with it, in most of the world. After spending a year in Georgia, my views on food, fitness, and health were changed. We, fellow teachers, talked about it a lot, almost as much as our bathroom issues. I adopted an “I don’t give a shit about what you think,” attitude. I started doing things my way and on a budget. This is an introduction to my Soviet Slim Down that I started in Georgia and am now carrying on during my vacation in Ukraine and will conical from here on out.

It started off as a joke. I was sitting in a Georgian restaurant in February 2012 with a newly formed friend, enjoying our snow day of freedom from our students, laughing about how my host parents put me on a scale a few days earlier, shocked that I weighed a whopping 107kg (236lbs). He said that they had to use the industrial scale, that they used for making Cha Cha, because I would have broken a normal one. I had known this guy for all of three weeks, barley spoken to him, but here we sat, making fun of my predicament and eating habits. For some reason I was ok with him making fun of me, anyone else I would have burst into tears and told them to fuck off. Maybe it was because we were in Georgia and had to laugh at our lives or we would have lost our minds or maybe it was because I knew in my heart that early on in our friendship that he cared and this was his way of showing it. 

I’ve always been fat, not chubby, plump, slightly overweight, or any other nicety phrase you want to throw at me. Something clicked, hard, in Georgia during my time there. I would sit in the teachers room, watching my co-workers, not so much older than me take each others blood pressure, talk about medications for controllable health conditions that were the product of unhealthy eating, and sip coffee that was mostly sugar, thinking that something had to change. It was like a PSA for what you didn’t want your health to end up as that just played over and over. One day I drew a food pyramid on the chalk board and they all started laughing at me, the silly America who thought she was teaching them something they didn’t know. They knew alright, but didn’t care, just like millions of people in America alone. I continued to bitch for a few months about how this country was making me fat, until my outspoken friend told me to shut up and stop blaming my wealthy host family with their sweets and fried chicken and take some control and loose weight. If I couldn’t do it in a country like Georgia, where every kind of produce was coming into season, that cost next to nothing, and I only worked 15 hours a week, was I really expecting that I could do it in America? Because my friend, who I love dearly, is an asshole and I am stubborn, we formed a bet. I had to loose a kilo a week or he got my prized food bag, normally a Kit-Kat, pear soda and some other horrible food, that I would eat on my journey back to my village every weekend from Tbilisi. I didn’t care if I would have to give him this food, because it didn’t matter I could have bought it in my village anyways, I wanted to win and shove it in his face.

Me on my way home to my village with a kit-kat in one hand and a pear soda in the other (Georgia March 2012)

I explained to my host family that money was on the line for me to get skinny. They laid off force feeding me, my well meaning host mother even tried to get me up at 7am to do ‘sport’ with my host brother, and my family would come running when they would hear me dragging the scale out to monitor their American daughter’s progress. Everyone in the village knew what was going on, everyone. My weight was no longer a secret. People openly commented on my figure like I was a livestock animal they were getting ready for the fair. My friend regaled our friends at dinner in the city with my struggles, making them guess my weight. No one could believe that I was above 100kg (220lbs). The odd thing was that after a while I didn’t care that people knew what my weight was. It was a fact of life that I was fat. No matter what I wear it does not hide the fact that I am not a size 2. 

The talks with my weight out in the open, not backstabbing whispers, were more productive then the years I spent as an adolescent in Weight Watchers or trying some quick weight loss diet, which clearly didn’t work in the long run. After that spring, when I went back into western culture I put on weight again, and fast. After getting down to around 100kg (220lbs) I was back up to around the 107kg (236lbs) that I had started at. it was a mix of traveling a lot, eating food that I hadn’t eating in while (years in the case of Denmark), drinking, and generally not caring until it had caught up with me yet again. 

When I got back to the States that summer I had to buy new pants and I squeezed myself into a pair of size 16 jeans that had no right to be stretched that far and have me say that they “fit.” Six weeks later when I went home to Georgia I couldn’t even get them on.

Arriving in Georgia, I was going to be living on my own, in an apartment, for an extended period of time for the first time in my life. After paying my rent I only had about $135 to last me the month on food. I quickly discovered that almost all western brands of prepackaged food wasn’t an option and local produce was cheap. I gave up on any meat I would have to cook at home and almost all forms of dairy, to avoid explosive bathroom issues that semester. I couldn’t eat out of boredom anymore, because it wasn’t in the budget, but I never went hungry. I drank water, flavored with minimal amounts of my valuable Chrystal Light, to add variety, gone were the sugary drinks, again not in the budget. 

