I asked a friend of mine, a regular reader of this blog, if he’s been reading my posts lately. He read them and brought up how frequently I talk about Jordan. And that most of my posts were very sad.
I took it as a wake-up call.
I feel like I shouldn’t be devoting so much time and words to him.
And you know what’s even better than narrowing down my number of posts about him?
I’m going to let him go. I’ve heard it said that if you love something enough, you’ll let it go. And if it never comes back, it was never meant to be.
I think I love Jordan. (Kind of. Sort of.) But Jordan has a girlfriend, who I think he loves. (Kind of. Sort of.)
Over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that Jordan is kind of an idiot, and a really big one at that. Every time I watch his antics, half amused, half nauseated, and all I can think is, "That idiot."
Maybe he and I are better off as friends. Friends that play guitar together and laugh until our sides hurt, because maybe that’s what we’ve been all along.
I’m going to put him on the back burner for now. And while he’s sitting on that back burner, I’ll give him some time to think it over, if he’d ever be smart enough to do so. Then if he wants me, I’ll take him. If I still want him, that is.
While he’s on that back burner, I’ll be learning how to fall out of love.
When I was about thirteen, I wrote a poem called "Chasing Love." The last two lines said, Maybe I should stop chasing love, and then one day I’ll find it.
Jordan fell into my life and I thought he was the one I was looking for. When I found out that he wasn’t, I chose to still believe otherwise, asking myself, if not him, who? But now I realize that I was doing it again. I was chasing love again, something I thought I wouldn’t be doing with this boy. But I always seem to find myself in the same situations, don’t I?
The chase has been fun, but I think right now, I’m going to stop and catch my breath. And only after that, I’ll decide whether to catch up to him again. If he stops running when he’s realized I’ve stopped, and comes back to surrender and let me love him, I’ll decide if I still want to do that.
If you keep focusing on that hazy image of the boy running away from you, you just might miss the perfect guy waiting for you along the way. Why not just stop? I’m going to stop and wait for that perfect love, because something tells me it can’t be that far away. Who cares if it’s not Jordan? I don’t even know if I want it to be Jordan.
I’ll let it all find me. (Yeah, I say that now) But you know I’ll be impatient. And it’s going to be easier said than done to let go of Jordan so fast, but judging from the progress I’ve already made, it just might work.
It's time to move on. It's time to find someone better. Because that’s all I want: my first love. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want to love an idiot.
Love is weird. That’s one of the many things I’ve learned in the fifteen years I’ve been alive. It’s always going to be doing evil things behind your back if you let it. It’s always going to be casting spells on you that turn you into a happy-dancing, grinning, song-writing psycho. (At least that’s what it does to me) And love will always, always, be playing games with you and beating you at them, knocking you down until you don’t want to get up again. But I think I want love to let me win for a change.
And in conclusion...
Jordan, you’re cute. Actually, you’re adorable. But you’re dumb. You never understood how I felt (or feel?) about you, even when I told you. I still care about you. I just don't want to anymore. Thanks, by the way. The chase was great. Ah, those times when I thought I had caught up and knocked you down. But you got away every time. Determined, aren’t you? Determined to get away from me? Well, now I’m determined to get away from you.
I sit here and think about that girl who kept up with you in that ugly green hallway as you sped along to Chemistry class, that garbled nonsense falling out of her mouth, confessing her love to a boy too stupid to understand. And I simply grin to myself and think, "That idiot."
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Detachment
Last week, I started reading a book called Tuesdays With Morrie. My English class was assigned to read the first 25 pages over the weekend. I read five times that amount and I haven’t stopped since.
The book is phenomenal, a true story of the eye-opening lessons the author, Mitch Albom, learns from his former college professor, Morrie Schwartz, who is slowly deteriorating on account of having ALS.
Morrie’s words can change your whole perspective on life. They make you stop and wonder if you’re living your life the right way. A few things he said really resonated with me.
In the book, he says that he detaches himself from certain emotions such as envy or self-pity, despite his condition. His theory is that you have to let yourself feel that emotion without hesitation or fear. You have to cry and pity yourself, burn with that jealousy, scream with that anger. You have to get to know the feeling, not be afraid of feeling it. Then, next time you feel that emotion, simply say to yourself, "This is envy. This is self-pity. This is regret. I know this feeling. I already made time for this feeling." Then step back from it. Let yourself feel something better. Don’t waste precious time on something that only brings you down. Detach yourself.
It’s a new theory I’ve decided to put to use: "Morrie’s Detachment Theory." Miraculously enough, the theory seemed to work. I felt the usual emotions creeping up on me. Helpless sadness, burning anger, sinking in a bottomless lake of regret, a sting of envy here and there. But I simply thought one word to myself: detach. And that’s what I did.
But Morrie makes it sound easier than it really is.
I let things get to me eventually. I just wallow. I wallow in everything from anger to self-pity.
And what makes me feel even more pathetic is that Morrie, a man on his deathbed, managed to stay optimistic, when I turn into a crybaby mess over my fucking love life.
But why does being second best feel like a fate worse than death? Am I really that shallow?
On the way home from a miserable day at school, a tear falls from my eye and rests on my cheek. I let it stay. It was raining that day. The windows leak. That’s all it would be to all of the oblivious people around me. A raindrop. A tear from the sky. Just one that I let slip past the shiny blue covering, from what’s actually underneath. The rest would come later.
I got home, barely made it through the door before I burst into tears. I was surprised when the tears kept coming. I thought I had run out by now. I cried for what felt like forever, ignoring my dad as he told me that I was being foolsih and that the right guy would come along blah blah blah. Things dads are supposed to say to their loser daughters in situations like this.
But for me, the right guy will never come along. I just don't see it happening. They’ll always be running in the other direction before they can even get to know me, scared off by my fat ass, my boring features, my awkwardness, my lack of being able to say the right thing. They’ll never know that they’re missing out on someone who is willing to give up on the games of teenage romance and just love, not just some pretty face who will toy with and break their heart without flinching.
And I was stupid enough to think that Jordan would be the boy to change everything.
I’m such a dreamer. And that sounds like a good thing, but it's not. I mean, I'm a writer. Believing in love kind of comes with that talent, because love is something that was made up in the minds of fiction writers to entertain their readers. Of course, there's married couples, fleeting romances, teenage couples holding hands and kissing in the hallways; everyone putting their love on display. But I don’t mean them.
I mean love for the ones who don’t even get a second look. Romance for the ones who wish and dream and hope but look in the mirror and realize that it’s not going to get them anywhere. The ones like me.
The movies try to convince us we have hope, but that is complete and utter bullshit.
I was playing "Teardrops On My Guitar" and singing gently, lazily sprawled across my bed sheets, my guitar lying in my lap. As I played, images played through my mind. Tiny little memories, scenes from a music video made for a song that it seems like Taylor Swift wrote about my life. I thought of how I walked down the hallway quicker than usual this morning, not bothering to slow down and talk to Jordan like I usually do. I thought about how he had tugged on my backpack and pulled me beside him and we laughed and talked like he wasn't breaking my heart. I thought about how he plays me songs on my guitar, turning the tuning knobs until my guitar sounds like it’s been through a tornado when I try to tune it later on. But somehow he always makes it sound beautiful. I thought about all of those moments when out eyes met, when my fingers had brushed against his when I handed him a guitar pick, when he made me laugh despite every reason I had not to.
There are good things, and there are bad. But the truth is, it’s just unrequited love again, back for another try at tearing my heart to shreds. Unrequited love is so greedy. It already has torn me apart on a few occasions, but it just keeps coming back for more. Why can't it do this to someone else?
I feel like I'm going to lose it one of these days. I feel like I am going to grab Jordan’s shoulders and scream in his face, WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID? What if I break down? What if I ruin everything in a fit of violent sadness? That’s the only way I can describe this, a violent sadness. It tears at the inside of me, takes a knife to my painted skies and chips at the blue until it peels off to reveal the gray. One of these days, I will explode. It will be disastrous. And no one will be there to pick up the pieces.
You think karma’s a bitch? Yeah, try unrequited love.
If only I could detach from that.
The book is phenomenal, a true story of the eye-opening lessons the author, Mitch Albom, learns from his former college professor, Morrie Schwartz, who is slowly deteriorating on account of having ALS.
Morrie’s words can change your whole perspective on life. They make you stop and wonder if you’re living your life the right way. A few things he said really resonated with me.
In the book, he says that he detaches himself from certain emotions such as envy or self-pity, despite his condition. His theory is that you have to let yourself feel that emotion without hesitation or fear. You have to cry and pity yourself, burn with that jealousy, scream with that anger. You have to get to know the feeling, not be afraid of feeling it. Then, next time you feel that emotion, simply say to yourself, "This is envy. This is self-pity. This is regret. I know this feeling. I already made time for this feeling." Then step back from it. Let yourself feel something better. Don’t waste precious time on something that only brings you down. Detach yourself.
It’s a new theory I’ve decided to put to use: "Morrie’s Detachment Theory." Miraculously enough, the theory seemed to work. I felt the usual emotions creeping up on me. Helpless sadness, burning anger, sinking in a bottomless lake of regret, a sting of envy here and there. But I simply thought one word to myself: detach. And that’s what I did.
But Morrie makes it sound easier than it really is.
I let things get to me eventually. I just wallow. I wallow in everything from anger to self-pity.
And what makes me feel even more pathetic is that Morrie, a man on his deathbed, managed to stay optimistic, when I turn into a crybaby mess over my fucking love life.
But why does being second best feel like a fate worse than death? Am I really that shallow?
On the way home from a miserable day at school, a tear falls from my eye and rests on my cheek. I let it stay. It was raining that day. The windows leak. That’s all it would be to all of the oblivious people around me. A raindrop. A tear from the sky. Just one that I let slip past the shiny blue covering, from what’s actually underneath. The rest would come later.
I got home, barely made it through the door before I burst into tears. I was surprised when the tears kept coming. I thought I had run out by now. I cried for what felt like forever, ignoring my dad as he told me that I was being foolsih and that the right guy would come along blah blah blah. Things dads are supposed to say to their loser daughters in situations like this.
But for me, the right guy will never come along. I just don't see it happening. They’ll always be running in the other direction before they can even get to know me, scared off by my fat ass, my boring features, my awkwardness, my lack of being able to say the right thing. They’ll never know that they’re missing out on someone who is willing to give up on the games of teenage romance and just love, not just some pretty face who will toy with and break their heart without flinching.
And I was stupid enough to think that Jordan would be the boy to change everything.
I’m such a dreamer. And that sounds like a good thing, but it's not. I mean, I'm a writer. Believing in love kind of comes with that talent, because love is something that was made up in the minds of fiction writers to entertain their readers. Of course, there's married couples, fleeting romances, teenage couples holding hands and kissing in the hallways; everyone putting their love on display. But I don’t mean them.
I mean love for the ones who don’t even get a second look. Romance for the ones who wish and dream and hope but look in the mirror and realize that it’s not going to get them anywhere. The ones like me.
The movies try to convince us we have hope, but that is complete and utter bullshit.
I was playing "Teardrops On My Guitar" and singing gently, lazily sprawled across my bed sheets, my guitar lying in my lap. As I played, images played through my mind. Tiny little memories, scenes from a music video made for a song that it seems like Taylor Swift wrote about my life. I thought of how I walked down the hallway quicker than usual this morning, not bothering to slow down and talk to Jordan like I usually do. I thought about how he had tugged on my backpack and pulled me beside him and we laughed and talked like he wasn't breaking my heart. I thought about how he plays me songs on my guitar, turning the tuning knobs until my guitar sounds like it’s been through a tornado when I try to tune it later on. But somehow he always makes it sound beautiful. I thought about all of those moments when out eyes met, when my fingers had brushed against his when I handed him a guitar pick, when he made me laugh despite every reason I had not to.
There are good things, and there are bad. But the truth is, it’s just unrequited love again, back for another try at tearing my heart to shreds. Unrequited love is so greedy. It already has torn me apart on a few occasions, but it just keeps coming back for more. Why can't it do this to someone else?
I feel like I'm going to lose it one of these days. I feel like I am going to grab Jordan’s shoulders and scream in his face, WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID? What if I break down? What if I ruin everything in a fit of violent sadness? That’s the only way I can describe this, a violent sadness. It tears at the inside of me, takes a knife to my painted skies and chips at the blue until it peels off to reveal the gray. One of these days, I will explode. It will be disastrous. And no one will be there to pick up the pieces.
You think karma’s a bitch? Yeah, try unrequited love.
If only I could detach from that.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Non Compos Mentis
Non compos mentis is technically Latin for "not having control of one's mind." When we say it in English, we basically mean "bat shit crazy."
Sometimes, liking Jordan so much makes me feel like that. Exactly like that.
Yesterday was the start of the second semester, and one of my new electives is a beginner's shop class, the kind that's completely based on problem-solving that you take when you don't want to use the scary saws. During that class today, I heard tools clanging around out in the shop, machines whirring. I knew it was him. I could feel it, the butterflies standing at attention, waiting for their cue to go insane inside my stomach.
After the teacher finished his lecture for the day, I asked politely if I could go to the bathroom. I slipped out into the shop and caught sight of that skull-print sweatshirt that I couldn't help but want to snuggle up inside of. It was him, all right. I whisked out of the room quietly, the only thing on my mind being the moment I came back. Before leaving the bathroom, I fluffed up my hair and smiled at my reflection. I hadn’t seen him yet that morning, so I was excited. Weirdly, insanely excited. I yanked open the shop door and walked down the small staircase.
After the teacher finished his lecture for the day, I asked politely if I could go to the bathroom. I slipped out into the shop and caught sight of that skull-print sweatshirt that I couldn't help but want to snuggle up inside of. It was him, all right. I whisked out of the room quietly, the only thing on my mind being the moment I came back. Before leaving the bathroom, I fluffed up my hair and smiled at my reflection. I hadn’t seen him yet that morning, so I was excited. Weirdly, insanely excited. I yanked open the shop door and walked down the small staircase.
And there he was. His hands stopped working on whatever he was doing and his eyes watched me, a slight smile on his face. I smiled back and waved. He waved back. That was it.
But just the way he stopped to look at me, that almost smile on his face that made all of my sanity fall to pieces, the way his fingers fluttered a little when he waved kind of made my day. Isn't that ridiculous?
At the end of class, I meant to say something. I really did. I meant to ask him if his bus had come in late. I meant to tell him I missed him at breakfast this morning. But I didn’t. I wondered if he was waiting for me to.
That smile was simply enough.
We didn’t talk for the rest of the day. But I didn't mind. Just one smile. That's enough to give a dreamer hope.
I want him to feel the same way.
A few months back, maybe over the summer, I remember making a list of all of the qualities I wanted in the guy of my dreams. Which is kind of weird and little-girlish, but just bear with me, guys. I had written the list after getting over Light, while I was blissfully waiting for someone better to come along. I wrote it in my diary, but I had erased it and revised it, because I thought the traits were too specific. But I remember some of them. I wrote that the boy of my dreams plays guitar. I wrote that he can always make me laugh, hilarious but not obnoxious. I wrote that he is the one who always gives me butterflies. He is the one who I love for more than just how “hot” he is.
He is Jordan.
