"But I keep climbing and hoping things would change,
And the sky turns gray, and the water from the rain washes progress away
It's like moving mountains,
It's like moving mountains
Why you just leave me?"
Expectations. They are everywhere. When we are brought up we are taught to expect things, to look forward, to anticipate. We're even told to expect the unexpected, which is grammatically impossible. But what good have expectations ever done for us?
Christmas is coming. I'm at the age, and have been for several years, when I no longer get surprise presents; I'm asked what I want, and if I choose carefully I usually get it. I therefore expect to get what I asked for. And I do. The expecting of it doesn't make the reception any nicer, and if I didn't get what I expected to, then it would be a disappointment.
I suppose there are people out there for whom the anticipation of the gift is as good or better than the actual getting of it; but in some ways I am not a particularly patient person and once I know what I'm getting, waiting for it just infuriates me.
Still, I hate surprises. Genuine ones are okay, but I hate surprises when the person surprising you hints at what they're doing. So what right do I have to object to the only alternative; anticipation?
Then here is another example. T.V. shows: soap operas, medical dramas, sitcoms. They're supposed to depict at least a smidgen of real life, of reality. Of course, there are probably a few people who watch them and realise that they aren't as "real" as they pretend they are, or people who realise that and then deliberately DON'T watch them... but the sad truth is that children, young teens and less intelligent people do take them as representations of real life. They therefore expect to live their life like that; and then they fulfill their own expectations. No matter if the "real life" situations with their "true" characters are depicting something dangerous to a person's health or the lives of those around them! It's the way that life is, and the individual couldn't imagine it any other way. Wouldn't expect it any other way. It takes the intelligent person to figure out that life is NOT what you see on T.V. Those girls going to parties every night and working five days a week would not still be able to look like that in the morning. Work affairs mostly do not work out. Life is much, much harder than the lives led on screen. It's much more boring and it can be much more interesting. If you want to waste it being that girl or that guy, because you expect life to be like what you've watched, then fine; but know that it is a waste. Each individual is capable of much more than the shadows of them that are portrayed for entertainment. And nobody- nobody- should seek out that much drama.
But the real shame, the real crime, is the expectations of relationships. Girlfriend, Dolly, Creme... the magazines tell young girls what to expect, and they lap it right up. We all did. Some still do. Wait for the guy who makes you feel special every moment of the day. The one who treats you like a princess. The one who will look after you. The one who never makes you cry. The one who makes you feel strong. The one who is perfect. Perfection. That's what we are raised to expect. The saying "only human" is never ever taken into account here. How incredibly unfair is this to guys? The expectation of perfection is so impossible that not a single one can hope to reach it. Who wants to be treated like a princess? Better to be treated like a real person with your own autonomy. To have fun rather than be wrapped in cotton wool. Who wants to be looked after, to be made to feel strong? You should be able to look after yourself. You will be a much more adaptable, complete person if you can be strong in yourself rather than constantly relying on another person for your self-esteem or the way your life is. And if he makes you cry: good. You should cry. If this emotion that you are feeling is real and deep enough to last, it should cause tears. If he hurts you, cry. Cry and curse him, and then think about it from his point of view. Is he really going to hurt you on purpose like that? He is only human. ONLY HUMAN. We all are. We all make mistakes. The impossible things we are taught to expect from relationships only cause more trouble in the long run; more broken hearts, more agony, more wasted time.
Expectations rarely yield positive outcomes. At best they are neutral, and yet we continue to invest in them. Why? Can't everyone see how destructive they can be to other people?
I can usually see the good in people and their behaviours. I'm sure there's some good in having expectations... but, for the life of me, I can't find it in the darkness cast by their shadows.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Escape
"I'm gonna paste you up, cover you in wallpaper
Screw shelves into you and call you a wall
That's all you are to me, trying to keep people inside
Inside your sordid little house; this is no white abode
You can have skirting board shoes and plug sockets on your knees
I'll hang a painting on your lip
And put tinsel 'round it at Christmas
Trying to keep people inside, inside your sordid little house
Trying to keep people inside, inside your sordid little house.
You can't keep us inside much longer now
We've seen the view from the windows..."
I have an escape route.
It won't be much longer that I have to live with this. To put up with them hurting and doubting me. "You'll never manage," dad said. "You'll never cope." What kind of parent tells their child that?
And the shouting. If it's not at each other it's at me or someone else. The whole atmosphere in this house has become poisonous. I won't be sorry to leave, now. Not now that I have my escape.
It might hurt them, what I'm going to do. I don't much care anymore. They can't make me stay, not by law. And I won't let them use words.
Screw shelves into you and call you a wall
That's all you are to me, trying to keep people inside
Inside your sordid little house; this is no white abode
You can have skirting board shoes and plug sockets on your knees
I'll hang a painting on your lip
And put tinsel 'round it at Christmas
Trying to keep people inside, inside your sordid little house
Trying to keep people inside, inside your sordid little house.
You can't keep us inside much longer now
We've seen the view from the windows..."
I have an escape route.
It won't be much longer that I have to live with this. To put up with them hurting and doubting me. "You'll never manage," dad said. "You'll never cope." What kind of parent tells their child that?
And the shouting. If it's not at each other it's at me or someone else. The whole atmosphere in this house has become poisonous. I won't be sorry to leave, now. Not now that I have my escape.
It might hurt them, what I'm going to do. I don't much care anymore. They can't make me stay, not by law. And I won't let them use words.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Think
"Hello, I've waited here for you
Everlong
Tonight I throw myself into
And out of the red
Out of her head, she sang..."
He got me a fan. From Spain. It's plain blond wood and cream fabric.
He handed it to me and said, "For you! From Barcelona!"
I said, "For me?! Ohhhhhh Tam!"
He said "It was the only one which didn't have some tacky design on it."
I felt like kissing him.
It's one thing to get someone a souvenir, it's another thing entirely to actually hunt for one that the person will actually love.
Not everyone got a souvenir. But I did.
It makes me want to cry when people put effort into things like that and actually think about you.
I cried on my birthday, because of Jared's present. He got me a gray soft toy bunny rabbit which looked just like Wallace, because he knows what Wallace looks like, and a nice silver ring from Pascoes, because I'd said that I wanted a ring to remind me of him, and a homemade Dream Theater t-shirt with my favourite lyric on it. He listened.
Thoughtfulness is one of the most amazing things in the world.
That's why it is horrible how my parents no longer try and guess what I want for Christmas or my birthday. Because it means that they no longer know me or really care enough about me to know what I want.
The weird thing is that I say that I hate surprises. But what I really hate is when someone goes, "I have a surprise for you!" and then won't tell you what it is. I love surprises when I have no idea that they're even coming.
Like the fan.
Everlong
Tonight I throw myself into
And out of the red
Out of her head, she sang..."
He got me a fan. From Spain. It's plain blond wood and cream fabric.
He handed it to me and said, "For you! From Barcelona!"
I said, "For me?! Ohhhhhh Tam!"
He said "It was the only one which didn't have some tacky design on it."
I felt like kissing him.
It's one thing to get someone a souvenir, it's another thing entirely to actually hunt for one that the person will actually love.
Not everyone got a souvenir. But I did.
It makes me want to cry when people put effort into things like that and actually think about you.
I cried on my birthday, because of Jared's present. He got me a gray soft toy bunny rabbit which looked just like Wallace, because he knows what Wallace looks like, and a nice silver ring from Pascoes, because I'd said that I wanted a ring to remind me of him, and a homemade Dream Theater t-shirt with my favourite lyric on it. He listened.
Thoughtfulness is one of the most amazing things in the world.
That's why it is horrible how my parents no longer try and guess what I want for Christmas or my birthday. Because it means that they no longer know me or really care enough about me to know what I want.
The weird thing is that I say that I hate surprises. But what I really hate is when someone goes, "I have a surprise for you!" and then won't tell you what it is. I love surprises when I have no idea that they're even coming.
Like the fan.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Scarred
"I miss who we were
In the town that we could call our own
Going back to get away
After everything has changed."
I just read over my blogs so far and something kinda struck me. I'm much better at writing about internal drama... emotional accidents and things... than physical things like my accident in Christchurch.
My grandma is over right now and of course we had to explain to her what had happened to me. I started trying to tell her but the more I talked, the less sense I made and the more the story I was telling disturbed me. Mum had to take over. I couldn't believe how much it bothered me to recount what happened. I guess that I had spent so long pretending that it hadn't happened that admitting to myself that it had was terrifying. I couldn't read the blog that I wrote about it here, either. I suppose this is what the phrase "scarred for life" really means. Not necessarily something you think about all the time, but something you try not to think about because it frightens you so much when you do.
After the accident, Dad said that he hoped that it wouldn't stop me being adventurous and fearless like I was before. I'm not sure whether it will or not... I might go back to the snow, but I am never going to Porter's Pass again.
The boy- ex-Shadowboy- is coming back to Auckland next Thursday. I can't wait to greet him at the airport with all of our friends! But the funny thing is that I feel so different. Once upon a time my heart would have LEAPED with hope and happiness and so on... now that he's just my friend, it's just a comfortable warmth, a passive feeling of rightness. I'm not used to a feeling like that. I suppose it's really good because it means that cutting my inappropriate ties to him has worked and healed. But I won't know how I really feel until I see him.
I was talking to a friend of mine- the one who betrayed me earlier- the other day and I started describing his writing style to him, how it wasn't like I expected. I had expected more mist and illusion and confusion, whereas his style was more solid and... meaty. Practical. No mystery, just straight storytelling. He said, "mist and illusion have nothing to do with telling a story". But I disagree. The way you write something has a HUGE impact on the experience of the reader.
This is a bit of a weird entry because I'm basically waiting until I have to leave for my English 121 exam, and filling up the time with writing. I have a feeling that the things I have said so far are all little seeds of future entries or lines of thought that will develop later into fully fledged rants. I just wanted to get them down before they sunk into the torpid swamp of writing an essay this afternoon.
In the town that we could call our own
Going back to get away
After everything has changed."
I just read over my blogs so far and something kinda struck me. I'm much better at writing about internal drama... emotional accidents and things... than physical things like my accident in Christchurch.
My grandma is over right now and of course we had to explain to her what had happened to me. I started trying to tell her but the more I talked, the less sense I made and the more the story I was telling disturbed me. Mum had to take over. I couldn't believe how much it bothered me to recount what happened. I guess that I had spent so long pretending that it hadn't happened that admitting to myself that it had was terrifying. I couldn't read the blog that I wrote about it here, either. I suppose this is what the phrase "scarred for life" really means. Not necessarily something you think about all the time, but something you try not to think about because it frightens you so much when you do.
After the accident, Dad said that he hoped that it wouldn't stop me being adventurous and fearless like I was before. I'm not sure whether it will or not... I might go back to the snow, but I am never going to Porter's Pass again.
The boy- ex-Shadowboy- is coming back to Auckland next Thursday. I can't wait to greet him at the airport with all of our friends! But the funny thing is that I feel so different. Once upon a time my heart would have LEAPED with hope and happiness and so on... now that he's just my friend, it's just a comfortable warmth, a passive feeling of rightness. I'm not used to a feeling like that. I suppose it's really good because it means that cutting my inappropriate ties to him has worked and healed. But I won't know how I really feel until I see him.
I was talking to a friend of mine- the one who betrayed me earlier- the other day and I started describing his writing style to him, how it wasn't like I expected. I had expected more mist and illusion and confusion, whereas his style was more solid and... meaty. Practical. No mystery, just straight storytelling. He said, "mist and illusion have nothing to do with telling a story". But I disagree. The way you write something has a HUGE impact on the experience of the reader.
This is a bit of a weird entry because I'm basically waiting until I have to leave for my English 121 exam, and filling up the time with writing. I have a feeling that the things I have said so far are all little seeds of future entries or lines of thought that will develop later into fully fledged rants. I just wanted to get them down before they sunk into the torpid swamp of writing an essay this afternoon.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Answer
"Think of me when you're out, when you're out there
I'll beg you nice, from my knees
And when the world treats you way too fairly
Well it's a shame I'm a dream
All I wanted was you..."
Today I lay on my bed and stared out the window as a cloud turned into a dragon, then to a dog, then to a mouse, and then disintegrated like candyfloss.
As I watched I was thinking:
"Why doesn't anybody think before they speak?"
"Am I not allowed to have a moment of weakness? A moment of insecurity?"
"Don't I deserve to have that insecurity vanquished?"
"Do I always have to be the strong one?"
"What do you do when your body and mind are fully rested, but your soul is exhausted?"
"Does anyone really know how I feel?"
"If not, then where do I go to get the answer?"
"In trying to stop beating myself up all the time, have I gone the opposite way? Do I now think I'm better- kinder, prettier, more fun, more patient, more thoughtful, more selfless- than I really am?"
"Why do I get so insecure?"
"What is wrong with me?!"
I'll beg you nice, from my knees
And when the world treats you way too fairly
Well it's a shame I'm a dream
All I wanted was you..."
Today I lay on my bed and stared out the window as a cloud turned into a dragon, then to a dog, then to a mouse, and then disintegrated like candyfloss.
As I watched I was thinking:
"Why doesn't anybody think before they speak?"
"Am I not allowed to have a moment of weakness? A moment of insecurity?"
"Don't I deserve to have that insecurity vanquished?"
"Do I always have to be the strong one?"
"What do you do when your body and mind are fully rested, but your soul is exhausted?"
"Does anyone really know how I feel?"
"If not, then where do I go to get the answer?"
"In trying to stop beating myself up all the time, have I gone the opposite way? Do I now think I'm better- kinder, prettier, more fun, more patient, more thoughtful, more selfless- than I really am?"
"Why do I get so insecure?"
"What is wrong with me?!"
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Chapter Six: Out
"So fill your head with what you think you understand.
My ears grow tired of listening to this constant recital
Lend yourself only when it suits
For this worthy cause, for this worthy cause
Feed the elevation that you so desperately, so desperately...
And in this voice of confidence
Too proud to admit flawed opinions
Bound to his verbal crusade
Preaching his infected position.
These tones will always deceive the unfamiliar
Still glorifying your misperception.
SO IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE
And why? You would talk for eternity
The watcher runs
With the circles of his debate
And in the end, what's been achieved?"
It's definitely time to move out.
When you admit a huge weakness in your character; when you ask a small favour of your mother in order to help you overcome this weakness, and you are denied on the grounds that this person who is meant to love you and care for you is too lazy and busy to do this small thing for you... it's definitely time to move out.
When you come home late, exhausted from a stressful weekend worrying about and crying over your soulmate who has had to spend a night in hospital, and from nursing him back to health; when your father attacks you so personally that you break down in tears and sob so hard you cannot draw breath, and even then he has no pity for you; when your mother calls you selfish, thoughtless and immature, and then expects you to come over to the couch and make her feel like she hasn't done anything wrong... it's definitely time to move out.
When neither parent seems to understand how the weight of keeping peace in the family, the weight of all their countless fights, the weight of the negative emotion that they spread in any house that they live in; how that weight descends upon you and bears you down, crushes you to the floor while you try and lift it away from yourself... it's time. It's time. It is time.
From now, the money I earn from teaching is going towards that one goal. I will endure until I have enough. Then I will leave.
I've been procrastinating, inventing and imagining amazing situations where I could keep my beautiful new house with my window seat and evict my parents, evict that negative emotion. I haven't faced the fact that it will take sacrifices to escape this situation. I feel like I've grown up all of a sudden.
I have to get out of here.
My ears grow tired of listening to this constant recital
Lend yourself only when it suits
For this worthy cause, for this worthy cause
Feed the elevation that you so desperately, so desperately...
And in this voice of confidence
Too proud to admit flawed opinions
Bound to his verbal crusade
Preaching his infected position.
These tones will always deceive the unfamiliar
Still glorifying your misperception.
SO IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE
And why? You would talk for eternity
The watcher runs
With the circles of his debate
And in the end, what's been achieved?"
It's definitely time to move out.
When you admit a huge weakness in your character; when you ask a small favour of your mother in order to help you overcome this weakness, and you are denied on the grounds that this person who is meant to love you and care for you is too lazy and busy to do this small thing for you... it's definitely time to move out.
When you come home late, exhausted from a stressful weekend worrying about and crying over your soulmate who has had to spend a night in hospital, and from nursing him back to health; when your father attacks you so personally that you break down in tears and sob so hard you cannot draw breath, and even then he has no pity for you; when your mother calls you selfish, thoughtless and immature, and then expects you to come over to the couch and make her feel like she hasn't done anything wrong... it's definitely time to move out.
When neither parent seems to understand how the weight of keeping peace in the family, the weight of all their countless fights, the weight of the negative emotion that they spread in any house that they live in; how that weight descends upon you and bears you down, crushes you to the floor while you try and lift it away from yourself... it's time. It's time. It is time.
From now, the money I earn from teaching is going towards that one goal. I will endure until I have enough. Then I will leave.
I've been procrastinating, inventing and imagining amazing situations where I could keep my beautiful new house with my window seat and evict my parents, evict that negative emotion. I haven't faced the fact that it will take sacrifices to escape this situation. I feel like I've grown up all of a sudden.
I have to get out of here.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Paranoia
"All wound up, on the edge, terrified
Sleep disturbed, restless mind, petrified
Bouts of fear permeate all I see
Heightening nervousness threatens me."
Thoughts from English 121...
! Do you ever get the feeling you're being stalked by everyone? Especially guys?
I know, I know, it's pathetic of me to think that everyone's in love with me and think that they all think I'm hot and all that but honestly, it's so annoying. Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me. I really shouldn't complain because once there was a time when I was not looked at by ANYONE, I was all short and very chub and I hated it. I longed for people to think that I was hot and desirable. Thus does desire wound. Be careful what you wish for. Etc.
