happy friday!

1. polka dot frenzy

2. a little something i made this week!

3. quite possibly the best book i've ever read. go read it. now.

today i sent an email to my professor and accidentally signed it abifail instead of abigail.

(abifail, indeed.)

in other news, i had a really lovely week.

i got a library card, sent some snail mail, and watched a great deal of 30 rock.

and today i'm going to see extremely loud and incredibly close!

(which, my mother saw the other day and then texted me "i saw incredibly loud." aw mom.)

what are your plans for the weekend, lovelies? 

ps. thank you for all your sweet words on my last post. i received the kindest emails, texts and comments about it, from friends and strangers alike, and i can't tell you how much it meant to me. 

lately.

i've never been a very consistent blogger, especially recently, and i'd like to share why.

as a few of you might know, i've struggled with depression since i was in high school.

i tend not to talk about it with many people, and i never imagined sharing about it here. it always feels too dramatic, too bothersome. 

the severity of it can vary from month to month, day to day.

but this school year has been particularly difficult for me.

it feels like drowning.

around thanksgiving, i hit rock bottom.

i left school a few days early for break, skipping my classes entirely.

i deleted my facebook, took time off from the internet, and didn't talk to many people outside of my family.

i didn't feel i had much to say at all.

i spent my christmas break fighting hard to be happy, but it felt like i failed almost every day.

i certainly had exceptions- good days, good moments (especially when raven came.)

but more often than not, i felt consumed by my depression. 

the night i dropped raven off at the airport, i made a commitment to myself on the long drive home, that this was going to be the semester that i turned it all around. i was going to change my attitude.

you see, two of my roommates and closest friends are both studying abroad this semester, which is a huge change for me, and i don't particularly like change. 

and when i got to school, i really felt like i was right. that this was my year.

that feeling lasted about 5 days.

last week i had a really difficult week, one of the hardest weeks of my life. and just when i thought it would be over, i got sick. 

so i spent the weekend sick and miserable. i haven't felt that low in years.

but on sunday afternoon, as i laid in my bed, i had that 'aha' moment.

(you know, the one oprah's always talking about?)

i told myself that my pity party had lasted long enough.

so i got out of bed, and i made myself take a shower.

and i ate a real meal.

and i got a call for an interview at a job i had applied for.

(and i found out today that i got it!)

i know that i will always struggle with this disease. 

i could feel just as miserable tomorrow, next week, or next month.

but i am learning that the longer i allow myself to drown in it, the deeper i get.

maybe this semester isn't about having the best semester ever.

maybe it's just about picking myself up again, and living. 

when raven came.

Last week I got to finally meet one of my very best friends in the whole world.

I found Raven's tumblr in May of last year, and I knew immediately that she was my soulmate. 

I sent her a message, telling her exactly that, and from then on we were inseparable.

Well, as inseparable as two people can be when they're separated by several states.

In October we started talking about her coming to visit me, but I never, ever thought it would happen. 

The more we talked about it though, the more real it became. 

And as an early Christmas present, Raven got a plane ticket. 

We spent four days together, and it was the best part of my Christmas break, and possibly one of the best weeks of my life. 

It felt like we had known each other forever, and were just picking up where we left off.

She wrote an unbelievably beautiful post about it that you can read here. 

It sounds crazy, traveling to a different state to meet someone you've been friends with for months, but have never actually met.

But you know what?

It wasn't weird at all.

It was perfect.