I got myself weighed on the street by old women, and their scales who would question if 103kg (227lbs) was really something to be proud about. I had women at a bazaar flat out tell me that they didn’t have pants big enough for me. The friend that I was with, another American, asked if I was ok emotionally after having all of them basically tell me that I was too fat. I said I was use to it. They didn’t need to be any less honest. I knew that I was the one who had to change, not them. I was the one who was screwing with my health, being stupid, and staying depressed because I had decided to eat a whole cake, not just a piece.

Every visit back home to my Georgian village to see my family that fall, I was greeted by them telling me that I was still getting skinny slowly, but surly. They had faith that their America could do it, even if they couldn’t. My host mum set my goal weight at 85kg (187.3lbs). She had no past background history on me, she hadn’t seen the struggles. She was blissfully unaware and thought that I had never thought about loosing weight before. There was something refreshing about this and her blind faith that I could do this. When I came back from a summer away, she blamed my weight gain on America.

When I left Georgia, I got myself weighed on the street by an old woman for the last time in December and I was back down to 100kg (220lbs) after an extremely inactive semester. When I landed back in the States food was over processed and I felt like a freak for complaining. I struggled with eating what my family ate and what I ate. Not a lot was matching up. My mother started calling me her vegan daughter, I still didn’t trust meat and dairy for the fear of toilet explosions. I again had to battle against that American stereotypes of weight and how it was talked about. A few weeks ago my boss spoke with me, right before I felt for Ukraine that when I got back from Georgia I was the “tiny,” the smallest he had ever seen me and then again I put a little back on, but slowly it was coming off again. He spoke honestly about my plans and goals, nothing was hushed. I talked numbers. I don’t know where I want to end up, because I can’t remember the last time I was ever this skinny. Yesterday I got myself weighed on the streets of Lviv by an old woman and I was at 90kg (198.5lbs). I got off the scale and went on my way to the market to buy some more produce and didn’t think much of it until this morning. My license that I have had since I was 18, that says 200lbs (90.7kg) is no longer a lie and for the first time has even come close to being true. I don’t want a medal or a party. I just want to keep going on with my journey, slowly chipping away enjoying throwing out old clothes, because they are too big. Most of all I can’t wait to see my friend from Georgia further down the road, healthier, and being able to say, “I told you I could do it, you ass!”

Breakdown of the numbers:

Fall 2009: 

February 2012: 107kg (236lbs)

June 2012: 100kg (220lbs)

August 2012: 108kg (238lbs)

December 2012: 100kg (220lbs)

May 2012: 90kg (198.5lbs)

February 2012: Barley squeezing into a size 18 in Gap

May 2012: Comfortably a size 14 in Gap 

Break down in photos:

January 2012 (Georgia)

June 2012 (Armenia)

November 2012 (Ukraine)

May 2013 (Ukraine)

Six Months: I was Feeling Sad, Can't Help Looking Back

When I came to Georgia six months ago I kept reminding myself that anything was possible here, I just had to give things a chance. My grandfather told me right before I left, that if I didn’t like it over here, then I come right back home and no one would think less of me. I’ve used that advice this whole time, but I’ve modified it to if I don’t like a situation, then get out of it or change it. I have grown in my time spent over here so far. Physically I am still pretty much the same, but I have a different outlook on life that will probably only be intensified when I return to the western world. I will be leaving my village and Georgia next Friday and won’t return until late August, except for about 48 hours in late June when I get home from Armenia and then go to Denmark and less then 24 hours in mid-July when I go from Denmark to Australia. It is safe to say I don’t want to leave.

Georgia has become this cozy crazy little bubble, that I am in love with. Last Saturday morning I was sitting around the breakfast table in my new apartment in Tbilisi, talking to a guy who had slept over and one of my roommates about the ‘bath salts’ drug in the States and all the zombie cannibal people. They hadn’t heard much about it and I explained it to them, after some Googling, and the guy started talking about how he was glad that if stuff like this was going on in Ohio, he could always come back to Georgia where he knew what to expect. I agree with him on that front. Sure Georgians aren’t the healthiest people, they like to drink, smoke cigarets, and eat food that gives them diabetes and makes their teeth fallout, but you won’t find a nation of pill popping addicts for every little hick-up. They value family and children more then any nation I have ever been to. You can have a million dollars, but if you are single with no children your life is not complete. 

