she's a good girl, loves her mama.
“Anyplace is better; starting from zero got nothin’ to lose. Maybe we’ll make something - me myself I’ve got nothing to prove.”
It’s the times like these that you hope you never remember, that you pray you never forget. They say that everyone goes through one of these crises, that it’s a normal thing. You question your values and your identity, and in the middle of it all you feel like a lost mess, and you certainly can’t see your hand in front of your face. It grows like kudzu, this mess does. You wander aimlessly, and it’s not something that anyone can really help you through. Sometimes you just have to stand up straight, hold your shoulders up and your lip stiff, and suck it up.
Nothing seemed to be what I had bargained for this week. In the contract of life, I definitely wouldn’t have signed on the bottom line if I’d known the benefits would have been so…blech. I would have definitely negotiated my way through to a higher salary. I don’t regret it, not at all. But I am just pretty sick of it all. Intellectually unfulfilled, I’m wasting too much time in bars and bottles and angsty literature. It’s a maddening little cycle this is.
And I think it’s all because I feel like I’m trying to prove something. I’m not sure why, or to whom, or really what it is that I want to prove…maybe that I’m good enough, or maybe that I’m better, or maybe something else entirely. I get so fed up with the system and the expectations and my supposed obligations, but then they’re all made up anyway. It’s like I have these fabricated ideals that apply only to me, and only because I say they should. An email from my fourth grade teacher recently said, “Yes Sarah, you were always so deliberate…expecting more, even at such a young age.” Deliberate. Fourth graders aren’t supposed to be like that; they’re supposed to play soccer and be messy and have friends and be fun. College seniors are supposed to play games and sleep late and have friends and be fun.
This is an altogether depressing string of thoughts. I should punctuate this with a reliving of the past week of debauchery. Life’s been more than just sad wallowings in Kleenex boxes; the socialite has returned. And I’m reading a really delightful book that isn’t written for middle schoolers, because it talks about really sordid things like sex and LSD and homosexuality, and it’s nice to know that I can still enjoy that kind of book. Because I was beginning to think that the only book I liked anymore was Harry Potter, which I did finally cowboy up and begin to read and yes, the fervor for it is completely justified. And I kissed a boy, which was also fun, if meaningless, because I was also beginning to fear that the only type that thought I was any kind of fun was the under-ten variety. See! All is not lost!
I don’t think I’m going to edit this. I’m sure this sounds like drunk babblings, and hell. I might possibly still be. But I think this is fun. The soundtrack of the moment is Tracy Chapman, which makes me think I should really rather be sipping earl grey tea in a trendy coffee shop and smoking a cigarette while writing this, pondering more deeply the meaning of life. But I don’t think I’m going to ponder anymore. Because I think that’s what got me in trouble in the first place.
My mentor professor, who I like very little, evidently caught wind of the little breakdown I had the other day and decided to pass on a little encouraging word that I thought would piss me off, but ultimately ended up being the most meaningful thing to come out of this week, I think. Anyway, he validated everything that I’d been feeling, and let me know that it was all okay. And that it would be over soon. And to have someone finally acknowledge that was important to me, because I think the thing that hurt me the most was that I didn’t feel like anything I was feeling was validated anywhere, and not by the person I thought would validate it first.
But then again, I think I’m more normal than I thought I was. On a completely unrelated note, my mom returned from her overnight high school reunion workshop gossip party at the lake with the girls she’s known for almost fifty years and found out that a girl I went to church with got married back in January, which is completely normal, because she’s the marrying type. But the really delightful and gossipy part of it all is that she married him a)at the courthouse, after knowing him for less than a month and b>without telling her parents. And now, I know that I’m the last person who should say a thing about not telling parents things because seriously. But the point is, that when I saw her at Easter she was introducing this guy as her fiancé. That’s three months, kids. Three months. At home, for Easter, with the husband. And he’s still the “fiancé”. Except evidently later that day his status as husband was revealed. And honestly. That I’ve never attempted a stunt like that is altogether encouraging. I am not completely crazy. Really!