We’d be perfect for each other (I think), with our matching black plastic rim glasses and our matching awkwardness. I’ll write words, he can write music. He can make my life a love song even sweeter than the eight I wrote just for him. I can wear that sweatshirt. We can hold hands in the hallways. I can sit by his side and listen to him play guitar, because I love to hear it. It’s always the same story of what we could be that I talk about so much. We could be everything. Everything my mind has decided that "love" is.
Will I ever be able to make that story come true?
That question is driving me insane.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
My Life Is A Taylor Swift Song
So, who else hates Monday mornings? I do, too.
But I went to school in a decent mood this morning (for once). All was well. The lunch lady selling breakfast wasn’t out of cinnamon rolls and the line wasn’t too long. Nothing went wrong. Yet.
I was sitting at the usual breakfast table when I saw Jordan’s bus pull up outside the school. I grinned, all of my insides buzzing with excitement. I felt as if I hadn’t seen him in weeks. He came in. He sat down. He left an empty seat between us. Why? I chose not to worry about it. It's just a seat. A chair. A piece of plastic and metal. Who cares?
I asked him how his weekend was. Just to be polite. Just to strike up conversation, because who doesn't like conversing with the person they're dying to go out with? He said it was "fucking awesome" because he went to a concert and "went to see his girlfriend." What?
"I feel fucking fantastic!"
That makes one of us.
Why had he never mentioned this "girlfriend" before? Why hadn't I at least seen anything on his Facebook, which I stalk like a...stalker? I had actually seen him post Facebook statuses bitching about not having a girlfriend, like the desperate loser he was. But I happen to be in serious like with that desperate loser.
And that desperate loser is in serious like with someone else.
Everything that could possibly go wrong just did.
Last week, I was playing "Teardrops On My Guitar" by Taylor Swift, and something occurred to me. It was so easy to relate to, except for the girlfriend that ruins Taylor's chances with her friend, Drew.
So, of course, something had to be done about that little detail. So, here I am. My life has transformed into a sad Taylor Swift song. How do you think I feel about that?
And do you want to hear the funniest part? Oh, this is a knee-slapper. This morning, I talked to Ginny. We had a conversation. Like friends. Or at least like acquaintances. It wasn’t her all along, was it? Me and my stupid assumptions.
My dad always says that when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of "u" and "mption."
And I really have made an ass out of myself.
I wish my life were like a love song. Like, a real love song. Not a weepy Taylor Swift song.
I wish my life weren’t so predictable.
But I went to school in a decent mood this morning (for once). All was well. The lunch lady selling breakfast wasn’t out of cinnamon rolls and the line wasn’t too long. Nothing went wrong. Yet.
I was sitting at the usual breakfast table when I saw Jordan’s bus pull up outside the school. I grinned, all of my insides buzzing with excitement. I felt as if I hadn’t seen him in weeks. He came in. He sat down. He left an empty seat between us. Why? I chose not to worry about it. It's just a seat. A chair. A piece of plastic and metal. Who cares?
I asked him how his weekend was. Just to be polite. Just to strike up conversation, because who doesn't like conversing with the person they're dying to go out with? He said it was "fucking awesome" because he went to a concert and "went to see his girlfriend." What?
"I feel fucking fantastic!"
That makes one of us.
Why had he never mentioned this "girlfriend" before? Why hadn't I at least seen anything on his Facebook, which I stalk like a...stalker? I had actually seen him post Facebook statuses bitching about not having a girlfriend, like the desperate loser he was. But I happen to be in serious like with that desperate loser.
And that desperate loser is in serious like with someone else.
Everything that could possibly go wrong just did.
Last week, I was playing "Teardrops On My Guitar" by Taylor Swift, and something occurred to me. It was so easy to relate to, except for the girlfriend that ruins Taylor's chances with her friend, Drew.
So, of course, something had to be done about that little detail. So, here I am. My life has transformed into a sad Taylor Swift song. How do you think I feel about that?
And do you want to hear the funniest part? Oh, this is a knee-slapper. This morning, I talked to Ginny. We had a conversation. Like friends. Or at least like acquaintances. It wasn’t her all along, was it? Me and my stupid assumptions.
My dad always says that when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of "u" and "mption."
And I really have made an ass out of myself.
I wish my life were like a love song. Like, a real love song. Not a weepy Taylor Swift song.
I wish my life weren’t so predictable.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Renee
RIP Renee.
I froze at the sight of those words in a Facebook status. It took a moment for my mind to process this, seeing a familiar name listed after those three letters. "RIP." Rest in peace. I've always felt that using an abbreviation like that when talking about death seems a little insensitive. Can't you write out three words to honor the dead?
I didn’t know her well. We were barely acquaintances. She was one of the new kids in eighth grade. She used to sit at one of my lunch tables (I switched between two tables most of the year). She wasn't the type of person I usually associated with, sexually active at thirteen, already into drugs and weed, always in the midst of the sort of drama that came with living so recklessly.
Freshman year, she disappeared. Whisked off to rehab for a heroin overdose. She faded out of the world I lived in and I eventually forgot about her.
And only a few weeks back, she was back in school, numnerous piercings decorating her face, which was framed by pink-streaked curls. I watched her walk into the cafeteria on her first day back, something in my brain stirring from its slumber, the tiny, unimportant section of my memory which was labeled with her name. I watched her saunter past me and directly over to one of the "scumbag" tables. I remember thinking, Pssh. Of course.
Why are people even classified as "scumbags" anyway? Is it the drugs, the sex, the sloppy clothes, the indifferent attitude? A lot of people are like that. They’re just wrapped up in some sort of shiny facade that (sadly) makes up for things like that. Maybe the "scumbags" don’t have the time or the money or they just don’t care enough to cover up their stained interior with a charming exterior. They’re just people. Why is it so easy to judge them?
So, she overdosed on something, probably heroin again. And she’s gone. Dead. It's not like this is some sort of video game, where you get a second try. She had her whole life ahead of her.
I've heard it said that with heroin, your first time is the greatest. The rush is unbelievable. Euphoria. Just one time, and you have become an addict. So you keep using, trying to find that same rush. But you never do. What could make someone so sad that they ruin themselves in search of an artificial happiness?
I looked up at my parents, who sat across a small plastic table scattered with McDonald's food, and said, "Renee is dead." They didn’t seem to react, but it's not like they should've. It was just a name, mentioned here and there.
There’s something that’s been pulling at me ever since I found out.
Her family. Her parents. Do they even know? Do they even care? What about her sisters? One of them is in my Drawing class. She doesn’t talk very much (then again, neither do I), and she looks a little intimidating at first glance. I've always found her kind of fascinating. Everything from her everchanging hair color to her self-designed and tattoos to her air of indifference. She wears cloth wristbands around her arms, and I have a feeling I know what lies beneath them. I could never imagine bringing myself to hurt myself. But maybe I haven't been through enough. And the worst part is, I've heard rumors that she's on hard drugs too. And after this incident, I don't exactly think she'll try to change her ways. Just the opposite, if anything.
I don’t see her smile that much. But I remember seeing her in the hallway recently, and she was laughing. She was happy. She was with Renee.
I froze at the sight of those words in a Facebook status. It took a moment for my mind to process this, seeing a familiar name listed after those three letters. "RIP." Rest in peace. I've always felt that using an abbreviation like that when talking about death seems a little insensitive. Can't you write out three words to honor the dead?
I didn’t know her well. We were barely acquaintances. She was one of the new kids in eighth grade. She used to sit at one of my lunch tables (I switched between two tables most of the year). She wasn't the type of person I usually associated with, sexually active at thirteen, already into drugs and weed, always in the midst of the sort of drama that came with living so recklessly.
Freshman year, she disappeared. Whisked off to rehab for a heroin overdose. She faded out of the world I lived in and I eventually forgot about her.
And only a few weeks back, she was back in school, numnerous piercings decorating her face, which was framed by pink-streaked curls. I watched her walk into the cafeteria on her first day back, something in my brain stirring from its slumber, the tiny, unimportant section of my memory which was labeled with her name. I watched her saunter past me and directly over to one of the "scumbag" tables. I remember thinking, Pssh. Of course.
Why are people even classified as "scumbags" anyway? Is it the drugs, the sex, the sloppy clothes, the indifferent attitude? A lot of people are like that. They’re just wrapped up in some sort of shiny facade that (sadly) makes up for things like that. Maybe the "scumbags" don’t have the time or the money or they just don’t care enough to cover up their stained interior with a charming exterior. They’re just people. Why is it so easy to judge them?
So, she overdosed on something, probably heroin again. And she’s gone. Dead. It's not like this is some sort of video game, where you get a second try. She had her whole life ahead of her.
I've heard it said that with heroin, your first time is the greatest. The rush is unbelievable. Euphoria. Just one time, and you have become an addict. So you keep using, trying to find that same rush. But you never do. What could make someone so sad that they ruin themselves in search of an artificial happiness?
I looked up at my parents, who sat across a small plastic table scattered with McDonald's food, and said, "Renee is dead." They didn’t seem to react, but it's not like they should've. It was just a name, mentioned here and there.
There’s something that’s been pulling at me ever since I found out.
Her family. Her parents. Do they even know? Do they even care? What about her sisters? One of them is in my Drawing class. She doesn’t talk very much (then again, neither do I), and she looks a little intimidating at first glance. I've always found her kind of fascinating. Everything from her everchanging hair color to her self-designed and tattoos to her air of indifference. She wears cloth wristbands around her arms, and I have a feeling I know what lies beneath them. I could never imagine bringing myself to hurt myself. But maybe I haven't been through enough. And the worst part is, I've heard rumors that she's on hard drugs too. And after this incident, I don't exactly think she'll try to change her ways. Just the opposite, if anything.
I don’t see her smile that much. But I remember seeing her in the hallway recently, and she was laughing. She was happy. She was with Renee.
Sears Knows My Secret
Yesterday, my family and I went out to do a little shopping. Shopping, like any other thing involving spending money, isn’t very common with us, so it was a good way to spend the day.
There is a town near where I live that I love to be in. It's technically a city, actually. But it’s not a city with cold, shiny skyscrapers towering over your head and crowds to get lost in. It’s a city that was built many years ago and it just stayed the same way. It’s full of tall, old buildings, long streets full of all kinds of shops, and murals painted in different places. Being there just gives me that city-induced-excitement, even though it is much smaller than any city I've ever been to. But cities are all so alike. The streets smell of food. Cars are always driving by. You feel insignificant, but in a good way. You find yourself trying your very hardest not to look like a tourist, but the architecture around you is so beautiful that you just can't help yourself.
My family was in the city to visit the pawnshop, where we checked out some of their guitars and electronics, bought a few cheap DVDs, and left. Then, we drove down the road to Wal-Mart and my sister and I bought ourselves brand new iPods with our Christmas money. As I pulled the stack of fifties out of my wallet, I found myself wondering if the checkout guy assumed that slipping checkout guys hundreds of dollars was something I was used to. I wondered if he thought I was just another one of the spoiled teenagers he sees so much of every day. If some chick had so casually handed over that much money to me, I would've never guessed that the only time she sees that much money was Christmas. But I guess that's just what everyone does. Pretends that parting with their money is to be treated with nonchalance.
Then, we drove up to one of the three or so small, shitty, deadbeat malls in our county so my dad could use his Sears gift card on new tools and new jeans. What a bore, watching people spend money. Yuuki and I dragged behind, laughing about random things in that way you can only really do with your siblings.
She pointed to one of the aisles and said, "Look! Blue paint!" We scrambled into the aisle, where hundreds of colorful paint sample card things were set up on the shelves in rainbow order. I laughed like a mental case, grabbing as many blue cards as possible, shoving them into my purse. I wondered what random onlookers would be thinking, seeing two teenage girls playing with the paint color cards like little kids. I zipped up my purse and we scurried off to find our parents.
Later, I thought of all of those colorful cards in the store. Just sitting there, waiting for someone to come along and pick one up, flip it over, and call the number on the back. A person who is ready to remake something, ready to make it new. It was then that I realized that just like how actual paint can change something, make it new again, blue paint can do the same thing to your mindset. And it’s always free.
There is a town near where I live that I love to be in. It's technically a city, actually. But it’s not a city with cold, shiny skyscrapers towering over your head and crowds to get lost in. It’s a city that was built many years ago and it just stayed the same way. It’s full of tall, old buildings, long streets full of all kinds of shops, and murals painted in different places. Being there just gives me that city-induced-excitement, even though it is much smaller than any city I've ever been to. But cities are all so alike. The streets smell of food. Cars are always driving by. You feel insignificant, but in a good way. You find yourself trying your very hardest not to look like a tourist, but the architecture around you is so beautiful that you just can't help yourself.
My family was in the city to visit the pawnshop, where we checked out some of their guitars and electronics, bought a few cheap DVDs, and left. Then, we drove down the road to Wal-Mart and my sister and I bought ourselves brand new iPods with our Christmas money. As I pulled the stack of fifties out of my wallet, I found myself wondering if the checkout guy assumed that slipping checkout guys hundreds of dollars was something I was used to. I wondered if he thought I was just another one of the spoiled teenagers he sees so much of every day. If some chick had so casually handed over that much money to me, I would've never guessed that the only time she sees that much money was Christmas. But I guess that's just what everyone does. Pretends that parting with their money is to be treated with nonchalance.
Then, we drove up to one of the three or so small, shitty, deadbeat malls in our county so my dad could use his Sears gift card on new tools and new jeans. What a bore, watching people spend money. Yuuki and I dragged behind, laughing about random things in that way you can only really do with your siblings.
She pointed to one of the aisles and said, "Look! Blue paint!" We scrambled into the aisle, where hundreds of colorful paint sample card things were set up on the shelves in rainbow order. I laughed like a mental case, grabbing as many blue cards as possible, shoving them into my purse. I wondered what random onlookers would be thinking, seeing two teenage girls playing with the paint color cards like little kids. I zipped up my purse and we scurried off to find our parents.
Later, I thought of all of those colorful cards in the store. Just sitting there, waiting for someone to come along and pick one up, flip it over, and call the number on the back. A person who is ready to remake something, ready to make it new. It was then that I realized that just like how actual paint can change something, make it new again, blue paint can do the same thing to your mindset. And it’s always free.
Friday, January 13, 2012
TGIF
Thank the Lord and all of His shepherds that it is Friday!
And it may be Friday the Thirteenth, but I'm not really feeling that unlucky. I even saw a black cat today. Weird.
I only spent four hours at school today, due to a 12 p.m. dismissal. Early dismissals usually come with this very energized atomsphere, this feeling of recklessness similiar to the feeling you get when it's the end of May and summer is just out of reach. Nineteen minute class periods are perfect. You’re there just long enough to get settled in for another twenty-five minutes of boring lectures and notes, when suddenly, the bell rings and you’re off to a different classroom. Perfect!
