Red Stones

Sometime during the summer, I started having migraines. Sometime in early October, they came back with a vengeance for a few weeks, and after I accidentally hit my head this Sunday, they resurfaced again. This time, they're sharper than normal, and for whatever reason, only hurt the right side of my head. I went to the doctor's a couple weeks ago for a head CT, but the results came back normal. Talked to my aunt-I'm very glad I have a biology teacher in the family!-who said I ought to see a neurologist and instructed me to start keeping a diary. She thinks I might have a migraine disorder, which runs in the family. I'm afraid I'm a little intolerant in terms of pain...I used twelve ibuprofen yesterday (very, very not smart), so am glad to note that today, I only had two. Drank a lot of water, had some peppermint tea, and massages help keep it at bay.



















The holidays are coming....it's very strange to hear songs like 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' when it's mildly chilly out and the grass is still green in some places. Just because I have to nitpick, I don't think Georgia falls are quite so lovely as the ones in the North, but they certainly last much longer. Red and brown leaves are tumbling off the trees now, and the trees at Sweetheart Circle (a little park of sorts in the center of the university) are being covered with lights. In the student union, you can find wreaths and trees decorated with blue and silver baubles.

Week after next, I take my exams. I'm going to have to study hard for Economics, but pray that my professor lets me through. Last year I most unfortunately failed Geology Lab even after giving it my all for the final...I think it was too little too late, or maybe my professor was just a Scrooge (Or I was just lazy, as I am often when I'm faced with challenging course material). I never want to fail a class again. The idea is terrifying, and whilst this might make me sound like a goody-two shoes, I rarely ever study.

Ashley is going to Peru in a couple of weeks with Alvaro and Luca. She and Alvaro have decided not to find out the baby's gender, though Ashley is fairly certain it's a boy again. I think we find out in the middle of Springtime next year...

It's quiet this evening. 'O Holy Night' is playing on my laptop and I'm sitting in a room not normally occupied in our house. I sort of like it; it's identical to the rest of the rooms in the dorm, excepting the fact that it's clean.

I think I'm becoming a bit of a shut-in....tonight, I was supposed to go to a little game night hosted by an acquaintance's christian sorority group. But I canceled last minute, was dreading the prospect for much of my empty day. Only two classes....so much space today. I'm not sure whether or not I like it; by now it should certainly be a no-brainer that too much spare time for anyone isn't a good thing.

This year, I auditioned for the school's Fall production, a play called The Triangle Factory Fire, which was in fact, based on The Triangle Factory Fire that took place during the Gilded Age. I played a young woman named Margaret Schwartz (based on an actual person), around whom the play was centered on, and a Judge named Schwartz. I'd never been in a production before and wasn't certain what to expect, but now I can say this with certainty: actresses are divas. But I think most if not all were kind, and the male cast was full of very genial and witty (if not light in their loafers) gentlemen. Every night from 7:30-10:30 we'd practice, and it felt good to be needed someplace. I don't want to be a needy person (more so than I am), but I hope desperately that I make it into either of the productions coming next year. When I signed up and saw the host of names already on the sign-up sheet, I actually got very nasty and competitive in my head; We'll just see if I'll let you take my spot. I really disappointed myself. But nonetheless, as soon as I got back to my place, I feverishly started looking up funny jokes because one of the auditions asked that we be able to do improv.

Auditions are next week. Last time I auditioned, I did it with a sort of resigned 'probably won't make it, but will do my best' sort of vibe. Now, the mantra is more along the lines of: I must get a part. I must, must, must, must. I don't care what it is. Please.

I think I had a Black Swan moment-am still having one, though it doesn't seem likely that I'll lose my mind achieving perfection in the distant future. Perfection? Nah. Losing my mind? Always a bit probable.

You know, this is a brief break, but I'm kind of annoying myself. All my journal entries are about me, me, me.

