The Simple Life

That I should start this, after a month already of not paying any attention to that inner creature that tells me to update, to tell something, that everyday is worth recording.
Life is very personal in this day and age. Life is something you take with you when you walk home, alone in a city full of people. Life is the value of your own mistakes, something nobody else can quantify. Life is that thing within us all that makes us realize the we will leave this world as alone as we came into it.

It's been a good weekend, a weekend that could have been disasterous, that could have been tragic. I don't exactly know what to write about, what to tell myself, what to give to me and to me alone. I and others know how good yesterday was, how bad yesterday could have been, how I love to dance. Do others know how personal that is, how much I do dance only for myself? How many things does one begin to do for oneself and end up doing for others...

Somewhere, somehow I feel like I've betrayed myself. As if back when the pain was so great and the world so empty I had somehow forgotten that I write to live, not for others to read. I write because I must.

I'm not strained, but I am tired, and I'm fed up with my life belonging to school one way or another. I am more than ready for vacation, for not thinking about things due for a while, just writing for me, drawing for me, thinking for me.

So many little sorrows piled up, so many small pleasures in my life. I feel the tide of pain fading, gently, subtley, over time. When I was 15 I dreamt of walking the streets of Greece alone, of finding my way through the world alone. I wanted to need nobody, to be self-sufficient in everything.

It's impossible. I'm looking for love everywhere, it doesn't matter where. Maybe someday it'll find me.

I like this life and everything about it. Today I just might be happy.

So right now...

I want to die. Honest.

So Duvet again...

I've been talking a lot about love lately, to others, to myself, to no one else. The fact is, love has been the greater preocupation in my life for some time. Amidst the whirlwind that my life has been it was a constant. What does it mean? How is it formed? When? Why? Do I still believe in it, do I still believe it was ever meant for me?
I was nineteen on Wednesday and I had intended on at least writing a birthday post but I was entertained by other more vain concerns. I've been reading a charming romantic novel about a young Egyptologist. The college settings, the passion for work, the fear of forming a relationship. I suppose I sympathized with the character. The scenes of first love... I think I sympathized with the writer. Yes I want to be loved too, like that, vous n'avez aucune raison de rougir, I want to fall back and be courted and feel very wanted. I want it to be as simple as that.

Of course it never really works like that, and I'm going to have to snap out of this one before attempting to become a candidate for the Nobel Literature Prize.

For the last few days I've been experiencing a strange sort of feeling. It's the simple realization that I have nothing more pressing to do than sit back, talk to my friends, read my books and write whatever I please. And so I try to create a new set of responsabilities, a new set of goals so I won't drift, so that I won't have to think about the inevitable. And now, what do you want to write about now?

Last night I fell asleep reading something I wrote fours years ago. It meant something, i was writing about something then, something I cannot quite recall then. It feels like I'm loosing precious time, every second, every breath in which the doubt still exists.

Violins, a beautiful violin as she sings. Where am I? Will I be here tomorrow? I feel so unreal.

I am listening to the Duvet Remix, slowly, beat, as if rising from within my chest, readying for the greater beats, for the final burst. I am falling, fading, drowning. Help me to breath. Not at all. I think I'm only half-alive, because when I am dying I feel very much alive, but now. What is my purpose, where do I go from here, once this terrible pain fades what do I do with my life? What do I mean? Tempo, tempo. Ooooooh. If I could write down what music means, what it does to the soul or the eyes, where music takes me. Drums more drums.

Where do I go from here?

Time

So I'm sitting here at school, in front of a school computer, with so many people around me, hearing their hushed conversations, looking at their fleeting shadows on the walls...

I'm sitting here and all I can think is how the hell did I wake up today still being myself. Somehow I had kid myself into hoping I might turn into something else overnight, a mouse, a mushroom, a rose... anything. I was hoping that sleep might work its own strange magic and make me forget, tear out the parasite from my breast.

But it hasn't and it never will. There is no such an easy answer.

Today as I trudge along the world thinking I don't really care about anything anymore, neither reading, neither writing, neither little school projects, I realize the only possible solution is time, a long unimaginable period of time that might extract the image from my eyes, the smell from inside my head, the feel of arms and murmur of words. Only if I think in terms of months can I live, months in the future in which this dull ache of emptiness might fade. Months where little by little these delirious happiness and this agonic sorrow might stop.

