It'll all work out eventually.
I'm at a darker period now in my life than I had ever planned for. I had a plan for my life when I left Chatham Hall, but it is almost as though my life has been lost like pieces of paper from a burning document. My plan was to go to Randolph-Macon, double-major (at least), start an a cappella group, join a sorority and maybe finally have a real relationship with this wonderful guy, something that I didn't have in high school. I was then planning on travelling the world for a year. Or working with Peace Corps. Then I was supposed to go to law school. And/or grad school. And then I was going to go from there, enjoy life, be successful. Things turned to gold when I was at Chatham. My senior year was almost the last year of my life when I had my heat stroke, but someone had a different plan for me, and so I was able to stay in school, worked harder than I ever had before, and raised my GPA by about 4.5 points in only 3 trimesters. My yearbook that I was co-editor for was beautiful and everyone lauded it as the best in at least several years. My choir group had been to our yearly festival and it was fun and we had a soloist as usual. My a cappella group went to a recording studio and we recorded a CD of our very own. I graduated with a ticket to college and my ideals of how well that was going to be meant I was looking past college, already planning for things after undergrad. Then the descent came. My grandfather having Parkinson's, my Dad getting skin cancer, my dating Alex from work and then it turning out he had a GF the entire time, falling for Dave, then Ross, my grades deteriorating after I lost all sense of my morals... my drinking out of control. Then calm came during J-term. Then Bret hit me and spoke to me, I had a mental breakdown in JC and Jeff's apartment with Ross as one of those people I was upset towards, I stopped taking care of myself, 'everything' was wrong in my life. I went to Seafarer to fix myself mentally, and then my parents came all the way down to camp to tell me I wasn't going to school, not, at least, Macon, in September. So I finished up the summer, enrolled at DSLCC. Then in early Sept, Mom and Dad told me I wasn't ever going back to Macon with their monetary assistance. I dated Matt. Couldn't let go of Nick. Finally let go of Nick. Finally let go of Matt. Started dating Sean. This was a bright time in my life. Beginning of the end of that stage for me. He kept me in touch with things. With having life, people, etc. But I knew who I wanted to see, who I wanted to try to be with, being JC. Then I had my first visit with JC. And again. Then I went to Sweet Briar. And it wasn't what I was told. What I was informed of. It was everything but. It was negative and sucked me out. Then I fell at Carolina Cup, one of the saving grace events I went to this past Spring. Hurt my feet. Couldn't get out of bed for 10 days. Finished up at SBC. Sprinkle visits to B'more in there. Went home. Mom and Dad told me, 'Hey, we're essentially broke, but to keep up the facade of what our own parents think, that being us having lots of money, we are going to not let you go to school, you are going to move out, and then we can afford to keep living here in Lexington the way everyone thinks we always have.' Go to the Greenbrier. My Aunt Mellie's face when I said I wouldn't be going back to school in the Fall kills me every time I think about it. To the point of a lump forming in my throat. That means another person disappointed/shocked in me. Fast-forward 2 months.
I live here in the GB, and I've made some friends, and that is great. I've lived here since July 29. And only had a paying job since Sept 2nd. And that lasted just over a month, when I was fired on the 9th of October. This new journey's path in my life hasn't been what it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be earning more than $7 an hour, I wasn't supposed to be working at Target, I wasn't supposed to get FIRED FROM TARGET, I wasn't supposed to be spending mostly all of my money on my P.O.S. car, utility bills, and rent. I was supposed to be earning enough to be making something to put aside. That was the goal and mission for my being here. Unless, as usual, my parents knew that somehow I'd fuck this all up and they just are waiting for me to come crawling back to them. Which I wouldn't put past them.