I ate my usual breakfast, forcing laughter at the ridiculous things Jordan was saying to me. My Chemistry teacher managed to make me look stupid in front of the class, calling on me when my mind was miles away.(Usually when students are completely lost, they have someone whispering the answers to them. For some reason, I never do) But Floyd, David and I all laughed about it later, talking about how she is completely psycho. I walked with Jordan to fourth period, and we talked while we waited for our buses. I have the feeling I am slowly pulling him away from the strange infatuation that an alarming number of boys develop toward Ginny, but maybe it’s just an illusion. Or maybe they’re just friends after all. Maybe he’s realizing how stupid she really is. (Seriously, what kind of girl asks a guy "Don’t your skinny jeans squish your penis?" is that supposed to be flirty or something? Even I know better than that)
Sometimes I wonder if wishes really do come true. My friend Lucy and I were in the lunch line together and happened to look up at the clock on the wall at 11:10. We watched closely until 11:11 and made our wishes. She probably wished for something humble and important, because that's just the kind of girl she is. And there I was, greedily wishing for everything to work out with Jordan. Will my wish come true? But dreamer or not, I think I’ve realized that my dreams won’t come true if I sit around and wish for them to.
I have to make it happen, and I'd like to believe that I've already started trying. Could it be working? After lunch, I walked by him and I saw the slightest smile on his face when he saw me. I returned the smile and pondered if he had been smiling because of me. That moment gave me a shred of hope, a chance to stop and wonder if this bad thing is actually just an illusion, if I’m making a mountain out of an anthill. Maybe all this Friday-hype is giving me these weird, optimistic ideas.
And it may be Friday the Thirteenth, but I'm not really feeling that unlucky. I even saw a black cat today. Weird.
I only spent four hours at school today, due to a 12 p.m. dismissal. Early dismissals usually come with this very energized atomsphere, this feeling of recklessness similiar to the feeling you get when it's the end of May and summer is just out of reach. Nineteen minute class periods are perfect. You’re there just long enough to get settled in for another twenty-five minutes of boring lectures and notes, when suddenly, the bell rings and you’re off to a different classroom. Perfect!
I ate my usual breakfast, forcing laughter at the ridiculous things Jordan was saying to me. My Chemistry teacher managed to make me look stupid in front of the class, calling on me when my mind was miles away.(Usually when students are completely lost, they have someone whispering the answers to them. For some reason, I never do) But Floyd, David and I all laughed about it later, talking about how she is completely psycho. I walked with Jordan to fourth period, and we talked while we waited for our buses. I have the feeling I am slowly pulling him away from the strange infatuation that an alarming number of boys develop toward Ginny, but maybe it’s just an illusion. Or maybe they’re just friends after all. Maybe he’s realizing how stupid she really is. (Seriously, what kind of girl asks a guy "Don’t your skinny jeans squish your penis?" is that supposed to be flirty or something? Even I know better than that)
Sometimes I wonder if wishes really do come true. My friend Lucy and I were in the lunch line together and happened to look up at the clock on the wall at 11:10. We watched closely until 11:11 and made our wishes. She probably wished for something humble and important, because that's just the kind of girl she is. And there I was, greedily wishing for everything to work out with Jordan. Will my wish come true? But dreamer or not, I think I’ve realized that my dreams won’t come true if I sit around and wish for them to.
I have to make it happen, and I'd like to believe that I've already started trying. Could it be working? After lunch, I walked by him and I saw the slightest smile on his face when he saw me. I returned the smile and pondered if he had been smiling because of me. That moment gave me a shred of hope, a chance to stop and wonder if this bad thing is actually just an illusion, if I’m making a mountain out of an anthill. Maybe all this Friday-hype is giving me these weird, optimistic ideas.
Just Off The Key Of Reason
Have you ever heard someone say, "I’m not a morning person?"
Alexandria is not a morning person. Neither of my parents are morning people. Jordan is not a morning person, always quiet and a little dreary eyed before 8 AM. But after I get to school, early morning is when I am the most alive. I say crazy things, excitedly anticipating Jordan’s arrival. I question whether the day will be a Wednesday or just another sad dose of reality.
Does that make me a morning person, or just kind of bizarre?
Thursdays are pretty boring, except for the occasional excitement of Taco Day, which the entire school is very fond of. Floyd ate four tacos at lunch today! Four tacos! And yet, he probably weighs less than me. How does this work, again?
Floyd never got a proper introduction, so I guess I can get you acquianted with him. He is a tobacco chewing football player who just happens to be a ginger and the object of David’s humorous yet disturbing sexual harassment. This annoys the hell out of Floyd, but they honestly get along like brothers, kind of like a love-hate relationship. Anyway, you may be wondering what a football player is doing at my lunch table, and I guess you can say he isn't your average football player. Which is a relief. He can be blunt without being vicious, he can be funny without being obnxious. A lot of people don’t like Floyd, but then again, Floyd doesn’t like a lot of people. He knows who the people worth talking to are and steers clear of the rest of them. It's kind of comforting, knowing I have been categorized into the former. Because I have seen firsthand what happens to those who have not. So, that’s Floyd. I told you I’d explain his existence if I mentioned him again, so there it is.
Anyway, I just got really off topic. (Was there even a topic in the first place?) I guess I was talking about Thursdays, briefly.
I had a pounding headache all day, even after Symphony gave me some Tylenol during Geometry. So with the inside of my head throbbing, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, making my homework look like a complicated, confusing mess when I got it out this afternoon.
Speaking of homework, I have five B’s on my report card, which some people may think is impressive. But my parents are not some of those people. Academically, I often practice the art of procrastination and laziness, hence my B’s. I come home from school sometimes and I think, "Gee, I really don’t want to do my homework. So, I won’t." And that’s what I do. I tell my parents that I have no assignments, and then I go upstairs to my room and write or play my guitar. I put projects off until the last minute and I never study for tests. I don’t remember when I started being this way, but it’s just something you get used to. Doing my homework for a change felt strange, even though it wasn’t that big of a difference seeing that I was actually copying my sister’s Geometry and Chemistry work, but no one has to know that! I sometimes wonder how I’m going to get anywhere in life if I’m so indifferent about my schoolwork.
David sometimes says, "Thursday is a tease." Today, I finally realized what he meant. You know you’re close to the weekend, but it’s just out of your reach. And as the day stretches on endlessly, it just seems to get further and further away. Oh well. Friday is in two hours and fifteen minutes. The end of yet another pointless week. Why suffer through five days when I only live for the day in the middle? But wait. Wasn’t I planning on making every day like those middle days? Well, I have one more left.
I’ve spent all week looking forward to Friday. Why not make it a Wednesday? Or maybe just a Wednesday cleverly disguised as a Friday.
Whatever. Maybe I am crazy.
Alexandria is not a morning person. Neither of my parents are morning people. Jordan is not a morning person, always quiet and a little dreary eyed before 8 AM. But after I get to school, early morning is when I am the most alive. I say crazy things, excitedly anticipating Jordan’s arrival. I question whether the day will be a Wednesday or just another sad dose of reality.
Does that make me a morning person, or just kind of bizarre?
Thursdays are pretty boring, except for the occasional excitement of Taco Day, which the entire school is very fond of. Floyd ate four tacos at lunch today! Four tacos! And yet, he probably weighs less than me. How does this work, again?
Floyd never got a proper introduction, so I guess I can get you acquianted with him. He is a tobacco chewing football player who just happens to be a ginger and the object of David’s humorous yet disturbing sexual harassment. This annoys the hell out of Floyd, but they honestly get along like brothers, kind of like a love-hate relationship. Anyway, you may be wondering what a football player is doing at my lunch table, and I guess you can say he isn't your average football player. Which is a relief. He can be blunt without being vicious, he can be funny without being obnxious. A lot of people don’t like Floyd, but then again, Floyd doesn’t like a lot of people. He knows who the people worth talking to are and steers clear of the rest of them. It's kind of comforting, knowing I have been categorized into the former. Because I have seen firsthand what happens to those who have not. So, that’s Floyd. I told you I’d explain his existence if I mentioned him again, so there it is.
Anyway, I just got really off topic. (Was there even a topic in the first place?) I guess I was talking about Thursdays, briefly.
I had a pounding headache all day, even after Symphony gave me some Tylenol during Geometry. So with the inside of my head throbbing, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, making my homework look like a complicated, confusing mess when I got it out this afternoon.
Speaking of homework, I have five B’s on my report card, which some people may think is impressive. But my parents are not some of those people. Academically, I often practice the art of procrastination and laziness, hence my B’s. I come home from school sometimes and I think, "Gee, I really don’t want to do my homework. So, I won’t." And that’s what I do. I tell my parents that I have no assignments, and then I go upstairs to my room and write or play my guitar. I put projects off until the last minute and I never study for tests. I don’t remember when I started being this way, but it’s just something you get used to. Doing my homework for a change felt strange, even though it wasn’t that big of a difference seeing that I was actually copying my sister’s Geometry and Chemistry work, but no one has to know that! I sometimes wonder how I’m going to get anywhere in life if I’m so indifferent about my schoolwork.
David sometimes says, "Thursday is a tease." Today, I finally realized what he meant. You know you’re close to the weekend, but it’s just out of your reach. And as the day stretches on endlessly, it just seems to get further and further away. Oh well. Friday is in two hours and fifteen minutes. The end of yet another pointless week. Why suffer through five days when I only live for the day in the middle? But wait. Wasn’t I planning on making every day like those middle days? Well, I have one more left.
I’ve spent all week looking forward to Friday. Why not make it a Wednesday? Or maybe just a Wednesday cleverly disguised as a Friday.
Whatever. Maybe I am crazy.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Life Is Sweet (Sometimes)
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
I was sitting in the back seat of my mom’s car, scrolling through the songs on my iPod, trying to decide on what to listen to this morning on the way to school. I settled on a sad song and thought abruptly, Wait! What the hell am I doing? It’s Wednesday! I promptly turned on a happy, upbeat song instead. I was still instinctively expecting a bad day in the back of mind. (Who could blame me?) But I told myself that if life wanted to throw more bullshit at me, put up more brick walls for me to run into, today I would have a shield and a bulldozer. Also known as hope and a smile.
On the way to school, I realized that I should’ve been following my weird theory all week, because for some reason, it seems to work a little. But it’s not too late yet. We’re only halfway through this week!
I was sitting in the cafeteria like I do every morning, eating my cinnamon roll and expecting his arrival. I heard his voice behind me and nonchalantly swiveled around my seat, acting like my stomach didn’t just do a little flip-flop and my heart wasn’t fluttering around like a butterfly, eager to break lose and join the others just below. Wouldn’t that kill me? Then could I honestly say I died trying to win this boy’s heart?
"Wait, isn’t today Wednesday?" he asked. I gazed up at him and thought to myself, You tell me. Is it?
"Yeah. But we don’t have Guitar Club," I answered. The short half-hour before class every Wednesday when clubs have their meetings had been cancelled. Jordan was obviously disappointed. (Does it sound sick that I found that oddly pleasing?)
I talked to him the way the way the magazines and shit say I should, jokingly insulting him, stealing glances and looking away, even playing with my hair, my voice almost as sugary sweet as the cinnamon roll I was eating. I was on the brink of miserable, but everything seems a little sweeter when Jordan is around.
Watching him, I remembered why I had started falling the second I saw him. He's perfect in his imperfections. Perfect because he isn't. I love the way he shakes his head back and forth quickly like a dog shaking it’s wet fur, which leaves his hair a long, feathery mess. I love his eyes, big and hazel, so full of something I can't put a label on. I love the soft curve of his half smile, the little silver ring wrapped around his bottom lip, the way I sometimes watch him talk and want to kiss him. I love that baggy sweatshirt he wears with the skulls on it, the one I just want to wrap myself up in. I love his voice, his sense of humor, his talent, his idiosyncrasies, his hands, his tall, skinny body, his black plastic rim glasses, his everything.
I keep giving up, backing away when I see that someone else has his attention instead. I need to stay true to my intentions. How could I lose this time? After a while, life should kind of owe me. I have never, ever wanted to go out with a guy so much in my life. It’s not like Light. It’s not like Grey. It’s not far away, unattainable. It’s just out of my reach at the end of the branch, and I just haven’t gone far enough out on the limb yet. I’ve waited long enough. I need to make him mine before someone else does.
In other news, my Wednesday was just a typical Wednesday.
I got to play in the school pool with my friends in gym class, throwing around a football and acting like thrilled little kids on the playground at recess.
I downloaded one of those adorable sixties songs, "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. I just love old music like that. It just makes you want to twirl around with the boy of your dreams in a circle skirt. (Or perhaps that's just me?)
I was walking down an empty hallway with my eyes on the floor tiles when my Geometry teacher was coming the other way. She simply said, "Smile." I thought to myself, Why not?
I won a bingo game in my History class and got an almond granola bar. Um, if you think that's not important, just refer to my use of the word "almond" and think again.
Floyd gave me his strawberries at lunch. (Who is Floyd? Maybe I'll mention him another time)
I drank sour lemon stuff that was half slushy, half punch in my Child Care class that I spiked with way too much sugar.
It was all sweet things today, wasn’t it? Sweet songs, sweetened punch, sweet strawberries, sweet moments with the adorable boy, sweet almond granola bar things, sweet suggestions from my Geometry teacher, that sweet feeling of jumping into warm water off of a diving board.
Enjoy your Wednesday. Let’s hope that you will tomorrow, too, because tomorrow is Wednesday, is it not?
I just read over this post and realized how weird all of this sounds. I sound crazy, don't I?
But hey. I haven’t gone off the deep end. I dove right in.
I was sitting in the back seat of my mom’s car, scrolling through the songs on my iPod, trying to decide on what to listen to this morning on the way to school. I settled on a sad song and thought abruptly, Wait! What the hell am I doing? It’s Wednesday! I promptly turned on a happy, upbeat song instead. I was still instinctively expecting a bad day in the back of mind. (Who could blame me?) But I told myself that if life wanted to throw more bullshit at me, put up more brick walls for me to run into, today I would have a shield and a bulldozer. Also known as hope and a smile.
On the way to school, I realized that I should’ve been following my weird theory all week, because for some reason, it seems to work a little. But it’s not too late yet. We’re only halfway through this week!
I was sitting in the cafeteria like I do every morning, eating my cinnamon roll and expecting his arrival. I heard his voice behind me and nonchalantly swiveled around my seat, acting like my stomach didn’t just do a little flip-flop and my heart wasn’t fluttering around like a butterfly, eager to break lose and join the others just below. Wouldn’t that kill me? Then could I honestly say I died trying to win this boy’s heart?
"Wait, isn’t today Wednesday?" he asked. I gazed up at him and thought to myself, You tell me. Is it?
"Yeah. But we don’t have Guitar Club," I answered. The short half-hour before class every Wednesday when clubs have their meetings had been cancelled. Jordan was obviously disappointed. (Does it sound sick that I found that oddly pleasing?)
I talked to him the way the way the magazines and shit say I should, jokingly insulting him, stealing glances and looking away, even playing with my hair, my voice almost as sugary sweet as the cinnamon roll I was eating. I was on the brink of miserable, but everything seems a little sweeter when Jordan is around.
Watching him, I remembered why I had started falling the second I saw him. He's perfect in his imperfections. Perfect because he isn't. I love the way he shakes his head back and forth quickly like a dog shaking it’s wet fur, which leaves his hair a long, feathery mess. I love his eyes, big and hazel, so full of something I can't put a label on. I love the soft curve of his half smile, the little silver ring wrapped around his bottom lip, the way I sometimes watch him talk and want to kiss him. I love that baggy sweatshirt he wears with the skulls on it, the one I just want to wrap myself up in. I love his voice, his sense of humor, his talent, his idiosyncrasies, his hands, his tall, skinny body, his black plastic rim glasses, his everything.
