The Happy Toaster

Arrogance.

2010-08-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a long time because I have come to think of myself as "too good" for such uses of my time. Or I just thought my mind was clear enough that I didn't need to ramble. Oh shame that I find myself hiding and procrastinating again. Avoiding, actually. Hmmm.

Let's remember that very annoying level toward the end of Chrono Trigger where you have to climb Mt. Woe (to resurrect Crono). The wind is blowing, and you have to hid behind a tree so the force doesn't knock you off the mountain. If you don't have tree hiding behind down really well, this task can get quite INFURIATING. For some reason, I got really pissed at it while playing the DS version...I don't recall having that much of a struggle on my first two psone play-throughs. But regardless, I'm trying to turn that rather geeky reference into a metaphor pertaining to my emotional status.

I'm trying to run up a mountain. Mostly likely not Mt. Woe though. But I'm so freakin' afraid. Terrified. At times, I can beat a deer in the headlights for expressions of shock. Just ask anyone who has interrupted one of my deep thought processes. I look either upset or mad. I don't know; I can't see my own face without a mirror. Duh. I refuse to let the wind touch me. It might disturb my hair or sting my eyes; it might leave me vulnerable. A wind tunnel is a constant barrage. A cold, real barrage. I can't live with that. So I hide behind trees as I climb. I'm still making the climb, experiencing the various peaks, but in most circumstances, I'm not about the expose myself to the world.

I don't know if the wind is cold; I don't know if I should be crying know. I'm feeling numb. Not sure what to do. If I'm happy or just RUNNING AWAY. BEING LAZY. DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.

I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.

WHATEVER IT IS.

I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

lmao.

I don't get it.

Yes, you do.

See, I am afraid of being knocked off the mountain, afraid I don't deserve to being climbing that mountain. I'm used to seeing myself as a loser who doesn't get anywhere. But now, I kinda have a new persona. I'm not a loser. I have a lot to offer the world. I'm afriad to let the world see me because I'm afraid the world will reject me...again. I can make it higher hiding behind the trees...

But do you know I am here world?

Dear Alex,

2010-08-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

I have no witty opening for my feelings, no way to put nearly a year and a half of confusion, regret and anger other than the following paragraphs. I’ve tried to resolve my feelings other ways, but I’m hoping my words will finally grant me the closure I seek for desperately. I wish I could weave my emotions into a nicely embroidered scarf, tie it around my neck and move on with my life. But alas, the long threads that I could knit into a beautiful piece of clothing either got knotted together or have worn down from over-fingering. Because as most people would agree, I over think my life. I ponder, analyze and obsess- whichever word you want to use works fine.

Let’s say my –very contradictory- feelings are a scarf. Instead of blowing poetically in the wind behind me as I strut down a crowded street, the zeal of my appearance turning the heads of everyone I pass, the scarf gets caught on a fence, and I choke and fall to my knees. The crowds actually look away so, you know, they don’t have to help. The fabric frayed on the sharp metal ends of the fence, and I’m stuck here, caught on the fence. I’d rather unravel this whole mess of –emotion- fabric before I’d cast away the old scarf. Yes, perhaps I’m wasting time because the scarf is ruined anyway, but I’d like to learn something from the tragedy, understand a lesson about the dynamics of relationships and change, see firsthand how little things come together to form patterns and ultimately, take control over my self-destructive insecurities so I can finally look my scarf-less self in the eyes, smile and walk away.

Now, of course, I don’t know how to knit, and I don’t wear anything but necklaces around my neck so the entire introduction is something of a lie. But what do I know of truth? Truth for me is an –extended- metaphor (extended is in “-‘s” because that statement is funnier without the word extended, but my scarf analogy certainly creates an extended metaphor. You know you’re in trouble when “metaphor” isn’t a strong enough word. While I admit to not having a clue about knitting or choosing the right threads for the project, part of me at least hopes I can entwine wit and reality; times come up when I doubt my writing skills as well. But in relevance to you, I should glare in your general direction whenever I describe myself as a writer in the first place. Without you who is to say my beloved outlet wouldn’t have forever remained my unspoken dream. Or maybe I give you too much credit; maybe I always have. But I remember clearly thinking as I was walking through the halls of Stagg over four years ago “writing is just for fun. I could never write for real. I’m too silly.” Yeah, that’s a useless anecdote, but I have a lot of them hovering in the air above my rational thought processed so I like to sprinkle them around every once and awhile so I don’t get attacked by a swarm one day. Qualm the masses, so to speak. Actually writing has become a way to give my more rebellious, unfocused or dreamy thoughts a place to roam free. When you subtract some of the building charge, you get less lightening.

Not only do I digress, but I fear I’m telling you more than I intended. I wanted only to liberate rotting chunks of –whatever- I feel for you. Honestly though, I think my words reveal everything. Writing comes from a part of me beyond my rational brain. Truth comes spur of the moment—except in this case where I’ve deconstructed over and over my –once- relationship with you. The whole process has haunted me. Really, it has; I’ve longed to forget about you so many times. But, obviously, I haven’t. I can recall most events quite well. I just avoid any trips down memory lane. In metaphorical terms, in order to leave this state I’m at now, I need to hit the issue squarely on the head, dig up the roots so they stop sprouting more weeds. Only a bull’s eye will score. I’ve been capable of hitting the nail on the head, articulating the truth to you for a long while, but even before I added silence and dishonesty to the mix, the reality stung. For as much of a sadist as I tend to be, I avoid pain. I’ll scour every place, examine all possible reason while glossing over the gaping wound. Perhaps this talent once saved my life, allowed me to slowly break down my issues until I reached the heart, but the adaptation has left me vulnerable to my own insecurities as well. I’m sure you can find a few metaphors for adaptations that save but also weaken their host in the biological world. None present the needed answers I’ve found—only digging and scrapping for truth can. So I’ll embrace the unspoken thoughts that float around me nagging as they un-surface now and then.

Even in writing, I’m great at explaining things and presenting ideas but not so good at presenting conflict. I can write entire stories where nothing really goes awry. You can blame that quirk a bit on my idealistic nature; I’d rather capture beauty than stack piles of junk that need sorting and removal before the –almost- crushed flowers growing beneath can be revealed again. Okay, so I like figurative language. Let me start again…

As I mentioned before, I wonder if I’ve given you more credit than you deserve, if I have thought about you so much that you have come to take a much bigger role in my mind than you ever did in my actual life. I can’t deny those studies that show excess discussion (even internal discussions such as over analyzing) polarizes your position on an issue. But to be blunt (which as big as an advocate of truth as I am, I am not always), I did; I still, and might always, consider you as having a key role in my identity formation. I mean you gave me the opportunity to express myself enough that I started to get to know who I –am- was. I’ve held a lot within me over the years, and I assume that plays a large part in my relatively recent habit of talking, explaining or just plain old rambling too much. Now, I’ve always misconceived myself—never picturing myself able to do or become half of what I am. Looking back, you gave me a friendship and an opportunity that represented everything I wanted than. It’s a strange concept to grasp, but you helped me to unleash some of my pent up wishes. For example, I was always quiet in classes without you and together we got yelled at for being uh, goofy. I never told anyone what was on my mind before; hell, I never let anyone see the depths of my creativity. Free associations, insights and inventions reveal a lot about their creator, which is why –even know- I often didn’t speak my mind. I refuse to show vulnerability to the world, even if it leaves me appearing cold. That truth makes up a good portion of my internal conflicts, but once again, I digress (this time into a more painful place.

Can’t you see I can’t write as well when I’m trying to face the past? I can’t write as snazzy as when I’m just rambling, which surprises me since I want to think conveying emotion should drive written works for the most part. I feel weak when I force myself to remember; I look down in shame—my eyes a dark, dark shade. The four years we were friends (and for that matter, the fifteen years that came before those years) carry intense emotion for me. Toward the end of last semester, I wondered if I could write myself a new past—an uneventful one where I was as happy as I was unassuming, a past that might seem to make sense with who I am now. Sometimes I think my attitudes took a complete turn, and other times, I know that I probably am incapable of real change. I know I think differently. I’m uncertain how to quantify “differently” though. If I was writing a story, I would never try to explain this change. I’d show it with “before and after” scenes (you know, show not tell). You know the “before” without me having to use such words as distant, disconnected, depressed or paranoid. I’d say you were the only person who really knew my darker side first hand then. It’s somewhat irrelevant now anyway since I pretty much have seamlessly combined those periods in my life into my identity. It’s not healthy to think of yourself as different people at different stages. I always have, but if you think about a skyscraper: it may be composed of many metal beams (and what not) and floors, but the builders weld them together to form one solid structure. I’m building on my past; maybe I did start in a hole, but I will reach the epic heights of the skyscraper in my metaphor. Or better yet. Do you remember that game from Challenge where the objective was to move a tiny ball from one side of the gym to the other with tubes cut in half without dropping the ball? If each tube was its own unit, the ball would never have reached its goal. Of course, using that metaphor adds the complication that we all have to run to the end of the line after our turn, but maybe that just suggests that our traits come in waves—we should never thrown a part of past into the closet thinking we will never need it again because it played its role. Now I think I am just writing for my own sake; actually; this entire letter is for my sake. Because you never cared as much as I did; you had no trouble forgetting. Actually, I shouldn’t make that claim. I don’t know how you feel, and I’m not sure I even care anymore. I must confess though I would like for you to recognize that I’ve changed, to be impressed by what I have become. Perhaps that validation is what I am waiting for before I can finally let go. I know in the past, I needed your words before I could act on my thoughts. I didn’t trust myself then—not my desires, my skills or my ability to convey my thoughts to the world. I acted so much bolder when I was with you because then it wasn’t just me facing everything by my –weird- self.

I could scrutinize over every interaction we ever had; I really could, if I had to the mental power to focus on writing long enough to transcribe that long a time. But I’m not going to. You know about the past. Sometimes I think my past is just a black hole waiting to suck me in, or I’m an eager swimmer waiting to dive into my past so I don’t have to face the future. Earlier today, I reasoned that I’m clinging to the past because I have been terrified of where I might be going in life. But it’s equally awful to hang in between, having grown but forsaken opportunities and convictions because doing so is easier than embracing them. The metaphor I devised to parallel this realization went like this: I started out stranded in a thick forest on an island. During high school or so I trekked out of the forest. I saw the shore as I entered college—even some days recently, I saw a glimpse of what lies beyond my island. I built a boat and made small voyages in the bay, exploring the shallow water. But if the weather became too scary, I could always paddle back to my hut on the beach where I would be safe. Running back threw a stick in my progress, but provided me with security. I’ve come to a place in my life now where I know the time to finally sail away from my beloved shore approaches. I’m sitting on the shoreline, the cold waves lapping against my feet as I contemplate. If it seems like I am idle, looks deceive because in my mind, I am steeling myself, gathering the necessary supplies for my journey in my heart and pruning my mind of useless, obsolete or negative thoughts. As I glance over the glistening water, I see my many dreams in my mind’s eyes. I really don’t have any idea where I’m going once I leave this island, but I’m going. Because if anything has grown stronger in my heart, my desire to express myself, to live to the most of my potential has.

This letter isn’t exactly like the one I saw myself writing. I’ll try addressing more concrete things now (no, I probably won’t since stopping myself from going into metaphors is wasting the potential of that thought process, and I hate wasting any potential so…). What would you like me to say? I know; I know. I should mention that certain incident last year. I have so many contradictory thoughts, explanations for my motives and regrets, but I think this one won: I don’t feel bad about anything I did because I wouldn’t have wanted to be friends with someone who made me not only lie but betray her trust and my principles anyway. Subconsciously, I would have stopped myself from acting so immature and cruel if I really cared about our relationship that much. Maybe. When I said I was trying to get you to see how much you were hurting me, I wasn’t lying. At that time, part of me really did want to see you again, wanted things to be like I imagined or wished they were. Actually, I don’t have an explanation. My lie is a blemish on my record of (at least trying) to be a good person and help people. If for no other reason, I wish it never happened so I didn’t have to think about it so much. I hate that I stained my hands with –metaphorical- blood. Had that not occurred, I could have walked away a lot more innocent. I could have blamed our failure on your lack on insincerity, you not valuing me as much as I valued you or your lies. Though in a healthier evaluation of the situation, I would admit my insecurities and misconceptions caused a lot of problems. You know that ever present fear of abandonment. And now my mind muddles. Here’s another theory: maybe I did want to hurt you, but since I’ve always considered myself such a wonderful person, I couldn’t bear the prospect that I would want to hurt anyone—let alone someone who once meant so much to me. I believe though that for the most part, you can only hate someone you once loved, someone who took something you cherished away from you. I don’t subscribe to that theory, and not just because I hate viewing myself in a negative light, but mainly because I trusted you so much that I would have had no trouble hurting you to your face if I really wanted. I’ve said a lot of mean, mistrusting things to you over the years—mostly thanks to my own defense mechanism—so I don’t think I would have suddenly decided I couldn’t tell you the truth. For me the best explanation is simply that I formulate a lot of ideas in my brain. Some might work, but other schemes need shooting down because they either hurt someone, have massive craters in their logic or don’t take into account reality. Convincing someone I was suicidal is exactly something I would do; in retrospect, I smirk at how much truth that last statement holds. I’m really good with words, I can act emotionless when I need to, those thoughts were sadly something I knew rather well and part of me likes to mess with people’s mind so I possessed all the ingredients so that distasteful disaster. I can never be sorry enough though; in my heart, I never intended to hurt you. I just didn’t want to lose you—even if losing you was what was meant to happen.

I didn’t stop talking to you because of that incident though. Hurting you actually gave me more reason to want to stick around. I might mess things up, but I will not lose my desire to make things right again. I just didn’t want to hear anymore lies, to care so deeply for someone who didn’t even want to see me. You made me feel pretty bad some of those nights. I was sitting in my room in tears talking to you, genuinely wishing I could help you. But you said you changed; I never got to check that one out for myself. Perhaps that’s a good thing for my sake, but I didn’t care about myself—not then at least. I would have done anything for you. I loved you, but it got to the point where I had to remove myself from the situation—for both our sakes. Don’t ever think it wasn’t painful though. I hurt every time something reminded me of you, with every sign that pointed out that you were so easily able to move on. Or maybe you just don’t have the tendency to bleed all over the place like I do…Or maybe I never really understood your feelings.

Let me say a few more things, what bothered me about your actions so to speak.
If I gave you the wrong message, I’m sorry. I’ve only recently come to understand that I do have very high expectations for myself and others. All the same, I care about people for who they are—not their successes, ambitions or anything else. I wouldn’t have stopped talking to you because you changed. If I say I care, I’ll care no matter what form you take. I would rather have that person around in any state of mind than lose them. There’s a certain beauty in a friendship that endures whatever either person has done or become that a relationship without any rocky ground can’t grasp.

Do I come off as selfish? I fear I have become more cold and selfish because I’m reluctant to let another person hurt me the way you did. Plus, I don’t want to waste any emotion on someone who is not worth my time.

I have learned a few things: I can’t change people or make them feel something they don’t. Friends are perfectly welcome to make their own choices. I guess now, I’m fine with that as long as I’m included in their plans, and those people who don’t aren’t worthy of me. But really, if I anything I need to accept people for who they are now. I’m writing this sentence a few weeks after the rest of this letter because irresolution on the part of this letter still haunted me. I understand this afternoon while in tears that I only trust people or for that matter, really love people I know will understand me. Examine all the people I’ve told you I like. Actually, just imagine Shion. I loved her because I could relate to her; I loved you because you came along and gave me something to believe in—someone like me who understood my pain. I don’t know what more needs saying; I’ve really seemed to have moved on for the most part but don’t ever think I’ll forget. I won’t; our past is a part of me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For a second, picture our sixteen year old selves talking—sitting on the swings maybe or typing at the crack of dawn. I wonder if “the universe” ordained we go our separate ways because no closeness, nothing could top our unity then. Remember us holding hands in the twilight, both sensing some magical feeling “that all wasn’t alright.” Those same feelings brought us together. Just remember every conversation we shared—all those ridiculously wonderful things we invented. And don’t say it doesn’t matter; every time we create, our thoughts shape the world, leave a vivid mark in our hearts, in the hearts of those who witness the beauty.

Since not us, our past selves can be together, roaming forever in some fantasy. There’s a magic I cannot recreate in my memories. I think about all I did, all I wrote and know so many of my accomplishments and creations came from my desire to have something to share with you. Now I work hard knowing that I have a gift I can share with the world—a certain way with words that makes me strangely powerful. You remember how I used to say I wanted to save the world? Well, I longer do. I’m no less idealistic or empathetic. On the contrary, since I stopped talking to you I’ve become so much more aware of the reality behind my idealism that it has honestly become the new norm for me. But I recognize now that I truly want to be a member of a humanity that works to save itself. I want to do my part to create a world where everyone loves and dreams the way I do; I want to see the human spirit unleashed. I don’t know why I’ll telling you these dreams of mine. Maybe I still trust our memories…

Regardless, know that despite any of my weaknesses, my jealousies, my pain, you meant so very much to me. I will never forget what we had, and I don’t want to forget either. I’d rather have the painful, unresolved wounds exposed then forsake so big a part of my life. Forget crossing oceans, without you, I never would have made it out of the forest, out of the tree I was hiding in. I don’t care if I sound sappy or even creepy. You were my best friend. I’m sorry I turned out to be the person I did, but I’m not going to regret anymore. I’m sorry I had to wreak so much havoc and give so many people the wrong idea. I’m sorry I hurt you because goodness knows, I’m sure you have –or at least had- as many things to say to me as I did to you. Now, trust me, those last lines weren’t an apology for who I am. I would never or should never do that. I’m just saying that I did change a lot, and you might not have seen that coming. And I know I have caused havoc; it’s just part of who I am.
On that night I lied to you, what I really wanted to say to you was that “no matter if we are together in real life or not, I will reach you. I’ll reach you because as long as I embrace that part of myself that you made shine, you will always be a part of me.” And trust me, it’s my creative, random, crazy and passionate side I cherish the most. Actually, it’s my idealistic side I cherish most too. But you saw that side of me as well so this realization matters. I won’t lose my way because I believe strongly in humanity, in you, in my own heart. I am a dreamer. Dreaming once saved my life; dreaming will save all our lives.

Think of the world you want to make real—the relationships, the solutions, the freedoms and anything else that matters to you as a person. It can be reality. You must set your eye on that dream and start walking toward. This letter is approximately the same length as a short story. Although, it tells my whole story, it’s a summary, and scenes compose good stories.

Message #2

2010-07-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

I always compose my messages to you in other word processing places because I hate the scrolling problem Facebook's messaging system has...

This is another letter to a friend.

I honestly am so touched by your words, so touched that I'm not even sure I wanted to respond because, perhaps, anything I said now would sound so much less poetic. But, of course, that attitude undermines my point. Progress. Here's another glimpse into the workings of my mind: Is life a continuum or does it have distinct stages? An example with words would look this: doesthissentencerepresentlifeican'treallydecide or does this sentence work better. because it has punctation? (except that second fragment isn't a sentence....). I hate saying that distinct "chunks" compose our lives because that theory lends itself to creating disconnects. Like we can only know something is new because it is not the same as what we previously experienced. I dislike seperation like that because so much in life is mostly similar. Then where does the "sorting" end. Now our brains chunk and sort information, and I usually stick with the explanation that mirrors nature, but this time I'm not entirely sure...Oh another thing that challenges my love of analogies. A few nights I was watching this show about the beginning of the universe (at like 5am too), and some scientist dude presented an idea that universes come in cycles. After thinking about it for awhile, I freaked. You know why? Because capitalism comes in cycles too. So quantum pyshics supports capitalism?! I'm not sure I am okay with that. I'm not opposed to capitalism; I just don't like the idea that people are OKAY with the idea that people's lives will rise and fall with the economy. I want there to be a better way. I am certainly not an economist (or a quantum phsyicist for that matter. But I do seem to be a philosopher...)

I walked away half way through this message so now I don't remember my previous thought process. And now I'm tired. Praise scares me. But it sets expectations. I am terrifed of wasting potential. I'm not really that great. I aspire to be that great. Thoughts are one thing; turning our ideas into action is another.

But uh, I cut that paragraph from a letter I wrote to the girl I was best friends with in high school. I don't think she is ever going to read it, though, for two reasons. Because I don't really want her to think that I am still thinking about her, and because I don't want to waste my talent on her. I didn't start writing that letter to prove I changed. I got the idea from my other high school friend who told me that she too still had lingering feelings for Alex. She sent her a message about these unresolved issues, and that helped her so she advised me to do the same thing. I didn't exactly end up writing a letter to her. It was more to myself, which to me means two things. She is always with me, and it wasn't necesarly her I was cling to but the idea of her. You can read the whole letter. It's metaphorical in a few other places. I'm actually not completely finish. I wrote that two weeks ago, and I read the outcome to my other friend. Reading something aloud is kinda a big deal for me because I DON'T want people knowing my thoughts, seeing beyond the surface I can easily control.

Basically the point was I had to let go. I couldn't keep making myself feel bad. Let's say my past is a lemon. Okay so I could easily leave that lemon alone because no one needs lemons. But if you think about all the random recipes that call for a tad bit of lemon extract or zest for that added acid (like I was making apple pie on Sharon's birthday, and the recipe called for lemon juice. I mean I didn't add it, but the point remains...) For the sake of my metaphor, the point of the lemon will be add a little more dimension to life, to further refine the experience. Completely unnecesary though. The dilemna comes in because it's hard to ignore the lemon ( we tend to be nagged by things we can't have, right?), but touching the lemon burns our skin (acidic! and hyperbole...) The objective is to squeeze the juice from the lemon without the pain winning...that is to say, learn from the past without sucked in. In my life, I was at a point where I had squeezed all the juice but couldn't seem to send my skins to the compost pile. I'm not one to leave things unresolved.

Hah. I'm tired. Nonsensical fruit metaphors ftw! Which reminds me of the sign on the grocery store wall that read "vegetables," but featured the picture of a tomato =_= For the record, I am NOT loving on the sucky "if make hands you lemons..." cliche. I can debate the usefulness of that line if need be, but I'm not going to...

I can't really tell you if my "letter" worked. It's really easy to scheme up a new philosophy from the peace of your bedroom (or in my case, the front room with the air conditioner...expect I think I was in the bedroom, which makes this entire sentence useless!), but when you have to put that life philosophy into practice, you face the trials. I talk in second person, probably because I consider most people to have somewhat similar thoughts. I'll just show you. But first I gotta finish writing...

Oh and another reason I know I changed: I came to understand that Simone Simons (she's the singer from Epica who I was totally infatuated with...lmao.) cannot be my hero. Her materialistic tendences contradicted far too much with Epica's message. It created too much dissonance for me. I can't change that I idolize people, but my idol should represent at least a large percent of what I would like to be. To me, who I idolize is a big deal.

I know I'm strange. But I've put a lot of struggle into being this strange, and for that reason, I enjoy it.

Almost Too...

2010-07-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Excited for the future! Almost so excited that I"m starting to get extremely anxious and not know what to do with myself.

I mean I've been having a lot of fun lately...Things seem to be slightly looking up again. Not that ever weren't--just I was bogged down by thoughts that I was wasting my life and thoughts about Alex and Sarah....So, yeah. I guess now I'm beginning to let go.

I've always found hope in idealism. Thus the the desire to "save the world." Which is why I'm so dang excited about the opportunity to go to Cali for a weekend for FeelGood. A whole weekend in Cali with other people who think like me! So inspiring!!!

Speaking of inspiring, I have a new hero. (well, sorta Sharon will always be my unspoken favorite. For me, Sharon's the paramount of everything that I good in the world. Unrealistic? Of course, but who cares, you know!) But for awhile, earlier this year, I was totally comparing myself to Simone, thinkingI wasn't as good as person because I wasn't as accomplished. Really bad idea, btw. First of all, none of my desires even have anything to do with Simone's. I don't want to sing. So why compare?

With that said, Simone really can't be my idol since you know, what do I really have to learn from her? Okay, so we have something to learn from everyone, but as I grow, I think...Oi, I found something more interesting than my silly rants.

Insightful Much?

2010-07-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

This post is basically a continuation of the previous one except that it really isn't directed at my friend since I'm not sure if she would understand some of what I'm going to say.

But I've been thinking a lot (okay, what else is new...*eyeroll*) about why I've become so anxious this past five or so months. The obvious answer is change. A shift in the people I talk to regurarly. Moving. Some other personal drama coming to a close. But all these things were positive for the most part, I think, so by themselves they shouldn't induce this much anxiety.

So my working explaination is the lack of anxiety makes me anxious. That is to say I have come to know 'drama' so well that when they is no drama I still get upset because I feel like something is missing. I think I'm scared of freedom, sacred that I will make the wrong choice without someone directing me at most steps.

I'm wary of my own voice. I'm afraid to hear what I have to say, afraid I might be right and afraid I might just sound stupid. I've done things in the past years that I never imagined I would, and it is so difficult for me to shift my perception of myself.

I have some very contrasting ideas about myself: Part of me thinks I am insane. The other part thinks I am great! I have these incredibly high exceptations for myself. Possibley because I dreamed up a wonderful person as an escape method when I was really,desperately in need of an escape when I was growing up. Or maybe because I know I have never really put my all into anything, and I can do so much better than I ever have.

I think I've always sagotaged myself because I have been afraid of success, because I don't want to deal with what comes with that success. It's like not opening a door because you know the wind beyond the lock will blow you off your feet.

Oi. Eyes are drying up. Time to turn AC on and try to sleep on the couch...

Just something.

2010-07-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

I'm actually not composing this message in Facebook's message box because the cursor is unbearable awful once you type a certain amount. That info is all but useless, btw.

It's been my intention to write you a full-fledged message since like the second week of summer. But, of course, this info is useless too since actions are much more important than intentions. But now, I'm acting on some of my clarity. Or something like that.

I have two constrasting theories about how people realize what they are meant to be doing (well, I'm sure I can come up with more, but these two ideas are what are on my mind most right now.)

1. The Electric Maze Theory: Basically, I just walk through life making decisions spur of the moment, and I only know I'm on the right path because I finally don't face as much resistance. If I make a wrong turn, I hit the wall, and get shocked so I know I need to try something different. If you think about the dynamics of a blind-folded person walking through a maze, you can understand how this more-or-less trial or error method of getting through life. With enough persistence, you can make it to the end of the maze to your goal. In psychological terms, this method would be called a algorithum. But doesn't that just sound so mechanical?

2. The Rock Wall Theory: Imagine climbing up a step cliff in the fog. The little holes where you can grab on to or stick your foot are the insights we gain in life. That is to say, we often do not know where we are going until we get very close to that moment, and then it justs hits us. Or well, even if there wasn't the fog, you can plan out your route, but you still have to pull yourself up and keep hanging on. Someone who influenced me in highschool once told me "not to quit on myself. All I needed to do was to stand up, and I could reach the next hold" (PE teacher on climbing rock walls). I acutally just mentioned fog because lately my mind has been muddled between regret, anxiety and fear for the furure. But let's leave this analogy like this: life is like (we'll make it a simile since a metaphor might be a tad too strong for the occasion)a climbing wall. It's a steep climb to the top, but they're are people -who you have to trust- to catch you. You can plan your path, but sometimes you'll need a detour, or you'll slip. A lot comes down to trust. Trusting yourself to reach that next stage, trusting those around you to support you and trusting the system not to up and collaspe.

And I don't remember where I was going with these analogies. But they do tie into this next idea: Remember when I told you I wanted to try writing a novel over summer? Well, I have been unable to write fiction. Yeah, I can reflect upon things just fine, but I can't focus my thoughts enough to create the scenes needed for fiction. What's bugging me is that my goals seem to have completely shifted since I left school in May. The one thing I've always known I wanted to do was to do something great, which is such a vague thing. I have no clue what I want to do. No clue.

So I'm thinking instead of making plans and trying to force myself to stick to them, I work better when I am open minded about my actions and do what I feel I should be doing at that moment in time. And I'll find the answer that way. Since I love analogies so much: It's going through life with a set mold, and you can't predict or try to force your experiences into that mold. Ugh, I can't articulate this one as well. Sorry. In my mind, I'm imagining some plastic mold that I'm trying to fill, but the pieces I keep finding don't fit.

You know, I really scare myself when I get all insightful because my whole life, I have never taken myself seriously. I have always put myself down and figured things would never work out for me. Now I know I am better than that, know I will find my way. But regardless, I think my change in attitude is also the cause of my anxiety, which is definitely a paradox. Let's call me a tug boat (or some other waterfaring vessel that clung to the shore) that know understands that I need to cross the ocean. Culture shock.

Since I plan on "going places," I've decided I need to okay with change. I wrote this last night: "I will no longer be sad about the things I've lost, the people who no longer walk beside me. I will only mourn the progress I haven't made. When I look at my life, I know this place I am now is not where I want to be. I can't take everything and everyone with me so it is natural that something will have to take their rightful place in my past. I am moving forward, becoming -slowly- the person I am meant to be. I cannot imagine what lies around the bend, but I'm going their. I'll keep moving forward, chasing that ellusive meaning I know I must."

This message might already be too long for FB. If so, I'll give you this link.

Loss.

2010-07-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

I will no longer be sad about the things I've lost, the people who no longer walk beside me. I will only mourn the progress I haven't made. When I look at my life, I know this place I am now is not where I want to be. I can't take everything and everyone with me so it is natural that something will have to take their rightful place in my past. I am moving forward, becoming -slowly- the person I am meant to be. I cannot imagine what lies around the bend, but I'm going their. I'll keep moving forward, chasing that ellusive meaning I know I must.

You and I will always be together. In our pasts, in our story- the same story that got me started as a writer.

Not a Cactus.

2010-06-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

My status has been "Amy is inside-out! Imagine I'm a cactus and my needles are my thoughts. So if you turn a cactus inside-out, all its needles are stabbing its flesh. That's how I feel. I need to use my "needles..." Metaphor Fail"

I'm going to say this theory doesn't properly describe my emotional state. I'm actually going with the "Drug Addict Theory."

Now before anyone goes and freaks because I'm on drugs, I'm not on drugs. Just legal ones. But the idea behind a drug addict is that they are constantly searching for the next high. And each time they "get high" they need more of the drug to attain that emotional gratification. The mechanics lies in that the body prodcues less of its anti-pain chemical when it sense the fake stuff so as you use more, you need more.

But in my case, I am constantly looking for the thing that will provide me with a deep, meaningful connection. That's why I've trouble listening to a song all the way through! I'm not finding that emotional high (which isn't really a high...more like a longing...). I keep wanting to hear that perfect song that will sum up my emotions (like Safeguard to Paradise did, Utopia did, Hotel Paper did, Pale did), but I'm not finding it so I don't want to listen to anything.

I can't write until I regain that "longing." I usually get that feeling from writing or at least thinking about writing...but also from observing...think the "fountain observation." I'm trying to remember now...

Oh but I still didn't answer why I'm addict. Probably because I have such -wonderfully- high expectations for myself. Everytime, I create something, I want the next thing to be better. Every time I feel, I want the next thing to be strong or else I'm a failure. Now I'm going to summon the rollarcoaster analogy...except I think they're numerous rollarcoaster metaphors...one is kinda original...one is cliche. Like life comes with ups and downs...like the bumps on a rollarcoaster!

On My Mind.

2010-06-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

Everything that plagues my mind right now. In no praticular order or explanation.

Why do I feel compelled to listen to Green Day and Evanescence, music that I starting liking about five years ago?

Why can't I write? I have all these contradicting thoughts on my mind. It should be perfect for endless creation.

No. I'm running from something. I'm not seeing the full picture.

I imagine myself running through an electrical maze -blind maybe or at least, stupid so every turn looks exactly the same. I charge in one direction until I hit the wall and get shocked. Withering in pain, I find a new direction. I bounced off walls, hurting and blinded by my rage. I only know where I'm going in life because all other directions cause hurt. I'm not chosing my path; I'm simply avoiding the pain, taking the road of least resistance.

I remember I used to lie in bed at night and listen to much. Truly feel the music.

I need to climb a mountain, but the only rope strong enough to survive the weight and rubbing is locked away.

I need to slay a demon, but I don't have the necesary weapon.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE IMAGE IN THIS PUZZLE IS SUPPOSED TO BE BECAUSE ALL THE CRUCIAL PIECES ARE MISSING.

Today I burnt my the bottom of my hair because I let it touch the hot BBQ while I was turning off the propane tank. I also ripped two of my favorite t-shirts because I didn't realize the laundry basket had a hole in it, and I was dragging it along the pavement.

Oh remember how I went through that phrase were I felt bad because I wasn't "as good" as Simone? Yeah..Oh I'm not even going to type this confession out because it is so ridiculous.

Innocence.

2010-06-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. I remember standing in my old kitchen thinking "I'm glad I live in the time period I do. There aren't any wars or anything scary." Tnat was before 9/11, before I knew anything about current events...We've been locked into what seems like endless wars since I was in grade school. Most people just don't think about the wars on a daily basis though unless war touches your life- not like with WWII were propaganda and homefront efforts had to be everywhere.

Of course, I was a very young in this scene I remember. Clinton was definitely still president. It's crap that I had to grow up with the shitty president ever in office. I was in college by the time we were free from that shit.

According to the Mayan Calender, the world is going to end at the end of 2012. Looking around, I sort of believe it. It seems suddenly there are earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters occuring much more frequently. And people making bad decisions...yes, I'm looking at you, BP, with your ZERO dollars spent on oil clean-up research. Don't think I'm not scared of my own mortality, the fragility of all human life.

I know it's my natural inclination to believe people are good, that the world is a beautiful place, but through-out my life I've always been border-line paranoid- maybe because I lost all sense of security due to "family" issues as a child or maybe I'm just a very sensitive person.

There was a period during junior high when I was afraid to sleep at night because I was convinced there was going to a nuclear attack.

I remember visiting the memorial in OK City for the bombing of the Government Building. I was maybe ten. That was tramatizing. I couldn't comprehend such violence, such death and destruction. I couldn't get that image out of my head for a very long time.

My family also visited every nuclear war musuem we could...even visited an old missile silo. More trauma. I remember seeing a recreated bomb shelter with its rusted canned goods and scary equipment. Couldn't sleep for awhile after that trip either.

Moral of the story: Don't take small, overly sensitive children to traumatizing historical sites. No, I'm very glad I'm not ignorant. I don't always feel safe, and I do have my lingering paranoias (if anyone remembers how I wasn't going to fly). Considering all the places I've been, all I've been exposed to, I should be a lot more intelligent than I am. I should know more, but honestly, until very recently, I didn't really care. I was apathetic (okay, okay, I was a child).

Sometimes, I wish I could relive my life and make better choices. Start devoting all my efforts to being smart from a much earlier age, care more about school...Since those things were never what I was as a child. I was into fairy tales (think Final Fantasy). I sought comfort in fantasy. I've always fled into a fantasy world, whether it be an obsession such as television or video games or my own thoughts.
Let's quote my once favorite song. "I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge/ The nightmare I built my own world to escape." Now I have to pause Utopia to listen to Imaginary. As much as I want to deny it, this song still describes me. I avoid Evanescence like the plague...yet today at the gym, I paused my ipod when "My Immortal" came on the radio. Too many emotions. Imaginary. Hello. My Immortal. Four years ago. Sometimes, I forget that before WT empowered me, she saved my life. When I think about what Sin told my parents about me "Amy should have worked with others; she was holding her back." I want to tell Sin the truth...that I couldn't have survived alone at that point in my life. I can now. Incidentally, now I'm also an English major.

I avoid everything that I was in my past like video games because I need to think that stuff is all immature, and I am grown-up now, but honestly, my past is a part of me. The words I wanted to tell her that night were "I'll Reach You." Because the part of me you created will always be with me. I often wonder if you remember our inside jokes, what you tell people. I shouldn't still think of you, but I do. Because I'm an overly sensitive person. And you "saved" me. I will never forget even if the memory also remind me of my own failure and weaknesses.

69 strikes again! I'm a combination of reality and fantasy.

Words...

2010-06-28T19:20:00.001-07:00

I'd write and write, but I'm ashamed of the words I would type. I'm afraid to see these sentences take form, the sentences that come from my own heart.

I'm ashamed of my own life- my interests, my beliefs, my dreams, my choices. I'm scared to anything because of this shame...especially scared to tell anyone what I'm doing.

In other news, 1200 birds have died. Day 70 of the OIL DISASTER.

And my ps2 doesn't work anymore. I guess, I wrecked it trying to force it play European DVDS. Hell, I just wanted to see if WT looked any different on a HD TV.

My shoulder looks like a Polish flag because I was outside during the peak hours of the sun yesterday. It was raining when I left so I was worried about an umbrella instead of sunblock.

I wonder if other people think as much as I do...I mean do they have as many different thoughts cross their mind that they find necesarry to record. Like I'm the idiot who sits around all day writing their entire lives down.

Why is my life important? Important to me? If it's just like everyone else's...I mean I want to just devote my life to doing greater good...I don't care about me until I notice how everyone else is better than me...How I really am nothing.

