Day 5: Prodigal Son and Sacrificial Lamb
Good news or bad news. Which do you want first?
My college friends decided that they would love to hang out with me on Monday. They all drove over and we spent some time running around Chillicothe in the light of a full moon and just catching up in my basement. Late nights like these remind me of what we used to do together and the people we used to do things with. Several hours of just hanging out like we used to? Perfect.
After they all went home I stayed up, filling my time with New Vegas until about 5 AM. I didn't pass out until about 6. At about 9, I was ripped from my bed by two of them and taken to a little place called Track Inn for breakfast. Altogether, the morning was enjoyable, though the food was anything but impressive.
Sleep deprivation magnifies a particular part of my personality that often gets me in trouble. While Skyping with the aptly and affectionately named Walls of Jericho I began my daily negativity and bitching ritual. He was left unamused. And right as the conversation switched gears to something else, BLAMO, my internet goes out. Turns out my provider's IP servers decided to take a coffee break. A whole day without internet. At this point I was thoroughly put out.
I awoke later to find my sister, mother, and grandmother talking at the kitchen table. I get my dinner, sit down, and join the conversation. The conversation was... awkward. It included legalization of marijuana, spirituality, the Opium Wars, the great things drugs do for people, backstabbing friends, blah blah blah. So when the spirituality topic came around my brother got a little miffed by my sister and stormed off after she began to confront him about his reaction to the things she was saying.
-Side Note- How do I describe my sister? She is the eldest, I am the second. I was in counseling a few years ago and when I was describing the relationship I have with her, my counselor told me about how strange we both were. Ordinarily, in a family like mine, the oldest child took on the responsibilities, while the second born became the rebellious one. The way my sister and I turned out flipped this token.
At the beginning we seemed to fit this perfectly, I was the black sheep of my family and always had poor grades, while Mary was an athlete, a fine student, quite social. Then when she got to high school she went wild. And here is where the problems not necessarily begin, but certainly intensify. My sister started seeing different people, doing different things, all things I have not and will never do. Disappointing things. She dropped out of high school senior year. She was constantly partying, having parties at our house. Then she came out and went to live with her girlfriend. She seemed happy, but now she's back after they broke up.
--Side Note of the Side Note-- The one of the few things I cannot get over nor accept about her is how my parents are around her. No matter what she's done, no matter how much money she's taken from them, no matter what she says to them, she is always welcomed back with open arms. The Prodigal Son. Is this sibling jealousy? Most certainly. Am I jealous of the things she gets to do? Fuck no. I don't want anything to do with it, but is it fair that she gets to trot around doing whatever she wants and come back with no consequences? I don't think so.
Meanwhile back at the ranch...
A few days later, I believe, was my senior prom.
-the last Side Note-
It's been weeks since I started writing this post. The emotions I felt when writing it have dissipated, but the thoughts in the back of my mind still remain. I can't quite remember all the dates, but here it goes.
I didn't go to my senior prom, mostly because my junior and sophomore years I had some bad experiences during prom. Plus, I had another Saturday detention. The last thing I wanted to do was spend money on a school function. The Saturday was horrible, as usual, and things at home were not any better. In the evening, something happened between my mother and grandmother. I believe both were intoxicated, but the result was a screaming match. It was brutal and sad.
It's these two events that make me think I can't leave. What will happen to my brothers if I'm not there? I feel like I have to be the Sacrificial Lamb. Give up my dreams to protect them. It's not fair, but I'm almost willing. Yet, here I sit, finishing this from my college residence, and I still fear for them.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
We all belong
Day 4: The Breakfast Club
Today is Saturday. I am sitting in Saturday detention. All the work I have requires a scientific calculater, and since I couldn't find my purse, and since the business classes apparently don't use the wildly important logarithm and ln functions I'm sitting on my hands with a dinky OfficeMax calsumader trying to rewrite each expression as a single natural logarithm without the LOG or ln buttons. Shiny. The real problem here is not the math, which I'm sure if I could concentrate I would probably find that for part of the assignment I don't really need a calculator, the problem here is the events leading up to my current bodily occupation.
I slept through dinner last night, in fact I slept until about 6:15 this morning. So when I woke up I basically decided NOT to go to this detention. My VP has told me multiple times to call myself in if I'm ever "sick" just so he wouldn't have to punish me with extra Saturdays. I was laying in bed thinking about this and trying to decide when the best time to call would be when I heard Chewbacca bellow his familiar wookie calls. My mother had texted me wondering if I had a detention, and, inexplicably, I said yes. I roll out of bed, get ready, and text her back asking if we can stop and get something to eat. Sometime later, I pull into McDonald's, the bane of my mother's existence, and get in the far line, a poor decision.