I have to go now. I really do. I don't know anymore, I don't know how I'm going to get through today.

Everything, she said, I would give everything...

"Ah, he knows not that it was I who saved his life," thought the little mermaid. "I carried him over the sea to the wood where the temple stands: I sat beneath the foam, and watched till the human beings came to help him. I saw the pretty maiden that he loves better than he loves me;'' and the mermaid sighed deeply, but she could not shed tears. "He says the maiden belongs to the holy temple, therefore she will never return to the world. They will meet no more: while I am by his side, and see him every day. I will take care of him, and love him, and give up my life for his sake."


If I should stay,
I would only be in your way.
So I'll go, but I know
I'll think of you ev'ry step of the way.

And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
You, my darling you. Hmm.

Bittersweet memories that is all
I'm taking with me.
So, goodbye. Please, don't cry.
We both know I'm not what you, you need.

And I will always love you.
I will always love you.

I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you've dreamed of.
And I wish to you, joy and happiness.
But above all this, I wish you love.

And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I will always love you.
I, I will always love you.

You, darling, I love you.
Ooh, I'll always, I'll always love you.

Songs

Just little snippets of songs. I've been busy and working, worrying about school, about the future. Maybe more than anything trying not to think about it, even though it has become sweeter, milder, more like a faint aftertaste than the fulltorrent of pain. It doesn't feel like I'm dancing upon sharp knives anymore. So I think I can stop being dramatic now.

I feel... faintly happy... faintly sorrowful...

Just little pieces, things that jump at me between sleep and laughter and words filling the blank pages of my books...

I guess you could say
I'm a little afraid
What if you go away?
I've seen it before
I've been there before
If I have to love myself
Tell me how to love myself
What's there to love about myself?

Sixpence None the Richer

I'm not afraid to feel
I want you to love me
Cause you are the one
Cause you are the one
Cause you are the one

His Infernal Majesty

I know what you need.
This will really work.
In ancient times if you were sick,
They’d make you bleed.
Oh honey I know it hurts.

Rasputina

So I'm feeling strangely light, strangely free, somehow as if acceptance is finally working... and I'm thinking "when you're on your knees, things seem closer somehow"...


Lately I'm not the only one
I say never trust anyone
Always the one who has to drag her down
Maybe you'll get what you want this time around

Wicked Game

I brush my hair. I wipe the tears off my computer but let them run down my face; sometimes into my hair, sometimes over my lips so I can drink them. Blessed are the tears for they make me feel alive... alive when I am so dead.

I'm praying that this might just be another time in which she is underestimating me, another time in which my own self-image is tainting her view... because if it is not then I am hopeless and there is nothing more.

I brush my hair and I look at the shadow I cast over my grey walls. It's not an unpleasant silhouette, that of my hair falling over my hair. I suppose I am not unpleasant sight. I suppose I can still live upon delusions of beauty now and again, as if behind the veil of my hair or the elusive quality of a shadow I can begin to believe I am beautiful... I am worthy...

I promise myself I won't touch the mirror, but I'll keep my gaze fixed only on my eyes which are beautiful by themselves and I'll try not to think of the rest as I wonder if anyone would ever love me...

School

I'm sitting on the TV couch trying in vain to start my psychology project, mentally berating myself from all the time I've wasted, and my mother was watching this utterly stupid movie and I just screamed at her without meaning and I wish she was just away having fun somewhere else so that she doesn't have to notice how broken I am.

She notices I'm stressed. She hates it, she hates me for what I just did, thinks I'm an ungrateful little bitch who can't take into account the years of love and care she has bestowed on me.

How bitter is the taste of her victory. That she is right. That she has raised a wretched little monster who cannot even speak to her civilly.

Today I wanted to be good, I wanted to do good, I wanted to smile and think that what I did was what I should have done. So I woke up and went to my college course and took notes and tried to find out when I have the blasted English exam for college admission. And here is the crucial difference in my life, the way in which the two most important people in it can hurt me. Because when I, without being asked, washed the plates of everyone's breakfast at my father's house I got nothing, not even a passing thank you, not even a kind look. Simply nothing.