It’s funny how things like that can make you feel so much better. I think, really, that it’s why we watch reality tv. We don’t like it. It’s trashy, it’s dirty, and it’s replacing the good stuff like Friends and Sex and the City. But its perpetuation says to me that really, there are a hell of a lot of people who are not only willing to put themselves out there like that but also that not a one of them leads a normal life with a normal, functioning psyche. And so my petty little drama and crises and all of that is still not enough to send me to the loony bin. Because let’s face it. I live my life without cameras and like it.
Is it true that the first step is denial? Or is it acceptance. Sam and I argued about this last night, and I mean, I’ve never been through a 12-step. But it seems to me that you have to first have denial if you’re going to ultimately have acceptance. What an appropriate thing to talk about while throwing back a few beers in rapid succession. Evidently we’re driving the train straight down to the underworld.
But can I really be all that bad if I have this overwhelming urge to go to the library right now? The thought that I might be normal is departing quickly. I think I want to read about Peru and sip pina coladas and lay out in the sun. I want to speak Spanish with a senorita or a senor and sound attractive while doing it. But first I want to go to the library. It’s true. I read books for fun. Chad, who was being a grade A asshole last night, ribbed me for my books on the CIA, which are part for pleasure but mostly for summer enrichment workshop, but it’s not like I don’t enjoy reading them. But remember! I’m reading a book about sex and drugs and rock and roll, or something of the sort. Reminder: tell Sam about AHWOSG because he will, undoubtedly love it. Charlie grew up and became Dave Eggers. It’s so fashionable to write about jaded adolescents and twenty-somethings during the early nineties, isn’t it?
I truly believe that I could sit here and type these random thoughts for hours. Did someone put drugs in my drink last night? I’m not serious. But I am serious that I could continue this verbal diarrhea for the entire period of my detox, which might continue to take a while, as it is now 2:24 in the afternoon. Mission accomplished. But I really think I might go to the library. And they thought I was cool. Actually, I also would like to witness panhellenic weekend, because I think it might be fun to reminisce. Not that I ever went to panhellenic, but because I remember what it was like to be a senior in high school, just on the verge of graduating, and everything in springtime was exciting and fresh and beautiful and wonderful, and the world was yours and yours alone. You could be powerful and important and lovely and have it all together, knowing just what you want - even though the truth of it all is that you have no earthly idea what you want, except for freedom and independence. Which is exactly what you want, and precisely what you will spend the next four years trying to attain. But it’s true. Nothing else that you think you want is really what you want at all. Sometimes I don’t even recognize that girl of four years ago. But what a fun and beautiful girl she was, if a little clueless when it came to fashion. At least it’s nice to know that some things will never change.
Growing up is fun like that. The things that you say you never want to change are exactly the things that should, and they do. And the thing you swore you’d never become is exactly what you are, and it all surprises you in the end. Keeps you on your toes. You never know what’s lurking around the next corner, the next class, the next stoplight. You find out that it’s about falling in love with yourself and with the world and with people and not one person in particular. It’s about fun and travel and intelligent decisions mostofthetime, and sometimes dancing to remember and sometimes dancing to forget. It’s about learning about music and culture and the beauty of 24-hour drive-thru windows and Walmart and peanut butter. Always learning and never stopping and sleeping only when absolutely necessary - and it’s always necessary every night, and sometimes in the afternoons and during class. I’d like to pull aside a confused looking girl today, take her for some really fattening ice cream at Cold Stone, and tell her all of that. Because I wish somebody had done it for me.
Some days are diamonds
Some days are rocks.
Some doors are open,
Some roads are blocked.
Sundowns are golden,
that fade away.
And if I never do nothin’
I’ll catch you back some day
Cause you’ve got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can’t hold out forever,
Even walls fall down.
All around your island,
there’s a barricade.
It keeps out the danger
and holds in the pain.
Sometimes you’re happy
sometimes you cry.
Half of me is ocean,
half of me is sky.
But you’ve got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can’t hold out forever,
Even walls fall down.
Some things are over
Some things go on
But part of me you carry
Part of me is gone.