Committment?

2010-06-28T09:09:00.001-07:00

Perhaps of all the things I've been accusing myself of fearing lately, the biggest culprit is committment. That is to say I'm afraid of being stuck on a single path with no other options and having to face the reality of the decision. Seeing it through so to speak. I've always thought "what if something better comes along..." Then I end up with nothing. It's depressing.

Like at this very moment in time I'm completely unsure if I should take this GRE Prep Class in July. Because yes, it is a little early, maybe...But it's the only time I have. No way would taking it during the fall semester be a good idea since I'm working two nights a week and have a full class schedule at right now at least two activity committments...so bad idea. And after that I'll be in Norway until I need to apply to Grad school. Oh god. No wonder my stomach constantly hurts...I want to talk to my friend about this decision...talk to her the way we do during the semester. All those epic conversation we had...Oh, do I really miss my school friends.

Then there's my complete and total inability to write. It's a disaster! Actually, it's a mess...I'm saving the word disaster for the OIL DISASTER. Oi. Maybe I'm just trying to write the wrong thing...Or maybe I don't want to draw myself into a big epic adventure...Same with why I feel like playing a handheld game is less of a committment than playing a console game. And the internet is the least committment of all. Also biggest waste of time in some cases...when I'm just checking the same sights over and over and honestly, nothing has changed at all. Briliant.

Then there was my fear of creating a resume or going on a trip. Maybe I'm terrified of what others will say, that I won't be good enough, that'll I'll see the truth. My reluctance to work...my reluctance to do anything but watch television. Oh walrus, this is a disaster! Walrus<3 *sigh*

I chastise others for passivity, but I'm the same. I'm mostly talk. I mean I'll always be mostly talk because I want to be a writer. But in that case, I need to scream, need to have others hear my voice.

Hell on the subject of committment, I've scared to even call someone my "best friend." Because that's placing a lot of emotion on a single person, a single person who might not care as much. Like she didn't. Way to fuck me over, Alex, really. It takes a lot of apathy to hurt someone like me, someone who was already so damn fragile. Even if the hurt me caused each other was already equal (which it isn't...) you would have been worse for the simple reason that you hurt someone who was well, YOU of all people knew what comes next. So thank you.

I have to slash down the indecision and do something. Whatever that something is...

Simple.

2010-06-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

So I have been calling myself an intellectual (that is to say I love learning, reading, thinking, understanding, observing, listening and such...yeah, Sin I guess I am a quiet nerd and do live in my own little world) and I think I am on to something with it. It explains why I am so much better at THINKING than ACTING. I swear with all the thoughts and ideas I've devised, I could have done so much if I acted on everything. But I did. I never have, and I've blamed it on fear of showing off who I am, fear of not being good enough. Whatever. I've said in the past that "we won't do something until we are ready." How come I have never been ready?

As I sit here enjoying my summer, by uh, doing nothing, I begin to understand something about myself...That I am an overly simple people. Simple in my infitie complexities. But that is another story. This story is about how I would be happy simply watching television, simply sitting in the sun enjoying the beauty of the world. Until I noticed dusk in the summer, the setting sun on Lake Michigan, I forgot those simple joys...I've often wondered what my dream is truly, and deep within my heart I know this to be true: My dream is to find a "soulmate" who will always be by my side, and live someplace remote with that person...so everyday it is me and them lying on the beach, joking, being in love. I just want to be happy. That's what I said so long ago...I am not a fighter. At all. I'm not aggresive, not as a driver, not as a person. I fought to remain "alive" my whole childhood, and I don't want that life anymore. I think this desire for peace is the only reason I ever want school to end. I don't like doing anything. I enjoy exploring my own thoughts. At school, it's like an act. I'm funny, busy, important, whatever. I have all these lofty "goals in life." But those goals aren't me. Yes, they represent my beliefs...

Or maybe I'm "just not ready yet..." maybe I'm gathering the pieces from all my random obsessions and regrouping...slowly preparing for the war I want to wage.

Yesterday.

2010-06-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Also known as the next adventure in a week that stimulated me far more than I wanted...or not. I said earlier that I do love summer, and what is summer for if not doing stuff.

But honestly, yesterday was sort of an interesting day. In the good news: I got to go Downtown (yes, again) to the Taste of Chicago. Bad News: It's a long story...

That goes something like this: My mother was going into the city to meet in person a guy she had been talking to on the phone from an online dating site. I did push her to meet him. I don't know why. Maybe because I want to see her with someone because after learning that she had two failed marriages, I want her to be happy. Was it a good idea? Perhaps...Shows she has some self-confidence. Well, within five minutes my mother storms away from the guy because he said something along the lines of "you're a disappointment/ not what I expected" (whatever jerks say). Kathy and I left when she first met him and went to get pizza from the Taste, and we barely started eating when she begged us to return.

I don't get it. It just palin, old makes me very sad. I don't think my mother is unattractive at all. And for the most part, I think she has a good personality. Yes, she was more insecurities than me. But she didn't deserve this "rejection." Now she is going to use this experience as an excuse to think badly about herself again, to run back to the people she has unhealthy relationships with (think sister and a friend). Meanwhile, I'm begging my mother to stop digging herself into a futile hole and use this time to do something to improve hersself...join a fuckin' bookclub or a grassroots political instead...I was just too upset to string thoughts to together very well. movement (*cough*socialist*cough*) No. I'm not sure if I'm even do that, and lately, socialism has seemed pretty damn appealing.

I actually don't think I wrote about Tuesday when she told me about "that." I wrote to my friend about it...I was just so upset. What point was I trying to make here? Argh, I don't recall...mhm. I should create a post about Swedish Days.

What I really don't get is this idea of 'phsyical attraction." Dang, I must truly be an intellectual, but I don't think like that. I just imagine relationships as the conversations you can have with that person. When I look at myself, I see someone who is not pretty. I have never considered myself pretty- not when I used to wear baggy clothes, because my face is too big and pimply, not now...even when sometimes, I think I might be cute. I wonder who will want to be with me...This "me" who doesn't fit in anywhere. I was talking to Kathy about how I thought I never quite fit in with my highschool friends, and you know, she said she felt the same way. Like she was imposing upon "our" group. What a silly word group is...I was clinging to Alex because I needed her to help me find "myself." Alex always like everyone else more than me (I'm probably wrong about that...) And well, shit, I don't care. This post was not about them.

Anyway, the Taste was fun. I hadn't been there since I was a small child, and Kathy hadn't been there at all. I got to eat pizza and ice cream, which is utopia to me pretty much. Even had enough credits to get pizza for this morning. So this weekend, I ate little else but pizza and ice cream. Amazing.

The Beach.

2010-06-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I went to the beach at the Indiana Dunes!

Now I have a lot of memories involving this beach ranging from the first time I went there with my family and Kathy, when I didn't even know there was a beach there. I thought it was just dunes of sand. But hell was I happy when I saw water. I went swimming in my mesh shorts and black t-shirt. Then later that summer (three years ago), I went back with the intention of swimming. That was the great "Amy almost got sent to a jail in Indiana for arguing with a lifeguard incident" See they kick you out of the water at 6pm, but I refused to get out so I was like "dude I don't think you own this water so you can't kick me out!" Plus, I wanted swim out to the boyee, but they went on the PA and said "if you find yourself swimming out to a boyee, please come back...Of course, I didn't listen and quite swimming until I saw a boat come at me. When I got out of the water, I had the spat with the lifegaurd. Little did I know, all I had to do was wait for the staff to leave and then I could go back into the water further along the shore...Ahhh, to be 17 again. My friend also found a random on that trip to the beach. Though I might add that. Oh and when I was picking my friends up for the trip, the car I was driving tried to kill me. It stalled during a left turn. Yay! I crashed into a pile of branches. Good times.

The next time I went to the Dunes (actually a different part of the lakeshore but same idea) was the best field trip ever. Fall senior year...AP Environmental Science field trip. We went to a bog and the Dunes. I got to carry the stick at the bog. Trust me, carrying a giant wooden stick was amongst my top dreams when I was 17! Plus we rolled down the sand dunes and took a video...I wonder if I have the pictures on my other computer...Couldn't swim then, but I didn't care. That day was great...it must have been if I still remember it. I loved that class, the teacher and that two of my -then, if the case of her- best friends were there.

But hell, I'm talking about happy times here and honestly, I'm trying to talk about today...But last summer, the best day was that BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY at the Dunes<3 Sand Cheetos! Heh.

Moving on, so today we left at around 4pm, which is not a good idea when you have over an hour drive...in rush hour =_= But that's just how I roll. Plus I had to buy a new swimsuit and Kathy had work until 2:30...So we were all psyched to be driving on the expressway with the windows rolled down and listening to Rise Against. Then by a tollbooth, we hit a traffic jam...I really need an ipass because I'm always paying ridiculously high tolls...(trolls...that sit under bridges and demand tolls...)That only minorly burst my bubble...cuz then we got to Indiana...where we certainly didn't buy any fireworks <.< >.> Nope. Not in the least.

Then I decided that I wasn't going to buy gas quite yet since my warning light wasn't on. I was hoping my could make it to tnhe beach, but I mean I didn't know it was as far as it was...So we had to get off the extremely crowded road a second time. I was yelled at for not being more aggressive at the gas station! Huzzah! I'm just not about to fight with someone over who goes first.

I feel like a damn hypocrite driving a car. I hate oil companies and oil dependence...yet here I am driving a car that runs on a lot of gas. I don't know if I mentioned this previously, but a few days ago (now more like a week) I was thinking about how I wanted my own car (for freedom purposes...)...then I realized taht millions of other people who share that same desire with me is the reason oil is spewing into the Gulf right now. Looks like I don't love the pelicans as much as I say...

I also took the opportunity while we were getting gas to explain that I am not necesarily boycotting BP. OH NO, NOW I'M REALLY A HYPOCRITE! *runz in circles* Confession: My father has work because BP goes to IBM for it's -whatever he does needs-. So yeah, my family has money -rather indirectly- because of BP's existence. I'M SO SORRY, MR. PELICAN! I HATE MY FATHER TOO!!! I SWEAR. But honestly, as much as I hate BP for killing things, lying about killing things, not caring caring that things got killed and the works, I'm also mad at the government for not regulating the stupid companies. I expect big business to WANT MONEY, but I believed in the Democrats in office. I really did. I say once again: I am soooo upset about this oil disaster. So, so, sooooo distraught. It's mind boggling. I so wish it wasn't true...When interrogated by Congress (at the same time, as the incident where the senator apologized to BP, which is just LMAO...*JUMPS OUT WINDOW*) it was the CEO of another oild company that admitted none of them have any plan for fixing what they fucked up. Oh, they never imagined a pipe could burst...Or if they did, they decided they'd cross that bridge when they got there...Well, fuck we slammed into the bridge and now its burning into ashes and all the oil is killing things! It's awful. Fuckin' awful. I could rant for hours about how upset I am. HOURS. UPSET. ME. GRRRR. Which is why I've taken solice in watching MSNBC lately. Because they actually care. And the other people watching care. And perhaps enough people care...*cries*

I think I need to huggle my sheep plushie. Or my kiwi<3 Simone den Kiwi. Oh how much you mean to me...

Where was I. Oh, it's the government, the people's fault for continuing our dependence on oil. It needs to end. Enough people have died. Enough "caribbean walruses have died."

But just like apparently the people living in the developing countries who big corporations employ for atrosously low wages are apparently "lesser" than -us...whoever the fuck -us- is...so are the "caribbean walruses." Like hello, you're fuckin' HURTING PEOPLE, HURTING OUR WORLD, HURTING INNOCENT LIFE THAT HAS ONLY HELPED US. WHY? SO YOU CAN MAKE MONEY? WHO THE FUCK CARES IF YOU HAVE MONEY? ENJOYING THE BEACH AND LOVING ALL THE AWKWARDLY ADORABLE SPECIES OF BIRDS AROUND IS WORTH MORE THAN MONEY. BUT NO, YOU TOOK THAT AWAY FROM PEOPLE.

I WAS STANDING ON THE BEACH AT THE DUNES TODAY THINKING ABOUT WHAT I WOULD FEEL LIKE IF THE SAND IN FRONT OF ME WAS COVERED IN OIL. I WAS AFRAID TO SEE SAND AND WATER, AFRAID I WOULD CRY THINKING ABOUT THE HEINOUS HELL THAT IS -WAS- SOME OF OUR MOST WONDERFUL SHORELINE. I LOVE THE FUCKIN' BEACH. EVERYONE LOVES THE BEACH. PEOPLE LOVE THE OCEAN FOR REASONS OTHER THAN DIGGING FOR OIL. BUT NOW THAT ENDS...ENDS WITH THE LIVES OF THE PELICANS...THERE AREN'T FUCKIN' WALRUSES IN THE GULF. I WISH THERE WERE SO THEY'D SWIM OVER TO YOUR CORPORATE BOAT AND STAB YOU. NATURE STRICKS BACK. BUT ONCE AGAIN, IT WAS OUR GOV. THAT ALLOWED YOU TO DRILL WITHOUT READING ABOUT THE WALRUSES. IT WOULD BE FUNNY IF IT WASN'T A TRAGEDY. NOOO, NO. NOT EVEN A TRAGEDY. UNREAL. IT'S UNREAL. IT'S A NIGHTMARE.

The Alantic Ocean was never my favorite ocean (yeah, I'm so nutty I have a favorite ocean...), but it's a fuckin' ocean. Those oceans are the reason we are here. BEING GREEDY. KILLING. HATING. DRVING OUR FUCKIN' CARS WITHOUT A FUCKIN' CLUE. I'll never forget how while I was flying out of NY last fall, I saw the sun glisten in a cone-shape on the river...I think I saw the ocean...but regardless, there is nothing more beautiful than water sparkling...

I was standing on the dunes earlier talking to Kathy watching the imperfect surface of Lake Michigan...Just admiring that as the water got close to shore it looked less squished together and more spread out...-insert some kewl metaphor about wavelength here, but I'm not going to because I'm too pissed to think in metaphors...I'm living in realiy right now- How some patches of water as a lighter blue and occasionally, a fish jumps up. How the trees along the dunes are all different shades of green, how a few trees randomly had a few red leaves even in summer. Don't you think any of this isn't even the slightest bit miraculous? WHAT ABOUT SAND? ALL THSOE GRANUALS DIDN'T GET THERE OVER NIGHT! IT TOOK TIME. IT TOOK TIME FOR THOSE TREES TO GROW. FOR THE -insert name of plant that grows in the first stage of succession...learned about that in environmental science class, heh- to work it's magic. AND HERE WE COME ALONG AND RUIN NATURE'S HARMONY. WHAT GIVES US THAT RIGHT? CUZ WE CAN? WELL, WE ALL CAN DO A LOT OF THINGS RIGHT NOW. BUT WE DON'T. WHY? BECAUSE IT IS WRONG. WRONG. WRONG TO RUIN THINGS, TO KILL. WE ALL KNOW THAT.

AS I TYPE THIS OIL IS SPEWING, A TROPICAL DEPRESSION IS HEADING TOWARD THE GULF, BIRDS ARE DYING. I know there are other species out there, but I'm a self-professed bird-a-holic. Walruses are my second favorite. Except I only adore the real kind...not the imaginary, we're too cheap to change our impact statement kind.

Ahhh, Forsaken. Good ole Within Temptation.

The world can exist without us; we cannot exist without the world. One day, the world will forsake us if we aren't kinder to it.

*sigh* Like I said earlier, I can rant all night about this...But what would it solve? NOTHING. THOUGHTS, WISHES, PROMISES, PLANS DON'T MEAN ANYTHING UNLESS WE ACT ON THEM. I WANT TO START A FUCKIN' RIOT RIGHT NOW. GET PEOPLE PISSED OFF. PEOPLE SHOULD BE PISSED OFF.

Yeah, I still love you, humanity. But I am extremely enraged right now...

Miyavi

2010-06-25T21:18:00.001-07:00

Anyway, last night I went to concert with my friend! (in case you didn't know that from when I answered the question "what do you have to do tomorrow" with "Go to a concert.") The show was Miyavi who, for lack of a better description on my part, is a rocking Japanese guitar guy. I'll provide you with a WIKI link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyavi

So my friend was like "I'm excited," and I was like "Yeah, I'm excited too!" SO WE LEAVE AT LIKE 3PM FOR A SHOW THAT STARTS AT 7:30PM. Yippppeee! I love lines. So we're all excited driving into the city. For the life of me, I will never understand why you hit rush hour going into the city at 3:30ish? Isn't everyone trying to get home to the suburbs? That's what I always thought, but I have a lot of funny misconceptions...I love driving on expressways with the windows down. It's like uplifting. Yip.

Being the brilliant people were are, we printed out (more like wrote out) directions to this parking garage near House of Blues (the garage is a great deal- 8 dollars for the evening in the city. I use it for all my HOB parking needs). Incidentally, knowing where you are going takes the fun out of going places cuz then you don't get lost in the bottom level of Wacker Drive and have to ask a homeless man directions (it's happened, okay). Getting to HOB was actually quite uneventful. Shame.

Another thing I've always wondered about: why the heck was there a line already like three hours ahead of time? Okay, don't answer that since I know the answer. It's just sorta funny, but not as funny as the people who have been camped out in Hollywood since Sunday waiting for the release party of Eclipse. You'd think with all the stars in LA, there would be plenty of ADDICTIONS counselors around...Okay, that wasn't very nice. Especially since I have no right to judge people for being fans. Even though, contrary to popular belief, I am not a fan. I am a Finn. Hah hah hah.

First hour or so waiting in line was uneventful. Had a nice chat with some "line friends." (quotes because Kathy used the word before me). Then people starting talking about how it was going to rain. I was "yeah, right! that only happens in the movies." Then it starts to drizzle. I'm fine at this point because I am short enough to stand under the sign on the building, which protected me from water early on. I was watching people standing under an umbrella happy under my sign. Then it got windy. And I was getting wet. So Kathy and I huddle under the umbrella of the people behind us. My left shoulder still got wet...and *la gasp* my hair got messed up. and my shoes. I think those poor converse are still wet...But that's not the best part even: I heard rumor that there was TORNADO WARNING!!!! YIPEEEEEEE!!!! Apparently there was a tornado in the western suburbs. That's what I heard at the time. I don't watch the local news...only cable news channels. So I think people freak out. LIKE OMG, A TORNADO IS GOING TO COME WHOOOSHING THROUGH DOWNTOWN CHICAGO AND SPEFICIALLY HIT THE HOUSE OF BLUES!!! YEAH!!!

It could happen.

On Mega-Disasters it happens. When A Super Tornado Hits DownTown Chicago. It was a show on the History Channel a long time ago...Not as depressing as What Happens after Humans, but not as entertaining as...I don't know...something that is really funy. Incidentally the producers of that series didn't like Illinois very much since there was an episode about the faultline near New Madrid and the tornado in downtown...we all died twice in that series...wait, three times cuz thanks to the meteor, everyone died. I think there was also an earthquake in LA cuz I remember the computer footage of the city being destroyed. How...uh...nice? *headdesk*

On the subject of conspriary theories, did anyone else hear that the meteor that caused the climate change that killed the dinos hit in the Gulf of Mexico? Sound familiar? If you didn't want that epi of Mega Disasters you might not have heard that...

The next episode of Mega Disasters was going to be "Mega Disasters: Explosion in an off-shore oil drilling rig" But it got cancelled because the oil indsutry funds the show, and they didn't want the bad publicity. Cuz I'm pretty sure at least one idiot called the Oil Disaster a "natural" disaster...about as natural as this: humans came from nature, and THEY caused it. Oh wait, BP never told us what actually happened...

Okay, I'm going to stop ranting about how truly pissed off I am about this whole incident. Going to leave this here though. It's the Gulf from space... http://bit.ly/aHZFU0

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. A giant tornado was barreling down on the HOB. I don't know if that ever happened since the guard people finally let us in. Because it took them THAT LONG to clear out the empty hallway and auditorium...uh huh. So we go inside, and we're waiting on the stairs while they are finishing the sound check. Someone around me said they saw Miyavi but you know, I'm too short...I don't think we waited there THAT long...

The real wait came in once we were standing in front of the stage. It was over two hours. One of my least favorite things in life is waiting for bands to play. My feet hurt. And there is only so much conversation to have with the people around you...though let me say this about the crowd: I was impressed by the variety of people there. And the sheer size of the crowd. Lots of people. We were in the center behind like five or so heads...no one toooo tall was in front of me so I could see for the most part. I was kinda hoping he'd come on at 8:30 but hell, no such luck. I figured it was a scam? Like why the hell would anyone from Japan want to come to Chicago...seems less likely than the tornado. At one point, I was going to sit down right there. I have down that while waiting before...but the place wasn't as crowded then. Sadly no Finnish people were invovled, I didn't get to say my favorite line for concerts..."Bring out the Finn."

I don't get why any performer would want to start a show so late. I'd want to do it earlier...get it over with so I can sleep and not have to worry. But we figured he was playing Facebook game backstage...actually he was standing behind an amp the whole time laughing at the fans waiiting for hours...(not really).

A little after 9, Miyavi did come on though. And omg, seeing everyone go nuts was totally worth the wait. Dude, people can scream! I was impressed by the fan-age. I was like 'uh crazy people..." But no, don't get me wrong, Miyavi is kewl. He's got some mad skillz. LIKE HE CAN SPEAK ENGLISH. OMG, I'M SO JEALOUS. I mean don't ask me to tell you any of the songs he played, but the show's energy made up for my slight ignorance. Miyavi just came off as sincerely happy to be there playing for us. So I thank you, Miyavi for being awesome. *runz* I really don't think he's that hot though...Someone around me was saying all these fangirls got mad when he got married last year. like really, WTF. Let the poor -not even that cute- guy be happy.

Oh another thing that pissed me off (or just something that pissed me off since I don't think I mentioned anything pissing me off yet...except the oil disaster, that is.) I heard this girl say: "Best concert ever. A million times better than Dir en Grey (they're a Japanese hard-rock band) ever was" I swear I glared at that person, and as we were walking back to the car, I was like to Kathy 'OMG, THAT'S LIKE COMPARING AN APPLE TO A LEMON...OMG, CAN WE COMPARE APPLES AND LEMONS." Yeah, they're both fruit, and they both have an "e" in them...But really, I don't get why people have to put one band down to express their love for another. I make different categories for stuff so everything can be my favorite. I have my favorite band. Then I have my favorite Finnish band. My favorite band with Simone Simons as the Singer. My favorite American band. My favorite band with a male vocialist. You get the point. If you can guess all of those, you win!

So after the show, I'm really happy. I mean someone else around me did say "It is impossible to be sad at a Miyavi concert." Yes, I do overhear a lot. I like listening to people's conversations, okay. I don't deny being a Creep...although I'd rather be Optimistic. Lmao. I was glad I went, but I was also glad to get off my feet.

It's like after midnight when we get back in the car. The idea: Follow the opposite of the directions. Took us three tries to find I-90. The road isn't labled. U turn, anyone. But the real "adventure" was about to begin *glare* So the exit onto I-55 we need to get back home was closed off. At first we thought there was a ball game cuz we saw fireworks and traffic jams. Then we thought there was an accident since OUR EXIT WAS BLOCKED. But no...so we take the next exit...trying to turn around to take the exit on the other side of the road, but somehow we end up in Chinatown, which was fine because I know the area around there since I have family close by...so I'm like drive down that street cuz I know how to get home from there...Yes, I do, but the plan requires using I-55, which was blocked again. *frustration* So I call my mom who is like 'oh the expressway must have flooded, but I can't tell you why because our power is out." Like wtf, who would have thought the world was ending while we inside the concert? So we have to take Archer (side-street with LOTS of stoplights) home. Bumper to bumper traffic. Crazy Sox fan in front of us. Finally I remember the radio gives news...a radio? what's that? Express was flooded. When we needed it, of course! I never heard that happen before...So it turns out the hour traffic jam on Archer we were in was caused by ONE out of service traffic light. Once we got past that, traffic picks up. Now we're mad. Cuz it's late. We're sorta nervous.And my friend had to get up in like 4 hours. Yeah.

We eventually get home. My power was in fact out. Incidentally the power in the other half of the complex was on, but not our building, completely dark. It came back on within an hour though...not really a big deal.

Highlights of this story: I saw went to a concert. I had fun. WHOA-HOOO!

What have I Done?

2010-06-19T18:06:00.000-07:00

I repeated my worst mistake. I always will. By pushing people away when I need them most. I wanted to tell each person I have done this too the truth, but it's always been the wrong truth.

I just tell people I love to go away because I'm afraid to be close to them, afraid they'll hurt me.

I've hurt people. But I keep thinking of myself as trying to help...My intentions have always been good. Maybe they're good to alleviate this guilt. Maybe they're not good at all. I'm selfish. So selfish.

I'm so afraid to acknowledge the truth. I can't tell people things.

Now I -rightfully- feel awful.

My Own Fault.

2010-06-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

I've been miserable, and I've been blaming the wrong person. Truly the right the person to blame is ME. I let this hell happen to me.

It's my fault for trusting people. Because no one has shown to me that they care enough to sacrifice for me when it really comes down to it. Obviously, I'm not an outgoing enough person, not an interesting enough person, too self-absorbed, too scatterbrained, too pathetic...too whatever! But blame it on whatever character flaw you want, and I'm still a loser. A pathetic useless loser who everyone lies to and abandons in the end...because...THERE'S SOMEONE BETTER OUT THERE! YIP.

My original problem was telling my mother two years ago. I created years of havoc, ruined both my parents lives. Now he is all alone because my words stigmatized the world against him. She had to leave her easy life. Nevermind the fact that a shitload of money was wasted. That now she is alone. I made such a mistake trusting her, putting my life in someone else's hand...Yeah, I should have walked away. You would have been better off not knowing the truth. You can't bare the truth because you can't handle change.

More recently my issue was coming back here, but hell if it wouldn't have been selfish of me not to come home to a place I MADE you live in. Like "Oh mess up your whole life for ME, but I'm going to leave anyway!" Okay.

I'm a really, really bad person. Every single person who says they love me would rather be with someone else. I've suffered through trying to help people, trying be close to them. What have I gotten in response? An ex-best friend who blamed all our problems on me and ultimately betrayed me with no remorse, no sad memories whats-so-ever. What's worse, everyone agreed with her, went back to her. Left me. It's my fault. MY FAULT. I ONLY REGRET STAINING MY HANDS. HAD I NOT, I COULD HAVE BEEN FREE.

What the hell do I do now? I'm all alone and wasting my life. I'm so frustrated.

Remember...

2010-06-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

How I was DREADING work today. Yeah. MINDLESS WORRY. Wanna know why? Because the world enjoys torturing me with awkward, embarressing situations that leave me feeling completely retarded. Observe:

This morning I wake up at 4am after sleeping for a few sweaty hours. I go to Burger King. Incidently NO ONE is there when I arrive so I sit in my car for a half hour. I'm thinking "you said come at five, right?" Right. So finally a manager comes, but pays no attention to me. Even when I stand by the door. I call right before six when they open. She knows nothing about me coming to train. She wasn't the one who hired me. I want to shrink up into my little shell and trudge away like a shameful turtle. But I don't; no, I go inside when they open and talk to the manager in person. Turns out I can't work because I don't have a uniform. That would have been nice to know before I woke up at 4am. Went home and back to bed, but I was still exhausted all day...

Then I started reading this stupid, depressing book with a really depressing heroin. Not a likeable character at all. Too judgemental. She's looking down on everyone while she, herself, is super boring. Plus the writer enjoys "TELLING." NOOOOOO!!!! SAVE ME.

Oh. Also, Socialism and Soccer both start with "soc." CONSPIRACY, ANYONE? I THINK SO. I HERE BY THINK WE SHOULD USE OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF INNOCENT AMERICAN FROM A WORLD THAT WANTS...*CHOKE* UNITY!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I also like in South Dakota and LOVE mustard.

Yip.

I think this post started out serious. Oi.

More thoughts.

2010-06-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

So if we need the past to get to the future, than no past is ever wrong. Even when I forgot the meaning of 69 or make a silly mistake. Even when I don't talk to people or mean a lot to me for too long. Even I want to jump off a bridge because I've been so passive and indecisive.

I told you I feel wrong, and that's how I know something isn't right (okay, that's isn't what I said, but...). BUT TRULY BEAUTY LIES IN CONTRADICTION. LIKE SYMPHONIC METAL. LIKE 69. LIKE MY LIFE.

I'm going to stop now because I really need to pee, and it is after 3am. In like 26 hours, I have to learn how to be a good fastfood worker again so I should enjoy my creative, witty, insane intellectualism right NOW.

By sleeping.

CLIMAX.

2010-06-16T00:47:00.000-07:00

OMG. SO I'M LIKE EXTREMELY MENTALLY STIMULATED RIGHT NOW!!! BECAUSE I JUST READ THE POST AMAZING CLIMAX EVER. OKAY NOW EVERYONE IS LIKE "CLIMAX?" "SEX"

OF COURSE, I'M TALKING ABOUT THE LITERARY CLIMAX. THAT IS THE TURNING POINT IN A STORY WHERE ALL THE EMOTION, CONFLICT, INTRIGUE, PENT-UP FRUSTRATION AND DESIRE AND UNSPOKEN TRUTH EXPLODE INTO AN ACTION THAT CONTRADICTS WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE WITH THE RISING ACTION.

GOD. NOW I WANT TO MAKE AN ANALOGY COMPARING THE PLOT STRUCTURE TO SEX. I'M SURE IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE. IT'S TOOO EASY NOT TO HAVE BEEN DONE BEFORE (i'm sure that could make a pretty sleazy that's what she/ he said joke...). I'M GOING TO REFRAIN FROM THINKING ANYMORE INTO THAT THOUGH SINCE THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF MY ALL CAPS LOCK POST. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE POINT WAS. I JUST MOVED THE MOUSE PAD BECAUSE ME MOUSE KEPT JUMPING AROUND AND MESSING UP EVERYTHING I WAS TYPING. IT BETTER NOT DO THAT ANYMORE, BUT NOW I THINK MY THUMB KEEPS HITTING THE LAPTOP'S TOUCH-THING-Y.

OH RIGHT. I WAS TALKING ABOUT CLIMAXES. OH I KNOW. I'M GOING TO COMPARE CLIMAXES TO NUCLEAR FUSION (AT LEAST MY EXTREMELY STUPID TAKE ON NUCLEAR FUSION THAT HASN'T CHANGED SINCE SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL) REMEMBER THIS: THE WATER BOTTLES AFTER I POURED THE REMAING WATER ON THE TABLE FOR NO REASON? IN A FLASH OF BRILLANCE, I SMASHED THOSE WATER BOTTLES TOGETHER AND SCREAMED NUCLEAR FUSION? BUT SEE JUST LIKE CLIMAXES AND 69 ARE SYMBOLIC SO IS NUCLEAR FUSION!!! BECAUSE IT'S "COMING TOGETHER!" YIP. LIKE SEX. Oi.

SO THE CLIMAX (of a romantic story that ends with a happy ending...) IS WHEN THE TWO LOVERS (the two little adorable particle thingies that go BOOM and make a lot of energy...also like sex...my mind feels like a land mine right now...whereever I walk, something else just pops up)

AHHHHH! OMG. I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING! SO I FIGURED OUT WHY I LOVE "KINGDOM OF HEAVEN -EPICA SONG-" SO MUCH!!! BECAUSE IT'S SO CONTRADICTORY! BECAUSE IT CONTAINS EVERY SINGLE THING THAT I LOVE! IN A SONG. WITH SIMONE SINGING IT!

quantum pyshics. inter-connectedness of everything. message of unity.

I think I understand now. A little better. About 69. Contradictions. Epic (of course, when I wanted to type EPIC, I TYPED EPICA.).

EPIC.

i did it again.

100th Post!

2010-06-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

I'm going to use this landmark to inform anyone that I'm starting a new blog. One that I can let the world read. With my opinions about things going on in the world. Why? Because suddenly I want to have my own talk show...So why not start with a blog. Get famous. As if.

Anyway, I'll still update the hell outta this place since I need a place to pour out my deepest, most disturbing feelings that I can't share with normal society...and by normal society I mean my friends.

So I shall begin construction of "Deconstruct." Named for my FAVORITE Epica song, of course<3

Work.

2010-06-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

So today was my first experience in the fast food industry! That's right, I started working at Burger King this morning!

The day started off like any other earlier morning...that's is it brought me back to those school days when Mum had to drive me back to Urbana at 6am so we went to McDonalds (or Dunkin' Donuts but usually McDonalds because we like their coffee more). But of course, then things had to get sad for me...Because I had to buy black pants...and when the size 12 pants didn't all fit...that hurt. I wonder how many people cry in dressing rooms? I know I have...many times.

But that's meaningless back story considering I worked today in the real world! One thing I'll is that I didn't think it would be so difficult. I know I'm awkward, and I know I'm not really good at processing different things at the same time...I'm thankful for my genius so I can go off and use my brain in my future job...not my procedural memory or hands.

I'm also slow. I'm just a slow person. I walk slow. I run slow. I take tests slowly. Actually, slow should be slowly in all those sentences...adverbs. I'm depressing myself. But I was having trouble with the drive-thru. I remember wanting to work in a drive-thur so I could be all friendly with people....I'm soooo helplessly optimistic. Unrealistic.

I hope I can learn. Gods, I'm so scared of being a failure at a manual job.

But some amusing stuff:

1. Our computers kept crashing so we had to shut down the whole resturant for like 15 minutes.

2. We never got the drive-thru system back up.

3. All the soda machines shut down.

I think I caused all the malfunctions. My extistence tends to do that.

One More Thing...

2010-06-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

I wanted to text this to one of my friends, but I figured I'd be bothering her.

My life can be summed into two things:

1. A profound love for pizza and ice cream. Random yes, but I was eating spomoni ice cream at the time that I thought about this.

2. I am always trying to be "someone that I am not and don't even really want to be but think I should be."

#2 is more profound. I think. I don't know. Right now, all I am thinking about is how much I love Epica. Ohhhhhh, how I have a one track mind!

You don't think Epica is my favorite band right?

More Light-Hearted News.

2010-06-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here's one for the Chronicles of Amy's Stove: So after all the kernls (spelled wrong?) in my bag of microwavable popcorn didn't POP! I decided I was going to see if I could get them to pop in a pan of oil on the stove. So I pour oil into a pan and turn on the heat. Mind you, I NEVER would have tried this with a gas stove, but electric... "burners" give you an illusion of safety. I learned if I turned the heat up as high as possible, the coils gets RED HOT. Nearly stopped my heart. I thought it was on fire. Note to self: Buy fire exstinguisher. Anyway, after I turned the heat down, the oil boiled and I poured the cornuls (CORN should be in kernils...I really don't know how to spell that word and it is far funnier trying to spell it than looking it up...). AND....IT POPPPED! AND I GOT HIT WITH SCALDING POPCORN AS IT FLEW ALL OVER MY KITCHEN! IT WAS GLORIOUS!

I feel somewhat better now! Plus I got a job. Start Sunday morning. I'll be making money! Yipee!

EPICA STARTED IT!

2010-06-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Because Epica insisted on not coming to Chicago during their November tour, I will be forced to stalk them. Let it be known that they started it and not me. Nope. I'm a good little fangirl.

Mark said that their tour manager tried to book them in as many new cities as possible, and they'll come back to Chicago after the release of their next album (in a like years! HELLO, IF ALL GOES AS PLANNED, I WON'T BE HERE THEN.) But anyway, I forgive Epica because now...dun dun dun...I can start planning my EPIC, EPICA ROADTRIP!!! IT'LL BE GLORIOUS!

Jealous.

2010-06-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

So, honestly, I would consider myself a VERY jealous person. But in my defense, I'm not jealous of everyone. I'm just jealous of THOSE WHO HAVE WHAT I WANT. Okay, I think the very definition of jealous is "wanting something someone else has." So I'm not really that selective in my jealousy. All the same, I can learn from my jealous nature, learn what it is I want.

Way back long ago, in second grade, I was jealous of my classmate who won the writing contest. I remember clearly thinking that my writing must be too fluffy, with no real conflict. Somehow, though, this other girl wrote a well-crafted meaningful story. WHY DID THIS REVELATION BOTHER ME WHEN BACK THEN I (I also remember thinking this)FELT BAD FOR WHOEVER HAD TO WRITENOVELS. I mean, I guess you could bend this memory to mean that I simply wanted praise, and I would also have been jealous of someone who say won a beauty contest (something that really could mean less to me...even now). I do also remember having this terrible need to BE THE BEST. In math. In swimming. In friends. I do remember being jealous of those who were better at swimming than me (nouns involve less committment than verbs...which is why I didn't say swam...I'm trying here...to remember things I hate remembering...things that make me look WEAK). Very jealous at that. Jealous to the point of meanness, hatred. I chose to push people away rather than ever appear less than perfect. Over ten years later, I still do this exact same thing. Like I just read in a book "I push people away when I need them most." Because needing someone implies weakness and weakness implies that I am not perfect. But why, why do I have the need to never show weakness so engrained in me?

