One day I am so happy to be alive, so entirely satisfied with who I am and where I'm headed - or at the very least not caring where that is. I can walk down a hallway full of people and ignore them all; I can be happy with my body, take it as a protest against boxed reproductions of some inane ideal that ordinarily I fight in every way but this one.
Then the next day I want to crawl into a hole and never come out again, hating who I am, what I do - my goals, my dreams all shame me and appear stagnant and useless. I am a fat blob who can't figure out what she wants and can never match up to what is expected. I am a failed Bais Yaakov rebel, caught in limbo unable to be what I want to be because my time was wasted learning how to be something I don't want to be during those defining years.
Apparently these days eventually balance out. In any case, there's always a sugar high waiting around the corner. Among other things...

Ineffability is an abstract concept designed to remind humanity of its inadequacy.

Last night was the first time I truly walked out. Telling over the story of what happened minimizes the intense feelings that struck me in the deciding moment, but when what I whispered to my friend about a guy was answered by the guy himself minutes later, I was so shocked and humiliated and otherwise unable to deal with the utter lack of class in both of them that I left. Apparently he felt the need to answer since he liked me. The scary part is that although I was not even tuned into that wavelength and was also unattracted to him, I am not sure I would have acted as I had had I known the case.

My teacher mentioned eating as compensation for a lack of love or spiritual relationship.
I knew something was missing.

Talk about lineage. I wonder, did the gadol from whom my family is directly descended think about what his legacy would be? Surely my cousins and such, the pious people who personify sacrifice and total faith in Gd, have upheld it. But did he think about my family in particular? Should someone studying him decide to track down every descendant, would they be surprised or cynically expectant to see how many of us have decided not to carry on this tradition?
The fact that I feel guilty about having such rich heritage and feeling inadequate to uphold it might even be unnecessary. I doubt someone so great would have been thinking about his mark on the world, as so many of us do. Perhaps it was a sign of his greatness. In which case we are blameless, we descendants, following our own dreams and throwing off the burden of pre-existing expectations. Remember, yichus is only a bunch of zeros unless you put a one in front of them! Am I a one? Am I a difference to the nonexistent quantity, the difference that makes it worth so much? Do I want to be? Beyond the point of it being cool, do I really have a different genetic makeup to allow me to be better than my peers? I doubt it. But maybe I do.
At least I’m a woman. Less is expected of me. I have to marry the next son-in-law to carry on the dynasty. What if I choose to defy expectations, something I have put off for so long? My defiance consists of watching movies my mother would not like me to watch, going on websites my mother would not like me to go on. I’m older now, though; should I wish to continue expressing individuality, fight boxes rules impose, it must now be on a larger scale. Do I really want that, though? I enjoy the comfort of being good. No one can touch you when you are good. You are impervious, perfect, unmovable. Perfection may come at a cost, but at least you are not alone: there are people with you, behind you, both alive and dead. Because the dead are unmovable as well.

what i once couldn't have suddenly became a possibility ... i thought about it, decided i no longer wanted it ... to find out it was never a possibility at all ... i'm merely an alternative ... and i'm all the stronger because of it.

The idea of a relationship with a partner baffles me. I guess this comes from an attempt at a total blockoff from all things male under the age of 35 in high school. It didn't work, of course, but that doesn't mean it didn't have an effect on me either. After so long being the only person privy to my deepest secrets unless (frequently) coerced into giving them over to my sister or friend, willingly sharing my life with another person doesn't seem like such an available option. Of course, this might be because of an intrinsic fear that developed after my first boyfriend that eventually I will probably dump whoever it is I am dating at the time, because quite frankly, I'm very cynical about finding my husband as easily as finding a boyfriend. My Initial Attraction mode borders on infatuation and lasts for about a month or two until the curse of my family takes its course and I move into Bored Girlfriend mode, trying to think of ways to get this annoying person off my back. Maybe it takes practice. Hey, this time I knew after a week.