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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A Revelation

I was sitting in acting class this morning, thinking about life, namely my monologue, and I came across a small thought in my head that said I'm done. I'm done thinking about this betrayal. I'm done talking about it, I'm done bitching about it. I will finish the series of letters, but honestly, they all say the same thing. I'm running out of things to say, and that, to me, is an indication of how far I've come, and how far I am going. I'm moving past this toxic thing that has taken up so much of my time and energy. This thing that I thought I would never get past. I'm moving forward!

M. Z. and A.K.,

You can't ruin my life. I spent the past six months thinking that you could, that you were. Yeah, I live in a nice house that I don't pay rent for, doing a crappy job that I hate, but you know what? How many people in this world actually like their jobs? So, what I have to say to you is, have a nice fucking life. I hope you stay friends forever, and I really do wish you the best. I hope you marry well, and have lots of fat babies, and that you do something you love in life. And I forgive you for all the pain you've caused me, and all the suicidal thoughts I've had since our falling out, for everything, essentially. Thank you for teaching me a great life lesson: You can't always trust your best friends to stick with you, but then again, if you wouldn't stick with me during my worst times, what made me think you were good friends? Yeah, I miss you. Yeah, I had better self-esteem when we were friends. But the fact remains that we aren't now, and that I will have to find new friends. Better friends. Friends who will stick around through thick and thin. And you know, you don't believe in any sort of God, and I get that. It's your belief. But I also happen to see the pattern, the chain reaction that has led me to where I am right now, and I know that it can't just be a coincidence. You were supposed to stab me in the back as sort of a slap in the face, with God asking me "Where is your faith, Jessica?" and when I wasn't sure where I was going to live, He provided a place that gives me free room and board. And because of our fallout, I went and served Him in Tacoma for a couple of weeks, and realized what He was calling me to do in my life. I witnessed a miracle because you abandoned me. And I thank you for that. I wouldn't be the person I am now if it weren't for you.

That's all I wanted to say. So, thank you.

J. M. A.

P.S. Without pain, there is no growth. Thank you for helping me grow.


 

On another note, I got a call from J.R. after six months of not hearing from him! He's headed to Phoenix from Seattle, and on the way back up, he said he's going to stop in Salem for the day, and we can go to lunch or something. I'm so excited! This is the day I've been waiting for so long now!

Oh, and Mom sent me a care package. It had everything that I've needed for awhile now: Zyrtec, toothpaste, a new toothbrush, vitamins and some stuff that I really don't need: Kudos bars, fresh-baked cookies, and forty bucks that I'm supposed to spend on whatever I want, not including school. Well, I've been buying little things here and there already, so I think that I will just put it toward my credit card bill.

Theatre history was cancelled today! YAY! Good thing, because I didn't do the reading, and I hate the teacher. Although he still expects a list of things from the reading, so after my next class, I'm going to haul ass home and read read read until I get it done enough to make the list. I also have to finish WEB Du Bois's book tonight for history tomorrow. Talk about DRY. It takes fifteen minutes to read ten pages, and I didn't finish the assignment from yesterday as it is. I'm so stressed because my final designs are due today, actually, and they aren't done, but C.H. says that I have a little wiggle time with them, and that he can stall a little for me, but not much. Weekend, here I come with a LOT of stuff to do. All I need to do is get through the weekend, and I will be okay. Just have to get it done, and then I still won't be able to relax because I have three term papers and two group projects that I am supposed to be working on! I thought this part of the semester wasn't supposed to come until the end when finals were here! Yikes! Anyway, I'm going to sign off for now. Wish me luck, dear readers.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

It’s About Closure, Bitch

Okay, so this is just an idea that I had that will turn into kind of a closure series. I want to move on with my life, and people say that you can't move on if you dwell. C.H. told me yesterday to not let tomorrow be affected by yesterday. So. Short series of letters, then I will hopefully be done.