I think I have some repressed memory surrounding the events of whatever happened when I was four. Actually it's not whatever happened because I know exactly what happened. But I'm starting to think there was more than what I know happened because even being molested doesn't account for a terrible and innate desire to be perfect, to never show a single flaw. Okay, maybe it does. It probably does.I just wikied Complex Post Traumatic Stress disorder (because that's what I have, I've self-diagnosed...lmao), and the article doesn't say anything about a complusive need for perfection. Well, maybe it's actually CONTROL that I need. As in being perfect is a way to control everything about your life. Probably. Like that's the mindset behind anorexia, I think. If it wasn't for PCOS, I probably would have been anorexia at one poin in my life (okay, I was borderline anorexic when I was in my younger years of highschool, but I still didn't really lose weight...thank you, again PCOS.) I also went through a I Want To Make Myself Throw Up Phase, but luckily, I didn't have the balls to actually make myself puke. Yeah, I was too weak to make myself puke. Blessing or Curse? Just now, I was listening to FROZEN in two places. Two versions. FROZEN. I've chosen Deconstruct and Utopia as my favorite songs now-a-days because they represent other parts of me. You know, not the suicidial, desperately searching for a reason to remain alive person or the SO TRAUMITIZED I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ANY EMOTION FEELS LIKE person. I don't know why that one is in caps...But regardless, both those persons are a REAL part of my past. No, they ARE my past. No wonder I'm jealous of anyone who has an even remotely "normal" past.

But actually that's not what I'm jealous of. Here, I will go through a list of the people I am most jealous of right now. Even knowing that -perhaps- a few of these people might read this. I'm also a self-professed COWARD. Sorry, I've never said any of these things to your face. Actually, I think I did say some of THIS to HER face because like it or not I was able to tell her anything. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have been able to tell her I wanted to die, when I did...when I actually didn't. Can I not do this?

1. I'll state with an easy to state reality because this one shouldn't come as surprise. I'm jealous of Sarah. Yes, the girl who I both am "in love with" and HATE. I want to be like her because she was so involved in "good." She was part of all these volunteer groups; she was the RA for goodness sake. A noteworthy position, yes. She played the role well too. Always the idealistic, always saying all the right things at all the right times. So yeah, I take my hat off to you, Sarah, because represent the "do-good, well-respected" person that I would love to be. Also I envy your "idyllic" childhood and family life. I can't help that. Oh and the fact that you seem to be a "better" psychology major than me. What with your research experience and sureness about your desires. I've spent A LOT of time thinking about you. I mean if this blog is any proof, you ARE THE ONLY THING I THINK ABOUT. Right now, I wouldn't say that is that far from the truth. My last two posts have been poems DIRECTED AT YOU. I swear, if only you knew I was OBSESSED with you. Though at this EXACT moment, you are not my biggest obsession. Oh how you (who ever you are) should know what is coming...I have two HERS, and well, yip, my current obsession is the original HER. The her I've dream about all the time. The her I used to tell everything to. So without further ado. The confession.

2. I'm jealous of Alex. I'm horridly jealous of the girl who broke my heart (in the non-romantic way). Why would I be jealous of an insincere ex-friend who "betrayed" me? Because she was the one who betrayed me. Because she was able to betray me. I don't betray people because I'm terrified of losing people. I just don't seem to have all the people in my life others do, and I'm not as wonderful at making friends as other people are...So I have cling to whoever I have. Cling might not be the best word since, honestly, I want to think people are good and there are quite a few people I really do like. I REALLY trusted her. Despite all the times when it seemed that she didn't care. 1. You carely chose them over me even when I told you how depressed I was. You didn't talk to me on that field trip and then YOU BLAMED ME. I was so GONE at that point. I believed you too. I always believed you...2. You told me "all you ever wanted was for our other friend to talk to you. At that other friend: I understand now, I think, why you couldn't talk to me for that time. I recently felt that way. That even if the person who these feelings were directed at came around, I could NEVER trust them the same way again. I would have lingering feelings of hate. Maybe that is why so many of my old friendships are screwed up beyond repair. Back on topic: You never valued the fact that we were "best friends." Nope. You always wanted someone else. Another friend. A boy. Some dream. You can't imagine how that made me feel. How much I cried because of you. How I still dream about you. Another obsession, right. I can't let go of these people because I am JEALOUS. I'm jealous because you didn't feel the way I did, because you had people to fill the ranks left by us. I mean, I had other friends, better friends, but if I am one thing, it is insincere. When I come to like someone, I like them. If I trust you, you should consider yourself lucky.

Yeah, those two HERS, my obsessions, take up so much space on my mind...for no reason too. I need to let go of them. Even if they do represent things I can't control, failures or people who hurt me a lot, I need to MOVE ON. No matter what moving on means. But, alas, I haven't confessed anything new here. Maybe a few feet deeper than before but not...well, not the stab that started this thought process. I don't know if I can say this next part since it truly makes me look wrong. Immature. Hopeless. Small. Especially considering...

Oi. So you remember (or KNOW first hand) that two of the people I consider to be my best friends I met online. And they know things other people don't about me. In a way, I let them see a fragile me, at a time of weakness when I needed someone so very much and when I otherwise would have pushed everyone away. Right now, I am pushing everyone away. I desperately want to push YOU away because I want to make it seem like I don't need you, that I'm not hurt that I'm not your favorite. You've said I was your best friend, but how many other people have you ever said that to? I know I have issue trusting someone who calls themselves my best friend, but I know when you say it, it isn't completely the truth- not completely a lie either. See I know (and really want it to be like this for both your sake's, trust me though I might be confessing to jealousy here, I don't harbor any ill wishes. I WANT BOTH YOU TO BE HAPPY. THAT WILL NOT CHANGE NO MATTER WHAT) she (I can't use names. I'm sorry. I'm a coward.) is your best friend. She's the one you want to talk to. Just like Sabina was the one Alex wanted to talk to. NOT ME. NEVER ME. I know I shouldn't feel this way (and I sure as hell shouldn't be listening to WT while feeling this way...) but it hurts a lot to think of you two being friends without me, being better friends than you are with me at that. It hurts. Maybe it's not even jealous. Simply: it hurts. As if I've been forgotten about after we were such good friends. AND I JUST GOT SIDE-TRACKED BY MY COMPLETE LOVE FOR EPICA! But another rant about that later...Where was I? Oh yes, I was feeling bad because you two seems to forget about me, leave me out. Because you're going to be with her and not me. Yip. As if you chose someone else over me. Mind you, I would WANT you to make that choice, but I also don't want to be forgotten about by anyone. I've lost a lot of friends...mainly the HER mentioned above. I don't want that to happen again. I'm so very, very sorry!

This post is ending now because I'm thinking about EPICA. Oi.

The Mummy

2010-06-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

I’m a mummy.
All wrapped up
Body in-tact, mind shriveled away
Soon to encased
Forever with these thoughts
Memories of my mistakes, recollections of you
Never dying, never forgetting
Longing to return
So I can travel forward
Cross the river and
Let it die

I want to lay my thoughts to rest
In a tomb, far, far away from the
Floor I once shared with you
You’ll never know the role
Our -not quite- relationship
Played in my need for a sarcophagus
That your random comments, strong convictions
Sucked the blood from these stiffened veins

More or less, you were a roadblock
That bottle-necked my thoughts
My airway and all my bodily fluids
I choked and squirmed in your presence
At the thought of you
Let’s say I burst
My organs ruptured
Because of the clog you caused
Contradictory thoughts have
No release valve

Don’t bother as your wrap me
To carve my heart out
You already did
While I lived, sitting beside you
Leave the jars set aside to
Hold my useless organs
Empty
Like your eyes when you looked at me
Devoid of the feelings
That stopped my blood from reaching
My heart
Filled with desire
For you

I wish I could
Open my eyes
One last time to see
Your eyes twinkle
I know you silently
Enjoy wrapping the mouth
That knew no indoor voice
That supposedly disturbed your slumber
You bind me tighter
I find comfort once again
In a fantasy
These wrappings are your arms
Embracing me

I see white
Clouds in the sky of your kingdom
Floating above the throne from which
You rule
I dared question that authority
I wonder if you knew
I would love a power struggle
I didn’t want rebellion though
I wanted you
Inferior, you called me
And I believed it

I envy you
For building pyramids
While I drew maps to
Illusive treasure
Dug through scalding sand
And watched as the granules
Fell back into place
Like always
Mixing with my tears until
I sank into the quick-sand

In the next life
As irony would have it
I’ll be a creature
Who has no voice
Because I, who
Always had a witty comeback
Can never find the words when
It matters
I watch the tides of sand
Blow, rise and fall
As I burrow into the drifts
If I told you,
Would you have left me still
In a tight space for all eternity

Your kingdom will one day
Crumble, your gold will tarnish
I wish you the best
As you travel to construct
Bigger monuments in distant lands
I ask that you remember me
Maybe one day, you’ll excavate this place
Touch your finger tip to the mummy
You wrapped

I hope to laugh then
As if the memory tickled me
Like you’d laugh, like my friends would laugh
If I ever let the truth slip through my lips
Our love could never be
You, my love, never existed
A mere mirage in the scorching desert
That personified everything I feared
And longed for

Though as you fade
Into the orange horizon
A tear falls
Because I’m alone
Surrounded my dunes and sink holes
Wind and rain, beasts and scrutiny
Left to carve reality
From fallen stones
The whirling sands
Unearth me
A gem
Glistening in the sun

Pathetically.

2010-06-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

GAH! I feel so torn! Missing those who don't miss me, I think.

Pathetically

Pathetically feeling
That despite everything
My worst fault is
Loving
Much more than
I’ve ever been loved
Needing you much more
Then you’ll ever need me

Pathetically loving
Fantasies
Products of a
Wishful Imagination
Pixels, I’ve loved
And gorgeous voices
The self-righteous girl
From down the hall

Pathetically thinking
She would ever give me
A second thought
A third, perhaps
Because I’ve planned
Our union
Our teasing and heated embraces
The way we’d accept fate

Pathetically –nearly- crying
Hearing
Goodbye to You
I never said goodbye
Never hello, either
Just, confessed my madness
Suggested you substitute bricks
Instigated conflict that drove us apart

Pathetically hating
Men
Except those Finns
I want to marry
Or my imaginary soul-mate
Who’s perfect, by the way
The hand I hold when
I think of friends in relationships

Pathetically envying
Couples I see
While I’m sitting
Trying to write
About how I want her
My thoughts are disjointed paragraphs
That kills my hopes
That I have any talent

Pathetically listening
To love songs
While some of my feathered friends
Are grounded by greed
A cold deluge
Stains my t-shirt
The fan blows
Strains of hair into my face

Pathetically missing
Someone I was never with
Could never be with
Would hate if I was with
A sigh of resignation
The desire, my fantasy
A proxy
For one I’m yet to meet

Pathetically dreaming
Up
A more heroic self
A loved self
I’ll admit
I wish for fame
For recognition
I miss the praise

Pathetically not
Knowing
She wasn’t the first
Crush
My hopes of settling down
Normally
Scrambled
As I’m walking along the fence

Pathetically sitting
Alone
I try to smile for a camera
While missing friends
Who don’t feel the same—maybe
Checking sites
That don’t need checking
As I watch time pass
I debate its meaning

Pathetically fearing
I’ve created more waste
Forsaken worth
One day when I know
You’ll reply with the words
I’ve always longed to hear
I’ll explain
All I ever wanted, all the buried pain

One day, maybe, I’ll embrace
My weakness, the flaws I hide
Until then, I’ll pathetically
Act uninterested
Stand-offish
Defeating my desire for a lover
I imagine you’ll understand
These –nonexistent- scars

Deconstruct.

2010-06-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

Is probably among (if not) my favorite Epica song.

Because I imagine it being about people uniting to save the world. Like our entire system right now needs to be "deconstructed" and rebuilt with better ideals at the base. Not greed. Not lust. Not apathy.

I quote this song all the time. It's in my signature line for my school e-mail. I used it in a powerpoint for FeelGood. I use it for hope.

If we could see ourselves, the mirror would reflect insanity
Instead we camouflage the flaws that lie within
Condone the suffering we witness as we mingle casually
We need to right ourselves, or else we will derail

I camouflage the flaws that line within.
Within me. Omg. I love this song so much.

So perhaps, it is time to decontrust myself. TO decide what I want, what I need.
How I really feel.

I'm sorry.

Re-Reading

2010-06-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

A lot of my old posts...posts from the past semester. Posts that remind me things weren't as ducky and bunny as I want to convince myself they were.

Maybe I'm still lying to myself. Lying because I refuse to admit that I am anything but wonderful. Sure, I say I hate myself, but I also have this fantasy in which I am a hero; In which everyone loves me, and I always have the answers and do the right thing. I fantasize a perfect world where I'm the best so I don't have to face the reality of my failures. I have this insanely large pool of insecurities, and if you say or do anything that seems to confirm one, I'll get DEFENSIVE. And when I get defensive, I don't care how cruel I am. That's a pattern I'm repeated time and again.

Let's state some truths here. I'm a very jealous person. I'm jealous of those who have more things to do, who are doing more or themselves or others. I'm jealous of those who threaten my standing in other's eyes.

I can never admit I'm wrong. I can't say I'm weak. I can't let you see me as anything but an emotionless, all-knowing person.

I don't know what hurts me anymore. I'm not sure how I feel.

I don't know if you'll understand. Maybe I don't give you enough credit. But I don't know if I can trust you...I'd rather run away and not deal with you...even knowing who you are in my life. Even knowing what my best friend lost. See this is why I don't visit...because I think you'd tell me to go to hell, to stop hurting others in defense of some sadistic misconception.

But to you I just want you to see someone who has changed, WHO IS NOT INSANE. LIKE TWO YEARS AGO. DAMNIT.

I hit the nail on the head. I'm crying. God.

I just want to prove "I'm better." Better than I was. Better than other people. And I do that by fighting, by putting others down. I might love others, but I hate admitting I'm not perfect even more. Until that ends...

When I think about what I've done, it seems somewhat hopeless. Oh Deconstruct...

Sooner or Later

2010-06-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I mentioned this little, slightly funny detail earlier here, but since summer began, I've had is terrible obsession with Michelle Branch. Now all the mouths are gaping! Them: But Amy, you like METAL!!! What's happening?

My response: Well before I can respond I need to quote (read paraphrase) Michelle. She said that she writes songs about a "girl who likes a boy more than the boy likes the girl."

Since the beginning of sophmore year, I'VE HAD THIS PROBLEM. EXCEPT I LIKE ANOTHER GIRL MORE THAN THAT OTHER GIRL LIKES ME. YES HER.

Thus I'm attrached to Michelle Branch's music becuase at this FORK (not caps for any reason other than the fact that I like FORKS...and NOT the town from Twilight...) in the road, I can really relate to all her songs. I can relate to a love song. I might have to quote that until I believe it.

I just also like female musicians. I just also like females.

No, actually I don't really like female singers for their sexuality. I admit that I do find (find is one letter off from FINN) Tarja and Simone GORGEOUS, but first I liked their voice. I admire them--them being females who follow their dreams and let the world hear their voice.

But to get back to the title of this post...I might have to quote Michelle again...THE SONG. YOU KNOW WIKILYRICS DOESN'T LET YOU CUT AND PASTE. WTF? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO QUOTE SONGS? Honestly. The nerve.

"Sooner or Later
You're going to come around
You'll be sorry
When you figure out
That I was always
Everything you needed
Sooner or Later
You're going to wish you had me"

Yeah. I typed that out. Okay. Point being: SOONER OR LATER, EVERYONE ELSE FIGURES OUT WHAT I WAS SAYING IS RIGHT! BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS RIGHT. THANKS YOU, SONG, FOR VINDICATING ME.

Why am I compelled to re-write all Michelle's lyrics to apply them to my life? SUMMER PROJECT.

Geez....WAIT. THAT'S NOT WEIRD. I'M A WRITER. I WRITE THINGS. Whatever gets the creative juices flowing. Like my "fanfiction" about Simone. Read that as AMY YOU SAID YOU HATED FANFICTION ABOUT REAL PEOPLE, BUT THEN YOU WENT AND WROTE A STORY ABOUT SIMONE. STALKER.

I'm not denying my STALKER-NESS.

Fuck, do I ever love my thought processes. OMG. I JUST THOUGHT UP A REALLY AWESOME METAPHOR. COMPARING MY CURRENT MENTAL STATE to...flint? unsharpened caveman tools? OH HOW THAT TURNS ME ON!!!

See. Actually I just saw an imagine in my brain. Now I have to flesh this "image" out.

See (again...attempt two): Let's imagine a caveman lives at the bottom of a cliff that is VERY prone to rock slides. But luckly for him, his house never gets crushed. Why? Because all my stories have GAPING PLOT HOLES. But incidentally, the caveman in my story does NOT have a GAPING HOLE in his roof so we can continue the story, OKAY? Anyway instead of a grassy garden (or my favorite CACTUS GARDEN), Mr. Caveman has a ROCK GARDEN because so many boulders fall on his property every day. If Mr. Caveman didn't do something about the boulder deluge, he'd be overwhelmed by boulders. Imagine those cartoon skits where the character is covered from toe to head (and often beyond) by something that falls on him. Well that's the case here...So Mr. Caveman has to be fast! But Mr. Caveman doesn't just run outside every morning and catch the stones as they fall from the sky. Oh no! He is a caveman and thus OBVIOUSLY the epitome of evolution! So all night, Mr. Caveman sits up devising schemes to deal with the next days crop of rock. Like one day, he thought to carve the stones with this stick that blew into his yard during a recent storm. And this brillant revelation is how "tools" were born. See anthro lesson, right there. Also he thought that, perhaps, he could eat the stones. He made STONE SOUP. Then some thousands of years later some guy wrote a book with the same title. I think. I don't remember. All I know is that WAY BACK WHEN, we went to see some play with a similar title...Anyway, Mr. Caveman became very dependent on the falling rocks because the conflict they created finely honed his cognitive abilities. It was the quite similar to his warrior brothern who sharpened their weapons in order to keep them in the most usable shape.

This story is in dire need of a conflict. I swear I'm such a happy person, all my stories are in the RESOLVED state right when they begin. HAPPY ENDING. MAKE IT HAPPIERS. CAPS LOCK. USE BOLD TEXT. MAKE THE FONT SIZE BIGGER! QUIET HOURS! I THINK NOT!

But one day, the rocks stopped falling from the sky. Mr. Caveman paced around the yard. He looked toward the heavens willing a cascade of rocks to appear. But nothing came. He went back inside. Maybe the magic that protected his home suddenly reserved, and now his garden was the thing protected. But no, his house was neat and tidy as always. So he sat down. He got up and looked out the window. He want outside and looked to the sky for any sign. He sat on a bench rock (a rocking currently in service as a bench...Mr.Caveman CERTAINLY doesn't suffer from LEARNED FIXEDNESS...oh great, psychology...)and stretched out his legs. He imagined himself a warrior with nothing to fight. He might turn aganist his companions out of lust. He would snap like a tree trunk under the weight of one of the boulders that should be falling from the sky right about now. He paced some more. He wanted to scream. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO.

The next day, boulders fell from the sky right on schedule (actually a little early but since Cavemen didn't have clocks, who cares?). Mr. Caveman watched them fall, watched his favorite past time go unattended to. He hadn't pondered creative methods of stone removal last night. Instead he widdled wood, mindlessly uses his hands to do SOMETHING while his mind rotted an the animal corpse under a giant boulder (ummmm? out of character much?). Day came and went. So did night. Night moves faster than day...usually. He didn't wave to the pacing times while his eyes glistened with excitement for the next day. No, he stared blankly at the rocks building up outside. Mr. Caveman widdled a little duck. My dear duck, he said, I have nothing to do. My life sure does suck. Rocks fell outside.

YOU STUPID DUCK. WHY DON'T YOU EVER DO ANYTHING? Mr. Caveman projected while he widdled (psychically, he widdled a carrot, abstractly he widdled away time, his life.

The room Mr. Cavemen widdled in became DARK. As if it had no windows. It had windows except so many stones had fallen that no light could even CREEP (caps because it's a Radiohead song)into them. He sat in the dark, cursing life for throwing him this BORING LOT IN LIFE. Meanwhile, the METAPHORICAL warriors kneeled in puddles of their comrades blood (don't worry, no VIKINGS were injuried in the writing of this story...the wounds were "merely flesh wounds") lamenting the turn of events.

WHY? Everyone asked the heavens.

A wise bird (probably a kiwi because in my stories KIWIS CAN FLY. It's symbolism.) landed atop the pile of boulders and offered an answer. Dear humans who are plagued by conscious thought, your actions seem to want to prove that one must stay busy in order to avoid falling into a trap. Take the sciene-y law (it's a timing traveling bird, okay) about objects in motion desiring to remain in motion. Once we build up momentum say devising BRILLIANT scemes, we don't want to stop, but when something makes us stop, WE CRASH. All the progress we made comes crashing down on us (ironically, in this case, something NOT falling brought about the fall). After a crash, we usually don't feel like hopping back to our feet and running forward. Nope! We want to wallow. We stop seeing what we COULD be doing.

Furthermore, if you don't pursue you passions, your thoughts (which are tailored toward achieving the goal of your passion will SMASH INTO YOU AND BUILD UP AROUND YOU LIKE THE STONES SURROUNDING MR. CAVEMAN'S HOUSE), will overwhelm you. You'll start talking to yourself and getting angry.

Author's note: 1. Toward the beginning of this story, I remembered this game we played in elementary school gym class called "clean up your own backyard." You had to through these balls over a volleyball net as fast as you can so when time is called your side has less balls on the ground.

2. I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT ELSE I WAS GOING TO SAY HERE.

I don't want to stop writing right now...like a viking doens't want to stop sharpening his axe....

But really, thank you song. For firing my imagination.

Honesty.

2010-06-01T23:09:00.000-07:00

I tell people who come to me for advise this one thing: You have to be honest with yourself. Listen to your heart. You'll know what you really want to do.

I...I haven't done that. I've been lying to myself. Hiding. Running away?

Let's be serious here. I'm disappointed in myself because I let valuable opportunities go. Now I'm sitting here with nothing important to do. Like I used to...playing video games for extensive hours.

Why? Because I was afraid. I didn't want to go out of my way.

I'm trapped here under my own doing. I said that "I am going crazy, and I feel like I'm trapped inside a box wanting only to scream."

I'm angry because this nothingness is not the life I want...not even for a few months between school semester.

I had the chance to do the one thing I've always wanted to...and I didn't.

NO REGRETS. MOVE FORWARD.

I'm listening to the music from Xenosaga. It's been four years. Since that summer I waited for the conclusion the series. I almost forget...the effect that game had on my life. I think chaos was the one who taught me to "believe in the light of mankind's will."

Yet, there is no going back, no reliving the past. I learned all I could in those days. Now I'm here. I have to act.

So let's leave it at this: I'm sorry, Amy. I guess we really weren't ready. Right now, we have to find things that we can still do. It'll be alright.

I almost feel like I want to cry. Because I remember. Too well. The way I used to feel. It's so foreign. Everything that isn't NOW is foreign. It's hard for me to believe THIS wasn't ALWAYS my life.

"We have to open new doors and close those that we leave behind."

Dance of Fate. Epica. WHO BETTER COME BACK TO CHICAGO IN NOVEMBER.

Anxiety

2010-05-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Dear World,

I am quite anxious today. The future makes me anxious. Reality scares me. As time progresses I move closer toward reality, but still, this college student persona is a brilliant shield. I applied for a job today...But the really scary thought was this: I'm going to try to take a GRE prep class. I might take the test in fall and see what score I get. Maybe I'll graduate early from college. Who knows? Is going to grad school a year early worth not going to Europe? See I'm freakin out! I just want to get a peaceful job now and make money over the summer...not worrying about life! OI!!!

Thanks,
Amy

Lonely.

2010-05-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Upon further examination of my life, I've discovered I'm very lonely. Now I previously had a theory that I had lots of pent up sexual tension, but this time I think I actually want to have a companion...something who will be there with me all the time, will understand all my inside jokes, will tease me with the best intentions, will just know...and who is, of course, as witty and brilliant as me. I imagined her as being as those things. I wanted her to be all those things.

I see so many of my friends with guys (hell, I'm not even so picky that I want someone of the opposite sex...know let's rephrase: I DON'T KNOW IF I WANT SOMEONE OF THE SAME OR OPPOSITE SEX. WTF. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY SEXUAL PREFERENCE IS!!!), and I genuinely feel bad. Because I guess that's what life is about...striving to find a partner.

So I guess I'm lonely. I would like a boy/girl friend. Didn't think I'd ever say that. Aren't I going to be all like OMGNOWAITHAT'SSOGROSS. Probably not. I would probably in no way associate romance with THAT. OMG, THIS IS SO WEIRD! OMG.OMG.OMG. I'M KINDA INDEPENDENT SO FOR ME TO WANT TO BE IN A RELATIONSHIP...I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK.

BUT I DO. I WANT A SIGNIFICANT OTHER.

Illusion

2010-05-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking I should be listening to Illusive Consensus while typing a blob entitled "Illusion," but I'm still hopelessly obsessed (and crushing on...UGH) Michelle Branch. Oh I know, maybe if I totally see this obsession through I'll forget about the real life female I'm in love with (that's what happened over winter break when I was HOPELESSLY IN LOVE WITH SIMONE) Okay. I'm not IN LOVE. More or less just...crushing on...like I said. Now Hotel Paper =_= I swear Mrs. FEMMEMETALFTW needs to hide under a rock and listen to this music. I feel a little weird...It's like LOVE SONGS as compared to Epica's POLITICALLY RELEVANT, QUANTUM PHSYICS SUPER COMPLICATED SONGS!

I think I'm going to force myself to listen to EPICA because listening to Hotel Paper on repeat is not good for my heart...*dangles a picture of Simone in front of self* You know who you really love

But the point of this post was to reflect on how I feel like so much of my past is an illusion because in the present, I feel so discconnected from it. That is- how could that ever have been true since it is so untrue now?

"DESTROY THIS ILLUSION. WE NEED A CHANGE OF FATE."

Oh yes, this song is brillant!

See some much changes in life...much more changing than I ever noticed before...like the friends from last year...you might not even talk to now...or things that really bothered you last year, might not even cross your mind now.

In my case, I dream of writing myself a past that doesn't include any running away, any depression, any pain, any insanity, any weakness. I want to be as "perfect" as I am now...Now let's refrain that: I want to able to say I was the person I am now always...I don't want to tell people. "Yeah, I talk a lot and am confident and determined now, but I used to want to kill myself...lmao." That's a sob story.

Okay. WHO CARES? OBSESSION MUCH. GO OBSESS OVER SIMONE. GO. RUN. NOW. YOU'RE NOT OBSESSION FAST ENOUGH. FASTER!!!!

This reminds me of the facebook bumper sticker: Do you prefere top or bottom? Complete a picture of a BUNK BED. Oh trust me. I could break on of those real fast. I couldn't really since...well you know, something about me never...THAT'S REALLY WHAT THIS IS ABOUT!

But really I must still be ASHAMED of something. Of what I do, of what I was, of who I like...OF WHO I AM?

Oh...Simone really is attractive<3 OH I REMIND EARLIER THIS YEAR WHEN I WAS TOTALLY COMPARING MYSELF TO SIMONE. LIKE SIMONE IS BETTER THAN ME. WHEN SHE WAS TWENTY, LOOK WHAT SHE COULD DO. OH EVERYONE LOVES SIMONE!

I'm like the dog who will endlessly chase his (or her since you know, I'm a girl...actually I consider myself mostly sexly nuetral...which is dumb because I obviously care about those things...OMG!I MIGHT BE ON TO SOMETHING) tail until someone throws a chew toy for HER to chase...

Observe: Amy runs in circles feeling bad because it's summer and she didn't see Sarah and her life is meaningless and she has been listening to Tuesday Morning on repeat all day. Amy realizes she is about to fall over from dizziness so Amy throws a toaster off to the right. BTW, THE TOAST MAKES SIMONE TOAST! Amy chases the toaster and thus break the depressing cycle that is chasing your tail.

No, I'm not on drugs. Why would you ask that?

*sigh* FOREVER WASN'T EVER LONG ENOUGH. I WILL REFRAIN. I FEEL A PASSION WASHING OVER ME TO SHED THE SKIN I'M IN. and I didn't understand the next line...of Sancta Terra..

I think it is safe to say I'm not about to admit what I'm really afraid of. I'm afriad to admit that I have failed. Mostly, I guess, I have failed to keep in contact with people, and then I feel bad when relationships seem to fade away...Then I'm too afraid that they'll reject me to even try to talk with them again...VICIOUS CYCLE MUCH. Oh look! YOU'RE NOT PERFECT. WHO SAID YOU WERE PERFECT. I did. Yeah. I'm perfect in relative compare myself to the past terms...THAN STOP COMPARING TO THE PAST? BUT IT IS HARD NOT TO?

IT'S CHASING THE DRAGON TIME! *SIGH* I might just stop screaming and start crying now...AND NOW I FEEL LIEK GOING CRAZY. LALALALAAA. I MAKE MYSELF CRAZY. STOP PROJECTIG. STOP RUNNING. AND FACE REALITY. Please?

Been almost...

2010-05-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

A week since I got out of school. Time seems to be passing slower than it really is, I guess.

Oh I know, now I'm going to talk about how I haven't done anything productive since I've been home, and now I feel so utterly depressed and blah, blah, blah.

No, actually I think I'd rant about how much I love Sarah and how bad I feel that we're not together. I mean I've spent the past week imagining us together. We'd be the best of friends and tease each other somewhat mercilessly, but at the end of the day, we'd somehow come together...you know, like the I WANT TO KILL YOU! SO MUCH I WANT TO KISS YOU. YIP. THAT'S ME FOR YOU.

Meh, somewhat meaningless. So I'll talk about how today was an eventful night...the friggin' carbon monoxide detector going off...the bug...the short loss of cable service...finnish the anime series I was watching...NO, THAT'S NOT VERY INTERESTING.

Still...

2010-05-15T21:43:00.001-07:00

Didn't finnish my end of the year report...and to think she said all those nice things about me too. I'm just jaded, I guess.

Now I have to find something interesitng to fill this post with (cuz that secretly was what I wanted...)

Now I'm listening to After Forever and I don't know the words to their songs so I can't quite them like I did other music...except BEING EVERYONE. I love that song...

Oh I got a new watch today! Now my wrist isn't lonely. I'm a watch-a-holic, what can I say. "Tell me what you see. Are we just being everyone?"

I WANT THE RED VELVET PANCAKES! GRRRR.

Hah!

2010-05-15T21:26:00.001-07:00

Back to the steady stream of depressing posts...But I have a theory! When I'm not with people who I can readily talk to, I find it necessary to type and type until I get all my feelings out. Dang, what's the exact line to that song...Breathe (2am)...Something like this..."2am and I'm up writing this song so these words are no longer inside of me threatening the life they belong to"

Oh no, now I want to listen to Evanescence. I should just delete all of their music from my computer. Though when they tour, I do want to go see them...especially if they come to Champaign...because then maybe I could use my awesome Buzz job to get a pass...Yeah, I've thought this one out.

Resisted the urge...after a bit of Imaginary.

List of songs that seriously effected my life (AS IN I REMEBER A SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME WHERE I LISTENED TO IT...pointless caps...):
Small Two of Pieces (it's the song from Xenogears...don't ask...)
Maybe Tomorrow
IMAGINARY

This is a bad list because now I want to list off all the bands I listed a few posts ago...because I seriously didn't used to do anything but sit on the computer and listen to music. Oh I forgot to mention Something Corporate on that list. I went through a major obsession with them. Hah, I love how I somehow ended up MAJORLY obsessed with femme metal.

I'm going to break a femme metal rule here, but honestly, sometimes I can't tell the difference between Simone's and Floor's voice. Like subtract one Dutch girl and add in another in her place and...THEY'LL NEVER KNOW. IT'S NOT LIKE THE ANETTE-TARJA SWAP. GRRRR. OH I SO HOPE THAT TARJA TOURS WHILE I'M IN EUROPE. I WANT TO STALK THAT FINN.

"I wish I was special, so fuckin' special. BUT I'M A CREEP. I'M A WEIRDO."

So apparently there is such a thing as RED VELVET PANCAKES! That's like a combination of two of my favorite things! LIKE BEYOND ME IS A COMBO OF SHARON AND ....OMG THIS NEEDS TO BE IN SOMETHING BIGGER THAN CAPS BECAUSE IT PROVES EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING MY ABOVE PARAGRAPH. OMG. OMG. OMG. I WAS GOING TO TYPE...BEYOND ME COMBINES SHARON AND SIMONE. x_X x6969696969696969!

Floor and Sharon.

Huge difference.

Huge tangent.

Semblance of Confusion. Semblance of Liberty. Semblance of Sanity? I think that one should be next...

Actually I just think I type until I'm so delirious from typing that everything is funny...EVERYTHING IS FUNNY! Anyway...off to do something productive...as in play video games =_=

So I am sad?

2010-05-15T20:38:00.000-07:00

"Please don't drive me home tonight. I don't want to feel alone."

That lines reminds me of two and a half years ago, sitting outside your condo talking about everything and nothing. I remember being happy.

Pointless memory, but since Tuesday Morning is the song of the day (okay maybe I shouldn't go that far, but I do have a slight crush on Michelle Branch right now...Yeah, I'm that random. I'm not even going to deny my love for females anymore...No point. So I crush on females, so what I imagine myself with a girl)

As I was saying in the notebook I was trying to write a story about my fantasy in (lmao. Yeah, I want to write a "fictional love story between me and her), I love comparing my life to four years ago. Why maybe I should listen to Evanescence and call it a night! Actually I think I'll avoid THAT AT ALL COSTS. I'm going to keep listening to Michelle Branch because I can be pretty sure I never tried killing myself while listening to this...Ev on the other hand *eye roll*...That really isn't a funny joke. It is funny how I listen to a CD backwards...starting with the last song and then after every song ends, changing it to the song above.

Anyway, maybe I should start HERE: I feel really bad that out of the group I hung out with in high school, all of them but me went to ACEN this year. Last year, I had a good excuse- this year my absence only reminds me of my failure. And if you don't think I failed then...WHAT ABOUT THE FRIENDS I LOST CONACT WITH? I'm going to leave it at that because I'm not really sure if saying I "forsaked" my past is the best term...more like "grew away from..." Do I feel guilty? Like I did two years ago when I let you guys down? Yeah, I think so. Because I told you that I don't think I'd ever find friends as good as you guys...Then I had to stop talking to her. Then you stopped talking to them. And BLAH, I CRIED SO MUCH ABOUT THIS LAST YEAR. "I'm finding my way back to you and everything I used to do." But I obviously don't want to go back...No, let me re-phrase that: I want to go back to my friends-not the context. That's a simple enough request, right? So what if things aren't ever the same. People are the same. We've all just grown. That book series said "The people that matter we will see again."

Will I ever see you again? What would happen if I saw you again? Do I even want to see you again?

*sigh* "Waiting to find a way back to you cuz that's where I'm home."

Fours years ago, I faced lots of emptiness, lots of depression. Once I heard about the release of XS3, I thought of nothing else...I didn't have anything else to think about. After his death, our entire world was shaken. But you know back then, even after hearing My Immortal, I couldn't cry. It was just yet another unexplainable tragedy passing me. I love you guys...the friends who were with me then...

But now four years later, I don't think there is a curse that says all even years will be bad. Hell, I might say sophmore year of college was better than freshman year. Yeah, I would say that, but I would also say I'm going to make junior year even beter...I was really happy at the end of the semester. A lot of things did happen during the semester. It was a hard time. I'm not going to deny that, not in the least. Sitting here in this new apartment, new neighborhood I couldn't possiblely say that honestly I didn't hurt about any of this. I wonder if my mother ever thought that moving hurt me as much as it did...I was the one happy about moving. I'm always the one happy about everything. "I bleed to avoid the pain." Actually that lyric doesn't really sum up my emotions...That Rise Aganist song...Ah, I remember the line..."I laugh this constant pain away" Maybe that is a bit overkill, but you get the point.

I feel so bad because I do understand that I am growing up...in the sense that I am becoming who I am meant to be. As in, FeelGood has shown me that there are other people who really believe in humanity and know that we can make a difference. It was like seeing a glimpse of what things CAN be like...for me, for the world. But you know, I'm not there yet. I'm still HERE. looking in the window at the life I want. I mean, in the past, that window was just a dream so I have made it somewhere considering it is now reality, but still...NOT FAR ENOUGH. Perhaps that is why I so wanted to go on that Mexico trip. That would be the first realization of my dreams...The first time I got to do what I really wanted. Because everyone who "knows" me knows that all I really want is to help people...That's the reason I am where I am now.

I'm torn. I've always been torn, caught between two worlds. "If you've always been caught between worlds, then build your own world." That's sorta cheesey.