@ Also, my tutor is really strange looking. I can't decide whether I like him or not. I like him because he's awkward and funny and reminds me of a stork or a wading bird. I don't like him because he gave me a B grade for my narrative and he has a long pointy nose and told us about the love letter that one of the guys in one of his past tutorials wrote him. I wish I had this guy as my tutor, though really a few weeks ago I would have hated him because his name is Tim. But right now he's awesome because he's telling us about how he procrastinated by baking muffins.
# Apparently procrastination is in our DNA. We cannot escape. Brilliant...
$ Somehow in the past week or so I have managed to scramble together a 1800 word essay and a very tricky assignment (which was then copied by 2-3 people who had not even attempted it). I know it's not good for me to force this scramble on myself, because it makes me stress and burst into tears at the dinner table over my meatloaf, but it seems to be normal for uni students. Not the meatloaf, the scrambling. Now I want scrambled eggs. I still have one essay to go which is a redraft which should theoretically be easier than writing a whole essay, but somehow I worry that this is not true.
% All I really want to do is play Age of Empires and watch Grey's Anatomy and read other peoples' blogs. I'm really craving my four months of holidays where I can just chill out.
^ I can't believe next week is the last week of uni. The last week of my first year of University. Holy crap... in no time at all I will be a second year looking down on all the new first years, many of which I will personally already know. It seems to be rather final... this ending of the year. Once I start second year, there's no backing out. It's the middle year. The middle child. I'm excited but I'm also rather nervous. And right now I feel so jaded with uni that it's hard to think about next year's coursework.
& Oh God, a debate about why is it that we don't eat dog, with a really angry opinionated lady. Why is there always a crazily opinionated person in every lecture in every tutorial? You know, the person who always speaks out. Sadly I think that I am that person in my Linguistics tutorial. Now that phonetics is over I am getting back my ability to know the answer almost before I finish reading the question, which is comforting because it means that I can accurately and confidently answer three of the four sections of the exam.
* I'm really scared of the Anthropology exam. Come to think of it I'm pretty terrified that I'll fail my latest essay- the one I was scrambling with yesterday- because I got a C for my last one and I thought it was rather good. It pisses me off because it's only my general education class and it has caused me so much panic. Is there no class which is an easy win for gen ed? Shouldn't they all be easy? I just want a bum class that I can sail through, pleeeeeease...
( Hello, girl who went to Jared's primary who has subscribed to my blog. Your name is vaguely familiar to me but please don't be offended if we were actually in the same school once and I don't remember... I have a better memory for faces than names, and your face is vaguely familiar too. I really enjoy your blogs, they are a good way of procrastinating and sometimes really make me laugh. Not sure if that was your aim with them, but there it is.
) This whole post has only taken me half an hour. I like to sit in the last seat of the row because then I can hide my laptop screen from people behind me and they can't see that I'm not doing what I'm meant to be doing. HOLY CRAP DOCTOR WHO REFERENCE ON THE PROJECTOR SCREEN! My God, I love this Tim guy. I just wish his name wasn't Tim. Girls do have Adam's apples but they don't stick out. Kieran isn't coming for his singing lesson dammit so I don't get Grey's season 2 or $30. I'm cooking chicken stirfry tonight for dinner. I'm going to start my English essay tonight, but I might not because Jared will be there. Procrastination, procrastination...
Sleep disturbed, restless mind, petrified
Bouts of fear permeate all I see
Heightening nervousness threatens me."
Thoughts from English 121...
! Do you ever get the feeling you're being stalked by everyone? Especially guys?
I know, I know, it's pathetic of me to think that everyone's in love with me and think that they all think I'm hot and all that but honestly, it's so annoying. Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me. I really shouldn't complain because once there was a time when I was not looked at by ANYONE, I was all short and very chub and I hated it. I longed for people to think that I was hot and desirable. Thus does desire wound. Be careful what you wish for. Etc.
@ Also, my tutor is really strange looking. I can't decide whether I like him or not. I like him because he's awkward and funny and reminds me of a stork or a wading bird. I don't like him because he gave me a B grade for my narrative and he has a long pointy nose and told us about the love letter that one of the guys in one of his past tutorials wrote him. I wish I had this guy as my tutor, though really a few weeks ago I would have hated him because his name is Tim. But right now he's awesome because he's telling us about how he procrastinated by baking muffins.
# Apparently procrastination is in our DNA. We cannot escape. Brilliant...
$ Somehow in the past week or so I have managed to scramble together a 1800 word essay and a very tricky assignment (which was then copied by 2-3 people who had not even attempted it). I know it's not good for me to force this scramble on myself, because it makes me stress and burst into tears at the dinner table over my meatloaf, but it seems to be normal for uni students. Not the meatloaf, the scrambling. Now I want scrambled eggs. I still have one essay to go which is a redraft which should theoretically be easier than writing a whole essay, but somehow I worry that this is not true.
% All I really want to do is play Age of Empires and watch Grey's Anatomy and read other peoples' blogs. I'm really craving my four months of holidays where I can just chill out.
^ I can't believe next week is the last week of uni. The last week of my first year of University. Holy crap... in no time at all I will be a second year looking down on all the new first years, many of which I will personally already know. It seems to be rather final... this ending of the year. Once I start second year, there's no backing out. It's the middle year. The middle child. I'm excited but I'm also rather nervous. And right now I feel so jaded with uni that it's hard to think about next year's coursework.
& Oh God, a debate about why is it that we don't eat dog, with a really angry opinionated lady. Why is there always a crazily opinionated person in every lecture in every tutorial? You know, the person who always speaks out. Sadly I think that I am that person in my Linguistics tutorial. Now that phonetics is over I am getting back my ability to know the answer almost before I finish reading the question, which is comforting because it means that I can accurately and confidently answer three of the four sections of the exam.
* I'm really scared of the Anthropology exam. Come to think of it I'm pretty terrified that I'll fail my latest essay- the one I was scrambling with yesterday- because I got a C for my last one and I thought it was rather good. It pisses me off because it's only my general education class and it has caused me so much panic. Is there no class which is an easy win for gen ed? Shouldn't they all be easy? I just want a bum class that I can sail through, pleeeeeease...
( Hello, girl who went to Jared's primary who has subscribed to my blog. Your name is vaguely familiar to me but please don't be offended if we were actually in the same school once and I don't remember... I have a better memory for faces than names, and your face is vaguely familiar too. I really enjoy your blogs, they are a good way of procrastinating and sometimes really make me laugh. Not sure if that was your aim with them, but there it is.
) This whole post has only taken me half an hour. I like to sit in the last seat of the row because then I can hide my laptop screen from people behind me and they can't see that I'm not doing what I'm meant to be doing. HOLY CRAP DOCTOR WHO REFERENCE ON THE PROJECTOR SCREEN! My God, I love this Tim guy. I just wish his name wasn't Tim. Girls do have Adam's apples but they don't stick out. Kieran isn't coming for his singing lesson dammit so I don't get Grey's season 2 or $30. I'm cooking chicken stirfry tonight for dinner. I'm going to start my English essay tonight, but I might not because Jared will be there. Procrastination, procrastination...
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Resolve
"Feed my head with some real thoughts
And let me think instead of being taught
I'll say things you won't believe
Just stand back, just let me breathe."
So in the end I got sick of it all and texted the silly fool, and to cut a long story short we are now back to normal.
But now I don't know if I'm as happy as I was before, because Jared said "why do you have to be friends with him again? You've seemed so much happier in the past few weeks."
Have I really? Was I really happier without? Or is my boyfriend just saying things to try and get my friend boy who he detests out of my life? I could never believe for a second that Jared would tell me a lie or even a half-truth. God only knows.
Why can't I have everything? Why can't everyone just be happy?
Things that are annoying me right now:
Answering the phone.
Having to try and be on a diet-ish thing where I'm supposed to be eating healthily but really just wanting to say screw it and snuggle down and eat a king size block of chocolate.
The way that my parents, especially my mother, makes me feel guilty for eating anything at all, but especially when I eat a whole family bag of chips because I'm supposed to ask her permission before I can have any at all. I mean what the fuck. I'm not five years old anymore. This is my house too, except she doesn't seem to think so. We had a fight about me keeping my room tidy and she was like "this is only your house as long as we allow you to stay in it." How inappropriate is it to threaten to kick me out of the house for not tidying my room or for eating a bag of chips? That's like that lady on SVU last night who sent that teenager to prison for urinating on someone's fence. Except she got arrested, and my mum is still laughing too loudly on the phone and coughing in a really dramatic manner that makes me want to strangle her.
The way my dad looks around at me with his eyebrows raised when mum asks me to apologise for something she should have the sense not to take personally, and then he wiggles them and looks at me like I'm stupid. I think it's nearly time to leave home.
How I want to leave home but we just moved into a nice new house which I love, so I don't want to leave. I'd rather evict my parents. I wish I owned this place.
How there are "twi-hards" and "twi-haters". Those are not even clever names. If you're going to go overboard then at least have some imagination and intelligence for God's sake.
This constant pressure that I feel to act like an adult, or at least not to act like a teenager. I have never acted like a teenager. I never thought I'd care, but I do. I just want to complain about stupid stuff! Not have to think about big world issues and be a normal person!
How whenever I feel morose people say "but you should be happy". I am happy. Honest.
And let me think instead of being taught
I'll say things you won't believe
Just stand back, just let me breathe."
So in the end I got sick of it all and texted the silly fool, and to cut a long story short we are now back to normal.
But now I don't know if I'm as happy as I was before, because Jared said "why do you have to be friends with him again? You've seemed so much happier in the past few weeks."
Have I really? Was I really happier without? Or is my boyfriend just saying things to try and get my friend boy who he detests out of my life? I could never believe for a second that Jared would tell me a lie or even a half-truth. God only knows.
Why can't I have everything? Why can't everyone just be happy?
Things that are annoying me right now:
Answering the phone.
Having to try and be on a diet-ish thing where I'm supposed to be eating healthily but really just wanting to say screw it and snuggle down and eat a king size block of chocolate.
The way that my parents, especially my mother, makes me feel guilty for eating anything at all, but especially when I eat a whole family bag of chips because I'm supposed to ask her permission before I can have any at all. I mean what the fuck. I'm not five years old anymore. This is my house too, except she doesn't seem to think so. We had a fight about me keeping my room tidy and she was like "this is only your house as long as we allow you to stay in it." How inappropriate is it to threaten to kick me out of the house for not tidying my room or for eating a bag of chips? That's like that lady on SVU last night who sent that teenager to prison for urinating on someone's fence. Except she got arrested, and my mum is still laughing too loudly on the phone and coughing in a really dramatic manner that makes me want to strangle her.
The way my dad looks around at me with his eyebrows raised when mum asks me to apologise for something she should have the sense not to take personally, and then he wiggles them and looks at me like I'm stupid. I think it's nearly time to leave home.
How I want to leave home but we just moved into a nice new house which I love, so I don't want to leave. I'd rather evict my parents. I wish I owned this place.
How there are "twi-hards" and "twi-haters". Those are not even clever names. If you're going to go overboard then at least have some imagination and intelligence for God's sake.
This constant pressure that I feel to act like an adult, or at least not to act like a teenager. I have never acted like a teenager. I never thought I'd care, but I do. I just want to complain about stupid stuff! Not have to think about big world issues and be a normal person!
How whenever I feel morose people say "but you should be happy". I am happy. Honest.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Narrative
Another personal narrative.
Standing here in the crowd I could see the shine of the keys in the spotlight, black and white. It reminded me of a time that seemed so long ago it could be a different country, a different era. Most definitely a different me.
In that time I was also watching a keyboard gleam in the half-light, but it was my fingers that descended upon it, somewhat hesitantly and clumsily; and I was not watched by a crowd but by two twenty-something musicians (which was, I believe, even more nerve-wracking). Ryan held a guitar and Dylan a bass, and they both waited for me- a pianist and vocalist over ten years younger than them- to start our improvised jam… But previous to this, the only music I’d learned on piano was the chart hits. I was hopelessly mainstream. My education in “real” music, as my brother Dylan called it, had barely begun.
But even then I’d known this band, the one I was standing in that crowd to see. The one whose keyboard I watched, waiting, like so many, for an encore; chanting along with thousands. Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails…
In that flat in Avondale, in a different life, I watched as Ryan and Dylan danced, heads bowed, swaying like zombies, and marveled that one band could trigger this reaction, possess someone, give them a reason to exist. And then I listened.
Back at the concert I was deafened by the cheers of my fellow fans as we sensed movement on the dark stage. Our friends, our idols, our Gods, took up their instruments and looked to their leader for direction. He strode to the spotlighted keyboard. He took a breath, and I smiled, remembering my hesitant, fifteen-year-old fingers inspiring their listeners.
Standing here in the crowd I could see the shine of the keys in the spotlight, black and white. It reminded me of a time that seemed so long ago it could be a different country, a different era. Most definitely a different me.
In that time I was also watching a keyboard gleam in the half-light, but it was my fingers that descended upon it, somewhat hesitantly and clumsily; and I was not watched by a crowd but by two twenty-something musicians (which was, I believe, even more nerve-wracking). Ryan held a guitar and Dylan a bass, and they both waited for me- a pianist and vocalist over ten years younger than them- to start our improvised jam… But previous to this, the only music I’d learned on piano was the chart hits. I was hopelessly mainstream. My education in “real” music, as my brother Dylan called it, had barely begun.
But even then I’d known this band, the one I was standing in that crowd to see. The one whose keyboard I watched, waiting, like so many, for an encore; chanting along with thousands. Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails…
In that flat in Avondale, in a different life, I watched as Ryan and Dylan danced, heads bowed, swaying like zombies, and marveled that one band could trigger this reaction, possess someone, give them a reason to exist. And then I listened.
Back at the concert I was deafened by the cheers of my fellow fans as we sensed movement on the dark stage. Our friends, our idols, our Gods, took up their instruments and looked to their leader for direction. He strode to the spotlighted keyboard. He took a breath, and I smiled, remembering my hesitant, fifteen-year-old fingers inspiring their listeners.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Abandoned
"The truth is hiding in your eyes
And it's hanging on your tongue
Just boiling in my blood
But you think that I can't see
What kind of man you are
If you're you a man at all...
Well I will figure this one out on my own
On my own...
I'm screaming 'I love you so'
But my thoughts you can't decode.
How did we get here?
I used to know you so well.
How did we get here?
I think I know..."
People are strange. You think you know them, and then they go and do something totally unexpected.
Some people are stranger than others, and this kind of strangeness spills over into the relationships they have with other people. The relationship becomes strange... becomes something out of the ordinary, something others cannot understand. From the outside it can look wrong, disturbing, unnatural; but from the inside it's the safest thing each person knows. For some, it can become like a back stop. A fall net. When your boyfriend breaks up with you, this friend is there to help you not to lose your sense of beauty or worth. When your other friends get petty and catty and ditch you, this friend is there to make sure you are not alone. When the world fails you, this friend is there to step in. And when you have a friend like that, you will defend them to the end. You defend their anomalies, their strangeness, their failings, and especially you defend your relationship, because no matter how intense and unnatural it may seem to others, it's your security.
We were tight. We were tighter than tight. But he has disappeared off the face of my earth, and it's like a rug being pulled from under my feet. I fell, and my safety net should have caught me halfway down... but I'm still falling, and I think I'm beginning to realise that sooner or later I'm going to have to save myself... or break into pieces on the ground.
It almost feels like losing a partner. I dread seeing him around uni, and yet I wish I would because then I could shout at him. I could demand to know where he was when I needed him. I could make him hurt, and be sorry, and then maybe... just maybe... we could be friends again. I could have my net back. I could be safe again. I could stop feeling so abandoned. So bewildered. So lost.
"Where were you when I was burned and broken,
While the days slipped by from my window watching?
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless?
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me.
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun."
And it's hanging on your tongue
Just boiling in my blood
But you think that I can't see
What kind of man you are
If you're you a man at all...
Well I will figure this one out on my own
On my own...
I'm screaming 'I love you so'
But my thoughts you can't decode.
How did we get here?
I used to know you so well.
How did we get here?
I think I know..."
People are strange. You think you know them, and then they go and do something totally unexpected.
Some people are stranger than others, and this kind of strangeness spills over into the relationships they have with other people. The relationship becomes strange... becomes something out of the ordinary, something others cannot understand. From the outside it can look wrong, disturbing, unnatural; but from the inside it's the safest thing each person knows. For some, it can become like a back stop. A fall net. When your boyfriend breaks up with you, this friend is there to help you not to lose your sense of beauty or worth. When your other friends get petty and catty and ditch you, this friend is there to make sure you are not alone. When the world fails you, this friend is there to step in. And when you have a friend like that, you will defend them to the end. You defend their anomalies, their strangeness, their failings, and especially you defend your relationship, because no matter how intense and unnatural it may seem to others, it's your security.
We were tight. We were tighter than tight. But he has disappeared off the face of my earth, and it's like a rug being pulled from under my feet. I fell, and my safety net should have caught me halfway down... but I'm still falling, and I think I'm beginning to realise that sooner or later I'm going to have to save myself... or break into pieces on the ground.
It almost feels like losing a partner. I dread seeing him around uni, and yet I wish I would because then I could shout at him. I could demand to know where he was when I needed him. I could make him hurt, and be sorry, and then maybe... just maybe... we could be friends again. I could have my net back. I could be safe again. I could stop feeling so abandoned. So bewildered. So lost.