-Side Note- Where do I begin to explain my mother? For the moment I'll just say that out in public she gets this strange idea that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is out to get her, literally driving because they know that she too is out at that exact moment, and relish the possibility of ruining her day.
Back at the ranch, my mother sees a woman pull into the other line and she freaks because now she will be served before us. My mother is panicking because if I'm late to my Saturday, they won't let me in when I know for a fact that they wait for at least 15 minutes before moving back to the rooms. She will hear none of this. This woman, this McDonald's, I have stolen a precious hour, more like 30 minutes, from her day. Oh God, the work she could have accomplished if she only had 30 more minutes.
-Another Side Note- I think subconsciously my mother hates that McDonald's, and Chillicothe in general, because the site where the restaurant was built used to be a church. A church where we held my sister's funeral.You look outside the northern windows and you can see the place where three generations of my family are buried. Every time she takes me to school, there they are, her father, her brother, and her 3rd daughter. For me it's a constant reminder of the effect unresolved grief has on a family, for her I don't know what it means. Maybe nothing. Sometimes I think about Leah. I think about how my family would be different had she survived. Would my parents have divorced? Where would we be? Would my brothers have been born? I think about her fragile, little bones, her weak heart and lungs crushed by the earth bearing down on the cheap coffin, the only thing they could afford. I have to move on now because crying in front of the Breakfast Club would be unforgettably embarrassing.
Back at the ranch, once I get my food I attempt to zoom out of the place while my mother continues to bitch about the set up of the drive thru. I make a California stop hoping I could make a break for it in the gap in front of me and she starts screaming about the stop sign. Cue an awkwardly positioned stop, dirty looks from other drives and a headache and embarrassment for me. Distraught with the whole morning I leave the car and forget my phone. One helluva morning if I do say so myself. At this point the whole day is labeled Fuck It.
I now have 40 minutes left of this detention. I've got two girls I know and like; three I don't know, but probably don't like; two freshmen, a ginger jock who compared me to Velma (hurr hurr) and an apparent scene kid; the brother of my sister's friend; and the two chaperones, the business and consumer ed teacher and the sub everyone hates. I call him Grumpy. He's quite socially awkward, but the man's got a heart of gold. Since I spend so much time in Saturday detention and in-school suspension, I spend a lot of time with him. Because I'm kind, he talks to me, and if I'm talking I'm not alone in my own head, which is always a good thing.
Damn, this post on hard copy is already almost 3 pages, and I haven't even written about dreams yet.
This dream is only the last section of a larger, longer, stranger dream:
-Spoilers for Mass Effect 2-
I was Commander Shepard and I was returning home to Earth to visit my family before embarking on the suicide mission to the Collector base in the galactic core. My mom's a horticulturist, she loves plants, so I brought her an alien plant. I had it potted in a common adobe pot, but instead of soil the plant lived in sand. Just one little stalk poked out. I remember putting the plant on the window sill above my Grandma's kitchen sink while talking to my mother. We were arguing about something, I think about my career choice, and I decided not to tell her that I probably wouldn't see her again.
In conclusion, all of these posts make it seem like I've got a really strained relationship with my mom. Lulz. Sorry Person-I-hung-up-on-because-I-was-mad-and-depressed-and-feeling-sick.
Today is Saturday. I am sitting in Saturday detention. All the work I have requires a scientific calculater, and since I couldn't find my purse, and since the business classes apparently don't use the wildly important logarithm and ln functions I'm sitting on my hands with a dinky OfficeMax calsumader trying to rewrite each expression as a single natural logarithm without the LOG or ln buttons. Shiny. The real problem here is not the math, which I'm sure if I could concentrate I would probably find that for part of the assignment I don't really need a calculator, the problem here is the events leading up to my current bodily occupation.
I slept through dinner last night, in fact I slept until about 6:15 this morning. So when I woke up I basically decided NOT to go to this detention. My VP has told me multiple times to call myself in if I'm ever "sick" just so he wouldn't have to punish me with extra Saturdays. I was laying in bed thinking about this and trying to decide when the best time to call would be when I heard Chewbacca bellow his familiar wookie calls. My mother had texted me wondering if I had a detention, and, inexplicably, I said yes. I roll out of bed, get ready, and text her back asking if we can stop and get something to eat. Sometime later, I pull into McDonald's, the bane of my mother's existence, and get in the far line, a poor decision.