I keep giving up, backing away when I see that someone else has his attention instead. I need to stay true to my intentions. How could I lose this time? After a while, life should kind of owe me. I have never, ever wanted to go out with a guy so much in my life. It’s not like Light. It’s not like Grey. It’s not far away, unattainable. It’s just out of my reach at the end of the branch, and I just haven’t gone far enough out on the limb yet. I’ve waited long enough. I need to make him mine before someone else does.
In other news, my Wednesday was just a typical Wednesday.
I got to play in the school pool with my friends in gym class, throwing around a football and acting like thrilled little kids on the playground at recess.
I downloaded one of those adorable sixties songs, "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. I just love old music like that. It just makes you want to twirl around with the boy of your dreams in a circle skirt. (Or perhaps that's just me?)
I was walking down an empty hallway with my eyes on the floor tiles when my Geometry teacher was coming the other way. She simply said, "Smile." I thought to myself, Why not?
I won a bingo game in my History class and got an almond granola bar. Um, if you think that's not important, just refer to my use of the word "almond" and think again.
Floyd gave me his strawberries at lunch. (Who is Floyd? Maybe I'll mention him another time)
I drank sour lemon stuff that was half slushy, half punch in my Child Care class that I spiked with way too much sugar.
It was all sweet things today, wasn’t it? Sweet songs, sweetened punch, sweet strawberries, sweet moments with the adorable boy, sweet almond granola bar things, sweet suggestions from my Geometry teacher, that sweet feeling of jumping into warm water off of a diving board.
Enjoy your Wednesday. Let’s hope that you will tomorrow, too, because tomorrow is Wednesday, is it not?
I just read over this post and realized how weird all of this sounds. I sound crazy, don't I?
But hey. I haven’t gone off the deep end. I dove right in.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
It’s Like A Throbbing Toothache Of The Mind
Today is a Monday, and I have feeling that is all it is.
I walked into the school this morning expecting only a Monday. I sat down at my usual cafeteria table for breakfast and made sure the empty seat to my left stayed empty for Jordan.
I left for the bathroom so I could tie up my unruly hair and make myself look presentable. Does he ever even notice? I walked into the darkened restroom, no longer surprised or impressed when the motion-sensor lights flickered on. I personally don’t like those ultra-bright fluorescent lights they have in the school restrooms. I hate the way they make you look pale and flawed. They bring out the worst parts of your exterior and magnify them. The pimples on your face seem more noticeable. You look a little fatter in those jeans than you did at home.
I prefer seeing my reflection on darker surfaces, like a microwave door or a car window. Or in a more shadowy place, lit by table lamps rather than ceiling lights. What version of my reflection does the rest of the world see?
As I ventured deeper into the room, making my way toward my usual stall, the big one with the window, sink, and mirror, the temperature rose. The air was hot and damp, and it seemed to rise up from the freshly cleaned floor and wrap itself around my legs like a blood pressure test. It was suffocating, in a way.
As I left the room a few minutes later, I felt the humidity release my legs and I was free. Well, not exactly free, per se. I was on my way back to the Monday that stretched before me like an ocean, the end lost somewhere over the horizon. I kind of wished that heavy morning bathroom air had held on to my legs and kept me there. Even though I would be stuck there until the open window swept away that air, I would have an excuse to escape yet another predictable morning.
But I was already halfway back to the cafeteria, my legs free and moving in slow, lazy strides. So, I yanked open the door and bought my breakfast. I sat down next to Alexandria and my empty chair, and I waited patiently. I happened to look over my shoulder as I was talking to Alexandria and caught sight of that baggy sweatshirt with the huge skull print but I didn’t bother to wave hello or try to meet his gaze. Every day, I happen to turn around when he arrives. But I always keep my eyes on my cinnamon roll and little blue carton of milk instead of risking him seeing me watch him walk into the room. I remember the times when I would walk into a room and he would watch me, his chin in his hand and his eyes wide and unreadable. Or when he would greet me with a slight smile, sometimes a wave here and there. Is it just me, or did those moments kind of die off a bit?
Seconds later, his black binder full of unfinished assignments slams down on the table next to me. Yep. Jordan’s here. My friend Rosetta’s eyes widened and she flinched in surprise at the loud, seemingly angry slam, but I was used to it. It was just one of those little things that he did, those things that had "Jordan" just written all over them. I can't decide if I love or hate them.
Anyway, after a few minutes of talking about his homework assignments that he didn’t do (surprise!), Ginny arrived with Cassidy and Leslie. Leslie went up to the front of the cafeteria to get her usual breakfast sandwich, while Ginny and Cassidy stayed behind. Cassidy was obsessing over Ginny’s new sweatshirt, a hoodie designed to look like a character from Invader Zim. I saw the sweatshirt and said, "Oh, that’s like the sweatshirt that Beth told me she wanted," nonchalantly, knowing no one heard me, and the only people who did didn’t even know Beth.
Beth is a friend of mine that I’ve been getting kinda-sorta close to after doing a few assignments together in my Child Care class and spending time together when Yuuki, Cassidy, her, and I went out to a fancy Italian restaurant for Cassidy’s sixteenth birthday. I like Beth because she’s fairly mature, and she gives good advice. She’s always doodling in her notebooks with paint all over her hands and arms, and is usually quiet, but she knows how to handle things the right way. She kind of reminds me of Snow White. I'm not sure why. She doesn’t even have short black hair, and she doesn’t sing to animals. Well, not that I know of. And to contradict the Snow White thing even more, there’s a side of her that’s kind of a badass; a sort of fearless side that doesn't have time for bullshit. Her parents told her she wasn’t allowed to get her belly button pierced, so she took an earring and did it herself. I would never have the guts to do something like that! I ignore my parents all the time, but there’s just something scary about doing something they would never allow, that they might find out about. That’s what shocked me about Beth at first. You would never know it just by looking at her, but it’s there, just a little bit of anger or sadness or angst or something glowing just inside of her and you see it when you get to know her better. I guess a lot of people could be like that.
Talk about getting off topic, huh? Let’s take a leisurely stroll back to this morning, shall we? (Not that I even want to) Well, Cassidy asked a very bored, annoyed-looking Ginny where she got the sweatshirt and was immediately met with a snippy, "Where do you think?" Cassidy didn’t even pick up on the bitchiness and simply nodded and said, "Hot Topic." Then, Cassidy and Yuuki got up to go to homeroom. Before Cassidy was even out of the room, Ginny says, "I’m really sick of Cassidy copying everything I do!" I had to check a few times to make sure she was Ginny, not Leslie. It was such a Leslie thing to say, but then again, Ginny practically worships her. I was silent. Jordan’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief and with a surprised chuckle he said, "Did I miss something?" Ginny ignored him and continued complaining to Alexandria and I. Jordan kept trying to understand who and what Ginny was talking about. He turned to me and asked that same question. "Did I miss something?" I simply shrugged, but I wanted to say, "Yeah, you’ve been missing it all along. This is the girl you like to be around so much. Isn’t she a bitch?" But, I didn’t say that. I tuned back into Ginny’s whiny, lisped voice saying, "I don’t even know what to do about it." I grabbed my garbage and said monotonously, "Burn down her house." Jordan laughed at my outlandish response and I got up to leave with Alexandria. I was off to gym class after homeroom, which coincidentally, I had with Cassidy.
I couldn’t wait to tell her.
So, I came into the locker room after telling David about the weird dream I had the night before about the world ending to hear Yuuki telling Cassidy and a few other friends about something hilariously offensive I'd said about Ginny before schook this morning. I heard them all laugh and smiled to myself, waving as I walked by them, on my way to my gym locker that I rarely even used. I didn't even remember the combination... The story had been brought up because Cassidy was already angry at Ginny for buying that damn sweatshirt when she doesn’t even watch Invader Zim. (The whole situation is incredibly stupid) So, I pulled Cassidy aside and told her exactly what had happened after she left. I felt petty and gossipy, but it felt good. Cassidy was furious, and so was just about every other girl in my gym class. It made me feel powerful, smug and somewhat evil to hear all of those girls trash-talking Ginny all because I had been a little fire-starter and set something aflame inside of them, the dislike that everyone feels for her because of her hypocritical ways.
It was weird, turning so many people against someone. I liked it though. They were on Cassidy’s side. They were on my side. No one is rooting for her and Jordan to get together. Except maybe for Jordan.
But even if it’s the last thing I do, I am determined to change that. I am sick of stepping aside and watching Ginny pull Jordan away from me.
People like her and Leslie have taught me only a few things in my life, such as not to trust anyone. But another valuable lesson I’ve learned from them is that sometimes you have to knock other people down to come out on top. Fueled by anger and determination, that is exactly what I intend to do.
I walked into the school this morning expecting only a Monday. I sat down at my usual cafeteria table for breakfast and made sure the empty seat to my left stayed empty for Jordan.
I left for the bathroom so I could tie up my unruly hair and make myself look presentable. Does he ever even notice? I walked into the darkened restroom, no longer surprised or impressed when the motion-sensor lights flickered on. I personally don’t like those ultra-bright fluorescent lights they have in the school restrooms. I hate the way they make you look pale and flawed. They bring out the worst parts of your exterior and magnify them. The pimples on your face seem more noticeable. You look a little fatter in those jeans than you did at home.
I prefer seeing my reflection on darker surfaces, like a microwave door or a car window. Or in a more shadowy place, lit by table lamps rather than ceiling lights. What version of my reflection does the rest of the world see?
As I ventured deeper into the room, making my way toward my usual stall, the big one with the window, sink, and mirror, the temperature rose. The air was hot and damp, and it seemed to rise up from the freshly cleaned floor and wrap itself around my legs like a blood pressure test. It was suffocating, in a way.
As I left the room a few minutes later, I felt the humidity release my legs and I was free. Well, not exactly free, per se. I was on my way back to the Monday that stretched before me like an ocean, the end lost somewhere over the horizon. I kind of wished that heavy morning bathroom air had held on to my legs and kept me there. Even though I would be stuck there until the open window swept away that air, I would have an excuse to escape yet another predictable morning.
But I was already halfway back to the cafeteria, my legs free and moving in slow, lazy strides. So, I yanked open the door and bought my breakfast. I sat down next to Alexandria and my empty chair, and I waited patiently. I happened to look over my shoulder as I was talking to Alexandria and caught sight of that baggy sweatshirt with the huge skull print but I didn’t bother to wave hello or try to meet his gaze. Every day, I happen to turn around when he arrives. But I always keep my eyes on my cinnamon roll and little blue carton of milk instead of risking him seeing me watch him walk into the room. I remember the times when I would walk into a room and he would watch me, his chin in his hand and his eyes wide and unreadable. Or when he would greet me with a slight smile, sometimes a wave here and there. Is it just me, or did those moments kind of die off a bit?
Seconds later, his black binder full of unfinished assignments slams down on the table next to me. Yep. Jordan’s here. My friend Rosetta’s eyes widened and she flinched in surprise at the loud, seemingly angry slam, but I was used to it. It was just one of those little things that he did, those things that had "Jordan" just written all over them. I can't decide if I love or hate them.
Anyway, after a few minutes of talking about his homework assignments that he didn’t do (surprise!), Ginny arrived with Cassidy and Leslie. Leslie went up to the front of the cafeteria to get her usual breakfast sandwich, while Ginny and Cassidy stayed behind. Cassidy was obsessing over Ginny’s new sweatshirt, a hoodie designed to look like a character from Invader Zim. I saw the sweatshirt and said, "Oh, that’s like the sweatshirt that Beth told me she wanted," nonchalantly, knowing no one heard me, and the only people who did didn’t even know Beth.
Beth is a friend of mine that I’ve been getting kinda-sorta close to after doing a few assignments together in my Child Care class and spending time together when Yuuki, Cassidy, her, and I went out to a fancy Italian restaurant for Cassidy’s sixteenth birthday. I like Beth because she’s fairly mature, and she gives good advice. She’s always doodling in her notebooks with paint all over her hands and arms, and is usually quiet, but she knows how to handle things the right way. She kind of reminds me of Snow White. I'm not sure why. She doesn’t even have short black hair, and she doesn’t sing to animals. Well, not that I know of. And to contradict the Snow White thing even more, there’s a side of her that’s kind of a badass; a sort of fearless side that doesn't have time for bullshit. Her parents told her she wasn’t allowed to get her belly button pierced, so she took an earring and did it herself. I would never have the guts to do something like that! I ignore my parents all the time, but there’s just something scary about doing something they would never allow, that they might find out about. That’s what shocked me about Beth at first. You would never know it just by looking at her, but it’s there, just a little bit of anger or sadness or angst or something glowing just inside of her and you see it when you get to know her better. I guess a lot of people could be like that.
Talk about getting off topic, huh? Let’s take a leisurely stroll back to this morning, shall we? (Not that I even want to) Well, Cassidy asked a very bored, annoyed-looking Ginny where she got the sweatshirt and was immediately met with a snippy, "Where do you think?" Cassidy didn’t even pick up on the bitchiness and simply nodded and said, "Hot Topic." Then, Cassidy and Yuuki got up to go to homeroom. Before Cassidy was even out of the room, Ginny says, "I’m really sick of Cassidy copying everything I do!" I had to check a few times to make sure she was Ginny, not Leslie. It was such a Leslie thing to say, but then again, Ginny practically worships her. I was silent. Jordan’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief and with a surprised chuckle he said, "Did I miss something?" Ginny ignored him and continued complaining to Alexandria and I. Jordan kept trying to understand who and what Ginny was talking about. He turned to me and asked that same question. "Did I miss something?" I simply shrugged, but I wanted to say, "Yeah, you’ve been missing it all along. This is the girl you like to be around so much. Isn’t she a bitch?" But, I didn’t say that. I tuned back into Ginny’s whiny, lisped voice saying, "I don’t even know what to do about it." I grabbed my garbage and said monotonously, "Burn down her house." Jordan laughed at my outlandish response and I got up to leave with Alexandria. I was off to gym class after homeroom, which coincidentally, I had with Cassidy.
I couldn’t wait to tell her.
So, I came into the locker room after telling David about the weird dream I had the night before about the world ending to hear Yuuki telling Cassidy and a few other friends about something hilariously offensive I'd said about Ginny before schook this morning. I heard them all laugh and smiled to myself, waving as I walked by them, on my way to my gym locker that I rarely even used. I didn't even remember the combination... The story had been brought up because Cassidy was already angry at Ginny for buying that damn sweatshirt when she doesn’t even watch Invader Zim. (The whole situation is incredibly stupid) So, I pulled Cassidy aside and told her exactly what had happened after she left. I felt petty and gossipy, but it felt good. Cassidy was furious, and so was just about every other girl in my gym class. It made me feel powerful, smug and somewhat evil to hear all of those girls trash-talking Ginny all because I had been a little fire-starter and set something aflame inside of them, the dislike that everyone feels for her because of her hypocritical ways.
It was weird, turning so many people against someone. I liked it though. They were on Cassidy’s side. They were on my side. No one is rooting for her and Jordan to get together. Except maybe for Jordan.
But even if it’s the last thing I do, I am determined to change that. I am sick of stepping aside and watching Ginny pull Jordan away from me.