"Where were you when I was burned and broken,
While the days slipped by from my window watching?
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless?
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me.
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun."
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Chapter Five: Accident
"Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony
I am endlessly falling
Lost in this wonderful misery
In peaceful sedation I lay half-awake
And all of the panic inside starts to fade
Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony."
I didn't want to go, really. It was Jared's first time in the South Island and we really would rather have stayed in Christchurch and seen the sights there. But we got roped into it... and really, once we'd left, it was very fun. Until it wasn't.
We all piled into the car: my brother Dylan, his wife Tania, her daughter Azriel, Jared and I. Off we went on a 2-hour drive up to Porter Heights, the nearest snow-covered mountain. As we went through the curiously flat Christchurch countryside, Azzy was remarking upon all the farm animals; she reminded me of me at her age. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep..." she'd chant. And then "cow, cow, cow, cow...". Horses deserved a special exclamation and she'd point them out to me, because I said I loved horses too. We had a lot of fun laughing at her because somehow she knew all the pop radio songs, even Lady Gaga and all those people. Nobody had a clue where she'd learned them from.
Eventually we got there, not without a few "are we there yet"s. We parked the car, kitted up in our borrowed snow gear and set off.
As Tania, Jared, Azzy and I set off up the snowy walkway, Dylan decided he'd go and see how much it was to rent a toboggan. It seemed the only place to toboggan was the walkway we were trudging up, which seemed strange, so after throwing a few snowballs at each other and slipping over a couple of times, we approached a ski instructor to ask where the best spot was. He waved us over to a rather steeper hill on our left.
It was tough going to climb up this hill. Too tough for Azzy and the pregnant Tania, in fact. So Dylan had the first go, climbing up the slope about four metres and sliding from there. Azzy got the next go, from about two meteres up the slope. In the meantime Jared and I set to climbing the near-sheer snowy incline. I got to a patch of exposed tussock grass and sat on it, my legs tired already. To my left was a cliff of about four or five feet; to my right was a gentler slope. Dylan climbed up to us with the toboggan and we surveyed the path down.
Even Jared said that he wasn't going to do it, that it looked too risky. But none of us seemed to be thinking properly. Maybe the cold air, with so much less oxygen, got to our brains. Maybe it was just spur of the moment. But I decided to go. Fearless, I laughed at Jared. "Move over, chicken boy", I teased, and crawled over to where Dylan was holding the toboggan. "Be careful", he warned. "Once you get in the thing it's going to start moving straight away."
I planned to aim for the hill to my right, so I wouldn't pick up so much speed. But Dylan was right. Once I sat in the toboggan, he let it go... and I had no control.
It took off so fast that I was whiplashed onto my back. It started sliding away to the right and went over the five-foot cliff. I landed heavily on my left side, still in the toboggan. It curved off the the right and I came out of it and kept sliding straight ahead, right into a fence. The bottom board hitting my jaw spun me around and stopped me.
All this time I wasn't afraid, I was just so bewildered. The whole way down I was just going, "what?".
Winded, I struggled between the impulse to breathe and the impulse to scream. Screaming won and I yelled, as loudly as I could for as long as I could... and then everything went black.
The thing that struck me about it was how peaceful it was. No light, no sound, nothing... just velvety warm darkness, like that moment between sleeping and waking. I could've quite happily stayed there forever. I was utterly, totally and completely convinced that in a moment I'd wake up safe and warm in my bed back at my sister's place after having a bad, bad dream. And then I heard Jared. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I heard his voice, and I thought 'oh, right. Jared', and opened my eyes.
The next few seconds were the most terrifying experience of my life.
There were people all around me. I couldn't see a single face I knew and they were all way, WAY too close. I didn't want them there, I wanted space, I wanted air, I wanted to organize my thoughts and figure out why I was on this hillside and what had happened to me before I dealt with anything else. I was horrified. The next second, pain hit me. I screamed and screamed and screamed, right into the face of a lady paramedic. In the same instant I noticed that my jaw felt wrong, that there was blood and tiny hard bits of tooth in my mouth. I wanted to ask if I had any teeth missing but I couldn't stop myself yelling long enough. I was so, so frightened. Then I noticed someone was holding my hand, and I managed to calm myself enough to listen to what that person was saying.
"Love, it's alright. It's okay, I'm here." Jared. Jared was here. I tried to process that. If Jared was there, then everything was fine. He kept up that chant the whole time, holding me in, keeping me sane.
I managed to answer the paramedic's questions between involuntary moans and sobs. One of the guys had a hat in the shape of a fox on his head and I remember being worried that I was hallucinating, and then wanting to laugh, even in the midst of my terror and pain. They checked me for paralysis and I could move my legs and arms. I remember saying "thank God". I know Tania's face popped up at one point, detailing out what had happened to me in the logical way that she has. I remember Dylan, with a strange face on that looked like he wanted to smile for me but was too worried for it.
Eventually they got me back to the first aid place on the mountain. They did more checks and said I'd chipped a tooth, but they were all still there and I hadn't broken anything. I had huge bruises on my jaw and my ribs, and a deep, deep cut on my leg, but when I was ready I could go.
At the end of the day I struggled to my feet and somehow made it down the hill to the car, leaning on Jared and Dylan. They settled me in the front seat and, with Tania driving very, very carefully, we started back home. And that would have been that, if I hadn't started bleeding out of my ear.
Dylan called dad and explained everything, saying that he'd probably take me to Christchurch hospital and to meet us there...
...a few kilometres away, my mother and sister turned to each other and said, "She didn't want to go"...
...We got there eventually and they wheeled me into A&E. I remember protesting proudly against the wheelchair, but succumbing to group pressure. Jared had to leave while we were waiting and he was away quite a while. When he came back I gave him my hand; I could see that he'd been crying and I said softly, "oh, love...". He buried his face in my hand and his and broke down. It must have been so horrible for him to watch me slip away.
Eventually, after many x-rays and examinations, they told me that my jaw was broken in three places; down the middle and on each corner. Because my ribs were just bruised, I was okay to go back to my sister's place.
I was so afraid to sleep that night. I was terrified I'd wake up back on that mountain, back in that nightmare. But I was exhausted, and there was no fighting it.
I won't dwell on the other appointments; the painful plane trip home, the annoying south african doctor who said I'd have to have my jaw wired shut, my determination that I wouldn't, my healing of myself so much so that I impressed the surgeon who came to check me out, my slow-seeming but relatively fast healing ribs, the plethora of drugs and pills I had to take for the first week and the alternate birthday celebration I had to have.
But now I have experienced being hurt that badly, and I never want to again. And it could have been so much worse. I'm lucky.
It could have been so. Much. Worse.
Bathing in beautiful agony
I am endlessly falling
Lost in this wonderful misery
In peaceful sedation I lay half-awake
And all of the panic inside starts to fade
Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony."
I didn't want to go, really. It was Jared's first time in the South Island and we really would rather have stayed in Christchurch and seen the sights there. But we got roped into it... and really, once we'd left, it was very fun. Until it wasn't.
We all piled into the car: my brother Dylan, his wife Tania, her daughter Azriel, Jared and I. Off we went on a 2-hour drive up to Porter Heights, the nearest snow-covered mountain. As we went through the curiously flat Christchurch countryside, Azzy was remarking upon all the farm animals; she reminded me of me at her age. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep..." she'd chant. And then "cow, cow, cow, cow...". Horses deserved a special exclamation and she'd point them out to me, because I said I loved horses too. We had a lot of fun laughing at her because somehow she knew all the pop radio songs, even Lady Gaga and all those people. Nobody had a clue where she'd learned them from.
Eventually we got there, not without a few "are we there yet"s. We parked the car, kitted up in our borrowed snow gear and set off.
As Tania, Jared, Azzy and I set off up the snowy walkway, Dylan decided he'd go and see how much it was to rent a toboggan. It seemed the only place to toboggan was the walkway we were trudging up, which seemed strange, so after throwing a few snowballs at each other and slipping over a couple of times, we approached a ski instructor to ask where the best spot was. He waved us over to a rather steeper hill on our left.
It was tough going to climb up this hill. Too tough for Azzy and the pregnant Tania, in fact. So Dylan had the first go, climbing up the slope about four metres and sliding from there. Azzy got the next go, from about two meteres up the slope. In the meantime Jared and I set to climbing the near-sheer snowy incline. I got to a patch of exposed tussock grass and sat on it, my legs tired already. To my left was a cliff of about four or five feet; to my right was a gentler slope. Dylan climbed up to us with the toboggan and we surveyed the path down.
Even Jared said that he wasn't going to do it, that it looked too risky. But none of us seemed to be thinking properly. Maybe the cold air, with so much less oxygen, got to our brains. Maybe it was just spur of the moment. But I decided to go. Fearless, I laughed at Jared. "Move over, chicken boy", I teased, and crawled over to where Dylan was holding the toboggan. "Be careful", he warned. "Once you get in the thing it's going to start moving straight away."
I planned to aim for the hill to my right, so I wouldn't pick up so much speed. But Dylan was right. Once I sat in the toboggan, he let it go... and I had no control.
It took off so fast that I was whiplashed onto my back. It started sliding away to the right and went over the five-foot cliff. I landed heavily on my left side, still in the toboggan. It curved off the the right and I came out of it and kept sliding straight ahead, right into a fence. The bottom board hitting my jaw spun me around and stopped me.
All this time I wasn't afraid, I was just so bewildered. The whole way down I was just going, "what?".
Winded, I struggled between the impulse to breathe and the impulse to scream. Screaming won and I yelled, as loudly as I could for as long as I could... and then everything went black.
The thing that struck me about it was how peaceful it was. No light, no sound, nothing... just velvety warm darkness, like that moment between sleeping and waking. I could've quite happily stayed there forever. I was utterly, totally and completely convinced that in a moment I'd wake up safe and warm in my bed back at my sister's place after having a bad, bad dream. And then I heard Jared. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I heard his voice, and I thought 'oh, right. Jared', and opened my eyes.
The next few seconds were the most terrifying experience of my life.
There were people all around me. I couldn't see a single face I knew and they were all way, WAY too close. I didn't want them there, I wanted space, I wanted air, I wanted to organize my thoughts and figure out why I was on this hillside and what had happened to me before I dealt with anything else. I was horrified. The next second, pain hit me. I screamed and screamed and screamed, right into the face of a lady paramedic. In the same instant I noticed that my jaw felt wrong, that there was blood and tiny hard bits of tooth in my mouth. I wanted to ask if I had any teeth missing but I couldn't stop myself yelling long enough. I was so, so frightened. Then I noticed someone was holding my hand, and I managed to calm myself enough to listen to what that person was saying.
"Love, it's alright. It's okay, I'm here." Jared. Jared was here. I tried to process that. If Jared was there, then everything was fine. He kept up that chant the whole time, holding me in, keeping me sane.
I managed to answer the paramedic's questions between involuntary moans and sobs. One of the guys had a hat in the shape of a fox on his head and I remember being worried that I was hallucinating, and then wanting to laugh, even in the midst of my terror and pain. They checked me for paralysis and I could move my legs and arms. I remember saying "thank God". I know Tania's face popped up at one point, detailing out what had happened to me in the logical way that she has. I remember Dylan, with a strange face on that looked like he wanted to smile for me but was too worried for it.
Eventually they got me back to the first aid place on the mountain. They did more checks and said I'd chipped a tooth, but they were all still there and I hadn't broken anything. I had huge bruises on my jaw and my ribs, and a deep, deep cut on my leg, but when I was ready I could go.
At the end of the day I struggled to my feet and somehow made it down the hill to the car, leaning on Jared and Dylan. They settled me in the front seat and, with Tania driving very, very carefully, we started back home. And that would have been that, if I hadn't started bleeding out of my ear.
Dylan called dad and explained everything, saying that he'd probably take me to Christchurch hospital and to meet us there...
...a few kilometres away, my mother and sister turned to each other and said, "She didn't want to go"...
...We got there eventually and they wheeled me into A&E. I remember protesting proudly against the wheelchair, but succumbing to group pressure. Jared had to leave while we were waiting and he was away quite a while. When he came back I gave him my hand; I could see that he'd been crying and I said softly, "oh, love...". He buried his face in my hand and his and broke down. It must have been so horrible for him to watch me slip away.
Eventually, after many x-rays and examinations, they told me that my jaw was broken in three places; down the middle and on each corner. Because my ribs were just bruised, I was okay to go back to my sister's place.
I was so afraid to sleep that night. I was terrified I'd wake up back on that mountain, back in that nightmare. But I was exhausted, and there was no fighting it.
I won't dwell on the other appointments; the painful plane trip home, the annoying south african doctor who said I'd have to have my jaw wired shut, my determination that I wouldn't, my healing of myself so much so that I impressed the surgeon who came to check me out, my slow-seeming but relatively fast healing ribs, the plethora of drugs and pills I had to take for the first week and the alternate birthday celebration I had to have.
But now I have experienced being hurt that badly, and I never want to again. And it could have been so much worse. I'm lucky.
It could have been so. Much. Worse.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Schism
"Pure intention juxtaposed
Will set two lovers' souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes
Testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then
Has a burned a hole between us so
We cannot see to reach an end
Crippling our communication
I know the pieces fit
Cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame
It doesn't mean I don't desire to
Point the finger, blame the other
Watch the temple topple over
To bring the pieces back together
Rediscover communication..."
He's a good friend of mine. So was she.
They'd been together before. A four-month relationship that seemed to be lasting forever. And then she ended it, and the hold that he'd kept so tightly on her ripped him apart. That time, I was her friend, seeing everything from her point of view. She was my best friend, and when I say best I mean best. But he was my friend too; not as close, and for not as long, but his friend nonetheless. I was stuck in the middle.
And then I did something silly. For ten fateful minutes I let myself become a volatile broadcaster instead of just a safe sounding board. For ten minutes I took pity on him, and I told him just one little thing that she had told me. And he reacted, and she noticed, and I told her what I did... and things between me and her were never the same again.
Oh, she forgave me. We were still best friends. But that's when we started growing apart.
My friendship with him began to grow until it eclipsed what I had shared with her. Looking back now, it was almost as if I made a choice. With those ten weak, soft minutes I chose him over her.
I don't blame myself, because the position I was in was of such intense pressure that the expression stuck between a rock and a hard place doesn't even come close. It was more like being burned by a fire on one side- the fire of his intense pain -and choked by a rope on the other- a rope that pulled and pulled as she tried to escape the ruins of their relationship. So I gave in. I fed the fire with a piece of the rope. I'm beginning to realise now that perhaps I cut the rope to do that.
I don't regret it either. Since I cut that rope she has become less and less the kind of person that I want to spend time around; running further and further into the distance until all the things that she once was to me have almost disappeared over the horizon.
And then he and I got together. A two-month summer romance that seemed to be lasting forever. And then he ended it, and and the hold that I'd kept so tightly on him ripped me apart. Because it was her. He still wasn't over her.
We both had other relationships, and after the compulsory period of awkwardness, he and I were closer than ever. I got over him... but he never got over her.
And they got back together. Months passed, and it seemed it would last forever.
But if it didn't work once, it was never going to work twice.
And now that they've broken up again, I find myself on his side more than hers. It's surreal for me, having been through this twice with them and now being on the other side of the fence. This time I blame her so much more than I could have ever blamed him all those years ago: it's the way that she just doesn't seem to care, this time. At least the first time she fretted and worried for the proper time period.
I may be wrong about how she's feeling. After all, we haven't had a deepmeaningful, like we used to, for years. But there are some things I've always known and noticed about her... she is immensely practical, ruthlessly down-to-earth, and can be brutally, brutally blunt.
After all he and I have been through, I can't help but take his side in this. But it is surreal... to be part of both lives, to be the fork in the road, the schism of their love story.
Will set two lovers' souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes
Testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then
Has a burned a hole between us so
We cannot see to reach an end
Crippling our communication
I know the pieces fit
Cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame
It doesn't mean I don't desire to
Point the finger, blame the other
Watch the temple topple over
To bring the pieces back together
Rediscover communication..."
He's a good friend of mine. So was she.
They'd been together before. A four-month relationship that seemed to be lasting forever. And then she ended it, and the hold that he'd kept so tightly on her ripped him apart. That time, I was her friend, seeing everything from her point of view. She was my best friend, and when I say best I mean best. But he was my friend too; not as close, and for not as long, but his friend nonetheless. I was stuck in the middle.
And then I did something silly. For ten fateful minutes I let myself become a volatile broadcaster instead of just a safe sounding board. For ten minutes I took pity on him, and I told him just one little thing that she had told me. And he reacted, and she noticed, and I told her what I did... and things between me and her were never the same again.
Oh, she forgave me. We were still best friends. But that's when we started growing apart.
My friendship with him began to grow until it eclipsed what I had shared with her. Looking back now, it was almost as if I made a choice. With those ten weak, soft minutes I chose him over her.
I don't blame myself, because the position I was in was of such intense pressure that the expression stuck between a rock and a hard place doesn't even come close. It was more like being burned by a fire on one side- the fire of his intense pain -and choked by a rope on the other- a rope that pulled and pulled as she tried to escape the ruins of their relationship. So I gave in. I fed the fire with a piece of the rope. I'm beginning to realise now that perhaps I cut the rope to do that.
I don't regret it either. Since I cut that rope she has become less and less the kind of person that I want to spend time around; running further and further into the distance until all the things that she once was to me have almost disappeared over the horizon.
And then he and I got together. A two-month summer romance that seemed to be lasting forever. And then he ended it, and and the hold that I'd kept so tightly on him ripped me apart. Because it was her. He still wasn't over her.
