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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Feel Bad, Bitch

This, I'm hoping, will be a quick post, as I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now, and I don't currently have anything done on it.
Today, let me just say right now, has just not been my day. Little things going wrong, tired as hell, and it all culminates in THIS SHIT. My friends and I went to dinner tonight. And like usual, we were fucking around. Very beginning of dinner. My roommate takes my drink, making a sort of joke (guess you had to be there) and then on her way to giving it back, putting it on my tray, the glass catches the edge of the tray and falls out of her hand.
No big deal, right?
Oh, I forgot to mention its contents fell. All. Over. Me.
Okay. Still, no big deal, right?
WRONG. I'm wearing my favorite jeans and t-shirt.
No worries. You can wash them.
Grape juice stains. Before the accident, I had two pairs of jeans that I could wear that weren't stained, that were relatively nice. Currently? I have one pair.
Okay, so I go back to my room, change out of my clothes, realize I have no money to replace them, soak them in the bathtub, and proceed to start freaking out about where I'm going to get the money for new jeans, crying and everything. So I call my mom. See if she would be willing to contribute. Luckily, she gets paid Friday, so I bought jeans at Eddie Bauer in B. over the phone and they're shipping them to me. Great. Taken care of.
When I got back to my room after my meeting, J. wasn't around, so I asked K. where she went. "M.'s room." Cool. I didn't go down there, I figured she was fine, whatever. I made it clear when I left after not getting any dinner that I didn't want them to bring me any food, and that it wasn't her fault.
Now, J. isn't the type of person to immediately take things the way you mean them to be taken. She feels bad for EVERYTHING. Dear God, this girl can't let anything go without feeling bad. So apparently she starts crying. And she's been crying in M.'s room. I found this out when I tried to get M. to tell her that I'm sorry, as I won't be in my room until late tonight, or so I am anticipating. But not only did I get absolutely no help, I got a cold response from M. like I did something wrong.
Excuse me. I had to leave the table at that point, because not only was I dripping with grape juice, but I was fairly upset, and getting more upset as I got to my room. I fucking started crying, which I suppose isn't unusual for me lately, and I'm pretty much on the verge right now. I'm not supposed to be the one feeling like I've done someone wrong, because according to A.K., I didn't do anything. Yet, I'm still really upset, and I feel like I should be the one apologizing.
Well you know what? I hope you feel bad, J. You can't just let someone be fucking upset without ruining that as well as their clothes. I would have fucking gotten over it fast if you hadn't gotten the whole group on your side by feeling so bad you cry, by feeling so bad that they look at me like the bad guy. You know what? I got out of there so fast because I didn't want you to feel worse than you already did, but now? I HOPE you feel bad!

Okay. I am finished ranting. I apologize for my words if they are harmful. But know, I won't apologize. I did nothing wrong.

Monday, November 10, 2008

This is your life....

Are you who you want to be?
~Switchfoot

Just to start out the night of studying with a little raw philosophy. Has anyone ever noticed that unwise choices come out of anticipation of a looming test? I just remembered that I have one tomorrow, and what am I doing, my dear, but typing out a message for you. Despite the recent slump in posts, I'm trying to make a comeback with this thing, and that would mean chatting with you, my dear, on a semi-regular basis.

So I start again with this simple question: This is your life, are you who you want to be?

Do you wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and tell yourself that you think you're awesome? Of course not. That would indicate either insanity issues, because you're talking to yourself, or narcissistic issues, because you think you're so God-damned amazing. Truth is, children, if you don't like who you are today, if you can't look in the mirror and say "I'm proud of who I am, what I do, how I feel, my opinions," what can you say? What can you say for yourself, for your life? How do you deal with the husk of life that you have become?

You change.

That's all that needs to happen. A lot of time it happens naturally, sometimes you try to force it, sometimes you just need a brand new car to drive your middle-aged wife around in. But you change, and so do the people around you. We adapt to our new environments.

But, dear readers, if you can't see yourself changing, and my words of unconscious change shock you, frighten you, make you want to hide under your bed, scare you, fret not. We keep the basics as a base.

