Aching, Shaking and Breaking Like Humans Do

I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out...
so step inside this funky house.

I suddenly got a flash of who I used to be, I remembered this song called "Like Humans Do" by just David Byrne of the Talking Heads that came for free with my mother's work laptop before it like, exploded. I loved that laptop; it introduced me to music, and it may have even started with that song. Everything was so fresh in those days, before everything was about to change in my life. I had all of these incredibly goals. I was going to become a music aficionado, I was going to be a music critic when I grew up, I was going to wear hip clothes and join a band.
My goals now? A 4.0, getting into a good school and not dying in the process. But back then, it was so important to me to write, to feel, to go to shows and to be myself completely and truly and I don't know what happened but I slowly put a roadblock in front of each of those goals. But somehow I remember again today what a fantastic life that was going to be. I don't think I've really been living for the past couple of years so much as I've been doing and not thinking. Every decision was made to maintain homeostasis with my ought self. I didn't even remember who I wanted to be... until I suddenly heard that song shaking itself out of its hibernation in my head. Somehow that song symbolized so much for me.
This feeling of liberation, this feeling of fun, of sunlight and possibility that I've been lacking for so long. I'm not going to be so subdued anymore... I'm going to live my life the way I want to, not in limbo. I'm not going to let one thing hold me back from this, because I let everything stand in my way. A slightly cynical thought comes to mind when I think about that, "Good things don't come to people who deserve them, but to people who take them."
I'm going to take my life by the reins and grow my hair out long again and wear bright colors and stop complaining about my boobs. I love my boobs, I love myself, I love the way I look, my hobbies and I know that I am good at things... any attitude besides that one just pushes people away. I am not going to need affirmation anymore, because the less I need it, the more it will come, and I am going to love wholeheartedly... if the person I love will let me.
But I don't need to say this, I'm just going to do it. I'm suddenly so excited about the life I'm going to have. And I'm happy, because nothing great happens when I don't have faith in myself. My sister has so much faith in herself and her ability and I want to emulate her so much. I'm not going to worry about my job security or how smart I don't think I am...I'm going to be a journalist if I damn well want to and I'm going to be a doctor if I want to and I can do both if I really really want to, and I can be a music major if I want to. I have so many options; I need to teach myself that it's okay to want to be something that it's hard to be. Because... I'm good enough. Because... I deserve it. Because... everyone is entitled to their mistakes, and thank god I made mine, because now I remember what I've been missing all of this time. I am going to carry around notebooks again, I am going to call up my best friends from middle school, I'm going to go to shows and I'm going to do things for others, because that's what my heart has been missing for so long, and I can't want any longer. I want to diminish the distance between what I am and who I want to be.

Notes To Self

I'm surprised at myself. I have found myself in the midst of an epidemic of personal distress and trauma in the form of the junior year of high school (plagued with SAT scores, ACTs, tests, progress reports and APs) and I have lost myself in it. I've suddenly realized what I have become... I've become a stressed out inconsiderate bratty blotchy blob.
This is not the person I want to be, let alone be friends with. I have gone crazy in my own mind and I'm hoping to win this internal war. I have dreams for myself, lying in the warm grass on a summer afternoon, looking at the blue sky and feeling the calm. I want to buy a digital camera and take really amazing pictures of the sunset or go to a record store and just listen. I want to be who I want to be, and feel how I want to feel, and care about more than looking good on a sheet of paper.
I am a person and not a number, and I sometimes forget that I need to be considerate and that I need to be selfless and that you can't be described as selfless if you're selfless less of the time. I need to get my groove back, basically. It's not that I am a different person as much as I'm not acting like the person that I am.
I am experiencing cognitive dissonance, and strong stress that makes me regress and act like a two year old. But I am not two years old. I am almost a woman and the world is a cold freezing place that I promised to myself I would make warmer. I wonder sometimes how I could've changed so much.
It's easy to get lost in the world of paper and numbers and not remember how it feels to roll down a hill or to look at the cloud formations in the sky. These little wonderful things that we did seem so mythical now. But they're not. It's so easy to bask in a moment, if we can clear our heads for long enough. It's so easy to calm down and listen to the song, if we stop long enough to really hear it.