Tag Archives: fear of rejection

29 April 2017

Cows & cars OR: guardian angels are completely fucking arbitrary.

By andpantomime

My mom called last weekend. We talked about my suicide attempt.

When I was 19, I was a little over a year removed from staying @ either of my parents’ homes. It wasn’t a pleasant move. There was no big send-off, no “Congrats you’re 18! You’re free to go!” complete w/ the efforts of a loving family loading your belongings onto a truck so they can finally turn your bedroom into a home-office, home-gym, or in my mother’s case, home-pet-shelter. It was just that around the age of 17-&-a-half I started getting kicked out a lot (Mom would say, “You should go live w/ your dad!” & Dad would tolerate it for a little while before saying, “Go live w/ your mom!”) & I was only a week into my 18th year whenever I moved into a dorm room mere blocks from Dad’s apartment & started going to college. That was freshman year, & sophomore year I upped the ante by moving 2 hrs away to Denton, to study Film @ the University of North Texas.

I transferred partly because I’d decided I didn’t want to be a stage actress (& had been on a theater-degree path @ the college local to my family’s hometown), partly because my best friend M was already @ UNT, & partly because my boyfriend C wanted to go to UNT for Film as well. My real dream was (& still is) to write television sitcoms, but there were no affordable in-state programs for it, so I figured I would just enjoy my college degree, no matter what it came out in name to be. So long as I graduated w/ @ least 1 scriptwriting class under my belt, I’d be a happy bird.

C broke up w/ me pretty immediately after we arrived @ UNT. This was perfectly reasonable, as I’d been a traumatizing, inconsiderate wreck the entirety of our relationship. I was convinced I was undeserving of love, had my parents’ & sisters’ opinions to show for it, & was generally always on the verge of breaking down & trying to convince him to break up w/ me. So as soon as we landed on campus, out of town, amidst @ least 18,000 other pretty girls, he did. & I broke down.

@ 1 point, I told C to take back everything he’d ever given me. Pajama shorts, a bound book of 1 of my favorite webcomics, these neat green shoes I’m wearing.

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Green tennies as featured in the shadowy bits of my frontage.

Later, probably w/in the same week, I asked for it all back. I’m goddamned sentimental & I wasn’t ready to let him go.

Since I’d lost my virginity to this person, we started sleeping together again really soon after the break-up. We were still apart, & I distinctly remember encouraging him to go after every girl he had a crush on, but lonely + hormones is the perfect cocktail for having a friend-w/-benefits that you are not developmentally equipped to handle. It took me a long time to come to terms w/ the idea that we would just keep having sex but not get back together, despite my enthusiastic cheerleading of his every amorous attempt.

For Christmas that year, the dorm where M – my aforementioned best friend – & I were roommates closed up & all the tenants had to go home. I wound up back @ my Dad’s place, & then my Mom’s, but not before crashing & totaling my purple Chrysler Concorde, Daria.

1993-Chrysler-Concorde-Sedan-Image-01

This is what Daria looked like but w/ rims less cool & flat-ass Texas behind her.

This is where things get blurry.

On my way home for Christmas, or maybe Thanksgiving, I had crashed Daria, & my parents met me somewhere in Dallas to help me get my belongings outta the totaled vehicle & help me purchase a replacement car. As soon as the local gov’t offices were open & I was in town after New Year’s, I would need to go get the title officially signed into my name.

On New Year’s Eve, I was @ a house party @ my friend S’s place, where I had stayed much of the previous summer between Local College & UNT, in order to avoid living w/ my parents. Bonus, C was allowed to stay there as much as he liked, too, that past summer.

M & C were both @ S’s place. M told me she’d slept w/ C. In our dorm room. I forgave her, I walked out of the room where we were discussing it, & I sucker-punched C in the face. He didn’t see it coming, & neither did our group of a dozen friends who leapt up & demanded to know what made me so suddenly & heartily violent. S kicked me out of her home & has never spoken to me since.

I don’t know where I went that night, but I went to my Mom’s the next day or day after. My mom says when I arrived, I somehow got myself locked in the garage, & wailed on the door to the house hard enough to put several dents in the sheet metal comprising that door. I think I was just trying to make my little sister, who was often in her own world, hear me & let me in. I was a bottle rocket. I was devastated by what M & C had done, even though he & I were no longer together, because it just felt more like infidelity when your best friend & ex have sex in your room. I’ve changed my mind about this point, since, because relationships ought to be defined by what you have the courage to name them, but still. Then, I felt betrayed.

Mom got home from work to find the dents in the door & me in my bedroom, which had been almost completely dismantled in the year I hadn’t lived there, further dismantling it by viciously unpacking the suitcase I’d brought from UNT. I was probably looking for the papers I needed to go into the DMV & register Garth, my new green Chevrolet Beretta, but I was pissed, & I was tearful, & I was making a lot of angry racket. She burst into my room, screamed about the dents in the door & my clearly-loosed temper, & told me to get the hell out & go back to Dad’s.

Garth

This is not Garth, but is what Garth looked like, except this car has way more paint. Also, I hated this Beretta & berated it every single day.

 

Mind you, until that point, Mom had never more than suggested I get out of her house. She’d never spoken to me in the imperative. She’d been telling me since I was 14 that her home was my home, & she hoped I would always think of it as home, & she mostly had only pushed me out the years prior because I was staying up too late for my little sister to get a fair amount of sleep.