You will continue to fear. You will continue to be happy on occasion, sad on occasion, angry on occasion.

You will continue to love, dear readers, and that's all that matters in this world.

Friday, October 17, 2008

To Tell the Truth

In my psychology classes, we are discussing repressed and recovered, including false, memories. Basically, in the '90's there was a craze about sexual abuse in women who had any sort of emotional disorder. Kind of like, "if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". It's really weird, because all these women, and sometimes men, were going to these psychiatrists looking for a solution to their problems, and whether they knew it or not, these psychiatrists involuntarily and unknowingly implanted false memories into their patients head through hypnosis, Freud's idea of psychic energy, and age regression.
On the converse, there was a man once who had been sexually abused by his camp counselor when he was in choir. The man repressed this memory for twenty-five years, and then one day, his sister called him up, telling him that her son had joined the choir. The man began to get headaches, and he was depressed, and all of a sudden, the memory became clear. He did some research on the counselor and later confronted him about it. The counselor confessed over the phone, and the man pressed charges.
Once, due to certain cues of sexual abuse, my mother asked me point-blank if I ever had been. I told her no, because at the time, I couldn't ever remember anything about it. So she took me to see psychologists, thinking that maybe, I would feel the "secrets" were safer if I told them to the psychologist instead of her, not that there were any secrets, because nothing was really happening. To this day, I do not remember anything about any sexual abuse what-so-ever. I do remember some somewhat disturbing things from my childhood that got close to it, but nothing really dark. My father would sit me on his lap while he was going to the bathroom. I never saw anything, but it made me uncomfortable all the same. My mom never knew about it, and it went on until I was eight, at least. He did it once in my now-step-mom's house, which is how I'm tracing this, but I never once saw a penis. Not until I lost my virginity. I almost even walked in on him once when he was peeing.. and he stopped me.
To my credit, this memory has been with me for my whole life. I don't feel that it was ever repressed. But it makes me question if I have repressed things in the past, like having actually been sexually abused, or even if my memory of sitting on my dad's lap is valid, or complete. It makes me wonder if my memories of his emotional abuse are real, or if I'm just crazy. I hate listening to the stories of the people with false memories because some you can tell are very clearly made up, and I don't like feeling like I made something up when my story is totally different. I think what bothers me most is my lack of evidence, since psychological abuse is so hard to prove. With a lack of evidence, my memories are just as valid as the woman who had a memory of getting stuck in a fallopian tube as an egg. So, how am I supposed to know?