We both had other relationships, and after the compulsory period of awkwardness, he and I were closer than ever. I got over him... but he never got over her.
And they got back together. Months passed, and it seemed it would last forever.
But if it didn't work once, it was never going to work twice.
And now that they've broken up again, I find myself on his side more than hers. It's surreal for me, having been through this twice with them and now being on the other side of the fence. This time I blame her so much more than I could have ever blamed him all those years ago: it's the way that she just doesn't seem to care, this time. At least the first time she fretted and worried for the proper time period.
I may be wrong about how she's feeling. After all, we haven't had a deepmeaningful, like we used to, for years. But there are some things I've always known and noticed about her... she is immensely practical, ruthlessly down-to-earth, and can be brutally, brutally blunt.
After all he and I have been through, I can't help but take his side in this. But it is surreal... to be part of both lives, to be the fork in the road, the schism of their love story.
Assignment
My first English 121 Assignment:
"The tearing crunch of gravel spoke directly to my memory. It threw me back over seven years ago, over the handlebars onto the path of a park in Mt. Albert. As I blinked and turned around visions of a ten-year-old’s exaggerated injuries crossed my eyes and I started to think about that evening; that moment when I sat, still dazed and tumbled, blinded by the simple realization that the world- and the people who live on it- is not as kind as we think.
It had been one of my father’s failed attempts at getting me into exercise. He was tall and thin, dark-haired and a bit of a fitness freak; I was blonde, short and chubby, so it was inevitable that he would endeavor to turn me to the dark side. I was somewhat unimpressed by all this, but he was my dad and I had to humour him.
Every evening after dinner we would go for a bike ride through the local park. I had to have an escort, because it was the kind of park where people hung out and smoked strange smelling cigarettes and dumped trolleys from Pak n’ Save in the creek. The pathways through it were made of loose, chunky gravel, hazardous at best for an inexperienced cycler. Dad was teaching me how to use the gears, as up till then my own personal choice of wheels had been pink and sparkly with a back-pedal brake and streamers on the handlebars. He was always telling me to push harder, especially on the inclines. At the time I thought he just wanted me to “challenge myself”, but this wasn’t the case; and like so many childhood accidents waiting to happen, I didn’t listen.
On one particular hill I was slowing near the top. One tiny, inconsequential handlebar movement later and I was in the air, flying sideways, the wheels of my ten-speed ripping through the gravel as it toppled. With a sound like the tearing of a dove’s wings, I landed, sliding for metres, bewildered and panting.
My family used to call me a “drama queen”, and make out that the things that I got worked up about were trivial, and I was just looking for attention. But the truth is I was never very good with attention. If I’ve been upset by something and somebody tries to be nice to me, it only makes me cry more. If I’ve fallen, I’d rather people just left me be, because I get so embarrassed. But if I ever needed attention, I made enough fuss to get noticed. If I ever needed comfort, it was then.
“Are you alright?” My dear father said, laughter shaking his words slightly. I know now that this is a male thing- they can’t help but laugh at people falling over- but at the time I couldn’t believe that he could be so condescending.
“No, no, I’m not alright!” I responded hysterically.
Dad pedaled over to me and sat on his own mountain bike like a disapproving statue, towering over me. “Come on,” He said. “Get up.”
I found this such an inadequate response that I didn’t even try to comply. I just sat there, defeated and hurting, as my many scrapes and cuts began to sting and bleed.
All this jumped through my head in an instant when I heard that sound again, the tearing of someone’s pride, happiness and skin all at once. The scrape of flesh and metal against concrete. I turned around on the stairs and saw a boy who looked around my age half sitting, half lying on the ground. Without thinking, without even alerting the friend I was walking with, I rushed back down the steps. An instinct as strong as motherhood and not far from it urged me to run to this boy’s side. I crouched and extended my hand to him and saw my ten-year-old face gaze back up at me out of memory, dazed and confused and upset.
I knew what we were thinking, both my child self and this young man. True altruism is becoming rarer and rarer in this world. With our mouths we say, “Yes, I do help people when they are in need”. With our minds, we begin to quietly reel off exceptions. Unless I’m too busy. Unless I’m running late. Unless there’s lots of people watching. Unless they are fat, ugly, poor, rich, black, white, Asian…
Since that evening seven years ago, I’ve made my mind echo my mouth. I help people in need. No exceptions.
Today I can’t figure out why the fallen boy sat there so long, why he didn’t take my hand and get up. The look on his face still baffles me; he looked childlike, astounded… as if he had found his own epiphany in the dust."
"The tearing crunch of gravel spoke directly to my memory. It threw me back over seven years ago, over the handlebars onto the path of a park in Mt. Albert. As I blinked and turned around visions of a ten-year-old’s exaggerated injuries crossed my eyes and I started to think about that evening; that moment when I sat, still dazed and tumbled, blinded by the simple realization that the world- and the people who live on it- is not as kind as we think.
It had been one of my father’s failed attempts at getting me into exercise. He was tall and thin, dark-haired and a bit of a fitness freak; I was blonde, short and chubby, so it was inevitable that he would endeavor to turn me to the dark side. I was somewhat unimpressed by all this, but he was my dad and I had to humour him.
Every evening after dinner we would go for a bike ride through the local park. I had to have an escort, because it was the kind of park where people hung out and smoked strange smelling cigarettes and dumped trolleys from Pak n’ Save in the creek. The pathways through it were made of loose, chunky gravel, hazardous at best for an inexperienced cycler. Dad was teaching me how to use the gears, as up till then my own personal choice of wheels had been pink and sparkly with a back-pedal brake and streamers on the handlebars. He was always telling me to push harder, especially on the inclines. At the time I thought he just wanted me to “challenge myself”, but this wasn’t the case; and like so many childhood accidents waiting to happen, I didn’t listen.
On one particular hill I was slowing near the top. One tiny, inconsequential handlebar movement later and I was in the air, flying sideways, the wheels of my ten-speed ripping through the gravel as it toppled. With a sound like the tearing of a dove’s wings, I landed, sliding for metres, bewildered and panting.
My family used to call me a “drama queen”, and make out that the things that I got worked up about were trivial, and I was just looking for attention. But the truth is I was never very good with attention. If I’ve been upset by something and somebody tries to be nice to me, it only makes me cry more. If I’ve fallen, I’d rather people just left me be, because I get so embarrassed. But if I ever needed attention, I made enough fuss to get noticed. If I ever needed comfort, it was then.
“Are you alright?” My dear father said, laughter shaking his words slightly. I know now that this is a male thing- they can’t help but laugh at people falling over- but at the time I couldn’t believe that he could be so condescending.
“No, no, I’m not alright!” I responded hysterically.
Dad pedaled over to me and sat on his own mountain bike like a disapproving statue, towering over me. “Come on,” He said. “Get up.”
I found this such an inadequate response that I didn’t even try to comply. I just sat there, defeated and hurting, as my many scrapes and cuts began to sting and bleed.
All this jumped through my head in an instant when I heard that sound again, the tearing of someone’s pride, happiness and skin all at once. The scrape of flesh and metal against concrete. I turned around on the stairs and saw a boy who looked around my age half sitting, half lying on the ground. Without thinking, without even alerting the friend I was walking with, I rushed back down the steps. An instinct as strong as motherhood and not far from it urged me to run to this boy’s side. I crouched and extended my hand to him and saw my ten-year-old face gaze back up at me out of memory, dazed and confused and upset.
I knew what we were thinking, both my child self and this young man. True altruism is becoming rarer and rarer in this world. With our mouths we say, “Yes, I do help people when they are in need”. With our minds, we begin to quietly reel off exceptions. Unless I’m too busy. Unless I’m running late. Unless there’s lots of people watching. Unless they are fat, ugly, poor, rich, black, white, Asian…
Since that evening seven years ago, I’ve made my mind echo my mouth. I help people in need. No exceptions.
Today I can’t figure out why the fallen boy sat there so long, why he didn’t take my hand and get up. The look on his face still baffles me; he looked childlike, astounded… as if he had found his own epiphany in the dust."
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Chapter Four: Apathy
"Still it's hard to just get by
It seems so meaningless to try
When all I want to do is cry
No-one ever knew I was so sad
Cause even though I get so high
I know that I will never fly
And when I fall out of the sky
Who'll be standing by?
Will you be standing by?"
A month or so ago I went on the pill and things have not been the same since. I've felt so down all the time... not the drama-filled, stormy down that I'm used to, but a general rainy cloud over my head. I've never really had mood swings before, but I know now what they are. Happy one minute, sad the next, for no apparent reason. And I feel so hopeless and helpless to resist... and in fact, it's as if I don't want to. I'm drowning in apathy. I don't care.
But I know that in an hour or so I probably will care.
It's so confusing having this leaping thing inside my head all the time. Up, down, up, down. I worry that next time I have to make a proper decision about something important, I'll be on a down and not make the right one.
But next time you see me, I'll probably be smiling.
Staying happy these days is like reaching for a star. I'm a long way down and it's a long way up, and I'm scared that if I ever catch it, it will burn my hands.
It seems so meaningless to try
When all I want to do is cry
No-one ever knew I was so sad
Cause even though I get so high
I know that I will never fly
And when I fall out of the sky
Who'll be standing by?
Will you be standing by?"
A month or so ago I went on the pill and things have not been the same since. I've felt so down all the time... not the drama-filled, stormy down that I'm used to, but a general rainy cloud over my head. I've never really had mood swings before, but I know now what they are. Happy one minute, sad the next, for no apparent reason. And I feel so hopeless and helpless to resist... and in fact, it's as if I don't want to. I'm drowning in apathy. I don't care.
But I know that in an hour or so I probably will care.
It's so confusing having this leaping thing inside my head all the time. Up, down, up, down. I worry that next time I have to make a proper decision about something important, I'll be on a down and not make the right one.
But next time you see me, I'll probably be smiling.
Staying happy these days is like reaching for a star. I'm a long way down and it's a long way up, and I'm scared that if I ever catch it, it will burn my hands.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Bars
"Every empty one of us have methods
To quell the madness of this pace
But yours have led and running south
A jealous storm has carried down your face
You could take that wait and all that fuss
So now just get the best of us, you know
Give me love not suicide
And the wiser, wider part of me will show
A picture says with sight
What we can't say with words
But you've been walking eyes to feet in dark sunglasses
A picture will survive
So smile and look alive..."
This weekend was meant to be a nice happy one with Jared as my parents went away. But he ran a temperature and had to go to the doctor, and ended up having to go back to his house. I'm coming to the conclusion his immune system must not be very strong.
So I spent the whole day today watching season one of Grey's Anatomy. I've never watched a whole season of something like that in one day, unless you count Doctor Who (shut up) which I don't. It was actually quite nice not to have to wait a week to find out... well, to remember... what happens next. There's something to be said for wasting a day in front of the tv.
But it was then that I realized that I'm no different. I enjoy drama just as much as the next person. Other people's dramas mean that I can forget mine. It's when it actually gets inside my head that I hate it. And well, obviously! Really, who would like that? So it's my fault, really. For being sensitive. For letting things that aren't real get inside my head. Grey's can make me cry, but for the most part I find it relatively unrealistic. It doesn't really relate to my life like it does to other peoples'. But something like Wuthering Heights... I know EXACTLY what it's like to have someone obsessive and damaged hold on to you. So tightly that you can't breathe. And I know what it's like when you get used to them. And then when you finally break their hold you get so much oxygen that it only takes one spark to ignite...
It's a family trait. Damaged people find us, and grasp us, and use us as ladders to climb back up to the light. But unfortunately, sometimes we get overwhelmed. We have to rip the ladder away from them and use it ourselves. And not look back. And not wonder if they've made it up or not. We have to separate ourselves to survive.
I'm really bad at that bit. I have a chronic case of what if. Of looking back. If anyone took a picture that summed me up, it would be of me looking over my shoulder. It's not healthy, it's not good for me or for anyone around me, but it's just the way things are.
That's another theme. The Way Things Are. Can I help the way I am? The life I've lead, the friends I've made, the people I've been involved with? Should I be punished for that?
This holidays I've caught up with an old friend. He and I have History. It's all resolved now, but that day at that cafe we talked about it for the first time. It all happened two and a half years ago, and it was the FIRST TIME we'd talked about it. It was... liberating. It was really nice to find out that he was still sorry about it... about hurting me. A long dusty puzzle piece clicked into place, completing that picture. And it felt good.
We ended up going back to his place and watching Mr. Bean, and eating gourmet pies. But when a technology malfunction meant that Jared didn't hear from me for hours, and then when he did, found that I was alone in a house with another boy that I'd had History with, he was very upset. Very.
It all culminated in Jared and I having a big long conversation and him asking me to never let myself be alone in a house with another boy again. And it's not like that really happens that often... in fact, hardly ever. But... just the simple fact that I've been forbidden to do something is a new thing. A new step.
I have this problem. It's called being a teenager. I'm lucky, I only have a mild case of it, but it means that sometimes... sometimes... when someone forbids me from doing something, I really REALLY feel like doing it.
Not that I will. But I want to.
Man, I feel screwed up. The only reason I'm blogging about this is that I've been thinking about it, and when I think about it I end up feeling like there's a thin layer of gauze wrapped around me. Like a set of almost-translucent bars around me. Cutting me off. And the question prods me in the side... doesn't he trust me? Doesn't he think that I can look after myself?
I've already asked him stuff like this, and he says he does trust me, but he still feels bad about it. And I will do anything, ANYTHING, to make Jared happy. No question.
But inside myself, in the depths of my mind, I should be allowed to be a bit annoyed.
Right?
To quell the madness of this pace
But yours have led and running south
A jealous storm has carried down your face
You could take that wait and all that fuss
So now just get the best of us, you know
Give me love not suicide
And the wiser, wider part of me will show
A picture says with sight
What we can't say with words
But you've been walking eyes to feet in dark sunglasses
A picture will survive
So smile and look alive..."
This weekend was meant to be a nice happy one with Jared as my parents went away. But he ran a temperature and had to go to the doctor, and ended up having to go back to his house. I'm coming to the conclusion his immune system must not be very strong.
So I spent the whole day today watching season one of Grey's Anatomy. I've never watched a whole season of something like that in one day, unless you count Doctor Who (shut up) which I don't. It was actually quite nice not to have to wait a week to find out... well, to remember... what happens next. There's something to be said for wasting a day in front of the tv.
But it was then that I realized that I'm no different. I enjoy drama just as much as the next person. Other people's dramas mean that I can forget mine. It's when it actually gets inside my head that I hate it. And well, obviously! Really, who would like that? So it's my fault, really. For being sensitive. For letting things that aren't real get inside my head. Grey's can make me cry, but for the most part I find it relatively unrealistic. It doesn't really relate to my life like it does to other peoples'. But something like Wuthering Heights... I know EXACTLY what it's like to have someone obsessive and damaged hold on to you. So tightly that you can't breathe. And I know what it's like when you get used to them. And then when you finally break their hold you get so much oxygen that it only takes one spark to ignite...
It's a family trait. Damaged people find us, and grasp us, and use us as ladders to climb back up to the light. But unfortunately, sometimes we get overwhelmed. We have to rip the ladder away from them and use it ourselves. And not look back. And not wonder if they've made it up or not. We have to separate ourselves to survive.
I'm really bad at that bit. I have a chronic case of what if. Of looking back. If anyone took a picture that summed me up, it would be of me looking over my shoulder. It's not healthy, it's not good for me or for anyone around me, but it's just the way things are.
That's another theme. The Way Things Are. Can I help the way I am? The life I've lead, the friends I've made, the people I've been involved with? Should I be punished for that?
This holidays I've caught up with an old friend. He and I have History. It's all resolved now, but that day at that cafe we talked about it for the first time. It all happened two and a half years ago, and it was the FIRST TIME we'd talked about it. It was... liberating. It was really nice to find out that he was still sorry about it... about hurting me. A long dusty puzzle piece clicked into place, completing that picture. And it felt good.
We ended up going back to his place and watching Mr. Bean, and eating gourmet pies. But when a technology malfunction meant that Jared didn't hear from me for hours, and then when he did, found that I was alone in a house with another boy that I'd had History with, he was very upset. Very.
It all culminated in Jared and I having a big long conversation and him asking me to never let myself be alone in a house with another boy again. And it's not like that really happens that often... in fact, hardly ever. But... just the simple fact that I've been forbidden to do something is a new thing. A new step.
I have this problem. It's called being a teenager. I'm lucky, I only have a mild case of it, but it means that sometimes... sometimes... when someone forbids me from doing something, I really REALLY feel like doing it.
Not that I will. But I want to.
Man, I feel screwed up. The only reason I'm blogging about this is that I've been thinking about it, and when I think about it I end up feeling like there's a thin layer of gauze wrapped around me. Like a set of almost-translucent bars around me. Cutting me off. And the question prods me in the side... doesn't he trust me? Doesn't he think that I can look after myself?
I've already asked him stuff like this, and he says he does trust me, but he still feels bad about it. And I will do anything, ANYTHING, to make Jared happy. No question.
But inside myself, in the depths of my mind, I should be allowed to be a bit annoyed.
Right?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Travesty
"We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire.
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I."
Why is it that human beings have such an appetite for tragedy? An appetite that even drowns out our appetite for love? Some of the greatest "love" stories in the world are based in tragedy. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Death and destruction. And more recently, look at Twilight. How much darkness and corruption and fear and sadness is in that series as a whole?
