my sun sets to rise again
i wonder if everything i do,
i do instead of something i want to do more.
maybe i’m not up for being a victim of love.
a little bird told me that jumping is easy and falling is fun,
right up until you hit the sidewalk shivering and stunned.
the world owes me nothing, and we owe each other the world.
sometimes you don’t get to choose
what gets erased and what you hold onto.
remember when i was sweet and unexplainable?
i have earned my disillusionment.
god help you if you are an ugly girl;
course too pretty is also your doom,
’cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room.
god help you if you are a phoenix,
and you dare to rise up from the ash.
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying back.
courage built a bridge;
jealousy tore it down.
maybe some faith would do me good.
i have as much rage as you have;
i have as much pain as you do.
i’ve lived as much hell as you have,
and i’ve kept mine bubbling under for you.
i sabotage myself for fear of what my bigness could do.
we are hope despite the times.
i’m good at being uncomfortable,
so i can’t stop changing all the time.
i don’t want my words to fall short of what i’m trying to say.
you’ll never touch the things that i hold.
nobody ever said it was easy;
no one ever said it would be this hard.
The most bipolar, straight-forward post I’ve ever written…
i’m not going to try and reign in my language tonight, because it’s not real… i’d rather be authentic at this point than avoid stepping on people’s toes (sorry, parents!).
sometimes life sucks.
sometimes you pick the wrong major and the wrong school (twice!) and people are stupid and relationships are stupid and you make dumb decisions and your parents get separated and then divorced and you get really depressed and you close yourself off and nobody understands why you have the most intense mood swings they’ve ever come in contact with and grandparents get sick and you get sick and you keep getting hurt, both mentally and physically, worse every time, and it sucks. a lot. so much.
but things change. you get hurt and you ball up and sooner or later someone figures out all kinds of crap is happening and you’re falling apart and need help and they reach out. it’s not always the person you expect, either. take the hand… things work out eventually.
because when things finally accumulate to the point that you more or less implode, crash and burn harder than you ever thought you would (because EVERY crash is harder than the last)… things become a lot clearer. it’s suddenly obvious the things that are completely wrong with your life that you can do something about yourself and the things that you can’t do a damn thing about and that you just need to learn to look at from different perspectives until you find the one that doesn’t make you want to run away screaming.
i don’t like school, but there’s no point in being miserable about it for the rest of the semester. i’ve got some amazing friends here, i’ll spend the time with them wisely, try to get as much as i can from my classes, try to figure myself out a little better before i thrust myself into yet another new situation.
i don’t like that my parents are getting divorced, but it’s really none of my business and i want them to be happy, whatever that means… even if they’re not happy now, hopefully this will lead in the right direction. i’m scared of being a statistic, i won’t lie… my grandparents are divorced… my dad’s brother divorced his first wife… now my parents are getting divorced… that would significantly up my odds of having a marriage not work out.
but who knows if i’ll get married anyway? maybe i’m okay with not… wouldn’t it rock my crazy catholic grandmother’s world (in a very negative way) if i had a lover? ha… a non-catholic lover?
nah… don’t take that as “she’s a manhater.” i’m not. i just don’t really know what i want. well… i mean… i really want to get my BA and Master’s studying russian/slavic history, culture and language, and then run off to some small town (or big city, who knows) in some slavic/eastern european country and write. joanne harris-style. whom i adore with all my heart and soul. all that’s not very conducive to being married, however.
i don’t like being expected to be a certain way, by anyone. i mean… generally speaking, most of my parents’ assumptions about me are right, but not all, and nor are all of anybody else’s. hey! surprise! i question god! i’m not super-christian! fca scares me! i don’t consider what other people will think of my hair before i do anything to it! i don’t really care! the way i feel about all-girls schools now is not the way i felt about them in high school! opinions change! i’m a college student!