I really hate my friends who say things to me like, "Oh, they love you, and you love your parents, you're just not remembering your whole childhood." And I have to explain to them that my family's persona in Lex Vegas is ALL bullshit when it comes to my Mom & Dad. That that is why my sister went to Mary Wash and never looked back, that is why my brother never turned back after going to boarding school, that if why I unluckily had is hard because I obviously didn't get the genius gene, just the gifted one so I don't know any better but keep forgiving them and this moving. This presence/mission of mine to be away from them, which they also requested, has gone no where. I am not where I want to be right now. However, there is nothing I can do about that. I have my feet in two different temperatures of water and I cannot decide which one is better for me and as a result my skin is getting pruney.
I am 20 years old. And I'm not living like a 20-year-old with my education and the fact that I'm a dependent by law but living like this is BULLSHIT.
I'm angry now. I'm sad. I'm cold. I'm losing weight in odd ways. I eat pasta all the time. The only vegetables I get come from tomatoes. I drink OJ and milk to make sure my bones and muscles don't all but disappear. I yawn and turn myself in but then I end up laying in bed awake and alert for 3+ hours. And often that means I don't fall asleep until 6am. It's only if I'm in the city overnight or not in this apartment that I can fall asleep at a slightly decent hour. My weekends are spent sleeping and being jealous of my roommates, who are incredibly kind people that I wish I could spend more time with, jealous because they are gaining college credits while all I am gaining is "life experience". Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit. My childhood of verbal, physical, and varied forms of abuse and neglect was PLENTY of life experience for me. Bret's attack and then evil magic trick of somehow indirectly convincing Chas. and my parents that I shouldn't return to Macon was PLENTY of life experience for me.
I lay in bed at night or I pace. That is what I do in this room, often. My toes sink into the carpet and I pace. Or just stand. Or stretch. I flop onto my bed on my back in my elusive camisole and underwear and the down comforter is cold and makes goosebumps rise up from my skin. My head picks up the crinkles of the down in their little pockets of air. My back bends and arches up when I attempt to rise back up to my feet. Steady ground means nothing to me now. I don't want steady ground, nor do I need it. I need progress. There is none of that for me currently. I flop back down. My stomach is steadily growing flatter as my hips and legs get thinner. My hip bones pop up now more than before. My rib cage sticks out more now, too. My body is still womanly but it's annoying when I lie down or sit up, because I'm so self-conscious of the changes that it's gotten like in the recent past. My body has stretch marks around my breasts from my weight loss now, my hips have the same ones as before, my thighs have them again, too. My hair is still fine and shiny but falling out. I'm taking B6 vitamins and also Centrum with Lycopene. Yes, Centrum, the multivitamin old people take. I look over to my right and see the flickering. Which is so comforting, not sure why. My candle glows in it's little glass orb of light, raising the scent of french vanilla up into my room. We have the AC off to conserve energy. The candle keeps the air something less than stiff. My tapestry from Strawberries in Cville stretches across the front of my room. My DMB poster is up on the wall facing my bed. So is the lamp from when my Dad was in college. I am suddenly bitter when I realize this nice furniture in here, which we got over a period of 8 years when I was a child, was supposed to sit in my parents home until I moved into my first apartment AFTER undergrad. Oh how things change. I bitterly wipe a spare tear off my face and flick it away like a bug from my fingertips. Radiohead, Steely Dan, Damien Rice, Ryan Adams, and Joseph Arthur play on my iTunes playlist. They keep me in the zone while I write. My sheets are soft and peach-colored. 350 thread count. Funny that my parents bought me these sheets and helped me decorate my room when I moved in here. They helped me decorate a room but won't help me with my education. Or, as JC put it best, "they buy you Faberge egg pendants but don't care about your schooling". And he's right. They obviously don't. All they have to do is step in.