But you’ve got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can’t hold out forever,
Even walls fall down.
It’s the times like these that you hope you never remember, that you pray you never forget. They say that everyone goes through one of these crises, that it’s a normal thing. You question your values and your identity, and in the middle of it all you feel like a lost mess, and you certainly can’t see your hand in front of your face. It grows like kudzu, this mess does. You wander aimlessly, and it’s not something that anyone can really help you through. Sometimes you just have to stand up straight, hold your shoulders up and your lip stiff, and suck it up.
Nothing seemed to be what I had bargained for this week. In the contract of life, I definitely wouldn’t have signed on the bottom line if I’d known the benefits would have been so…blech. I would have definitely negotiated my way through to a higher salary. I don’t regret it, not at all. But I am just pretty sick of it all. Intellectually unfulfilled, I’m wasting too much time in bars and bottles and angsty literature. It’s a maddening little cycle this is.
And I think it’s all because I feel like I’m trying to prove something. I’m not sure why, or to whom, or really what it is that I want to prove…maybe that I’m good enough, or maybe that I’m better, or maybe something else entirely. I get so fed up with the system and the expectations and my supposed obligations, but then they’re all made up anyway. It’s like I have these fabricated ideals that apply only to me, and only because I say they should. An email from my fourth grade teacher recently said, “Yes Sarah, you were always so deliberate…expecting more, even at such a young age.” Deliberate. Fourth graders aren’t supposed to be like that; they’re supposed to play soccer and be messy and have friends and be fun. College seniors are supposed to play games and sleep late and have friends and be fun.
This is an altogether depressing string of thoughts. I should punctuate this with a reliving of the past week of debauchery. Life’s been more than just sad wallowings in Kleenex boxes; the socialite has returned. And I’m reading a really delightful book that isn’t written for middle schoolers, because it talks about really sordid things like sex and LSD and homosexuality, and it’s nice to know that I can still enjoy that kind of book. Because I was beginning to think that the only book I liked anymore was Harry Potter, which I did finally cowboy up and begin to read and yes, the fervor for it is completely justified. And I kissed a boy, which was also fun, if meaningless, because I was also beginning to fear that the only type that thought I was any kind of fun was the under-ten variety. See! All is not lost!
I don’t think I’m going to edit this. I’m sure this sounds like drunk babblings, and hell. I might possibly still be. But I think this is fun. The soundtrack of the moment is Tracy Chapman, which makes me think I should really rather be sipping earl grey tea in a trendy coffee shop and smoking a cigarette while writing this, pondering more deeply the meaning of life. But I don’t think I’m going to ponder anymore. Because I think that’s what got me in trouble in the first place.
My mentor professor, who I like very little, evidently caught wind of the little breakdown I had the other day and decided to pass on a little encouraging word that I thought would piss me off, but ultimately ended up being the most meaningful thing to come out of this week, I think. Anyway, he validated everything that I’d been feeling, and let me know that it was all okay. And that it would be over soon. And to have someone finally acknowledge that was important to me, because I think the thing that hurt me the most was that I didn’t feel like anything I was feeling was validated anywhere, and not by the person I thought would validate it first.
But then again, I think I’m more normal than I thought I was. On a completely unrelated note, my mom returned from her overnight high school reunion workshop gossip party at the lake with the girls she’s known for almost fifty years and found out that a girl I went to church with got married back in January, which is completely normal, because she’s the marrying type. But the really delightful and gossipy part of it all is that she married him a)at the courthouse, after knowing him for less than a month and b>without telling her parents. And now, I know that I’m the last person who should say a thing about not telling parents things because seriously. But the point is, that when I saw her at Easter she was introducing this guy as her fiancé. That’s three months, kids. Three months. At home, for Easter, with the husband. And he’s still the “fiancé”. Except evidently later that day his status as husband was revealed. And honestly. That I’ve never attempted a stunt like that is altogether encouraging. I am not completely crazy. Really!