I think I might have intended to drive to my Dad’s place, @ 1st. But that 19-year-old-lonely-hormonal brain set in instead. I went to the supermarket & got a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol. Perhaps because I thought people could read suicide on my face, I had to be careful to buy it from 1 of the cashiers who didn’t know me & C’s relationship too well, because he’d worked @ that supermarket for years &, well, would someone really phone him & say “Dude I saw your ex-girl crying & buying painkillers?” I dunno. The desperation brain does not make itself accountable to reality.

I took the entire bottle & drove Garth really far out of town. I think I just got on a highway that I rarely used, so even I didn’t know where I was going, but I texted my mother what I’d done (because, of course, if you kill yourself you not-so-secretly want everyone who loves you to feel like shit), then I turned my phone off. I drove for over an hour, until I could feel myself getting very sleepy & sick. My liver was shutting down, for all I knew. I just realized that I couldn’t keep driving, because I didn’t want to die in a crash or, god forbid, kill anyone else by running my piece-of-shit Beretta off the road.

I pulled into a field that had a house on it, set way back from the road. I didn’t know where I was, what town, or on whose property, but I think the farmland reminded me just enough of my mom’s house to be a comfort. I turned Garth off & I went to sleep.

After who-knows-how-long I woke up, though.

My car was fucking surrounded by cows.

I always think about this part of the story as the guardian-angel portion. A lot of these details don’t add up exactly, but they are nonetheless what happened.

1st of all, I didn’t open anyone’s gates in order to get onto their land & park my car. I’ve lived around enough barn animals to know that wherever they are on your property, they should be on the other side of a damned gate. So these cows had clearly stepped over some collapsed barbed wire in order to greet the new, green member of their herd. That part makes sense though. Cows are mad friendly.

2ndly, these cows were excited about my car. They were mooing, & rubbing up against it, probably just trying to scratch their faces but thankfully also waking me up from the sleep that probably would have killed me. It was like I’d taken a reverse-cow-tipping trip, where their frenetic energy rocked my car back & forth quite noticeably.

3rdly, they were ear-tagged. W/ the name of the farmer. & his phone #. If you’ve ever lived in a rural area where people keep their animals between fences that they can barely maintain, you’d be dumbfounded to see that they’d sprung for the money to ear-tag their cattle w/ that much info. I guess it makes a little sense though. Cattle are capital, & if you’re not gonna maintain your barbed wire so they can get out & save a 19-year-old girl w/ liver damage, you probably don’t want to lose money on not being able to find a head in your herd when it goes to visit the neighbors.

So I woke up. I immediately opened the door & willed myself to vomit. Fun fact: this was when my bulimia officially started. I felt so nauseous & headachey, & the cows rocking my car were definitely exacerbating the former, so I opened the door & stuck my finger down my throat & a few weeks later, still depressed about the break up & the betrayal, I remembered having the power to not keep down food so that I could instead keep down my weight.

A feeling of being profoundly alone hit me after vomiting. The nearest cows were dismayed by this display, & they backed off, which really bummed me out because I kind of wanted to get out & pet them & hold them & cry. I was too weak, though, to stand. So I closed the door to my car & turned my phone on.

The missed calls & voicemails took a lot of time to sift through. My mother had called, screaming, angry, but also sad. Wanting to know where I was. My other best friend, Pierce, had called, & he was neither screaming nor angry but very sad, & very scared, & also wanted to know where I was. I called him. I told him everything I knew, which was that I had taken a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol & driven out of town & now there were cows who wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. I told Pierce I wanted to go back to sleep & I hung up on him. I’m sure I told him I love him, but I don’t remember anything he said. I’m sure I wasn’t too lucid either.

W/in seconds, my mother called, & I figured I would get no peace if I didn’t answer her. I genuinely did just want to go back to sleep, but I think I had decided not to die, which was why I didn’t turn my phone off as soon as I finished talking w/ Pierce.

In my memory, I told my mom exactly what I told Pierce. Yes, I did take a lot of painkillers. No, I don’t know where I am. But here is some information off a cow. & the license plate of a truck parked in this driveway. & I told her my phone only had 8% battery, & that I wanted to sleep, & then I hung up on her.

Last week, my mom told me what really happened.

As soon as I texted her, she scoffed because I must have been bluffing. & then she thought, “What if she’s not?”

She called & called Pierce, & C. She drove to S’s house. She found C. She asked him if there was anywhere I might try to go for solitude. He told her yes, that there was a back road in Oklahoma where I often drove to think. He took her there. I wasn’t there. Wherever I was, I hadn’t gone north to Oklahoma.

My mom & C sped back to Burkburnett, TX. During that drive, Pierce was in touch. He hadn’t gotten ahold of me. My mom called me over & over. Finally, she got more than 1 tone before voicemail, which meant my phone was back on. Must have been while I was talking to Pierce. She called again. I picked up. She arrived @ the police station & told someone what was happening, & they took the phone off her. They traced it for about 15 seconds. Then my phone died.

I fell back asleep in Garth that day. I woke up when an ambulance arrived. I went to the hospital, had my stomach pumped, & then was sent to a psychiatric ward for the weekend, where there were no doors & a young man walked in on me in the shower. I convinced the resident shrink that I didn’t really want to kill myself, & was just acting out for attention. He bought it. My parents bought it. Hell, I bought it.

But I came really fucking close to dying. I never really knew how close. I thought I’d saved myself, w/ my vomiting & my miracle cow phone #. My mom & I hadn’t really talked about it the past 6 years, &  I’m glad that now I know how hard she worked to find me. She & C, who were the people I was most angry @, that day.