I gave up on Reason a long time ago. There is no Sense in my life, just like there is no Reason. I stare at the pictures I changed Friday after he left here. They are now pics of my Chatham classmates, a pic of my family, and a pic of my Dad's parents. My Dad's parents haven't returned a letter I wrote to them a while ago. My sister hasn't contacted me either. Nor has her husband. I hate how I suck. At least I think they suck. I'm the baby of this family, I haven't committed any crimes, I have no record, I have nothing. I have a car that has gained 8,000 miles in 2 years, sat through 4 direct hits from hurricanes, and thanks to the rain we had the past 2 weeks, it reeks of mildew. I watch the Gilmore Girls to fill a void that was once filled by my Dad's parents, and was when I used to try to have a weekly phone conversation with them.
My father quit his management position at Pitney Bowes, Inc. in Roanoke. He now is back to just being a Sales Associate. He has two Audi A4 sedans he is still paying insurance on and monthly payments. But he isn't willing to let his daughter have one of them. He is still fat, still bumming money off of my Mom, still running up his and Mom's debt, and lying to everyone we know that we are loaded. And he is still drinking when he is out of town. Fuck, for all we fucking know, he could have another wife somewhere, in Greensboro, maybe, that he sees once a month when he goes down there. Maybe he's just waiting to leave us. When I was home for the first time since moving, when I went home when my Aunt Nun was at UVA post-op, the first thing he does is lecture me on my arrival and short-notice of coming home. I'm sorry? The next day the motherfucker goes to a foreign car show in Fishersville, VA with his best friend Bob-the-chocolate-shop-and-money-spender and then buys me lunch at Salerno's. At Salerno's he tells me he quit his job the day before. Being Friday morning. I ask him how he discussed it with Mom. He didn't discuss it with Mom. He did it on his own. Without discussing it. He says it so nonchalantly. I ask him if he did it to increase the amount of time he spends on his real estate PT-work. He tells me he hadn't thought of it, thanks for reminding him. WHAT he quits just to quit, yes, that's what he did, basically.
Can you tell I'm angry and bitter?
My Mom used to beat us up and verbally abuse us etc etc. But lately she has been the only sane person I've talked to in my family. I mean, I write my brother a long long email and then he writes me a 1 sentence blurb in the 8-person group email he sends us once a month or so. And he was my last resort. So now I have to turn to Mom. Which I hate doing. I mean, she is married to a dumbass. Or lazy fuck, take your pick. She works 40+ hours a week on a SHIT salary while she has a masters degree. She teaches the retarded kids, the disabled kids, the normal kids. She does everything. She is 61 years old. And she works like this. Lives this life. This life she doesn't deserve. She deserves better. Even though she used to beat us up and we have the scars to prove it. She still deserves better than an ex-pothead-smoking, materialism-loving, non-spiritual-beleiving (Mom is intensely spiritual because of her need for her for her sobriety), lying-SOB-existing, slothful-acting (or lack thereof), questionable-actions-living, unhealthy-physique husband. My Dad is like a trailer husband minus the wife-beaters, truck-driving, mullet, and beer-drinking. Seriously. She takes this shit and took this shit AND cheating in her other marriage to my sister's Dad. I think if she hadn't had 2 kids she would've divorced him a while ago. Just so she could live her life and live it happily. I often wonder if things would be better that way. I often have thought that and still think that. The thing is, none of my friends from CH, from Camp, from Macon, from SBC, from here, really have any desire to meet my parents because a lot of them want to kick their asses for making things like this for me.
