Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I'm Still Alive...
...just in full time rehearsals. I'll post something at some point, I know I will...
Thursday, May 10, 2007
I look around my room...
I look around my room. It’s not the largest of rooms but I fit into it – just barely some days, when my clothing spills from the closet and my books pile onto the floor – but I fit. It is never sparkling clean but I am learning that I am not that person. As a young adult my mother would always tell me how tidy I was (and I suppose my natural inclination is cleaner than hers) and thus I gained the reputation of being a tidy person. For a long time, whenever my room was a mess I felt enormous guilt for not being ‘true to myself’, but I have learnt that there are many variations of tidy. My version lies in the range of what I call a comfortable clean.
Right now my room is on the messier side of comfortable. My clothes are all in their place, except the pile in front of my closet where I left the latest culls from the depths. My desk has only one pile of paper on it, left-overs from the school year. My bed isn’t made and has a pair of jeans at the foot, jeans I need to alter before I wear. Above my head are shelves that need dusting. They are dressed with about a third of my book collection. I miss all of the books that are lying dormant and unused in my parent’s tool shed. I want to bring them all here with me where they belong, being used and loved and read.
There are pictures scattered about my room, both in frames and stuck on my wall with sticky tack. The faces of my friends and family look down at me, while my man looks out from the many photos I’ve collected of him in the past eleven months, surrounded by pieces of paper with hand written quotes on them. Quotes from people like Leo Tolstoy and Frederich Buechner are side by side with fridge magnet poems I needed to immortalize and phone numbers for my brothers, the fortune cookie fortune I got one night that read, “Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have” (to which I added ‘in bed’ because that’s what you add to the end of fortune cookie fortunes). I have opening night cards, notes of encouragement and old theatre tickets, a reception invitation and comic strips that make me laugh. There’s a note from my love, a simple note – “Hope you had a nice day!, Love S.” – that showed up in my room for no reason one day, accompanied by a box of chocolate.
My sunscreen sits on my dresser beside my makeup, looking a little out of place since I only brought it out two days ago. A few stray hair pins make the dresser look cluttered, and a pencil that looks like it was carved out of a tree lays beside a candle holder, which for some reason makes me think of campfires.
In a vase there is a dried white rose that S. gave me almost a year ago, beside the box that the chocolate arrived in before I ate it all and a bottle cap from one of his beers that I picked up months ago and stuck into my backpack where it sat forgotten before I cleaned it out in a strange fit of detailed cleanliness two days ago. I look up and see the covers of the CDs he has bought me and I listen to the music that I have on my computer because he let me rip his music onto my computer, music I would never have heard of if he hadn’t come into my life.
My room is a reflection of myself, perhaps more deeply than I realize. Not perfect, like my thirteen-year old self so desired to be, with such a strong desire that I spent hours crying, wishing I was dead so that my search for perfection, my struggle for that unachievable goal could be over. Not clean, like my teenage self believed I needed to be, living up to a reputation that didn’t belong to me, a reflection of someone else that I was nevertheless striving to match. It is private, only opened up to a select invited few. Only a few people can enter at their whim and even then they knock.
It is filled with things that tell you who I am – what I fill my closet with shows how I see my body, a beautiful, sensual entity, filled with an overwhelming desire that I am discovering anew every day, and yet comfortable and able to move without restriction, elegant, young and full of life. What I read reveals my vivid imagination, my childlike love of fairy tales and my belief in the magic of the world, my desire to find hope and light in a world that often only offers darkness and despair. What I listen to informs my flexible changing emotional life, with music to feed my secret rage, my unconscious energies, my happiness and my melancholies. The trinkets I hang on to tell a story of a sentimental girl and a sacramental woman, relics of moments that I keep forever engraved in my memory.
It is filled with things that show you what is important to me – pictures of the people that I love, the people who I have risked with and opened myself up to. Words that inform what I believe and how I try to live. Images that have stuck with me for reasons even I cannot articulate. People who I admire, poetry that resonates in my soul, icons that feed spirit beside tools that keep my body tended to.
I sit, surrounded, and write and wonder how my room has shown my nature throughout my life. If I had a snapshot of my bedroom in every year of my life, would they show the change that accompanies growing up? Can a room capture the innocence of childhood, the confusion of adolescence, the settling of adulthood? What would change and what would stay the same? As I came into my own would my room mirror my journey into authenticity? Would there always be some hint of the real Rebecca even in the years where I was trying so hard to be someone else?
My room has always been there, a solid tangible place that I could retreat to, a place of safety where I could rest and find myself again in the confusion of growing up.
Sometimes having a place where I can go to simply breathe is all that keeps me, the deepest rooted part of who I am, alive. I am suddenly filled with a deep gratitude for this room that feels alive with so much of my soul, like a part of me, like a reservoir for who I am. I once explained my journals as a bowl into which I pour my memories so that I don’t have to hang onto them in my head anymore, an image I picked up from a world of magic I entered in one of my many books. Now I see my room as another bowl, into which I put the parts of myself that I cannot carry with me, the parts that I need to spread out so I can see them, name them and understand them clearly.
Maybe I’m crazy. For now I simply breathe and feel grateful for my craziness and the calm it brings me.
Right now my room is on the messier side of comfortable. My clothes are all in their place, except the pile in front of my closet where I left the latest culls from the depths. My desk has only one pile of paper on it, left-overs from the school year. My bed isn’t made and has a pair of jeans at the foot, jeans I need to alter before I wear. Above my head are shelves that need dusting. They are dressed with about a third of my book collection. I miss all of the books that are lying dormant and unused in my parent’s tool shed. I want to bring them all here with me where they belong, being used and loved and read.
There are pictures scattered about my room, both in frames and stuck on my wall with sticky tack. The faces of my friends and family look down at me, while my man looks out from the many photos I’ve collected of him in the past eleven months, surrounded by pieces of paper with hand written quotes on them. Quotes from people like Leo Tolstoy and Frederich Buechner are side by side with fridge magnet poems I needed to immortalize and phone numbers for my brothers, the fortune cookie fortune I got one night that read, “Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have” (to which I added ‘in bed’ because that’s what you add to the end of fortune cookie fortunes). I have opening night cards, notes of encouragement and old theatre tickets, a reception invitation and comic strips that make me laugh. There’s a note from my love, a simple note – “Hope you had a nice day!, Love S.” – that showed up in my room for no reason one day, accompanied by a box of chocolate.
My sunscreen sits on my dresser beside my makeup, looking a little out of place since I only brought it out two days ago. A few stray hair pins make the dresser look cluttered, and a pencil that looks like it was carved out of a tree lays beside a candle holder, which for some reason makes me think of campfires.
In a vase there is a dried white rose that S. gave me almost a year ago, beside the box that the chocolate arrived in before I ate it all and a bottle cap from one of his beers that I picked up months ago and stuck into my backpack where it sat forgotten before I cleaned it out in a strange fit of detailed cleanliness two days ago. I look up and see the covers of the CDs he has bought me and I listen to the music that I have on my computer because he let me rip his music onto my computer, music I would never have heard of if he hadn’t come into my life.
My room is a reflection of myself, perhaps more deeply than I realize. Not perfect, like my thirteen-year old self so desired to be, with such a strong desire that I spent hours crying, wishing I was dead so that my search for perfection, my struggle for that unachievable goal could be over. Not clean, like my teenage self believed I needed to be, living up to a reputation that didn’t belong to me, a reflection of someone else that I was nevertheless striving to match. It is private, only opened up to a select invited few. Only a few people can enter at their whim and even then they knock.
It is filled with things that tell you who I am – what I fill my closet with shows how I see my body, a beautiful, sensual entity, filled with an overwhelming desire that I am discovering anew every day, and yet comfortable and able to move without restriction, elegant, young and full of life. What I read reveals my vivid imagination, my childlike love of fairy tales and my belief in the magic of the world, my desire to find hope and light in a world that often only offers darkness and despair. What I listen to informs my flexible changing emotional life, with music to feed my secret rage, my unconscious energies, my happiness and my melancholies. The trinkets I hang on to tell a story of a sentimental girl and a sacramental woman, relics of moments that I keep forever engraved in my memory.
It is filled with things that show you what is important to me – pictures of the people that I love, the people who I have risked with and opened myself up to. Words that inform what I believe and how I try to live. Images that have stuck with me for reasons even I cannot articulate. People who I admire, poetry that resonates in my soul, icons that feed spirit beside tools that keep my body tended to.
I sit, surrounded, and write and wonder how my room has shown my nature throughout my life. If I had a snapshot of my bedroom in every year of my life, would they show the change that accompanies growing up? Can a room capture the innocence of childhood, the confusion of adolescence, the settling of adulthood? What would change and what would stay the same? As I came into my own would my room mirror my journey into authenticity? Would there always be some hint of the real Rebecca even in the years where I was trying so hard to be someone else?