This country is also really confusing sometimes. My host family will comment on the size of my butt and say that it’s gotten a little big lately and maybe I should do some sport to get rid of it in the morning. At lunch they will be shoving food and sweets down my throat. The best thing I remember when I told my host mother that I was on a diet, she would even put me on the scale every few days to make sure I was loosing weight, and one day she asked if I wanted strawberries and came back with some covered in heaps of sugar and ice cream. I just shook my head and ate them, and promptly got a sugar headache. I also was told not to drink at school because my host mother did not want my director to think less of me, well it’s a little hard to say no when he is the one pouring you shots of liquor. Drinking in school, while working is also another conundrum, but when it Georgia, do as the Georgians, right?

I’ve had my moments where I broke down crying over silly things, like squat toilets. I’ve also had my moments of breaking down crying over thinking that I was a I was a bad teacher because I couldn’t make students care or learn English. In that moment I had to remember that I was not just there to teach English, but teach about my culture. One of my best teaching moments so far was when my co-teacher had to leave early one day and I watched Katy Perry’s “Firework” music video with my fourth graders. A student who never speaks, because of how shy she is in class started using her limited English to talk to me about the video and share her personality with me. I also have a third grade boy who two months ago wouldn’t even look at post cards of Maine that I was showing him, but again my co-teacher was absent one day, and I had him participate in all of our activities that day. (My co-teacher normally ignores him. It’s common to do this with “slow” children in post Soviet countries.) He now looks at me and says hello and goodbye when he sees me. It may not seem like much, but it is huge for him. Now in school I want to stop and give all my students hugs, as I only have a week left with them, most still don’t know I will be teaching two hours away in Tbilisi this fall.

This morning at breakfast my host mum wanted to get my schedule for the last week here straight and I started crying and have found myself crying all day at random times. Just like any family I have had my issues with them, but I can safely say that when I came back this April from two weeks away in the Baltic it was fantastic to see them, despite all the jet leg and just wanting to sleep. I even let my host dad drunkly stroke my hair and tell me how I was his “American girl,” in a completely drunk proud dad kind of way. I have had my moments where my host mom opens the door for drunk me at midnight after a night of beers with the village guys my age, and just like my mother back in America, she tells me to go to bed and then makes fun of me for it for the next week. 

I’ve fallen in love with someone that was completely off my radar, until it had happened. Relationships aren’t meant to last in the long term here in my eyes. They are meant to be savored and relished in every way in the long moment we have shared. I find myself enjoying small things with him. A day gone awry can be fixed with a bad joke or an immatation. The first weekend spent in a new apartment is made a little less lonely, even when getting nudged awake for have fallen asleep, because I was sick the day before, and had started snoring. Through him, I have gotten a deeper look into who I am, what I want in life, and I am able to laugh at myself. I know next semester without him will be hard, not being a free phone call away, but everything works out the way God, or the flying spaghetti monster, wants it to.

I know this next week will be filled with hard goodbyes and tears, but I am ready for it. I have already cried in the rain at 3am, in the middle of a street closed for construction in Tbilisi to one of my friends about how I didn’t want this semester to end and it is true. I do not want this semester to end. I know I have at least one more here, but this is an end to an epic chapter in my story. I also know that if I don’t continue to take chances, like coming to Georgia, experiences like this would not be possible and I can’t let the past hold me back from enjoying my future.

For the past six months I have had people continually telling me how proud they are of me and everything I am doing, but in all honestly I am proud of my family and close friends for caring enough about me to let me go and support me during this time. I’ve gotten enough Facebook messages and texts demanding that I come back to Maine to know that I am not only missed, but loved. I also know that anywhere in the world I have a friend singing Snow Patrol’s You Could Be Happy to me and I am happy, despite all the tears and goodbyes. Life is about living, and you can’t know how happy you truly are unless you have some sadness to measure it against.