People like her and Leslie have taught me only a few things in my life, such as not to trust anyone. But another valuable lesson I’ve learned from them is that sometimes you have to knock other people down to come out on top. Fueled by anger and determination, that is exactly what I intend to do.
Tears
These days, it seems that all I ever do is cry. If I leave my mind unattended, tears fall. Why is that?
The tears are almost on a schedule, like my day goes something like:
- Wake up
- Go to school
- Ride the bus home
- Go to my bedroom/the couch/the bathroom and cry over something stupid
- Pull myself together
- Act like nothing is wrong
My parents don’t like when I cry over Jordan. And I don't want them to know I cry over Jordan. I sometimes wonder what would happen if he had a change of heart or a loss of eyesight and was to actually ask me out. What would my parents say? Did I ruin their opinion of him the first time I came home and cried? How many times had I cried since then? When was the first time, anyway? I can't even remember.
So, when I got home on Friday, I disregarded my homework and ran up to my bedroom. There, I picked up my guitar and strummed a few chords, hoping I'd find solace there. I tried singing a few songs, but broke down sobbing instead. (That went well) I tried my hardest to keep the tears out of my voice and sang a few sad songs, like "Blame It On The Rain" by He Is We and "Teardrops On My Guitar" by Taylor Swift. While singing the songs, I heard my voice wavering at the lines that reminded me of him, but I didn’t stop to let out the sobs building in my throat as I felt the tears stinging my eyes, rolling down my cheeks and off of my chin, right onto my guitar. I stopped playing, horrified.
Jordan was literally the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.
I gently put my guitar on Yuuki’s bed beside mine and curled up on my own unmade bed and let out the sobs, the pathetic blubbery crying of a little girl who didn’t get her way, because that’s all I was.
Maybe Symphony has been right from the start. I am pathetic.
I overreact and make too many assumptions. I mean, the littlest, dumbest things set me off. Jordan hugs Ginny and suddenly I’m bawling in my bedroom, blubbering along to Taylor Swift songs. I take note of Jordan "liking" a photo of Leslie on Facebook, and suddenly I’m upstairs with a handful of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups because food is my only comfort.
No wonder I’m so fucking fat... What if I stopped eating altogether? Maybe then he’d like me, because I wouldn’t be such a whale anymore. But we all know I'd never do that. I mean, all I ever do is eat. Popcorn, chips, Cool Whip, ice cream, Special K bars, candy, cookies, cinnamon rolls, every damn thing I can get my hands on. I really am pathetic!
Food this, Jordan that. Sad songs, crushed dreams, rivers of tears, lashing out at people who don’t deserve it, always writing and writing and writing because I have nothing better to do.
I just want to be happy.
I guess it’s too much to ask.
The tears are almost on a schedule, like my day goes something like:
- Wake up
- Go to school
- Ride the bus home
- Go to my bedroom/the couch/the bathroom and cry over something stupid
- Pull myself together
- Act like nothing is wrong
My parents don’t like when I cry over Jordan. And I don't want them to know I cry over Jordan. I sometimes wonder what would happen if he had a change of heart or a loss of eyesight and was to actually ask me out. What would my parents say? Did I ruin their opinion of him the first time I came home and cried? How many times had I cried since then? When was the first time, anyway? I can't even remember.
So, when I got home on Friday, I disregarded my homework and ran up to my bedroom. There, I picked up my guitar and strummed a few chords, hoping I'd find solace there. I tried singing a few songs, but broke down sobbing instead. (That went well) I tried my hardest to keep the tears out of my voice and sang a few sad songs, like "Blame It On The Rain" by He Is We and "Teardrops On My Guitar" by Taylor Swift. While singing the songs, I heard my voice wavering at the lines that reminded me of him, but I didn’t stop to let out the sobs building in my throat as I felt the tears stinging my eyes, rolling down my cheeks and off of my chin, right onto my guitar. I stopped playing, horrified.
Jordan was literally the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.
I gently put my guitar on Yuuki’s bed beside mine and curled up on my own unmade bed and let out the sobs, the pathetic blubbery crying of a little girl who didn’t get her way, because that’s all I was.
Maybe Symphony has been right from the start. I am pathetic.
I overreact and make too many assumptions. I mean, the littlest, dumbest things set me off. Jordan hugs Ginny and suddenly I’m bawling in my bedroom, blubbering along to Taylor Swift songs. I take note of Jordan "liking" a photo of Leslie on Facebook, and suddenly I’m upstairs with a handful of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups because food is my only comfort.
No wonder I’m so fucking fat... What if I stopped eating altogether? Maybe then he’d like me, because I wouldn’t be such a whale anymore. But we all know I'd never do that. I mean, all I ever do is eat. Popcorn, chips, Cool Whip, ice cream, Special K bars, candy, cookies, cinnamon rolls, every damn thing I can get my hands on. I really am pathetic!
Food this, Jordan that. Sad songs, crushed dreams, rivers of tears, lashing out at people who don’t deserve it, always writing and writing and writing because I have nothing better to do.
I just want to be happy.
I guess it’s too much to ask.
Monday, January 9, 2012
If The Sky Is The Limit, Then I’ll Build A Bridge Up To It
As a child, I was very curious about the world around me. I didn’t believe in boundaries. Yuuki and I took one look at the plastic white fence put up around our yard and we knew something had to be done about it.
One minute, my mother would look up and we would be happily playing with each other under the shade of the trees. The next, we would be climbing over that white fence, off on a new adventure. That large yard next to my house has changed so much over the years. It started as a perfect grassy play place, where Yuuki and I would run through the sheets that hung on the clothesline like they were thin, fluttery tunnels. Then, there were the swings. I remember the day when my father put up that swing set, how Yuuki and I pressed our hands into the wet cement that held it down. Dad had carved our names into that cement, next to our tiny handprints. I bet I can find those handprints today, if I looked hard enough.
My sister and I spent hours on the swings together. We swung so high that my parents’ friends got worried just watching us. But, my parents knew that this was simply just what Yuuki and I did. There was no such thing as boundaries. The sky was the limit, and we were determined to reach it, one swing at a time. To this day, I still love to go down to the playground in town and just swing until my hands get sore.
After the swing set was gone, Yuuki and I were left with one of those colorful, cube-shaped jungle gym things. It was more than just a big hunk of plastic to us. Sometimes, it was a house. One of us was a mother, the other a daughter. Or one of us was a mermaid in disguise, and the other was a fairy. Sometimes, we would just climb to the top of it and simply talk, but not conversationally. We would make up stories. There would be plotlines, character names, imaginary worlds and people, dialogue, all made up in the minds of my sister and I. I clearly remember one of our stories, about a girl named Tammy who lived in a futuristic world where everyone’s names began with a T, and they always drank tea. I remember one of the other characters would prance along the railing of her balcony, singing "Wake Me Up When September Ends" in the rain.
Sometimes, we made up our stories with dolls, created a world out of the smooth top of the green dresser in our room. In a world of so many female dolls, there was only one Ken doll, and every doll fought over him, because they didn’t want to be stuck with the lone Ken head, detached from his body in an incident involving a kiss scene with a doll with a rather large head.
From the start, it was all about the stories. It was all about where my imagination could take me.
Have you ever asked yourself that question, that one that you’re asked so often when you’re a child?
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
In the years between then and now, I’ve been constantly changing my mind, usually settling on unattainable, eccentric wishes, like being an actress or a singer or a fashion designer or a hairstylist. But, college is coming up fast, and about a year ago I realized, Whoa. I have to start thinking about my future. I spent a short period of my life completely confused as to what I wanted to do with my future, but now I don’t know why I didn’t even realize the answer was in front of my face.
I want to be a writer.
The stories I made up as a child, the compliments on my short stories and poetry in middle school, the substitute teacher who told me I was "the definition of a writer," my eighth grade English teacher who told me that I should definitely pursue a writing career, my current English teacher who told me almost the exact same thing after reading my reflective essay about January.
I have something here, and I want to do something with it. Who says I can’t publish a novel before I’m eighteen? Who says that my life is worthless when people I’ve never even met say that a blog written about it is sweet, inspiring, amazing? Who says I can’t get anywhere?
Everyone starts out on the ground, but the sky is the limit.
One minute, my mother would look up and we would be happily playing with each other under the shade of the trees. The next, we would be climbing over that white fence, off on a new adventure. That large yard next to my house has changed so much over the years. It started as a perfect grassy play place, where Yuuki and I would run through the sheets that hung on the clothesline like they were thin, fluttery tunnels. Then, there were the swings. I remember the day when my father put up that swing set, how Yuuki and I pressed our hands into the wet cement that held it down. Dad had carved our names into that cement, next to our tiny handprints. I bet I can find those handprints today, if I looked hard enough.
My sister and I spent hours on the swings together. We swung so high that my parents’ friends got worried just watching us. But, my parents knew that this was simply just what Yuuki and I did. There was no such thing as boundaries. The sky was the limit, and we were determined to reach it, one swing at a time. To this day, I still love to go down to the playground in town and just swing until my hands get sore.
After the swing set was gone, Yuuki and I were left with one of those colorful, cube-shaped jungle gym things. It was more than just a big hunk of plastic to us. Sometimes, it was a house. One of us was a mother, the other a daughter. Or one of us was a mermaid in disguise, and the other was a fairy. Sometimes, we would just climb to the top of it and simply talk, but not conversationally. We would make up stories. There would be plotlines, character names, imaginary worlds and people, dialogue, all made up in the minds of my sister and I. I clearly remember one of our stories, about a girl named Tammy who lived in a futuristic world where everyone’s names began with a T, and they always drank tea. I remember one of the other characters would prance along the railing of her balcony, singing "Wake Me Up When September Ends" in the rain.
Sometimes, we made up our stories with dolls, created a world out of the smooth top of the green dresser in our room. In a world of so many female dolls, there was only one Ken doll, and every doll fought over him, because they didn’t want to be stuck with the lone Ken head, detached from his body in an incident involving a kiss scene with a doll with a rather large head.
From the start, it was all about the stories. It was all about where my imagination could take me.
Have you ever asked yourself that question, that one that you’re asked so often when you’re a child?
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
In the years between then and now, I’ve been constantly changing my mind, usually settling on unattainable, eccentric wishes, like being an actress or a singer or a fashion designer or a hairstylist. But, college is coming up fast, and about a year ago I realized, Whoa. I have to start thinking about my future. I spent a short period of my life completely confused as to what I wanted to do with my future, but now I don’t know why I didn’t even realize the answer was in front of my face.
I want to be a writer.
The stories I made up as a child, the compliments on my short stories and poetry in middle school, the substitute teacher who told me I was "the definition of a writer," my eighth grade English teacher who told me that I should definitely pursue a writing career, my current English teacher who told me almost the exact same thing after reading my reflective essay about January.
I have something here, and I want to do something with it. Who says I can’t publish a novel before I’m eighteen? Who says that my life is worthless when people I’ve never even met say that a blog written about it is sweet, inspiring, amazing? Who says I can’t get anywhere?
Everyone starts out on the ground, but the sky is the limit.
Shallow Stupidity + Boredom = This Post
Yesterday, I wrote my mom a letter. I’ve been bothering her about wanting to dye my hair again for about two months now, but every time I try to bring it up, she gets mad and tells me that she doesn’t want to talk about it. So, I told her, "Fine. I’ll just write you a letter." And there I was at the kitchen table, done with my French and Geometry homework. It was almost like an English class assignment, using all of the skills I knew to write a persuasive essay.
So, I left the note at her spot at the table and twenty-four hours later, with a little nagging on my part, she finally read it. I thought I’d won her over for the most part, until I realized she had misunderstood my intentions and thought I was either going to dye my hair close to its natural color or buy something to wash the current color out and not dye it anymore. Well, I don't really know where she go that idea from, but sometimes it seems like no one understands me or why I want to do certain things or why I want to do them a certain way.
What Mom doesn’t understand is that is almost the exact opposite of what I want. I want to look different, beautiful for a change. I don’t want to look like so much like… myself. I want to look like someone that is easier to love, easier to envy, easier to admire. It sounds so immature to think that feeling wanted all stems from your outer appearance. But, it’s so true, isn’t it? Why is it that everyone else in the world is allowed to change? Or maybe they don't even have to.
Why doesn’t my mother understand that I'm kind of sad, and maybe, just maybe, feeling pretty would make it all at least a tiny bit better? But for girls like me, the only way to feel pretty is to change. I wish I were the kind of girl who doesn’t have to change to feel pretty, who is just so secure and confident in herself. But, the sad, disgusting, horrible truth is that feeling beautiful is hearing someone else tell you that you are. And that’s something I’ve never heard. Maybe Mom doesn’t understand that I just want to hear someone say that to me. Not the random guys on the internet who have only seen only edited, staged pictures from the neck up. Not the little kids who don’t even know what they’re talking about. Not the old people with their expired opinions and failing eyesight. Not my upperclassmen friends who have that whole "Be happy and optimistic, everyone is beautiful in their own way" attitude. Not my close friends and family who are obliged to stay those things to make me feel better.
Maybe it all just comes down to the couples in the hallways, the ones my Chemistry teacher was referring to. The hand-holders, the happy faces and quick kisses between class, the gift givers and receivers, the celebrators of Valentine’s Day, the lovers who love and hold and kiss each other like it’s so damn easy to be on the receiving end of love. The girls with the boys linked to them in the hallways are all beautiful. I look in the mirror and I see a girl who will never know that feeling unless she changes.
I hate this world. I hate how the outside is all the matters. Why does it have to be this way?
I was with Yuuki, complaining about Ginny and Leslie flirting with Jordan, and how he would definitely date either of them before me because they're like ten million times prettier bah blah blah, while she was checking her Facebook, scrolling through her News Feed. She stopped when she came across a girl’s status that went something like this, "A perfect body and a pretty face don’t make up for a horrible personality and a blackened heart." Yuuki gestured to the words, and said, "See? This is true." Mere seconds later, a person commented on the status, a guy to be exact. He said, "I… disagree." I pointed at his comment and said, "There, Yuuki. That’s that truth," and then I left the room to go get a shower.
Honestly, I wish I lived in a movie. I wish I lived in one of those perfect universes on the other side of the TV screen where the chubby, awkward, nerdy girl ends up with the guy of her dreams in the end. But, I live in the worst place imaginable: reality. The girls like me either change or end up alone until the boys become men and realize that beauty is more than just skin deep.
Why doesn't my mom realize that I want to change myself on the outside as soon as possible? Because that time I mentioned, that time when the boys realize the truth about what beauty actually is?
It's going to be a while. I don't want to wait that long.
So, I left the note at her spot at the table and twenty-four hours later, with a little nagging on my part, she finally read it. I thought I’d won her over for the most part, until I realized she had misunderstood my intentions and thought I was either going to dye my hair close to its natural color or buy something to wash the current color out and not dye it anymore. Well, I don't really know where she go that idea from, but sometimes it seems like no one understands me or why I want to do certain things or why I want to do them a certain way.
What Mom doesn’t understand is that is almost the exact opposite of what I want. I want to look different, beautiful for a change. I don’t want to look like so much like… myself. I want to look like someone that is easier to love, easier to envy, easier to admire. It sounds so immature to think that feeling wanted all stems from your outer appearance. But, it’s so true, isn’t it? Why is it that everyone else in the world is allowed to change? Or maybe they don't even have to.
