Where Wren gets Deep.
During my past Christmas vacation, my cousins Katie, Julie and I were discussing the many varied cliques at their school, and since we were on the topic, they asked me what clique I had been in when I was in high school. I answered that easily, I was a resident of the fringe. You know, those kids who get along with a lot of different groups for the sheer fact that they just like lots of different kinds of people. I did, after all - play sports, was a member of lot of clubs, wrote for the newspaper, was huge in the drama league, and tended to get along with most people. My mother had raised a very polite child and friendly child.
My cousins found that curious, and then proceeded to ask me how did I identify myself? I said, well, for the first two years I was pretty much just there, but the last two years I was one of the earlier Goths. They looked at me oddly for that, because after all I wasn't like any of the Goths they knew, or even the Emo kids. I had to explain to them that the early Goths, we slender few, tended to believe more in the philosophy than the heavy eyeliner and the Hot Topic leatherwear. When they asked me about that, I explained that the Gothic, for us, was the principle of struggling against unseen forces and yet, ultimately failing in some way. Like Catherine and Heathcliff - we believed we would endure tragedies of epic proportions and would have to struggle against them in equally epic ways, yet knowing we would also lose and that all we might gain in the end was the lesson that life was cruel.
Naturally, they were skeptical, and asked me if I still believed that. I thought about it, laughed, and said no. But then again, I'd come a long way from the naive girl of sixteen.
What makes me think of this is the changing face of my ideals these days; or rather, the fact that in the face of change, they haven't. Now, let me explain. I'm not a religious person; whether this is through a disdain of every major religion and their abuses of power over the masses, or the fact that my parents just didn't see the point of raising us with strong faith in a nebulous God-figure, who's to say? Point being, I'm skeptical on the idea. I believe there's something out there, but it's too big and too vast to be understood, much less named.
To that end, I've learned how to put faith in ideals, and people who to me, represent such ideals. I believe in honor, I believe in honesty, I believe your friends can be your family and I believe unerring in love. When it comes to honor, I think of my father and some of my favorite fictional characters. When I think of honesty I think of my mother and John Stuart Mills. When I think of friends and family, I often think of my own little clan of cohorts, and the immortal writings of Louisa May Alcott and Jane Austen. When it comes to love ... well, I have my parents, and in some cases, my friends.
But through recent events, I've come soberly to the realization of a lesson I learned a long time ago. Put your faith in people, but always remember that they are not infailible. Feet of clay, so on and so forth. Like myself, people change and in that, the way that love is, that changes too. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes, it's not.
I was surprised to find though, after the dust started to settle and I looked around, that my belief was just as strong as ever. That it wasn't as much as I had based my belief on people, but the belief on something that I had seen in myself and wanted to see mirrored in the real world. roscop said to me earlier today that it was a matter of Expectation - you want to believe this about people, because you believe it yourself. Or something like it, I'm paraphrasing and I hope she forgives me.
What it comes down to is this. I believe in my ideals, because I believe in myself, and I want to believe in these same qualities in other people because I love and care about them. However, I should not expect them to live up to higher ideals than are humanly possible. It's not fair, to either one of us. I also cannot be expect to hold myself up to such high ideals that I know I am doomed to reach them. I'm human. I have flaws.
It's strange to find yourself at an age that where even through frustration and strife, you find yourself still content with who you are as a person. Personal growth will just sneak up on me and smack me about the head. I'm all grown up now, and with that comes the realization that I'm a lot stronger, wiser, more serene, intelligent and yes, dear flist, lovely than that sixteen year old Wren who use to mourn herself all the time.
I find myself happy - and after beating down my own neurotic demons - more than willing to just enjoy it. Sometimes, all you can do is smile. Learning to be happy is probably the most difficult lesson I've ever had to study, but ... but ...
Well, let's just say it's getting easier, day by day, inch by stubborn inch.
Okay, I'm done being deep. Shouldn't you kids be out reading slutty fanfiction or something? Off with you.