My room has always been there, a solid tangible place that I could retreat to, a place of safety where I could rest and find myself again in the confusion of growing up.
Sometimes having a place where I can go to simply breathe is all that keeps me, the deepest rooted part of who I am, alive. I am suddenly filled with a deep gratitude for this room that feels alive with so much of my soul, like a part of me, like a reservoir for who I am. I once explained my journals as a bowl into which I pour my memories so that I don’t have to hang onto them in my head anymore, an image I picked up from a world of magic I entered in one of my many books. Now I see my room as another bowl, into which I put the parts of myself that I cannot carry with me, the parts that I need to spread out so I can see them, name them and understand them clearly.
Maybe I’m crazy. For now I simply breathe and feel grateful for my craziness and the calm it brings me.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Love Will Keep Us Alive
That's the name of a song by the Eagles, a song that my dinner music group sings when a couple in the Mercantile is celebrating an anniversary. It's a lovely song, if a little out of my range, and couples seem to like it, gazing at each other over their plates of dessert while we croon.
Today we were called back to a room to sing for a couple and so we naturally assumed that's what the occasion was. We began the song, and the couple smiled at us. By the second verse, the gentleman's eyes were misting over and by the bridge they were both sniffling into their napkins. I wasn't sure what to do. Sometimes crying is a good thing but they both seemed so sad. I locked eyes with my dinner music partner and we sang the duet as if we were in love. When I looked back I noticed that the couple were holding hands over the table, tears slowly trickling down their faces. I choked up and could barely finish the song.
They came up to us later. The gentleman told us that they were crying because they are madly in love but the lady is being called back to Quebec by God and so they will be separated for a while. Her story was actually amazing - as a child she saw the Virgin Mary in a vision that saved her life, and now she is moving to an apartment on the same street that she had the vision on. It was a very touching story and I can't capture it here, but to know that they are in love and yet must be separated put me into a bit of a blue funk.
Today we were called back to a room to sing for a couple and so we naturally assumed that's what the occasion was. We began the song, and the couple smiled at us. By the second verse, the gentleman's eyes were misting over and by the bridge they were both sniffling into their napkins. I wasn't sure what to do. Sometimes crying is a good thing but they both seemed so sad. I locked eyes with my dinner music partner and we sang the duet as if we were in love. When I looked back I noticed that the couple were holding hands over the table, tears slowly trickling down their faces. I choked up and could barely finish the song.
They came up to us later. The gentleman told us that they were crying because they are madly in love but the lady is being called back to Quebec by God and so they will be separated for a while. Her story was actually amazing - as a child she saw the Virgin Mary in a vision that saved her life, and now she is moving to an apartment on the same street that she had the vision on. It was a very touching story and I can't capture it here, but to know that they are in love and yet must be separated put me into a bit of a blue funk.
Seeing people in love usually puts me in an introspective mood anyway. I end up watching all these elderly couples and wondering.
Will love really keep us alive?
My romantic nature hopes so.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Procrastination
I am supposed to be working on my Faith and Art final exam right now, but I don’t feel like writing short essays on subjects like ‘Creativity’, ‘the Artist as Servant’, or how I plan on living ‘an integrated life as an artist’.
I’ve been procrastinating all day – this afternoon I dithered about checking my email and then I spent time with S. before his show. When I came home I played Diablo II for an hour. I actually feel a bit sick from being at a computer so much today, so playing games is out now. I feel like having a nap.
I keep telling myself I have the weekend. Three whole days until the exam is due…then I remember that I haven’t done any of the journals for this term either and perhaps I should do them…and I have rehearsal for a final project that I’m stage managing on Sunday and Monday. A groan escapes my lips and I sigh and try to turn to the exam.
No luck. I can’t focus my thoughts, and everything I remember from the entire year of discussion in class escapes with the lyrics of the next song to play from the collection of music that is randomly singing out from my laptop. It routinely amazes me how well I remember music I’ve only heard a few times, but I am able to sing along to Chris Rice as he sings “Everything’s Okay” and I gamely buy into the message. I look up from my computer as I sing and notice the book of stamps behind the Coke can on my desk, which reminds me that I haven’t sent away my student loan form yet, so I pick it up and finish filling in the information, which means I have to fish out the Quick Tips form from my garbage so I can calculate how much they should give me (although they won’t because for some reason I’m only eligible for 60% of what I need, which is why I’m so grateful I got approved for that line of credit, which reminds me, I need to phone Dad and ask him what his card says and see if they issued him a card for my line of credit in which case he shouldn’t use the card or I won’t be able to pay my tuition)…and the final exam is successfully erased from my mind.
Until the form is in the envelope, licked and sealed and I realize that one of my roommates is on the phone. Then guilt creeps into the mix. I told S. I’d be doing homework tonight, and for some reason that makes me feel like I should. It’s not like I don’t have enough of it, too. My marketing portfolio was due a month ago, and I have a huge annotated bibliography that needs to be started, which means a lot of reading...but then an Iron & Wine song starts and I get distracted again.
I really like that song – about a Mexican boy named Jesus.
When I turn back to the exam, I focus on inane details. What does this bonus question mean? ‘How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ I don’t remember talking about surrealists in class! Perhaps if I look up surrealists and answer the question as a surrealist would, I’ll get the extra credit. Of course, if I put that time into the actual exam, I will probably get the same mark, if not a higher one.
I feel like I felt every time I knew I was supposed to be working on my play. So easily distracted but not sociable, restless but with no desire to do anything. It’s a horrible affliction and I morosely muse on how I am the only one who ever experiences this sensation. Such is the life of a writer, I drone in my mind, melodramatically, like one of my friends, a musician and musical theatre actor who has come to Rosebud to have his ‘schmacting’ broken out of him. He is the moodiest person I know – the stereotypical artist, feelings easily hurt and ego easily bruised, and everything is always about him. In spite of that, I like him quite a bit. He’s got some growing up to do, but don’t we all?
I mean, I started an exam 45 minutes ago and all I’ve written is REL 321: Faith and Art at the top of the page. Not exactly mature responsible adult behaviour.
Oh, a John Denver song that I haven’t heard in ages! I think I’ll sing along…
I’ve been procrastinating all day – this afternoon I dithered about checking my email and then I spent time with S. before his show. When I came home I played Diablo II for an hour. I actually feel a bit sick from being at a computer so much today, so playing games is out now. I feel like having a nap.
I keep telling myself I have the weekend. Three whole days until the exam is due…then I remember that I haven’t done any of the journals for this term either and perhaps I should do them…and I have rehearsal for a final project that I’m stage managing on Sunday and Monday. A groan escapes my lips and I sigh and try to turn to the exam.
No luck. I can’t focus my thoughts, and everything I remember from the entire year of discussion in class escapes with the lyrics of the next song to play from the collection of music that is randomly singing out from my laptop. It routinely amazes me how well I remember music I’ve only heard a few times, but I am able to sing along to Chris Rice as he sings “Everything’s Okay” and I gamely buy into the message. I look up from my computer as I sing and notice the book of stamps behind the Coke can on my desk, which reminds me that I haven’t sent away my student loan form yet, so I pick it up and finish filling in the information, which means I have to fish out the Quick Tips form from my garbage so I can calculate how much they should give me (although they won’t because for some reason I’m only eligible for 60% of what I need, which is why I’m so grateful I got approved for that line of credit, which reminds me, I need to phone Dad and ask him what his card says and see if they issued him a card for my line of credit in which case he shouldn’t use the card or I won’t be able to pay my tuition)…and the final exam is successfully erased from my mind.
Until the form is in the envelope, licked and sealed and I realize that one of my roommates is on the phone. Then guilt creeps into the mix. I told S. I’d be doing homework tonight, and for some reason that makes me feel like I should. It’s not like I don’t have enough of it, too. My marketing portfolio was due a month ago, and I have a huge annotated bibliography that needs to be started, which means a lot of reading...but then an Iron & Wine song starts and I get distracted again.
I really like that song – about a Mexican boy named Jesus.
When I turn back to the exam, I focus on inane details. What does this bonus question mean? ‘How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ I don’t remember talking about surrealists in class! Perhaps if I look up surrealists and answer the question as a surrealist would, I’ll get the extra credit. Of course, if I put that time into the actual exam, I will probably get the same mark, if not a higher one.