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Chapter One

My father had a hand that could stop a clock. No, literally stop a clock. He got angry one Saturday and made shards out of the face of the grandfather clock that stood at the end of the hall, bending the hands into the unsuspecting roman numerals, freezing the time at 9:26 in the morning. I watched him load it into the back of his pickup around lunchtime, and before dinner, he approached me. "Jenny, you are to never speak of the argument we had this morning. When your mother asks what happened to the clock, you knocked it over in the hall while playing with your friends. If you stray from this story, I will lock you in the basement, and you will not eat tomorrow." After dinner, my mother noticed the clock in the hallway, was gone, and asked my father what happened to it. My father nodded to me, and I launched into the story that I had prepared when he told me what I was supposed to say. "Kaylee was over, and we were playing tag in the hall." This was something I knew was against the rules. " I accidentally slipped when she was chasing me, and I slid into the clock. It fell over, and the glass broke. Daddy helped me pick up the big pieces, and made me vacuum up the rest." My father chipped in the rest: "I called the manufacturer to see if there was any way we could simply replace the glass, and we can't afford their prices, so I took it to the dump." Dad had beat me silly that day for making him mad enough to punch the clock in more than a metaphorical sense, but by that age, my mother no longer bathed me, so she didn't see the bruises he left all over my back and arms. I was seven years old at the time, and I have never forgotten it.
"Jennifer Willoughbe, you get your ass out here immediately and do the fucking dishes and if I have to ask you again, we will cancel your birthday party this week!"
I rush out to the kitchen, knowing full well that I will get a lashing if I don't make it quick. I have no idea what's made him so angry today, but it isn't the first time. The door slams as he leaves for God knows where, and I watch his truck disappear around the corner as I fill the sink with water and soap. I notice he's left a list again as I'm walking back to my room for my Ode to Doing the Dishes CD, given to me by Amber, my good friend from school. Amber, though she often doesn't look it, with her bright orange spiked pixie cut, cold grey eyes, and squared-off chin, is really sweet. I met her during my eighth grade year at the middle school in the town my parents moved us to the last time the people in the hospital started recognizing the bruises and broken bones as my father's doing. She sat down next to me once at lunch, resting her fingers in the exact places my father's had been the night before when he was drunk, and somehow, I think she drew from the finger-shaped bruises that it was his doing. From that day forward, she and I have been best friends, sharing everything about our lives with the other. At the end of this month, August, we'll be starting high school together, if my parents don't move again, that is.
The opening chords of Goodbye Earl, the infamous Dixie Chicks song, fill the kitchen as I wash the first dish, and the second. My brother Michael, the elder and moved out of the two of us, barges through the front door, just as the Dixie Chicks burst into the chorus, and with his explosive entry, he joins in: "Cause Earl had to DIE!" Coming up to me, he wraps me in a bear hug, knowing that I hate this place, and careful to mind any new injuries. When he still lived at home, and his girlfriend wasn't over, I would sneak into his room at night and complain about how Dad always picked on me, and hurt me so much. He would hug me, and tell me eventually, everything would be alright. He's gone now, so I have to deal with my father on my own now. Lucky for me, Michael still stops by, and takes me out every once in awhile, even though he's married and has a couple of kids.
"Guess who I brought with me, little sister!"
"Who?" I ask.
Almost as soon as the word is out of my mouth, Amber comes barging through the door. I shriek as I meet her, arms open for a hug. We all crowd into the kitchen. They both know they came during dishes time. Amber is the one who made me the CD for God's sake. Amber sees the list and turns to me.
"He really left all this for you to do today? What does he think you are, his little maid?" Amber, who has been here on his little escapades, who's seen all his lists, and who's watched me complete the lists, heads straight for the broom closet. She pulls down the cleaning supplies, and hands my brother a broom. "Here Michael," she says. "Let's help Cinderella complete her chores for the big bad asshole so we can get her out of here."
"Ummm, not happening," I reply, knowing full well my father wouldn't approve of my friend and brother being here, and knowing even more that he would approve less of it if they were helping me so they could kidnap me for a pre-birthday celebration before he could get home. "The kidnapping part, I mean," I revise as they start to put the supplies away. "I would love the help."
Amber kisses my cheek, beginning to clean the windows as we all sing along to Breakaway, the strong girl song, as Amber calls it. To tell the truth, it's always funny to hear my brother sing along to songs like that, especially in a falsetto. Michael joins me at the sink, tickling me as he grabs a towel to dry with. Aaron, our father, is so anal retentive about not letting the dishes air dry because "the germs dry onto them, making them dirty again" not to mention the fact that they're going into a cupboard that has germs all over it. Though, I suppose he makes up for that by making me clean the cupboards once a week.