Do the things

That you always wanted to

Without me there to hold you back

Don't think, just do

More than anything

I want to see you go

Take a glorious bite

Out of the whole world

Georgia's Independence Day

This past Saturday (May 26th) was Georgia’s Independence Day. I was in Tbilisi for the weekend, surprise, surprise right? That morning I woke up really early around 7:30 and sat in bed being productive and downloading all the TV shows from the past week that I hadn’t seen and taking a shower. I packed all my stuff and got moved from the hostel that I normally stay at, to across the hall to an apartment that an exceptionally nice older lady lives in and rents out a mini flat to guests. (Massive bedroom, balcony, and bathroom.) I was stoked about this as it reminded me of flats that I had been in, in Lviv, Ukraine and it was all mine for a night, lumpy bed and all!

My Bathroom 

View of Tbilisi from my Balcony

I dropped my bag and went off to get coffee and write a letter to a friend in a cafe. I sat there for a few hours doing that, waiting for one of my friends to get into the city. After I left I walked to McDonlds so I could use the bathroom and get some more coffee, I was feeling exceptionally tired that day and I wanted an excuse to sit on the patio outside and watch a stage that was being put up in the Marjanishvili Square. I sat and took a few pictures and looked at the sky praying that it would not rain yet again. I could not take another wet weekend. (Someone send me a raincoat!) I got a call from my friend saying that he had just gotten into town and that it was hailing where he was. I cursed we made a plan to find our friend, who was phone less, because he was leaving that weekend to go back home and Teach and Learn with Georgia wanted the phone that they had given him back.

I headed to go check the bookstore that he is at a lot and found Rustaveli to be swamped with people as a street carnival was going on. I pushed my way to the bookstore and he was not there so I called my friend and told him to locate him and call me when he did so, until then I would be up here taking pictures. I made my way down the street past booths advertising all sorts of Georgian products, toilet paper, washing powder, amazing strength glass, and water heaters. It was almost like a home show but there was also Borjomi water, Natakhtari beer, and face painting!

Street Vender 

Street Vender

Street Vender 

Georgian Performers

Street Vender

I walked towards the Radisson Blu and there was a bunch of military equipment that children could get their picture taken with. I cannot began to tell you what the names of everything were. A tank, an airplane maybe? I found it a little odd that children could pose next to rocket launchers and there was a massive display of guns in glass cases, but I am sure somewhere in America does the same thing and if Tbilisi was going to be invaded on that day I think I would have been safe. I also enjoyed looking at the fit military men and then groups of over weight police officers, standing together smoking cigarettes. It was easy to pick which men in uniform I liked better. 

There was a small classical Georgian music concert being played and I stopped to listen and talk pictures, until my friend called to say that he had located the other friend. (He was at the hostel.) The afternoon was spent eating lobiani, sitting around drinking Georgian wine and enjoying each other’s company, until it was time to meet up with some other people for dinner.

The Conductor 

Since it was the end of the month, meaning we still hadn’t been paid, and our friend was leaving Georgia, and because of the holiday we decided that Georgian food would be the most appropriate for the occasion and the cheapest. We sat talking about future plans, for those of us who this was our last semester here and reminisced over times spent here. 

After dinner, the rest of the group wanted to go for beers and I made a lame accuse that I didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. I really just wanted more Emily time. I walked down Marjanshvili and stopped at a store to get an ice cream and some water. I made my way eating my ice cream and suddenly realized in my wine haze that a massive concert was going on. It was around 11pm and I was sure it would be over by now. I was wrong. I stood and watched some Georgian dancing for a bit and made my way through the masses. 

I got back to my apartment and was greeted by the pleasant woman asking if I had seen the concert, which blared from her TV and could heard from an open window and I explained to her that I just came from there. She asked if I would like any coffee or tea and I told her no thank you. I got my PJ’s on and opened a window and laid down on my lumpy bed. I was awoken around midnight (15 minuets later or so) to the sound of fireworks. I went to my balcony and stood watching. I couldn’t remember the last time I watched them. I oohed and aahed over it, enjoying my privet moment alone soaking up the experience of the end of my first Georgian Independence Day, glade that I hadn’t stayed with my friends, drinking and missing out on this.

Super Supra: My Host Father's Birthday

This past March my host dad had a birthday on the 7th. The preparations started on the Sunday (the 4th) and continued up until the last minuet. There was a small army of people who came to help. They tried to put me to work, but I ended up being one of the worst Georgian cooks ever and banished myself to my room. Animals were slaughtered, vegetables were peeled and chopped, and bread was baked. Women gossiped in hush tons as they worked and men drank and did the heavy lifting.