So why do I bother to please someone who does not care? Why do I bother if he will never care?

And now I should have started working hours ago but I didn't and I'm snappish and in an awful mood and cannot even begin to conceive how people can stand being in the same zip code as me when I am this bitchy.

And every time I move a hand or take a breath I am thinking, she doesn't approve of this, this mess of papers that is my project, how could anyone? And no matter how much I try finally, in the last lap, in the last second I always manage to do something or be something that somehow in a mysterious aberration of the law of equality manages to erase every good thing I have ever achieved.

I just don't know... I'm so tired... and I keep thinking, that if only for the sake of my mother I should put a bullet through this silly little skull of mine...

Expectations

Before anything else, yes I am feeling better. No, I still can't get over the suicidal urge but at least it's not pounding in my head constantly anymore.

I'm tired beyond anything and not trusting in hope anymore. My belly is in agonizing pain and I should go take the cramps medicine thing before I enter shock...

It's not like I can write or even THINK about writing. I have a thousand things to do and I want to do none of them. Somehow I'm working under the impression that whatever I do, however hard I try doing it, simply won't work. I get the feeling that the 8.88 of my fifth semester is going to chase me with a vindictive passion long overdue. It seems like the last stroke, as if the only thing worthwhile in me, the only thing that ever gave me value is... just not as good as I thought.

And if I can't be the best I can then what good is working anyway? What good is staying in or the weekends to do the same dreary work if the result will be the same... grey, half-good, half-interesting.

I can't live like this... how can people manage a 10 for average? How can I be that excellent, that good? By working for one, by not being here but back in my Psychology work...

Oh, did I tell you? I think I'm in love... my heart is still pounding... fancy that...

God, sweet God I've spent the last 45 minutes huddled in my bed trying not to be heard while I cry. God I think I'm dying, I think I'm shattering. God O God I'm trying not to tremble and I'm just thinking can somebody hold me I'm in pain, I can't stand the pain.

And it had been a year since I last considered wildly what could be found in my house that could kill me, what would ever give me a quick painless death. I was thinking, my mom's pills, no. Any chemicals in the kitchen, no I'd have to investigate.

I'm so scared. I don't want to hurt people anymore, I don't want to be a burden anymore, God I can't face life anymore. I'm so scared, I'm so scared...

To the Moon and Back

It’s strange when you are trying to remember why you liked certain things, certain people, certain days. At the moment I’m remembering why I loved Savage Garden.

It has been a hellish weekend and I’m not sure if I should be glad it’s over. Tomorrow I’m going to have to wake up some two hours earlier to attend a conference and it doesn’t seem to matter how much I actually sleep, but I am always tired, always at the point of exhaustion.

Suffering, they say, takes its toll.

At the moment I’m watching Darren’s baby face fill the screen and his voice fill my ears. This was probably back in 1998 when I was still in primary school, maybe twelve years old. That I was then and am now in love with this band and this particular song and video is not surprising.

She’s taking her time
Making up the reasons
To justify all the hurt inside

I’ve been trying very hard since Wednesday to become better, perhaps to apply finally, the effort and work I should in the things I do. Not going last night to Andy’s house was my way of trying or maybe it was my way of punishing myself for all the time I waste. I’m not particularly sure of the amount of work I’ve accomplished since then.

Because when you ask yourself if you are doing the best you can, when you’ve been accused of slacking, of not taking things seriously enough and you answer that yes you have, this is not your best, this is not all that you can become… then God you don’t seem worthy of anything anymore.

Guess she knows from the smiles
And the look in their eyes
Everyone’s got a theory
About the bitter one

There’s a very beautiful girl in this video, wearing the sort of tiny green dress I’ll probably never even dare look at. I’ve been avoiding the temptation to think about this for sometime, quite a long time actually. But I don’t know if when I look in the mirror I can say I like myself anymore. And it’s not like I’m doing anything about it, because for the first time I’m not. I don’t do exercise, I’m not eating less. And even when I know this is not the best I can look, I’m just not making an effort.