Monday, October 06, 2008

New Things

I'm... I'm fine.
Overload of reading,
Overload of theatre,
Overload of life,
Overload of love.
Reading shit,
Writin' shit,
Studyin' shit,
Designin' shit.
Been confronted about my honesty,
Been confronted about my beliefs,
Been confronted about my strength.
I don't understand anymore,
I can't comprehend anymore,
I can't apprehend anymore,
Life.
Who am I kidding to be a theatre major?
Who was I kidding to think I can do this?
I am kidding myself with the idea that I
Can do a long distance thing.
I can't talk to my family because they're so far away,
Can't talk to myself cause I'm never alone,
Can't talk to my friends
Because I'm losing ground,
Losing touch,
Losing credibility,
Driving them away,
Moving on.
And I'm scared.
Scared of being put on the spot,
Scared of failing,
Scared of being let go,
Of being lost,
Of being hated and excluded.
And at the same time,
Oh, it's so strange.
She's happy all the time,
But gets depressed on a dime.
I can see her in the morning, happy as a clam
And then again in the evening, so down in mood.
I dont understand the shift.
So I'm going to call her crazy,
It an emotional roller-coaster,
Tell her to see a psychiatrist instead of listening to her,
Block off her moods.
That's part of the reason I don't talk to him anymore.
Oh yeah, and I hate my parents.
I started crying.. on the phone,
With a man I love, BECAUSE OF THEM.
And he couldn't be here to fix things.
And the distance is killing me.
But I'm going to wait,
Even though I hate this.
Because right now,
Maybe because it's one in the morning,
He's the only thing that makes me smile.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Remnants

Sweet things leave sugar on your lips.
I wish you wouldn't say things like that,
Because it only makes me fall
More in love with you
And I don't know,
Can't be sure that you'll be there
To catch me,
To save me from the pavement.
"I'll take you to friendship,
To the point of forgiveness,
And then I'll let you go."
I never wrote about the mistake you made
So many months ago.
You wronged me by pushing me away
Caused me to feel more pain
Instead of explaining.
We've gotten to the point.
Your responsibilities need you.
But I need you just as much.
Never mind the fact
That I can't look into your eyes,
Look into your soul,
Without hurting,
Without mourning what was destroyed.
Your voice makes me happy,
And when your face lights up with joy,
I smile.
You haven't let go.
I'm still calling.
And we're both terrified of the future.
I want someone who cares:
You.
You want to find someone worthy of courtesy:
This can't be me.
You say you've tried to hate me
Convince yourself that you never cared.
But I put the same spell on you.
You left a void in my heart
One now occupied by the cold,
Hard, snow-covered rock that weighs it down.
I talk to you every now and again
And the sun shines
Melting the bricks of ice that make up my boundaries.
I let you in once more.
I open the wounds again,
Rip off the bandages,
And coat them with salt.
But I forgive you...
And again...


The funny thing is that this still kind of applies, even though it happened over 2 years ago. C.R. cheated on me, after I had wasted 3 months writing him letters at boot camp, and after he had fed me full of crap, told me what I wanted to hear, as if I wouldn't find out about him sleeping with his ex-girlfriend. As I type this up today, my heart fills with bitterness, but not for what he did to me. Instead, for what he did to everyone else. When he stuck his head under that train, I don't think he realized how many people he would be hurting in the process. Family, friends, girlfriend... son. The boy he fathered will grow up without knowing his daddy, and the mother will be bitter because of his suicide. C.R's mother will never be able to look at trains again without imagining exactly what happened to make her boy do such a thing, and all of his friends will, like me, wonder why he did it, try to make sense of it, and sooner or later, give up on trying. Yeah, we could blame him. But what's the use? He can't hear or see us blaming him. He can't see or know what exactly he left behind. He can't see the remnants of his life.

You know what I hate? I hate that this has affected me so dramatically. Like I said, he cheated on me. We stayed friends for a year or two after, and I finally terminated our friendship about six months before because he had treated my boyfriend of the time like he was a better person. We stopped talking, and three weeks after the actual event, when I was going through my freshman year of college, and a bad breakup, someone who I hadn't talked to in the longest time tells me over the phone that C.R. committed suicide. I suppose it took awhile to really hit me. I told people around me like it was nothing, because it wasn't at the time. My friends and professors, and even my boss said I might want to see a shrink about it. It finally hit me, and I cried. I didn't understand why, I mean, I wasn't even talking to him. I could barely consider him a friend. And now, that I'm back home, it's hitting me harder than ever. I realized upon talking with his friends, that more people missed him than could be comprehended. And then someone told me how he did it. Train. Creative, that one. Train. And all she would tell me is that it involved decapitation. When she told me this, I thought about it for awhile, then I freaked. What was he thinking, sticking his head under the wheel of a train? How do you get that lonely without people noticing? I was all of a sudden angry with him, not just for committing suicide and hurting those around him, but for being selfish and doing it in such a way that someone else had to see his nasty, headless remains. The engineer had to have felt it. He might have even caused a train accident. The nerve.