-Side Note- Where do I begin to explain my mother? For the moment I'll just say that out in public she gets this strange idea that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is out to get her, literally driving because they know that she too is out at that exact moment, and relish the possibility of ruining her day.
Back at the ranch, my mother sees a woman pull into the other line and she freaks because now she will be served before us. My mother is panicking because if I'm late to my Saturday, they won't let me in when I know for a fact that they wait for at least 15 minutes before moving back to the rooms. She will hear none of this. This woman, this McDonald's, I have stolen a precious hour, more like 30 minutes, from her day. Oh God, the work she could have accomplished if she only had 30 more minutes.
Back at the ranch, once I get my food I attempt to zoom out of the place while my mother continues to bitch about the set up of the drive thru. I make a California stop hoping I could make a break for it in the gap in front of me and she starts screaming about the stop sign. Cue an awkwardly positioned stop, dirty looks from other drives and a headache and embarrassment for me. Distraught with the whole morning I leave the car and forget my phone. One helluva morning if I do say so myself. At this point the whole day is labeled Fuck It.
I now have 40 minutes left of this detention. I've got two girls I know and like; three I don't know, but probably don't like; two freshmen, a ginger jock who compared me to Velma (hurr hurr) and an apparent scene kid; the brother of my sister's friend; and the two chaperones, the business and consumer ed teacher and the sub everyone hates. I call him Grumpy. He's quite socially awkward, but the man's got a heart of gold. Since I spend so much time in Saturday detention and in-school suspension, I spend a lot of time with him. Because I'm kind, he talks to me, and if I'm talking I'm not alone in my own head, which is always a good thing.
Damn, this post on hard copy is already almost 3 pages, and I haven't even written about dreams yet.
This dream is only the last section of a larger, longer, stranger dream:
-Spoilers for Mass Effect 2-
I was Commander Shepard and I was returning home to Earth to visit my family before embarking on the suicide mission to the Collector base in the galactic core. My mom's a horticulturist, she loves plants, so I brought her an alien plant. I had it potted in a common adobe pot, but instead of soil the plant lived in sand. Just one little stalk poked out. I remember putting the plant on the window sill above my Grandma's kitchen sink while talking to my mother. We were arguing about something, I think about my career choice, and I decided not to tell her that I probably wouldn't see her again.
In conclusion, all of these posts make it seem like I've got a really strained relationship with my mom. Lulz. Sorry Person-I-hung-up-on-because-I-was-mad-and-depressed-and-feeling-sick.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Basement Feelings
A lot of the dreams I have are very vivid and follow some sort of logical story. A lot of them are nightmares. I wake up upset and anxious, some even ruin my whole day. Most of the time when I have a nightmare it's because, for some reason, I get over heated in my sleep. I wake up sweating, my clothes damp. This just started this year and I'm not really sure why.
This dream I awoke from crying:
Something was happening to the world. I suppose some sort of disaster was on it's way, a meteor, a pole shift, something like that. The whole place was up in arms, there were riots and mass hysteria. I was sitting on my roof, we didn't have any power. The sun was setting and I remember the sky was orange, but not orange because of the sun. My mother was sitting at my kitchen table and she was typing each of my brothers, my sister, and me a letter on an old-fashioned typewriter. Final goodbyes, a futile gesture of love before we all died a horrible death.
Day 3: Guilt
I have so much to feel guilty for. I don't even know where to begin. Backwards, forwards? Where does one guilt end and the next begin? Some things I've done I'll remember for the rest of my life. Things I did in the 4th grade for christ's sake. It's sick. And the older I get the worse the crimes committed become. The more things I learn I can do to people. The worse I feel. The question is, what do you feel guilty for?
In conclusion, Anna is having a horrible spring break and down comforters are really warm.
This dream I awoke from crying:
Something was happening to the world. I suppose some sort of disaster was on it's way, a meteor, a pole shift, something like that. The whole place was up in arms, there were riots and mass hysteria. I was sitting on my roof, we didn't have any power. The sun was setting and I remember the sky was orange, but not orange because of the sun. My mother was sitting at my kitchen table and she was typing each of my brothers, my sister, and me a letter on an old-fashioned typewriter. Final goodbyes, a futile gesture of love before we all died a horrible death.
Day 3: Guilt
I have so much to feel guilty for. I don't even know where to begin. Backwards, forwards? Where does one guilt end and the next begin? Some things I've done I'll remember for the rest of my life. Things I did in the 4th grade for christ's sake. It's sick. And the older I get the worse the crimes committed become. The more things I learn I can do to people. The worse I feel. The question is, what do you feel guilty for?