I wish right now that I had even a particle of what is a good singing voice just so I wouldn’t have to feel so patently ridiculous while I wait for my mother to leave the house so I can sing and cry at my heart’s content. I want to watch the screen and tell myself this is beauty, this is genius, this is what you’ll never achieve because you simply can’t be bothered.

They’re saying
Mama never loved her much
Daddy never keeps in touchThat’s why she shies away
From human affection

I’ve never actually said how stupid, how utterly ugly I believe suffering makes me look. I don’t like looking at myself cry, I don’t like other people seeing me cry or scream or simply stretched out on the floor because it is a sorry sight. Because there is no beauty there is nothing ennobling, nothing poetic about this. This is why I find it so hard to think of myself in love, to imagine myself with anyone, because if I even dare to envision it I’ll be so filled with shame, with a deep sense of self-disgust and ridicule that it will make the whole exercise impossible.

So I’d rather just watch this pretty girl, looking at me with incredibly big sad eyes while Darren Hayes (who has the voice and face of an angel in this video, I love him) sings to her about love and second chances.

Well I’m not entirely sure of how I should finish this entry except that I’m not fishing for pity, that this journal is and has always been deeply private, despite the many people who read it. In a few minutes I’ll go back to writing an essay on the role of man in the movie Thelma and Louise and this will be forgotten.

Good Day and I love you all.

Breathe life into this feeble heart †
Lift this mortal veil of fears †
Take these crumbled hopes etched with tears †
We’ll rise above these earthly cares †

Maturity, I believe, is not measured by the amount of family parties you can stomach. Maturity does not depend on what paperwork you have managed to complete by yourself; it’s not a measure of how many mistakes you make, or how many points you score in an exam. Maturity is not determined by the people you frequent, the friendships you cement or those you choose love.

Maturity, however, must necessarily have something to do with how you treat them.

Maturity is not about many how colds you catch, when or how you take a bath, when or how you sleep, when or how you eat your dinner. Maturity is not dressing up for important occasions or doing your hair up every day. Maturity is not how many books you read a year or how big an equation you can handle.

But maturity is as simple as not laughing at someone when they don’t understand or listening to your children when they speak.

I don’t think anyone can become an adult instantly; I truly doubt that the moment you turn eighteen you’re automatically endowed with all the tidbits of how to operate in the world. Because society has decided that a certain numeral bestows on you the power to decide does not mean that you know how to do so yet.

Right now, at 11 pm, I cannot recall a moment in my life in which I have been so content as I am now. I cannot recall a time without strife, without constant battle with myself. I cannot recall when was the last time I could simply live… before now.

And because of this it mystifies me that so many people have decided they have issues with the person I am or the lives they lead, lives so close to my own that their mere breathing brushes against mine.

It is a frustrating thing to wish for my own place, my own space to make my own mistakes. It isn’t so bad but it’s getting worse, and when everyone’s problems are so much larger than your own brief flashes of discontent it’s hard to talk about with anyone. Not that it has ever been easy.

I’m very tired of compromising, of having to examine every move I make under some imaginary lens that tells me what is right, what is healthy, what is the best for me. I’m tired of trying think like my mother, tired of trying to not be like my father. Between two warring forces of what is mentally healthy, what is not, I just want to do what makes me happy.

I wish I could make those around me as happy as they make me. I wish I could do for them all they do for me. Except my father, I want to never so much as pass him a plate again.

I’d forgotten how it felt to talk to a brick wall. Somehow, I’d been lured into a false sense of security in which I though he might have begun to listen, he might have begun to care.

How is it that someone with so much faith in my intellectual prowess that he suggests I attempt two majors at the same time can think so little of me? I’m so tired of being confused, of being judged, of being unable to say that I am simply learning how to live. I won’t change, I won’t become anything for anyone, but I can’t help asking just… do all fathers want their daughters to become pretty, to dress up, to speak quietly, to never utter a swear word in their lives, to fall in love, marry and have a bunch of brats they can proudly call grandchildren?

Why is it that you make such a show of being different, of being modern, of not minding that I might be bisexual or lesbian or whatever… and yet you comment, you think your daughter isn’t pretty or she doesn’t take baths or she needs to loose weight. Why don’t you speak to me like you speak to your stepdaughter, why don’t you treat me gently, why don’t you gush over me and love me like you do her?