People hear my story because I tell it. I tell it if I'm asked and I tell it if I'm enquired about anything directly. I like knowing people have learned from my errors in judgement. From my neglect. From my... whatever. It is so hard sometimes to wake up in the morning now. I mean, when you get fired form a job it's like being punched in the stomach. I wake up everyday and I have no idea what and where I will be. I check my bank account to make sure money is still in it. I exercise so I don't end up imploding. I sing in the shower to release the pain. I ache for this void to be filled but the void can't be filled without one thing.... education. It is what I thrive on. I live off of intellect, broadening my scope of the world, learning things everyday. I wake up some days and wonder why I was chosen this life. Everything is a joke. I drive a convertible that looks normal when the top is down and looks like a P.O.S. with the top up. My hair hasn't been cut in a year because I want to donate it to make cancer kids' wigs. And also because it's sexier long. I own Faberge pendant egg necklaces. I wear designer clothes. I have Tiffany & Co. jewelry. I have college credits to my name. I spent 23 grand a year for 3 years on my high school education. I wear contacts. I sleep on 350 thread count sheets. I take a hot shower every morning. My polo shirts have polo players and gators on them. I breathe everyday. I eat at least one square meal a day. I have friends at Ivy League, Southern Ivy, and other prestigious schools. But I don't know when I will be getting my next paycheck. He pointed this out to me the other night and it took everything in my power to not walk outside and scream because he knows me that well. Rent is due at the end of the month. That's in less than two weeks.
I think people can read me as a weird person now. I think they see me as a head case or something and that is why I have no relationships. I don't think I'm healthy for relationships. I take more than I give. But then again, I can never be full of love. I guess when you grow up so early and so alone-and-yet-not that it creates this complex that interacts with the codependency and makes come across as something quirky. I've defeated depression, diabetes, but I can't defeat the relationship rut. And right now, that's fine. I don't know where I will be in 3 months, so why do I want to be with someone who might lose me? I'm living in the now and hating it, so why affect someone with that negative energy now? I hate dragging people down. I like helping people. I hate living like this. I hate all of this. I deserve to have my parents help me get an education. I should be in school right now. I don't know what to do.
This is so lame.
My life is lame.
Everything is lame.
I live here in the GB, and I've made some friends, and that is great. I've lived here since July 29. And only had a paying job since Sept 2nd. And that lasted just over a month, when I was fired on the 9th of October. This new journey's path in my life hasn't been what it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be earning more than $7 an hour, I wasn't supposed to be working at Target, I wasn't supposed to get FIRED FROM TARGET, I wasn't supposed to be spending mostly all of my money on my P.O.S. car, utility bills, and rent. I was supposed to be earning enough to be making something to put aside. That was the goal and mission for my being here. Unless, as usual, my parents knew that somehow I'd fuck this all up and they just are waiting for me to come crawling back to them. Which I wouldn't put past them.
I really hate my friends who say things to me like, "Oh, they love you, and you love your parents, you're just not remembering your whole childhood." And I have to explain to them that my family's persona in Lex Vegas is ALL bullshit when it comes to my Mom & Dad. That that is why my sister went to Mary Wash and never looked back, that is why my brother never turned back after going to boarding school, that if why I unluckily had is hard because I obviously didn't get the genius gene, just the gifted one so I don't know any better but keep forgiving them and this moving. This presence/mission of mine to be away from them, which they also requested, has gone no where. I am not where I want to be right now. However, there is nothing I can do about that. I have my feet in two different temperatures of water and I cannot decide which one is better for me and as a result my skin is getting pruney.
I am 20 years old. And I'm not living like a 20-year-old with my education and the fact that I'm a dependent by law but living like this is BULLSHIT.
I'm angry now. I'm sad. I'm cold. I'm losing weight in odd ways. I eat pasta all the time. The only vegetables I get come from tomatoes. I drink OJ and milk to make sure my bones and muscles don't all but disappear. I yawn and turn myself in but then I end up laying in bed awake and alert for 3+ hours. And often that means I don't fall asleep until 6am. It's only if I'm in the city overnight or not in this apartment that I can fall asleep at a slightly decent hour. My weekends are spent sleeping and being jealous of my roommates, who are incredibly kind people that I wish I could spend more time with, jealous because they are gaining college credits while all I am gaining is "life experience". Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit. My childhood of verbal, physical, and varied forms of abuse and neglect was PLENTY of life experience for me. Bret's attack and then evil magic trick of somehow indirectly convincing Chas. and my parents that I shouldn't return to Macon was PLENTY of life experience for me.