Louis CK has a new bit about suicide. It is the answer to all of the world’s problems, for you. The people who are here right now are just people who have succeeded @ not killing themselves, again, today. If everyone who were afraid of, say, ISIS, just killed themselves, it would end the terror because it would suck all the fun out of it for them.

Maybe suicidal tendencies are a recessive gene. That wasn’t the 1st, or the last, time in my life that I considered killing myself. Sometimes this is all way too much.

But I’m sitting in my apartment in my green tennis shoes. My best friend & lover is behind me promoting the shows our band is going to play next month. I’ve had a houseguest in recent weeks who keeps secretly leaving original poems in different parts of the living room. & I am writing this stupid blog because I kind of needed to cry & laugh @ the fact that I’m still alive. Even if I DO beat the recessive gene, I will die someday. But, as my partner puts it, “If everything is dreadful, fun isn’t going to be handed to you. You have to make fun.” So I guess I’m trying to make fun of the fact that I, too, succeeded @ not killing myself again today.

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11 September 2016

Protected: 5 Koala Bears

By andpantomime

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28 July 2016

And he got lines in the suit, coming out to make us moot.

By andpantomime

There are several days a (decade year month) week when all I can do to express myself is dress myself.

Part of my BPD diagnosis is having poor emotional regulation, sometimes characterized by extreme empathy toward other people. I can all-too-easily pick up & parade around the feelings of other people in a room, thus forgetting myself. Changing into clothes that make me happy, though, is what a therapist would call “grounding”. “Grounding” for people, is not unlike what it is for electricity. It’s my way of asserting myself against my surroundings, differentiating myself from them & from other individuals, & (hopefully) getting out of looping, negative thought patterns. “Grounding” is calming myself down instead of dissociating or relying on others to do it.

Growing up was primarily spent protesting Caitlin, my older sister, trying to dress me. She had all sorts of zany advice, like, “Don’t wear that entirely monochromatic ensemble of khaki pants & an egg-shell white sweater”, @ which I scoffed because, duh, 12-year-old MOSTLY-STRIPED-POLOS-&-BLUE-JEANS-Megan knew she was chic as hell. (Or, well, just really dug multicolored blouses except that 1 time I did try to wear 100% taupe.)

Right before I turned 14, we moved from North Carolina to Texas, & I was going into my freshman year of high school. Upon arriving in a new state, city, & school, I was determined to have enough flair to shame Jennifer Aniston-circa-Office Space.

But what came out of those hellaciously hilarious years of high school, apart from a bunch of Fall Out Boy apparel & way too many Mardi Gras beads for me to explain (having never flashed a soul), was a formulaic way of putting on clothing that I have now maintained for a decade.

I made some mistakes the 1st couple years, figuring out the plan. I wore my red corduroys (bought in 5th grade) (I am proud to say I could fit in until the ripe age of 20) under colorful skirts. I actually wore dozens of different colored-but-monochromatic pants under skirts when I was 15. I just up & decided 1 day to never wear blue jeans again. Sophomore year was when 1 of my mother’s friends dropped off between 3 & 6 curbside-garbage-can-sized trash bags of clothing @ our house, on which I pounced like a cat catching a moth & which my sisters immediately recognized as a bunch of ugly moths trapped miserable in trash bags.

But I hoarded. Skirts made of scratchy fabric, shirts several sizes too large, coats no self-respecting teenager would wear, & enough vests to finally realize my unwitting goal of looking like an overgrown girl scout.

I had already figured out some time ago how to dye clothes (My 1st project was a pair of fingerless brown gloves; nothing says angst like cold knuckles) & soon I asked for a sewing machine. Then I was just out of con-fucking-trol.

I cut the collars, hems, & sleeve-ends off every t-shirt I owned. I stitched them all up skin tight around my little middle & bulging biceps. I dyed every pair of pants – purple, brown, yellow, gray. I started to makeshift aglets onto teal & red yarn & re-lace my Converses every night, after Sharpie-ing on a lot of gibberish German. I made belts – out of felt, paint, & Andrew Jackson Jihad lyrics (my dad confiscated my favorite: It was brown & in white lettering said, “If this is how you folks make art, it’s fucking depressing”). I started w/ fabric paint & absolutely littered every (for some reason) green t-shirt I could find w/ lyrics (“You feel fat, & I feel ugly. Together we don’t like anybody. I feel sick, ’cause I know you’re gonna run, & I can’t blame you”). Then I learned how to screenprint & I spent several days building a white t-shirt w/ newsprint-esque typeface of over 50 different quotes from literature & people who inspired me.

Somewhere along the line, I nailed down the stratagem for making myself feel (like I look) good. Every single day of my life since, I have put on 2 or 3 colors in a “now featuring!” configuration. Whatever color my pants are, that’s the same color as my necklace. My shirt always matches my shoes – the shoe itself, or the laces, maybe socks too. I put on a belt just for the sake of matching whatever part of my shoe my shirt doesn’t. I have a mental list of what colors qualify as neutral, which ones are complementary on the color wheel, & what hues I’ll never purchase because I can’t psychologically afford to expand the spectrum of my wardrobe (here’s looking @ you, ORANGE.)

So last month, when the apartment complex where I live left a notice on the door saying that they needed to spray for bed bugs, & I needed to bag up all of my clothing & throw it in the dryer or lose it entirely, I. freaking. panicked. I didn’t have the time or the quarters to dry 10 yrs’ worth of emotionally-charged clothing. They may as well have handed out “PUT YOUR IDENTITY IN THE TOILET WHERE IT BELONGS” leaflets.