Speaking of me (and like many people, I do love to rant on about me), I wonder where this almost manic, fiery competitiveness comes from. Whenever I participate in writing contests for example, it's a very go-hard or go-home sort of thing for me, when a great deal of the time I have CCLS, or Couldn't Care Less Syndrome. Is this me? Not me, but what someone's projected on me? I've noticed with some sadness that my personality changes just a little (or just a lot) depending on whom I call guardian. Technically I'm an adult now, but Star claims me as hers, and Julia noted that I might be taking on some of her neurotic tendencies. Obviously it's not Star's fault, mine, but it makes me feel sad. When I lived with my grandmother, I was a very quiet, subservient sort of person, and when I lived with Julia, I became much more outgoing and likely to speak my mind. More focused, less concerned with putting on a puppet show. Now that I reside with Star-and again, it is not my aunt's fault in the slightest-I think I'm becoming a more frenzied, bulletin-version of myself.

Star is always making grand and long lists that are never fully accomplished, loves to keep moving every second of the day until she collapses in bed at ten or eleven. If she's not grading papers or running errands, she's in the classroom or at yoga, or acting as the quintessential soccer mom. She gives me numerous lists of ways I can improve myself, and granted, I definitely need some improving, I think my natural response to just to slink and hide away, which is not very good. At all.

I'm afraid that I'm becoming meaner, more careless and "any-means goes" sort of person. Lazier too-dunno how many people will like me after I've admitted this, but I've cheated on tests. Feel grossly ashamed. When can I live without shame or guilt knocking on the door?

I don't know what me is. It doesn't matter as much as I'm insinuating, I'm sure, but it still scares me just a little.

When we met over the summer, my dear friend introduced me to a phrase she called "putting on your church mind." People at the Bible Conference we were at were all full of happy warm marshmallow fluff and full of good words about God and cherry pie and whathaveyou. But, my friend mused, this might be the result of people putting on their church thoughts-after all, everyone here only sees each other once a year or so, and it's time to dust off the good book and be happy, which I think accentuates a person's spirituality. Of course, I'm sure these people cared about each other, shared a common goal, but people are much less likely to put their church clothes around someone they become quite familiar with. For example, you might date a man named Rob and call him honey pie or sweetie and pinch his cheeks and talk nicey-nice to him, and ten years later when you're hitched with two screaming kids, you might call out to Rob as you scrub the dirty dishes, "Hey, dumbass, get yer *&^%ing feet off the table before I *&^%ing smack you upside the head with this old halibut!"

I wonder how much of us is church thoughts? I'm certain it varies; I'm probably a much nicer person on paper than I am in, well, y'know, person. What sort of identities do we feel we most want people to see, to believe about us?

Regardless, I think most people operate on the need for love, so without thinking much of what "they" are-the "self" might just feel a sandwich munching concept watching TV-and work on stitching together something nice from the prettier parts of themselves.

I wonder what my garment looks like?

Sort of wish I knew where I fit in. I don't want to be simply divided into one category; I don't want to be that narrow-minded or that simple, although I suspect I'm becoming a lot more so these days. There's a part of me that wants the familiar safety of an old church with old rites and old ideas. Things that I don't agree with but still make me feel instinctively safe and belonged, even when I'm bumping elbows with strangers. At the same time, I don't want the memories of what once was and I just want to stay off the sidelines in the Agnostic party.

And yet how much of this really matters? I mean, really matters? You've probably stopped caring lines ago. I sort have. It's not really so pressing. Religion doesn't necessarily define a person, and in the cases I've seen it do so, the results are freaking scary.

What do I want to be? What do I want to do with myself? I feel as if I had no contact from anyone in my family for a year and went off to live in a foreign country-Wheretheheckistan-I'd come back a completely different person. Maybe then I'd have no choice but to determine what "me" is.

I'm afraid to decorate my messy room. Because that, in an abstract way, is making a "self," and I'm afraid in my darkest heart of hearts that I have no self. I'm pliable, like clay, willing to be almost anything to be loved.

There are some core things: I want to do good. I want to help people. I love Mary-oniichan, Shii-nii, Harmony, the gracious people who leave me notes and encourage me to go on.