I think I'm going to start crying now because all these stupid love songs remind me that I don't have anyone to feel bad about losing...BECAUSE THE PERSON I WAS IN LOVE IS A FEMALE WHO WOULDN'T FEEL THE WAY I DID BECAUSE I'M ALSO A FEMALE AND PLUS I THINK SHE HATED ME BECAUSE I WAS MEAN TO HER BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO DISGUISE THE FACT THAT I WAS IN LOVE WITH HER.

HOW FAIR IS THAT?

Dear Sarah,

I'm in love with you. I wanted to get to know you since the third week of school. I teased you because I wanted to have contact with you, because I wanted you to think of me.

Truthfully yours,
Me. (i'm not typing my name so this can't be traced back to me...because "I write mostly on hotel paper / knowing my thoughts will never leave this room)

Tired

2010-05-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

SO TIRED!

I could have slept all day...It's going to take me a while to recover from the semester, catch up on sleep and get into a more relaxed state of mind.

Today was a nice first day of break: saw my best friend, napped and played FF13.

I don't have much to say. lol. Nothing too profond, but if you insist...

It's funny to think how things have changed since I met my best friend, how many people have entered and left my life...yet through all of that, she is still here (why did typing "still here" make me want to listen to "Everything?") Incidentally, I simply have a thing for female singers!

Actually I do have something to dicuss. When I go back and listen to music I used to like, I don't understand how I ever could have listened to this stuff. Like Evanescence...ALL THEIR SONGS ARE ABOUT WANTING TO DIE! WTF. Okay just for the purpose of arugment, I'm going to listen to Imaginary, which was my FAVORITE song during high schoool. Actually Imaginary isn't the best example...I think that song really did help me a lot. It's VERY, VERY true. I'll never forget though how many times My Immortal made me cry. When someone played it after he died, when I was talking to her thinking about all my insecuries, when I sat there (I can't even type cutting so...) hurting myself. Yeah. I think it goes without saying, if I listened to Ev enough, I remember my past. I would remember what it feels like to be depressed. "Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken. Hello. I am the lie living for you so you can hide." Yeah. After this line, I'm going to return to something happier, but 1. I was broken. Very, very broken. 2. I did a very good job "living for you so you can hide."

Actually, let's see what other bands I used to like a lot...The Forecast (which is incidentally an indie-band from central Illinois), HIM (still listen to a little, but I tend to not like depressing things...)...and well, Nightwish (I didn't truly apprieciate them until last year though XD).

I've thought about writing myself a new past-one that doesn't include what mine does. I mean not because I'm ashamed or don't like it. I mean I DO like my past. I just want a past that is consist with who I am now, one I can tell people about.

Going to listen to maybe tomorrow now. That's the song from XS3. Four years ago, All I Wanted (capitalized because that's a song title)was to play that game. That's a PERFECT example of having nothing else in your life...and obsession.

I think I'm going to block off that road.

Home

2010-05-14T00:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I left this evening...after applying for a passport and handing in all the hard copies of stuff I need for my study abroad application. I didn't get to say goodbye to her...or even see her again. I had many, long goodbyes with other friends...

Now here I am. In our apartment. Home?

Waiting for The Sims 3 to install. Not wanting to go to sleep even though quite honestly exhausted.

I'll reflect upon sophmore year when I'm not so tired, when my mind is a little more profond.

Excited....for now..

2010-05-13T04:27:00.000-07:00

BECAUSE WHEN YOU WAKE UP AT 6AM ON THE LAST MORNING OF THE SEMESTER WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO FEEL?

Concerned because you didn't finish studying cog. psych? Worried you aren't packed?

I think not.

Really Sad

2010-05-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

Well I managed to complete the first part of today's mission: keep up in time for the blueberry pancakes at breakfast.

Other plans: FAIL. Since I'm not working on my paper. Instead I'm reflecting on my sorrows. But this post isn't sad; I'm not going to talk about how I want to kill myself or anything...just talk about how I wish things were different...while listening to "Tuesday Morning" BTW: It's Wednesday morning...Tomorrow is Thursday, the day of my last final.

Dream: I dreamed I ended up at the convention with my friends who were very happy to see me. I dreamed she came up to me and wanted to take a picture. I still dream that we are together again. RB was also in that dream- except she was threatening to kick me out so that's a major turn-off...except the dream turned me on...

Reality: Two of my friends are still close; they do stuff together and pursue the dreams and fun they enjoyed back then. She has him; it's okay that she doesn't talk to any of us because she has a "new" life. The other one has a group from school. So that leaves me here on my bed nearly in tears. Me: let's see...crazy but also mature...caught between two worlds. A red mage. lmao.

But really: AFTER TOMORROW, I WON'T SEE HER FOR A LONG TIME! DAMN. I DREADED THIS DAY BECAUSE I ALWAYS THOUGHT I HAD MORE TIME TO KNOW HER, TO MAKE HER LIKE ME. But I don't, and she won't. It hurts. Because I've imagined us together for so long; I've imagined that we would really get along. We'd have that bond I always longed for.

Maybe when I'm leaving tomorrow I should just tell her this "I'm in love with. I noticed you were rather quirky and passionate...and you cared. You care the way I do, I think. Almost every interaction we've had has tried to make me hate you, but what you didn't know is I rigged a lot of situations so you'd have to talk to me. I wanted to see you; I wanted a reason to "hate" you so I could talk about you all the time. Yeah, I know how weird this confession sounds, but it's the truth...I love you."

If I wasn't coming back to this dorm next semester, I would tell her. But alas...

So there you have it. I love a female. I'll admit it. I'm lucky if I'm only Bi. Because I'm only attracted to a few men. I don't tell people, but I'm notice females I find attractive. Oh damn...

I wonder now if toward the end of my friendship with her #1, I fell in love with her too...But no, I never had thoughts of "passionate" love- or at least not like I do for my other "her."

Sick and tired

2010-05-11T18:37:00.001-07:00

But not in a completely bad way.

Well sick in a bad way. Sick is always a bad way...I felt better on Friday too, but then on Saturday and Sunday, I couldn't breath. Hello, thank you, disease for attacking my lungs! Sunday I did work on a substantial portion of my paper though, which officially fried my brain. Incidentally, I couldn't even sleep that well because I was all stuffy. I distinctively remember waking up because my face hurt, because I saw fire trucks outside the dorm and for other reason =_=

This morning I had my history exam. I was up intil 2ish studying and got up like 4 and a half hours later. So yeah, I'm tired. Work was painless though. Hopefully next semester my dinner shift is always that painless. History exam was long, but I knew what I was talking about.

When I got back, I was once again brain dead. Now I'm procrastinating again...I still have that paper, I need to pack and I have another exam to study for. Incidentally I'm watching anime now!

As summer approaches, I get anxious that I'm going to spend the next three months of my life doing nothing. If I got a job, I'd feel slightly better...I saw a post by her (not the her I'm in love with...the other her but speaking of the her I'm in love with, I'm not going to see her much beyong Thursday...and to think, she'll never know, I secretly want her). But her post read "Have a lot of stuff going on in May, but it'll be great." I don't have a lot going on in May. I have nothing going on except my plans to finish playing FF13 when I get home. Then I started worrying about preparing for the GRE because I'm going to take it soon after I get back from studying abroad. And then here I am about to face doing nothing...I don't like it. I should be doing something to prepare for a future career.

See my problem now is that I have grown up. I consider myself more grown up, and thus disconnected with my younger self. I do feel kind of bad though-bad about my once friends going to the convention this weekend, bad because I'm no longer a part of that world.

What world am I a part of? A grown-up college world? But I won't be there over the summer.

Party!

2010-05-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

I think finals week is a party! Honestly I have way to much fun during the week and a half when our only responsiblity is to study for those epic exams.

On reading day, I didn't study for crap. My day: sleep until noon, eat, picture, work, goof-off, eat, work-out, finally got around to studying...Also add have a sore throat (from screaming/ actually getting sick)

Yesterday: Get up at 6:20 after going to sleep 3am. Work breakfast and lunch. Yell at someone for not helping my friend. Sutdy more. Eat. Not listen when friend tells me where my final is so freak-out about almost being late. Final. Go to late night. Go to movies. Movie is sold-out. Go to Applebees. See random goose in the street. "I have nightmares about this..." Good times...

Today: Eat. Kinda read. Eat. Go back to reading...Friend comes to my room and asks if I want to get pushed on her chair while she brings it back to the room we switched chairs with in the other side of the building. Play Uno. Burn mozzerella sticks. Watch "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Be distrubed by the screaming girls who didn't get yelled at by the RA. Laugh. Not work. whoa. whoa.

Right now, I could be working, but I am obviously typing here. I could not focus well enough to string thoughts together...I guess that leaves tomorrow for this paper...

Last Day of Classes

2010-05-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

WAS TODAY!!! *HAPPY DANCE*

WHAT MADE TODAY EVEN BETTER:

POWER HOUR: WE GOT TO RUN THROUGH THE HALLS ALL THROUGH-OUT THE DORM SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS FOR A WHOLE HOUR. THE RA'S TOTALLY COULDN'T STOP US!!! I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THAT ^_^

PANCAKE NIGHT: THE ONLY HALL COUNCIL EVENT THAT USUALLY IS A SUCCESS. LOTS OF PANCAKES!!! (eat a lot at night then go work-out in the morning...) lmao. WE MADE IT THROUGH THE YEAR OF HC, AND NO ONE DIED. FOR AWHILE, I THOUGHT WE MIGHT HAVE SOME MURDERS....B

Also, I'm kinda leaning toward studying abroad in Norway....over Sweden. It's such a hard decision though...

*sigh* SUCH EXCITING TIME!!!! AND I'M SO PSYCHED.

I need to sleep...

Chunking

2010-05-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

In risk of sounding like one of my psychology class (which I totally do because I actually like psychology a whole bunch...), I'm going to explain something I just stumbled upon.

You might remember my piece that everyone loved because IT WAS SO DANG PROFOUND!!! Well damn, I hate it because it's too fluffy. Sure, I want to be a good writer, but I also want to be very philosohpically RIGHT. Omg, stand by while I go extremely deep...

Our lives might be sentences, but that is only so because we give them that form. Our lives are really just a stream of events that occur without any interruption. Observe: WAKEUPEATCLASSWORKEATCLASSWASTETIMEEATSTUDY-ISHHALLCOUNCILLATENIGHTWORK-OUTSTUDGY-ISHSLEEP...That's my typical Monday from this semester. Time just flows forward. But we divide it into parts to make better sense of it. Just like the mind chunks information to better remember it. The person who beat FF using only WM also used an emulated version of teh original nes games...THSOE ARE INNATELY HARDER. and less fun. MADDNESS. OH THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE BECAUSE I MOVED THE CURSOR. You'll know why this makes sense when you read down below.

OMG. SOMEONE HONESTLY DID BEAT FF1 WITH FOUR WHITE MAGES!!!! IT TOOK THEM 63 HOURS THOUGH, WHICH REALLY ISN'T THAT LONG CONSIDERING I SPENT 150 HOURS MAXING ALL THE CHARACTER'S IN FF10'S STATS. IF I READ THAT WHITE MAGE THING FIVE OR SIX YEARS AGO, I WOULD HAVE TRIED IT. NOW I'M GOING TO TRY TO SAVE THE WORLD AND WRITE A NOVEL. OH, AND THEY (AS IN EPICA) SAY :TIME IS JUST A CONCEPT: ACTUALLY I WAS JUST ABOUT TO EXPLAIN HOW TIME IS JUST CONCEPT. SEE MAYBE...OMG MENTAL OVERLOAD. I MIGHT NEED TO SLEEP SO MY BRAIN CAN "CONCEPTUALIZE EVERYTHING I'M TRYING TO SAY RIGHT NOW. I think a lot of this wisdom is going to go into my essay...which would make sense...But just like the brain has a special section to deal with each sense, we have a concept for each thing we experience. We experience "time" and thus we have a concept for it...thus Epica is right. BUT I REALLY STILL DON'T BELIEVE THAT.

As much as I love Simone, I'm not sure if she is worthy of being the singer to my "favorite" band. Sharon is. DEFINITELY. But Simone isn't as ideal as Sharon. I don't know why, but she isn't...

Right back to thisexampleofwhythemindpuncuates, which I can't spell.

Can we read sentences that don't have spaces between words or puncuation? NO! And niether could we understand our lives with we didn't group events into sentences. Sleep is like a space between words...

SEE I'M SMART! I'M NOT JUST GETTING DUMBER. I am also completely insane. This post should completely prove that. But if insanity make me creative and profound than I want nothing else. Unleashed<3

Oh another thing I thought about while reading...my choice of majors. For those who didn't know this (I will never forget this), I didn't come into college as a creative writing major....NOPE! Back in the day, I thought I wanted to study astronomy. And honestly, in another life, I bet I am. Because weird science stuff excites me way too much, which is why I'm partly upset that this borning person I know is an astronomy major because SHE WILL NEVER GET AS EXCITED AS I WOULD HAVE. I don't know that for a fact...But then again, does anyone ever get as excited as me? But here I am with my double major in creative writing and psychology...and well, I think the fact that I'm here at 3am WRITING about how I THINK proves that I made the right choice.

I certainly have "chunked" my life a lot. Before high school, high school, college. I've always thought I was vastly different in those periods of my life, but I bet I've been more similar through-out. BECAUSE SENTENCES HAVE TO FLOW IN ORDER TO MAKE SENSE. FOR INSTANCE:

I want to the store. I like frisbees. I have an exam on Tuesday.

LIKE WHAT THE HELLL?

Now I'm going to start going into narrative stuff, which is exactly what I've been trying to avoid writing about...SO HAVE I COME FULL CIRCLE YET? I DON'T THINK I CAN SLEEP UNTIL I'VE COME FULL CIRCLE!!! OH BUT THE LONGER I STAY UP, THE BETTER THE CHANCE I HAVE OF SLEEPING RIGHT UNTIL LUNCH! OMG, WHY AM I EXCITED ABOUT THAT?

That all said: I LOVE EPICA!

Yeah, I'm listening to Epica right now btw.

I should go to bed before my mind self-destructs. lmao. Dear mind, please process all these epiphanies I have had this evening (night).

THANK YOU.

Profound.

2010-05-02T00:11:00.001-07:00

I think I was wrong when I wrote that monologue about sentences. I wasn't wrong because it wasn't "true." Actually I was both wrong and right. See I've decided I was wrong because the paragraph only works because of the assumption that things end. I prefere idea of "universial present." That is we are one with our past, present and future. Parts of our life do end, but they never really spot influencing us.

Yeah, I think I just read the most PROFOUND 50 pages of my life. Not the best. I mean let's say fantastic literature is woven as well as one of those super-expensive 6969 thread count sheets. I'd give Tale of Two Cities the prize for softest sheet, but this book I just finished I'd give a prize because it had toasters or something on it...AND I KILLED THE METAPHOR. But point being: I think I'm really understanding another lesson. I'm not even sure what that lesson is yet, but somehow I think when I next sit down to write, I'll know exactly what to say.

I was thinking while I was reading two things about my life: The first being that I never really chose where I went to college. I just ended up here. I ended up in a place where I made friends and found a group I was really passionate about. That is why fortune smiles on me. But the more important thing I realized is...I'm drawing a blank right now because I HAD to mention two things that I realized instead of just skipping right to the really profound thing. OMG. YOU'RE PROBABLY THINKING HOW PROFOUND COULD IT BE IF YOU JUST FORGOT IT? But you obviously don't know me...

I'm fairly certain there has to be some "force" out there controlling which things enter my life...Like this year alone I've stumbled upon so many things that have changed my life...Epica, that book series. Okay fine. Niether seem very life-altering, but trust me when I say I SEE THINGS THAT AREN'T THERE.

Why can't I remember what I was thinking about? Oh I got it! I was pondering how I think if I took an intelligence test now I would score worse than I would have 3 years ago. Meaning that college made me dumber. lmao. On the contrary, I'm INFINITELY wiser than I was three years ago. I just haven't taken any classes that would boost me abiltiy to know whatever those tests test. Like take for instance people who go on to study math or science, they obviously know more math and science than when they were in high school. I on the other hand would have known more math when I was in high school. Then you have your people who live to know popular culture. They know more about movies or television than they did in the past. Once again, I was more up on my areas of pop. culture interest in the past. So then am I an intellectual graveyard? Honestly? NO! I don't know a lot about anything. But I aspire to have a working knowledge of everything. Like a red mage. Except I would never use a red mage in final fantasty because they aren't as powerful...so I know let's use the mostly useless white mage?! Like I stated earlier, I wonder if anyone ever beat FF with a team of four white mages? I SO want to google that.

WOW. RANDOM. Okay. Actually I just googled it, but haven't looked at the results...

This is a perfect example of how my brain works. But as I was saying before I digressed into FF, I don't appear to know anything more than I did three years ago. I don't even know if I can really write any better than I did then. But one thing I do know for a fact is that I know more about society, about people. I know how to fight hopelessness. I know how to survive, to live. I have given better advice to my friends now than I ever could have given to people in the past. Only because in the past I was the one who needed the advice. But in all honesty, where did I get the advice that saved? Myself? I don't know and I am certainly not going into that right now...

Let's talk about EPICA instead! YAY, EPICA<3

So! This year I get to look forward to not only a new WT albumb, but also Edenbridge, Tarja and Floor (the really hilarious singer from the ill-fated After Forever) are releasing new stuff!!!! I KNOW RIGHT<3 WHO'S EXCITED!

OMGITHINKI'MGOINGTOTALKLIKETHISFORAWHILETOPROVEAPOINT!SEELIFEISTHISENDLESSFLOWOFSTUFFBUTINREALITYHUMANSJUSTPUNCUATEITBECAUSEWENEEDTOCHUNKTOMAKESENSEOFTHINGSANDOMGNOONEISEVERGOINGTOKNOWWHATTHISISSAYINGSOICANSAYWHATEVERIWANTBUTMYPOINTISTHATHUMANSMAKE

NEVERMIND I'M GOING TO GIVE THIS THOUGHT IT'S OWN PROPERLY PUNCTUATED POST.

70th Post!

2010-05-01T21:45:00.001-07:00

MEANING I MISSED MY CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN MY 69TH POST. Which is good because I tell everyone that my love for the number 69 is SYMBOLIC not SEXUAL.

The explanation: It's like a ying-yang. lmao. Let's say the six is white (the good) and 9 is black (the bad), then putting together the good and the bad gives you 69. Since LIFE is a combination of good and bad, LIFE=69. Or something like that. I explain it differently everytime. Regardless, I realized this truth of the universe last 6/9 Day (my favorite holiday btw) when we went to a grave and Lover's Lane. True story. I don't like telling it though since it kinda makes me feel bad...

Like I said in my FACEBOOK STATUS: I hate when I nothing to do except everything, but anything seems awful. And by everything I mean study, and by anything I mean study also. DANG.

I feel like I wasted today. Though I did eat PIZZA<3 I enjoy pizza way too much. I HIGHLY doubt my friend could make a pizza I didn't like as she said she could. I love pizza THAT MUCH!!! But I read some of two of my potential book sources for the essay and...THEY DON'T APPLY. TALK ABOUT WASTE. GRRRR.

I need to get organized. And by organized I mean I need to stop doing nothing to avoid doing anything...and by anything I mean working on the paper. Also a true story.

Five.

2010-04-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

We actually had like FIVE happy blogs in a row.

Since I started another post, I feel COMPELLED to talk about something meaningful....SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, I BRING YOU...

..........................

Okay, fine. I will "discuss" the song "Street Spirit" by Radiohead. "This machine will not communicate these thoughts and the strain I am under"

Apparently this song is about looking the devil in the eyes. What's even funnier is that I only got listening to it because I fell in love with the symphonic metal band Stream of Passion who cover the song on their latest album...so once I got that cd, I was listening to it (not that impressed sadly...) BUT I WAS LIKE OMG STREET SPIRT FTW. And I actually felt bad because my fav song on the cd isn't even that band's song. So long story short, now SS is my song of the moment. THANK THE TOASTERS, IT'S NOT BEYOND ME ANYMORE.

Just cuz this is the 6TH HAPPY BLOG. I'm going to listen to Optimistic. WHICH IS FUNNY BECAUSE OPTIMISTIC IS A GREAT SONG TO LISTEN TO ON MAY DAY!

"And dinosaurs will roam the Earth"

Yip. MR. THEREODACTL<3

April

2010-04-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

"And when the lights die down telling us who we are..."

Toward the end of March, I started writing a poem about my MIXED feelings toward the month of March. Looking back, I don't really know if I finished that poem, but I stopped writing it. March ended, and I ended up in April, my favorite month.

The March poem read:

Dear March:
On the eve of spring and April Rain,
With time as a bandit at my heels
Chasing me toward a future
So unlike any past I recall
Where I saw the bright blue sky
That witnessed a rebirth
Where now can my mind wander?
When the world is no longer the same
When once again uncertainty demands my hand
I’m a beggar bowed before the shrine
Eyes closed, hands clasped tight
Seeking a direction, looking for a sign
But Fate only glances back, perplexed
Like I asked a dreadful question
“How have things come to this?”
When did scorn steal the diamonds
From spring’s eyes
I asked March nicely
Why it always takes and takes
Why must my mind go numb?
I hear my own voice speaking
Whispering words of loss and mockery
Punctuating all my thoughts
Dicing my wishes into meaningless chunks
Left behind in the wake of the latest storm
Through the tree’s still barren branches
That wait for April’s blessing to burst with joy
Shines a wary sun that asks the world
With its black winged birds and gales
“Dare I open my eyes in light of reality?”
Shall we all play the role of keeper
Of fate’s secret that spring will die
Soon as well after I’ve waited so long

I don't know why I feel compelled to share that now...THAT IT IS MAY<3

No wait. This post is DEDICATED TO APRIL.

So...

Dear April,

Thanks you for showing me that fortune really does smile on me. In the past few weeks, I have felt a happiness and a hope greater than ever before. I love April not just because it silently acknowledges my ancient plight, but also because it truly does signify rebirth. April exemplifies that storms, pain does in fact bring beauty and happiness. And I watch April pass by and leave me in its wake, leaves me wondering if I made the most out of my April. I don't know. I never know if I'm living my life to the fullest. Maybe that is why I feel depressed so much, why -forgot what I was going to type here actually-. So let's go over the highlights of April...

Easter weekend. I just know that was fun cuz it was even if I don't remember the specifics...oh yes, I am oh so envious of my friends who have APRIL birthdays. But oh wait, I remember I DIDN'T enjoy the parks by the apartment because the swings are like decorations. Regardless of anything, this moving thing is still going to take a lot of time to get used to. At least I saw my friends though...even if I was still battling with some rather strong feelings of depression.

Busey-Ball. I actually wore a dress this time. Even if I do look fat because I'm too white and my face is blob-y. I had a lot of fun dancing with my friends, and I am so glad at least one of our programs was a success...minus the cake incident, which luckily was not blamed on us.

Sonata Arctica. LMAO. 'nough said since it GOT ITS OWN POST.

Mom's Weekend. Now I'm just getting sapppy...but I was really glad I got to enjoy a day with my mother on campus. *blush*

Relay for Life. So touching. Not going to elaberate because I'm in solumn support of the cause.

FeelGood. Various fun selling shifts. My touching speech. My hopes for humanity<3 Our end of the semester meeting.

BE a Leader. I'm more sarcastic than a leader actually...but hell, even though she thought my speech was a "joke" all my friends appreciated it.

The kite. I SWEAR I WANTED TO FLY A KITE IN THAT FIELD FOR SO LONG.

Illinites TONIGHT. I have the comlusive need to paint...things...lmao. Can I say that I live for fifty cent pizzza? Good times ^_^

And of course, I need something WT related...but actually, we found out Stephen is leaving so yesterday was WT (as we know and love them)'s last show. BUT THEY PLAY UTOPIA<3 LIVE. I'D CRY IF I SAW UTOPIA. OH I KNOW. ALL I NEED was on some tv show so YEAH. AND MY FRIEND KNEW IT WAS WT! My job is done.

Right now, I stand on the brink of final's week of my sophmore year of college. It's May first. HAPPY MAY DAY!!!! I'm refrain from going into a socialist rant...

Sentences!

2010-04-29T20:25:00.001-07:00

A Metaphor by ME!

If our lives are stories, each moment of time is a sentence. Every sentence begins with a subject—us. When we write that first word—our name, I—, we define ourselves. In essence, we are the one who chooses our sentence structure—our words, our actions, our punctuation. We walk out into the world, into the rain, shine or bustling wind unsure of any direction, uncertain if our words, our actions will make any sense. But we have a goal—a direct object that our actions are moving us toward. Sometimes our subjects and verbs are in perfect agreement—a witty match leads to a success. Other times we shake with dissonance, on the brink of tears because we couldn’t get our grammar—our internal rules—down. Our tenses don’t match up, we’re single and we want oh so badly to be plural and our verbs weren’t strong enough to convey the intended meaning. Somehow though, we struggle through awkward phrasing, words we don’t know and misspelling. Like the tangents and interjections that we scatter through-out our narratives, we often stumble upon contexts, phrases and even sentences that make no sense. With our minds muddled, we must choose a direct object, the goal are acting are directed toward. Fear not, though, no sentence is complete without an indirect object—that person, those people who help us, who hold our hand and guide our actions. As approach the end of another sentence, we put learn to place another period, to declare to the world our meaning.

Lucky.

2010-04-29T20:21:00.001-07:00

Today is one of the days I realize just how lucky I am. Sure I have my insecurities and hellish past, but honestly, there are some things in my life that am I truly honored to be a part of.

1. B-E. I'm not saying what that is since then you can stalk me, but the people I've met here and the things I've been involved with have changed my life.

2. FeelGood. We raised over 2000 for the Hunger Project. By selling grilled cheese. Now if that isn't saving the world...<3

3. My friends! Yeah. 'enough said.

4. It's necessary for my to mention WT. Of course. You'll forever in my heart. Even if today was your last show with Stethen on the drums...

5. My talent. My passion. My hopes.

I will keep working hard. I will be better than even this moment now.

So thank you all who have had an impact thus far on my life.

Somewhat devastating...

2010-04-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

She won't be the RA next on my floor next year.

I won't have an excuse for being obsessed with her.

I'm going to miss contact with her.

DAMN. WHY?

Can't I have one desire that can work out?

Time is just a concept...

2010-04-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

I actually don't think time is a concept...at least not a concept in the psychological sense (which is obviously my favorite sense since I'm an aspiring psychologist and a self-proclaimed know-it-all when it comes to emotional and social situations). But my tearing apart of Epica songs has nothing to do with the point of this post...actually I WANT TO KNOW WHY THE MAN IN UNLEASHED'S VIDEO WALKED TOWARD THE ROBBER????

I've overwhelmed with the coming of the end of the year! Another year pretty much done. I won't be a sophmore in college in two and a half weeks. I'll be half-way done.

1. I have to write a 15 page paper for my Rhethoric class. It's the one class that makes the Creative Writing major not fun.

2. I feel guilty about going home for the summer. Some of my friends are staying here or have internships or something else kewl that will help them get ahead. My hopes for the summer: 1. get a job. I need money for my study abroad adventures 2. Volunteer at at least one cause that is important to me 3. Work on my novel idea (I want to type write a novel but COME ON! DOESN'T EVERYONE WANT TO WRITE A NOVEL?) 4. Go on at least one trip...I'm probably going to Cali for a FeelGood camp later in the summer...I want to drive to Canada when I get a passport.

So! here's osmething that has been weighing on my mind. I got this opportunity to go to mexico to volunteer in a developing village. yes! Right? No. first of all, I really don't have the moeny. Second. I'M SCARED OF DYING. Third. I can't just be like "hey, mom! I'm going to a remote village for a week! 4. I don't have a passport.

BUT TRUST ME. THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE.

I think I need to learn Spanish. I think I need to learn a lot of things...

I need to short out my mess of WANTS and desires. I need to find a way to reach my dreams.

Stand By

2010-04-20T23:27:00.001-07:00

For a string of posts about how I want to die and hate myself and how no likes me.

Also I do believe I'm going to have to severly punish myself.

What am I doing?

What about doing what makes me happy? What about BEING HAPPY? About smiling and losing myself in some fantasy?

oh right. I can't write for shit. I'd like to know HOW MUCH BETTER the stories that won the contest were than mine. Did the judges laugh? I'd laugh. I do laugh while I die on the inside. While I hate my friends, hate Sarah for having so much more potential than me. Hell I HATE EVERYONE BECAUSE THEY ARE BETTER THAN ME.

OH I KNOW LET'S STAY UP LATE AND WRITE ABOUT HOW MUCH WE SUCK! BRILLIANT. ALL THE WHILE YOU EAT A LOT AND THEN DON'T WORK-OUT. YOU'RE A FUCKIN' FAT ASS ALRIGHT. USELESS AND HOPELESS. GIVE UP. STFU. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING OUT OF YOU.

I'm just a bitch. Gah.

Stupid

2010-04-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Let's re-examine what I did tonight just for fun, alright! While listening to Beyond Me...because I think hearing voices is better than being me.

And to think earlier today I wanted to start another blog to write happy things...to conceal the reality that I want to kill myself. Shows you where my priorities are.

I was having a perfect good day: lots of reading<3 some nice self reflection, scones ie happy Amy, but of course, I'm a screw by nature so things can't stay well. See I had a party for the magaziene I write for and well, long story sort I was leaning toward not going...BUT THOSE VOICES IN MY HEAD WERE LIKE "OH AMY, YOU FREAKIN' ANTI-SOCIAL LOSER! YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING INTERESTING! YOU WANT TO SIT IN YOUR ROOM AND READ ALL NIGHT? OF COURSE. WHAT A LOSER. NO WONDER NO ONE LIKES YOU."

I went to my friend for guidance, but sadly, she was watching television and couldn't be bothered. What she said: Oh if it was me I'd just make friends and have them drive me (or something like that).

OH FUCK. I'M SORRY I'M NOT POPULAR LIKE YOU. I'M SO SORRY I'M NOT AS EXTROVERTED OR OUT-GOING. OR FAKE. DON'T THINK I DON'T REALIZE YOU CALL EVERYONE YOU'RE FAVORITE PERSON. I'M NOT YOUR FAVORITE PERSON. I'M NOT ANYONE'S BEST FRIEND. I'M NOT GOING THROUGH THAT AGAIN. EVER. I'LL BE LOSER IF NEED BE. I DON'T NEED YOU RUBBING IT IN THAT I DON'T REALLY ASSOCIATE WITH ANYONE AT WORK ON A PERSONAL LEVEL. OKAY SO LEAVE ME ALONE. YOU MADE ME CRY. I CRIED.

Then I left. I lied to you. I told you I was going to work-out while in reality I was actually have way to the party. Right. I had to go to prove to myself I'm not anti-social. That's not a good reason. So much for self-confidence. I could have finished my book...

You know what else? I'm a hypocrite. Because given the chance, I drank. Okay. I know I'm not supposed to with the medicine I take and I know our group doesn't do that stuff and I know I'm defs not a partier, but HELL. I didn't say know. I was kewl with taking drinks. I WANTED TO DRINK. I WANTED TO LOSE MY SOCIAL INHIBITION. THAT'S PATHETIC. TRUST ME.

Mind you I really didn't drink that much. Not enough to be "drunk" or anything but I guess I'm not a good drunk. I get more ANTAGONISTIC. I leave at 11pm with another girl who is walking in my direction because 1. I'M A SQUARE AND WOULD RATHER DO OTHER THINGS THAT PARTY 2. I'm scared of being attacked. It's truth. Or maybe I'm just using it as excuse.

I came back (slightly tipsy most likely cuz I was talking a lot on the walk back) and went down to the library and told my friend from above off. I told her she shouldn't mock me anymore about being a loser. That hell, I know she is better than me. I know this. Okay, don't rub it in. I'M SO FUCKIN' SORRY I'M NOT LIKE YOU. STFU AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

It shouldn't be this big of a deal. Okay. I drank. A little. I hate myself. I hate my introverted tendencies. I hate that everyone has more to do.

So much for the blog about not wanting to die.

Maybe tonight was a crappy attempt at suicide. At forgetting who I am.

Sonata Artica

2010-04-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

Before anyone asks how the show went...actually a few people already asked...lmao!

SO!!!! I was orginally a little unsure if I wanted to go see SA because 1. I don't know them THAT well. I only have their latest cd that I got from the music store's going out of business sale 2. Going would require a lot of money in transport to get back to Chicago and then back to Chambana BUT! I AM SO GLAD I DECIDED TO GO SEE SA<3

FIRST OF ALL: FINNISH MEN<3 'nough said. I'm pretty sure that Finnish musicians are amongst the kewlest things in existence. Especially when they are gorgerous Finns (ie Tarja, Tuomas and Tony...no, I'm not gender discrimative). FINNS<3 FINLAND!!!

Secondly: Metal shows are exciting even when you don't know the bands. You can get into the songs headbanging and screaming even if you don't know the lryics! A good act will have LOTS OF ENERGY regardless of how big the fanbase in the crowd is or how well the audience knows the music. It's just even MORE awesome when hordes of people are SINGING ALONG AND SCREAMING! Then there's the moshing...Just push back if you're peaceful (like me).

SO! Here's the important part:

Show started at around 6pm. We got there at 5:45-ish? I don't know. We weren't in THAT big of a rush because I wasn't compelled to wait in line to be first in. I'm really non-violent too so I don't usually push unless my friends are there to push with me but alas, they weren't so only semi-in the front for me. Btw, attending metal concerts is a family affair for me so my mum was there (actually mum comes cuz she wants to see WHY I AM IN LOVE WITH THESE PEOPLE...cuz the first time she went was Tarja and honestly, I go through phases where Tarja is every other word out of my mouth so...yeah...Anyway. We go in, I of course have to use the bathroom (sadly, they took the condom machine out of the House of Blue's bathroom...it was there in winter of '07) and then I got an AWESOME SHIRT WITH FINNISH FLAGS ON THE BLACK (which is slightly too large, but I'm wearing it now anyway...)There was already a large mass of people in front of the stage so we lingered in the back while the first opening act played...

I don't really know what to say about PowerGlove. There's these nutty guys who play old cartoon/ videogame songs. Nerdy much? But really funny! I think a lot of the crowd appreciated them...(correlation between liking heavy metal and video games?) <---Most likey! I for one like both...except the more intelligent side of both...that is RPGS and femme metal (lmao). They played like the theme from Transformers, Power Rangers, Mario, MegaManX and Mortal Combat. They had funny costumes. To quote my mother: "And to think that is someone's son." Me: "There are worse sons..." That aside they were kewl. Some person in the audience was like "They're the kinda of music you don't tell your friends you like." I don't mind telling people they amused me. I even thought of texting a friend and saying that this was amongst the first times I actually enjoyed an opening act.

Next came Mustiny Within. They kinda sounded like generic metal to me. I have their cd somewhere on my computer but don't really listen to it. There's gotta be some STRIKING feature about a band for me to love them. OH! THE SINGER CROWD SURFED THOUGH AND RAN THROUGHT THE AUDIENCE SINGING!!!! Good times! But once again I was thinking...BRING OUT THE FINNS<3 (actually when I saw Tarja a year ago, I actually screamed that at the close curtain...the HoB doesn't close the curtain between acts now though...they just do the set-up/ testing in front of everyone)I think the waits in between acts were less too. I remember DYING OF WAITING in the past but not so much last night.

Before I make STARTLING statement I need to qualify a few things...1. House of Blues has better sound quality than the place I saw Epica 2. I was in a MUCH BETTER MOOD last night than I was when I saw Epica 3. Finns.

Okay.

I enjoyed seeing Sonata Artica more than I enjoyed the Epica show.

There.

The voices in my head: BUT AMY?! YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH SIMONE! HOW COULD YOU SAY SUCH A THING?

Me: *points to statements above* I just had more fun overall. I think SA was the best show I saw since Tarja..who incidentally was the best show I saw since Nightwish...trend of Finnish people much? Actually Tarja was better than Nw by a landslide. I'd say Tarja was the best show I ever saw, but I've seen WT and while seeing them meant NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT IT WOULD NOW, it's still WITHIN TEMPTATION. But Tarja's Tarja...and OI!!!! WT=RELIGION TARJA=IN A CAGE Conflict Resolved.

Now for a fangirl rant: TONY IS FUCKIN' GORGOUS!!! OMG, WHEN THAT MAN SMILES! (yeah, I get excited about attractive men too...they gotta be Finnish though...or Phantoms of the Opera) He glows. Legit. And he's hilarious. Like a comedian. Multi-talented. Truly Finnish (kinda like a Renainnace Man but a Finnish Man) So awesome! I love Finns! THEY'RE FROM FINLAND!

There was so great band-audience interaction. Tony was like TALKING TO THE CROWD<3 HE'S SOOOO FUNNY! i want one. The best was when he smiled. Defs<3 SO ADORBALE!!! HIS FREAKIN' EYES. HE'S THE GUY WHO I CREATED MY THEORY THAT ALL FINNS HAVE PRETTY EYES AROUND.