Why doesn’t my mother understand that I'm kind of sad, and maybe, just maybe, feeling pretty would make it all at least a tiny bit better? But for girls like me, the only way to feel pretty is to change. I wish I were the kind of girl who doesn’t have to change to feel pretty, who is just so secure and confident in herself. But, the sad, disgusting, horrible truth is that feeling beautiful is hearing someone else tell you that you are. And that’s something I’ve never heard. Maybe Mom doesn’t understand that I just want to hear someone say that to me. Not the random guys on the internet who have only seen only edited, staged pictures from the neck up. Not the little kids who don’t even know what they’re talking about. Not the old people with their expired opinions and failing eyesight. Not my upperclassmen friends who have that whole "Be happy and optimistic, everyone is beautiful in their own way" attitude. Not my close friends and family who are obliged to stay those things to make me feel better.
Maybe it all just comes down to the couples in the hallways, the ones my Chemistry teacher was referring to. The hand-holders, the happy faces and quick kisses between class, the gift givers and receivers, the celebrators of Valentine’s Day, the lovers who love and hold and kiss each other like it’s so damn easy to be on the receiving end of love. The girls with the boys linked to them in the hallways are all beautiful. I look in the mirror and I see a girl who will never know that feeling unless she changes.
I hate this world. I hate how the outside is all the matters. Why does it have to be this way?
I was with Yuuki, complaining about Ginny and Leslie flirting with Jordan, and how he would definitely date either of them before me because they're like ten million times prettier bah blah blah, while she was checking her Facebook, scrolling through her News Feed. She stopped when she came across a girl’s status that went something like this, "A perfect body and a pretty face don’t make up for a horrible personality and a blackened heart." Yuuki gestured to the words, and said, "See? This is true." Mere seconds later, a person commented on the status, a guy to be exact. He said, "I… disagree." I pointed at his comment and said, "There, Yuuki. That’s that truth," and then I left the room to go get a shower.
Honestly, I wish I lived in a movie. I wish I lived in one of those perfect universes on the other side of the TV screen where the chubby, awkward, nerdy girl ends up with the guy of her dreams in the end. But, I live in the worst place imaginable: reality. The girls like me either change or end up alone until the boys become men and realize that beauty is more than just skin deep.
Why doesn't my mom realize that I want to change myself on the outside as soon as possible? Because that time I mentioned, that time when the boys realize the truth about what beauty actually is?
It's going to be a while. I don't want to wait that long.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Time Is A Criminal
Time. It’s a strange thing, isn’t it? It’s always running away, too fast. And then it chases us, and no matter how fast we run, it will always catch up. It steals from us. It slowly kills us. Maybe that’s why it’s running away, because what it does is wrong. It’s running from the law, the biggest criminal mastermind we’ve ever known, always playing tricks on us, creeping by us, distracting us with smiles and pain, wastes of time and memories.
Sometimes, I stop and realize…Whoa. I’m fifteen. It feels like just yesterday, I was thirteen. It feels like not too long ago, I was a crazy middle school girl. I still remember posing with my sister for pictures in our denim jumpers on the first day of kindergarten or first grade; I can’t remember what year exactly. I remember how we put up our umbrellas, even though it wasn’t raining.
Now, ten years have gone by since that day. Where did those years go? Why did they go by so fast? Why doesn’t time ever slow down? Why does it just keep going faster and faster, until years will feel like a mere months, weeks turn into days, days turn into minutes. Everything will flash by so fast, that I won’t even get a chance to look around and enjoy it. I can hear time chasing me, the clock ticking like footsteps. I woke up this morning, and I realized that the clock sitting on my roll top desk, the one I had cut, shaped, put together and painted in my seventh grade shop class, had stopped sometime this morning. It was stuck back sometime before six. Or had it stopped last night? Or yesterday morning? Or the night before that? I never even bother to look at that clock, really. I always forget that it has a purpose other than the stack of letters and books on top of it, the important things I shouldn’t lose that are stored inside of it.
I didn’t even bother to tell my mom that the battery needed to be changed. I don’t need time following me everywhere I go. I don’t need to hear those soft, repetitious footsteps when I’m trying to write or read, or trying to fall asleep.
But, just recently, something reminded me of how quickly time is flying by me. Only about seven days ago, 2O12 began, a new year. But…
Where did 2O11 go?
I remember the first day of 2O11 like it was yesterday. I spent it as sick as a victim of food poisoning, ass barely leaving the toilet, face in a bucket. Great way to start the year, right? Including that horrible experience, many, many, things happened in 2O11. Where to begin?
I turned fifteen and realized it’s nothing like Taylor Swift says it is. My taste in music changed. I wrote twenty songs and a few poems here and there. I started this blog. I got better and better at guitar, month by month. I made new friends. I lost some friends. I lost my trust in some people. I dyed my hair golden blonde. I started wearing eyeliner every day for months. My naivety slowly faded away, experience by experience. Alexandria lost her virginity to a guy she barely knew. Symphony went out with some guy who turned out to be bisexual and just started ignoring her instead of breaking up with her. I watched Oliver and Yuuki slowly drift apart, drift together again, and I watched him fall in love with Cassidy and leave Yuuki behind.
I took some chances. I made a lot of dumb mistakes that seemed normal at the time. I lived the whole year without romance; without my first boyfriend or my first kiss, and I have a feeling this year might be the same, at the rate it’s going now. But, hell, it’s only the seventh day out of three hundred and sixty-five! I need to stop overreacting and assuming so much. That should’ve been one of my resolutions. I guess I could add it to the list now.
In 2O11, I met people who changed my life, like Jordan. He randomly walked into my world, and from the very first time I saw him, I knew I would be falling in love momentarily. I remember how ecstatic I was when he talked to me for the first time. But, I never would’ve suspected being so close to the fairytale, having him as a friend, just a few words away from a happy ending or a tragedy. Scary, isn’t it?
2O11 was an important year in my life. It flew by so fast. Or did it? Did it just seem that way because it’s over?
I hope that 2O12 will be a year of living in the moment and not even stopping to think about time. Time should be locked up forever. I just want to stand in one of those perfect settings, those too-good-to-be-true moments and see time creeping around in the background, reminding me that nothing good lasts forever. I want to pull out a gun and point it right at that criminal and cry it out, "FREEZE." I want to freeze time. I want to be stuck in a perfect moment, because I’m sick of the predictable sad story my life is becoming.
Sometimes, I stop and realize…Whoa. I’m fifteen. It feels like just yesterday, I was thirteen. It feels like not too long ago, I was a crazy middle school girl. I still remember posing with my sister for pictures in our denim jumpers on the first day of kindergarten or first grade; I can’t remember what year exactly. I remember how we put up our umbrellas, even though it wasn’t raining.
Now, ten years have gone by since that day. Where did those years go? Why did they go by so fast? Why doesn’t time ever slow down? Why does it just keep going faster and faster, until years will feel like a mere months, weeks turn into days, days turn into minutes. Everything will flash by so fast, that I won’t even get a chance to look around and enjoy it. I can hear time chasing me, the clock ticking like footsteps. I woke up this morning, and I realized that the clock sitting on my roll top desk, the one I had cut, shaped, put together and painted in my seventh grade shop class, had stopped sometime this morning. It was stuck back sometime before six. Or had it stopped last night? Or yesterday morning? Or the night before that? I never even bother to look at that clock, really. I always forget that it has a purpose other than the stack of letters and books on top of it, the important things I shouldn’t lose that are stored inside of it.
I didn’t even bother to tell my mom that the battery needed to be changed. I don’t need time following me everywhere I go. I don’t need to hear those soft, repetitious footsteps when I’m trying to write or read, or trying to fall asleep.
But, just recently, something reminded me of how quickly time is flying by me. Only about seven days ago, 2O12 began, a new year. But…
Where did 2O11 go?
I remember the first day of 2O11 like it was yesterday. I spent it as sick as a victim of food poisoning, ass barely leaving the toilet, face in a bucket. Great way to start the year, right? Including that horrible experience, many, many, things happened in 2O11. Where to begin?
I turned fifteen and realized it’s nothing like Taylor Swift says it is. My taste in music changed. I wrote twenty songs and a few poems here and there. I started this blog. I got better and better at guitar, month by month. I made new friends. I lost some friends. I lost my trust in some people. I dyed my hair golden blonde. I started wearing eyeliner every day for months. My naivety slowly faded away, experience by experience. Alexandria lost her virginity to a guy she barely knew. Symphony went out with some guy who turned out to be bisexual and just started ignoring her instead of breaking up with her. I watched Oliver and Yuuki slowly drift apart, drift together again, and I watched him fall in love with Cassidy and leave Yuuki behind.
I took some chances. I made a lot of dumb mistakes that seemed normal at the time. I lived the whole year without romance; without my first boyfriend or my first kiss, and I have a feeling this year might be the same, at the rate it’s going now. But, hell, it’s only the seventh day out of three hundred and sixty-five! I need to stop overreacting and assuming so much. That should’ve been one of my resolutions. I guess I could add it to the list now.
In 2O11, I met people who changed my life, like Jordan. He randomly walked into my world, and from the very first time I saw him, I knew I would be falling in love momentarily. I remember how ecstatic I was when he talked to me for the first time. But, I never would’ve suspected being so close to the fairytale, having him as a friend, just a few words away from a happy ending or a tragedy. Scary, isn’t it?
2O11 was an important year in my life. It flew by so fast. Or did it? Did it just seem that way because it’s over?
I hope that 2O12 will be a year of living in the moment and not even stopping to think about time. Time should be locked up forever. I just want to stand in one of those perfect settings, those too-good-to-be-true moments and see time creeping around in the background, reminding me that nothing good lasts forever. I want to pull out a gun and point it right at that criminal and cry it out, "FREEZE." I want to freeze time. I want to be stuck in a perfect moment, because I’m sick of the predictable sad story my life is becoming.
Testing The Theory
Yesterday’s song of the day was "Float On" by Modest Mouse. I can listen to that song over and over again and it never gets old. The music, the words, it all just keeps me up, when the world is threatening to bring me down.
Yesterday was a Wednesday. Today is a Friday. Or is it?
Was yesterday a Thursday? (According to Rebecca Black, it was…) Well, in all actuality, it indeed was a Thursday. But a few Thursdays ago, I remember laying on the couch in my living room, crying and feeling hopeless. Is that what a Thursday is? If so, yesterday was a Wednesday. You know why? Because I made it that way.
But for some reason, today was a Thursday, tears and all. Today was not a Friday. Don’t even double-check your calendars. It was a Thursday. I just don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to snatch Jordan out of Ginny’s hands. I don’t know how to make him treat me the way he treats her. I don’t know how to tell him how I feel. I don’t know how to make him fall in love with me.
I stood outside waiting for my bus, since it was strangely warm today. Only about a month ago, he would’ve come outside to talk to me. My bus was even late today. We could’ve spent a little while just talking and laughing, sitting on one of the white benches together. But…no, that’s not how it went. Instead, I watched him from the other side of the huge windowpane, talking to Ginny and Leslie, smiling, laughing, and hugging Ginny before he left. On the way out the door, he didn’t even say goodbye to me. He just walked right by, his gaze never meeting mine.
Why should I have to be in charge of every conversation, every interaction with him if Ginny doesn’t have to? If I just stopped associating with him altogether, would he even care? If I moved somewhere far away, would he miss me? If I died, would he miss me? Something tells me he wouldn’t. Maybe a little, but just because it’s the right thing to do. Pity the dead person. She died a loser, never on the receiving end of love, always the one giving. Then, again I once read somewhere that no one dies a virgin because in the end, life f*cks us all. Not exactly an inspiring, hopeful quote like the ones I usually gravitate towards, but I can’t help but agree. Except for me, life didn’t wait to f*ck me in the end. It’s already started f*cking me a long time ago. Nothing ever goes right for me. I see people smiling, overjoyed about all the things that go right in their lives and I just sit there and wonder when I’ll get to smile for a change.
The other day, a girl in my Geometry class was incredibly happy about her new boyfriend. One of her friends said, "Aww, she’s so happy! It’s so cute!" Another said, "I know! I’m so happy for her! I’m so happy she finally found the right guy!" and gave the girl a hug. She replied with, "Yes, I think I did," and continued smiling. I wanted to cry. I’ll never know what that’s like.
Today, my Chemistry teacher was talking about covalent bands. She was talking about how our molecules are attracted to the molecules in our desks, but it’s not strong enough that we would have to rip ourselves away from them to get a tissue or drag a desk down the hallway attached to our asses. Then, she said about how around Valentine’s Day, she sees the couple in the hallway holding hands, and how they aren’t permanently attached to the other person, so they can let go and go to class. Even if they don’t want to. No matter how much chemistry they have. Hand holding. Valentine’s Day. I immediately thought of Jordan, how I want to walk through the hallways, proudly holding his hand, how I want to wear his big sweatshirt with the skulls all over it, how I want to slow dance with him at the Valentine’s Day dance, how we’d make such a weird, adorable couple. I felt my face crumble into a frown. That would never happen, would it? When the teacher said that to his class, only about an hour earlier, did he think of me like I thought of him? Ahem, no.
Even if I tried to ask Jordan out, rejection would just knock me down, and I wouldn’t even attempt to get back up again. I would watch our relationship fall apart and fade away. He would purposefully avoid me and those days when I go home and cry will become more usual, even more usual than they already are.
Even if I tried to ask Jordan out, what would I say? Why would he love me? I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m weird. I’m practically bipolar. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I talk too much, but when he’s talking to Ginny, I can never just dramatically sweep onto the scene and snatch him away. I just watch them talk and smile and hug, on the outside looking in, literally. His eyes meet mine, but I only look away. He doesn’t want to talk to me. If he wanted to talk, he would talk, the way he does with Ginny. But, I am not Ginny. I am not cute and clumsy, happy and thin, interesting and artistic. I’m just an alien. I honestly don’t belong on this happy-ending little planet, because I just don’t deserve those fairytales I see come true every day, for some reason.
But, let me take a few steps back and look at this from a more mature, non-pathetic angle. I just had a bad day. Maybe if I keep trying out my Wednesday Theory, cutting in and stealing hearts that are rightfully mine, maybe… it just might work. But, I’m clueless and shy. Retarded when it comes to romance. But Jordan’s retarded, too. Maybe we really are perfect for each other. Maybe Ginny just needs to be knocked down, the same way she’s been knocking me down for weeks now. And not to be aggressive or rude, but I honestly want to be the one to shove her to the ground and steal what was mine first. "Stealing other people’s toys on the playground won’t make you many friends." I think she needs to learn that just because her boyfriend lives miles away from her doesn’t mean she could be a whore like her little friend Leslie. Although… Leslie is by rights allowed to be a whore now that her and Brendon broke up. Everyone was so shocked when they broke up, like, "I thought they were gonna get married!" But, I knew it was going to happen for a while now. I knew from the beginning, from my little gossip-hound, David.
So, Ginny might as well back off, because I’m not going to let one little Thursday stop me now. I’ll be back for that heart, and I’ll keep coming back until I get it. I would kill to have that heart. I’m still chasing the sunset in his eyes, and I’m not going to let him leave me in the dark anymore.
Yesterday was a Wednesday. Today is a Friday. Or is it?