What about Wuthering Heights? There's a new version of it on tv round about now. "Oh, that's a beautiful story", Jared's mum said. But it's not. I admit that I haven't watched or read the whole thing yet, but I don't think it's a good idea for me to. I watched the first half of it last sunday and what do we see right away at the beginning? Heathcliffe, hopelessly and frighteningly obsessed, digs up Catherine's coffin, wrenches the thing apart and, though his own deluded mind sees her merely sleeping, the truth is that he climbs into the coffin and strokes the bones of his former love. And we are supposed to look at this as a beautiful story? It carries on. We go back in time and we see the two, Catherine and Heathcliffe, helplessly and hopelessly attached to each other. And yet what does she do? She marries someone else. The two torture each other. So much agony and anger. This is not love. This is obsession. Mutual obsession, disguised and paraded as "true love".
IT IS ALL A LIE.
In one of my English courses this year, one of the subjects we studied is "love". Again, the text we studied was not about love. It was about lust, obsession, infatuation. Not love. It angered me so much to hear people advertising this travesty of emotion as love, as true love, as soulmates.
LIES.
I have been obsessed with people. I have had people obsessed with me. I have felt lust and infatuation. And now I have experienced true love. And let me tell you, obsession and love are NOTHING alike. Nothing. It makes me so ANGRY that a writer or film maker can do this, can taint and corrupt the idea of love with their horrible, obsessive characters. And yet these "works of art", these "great love stories" are bought and eaten up by the average person! What kind of corrupted, twisted view of love does the population have if these horrible, frightening, tragic stories are viewed as stories of true love?
Perhaps if they are correct, then nobody experiences true love. I know of nobody who has had stories like Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights happen to them in the real world. But I know that I have true love. I know it like I know who I am. And so, from my anger at popular authors and directers, comes fear. If what I have is true love, then there is only one path for it... the Wuthering Heights path, the Romeo and Juliet path, the Twilight path... the path to destruction. The destruction of the mind. The destruction of life. The destruction of other people's lives. I am so afraid. How can such a force of good have such bad effects?
I don't know who to believe- the world, or myself.
It's like blood to a vampire.
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I."
Why is it that human beings have such an appetite for tragedy? An appetite that even drowns out our appetite for love? Some of the greatest "love" stories in the world are based in tragedy. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Death and destruction. And more recently, look at Twilight. How much darkness and corruption and fear and sadness is in that series as a whole?
What about Wuthering Heights? There's a new version of it on tv round about now. "Oh, that's a beautiful story", Jared's mum said. But it's not. I admit that I haven't watched or read the whole thing yet, but I don't think it's a good idea for me to. I watched the first half of it last sunday and what do we see right away at the beginning? Heathcliffe, hopelessly and frighteningly obsessed, digs up Catherine's coffin, wrenches the thing apart and, though his own deluded mind sees her merely sleeping, the truth is that he climbs into the coffin and strokes the bones of his former love. And we are supposed to look at this as a beautiful story? It carries on. We go back in time and we see the two, Catherine and Heathcliffe, helplessly and hopelessly attached to each other. And yet what does she do? She marries someone else. The two torture each other. So much agony and anger. This is not love. This is obsession. Mutual obsession, disguised and paraded as "true love".
IT IS ALL A LIE.
In one of my English courses this year, one of the subjects we studied is "love". Again, the text we studied was not about love. It was about lust, obsession, infatuation. Not love. It angered me so much to hear people advertising this travesty of emotion as love, as true love, as soulmates.
LIES.
I have been obsessed with people. I have had people obsessed with me. I have felt lust and infatuation. And now I have experienced true love. And let me tell you, obsession and love are NOTHING alike. Nothing. It makes me so ANGRY that a writer or film maker can do this, can taint and corrupt the idea of love with their horrible, obsessive characters. And yet these "works of art", these "great love stories" are bought and eaten up by the average person! What kind of corrupted, twisted view of love does the population have if these horrible, frightening, tragic stories are viewed as stories of true love?
Perhaps if they are correct, then nobody experiences true love. I know of nobody who has had stories like Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights happen to them in the real world. But I know that I have true love. I know it like I know who I am. And so, from my anger at popular authors and directers, comes fear. If what I have is true love, then there is only one path for it... the Wuthering Heights path, the Romeo and Juliet path, the Twilight path... the path to destruction. The destruction of the mind. The destruction of life. The destruction of other people's lives. I am so afraid. How can such a force of good have such bad effects?
I don't know who to believe- the world, or myself.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Chapter Three: Overtake
"We all have someone that digs at us
At least we dig each other
So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday
If I turn into another
Dig me out from under what is covering the better part of me
Sing this song
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone
Each other, when everything else is gone..."
Today I had a wonderful morning catching up over a cafe breakfast with my girls. It felt so good. I really am starting to realize how cut off I've been from everyone but Jared... like I'm falling behind them on the road of life, being overtaken by everyone... I really need to keep on top of it. It's such a nice feeling to be back in a group of girls... I even followed Deanna into her AUT lecture, which is where I am now. This morning has made me see just how much I actually miss school... not the classes, obviously, but the atmosphere and the connection with everybody; seeing the same people every day, being up-to-date with everyone just through "the grapevine"... and being at the same institution at the same time, day in, day out. Deanna is one of my best, best friends, but I somehow managed to not seek out to talk to her for months. (Hi De, if you're reading this later haha) Just spending an hour in her company makes me feel so happy and loved. How could I have forgotten that? Resolution- keep up with Deanna.
Ironically, the lecture I'm chilling in right now is about how relationships work. It's kind of interesting, though for someone who overthinks everything like I do, it's kinda commonsense-ish.
The lecturer just said "the substance of relationships is communication". It's so simple, and so true.
At least we dig each other
So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday
If I turn into another
Dig me out from under what is covering the better part of me
Sing this song
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone
Each other, when everything else is gone..."
Today I had a wonderful morning catching up over a cafe breakfast with my girls. It felt so good. I really am starting to realize how cut off I've been from everyone but Jared... like I'm falling behind them on the road of life, being overtaken by everyone... I really need to keep on top of it. It's such a nice feeling to be back in a group of girls... I even followed Deanna into her AUT lecture, which is where I am now. This morning has made me see just how much I actually miss school... not the classes, obviously, but the atmosphere and the connection with everybody; seeing the same people every day, being up-to-date with everyone just through "the grapevine"... and being at the same institution at the same time, day in, day out. Deanna is one of my best, best friends, but I somehow managed to not seek out to talk to her for months. (Hi De, if you're reading this later haha) Just spending an hour in her company makes me feel so happy and loved. How could I have forgotten that? Resolution- keep up with Deanna.
Ironically, the lecture I'm chilling in right now is about how relationships work. It's kind of interesting, though for someone who overthinks everything like I do, it's kinda commonsense-ish.
The lecturer just said "the substance of relationships is communication". It's so simple, and so true.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Perusal
"Well hey, hey baby it's never too late
When I'm gone you won't remember a thing
But I can't stay and you know I won't wait
I was gone from the very first day
Oh...
You've never been so used as I'm using you
Abusing you, my little decoy
Don't look so blue, you should've seen right through
I'm using you, my little decoy
Oh, I'm not sorry at all...
I won't be sorry at all...
I'd do it over again."
Girls go out window shopping. It's a thing that we do. Even if we can't afford, don't need, or even don't want anything new, we'll go out and look at clothes in shops. It's a fun activity. It's like dressing up dolls, except you're the doll (maybe we're conditioned to do this from childhood, when we're given dolls and shown how to dress them up?)... sometimes we'll even try the clothes on. But the important bit is that even if we're looking, we have no intention of buying them.
Guys don't seem to be able to understand this at all. Maybe that's why girls get accused of being teases, or of leading guys on. A guy catches us looking at him or talking to him in a certain way and as soon as he finds out we're not single, or not interested, we are discarded and labeled a tease. Well, I say "we"... I mean me. It seems to happen to me a lot.
Maybe if guys could be made to see the merits and the fun of window shopping, they'd get this. We're looking at them. We're talking to them. Once in a while maybe we're even flirting with them. But we have no intention of going any further with them. We can't afford to (no spare time or affection), we don't need (aren't single) or want (aren't interested in) a relationship. But if we didn't try boys on for size, we'd never figure out what we really want or need.
I guess where this is really coming from is this: I've just recently realized that, contrary to popular belief, there are a LOT of decent guys in the world. And I mean a lot. You just need to look in the right places. In my tutorials alone there's at least three guys who interest me (one of them only mildly, but still). And I'm lucky enough to be considered attractive to quite a number of boys who come in contact with me (I know it's pretty conceited for me to say that, but I don't feel like being down on myself today, and if I give in to my logical brain, the evidence for this claim is there. Starkly).
Since I've started comparing notes with Jared, I've become disillusioned with the male species. I used to think (or maybe hope) that heterosexual guys could talk to girls with the sole aim of wanting to get to know them, as a friend. As in, with nothing to do with getting into their pants, or hooking up with them, or thinking "damn, she's hot. I'd better talk to her". Jared assures me this is not possible. And as he is a boy, I have to take his word for it.
That being said, it's not just his word. With two of the guys who have been rather obviously interested in me, as soon as I've mentioned a boyfriend they have backed off somewhat.
EXAMPLE ONE: Guy from my ENGLISH101 Tutorial. He was all friendly and very, very obviously keen, but as soon as I mentioned Jared he started sitting somewhere else.
EXAMPLE TWO: Today a guy from my LINGUIST101 Tutorial was talking to me while I was standing waiting for Jared, and by and by he asked me what I was waiting for. "Boy," I said, pointing to where I could see Jared coming up the hill. "Oh, right," he said. "Well, see ya." And he walked off. It was very sudden. It almost made me laugh.
(Now, I'm willing to give in if anyone wants to object to the way I'm reading these situations. I'm fully open to other interpretations. But with my woman's intuition that's how they seem to come across.)
It kind of makes me a bit sad when this happens. I admit freely- I enjoy being noticed and talked to by guys. It makes me feel attractive, and not just physically. Everyone wants to feel like an attractive person, no matter what they say about "I don't need a man" etc. It's also nice to know that I'm attractive to people other than Jared. So it makes me kinda sad when I mention a boyfriend and the other guy immediately loses interest. Would it be so hard for him to continue to talk to me without me being available?
My brother and his wife and Jared and I went to see a comedy show thing today, and one of the comedians went off on a rant that interested me very much. He was talking about how girls complain that all the guys they meet in bars are chauvinistic, horrible pigs. He objected. He got quite agitated actually. He said, "There are guys out there who want to love you! Who want to bring you flowers and think about you and to... to place you on the pedestal you deserve! But they're not the ones you tend to fuck!"
Girls go window shopping. For guys, too. It's just idle perusal. Some guys can be very pleasing to the eye, too. For a little while you can pretend that you do have time and affection, or that you're single, or that you'd like a boyfriend. Just as trying on clothes makes you feel trendy and good-looking, trying on guys makes you feel attractive and appealing. And what girl doesn't want that?
I should really start writing my advice book for guys decoding the female mind...
When I'm gone you won't remember a thing
But I can't stay and you know I won't wait
I was gone from the very first day
Oh...
You've never been so used as I'm using you
Abusing you, my little decoy
Don't look so blue, you should've seen right through
I'm using you, my little decoy
Oh, I'm not sorry at all...
I won't be sorry at all...
I'd do it over again."
Girls go out window shopping. It's a thing that we do. Even if we can't afford, don't need, or even don't want anything new, we'll go out and look at clothes in shops. It's a fun activity. It's like dressing up dolls, except you're the doll (maybe we're conditioned to do this from childhood, when we're given dolls and shown how to dress them up?)... sometimes we'll even try the clothes on. But the important bit is that even if we're looking, we have no intention of buying them.
Guys don't seem to be able to understand this at all. Maybe that's why girls get accused of being teases, or of leading guys on. A guy catches us looking at him or talking to him in a certain way and as soon as he finds out we're not single, or not interested, we are discarded and labeled a tease. Well, I say "we"... I mean me. It seems to happen to me a lot.
Maybe if guys could be made to see the merits and the fun of window shopping, they'd get this. We're looking at them. We're talking to them. Once in a while maybe we're even flirting with them. But we have no intention of going any further with them. We can't afford to (no spare time or affection), we don't need (aren't single) or want (aren't interested in) a relationship. But if we didn't try boys on for size, we'd never figure out what we really want or need.
I guess where this is really coming from is this: I've just recently realized that, contrary to popular belief, there are a LOT of decent guys in the world. And I mean a lot. You just need to look in the right places. In my tutorials alone there's at least three guys who interest me (one of them only mildly, but still). And I'm lucky enough to be considered attractive to quite a number of boys who come in contact with me (I know it's pretty conceited for me to say that, but I don't feel like being down on myself today, and if I give in to my logical brain, the evidence for this claim is there. Starkly).
Since I've started comparing notes with Jared, I've become disillusioned with the male species. I used to think (or maybe hope) that heterosexual guys could talk to girls with the sole aim of wanting to get to know them, as a friend. As in, with nothing to do with getting into their pants, or hooking up with them, or thinking "damn, she's hot. I'd better talk to her". Jared assures me this is not possible. And as he is a boy, I have to take his word for it.
That being said, it's not just his word. With two of the guys who have been rather obviously interested in me, as soon as I've mentioned a boyfriend they have backed off somewhat.
EXAMPLE ONE: Guy from my ENGLISH101 Tutorial. He was all friendly and very, very obviously keen, but as soon as I mentioned Jared he started sitting somewhere else.
EXAMPLE TWO: Today a guy from my LINGUIST101 Tutorial was talking to me while I was standing waiting for Jared, and by and by he asked me what I was waiting for. "Boy," I said, pointing to where I could see Jared coming up the hill. "Oh, right," he said. "Well, see ya." And he walked off. It was very sudden. It almost made me laugh.
(Now, I'm willing to give in if anyone wants to object to the way I'm reading these situations. I'm fully open to other interpretations. But with my woman's intuition that's how they seem to come across.)
It kind of makes me a bit sad when this happens. I admit freely- I enjoy being noticed and talked to by guys. It makes me feel attractive, and not just physically. Everyone wants to feel like an attractive person, no matter what they say about "I don't need a man" etc. It's also nice to know that I'm attractive to people other than Jared. So it makes me kinda sad when I mention a boyfriend and the other guy immediately loses interest. Would it be so hard for him to continue to talk to me without me being available?
My brother and his wife and Jared and I went to see a comedy show thing today, and one of the comedians went off on a rant that interested me very much. He was talking about how girls complain that all the guys they meet in bars are chauvinistic, horrible pigs. He objected. He got quite agitated actually. He said, "There are guys out there who want to love you! Who want to bring you flowers and think about you and to... to place you on the pedestal you deserve! But they're not the ones you tend to fuck!"
Girls go window shopping. For guys, too. It's just idle perusal. Some guys can be very pleasing to the eye, too. For a little while you can pretend that you do have time and affection, or that you're single, or that you'd like a boyfriend. Just as trying on clothes makes you feel trendy and good-looking, trying on guys makes you feel attractive and appealing. And what girl doesn't want that?
I should really start writing my advice book for guys decoding the female mind...
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Purgatory
"The world is a drought when out of love
Please come back to us
You're all of the above
'I'm making a choice to be out of touch.
Leave me be,' He said, he said, he said...
'Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!
Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!'"
I haven't posted for a while... I guess there hasn't really been anything to say. I'd closed that chapter- it was quite a short one I guess. I thought it'd be that easy. Cut the ties. Turn in a new direction. Start a new chapter. I should've known.
It was really weird actually. I was thinking that as I loaded up my blog, and then the latest entry under Danny's blog said something quite similar. That seems to happen to us a lot.
Today I logged into msn for the first time in ages to sort out my mess of a hotmail inbox. There was a message from Shadowboy in it, just a general thing sent out to everyone. He called it Travel Log, and it was just an account of what'd happened to him so far... but reading it made me so... so sad. I suddenly realized that, by cutting the ties I had to him as more than a friend, I'd almost cut him out of my life. Made him someone neutral, normal, unknown. And it hurt. Evidently there are still some sore spots from where I cut the ties, and they haven't healed yet.
So, patience. I must have patience and wait for them to heal. Silly really- I shouldn't've thought that it'd be that fast and easy. I should've listened to you, Danny, when you said time. Twice.
I'm in purgatory. In limbo. Just waiting.
Please come back to us
You're all of the above
'I'm making a choice to be out of touch.
Leave me be,' He said, he said, he said...
'Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!
Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!'"
I haven't posted for a while... I guess there hasn't really been anything to say. I'd closed that chapter- it was quite a short one I guess. I thought it'd be that easy. Cut the ties. Turn in a new direction. Start a new chapter. I should've known.
It was really weird actually. I was thinking that as I loaded up my blog, and then the latest entry under Danny's blog said something quite similar. That seems to happen to us a lot.
Today I logged into msn for the first time in ages to sort out my mess of a hotmail inbox. There was a message from Shadowboy in it, just a general thing sent out to everyone. He called it Travel Log, and it was just an account of what'd happened to him so far... but reading it made me so... so sad. I suddenly realized that, by cutting the ties I had to him as more than a friend, I'd almost cut him out of my life. Made him someone neutral, normal, unknown. And it hurt. Evidently there are still some sore spots from where I cut the ties, and they haven't healed yet.
So, patience. I must have patience and wait for them to heal. Silly really- I shouldn't've thought that it'd be that fast and easy. I should've listened to you, Danny, when you said time. Twice.
I'm in purgatory. In limbo. Just waiting.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Unbound
"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth,it was worth all the while.
It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life."
So much agonizing over such a simple thing. One little kiss on the cheek. And I agonized over it.
He kissed me on the cheek when we came in the door. And with that the spell of worry was broken. It was obviously and ridiculously normal.