It’s been several weeks & the bed bug scare still has not ended. For the 1st couple weeks, I periodically flipped out, being unable to dress myself in the exact maniacal way I wanted, needing instead to pull from the dirty-clothes hamper or tear open unlabeled trash bags in a frantic search for purple belts & gray shorts. Finally, last Saturday, I cracked. I plotted out 2 weeks’ worth of outfits – as in I wrote down in 1 of my innumerable notebooks what bra, socks, pants, belt, necklace, shirt, shoes, & laces I would need on any given day – & I washed/dried/stored those clothes, just to buy me time to wash/dry/store all the rest later.

People often compliment the way I am dressed. I cannot sufficiently articulate to anyone, barring this post, how choked up I get when I receive those kudos. But it’s not “choked up” because someone said something kind that truly touched me personally. It’s “choked up” because I am putting my damned heart & soul into this unfalteringly, for only-God-&-maybe-I-now-know-why, & I can’t translate that to others w/o obviating my neuroses, pains, & probable desperation for approval.

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Here’s the quotes shirt, though.

RedPants

Me trying to dance, & the ridiculous red-since-fifth-grade corduroys, & tennies I painted yellow.

TealNecklace

& finally, replete w/ matching grayscale button-down (wadded in the bottom middle), an outfit w/ my favorite color. Which is teal, because the 1st Fall Out Boy t-shirt I bought was teal.

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7 July 2016

I’ve tried to figure out how many lives I’ve wasted waiting for the perfect time to start.

By andpantomime

Not many of you, if any of you, know this, but I keep a running list of people I need to contact. It’s currently 2 spiral-notebook pages long, has fewer than 5 check-marked persons, & all the names on it are of people w/ whom I had this conversation:
They say: “We should have lunch/grab coffee/get drinks/hang out/visit each other/go out to a party together sometime!”
I say: “Yeah, definitely!” Because I love everybody.
They: “Okay, hit me up whenever you’re free!”
I: *Internally, gulping for air, ignoring the stabbing pain in my heart, quieting the part of my brain that knows the list exists* “Okay! I don’t know what ‘free’ means because I tend to keep pretty busy, you okay w/ scheduling a week/a month/a year/the rest of my life out?”
They: “Yep!”
I:

I hate it. I think it’s pathetic. But, I have to govern my mania, for I am both blessed w/ & burdened by a kind of hopeful social fortitude, which allows me to do things like work retail & high-five everybody & give compliments nonstop & tell people how to pick a good watermelon; & hapless social ineptitude which compels me to compliment, high-five, & offer to go watermelon-shopping w/ EVERYONE I MEET IN ANY ENVIRONMENT RETAIL NOTWITHSTANDING.

There’s a page in a leather-bound notebook that asks, “Did you send letters, birthday cards, or Christmas gifts to 10 people this year?” (Most years – every year, in fact, the answer is no.) It is a list of 10 people I thought, @ some point, I would always want to have in my life, but it changes annually because of that other notebook filled up w/ the names of people to whom I said, “Sure, I’ll call you/text you/join your volunteer organization/come see your performance/have you over to my place soon!”

& I have been this person, this hyper-scheduled, woebegone, friendless friendly person for 11 years now – going on a dozen.

Back in high school, from about 13 to 17 years old, I rabidly enrolled in extracurriculars. For 3 semesters, I would wake @ 5 AM so that my LDS friends could pick me up @ 5:45 & take me to seminary from 6 to 7 in the morning. For 4 semesters, from 7 AM to 9, marching band – I was a section leader some of the time, “quarter master” the rest, which meant I loaded/unloaded the truck full of instruments @ games & concerts. 9 AM to 3 PM, regular classes. For 5 semesters, I competed in the University Interscholastic League, & my competition of choice was Vocabulary: memorizing between 1,000 & 10,000 words, & definitions, & spellings, & spitting them back for sport. I was in theater for 6 straight semesters, plus summer shows, so from 3 to 6 PM, theater rehearsal. Whether I was a supporting actress, the lead, or the stage manager, I was a part. I was in the acapella choir 8 semesters, a section leader (I sang alto 1.5 years, tenor 1 year, & baritone/bass 1.5 years), elected officer, or “riser crew” (I love to pick up heavy things: I used to set up the stages) the whole time. I got home @ 7 PM & squeezed in my homework, all peopled-out for the day. All my weekends were performances, or painting the Blackbox Theater for the next show, or building the  next set (I know how to hang a door!) or technical rehearsals. By the last semester of my senior year, I got a part-time job & the only above-listed line-items I had quit by then were seminary, UIL, & theater – but I did join a garage band & start dating the guitarist, so all the time I wasn’t in class or @ work, I was practicing music for the marching band, the choir, & what was basically a Pixies cover band, or trying desperately to relax w/ Clint.

I think all the extracurriculars were because I wanted to make friends, & because I am a performer @ heart. I wrote my 1st song @ 7 years-old & my 1st solo performance of an original work was @ the assembly commemorating lives lost 9/11/01, when I was 10. I can still sing both of those. They were both horrendous country songs (but I didn’t know any better!) Yet, here it is, 2016, I got outta high school 7 damned years ago, & I don’t keep in touch w/ the Mormons, or the band geeks, or the UIL nerds, or the drama kids, or the choir dorks.