Was yesterday a Thursday? (According to Rebecca Black, it was…) Well, in all actuality, it indeed was a Thursday. But a few Thursdays ago, I remember laying on the couch in my living room, crying and feeling hopeless. Is that what a Thursday is? If so, yesterday was a Wednesday. You know why? Because I made it that way.
But for some reason, today was a Thursday, tears and all. Today was not a Friday. Don’t even double-check your calendars. It was a Thursday. I just don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to snatch Jordan out of Ginny’s hands. I don’t know how to make him treat me the way he treats her. I don’t know how to tell him how I feel. I don’t know how to make him fall in love with me.
I stood outside waiting for my bus, since it was strangely warm today. Only about a month ago, he would’ve come outside to talk to me. My bus was even late today. We could’ve spent a little while just talking and laughing, sitting on one of the white benches together. But…no, that’s not how it went. Instead, I watched him from the other side of the huge windowpane, talking to Ginny and Leslie, smiling, laughing, and hugging Ginny before he left. On the way out the door, he didn’t even say goodbye to me. He just walked right by, his gaze never meeting mine.
Why should I have to be in charge of every conversation, every interaction with him if Ginny doesn’t have to? If I just stopped associating with him altogether, would he even care? If I moved somewhere far away, would he miss me? If I died, would he miss me? Something tells me he wouldn’t. Maybe a little, but just because it’s the right thing to do. Pity the dead person. She died a loser, never on the receiving end of love, always the one giving. Then, again I once read somewhere that no one dies a virgin because in the end, life f*cks us all. Not exactly an inspiring, hopeful quote like the ones I usually gravitate towards, but I can’t help but agree. Except for me, life didn’t wait to f*ck me in the end. It’s already started f*cking me a long time ago. Nothing ever goes right for me. I see people smiling, overjoyed about all the things that go right in their lives and I just sit there and wonder when I’ll get to smile for a change.
The other day, a girl in my Geometry class was incredibly happy about her new boyfriend. One of her friends said, "Aww, she’s so happy! It’s so cute!" Another said, "I know! I’m so happy for her! I’m so happy she finally found the right guy!" and gave the girl a hug. She replied with, "Yes, I think I did," and continued smiling. I wanted to cry. I’ll never know what that’s like.
Today, my Chemistry teacher was talking about covalent bands. She was talking about how our molecules are attracted to the molecules in our desks, but it’s not strong enough that we would have to rip ourselves away from them to get a tissue or drag a desk down the hallway attached to our asses. Then, she said about how around Valentine’s Day, she sees the couple in the hallway holding hands, and how they aren’t permanently attached to the other person, so they can let go and go to class. Even if they don’t want to. No matter how much chemistry they have. Hand holding. Valentine’s Day. I immediately thought of Jordan, how I want to walk through the hallways, proudly holding his hand, how I want to wear his big sweatshirt with the skulls all over it, how I want to slow dance with him at the Valentine’s Day dance, how we’d make such a weird, adorable couple. I felt my face crumble into a frown. That would never happen, would it? When the teacher said that to his class, only about an hour earlier, did he think of me like I thought of him? Ahem, no.
Even if I tried to ask Jordan out, rejection would just knock me down, and I wouldn’t even attempt to get back up again. I would watch our relationship fall apart and fade away. He would purposefully avoid me and those days when I go home and cry will become more usual, even more usual than they already are.
Even if I tried to ask Jordan out, what would I say? Why would he love me? I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m weird. I’m practically bipolar. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I talk too much, but when he’s talking to Ginny, I can never just dramatically sweep onto the scene and snatch him away. I just watch them talk and smile and hug, on the outside looking in, literally. His eyes meet mine, but I only look away. He doesn’t want to talk to me. If he wanted to talk, he would talk, the way he does with Ginny. But, I am not Ginny. I am not cute and clumsy, happy and thin, interesting and artistic. I’m just an alien. I honestly don’t belong on this happy-ending little planet, because I just don’t deserve those fairytales I see come true every day, for some reason.
But, let me take a few steps back and look at this from a more mature, non-pathetic angle. I just had a bad day. Maybe if I keep trying out my Wednesday Theory, cutting in and stealing hearts that are rightfully mine, maybe… it just might work. But, I’m clueless and shy. Retarded when it comes to romance. But Jordan’s retarded, too. Maybe we really are perfect for each other. Maybe Ginny just needs to be knocked down, the same way she’s been knocking me down for weeks now. And not to be aggressive or rude, but I honestly want to be the one to shove her to the ground and steal what was mine first. "Stealing other people’s toys on the playground won’t make you many friends." I think she needs to learn that just because her boyfriend lives miles away from her doesn’t mean she could be a whore like her little friend Leslie. Although… Leslie is by rights allowed to be a whore now that her and Brendon broke up. Everyone was so shocked when they broke up, like, "I thought they were gonna get married!" But, I knew it was going to happen for a while now. I knew from the beginning, from my little gossip-hound, David.
So, Ginny might as well back off, because I’m not going to let one little Thursday stop me now. I’ll be back for that heart, and I’ll keep coming back until I get it. I would kill to have that heart. I’m still chasing the sunset in his eyes, and I’m not going to let him leave me in the dark anymore.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Just Another Wednesday
Wednesday is like the day that I visit the Home Depot and pick up a few new cans of blue paint. I don’t know what it is about Wednesdays, but they tend to bring me up when I’ve been feeling permanently down.
Today, Jordan and I talked like we used to, we endlessly cracked either up at breakfast, I listened to him play my guitar in Guitar Club. It was like how everything was before he met Ginny. It was pleasing, quenching a certain thirst that I’ve been going dehydrated on these past few weeks, having him all to myself. Maybe that’s what I have to do.
If he isn’t looking my way, I’ll make him look my way. If someone else is making him smile, I’ll make him smile instead. If he doesn’t love me, I’ll give him reasons to. There are reasons he should, right?
Finding pennies on the ground, eating candy hearts, listening to upbeat indie songs, sitting with Symphony at lunch and spending well-needed buddy-buddy time with her, listening to Alexandria play pretty songs she wrote, spending time with little girls who tell me I’m pretty, laughing with the boy I love… that’s a Wednesday. Just your typical good day. I didn’t come home from school and cry, which has been becoming more and more usual for me. I didn’t walk through the day, feeling sad and misunderstood. I just smiled. I laughed. I talked to my friends. It was how every day should be.
Maybe I hold the power in my hands. Maybe Wednesdays are good because I expect them to be, I make the best of the little things and ignore the things that usually get on my last nerve, because I’m expecting a good day. Maybe I make these days good. Maybe if I faced the world every Monday, every Tuesday, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, expecting a Wednesday, maybe I’ll end up with days like today.
It sounds a little crazy. I’m a little crazy, actually. But, maybe it’s worth a try. :) Happy Wednesday, everyone. Smile. Look for the reasons, you’ll find them.
Today, Jordan and I talked like we used to, we endlessly cracked either up at breakfast, I listened to him play my guitar in Guitar Club. It was like how everything was before he met Ginny. It was pleasing, quenching a certain thirst that I’ve been going dehydrated on these past few weeks, having him all to myself. Maybe that’s what I have to do.
If he isn’t looking my way, I’ll make him look my way. If someone else is making him smile, I’ll make him smile instead. If he doesn’t love me, I’ll give him reasons to. There are reasons he should, right?
Finding pennies on the ground, eating candy hearts, listening to upbeat indie songs, sitting with Symphony at lunch and spending well-needed buddy-buddy time with her, listening to Alexandria play pretty songs she wrote, spending time with little girls who tell me I’m pretty, laughing with the boy I love… that’s a Wednesday. Just your typical good day. I didn’t come home from school and cry, which has been becoming more and more usual for me. I didn’t walk through the day, feeling sad and misunderstood. I just smiled. I laughed. I talked to my friends. It was how every day should be.
Maybe I hold the power in my hands. Maybe Wednesdays are good because I expect them to be, I make the best of the little things and ignore the things that usually get on my last nerve, because I’m expecting a good day. Maybe I make these days good. Maybe if I faced the world every Monday, every Tuesday, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, expecting a Wednesday, maybe I’ll end up with days like today.
It sounds a little crazy. I’m a little crazy, actually. But, maybe it’s worth a try. :) Happy Wednesday, everyone. Smile. Look for the reasons, you’ll find them.
The More Random Side Of The Girl With Blue Paint. *~*
Remember "Song of The Day?" I haven’t done that in a while, have I? Today’s song is "Not Leavin’ Yet" by Nickelback. It doesn’t really make much sense but I really like it. It’s like an abstract painting, but it's a song.
Why is it that abstract artists get famous for painting nonsense? What is "abstract" anyway? By definition, something abstract is something existing in thought or as in idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. Well, if abstract things are all in your head, how do we paint them? Sometimes, I wonder if abstract is a good description for the strange art it labels. Maybe "abstract" is what people classify things as when they just don’t understand them.
Am I abstract? Are my ideas, my problems abstract? Is my life abstract? Those are all things that no one really understands. Maybe I’m more of an abstract person. If you see me walking down the street, I look like just an average, kind of nerdy, quiet girl, most likely well-behaved and good in school. But, that’s where the problem begins. That is stereotyping. I hate stereotypes. On the outside, I fall under all of these stereotypes that I don’t want to fall under. I want people to look at me and wonder what to stereotype me as.
But what am I? What categories do I fall under in the big universe of stereotypes? I have the dorky obsessions of a band geek, the ideas of a writer, the dry lips of a clarinet player, the worn-down fingers of a guitar player, the mind of a teenager, the body of a food-addict, the musical taste of an emo kid, the words of a dreamer, the style of a hipster gone wrong, the laziness of a loser, the mood swings of a psycho, the outdoorsy attitude of a tomboy, the guilty pleasures of a girly-girl, the passion of an advocate, the bitchiness of a hater at times, the mind that always open.
But beside the stereotypes, what am I? Without stereotypes, we wouldn’t be able to classify people by what we know or think they are. Maybe a stereotype is the way that judgmental people stay organized, so they don’t get too confused or something, so they don’t have to use their minds. But, I for one love to use my mind. I try not to judge people using stereotypes. I try to figure them out first. I’m not saying that the stereotypes never cross my mind, because they do. I’m saying that I like to get to know a person instead of not even talking to them because of some judgmental opinion of someone else.
Take my Geometry class for example. The cheerleader who sits on my left isn’t as stupid and bitchy as people think she is. She’s actually nice, random, and a little weird. The preppy freshman girl who sits behind me is anything but the typical stereotype for a preppy girl. She’s loud, outgoing, confident, and down-to-earth. The girl who sits on my right isn’t rude like people think she is. She’s talkative, nice, and always laughs at the things I say. My Geometry class is a perfect example of why I don’t stereotype. If I was a stereotypical person, I probably never would’ve talked to any of those girls.
Even though I’m not a stereotypical person, there are a lot of people out there that I would never waste a minute of my life talking to. If someone is intentionally rude to someone, right to their face, that is the kind of person I never want to associate with.
…
I’ve been working on the novel I’m writing a lot lately. So far, it’s forty pages long, single space. I’m in Chapter 4. The story is strange, involving a girl’s difficult, dark, violent life and a touch of the supernatural. I aim to make my stories interesting and out-of-the-ordinary, the kind of thing that would capture someone’s attention until the very last page, not a cliché romance or a vampire story.
You know, I have a very diverse taste in music. Right now, I’m listening to a song by Aly & AJ. Seriously. It’s called "Collapsed." I find it kind of relatable to my whole situation with Jordan, relatable to how I wasted too much time wondering when I should’ve just made him mine at the very beginning. Now, it’s all a mess, collapsed. When I started listening to hardcore music last year, I never thought I would dig out my old Aly & AJ and Miley Cyrus CDs and actually like some of the songs.
I have written seven songs about Jordan. As they pour out, they start to get sadder and sadder. I went from " You make me careless, you make me insane, you make smile instead of feel pain" to "Now we’re drifting apart and I’m watching someone else win that heart; It hurts like the end of the world, it hurts that I’ll never be your girl." What happened? What happened to the happy ending I saw in his eyes, that hope? I would give anything to get that back.
I have a tendency to laugh at myself. Sometimes, when I’m feeling like I’m a little off of my axis, not spinning in the right direction, I turn into a combination of funny randomness and psychotic insanity. When my friends talk to me on Facebook, I send them random, weird messages, all in capital letters, or just things that have nothing to do with anything. They usually just ignore my weirdness or act weird, too. And I’m just sitting there behind my computer screen, laughing like an idiot. It’s just a mood that I get into sometimes. It’s like a replacement for sadness, almost like trying to cheer myself up, or just acting strangely to get my mind off of the things that are threatening to put tears in my eyes.
Speaking of tears, two Thursdays ago, I got home from school and cried. I curled up in a ball on the couch with my music and bawled like a baby. My parents yelled at me, punishing me for "crying over some asshole with a lip ring." And that’s exactly what I was crying over, the way that asshole with a lip ring is obviously falling for someone else. I was crying because I knew, I just knew that I had lost my chance a long time ago, even though I had tried to tell him. I tried! I said the words. I really like you. Why didn’t he understand? Why does he have to be so stupid? I’d bet if Ginny said, "I really like you" he would understand right away. That’s just the kind of luck I have, isn’t it?
Did you know that if you eat sauerkraut, it’s supposed to be good luck? That’s why it’s served with dinner on New Year’s Day. But I don’t like sauerkraut. The smell alone disgusts me to no end. Maybe that’s why I’m so unlucky. But I doubt it. I’m not really a superstitious person. I open my umbrellas indoors, walk under ladders, and I don’t think anything of black cats crossing my path. But, where does bad luck come from? Doesn’t God want to see everyone happy? He’s always gonna come through. I’d like to believe that but, um, when? Why am I talking about this again?
Why is it that my topics of discussion seem to go in circles: life, not understanding life, being misunderstood, Jordan, being unlucky, questioning God, Jordan, writing, dreaming, and back around to the beginning again. I should think of something better to talk about.
…
That awkward moment when you’re completely jamming to your favorite song you wrote about the asshole with a lip ring, singing your heart out, and your mom walks in the room. >.>
…
I was supposed to get an iPod Touch for Christmas. I don’t have one yet. For some reason, my mom thinks that there is something wrong with purchasing a used iPod, when I don’t feel like spending all of my new money on one thing. Money never sticks around long for me. It’s like I get some money, freak out like "OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS COOL GREEN STUFF," and spend it all in a fit of money-infused happiness. I wish that there were no such thing as money. I wish we paid for things with grass or leaves, stuff that actually does grow on trees, so all you had to do was grab a few leaves off of the tree by your house and run to the grocery store for dinner. Wouldn’t life be so much easier? At least I think so, since I have like, five hundred trees around my house.
…
The words to the song "Mr. Right" by A Rocket To The Moon confuse me. It’s like when you’re arguing with someone and they say, "I know." Then you say, "I know that you know." Then they say, "I know that you know that I know." Then you say, "I know that you know that I know that you know," and so on. I don’t why this song reminds me of this. He does a lot of referring to himself in the third person. "My girlfriend’s got a boyfriend running to catch the bus to meet, to meet up with her boyfriend’s girlfriend who’s stunning, she’s such a sight to see." Isn’t that confusing? O.o
…
For Christmas, I got a lot of clothes. And I also got a hat from Hot Topic that’s shaped like a Hello Kitty head. Does Hello Kitty have some sort of show or something? What is the importance of Hello Kitty, anyway? Does she do anything other than be cute? Does it really matter? I love Hello Kitty anyway, even if she doesn’t do anything with her life. Blood On The Dance Floor has a song called "I <3 Hello Kitty." The song really sucks if you ask me. It has nothing to do with Hello Kitty. It’s about sex.