It’s funny how things like that can make you feel so much better. I think, really, that it’s why we watch reality tv. We don’t like it. It’s trashy, it’s dirty, and it’s replacing the good stuff like Friends and Sex and the City. But its perpetuation says to me that really, there are a hell of a lot of people who are not only willing to put themselves out there like that but also that not a one of them leads a normal life with a normal, functioning psyche. And so my petty little drama and crises and all of that is still not enough to send me to the loony bin. Because let’s face it. I live my life without cameras and like it.
Is it true that the first step is denial? Or is it acceptance. Sam and I argued about this last night, and I mean, I’ve never been through a 12-step. But it seems to me that you have to first have denial if you’re going to ultimately have acceptance. What an appropriate thing to talk about while throwing back a few beers in rapid succession. Evidently we’re driving the train straight down to the underworld.
But can I really be all that bad if I have this overwhelming urge to go to the library right now? The thought that I might be normal is departing quickly. I think I want to read about Peru and sip pina coladas and lay out in the sun. I want to speak Spanish with a senorita or a senor and sound attractive while doing it. But first I want to go to the library. It’s true. I read books for fun. Chad, who was being a grade A asshole last night, ribbed me for my books on the CIA, which are part for pleasure but mostly for summer enrichment workshop, but it’s not like I don’t enjoy reading them. But remember! I’m reading a book about sex and drugs and rock and roll, or something of the sort. Reminder: tell Sam about AHWOSG because he will, undoubtedly love it. Charlie grew up and became Dave Eggers. It’s so fashionable to write about jaded adolescents and twenty-somethings during the early nineties, isn’t it?
I truly believe that I could sit here and type these random thoughts for hours. Did someone put drugs in my drink last night? I’m not serious. But I am serious that I could continue this verbal diarrhea for the entire period of my detox, which might continue to take a while, as it is now 2:24 in the afternoon. Mission accomplished. But I really think I might go to the library. And they thought I was cool. Actually, I also would like to witness panhellenic weekend, because I think it might be fun to reminisce. Not that I ever went to panhellenic, but because I remember what it was like to be a senior in high school, just on the verge of graduating, and everything in springtime was exciting and fresh and beautiful and wonderful, and the world was yours and yours alone. You could be powerful and important and lovely and have it all together, knowing just what you want - even though the truth of it all is that you have no earthly idea what you want, except for freedom and independence. Which is exactly what you want, and precisely what you will spend the next four years trying to attain. But it’s true. Nothing else that you think you want is really what you want at all. Sometimes I don’t even recognize that girl of four years ago. But what a fun and beautiful girl she was, if a little clueless when it came to fashion. At least it’s nice to know that some things will never change.
Growing up is fun like that. The things that you say you never want to change are exactly the things that should, and they do. And the thing you swore you’d never become is exactly what you are, and it all surprises you in the end. Keeps you on your toes. You never know what’s lurking around the next corner, the next class, the next stoplight. You find out that it’s about falling in love with yourself and with the world and with people and not one person in particular. It’s about fun and travel and intelligent decisions mostofthetime, and sometimes dancing to remember and sometimes dancing to forget. It’s about learning about music and culture and the beauty of 24-hour drive-thru windows and Walmart and peanut butter. Always learning and never stopping and sleeping only when absolutely necessary - and it’s always necessary every night, and sometimes in the afternoons and during class. I’d like to pull aside a confused looking girl today, take her for some really fattening ice cream at Cold Stone, and tell her all of that. Because I wish somebody had done it for me.
Some days are diamonds
Some days are rocks.
Some doors are open,
Some roads are blocked.
Sundowns are golden,
that fade away.
And if I never do nothin’
I’ll catch you back some day
Cause you’ve got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can’t hold out forever,
Even walls fall down.
All around your island,
there’s a barricade.
It keeps out the danger
and holds in the pain.
Sometimes you’re happy
sometimes you cry.
Half of me is ocean,
half of me is sky.
But you’ve got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can’t hold out forever,
Even walls fall down.
Some things are over
Some things go on
But part of me you carry
Part of me is gone.
But you’ve got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can’t hold out forever,
Even walls fall down.