I feel as if if I had a job, if I were earning my own income and had a bit more structure to my life, I'd be a much happier, kinder and more thoughtful person. I'd certainly be more efficient, perhaps less guilty. How much of myself would I be able to stuff inside my dirty closet, keep it tightly shut in? I don't want to take out my old clothes, don't want to patch them or try removing

I feel empty. How much of me is me? I want to lead a pure existence; I like reading stories about same-sex couples. I wholly believe that people of any orientation should be allowed to be wed (and I apologize if I cause any offense to my readers), but I've never been able to fully put myself at ease with the idea that gay relations are okay with God. I want them to be. Maybe it's just mine growing up Mormon, but I've never been able to ignore the itch in my heart that says no.

This makes me sad.

I feel like I bring shame to myself and my family for not more thoroughly grasping life by the horns, but maybe that's just Star's ideas projected onto me. Her youngest daughter is a perfectionist-in-training, in theater, working part-time at a five star restaurant, in chorus, in soccer. All at once. It sounds like a terribly exciting existence, if not rather exhausting. Lea has a job in California and remains a slender vegetarian who is fabulously smart in school and exudes a glow of 'right life.' I have a healthy social circle, I am polite and friendly, I am healthy and work out regularly. What is "right life?" And why is Lea the sort of person I'd almost like to hate if there was a way I possibly could?

I'm angrier these days, feel more entitled. Do less. I want the opposite of all these. I want to feel okay with my life and not shirk from it; at the same time, I don't necessarily want to be a powerhouse like Tia.

The victories that we have despite the fact that we ARE indeed dumbasses or grew up in families where heartbreak was the norm-aren't these precious too?  

Star, I think, has a battered heart. For all of my father's family's good fortune, the sad streak of Alcoholism and Unhappiness seems to underline so much of the bloodline. Grampa was addicted to alcohol; so much of his brain damage came as a result of his being drunk and falling. Granny is a recovering alcoholic, drinks diet coke at all family events and brings the alcohol-free wine to dinners. My mother was an alcoholic, as most Huntington's patients are. My father was a drug addict, in rehab when I was born. Divorce is prevalent, and lots of dark secrets I wasn't privy to until I was older-many I'm likely never to know.

And yet Star was the non-crazy one in her family; even when Grampa lay on the floor in a stupor or when her mother would fly off the deep end or her brother do something awful, she was pretty (is still pretty), productive. She could hide in her room, suntan in Ecuador when it was safe to go outside. I think she hurried into a marriage, left after two years and married a young man who would later become a very successful pediatrician. She had three glowing young girls, a stable job, was a stable soccer mom who brought cupcakes to school and hosted parties and did all the society mom's whatever the hell it is stuff.

Twenty years later, Eric found someone new and Star's world came crashing down. It wasn't simply an end to her marriage, but an end to a life she spent so long trying to shine, make better than what so much of our family had. Maybe she felt the need to prove to the world of her success; I don't think she failed.  

Maybe being less of something is not so bad. To be completely detached-to hide yourself away from the world and stifle emotion into urges of what should and should not be done-is never a good thing. But at the same time, to breathe and sit down and put your damn feet up and eat your damn sandwich because you damn well please to as well as feel like using the word damn...

It's nice. So much of what we think truly matters doesn't, really. I get a gnawing craving sensation when I haven't checked my email for a few days...what harm will become of me if I don't check ASAP? I might miss more junk mail? What's the fuss with all these smart phones? I like mine because I can drop that sucker many, many times and it won't break. It's handy for the most part and I don't want to trade it in.

But there are many things that do matter for me, and I guess these are defining things as good as any, if a person really needs definition. Regardless, a person will continue to just be.

But I think I want my blue pitcher and a library and a job where I have kind co-workers, or at least a place where I can work hard and be proud of myself. I want a cat and candles and to be healthy. I want to be a better person, a good Tia and Tante.

I want to live. I want to remember just how lucky I truly am, and not simply on my deathbed.

What I'm doing right now-binging, crying, scheming-is simply existing, and I don't like it very much.