I can sing every note of a love song I put on paper 18 years ago, but I can’t put on paper a note for people I loved when I was 18.

In college, I was arguably more relaxed the 1st year, while I still had the aforementioned boyfriend to hold me still. But by sophomore year I was single & back @ it. Class all hours of the day, then work from 5 to 9 PM (Phonathon – I was the person who calls you & asks you for donations to the university!) By the latter half of sophomore year it was class, church 1 or 2 nights a week where I ran all the media (mostly slideshows, but I did learn how to use a Mac!) & set up all the equipment for the band, then Phonathon 3 or 4 nights – extended shifts because I was promoted to supervisor – then I worked @ a photography studio on the weekends. By senior year, it was class + Phonathon weeknights + working for a marketing firm in Dallas on the weekends + a wonderful folk rock band that let me sing & asked me to learn to play bass, called Death in the West, during all my spare time.

I just say yes & yes & yes again until I have no free time, & – again! – I never know who my friends are. That church, for example, was jam-packed w/ loving people & always had several events a week for me to attend & socialize thereat, & trips to take where I spent a week in west Texas building an orphanage or in Bellingham, Washington discovering that I don’t believe in Hell. I just desperately craved muscular movement & human interaction. & now, 3 years after graduating, I don’t think anyone I met @ that church, nor that marketing firm, nor that photography studio, nor Phonathon, is in contact w/ me. I’d have to check Facebook.

For 2 years after graduating college, I let my then-partner trap me in my house for his fear of spending money. I would go to work, then go home to him. He would have cooked, we would watch scads upon scads of television which makes me enormously depressed, & then we would go to sleep. Occasionally, sex. But mostly, no sex.

I finally cracked about a year & a half ago, revved my engine, & burned rubber out of his driveway by finding anything else to do w/ my time. I got a job @ Costco. I started working from home as the Marketing Coordinator @ PRiMO Specialty Foods. I joined a book club. I started sponsoring a child in the Philippines. I wrote, produced, & directed my play @ the Crossroads. I agreed to join a band (we’re so good! We’re called Break the Joke & you should hear us). I joined a nonprofit (they made me board president…dear Lord why). & now, I’m starting to see a pattern I fear.

On Saturday & Sunday, I work @ 11:30 AM. On Saturday, after work, I am ready to collapse, but everyone else is usually ready to go out & party. Sometimes I party, or perform. On Sunday, after work, band practice or book club.

On Mondays, PRiMO from 11 to 3, Costco from 3:30 to 10 (those God-forsaken 11 hour days). Working from home has its advantages though, because I can leave for an appointment, or pack my lunch for the coming week, or make a couple phone calls if I need, & listen to the current book-club-book. Every single second that I am not glued to my computer prospecting for PRiMO, though, gives me enormous monetary anxiety, & I often begrudge people who come into my room or call me on the phone during those hours (or ever) because they probably don’t know how it feels to have a marketing brain that shuts down @ sundown, switching itself from business to creative when it sees the fucking moon & wants to jump over it.

On Tuesdays, band practice @ 5, immediately preceded by my efforts to be a caring partner in my new relationship, immediately succeeded by my efforts to be a caring partner in my new relationship (Tuesdays, actually, are nice).

On Wednesdays, PRiMO from 11 to 3 (theoretically), but often something else like the doctor/the dentist/the chiropractor/the car/some beleaguered friend who wants to know I still love them, comes up. Followed by Costco, 3:30 to 10. It isn’t a wonder I take my breaks alone, & feel particularly pissy if someone wants to chat while I have those precious 15-to-30 minutes solo. I’m trying to eat, while setting up my plans for the week, while checking to see what bills are due, while responding to a half-dozen emails/texts/Facebook messages, while listening to or reading the current book-club-book, while trying to rehydrate, while hitting my vaporizer like there’s no tomorrow because everybody gives me the heebie-jeebies & I need nicotine & GO. AWAY.

On Thursdays, I have therapy @ 4 PM. I also try to make up for lost PRiMO time, anywhere from 11 to 3. OFTEN, something ELSE, like my laundry/my lawyer/my destitute finances/my depleted fridge/some other belabored needs, comes up, & I gotta come unglued from the computer.

Barring all of that, Thursday also usually marks my 7th day w/o a full night’s rest, because I suffer from horrific insomnia, so I often sleep through the morning, wake up, eat everything in my house, & then it’s time for therapy where I can tell the shrink “Yes, I binged today, or last night, & my bulimia is acting up.” Some Thursdays, I don’t sleep in, because of an appointment or a lunch date. I hate scheduling those things between 11 & 3. You see, I know myself well enough to recognize that I am never productive for PRiMO after 6 PM, so when it comes to the compulsive “Yes, let’s talk/Skype/meet!”, I usually try to get people to plan that for a Thursday night. There have been times when I have Thursday nights booked up 2 months out. This is convenient since there is always a play to go see, or dinner to go eat (even though I’ve already packed my day full of calories), or coffee to go drink & many people have Thursday nights free. Yet, sometimes I’m too damned tired or broke to hang out w/ them.

On Fridays, I try to make up for lost PRiMO time anywhere from 11 to 3, but when the nonprofit is in full-swing again I will be in a frenzy applying for grants, & I’ve tried to set aside Friday mornings for that. Followed by Costco, 3:30 to 10.