I feel like I felt every time I knew I was supposed to be working on my play. So easily distracted but not sociable, restless but with no desire to do anything. It’s a horrible affliction and I morosely muse on how I am the only one who ever experiences this sensation. Such is the life of a writer, I drone in my mind, melodramatically, like one of my friends, a musician and musical theatre actor who has come to Rosebud to have his ‘schmacting’ broken out of him. He is the moodiest person I know – the stereotypical artist, feelings easily hurt and ego easily bruised, and everything is always about him. In spite of that, I like him quite a bit. He’s got some growing up to do, but don’t we all?
I mean, I started an exam 45 minutes ago and all I’ve written is REL 321: Faith and Art at the top of the page. Not exactly mature responsible adult behaviour.
Oh, a John Denver song that I haven’t heard in ages! I think I’ll sing along…
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Hunger
I was sitting on a deck, letting the sun soak into my face and feeling the Chinook wind blow around my legs, listening to the dripping of icicles and the screaming of gophers. Among so much beauty, I was trying to figure out why bad things happen to good people. I was in the midst of telling God what is wrong with his world when someone walked by and asked me what I was doing.
I’m telling God what is wrong with the world, I said.
Things shouldn’t happen to people to make them jaded and cynical.
He stopped and pointed at me. That is so true, he said.
We shared a moment of silence.
Some people don’t ever get cynical, he said. My mother was one of them.
Then he went on his way, leaving me with that tiny bit of extra hope in a world that was screaming hope and life at me anyway.
Something disappointing happened to S. last weekend. He lost a role that he had earned fair and square because the director changed his mind about casting at the last minute. It’s rough – it’s hard enough to lose a role fairly, but to have it given to you and then taken away is just not fair. It happens here sometimes, although I’ve been told (and I agree) that it’s pretty unprofessional.
I’ve never had this happen before. I’ve discovered that it is unexpectedly difficult to feel the disappointment of someone I love, and to be saddened for them, and to know that there isn’t anything I can say or do that will make it better.
I hate feeling helpless in the face of injustice.
So I spent half an hour outside in the beauty and straightforwardness of God’s creation, talking to him about what isn’t working down here. Sometimes free will is a bitch, particularly when it’s someone else’s free will but you have to deal with the consequences.
At the end of my ponderings and talking, I realized that I am very naïve. So many people have broken themselves down from the pedestals I placed them on – I keep being disappointed when people I respect make choices and treat people in ways that contradict the person I thought they were. I suppose I should learn to stop putting people on pedestals. A part of my soul cries at the reality that in this fallen world I will find no one who will not let me down. Is that naivety, or is it hope, or is it what is left of Eve before she ate the apple?
I can see why it seems intelligent to become hardened and cynical. It protects people from being disappointed by life, by other people, by this big, old, awful sick mess of a world.
I don’t want to be hardened though. I spent too many years as the cynic. It takes so much negative energy to live in that world. As risky as it is to choose the softness of a snail without a shell, I want to hold on to hope. I want to keep believing that there is good out there, that there are people out there who do choose to live according to what is right.
Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favourite authors. Her stories are full of the knowledge that the world is bent and broken, full of hurt and wrong and injustice. Her characters are aware that the world is not how it should be, and they have a passion to see the world whole and healed again – but they all come to a point in their journeys where they have to choose to fight for what they instinctively know is right. It is never an easy choice. They are overwhelmed by the darkness sometimes. They are filled with despair that the world can ever be whole again. And they choose hope, they choose to fight for that little, tiny, almost invisible spark of light, against impossible odds. They fight even though they know they will lose. They fight even though there is no possible way that the world can be saved. They fight because they have to.
Sometimes I feel like my purpose in life is to keep fighting for that miniscule speck of light and hope, like I am here in this life just to keep that tiny light alive, and if all I can do in my life is keep that light from going out, even if I can’t make it any bigger, even if I can’t win the fight, even if after all I do the light goes out – as long as I’ve done all I can to fight for it, that is all that matters.
It hurts. Sometimes it feels like I’m losing, like I’m losing my will to fight because it seems so impossible. I know there is no way that I can win. The dark, the brokenness is too big and too overwhelming and there is nothing I can do to make things better. But the pain of losing that light is so much greater than the despair of never winning that I just can’t give up, even when everything is telling me I should cut my losses and just join the dark winning team already.
I just can’t do that. I just can’t lose that hunger for the light. I hope I never do. It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, but it’s the only thing I can do. It’s the only thing that feels right.
I can’t bear to lose that wild, fierce hunger.
All I can do is hope that I never do.
I’m telling God what is wrong with the world, I said.
Things shouldn’t happen to people to make them jaded and cynical.
He stopped and pointed at me. That is so true, he said.
We shared a moment of silence.
Some people don’t ever get cynical, he said. My mother was one of them.
Then he went on his way, leaving me with that tiny bit of extra hope in a world that was screaming hope and life at me anyway.
Something disappointing happened to S. last weekend. He lost a role that he had earned fair and square because the director changed his mind about casting at the last minute. It’s rough – it’s hard enough to lose a role fairly, but to have it given to you and then taken away is just not fair. It happens here sometimes, although I’ve been told (and I agree) that it’s pretty unprofessional.
I’ve never had this happen before. I’ve discovered that it is unexpectedly difficult to feel the disappointment of someone I love, and to be saddened for them, and to know that there isn’t anything I can say or do that will make it better.
I hate feeling helpless in the face of injustice.
So I spent half an hour outside in the beauty and straightforwardness of God’s creation, talking to him about what isn’t working down here. Sometimes free will is a bitch, particularly when it’s someone else’s free will but you have to deal with the consequences.
At the end of my ponderings and talking, I realized that I am very naïve. So many people have broken themselves down from the pedestals I placed them on – I keep being disappointed when people I respect make choices and treat people in ways that contradict the person I thought they were. I suppose I should learn to stop putting people on pedestals. A part of my soul cries at the reality that in this fallen world I will find no one who will not let me down. Is that naivety, or is it hope, or is it what is left of Eve before she ate the apple?
I can see why it seems intelligent to become hardened and cynical. It protects people from being disappointed by life, by other people, by this big, old, awful sick mess of a world.
I don’t want to be hardened though. I spent too many years as the cynic. It takes so much negative energy to live in that world. As risky as it is to choose the softness of a snail without a shell, I want to hold on to hope. I want to keep believing that there is good out there, that there are people out there who do choose to live according to what is right.
Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favourite authors. Her stories are full of the knowledge that the world is bent and broken, full of hurt and wrong and injustice. Her characters are aware that the world is not how it should be, and they have a passion to see the world whole and healed again – but they all come to a point in their journeys where they have to choose to fight for what they instinctively know is right. It is never an easy choice. They are overwhelmed by the darkness sometimes. They are filled with despair that the world can ever be whole again. And they choose hope, they choose to fight for that little, tiny, almost invisible spark of light, against impossible odds. They fight even though they know they will lose. They fight even though there is no possible way that the world can be saved. They fight because they have to.
Sometimes I feel like my purpose in life is to keep fighting for that miniscule speck of light and hope, like I am here in this life just to keep that tiny light alive, and if all I can do in my life is keep that light from going out, even if I can’t make it any bigger, even if I can’t win the fight, even if after all I do the light goes out – as long as I’ve done all I can to fight for it, that is all that matters.
It hurts. Sometimes it feels like I’m losing, like I’m losing my will to fight because it seems so impossible. I know there is no way that I can win. The dark, the brokenness is too big and too overwhelming and there is nothing I can do to make things better. But the pain of losing that light is so much greater than the despair of never winning that I just can’t give up, even when everything is telling me I should cut my losses and just join the dark winning team already.
I just can’t do that. I just can’t lose that hunger for the light. I hope I never do. It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, but it’s the only thing I can do. It’s the only thing that feels right.
I can’t bear to lose that wild, fierce hunger.
All I can do is hope that I never do.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Hurtin' Unit
My youngest brother came to visit me this weekend.
He is on an extended leave of absence from work following a mental break-down. At least that gave him the freedom to catch a ride with a friend and spend two and a half days just hanging out with me at my home.
He has a lot of pain and it isn’t hiding very well behind his shields of cynicism and bitterness. The chip on his shoulder is so big I wonder how there is any shoulder left. I can see the roots, deep inside his broken heart but I don’t think everyone can. The perks of being a sister I guess.
We had some good talks, about our brother getting married and how happy we are for him. How good D1’s girl is to him, and how we think they’ll make it. How we wished we had been better siblings to him and how we hope we’ll be able to continue to repair those cracks we made.
We talked about relationships. He hung out with S. for a few hours and said he seemed like a good guy, that he trusted my ability to choose a man. He said it must be nice to have a relationship that our mom didn’t have a problem with, where I didn’t have to fight with her to have my adult choices respected.