It’s different from what you did to my mother. Don’t tell me I’m not tender enough or pretty enough, I’m your daughter, you brought me here and you make yourself love or I don’t think I can live. What do I have to be, who do I have to become for you to love me?

I think I’ve reached the point in which I can decide what I want to do and what is important for me. I think I’ve reached a point in which I know what is worth it for me, what I will work for.

I feel guilty for not having studied for my exams because they are important for me. I want to pass this year and get through all the pressures and all the difficult bits because that is important for me. At the moment, learning how to drive, getting voting credential, getting my driver’s license is not as important to me as doing my homework, studying, attending my college exam class or laughing with the people I call friends is. Right now, learning how to manage money or taking note of your implied insults is not my first priority.

Out of all these years, all the days that you could have been there and weren’t, out of all the times I needed your help and you weren’t there, my high school revalidation was one in which you were. And by god you are charging me for it in tears and resentment.

You weren’t so grown-up just a few years ago. You cheated your eight-year-old daughter out of money when you were desperate. You cheated on my mother when she was pregnant.

You know what the sad truth is? You never wanted me, not really, you were too frightened to want me. And when I was a baby girl you were so good to me because I was like tiny doll someone had given you, so you’d rather I be doll forever, that I repeat what you say and think only of what think and look pretty and dress up because you are terrified that I might be a real person.

Do you know how hard it is to be unwanted?

I’ve never understood why some people can’t cry, it’s all I seem find as easy as writing or philosophy. Right now, I should be asleep, but instead I’m here sitting on my bed typing because… because every day, has something worth telling.

I have quite a cold and a nasty case of pre-exam nerves. I think I can manage if I study these afternoons, but I have to go to class in the afternoon now too and mom has to drive me there and she hates it because it’s taking precious time from her. I have no more free time at school that could suffice for studying and I’m seeing the math teacher only twice before the exam to clear any doubts and am not seeing the physics teacher at all.

I keep telling myself, if I don’t do this, all my tears, all my joy, all my resentment, all my anger will worth nothing in the eyes of my parents because I could never reclaim the confidence and respect I’ve earned from them.
That is the real problem. It has nothing with grades or lies. It never had.

Simply because it took me a long time to consturct this response for a generic message board and because I have few things of interest to share:




Double-standards regarding not only racism but most social issues are an unchecked evil. The fact that persons of colour are entitled to use "nigger" to address each other, that if I call another girl "slut" you know it's ok because I am a girl too or that stereotyping by the guidelines of race, religion, sexuality or nationality can sometimes be taken lightly is simply WRONG.

If I look at your SS banner I will not immediately assume (and act upon the assumption) that you like Nazis, are descended from Nazis, spew Nazi ideals and would generally shoot me if I even began pronouncing the word "Adonai". However, if you choose to speak to me about issues of racial "purity" as you so eloquently put it, I might be tempted to tell you that it sounds to me like you are getting your information from Nazi and eugenic studies... which are not the most reliable founts of knowledge in this world.

Though I respect your effort in standing up for your opinions AND be willing to have a LITERATE debate with others I must beg to disagree. Double-standards are wrong; I would most certainly NOT respect you were you a "Go VeGgAns AnD BlAcKs We ArE tEh SqUeE!!11! DiE eViL wHiTiEs!!1!" typing child who held the same opinions that I do.

Lordbrad:
Why is it when a white commits a hate crime, it's all over the news, but when a black commits a hate crime, it's never mentioned?

Sadly the media has proven to be less than an adequate source of getting one's opinion regarding any serious issues. The media enlarges, the media exaggerates, the media sensationalizes. The fact is, it is as probable that you will see a white hate crime "all over the news" as it is that you will see a stereotypical rendering of the "bad, rapper black" mugging someone. It's just different approaches of creating the same wrong and hateful images over two racial groups.

I will however qoute redjackcash from a journalfen.net community:

"If a black man kills a white man, I can guarantee you he will get twice the sentence of a white man who killed a black man. He will probably be arrested faster, and his trial will most likely be hurried along. He is also more likely to get the death sentence."

Think also of how the vast majority of the death row inmates in Texas, California and Florida (which have the highest rate in executions) belong into minorities.