Add to this pile the results of my recent interactions w/ the law & the shiny $10,000 I put on credit cards for these organizations which also require hours of my time: community service, anger management classes, random urine analyses, domestic violence courses online, & 1 very very sad Mothers Against Drunk Driving victim impact panel, & yes, obviously, I am drowning. & no, for Christ’s sake, I don’t want to go to your church, or have some water-turned-to-wine.

Because if I did, my car wouldn’t start. My car wouldn’t start, my band wouldn’t play, my jobs wouldn’t pay, & my charity would lack heart.

Tuesdays are actually nice though.

Sleep

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13 June 2016

[Can] all of our moves make up for the silence

By andpantomime

I once took hallucinogens & waxed chimerical about myself & my relationship. Circa Christmas, 2013. It’s been rearranged for clarity (which I probably haven’t achieved because, y’know, hallucinogens) & was written (obviously) stream-of-consciousness.

I glow. I have so much glow. & that is the thing I wanna give away  to people. However they feel around me, if it’s good, I want them to have more of that. But it comes @ the cost of me being vulnerable.

These thoughts are all probably just artifacts of what’s inside of me. A little awkwardness, a desire to be downright admired, but ultimately (I hope): indifference to others’ choices. If people choose someone or somewhere or something that makes them happier than being around me, more power to them. If someone chooses me, I weigh the cost of being vulnerable.

One night alone @ a bar, a stranger told me he liked the way I danced & then said, “Everything you do is amazing.” All I did was smile & thank him & tell him that he feels exactly how I want people to feel. But, I didn’t give more of myself, I couldn’t give him more time (which I equate to conversation & physical intimacy). I couldn’t give away physical intimacy, although I have suddenly sometimes.

[R commented once that I slept w/ him rather fast. & I did, in some sense, from the time we started seeing each other to that telltale moment. But, in another sense, I’d known him half a year & we had had these touching, electric moments. He noticed me glowing & I consented to him in time for the sweet way he told me that I “should keep bothering” him.  For the sake of some odd Midwestern expression I picked up & said out loud then noticed his shock because he uses it too. It was something simple, like, when you have a quaint euphemism for using the bathroom or if you think physical touching is “getting fresh”. He recognized it. I recognized that. I felt loved & I loved back.]

I think the thesis statement I’m developing right now is that I like the way I am, queer & unsettling & troubling as some parts are. I’m here to make other people feel valuable, & cherished, & loved. If someone has “enough love” everywhere else in their life then I’m not sure what to do w/ them; I’m not sure what to do w/ the kind of person who thinks they can be full. There is always another way, another how that another person can satisfy. & somehow I always end up close to people who really, deeply need to be cherished – sometimes to a point of creating chaos all around them.

I am not so far gone that  I try to get satisfaction by 1st creating strife for contrast. I don’t typically argue, start fights, gossip. The moment I do, it makes me vulnerable in a way I want to escape. I get trapped by that other person thinking I hold them in higher esteem than whomever I’m talking about behind their back.

We try to take from one another when in truth we can get everything we ever needed or wanted from comfort w/ ourselves. I think about T & how all her self-worth & all her purity seemingly came from finding comfort in God. But, she simply found a church where she could love herself & be herself & that’s all I ever wanted for her. She’s so lovely & so bright & I want her happiness to withstand the test of time.

I hate time. It heals all things, “this too shall pass”, but in healing from 1 desire can you move on into another? Can you get enough of it, put it away for a while, & enjoy option B? Will you miss option A?

Yes! Of course you will miss option A! Just as I for whatever reason miss those fleeting moments of electricity & connection w/ R.

But I’m not w/ R right now. Nor am I w/ K. I decided that their kind of admiring, their kind of love for me was not enough to keep me from growing in glowing & coming to Colorado. It wasn’t J I moved for, not @ all, I didn’t even have the thought of him. It was the snow, the mountains, the cold, the friendship w/ M & C. & oh but it was also escape, to escape my family who made me feel entrapped w/ love & forgiveness they could take away @ the drop of a hat. I now have a huge life that I am too busy living to worry over people in the past. Though my life seems small in words I can put down on paper, it is big in moments of impressing upon others just how bright life can be. That’s the most human thing; to brighten others’ lives.

To come back around to the physical intimacy & vulnerability though: the most natural thing, the “I am so a part of you right now that I desire to physically be a part of you,” sex…thing, is bizarre. If 2 persons are trying to make 1 person there has got to be a less jarring way to do it! Sex: all this bumping & grinding & guzzling & desperate attempts to smash together 2 things that never should’ve been apart!  “These fuckin’ things fit, put them together & let them be together somewhere in a box, not disrupting the rest of us as we try to find other things that fuckin’ fit.”

‘Cause that’s what you do now that you fit, right?  Smash together in a box? Except that 1 person you’re trying to smash together & make is a child! & a child is a person & it can’t complete or fill that fleeting desire you had to be 1 w/ another person. This is why my family is in Texas!

We are all so desperately apart!
And!
Time ruins us! Things happen over time, our bodies deteriorate over time, children age over time! & all anybody fuckin’ wants is to own a fat little sack of happiness that they can take w/ them across time.

“Well, I may not have everything perfect, but I’ve got these things & these things are good, so I count my blessings, & I will try not to worry about changing all the things outside my fat little sack of happiness.”
You keep doing that until you’re dead.