He spoke of his girl, of their life, of where they might go. I asked him if he thought they’d be together forever and he said they might be. We have problems, but who doesn’t? he asked. She loves me the best she knows how, and she’s learning how to be better. I wanted to ask him if that’s all he deserves, and if he loves her as best as he knows how or if he thinks he needs to learn to be better too, but I didn’t. Instead I listened as he talked to me.
I don’t know if I remember a lot of the words he spoke to me. I do remember how much pain there was in his whole being. He’s like a dog that’s been whipped, L. said. In his whole body, in his attitude, everything about him looks like he’s been broken and hasn’t been put back together yet. I nodded and held my own pain inside.
We went for walks and talked about life, me walking upwind so that the smoke from his cigarette would blow away from me. Watching him smoke was hard for me. It made him seem hardened somehow, like the thug he played as a child had come real. Like he didn’t give a damn, like his pain was all there was and he had no hope that it would ever change.
We spoke of how confusing it is when peace comes from a source that we were taught was wrong. How confusing it is when we learn that something we were told was out of bounds is completely within our grasp. We talked about how things can be right for one person and wrong for another. About how God is bigger than the mistakes of our parents and the church. I learned how cynical he is towards church and pastors.
We talked one evening about our mother. He used some of the exact phrasing that I had used in counselling three days before. It was a comfort to us both that we have the same problems with the same woman. It helped us to see that it isn’t in our heads. That the problems are real and solid because someone else felt them too.
It was a comfort to me to see that counselling has actually helped me to grow and learn to deal with my anger, pain and frustration. It filled me with calm to see that I used to be where D2 is now, full of pain and anger that I didn’t know what to do with, but I’m not anymore. It filled me hope to see that a person can learn to keep acknowledging the feelings, to put the responsibility for them on the right people, and to let it go and move on.
I told D2 that he should seriously think about going to counselling. He agreed with me. I hope he does it.
I have a lot of hopes for him. I hope that his choice to move back in with my parents is a good one. I hope that he can get what he needs from them, especially my mother. I hope that all of his pieces get put back where they belong and that he won’t always look so beaten down.
I hope.
Maybe with enough hopes behind him, his pain will become easier to bear.
He is on an extended leave of absence from work following a mental break-down. At least that gave him the freedom to catch a ride with a friend and spend two and a half days just hanging out with me at my home.
He has a lot of pain and it isn’t hiding very well behind his shields of cynicism and bitterness. The chip on his shoulder is so big I wonder how there is any shoulder left. I can see the roots, deep inside his broken heart but I don’t think everyone can. The perks of being a sister I guess.
We had some good talks, about our brother getting married and how happy we are for him. How good D1’s girl is to him, and how we think they’ll make it. How we wished we had been better siblings to him and how we hope we’ll be able to continue to repair those cracks we made.
We talked about relationships. He hung out with S. for a few hours and said he seemed like a good guy, that he trusted my ability to choose a man. He said it must be nice to have a relationship that our mom didn’t have a problem with, where I didn’t have to fight with her to have my adult choices respected.
He spoke of his girl, of their life, of where they might go. I asked him if he thought they’d be together forever and he said they might be. We have problems, but who doesn’t? he asked. She loves me the best she knows how, and she’s learning how to be better. I wanted to ask him if that’s all he deserves, and if he loves her as best as he knows how or if he thinks he needs to learn to be better too, but I didn’t. Instead I listened as he talked to me.
I don’t know if I remember a lot of the words he spoke to me. I do remember how much pain there was in his whole being. He’s like a dog that’s been whipped, L. said. In his whole body, in his attitude, everything about him looks like he’s been broken and hasn’t been put back together yet. I nodded and held my own pain inside.
We went for walks and talked about life, me walking upwind so that the smoke from his cigarette would blow away from me. Watching him smoke was hard for me. It made him seem hardened somehow, like the thug he played as a child had come real. Like he didn’t give a damn, like his pain was all there was and he had no hope that it would ever change.
We spoke of how confusing it is when peace comes from a source that we were taught was wrong. How confusing it is when we learn that something we were told was out of bounds is completely within our grasp. We talked about how things can be right for one person and wrong for another. About how God is bigger than the mistakes of our parents and the church. I learned how cynical he is towards church and pastors.
We talked one evening about our mother. He used some of the exact phrasing that I had used in counselling three days before. It was a comfort to us both that we have the same problems with the same woman. It helped us to see that it isn’t in our heads. That the problems are real and solid because someone else felt them too.
It was a comfort to me to see that counselling has actually helped me to grow and learn to deal with my anger, pain and frustration. It filled me with calm to see that I used to be where D2 is now, full of pain and anger that I didn’t know what to do with, but I’m not anymore. It filled me hope to see that a person can learn to keep acknowledging the feelings, to put the responsibility for them on the right people, and to let it go and move on.
I told D2 that he should seriously think about going to counselling. He agreed with me. I hope he does it.
I have a lot of hopes for him. I hope that his choice to move back in with my parents is a good one. I hope that he can get what he needs from them, especially my mother. I hope that all of his pieces get put back where they belong and that he won’t always look so beaten down.
I hope.
Maybe with enough hopes behind him, his pain will become easier to bear.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Themes
I just realized that the last few posts (excluding the happy one about my brother) have been rather negative.
Maybe I'm going through a phase. Huh.
It bears some thinking about, that perhaps it isn't all the people around me, and maybe it's me.
Although I'd rather it wasn't.
Maybe I'm going through a phase. Huh.
It bears some thinking about, that perhaps it isn't all the people around me, and maybe it's me.
Although I'd rather it wasn't.
Frustration
I am so frustrated with school right now. Not with the work – that feels quite manageable for once. No. I'm frustrated with the institution itself and the people who are running it.
It feels like the Educational Directors are on a warpath and I don’t know why. It’s sudden, too. One day I’m going along my life, making my own decisions and organizing things my way, and the next day the phrase ‘mandatory’ gets thrown in my face and I have to abide by a new set of rules. Rules that I haven’t been aware of for three months now, but that apparently have to be added to my life for this last month of school or the world will come to an end.
The thing I really don’t understand is that the class they are raising Cain about is dance, which is a fucking audit for me. I’m not getting any credits or being marked or evaluated in any way. I didn’t get the option of choosing this class – if I had I would have turned it down. It’s exactly the same class that I took last year and since I passed, I don’t see why I have to take it again. But suddenly I have to attend and catch up on what I’ve missed so that I can participate in the presentation that is happening in three weeks.
They say they want me to stay in practice with dance and I can understand that. But the majority of the class time is spent warming up and stretching. I do that on my own every morning. I lead a deliberately active lifestyle. I keep my tools ready to work. As far as the idea of keeping dance moves fresh in my mind…the way I see it, if I ever go out for a dance audition I’ll be doing it cold. Taking dance classes outside of school doesn’t interest me. I know that I learn basic choreography at an average speed. I’m not a dancer, but I can learn choreography. If this class taught me how to pick up choreography quickly I’d be there in a heartbeat, but instead we spend 85% of the class time warming up to spend 15 minutes going over and over the same dance moves – dance moves that I’ve never seen used in musical theatre anyway. It’s a waste of my time.
The whole ‘mandatory audit’ thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. Recently the Student Life Advisor sent an email to all of the students who are living in student housing, reminding us all that a) we aren’t allowed to have alcohol in our houses and b) boys aren’t allowed to be in our rooms past midnight. I know these rules – well, I knew the alcohol one. I knew that technically we weren’t allowed to have boys in our rooms unless the doors were open but that rule has never been enforced so I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I certainly didn’t remember that they had to be out of our house by midnight. When S.’s schedule means that he isn’t free to come visit me until 11 o’clock at night it seems ridiculous that he would have to leave after an hour, particularly if neither of us has anything the next morning, but fine. We’ll hang out at his house if it’s really that big of a problem. It pisses me off that I can’t live my own life in my own house.
I’ll admit I was breaking the letter of the law on the alcohol thing. I had a bottle of wine in my closet. I had no intention of drinking it in the dorm – I am waiting to open it until R. and I move into our new not-student-housing suite. I didn’t think having a bottle of wine in my closet would be a problem but after I got the email I moved it to S.’s house. He lives in a private residence and is allowed to make the adult decision to drink or not to drink. I can’t wait until I live in a house where my landlord will actually assume that I can act my age (23) and where I can make my own life choices – where all I have to take into consideration is whether or not I’m being respectful to my roommates and whether I’m taking good care of my house. That is what an adult, living on their own, should have to think about. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether my lifestyle is meshing with someone else’s moral structure, but thanks to the nature of student housing that is my reality. I hate it.
It’s made me realize that I have control issues when it comes to my room. The email stated that members of the Educational Team would be conducting random house checks, looking for alcohol and asking whether guys were staying over. The idea of having someone go through my stuff in my room, looking for non-existent alcohol, asking me about aspects of my life that shouldn’t be their business in the first place, makes me instantly angry. Unreasonably angry, in fact. I thought about it a lot and I realized that my bedroom has always been the only area of my life that I have had complete control over. I have always controlled my room completely and implicitly. I have been anal-retentive about who comes in and when, the contents and where they go. I rule my room and no one else has any authority therein. It has always been that way, and I just can’t let that go. I’ll let them in my room if they must check it, but only if I’m there. I’d prefer it if they could just take my word for it that there’s no alcohol in there. They have to take my word for it that S. isn’t sleeping over, after all.
Another big part of my frustration with the school comes from scheduling conflicts. This year has been the worst year for students being double-booked into things that anyone I’ve spoken to has ever seen. Students have been expected to be in two or three places at once, and when they choose which one of those places they are going to go, they are informed that they have to make up the other classes on their own time. It’s bullshit! I understand that the schedulers are human. I’m not asking for perfection. It would just be nice if when the problems are brought to their attention they would try to rectify them instead of shoving them off on the student.
Right now I’m stage managing a classmates’ final project. Part of this requires me to try to make the schedules of the various team members match up. It is not an easy job. I thought that the school would be helpful with this whole process. The Educational Team approved this project, after all.
I’ve since realized that that was a little too optimistic of me. There have been several ‘mandatory’ classes added to our schedule that are in direct conflict with rehearsals. I don’t understand it. They approved the fucking rehearsal schedule. They should know it, and if they foresaw problems with it they should have said something back then. Instead they approved it and are now kicking up a fuss about the classes that I won’t be attending.
I feel really angry about all of these things, and what makes it worse is that I feel like I’m not being heard.
I know I’m not the only student feeling this way. There are important things that the Educational Team isn’t hearing when we say them, and what can we do about it?
Nothing.
It pisses me off half the time and fills me with a horrible old feeling of resignation the other half. It makes me feel like closing up every time one of them talks to me. Why should I listen to you if you aren’t going to listen to me, I want to ask. But instead I sigh inside and try to be receptive.
How can I expect them to listen to me if I won’t even try to listen to them, after all?
I keep listening.
They keep ignoring the problems they are creating.
And so I am frustrated.
It feels like the Educational Directors are on a warpath and I don’t know why. It’s sudden, too. One day I’m going along my life, making my own decisions and organizing things my way, and the next day the phrase ‘mandatory’ gets thrown in my face and I have to abide by a new set of rules. Rules that I haven’t been aware of for three months now, but that apparently have to be added to my life for this last month of school or the world will come to an end.
The thing I really don’t understand is that the class they are raising Cain about is dance, which is a fucking audit for me. I’m not getting any credits or being marked or evaluated in any way. I didn’t get the option of choosing this class – if I had I would have turned it down. It’s exactly the same class that I took last year and since I passed, I don’t see why I have to take it again. But suddenly I have to attend and catch up on what I’ve missed so that I can participate in the presentation that is happening in three weeks.
They say they want me to stay in practice with dance and I can understand that. But the majority of the class time is spent warming up and stretching. I do that on my own every morning. I lead a deliberately active lifestyle. I keep my tools ready to work. As far as the idea of keeping dance moves fresh in my mind…the way I see it, if I ever go out for a dance audition I’ll be doing it cold. Taking dance classes outside of school doesn’t interest me. I know that I learn basic choreography at an average speed. I’m not a dancer, but I can learn choreography. If this class taught me how to pick up choreography quickly I’d be there in a heartbeat, but instead we spend 85% of the class time warming up to spend 15 minutes going over and over the same dance moves – dance moves that I’ve never seen used in musical theatre anyway. It’s a waste of my time.
The whole ‘mandatory audit’ thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. Recently the Student Life Advisor sent an email to all of the students who are living in student housing, reminding us all that a) we aren’t allowed to have alcohol in our houses and b) boys aren’t allowed to be in our rooms past midnight. I know these rules – well, I knew the alcohol one. I knew that technically we weren’t allowed to have boys in our rooms unless the doors were open but that rule has never been enforced so I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I certainly didn’t remember that they had to be out of our house by midnight. When S.’s schedule means that he isn’t free to come visit me until 11 o’clock at night it seems ridiculous that he would have to leave after an hour, particularly if neither of us has anything the next morning, but fine. We’ll hang out at his house if it’s really that big of a problem. It pisses me off that I can’t live my own life in my own house.
I’ll admit I was breaking the letter of the law on the alcohol thing. I had a bottle of wine in my closet. I had no intention of drinking it in the dorm – I am waiting to open it until R. and I move into our new not-student-housing suite. I didn’t think having a bottle of wine in my closet would be a problem but after I got the email I moved it to S.’s house. He lives in a private residence and is allowed to make the adult decision to drink or not to drink. I can’t wait until I live in a house where my landlord will actually assume that I can act my age (23) and where I can make my own life choices – where all I have to take into consideration is whether or not I’m being respectful to my roommates and whether I’m taking good care of my house. That is what an adult, living on their own, should have to think about. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether my lifestyle is meshing with someone else’s moral structure, but thanks to the nature of student housing that is my reality. I hate it.
It’s made me realize that I have control issues when it comes to my room. The email stated that members of the Educational Team would be conducting random house checks, looking for alcohol and asking whether guys were staying over. The idea of having someone go through my stuff in my room, looking for non-existent alcohol, asking me about aspects of my life that shouldn’t be their business in the first place, makes me instantly angry. Unreasonably angry, in fact. I thought about it a lot and I realized that my bedroom has always been the only area of my life that I have had complete control over. I have always controlled my room completely and implicitly. I have been anal-retentive about who comes in and when, the contents and where they go. I rule my room and no one else has any authority therein. It has always been that way, and I just can’t let that go. I’ll let them in my room if they must check it, but only if I’m there. I’d prefer it if they could just take my word for it that there’s no alcohol in there. They have to take my word for it that S. isn’t sleeping over, after all.
Another big part of my frustration with the school comes from scheduling conflicts. This year has been the worst year for students being double-booked into things that anyone I’ve spoken to has ever seen. Students have been expected to be in two or three places at once, and when they choose which one of those places they are going to go, they are informed that they have to make up the other classes on their own time. It’s bullshit! I understand that the schedulers are human. I’m not asking for perfection. It would just be nice if when the problems are brought to their attention they would try to rectify them instead of shoving them off on the student.
Right now I’m stage managing a classmates’ final project. Part of this requires me to try to make the schedules of the various team members match up. It is not an easy job. I thought that the school would be helpful with this whole process. The Educational Team approved this project, after all.
I’ve since realized that that was a little too optimistic of me. There have been several ‘mandatory’ classes added to our schedule that are in direct conflict with rehearsals. I don’t understand it. They approved the fucking rehearsal schedule. They should know it, and if they foresaw problems with it they should have said something back then. Instead they approved it and are now kicking up a fuss about the classes that I won’t be attending.
I feel really angry about all of these things, and what makes it worse is that I feel like I’m not being heard.
I know I’m not the only student feeling this way. There are important things that the Educational Team isn’t hearing when we say them, and what can we do about it?
Nothing.
It pisses me off half the time and fills me with a horrible old feeling of resignation the other half. It makes me feel like closing up every time one of them talks to me. Why should I listen to you if you aren’t going to listen to me, I want to ask. But instead I sigh inside and try to be receptive.
How can I expect them to listen to me if I won’t even try to listen to them, after all?
I keep listening.
They keep ignoring the problems they are creating.
And so I am frustrated.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Congratulations!
That is to my middle brother, who asked his girlfriend to marry him.
She said yes. Otherwise this would be a sad little post, instead of a happy one.
I am really excited for them, and can hardly wait to welcome her into our family!
Congratulations, you two. Lots of love and best wishes your way.
She said yes. Otherwise this would be a sad little post, instead of a happy one.
I am really excited for them, and can hardly wait to welcome her into our family!
Congratulations, you two. Lots of love and best wishes your way.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Resentment
Our household harmony is vanishing. Fast.
It started with the breakdown of the System. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly little resentments will pop up when the dishes aren’t being done. As soon as the dishes remained piled on the counter with loud declarations of “they aren’t mine and I won’t do other people’s dishes” everything else went to pot.
Secret resentment number one: I would put dishes here, but I’m not sure that dishes count as a ‘secret’ resentment since the entire household has articulated this one multiple times. And in reality, if M. would just do her damn dishes, this post would be over already.
Secret resentment number two: It is tech week for the Opera House show, which means that L. (who is the ASM) is under stress. To help her out, L.’s fiancé, K., has been here cooking for her so that she doesn’t have to worry about preparing meals during her short breaks. It’s awfully nice of him, but it does add another person to an already crowded kitchen. But hey – he washes the dishes he uses. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by the extra person in our kitchen but I’ve been dealing with it. I have S. over often enough, after all. M., however, is tired of having ‘the boyfriends’ over here all the time.
She doesn’t go speak to L. about this though. No. She talks to me, like I’m going to fix it for her.
Secret resentment number two: M. has been watching seasons one and two of Grey’s Anatomy. Not a problem until you realize that she has watched the entire two seasons over four days. While she watches film after film and episode after episode, she uses the upstairs bathroom – the bathroom that C. and I supply with toilet paper. Our supplies are vanishing almost as fast as the household harmony.
M. has always spent every spare moment of her life sitting in the living-room watching movies at high decibel levels, and while it has been getting on everyone’s nerves for a long time, it has reached a snapping point. It is understandable that we can only handle so much noise in the only common area in the house, and when you combine that with watching her sit there while her dishes pile up in negligent sloth, you get a fairly volatile situation.
C. decided that taking the RCA cables away would solve the problem. It didn’t. It just made things worse. When M. came home and discovered that the television didn’t work, she felt like she was being punished (which she was) and accused C. of mothering her. To her face, which I must admit I was quite shocked to learn.
That brings us to secret resentment number three: M. treating me like I’m her personal intercessor. After raising her voice to L. when it was pointed out that she needed to do her dishes, and then yelling at C. for mothering her, she stalked up to my room and proceeded to fill me in on the entire afternoon in a highly controlled and angry voice.
In my bedroom. My private retreat from the entire house, the only private place I have in the entire town.
I had removed myself for a reason. Apparently that was lost on M. While she spouted off about how the entire house was treating her like a child, all I could do was stare at the top of my dresser and wonder why the hell I let her do this to me and wonder why she can’t seem to learn that her actions affect the people around her. She is very much like a child.
I felt like I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted to because I had to stop her from going and having it all out with L. right then and there. In the middle of tech week. This is the worst week in any show, particularly for L. M. has no sense of timing.
I wanted to tell her that none of us wanted the full-time job that mothering her would be. That we aren’t trying to mother her – we are only behaving like roommates behave when someone in the house isn’t pulling their weight. That pulling your weight means not only cleaning up after yourself (which she isn’t doing) but also pitching in to pick up the slack that is left when six people live together. That if she had a problem with somebody in the house she should go talk to them instead of dragging me into every fight she has. That she can’t come into my room. For any reason. Ever.
It irritates me that M. can’t recognize her dishes; that she doesn’t speak to the people that are angering her; that she can’t seem to realize that her problems aren’t my problems or my business; that she also has no sense of timing; that she can’t remember to be considerate of the people living around her; that she can’t see past what she wants and what she feels to the desires, needs and feelings of the people she has lived with for six months.
I am getting very tired of living with her. I know I said I could suck it up for another month and a half…but I think I was lying. A little part of me harbours a secret resentment against our student life advisor for placing her here in the first place. If she didn’t live here, my life would be so much easier.
And while the household harmony vanishes into the ether, I cling to the hope that somehow in all of this I have become a better person.
Because otherwise this was all a significant waste of my time.
It started with the breakdown of the System. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly little resentments will pop up when the dishes aren’t being done. As soon as the dishes remained piled on the counter with loud declarations of “they aren’t mine and I won’t do other people’s dishes” everything else went to pot.
Secret resentment number one: I would put dishes here, but I’m not sure that dishes count as a ‘secret’ resentment since the entire household has articulated this one multiple times. And in reality, if M. would just do her damn dishes, this post would be over already.
Secret resentment number two: It is tech week for the Opera House show, which means that L. (who is the ASM) is under stress. To help her out, L.’s fiancé, K., has been here cooking for her so that she doesn’t have to worry about preparing meals during her short breaks. It’s awfully nice of him, but it does add another person to an already crowded kitchen. But hey – he washes the dishes he uses. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by the extra person in our kitchen but I’ve been dealing with it. I have S. over often enough, after all. M., however, is tired of having ‘the boyfriends’ over here all the time.
She doesn’t go speak to L. about this though. No. She talks to me, like I’m going to fix it for her.
Secret resentment number two: M. has been watching seasons one and two of Grey’s Anatomy. Not a problem until you realize that she has watched the entire two seasons over four days. While she watches film after film and episode after episode, she uses the upstairs bathroom – the bathroom that C. and I supply with toilet paper. Our supplies are vanishing almost as fast as the household harmony.
M. has always spent every spare moment of her life sitting in the living-room watching movies at high decibel levels, and while it has been getting on everyone’s nerves for a long time, it has reached a snapping point. It is understandable that we can only handle so much noise in the only common area in the house, and when you combine that with watching her sit there while her dishes pile up in negligent sloth, you get a fairly volatile situation.
C. decided that taking the RCA cables away would solve the problem. It didn’t. It just made things worse. When M. came home and discovered that the television didn’t work, she felt like she was being punished (which she was) and accused C. of mothering her. To her face, which I must admit I was quite shocked to learn.
That brings us to secret resentment number three: M. treating me like I’m her personal intercessor. After raising her voice to L. when it was pointed out that she needed to do her dishes, and then yelling at C. for mothering her, she stalked up to my room and proceeded to fill me in on the entire afternoon in a highly controlled and angry voice.
In my bedroom. My private retreat from the entire house, the only private place I have in the entire town.
I had removed myself for a reason. Apparently that was lost on M. While she spouted off about how the entire house was treating her like a child, all I could do was stare at the top of my dresser and wonder why the hell I let her do this to me and wonder why she can’t seem to learn that her actions affect the people around her. She is very much like a child.
I felt like I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted to because I had to stop her from going and having it all out with L. right then and there. In the middle of tech week. This is the worst week in any show, particularly for L. M. has no sense of timing.
I wanted to tell her that none of us wanted the full-time job that mothering her would be. That we aren’t trying to mother her – we are only behaving like roommates behave when someone in the house isn’t pulling their weight. That pulling your weight means not only cleaning up after yourself (which she isn’t doing) but also pitching in to pick up the slack that is left when six people live together. That if she had a problem with somebody in the house she should go talk to them instead of dragging me into every fight she has. That she can’t come into my room. For any reason. Ever.
It irritates me that M. can’t recognize her dishes; that she doesn’t speak to the people that are angering her; that she can’t seem to realize that her problems aren’t my problems or my business; that she also has no sense of timing; that she can’t remember to be considerate of the people living around her; that she can’t see past what she wants and what she feels to the desires, needs and feelings of the people she has lived with for six months.
I am getting very tired of living with her. I know I said I could suck it up for another month and a half…but I think I was lying. A little part of me harbours a secret resentment against our student life advisor for placing her here in the first place. If she didn’t live here, my life would be so much easier.
And while the household harmony vanishes into the ether, I cling to the hope that somehow in all of this I have become a better person.
Because otherwise this was all a significant waste of my time.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The System: or, Flex Before Somebody Snaps
In our house we have a System when it comes to dishes. It’s quite simple. You do your own.
The System works pretty well. It’s the only way we’ve been able to keep the peace with six women using dishes in the house. It isn’t perfect though. It breaks down when someone doesn’t do their dishes for a week or when people forget which dishes are theirs. Confusion over ownership wreaks the most havoc on the System, and unfortunately the dishes are the ones who suffer, sitting unclaimed on the counter wallowing in their filth until someone breaks down and does them.
It wouldn’t be such a problem – or a topic for my blog – if this house wasn’t filled with such stubborn women. Let me introduce them to you –
First, we have L. L. refuses to do dishes that aren’t hers because she is of the firm belief that the dishes piling up belong to M., who she doesn’t really like and with whom any excuse to like her less is a viable reason to make life difficult for everyone around. She doesn’t see that aspect of it, but it’s true non-the-less.
Then we have the infamous M., of whom I’ve written before. M. is tired of all the extra dishes being blamed on her and likewise refuses to do any extra dishes – although she does tend to forget what she has actually used and blame her work on others, particularly L. and C.
C., the first one of us to live here and who thus lays claim (subconsciously or not) to the title of Alpha Bitch, has a good memory as to what she has and has not used for dishes. She rarely is a culprit when it comes to over-flowing counters. She usually has to play the role of dish-Nazi (the one who makes others do their dishes).