I got a bit drunk at the party, actually. It'd been a while. As stupid as this sounds I need to control myself when I'm drunk and try not to be such an idiot, cause I can see myself doing it and it's just not cool. I say really dumb things. And it doesn't work when the people around me aren't drunk at all.
Also I've noticed that when I'm drunk I'm good at things that I'm usually bad at, and bad at things I'm usually good at...
Anyway. It was a really good night. I didn't feel any pangs or any worry at all. Until it was coming up to time to leave. I thought to myself, this is it. This is your last chance to figure this out, to look at him face-to-face and arrange a spot for him in the correct place in your head.
I hugged him. He lifted me off the ground and hugged me tight back. I kissed his cheek and begged him to take care of himself. He said he would. I told him I'd miss him, and he said he'd miss me too. And then we left.
In the car on the way back, I felt sad. I'd said goodbye to him, my Shadowboy. I would never see him in that way again. That's when I knew that I wasn't done yet. If I was sad, I wasn't finished. That's when I realized that was only the introduction. The rest had to be done inside my head. So I sat back and instead of avoiding all the images of He and I together that had haunted me for years, I closed my eyes and stared and stared at them.
I feasted on them until they were all I could see. Then I forced them into long pieces like ribbons, and visualized them as connecting my heart and His. Then I lifted my hands and took up a pair of imaginary scissors. I concentrated on each one individually. He and I. Our held hands, on every occasion they were and every one I'd imagined. I began to cut, as close to my own heart as I could. As cleanly as I could. I didn't watch the ties falling away. I didn't look back. Focus, focus. On to the next. His face close to mine. That look in his eyes that only couples share with each other. Our lips meeting. The scissors snipped. They were very sharp. Focus, last one now. Me and him, alone, intimacy uninterrupted by any other person. Us as lovers, for life. It was hard to look at that one, but I made myself. Focus. Cut the ties that bind. Become unbound.
The scissors met. The ties fell away. I didn't watch them.
I opened my eyes and looked straight over at Jared, filling my heart and soul with the quiet joy that I had my life companion, forever, the one I was meant to be with. Forever. Forever. No pain, no uncertainty. Forever.
A few minutes later I made myself examine my heart, make sure that everyone was in their proper place. It seemed correct, everything seemed in order- Jared filling the romantic like a ray of warm, soft sunlight, and my friends all glittering in the platonic like crystal rainbows. And that's when I saw him. When I had a sudden revelation.
He was still there. But he was in the right place. He mixed in to the platonic with ease, as if he'd never been anywhere else.
It seemed stupid right after the blinding moment of realization, but it was such a huge thing at the time; he was my friend. He could still be my friend. I didn't have to cut him out of my life. He could be my friend. Just like it should have been all along. It was so simple and astonishing that I smiled and almost laughed aloud.
I had the best. The best of all worlds. Unbound friendship... abounding love.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth,it was worth all the while.
It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life."
So much agonizing over such a simple thing. One little kiss on the cheek. And I agonized over it.
He kissed me on the cheek when we came in the door. And with that the spell of worry was broken. It was obviously and ridiculously normal.
I got a bit drunk at the party, actually. It'd been a while. As stupid as this sounds I need to control myself when I'm drunk and try not to be such an idiot, cause I can see myself doing it and it's just not cool. I say really dumb things. And it doesn't work when the people around me aren't drunk at all.
Also I've noticed that when I'm drunk I'm good at things that I'm usually bad at, and bad at things I'm usually good at...
Anyway. It was a really good night. I didn't feel any pangs or any worry at all. Until it was coming up to time to leave. I thought to myself, this is it. This is your last chance to figure this out, to look at him face-to-face and arrange a spot for him in the correct place in your head.
I hugged him. He lifted me off the ground and hugged me tight back. I kissed his cheek and begged him to take care of himself. He said he would. I told him I'd miss him, and he said he'd miss me too. And then we left.
In the car on the way back, I felt sad. I'd said goodbye to him, my Shadowboy. I would never see him in that way again. That's when I knew that I wasn't done yet. If I was sad, I wasn't finished. That's when I realized that was only the introduction. The rest had to be done inside my head. So I sat back and instead of avoiding all the images of He and I together that had haunted me for years, I closed my eyes and stared and stared at them.
I feasted on them until they were all I could see. Then I forced them into long pieces like ribbons, and visualized them as connecting my heart and His. Then I lifted my hands and took up a pair of imaginary scissors. I concentrated on each one individually. He and I. Our held hands, on every occasion they were and every one I'd imagined. I began to cut, as close to my own heart as I could. As cleanly as I could. I didn't watch the ties falling away. I didn't look back. Focus, focus. On to the next. His face close to mine. That look in his eyes that only couples share with each other. Our lips meeting. The scissors snipped. They were very sharp. Focus, last one now. Me and him, alone, intimacy uninterrupted by any other person. Us as lovers, for life. It was hard to look at that one, but I made myself. Focus. Cut the ties that bind. Become unbound.
The scissors met. The ties fell away. I didn't watch them.
I opened my eyes and looked straight over at Jared, filling my heart and soul with the quiet joy that I had my life companion, forever, the one I was meant to be with. Forever. Forever. No pain, no uncertainty. Forever.
A few minutes later I made myself examine my heart, make sure that everyone was in their proper place. It seemed correct, everything seemed in order- Jared filling the romantic like a ray of warm, soft sunlight, and my friends all glittering in the platonic like crystal rainbows. And that's when I saw him. When I had a sudden revelation.
He was still there. But he was in the right place. He mixed in to the platonic with ease, as if he'd never been anywhere else.
It seemed stupid right after the blinding moment of realization, but it was such a huge thing at the time; he was my friend. He could still be my friend. I didn't have to cut him out of my life. He could be my friend. Just like it should have been all along. It was so simple and astonishing that I smiled and almost laughed aloud.
I had the best. The best of all worlds. Unbound friendship... abounding love.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Fury
"It's a cruel thing you'll never know
All the ways I tried
It's a hard thing faking a smile
When I feel like I'm falling apart inside
And now you're gone it's like an echo in my head
And I remember every word you said..."
It was close to seven o'clock at night. I was on the bus on the way home from Uni- what a place to have a mental spasm- and that song came up on my iPod... Robyn, Be Mine. Back when shadow-boy was my obsession that song would make me cry until my heart nearly burst. But when I heard it today something else began to rise in my chest... utter and absolute fury.
I've never felt so purely angry in my life. I don't deal with anger very well. I'm not used to it. Frustration, yes... hurt, yes... regret, yes... but not anger.
So I ran. I got off the bus and I ran through my suburb in the darkness. Like the first time I heard that song, I wanted to scream... this time in a different kind of agony than the first... but I didn't want to scare my neighbours... so, like the first time, I danced. I beat the ground with my feet, I cut the air with my arms, I lashed out at the sky. I spun through my fury.
I stopped when it was getting too late and too close to my house to continue.
How dare he?! How dare shadow-boy still affect me this way when it's been so long, and I've been through so much life, and I've had the most amazing person practically given to me on a plate- it's complete crap! Why?!
I believe that everything happens for a reason... but what the hell is life trying to teach me with this?! I've learned everything that I can from him- what is the point in prolonging this torture, this utter useless hopelessness?
And the worst bit is that it's not even his fault. The only person I can really blame is myself- my mind. My stupid, stupid mind! It's all in my head. The one person whose rejection consistently made me feel like I wasn't good enough. And he doesn't even know. He has no idea.
It's. All. In. My. Head.
All the ways I tried
It's a hard thing faking a smile
When I feel like I'm falling apart inside
And now you're gone it's like an echo in my head
And I remember every word you said..."
It was close to seven o'clock at night. I was on the bus on the way home from Uni- what a place to have a mental spasm- and that song came up on my iPod... Robyn, Be Mine. Back when shadow-boy was my obsession that song would make me cry until my heart nearly burst. But when I heard it today something else began to rise in my chest... utter and absolute fury.
I've never felt so purely angry in my life. I don't deal with anger very well. I'm not used to it. Frustration, yes... hurt, yes... regret, yes... but not anger.
So I ran. I got off the bus and I ran through my suburb in the darkness. Like the first time I heard that song, I wanted to scream... this time in a different kind of agony than the first... but I didn't want to scare my neighbours... so, like the first time, I danced. I beat the ground with my feet, I cut the air with my arms, I lashed out at the sky. I spun through my fury.
I stopped when it was getting too late and too close to my house to continue.
How dare he?! How dare shadow-boy still affect me this way when it's been so long, and I've been through so much life, and I've had the most amazing person practically given to me on a plate- it's complete crap! Why?!
I believe that everything happens for a reason... but what the hell is life trying to teach me with this?! I've learned everything that I can from him- what is the point in prolonging this torture, this utter useless hopelessness?
And the worst bit is that it's not even his fault. The only person I can really blame is myself- my mind. My stupid, stupid mind! It's all in my head. The one person whose rejection consistently made me feel like I wasn't good enough. And he doesn't even know. He has no idea.
It's. All. In. My. Head.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Chapter Two: Stop
"You've got it, you've got it
Some kind of magic
Hypnotic, hypnotic
You're leaving me breathless
I hate this, I hate this
You're not the one I believe in
With God as my witness.
Now when I caught myself I had to stop myself
From saying something that I should've never thought.
Now when I caught myself I had to stop myself
From saying something that I should've never thought of you, of you,
You're pushing and pulling me down to you
But I don't know what I want
No I don't know what I want.
I don't know what I want
But I know it's not you...
Keep pushing and pulling me down
When I know in my heart it's not you."
I don't even know how to start this. It's so stupid and pointless and utterly, utterly sad. But not sad like the previous chapter. Sad like pathetic.
I should know better than to read my old diaries.
A week or so ago I was talking to a friend of mine about a certain problem we both have. I suppose its origin is in our over-developed imaginations, our poets' souls, our elephant's memories for past emotions.
It's the What If.
The wondering what might've happened. With a certain someone. If the stars had all been aligned and it had all worked out the way we wanted at the time.
In the days directly before my Jared, my life, my light and my soulmate, there was a dark tunnel of a teenage love in my life. A boy who- through no fault of his own, because he was almost always direct and honest with me- lived in my heart on and off for three years. From the moment which he first became lodged there his shadow began to fall across me, my love, my mind. And in the last year, this shade of him took on a life of its own... even after the boy had lost that kind of interest in me... even after he kindly, thoughtfully and carefully made this absolutely apparent to me... his shadow continued to take over... to claim territory in my heart until the whole thing was dark and corrupted, until I screamed for release, wanted to rip it out of my chest and escape. Hopeless. My eyes so darkened there was nothing else to see but the shadow. Helpless. Too sick to see any way out or any alternative to this twisted love I had come to hold.
And then, like a candle lighting, like the sun rising, a light appeared. Jared rescued me out of my self-inflicted blindness, lifted me up to the warmth. Showed me what love really is. Gave me my life back, claimed my heart back, healed it. All without even knowing it. I know now what I was always missing. Like a puzzle piece fitting perfectly into the piece next to it, he fit. Like the perfect missing note in a melody, he sang. Like sleep washing over after a long night of sleeplessness, he soothed. He is my soulmate; the one I've waited for through who knows how many past lives. And I wouldn't trade him for the world. I want to get that straight. Whatever else I might say in this entry, it doesn't mean that I'd ever let Jared go. Under any circumstances. Because a life without him would be the most potent living hell imaginable.
And yet... and yet... try as I might, I can't completely let him go. The boy who shadowed my heart for years.
My heart is not his kingdom anymore; it's Jared's. And yet still wonder what it might've been like to be his, without the shadow.
I know he's not the one for me; Jared is. And I know that even if we had been together, it wouldn't've lasted- we were almost too similar, he was almost too much of a kindred sprit. The vibe would've felt wrong. And yet still I wonder what it might've been like to have what I wanted so badly for so long.
Secretly, I never really liked kissing before Jared. It was... boring. Honestly, it really wasn't often that I felt like I really wanted to do it, I just did it because it was expected. I think that's because I'm a very specific person; the only person that I am ever going to feel good kissing is always Jared. And yet still I wonder what it would've been like to kiss him. My shadow boy.
These feelings are on and off, just like when he first appeared in my heart. When they're off they're gone like he never existed. But when they're on they keep me up for hours. Just like tonight. I want to be rid of them completely. I want it to stop. But I know no way how.
This year he's moving to England for a gap year, a working holiday, all on his own. It's been months since I last saw this boy; madness considering he was in my group of friends, a set of people I saw almost every single day last year, and considering that he was one of the people I was closest to for most of that year.
His leaving party is on Friday. He'll be gone for a whole year- it'll be the last time I'm going to see him for quite a while. I want to get these feelings I have finished, over, packed away in a box, taped up and stored in the attic of my mind. I want to never want or have to look at them again.
Jared's coming to this party too. He's finally gotten over his slight jealous streak; though I think he still feels edgy about a few people, and this boy is definitely one of them... and fair enough too, considering what I'm writing here. Again I want to stress that Jared is my soulmate and that I can't live without him: no way in hell, heaven or earth would I swap the two around or do anything to betray or hurt him.
But the problem is that me and this boy have never talked about what happened between us. I think this is because he's not one of those guys who like to talk about their inner feelings, which is horrible for me because that's how I sort things out; through talk. Through action, positive action in a positive direction.
I only ever kissed this boy on the cheek, once. Just once. But lately I keep thinking that I should do it again. Still on the cheek. Still just once more. To kiss goodbye to my memory of him. Goodbye to the last fragments of his shadow. Maybe also to compare kissing his cheek to kissing Jared's... just to make absolutely, positively sure that I'm right about how this boy and I would never have worked out. But I'm afraid that someone will see and take it the wrong way... one of my other friends, or, God forbid, Jared... and I'm scared that this boy might take it the wrong way too. I of all people know that you can never count on what you think you know that someone's thinking.
I know it's a bad idea. But only mostly.
I need closure, but I don't know what to do.
Some kind of magic
Hypnotic, hypnotic
You're leaving me breathless
I hate this, I hate this
You're not the one I believe in
With God as my witness.
Now when I caught myself I had to stop myself
From saying something that I should've never thought.
Now when I caught myself I had to stop myself
From saying something that I should've never thought of you, of you,
You're pushing and pulling me down to you
But I don't know what I want
No I don't know what I want.
I don't know what I want
But I know it's not you...
Keep pushing and pulling me down
When I know in my heart it's not you."
I don't even know how to start this. It's so stupid and pointless and utterly, utterly sad. But not sad like the previous chapter. Sad like pathetic.
I should know better than to read my old diaries.
A week or so ago I was talking to a friend of mine about a certain problem we both have. I suppose its origin is in our over-developed imaginations, our poets' souls, our elephant's memories for past emotions.
It's the What If.
The wondering what might've happened. With a certain someone. If the stars had all been aligned and it had all worked out the way we wanted at the time.
In the days directly before my Jared, my life, my light and my soulmate, there was a dark tunnel of a teenage love in my life. A boy who- through no fault of his own, because he was almost always direct and honest with me- lived in my heart on and off for three years. From the moment which he first became lodged there his shadow began to fall across me, my love, my mind. And in the last year, this shade of him took on a life of its own... even after the boy had lost that kind of interest in me... even after he kindly, thoughtfully and carefully made this absolutely apparent to me... his shadow continued to take over... to claim territory in my heart until the whole thing was dark and corrupted, until I screamed for release, wanted to rip it out of my chest and escape. Hopeless. My eyes so darkened there was nothing else to see but the shadow. Helpless. Too sick to see any way out or any alternative to this twisted love I had come to hold.
And then, like a candle lighting, like the sun rising, a light appeared. Jared rescued me out of my self-inflicted blindness, lifted me up to the warmth. Showed me what love really is. Gave me my life back, claimed my heart back, healed it. All without even knowing it. I know now what I was always missing. Like a puzzle piece fitting perfectly into the piece next to it, he fit. Like the perfect missing note in a melody, he sang. Like sleep washing over after a long night of sleeplessness, he soothed. He is my soulmate; the one I've waited for through who knows how many past lives. And I wouldn't trade him for the world. I want to get that straight. Whatever else I might say in this entry, it doesn't mean that I'd ever let Jared go. Under any circumstances. Because a life without him would be the most potent living hell imaginable.
And yet... and yet... try as I might, I can't completely let him go. The boy who shadowed my heart for years.
My heart is not his kingdom anymore; it's Jared's. And yet still wonder what it might've been like to be his, without the shadow.
I know he's not the one for me; Jared is. And I know that even if we had been together, it wouldn't've lasted- we were almost too similar, he was almost too much of a kindred sprit. The vibe would've felt wrong. And yet still I wonder what it might've been like to have what I wanted so badly for so long.
Secretly, I never really liked kissing before Jared. It was... boring. Honestly, it really wasn't often that I felt like I really wanted to do it, I just did it because it was expected. I think that's because I'm a very specific person; the only person that I am ever going to feel good kissing is always Jared. And yet still I wonder what it would've been like to kiss him. My shadow boy.
These feelings are on and off, just like when he first appeared in my heart. When they're off they're gone like he never existed. But when they're on they keep me up for hours. Just like tonight. I want to be rid of them completely. I want it to stop. But I know no way how.
This year he's moving to England for a gap year, a working holiday, all on his own. It's been months since I last saw this boy; madness considering he was in my group of friends, a set of people I saw almost every single day last year, and considering that he was one of the people I was closest to for most of that year.
His leaving party is on Friday. He'll be gone for a whole year- it'll be the last time I'm going to see him for quite a while. I want to get these feelings I have finished, over, packed away in a box, taped up and stored in the attic of my mind. I want to never want or have to look at them again.