I lay in bed at night or I pace. That is what I do in this room, often. My toes sink into the carpet and I pace. Or just stand. Or stretch. I flop onto my bed on my back in my elusive camisole and underwear and the down comforter is cold and makes goosebumps rise up from my skin. My head picks up the crinkles of the down in their little pockets of air. My back bends and arches up when I attempt to rise back up to my feet. Steady ground means nothing to me now. I don't want steady ground, nor do I need it. I need progress. There is none of that for me currently. I flop back down. My stomach is steadily growing flatter as my hips and legs get thinner. My hip bones pop up now more than before. My rib cage sticks out more now, too. My body is still womanly but it's annoying when I lie down or sit up, because I'm so self-conscious of the changes that it's gotten like in the recent past. My body has stretch marks around my breasts from my weight loss now, my hips have the same ones as before, my thighs have them again, too. My hair is still fine and shiny but falling out. I'm taking B6 vitamins and also Centrum with Lycopene. Yes, Centrum, the multivitamin old people take. I look over to my right and see the flickering. Which is so comforting, not sure why. My candle glows in it's little glass orb of light, raising the scent of french vanilla up into my room. We have the AC off to conserve energy. The candle keeps the air something less than stiff. My tapestry from Strawberries in Cville stretches across the front of my room. My DMB poster is up on the wall facing my bed. So is the lamp from when my Dad was in college. I am suddenly bitter when I realize this nice furniture in here, which we got over a period of 8 years when I was a child, was supposed to sit in my parents home until I moved into my first apartment AFTER undergrad. Oh how things change. I bitterly wipe a spare tear off my face and flick it away like a bug from my fingertips. Radiohead, Steely Dan, Damien Rice, Ryan Adams, and Joseph Arthur play on my iTunes playlist. They keep me in the zone while I write. My sheets are soft and peach-colored. 350 thread count. Funny that my parents bought me these sheets and helped me decorate my room when I moved in here. They helped me decorate a room but won't help me with my education. Or, as JC put it best, "they buy you Faberge egg pendants but don't care about your schooling". And he's right. They obviously don't. All they have to do is step in.
I gave up on Reason a long time ago. There is no Sense in my life, just like there is no Reason. I stare at the pictures I changed Friday after he left here. They are now pics of my Chatham classmates, a pic of my family, and a pic of my Dad's parents. My Dad's parents haven't returned a letter I wrote to them a while ago. My sister hasn't contacted me either. Nor has her husband. I hate how I suck. At least I think they suck. I'm the baby of this family, I haven't committed any crimes, I have no record, I have nothing. I have a car that has gained 8,000 miles in 2 years, sat through 4 direct hits from hurricanes, and thanks to the rain we had the past 2 weeks, it reeks of mildew. I watch the Gilmore Girls to fill a void that was once filled by my Dad's parents, and was when I used to try to have a weekly phone conversation with them.
My father quit his management position at Pitney Bowes, Inc. in Roanoke. He now is back to just being a Sales Associate. He has two Audi A4 sedans he is still paying insurance on and monthly payments. But he isn't willing to let his daughter have one of them. He is still fat, still bumming money off of my Mom, still running up his and Mom's debt, and lying to everyone we know that we are loaded. And he is still drinking when he is out of town. Fuck, for all we fucking know, he could have another wife somewhere, in Greensboro, maybe, that he sees once a month when he goes down there. Maybe he's just waiting to leave us. When I was home for the first time since moving, when I went home when my Aunt Nun was at UVA post-op, the first thing he does is lecture me on my arrival and short-notice of coming home. I'm sorry? The next day the motherfucker goes to a foreign car show in Fishersville, VA with his best friend Bob-the-chocolate-shop-and-money-spender and then buys me lunch at Salerno's. At Salerno's he tells me he quit his job the day before. Being Friday morning. I ask him how he discussed it with Mom. He didn't discuss it with Mom. He did it on his own. Without discussing it. He says it so nonchalantly. I ask him if he did it to increase the amount of time he spends on his real estate PT-work. He tells me he hadn't thought of it, thanks for reminding him. WHAT he quits just to quit, yes, that's what he did, basically.