Dear Friend,

Omigod, omigod, omigod! GUESS WHAT! I hate you bitch! Isn't it great?!? Don't fucking stand there and ask me what's wrong, why I've been so down for the past three days, you know damn well about the conversation you participated in behind my back, the conversation that was about me, the conversation that is about to end our friendship. The really good friendship, the friendship that I treasured as my best one. You know full well what kind of lie-to-your-face "friend" you are, and you know that you don't deserve my friendship. Thanks so much for stabbing me in the back. I was sick and needed to get some blood-letting done anyway. That's why you abandoned me, right? Because I was sick. And what better timing? Right as I was placing the knife against my wrist, you abandoned me. Do you realize that our friendship's demise is all your's and A.K.'s fault? You guys made me the butt of all your jokes, and I HATED it. And I took it, and took it, and took it until I just couldn't take it anymore, and somehow that translated into me being bipolar? Hmm, funny. YOU did this to me. YOU. Because of you, I slipped farther down the slope of depression, and here I sit at the bottom of the hole, looking up. I can barely see my old life from this view. It looks like a car when you see it from the window of an airplane. That slope has nothing but loose dirt on it, and nothing to stop my fall. I was stuck for so long, but I've started climbing again, and I slip so much on the way out, and sometimes it just seems hopeless. Do you realize that because of what you did to me, I had no other choice but to take a job that I hate with an old woman that I want to strangle in order to pay for my room and board? It was either that or whore myself out. And as a direct result of that choice, I no longer have the option of being a theatre major, unless, somehow, I can find a roommate for next year, a roommate that would be willing to share a studio apartment. The only good that has come out of your betrayal is I have gotten closer to Alex. He's supported me through my tears, the tears I thought would never dry. Remember how I never used to cry? I cry a lot more now. After I broke off from you, I hated eating, I hated everything that had to do with you, and I still can't forgive you, you stupid slut. After I hit rock bottom, I couldn't find any motivation to go to work, to go to my independent study class. I didn't get a shop supervisor position this year because of you assholes, and I will never forgive you. I trusted you, and you almost killed me with your neglect. It was funny. After I found out, all the things you didn't want to do with me made sense. Didn't want to see Beauty Queen alone with me? Go figure. Didn't invite me to go to the 'Tag with you when you went with A.K. and J.B.? I wonder why. Everything just started to fall into place, and you know what? That hurt even more. The fact that you were pulling this shit and I couldn't see it. It was so obvious! I guess I didn't see it because I thought you were my best friends. I tell myself I'm better off without you, that you destroy my self esteem and crush my faith, but I actually believe that my self-esteem was better when we were friends. I'm disappointed because I lost the illusion of great friends, but I would rather know that I have no friends than let you go on pretending. Bitch. I hope you have a shitty life.

Monday, September 28, 2009

I can't let it go. I can't let go of the fact that my "friends" screwed me over. I just keep thinking about that day that I found out what they really thought of me, and then everything that has caused me misery right now comes rushing back to me, and I remember why I hate them so much, and why I got so upset. This was made very apparent in the meeting that I had with C.H. today. He asked me how things were going, and I told him that I was doing fine, that I was moving on, and that I was trying not to think about it. I have everything that I need to do to cope perfectly balanced on my mind, and I'm setting aside the scales, so that I can't think about it. I don't want to think about how my major is in jeopardy because I'm not living with them, and I don't want to think about what I'm going to do after college without the degree that I was going to get. I had my life all planned out, and then, as C.H. said today, realities hit. They affected me. You know, he always asks me to have coffee with him at the most inopportune times. I had things all compartmentalized, and I was avoiding dealing with shit, and then he kicks the balances in my head and I break down crying and have to explain myself. He says not to blame myself for choosing the wrong friends. He says if I do that, I will learn to not trust people, and that that isn't healthy. But I feel so irresponsible blaming them for how sucky my life is turning out to be. Boyfriend has been telling me that I need to read the book of Job again, and understand that God is doing this to test me, and that he's still a good guy. I just find it hard to listen to. And maybe part of this is coming from the stress that I'm feeling from having being in the middle of a busy week. Light hang all day Saturday, light focus from seven to eleven on Sunday, acting journals due today, Pseudolus was supposed to be read by today for my theatre history class, but I didn't get to it in time, so I skipped. Tomorrow, I have my first exam in psychology, and I have a ton of reading (like usual) for my African-American history class, and then on Wednesday, my temporary grade coursework is due. Unfortunately, the T-Grade coursework is really time-consuming, and I was too lazy to do it over the summer, so I'm only 2/3 of the way done with it (which is WAY behind). On top of all that, I still have to log six hours per week for my production assignment, and I'm skipping work so that I can get the other stuff done, and when I'm responsible for feeding someone else, and helping someone else get ready for bed, that cuts a huge hunk of time out of my schedule. I'm just trying to chill, and trying to cope, and in so doing, I'm trying not to think about everything that is going wrong in my life, and trying to focus on the good.

Here's my monologue for you to peruse:

It's your fault, you know, if I don't design next year. You stand there, asking what I will accomplish like we're still friends. Like the kindness you show me isn't purely fake. "Purely fake"? Isn't that what you said? Well, no need to fake anymore. You led my best friend to stab me in the back. You were my closest friends on campus, and I trusted you. Only to be left eating in crowded G. isolated and alone. Only to be left changing my life plans because I can't get the experience I need to make a life for myself after college. Because of you, I'm living in a house with a crabby old woman, responding to a call button right in the middle of homework, only breathing the way she dictates, and not having much of a nightlife. I tell myself that I'm better off without you, that you destroy my self-esteem and crush my faith. But really? I hate you, because you have the life I want, the life I was supposed to have, the life that I would have had, if you hadn't been an asshole.