As the sun started to set on the day of the supra, everyone showered and changed into their party clothes. The videographer and the DJ showed up. I greeted people that I knew as they came in and took photos. People commented on the grandness of the whole thing. 

I took my seat with the teachers from my school on one side of me and my host parent’s granddaughter on the other, as I was her favorite American at the party. My host mother had given me instructions to not drink, because the director of my school was present. The people I teach with, thought I should do other wise, and I did. I was told to eat, and eat, and eat. I seat hopped all night visiting with everyone I had come to know in the past six weeks. A woman handed me what I thought was a glass of wine and I downed it like a good little Georgian, it was  liquor. I made a face and everyone laughed. Emily the entertainer had showed up.

I was told to Georgian dance multiple times and stupidly agreed. There is video of it that I still have to burn. I got asked to dance with the village’s most eligible bachelor, while his mom and most people who live here watched. I felt like I was at a middle school dance again.

The supra had started around 7pm and I finally excused myself to pass out around midnight. The next few days were spent having smaller supras to use up the left over mounds of food and cleaning up. Even having spent a couple of years catering I think this beats any $200,000 weddings I have been to. That night I really felt like I was a part of my village community and it’s nights like that, that make me love Georgia and everything about it.

 

Hundreds and Hundreds of Plates

Mushrooms

My Host Dad With his Favorite Village Baby, Saba, on the Morning of his Birthday

Setting a Table

Neighbors Waiting for the Supra to Start

My School Director

My Host Dad's Daughter (left) and her Friend

The Videographer 

The Gem of the Woman Who Gave me Liquor, Not Wine. (Adopting Her and She is Moving to America with Me.)

Me and My Future Georgian Husband ♥

Because This Problem Is Going To Last More Than The Weekend: Part Three

Last Sunday morning (May 13th) I woke up around 7:30am and looked out the window to blue sky and I thought about the night before when I was sure Tbilisi was going to explode. I got on my laptop and spent some time downloading movies, music, and random TV shows that I will probably never get to watching or listening to, but the thought of having over 250GB of entertainment comforts me. I dealt with some of my friends back home and their drunk Saturday night issues that made me wish that I could be there with them, but I’m half a world away and it’s going to be like this for quite some time. 

I started to feel a little sad over this and the fact that I was missing Mother’s Day, again. Last year my mother had been mad at me over buying a last minuet ticket to go to Ukraine to see a guy that I missed. My grandfather gave me his blessing so I won that fight and proved my point, but I still felt like shit that she was fuming at me. The year before that I spent working all day at Gap then Bath and Body Works, which spurred me to quit the latter of the jobs. (What store that is dedicated to women makes their employees work after store hours to move bottles of lotion from one tower to another?) I know I was just missing another brunch were, ok food was being served, but being away from Maine for so long now has put in perspective just how important spending time with family is. I was also still a little upset about a stupid fight I had, had the night before.

I sat in my bed for the whole morning, trying to save the world back in Maine and write a Mother’s Day blog for Mama Otter. I got a text a little after noon, from the moron Jamie, saying that him and George were heading to one of the main streets in Tbilisi. I read it and threw my phone on to my bed and stayed there typing away, not wanting to be near him. I eventually took a shower and packed all my stuff up as the internet at the hostel was acting up and not wanting to upload my pictures and set off in the direction that the guys were. 

I got another text asking were the hell I was, as when both of us are in Tbilisi on Sunday mornings we have brunch together and then take the marshookah back to our villages together. I told him that I was on my way. I stopped in my favorite cafe to get a large coffee to go (It tastes like American coffee) and took it to the cafe where they were eating. When I walked in Jamie verbally assaulted me for having a drink from another establishment with me. I just looked at him and said “It’s Georgia, no one gives a fuck.” George just sat on his MacBook doing what ever he was doing, and sided with me that no one probably cared. (No one does. I sat at a bar last night drink vodka from a bottle that I had bought and chasing it with my juice from my “Adult” juice box. It’s half a liter, that’s what makes it adult.)

In this cafe you can see into the kitchen where they are making pastries and I spotted their massive meringues that they have. I declared that I was going to get one in honor of Mother’s Day, because Mama Otter loves them and ran as fast as I could to order. I came back to the table with it and started to giggle at it’s sheer size and being over caffeinated. Jamie looked at me in horror as I started to eat and said, “Well there goes your diet!” (I bet him that I can loose a kilo a week for my last six weeks here to shut him up for always making fun of me for being fat.) He kept going on and on about all the sugar in it and how I was basically asking for diabetes at that point. We had a fight over how bad it was and I googled it and declared myself the winner, on what I’m not really sure. I started to feel really sick about a third of the way through and had to put it away and started cursing getting it. Mama Otter would not want me to feel this ill for her, but then again she may have laughed over this and found it funny.