Jared's coming to this party too. He's finally gotten over his slight jealous streak; though I think he still feels edgy about a few people, and this boy is definitely one of them... and fair enough too, considering what I'm writing here. Again I want to stress that Jared is my soulmate and that I can't live without him: no way in hell, heaven or earth would I swap the two around or do anything to betray or hurt him.
But the problem is that me and this boy have never talked about what happened between us. I think this is because he's not one of those guys who like to talk about their inner feelings, which is horrible for me because that's how I sort things out; through talk. Through action, positive action in a positive direction.
I only ever kissed this boy on the cheek, once. Just once. But lately I keep thinking that I should do it again. Still on the cheek. Still just once more. To kiss goodbye to my memory of him. Goodbye to the last fragments of his shadow. Maybe also to compare kissing his cheek to kissing Jared's... just to make absolutely, positively sure that I'm right about how this boy and I would never have worked out. But I'm afraid that someone will see and take it the wrong way... one of my other friends, or, God forbid, Jared... and I'm scared that this boy might take it the wrong way too. I of all people know that you can never count on what you think you know that someone's thinking.
I know it's a bad idea. But only mostly.
I need closure, but I don't know what to do.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Breathing
"You...
You believed ...
You believed in movements none could see.
You believed in me...
I'm alright now...
It's time for us to let you go."
With the absence of many of her possessions, and the presence of so much of her love, I feel stronger.
I'll love and I'll live for her. I'll play piano and I'll sing. I'll help others, I'll be a shoulder to lean upon. I'll be thoughtful and loving and kind. I'll do my best to be her, so the world isn't robbed of another wonderful spirit.
I have big shoes to fill. A big soul to fill. But I'll do my best.
I love you, Nana. I'll see you later.
You believed ...
You believed in movements none could see.
You believed in me...
I'm alright now...
It's time for us to let you go."
With the absence of many of her possessions, and the presence of so much of her love, I feel stronger.
I'll love and I'll live for her. I'll play piano and I'll sing. I'll help others, I'll be a shoulder to lean upon. I'll be thoughtful and loving and kind. I'll do my best to be her, so the world isn't robbed of another wonderful spirit.
I have big shoes to fill. A big soul to fill. But I'll do my best.
I love you, Nana. I'll see you later.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Atmosphere
"Since you've been gone I've been lost inside
Tried and failed as we walked by the riverside
I wish you could see the love in her eyes
The best friend that eluded you lost in time
Burned alive in the heat of a grieving mind
But what can I say now?
And it couldn't be more wrong cause there's no one there
Unmistakably lost and without a care
Did we lose all the love that we could have shared
And it's wearing me down, and it's turning me round
And I can't find a way now to find it out
Where are you when I need you?
Are you there?"
I should know by now that movies and tv shows are nothing like real life. But once again real life has gotten sick of being ignored and has come back to bite me.
On screen when someone dies, it's simple. They die, you grieve, there's a funeral and from that you get closure. Simple. Done and dusted. In real life it's nothing like that.
But that's what I was expecting. I went to Nana's funeral fully expecting that this would close the book; that I could start a new chapter of this life in total security, looking forward, feeling new. And I truly believe that I could've...
The problem is that nobody else was thinking like that. Everyone else is expecting their grief to carry on for ages, and so it will...
I've become a great believer in the school of thought that says that the mind controls everything. If you think you're recovering from a disease, for example, that can go a long way towards making you recover.
I'm a planner. I plan out my week, my month, my year, and that makes me feel like I have a purpose in life, that I'm going somewhere. Because if I didn't feel that then I'd crash. My plans are the only thing that keep me sane. And so I get upset when something or someone happens to upset my plan.
So I planned to feel better after the funeral. I planned to make a fresh start when Uni started again. I planned to look forward, to move on, not to forget Nana but to forget the pain, because she wasn't feeling it anymore. But other people keep screwing it up.
It's not really my elders' fault... I know they have to sort out the legal crap, her will and her possessions need to go somewhere... they do have to think about her all the time. But nobody else seems to think like I do.
This is going to sound so horrible and tactless, but I'm sick of thinking about it. I'm sick of everyone thinking about it. Don't they understand that life has to go on? Don't they know that the faster they move on the better they'll feel?
And even if they can't stop thinking about her... I just wish they wouldn't keep mentioning her to me. "Oh, Nana would've loved that..." "Nana would've been so pleased/so proud/so tickled about that"... Would've, would've, WOULD'VE. The plain fact is that she's gone. We all know this. Why do we have to keep reminding ourselves of it? Why does everyone feel the need to do that?
If they're going to keep doing that, I kind of wish they'd all just leave me alone.
And yet I know all this is me acting incredibly selfishly. And I hate it.
I don't know what to do. I'm so impatient for life to go back to normal. And when I leave this house it nearly is. Nearly. But the instant I get back the weight of the family grief descends upon me like an avalanche.
I think what I'm trying to say here is that I'm fine. All the denial and the heartache and the other assorted crap that people usually have to deal with when someone they love dies... I've dealt with it. I should be fine... but I feel like other people aren't letting me get over it.
Tried and failed as we walked by the riverside
I wish you could see the love in her eyes
The best friend that eluded you lost in time
Burned alive in the heat of a grieving mind
But what can I say now?
And it couldn't be more wrong cause there's no one there
Unmistakably lost and without a care
Did we lose all the love that we could have shared
And it's wearing me down, and it's turning me round
And I can't find a way now to find it out
Where are you when I need you?
Are you there?"
I should know by now that movies and tv shows are nothing like real life. But once again real life has gotten sick of being ignored and has come back to bite me.
On screen when someone dies, it's simple. They die, you grieve, there's a funeral and from that you get closure. Simple. Done and dusted. In real life it's nothing like that.
But that's what I was expecting. I went to Nana's funeral fully expecting that this would close the book; that I could start a new chapter of this life in total security, looking forward, feeling new. And I truly believe that I could've...
The problem is that nobody else was thinking like that. Everyone else is expecting their grief to carry on for ages, and so it will...
I've become a great believer in the school of thought that says that the mind controls everything. If you think you're recovering from a disease, for example, that can go a long way towards making you recover.
I'm a planner. I plan out my week, my month, my year, and that makes me feel like I have a purpose in life, that I'm going somewhere. Because if I didn't feel that then I'd crash. My plans are the only thing that keep me sane. And so I get upset when something or someone happens to upset my plan.
So I planned to feel better after the funeral. I planned to make a fresh start when Uni started again. I planned to look forward, to move on, not to forget Nana but to forget the pain, because she wasn't feeling it anymore. But other people keep screwing it up.
It's not really my elders' fault... I know they have to sort out the legal crap, her will and her possessions need to go somewhere... they do have to think about her all the time. But nobody else seems to think like I do.
This is going to sound so horrible and tactless, but I'm sick of thinking about it. I'm sick of everyone thinking about it. Don't they understand that life has to go on? Don't they know that the faster they move on the better they'll feel?
And even if they can't stop thinking about her... I just wish they wouldn't keep mentioning her to me. "Oh, Nana would've loved that..." "Nana would've been so pleased/so proud/so tickled about that"... Would've, would've, WOULD'VE. The plain fact is that she's gone. We all know this. Why do we have to keep reminding ourselves of it? Why does everyone feel the need to do that?
If they're going to keep doing that, I kind of wish they'd all just leave me alone.
And yet I know all this is me acting incredibly selfishly. And I hate it.
I don't know what to do. I'm so impatient for life to go back to normal. And when I leave this house it nearly is. Nearly. But the instant I get back the weight of the family grief descends upon me like an avalanche.
I think what I'm trying to say here is that I'm fine. All the denial and the heartache and the other assorted crap that people usually have to deal with when someone they love dies... I've dealt with it. I should be fine... but I feel like other people aren't letting me get over it.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Oblivion
"Why? Tell me the reasons why
Try, still I don't understand
Will I ever feel this again?
Blue sky, I'll meet you in the end..."
My Nana died on Thursday at 4.30pm.
As I walked through with the rest of my family to say goodbye to her, I turned my head to look out the ranch slider. The afternoon sun hit me full on my face, and it filled up my eyes with warm golden light. My first thought was what a beautiful afternoon...
When I walked into her room my eyes first fell onto my Mum. She was an absolute mess. I went to cuddle her. Then I looked at Nana. But she wasn't there.
Her body lay there like... an object. An absence of life. I couldn't even look at it- not because I was afraid, or even sad. Just because there didn't seem any point. She wasn't there. She was everywhere... everywhere else. In the afternoon sun in my eyes. In the dust motes in the air. In the tears of every person in the room.
I let go of Jared's hand. I walked over to the body on the bed and laid my hand on its arm. I looked into the sun, and then I spoke. "I just want to say, thank you. For being such a wonderful Nana. And for giving us this lovely... lovely afternoon."
I left the room, straight-backed, as dignified as I could be. Jared followed. I made it all the way to the deserted lounge, and then I was immobilized by the swelling of terror and grief. I felt like screaming, shouting, doing something to show the world some part of how horrible it was going to be without her with us. Instead I choked it down, stifled the cry, let it stream out of me in tears and trembling. Jared and I held each other as the despair rained down from the ceiling of the house my Nana had lived in since the age of sixteen.
We went for a walk down to the end of the street, to revel in the beauty and promise of the evening Nana gave us. Peace began to enter my heart with the cold air in my lungs, and I looked up to the sky, right into her eyes. She's where she belongs.
Try, still I don't understand
Will I ever feel this again?
Blue sky, I'll meet you in the end..."
My Nana died on Thursday at 4.30pm.
As I walked through with the rest of my family to say goodbye to her, I turned my head to look out the ranch slider. The afternoon sun hit me full on my face, and it filled up my eyes with warm golden light. My first thought was what a beautiful afternoon...
When I walked into her room my eyes first fell onto my Mum. She was an absolute mess. I went to cuddle her. Then I looked at Nana. But she wasn't there.
Her body lay there like... an object. An absence of life. I couldn't even look at it- not because I was afraid, or even sad. Just because there didn't seem any point. She wasn't there. She was everywhere... everywhere else. In the afternoon sun in my eyes. In the dust motes in the air. In the tears of every person in the room.
I let go of Jared's hand. I walked over to the body on the bed and laid my hand on its arm. I looked into the sun, and then I spoke. "I just want to say, thank you. For being such a wonderful Nana. And for giving us this lovely... lovely afternoon."
I left the room, straight-backed, as dignified as I could be. Jared followed. I made it all the way to the deserted lounge, and then I was immobilized by the swelling of terror and grief. I felt like screaming, shouting, doing something to show the world some part of how horrible it was going to be without her with us. Instead I choked it down, stifled the cry, let it stream out of me in tears and trembling. Jared and I held each other as the despair rained down from the ceiling of the house my Nana had lived in since the age of sixteen.
We went for a walk down to the end of the street, to revel in the beauty and promise of the evening Nana gave us. Peace began to enter my heart with the cold air in my lungs, and I looked up to the sky, right into her eyes. She's where she belongs.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Glimmer
"And if it ends today
I'll still say that you shine brighter than anyone..."
Things that have made me smile this week:
The convenience store on K Road. On the static sign above the shop it says, "ONE STOP CONVENIENCE!". On the flashing neon sign on the window it says "ONE STOP CONVENIANCE!".
The manhole on Wellersley Street with part of the white road marking line painted over it, that's been accidentally put back into the road so that that portion of the white line is at a right angle to the rest of the line on the road.
The hippie guy in his brightly coloured psychedelic t-shirt, meditating in between the roots of a huge tree in Albert Park. I wish I'd gone to chat with him!
My bright blue stockings.
Waving at Danny across the park, awkwardly as I had part of a chelsea bun in each hand...
Craccum; I thought it'd be some gay little newsletter thing, but it's absolutely fantastically mad.
"Find Biker Girls
Meet Local Biker Girls Near You. View Profiles 100% Free. Join Now!"- proof that everybody needs love...
Rise Against playing one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Getting rather pummelled at said concert and loving it.
Realizing that after I hand in all my stupid essays, I have two weeks holiday starting next monday.
Nana coming home from the hospital; even though I can't go and hug her as I have a cold.
Resolution: When I go back to Uni, everytime I see someone awesome or think "I should talk to that person", I will.
I will ask the girl selling newspapers on the corner of Victoria Street whether they're supposed to shout like oldschool paper boys.
I will talk to the bus driver about whether they enjoy their job.
I will ask my tutors how they became tutors.
I'm tired of being aloof.
I'll still say that you shine brighter than anyone..."
Things that have made me smile this week:
The convenience store on K Road. On the static sign above the shop it says, "ONE STOP CONVENIENCE!". On the flashing neon sign on the window it says "ONE STOP CONVENIANCE!".
The manhole on Wellersley Street with part of the white road marking line painted over it, that's been accidentally put back into the road so that that portion of the white line is at a right angle to the rest of the line on the road.
The hippie guy in his brightly coloured psychedelic t-shirt, meditating in between the roots of a huge tree in Albert Park. I wish I'd gone to chat with him!
My bright blue stockings.
Waving at Danny across the park, awkwardly as I had part of a chelsea bun in each hand...
Craccum; I thought it'd be some gay little newsletter thing, but it's absolutely fantastically mad.
"Find Biker Girls
Meet Local Biker Girls Near You. View Profiles 100% Free. Join Now!"- proof that everybody needs love...
Rise Against playing one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Getting rather pummelled at said concert and loving it.
Realizing that after I hand in all my stupid essays, I have two weeks holiday starting next monday.
Nana coming home from the hospital; even though I can't go and hug her as I have a cold.
Resolution: When I go back to Uni, everytime I see someone awesome or think "I should talk to that person", I will.
I will ask the girl selling newspapers on the corner of Victoria Street whether they're supposed to shout like oldschool paper boys.
I will talk to the bus driver about whether they enjoy their job.
I will ask my tutors how they became tutors.
I'm tired of being aloof.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Syncopation
"I'm just a face in the crowd
Nothing to worry about
Not even trying to stand out
I'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller
And I've got nothing to say
Its all been taken away
I just behave and obey
I'm afraid I'm starting to fade away..."
It's so beautiful and sunny outside. Hot, too, if those builders in their shorts are anything to go by. It's crazy to think that about a week and a half ago there was just concrete in the back yard... then, over the course of a day, the framing for the first floor went up... then, just last friday, we came home and the second floor was up too, and the framing for that. It's all happened so fast, it makes me wonder what takes so long when a house is built... Dad says the plumbing and the electricity, and the furnishing, and things like that.
Anyway, it's so beautiful and sunny outside, but inside this house it's freezing. Or maybe it's just me? I've had to move my computer out to the lounge because my room is an icebox. I'll need the electric blanket on my bed soon. And it's still March!
I'm so annoyed with the amount of work I have to do. I've got a written assignment, a 1500 word essay, a sight-singing assessment and a close reading test all on the go all at once this week. I suppose I should've started all this stuff earlier, but nobody told me to. I guess this is my first taste of how Uni is different from school.
But I can't even say that's why I haven't been blogging or commenting or facebooking or beboing or any of that rubbish. I'm constantly very much in danger of making Jared my whole world, forgetting there is more to life, there are more friends and there's more work and other things to do. I have to discipline myself. But even the most time we two can spend together doesn't feel like enough. I'm not sure what to do about it.
My parents were away all weekend down in Christchurch with Meredith and Phil (my sister and her partner) for a much-needed break from the stresses of having a dying mother...
...anyway. Mum said I could have Jared over to stay the weekend, which was astounding; she's very paranoid about no-sex-before-marriage and all that jazz... but she seems to trust us. Which makes me feel bad as we'd already violated her wishes in that respect. But it doesn't matter, really... Jared is my soulmate. We will get married, we just can't afford to right now. It's all just a matter of time.
It was really fun. It was like a little taste of the life we'll have together when we finally save enough to go flatting or buy our own house. It seems strange in this day and age what with career women and whatnot but I have a real housewife-y streak in me- I love cooking for Jared, or with him. I get really excited when I think about future meals and things, and about making the house look nice. Even cleaning doesn't seem so bad when I'm doing it for him. Which I can tell is going to come in handy when we're living together.
I went in to visit Nana on Friday morning and she was so pleased to see me, it was very warm fuzzies. She seems a lot better after going through a hell of a lot of pain because of this operation they gave her to try and prolong her life. We were having a lovely peaceful time until my Uncle Richard showed up.
Richard's a pastor in his family's church. I'm not sure if anyone reading knows this, but my family is really quite Christian... my personal close family is the least religious of the bunch, and Auntie Christine (my mum's sister) and Uncle Richard's bunch are the most.
Anyway, he showed up in Nana's hospital room, in "pastor" mode, and started talking to her about death. He was asking her how she felt about it and going on about "a better place" and "where you belong", and every so often- twice in the space of about twenty minutes- he would notice I was quiet, elbow me in the ribs and say, "Pretty deep stuff eh Sheen!" Nana told him I was working things (spiritual beliefs) out myself, and I said that I'd rather figure it out myself than trust what anyone else fed me, and he said fair enough; but in true Christian style, he decided in his mind that this made me an Athiest, and showed me this little trick with his watch, saying "if I threw all the components of this watch up into the air, how many times would it take for the pieces to fall back into the shape of a watch?", which is supposed to say how could the world have come about by chance. I am not an Athiest!
Then, when I got up to go put my coffee cup in the rubbish bin, he shuffled over and took my place sitting right next to Nana, and she asked him to pray for her before he left. So he took her hand and turned his back towards me- a true cold shoulder. As if me joining in on this prayer would poison it or corrupt it. When he finally left I was in tears.