What do you think?

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Thought This Was Appropriate, Given Previous Moods

"The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

David Foster Wallace

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

If Life Were Simple

If life was simple, maybe I would still have close friends. If life was simple, I might be living with said close friends. If life was simple. If life was simple, maybe I would still be a theatre major. Not to say that I'm no longer a theatre major, because honestly? I don't fucking know what I'm doing right now. What I do know is that I am living in a house with a bitchy old woman who I hate so much that the devil himself could come to claim her evil soul and I wouldn't care, wouldn't bat an eye. If life was simple, I wouldn't be living my life in a constant "go go go" frame of mind. If life was simple, I wouldn't be going to class and work from 8:30 every damn day to 4:00 or 5:00 every damn night, and then coming home to cook the evil old woman dinner. If life was simple, I wouldn't be spending every waking moment hating myself, hating my life, not being okay with where I am in relation to the world.

Today, I met with the leader of Intervarsity. He wants to keep me involved with the community. I didn't tell him what happened with my pseudo-friends, but I told him enough about my living situation that I had to explain about the theatre major. When he asked me to have lunch, and when Chris asked me to have coffee with him on last week, it was all I could do to keep from crying. People care too much about my personal life, they care too much, and are WAY too invested in it for their own good. I hate crying in front of people, and I only cry in front of people who know me really well. I don't know Chris well enough to cry in front of him. I don't want them to care so much, because I am trying desperately to let go, to focus on getting through with my self still intact. And it's hard. It's so hard. It's hard trying to regain my boss's trust from when I slacked off so much last year, on top of all the other work that I have to do. I am taking 2 credits more than the average student at my school (the average is 4 credits, so you can see how this is a big deal), and I feel so stupid in 3 out of the 6 classes I'm taking, especially theatre history, where the professor doesn't like me anyway, and therefore purposely makes me feel stupid.

I just hate my life. I hate my life.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Family: Near and Dear.

I am continually fascinated with my family's determination to hunt me down wherever I may go, and whoever I may be with, and however hard I am trying to avoid each and every one of them. It seems as if their need to find me increases exponentially with relation to how badly I want to be rid of them for the rest of my life. And then on top of all that, no matter how long it's been since I last talked to the family member who dares to find me, they seem to ask so much about my personal life.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I now present evidence piece A. It all started with my uncle. I friended him on facebook because he's a pretty cool guy. He shares my interests, agrees with me politically, what more could I ask for? He's actually really great, but being without the rest of them means being without him, so I continue to the second piece of evidence.
Evidence B: My aunt SAT. SAT used to be really awesome. Then she got married and has kids and now relates less to me and more to my father (who I despise because he acts stupid whenever I'm trying to get him to do something, or say something is okay. For example, asking if my boyfriend can come to the family reunion, or even to our house! "Where's he going to sleep? Do you want him to stay with us?" DUH! If he had other sleeping arrangements, I wouldn't be asking you, now would I? "Dad, have you sent in my college tuition that you are required BY LAW to pay?" "No, I don't have the address. Or the amount. Even though I have the court papers. I didn't even know it was due last week. Even though I have the court papers. Can you call and give me the address where I have been sending my check for the past two years? We never wrote it down on BJ's numerous address books, or in her Blackberry. We also don't know how much the check should be for, even though you fought me and nearly took me to court over the small deficit that I didn't pay on purpose."). WE HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON! But she still talks to me. And my other uncle (AA) has been pestering me for the past five months about going to the reunion, even though I've made it perfectly clear that I'm not going because I have a guest during that time period. A very important guest who I happen to be planning to marry after I graduate from college. This woman, SAT, takes pictures of all the family at the reunion, and then posts them on facebook, saying this is ALMOST all the family, and tags me in every picture. FUCK. YOU.
Evidence C: Tonight. My house. New friend request. MAS. Great. Another family member with whom I have nothing in common. No "Hi! How are you doing! It's been so long!" No. What I got, was this:
"funny that you have not shown up before today...I hear you are getting married our first niece to get married...what is going on --- I want to hear details. How exciting...."
She pried for info, just like that. Didn't even let me tell her! Yeah. I'm fucking getting married. Thanks for asking. Thanks for asking about the rest of my life too. UGH! I haven't seen or talked to MAS in at least three years. I've been in and out of several relationships, been in school, and had friends turn their backs after stabbing me, and all she cares about is the boyfriend. I checked out her profile, found the most sickening sight. All her siblings and their spawn (minus me, of course. Thank God, I would have murdered someone if they had handed me a WSU sweatshirt and forced me to put it on for ten minutes of chaos and forced merriment, in which I was told to smile ten times until all the children around me get it right, then having to play babysitter for the rest of the day for at least one parent at a time) dressed in nothing but WSU attire. I swear, if they're wearing it, it's either maroon or grey. EVERY OTHER COLOR IS BANNED. If I showed up wearing WU colors, they would probably disown me! And dressing their kids up??? BRAINWASHING! The oldest in the picture is in fifth grade! Too young to even be thinking about college, and stamping the originality and artistic side right out of them.
*Sigh* okay. Rant over. Thanks for tuning in.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Sleeping on the Streets and Other Problems in the World (or at least my world)