yep… i’m crazy… i break easily, both mentally and physically. i put up fronts when i’m hurt and when i’m scared. i don’t like letting people in, especially people i’m afraid will judge me when they find out who i actually am and what i actually think about things. i’m a perfectionist- it doesn’t make a bloody difference to me whether or not my parents care about my grades, i do. i also don’t work nearly as hard for them as i should, regardless of the fact that i often say i’m doing homework, i just lucked into smart genes. sometimes i feel antisocial. has nothing to do with you or how i feel about you, i just don’t want to do anything. with anybody. i hurt myself more than anyone else does. i rip myself to shreds constantly. but don’t let that statement fool you. sometimes i know i’m an amazing person. sometimes i know i’m beautiful. but sometimes i hate myself and who i am and the way people perceive me. i don’t like it when people try to understand ALL of me. it’s not possible. understand what’s natural for you to understand… and just listen to the rest, if you really care. i’m bizarre and messed up, i’m aware of that.
so i’ve probably scared everyone away now.
I saw you leave a shadow there
i’m happy that you know where you’re going;
i wish i could say of myself that was true.
we both pursue something worth knowing,
but i may not end with the same thing as you.
i’m counting the days and counting the dollars,
wondering how much i’m willing to spend,
to make us believe that this is important;
there’s only so long that i can pretend.
do you find it odd that you are not as strong as you once thought?
tonight i walk through an empty street,
with my shadow stretching in front of me,
when my lonely thoughts meet my lonely feet
and the cold reminds me that i’ve chosen this life.
Love is the sky and I am for you
as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right and wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
-long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame
as hatracks into peachtrees grow
or hopes dance best on bald men’s hair
and every finger is a toe
and any courage is a fear
-long enough and just so long
will the impure think all things pure
and hornets wail by children stung
or as the seeing are the blind
and robins never welcome spring
nor flatfolk prove their world is round
nor dingsters die at break of dong
and common’s rare and millstones float
-long enough and just so long
tomorrow will not be too late
worms are the words but joy’s the voice
down shall go which and up come who
breasts will be breasts and thighs will be thighs
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
-time is a tree (this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough
We make our own gravity to give weight to things
all i need now is intellectual intercourse:
a soul to dig the hole much deeper.
we’ll love you just the way you are,
if you’re perfect.
i’m high but i’m grounded,
i’m sane but i’m overwhelmed,
i’m lost but i’m hopeful, baby.
i’m sad but i’m laughing,
i’m brave but i’m chicken shit,
i’m sick but i’m pretty, baby.
i recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone.
your love is thick, and it swallowed me whole;
you’re so much braver than i gave you credit for.
life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
when you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right,
and life has a funny way of helping you out
when you think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up in your face.
i don’t want to be adored for what i merely represent to you.
How much is too much?
a little bit of me is terrified every time i realize the people i see every day,
the people who think they know me well, who count me amongst their friends
and whom i count amongst mine…
many of them don’t have a blessed clue in the world;
sometimes they notice if my stress level seems a bit higher than usual
(although it has to be through the roof to be markedly higher than normal)
or if i’m not quite so active in the things in which i used to participate;
the assumption is that i must be working.
and of course, i am… there is a great deal of work to be done, especially now.
not all of it is school work, though. not all of it is the same kind of work
they are confronting on a day to day basis.
maybe some of them are and i just don’t know it, since they don’t seem to notice
that i am not always thrilled to exist even when my work is minimal.
sometimes i am thrilled to exist even when the load is dragging me to my
knees.
i’m not the person everyone thinks i am, and sometimes that’s all right;
some people have the impression that i’m someone i don’t know that i want to be,
and it strikes me as possible that they would no longer “love” me if they knew who i was,
and what i maybe sometimes often never think i want out of life.
simultaneously, there are people who know everything about me,
every nit-picky little detail… and maybe that’s too much.
i am a burden on myself, how can i not be a burden on them?
is it easier to simply share a little of yourself and guard the part
that hurts and frustrates both yourself and others?
is it fair to share or withhold that part from someone who claims
they really care about you?
how much baggage is too much?