Yeah, that show also marks the FIRST TIME I SAW A BAND TWICE. IT'S NUTS! I WANTED THE FIRST BAND I SAW TWICE TO BE WT OR SOMETHING, BUT SINCE IT WAS FINNS<3, I'LL LIVE!!! IT WAS A GREAT SECOND TIME! Tony was also the first singer I saw who was wearing his bands t-shirt! BUT THEN AGAIN all the singers I usually see are like OMG, WE'RE FEMALE SO LET'S WEAR FEMALE STUFF! (yeah, but I'm not complaining...).

The Finns also performed music. They didn't just stand up on stage for me to admire. Sadly, I can't identify most of SA's songs. I picked out "Juliet, Full Moon, Don't Say A Word, The Last Amazing Grays <---My Favorite and Paid in Full" Maybe more. Maybe not. I only have their latest cd so...I did order two more of their cds though so I can look forward to that. SA has great energy. Really. I wasn't too close to the stage so I didn't have a great view, but I knew they were rocking out, and Tony was really moving around (adorablely might I add). I was screaming. My ears HURT LIKE HELL afterward. I was SCREAMING "OMG, THEY WERE AMAZING THOUGH, which means it was worth it. So, so exciting!!!

I only got to like the third row though, but it wasn't that bad except too far for me camera to work. Not THAT many tall people were directly in front of me, but still tall people who stand in the front row suck. I should get to stand on stage with the Finns<3 If I couldn't see, it wasn't THAT BAD because I could still hear and jump up and down in excitement! Which I do! Because I love jumping around!

I don't know how many different ways I can RANT ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE SONATA! REALLY!!! JUST<3 I want to scream and cheer and frolic and be merry because FINNS ARE SUPER!!! I love when life confirms my obsessions.

Incidentally my mom likes Sonata too. Said they are her new favorite band (replacing her random obession with Coldplay...) LMAO. Okay...

Moral of the story: GO SEE FINNS IN CONCERT! THEY ROCK! THEY LIKE VODKA AND HAVE GOROUS EYES AND CREATE AMAZING, ENERGETIC MUSIC THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO SCREAM "I LOVE FINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNLAND<3!!!!

I do love Finland.

Not just for the men.

Or the music.

My love is symbolic. I'm an English major.

But really (now for the emotional relevance) seeing Sonata really made me happy ^_^ It was just a great experience. Gorgous Finn+Awesome music=Happy Amy!

Promise

2010-04-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

During the ball tonight, I was talking to my friend, and I made a promise that I wasn't going to compare myself to other people anymore. I told another friend yesterday that I would be the happiest person in the world if I could just stop comparing myself to others. I would love myself in a vacuum. If I was the only person in the world, I would be the best.

Can I can keep such a promise? Knowing that I am not perfect? That there will always be people more popular, smarter and more out-going than me?

I have to.

I can't live my life wanting to die.

It's not like my in the least. I feel like I haven't been myself for the past month. I think it is time I come back though...so I enjoy the rest of the semester with my friends and not make myself crazy. Right now, I am happy in a melancholy sorta way. My new bird friends are staring at me from their perches...listening to Michelle Branch...I used to love her in high school...I used to love a lot of more mainstream music before I got really into femme metal. The song Tuesday Morning holds A LOT of emotion for me. "Please don't drive me home tonight. I don't want to feel alone."

I did used to be "unaware" of the world. Maybe I've become too aware. Maybe.

I also found out today that I most likely won't be able to study abroad in the nederlands because that program is too expensive...That is kinda devastating to me. I REALLY want to go to the Nederlands...It figures that both of my favorite countries are not feasible....*sigh* I have a month to decide what I want to do. I can either find another program or just graduate after next year...But I really want to go to Europe a lot. This might be my one chance to really experience what I have awlays dreamed of...

Pathetic.

2010-04-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

Why am I so pathetic?

Why do I keep thinking it would be better to die whenever I get upset?
Why do I constantly make myself feel horrible about who I am?
Why do I hurt so much when things really aren't that bad?

I look out the window and thinking that spring is so beautiful. I respect the lesson about embracing myself for who I am, but still! I am not good enough. I am pathetic. Comparing myself to my friends, I can easily see this reality. They all know more people then me, have more friends...than stupid scatterbrained, introverted me. It's like "oh amy, what an idiot...going off and doing stuff alone because she doesn't have anyone" I HATE YOU, SELF. I HATE THAT YOU AREN'T THE MOST POPULAR OR THE FUNNIEST OR WHATEVER ELSE WOULD GET YOU ATTENTION. What are you good for? All you do is complain and waste time! If you didn't waste time, you could actually do SOMETHING and be somewhat interesting...

Oi, I have another exam on Thursday. I took my kiwi to the exam this evening. Yeah.

Sometimes...

2010-03-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget I'm a writer.
Sometimes I don't even want to get out of bed.
Something I hate myself.
Sometimes I want to think everything I am is nothing,
That I'm lying myself into happiness.

I waste so much time in despair, time that I could be using to run around it delightful circles. I know I control my fate; I know ultimately what matters is how I view myself and the world. Then why do I waste time wondering if I am as AS GOOD as the world around me? Does it matter? As long as I'm happy?

Never give someone else the satisfaction of putting you down. I've let so many other people make me hate myself, doubt everything I am. Why? Because I want to think that is how I should be. How I should be? That is not for anyone but me to decide. Too many sacrifices went into me being here to let myself be defeated this quickly, to let myself defeat me.

I'm blasting Epica btw. Epica is like my lifeline now a days.

"Don't look back/ Keep on track to break the curse"

REALLY?

2010-03-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

I think I understood—a bit—today how heartless I am…not just heartlessness either. Actually I’m pretty sure I spend the whole month of March obsessed with idea of suicide, and what happened last week certainly didn’t help that sad truth. No I lied. I was thinking about hurting myself even before I heard. I remember that night I sat doing nothing for an hour staring at the desk and thinking how I should just die—back two weeks ago, I had enough pills that I could have made a valiant attempt…Wow, it is pretty awful writing about how I want to kill myself, but 1. I don’t think I actually would. I’ve had many great opportunities when I would have been at least a bit justified, and I chose to go on living. I always wonder if my life was worth all this chaos for my mom. That’s all these trials, stress and moves are—my freedom, my life. Maybe things would have been better if I killed myself and let her go on living in blissful ignorance. Talk about bloody selfishness. I’m so selfish. I ruined people’s lives. I continue to upset people’s existences with my bad attitude. I’m not worth it; I shouldn’t exist. But goodness knows, at this point, I don’t think I could kill myself. But now no one expects that from me. Now, everyone expects me to save the world and find the world a beautiful place. I expect me to find the world a beautiful place. I still see the beauty even when parts of my thoughts are on suicide. Ugh, only a selfish person would think these thoughts. A normal person would like to help the people whose lives she ruined, but no, I want to die and leave this huge mess in my wake. Part of the friggin’ reason I’m so messed up right now is that I totally numbed myself. I had to have. Back in the end of January, I think, when things got way too painful to bare. I know I was numb when I saw Epica, but I also know I was quite happy in the weeks before that day. What happened? Oh yeah, I remember…
See this year I’ve had to face every last thing I knew would eventually happen, but wouldn’t be truly real until they actually happened. 1. My father pled guilty. I think I white-washed that one—pretended it didn’t hurt, that I wasn’t embarrassed. 2. Arguments with mom. Yeah, it seems small, but in reality, it had a terrible effect on me. Why? Because when someone gets mad at you for standing up for yourself, it makes you feel like shit, like you are wrong. Like hello? Take my side for once. I’m freakin’ right, you know. You friend is a jerk. She is being mean to you. And you are being mean to me in defense of her. That hurt. Okay, a lot. 3. Sarah. I want to type in caps lock so much right now….WHY? BECAUSE I HATE HER. FOR SO MANY REASONS. I COULD WRITE A NOVEL ON WHY I HATE THAT GIRL. THAT’S HOW MUCH I HATE HER. I was just getting over previous feelings I had for the girl---thanks Simone. And then BAM!!! She had to go all self-righteous on me. PRISONERS ARE TREATED LIKE ANIMALS. Oh you want to know what it feels like to be in a cage…I have eighteen years of experience. I want to help people too. I really do more so than you’ll ever understand, but you’re fuckin’ innocent and you know nothing about reality. Oh I know! Brilliant idea here…Let’s yell at the survivor of sexual abuse about how sex offenders deserve to be treated better. And maybe it is ridiculous that two months later I’m still thinking about this day, but…If you can’t let go, you will end up empty-handed. THANK YOU, EPICA. But really, I shouldn’t hate Sarah as much as I do. Part of me is jealous. Because she is everything I would like to be, and she didn’t have to endure a 69th of what I have. But I guess, in truth, we only find success when we are doing what we are really meant to be doing. I have to keep searching. I’ll find where I belong eventually…Anyway, it’s not like I do nothing. I just feel bad because she does MORE than me. How does she have time? I go crazy as it is. OH, I AM CRAZY. I’M INSANE. IT’S BRILLANT. I.AM.INSANE. Say it slowly. I’m insane. I only succeed when I’m doing nutty things, when I’m being crazy. What was my line? It doesn’t matter if the grass is greener on the other side because I don’t want a green yard but instead a cactus garden. Or a yellow yard. Those are fun. There are two types of insane 1. The let’s sit in a corner and do nothing but think about how we want to die 2. The I laugh at everything, am in love with numerous Dutch singers and I invent random things like 24/7 Okay so…most people don’t want to be insane, but I do…Maybe it’s not insanity. Maybe it’s just ME. But I think I digressed because I didn’t even hit the real WHY THIS YEAR SUCKED SO FAR REASON. Actually not so real reason is because 2010 is an even number, and even numbers are bad years because 2006 and 2008 were. I bet there is some truth to sophomore year being the worst, but DIDN’T WE AGREE THERE WAS NO CURSE. DESIGN YOUR UNIVERSE. YOU ARE FAR TOO OBSESSED WITH EPICA TO THINK YOU ARE NO IN CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE. Next question to address: How the hell did Amy become obsessed with Epica in the first place? Really I don’t know. I think I heard them before last fall and didn’t like them. I called them a “musical seizure.” I just remember that night over labor-day weekend when I listened to SAFEGUARD TO PARADISE on repeat. All. Night. Oh like I’m doing now…But really, it just happened at the beginning of this year. Oh wow, my paranoia didn’t start making connections between sophomore year of high school when I first heard Nightwish. I have made a lot of connections though…like I was waiting for a game to come out over break then too. KH2 then and FF13 now. Except FF13 came out two weeks before break, and I wasn’t anticipating it THAT much. I mean I have a life now. Any right now, I’m not counting down the days until July 7th? Waiting for the release of another game I was obsessed with. Oh no, I just freaked out. I realized both WT and Tarja (basically kinda sorta my two favorite musical peoples) are supposed to release a new album this year. THAT’S A LOT OF STUFF FOR ME TO LOOK FORWARD TO!! Now I’m scared. Self-fulfilling prophecy much? But those are soooo much fun. Cuz it’s like digging yourself into an even bigger hole, and you don’t have to deal with reality right away. What happened to the line “If history wants to repeat itself, it has to go through me first.” I’m HELPING history repeat itself. WHY? Oh man, it’s not the fact that good things happen at certain times. It’s all about attitude. One of the worst things happened in 2007, which I generally consider the best year ever. And let’s not one of the best things---discovering WT happened in 2006 (no, was it? Yeah, it was the beginning of junior year…) and in 2008…well, yeah. God forbid, I decide I’m not going to be unhappy. I’m not going to force the past to reoccur. Right now, it will. I’m really good at depressing myself. So I’m wasting a lot of time searching for patterns where no patterns exist. Though I will not drop the fact that some hilarious, coincidental force acts upon my life. I’ve seen too many funny coincidences for that. HAHA. It’s true. Too bad I can’t think of any now…

But I do remember the point…3. MOVING. The reason that weekend I saw Epica was so awful. The reason I felt numb. Because we had to see our new apartment for the first time that next morning. Nothing makes unpleasant things more real than seeing them. I took moving a lot worse than I would have expected. I thought I would be please as punch! WHOA, no more living in shitty Worth in the house that I have always been afraid was going to explode. Not really as fun as it sounds. It’s awful, alright. The stress of packing everything, of having everything in boxes on the floor, of carrying everything up a trillion stairs, of not having any furniture, of never going back to a house you lived in for twenty years because the person who ruined your childhood lives there now. It got me. Moving into this apartment hurt me. It succeeded where many things have failed. Actually I take that back. Nothing can defeat me. Only me. I’m so strong that nothing will tear me down except for myself, my own thoughts. Then once I start tearing at myself I’m like trapped within my thoughts and my strength becomes a weakness. I numbed myself because if I remember correctly, I thought “it’s too painful.” Yes, it’s more of a prolonged trauma (like everything else) but dang, it dragged me down. I let other’s (ie SARAH’S) words undermine my existence. Obviously because she said something, I’m wrong and should doubt all my beliefs. That’s a great idea, right. Why did you let her have such sway over your thoughts? Because you think she is better than you and thus right? Do you really think she is better than you because she just so happens to volunteer a bunch of places? Do you really think people are better than you because they have more friends or whatever you feel inferior about? Really? Do you hate yourself that much? That you can’t see how amazing you are? What happened to not comparing yourself to others and pursuing what you want, what will make you happy? Every minute you spend thinking about suicide (or other related depressing thoughts), if a moment you are not fantasizing! Oh did you conveniently forget you want to be a writer? You are a writer. YES. Omg. Really? I bet Simone doesn’t conveniently forget she is a singer when she gets upset. That mindset really doesn’t get you very far… Actually this time you convinced yourself BOTH your dreams were wrong! Quote yourself “I used to have all the answers, but now I don’t…” Oh right, you decided all your answers were wrong. Thus you couldn’t imagine why would ever be studying psychology. Really? Did you forget that you have a mission? Nevermind. You were too busy adding links to the chain to remember your goal is to break the chain. If you don’t wake up, you will be selfish because you have a lot to share with the world…but, but, but!!! There is someone who is better than you (you think) so obviously your life is meaningless. I’m going to type REALLLY? Again. Actually I really want to listen to Design Your Universe. You’re not aggressive or tough at all. Your overly emotional, random and hysterical. I know you feel the need to act tough like nothing ever hurts you, but that isn’t right…because things DO hurt you. They should hurt you. Moving that’s stress. It hurts to leave home behind. It hurts to think that you aren’t all powerful or in control. It hurts to admit you are weak or wrong or not as good. But that’s what makes you strong…numbing yourself just makes you angry and lose enjoyment in the world. Is it too much to ask that you cry in the face of pain? Now I’m yawning so I’m pretty sure this round of mental exploration is over…
Wow so I start off thinking about suicide…I think I need to give the part of myself that wants to die an extra cookie and a hug. I think I gave the part of myself that wants to hurt others an extra cookie too. I do listen to what they say. They’re a part of me too…like I’m one hundred percent certain depression a key ingredient in happiness. Everyone accepts that death is a part of rebirth so why shouldn’t pain be a part of joy? It is. Staring up at the blank white walls, I think I feel better now. I won’t feel better until I do/ create something randomly insane though. That’s just how I am.

Dear March!

2010-03-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

I WANTED TO WRITE A NICE POEM TYING UP ALL THE FRAYED EDGES OF MY THOUGHTS, BUT HELL, I CAN'T COMPOSE WHEN I'M IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER...ONLY SITTING IN THE CAR LISTENING TO DELAIN. BTW, ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF APRIL RAIN LISTENING TO "I'LL REACH YOU" ON REPEAT. TIS THE SONG THAT CAUSED ALL THE TROUBLE...

I STILL WANT TO GO OUTSIDE AND YELL "WHAT THE FUCK WORLD? IS THIS REALLY REALITY? IS THIS HOW THINGS ARE GOING TO BE?"

CAN'T I HAVE MY GREEN FIELD AND YELLOW FLOWERS WHERE I CAN RUN IN CIRCLES UNTIL I COLLASPE AND THEN JUST LAY THERE...STILL AND HAPPY<3

I HAVE A LOVE/ HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MONTH OF MARCH!!! I SWEAR MARCH DELIGHTS IN TAKING THINGS FROM ME, IN LEAVING ME WITH MESSES TO UP. I HAVE A FEELING IF MY LIFE WAS A GRAPH IT WOULD BE ONE OF THOSE SIN CURVES THAT GO UP AND THEN DOWN!!! LIKE I'M GOING TO BREAK THIS ROCK OVER YOUR HEAD RIGHT WHEN YOU ARE FEELING GREAT AND THEN YOU ARE GOING TO GET SAD AND HAVE TO FIND ANSWERS AGAIN TO BE HAPPY!!! IT HAPPENS OVER AND OVER!!! WHERE'S THE PEACE?

AHEM. Happy Spring everyone!!!

Now I need to go sleep and shower and try to make sense of things and be happy and get organized and get back on top of things and not go crazy like I really want to right now. Can I go crazy?

"No! YOU HAVE TO GO BACK. IT'S NOT YOUR TIME. YOU'VE GOT WORK TO DO"

DESIGN YOUR UNIVERSE

epica. figures. it's ALWAYS epica.

EXCEPT TODAY IS APRIL RAIN DAY!!!

One year anniversary of the album, which is one of my favorites ever! Also the one year ani of the whole situation with HER. AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE COLD TODAY.

OH JOY

But the sky got a new tie.

Dear World...

2010-03-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

You know I dispiss you right? Truly I want to walk outside and glare at the stupid bright blue sky and scream "WHAT IS THIS SOME TYPE OF SADISTIC JOKE? ARE YOU MESSING WITH MY MIND FOR SOME SORT OF EXPERIMENT TO SEE WHAT I'LL DO WHEN EVERYTHING REPEATIDLY FAILS, WHEN EVERYTHING I DO IS COMPLETELY UNDERMINDED?"

Yes, yes, yes! I try to be happy. I'll basically tell myself anything to be happy. Fuck, part of me is happy. But not a really big part. I have so much optimism, so much hope and I try so hard!!! THAT'S WHAT REALLY KILLS ME!!! I TRY SO MUCH TO BE MORE, BUT WHAT DO I GET...THIS!!! You make me feel retarded, world. Like I ruin everything, hurt those who I love the most. Maybe it's bloody true. Fate just didn't chose me to be happy and successful. That's the bloodly truth. To hell with self-dtermination. I hate the way I think, the way I feel and the way things always turn out around me.

No, I lied. I love everything. I don't even know anymore...

Exactly the Same

2010-03-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Amy,

Can't you see how immature you are being? How much time you are wasting being pathetic? Why are you so determined to be miserable? So determined you had to convince yourself that you should be depressed because you didn't have enough drama in your life! Something obviously has to be wrong so I know let's convince ourselve that NO ONE REALLY LIKES US! I thought we grew out of that phase like years ago...or at least last year after all that trouble.

1. You should be happy for your friends. If friends forget about you, they are not good friends so you shouldn't worry about them anyway.

2. You have a lot of people who care about you. You're lucky. Stop whining because everyone doesn't pay constant attention to you.

I'm not being cruel here. It's the truth. You are twenty, and are more than calpable of standing alone without thinking that everyone abandoned you.

Sure conflicts are going to arise with friends, but aren't you the one who always says we have to strive to be better than our nature. By taking other's feelings/ thoughts into account we might actually be able to avoid drama and pain. I feel like you're a champion of optimism.

All of this has gone too far. You are too strong to waste time being depressed. Not because it's wrong to be sad, but because you've been down all these roads before. And you know what always fixes things...MUSIC.

AND NO. DELAIN, WT AND EPICA HAVEN'T LIED TO YOU. FIRST OF ALL, YOUR LOVE OF THOSE BANDS IS BASED ON YOUR INTERRUPTATION. THUS YOU MADE YOURSELF LOVE THEM. YOU FEEL AWKWARD LISTENING TO THEM BECAUSE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU BETRAYED THE FEELINGS YOU HAD WHILE LISTENING TO THEM. WHAT A RIDICULOUS THING TO EVEN WASTE TIME FEELING.

If you'd like to whine and complain until the entire world feels sorry for you. GO FOR IT. But I'm not going to pity you when fall into a hole. THERE IS NO HOLE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE UNHAPPY. GO LISTEN TO APRIL RAIN FOR 69 HOURS. YOU'LL FEEL BETTER.

While you are at it, GO WRITE YOUR PAPER. YOU HAVEN'T PROCRASTINATED THIS BADLY IN A LONG TIME. THE PAPER IS ABOUT A TOPIC YOU LIKE TOO. OH I GET IT! YOU'RE EMBARRESSED.

NOTHING YOU FEEL IS WRONG. YOU ARE FINE! PLEASE WAKE UP AND REMEMBER THAT THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE!!!

Road Block

2010-03-01T22:40:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that's the nickname for a certain person that I don't like. Now I couldn't tell you where I got that nickname from. I just make stuff up, okay. I'm a writer. That's what we do.

This person truly annoys the hell out of me. Nevermind the time she reduced me to tears because she managed to hit the one stop you never even approach with me (pertaining to sex crimes) LIKE THIS GIRL TOLD A VICTIM OF SEXUAL ASSUALT THAT RAPISTS ARE TREATED BADLY. WTF. You don't do that. I don't care, but that hurt. It hurts to thin there are people who don't understand what some people have to do through. But like I said nevermind that...

RB loves to scramble my brains and leave me feelings like I don't know what I believe in anymore whats-so-ever. Not like I don't feel that way already, but the point remains that she just like DISAGREES with everything I say. LIKE SHE HAS TO PROVE SHE IS BETTER.

I think it is all an act. She feels the need to make it look like she cares. Maybe I just hate what she represents...This authority figure who puts on a great act, but in the end, DOES NOT HELP. THE HELL SHE CAUSED ME IS THE OPPOSITE COMPLETELY OF WHAT SHE SHOULD BE DOING.

And now I feel like I'm going crazy, and goodness knows, I don't even know what I believe in anymore. WHAT? I feel like my friends all have better friends and are just lying to me about being close to me. I feel like I'll never be good enough to do what I want. I'll never be able to reach my expectations.

If I try to put my thoughts together, I just get depressed. I just want time to pass. I'm scared I'm depressed. I'm restless.

Time

2010-02-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

Time seems to pass ridiculously fast. I think my greatest fears have come and passed, leaving me here to ponder my existence once again. I know for a fact I am not the same as ever before. Oh no, I'm far to content for that. I don't remember how I used to think, what I used to feel. I just live in this here and now seeing the world for what is. There is no going back. I can't fight change. And well, everything has changed, and everything continues to change...even the change changes...

I'm trying to upset myself, and I'm failing. That's a good thing. I should sleep and let the world reboot itself in my mind because I'm tired now. I was tired all day.

Utopia

2010-02-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

Utopia
Kellie launched from the bench we had been perched upon while enjoying snow cones and glided toward the South American Coastal Exhibit. I lingered in my seat wondering if Kellie landed in this part of the zoo on purpose, if this concession stand was really the only one that served rainbow snow cones, or if the wind simply blew my bird here so she could reunite with her tropical cousins. Kellie paused in front of the exhibit’s glass doors; she whipped around and waved. My face burned as she jumped up and down signaling for me to hurry and join her. I stood and threw the paper cylinder in the metal thrash can. I drove over a thousand miles to meet this girl, but now when I could easily slip my hand into her hers, distance still separated us. Thoughts stood between us; a flood of emotion-joy and awe, embarrassment and shyness- blocked the final bit of the road that connected us. I found myself needing to sprint to reach her, to fly beside my feathered friend. Kellie was a bird, I decided. As she ran, the sweater tied around her waist flopped like tail feathers bouncing in the wind, and her eyes gleamed like a bird’s beak as it soared into the morning sun.

I ran next to Kellie who leaned against the door smirking, waiting to enter her long awaited home. I couldn’t tell if I was breathing as Kellie pushed open the door. I didn’t hear footsteps as a blast of humid air slammed into us. I wouldn’t hear footsteps; Kellie’s feet never touched the ground. She flew. Long ago, Kellie adapted to her stormy life by soaring above its dark clouds and the cruel trials. I tripped on a small step that Kellie must have easily hopped over. I watched her face as she caught me. Her dark brown hair flipped under just above her shoulders. I didn’t dare sneak a glance into her eyes; the shine in her in her eyes would rubberize my legs. I would never stand again. I would never reach her.

Kellie grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the first display. On the internet when we chatted on AIM, Kellie always said I inspired her. I was the reason she had to stay; the strength she needed to know it was all worthwhile. But standing beside her, I doubted that statement. I’m not as free; I don’t have the wind as my ally, boosting my above the storms fate wrecked upon human life. I experience my share of rainstorms, snowstorms and even some firestorms but nothing like Kellie had. She should be the one struggling to stay afloat on her broken wings—not me. Yet here I stood next to the one I thought of day and night and dreamed of meeting since about the second week I met her online. I could only pant from exhaustion now and blush from admiration or embarrassment or whatever feeling caused this internal itching.
Kellie pointed behind the heavy plastic. I nodded. My finger tips touched the glass, reached for the neon fish hovering in the water and would leave prints on the plastic next to Kellie’s. Our finger prints would remain together until the zoo janitor wiped down all the tanks with glass cleaner after closing time. I smiled at the thought. Around us, children laughed, breathed on the tank, and I smiled wider. This scene with its giggling grade-schoolers, camera-toting parents and Kellie speaking to the fish included me. Me. The girl who watched from the sidelines her whole life—a spectator at a horror movie—now had some say, some control over the cascade of events that unfolded around her.

If I was a fish in this coastal exhibit, my tank would sit on the ground in a corner, a different species all together than the other animals. Perhaps that isolation drew me to the internet and motivated me to register at online forums. The forum that drew me in closest honored my–Kellie’s—favorite band Within Temptation. I stumbled upon the place while doing a Google search for interviews the band gave. One of the results led me to the thread on the forum appropriately named “interviews.” I sat on my gray canvas shrivel chair in the corner of my room watching a video interview embedded in the forum from YouTube. Seeing Within Temptation’s singer Sharon filled me with joy and made my life that little bit more tolerable. My heart, my entire body tingled as she spoke in her adorable Dutch accent. Sharon represents the paramount of beauty and passion. She jumps around on stage, twirling her arms and dancing along to the words she sings and the music her band plays. Her love for the art oozes from her brown eyes and her lips as she sings. The passion reaches me over the wide ocean and the time between now and when the concert first occurred. My shoulders slumped forward, and I gaped at my favorite band performing on the computer screen. Beyond my closed bedroom door, silence stung my home. My mother watched television alone in her room curled up amongst the pillows to hide her tears. If my father hadn’t already left for the bar, he’d be in the kitchen drinking. Another fight threw us into this silent turmoil. Life would drift back into working order eventually, but for now, distance proved the best course of action. Keeping to myself helped numb the hurt and freeze the shed tears.
But that memory, the insecurity that nagged my mind whenever I stepped into that house wasn’t so bad. I don’t have any reason to complain. Kellie leaves me speechless when she talks about what she has been through. She has reason to curse the universe’s innate unfairness. I sat so many times with all my muscles locked, my eyes glued to the computer screen and my fingerings hovering inches above the keyboard. I had no response. I’m too sensitive to say I understand when I can’t grasp what she feels because I hadn’t been there myself, and I’m too broken myself for Kellie’s words not to draw in my heart. I promised I would try to understand. I promised I would hug Kellie in person one day. I wanted to be Kellie’s tree branch—the place my wary bird could fly home to at the end of a busy day. I thought of Kellie perched on my branch, leaning against my sturdy trunk and tucking her head against her fluffy plumage. Then she pounced, throwing her arms around my neck. Her wings embraced. She picked me up from the ground, and we were sea gulls gliding above the glistening ocean toward the dawn. I am not Kellie’s branch; Kellie never stops moving.

We skipped along the cement walkway weaving our way through the other people observing the sea creatures. We zipped past pink coral, more fish and a giant sea turtle. My eyes widened at these amazing creatures as we moved along. We finally swooped down in front of the jellyfish tank. I stole a look into Kellie’s eyes. They sparkled like the squishy bodies of the jellyfish bouncing along in the tank. A bird—Kellie—has to have keen sight, or they would miss all the lovely shells and wondrous fish as they flew so high above the world.

“Jellyfish totally remind me of chandeliers. Look at them. I’d love to hang one of those dancing fishies from my ceiling. If I ever woke up in the darkest hours of night, I wouldn’t be the least bit scared because Mr. Jellyfish is protecting me.” Kellie squealed clenching her fists to her chest.

I watched the jellyfish’s arms dangle below him as he swam up the side of the tank. I felt tears prick at my eyes. If I looked at Kellie, I would cry. Tears would fall from my eyes like a deluge from a low grey cloud on one of the rainy days I sat talking to Kellie online in the computer lab at school. I came to the lab to study biology after class, but my attention wandered to our forum to see if Kellie had signed in.

I remember one particular afternoon a light rain dripped down the window panes. The pitter-patter drew my concentration from reading to the grey skies. So many people out there watched this same rainy sky and wished themselves free from work or studies. I dreamed myself across the mist. I would bring light to the other beating hearts the fog muffled, and we all would know the warmth of the sun. Then Kellie sent a private message on the forum. My pop-up blocker informed me of the mail as I returned to the forum index. I read the message and tears streaked down my face. Kellie had a way with words—a way that always painted the perfect picture for me. The image I saw then silenced my thoughts. I rested my head on the open pages and closed my eyes. Soft rain caressed my heart, carried me away in the ocean’s warm current.

Young Kellie kneeled on an unfinished wood stool reaching upward to the mostly white canvas. One small fist clenched a long tan paintbrush, and she held the other hand in her mouth. Her head twitched every now and then as her teeth dug at the nail stump, poked the raw flesh. The room was her own bedroom located at the farthest corner of the house with stuffed animals lining the walls. The dresser lamp never went off. Her strokes were never straight, never anything more than amorphous blobs of color. Sometimes she would gaze off to her right, into the distance past the tower of plastic crates and the thread bare blue curtains with the tiny white polka dots. The tubes of red, blue, green, orange, squeezed and curling, rested in the slots on the easel, and her wet slightly swollen hands grabbed at them and squirted the paint onto the board. The paint brush dipped into the color, swirled around and dragged the paint upward. At the foot of the stool, the yellow tube lay untouched, and all kinds of storms raged outside her lockless door.

As I stained the chapter of my biology book talking about mitosis with tears, as the movement of the jellyfish mesmerized me, I wanted to reach across time and hug Kellie. But she no longer stood beside me. Once again my thoughts slowed me down. I almost saw my past chasing me as I ran ahead to catch Kellie.

I saw a girl who couldn’t excel at anything or was never good enough. One of the few things my parents agreed upon was that I had some unique greatness in me, and talent would take me great places. They started off expecting I should be some sort of sports prodigy. They had everything right to expect a lot from me; they did feed and cloth me and all. I blame myself for never earning their praise. When I was barely old enough to read, I tried playing tee-ball, but I could never connect the plastic bat with the waffle ball. It didn’t much matter to me, though, since I found hitting a ball for entertainment cruel anyway. Once I did manage to knock the ball from the stand, but I tripped on my way to first base. My laces remained double-knotted the way my mother tied them so I couldn’t use them coming undone as an excuse for the mud on my face. I played soccer once too after I aged a few years, but if I felt mean hitting a ball, I felt equally pointless running back and forth over a field chasing a ball I rarely got to kick. I could swim though and while that sport also reeked of silliness because of all the swimming back and forth, it gave me time to think, to imagine I could change into a bird and fly away, fly faster than those people who I could never touch in the pool.

. “Why are you so slow, Andy? I want to see the penguins before it gets dark, and they blend into the night.” Kellie yanked me from my thoughts
I followed Kellie onto a bridge. The lights flickered and thunder clapped. Motion sensors—not the randomness of nature—must dictate the timing of thunderstorms here. Kellie clung to me. We nestled under a sturdy oak tree that wouldn’t dare shake in the coming gale, or so I’d love to imagine. In reality, we clung to each other gaping at the wall of water that threatened to topple us with its might.
“Mr. Kiwi, save us!” Kellie screamed and squeezed her necklace, which had a copper kiwi charm dangling from the chain.

The rain fell harmlessly behind the slanted plastic barriers. Kellie stomped off. I agree; the zoo played a nasty trick on us.

“Ah!” Kellie hopped on one foot a few paces ahead of me. “Andy, I stepped in a puddle. A puddle!” Kellie grabbed my shoulder as I came up next to her. She bolstered her one-legged stance with my body as she inspected her yellow Converse with their turquoise laces. I gave her a little smile and shook my head. While standing on one leg, Kellie resembled the sleeping flamingo in my bird encyclopedia. I made my parents buy me the all inclusive bird bible after graduating eighth grade with perfect marks. Just as I never scored a goal in soccer or hit a homerun in tee-ball, I never scored a grade lower than an A in junior high or high school. While others my age played sports or socialized with the friends they made from their success in said sports, I read. While I lay on my bed studying, I heard my parents argue. The closed doors and the facts my mind processed muffled the exact words my parents spoke, but I thought I heard them blame each other for the mutation that created me, their freak of a daughter.

“You used to read her bedtime stories. Maybe if you would have let her watch television instead, she would have stumbled upon some sports.” My father said as he crushed a beer can between his thumb and index finger. He had backed my mother into a corner while she swept the floor. The broom’s bristles made too much noise, disturbed the little peace he enjoyed at home, or so he said.

I think my mother whimpered then, and I thought about casting aside my science magazine and writing a fantasy about a woman who escaped into a panel in the kitchen wall. But then my father raised the television’s volume and tore open another drink.
“She associates sports with rage. You wrecked her. If you wanted an athlete, you should have played catch with her every once and awhile.” My mother countered, bravely I might add. The television must have protected her that time; I don’t recall hearing her scream.

My father wrecked me. In my imagined world, I nailed a wooden board over the magic door. We’ll all stay trapped together. I have my fantasies; I felt like I could survive. I even have a few things I looked forward to like walking home from the library at twilight. I cherish the memory of the blue sky fading a light gold. Streaks of pink smudged the horizon. Whether the barren branches quivered in a slight breeze or a large cluster of leaves whipped back and forth and the trunks of saplings bent in a gale, I gazed at the natural world that expectation never tainted. As I walked through the fresh air, I thought nature defines freedom. I traced paths of birds drifting above me in formation—a V shape that morphed into a few diagonal lines no sooner than I smiled up at them. The birds banked; their dark wings outstretched catching as much air beneath them as they could. I wished to fly beside them, to belong in their formation.

Kellie waved her hand in front of my face, and I tried to smile. I had to escape the shadow those black wings cast. But the memory of my past, my parents and failure after failure pursued me here to the zoo one thousand miles from home. They dragged me down even when I stood near the one person I dared confess my secrets to. The memories held me in place, tethered me to the ground and prevented me from soaring Kellie’s formation.

“There is a spot on my favorite shoes, Andy. What am I supposed to do now?”
I shrugged in response. Words really aren’t my thing. I learned silence as a defense. Hiding my thoughts in my mind protected me from the classmates who struck up conversations only to my replies to their questions. I avoided eye contact too. That way I never had to see them laugh every time they walked passed me.
Kellie raised an eyebrow. “It’s alright to have spots on your shoe. Penguins have spots too, you know.” If we were talking online, she would have punctuated that sentence with a heart. In real life, she hopped from her right to her left foot and smiled. She wanted to see the penguins; she directed us here so she could the penguins.

We moved forward. I felt eyes watch me, judge me. Why is she standing there while her friend runs circles around her? Her friend has squealed at almost every fish, why hasn’t she even spoken in agreement?

“What is wrong with you today?” Kellie stopped next to the sea horse tank. Her hands rested on her hips, and her head tilted ever so slightly. She still smiled- grinned wider than all the smiles I’ve faked in my whole life. I’d melt if I touched her. Kellie had that much presence.

I pointed at the sea horse bobbing in the water. Its tiny yellow tail wrapped around a piece of blue coral. The coils anchored him in place, saved him from drifting away. I looked at Kellie again and looped my arm around her elbow. She nodded. Then her eyes drifted to the sea horses.

“O-M-G! Look Andy. LOOK HOW SWEET HE IS. HIS LITTLE TAIL IS HUGGLING THE CORAL!” Kellie tapped the glass with her free hand, with her nail-less fingers. “I LOVE YOU, MR. SEA HORSE!”

On forums, members who post in all caps take a huge risk. Some other users have trouble distinguishing yelling from excitement, but it works for Kellie. Kellie talks in all caps too. I get excited too when I talk to Kellie or listen to Within Temptation, but I try to bit my lip. If I screamed while sitting on the computer along in my room, my parents would accuse me of talking to myself. If I screamed in public, people would laugh. If I shared my opinion, people would judge me.