The time was 8:00 on a recent Tuesday morning. I had just recently met with a man for coffee about getting a free massage on the weekends. I hadn't had breakfast that day, and I was hungry, so I ordered a muffin. Chocolate. It was the only kind the coffee shop had left, one of those Costco-sized muffins. I'm on the Weight Watchers program, so I used a technique that I had learned a couple weeks back, and I only ate half of the muffin. After the meeting, I was biking back to campus for my first class of the day, when I saw the most depressing and yet touching sight. In front of a Methodist church, I saw a lump. As I got closer, I realized that the lump was made of collapsed cardboard, a tarp, some backpacks, a dog, and two people. The people had dreadlocks, and were covered with the tarp. They were facing the church, so I couldn't see there faces, and as I passed, I felt horrible for the couple. You see, I know what it's like to sleep on the streets. I did it one night as part of an empathy-instilling exercise at a service project centered around helping the homeless. I know what it's like to wake up to dew all over your blanket, and to be cold and sore because you used your shirt for a pillow in an attempt to get more comfortable. I know what it's like to walk around town looking for food and maybe some cans that you can trade in for money, and I know what it's like to serve people who live like this for months or years. I was actually one of those people when I was younger. My mother and I stayed in a homeless shelter, and oftentimes lived with friends from church while I went to school and my mother went to work to try and make enough to get back on her feet. I was young, so I didn't see a lot of the struggles we had, but I do remember the cold showers in the morning before school while we were staying in the shelter, and the Pop Tarts that we ate because there was no place to store food or cook in the shelter. Luckily, we were only there for two weeks.
Remembering how hard it was to complete the simple task on the scavenger hunt (part of the simulation) of asking for a quarter, I stopped a little ways away. I was planning on eating the rest of that muffin a little later. I was still hungry! Then I thought about how hungry the two sleeping on the church stoop probably were, and realized I didn't need it as much as they did. I had lunch to look forward to, and lunch was guaranteed for me. It wasn't for them. Maybe they didn't even know when their next meal would be. I got off my bike, pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote a little encouraging note, then tip-toed over to the couple and their dog, setting the muffin on a corner of their makeshift bed.
I feel like I could do so much more for them and others in the same situation. I feel like I have the money to do it, but I'm being stingy and putting myself through school first. I suppose one can only do so much.

On another, more self-centered note, I'm trying to decide what to do about the clash between my job, and my theatre major requirements. I get paid in free room and board, I'm taking six credits, technically speaking (I'm auditing 1.5 credits), I have to work at least ten hours a week at my work study job to be able to afford to go to school here next year, and that leaves the evenings for homework (this means that I'm multi-tasking because when I am at home in the evenings, I am at the beck and call of the woman I work for. I jump when she says jump. And it's rough. We don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and it's extremely stressful and hard. For instance, M.S. is pissed off because we run out of the short forks easily, and she has to use another, different kind of short fork, and it interrupts the continuity that she's had all her life, so she gets upset. Like throwing a fit will get you what you want. "Why do we keep having this kind of fork every night? I want one of the regular forks! Why don't we have any of the regular forks?" and on and on. Now add this to the stress of being in trouble with the theatre department because I forgot to look at my production calender, and therefore JUST found out that I have to miss a mandatory meeting for all majors, minors, and scholarship-holders because I'm scheduled to work, and you have a basketcase, ladies and gentlemen. A real life, walking and talking basketcase. So, needless to say, I'm rethinking my job and my theatre major and trying to find the best of both worlds, and unfortunately, I'm not superwoman, because if I was, I would do it all. I offered a proposal to the faculty to see what they think, and hopefully, they'll buy it. I'm praying that they buy it, because if they don't, my life plans will need to be altered. Again.