Please believe me when I say I’m sorry for that
i frustrate myself either as much or more than i frustrate you,
don’t think you’re the only one i torment daily.
at any given time you see only what i’m projecting, only the ways in which i’m acting out;
in no way can you wrap your mind around what’s going on inside.
sometimes i’m twenty and sometimes i’m jaded well beyond my years,
and i wake every morning not knowing which way the day might go.
it’s frightening feeling so strong and beautiful (synonymous with artistic, in my eyes)
for a while, often short, and flipping around so fast that neither you nor i knows what happened,
and all the sudden i want nothing more than to be held and simultaneously ignored;
i need the comfort of knowing another person is aware of what i’m doing to myself,
and absolutely nothing more.
so please… believe me when i say i’m sorry; i know i’m frustrating.
you’re not the only one i torment.
My life may not be something special, but it’s never been lived before
the fact that i adore you is but one of my truths.
I’m no less confused now than I was last night, but now I feel like babbling, and since this is my space, I can.
There’s a quote from Garden State (I know, I quote things entirely too often, but there is a beauty to other people’s words sometimes that I can never capture) that articulates exactly the way I’m feeling about Pennsylvania at the moment…
“You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden, even though you have some place where you put your shit, the idea of home is gone… just sorta happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this right of passage, you know? You won’t ever have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself. You know… for your kids. For the family you start. It’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know. But I miss the idea of it, you know? Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.“
My mom was right the other day when she said I’d rather be in Clemson than here. This has kind of become the place I visit my family and not so much my home. It’s not as though I really have an established home anywhere else… I’ve lived in no less than five different places in the last year. But home is with the life I’ve created independent of my house.
It’s a little weird when life shifts from directly involving your family to your family kind of being witnesses on the outside. While it’s a little sad, it’s a fact of life. It happens earlier for some people than others… it started happening for me a while ago.
I wish I knew what I wanted anymore. I mean… I have my whole life to find where I’m happy. But there’s certain decisions I need to be making in the next year or so that scare me a bit. I don’t know whether to settle for the “dreams” that are easily achievable (for me, not necessarily for those who haven’t been given the privileges that I have) or to shoot for the things I’ve always wanted but won’t necessarily ever get.
The only conclusion I’ve really come to through all this is that I’m a lot happier worrying only about what’s happening now than the future. I guess I was always too focused on the bigger picture to enjoy the details; the problem is just balancing the two. I don’t know whether to cease the “no day but today” philosophy and be and do what makes me happy now, or just buckle down and plan for what will make me safe/happy in the future. The question is whether safe=happy, or I’ll just be satisfied with safe and try to ignore the fact that it’s not making me happy?
Boys are stupid. Families are stupid. Traditions are stupid. Dreams are stupid. Fears are stupid. Worrying is stupid. Stress is stupid. Depression is stupid. Caffeine is stupid.
i wonder if everything i do, i do instead of something i want to do more.
They say goldfish have no memory
you can’t hide behind social graces,
so don’t try to be all touchy feely;
’cause you lie in my face of all places,
but i’ve got no problem with that really.
what bugs me is that you believe what you’re saying;
what bothers me is that you don’t know what you feel.
what scares me is that while you’re telling me stories,
you actually believe that they are real.
and i’ve got no illusions about you;
guess what? i never did.
and when i said, when i said i’d take it,
i meant, i meant as is.
just give up and admit you’re an asshole;
you would be in some good company.
i think you’d find that your friends would forgive you,
or maybe i’m just speaking for me.
’cause when i look around,
i think this, this is good enough,
and i try to laugh at whatever life brings.
’cause when i look up,
i just miss all the good stuff;
and when i look down,
i just trip over things.
and i’ve got no illusions about you;
guess what? i never did.
when i say, when i say i’ll take it,
i mean, i mean as is.