J. doesn’t do her dishes upstairs, and so has excluded herself from the System – although when a dish disappears for a month it’s usually because it has been wallowing in her sink downstairs.
R. adheres to the System. She does her dishes with OCD-like attention to detail, and thus avoids the perennial conflict when it comes to arguments of ownership.
I occasionally leave dishes and have been known to forget which ones are mine. However the System is so ingrained in me that when I was home for Christmas I used a plate and then washed it immediately, ignoring the pile of dishes from the previous meal (much to my mother’s irritation. She doesn’t understand the overwhelming influence of the System). I also will wash other people’s dishes if someone else will put them away – I hate putting dishes away but washing them doesn’t bother me. Much.
In this latest uprising of plates and cups half of the house was absent, leaving L. and M. to battle out the ownership issue. I had been observing the dishes and knowing their eating habits, I was pretty sure that they were the result of an even split between the two of them, but neither of them were willing to budge an inch to do any more than what they believed was their responsibility. Fuck, I hate legalism.
I finally got sick of the whole mess and took out my frustration at the breakdown of the System in the most passive-aggressive yet positive way I could. I did all of the fucking dishes and then cleaned the kitchen to boot.
I did receive gratitude in the form of lip-service, but that evening again I witnessed the strict adherence to the System to the exclusion of mercy or grace.
I think I hate the System too.
The problem is that I know that the System works. It isn’t the System that is broken. It’s the understanding of the System. There needs to be a bit of flex room, a place of grace where each member of the house will accept doing a few extra dishes now and then to help out a friend (or to stop an argument that will overflow onto friends – or the floor). There needs to be an understanding that no System works without flexibility to work outside the rules.
I discussed this with R. when she returned from her study break. I got quite worked up about it (the swearing in this post isn’t gratuitous; it accurately reflects my feelings on the subject). R. sensed my pent-up rage and asked me if we needed to have a house meeting. I said I thought it would be okay. I am the queen of taking deep breaths and taking things in stride. I can hold out until the end of term, when M. is leaving and L. will suddenly remember what it means to help out the people around her instead of doing her own fair share and letting everyone else take up the slack.
If this situation rises again before the end of March, though, I’m going to fucking flip out and it won’t be a pretty sight.
I just wish we could all just remember to have some flexibility within our Systems. Maybe then our lives would run a little more smoothly.
At least I’d have to find something else to snap about.
The System works pretty well. It’s the only way we’ve been able to keep the peace with six women using dishes in the house. It isn’t perfect though. It breaks down when someone doesn’t do their dishes for a week or when people forget which dishes are theirs. Confusion over ownership wreaks the most havoc on the System, and unfortunately the dishes are the ones who suffer, sitting unclaimed on the counter wallowing in their filth until someone breaks down and does them.
It wouldn’t be such a problem – or a topic for my blog – if this house wasn’t filled with such stubborn women. Let me introduce them to you –
First, we have L. L. refuses to do dishes that aren’t hers because she is of the firm belief that the dishes piling up belong to M., who she doesn’t really like and with whom any excuse to like her less is a viable reason to make life difficult for everyone around. She doesn’t see that aspect of it, but it’s true non-the-less.
Then we have the infamous M., of whom I’ve written before. M. is tired of all the extra dishes being blamed on her and likewise refuses to do any extra dishes – although she does tend to forget what she has actually used and blame her work on others, particularly L. and C.
C., the first one of us to live here and who thus lays claim (subconsciously or not) to the title of Alpha Bitch, has a good memory as to what she has and has not used for dishes. She rarely is a culprit when it comes to over-flowing counters. She usually has to play the role of dish-Nazi (the one who makes others do their dishes).
J. doesn’t do her dishes upstairs, and so has excluded herself from the System – although when a dish disappears for a month it’s usually because it has been wallowing in her sink downstairs.
R. adheres to the System. She does her dishes with OCD-like attention to detail, and thus avoids the perennial conflict when it comes to arguments of ownership.
I occasionally leave dishes and have been known to forget which ones are mine. However the System is so ingrained in me that when I was home for Christmas I used a plate and then washed it immediately, ignoring the pile of dishes from the previous meal (much to my mother’s irritation. She doesn’t understand the overwhelming influence of the System). I also will wash other people’s dishes if someone else will put them away – I hate putting dishes away but washing them doesn’t bother me. Much.
In this latest uprising of plates and cups half of the house was absent, leaving L. and M. to battle out the ownership issue. I had been observing the dishes and knowing their eating habits, I was pretty sure that they were the result of an even split between the two of them, but neither of them were willing to budge an inch to do any more than what they believed was their responsibility. Fuck, I hate legalism.
I finally got sick of the whole mess and took out my frustration at the breakdown of the System in the most passive-aggressive yet positive way I could. I did all of the fucking dishes and then cleaned the kitchen to boot.
I did receive gratitude in the form of lip-service, but that evening again I witnessed the strict adherence to the System to the exclusion of mercy or grace.
I think I hate the System too.
The problem is that I know that the System works. It isn’t the System that is broken. It’s the understanding of the System. There needs to be a bit of flex room, a place of grace where each member of the house will accept doing a few extra dishes now and then to help out a friend (or to stop an argument that will overflow onto friends – or the floor). There needs to be an understanding that no System works without flexibility to work outside the rules.
I discussed this with R. when she returned from her study break. I got quite worked up about it (the swearing in this post isn’t gratuitous; it accurately reflects my feelings on the subject). R. sensed my pent-up rage and asked me if we needed to have a house meeting. I said I thought it would be okay. I am the queen of taking deep breaths and taking things in stride. I can hold out until the end of term, when M. is leaving and L. will suddenly remember what it means to help out the people around her instead of doing her own fair share and letting everyone else take up the slack.
If this situation rises again before the end of March, though, I’m going to fucking flip out and it won’t be a pretty sight.
I just wish we could all just remember to have some flexibility within our Systems. Maybe then our lives would run a little more smoothly.
At least I’d have to find something else to snap about.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
22 - The Year of the Firsts
I had my birthday this week. I turned 23.
23 feels a lot older than 22. Someone told me it’s because 23 is closer to 25 than to 20. Perhaps that’s why.
I think the reason I feel older is because I am definitely an adult now. There is no way that a 23 year old is not an adult. I have no excuses now for any of my childish behaviour.
Maybe that should make me sad, but instead it makes me stand straighter, smile and look to the future.
After all, you can’t stop getting older. I think you might as well embrace it.
That said I’m not negating the difficulty people have in aging. I am sure that in spite of my best intentions I’ll find some years hard. Which ones I’m not sure of yet. After all, I wouldn’t have thought that turning 20 would be hard but it kind of was.
But whatever. I’ll accept the difficulty and still never lie about my age, no matter how hard I find it to be old. When I am, I mean. I’m still young, so it’s easy to have this ideal, but I am determined to keep it. Not everyone gets to be old, even as old as I am now, and I will not belittle the gift of life by denying how many years I have had it.
This last year has been one full of life, too. I experienced quite a few firsts – first leading role, first degree, first time ASMing, first boyfriend, first kiss, first time falling in love, first time making out, first time getting paid to sing in public, getting my first role in the main season, first close friend getting engaged, first time really fighting with the student loan people, first time getting drunk, first hangover, first laptop (thanks Dad and Mom!), first time acting in a final project, first time traveling overseas, first time seeing London, England and Wales, first time being sniffed down by a drug dog and being randomly checked by airport security people, first time being really, really late with the rent (and tuition…sigh), first play written and read publicly…not all in that order necessarily, but all this year.
I can’t help but be excited about next years firsts…along with continuations of this years discoveries, 23 should be a pretty good year.
23 feels a lot older than 22. Someone told me it’s because 23 is closer to 25 than to 20. Perhaps that’s why.
I think the reason I feel older is because I am definitely an adult now. There is no way that a 23 year old is not an adult. I have no excuses now for any of my childish behaviour.
Maybe that should make me sad, but instead it makes me stand straighter, smile and look to the future.
After all, you can’t stop getting older. I think you might as well embrace it.
That said I’m not negating the difficulty people have in aging. I am sure that in spite of my best intentions I’ll find some years hard. Which ones I’m not sure of yet. After all, I wouldn’t have thought that turning 20 would be hard but it kind of was.
But whatever. I’ll accept the difficulty and still never lie about my age, no matter how hard I find it to be old. When I am, I mean. I’m still young, so it’s easy to have this ideal, but I am determined to keep it. Not everyone gets to be old, even as old as I am now, and I will not belittle the gift of life by denying how many years I have had it.