Lordbrad:
Why should we be forced to learn foreign languages in our own country? Is this right, considering our ancestors emigrated here and learned the language, culture and way of life?

ONE, the original European settlers of the Americas did in fact NOT learn the language, culture or way of life of the native people in this continent. Mostly they exterminated or persecuted the original inhabitants then comfortably settled in stolen lands.

TWO, I do not agree with the bilingual school system I think if you are an inmigrant you should make an effort (and be aided in the effort) of learning the language, costume and way of life of your new country. Which does not mean you should forget your own. What the US needs is not bilingual education, but better English-as-a-Second-Language programs. Adapting to a new country is difficult, but one should ADAPT to the country in question, not the contrary.

I am Mexican, the daughter of two college professors and researchers and have lived two years (not consecutive) in California. The first few months I spent in the US (when I was 8-years-old) the only thing I could say was "I-can't-speak-English-very-well". Needless to say I eventually, with much help and encouragement, learned. I am now alternately attempting (badly) to learn French, Latin or Romanian. Which brings me to the next point.

THREE. Learning another language, ANY different language, regardless of where you live should be welcomed as the essential educational experience that it is. As I have perceived from my time at American schools you can actually decided which language you would rather take from a limited list of options. You might as well ask why you are FORCED to learn math, or science or history (after all, all that is really [I]over[/I] isn’t it?). A second or third or fourth language isn’t about immigrants taking over, it’s about the knowledge.

And if any teacher would tell you differently then they are being very stupid.

Lordbrad:
Why should we feel guilty about owning slaves, the holocaust and much more, when we weren't even alive during such periods of history? Is it right that we're constantly reminded of such things?

Studying history and acknowledging history isn’t about feeling guilty over it. It’s about understanding why and how it happened. I would resent it if someone tried to make me feel guilty about what happened on the Alamo. I would resent it if someone were to hold me accountable for the “Cristero Guerrillas” in my country simply for the fact that I am an atheist. BUT I will hold myself accountable for [I]knowing[/I] not only about these events but about the concentration camps, the massacre of Nanjing and the unfair and humiliating conditions in the Treaty of Versailles for the nation of Germany at the end of World War I.

Lordbrad:
Why does the truth have to be subverted to appease minorities as not to offend them? Aren't the facts what they imply, facts? Nobody has a problem pointing out that whites owned slaves.

I don’t really understand what you are talking about here. Please do refer to specific instances so I can decide whether I agree or disagree.

Lordbrad:
Why does television have a Spanish entertainment channel, a black entertainment channel, and womens' entertainment channels, but not one channel dedicated to the vast history of the white race and it's cultures and heritages?

WHICH white race? The Anglo-Saxons? The Germanics? The Slavs? The Celts? The “white race” of America is composed of all those and many more, and I do think there are enough channels, events and web pages celebrating each and everyone of those races.

Lordbrad:
Why do we have to sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of "Homeland Security", yet our borders are wide open for any terrorist to walk across? Is this right?

As far as the terrorist threat goes, it is a whole other discussion I am not willing to embark at the moment. The fact is that with all the security and “war on terror” one might want to uphold, someone who wishes to hurt you will ALWAYS find a way to do it, depending on how bad they do want to hurt you. If you wish to stop putting your citizens (whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and all the rest) in danger, avoid inciting the resentment and hatred of those who will stop at nothing to cause harm.

One does not treat the symptoms, one treats the disease.

LordBrad:
Why are illegal immigrants offered social services at the expense of tax payers when they're not citizens? Is this fair to American citizens?.

I did a whole project on that one. Please do realize that eventually illegal immigrants are as tax payers as well. The goods they buy and send off or keep are still subjected to tax. Not only that but due to their illegal status they are in the majority of the cases, not actually receiving all social security benefits.


Just as a closing remark…

You do not FORCE races to get along. The best you can do is help them do so and be mature about it. Eventually they will come along (please do take a look at your so called “white race” made up of so many different nationalities and ethnicities).

Mixing races is actually beneficial for humanity’s genepool. It strengthens us against disease. Inbreeding DOESN’T, do pay attention in your biology class the next time.