"Oh haha, so funny! Look at this massive meringue!"

"OM NOM NOM!" 

"I am going to vomit everywhere!"

We finished up at the cafe and walked George to catch the metro, so he could get his marshookah home. Jamie and I walked to a market to get some food for him and water to wash the sugar out of my mouth. I wasn’t my usual self, joking with him and making fun of everything in sight. I was too nackered and I felt the odd rage coming back again. He confronted me about it and I tried to brush it off and just said that I was tired and didn’t feel well after that stupid Mother’s Day meringue, which was also true, just not the real issue. We were mostly silent on the way to get our marshookah and stayed quite for the first bit of the ride, until I started in again about my friends back home and being sent texts and Facebook messages, asking me to come back to Maine and stay there. Jamie just turned and looked at me and said, “Oh waaaaa! People miss you and want you to come back home. That is just so horrible!” He turned away and looked out the window, leaving me there to think for a moment and wanting to ask wasn’t it the same for him, but I knew the answer. It donned on me that not everyone came to Georgia, for the same reasons as me. Some people left where they were from, because they had nothing left there and when they leave here, some won’t go back to families that missed them, friends that missed drinking with them, or jobs that missed them showing up not matter how hung over they were. I get to go back to all three, whenever I decide that I’ve had enough and want to call Maine my place of residence again. 

I put my headphones in and listened to Emily and The Woods “Steal His Heart” (music video included for your listening pleasure).

The landscape passed by me in a blur, the marshookah driver seemed to be doing his best to go the fastest he could, which I wasn’t too comfortable with as there had been torrential rains the night before and there had been flooding and roads partially washed out. I did not want to die. I just sat listening to my “girl” music and thinking. I thought about the advice that I had given Jamie earlier in the week, about us all only having five more weeks together until school ends and then we go our separate ways and trying to make the most of it, and enjoy what little time we have left, because even for those of us who come back in the autumn it won’t be the same.

I remember taking my headphones out and looking up and smiling at him. He asked what I was smiling at. I don’t blame him, I usually am up to something, and I told him nothing. It was a quite marshookah ride home that day, no one told us to shut up like they normally do. He read his book and I listened to my music. I caught myself smiling in his direction a few times. I couldn’t be mad at him, just because it felt right to be for some odd reason. I didn’t know how many more rides I would have with him. Saturday morning ones, where he has always saved a seat for me when I get picked up in my village, spent eating peanut M&Ms and Bounty bars and talking and laughing endlessly about our weeks until we get to Tbilisi. Sunday afternoon ones where we are much more silent, tired from Saturday night spent out, dreading the week we will have to spend in our villages, and for me a little bit of dread that I have to say goodbye again.

When the marshookah stopped to let me off this weekend I let go of any pointless, meaningless anger that I felt towards him and gave him our usual hug goodbye. I got my bag from the back and walked a little bit and then turned around and saw him giving me a goofy wave and I couldn’t help but smile and be sad at the same time. I only have four or so weekends left of rides with him, if we go into Tbilisi every weekend until then.

Monday night, I took my nightly shower, just standing under the hot water going over what I was going to put in my blog and it hit me, I’m mad at my friend because I don’t want him to go home at the end of June. I don’t want this period of time to come to a close. I’ve already thought about the autumn and how I am going to feel about being able to look and see his town in the distance from mine and if it will sting a little like it does now, out of knowing soon he won’t be there. I think about the new volunteer who will be placed there, if someone is placed there again, and if I will silently hold it against, whoever they are, that they are not him. Trying to push him away with my rage, hoping that it will make the final goodbye not as hard, if he’s mad at me for being mad at him. It’s not working like that, though, he hasn’t stopped caring yet and it’s too hard to stay like this, now fully aware that I am using my old defense tactic of pushing people away by hurting them before they hurt me, especially when all I want is him to give me a hug and tell me that I will be ok, life won’t end in June when school does. I’ll still have him and all my moron friends, they just won’t be as close anymore. It’s not a new concept for me.

One last song for your listening pleasure: