A Moment of Honesty

Today, I returned from my home in Newcomerstown to my home in Canton. I thoroughly enjoyed the time with my family. I also got to spend a whole day with Mallory. That was nice. We went to the Daily Grind, a place which always makes me feel home like.

It feels good to be back. But I feel myself slipping into distraction. I don't want obligations. Ever. I want to be a bum. Okay? Okay.

Over break, I started on a new full length screenplay. The beginning scene involves a woman quitting her job in the middle of the day, running out of the Fashion Bug where she worked. Literally running. In the car, she gets a call from her live-in boyfriend. He tells her about his dream of her leaving him. She continues driving. She doesn't know where she's going; neither do I. The opening lines of the play are: "He hates all the things that I like."

I guess I didn't understand my own reasoning for writing such scenes until recently. It really is easier to leave someone behind if you think they're not understanding you or in your world; or if the little things build up and build up until you realize they're really not that little anymore. And lately I feel misunderstood, the things I want to express underdeveloped and unsaid.

I can't just abandon the things and people in my life just because I become annoyed or bored or tired. I wouldn't want someone to get tired of me.

I'm changing. I become more and more aware of the things I hate and the things I love every day. It's time to be as truthful with others about this as I am with myself. It's time to be honest. Hold your nose, here goes the cold water.

Bursting - I'll spit until I learn how to speak.

I don't think that I can think a single thought to myself. I want everyone to know everything that I'm thinking; as if I were to just say everything out loud, everyone would know exactly what I mean and supernaturally connect with me. It would be cool if certain people had radars about where the other was at certain times, and the radar would tell them when that person was feeling sad or happy and they wouldn't even be in the same room. Ever. Like an emotional Siamese twin. As a kid I used to fantasize about one person who knew everything I was thinking at the exact time I was thinking whether or not I was with them or not.

I guess I can't articulate this thing that I call a supernatural connection. I am only talking about this because it's on the forefront of my mind. Today Nadia was telling a story and it involved her saying: "Do you know if they have a blah blah blah around here?" I thought it was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing. Even as I lied down to take a nap I couldn't stop laughing. Other things on the forefront of my mind: I'm tired and I need sleep. I need more sleep as I get older, and I'm only twenty two.

I like it when people care about something deeply, like the environment or artistic integrity or health care or self actualization or another human being. I hate talking and talking and saying "what do you think?" and the response is: "I don't know. I just like to do my own thing." I also hate it when I find myself thinking this way. I don't do careless or passionless.

I had the strongest urge to say "I love you" to everyone I saw today. I didn't. I'm messy, and spilling everywhere. I don't want to take the time to collect it all, I want to let it scatter all over the floor. I am going to burst . . . waiting and waiting and waiting. . .I will wait.

I won't get tired of you.

Every once in a while one person in particular will leave an impression on me. I go through my life talking to lots of individuals; and make no mistake, who they are and their thoughts and feelings are important to me; but maybe once every six months to a year I’ll have a conversation or a couple of interactions with someone and find myself thinking about that person later. I find myself wondering about their life and what exactly makes them the way they are. What makes them have the thoughts that they have and what makes them decide which thoughts are okay to say out loud? I wonder if they’re like me. And I wonder if I have ever made such a big impression on someone.

In each one of my friends I can see a part of myself. That means that a part of me will want the company of only certain people at certain times. I have to remind myself to give them parts of myself too. Because it’s all about pouring into one another and without doing that you run out of things to pour . . . but that’s another subject.

Here’s a really short, longer than necessary, mini autobiography.
I’ve spent most of my life being uncomfortable in my surroundings. Whether at home or school, I was uncomfortable. There is a plethora of reasons why: dirty looks, awkwardness (on my part), my upbringing. . . Friends came in my life and left. Family members either dramatically changed or my relationship with them became non-existent. Some bad things happened. I don’t claim that anything about my life was how I wanted it to be. But the point of this mini autobiography is to state that I’ve always wanted to get out of town, change my look, meet cool open minded people, and I didn’t want anyone to get tired of me.

I got out of town. That made me happy.

The decision about whether I go to LA next semester for film studies is pending. I know I should go but I don’t want to. As the date draws near, I break into a sweat and start to panic. Maybe it’s because for the first time in my life, I am somewhere along the lines of contentment. I’ve surrounded myself with people who like to sit around telling long stories that say something about who they are and what they believe. I’ve surrounded myself with people who care about things. I’m going to school and writing scripts and taking long walks and doing all the things I like to do. I like it here. I’m tired of always starting a new life.

Or maybe some little person who is impressed with other little people, like myself, should be excited and hope that all these little mini lives lead to something stable. A place where you can grow old; and eat dinner together every night.