Can you tell I'm angry and bitter?
My Mom used to beat us up and verbally abuse us etc etc. But lately she has been the only sane person I've talked to in my family. I mean, I write my brother a long long email and then he writes me a 1 sentence blurb in the 8-person group email he sends us once a month or so. And he was my last resort. So now I have to turn to Mom. Which I hate doing. I mean, she is married to a dumbass. Or lazy fuck, take your pick. She works 40+ hours a week on a SHIT salary while she has a masters degree. She teaches the retarded kids, the disabled kids, the normal kids. She does everything. She is 61 years old. And she works like this. Lives this life. This life she doesn't deserve. She deserves better. Even though she used to beat us up and we have the scars to prove it. She still deserves better than an ex-pothead-smoking, materialism-loving, non-spiritual-beleiving (Mom is intensely spiritual because of her need for her for her sobriety), lying-SOB-existing, slothful-acting (or lack thereof), questionable-actions-living, unhealthy-physique husband. My Dad is like a trailer husband minus the wife-beaters, truck-driving, mullet, and beer-drinking. Seriously. She takes this shit and took this shit AND cheating in her other marriage to my sister's Dad. I think if she hadn't had 2 kids she would've divorced him a while ago. Just so she could live her life and live it happily. I often wonder if things would be better that way. I often have thought that and still think that. The thing is, none of my friends from CH, from Camp, from Macon, from SBC, from here, really have any desire to meet my parents because a lot of them want to kick their asses for making things like this for me.
People hear my story because I tell it. I tell it if I'm asked and I tell it if I'm enquired about anything directly. I like knowing people have learned from my errors in judgement. From my neglect. From my... whatever. It is so hard sometimes to wake up in the morning now. I mean, when you get fired form a job it's like being punched in the stomach. I wake up everyday and I have no idea what and where I will be. I check my bank account to make sure money is still in it. I exercise so I don't end up imploding. I sing in the shower to release the pain. I ache for this void to be filled but the void can't be filled without one thing.... education. It is what I thrive on. I live off of intellect, broadening my scope of the world, learning things everyday. I wake up some days and wonder why I was chosen this life. Everything is a joke. I drive a convertible that looks normal when the top is down and looks like a P.O.S. with the top up. My hair hasn't been cut in a year because I want to donate it to make cancer kids' wigs. And also because it's sexier long. I own Faberge pendant egg necklaces. I wear designer clothes. I have Tiffany & Co. jewelry. I have college credits to my name. I spent 23 grand a year for 3 years on my high school education. I wear contacts. I sleep on 350 thread count sheets. I take a hot shower every morning. My polo shirts have polo players and gators on them. I breathe everyday. I eat at least one square meal a day. I have friends at Ivy League, Southern Ivy, and other prestigious schools. But I don't know when I will be getting my next paycheck. He pointed this out to me the other night and it took everything in my power to not walk outside and scream because he knows me that well. Rent is due at the end of the month. That's in less than two weeks.
I think people can read me as a weird person now. I think they see me as a head case or something and that is why I have no relationships. I don't think I'm healthy for relationships. I take more than I give. But then again, I can never be full of love. I guess when you grow up so early and so alone-and-yet-not that it creates this complex that interacts with the codependency and makes come across as something quirky. I've defeated depression, diabetes, but I can't defeat the relationship rut. And right now, that's fine. I don't know where I will be in 3 months, so why do I want to be with someone who might lose me? I'm living in the now and hating it, so why affect someone with that negative energy now? I hate dragging people down. I like helping people. I hate living like this. I hate all of this. I deserve to have my parents help me get an education. I should be in school right now. I don't know what to do.
This is so lame.
My life is lame.
Everything is lame.