Sometimes, though, late at night, I laugh. I lean my chair back on two legs and turn the volume of my music up a little louder than my parents like. My parents actually hate all genres of metal music, but they have never forced me to turn off Within Temptation. They would, though, if they knew much I love Sharon. On those nights when my brain grows tired of reading my bird encyclopedia, Sharon’s sweet, melodic voice lifts me from my room’s freezing air and white walls. Somewhere past super highways, over rivers, rolling hills and pointy mountains and under a much stormier sky, Kellie listens to Within Temptation too—the same album “The Silent Force,” the same song Pale. I imagine Kellie rollerblading in the rain, as she told me she loves to do, dodging puddles and jumping over twigs. A drizzle brushed against her skin, but she kept her eyes focused on that spring’s red tulips and budding leaves. Although we hadn’t met yet, although one thousand miles separated us, I knew Kellie heard the same lyrics, the same reassurance that “it will be alright.”

Kellie lingered in front of the sea horses. Our arms entwined still. I looked into Kellie’s eyes. The sparkle had left them, and their deep copper color faded into a paler brown. I don’t know what she saw in those sea horses, but this melancholy didn’t suit Kellie. I grabbed her arm and pulled her from the sea horses. Nothing deserves to be dwelled on forever. Sometimes even the best of birds need a little help making it off the ground.

I know Kellie needed help to reach the altitude she now enjoys. Society might frown upon her stay in the psychiatric ward, but Kellie claims it was the best thing that ever happened to her. I thought of Kellie sitting cross-legged on the purple and green carpet in the middle of a semi-circle of chairs that faced the television. The other patients watched screen while pretending not the stare at Kellie through the corner of their eye. Kellie held a yellow in her right hand and opened a coloring book. The scratchy fabric of her over-sized pants bunched as she leaned forward. She smirked—smiled because this room did have a lock. Kellie returned the color to her life that weekend. The words Kellie spoke that next day, on Sharon’s birthday, set her free.

“I wish Mr. Kiwi was here.” Kellie said as we trudged along toward the penguins. “I’m glad he isn’t in a cage though; Mr. Kiwi deserves to run free. Everyone ought to live freely…”

In a perfect world, everyone would roam free. No sorrow would exist; no abuse would trap anyone in a cage. I see the metaphorical lock that holds my voice within my head. Silence is a deadly storm, a continuation of the storm that created the cage in the first place. It takes great courage to scream above the raging wind that the pain won’t control us and even more strength to admit the wreckage is as equally a part of us as the joy. Kellie has the courage to sing along to the music while I can only blast it loud enough to beat down the thoughts that seek to pull me under. Kellie told me once how painful it is to face the rejected memories, to slip beyond the wall of freezing rain and embrace one’s self. We continue to reject, to hate the part of us the world –we- don’t like and thus the cycle of stormy weather continues. As we walk hand in hand toward the penguins, I silently praise Kellie’s devotion to being alright.

I think of a night over last year’s winter break. I hadn’t spoken to Kellie in a while so I felt a bit vulnerable as if some part of me was missing. I could feel the world’s eyes burning into me because I didn’t have Kellie as a distraction. Then Kellie signed on and apologized for her absence. She said she had been doing some soul searching. I could relate; I often searched for Kellie’s soul. The scene she described, though, left a much stronger imprint than my longer.
Kellie listened to Frozen on repeat again. Her fingers pecked at the keys, and words flashed on the screen. Her thoughts and emotions became a winding poem, a cathartic string of phrases whose true meaning only Kellie and I could understand. We shared our secrets in the dead of night, when we faced no other choice. I thought Kellie as owl then mourning her wisdom and clutching at her memories so she could make sense of her painful days. I pictured the tears that fell silently from her eyes. These tears no one else saw because darkness surrounded her, because Kellie perched so high in the branches waiting for her kin—someone who would understand the depth of her pain—so they could fly together in circles around the pale moon.
“You want me to keep writing, right?” Kellie said to her weaker self in a cracking voice through teary eyes. Though she sat leaning forward at her bedroom desk, I knew Kellie’s heart lied in her fantasy even then when her mind faced the bitter truth. She stood waist deep in a stream that flow through her mind. I saw a forest that twilight painted a deep purple and an emerald green. In the majestic depths, the stream sparkled regardless of the dim light, the darkness that reigned since Kellie’s earliest days. Each ripple that washed against her held a memory. Images drifted passed Kellie, and she let them seep into her heart so she could stand upon them as she reached toward the future. She saw her younger self who stood alone dreaming of painting her world so many soothing hues and of composing fantastical stories of hurting souls who went on to save the world. She dreamed of the startling statistic of the number of children who survived abuse, the denied image of a father who loved and supported his daughter and of all the days she felt numb—frozen—while growing up and could only write stories of a better world. She told me a few times that she had once gotten so numb she shuddered at the thought of a hug and pulled away from human touch. She always added at the end of that story that she met a friend in her earlier teens that helped her begin to melt her heart. I envied her that friendship because Kellie was the first friend that I ever let wander through my icy heart.

Kellie had more ice to melt. She endured many storms that buried her heart beneath layer after layer of sharp spears of ice. After dodging the falling ice, she had to climb free from the ruins toward the sun. The ice would melt one day, she trusted, but when it did she faced the task of swimming—not drowning in all the unleashed memories. No else could save her—not Within Temptation’s music or any friend including me. We would reach the end of this zoo exhibit soon, and as a reward the penguins will clap their flippers and swim circles around their tank. Kellie walked beside me her nail-less fingers entwined around my limp hand. Her skin is warm as a fire burns within them, but I know how much Kellie fears fire destructive nature. Ice floats through her veins—a remnant of the song Frozen that inspired the courage to set herself free.

A year and a few months ago, Kellie forced herself to listen to Frozen. The truth hit her like an icicle falling from a gutter. She leaned her head against the wall sobbing because a heinous, unspoken crime was drowning her in its icy depth. She willed herself to watch the song’s music video despite her burning lungs and pounding heart. She reached a fork in the road that night: stay in the water and freeze or swim free. She decided she would face the blizzard no matter what standing her ground meant. She resolved to break the promised she mad long ago to herself to never anyone what her father did. She would no longer see the world through neutral eyes and bear witness to other’s joy when she could only cry. She would sacrifice eighteen years of survival for a chance to live her dreams and to roam free.
I stopped walking. I saw the sky through the foggy ceiling windows. Kellie skipped ahead. This path we followed lead to an open circular area—the penguin’s home. Before disappearing into the next room, Kellie looked over her shoulder and asked “Are you ready?” Her voice soared with excitement.

I reached her. We would go together. I might not have been there all the nights she feared falling asleep, all the days she longer for someone to hold her and say it’s alright, or that fatal night that began her nightmare. I gazed into Kellie’s deep, brown eyes and saw that night—the darkness—though now it existed as a single speck, one stroke in her self portrait.

One night when Kellie was nine, she awoke to find darkness plagued the air. She always fell asleep with the light on, but a dark figure had clicked the light off and shut the door. He stood over her. Kellie lay on her back with her blanket covering half her legs and thought maybe it couldn’t happen again if she went to sleep wearing long pants instead of these plaid shorts.

“Penguins!” Kellie launched forward and dragged me around a few staring viewers until we stood inches from the water and a swimming penguin. She leaned over the railing, and I saw a tear glisten in her eye in the artificial light. The penguin kicked his light black foot and stayed suspended in the water in front of us.
“He’s so cute. Mr. Penguin is too adorable to exist. He’s just so sweet…” Kellie said in a much quieter voice. Then she spotted a penguin waddle out from behind a rock and yelled “I love you!”

At the back of the exhibit, another penguin dove into the water. Kellie swooned. I put my arm around her shoulders as all the other visitors stared at the scene Kellie created. To me, her skin and her Within Temptation t-shirt were as soft as soft and fluffy as the penguin’s white and black plumage. Finally I hugged Kellie. We were penguins, kiwi or any other flightless bird. Like my two favorite birds that abnormal and unexpected trait made us who we are.

Kellie ran to the other end of the display to get a close-up of a squawking, marble-patterned baby stumbling a few steps from its father’s feet. “Hello, little guy! You can do it. Walking is fun. The world is just waiting to be explored.” She tapped at the glass.

I felt this excited once—the time I made the mistake of setting myself on course to pursue my dream. I went into college undecided of my course of study. My dad threatened to not pay if I didn’t study business or something else in which I could one day make a lot of money. My parents assumed I choose either accounting or management, but I didn’t. The day I declared biology as my major marked a turning point in my life. It stood out as the first time I did what truly made me happy. My parents shut down my joy when I told them…

“I’m majoring in biology so I can go into zoology and eventually ornithology.” I had arrived home for spring break all of two hours ago, but my father had already asked me if I had hear anything of acceptance from the business school.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He took a step toward me.

“I love birds! I want to study them.” I looked down and swallowed hard. I had never used the words “love” or “want” in conversation with my father before.

“That’s the problem with you. You always want ridiculous things, and then you can never do them.” He grunted.

“How realistic is that, Andy?” My mother chimed in from the sofa.

“Shut up! That ain’t the point. The girl thinks she can do something that requires talent when she doesn’t have any. I’m just trying to prevent her from a shit load of disappointment.” My dad glared at my mom who sat with her hands folded watching television.

“You’ll have no trouble getting a job for come company with a business degree.” My mother said again. My dad shoved passed me and slammed the off button on the television.

“Listen, you want to screw your life up anymore, you’ll do it alone.” He pushed my shoulder. “This shouldn’t surprise me. You were never the way you should be.”

“I could say the same to you.” I said staring him in the eyes then quickly looking to the ground. He slapped me across the face so hard I heard my neck hurt. I fell to my knees. Through my squinting eyes, I saw my father kick my knee and then turn to leave. I felt vibration the heaviness of his feet made in my palms as he walked away.

After both my parents left me alone in the living room, I curled up in a ball and cried. I swore never to be like that man who hated his life and his corporate job so much he had to beat his wife and daughter and get drunk every night to feel powerful and forget the day’s struggles. I wouldn’t follow in my mother’s footsteps either. She hated him, but she did his bidding and never left. She had no job or money to stand alone.

That conversation unleashed a great storm that had been building since the first time I failed to live up to my father’s expectations. The wind knocked the air—my speech—out of me. Typing became my chosen form of communication after that night. From then on, I only spoke to Kellie about my wants and dreams. She said I could do whatever I please. She believed in me.

Kellie skipped up the ramp onto a higher viewing area to watch some penguins grooming themselves. “Penguins are awesome! Just look at the beauty, the elegance in the way their beak combs through their feathers, how they streak through the water.” She waved her hand above her head.

I smiled and stuffed my hands in my jean pocket. For so long I could only dream of what Kellie looked like in action, but now here she stood sharing her passion with me and the rest of the world. I wanted to live that passion, to make real the dream she inspired within me. Kellie shielded her eyes with her hand and looked out at the layers of fake cliff, the model fishing nets that hung on the walls, the wooden penguin with a slot to stick a face into for picture purposes and most of all, the penguins themselves. I loved birds the way she loved anything cute, innocent or colorful. I wanted to pull the penguins, the kiwi, the flamingos and my favorite bird—Kellie—close and hug them all. I wanted ascend above my pitiful fears to a beautiful place—the place I pictured Kellie and I existed in while we talked online.
The stars twinkled above an open field. Kellie and I stood back to back with a warm breeze dancing around us. I gazed off into the distance focusing on the sound of our breathing. Her breath quickly followed mine. I would keep breathing so I could hear her breathe beside me.

“You seem sad, Andy.” Mr. Kiwi (Kellie’s screen name) said.

“I’m not sad…just pondering my existence.” Ice Queen (my screen name) said.

“You should be happy! The world is a beautiful place.”

“It’s just that I’m scared. I don’t know what to feel anymore. I try to be brave but something always comes and shots me down…”

“Feel everything! Everything that happens is a part of us. That’s what I’ve learned. That and the future is scary, but only because it is so infinite and empty. It’s up to us to fill it.”

“Why are you so wise?”

“Because I’ve been hurt and I faced a choice: give into the fear and fade away or face everything I have been running from my whole life and live.”

“You mean when you told?”

“Yeah, I set myself free when I told the doctors, my mother and the police, and you know, since then, I’ve been in control of my life. You need to set yourself free..”

“Free of what?”

“Expectation, your guilt, other’s expectations and judgments. Take your pick. It all holds you down.”

“I’m not that brave. I just get discouraged…”

“Then I’ll show you how to be happy, and we’ll be happy together.”

“What?”

“Yeah! Come visit me! It’ll be great. We’ll go to the zoo and watch all Within Temptation’s DVDs.”

“I’d love to. I have some money saved from working during the semester.”

“Great!”

“But I have to warn you. I don’t talk much in the real world.”

“What? I mean I know. It’s alright. I’ll love you no matter what.”

“Maybe.”

“Andy, don’t be like that. You’re a wonderful person everyone should love. It’s just nobody knows you. You don’t even know yourself. You’re my best friend, and you’ve always been there for me even when I wasn’t so strong.”

“I don’t like words. They’re a waste of time.”

“No! You never say words are pointless to a writer. Maybe some people waste words, but that’s their problem. Look at me, words set me free!”

Somehow traveling over a thousand miles to meet someone I met online would be the highlight of my life. My parents wouldn’t care if I disappeared for awhile as long as it didn’t interfere with the summer classes I planned on taking or the job they forced me to get.

My gaze shifted from my shaking hands to Kellie who folded her arms on the railing and rested her head on her arms. A penguin screeched, and another splashed into the water. We’d stay here forever if time allowed. Kellie would watch the birds frolic, and I’d keep finding peace in her joy. I walked up behind her and went to her arm, but she turned around before I could.

“Isn’t the world a beautiful place?” Kellie asked. I stepped back; her wide smile caught me off guard. I imagined she’d be reflecting upon this moment same as me, but once again, she beat me to the beautiful conclusion.
I nodded. Kellie frowned. Her eyes grew darker like the dimming light through the ceiling windows.

“What’s wrong, Andy?” Aren’t you happy?” Kellie stood up straight. I smiled.

“You can talk, you know.” Kellie put her hands on her hips.
I looked up toward the ceiling and wandered away from where we stood. Kellie and I met at a time when we were both broken and confused. A storm of varying degrees defined our pasts. We ran into each other while escaping those storms, while trying to quench the flames that sought to burn our lives and melt the numbing ice. Kellie swam to the surface of the freezing water and took command of the sinking ship that was her life. Now the ship sails boldly into the setting sun. All round me, I see water. I struggle to stay above the surface, for a breath of fresh air.

I look back at Kellie. She stared at the birds a moment longer before turning and walking toward the exit. A pair of penguins called to each other, but she didn’t look back. I watched her disappear through the exit. I followed her, but the door slammed in my face. I looked back the penguins still doing their thing.
I wanted to go to Kellie, to hold her hand and talk with her about the beauty of the world. I wanted to create a better world—a utopia in which we could all live freely and frolic under the warm sun. I can never the stop the rain or the wind from throwing us off course, but I could dream. Life brings pain inevitably, Kellie and I know, but I refuse to let that pain define us. The dreams we pursue, the answers we seek, the friends whose hands we hold along the way and the joys we find in our everyday existence defines us. I define me.

As I pushed through the exit, I imagined my—our—utopia. No one would hurt; no one would feel caged. Mr. Kiwi would fly beside Kellie, and I would befriend many different types of birds. We’d all live together in peaceful content laughing and crying as the mood changed.

Outside the sky glowed a golden red, the color of fall. Soon the leaves would turn red and yellow, and Kellie would return to school where she would amuse her friends with her wit and wisdom and study creative writing like she always wanted. I’d return to school too where I would be one year closer to my dream of studying and living with the birds. Before that time, I’d have to say goodbye to Kellie and go back home. I think I’ll try to embrace my sorrows, ignore my parent’s unfortunate behavior and focus on my dreams like Kellie does.

Kellie gazed off into the evening sky. She will fly into the setting sun one day, triumphant, but for now, we are here in the square at the zoo. We’re swimming far from the shore, far from the goal, but all the same, I feel as if we are lying on the beach hand in hand after a long day of play.

I see a fountain in the foreground and hear children laughing all around me. Kellie smiling stands in the middle of this scene. She is a phoenix, a proud bird that died before she knew right from wrong or perversion from love. But she came back; she was determined to rise above the burning world and fly free. She flew toward utopia, toward a world that is as beautiful as she believes.

I inhaled, taking in the love that oozed from the exhibit and the beauty of laughter and the evening sky.

“Kellie!” I called. She whirled around and smiled at me.

I smiled back and continued “I have something to tell you.”

Delain

2010-02-14T02:12:00.000-08:00

I’m going to do my best to remember the exact details of how Delain changed my life last spring. I may appear a bit pathetic, but like most other situations where I don’t come off looking so great, I speak only the truth.
A little less than a year ago, I found myself facing a ton of change in my life. By a ton of change I mean that I was coming to terms with friendship drama, deciding majors in college, some lingering insecurities I thought a lot about back then and most of all, I did not want spring to come especially April (though I did count the days until both February and March ended). I had many memories tied to spring that the trouble with my once best friend dug up. For example I was obsessed with finding the name of these pink, puffy trees that bloomed in early spring because I remember this old friend and I once sat under them after escaping from an exam review session, and I thought the puffy leaves were going to attack me. The whole atmosphere of loss and change saddened me a whole bunch and left me feeling a bit pessimistic. That’s the back story.
My friend first got me listening to Delain, I think. I remember reluctance to listening to a new band especially one that on the surface appears quite similar to some of my other favorite bands. My friend raved about April Rain’s music video I watched it once. I didn’t freak out about it at first, but I guess I watched it again because I recall falling in love with the song shortly after. In retrospect, this song helped me change my whole perspective. The hard times I had been going through caught me in a trap in which I did pity myself. I considered myself unfortunate, something of a failure, acted bitter toward friends and just generally wallowed in my situation. Thus I could relate to April Rain. I do have my moments when all I am counting on is a song, and all the major events that shaped who I am were definitely worthy in destructive power of the name hurricane. But the song made me think, wonder what I was doing wasting so much time dwelling on my past and things that can no longer exist. The changes didn’t occur instantly, but eventually, I came to the realization that no matter what sorrow I came from it lies solely on me to become who I want to be. Though I had been trying for awhile, I hadn’t quite mastered the notion that I controlled my fate. Now- a-days that thought keeps me going, but April Rain beat it into my mind. I set out to stop feeling bad for myself and try to see myself in a positive light. Within in a few weeks, I managed to feel a lot better. As I went into spring break, I remember honestly being happy. Certainly I was excited to hear the rest of April Rain!
The first night I was home from school I sat at the kitchen in the table editing a story of mine and listening to Delain in the background. The experience blew me away. I hadn’t ever been so excited about a new album before. I couldn’t listen to it enough and couldn’t decide which song I preferred. All I can really say is that April Rain made me slime and filled me with motivating thoughts. I felt like I could accomplish something, like things weren’t so bad. Then I hit a big detour, which changed my life and left me to reevaluate everything. The next day I didn’t sleep some reason I forgot, but I had been listening to I’ll Reach You all night and was thinking about my then closet friend who I had been drifting away from lately. I knew I had changed, and she claimed to have changed as well so I knew things weren’t the same. After listening to I’ll Reach You way too many times on repeat, I got the idea that even if I did grow away from my friend I could reach her by embracing the part of me that she helped create. Basically, that part of me is the creative, passionate self that I cherish most so I attribute a lot of my identity to this friend. I wanted to share the song with my friend; I wanted to tell her the epiphany I had about reaching her, but I never got the chance. Another friend told me she hung out with her that day, and all my then best friend cared about was her boyfriend. I always had issues with her not treating her closest friends well so I took that night as an opportunity to call her out on it. I wanted so much to make her know the pain I felt. A fight ensued—a fight that forever altered the landscape of both my identity. I got really depressed in the days following this fight because I didn’t know if I could survive the time it would take for things to smooth over, or if things even could work themselves out. I was miserable the whole week I was off school, and literally most of what I did was sit on my bed reflecting upon my life while listening to April Rain all the way through over and over. Then I realized I could relate to Start Swimming then. Other friends reminded me that I couldn’t stay upset about losing her, and while I totally beat myself up for being so rash in my words to her and felt like I betrayed everything I was, part of me knew life goes on, and I had to keep moving.
After that week off in which I mostly listened to April Rain, April came. I counted the days when it rained and those when the sun shone. I went out of my way to have fun and go on adventures with my friends. I remember we tried to pop popcorn with cell phones, my friend and I went for a walk in a cold rainstorm and saw some interesting campus sights, I discovered my love for tree climbing and I fell in love with the field behind the dorm. I strived for happiness and to keep moving forward because I felt like my actions could change things. I started loving the month of April because it brought me hope for rebirth and freedom. I had a new perspective: I was going to keep moving toward my hopes and enjoy every moment between then and there.
I’ll Reach You is still my favorite because it reminds me of the friends and other things that changed my life, that I will never feel the same about again and that I have lost. By staying true though, I feel like I’m reaching all those pasts that reside within me. I eventually stopped talking that friend because it got too painful, but I still dream of reaching her. Every line in that song comforts me.

Rant!

2010-02-13T00:59:00.000-08:00

You better believe it is rant time!!!!

So I'm sitting on our new sofa in our apartment because I refused to sleep another night in my father's house. My mother's freakin' friend wrote "child molestor" on the wall of my (old) bedroom. LIKE WTF. HOW IS THAT FUNNY? IT'S LIKE A SADISTIC DREAM! Well, it wasn't a dream to me. But the point is I am not living another moment in fear. I survived some many nights in the that home where I was terrified to fall sleep, and as long as I had another home to stay, why should I go back there?

Plus being here gave me an opportunity to work on constructing my new bookshelf. Because my mom's same friend helped ruin my other one...Basically I was all set to actually put it together properly but then I had to rotate it to use the screw gun and then I put one side on backward. Now the unfinished side is going to face out and that will make it will hard to hammer the back in. Why can't anything just work-out perfectly for me? I always try so hard too.

Nevermind how I missed my stop while coming home this afternoon. I'm like the most scatterbrained, not paying attention the world person ever!!! I just get so excited and focus on a single thing and then I miss everything else and I jump into things too quickly without paying the least bit of attention. What is that old says...Look before you leap. Yeah, I play in traffic. I run on expressways without looking either way. WHOOOOOOA! SHINY!!!! YAY!!! BANANA!!!! WALRUS<3

In all seriousness my life is chaos.

Emotional Stress

2010-02-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

Seems to be the story of my life right now. I have so much going on; I'm so stimulated it is difficult to turn my mind off to truly enjoy anything and to relax enough to diffuse the stress. Vicious cycle much.

My heart is torn so many different ways: torn between wanting to be at home helping my mother and brother unpack and needing to be at school studying, torn between having to read for classes and just wanting to spend my time writing, torn between what I'm feeling...My mind really is racing, and it makes me really tired.

The thing is all I can do is keep my head up and wait for the storm to subdue. I will feel better soon. Right now I know I must stay focused on school and take any opportunity I can to do things that improve my mood. Also listening to WT seems vital to my well-being. Only WT helps me at a deeper level. It may sound silly but it is something I have learned from years of hurting.

My positive thought of the day: I don't need to live in the real world. I grew up in a fantasty thus I am adapted to live in one. That's positive for an aspiring writer such as myself, trust me.

Good things of the day: 1. Snow! (not really...) 2. Funny times at lunch and dinner 3. I finished most of my reading for tomorrow 4. I had fun writing during a lecture

Thoughts on Epica!!!

2010-02-05T23:27:00.001-08:00

While the show I saw wasn't quite as good of quality as the show that streamed online tonight, I'll post my thoughts anyway.

The show was at this little, semi run-down venue in an old building in the north side of Chicago. I'm from the south side so I wasn't that thrilled about going to the north side. But I had to! Epica requires sacrifices! (like missing four classes). We got to the venue a bit after the doors opened, but we still had to wait in a line inside. I think it took like 40 minutes to get inside. We were pretty near the end of the line so a lot of people got in before us. Then you had the people who spent 50 dollars to meet Epica, which I think is ridiculous! Maybe I'm just poor, but hell, how can you charge to let people meet you. Who do you think you are? nvm. Anyway, I did get a The Divine Conspiracy t-shirt!!! Now I can wear semi-nude Simone around<3

We got three opening bands. I'm assuming the first one was local but the other two are traveling with Epica, I think, or at least, they played tonight in WI with Epica too. The one good thing about metal opening acts is you can just headbang along with them and rock out without evening knowing their songs. I usually find opening acts annoying, but these weren't so bad. My mom really likes grunting so she was thrilled! She liked the second band Blackguard. I told her I pirate their cd...

One thing that really pisses me off is when two tall people stand in front of you. Like one was to my left and the other diagonally in front of me. I could not see anything. I was so pissed. I came to gawk at my sexy Dutch woman and GRRRR!!! I wanted to punch those tall people. It's not my fault I'm short. But anyway, the wait wasn't that painful. Usually, I hate going to concerts because it is sooo terrible waiting for your band to come on. It's not that I dislike opening acts....I just really like certain female singers.

Epica came on around 9ish. It all happened so quickly. They appeared one by one, and I just thought WHERE IS SIMONE<3? Then Simone appeared and I had to stand on my tippy toes to see her. Like the WI show they started with Resign to Surrender. I think Epica sounds a lot heavier live. Like all I heard was the noise of the instruments. Simone had to like scream to be heard over and even then, sometimes I couldn't tell if she was singing. I think our venue just sucked. But I should mention (like Epica says in the online stream) that we did have a mosh pit. My mom thought the people were fighting and she wanted to run. I was like HELLO, SEXY SIMONE<3 Beat each other up later!!! I think the moshing broke out at least three times...

Like I said earlier I didn't get that good of a view even though I was no further than like two people back. I did get ahead of one of the tall guys when Epica came on so I wasn't staring at heading, and toward the end, I did just stop rocking and just started staring at Simone. That woman is so amazing. She has this like golden red hair and perfect complexion. Like I have fucked up skin. I'm jealous. Plus she is like kinda tiny; I could just imagine huggling her. And I could just stare into her eyes all night...like I tried to. I couldn't hear what she was singing most of the time and I actually had trouble identifying a lot of their songs (a couple of lines gave most away though) They played Unleashed though so I was happy about that. Unleashed is like my third favorite. They played Sancta Terra is WI. That upset me. We did get Blank Infinity, which I love equally but still...ST comes right after my fav song on the album so I'm bias. It all happened so fast, I'll say again. I was just watching them, thinking about how awesome it was to see this band I've loved quite a bit for not that long of a time. For me that is usually what makes a concert--the amount seeing these people are real means to me. Seeing Simone...this woman that I dream about. I wrote a story about, okay. I love her. And there she was just singing, being adored by all the fans.

I was thinking, toward the end of the show that I want to be like Simone so much. Just imagine having all those adoring fans and living your dream. I'm hugely inspired. Simone had to start somewhere and I know it wasn't easy for her to get where she was. It gives me great hope that I can be a famous writer one day. I want to make people happy like that, make them cheer. It's a great feeling. I was so numb after we saw Epica. After it ended I just left and drove home...without my coat on. I just thought that I just saw Epica. I saw Simone. I heard their music and watched them headbang andscream for the audience to go crazy. but time passes so quickly, and I had to drive back into reality. I couldn't bring myself to listen to Epica until this morning because I didn't want to shatter this perfect image I had of them. Because despite the fact that the venue was rotten so the sound was bad and I wasn't front row, I saw perfection.

I'm rambling, but really it was a great experience. Totally worth missing class! My mom finally mastered (kinda sorta) how to make the metal horns. She was trying the whole night so she too could rock out! She made a lot of comments about how those guys were going to hurt their necks headbanging though...I'm proud. It was her second metal concert (Tarja being the first) I have some pictures, but they're cellphone and not that good. The important thing is I took them. I think I'm going to start a wall of pictures of my favorite people that I took--not that I just copied from the net. I'd have Tarja, Sharon and Simone<3 My heroes!!!

Dignity

2010-01-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

It is quite easy to run around laughing hysterically, making a scene, but it is quite another to pull this "freedom" off with class. I most certainly don't. I confuse immature and happy and random with distracted. I'm not five. I'm twenty. I have a lot of serious responsibilities, and I just make myself look (and feel bad) whenever I am not serious and focued on the task on hand.

So I'm going to try something new: mastering the art of dignity and self-respect. That is not 1. not putting myself down 2. staying focused when I need to 3. listening to others and not saying what I want because I can

Gotta work now. Hopefully I don't fall asleep at the job because I'm tired from not falling sleep at night due to over-stimulation.

Solid Ground!

2010-01-24T20:17:00.000-08:00

I'm going to use this post to post fanfiction now! Fanfiction about real people too. Yip, I remember when I was opposed to this, BUT this story helped me see that I could write again so I am NOT opposed to this story.