Running through Loops and Loops

This morning, what felt like late night to me, it suddenly seemed like a very good idea to write another entry. Mind you, this is at nine-o-clock after pulling an all nighter because we insomniacs go to bed no sooner than 7 am.
I crash at 12:15 pm. I wake up two hours later.
I can't breathe. The asthma medication doesn't seem to be working. It's been weeks and I haven't been fully able to to function the way a person who has oxygen to the brain should be able to. It's gotten to the point of past uncomfortable, but painful: as right now I'd rather be writing in my journal. But I don't have the energy to pick up a pen and form the shapes of the letters. I don't have the energy to write about whatever it is that I'm truly emotional about. I don't have the energy to really assess this time in my life, which by the way, is a roller coaster that I'm not always aware that I'm riding: I moved out for the rest of the summer – the day before yesterday. I'm looking for a job. What do the next couple of months hold in store for me? What kind of person am I now going to become? That's too much for a suffocating person who has only slept two hours. It's much easier to listen to the Beatles and type as if I really care what this entry is going to be about.
Is my blog for me, or for other people? Sure, I want them to be interested – it's just a matter of coming up with interesting things to write about. I read other, cooler, more creative people's blogs and think: “wow, what a cool thing to blog about.” I also have plenty of these moments when talking with friends, and I have a thought like: “I want to blog about relationships, because I can show just how unique my view of this is,” but then I think, “how many people blog about relationships? A lot. How many people don't care what another person thinks about romantic relationships? A lot. Or else – I could just become everything I hate, a Carry Bradshaw.”
I have these kinds of conversations with myself. I don't care. I think about my purposes for keeping public entries. It's not to give people something to think about and ponder – no after-school-special-words-of-the-day-think-outside-the-box for me, thank you very much. That's the thing about me. I often like to write against what everyone thinks all writers should do. I don't want to have a change in my protagonist. I don't want my story to end to your satisfaction, I want it to end to mine. And I don't want my blog to have a point. I don't want anything to have a point. What a terrible writer I must be at heart. But these are just the things I want. Everyone has to go against their own nature in some way. I'll know I'll give in in the end. I promise I'll have more meat to this blog sooner or later. There will be more of me, the real me, and what I really think about Important Things.
Where was I? Oh yeah. I also sometimes don't know how to end entries.

If only. . .

I'm blindly optimistic: and I question the world as if I were living in heaven all this time and was completely ignorant of all the hatred and competition.

If I could be good enough if I didn't know anything important,
if I wasn't cheerful,
if I didn't smile,
if I wasn't witty,
and I wasn't loved for learned responses mixed into my personality,
and my hair looked terrible,

then it might be super hard to trust anyone.

summer days

Yesterday I got to see Will, who had come in from NY for a bit, and to my pleasant surprise, I got to spend the day in Canton with more friends.
I also received a small sketch book for my birthday from Will, one that I can carry around. I would like to journal in sketches. Maybe I'll look at the entries in my journal and try to sketch whatever that entry reminds me of. Lets hope it doesn't consist of stick figures.

This Morning

This morning I woke up uneasy. I dreampt of a person I used to spend lots of time with. And he was him at first. But then he turned into someone who I haven't seen in years, someone I don't have any fondness for, someone who I don't hate, but I'm indifferent towards. It's so strange to wake up and feel like something is wrong, even though it is not the first time and certainly not the last. Only the day before yesterday morning I was inspired by the weak sunlight and the breeze to enter into a lucid dream where I could just lay out under the tree of our back yard and control everything that happened.

I've been having trouble caring about what I write lately. It is as if I have nothing more to say, nothing more to share, and I haven't even begun my life or career yet.

But maybe this time of apathy and drifting from one thing to the next is the time right before liberation, a new and better phase.

Blogging

Summer

I've decided to start a blog. Why? Who knows?
Just kidding. One of the reasons I wanted to take up blogging again is because I've such a stormy relationship with my journal. The difference between a private journal and a public one is just that: privacy. When I've privacy I've the freedom to rant about nothing and to be more dramatic than anyone should be allowed. Since I tend to journal only when I'm at an emotional peak, I forget to record the events of my life. They are more feelings than thoughts, or more thoughts than feelings. I remember when I took Groups. We had to journal the events of each class and what we thought and felt. Many times I have trouble finding this balance and fitting it all into a single entry. I'm hoping this blog might bring a little organization to my reflections.

So that's the reason for my blogging. The primary reason anyway. The other reason is that it might keep me mildly entertained during the summer.

It's summer. Wow. Coming home again made me remember the last time I came home for the summer, which didn't seem that long ago. I remember I had already been setting goals for the next school year. I was going to write a screenplay, one for Playwriting and one for the film fest, and make a film. I was going to get to know more people because most of my friends had graduated.

Now I sit back and remember those goals and think how I had managed to reach all of them. I made a film, wrote a full length screenplay, and had a busy social life. Check, check, check.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to be hard on myself. Both when I'm with people and when I'm alone. Just tonight as I was washing dishes while listening to Muse I thought of how mad at myself I am: for being unhealthy, for being silly and awkward, for being selfish and not thinking enough about others and not taking time alone with God so that things can make sense again.

Maybe that's another reason why I recognize the need for a public journal. Things run together and blur and spiral downward when someone like me is alone with her thoughts for too long, until brought into the light of company. And I love company. I can't say how thankful I am that I've finally learned enough about myself to know that people are important to me; how thankful I am for both family and friends. It's easier to find joy when you think of all the things you appreciate: like your bed and coffee in the morning and hot showers and the clothes on your back and the friends who care about what you have to say.

I don't know what my summer plans are yet. I go back and forth on making a decision between staying with friends or staying at home. Prayers would be appreciated in helping me decide.