I was watching The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants today (I know, early high school-ish) and I saw what Tibby and Bridget went through when Bridget's mom committed suicide, and when Bailey died. I realized through a blank look at a camera that that's how I feel inside. I've lost two people in two years, and I feel empty. I feel like I want to stay in bed all day and sleep, because that's what happens when you're empty.. you're also tired. And when Carmen walked into Tibby's room saying, "I am mad at my dad," I realized how hard it was to empathize with her when your own problems are so much greater, how hard it is to listen to your friends bitch about their own lives and their own problems when you're having a hard time dealing with yours. Everything else seems like small potatoes.

A.K. once told me he was sick of the emotional roller coaster. Well, just for you, A.K, I'm not confiding my problems. I saw someone to try and help me with it, as per your advice. I won't be telling you my problems anymore. I won't call you in the middle of the night next semester and ask you to come talk to me. Instead, I'll huddle in my bed, crying. You know what my mom said when I told her that I went to go get help? She told me that nothing that I've been through compares with what she's been through, that we've been through way worse together. She started thinking that maybe she didn't raise me right. She thinks I'm weak, thinks she didn't teach me to handle death. But how do you prepare someone for two deaths to people you were close to in one year? When she started telling me that we had been through harder times, do you know what I did? I yelled at her, A.K. I yelled at her, and told her that I hadn't been through worse, and if I had, I was too young, and mom had made it okay, and that this was the worst year of my life, the year where all the hard stuff had happened. The only good part of this year was you. You, my friends.

Monday, May 19, 2008

An Everlasting Moment

I'm headed to the theatre for the third time today.
Could have gone back to L. for a quick nap.
Okay, so maybe I'm not headed to work.
Maybe, maybe I'm hooked on you.
Can't get enough.
Walking past E., hoping to even glimpse you.
I turn, again, hoping to see you,
Needing to see you.
And....
You're sneaking up on me.
Rascally devil, you.
You pout, your game spoiled, blaming it on me for looking too soon.
And then you wrap an arm around me,
Stopping with me at the theatre.
My home.
You, I would like to think, understand why I chose it as my major.
And I love you for it.
But I can't tell you that.
You would freak.
So instead, I'll say,
"Thank you, darlin', for supporting me."
Eh, I've got half-an-hour;
Let's go to K.
And we're off,
In his room for twenty minutes,
A period that passes all too quickly.
He's wrapping his arms around me,
Resting his head on my sleepy head,
Never letting me go,
Never letting me out of his (attached) grasp.
And then time stands still.
He's kissing me with those perfect lips of his,
The perfect touch,
The perfect strength.
And I have only one wish:
That I could remain frozen
In this moment,
Forever.
He's so handsome,
Sexy,
Strong,
Beautiful.
But he can't see his own worth.
He can't see that I am so attracted to,
Attached to,
In love with,
Him.
And even though I tell him, he can't see why.
Through the crazy faces, the obnoxious behavior,
The feigned masochism and the misogyny,
I see a sensitive man,
Modeled from a Greek god.
Those blue-grey eyes, boyish smile,
And that facial hair I've grown to love
Hide the soul that I yearn for,
The soul I want to learn more about,
The soul whose secrets I want to discover.
My mystery man.
And all too soon, the alarm goes off,
And I'm getting up,
Slipping on my shoes,
And trekking back to the theatre.