Title: Solid Ground

Simone arrived at the library about a half an hour after the final school bell rang. A conversation with her best friend and some loitering at her locker while she searched for a journal she thought she threw in there a few weeks ago but couldn’t seem to find prevented her from arriving sooner. Simone stomped up the metal stairs. She wanted to visit her friends at the café and discuss new music, singing and everything else she loved, but instead homework forced her into a secluded corner of the library. Simone slid behind a desk facing the window and pulled out her notebook. She opened it to a clean page, folded her fingers together and stretched them toward the window pane, grey clouds and barren trees outside. The assignment she needed to complete was a memoir, which she hoped wouldn’t present much of a challenge because it didn’t require research or reading any long books. She snatched a pencil from another pocket of her bag and pressed it to the notebook. That family vacation when she was 10 would make an interesting story if she remembered any details more specific than lying on the beach drawing lines and circles in the sand with the stick that had been in arm’s range as she bask. A picture of that memory decorated one of the window ledges in her living room back home. Simone blinked; she had been pressing the pencil on the paper hard enough to leave a centimeter wide, shiny layer of lead. She erased it, but the excess lead smudged staining the pink eraser and clouding up the blue lines that cut across the page. The camping trip she went on with her aunt, mother and sister seemed like a valid topic too, but the story wouldn’t contain much intrigue since she got sick the first night they slept in their rickety, semi-moldy tent under the half barren boughs of old evergreens and had to go home with her father in the morning. She nibbled on the eraser, which still radiated heat from the fast rubbing. Nothing essay worthy happened to her in the fifteen years she had been alive. She tapped pencil on the paper and watched the eraser flop. It hung from the metal by a few white, rubbery strands. She had thought a memoir would require much less work than a research paper so she had slipped the assignment underneath some other papers in her folder and didn’t return her focus to it until now. She wouldn’t have had remembered even to attempt the work if she hadn’t made a point of telling her mother she would come home late that night since she wanted to hang-out with friends after school. The conversation hung in the emptiness of her mind now and Simone wondered if she dared write it into her essay.
“I won’t be home right after school today, alright? I’m going to the café…” Simone stood in front of the screen door chewing on a granola bar.
“What, honey?” Her mother scribbled on a stack of papers in the kitchen. The morning had been quite typical for mother and daughter: Simone woke up to the screeching of her alarm clock, knocked over a glass of water on her bedside table before hitting the sleep button and then finally burrowed back under her down comforter. The alarm clock blared again, but Simone had safely escaped back into her world of dreams. There she stood under a spot light on a stage staring over the heads of row after row of cheering fans. Her hair glistened in the blinding artificial light and her voice carried through-out the entire room. She heard her voice over the screaming people, over the banging of drums. She wasn’t attached to any microphone cords or stuck in a single spot on stage. She drifted on the rise and fall of her voice, the glistening eyes of her adoring fans and the energy—the electricity that sparked between her, the song and every other person in the room. The scene was a drug to the sleeping Simone; it pulsed through her veins as she slept and during the day while she sat idle in class watching nothingness in the distance while she daydreamed.
“Does the alarm clock mean nothing to you, Simone!” Simone twitched; she grabbed at the pillow and rolled onto her stomach, but her mother flipped the alarm off and janked the blanket off her.
“No, one more song, please…I practiced so hard for this moment…”
“Simone! Seriously wake up now. Why must we go through this same laziness every morning?”
“Because…you…because you insist on waking me up. I’m happy in my dreams…” She rubbed her eyes. Her face was sticky. She felt around the pillow for something sticky, but found a few wet spots instead.
“Ewww!” Simone shot into a sitting position and shuddered. Her arms went limp at her side and slowly she let her gaze wander from the drool marks to her mother’s face. The woman crossed her arms at her chest and glared at her daughter, but as Simone met her eyes, a faint smile pinched the end of her scowl.
“I’m coming. I’m coming. I’ll be downstairs in a moment…” Simone tossed her comforter back into a pile on her bed and stretched. The time was a little before 7:30. She had about a half an hour to wash-up, get dressed and arrive in her seat at school. She grabbed a plain cream long-sleeve shirt and a pair of green kakis from atop her over-flowing drawer and scurried into the bathroom.
Downstairs Simone’s mother busily searched through her pile of papers. Simone hurried past her to grab a snack before leaving. Stacks of paper cluttered the table and her mother rifled through these. She rose her eyebrow as she left, pretending the screen door was a stage curtain and she about to make her debut.
“Aren’t you even going to say goodbye, honey?”
“Hmmm?” Simone chewed a month full of almonds and cereal flakes. In her mind, song lyrics filled her month instead of the quick breakfast. She pressed her palm to the door wanting to at least get a breath of fresh air.
“Simone, are you even listening to me?” Her mother tapped a vase on the table. Simone snapped around to face her mother who was barely visible behind the clutter.
“Yeah, sorry…I’m just daydreaming. I love you, mom. I’ll see you later. Oh wait…” Simone explained her plan to visit the café after school.
“As long as you finish your homework, Simone.” Mrs. Simons stuck a paper clip over the pile of pages.
“Of course!” Simone smirked. She didn’t have any homework, and if she did, she could finish it in another class. The only class she had trouble multi-tasking in was English because the teacher kept a sharp eye on her. She froze. Yesterday the teacher mentioned something about an essay’s due date approaching soon.
Simone stared at the still blank paper. If she had been writing that mental tangent down, she would have almost completed her essay, but embarrassment would have prevented her from handing it in anyway. The English teacher already thought she was slightly flakey—admitting to drooling in her sleep would seal her into a semester of strange look and silent judgments that would probably affect her grade. Maybe she should cut her loses and play the crazy card…
Simone massaged her temples. Pretending to have forgotten the essay and meeting up with her friends at the cafe would have caused her less pain, but the nagging face her mother always gave her when she said she had no homework haunted Simone’s mind. By early evening, such worries and feelings of inferiority plagued her mind. Why couldn’t morning last all day? Or better yet, why couldn’t she sleep, dream, all day?
Through the window in front of her, Simone saw the sun setting. The horizon glowed goldenrod behind the budding trees. If she wasn’t sitting here not working on homework, she could be perched on a low hanging limb singing to the wispy clouds and the birds. She closed her notebook. It looked like she would fail despite the sacrifice of the afternoon. Maybe if she left now and hurried she could make it home in time for dinner.
As Simone trudged down the street, she decided she didn’t want to make it home for dinner. The conversation would resemble that morning’s in predictability and nagging expect now her father would join in and she wouldn’t have the recent memory of her dreams to save her. She stopped on the sidewalk and watched a squirrel run over the light-green grass that still had not yet fully recovered from the cold freezing and ice smothering it. She sighed. Why was it too much to ask to simply run free? Why did she have to wake up when the clock buzzed, go from class to class when the bells rang and then return home to her parents commanding her to either do homework or chores? She thought of her friends at the café. They sat up in the loft smoking and playing burnt CDs on a portable CD-player whose volume went up high enough to be audible to the entire room through headphones. Simone placed her backpack on the ground and sat on it leaning back against the tree the squirrel had scurried up. If she rested here until nightfall, no one would notice her immediate absence. Her parents would take the silence at home to mean that she went wandering in her mind again and by the time they did come looking, the tree would have absorbed her. Her body would spiral down with the roots into the moist soil where she could soak up the nutrients, the wisdom left by generations of trees. She envied the tree; as wind rustled through its blossoming branches above, it sang and it possessed a beautiful voice. The birds flocked to perch on the branches, to listen to the evening lullaby.
Simone opened her mouth then quickly shut it. What would she sing about? That afternoon more than proved she had nothing to say. She looked at the grey sky; even the vibrant blue went dark eventually. Tears pricked at her drooping eyes. She wanted to leap to her feet and run home, run to her mother, bury her head in her shoulder and through her sobs explain that she was a failure. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. The image, the comfort was another fantasy.
When she eventually did return home, her mother was once again in the kitchen—clattering pots and pans this time. Simone sulked past hoping to make it upstairs without an interrogation, but she heard the stove click on and her mother’s footstep following her. Simone smiled before letting her mother see her face.
“Did you have a good day at school, Simone dear?”
“Yeah, I guess. It wasn’t awful…just school…” Simone fidgeted with a keychain hanging from the strap of her bag. Her head really hurt now.
“You seem sad. Are you sad?” Her mother placed her hands on her hips and Simone looked away, let her eyes move toward her room where she could at least listen to music and forget about the horrors of the day. Her mother insisted on hugging her now. Simone stood in the same place arms at her side and blinked back tears. Yesterday she had felt better; she had come home after spending the afternoon at her best friend’s house and sang the rest of the night away. She had sung under the music the radio played until her throat hurt, until opening her mouth again burned as if she drank acidic orange juice with a raw throat. Then she collapsed into bed early and fell right to sleep warm and comfort from spending so much time in her happy place. Two nights ago had been happier still. She had her singing lesson that night—a whole hour where the teacher encouraged her to sing, taught her how to raise her voice without causing great pain.
But for now, she stood in the hallway on the plush white carpeting in her orange polka-dot socks. Her mother held her tightly as if the embrace could take Simone’s supposed pain away, but it didn’t; it couldn’t. Her mother didn’t know she was a failure. She would yell at Simone and lecture her from behind disappointed eyes when she found out Simone hadn’t done her homework again.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it has been a long day..”
“But you were with your friends, weren’t you? And those people, your music always make you happy, right?”
“Oh…right…” Simone’s vision clouded. She had told her mother she was going to the café before she remembered she had work to finish. “Yeah!”
“Simone, you aren’t lying to me are you? Have you finished your homework?” Her mother loosened her grip, pulled away and looked Simone up and down.
“Yeah, Mom. I didn’t have any homework so don’t worry…” She bit her lip. She faded deeper into the ground with every word; her mind lingered with the tree roots winding around until they knotted and made no sense. Since it lied beneath the surface, her mother couldn’t see her heart. She imagined her mother saw her semi-lifeless form and the weak smile. Maybe she could feign illness and avoid the shame of another missed assignment…
“Do you feel alright, honey? I’m getting worried…”
“Yes…no! Uhhhh…don’t worry, I’m fine. Maybe I’ll just go lie down.”
“That’s not reassuring. We’re going to eat soon so get ready, okay?”
Simone nodded and went upstairs to her room where she left her bag on the bed and flopped down next to it. The light wasn’t on shadows draped the room. With her eyes shut, her head almost didn’t hurt; she could almost picture herself singing again. But this time as the curtains rose, her voice cracked and her voice was little more than a whistle. People booed; her sister knocked on the door and yelled at her.
“Come on, Simone!”
Simone wanted to punch the door and hold it closed. Then she wanted to collapse against it and cry, but the idea made her throat hurt, a lot more than she could bear so she hung her head and followed her sister to the dining room. Dinner didn’t hurt as much as she feared. Actually the family ignored her for the most part. Her mother dominated the conversation with talk of her quest to finish grading the work she assigned her third year students over spring break two weeks ago. Simone smirked a bit; she was thankful she went to another school than her mother taught at. Otherwise she’s have twice the work and the entire faculty breathing down her neck to excel when all she wanted to flee the classroom and sit under the stairs listening to her CD player.
“I’m going to go upstairs now…” Simone dropped her fork and stood up. She had taken only a few fork loads of food and she had eaten less than half, but now she imagined herself crawling up in a ball with music soothing her. She left her dish in the sink. The clatter of metal on ceramic covered her parent’s answer, if they offered one at all. She didn’t look back. They’d talk once they knew she shut her door.
The walls of her room were painted a vibrant orange—a color she chose because the tulips that bloomed beneath her window, along their driveway and in the park by the birdbath this time of year burst with that same orange. She smiled when she saw the flowers, and she tried to smile when she entered her room. Today despite the warm-colored walls, she shivered and had to slink under her blanket to get warm. She fumbled through her bag until her hand hit her CD player, pulled it out and put on the headphones. The CD that played her friend Billy, who worked at the café, burned for her. It was a mix of radio edits of popular songs and demos of unknown bands. Maybe she really did live under the tree roots because none of these songs sounded familiar; none summoned a name or picture into her mind. The songs blended together, sounded the same. She had heard them all a million times before; she had to have, but the voices sounded generic to her…or something like that. She practiced her own singing under these voices; her teacher used these songs as examples for how to properly or not properly sing. But the music failed in becoming anything more than voices and melodies. She pulled her knees to her chest. Her thoughts twirled through the dark again like the roots in the soil. It hurt. She pressed stop and rolled onto her back. The ceiling was white—white like the clouds and her neighbor’s fence. She moaned. If her mother crept into the room now, she would tell her everything, but would blame her failure on the boredom of her life. She couldn’t help if everything around her was white and lacking in originality. She pulled a corner of blanket closer; even she could see the holes in that excuse.
Simone drifted through her mind, floating along on the current of her memory. Memories flooded this dream world and crashed into her, eroding her will to stay above the surface. Simone lay still. Movement wore her out so she watched the past she had attempted to fish through earlier stream past her. She sat on the beach with bare-feet, wearing a shiny orange swimsuit and a towel hanging over her shoulders. She wrote her name in the sand with a piece of driftwood the tide had brought in. Since she had been sitting there since lunch, she had seen the tide rise and fall, had seen her sister frolic in the water as the waves splashed her, but Simone stayed where she sat. She heard her parents call out to her, but she focused instead on the voice of the ocean—the lapping of the waves on the grainy sand particles, the hollow whooshing that came from all directions. Birds flew across the sun cawing to each other, sharing their happy songs that sunny afternoon. She brought her knees closer to her body so she could sing into her skin so no one would hear her soft voice. She sang words that flowed through her heart and the song took the form of the birds, the tiny shells that submerged almost entirely in the sand, the laughter of her family, the waves glistening the in the hot sun, the driftwood she loosely grasped and herself sitting in the sand with a brave smile.
Then Simone saw the memory of the camping trip. She saw herself carrying a bag that was nearly as tall as her on her back. It held the tent. She had insisted upon carrying it to prove her strength, but as they approached the camp ground, the weight and the smell of camp fires in the distance struck her head hurting it, making her dizzy. She remembered lying down and resting her head on her mother’s rolled up sleeping bag. She saw the sky turn to twilight through the layers of pine tree branches and watched a hawk fly from its nest. She thought she was dreaming as an owl hooted, her aunt threw logs onto a crackling blaze some feet from where she lay and her sister pranced around showing off the flowers she had picked. Maybe she was delirious because she saw herself and an owl in a tree singing to the setting sun. Their song described the shadows these trees cast in the dim light, their dark pinecones that hung still in the light breeze and the people below roasting marshmallows or heating cans of beans. When she tuned back into reality, her mother poured water into her mouth from a metal cup and sweat coated her skin. She wanted to sit up, but her body felt heavier than the trees she watched. She knew she had been singing because her throat ached. It burned the way it did to this day when she sang too high or for too long and when she attempted to control her voice.
Simone heard her mother scream at her; she felt the blanket tugged off of her. Morning couldn’t have come. She didn’t hear the screeching alarm; she didn’t feel awake.
“Simone! Why must be go through this every day?
Simone didn’t answer. She rolled out of bed and grabbed a red sweater and jeans from her drawer. Her mother watched her silent motions, but didn’t say anything else.
In the bathroom, Simone stared at her reflection. Strands of hair stuck out in all directions. She felt waves disturbing the desired straightness of the back of her head. When had she last washed her hair? She sighed. Forget her hair; her head wasn’t even on straight. She had slept in her clothes, but she couldn’t remember why she had been so tired that she couldn’t change. Maybe she was sick or delirious. Maybe she shouldn’t go to school, but she heard she mother breathing in the other room. As she changed, she thought of her mother grading papers in the morning before going to work and working on her lesson plans while sitting in the arm chair and listening to classical music in the evening. Her mother knew dedication and she knew when Simone lacked it. She pulled her jeans on without unbuttoning them; that habit she had developed about the same time, she had become so unfocused she forgot to eat. Yet as she looked in the mirror, she didn’t think she lost any weight. She still noticed how fat her face was—the puffiness that bulged right below her eyes and the way her chin blended into her neck so they both resembled a blob. The sweater clung to her upper arms, and Simone had to look away. With a hung head and another sigh, she left the bathroom and went downstairs.
Her mother sat at her usual spot at the table behind her daily planner. Simone gave her a slight smile and sat down across the table.
“How do you feel this morning?” Her mother smiled back closing the book and picking up a knife. Simone shrugged. Her eyes roamed around the kitchen to the toaster. The room smelled of toast, which made her stomach growl and her head hurt. When was the last time she had eaten? She asked herself and was food worth walking across the kitchen for?
“You must have been tired to have fallen asleep so early. I’ll take that as a good sign that you at working hard…at something.” Mrs. Simons spread butter on the toast. When Simone didn’t answer, she looked up to see Simone eyeing the bread. “You want it?” Simone nodded quickly. Left to her own devices, she might not have gotten up to toast bread.
“Yeah…sorry…” She took the bread from her mother and bite into it.
“Don’t worry about it. That’s what I’m here for…I’m a bit worried about you though. You look so pale.”
Simone took another bite before swallowing. Her mother’s eyes burned into her. They shouldn’t burn like they did. Love and concern filled her gaze, but to Simone, they were sharpened knives slicing her open and making her inner’s burn with the truth that each day she let her mother down more and more.
“I’m sorry. I’m going to leave now. I’ll see you later. Thanks for the toast.”
“Alright, sweetie. Be good.”
Simone put her hand to her forehead as she left. What was this good her mother spoke of?
In her English class, Simone sat in the back row resting her head on her desk while the other students chattered and passed around their essays. Her earlier classes had cheered her up a bit. Literature had been her favorite since she first learned to read. Too bad it was her first class that year and thus over quickly giving her nothing to look forward to during the day. Worry controlled her mind while she tried to keep up with the steps her math teacher wrote on the board and while she jogged around the gym during physical education. All the dread came to a head in this classroom, in this class that she considered pointless. She felt fluent in English. The school system forced them to start learning the other language about the same time native English speakers learned to read. She saw it as an extra burden especially since her mother who had taught English for a few years in a grade school spoke the language to her at home for as long as she could remember. Anyway she spoke English with a couple of the guys at the café who were native to Sweden and Spain and didn’t quite have a great mastery of Dutch. She would benefit much more if the school focused on other things than writing essays and reading classic English novels.
“Hey, Simone! You look tired. Were you up all night finishing your homework again?” Her best friend Sara sat in the seat next to her.
“Nope, didn’t even try this time.” Simone clutched the side of her desk bracing herself for Sara’s reply. Sara scored high grades, was a model student and mostly considered perfect except for her friendship with Simone who all the teachers beside the music teacher saw as a slacker. Simone actually paid attention in her music class. Although they discussed mostly theory and dead composers, Simone cared because the subject at least struck a chord of relevance to her. As she sat in the class, which was after lunch so she was usually kind of drowsy, Simone composed words to the melodies the teachers played and imagined herself singing her invented lyrics to the whole class who clapped and praised her until her face went red and her whole body went limp with joy.
“What?” Sara slammed her book on the desk.
“Yeah. I have a normal life. No one wants to read a memoir about it.”
“Make something up? You are always scribbling down lyrics so don’t give me the excuse that you don’t have an imagination. Or why didn’t you just write about how much you want to be a singer?”
Simone winced. That would have been a brave essay to write. She liked to avoid using the words “singer” and “want” in the same sentence. That simple sentence Sara just said seemed so binding. She wanted to be a singer. No, she wanted to dream about singing and sing in her dreams.
“Don’t be silly. I don’t want to be a singer. I just…I just like music. It’s a good distraction…”
“But you take singing lessons, don’t you? Don’t you sing under the radio, sing under your breath in music class?” Sara grinned and folded her hands on her desk.
“I like singing, okay? But I could never be a singer!” Simone said louder than their previous conversation. A few other students turned around and stared. Simone flushed; her voice sounded shrill and gravely when she spoke. She could never be a singer; everyone would be laugh like they were now, and she would be a disgrace to herself…to her mother.
When the teacher collected their homework, Simone didn’t pass an essay up. She hadn’t completed the reading assignment either so she sat there staring at the words on the page willing her mind back to her last singing lesson so she could remember if the teacher had praised or just patronized her.
She had arrived at the little storefront studio about five minutes before her scheduled lesson. She walked the kilometer between her house and there briskly while listening the CD that had the songs she was practicing on it. The radio frequently played the songs, and she had no idea why she sought to imitate these singers, but she did. Maybe she just didn’t have anything better to give her teacher as an example of music she liked when she asked. The problem remained that she liked all music; she could listen to any CD her friends burned her endlessly as long as she could feel the power of guitars and drums, feel the emotion seeping from the singer’s heart. She wanted to explode, to run in circles when she heard singing and the bombastic melodies.
“Hello, Simone.” The teacher said as she opened the door to let the student in the lesson before her out. Simone fell too deep in her thoughts to notice the cold outside as walked or the voice of this other young singer. She hopped up and ran into the room. As the teacher shut the door, she nibbled at her nails.
“I’ve been practicing! But my throat still hurts when I sing…”
The teacher chuckled. “Let’s not get a head of ourselves. Why don’t you warm up a bit and show me how you’re doing?”
Simone sang up the scales vocalizing the sounds in the lower range comfortably, but feeling the stretch in her vocal cords as she climbed higher. She could stand there—back straight with her eyes fixed on the wall in front of her for a long time—as long as her attention span and lung capacity would allow without feeling much pain as long as she stayed within a certain range. This exercise resembled weight training: the weight lifter could lift light weights until boredom and fatigue set in, but he’d have a much longer window to lift than if he trained with weights out of his comfort range. Simone pictured him huffing and groaning as he benched twice his normal amount; his muscles bulged and sweat rippled along his skin. Her voice cracked as she went higher. The singers on the radio rarely sang high, and they were all in excellent shape. Why sweat like that? Why push herself? Her throat burned. Somewhere down there, her vocal cords stretched like a rubber band. She feared the rubber band would snap so she let her voice came down and ran back into her comfort zone.
“You’ve been practicing? The songs we listened to last week or something else?” The teacher made no further comment on Simone’s warm-up. The last few lessons played out the same way, and when at first the teacher suggested Simone reach for that next step, Simone’s face went white and fear flooded her eyes so the teacher dropped the subject.
“Yeah, the ones on that CD. I can make it through most of the songs now without losing my breath or coughing.”
“Let’s hear.”
Simone sang for the teacher whose face didn’t change from her blank expression through-out the whole song. Her eyes studied Simone, but didn’t glisten the way Simone’s did when she finished.
“You sound flat. You have the melody and the energy down, but you aren’t hitting the full range of notes. You’re not stretching your voice; you’re not pushing yourself to your limit.”
“Simone, are you listening?”
Simone blinked. The voice in her heard blurred with her English teacher’s voice. She stared harder at the page—harder than the teacher, probably the whole class stared at her. She wanted to say “no, I’m not listening. I don’t care. I only care about why my voice isn’t improving,” but she didn’t.
“I didn’t think so. I’m sorry my lesson isn’t exciting enough for you and I can only hope it will hold your attention better in detention than does it now.”
Simone read a sentence on the page she had been staring at. The teacher kept her after so much she had become almost thankful since detention forced Simone to read or complete work, and this time when she had to study saved her from actually failing.
“Would it be so hard to focus just for a few hours every day to appease teachers?” Sara asked as they walked toward the cafeteria.
Simone stopped. “Yes, it would! It would, Sara. What does everyone want from me? I’m happy where I am.”
“Are you really happy now, Simone?”
After school Simone walked to the café. She had to forget her life for a few hours. The café sat in the middle of a crowded street in a row of brightly painted orange, yellow and red buildings. The building she entered was brick and should have stuck out more, but most eyes passed over it since strange smells and sounds wafted through the continually opened windows. The chef enjoyed burning food, but it still tasted great, and at least three different songs played at a time. A stay here tested one’s selective attention and courage to look past the surface. Simone first discovered the place last fall while roaming around the streets to calm down after another fight with her mother about her grades. It was a Saturday afternoon and Simone didn’t get a chance to eat before running off so she was quite hungry when she walked by. She heard music through the dancing curtains so she walked in and ordered something only to find the workers more interested in interrogating her about her favorite musicians than serving her. She had been fairly ignorant when it came to popular music than so listened intently to the intense debates between the various characters sitting at the bar.
Today Simone, who was now a regular, was greeted by Billy, the bartender who leaned against a wooden beam polishes glasses. “Howdy!” He said nodding toward her.
“Hey.” Simone slumped onto a stool.
“Rough day, kid?”
“Always is…” Simone put her elbows on the tables and looked at to Billy. He was the café owner’s little brother who worked here since his own high school days. He tried going to college for music but claimed to not have had it in him so he worked her and taught guitar on the side.
“Life sucks, but hell, we still have music.” He pushed the joint he was smoking to the side of his mouth and blew smoke into the air around him.
“Yeah…it does…” Dusty bottles lines the shelves behind the bar. Billy once said they served merely as decorations and anything really valuable they stored under the counter. She thought about asking…
“Don’t be so gloom. Here!” He offered the joint with raised eyebrows and a grin.
Simone shook her head. “If I came home high, my mother would kill me, guaranteed. It’s bad enough I smell like smoke…”
“They that hard on you?” He took another puff and rubbed his thumb over his goatee.
“Not really, I guess. She loves me fine and all, but I’m a screw-up, and everyone wants to correct me.”
Billy rolled his eyes and offered the joint again. “You sure? You wouldn’t be getting high—just going back to normal.”
“When I came home wasted over winter break, mom grounded me for a month. I couldn’t survive sitting in my house for a month now-a-days…”
“And here I was at least going to give you a drink.”
“Thanks, but I don’t know if I could keep anything down. I feel sick. I want to be sick. Maybe that would explain what is wrong with me…”
Another costumer walked into the café. The door swung behind him a few times before coming to a halt. The man sat a few stools from Simone; he smoke too and asked for the usual. Simone turned around. The café was mostly empty; it was too early for the real patrons who worked during the afternoon. Battered green chairs surrounded pine tables and abstract paintings hung on the walls. She felt like those paintings—every color, emotion within her streaked across the canvas for everyone to judge. She rubbed her eyes. Haze blurred her vision. If she wasn’t in the mood for her favorite stool at her favorite café with Billy, she wasn’t in the mood for anything so she stood up and went to leave.
“Hey, Simone?” Billy called. His voice echoed through the room—less gruff than previously. “It’ll get better. I promise.”
Simone smiled. “Better is sitting here, but my head hurts. My stomach feels like it is rejecting the nothingness I ate at lunch. Better is singing, but hell if-”
“Oh that reminds me! I got a new CD for you. Hopefully, it’ll help you chill out cuz you’re more restless than a dog in heat.” Billy tosses Simone a CD.
“Who is it?” Simone caught it and stuffed it in her jacket pocket.
“Nightwish, you’ll like them. They have a chick singer.” Billy then turned to refill his costumer’s glass so Simone left. The clean air outside hit her hard like a sponge trying to cleanse away all the dirt that caught in all the cracks in Simone’s surface. Even Billy couldn’t cheer her up; she thought of chucking the CD. Music would bring her more insult and inferiority.
When Simone walked through her front door, silence pervaded the home. She stopped to take her shoes off and look around. The clock struck 6:30; Simone heard it tick. Slowly the second hand moved around past the twelve heading toward the three. No one told her anything about not coming home that evening, but then she remembered she hadn’t told her mother she wouldn’t come home directly after class either. She might have headed straight home if the day hadn’t made her want to run away, to do anything but see her bedroom walls or her mother.
“There you are.”
Simone tensed. Her mother came from the back room carrying a stack of towels. She paused in front of Simone and frowned. “We need to talk, Simone.”
“I haven’t done anything! I’m tired. I’m going upstairs so well, I’ll see you later…”
Mrs. Simons shook her head. “No, Simone. No more excuses. I’ll give you five minutes to put your stuff away, but after that you better be sitting down here ready to explain yourself.”
Simone kept her gaze on the carpeting as she climbed the stairs. At times like these, the stairs were more of a walk of shame than anything. She remembered all the times she had been exiled to her room for talking back or fighting with her sister. Those times she never wanted to go back downstairs. Maybe her mother would kick her out and she would finally have the freedom she sought—if freedom was that illusive thing she desired these days. Even if she had a whole lot of time to practice singing, she’d still be running in place, running on some flat surface that never rose above the fog or the winding roads. Above the chaos, she could trace a pattern in her life, but here—here she spiraled farther and farther from peace, farther from beauty. Simone tossed her bag on the floor and dropped her jacket over it. She walked to the window and looked at the home next door and the little patch of sky through the glass. If a tree grew within range, she would have jumped free and ran into the woods or to the park so wouldn’t have to face her mother. But she had no such luck and she knew her mother would follow her up if she didn’t obey so she flipped the light off and once again took the walk of shame.
“I forgot to tell you I was going to stay-” Simone started.
“I don’t understand, Simone. What is going through your mind right now?”
“Nothing.” She fell into the sofa preparing herself to stay awhile.
“Really?”
“What do you want me to say? I hate you? I wish you would leave me alone?”
“Well, is that how you feel?”
Simone put her head back against the cushion and squinted at the track lighting on the ceiling. She didn’t know where to begin explaining her thoughts. They’d come out a torrential downpour bleeding the clarity from the situation like rain on ink—leaving her mind blank, but the air between them a mess. “Not really…I don’t know.”
“Simone, have I not told you enough times that education is important, that is does matter whether you sit in class twiddling your thumbs or actively listening?”
“You have. It’s not your fault I’m a failure, alright so never mind me.”
Mrs. Simons sat next to her daughter and took her hand. “You are not a failure, honey. It’s rough, I know. I work with teenagers all day. I see what you go through.” She smiled at her daughter, but Simone didn’t meet her eyes.
“Why aren’t you mad at me? I’m going to fail English, you know, because I haven’t turned in most of the assignments especially not the important ones. I get written up at least once a week for sleeping. Did you know that?”
“Yes, your teacher called me this afternoon and told me you weren’t paying attention and then didn’t hand in a memoir, but I do appreciate your honesty all the same.” She squeezed Simone’s shoulder, but Simone pulled away.
“Are we done?” Simone stood up and took notice of the blinds behind fulfilling their purpose by hanging in front of the window. She yawned.
“Go, but I’m here if you need something, if there is anything I could help you with.”
Simone fled. She closed her eyes as she lay under the sheets on her bed curled up in a tight ball. Why must her mother be so nice? She deserved to be yelled at, to be told to work harder, to figure what she wanted and work toward it instead of imagining she had an enchanting voice like the birds or the wind. Warm tears welled in her eyes, and they streamed down her face and puddled on the pillow where she had drooled last night. She saw herself sitting in a rainstorm with sheet after sheet of water drowning her, and she melted into the mud and dripped down into the ditch.
In her dreams, Simone quivered behind the curtain. Beyond it, people cheered waiting to see her face, to hear her voice. But she had no voice. She had rehearsed in the changing room that had her name on scribbled on the door and discovered only whimpers escaped her throat. She drank bottle after bottle of water, but her voice was still rough and scratchy like the towel she tried to wipe her eyes with. Her lungs were a cyclone sucking in all the air and excitement around her. Soon like the cyclone she would bring destruction and disappointment to the fans who came to watch her perform. Slowly the curtain crept up. The crowd could see her shoes now; they knew she existed. She tossed her head from side to side searching for an exit. Billy stood under an exit sign giving her a thumbs-up. Her throat burned like an angry wildfire burning the homes people spent so long to build and the dreams they had always labored toward. The curtain revealed her upper body and she heard the crashing of the drums and the swift guitar riffs that cued her to strut on stage and sing. She did sing, but she heard nothing. She heard booing and screaming, and the world shook. The black spots consumed her vision.
Simone slapped her hand over her mouth so her mother wouldn’t hear her screaming and come running. The sheets clung to her sweaty body and followed her as she rolled over to see the clock. It was 10:47 now. They didn’t wake her to eat; she slept two evenings away. She wondered if any sanity existed within her at all anymore.
She cast the blanket aside and tried to fall asleep lying on her back. She couldn’t so her flipped onto her stomach. It ached to lie on in that position. She ate only toast that morning. Soon she would shrivel away and would no longer have to worry about not having a voice because she wouldn’t have any psychical form either. Billy gave her a new CD that afternoon. Music was a relentless jabbing now, but he said she would like it. She claimed to like all music, but only music with some memorial trait stuck out in her mind. Every band, every voice she heard in the last week blurred into one, and she couldn’t imitate even that. Simone dragged herself out of bed to dig the CD from her jacket pocket.
The CD player beeped and hummed as it prepared to play the CD. She watched the word “loading” flash on the screen. Then she jumped because the volume blared too loud; the headphones weren’t in her ears, and she could hear the melody bouncing back and forth from the keyboards to the drums, from the guitar back to the drums. She grabbed the earphones so she could pop them into her ears, but the song’s vocal part started first. Her hand hovered inches from her ears, and she didn’t move another muscle. She gaped—the air caught mid-breath. Then Simone crumpled onto her bed. She sank down into the comforter listening to the woman singing. She lay still on her side as the song changed. Her pulse slowed down again and a cool breeze washed over her.
In this music, she heard her fantasies. They floated along with the crashing drums and the energetic keyboard ready for the singer to pluck and actualize with her angelic voice that soared above the world like bird that saw the treetops and the silver clouds. Those forces blended together to create this haunting song. The singer’s voice represented a world Simone never dreamed existed, or if it did, only a select few could enter. Her vocal cords didn’t snap as she sang higher. She could her voice, pilot the vessel that glided above the thunderous melodies the band played. She had no idea what lyrics the singer sang, but they seemed to patch Simone’s cracked surface. She felt wide awake like she could actually think—maybe even practice singing or study again. But she wouldn’t waste this moment on either of those things; she planned on lying here until she passed out listening to Nightwish and imagining she had a voice half as wonderful as their singer’s. She hit the ‘repeat all’ button and crawled under her blanket.
Simone awoke without an alarm or her mother yelling at her in the morning. Light streamed through the curtains and hit her face. She popped up feeling the heaviness of the CD player tug her back down. The music had stopped; the batteries must have died. She jumped out of bed and ran to her desk to get new batteries from the drawer. She had to know if she dreamed that music. Even if it wasn’t real, it would mark a record wonderful for her dreams. She tore the old batteries from the battery holder and shoved two new ones into the slots. After pressing play, her heart stopped again. In a way, she wasn’t that surprised. Her mind couldn’t invent something this magical.
As Simone showered she hummed the tune in her head. She heard it clearly, as if she brought the CD player into the shower. Since she listened to the CD all night, Simone decided the repetition had engrained it into her mind and thus made it apart of her brain. She scrubbed at her scalp trying to rub away three days of grime. The hot water opened her pores, left her skin a light pink. The flowery smell of her shampoo soothed her senses as if she was frolicking in a field of daisies, rolling around and feeling the dew on her exposed flesh. The flow of water that rinsed the soap and dirt from Simone carried her off like that singer’s voice, and she couldn’t help but smile.
Simone dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and wrapped her long, wet hair in the towel after drying her body off. She hopped down the stairs feeling the carpet through her bare toes. Her mother sat in the kitchen as always sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. She peeked over the top of the paper as Simone entered.
“Hey!” Simone waved.
Mrs. Simons frowned and folded the paper. “Are you feeling better?”
“I wasn’t feeling well? Oh…Yeah, I think…sorry…” Simone opened the cabinet door and took out a box of cereal.
“Simone, this is serious. I’m worried about you.”
“I know.” Simone poured the cereal into a bowl and grabbed the milk carton from the fridge.
“I want you to come home after school today. I have some tests to grade so I’m going to go sit at the library for awhile after picking up your sister. You should come. It’ll give you a chance to get some school work done.” Mrs. Simons stood up as Simone’s sister skipped in reading aloud from a battered chapter book. Simone crunched on the cereal. She wanted to ask “do I have to?” but decided her mother’s distraction meant “yes, you don’t have a choice, Simone.” Simone listened to her sister laugh. Back when she was twelve, she didn’t laugh like that, or when she did, she was hanging-out with Sara mocking anything and everything they passed. A few years before she was twelve, she first fell in love with music. She joined the school band, but wasn’t the best so she quit and became a spectator in the world of music. But it haunted her to see woman singing—especially those who she thought didn’t have a great voice. She felt she could do better so she started singing in the shower, as she listened to the radio and when she stood alone watching the world go by. She begged her parents to let her take singing lessons because her throat ached after singing, but the lessons only brought more pain. Simone took a last bite of cereal. She had to find out more about Nightwish. She dumped the dirty bowl in the sink and ran upstairs to finish getting ready for school.
Simone had run down the street to school so she arrivde twenty minutes early—early enough to slip into the computer lab and Google search “Nightwish.” She tapped her fingers on the desk as the page loaded. She felt a great force building up behind her ready to charge forward and wash the remaining dirt from her mind. Once she knew this band’s story she could truly call herself a fan, and then she could relax under the stairs and listen to their CD all day.
Simone decided to go to her literature class instead of retreating to the stairs first thing. She could pretend to be in attendance and still dream of Tarja and Nightwish while she sat in class. Another student read aloud and all Simone heard was Tarja’s voice rising above the sorrow of life. How many hours of painful practice did it take Tarja to sing like that? How many times did she want to surrender? The thoughts seeped from Simone’s mind like a waterfall cascading into a spring. Simone closed her mouth in fear that she would drool again if she daydreamed too much.
“Simone, you’re drooling!” Sara poked her.
“What!” Simone put her hand to her mouth, but she didn’t feel the dreaded wet spots.
“Hah, I knew that would get your attention.” Sara smiled and put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Actually you seem better…but a bit more distracted, which I’ll take as a good sign.”
“Oh Sara, I have the best news! I found the greatest band ever! They’re Finnish and they’re singer is an angel, I swear. It changed my life.” Simone squealed throwing her arms up in the air. Some guys walked by trying to hold in laughter. Sara glared. “Those guys are just jealous because their hair is greasy and mine is shiny.” Simone said.
Sara raised an eyebrow. “They changed your life over night?”
“It wasn’t just a night. It was an emotional voyage over a harsh river with sharks that would devour-”
“Oh Simone…with that imagination, I don’t know what you could do, but you could definitely be a singer and write your own lyrics.”
Simone stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Me? A singer?”
Sara yanked her out of the way of the hordes of students who shoved their way to their next class. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“I don’t know.” Simone’s head droped like a plant’s wilting leaf.
“If you didn’t why would you suddenly love Tarja so much?” Sara tilted her head.
“Wait, you know about Nightwish?” Simone snapped back to full attention.
“Uh huh, I’m actually surprised you only stumbled upon them last night. They’re cool. They have potential—like you!” She slapped Simone’s back. “Come on, we gotta go to English now. You don’t want to get another detention for being late, do you?”
“Did we have homework?” Simone asked through her teeth as they started walking again.
“We always do!”
“Better yet, I’m cutting class! I’ll see you later.” Simone skipped off pulling her CD player out as she fled.
Simone sat under a stair in an under populated corner of the school. Even if a teacher walked by, she could stand up and make it look like she was just heading from class to the bathroom. She put on her headphones and turned on the music. She crossed her legs and rested her head against the white wall. This was heaven; she could almost imagine herself floating through the sky on a cloud with angels singing beside her. So the teacher gave her detention yesterday; a detention she had to attend this afternoon, but since she promised her mother she’d go to the library with her, she couldn’t make the detention. Anyway if the teacher really wanted her to stay after, she would have mentioned it to her mother while she complained about her attention span and work ethic.
On her way home, Simone hurried—partially because she feared her English teacher would chase after her, lock her up with an English novel and force her to read until her mother came to yell at her for not coming right home and going to the library. The other part felt Nightwish’s energy leaking into her body through her ears and pumping through her veins into her entire body. A damp wind hit her face. Rain would come that night. She wondered if she could sneak out and sing in the rain as droplets smacked into her face. That is if she wasn’t grounded for the something or other she did between now and then…
“Hey, Mom!” Simone tossed her bag on the sofa next to her mother. “Are we going? We better be going because I’m supposed to be in detention right now.”
Mrs. Simons looked at her daughter. “What? Simone!”
“But you told me to come home-” Simone shrugged. “I’m going to grab a snack and then I’ll let you drag me wherever you want.”
“We’re going to the library so you can study…but go eat. You need to eat, Simone.”
Simone took a bite out of an apple and reentered the living room. “I think I want to be a singer, Mom.”
Mrs. Simons stuffed a stack of papers and a notebook into her purse. “You put a lot of thought into this?”
“Listen!” Simone held the apple between teeth and retrieved her CD player from the pile on the couch. “Billy gave me this CD yesterday, and it blew my mind! I mean seriously, I want to sing like this woman!” She thrust the CD player to her mother. Mrs. Simons took it with a slight smile and put on the headphones. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Mrs. Simons pinched her lips and looked from the CD player to her daughter’s glistening eyes. Simone clasped her hands at her chest, and she rocked from foot to foot. “It’s…different.”
“Exactly! That is why I love them. If I heard them next to a million other bands, I could pick them out!”
“Oh Simone if you really want to be a singer you have to see the subtle differences…”
Simone rolled her eyes and took another bite of apple. Was it too much to ask for a single day where she didn’t have to think about reality? She knew just because she said she wanted to sing like Tarja it wasn’t enough to make it come true. She saw less gleam in her mother’s eyes because her mother remembered all the other dreams she started off passionate about but then lost interest in as time passed. Maybe her mother thought the same thing would happen with singing, and that was why she pushed her hard in school.
“I’m serious. I know I don’t have the best attention-”
“Just stop, Simone. I understand you want to sing. I’ve known it since I walked by your room late in the evening and heard you sing—not the radio that you tried to cover your voice with but you.”
Simone blushed. She should have turned the volume higher, but at the time she couldn’t bring herself to do it; she liked hearing her voice more than the screechy, pop-voices on the radio. She thought about herself sitting on the carpeting in her bedroom close to the radio and singing along even if she didn’t know the words. If she listened long enough, she would know the words eventually. She remembered singing until her throat hurt, and then lying on her back staring at the cycling pretending it was an audience who wanted to hear her sing. When she drifted into sleep, the imagine became real and for that moment, she was a star. Reality interrupted though and left Simone with a painful throat and a million unreached desires. Why was she able to push herself when it was only her listening? Simone swallowed; she felt a lump in her throat.
Simone imagined sitting in a grassy field leaning back and watching clouds float above. They passed out of her arm’s reach—white cottony patches gliding over the smooth blue sky. She wanted to float beside them; she wanted others to watch her from the ground and point up because the sight of her marveled them. In her reoccurring dream, people praised her voice; people loved her. Right now, she couldn’t praise her own voice; she couldn’t be certain that she even liked herself. But she still looked up because she knew she had to go there—to the serene sky. She would practice so she could sing higher, ascend to angelic heights.

Second Semester

2010-01-21T22:25:00.001-08:00

I'm back at school!!! Second semester brought some changes to my door step. Obviously I'm in new classes (no more statistics or biological pysch), which will hopefully go well. I'm more excited about these classes than the ones I took last semester so we'll see how this goes...

The dorm looked even more like an institute when I returned. Even worse the room across the hall from and next to me is empty. Creepy much? I told everyone we should stick a flag in the hallway and declare this land our own. Good times.

I'm adopting a new attitude now-a-days. One that doesn't promote me murdering every little action I take like I used to do. Really I'm going to see when trusting myself to do what I really want will get me. I'm not saying I'm going to slack off, just not going to push myself should false expectations because I feel like I'm not 'normal.' I'm on a journey and sometimes the only way to know if I'm on the right path is to test the water.

At first the new semester scared me. I was walking home from the bookstore carrying heavy bags in my frozen hands thinking about how much work I had to complete, how hard the work will be. I almost cried. But I can see why things go. I'm stronger now. I know how to handle bad situations better. I know I can overcome.

But most importantly I know I can right again. It might seem weird, but since last semester I was convinced I couldn't write anymore. I felt my writing was too choppy and didn't flow like it should. I didn't have the same insight I used to. I thought I lost a part of myself and changed beyond repair.

I think I tried to kill the 'weak' part of myself and thus eliminate the 'strong' part because those parts of me that make me flawed are what make me 'me.' I would love to deny it, but I am the sum of good and bad, failure and sucess. I'm not just the invented image I have of myself in my mind. Once I would love to see 'me' through someone else's eyes. Maybe not even a good friend's but perhaps an aquitance just so I could see me objectively...

"We've all been sorry. We've all been hurt. But it is how we survive that makes us who we are."

Or what the lyric to "Survive" is.

I've really come to love the band Rise Against. Their song "Audience of One" really spoke to me. Actually anything about moving on from the past and losing friends really speaks to me. I guess that is just where I am at in my life.

Life

2010-01-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

When I think about all the things in the world that make me happy, the world doesn't seem like such an awful place anymore...

Maybe it is because these things I love are so simple. It's not the shiny new LCD tv that really gets me excited or the raw knowledge I posess that makes me feel accomplished, but the memories of creativity, of laughing free with only my heart to guide me that fill my heart with joy.

I'm trying to remember what my favorite band was back in 2007...back in time I am remembering and smiling about right now ^_^

I remember the pure feelings of excitment I had back in junior year...especially in the spring. I remember the way those puffy trees reached toward me and made me scream...

I guess WT wasn't that special to me yet. Wow. Random tangent.

I remember things just working out and feeling close to friends...I remember so much, but I am not crying. I'm happy. These are happy memories of joyous times.