Then there’s God maybe but whatever. You can’t take it w/ you. Boarding the train to Heaven is:
Me: “Can I bring my fat sack of happiness?”
Conductor: “Sorry, no carry-ons aboard this train.”
& there’s J, standing next to me, arguing w/ the conductor about how he should be allowed a carry-on.
Me: “Idiot. Where we’re going is better than that. Just shut up & get on the train w/ me, you piece of shit.”
But he can’t. He doesn’t have any God stuff in him. & that’s cool, ’cause I do & I don’t mind, & we’re both content to hang out w/ our fat sacks of happiness in this life, desperately smashing our bodies together ’cause it feels good & reflects an impulse I have mixed feelings about:
Me: “Why make a child?”
J: “Why the fuck not?”
Me: “‘Cause my body has to do it, damnit! & It’s disgusting! But fine! We will do it, & watch Garden State a lot!”

& that’s sex. That’s sexual union. That’s me being vulnerable, & how it oughta be, I think, w/o my mixed feelings or my body mucking it up. Because he is the shadow where the glow goes. I sit & stay hours shining into the dark.

& then the coffee was done.

(The phrase may’ve just been, “wicked good”, now I’m thinking about it.)

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24 August 2015

Cold fruit.

By andpantomime

Come here.

C’mere c’mere c’mere c’mere c’mere.

Tell me all of your goals – quick!

Now quiet tell me all of your fears.

All right.

Sh.

Let me tell you mine.

I’m afraid of hating my job.

Don’t – don’t giggle!

And

I’m

afraid

of

hating

my

spouse.

Or kids. It’s really a multiple choice option.

There’s no C

No “all of the above”.

I won’t hate my spouse & hate my kids.

So, there is a “C”

But it is just “Neither”.

But we’re talking about fears here. I don’t like to make predictions when I’m making myself terrified.

So obviously my fear is not “Neither.”

Not “C”.

But

I’m afraid of hating my kids.

Afraid of hating my spouse.

Afraid of hating my job.

Afraid of hating myself.

& I always have been.

For goodness’ sake, my job.

Jobs.

Jjjobsss.

sss.

Forget driving too far from home on Tuesdays to file papers.

Forget sitting in front of the computer at home schmoozing foodies.

10 months ago I thought,

“Good! I’ll work w/ lots of other people!

“That’ll make me happy.”

Um.

I pick up cardboard.

And drive heavy machinery.

Late into the night.

Often.

And my peers

Are rather lively

And frightening

And intriguing

And indulgent

And fearless

And I want to put them all in my pockets

And carry them around in a big rain coat

And pull them out when I can’t see the sun.

But

Whoa

Raincoats have just about enough room – the really big ones – for two peeps. Two peeps max.

And all those two people can do is stand still.

Or else they’ll knock one another over.

I need more small people for my raincoat.

I am accepting applications.

But I’m a terrible adjudicator.

And I do lots of work in absentia.

Which is never all that productive come to think of it.

Neither is what I want to be doing.

What I want isn’t exactly “productive”.

Except for my joy.

Own joy.

I want to be singing.

I wish I were singing.

Really what I like to do is to sing.

I’m sorry.

We spent so much time on me.

And my fears.

What is it that you were saying?

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8 July 2015

A tiny man would tell a little joke and get a tiny laugh from all the folks.

By andpantomime

I’ve always been attracted to people who seem happy. But as I age, I feel more and more that happiness is fleeting. Although people who are funny & charismatic are not intentionally flaunting their joy, I have come to my theories about those people who are boisterous like me. As I let darkness in & out in little bursts all day, they probably do too, in more ways than I can imagine.

In other words, the people I’ve always wanted to be like have seemed “happy” strictly from my point of view. Laughers, jokers, talkers. But they, too often, have had a superficiality, accompanied by a depth of anger & sadness & urgency & anxiety (I also call this a likeness to myself).

In two dozen years I have made next to no lasting friendships. But I do run into the above type of person a lot, & usually get along w/ them rather quickly. But easy come, easy go, & as soon as I move on or move away, I struggle to keep my attention on those seemingly exuberant folks.

Others, however; have had a different trait, along with a good nature: they’re good different. I have met people who have a low-humming but presiding stillness to their comportment. They don’t always laugh, always joke, always talk. They’re quiet. And they’re calm.

This is the kind of person my partner is. Good different. Rather than fronting a friendly face, he is reserved & reasonably approachable. Not outgoing, not off-putting, but quiet. He likes “to be even-keeled”, he tells me. He has happiness – in great supply – but you have to be one of his closest compatriots to see him mimicking an airplane or humming “You Are My Sunshine”. To see him be joyful, I muddy through many minutes of quiet.

I have recently released 2 people (of the 1st kind) from my friendship. This is due to the butting-heads characteristic of my friendships with people who are emotional and vocal like me. I’m not here to say those I fought w/ are bad people, but to say that I do not know how to handle their emotions any more than I know how to handle my own. I have also recently realized that 2 lovely people (of the 2nd kind) & I have drifted way, way apart. They are level-headed & loving. But the loss is due to my pursuit of my intimate relationship w/ the calmest person I know, & the lackluster 1st impression he made on those two lovely people.

It’s not too late to let go of some & grasp tightly to new. I deserve calm w/ my happy. I deserve friends I can learn from.  I have truly missed the boat in terms of making calm people into close friends before now. Now I have a resolution.

I desire for my friends to be people I want to emulate. I spent so much time trying to laugh along w/ everyone who was crunched up on the inside. People get crunched up into someone mean or impulsive (like myself), & then when we aren’t butting heads we merely seem like we’re getting along. Really either one of us is coddling the other all the time. I deserve to choose & pursue friendships w/ people I will never stop looking up to. No more time spent on those who have enough anger & sadness to spill it onto me.

