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I feel I've had a terrible case of the mean reds for quite some time now.  As my idol, Holly Golightly, so eloquently put it,
"The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long; you're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling? Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!"

Only trouble is that I don't even really have a place like Tiffany's to escape to.  I think I need to move away from here.  I feel stuck, and like my life is devoid of purpose.  I almost burst into tears at the gym today.  If I died in this apartment right now, it'd be forever before anyone noticed.  I don't have the friend network here I thought I had.  I can't even land the man I'm still stupidly in love with.  And I'm not contributing to the world or influencing people's lives.

I wasn't really financially or mentally capable of continuing with university this year, but at least when you're in university, you have an excuse to be poor and live in a place like this.  You're still making progress toward some higher purpose and a better way of life.

I've been applying to different airlines with foreign language speaking flight attendant positions open.  I feel like it's a surefire way to get out of this place, meet new people, do something important, and if they need me for a particular language, I'll probably get a really exciting assignment! I'm one out of 20,000 applicants usually, but I do feel that I'm more than qualified.

It probably seems like I'm just feeling sorry for myself.  I'm just a little despondent lately, and can't seem to shake it.  I'm not used to feeling this lonely and trapped.  I exercise, I drink, I try to have fun.  Whenever I want to get together with people, which is pretty much all the time, they're either busy, out of town, unwilling to drive and get me, OR they blow me off completely without notice or explanation.  My Moscow friend network has more or less dissipated, and people in Pullman don't want to cross state lines just to hang out with me.  What else am I supposed to be doing exactly?!

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I'm going through old journals from my past.  I was always very good about cataloging my thoughts and life events.  Many of the older ones are juvenile to me now and almost embarrassing to look back on (a tool I use for learning from the past).  However, there is one in particular that I kept through most of my years in attendance of university, which is the most insightful and relevant of all.  I see my present self in its entries, which makes it a lot more personal and fantastic for me to reflect upon.

I had a thought to archive some of my current wishes and ambitions, when I came across a certain entry from almost exactly two years ago.  Interestingly, it is strikingly similar to what I was about to write down, and I find that all of my dreams and wants for the future at that time are consistent with my present ones.

Here is what it says:

"Monday Nov. 15th, 2010

Things I want to do:

- have two children, either adopted or surrogate.  I could do either.  Although I think highly of adoption because there are a lot of young children out there in terrible situations, whose lives I could save by giving them a nice home and being a good father.

- have a sauna in my house.

- speak Danish, French, and Mandarin fluently.  I also want my children to be able to speak at least two of these languages.

- travel extensively in different parts of the world.

- someday go on a long camping trip with my own family through Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

- spend a year abroad again.

- live in or have access to a major city."

That was two years ago, and I may as well have written it this afternoon.  I know these may seem basic or trivial, but it is nice to know that while my life is always changing around me, I'm still working toward some of the same dreams.