I have so many good times in my heart. I would love to relive them all, but there is no time! I have to chase the future now. I always knew this day would come. I don't live in the same world I used to...not at all, but I'm not really a different person. I've grown up. I haven't 'changed.'

I would love to stay forever in a world of memory<3 But alas it is time to move on...I can only trust that these memories, the love I learned, the adventures, my insane schemes, the laughter, the embaressing moments and my entire past that I can never remember but now is there...reside in my heart and will fortify me for the coming struggles.

I bare everything I once was, everything I ever did and said, all the accidents and sorrow I caused, all the friends I once loved, teh stories I created and the identities I chose within my heart.

I realized a year ago that these things can never be my weapon...only armor.

Then what is weapon? What shall I fight?

Last year brought me many more questions, but it was also the beginning a journey--the journey I was meant to take, that my past prepared me for.

I'm smiling now...remembering....trying to make peace...I'm far from that point now really...but...I am not held down any longer.

Truth

2009-11-12T23:26:00.000-08:00

Awhile back in one of my classes, I learned that victims of childhood abuse deal with stress much worse than anyone else. This upset me terrible obviously! So my brain isn't wired correctly and I will never be right...will never response to the world right. I was obsessed with this notion for awhile, crying because I thought I was hopeless.

I violated my entire list of 'thoughts not to think'

I'M SORRY TO SAY, AMY. YOU ARE INSANE. YOU CAN USE IT AS EXCUSE OR A REASON FOR SYMPATHY, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT AND IT WILL NOT GET EASIER.

So let's not go there, okay? Let's just focus on the here and now and not on how we are wired for failure...Maybe I am more inclined to depression, maybe I do have more to overcome to succeed than most others...BUT...that also makes me more powerful.

I have a mission-- a reason to fight. I promised a girl I would free her, end this vile cycle and set us free.

In my own mind, I continue the cycle. I reject her, hurt her...tell her she is destined to fail, should not live, is evil...and I get comfort in these thoughts...WHY? I find comfort in thinking of suicide.

That is just dumb, Amy. Period.

One reason this is dumb...while you are writing this, you are DREAMING OF GOING TO FINLAND.

WHY WOULD YOU THINK YOU ARE A TOTAL FAILURE, WHEN YOU HAVE SO MANY DREAMS?

Okay. I'm getting tired so I'm going to sleep for awhile but please, let's be free from depressing thoughts.

Lost

2009-11-05T23:52:00.000-08:00

Somehow today I realized just how egocentric I am. EVERYTHING IS ABOUT ME. Maybe if everything wasn't about ME, I wouldn't be so depressed. Maybe if I'd wake up and see reality, I wouldn't hate myself. I often wish I could see myself from afar and see WHAT I REALLY AM because when I see me, all I see is a stupid, ugly person.

I am CONSTANTLY making fun of myself. CONSTANTLY. Like I am a joke or something. Because jokes are funny. No one takes jokes seriously. I don't take me seriously. That way when I fail, I have a safety net. I am a failure or I am insane. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM ME?

IT'S A BLOODY TRAP I AM STUCK IN.

I'm not sure I even know who I am anymore. I'm just wandering about, trying to move forward while being confused and voiceless. I'm pathetic. I can't be strong or optimistic. I just get depressed. I don't feel anything. I don't feel. I want to cry...to listen to WT until all my boundaires and defense melt away...

I miss myself...feeling, joy, love...

Words

2009-11-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

I don't have the words I need. There are not words for what I want to say from where I am now and I don't understand. I have always had a million and a half things to say...had a solution for everything. But I don't know. I'm not unhappy. It is not that I no longer get excited or don't laugh. I do. I just don't have my beloved voice.

I'm searching for something-songs,stories,conversations-that will guide me back to myself, but honestly, I once spent six monthes trying to get back to myself only to realize I never would wake with everything alright again. And there was no greater truth and since then that reality has hit be so many times...losing friends, seeing failure, hopelessness. REALITY.

I think I understand I am running from reality.

And I accept this fact.

Maybe the problem is now I am living in another world, one I invented with no suffering, no happiness, no creativity...

Am I afraid of what I would say?

Haven't Updated In Awhile...

2009-10-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Because my life got totally fucked up. Especially the month of October. Oh and I was upset that is September. I thought October would be better. Hell no. These past three weeks have sucked. Period.

This all began the evening of the day I first heard WT's new song "Utopia." I was INSANELY happy that whole day. I was glowing. Truly. But then I ate too many cookies and had to torture myself working out. I came home barely able to breath...and spent the next five hours coughing. Oh but it gets worse...I had a paper due the next afternoon that I had not even started, which I guess is my own fault, but I am always busy and I was sick that whole week *whinewhinewhine*. So I didn't sleep that night except for maybe an hour or so in the morning...I went about my day like normal...

I'm pretty sure that was the night, the ra told me to shut up. Apparentally she is my "superior." But when I asked her to use her "supperiority" to get the projector to work, she told me to shut up. I had no come back. I went to bed at midnight and slept nearly 12 hours.

One of my big mistakes was going to work-out Friday and Saturday after the terrible night work-out that almost killed me. I should have gone to the doctor instead...I ended up going to the emergency room at 11pm with some wonderful friends because I was still coughing and I was afraid of dying in my sleep. I had broncitis. Wonderful. We waited in the er for 7 hours! Then went to IHOP for breakfast...I slept for 2 hours that night since I felt so guilty that I hadn't done any homework yet that weekend. I had a short story to write and a ton of statistics to learn. That afternoon I spent trying to get the medicine the doctor at the er gave me. Worked, but that ended up being a bad thing.

I started writing the story after dinner. I was up all night. For the second night in the row. I was still sick obviously. The story was not what I wanted to write. Utopia made me do it. I started crying and screaming while I was writing. But I had to keep going. I don't understand...I do, but I don't. The wound it still open.

Come Monday, I don't have 18 copies of my story to pass out in class so it was considered late even though I was up all night writing. I did not understand statistics for anything. I cried from pure frustration. I don't remember if I slept that night...

But the next day found me even more emotionally stressed. I was on the verge of tears all day. I thought I lost my ID. I had to print copies of my story. I cried because my printer fails. I thought I was losing my ability to cope. Yeah.

I fail the statistics quiz. I didn't learn the material. I didn't care. It was a sacrifice. I wanted to sleep. I don't know if I did, but some time around then, I started being constantly starving and my heart felt like it was having a seizure. I was still having asthma attacks.

I eventually figured out it was the steroid I was on to open up my lungs that was causing me to be hungry and very energetic. I thought it was helping though...but my lungs still hurt. I took a lot of medicine. I got worse.

Thursday night, I go to sleep tired. Wake up at 3 unable to breath. I'm terrified. I'm up the rest of the night. I used my nebulizer, but it didn't even help. I thought I was dying since my heart still felt like it was going crazy.

I went about that day like normal again. By dinner, I have reached my physical and emotional stress limit and want to run into a corner and cry. Really I couldn't deal with anything. I really didn't know how I was going t get out of that one. Then my heart really started feeling weird and I got short of breath. I was lying on my bed in the dark and I was honestly afraid I was about to die. I text my friends who I left after I ate and said I was scared and needed help. They come. I kept scaring my friends. I'm panicing.

I go to the emergency room again. In an amublance. I have no strength to resist. Really. Turns out the steriod and the cough medicine the doctor from the first er gave me had a bad interaction with the blood sugar medicine I take and caused my blood sugar to go crazy and the weird energy I was had. I was beyond frustrated. I wanted to crawl up in a ball and never feel or think again. But at that point in time I pledged to rest until I was stronger. And I sorta did...We watched a movie that night and I was able to release. And I learned the true meaning of Utopia. I was finally able to learn the statistics that made me feel so dumb. I was still behind in most classes, but things were getting better...

I felt better for all of about two days.

I worked a dinner shift on Tuesday. Cleaning up, I spilled boiling water on my foot. I didn't take my shoe or sock off right away. It hurt so much. I say I'm fine. I always say I am fine. I was not fine. When I can leave, I go to the library where I know my friend was working. I just cry. I was biting my lip to prevent tears the whole time after I got hurt, but I sat in the hall outside the library crying. I felt stupid. I hated myself. I was in shock.

My foot blistered. I refused to go back to the ER. I sat there the rest of the night and elevated my foot until I was able to sleep. I humble over to the health center the next morning with only a sock on that foot. I had second degree burns. They wrapped the foot up so the blisters wouldn't break. I couldn't walk. I was so frustrated and ashamed.

I think at that point I was beyond the point of emotional overload. I was beating myself up about everything...about the comments on my story, about being behind, about not being able to do everything I had to. Thursday night I made a point to do no homework. I had a stomach ache though, but I slept and Friday was alright too, I think.

Saturday I went home when mum came to visit for Homecoming. It was great. Sunday was too and Monday as well since I got an A on the statistics exam.

I almost made it a week without hurting myself. On ym way to lunch on Tuesday, I fell down the stairs. On my stomach. I should have been hurt. I wasn't though, but I cried for awhile.

I'm scared now. What is next? Why can I not just be happy?

Confusion

2009-09-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today was one hell of a confusion.

I was exhausted from the start. I was going to get up at 8 but failed there and didn't go to the stats lecture that might have helped me more on my quiz. Then it turned out I couldn't finish learning the material for the quiz and had to take it before I could learn anything else...so I did after class but then left the computer standing while we went across campus for dinner and of course, the quiz was timed so when I got back I only had 13 minutes to finish...FAIL. Idiot. But I still got an A according to the quiz...lol.

Then I had this terrible feeling that I am a bad hall council president and this was only multiplied by the extremely giddy way I act when a certain person is around. She was sitting right next to me and I couldn't think, talk or move. Dang, I fell off the damn couch. A perfect example of how I was acting like an idiot to get attention so she would notice me. WTF. Okay so maybe I have a crush on her...How awkward.

Haven't done nearly enough school work...can't sleep until I do. *sigh* I gotta keep going though. I can keep up.

Pale

2009-09-06T23:53:00.000-07:00

When I was younger I didn't know weather could change almost instantly. I thought if it was sunny in the morning it was sunny that day and if it rained in the morning it was a crappy day...

Similarly when I was younger I used to think there were weeks when I would just be sad and nothing would break it. Then for whatever reason (usually cuz I had cut myself) I would just feel better and until things got bad again I would be happy.

A ton of things have happened since then obviously that has completely revolutionalized my thoughts on that subject...Now I know we can always fall victim to a storm, even if it was the brightest morning ever. So we gotta keep our eyes open and be ready!

When it comes to moods, I think I have slowly come to learn one can be happy and sad at the same time...like right now...I feel so sorrowful, but still full of warm, but then again I am listening to Pale and that right there is a very accurate description of Pale. I was listening to all these songs...mostly sad ones...but listening to sad songs when you are sad is just like jumping into the hole that wants to suck you in...so I try to cut to the chase and listen to Pale when I feel like this.

I truly love this song. When all else fails, WT is -was- the reason I have to stay.

The world happens...rain comes and ruins the bright morning...and life ruins our bright moods, but rain isn't that bad...that's what April Rain taught me last April. I love April now<3

I love that song...just not as much as I love Pale...WT will always be needed for my mental well-being since they are a part of me. While I was "rebuilding" my mind, WT was there...WT in entwined within me.

The world seems not the same,
Though I know nothing has changed.
It's all my state of mind,
I can't leave it all behind.
I have to stand up to be stronger.

I have to try to break free
From the thoughts in my mind.
Use the time that I have,
I can't say goodbye,
Have to make it right.
Have to fight, cause I know
In the end it's worthwhile,
That the pain that I feel slowly fades away.
It will be alright.

I know, should realise
Time is precious, it is worthwhile.
Despite how I feel inside,
Have to trust it will be all right.
Have to stand up to be stronger.

I have to try to break free
From the thoughts in my mind.
Use the time that I have,
I can't say goodbye,
Have to make it right.
Have to fight, cause I know
In the end it's worthwhile,
That the pain that I feel slowly fades away.
It will be alright.

Oh, this night is too long.
I have no strength to go on.
No more pain, I'm floating away.
Through the mist I see the face
Of an angel, who calls my name.
I remember you're the reason I have to stay.

I have to try to break free
From the thoughts in my mind.
Use the time that I have,
I can't say goodbye,
Have to make it right.
Have to fight, cause I know
In the end it's worthwhile,
That the pain that I feel slowly fades away.
It will be alright.

*shakes head* That is pure love...and no it does not mean I want to kill myself (like the pyschologist thought lol) "stay" can mean lots of things...I'm not going to deny there was a time when this song took on a more pyshical meaning for me...actually I think Pale came after the fact, but whatever...Pale made me see the real "reasons I have to stay" The friends I have to fight for, the dreams I need to fulfill and all that good stuff. Now by stay, I think I mean stay focused on what I need to do and not get too lost on the path of depression or running away.

Regardless, Pale is my favorite song.

69 Strikes Again...

2009-09-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

But isn't that life?

See 69 represents the coming together of opposites...say joy and sorrow, light and darkness and life and death. That is some insane symbolism right there and I didn't even get it until now. I didn't even do it on purpose today.

Last year on 9/6 (European 69 day) I saw Nw for the first time. I was going to see them in May of last year, but you know, that was when I was terribely depressed so I couldn't...so naturally seeing Nw meant a whole lot to me. Basically it meant that I was happy enough to enjoy things I love again and live again. That was a really funny evening...the guy with the taco I was going to throw at Anette, doing the SMG dance, getting lost under the city and having a homeless guy help us, the random guy who never e-mailed me back and not knowing who Tuomas was...BUT FALLING IN LOVE<3 So you have the contrast there...

Earlier this year on 6/9 we went to "Lover's Lane" which is basically a naughty store that sells well you can imagine what and then the cemetary. Talk about contrast right there...and of course, I adressed the wrong grave, but I know she would have loved that so I kinda feel proud of my dumbness.

And well today I was all happy then with the bird and a conversation I had with a friend made me see the pain that is this life. But in order to celebrate the year anniversary of Nw, we watched End of Era (Nw dvd of their LAST concert) Just like I repeatidly watch the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie with the hope WILL WON'T DIE. I keep watching EoaE hoping NW WON'T FIRE TARJA!!! WHY????

I always cry at the end of EoaE cuz NIGHTWISH DIES *tears*

But quoting ME again..."A new beginning always starts at the end" =)

This coming together of good and bad...is what life is...let's say 6 is good and 9 is bad...then well life is 69!!!

TAKE THAT PEOPLE WHO THINK MY MIND IS IN THE GUTTER CUZ MY WATCH BEEPS AT 6:09 EVERYDAY!!! 69 should be the title of my memoires...

Broken Wing

2009-09-06T18:04:00.000-07:00

I think I have mentioned I have four cats. A few hours ago, the cat that likes to pee on everything had a bird in its mouth and was playing with it. My brother goes outside and is like the bird is still alive (after Fenix put it down) but the cats were still attacking and Mr. Bird<3 couldn't run away...

So Mum and I put Mr. Bird in an ice cream cone box (lol) and drive him over to the animal shelter. On the way I looked into his tiny little black eye and just broke down into tears. I just knew he was suffering, scared, but I couldn't do anything but cry. I wanted to keep him, to make sure he got better, but that's not very realistic...

The worker who took him said the bird didn't look very bad and a supervisor would look at him then and a vet would the next morning...I just hope he was telling the truth. I know if we hadn't taken Mr. Bird in he would have died for sure (cats would eat him. It's their nature...), but I can't know what the shelter will do with him. I guess I just have to pray for Mr. Bird. He is so cute.

I love birds so much. PLEASE BE ALRIGHT MY DEAR BIRD<3

"I find my strength believing that their souls live on...until the end of time, I'll carry them with me"

SHARON.

WITHIN TEMPTATION.

MY LOVES<3

Sin

2009-09-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going to listen to "She Is My Sin" while I post this just because it is SORT OF related.

My sophmore year of highschool (four years ago ^_^) I had this english teacher who just didn't like me (I didn't misbehave that much...) Alex and I called her "Sin" after the main boss from FFX. Sin had this thing about English majors...YOU ALL SHOULD BECOME ENGLISH MAJORS!!! Oh Sin guess who is an English major...(kinda...)

The person you hated...who never talked in class and never read and made stuff up...and whose board game you gave a bad grade to despite the emmence amount of creativity and work that went into that thing...yeah.

Sin once told my parents, she wished I would work with other people besides Alex. I guess, she thought Alex was holding me back...that I was hiding.

This is very true too. I didn't want to walk alone then...couldn't do anything alone. I need someone else to justify my existence. She was my other half...still is...or at least the memory. I know I relied on her too much and that is why this hurts so much...

"I just thought we'd have more time." Alex once said senior year...We do and we don't...it's a choice. It's sad thinking back and funny and ironic and beautiful.

"All I loved, all I have known...but I believe I'm never far from home."

Listening to the theme song from Rogue Galaxy now...that of course is the game I was playing while I was really depressed so even the thought of it brings about WEIRD feelings, but I still really love the song.

Oh shit yeah I forgot..."Had enough symphonies of sorrow" I'm not going to listen to Poet and the Pendulum again...it's a little thing I have going on. It means something to me not listening to it. I would fail at explaining that though.

Long Weekend!!!

2009-09-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

WHICH MEANS I GOT TO GO HOME ON THE BUS!!! YIP XD

So I am home now. (Yes, the same home I used to hate being at, but that was summer. Now is different. Now I shall relax and be swell as a bell)

Got some really nice tea and music playing...TO BAD I HAVE LOTS OF HOMEWORK.

Blah. Waffles. I ate lots of pudding and whipped cream and cherries too. yay.

Feeling pretty good actually. Happy, feel like I've changed a lot. The world looks different...my world that is...which brings me to this:

"No matter how much we want something, we will not do it until we are ready"

It seems really obvious, but think about a bit. Personally, there have been I have dreamed of being or doing, but never took steps to have and of course, I felt terrible about it, but in retrospect, I realize I wasn't ready then. It was just a dream. Here I am now udnerstanding this...seeing all the things I have done in the past few weeks and knowing I have grown.

Here's the song of the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT8wH63UocU&feature=channel_page

This is her song. When we would talk in the beginning of the summer, I would listen to this and cry...especially the imagination part...I will always being waiting, Alex, but for now I'm excepting my best friend went away...maybe you'll come home one day...Please know I still dream of you, want you to know I will never give in.

Exciting!

2009-09-03T22:18:00.001-07:00

Today was pretty rocking ^_^

The morning was a drag though...I woke up at around 9ish...after a very nice WT aided rest, but I was far too restless to get any real work down so I was just poking around the introwebs until it was time for work...which brings me to the first order of business...I worked for the first time ever today!!! In the dining hall of my dorm, that is, which won't be so great once the novelty wears off but hey it was fine today. I got shifts that really don't interefere with my life that much since I have that time devoted to lunch anyway and Monday night isn't a really hard time for school work usually. Hopefully this all works out well enough. I was a little nervous cuz I can be a bit of a clutz and not pay attention and all that...likes this is really ironic. Right after I spent the last hour and a half cleaning, I spilled soda while I was getting lunch myself...Yeah, we rushed to rememdy the situation though ^_^

Also today I wrote a review of one of my favorite albums...April Rain (Delain lol)...and sent it off as an informal writing sample. I really want to write this entertainment magaziene on campus...Heh. Yip! Already had some friends say it was good, but I never know with my writing...I think it is rather cheesey or immature.

I just wish for once I could see myself for what I really am...objectively that...like the rest of the whole who is not me does. Then maybe I would truly believe I am smart, talented and all that. I'm getting really tired of putting myself down all the time...really tired of saying bad stuff about myself just in case the person I say it to thinks that to so it is like I am making a joke out of it. That is all cowards work. I have things I want to do...and I'm only holding myself down here with all these thoughts that I am ugly, awkward, lame, unlikable and whatnot.

But honestly after growing up with all this rushing through my head, it is hard to escape...but then again I am quite good at getting way from my past. Regardless, I must keep following this path...

"Have to stand up to be stronger"

Sadness

2009-09-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

I know fully understand why Angels Fall First (in caps because it is a Nw song<3 and album for that matter)

Angels are too pure for this world so they must die so they cannot have the chance to be corrupted. If they didn't die necesarily they would become darker, more experienced and would cease to be angels anyway. Tis much better than to die an angel than to live a life of "surviving."

Reminds me of my all time favorite poem "Songs of Innocence and Experience" by Blake! Yip, I am a Romantic...not always a fun thing...but hey Tuomas is a Romantic. We need to hook-up totally!

I do believe I will go listen to Amaranth now. I love Amaranth (not necesarily the song but everything never-fading represents)

So to those Nw gurus...has anyone else ever seen the connection between AFF and Amarannth...which is symbolic for Nw in that each was on a "first" cd. Perhaps more on this later, but now I really have to go...(it is not 4 am either like when I used to post here...)

An Update...

2009-09-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't posted anything here since the Monday of the week I returned to school. Well as the previous sentence says I returned to school!!! Yip, very exciting ^_^

Sadly though, my excitement lasted about one day...then I was overwhelmed with work. Brillant me had to take six classes...most of which involve lots of reading

And I have to stop typing for a second since I forgot to finnish some of the homework for one o fmy literature classes...

And finnished it it now.

I tend to think my life has more meaning when I am busy...better than sitting around wasting time on the internet...like I did all summer. WTF.

See this how I hate myself...I hate everything I was and will do anything not to be like that...this is not healthy. But how can I like myself? The one person who knew me most rejected me...

The downside to being busy is you don't get to go too deep into anything...and deepness is what I love most, isn't it...when I am focused on getting work then my mind can't focus on a single thing long enough to figure it out and I am just left terribley confused.

Like I am now. Confused, feeling unloved, insecure and totally wrong. Not like me at all. Me...

I told my friend I changed over summer, but not in a way I could really describe and this is true. I don't understand myself now...I don't know who I am...why I am doing all this...

Two nights in a row I dreamed of her...of us being reunited. Then last night I dreamed a fire destroyed my house. Two nights in a row I woke up gasping even though I could breath...last night I was listening to WT and stopped myself.

WT sounds foreign. It sounds boring...

I guess I'm jsut restless...searching for that one thing that will define and fix everything that I am feeling right now. I've been here before...patience I guess will save me with time.

Maybe I have grown up...come to understand the lie that is passion and innocence and the trouble these things get you in. Maybe I've become cold and can no longer trust...

But alas I must go work-out now...the brief time that I get to escape into my own world and just listen to music ^_^

You are out there somewhere, right Sharon?

Tarja's Birthday

2009-08-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my adorable, favoritest Finn turned 32! Happy Birthday Tarja<3 Hope your day was as awesome as you are!!!

In honor of the occasion my friend and I baked a cake (there were also brownies baked but those didn't last long enough to take a picture. We were watching 17 Again -Zac Efron is such a hottie<3-> and I was like pause the movie, I want them while they are hot so we had so then...but when baked goods are really hot, you can't really taste them that well so warm is best! But point of this story...while we went to get the frosting and blue stuff for the cake, a certain brother of my friend -who is my son lol- ate the rest of them!!!

IT'S FINNISH!!! ^_^ Honestly I have wanted to make that for the longest time, but just finally got around to it...Just in case it ever comes up again...CAKE IS BETTER MICROWAVED. In the stove it gets dry, but microwaved cake is very moist and delicious and warm!!!

Oh and every time we go biking in the forest, it rains! Back on the 4th of July it was pouring and the ground was wet and soggy so we were literally covered in mud when we were finnished. Yesterday it started raining toward the end of our ride so we go sorta wet...not nearly as big of a mess though...

Well I cannot believe it is August 18th...only a few days left before I'm back off to college!!! Exciting times!!!

Nervous

2009-08-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

About school mostly. Probably uncalled for concerns, but still they exist. I do pity all the incoming freshman. Your first day of college is very traumatic, but sopmore year should be less traumatic. I have friends, I know the dorm very well, know where all the buildings are so I won't get lost and just generally have been alone before...but still I can't help, but think I might not be good enough, people won't like me, I won't be outgoing enough...what ever else comes up along that line of thoughts. I'll be happier about school once I get back into the flow of things. Still have things to prepare for though..need to do some shopping mainly.

Song of right now is (maybe not of the day since the day just started, but I don't have anything better to say right now so here's the song!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNFCODsZiRQ&feature=channel_page

On friends...

2009-08-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

I thought this one up yesterday afternoon before my mind got totally fried by things and didn't feel like doing any deep thinking.

In light of losing my best friend, my whole outlook on friends and relying on people has totally changed. I used to think she was my other half and I could not be complete without her. Obviously this isn't true since I have fought perfectly well on my own all this time, but I truly relied on this reality of knowing someone understood me in the past when I was so tormented. Looking upon myself with more lucid eyes I understand that we are ultimately our own best friends. It is up to me to accept myself, to comfort myself and to fight for myself.

For me though I find that I find tons of comfort in my imagination. Hell, I have an imaginary friend ^_^ Really in my mind there is someone with me who represents what I think the perfect friend would be...so I can say my best friend is the sum of everything I find perfect and everything I would want to be...some of this gathered from bands I love, from places I love, from far off fantasies I wish I could live...you know...

I present you the song of the day: Lunatica's WHO YOU ARE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ydR1OPTxKU&feature=channel_page

Frozen and broken
Don't know where you're going
Losing your identity
You're so caught up in hiding
But everybody sees

You're never gonna feel
You're never gonna heal
You're never gonna know what's fake or real
'Til you know who you are
You're lying to your face
And running in a race
You're never gonna win 'til you find your place
And you know who you are

You're crawling and falling
But no one hears you calling
When you're in a world of glass
'Til your bubble bursts
And the true you's first
You're always coming last

[Chorus]

You take yourself apart
To medicate the pain
It shouldn't be this hard
To believe in you again

Totally true!!!

Green

2009-08-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

In my memories, August was always a very green month with the grass a nice shade of emerald and leaves everywhere. Nature was lush and alive.

This August has not been like that. Last time I mowed the lawn, it wasn't really even necesary since the grass hadn't actually grown much. It was mostly weeds that don't get that tall. There is a weed in my back yard that is taller than me though. It protects our junk pile where the rusty grill, the tipped basketball net, some plastic crates and metal poles are amidst weeds of every type. The canoe is also in front of that mess...poor canoe never got used since the equipment to tie to the car was in my father's trunk and plus who can lift that thing. I ain't that strong. I would rather kayak anyway...in the rapids we certainly don't have around here. We used to kayak in my highschool's pool. Junior year it was the kewlest thing since toast. Lots of friends were in my class and it was just a total blast and actual trust building thing. The teacher pushed us off the high dive in a kayak!!! Total trip...Oh how I missed that guy when he suddenly didn't come back next year. I will never understand why everyone I like has to go away and leave me alone to struggle and deal with replacements and change. In that same class we also climbed the rock wall and that experience has left a permanent mark upon my heart.

His words were essentially this to me "Don't quit on yourself. You are afraid to stand up and that is why you cannot reach the top." It almost brings tears to my eyes thinking about this now. I reached the top of all those routes (with my friend's help of course) and I don't have any regrets about that at least, but each time I climbed since then (at college we went a few times) I felt bad if I failed. Am I letting myself down? Him down? I'm trying...

But back on topic, my yard is light green. Perhaps we haven't gotten enough rain this season, which is cery likely since I don't think we got alot...Today it rained really hard though and it was windy so the rain was forming an arch as it hit the car. We were in Wal-Mart for this and I skipped to the window and thought OMG SOOOOO KEWL!!! I didn't get the chance to use my Ikea umbrella though...

Ever Dream isn't playing *dances* It is Mother Earth<3 "I find my strength believing that their souls live on" Oopes now it is "Never-Ending Story" NES might be my favorite ME song...besides Ice Queen and Caged that is.

Is there symbolism in my yellow-green grass?

Another Song

2009-08-15T22:35:00.001-07:00

That summed up how I feeling today is Rise Aganist's "Pray of the Refugee" The song is written about the poor children who are forced to work in sweatshops or at least that is what the music video is about. Music's meaning though is dependent upon the listener though so my interruption of the song applies to my own painful youth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOtNqDyyX2c&feature=related <--- Music video

Keep quiet no longer
We'll sing through the day
Of the lives that we've lost
And the lives we've reclaimed

Go!

Don't hold me up now
I can stand my own ground
I don't need your help now
You will let me down, down, down!

That last verse applies to me a lot. All the people who should have helped me all along let me down and right now I just need to make something of myself with my own two hands.

*goes back to listening to Ever Dream*

Hmmm...other non-WT, Nw or Delain songs that really describe me I can post here...*thinks*

HAH, I know. I can rant here about Delain's cover of the song "Cordell"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk2vju1LU8s&feature=channel_page

*just realized this* IS THIS ILLEGAL? I am allowed to talk about bands and people here? It shouldn't be since I am saying bad stuff about my friends and family and good stuff -mostly- about the bands. WT should be thrilled. I have numerous times acredited them with saving my life...*end*

Though I am not going to lie...this song reminds me of the place company that has the same name...-which I could be completely making up.

You meant something more to me
Than what many people will see
And to hell with the industry

I don't think anyone knows how much certain things mean to me...myself included in that.

*sigh*

Less than a week until I go back to college. I do not know how to feel about this. I am wondering why my roommate hasn't contacted me yet. I was going ot text her earlier and ask, but then I didn't want to accuse her of not contacting me when I hadn't done it either X_X

lol. I just found my way to my favorite Delain-related thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LdLCUcwCyc&feature=related

It's the version of "I'll Reach You" that was performed to benefit some charity. But honestly CHARLOTTE IS SOOOOO CUTE IN THIS. I'm jealous. I want to be pretty...and oh yeah, have a good life.

Sorrow has a human heart...

2009-08-15T21:43:00.001-07:00

Well the good news is I finally have the album version of Sleeping Sun (I deleted mine back when I thought both Oceanborn folders I had my exactly the same...they weren't and I lost my favorite song) Such a beautiful song and such an awesome music video (the original Tarja in a bathtub version that is) I forgot about the SS music video when I made my top five list, but honeslty I don't think most of Nw's videos are THAT great...not like WT's<3333

Speaking of WT, I've been in a NEED TO HEAR WT ON REPEAT UNLESS I'LL CRY mood today and yesterday. Actually today was one of the most painful days I have had in a while...since maybe the nights I would talk to her and just break down in tears of disbelief and not wanting to accept what was going on...

Well here is the story of today's sorrow...I was really happy this afternoon after mum and I went to see Julie and Julia (five dollar tickets before noon!!!) I was listening to Ice Queen and loving the lryics "The sun awakens and sees the dawning of a new day" I was waiting in the car for brother to come out. He was looking for his ipod cuz he didn't want to drive for twenty minutes to a resturant without it cuz you know since I was driving I had WT on and that's is sooooo horrible. So after mum makes him come out without since she doesn't wantto wait anymore, he makes this big fuss about how my music was on too loud and he wanted to be dropped off if I wasn't going to turn it down. I went to put gas into the car then...basically as we were turning into the station Mum lowers the music saying she doesn't want to hear it either and wants to prevent a fight. I stop the car, throw the keys into her lap and walk home (it's is only a few blocks)

My thoughts were this "She made her choice. Now she must live with it." I was ready to go back to school right then and there. I should not have to put up with this woman who can easily tear me apart to prevent fights. My whole life I was the one hurt in the end. My brother would start things, violence, arguments and scare the shit out of me and eventually I'd do something to try to stop it and I'd be the one blamed. Once there was a fight and I actually thought he was going to hurt someone (was when I was in junior high) so I take my mom's cell and dial 911. She comes outside and wrestles the phone from my hands threatening me because I called the police. If she knew this still bothered me she would say that was many years ago, let it go. I'll never forget that moment or the time she threw me through the door. What the hell did I ever do to deserve that? I was so young, I had no idea what was going on...

But if you ask her, she was not an abusive mother. Well that's not fair to say. Her intentions are pure, I know for certain, but it's the acting out of them where I get hurt. She will do anything to prevent a fight -in the case where I called the police she would do anything not to let others see what was going on behind our closed door. Could never tell this one to her...but she also didn't know what was going on behind my closed door in the middle of the night all those years, but whatever...no one suspects that.

I just wish someone would chose me above all else, someone would come and protect me. Hell, even comfort me. I have fought alone to be strong, to live through abuse after abuse, shame after shame, fear, rejection, failure and everything else an angry, confused child faces while she tries to have some semblence of hope and love. My fantasies came in here. They always protected me from truth, gave me somewhere to inhabit while I was alone. Whether it was an imaginary friend I wish I had, a video game I was obsessed with and its characters I wished I was, a story I created in my own mind to parallel and hopefully free myself from my own woes. I've always been big on the fantasy where I had magical powers and could save the world...yeah you know because I have always felt so damn powerless. I so wish I could pick up a sword and slash away at the evils of the world. Now a days my comfort is mostly music...I'm certain I would not be alive still if it weren't for Within Temptation at least. Now I understand WT didn't save my life. It just gave me the strength to help myself, but the comfort WT's music gives me is amazing.

Mum always asks me repeatidly if I love her, says I think she is a coward. She tells me how I feel, what I think. I have heard it all so many times. I told her today she broke my heart. There really is truth in this. My heart is broken, but not just from her. My heart was broken when I four when he first tricked me, touched me...even though then I had no idea what was going on. I didn't come to terms with what he did until after he stopped. Even thinking back now, it seems unreal my life has had no much pain...My heart was broken by the fear of watching my parents fight, being so scared and confused and lashing out at the world, being punished and hating myself, rejection at school, never being good enough at sports or smart enough, teh shame of being who I was, being alone, being teased, having people think there was something wrong with me...Most recently my heart was broken my that friend and my mother's continued ignoring of what I really need.

I hurt so much. I cry and then I find some way to cheer myself up so I can go on. Then sometimes else hurts me and each time it hurts more. I have cried more recently than I ever did and when I say cry I mean cry alone. It's the people who should be comforting me who make me cry, but that is the story of my life. But alas I have also been happier this past year than ever before. I guess I just started living and that comes with stabs from the good and bad. I have gotten strong, better able to deal...Some of the things I get upset about now, would have destroyed me years ago...and I mean this. I would never hurt myself now. I am not my enemy. If everyone else finds it necesary to make me bleed, I will be the one who hugs myself and says it is alright ^_^

Ever Dream always come on while I'm posting...Gods, I love this song!!! It really sums up what I'm feeling right now...

Would you do it with me
Heal the scars and change the stars
Would you do it for me
Turn loose the heaven within

Yip. LOVE THAT SONG!!!

Burden of Dreams

2009-08-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

Perhaps more on this later, but I want to get it off my chest now. Plus it's proof I was thinking of something other than Nightwish today.

While I was at the bookstore writing earlier I was thinking about all the stress placed on today's youths. It really strikes everyone, but perhaps the rich children who have to be perfect and do well at sports and get straight A's in honors classes. Now before I go on I was -to a certain- degree one of these students. I was in a sport and honors classes, but let's call me a rebel for now. I didn't quite fit in any of those places. These children face the burden of expectation.

The burden of expectation is the feeling you need to be as good as someone and live up to what they expect for you...like if someone's parents are smart and athletic, the child feels they need to be too to impress their parent. The child feels they have to be perfect at everything since their parents demand this of them. Maybe the parents don't do it on purpose either, but there are a lot of unspoken expectations out there. For me it was never even debated I would go to college, it was unimaginable that I would be grades lower than B's and no one ever even considered the thought I might try drugs, alcohol or sex. Now all of things do fit with my personality so I'm not living any double life here and I'm not about to rebel because of unfair restrictions. One thing about myself though...I was always considered to be smart so obviously I would go into something math/ science related. If we weren't free of my father, I would still be I think. Only out of his expectation for me acheive in school do I find it possible to follow what I truly enjoy. I cannot help, but his reaction to me studying creative writing over science would be.

Now the other burden out there is the burden of dreams. This applies to all the children out there who are the first in their to really have the chance to be something more. All the dreams and sacrifices of the people who brought the children to this point rest on these kids. I fall more into this catagory especially when it comes to writing, to having a family, to being happy. On days when I'm feeling strong, this is a major motivation to me. I've said time and again I want to break the chain of abuse and be more than a victim. There are days though I take this as a burden. Those days I want to give up, to surrender to the world with all its apathy and pains. Yes, there are times when I feel I am fighting because I have to and not because I want to. Many sacrifices have been made for me and I have seen so many dreams fade. I will not repeat this. I cannot let Mum down, I cannot prove all my thoughts of insanity or evilness correct and most of all I cannot let my inner self who was hurt so badly so young down. I want to fulfill her dreams.

I had this picture in my Sharon Shrine on the wall of my dorm room last year. When I was packing up the night before summer, I tore it. I was so devasted. I was afraid it was some terrible omen. Then I taped it and I realized I already live with this symbolism all around me. My life was torn and hopes shattered, but this hope was restored, taped, renewed...whatever the word! Don't tell me it was any coincidence it was THAT picture...Frozen, holding on to innocence, protecting the young. Yeah Sharon is always there so me...