I don’t understand how people can write stupid, pointless songs about sex or partying. What’s the point? There is absolutely no meaning behind that music. I mean, there’s this band composed of two girls, Millionaires, and all of their music is about drinking, money, sex, haters, and being whores. There is absolutely no talent there, yet they get paid money to "sing" those songs. I honestly don’t understand what’s wrong with people these days.
…
"Am I retarded, or am I just overjoyed?" – Green Day
…
"I’m taking my time, I’m trying to leave the memories of you behind. I’m gonna be fine, as soon as I get your picture right out of my mind. I wanna feel the way you make me feel when I’m with you. I wanna be the only hand you need to hold on to. But every time I call, you don’t have time. I guess I’ll never get to call you mine." – Simple Plan
…
-Insert random quote here-
…
I just realized I’d rather write serious, meaningful posts than these weird, random ones.
Why is it that abstract artists get famous for painting nonsense? What is "abstract" anyway? By definition, something abstract is something existing in thought or as in idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. Well, if abstract things are all in your head, how do we paint them? Sometimes, I wonder if abstract is a good description for the strange art it labels. Maybe "abstract" is what people classify things as when they just don’t understand them.
Am I abstract? Are my ideas, my problems abstract? Is my life abstract? Those are all things that no one really understands. Maybe I’m more of an abstract person. If you see me walking down the street, I look like just an average, kind of nerdy, quiet girl, most likely well-behaved and good in school. But, that’s where the problem begins. That is stereotyping. I hate stereotypes. On the outside, I fall under all of these stereotypes that I don’t want to fall under. I want people to look at me and wonder what to stereotype me as.
But what am I? What categories do I fall under in the big universe of stereotypes? I have the dorky obsessions of a band geek, the ideas of a writer, the dry lips of a clarinet player, the worn-down fingers of a guitar player, the mind of a teenager, the body of a food-addict, the musical taste of an emo kid, the words of a dreamer, the style of a hipster gone wrong, the laziness of a loser, the mood swings of a psycho, the outdoorsy attitude of a tomboy, the guilty pleasures of a girly-girl, the passion of an advocate, the bitchiness of a hater at times, the mind that always open.
But beside the stereotypes, what am I? Without stereotypes, we wouldn’t be able to classify people by what we know or think they are. Maybe a stereotype is the way that judgmental people stay organized, so they don’t get too confused or something, so they don’t have to use their minds. But, I for one love to use my mind. I try not to judge people using stereotypes. I try to figure them out first. I’m not saying that the stereotypes never cross my mind, because they do. I’m saying that I like to get to know a person instead of not even talking to them because of some judgmental opinion of someone else.
Take my Geometry class for example. The cheerleader who sits on my left isn’t as stupid and bitchy as people think she is. She’s actually nice, random, and a little weird. The preppy freshman girl who sits behind me is anything but the typical stereotype for a preppy girl. She’s loud, outgoing, confident, and down-to-earth. The girl who sits on my right isn’t rude like people think she is. She’s talkative, nice, and always laughs at the things I say. My Geometry class is a perfect example of why I don’t stereotype. If I was a stereotypical person, I probably never would’ve talked to any of those girls.
Even though I’m not a stereotypical person, there are a lot of people out there that I would never waste a minute of my life talking to. If someone is intentionally rude to someone, right to their face, that is the kind of person I never want to associate with.
…
I’ve been working on the novel I’m writing a lot lately. So far, it’s forty pages long, single space. I’m in Chapter 4. The story is strange, involving a girl’s difficult, dark, violent life and a touch of the supernatural. I aim to make my stories interesting and out-of-the-ordinary, the kind of thing that would capture someone’s attention until the very last page, not a cliché romance or a vampire story.
You know, I have a very diverse taste in music. Right now, I’m listening to a song by Aly & AJ. Seriously. It’s called "Collapsed." I find it kind of relatable to my whole situation with Jordan, relatable to how I wasted too much time wondering when I should’ve just made him mine at the very beginning. Now, it’s all a mess, collapsed. When I started listening to hardcore music last year, I never thought I would dig out my old Aly & AJ and Miley Cyrus CDs and actually like some of the songs.
I have written seven songs about Jordan. As they pour out, they start to get sadder and sadder. I went from " You make me careless, you make me insane, you make smile instead of feel pain" to "Now we’re drifting apart and I’m watching someone else win that heart; It hurts like the end of the world, it hurts that I’ll never be your girl." What happened? What happened to the happy ending I saw in his eyes, that hope? I would give anything to get that back.
I have a tendency to laugh at myself. Sometimes, when I’m feeling like I’m a little off of my axis, not spinning in the right direction, I turn into a combination of funny randomness and psychotic insanity. When my friends talk to me on Facebook, I send them random, weird messages, all in capital letters, or just things that have nothing to do with anything. They usually just ignore my weirdness or act weird, too. And I’m just sitting there behind my computer screen, laughing like an idiot. It’s just a mood that I get into sometimes. It’s like a replacement for sadness, almost like trying to cheer myself up, or just acting strangely to get my mind off of the things that are threatening to put tears in my eyes.
Speaking of tears, two Thursdays ago, I got home from school and cried. I curled up in a ball on the couch with my music and bawled like a baby. My parents yelled at me, punishing me for "crying over some asshole with a lip ring." And that’s exactly what I was crying over, the way that asshole with a lip ring is obviously falling for someone else. I was crying because I knew, I just knew that I had lost my chance a long time ago, even though I had tried to tell him. I tried! I said the words. I really like you. Why didn’t he understand? Why does he have to be so stupid? I’d bet if Ginny said, "I really like you" he would understand right away. That’s just the kind of luck I have, isn’t it?
Did you know that if you eat sauerkraut, it’s supposed to be good luck? That’s why it’s served with dinner on New Year’s Day. But I don’t like sauerkraut. The smell alone disgusts me to no end. Maybe that’s why I’m so unlucky. But I doubt it. I’m not really a superstitious person. I open my umbrellas indoors, walk under ladders, and I don’t think anything of black cats crossing my path. But, where does bad luck come from? Doesn’t God want to see everyone happy? He’s always gonna come through. I’d like to believe that but, um, when? Why am I talking about this again?
Why is it that my topics of discussion seem to go in circles: life, not understanding life, being misunderstood, Jordan, being unlucky, questioning God, Jordan, writing, dreaming, and back around to the beginning again. I should think of something better to talk about.
…
That awkward moment when you’re completely jamming to your favorite song you wrote about the asshole with a lip ring, singing your heart out, and your mom walks in the room. >.>
…
I was supposed to get an iPod Touch for Christmas. I don’t have one yet. For some reason, my mom thinks that there is something wrong with purchasing a used iPod, when I don’t feel like spending all of my new money on one thing. Money never sticks around long for me. It’s like I get some money, freak out like "OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS COOL GREEN STUFF," and spend it all in a fit of money-infused happiness. I wish that there were no such thing as money. I wish we paid for things with grass or leaves, stuff that actually does grow on trees, so all you had to do was grab a few leaves off of the tree by your house and run to the grocery store for dinner. Wouldn’t life be so much easier? At least I think so, since I have like, five hundred trees around my house.
…
The words to the song "Mr. Right" by A Rocket To The Moon confuse me. It’s like when you’re arguing with someone and they say, "I know." Then you say, "I know that you know." Then they say, "I know that you know that I know." Then you say, "I know that you know that I know that you know," and so on. I don’t why this song reminds me of this. He does a lot of referring to himself in the third person. "My girlfriend’s got a boyfriend running to catch the bus to meet, to meet up with her boyfriend’s girlfriend who’s stunning, she’s such a sight to see." Isn’t that confusing? O.o
…
For Christmas, I got a lot of clothes. And I also got a hat from Hot Topic that’s shaped like a Hello Kitty head. Does Hello Kitty have some sort of show or something? What is the importance of Hello Kitty, anyway? Does she do anything other than be cute? Does it really matter? I love Hello Kitty anyway, even if she doesn’t do anything with her life. Blood On The Dance Floor has a song called "I <3 Hello Kitty." The song really sucks if you ask me. It has nothing to do with Hello Kitty. It’s about sex.
I don’t understand how people can write stupid, pointless songs about sex or partying. What’s the point? There is absolutely no meaning behind that music. I mean, there’s this band composed of two girls, Millionaires, and all of their music is about drinking, money, sex, haters, and being whores. There is absolutely no talent there, yet they get paid money to "sing" those songs. I honestly don’t understand what’s wrong with people these days.
…
"Am I retarded, or am I just overjoyed?" – Green Day
…
"I’m taking my time, I’m trying to leave the memories of you behind. I’m gonna be fine, as soon as I get your picture right out of my mind. I wanna feel the way you make me feel when I’m with you. I wanna be the only hand you need to hold on to. But every time I call, you don’t have time. I guess I’ll never get to call you mine." – Simple Plan
…
-Insert random quote here-
…
I just realized I’d rather write serious, meaningful posts than these weird, random ones.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
2O12.
Happy New Year!
I’ve always overlooked New Year’s Day as a holiday, because I never really thought of it as a big deal. Why is the first of January the first day of the year anyway? What if that’s not when the New Year should begin? WHAT IF EVERY CALENDAR IN THE WORLD IS WRONG? WHAT IS TIME? Is it only a convenience, a way to remember how old we are, when we need to be where we need to be?
Sorry about that.
Anyway, this year, New Year’s Day just seems to hold a certain importance. What if 2O12 really is the last year we have? Really gives you a reason to live, doesn’t it? Honestly, I really hope those stupid Mayans were wrong. I wish I could live forever. I don’t want to die.
I didn’t make a blog to talk about the things that scare the shit out of me, so let’s get back on track.
Even if it’s not, I feel like I should treat 2O12 like it’s the last year of my life, to live like I’m dying. This year, when I make my list of New Year’s Resolutions, I want to stay true to every single one of them. So, what do I want to do this year? What do I need to do this year?
Maybe I just need to sort out everything in my life. Is that where happiness comes from, being sure of yourself, keeping your life organized so it’s not as easy to turn it into a mess?
So, maybe I just need to take a few steps back and clean up the mess. I want close friendships. I want to stop crying over Jordan. I want to change on the inside and the outside to make myself happy. Speaking of organization, how about a nice, organized list of resolutions?
My New Year’s Resolutions
1.) I want to reconnect with the friends I’ve been drifting away from. Actually, I want to strengthen all of my friendships, because this is the part of my life when I will need them most, these turbulent, hectic, youth years.
2.) I want to confront the people that do me wrong, because they need to know that what they are doing is, well, wrong. Problems like these don’t come up very often, but when they do, I usually just stand by and let it happen. I need to stop doing that.
3.) I want to write a novel and try my hardest to get it published. I just want the world to read my words, not just my anonymous ones. I want to be successful. Why not start now?
4.) I want to tell Jordan exactly how I feel, the sooner the better. On a Wednesday, on our way down to the band room to get the school’s guitar, I want to grab his arm and stop him. I want to look him straight in the eyes and say, “Jordan. I think you’re amazing. I want to go out with you. I tried to tell you before, but you never seemed to get it. Now you know.” Then, I’ll stand up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek. Then I’ll ask him, “So, what do you say?” with a smile, most likely a fake smile. Just behind that smile, I’ll be terrified, staring rejection right in the face, saying, “Come at me, bro!” No matter what happens, at least he will know. If he says no (which he probably will), I’ll ask him if we could still be friends. No matter what happens, I’ll be okay. Right?
5.) I want to get more serious about my schoolwork again. That homework that I never do is what is going to get me places someday.
6.) I want to try to be more optimistic. It feels good to be happy, so that is what I’ll strive to be.
7.) I want to change on the outside, but not to impress anyone. I just want to look in the mirror and like what I see for a change. I also want to lose some weight. I eat too much.
8.) I want to improve my faith in God. I’ve been in a dark, hopeless place lately, and I’ve found myself wondering if God is actually up there, if he still cares about me. In church today, one of the songs said “He is always gonna come through.” Is He going to come through for me? When? Why do I have so many doubts? And out of nowhere, a thought popped into my head. I’m lost. Not even a minute later, I was reading along with the words to the song on the small screens placed around the room, and I found myself singing, “You love the lost, You want them found.” Coincidence? I think not. So, maybe God isn’t the one who has to find me. Maybe I have to find myself.
9.) I want to improve my self-confidence. I honestly don’t know how it got destroyed, but I’d like to figure out how to fix it. There are things about myself that I’d like to appreciate, but I just don’t know how.
10.) I want to keep writing songs. I want to post them on YouTube for the world to hear, no matter how horrible I sound. I want to have enough confidence in myself to let my words be heard, and not care what people think of me.
11.) I’m going to treat this one as a combination of all of the little, random things I want to do, one big resolution. I want to learn how to cook my favorite meals. I want to learn how to play the bass guitar. I want to grow my hair long. I want to get my first boyfriend, my first kiss.. I want to get a job after I turn sixteen, so I can start earning my own money. I want to take chances and do what I want without fear or second-guessing myself. I want to go out on limbs. I want to live each day to its fullest. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
12.) I was talking to a friend of mine on Facebook earlier, and I asked what my last resolution should be. They said, “To figure out life. And not the philosophical meaning or whatever. Your own life.” I think that is something that I really need to do, figure my life out, figure myself out.
So there you have it. 12 resolutions for 2O12.
2O11 was a good year. I changed a lot last year, inside and out. If I never had changed so much, who would
I be right now? Would I be writing this right now? 2O11 was a year of things that I never would’ve
expected, and I’m almost sad to see it go.
I have a feeling it’s going to be a great year, maybe even better than 2O11.
Please God; don’t let it be our last. I want to live a little before I die. :)
10.) I want to keep writing songs. I want to post them on YouTube for the world to hear, no matter how horrible I sound. I want to have enough confidence in myself to let my words be heard, and not care what people think of me.
11.) I’m going to treat this one as a combination of all of the little, random things I want to do, one big resolution. I want to learn how to cook my favorite meals. I want to learn how to play the bass guitar. I want to grow my hair long. I want to get my first boyfriend, my first kiss.. I want to get a job after I turn sixteen, so I can start earning my own money. I want to take chances and do what I want without fear or second-guessing myself. I want to go out on limbs. I want to live each day to its fullest. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
12.) I was talking to a friend of mine on Facebook earlier, and I asked what my last resolution should be. They said, “To figure out life. And not the philosophical meaning or whatever. Your own life.” I think that is something that I really need to do, figure my life out, figure myself out.
So there you have it. 12 resolutions for 2O12.
2O11 was a good year. I changed a lot last year, inside and out. If I never had changed so much, who would
I be right now? Would I be writing this right now? 2O11 was a year of things that I never would’ve
expected, and I’m almost sad to see it go.
I have a feeling it’s going to be a great year, maybe even better than 2O11.
Please God; don’t let it be our last. I want to live a little before I die. :)
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