In conclusion, Anna is having a horrible spring break and down comforters are really warm.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
...
Day 2: My mother
Last Sunday my mother called me to make sure that I didn't make plans on Wednesday, today, so that we could go out and do something together. I thought that we would be going out in the evening so I didn't bother going to bed early. In fact I probably fell asleep around 8 AM this morning. At about 2:30PM she comes in to my room angry that I'm still asleep and that my phone was off (I forgot to charge it.) She says we can't get my license if I'm not ready soon. I say it's fine, I had remembered that I hadn't thrown my clothes in the dryer last night because I thought I'd have time in the afternoon, so obviously I wasn't going to be ready anytime soon. She then says that she wants to be back at her place by 4 so that she's back in time to see her boyfriend.
What the fuck happened to us going out together? I was really looking forward to going out with her because she and I haven't done that in a while. One more disappointment to add to this shitty Spring Break. So I've been sitting in my basement for the last 7 hours getting more and more depressed and more and more angry about this.
In conclusion: Bored, angry, and depressed is no way to go through life, son.
Last Sunday my mother called me to make sure that I didn't make plans on Wednesday, today, so that we could go out and do something together. I thought that we would be going out in the evening so I didn't bother going to bed early. In fact I probably fell asleep around 8 AM this morning. At about 2:30PM she comes in to my room angry that I'm still asleep and that my phone was off (I forgot to charge it.) She says we can't get my license if I'm not ready soon. I say it's fine, I had remembered that I hadn't thrown my clothes in the dryer last night because I thought I'd have time in the afternoon, so obviously I wasn't going to be ready anytime soon. She then says that she wants to be back at her place by 4 so that she's back in time to see her boyfriend.
What the fuck happened to us going out together? I was really looking forward to going out with her because she and I haven't done that in a while. One more disappointment to add to this shitty Spring Break. So I've been sitting in my basement for the last 7 hours getting more and more depressed and more and more angry about this.
In conclusion: Bored, angry, and depressed is no way to go through life, son.
Butcher Bradley
This guy I know, Butcher Bradley, won't post my dreams even though he specifically asked me to share some for his blog. I suppose it's because my dreams are more interesting than his and that would emasculate his dreams. I'll be posting the coherent dreams I have here, as well as everyday thoughts. I've never blogged before, other than the occasional post on the modern relic Myspace some years ago. The mental illness still applies of course.
Day 1: Listening
Something I've found to be difficult to come by is a person who really listens.
There's a scene in the film Fight Club where the Narrator is explaining to Marla why he fakes terminal illnesses in support group meetings. He says that when people think you're dying, they really listen to you, rather than waiting for their turn to speak.
All too often I get that feeling from the way someone's body moves the air or how they are looking, or not looking at me while I'm talking.
Recently I had a close personal friend of mine, a teacher, talk at me about my issues and why I'm failing so wonderfully in school. She wouldn't stop even for a moment to let me explain myself. This person has always been on my side and looked for the best in me, but that doesn't stop her from being judgmental. I know my faults, I know why I fail, but at this point it really doesn't matter.
It had been a long and taxing day when this little conversation transpired, and when she dropped me off at home after an hour's worth of driving and talking, I went to my room and completely lost it. My only relief was a friend who called me up on Skype and listened to my desperate, exhausted weeping until I fell asleep. I'm sure that he didn't know what to say about my night but it felt good to just have someone listen rather than wait for his turn to speak.
In conclusion, Butcher Bradley hates me forever and Fight Club's da best.
Day 1: Listening
Something I've found to be difficult to come by is a person who really listens.
There's a scene in the film Fight Club where the Narrator is explaining to Marla why he fakes terminal illnesses in support group meetings. He says that when people think you're dying, they really listen to you, rather than waiting for their turn to speak.
All too often I get that feeling from the way someone's body moves the air or how they are looking, or not looking at me while I'm talking.
Recently I had a close personal friend of mine, a teacher, talk at me about my issues and why I'm failing so wonderfully in school. She wouldn't stop even for a moment to let me explain myself. This person has always been on my side and looked for the best in me, but that doesn't stop her from being judgmental. I know my faults, I know why I fail, but at this point it really doesn't matter.
It had been a long and taxing day when this little conversation transpired, and when she dropped me off at home after an hour's worth of driving and talking, I went to my room and completely lost it. My only relief was a friend who called me up on Skype and listened to my desperate, exhausted weeping until I fell asleep. I'm sure that he didn't know what to say about my night but it felt good to just have someone listen rather than wait for his turn to speak.
In conclusion, Butcher Bradley hates me forever and Fight Club's da best.
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