Hi, my name is Kelsey and I'm addicted to Internet stalking.  

Or, more accurately, I'm addicted to tracking the footprints of former lovers on the Internet.  Years before Facebook introduced the Friend Feed, I regularly combed search results for all variations of names and screennames of stray friends.  Of course, RSS changed everything.  I went from passive pursuit to involuntary offense overnight, and I suppose you did too.

Don't get me wrong -- it's not like I'm still stalking the guy I lost my virginity to.  That would require an absurd level of concern.  Lassitude tends to take the creep out of me... but nothing takes the creep out of the Friend Feed.  Last week, my sister and I were talking about the "Look, But Don't Touch" policy that governs the social interaction of Facebook.  You feel so connected, but you're not.  You know about his trip to Utah, but you wouldn't dare talk about it.

There's something incredibly shameful about Internet stalking, like peeking through a bathroom window while your ex showers.  It's intimate, right up until you remember that you weren't invited.  These days I catch myself looking for clues, hints that he knows I'm watching.  Why?  Because I post signs for him.  Regrettably, I still want him to care.*

What kind of trail do you leave behind?

* Yes, I'm aware that this makes me utterly pathetic.  Thanks.

In six months, I'll be 25 years old with the heart and health of someone much older.  I've lived much of my life in sorrow, without much hope for happiness.  I've never understood why I'm alive at all, or had the direction to believe there's a reason for living.  As I child, I co-opted my friends' lives, believing I'd find myself through whatever made them happy.  Since I hit puberty, manic depression's given me a love-hate relationship with life.

Maybe there isn't some overarching explanation for life.  For my life.  What meaning I give to it, I inevitably lose in time.

Sometimes I give up on trying to make something of myself, hiding out in my apartment for days at a time, and I sleep.  While at first my waking hours are self-destructive, catching up on sleep seems to slow everything down -- enough at least to stop me from desiring to hurt myself.  So I take control of my depression, making an effort to be happier, but the anxieties of each day creep back into my dreams and again I can't sleep.  Did you know that sleep deprivation has been linked to moodiness, weight gain, and ...depression?  This is the pendulum of my life.

I've been self-medicating with self-destructive behaviors for over ten years now.  While some may hope for love or success, I hope for health.  And yet, as I get older, it becomes clear that the opportunity for me to become healthy requires a certain level of success and love in my life.  I've always had a tendency to shun true success and love, and at this point, I'm losing hope that I'm even capable of opening myself up to them.

    It's okay to cry.  These days it seems the tears fall only when you're seeing inside yourself.  But tonight, you were scared.  You didn't hear him coming.  On nights like this, the fog dims the streetlights and the heartbeat of the city.  The audacity of his touch would have stunned anyone.  It's not your fault that he followed you.
    Three months ago, you were propositioned by a man looking to pay for his sex.  You cried then, too.  What were you afraid of?
    There's a feeling of helplessness dormant within you.  And it's never been about a lack of strength.  You can shield yourself from loneliness only so long before someone holds a mirror up. 
    You're okay now.  So maybe it's time to start letting people in.

Me

I made it through yesterday.

For the last five years, my memories have crippled me.  I relive the emotions of the day, from confusion to fear to helplessness.  I either cannot leave my apartment or I spend the day drifting around, lost in the world.  I survived yesterday because I paid my respects to my visual memories, but I left my emotions behind.  I watched the towers struck and smoking, then turned my head to hear the screams of people staring in the street below.  It all came back, but I didn't feel any of it this time.

I was just a witness.  I'm not sure if this was a step in the right direction yet.  But I'm glad it didn't drag me a step behind.

I've had three relationships.  I'd say two of them were accidents.  I was lonely and searching for something to care for.  Now I have a rabbit.

So I'm much more of a serial dater.  I can strike up a conversation anywhere, with anyone, and end up three weeks down the road having kissed and run from something that I maybe should have kept going.

Last week was one of those three week marks. Like Jerry Seinfeld imitating his girlfriend's bellybutton ("Helllllooooo!"), you could say I was looking for excuses to run away.  The part of me that trusts my usually-single life believed that these were warning signals to jump ship.  The rest of me hadn't figured out what to make of all this until last night.

I haven't been in that many, but with the relationships I have been in, I lose a lot of the ability to "strike up a conversation anywhere, with anyone."  Partly because I'm given (I take on?) the identity of someone's girlfriend.  This has little to do with the person I'm seeing.  And it took flitting about some random party last night to realize this.

Yahoo! threw a housewarming party for their new office space in San Francisco last night and, after many hey how've you beens and introductions, the Upcoming team went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate Andy's birthday/our release.  After a quick bond in the ladies', I found myself following a captivating Yahoo! to a start-up's party across town.  I chatted up their leader, asking for demos, discussing mash-ups with Upcoming, and then twirled around the room getting to know other people connected to the mobile start-up.

When I left, I finally thought about whether it was worth it pretending to be single for the night.

My verdict is: nope, it's not.  Any confusion caused by mixed messages (from feeling-unavailable-yet-acting-single) is worse than losing part of your identity as someone's girlfriend.

I really should remain aboard this ship.

I don't have a car.  Technically, I've never had one of my own though I borrowed my dad's Mazda pick-up truck consistently enough throughout high school that I considered it mine.  So since then, I've only driven when necessary, borrowing cars from family and friends, and I like it that way.  But today I realized that I miss singing at the top of my lungs to songs on car stereos.  I can't think of the last time I sang ...loudly.  I have to admit that people look at you funny when you're singing on your bike. 

Trust me, I've done it.

Tonight I managed to talk a homeless man out of peeing in front of me.  The fact that it was my building he was aiming at was beside the point. 

All I ask is that they just hold it until I've crossed the stream's path!

I was so filled with anger today.  It's strange, but I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  Bad dreams, maybe.  But I couldn't shake that knotted feeling in my gut, with fists clenched and shoulders tense.

If you're ever so angry with someone, it's probably time to take a look at yourself.  Does (s)he really deserve it?  If not, why are you getting so upset?  I was mad at too many people today, which only made it clearer (later) that all this fury had little to do with them.

Good thing is, I don't think anyone found out I was silently fuming at them.  They all work in different departments, which is kind of the source of my anger.  Sometimes it just feels like in a big company, a person will have the means to help out but doesn't want to.  He's so used to working his one cog, he can't see the bigger wheel anymore.

Or, how I know I had a great weekend.

• I'm still can't wear anything bare-foot-on-bare-shoe.  (Oh, don't think for a minute I'm complaining!  This is worth every second of the dancing.)
• I ate two greasy breakfasts!
• My liver and intestines hate me.  (Either it's the drinking, the greasy breakfasts, the meat party, or I'm getting older.  Considering I'm a measly 23, I'm hoping it's the first three.)
• I started drawing again.