I wrote this in March. The relationship referred to here is over now, but the poem still deserved to be published. Not because I miss him, but because it's my work, my words, my poetry.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Silence

Welcome to MSN Messenger
Online Contacts
Stop take some time to think...
Dano
M.T.
dimo
Augerric
.
.
.
Sinister Cynicism

This is who I want to talk to. Double click. "Hey". "Meebo message: Sinister Cynicism is offline". This happens EVERY TIME, and yet he says he isn't avoiding me. He's full of shit. We broke up because I wished he loved me. Is that so wrong? He couldn't give me what I wanted, and he couldn't deal with that. Is that really so hard to deal with? I write an email, asking him how he's doing. No response. I write another, telling him about how I'm doing, that I got Firefly for my birthday. Still, no response. And then, a final email, telling him how I'm doing, and telling him I'm done with our one-sided friendship. And, you guessed it, no response! He had told me, in an email, that he wanted to be friends, that he wanted "to keep things from going awkward and silent, if he could". Guess that's no longer the case. Maybe I just freaked out about his flirting a little too much. Couldn't handle seeing his arm around another girl, so I left. And he calls that freaking out. I didn't even yell... I didn't even say anything... I said goodbye to everyone, and I left. It's my party, I can cry/leave if I want to. Even my friends are telling me I should give up on friendship with him. Fine. You win P.V... I give up. I give up, I give up. B.P. told me she thought I had a chance of getting him back. Not so much when he doesn't co-operate with our plans. But it doesn't matter anymore. As an ex, I'm not supposed to care, so I don't. And then I do. And then I don't. And then I do, but I claim I don't. So I delete the crappy camera-phone pictures of him from my cell phone, I delete his phone number, knowing I can get it back from facebook if I need it, I delete him from my MSN and AIM accounts. I try to stop caring. He probably has me blocked anyway. Oh well. This is me not caring, or rather, me trying not to care...

Monday, April 28, 2008

Tribute to an Asshole

http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2005/12/race-mixing.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2005/12/grounded-and-for-stupid-reason.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2005/12/not-so-perfect-plans.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/03/details.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/03/second-post-for-today.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/04/945-i-grab-my-keys-and-walk-out-of-my.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/04/breakfast-at-bakery.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/04/sweet-revenge.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/04/something-i-want-to-say-but-probably.html
http://wishingwewereelsewhere.blogspot.com/2006/06/two-days-ago.html

Archives. Archives of this blog in reference to C.R. I really don't know what to say right now. I am truly befuddled. I don't understand. I don't understand why or how he did it. I don't understand why God is taking all these people away from me. I don't understand why some people have to die so young, and why some people want to die so young. I don't understand why this occurrence is affecting me so much after what he did to me, both while we were dating, and while we were friends. Maybe it's because B.L. told me that it's because he was drinking and smoking pot too much, and that M.T. is headed down the same road, because the only time you drink and smoke pot is when you want to forget something (which, by the way, isn't true. People do those things for many reasons.. wanting to forget is only one of them). We all knew about how he got out of the Marines: as K.H. likes to put it "We saw his discharge papers. The Marines knew his suicide attempt was fake. They knew he was full of shit." Bet they didn't know he was bipolar. Bet they didn't know he had a kid. Bet they didn't know that the attempt was serious, that he needed a lot of psychiatric help that he couldn't afford because he spent all his money on drugs and alcohol, and that the next time he tried, he would succeed. He needed hospitalization. He needed friends, and I just blew him off because of the way he acted towards my later boyfriends. The way he treated me wasn't enough to make me stop talking to him. No, it had to be poor treatment of someone I knew, someone who was close to me, someone I loved, for me to stop giving him chances. I don't understand. He had so many friends (or so it seemed) who were there for him when things got tough, even if I wasn't one of them. I don't understand how none of them could see what was going on, and stop him from doing it, or at least call the fucking suicide hotline. People aren't supposed to die when they're 20. They aren't supposed to die when they're 17. They aren't supposed to die when they're 56. People die when they're old, when they're in their 80's or 90's. It's like a moving snapshot. When someone disappears, the things they had affected in the shot stay the same. You know that person was there, you can see it in the pictures she pinned to the walls in her room, or the little baby boy he fathered. Nothing changes. They just disappear. And what you see in the picture is what was behind them. The background.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Random Things That Have Been Bothering Me Recently