This last year has been one full of life, too. I experienced quite a few firsts – first leading role, first degree, first time ASMing, first boyfriend, first kiss, first time falling in love, first time making out, first time getting paid to sing in public, getting my first role in the main season, first close friend getting engaged, first time really fighting with the student loan people, first time getting drunk, first hangover, first laptop (thanks Dad and Mom!), first time acting in a final project, first time traveling overseas, first time seeing London, England and Wales, first time being sniffed down by a drug dog and being randomly checked by airport security people, first time being really, really late with the rent (and tuition…sigh), first play written and read publicly…not all in that order necessarily, but all this year.
I can’t help but be excited about next years firsts…along with continuations of this years discoveries, 23 should be a pretty good year.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Five Things You Might Not Know About Me
1. On the side of my Outlook Express account, there is a list of tasks that I make for myself. They range from the dull (Homework) to the bizarre (Be the Broccoli...don't ask) to the sublime (Kiss S.) Upon completion of this post I can tick off the "Meme - Five Things" task that has been there for months, annoying me.
2. I despise honey. I cannot abide the taste, smell, texture or sight of it...ugh. Even thinking about honey can make my stomach turn. I have no reason for this detestation, but it is sincere. S. was quite smug with himself when I ate a meal he had cooked that had a minute amount of honey in it - but I'll get him back someday. He has a bizarre dislike of cinnamon, after all...
3. All of my close friends live in this hamlet. I have no close friends from my childhood unless you count family members. This is something I don't tell people. I am ashamed of this, although it really wasn't my fault...I was a pretty isolated child. Still. It makes me feel like a bizarre aberration of nature.
4. Sunday will be the first day that anything I've written, and finished, will be shared with people that I cannot choose. It scares me and thrills me. It strikes me as strange, thinking about it now, that I have been writing for most of my life and yet haven't shared my writing with more than a handful of people - because I'm afraid, of course. Perhaps that isn't so bizarre after all.
5. A movie has to be really, really terrible for me not to get sucked into the story. Even a terrible movie will keep me enthralled - it's like the screen has a bizarre ability to hypnotize me within thirty seconds. This annoys me, because if a television is turned on I have a very difficult time focusing on the people around me. I would rather put my attention on the people, really - but it is very hard for me to do, and I'm not sure why.
6. I know this is supposed to be five, but yes - I did intentionally use the word bizarre in each one of those points. Ha ha!
2. I despise honey. I cannot abide the taste, smell, texture or sight of it...ugh. Even thinking about honey can make my stomach turn. I have no reason for this detestation, but it is sincere. S. was quite smug with himself when I ate a meal he had cooked that had a minute amount of honey in it - but I'll get him back someday. He has a bizarre dislike of cinnamon, after all...
3. All of my close friends live in this hamlet. I have no close friends from my childhood unless you count family members. This is something I don't tell people. I am ashamed of this, although it really wasn't my fault...I was a pretty isolated child. Still. It makes me feel like a bizarre aberration of nature.
4. Sunday will be the first day that anything I've written, and finished, will be shared with people that I cannot choose. It scares me and thrills me. It strikes me as strange, thinking about it now, that I have been writing for most of my life and yet haven't shared my writing with more than a handful of people - because I'm afraid, of course. Perhaps that isn't so bizarre after all.
5. A movie has to be really, really terrible for me not to get sucked into the story. Even a terrible movie will keep me enthralled - it's like the screen has a bizarre ability to hypnotize me within thirty seconds. This annoys me, because if a television is turned on I have a very difficult time focusing on the people around me. I would rather put my attention on the people, really - but it is very hard for me to do, and I'm not sure why.
6. I know this is supposed to be five, but yes - I did intentionally use the word bizarre in each one of those points. Ha ha!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Out of the Dust
Years ago, one of my aunts gave me a book called "Out of the Dust" by Karen Hesse. It is a story told in poetry and it is beautiful. I remembered that I loved it but I had forgotten how heartbreaking and perfect it was.
...and didn't notice how lonely she was
until she met Daddy and fell into the
big hurt of his eyes.
This sentence leaped out at me and almost made me cry.
Story really is a vital part of our human experience. I sometimes forget this.
I'm glad there are stories out there to remind me.
...and didn't notice how lonely she was
until she met Daddy and fell into the
big hurt of his eyes.
This sentence leaped out at me and almost made me cry.
Story really is a vital part of our human experience. I sometimes forget this.
I'm glad there are stories out there to remind me.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
I'm back...
...and extremely jet-lagged.
But London was fun - if filled with smog that turned your nostrils grey after a day of sight-seeing (although that could have been all of the second-hand smoke...almost everyone there smoked but that could have been to protect themselves from the smog...it's a vicious circle).
I'll write all about it when I get my brain back from whatever magical land brains go to when they travel across time-zones.
But I would like to say that making me change to Beta when I'm so incoherent is extremely unjust.
At least I think that it is.
But London was fun - if filled with smog that turned your nostrils grey after a day of sight-seeing (although that could have been all of the second-hand smoke...almost everyone there smoked but that could have been to protect themselves from the smog...it's a vicious circle).
I'll write all about it when I get my brain back from whatever magical land brains go to when they travel across time-zones.
But I would like to say that making me change to Beta when I'm so incoherent is extremely unjust.
At least I think that it is.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
An Observation
People are incapable of stability.
Waiting for them to achieve stability is an exercise in futility.
Waiting for them to achieve stability is an exercise in futility.
Up, up and away!
This time Saturday I'll be flying to London.
I probably won't post much (if anything at all) while I'm over there...but I'll be back - and jet-lagged - on the 17th, so you'll hear from me for sure by the 21st (which is when I imagine my brain will be functioning again).
Pray for safety for me and my classmates. This is a school trip. Almost everyone who is important to me (outside of my family) is going to be along, which is cool.
I suppose along with a prayer for safety for me, you could add a prayer for peace of mind for my mother.
I probably won't post much (if anything at all) while I'm over there...but I'll be back - and jet-lagged - on the 17th, so you'll hear from me for sure by the 21st (which is when I imagine my brain will be functioning again).
Pray for safety for me and my classmates. This is a school trip. Almost everyone who is important to me (outside of my family) is going to be along, which is cool.
I suppose along with a prayer for safety for me, you could add a prayer for peace of mind for my mother.
Monday, January 22, 2007
I am here...
Life feels like a big question. I’d like to know where the answers are but I suspect they lie at the end of the journey. I’m not ready to be at the end, so I guess I’ll find them like every other mortal – by living my life and making my mistakes – but that seems so hard right now.
I find myself writing "Rebecca was here [insert date here] and she was [insert emotional state here]" on walls, on floors, on pieces of set around the town. I don't know why, but it helps somehow.
S. shaved his head last night. I like it a lot…he’s even more distracting than he was before. I love it when you rub someone’s head and it feels like it’s covered in velvet. Plus it looks really good. Mmmm…
I’m listening to music on an iPod, which is a new experience. I’ve been instructed in the use of the little thing, which is a wonder to me. Five buttons and a little dial and that’s all you need to listen to hundreds and hundreds of songs. Weird. It’s S.’s iPod so it’s all his music. It is both educational and interesting to listen to and see where our tastes meld and where they take sharp departures.
I should be working right now – but I thought I should also put something on here to let myself know that I’m still alive and capable of creating something independent of school work, even if it’s small.
That feels like an answer. An answer I needed.
Rebecca was here January 22nd 2007, and she was comforted.
That's enough for now.
I find myself writing "Rebecca was here [insert date here] and she was [insert emotional state here]" on walls, on floors, on pieces of set around the town. I don't know why, but it helps somehow.
S. shaved his head last night. I like it a lot…he’s even more distracting than he was before. I love it when you rub someone’s head and it feels like it’s covered in velvet. Plus it looks really good. Mmmm…
I’m listening to music on an iPod, which is a new experience. I’ve been instructed in the use of the little thing, which is a wonder to me. Five buttons and a little dial and that’s all you need to listen to hundreds and hundreds of songs. Weird. It’s S.’s iPod so it’s all his music. It is both educational and interesting to listen to and see where our tastes meld and where they take sharp departures.
I should be working right now – but I thought I should also put something on here to let myself know that I’m still alive and capable of creating something independent of school work, even if it’s small.
That feels like an answer. An answer I needed.
Rebecca was here January 22nd 2007, and she was comforted.
That's enough for now.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Brighter days
I'm not feeling quite so overwhelmed now. I still don't have time to write more than a paragraph, but at least my soul doesn't feel like it wants to escape my body anymore...and I don't feel as stressed out...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Ashes
I feel like I am holding a monster at bay with a crucifix that I have only just realized is made of popsicle sticks.
Eventually the monster will realize I have no real power backing me up...
Eventually the monster will realize I have no real power backing me up...
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