Lately I've been feeling as if I've reached an age where nobody- least of all me- knows quite what to do with me or how to behave around me. I am an unknown entity. Am I an adult? A child? Do I belong to a religion or not? Am I a friend or an enemy? Do I have full responsibility over myself or can I let others make decisions for me? Who are my friends? Who is my family?
The whole world wants to define me, and I evade its grasp- not because I don't want to be defined, but because I'm not finished yet. Let me do it myself. Don't force me into a mold of someone I will be sick of in five years' time.
I just saw the wood for the roof supports being delivered. Soon the skeleton of the house, its body, will be finished. And then the complicated stuff will begin.
For seventeen years I've been making the skeleton of myself, growing it, letting the plumbers and the electricians and the interior decoraters run riot, swap seats, have food fights, throw parties. Now maybe it's time to sit them all down and get to work on who I really want to be.
Nothing to worry about
Not even trying to stand out
I'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller
And I've got nothing to say
Its all been taken away
I just behave and obey
I'm afraid I'm starting to fade away..."
It's so beautiful and sunny outside. Hot, too, if those builders in their shorts are anything to go by. It's crazy to think that about a week and a half ago there was just concrete in the back yard... then, over the course of a day, the framing for the first floor went up... then, just last friday, we came home and the second floor was up too, and the framing for that. It's all happened so fast, it makes me wonder what takes so long when a house is built... Dad says the plumbing and the electricity, and the furnishing, and things like that.
Anyway, it's so beautiful and sunny outside, but inside this house it's freezing. Or maybe it's just me? I've had to move my computer out to the lounge because my room is an icebox. I'll need the electric blanket on my bed soon. And it's still March!
I'm so annoyed with the amount of work I have to do. I've got a written assignment, a 1500 word essay, a sight-singing assessment and a close reading test all on the go all at once this week. I suppose I should've started all this stuff earlier, but nobody told me to. I guess this is my first taste of how Uni is different from school.
But I can't even say that's why I haven't been blogging or commenting or facebooking or beboing or any of that rubbish. I'm constantly very much in danger of making Jared my whole world, forgetting there is more to life, there are more friends and there's more work and other things to do. I have to discipline myself. But even the most time we two can spend together doesn't feel like enough. I'm not sure what to do about it.
My parents were away all weekend down in Christchurch with Meredith and Phil (my sister and her partner) for a much-needed break from the stresses of having a dying mother...
...anyway. Mum said I could have Jared over to stay the weekend, which was astounding; she's very paranoid about no-sex-before-marriage and all that jazz... but she seems to trust us. Which makes me feel bad as we'd already violated her wishes in that respect. But it doesn't matter, really... Jared is my soulmate. We will get married, we just can't afford to right now. It's all just a matter of time.
It was really fun. It was like a little taste of the life we'll have together when we finally save enough to go flatting or buy our own house. It seems strange in this day and age what with career women and whatnot but I have a real housewife-y streak in me- I love cooking for Jared, or with him. I get really excited when I think about future meals and things, and about making the house look nice. Even cleaning doesn't seem so bad when I'm doing it for him. Which I can tell is going to come in handy when we're living together.
I went in to visit Nana on Friday morning and she was so pleased to see me, it was very warm fuzzies. She seems a lot better after going through a hell of a lot of pain because of this operation they gave her to try and prolong her life. We were having a lovely peaceful time until my Uncle Richard showed up.
Richard's a pastor in his family's church. I'm not sure if anyone reading knows this, but my family is really quite Christian... my personal close family is the least religious of the bunch, and Auntie Christine (my mum's sister) and Uncle Richard's bunch are the most.
Anyway, he showed up in Nana's hospital room, in "pastor" mode, and started talking to her about death. He was asking her how she felt about it and going on about "a better place" and "where you belong", and every so often- twice in the space of about twenty minutes- he would notice I was quiet, elbow me in the ribs and say, "Pretty deep stuff eh Sheen!" Nana told him I was working things (spiritual beliefs) out myself, and I said that I'd rather figure it out myself than trust what anyone else fed me, and he said fair enough; but in true Christian style, he decided in his mind that this made me an Athiest, and showed me this little trick with his watch, saying "if I threw all the components of this watch up into the air, how many times would it take for the pieces to fall back into the shape of a watch?", which is supposed to say how could the world have come about by chance. I am not an Athiest!
Then, when I got up to go put my coffee cup in the rubbish bin, he shuffled over and took my place sitting right next to Nana, and she asked him to pray for her before he left. So he took her hand and turned his back towards me- a true cold shoulder. As if me joining in on this prayer would poison it or corrupt it. When he finally left I was in tears.
Lately I've been feeling as if I've reached an age where nobody- least of all me- knows quite what to do with me or how to behave around me. I am an unknown entity. Am I an adult? A child? Do I belong to a religion or not? Am I a friend or an enemy? Do I have full responsibility over myself or can I let others make decisions for me? Who are my friends? Who is my family?
The whole world wants to define me, and I evade its grasp- not because I don't want to be defined, but because I'm not finished yet. Let me do it myself. Don't force me into a mold of someone I will be sick of in five years' time.
I just saw the wood for the roof supports being delivered. Soon the skeleton of the house, its body, will be finished. And then the complicated stuff will begin.
For seventeen years I've been making the skeleton of myself, growing it, letting the plumbers and the electricians and the interior decoraters run riot, swap seats, have food fights, throw parties. Now maybe it's time to sit them all down and get to work on who I really want to be.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Insomnia
"Tell me where our time went, and if it was time well spent
Just don't let me fall asleep feeling empty again
Cause I feel I might break
And I feel I can't take this
Tonight I'll lie awake, feeling empty..."
I can't go through this another night, I surely can't.
Tonight's even worse because there's nobody for me to talk to.
I really should know better than to watch Grey's Anatomy when I have a relative in hospital.
Tonight there was the story of an old couple, where the wife had had multiple operations on a tumor in her brain; so many that every time she went in to have another one, the couple would say "goodbye darling" "goodbye my love"; and when she came back out they'd say hello again.
The wife signed a do-not-resuscitate form, and the husband agreed. But of course, this being Grey's, she didn't come through the surgery, and the husband wouldn't let her go... he continued to keep her heart beating just by pressing on her chest. He said, "I can't let her go. I can't be the one to let her go."
I know the doctors are doing everything they can for my Nana. They're trying to get her well enough to come home; since she can't move herself on her bed at present, and she's too heavy for Mum to move, she has to stay in hospital and get stronger. But... what if something happens in hospital? What if she dies? How can I know, knowing they know she's not going to live that much longer, that they'll do all they can to keep her alive? Is there even any point?
And if she does get well enough to come home, and she dies here... wouldn't she have been better off in the hospital? Couldn't they have done something? Again, is there even any point?
I should know better than to torture myself with "what if". To worry about things that I can't do anything about. But it's me... of course I think these things.
I don't understand how day can be so easy to exist in and night so hard. What is it about the dark and the quiet that brings out the bad feelings in me? In us?
How must Nana be feeling, all alone in that hospital ward? I would hate it. I would want to come home. It's not cold in the hospital, not overly, but it makes me shiver... and the instant I'm alone, it makes me shake. I would hate it. So dark, so cold. So alone. So quiet.
One of the things I fear most in this wide world is silence. I'm terrified of going deaf- not an irrational fear considering the gigs I've played and the music I've listened to. As long as I could still hear I could handle any other sense being lost. But if I lost my ability to listen... if my life was consumed by silence... to never hear my beloved's voice again or listen to him coaxing beautiful sounds out of his instrument, or the wind in the trees, or the sound of John Petrucci shredding with such soul, or the piercing cry of two voices in perfect harmony, or the swish of my beautiful girls in ball gowns, the hum of excited talk, the sound of my Nana's piano, though slightly flat, still giving me a way to express my soul. My whole soul's expression is through sound.
I don't know where I'm going with this ridiculous ramble. I only know that I can't do anything else... I can't distract myself with the rest of the internet, with facebook or bebo, or hotmail or msn, or internet games or blog sites or online comics... or with the Sims or designing houses, or thinking about my future wedding (which is what I usually do when I'm upset). I can't settle on a song to listen to or a book to read. And even if I did have someone to talk to I have no idea what I'd say.
I can't let her go. I could never be the one to let her go.
Just don't let me fall asleep feeling empty again
Cause I feel I might break
And I feel I can't take this
Tonight I'll lie awake, feeling empty..."
I can't go through this another night, I surely can't.
Tonight's even worse because there's nobody for me to talk to.
I really should know better than to watch Grey's Anatomy when I have a relative in hospital.
Tonight there was the story of an old couple, where the wife had had multiple operations on a tumor in her brain; so many that every time she went in to have another one, the couple would say "goodbye darling" "goodbye my love"; and when she came back out they'd say hello again.
The wife signed a do-not-resuscitate form, and the husband agreed. But of course, this being Grey's, she didn't come through the surgery, and the husband wouldn't let her go... he continued to keep her heart beating just by pressing on her chest. He said, "I can't let her go. I can't be the one to let her go."
I know the doctors are doing everything they can for my Nana. They're trying to get her well enough to come home; since she can't move herself on her bed at present, and she's too heavy for Mum to move, she has to stay in hospital and get stronger. But... what if something happens in hospital? What if she dies? How can I know, knowing they know she's not going to live that much longer, that they'll do all they can to keep her alive? Is there even any point?
And if she does get well enough to come home, and she dies here... wouldn't she have been better off in the hospital? Couldn't they have done something? Again, is there even any point?
I should know better than to torture myself with "what if". To worry about things that I can't do anything about. But it's me... of course I think these things.
I don't understand how day can be so easy to exist in and night so hard. What is it about the dark and the quiet that brings out the bad feelings in me? In us?
How must Nana be feeling, all alone in that hospital ward? I would hate it. I would want to come home. It's not cold in the hospital, not overly, but it makes me shiver... and the instant I'm alone, it makes me shake. I would hate it. So dark, so cold. So alone. So quiet.
One of the things I fear most in this wide world is silence. I'm terrified of going deaf- not an irrational fear considering the gigs I've played and the music I've listened to. As long as I could still hear I could handle any other sense being lost. But if I lost my ability to listen... if my life was consumed by silence... to never hear my beloved's voice again or listen to him coaxing beautiful sounds out of his instrument, or the wind in the trees, or the sound of John Petrucci shredding with such soul, or the piercing cry of two voices in perfect harmony, or the swish of my beautiful girls in ball gowns, the hum of excited talk, the sound of my Nana's piano, though slightly flat, still giving me a way to express my soul. My whole soul's expression is through sound.
I don't know where I'm going with this ridiculous ramble. I only know that I can't do anything else... I can't distract myself with the rest of the internet, with facebook or bebo, or hotmail or msn, or internet games or blog sites or online comics... or with the Sims or designing houses, or thinking about my future wedding (which is what I usually do when I'm upset). I can't settle on a song to listen to or a book to read. And even if I did have someone to talk to I have no idea what I'd say.
I can't let her go. I could never be the one to let her go.
Chapter One: Inevitability
"Spinning round and round it goes,
I can't let up, I can't let go,
Out of control, my wheels in constant motion."
My Nana and I are very close. She's about the only person in my whole family who I feel connected with; the only person I never get angry at or frustrated with. A kindred spirit in my family full of christians, drama queens and hypocrites.
A few years ago she had breast cancer. Luckily the doctors were able to operate and they removed one of her breasts, annihilating the cancer. At the time the only thing that worried me about it was that it was possible my mum, my sister or I could get it in the future; it might be hereditary.
A few weeks ago Nana started complaining of pains in her chest. We took her to the doctor, who sent her to hospital to get scans and things and sent us home with pain drugs, and we settled down to wait for the results.
Then the pain developed into something else. Nana started having difficulty breathing. So we took her to the doctor again, who diagnosed fluid in the lungs and sent us home with drugs for clearing unnecessary fluid in the body.
My Nana and I are the same. We hate taking pills.
When the breathing problem didn't get better, we went back to the doctor a third time. He acknowledged there was something else wrong and packed her off to hospital. They did more scans and x-rays and things. They couldn't do the scan they wanted to because they had to put dyes through her kidneys and they were too dehydrated from those pills the doctor gave her last time, so we had to wait a while. But they finally got around to it.
The fluid in my Nana's lungs has cancer cells in it. They've also migrated into a bone in the front of her chest. The doctors can operate on the bone and slow down the growth of the cancer, but they can't cure her. They can't make it go away. And they can't yet say how long she has left. Dad thinks it could be up to three months. I remember my heart stopping when he said that. Three months.
This isn't right. She's been around forever. She has to be here for my sister's wedding, for my wedding. For the birth of her first blood great-grandchild. For my graduation. For my life...
When I walked into the hospital today I felt awful. I really hate hospitals... they make me feel nauseous, but not in my stomach, in my heart. It's like all the pain and worry and sadness that's gone on inside that building has somehow seeped into the walls and the lino floors, the doors, the elevators. I know that good things sometimes happen in hospitals too... people do get better, babies are born... but to me, and especially today, a hospital is a hotel for the dying.
Nana is so weak. It's just... so weird to see her like this. Her mind is sharp as ever, but her body is letting her down... she can't walk, she can't even shuffle up in the bed by herself. Every movement causes her pain. Her voice is so quiet and wavery... not that she was a loud person before, but she has always had a firm, strong voice. She's so tired and sleepy all the time... she said "I just want to sleep". I don't know if I have words to sum up how different she is, except for this: she's dying. And there's nothing we can do about it.
Every time I speak to her I think "this is one of the last times I'll say this"... I shouldn't, I should stop myself because it just upsets me, but it's true. It's true.
The day I found out we were losing her, I didn't want to think about it- I still don't. If I close my eyes I'll start thinking about her, but if people can just leave me alone, not touch me, not hug me, just let me sit and stare... it's like I can slow down time. That night I didn't want to sleep. I was afraid of dreaming, or thinking, or waking up and forgetting. I stayed up till 4am deliberately not thinking. I just want to escape. Get me out of this world gone mad.
Last night was okay because I got to snuggle down in the arms of my beloved, but tonight will be another sleepless one.
I don't want to sleep. Nana can have my unused slumber. And soon she'll be under the deepest sleep of all.
I don't want to sleep.
I don't know what I'm going to do without her.
I can't let up, I can't let go,
Out of control, my wheels in constant motion."
My Nana and I are very close. She's about the only person in my whole family who I feel connected with; the only person I never get angry at or frustrated with. A kindred spirit in my family full of christians, drama queens and hypocrites.
A few years ago she had breast cancer. Luckily the doctors were able to operate and they removed one of her breasts, annihilating the cancer. At the time the only thing that worried me about it was that it was possible my mum, my sister or I could get it in the future; it might be hereditary.
A few weeks ago Nana started complaining of pains in her chest. We took her to the doctor, who sent her to hospital to get scans and things and sent us home with pain drugs, and we settled down to wait for the results.
Then the pain developed into something else. Nana started having difficulty breathing. So we took her to the doctor again, who diagnosed fluid in the lungs and sent us home with drugs for clearing unnecessary fluid in the body.
My Nana and I are the same. We hate taking pills.
When the breathing problem didn't get better, we went back to the doctor a third time. He acknowledged there was something else wrong and packed her off to hospital. They did more scans and x-rays and things. They couldn't do the scan they wanted to because they had to put dyes through her kidneys and they were too dehydrated from those pills the doctor gave her last time, so we had to wait a while. But they finally got around to it.
The fluid in my Nana's lungs has cancer cells in it. They've also migrated into a bone in the front of her chest. The doctors can operate on the bone and slow down the growth of the cancer, but they can't cure her. They can't make it go away. And they can't yet say how long she has left. Dad thinks it could be up to three months. I remember my heart stopping when he said that. Three months.
This isn't right. She's been around forever. She has to be here for my sister's wedding, for my wedding. For the birth of her first blood great-grandchild. For my graduation. For my life...
When I walked into the hospital today I felt awful. I really hate hospitals... they make me feel nauseous, but not in my stomach, in my heart. It's like all the pain and worry and sadness that's gone on inside that building has somehow seeped into the walls and the lino floors, the doors, the elevators. I know that good things sometimes happen in hospitals too... people do get better, babies are born... but to me, and especially today, a hospital is a hotel for the dying.
Nana is so weak. It's just... so weird to see her like this. Her mind is sharp as ever, but her body is letting her down... she can't walk, she can't even shuffle up in the bed by herself. Every movement causes her pain. Her voice is so quiet and wavery... not that she was a loud person before, but she has always had a firm, strong voice. She's so tired and sleepy all the time... she said "I just want to sleep". I don't know if I have words to sum up how different she is, except for this: she's dying. And there's nothing we can do about it.
Every time I speak to her I think "this is one of the last times I'll say this"... I shouldn't, I should stop myself because it just upsets me, but it's true. It's true.
The day I found out we were losing her, I didn't want to think about it- I still don't. If I close my eyes I'll start thinking about her, but if people can just leave me alone, not touch me, not hug me, just let me sit and stare... it's like I can slow down time. That night I didn't want to sleep. I was afraid of dreaming, or thinking, or waking up and forgetting. I stayed up till 4am deliberately not thinking. I just want to escape. Get me out of this world gone mad.
Last night was okay because I got to snuggle down in the arms of my beloved, but tonight will be another sleepless one.
I don't want to sleep. Nana can have my unused slumber. And soon she'll be under the deepest sleep of all.
I don't want to sleep.
I don't know what I'm going to do without her.
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