Rapidly approaching finals. Sorority-obsessed friends. Sardines with an ex. Trying to move on. Sometimes it feels so difficult, I feel like I can't do it. It's been two weeks now, since that night he broke my heart, that night he told me he just didn't feel the way he used to, that night I left him standing in the hall after he said what he did, that night he went back upstairs and took five shots, one right after the other, for God knows what reason. Two weeks, and I still breakdown. I still cry. I still look back and wish he loved me, wish I hadn't screwed things up by making him angry after that night, wish, as I'm flirting with all the guys around, that we could get back together, that, because of those five shots, he was upset about that night. I think my problem is that I'm stressed. I might have failed my physics exam on Friday, through no fault of my own. Rotational acceleration vectors point where? How do you find angular velocity? Why are you writing things on the board, then not explaining them, or changing them and not telling us that you did, after we already have the wrong thing written in our notes? Molly tells me I don't need him, tells me that I'm beautiful and sexy, and that there's someone better for me. Suzanne tells me I'm talented, that not many people can take the classes that I'm taking, and work as hard as I do. I see through it though. Everyone at Willamette (besides the ones whose parents can pay for their schooling out-of-pocket) is working just as hard as me, taking the same classes that I am, passing those classes. I came here dreaming math dreams, dreaming science dreams, and in taking one, two, three classes, those dreams are dashed. I can't do multi-variable calculus, or proof theory, or physics. I'm not interested in chemistry, linear algebra, or biology. No. I pick the two majors that my parents think have the fewest job options, the majors that I get the most crap for. I don't care if everyone's worried about me! I'll make it through, and I don't understand why you don't trust that that's the case! All I'm asking for is a little support, moral, not financial. This whole year, you've lent me twenty-five dollars. Twenty-five. I will make it. If there's one think my mother has taught me, it's determination. I can major in anything anywhere. All of Willamette's majors are offered at places like Western, or any other liberal arts college. I chose Willamette for a reason, and I'm going to stay for a reason. I finally feel like I belong somewhere, even if I only belong here for three more years. And I'm not "just like [my] father". If you want to say that to me again, remember how you reacted that summer day on the way to work when I said those exact words. Remember how much it hurt you to hear it, how much you cried. Then take that pain, and multiply it by, oh, maybe ten, maybe one-hundred, and know that that is how much you hurt me every time you tell me that (and you have on more than one occasion). It hurts because that is my legitimate fear, my worst phobia. Either that I will end up like him, or I'll end up with someone like him. I want you to know that I'm not, and I won't. My friends, even though they haven't met him, know that I'm not just like him. How can you even see a similarity? He asked me on the phone the other day to come see him after finals were done, even for a few days. I told him no, that I didn't have time because I would be busy working. Working for next semester's tuition. He asked what a few days would hurt, and that's when I ended the conversation, because I wanted to tell him so badly that I didn't want to come. But I was in a line, waiting to get lunch. I think you would agree, that isn't the most appropriate place to tell someone something like that. Then there's L.B. The sorority girl. She's beginning to abandon us for her "sisters" and new friends. I can understand how she feels, as I've found my family in the theatre here. But that doesn't mean I don't miss her. We were never the closest, but I guess she feels that M.Z. and I are drifting away as well. We are all acquiring different interests, yet the A's still talk to all of us. We still have dinner together. Dinners that I'm beginning to dread, because I can't get a word in edge-wise when L.B. and M.Z. are talking. Fucking girls. I am one, so that's kind of hypocritical, but when you are so self-absorbed that you can't see that one of your friends is in just as much pain as you, you deserve to lose touch with her. But I guess it isn't fair to call you self-absorbed because I didn't know that you were suffering too. If you ask me, it's your own fault. You're the one who takes on so many activities, the one who can't say no. Well, on second thought, maybe I can call you self-absorbed, because that's all you ever talk about. You. And maybe the reason why I didn't know how you were feeling is because you aren't talking to M.Z. or me truthfully anymore. But, as I said before, things change. People change. I guess you get used to it. Or you should, anyway.