For too long I have thought, “I am the still 1. I am the calm 1. I can be admired.” & whether or not that’s sometimes true, it doesn’t grow me to be surrounded by people I want to coddle guide. I am (hopefully ready) to start pursuing longer-lasting friendships w/ people whose heads are on straight.

Hopefully by doing this, I will learn to quit spilling my anger & sadness onto everyone & also quit trying to please people I’m not meant to get along w/.  I may quit being a laugher, joker, and talker. But for my sanity’s sake. (Thesis: I have spent my whole life learning by negative example – choosing my actions by sidestepping faults I see in the panicked people around me.  I can start to learn by positive example at any given time.)

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13 April 2014

a little boy under a table with cake in his hair stared at the grown-up feet as they danced and swayed

By andpantomime

If there’s anything having a minor in Creative Writing taught me, it’s that formulas must contain values. Which, thinking about it, sounds more like a tenet that algebra or Bachelor’s of Maths & Sciences degrees would tout. But nevertheless, the formula for writing something interesting is often boiled down to 1 of 2 things or both:

1. Theme or value

& 2. Rewriting or revision.

So, given that context (me acknowledging that I am about to do some hack & slash nonfiction here) (& my ability to ask myself why I am writing today), I feel a little sheepish about saying that what I want to write today is about my family.

But quite frankly, even if I feel like writing about any family, may I just begin by saying, “Fuck the nuclear paradigm.” It didn’t work for me & I don’t know who it has worked for (off-hand, that is. Part of posting to Facebook later means that if somebody feels they are the idyllic end-result of monogamous & lifelong pairing resultant in 2 to 3 kids, they can please speak up).

I’ve got three new sisters. Kristin Ward, Katie Ward, & Meagan “Married last name” Mozingo. They’re really stinking beautiful young ladies, (Meagan is a few months my senior), w/ hearts “in the right place” & skinny little waists & lots of things that society likes in girls. I like them. Hell, I love them, & I’m damned sure that since I’ve felt that way since the beginning that maybe they’ve had the sense to like me all along, too.

But I don’t want to knock these girls’ sense of sense, nor my whole-sisters’ (Caitlin “My husband’s name is Jeramy” Cantrell & Shannon Phelan) sense of sense. There is a lot of tension between the million (read: 6) of us girls – 7 if you include Beth, my stepmother. We’ve all got to share my dad.

Growing up, there was only 1 man in a house of 5 individuals. My dad’s a military veteran & he was sometimes detached from me, Caitlin & Shannon, as well as Momma because nobody ever warned him, growing up, that balancing work & children & romantic love would be a task not for the faint-of-heart. I’m a little older now than when once I was 5 & I made Momma promise to me that she & Daddy wouldn’t get divorced. If there’s anything my mother has ever said to me that I would repeat to my children, it is, “We will try not to.”

And with that, being a little older, I now recognize for myself that the balance between work & romantic love is precarious & heavy @ the same time. Imagine yourself picking up a barbell & getting it above your head, only to realize that this feat takes not only bursts of strength but also incredible poise & endurance. Because getting it above your head is 1 thing & holding it there is another. Sometimes I feel myself leaning backwards & forwards, bending but not breaking under the weight of Justin & my job, even though I love both. In any case, it was this balance + the decision to have kids which, I believe, made my parents wonderful parents as well as a terrible husband & wife.

I didn’t start writing today to air out my grievances. I am fairly availed of them, having used all the frustration of a crumbling family to make difficult decisions such as colleges, careers, & Colorado. I’m not saying that I’m someone who knows things. I just want to be someone who sees things. I don’t want to be looked to for answers, unless you’re trying to get a script ordered for a sleep study. But if you need some perspective, objective or subjective, I hope I can provide that to everyone in my family. I have been able to step back for going-on 6 years & just see what is happening.

First, to include her because I’ve hardly mentioned how well my mom is doing, I need to express that she is well, healthy, & happy since the divorce. I’m like her & I like her. My mother has the intelligence I like to think most similar to mine, because of everyone in my family I am most likely to know about what she knows about (What’s that you say? You need a tutor for 7th grade social studies & English? Have I got the girls for you). I am also most likely to have her social awareness-forming habits (Mom is always the diplomat & always dresses like she wants to be respected in public by people who know her & don’t know her alike), & I am most likely to have her temper. Her ability to lose face, her propensity for outbursts & her raw emotionalism @ insults & injury. Mom has found her match in James Burden, a raunchy wrecker-company owner w/ dozens of cows & several dogs & a horse or two. James has been troubled by women before, not sure whom to trust & not sure who’s going to be a complete basketcase, & my mother’s natural gentleness really wore him down over time. Like a waterfall & a mountainside. He loves her so much. It makes my stomach turn like I could cry, to think that Mom was really just a country girl, never wanted the military life, & is most happy whenever her boyfriend lets her drive the tractor.

Dad is giving, imperious, rational, battle-worn, & quite the attention-hound. My dad wants to pour out his bank account & his heart into all 8 women in his life (his mom is added to this number, his 3 biological daughters, 3 stepdaughters, & his wife Beth), but he hates being taken advantage of. When I say imperious, I simply mean that as a girl growing up w/ Kerry Phelan for a father, I was frequently not interested in his loquacious explanations of my wrongdoing & instead simply, naively saw his punishments as heavy-handed. After all, I am the young lady who climbed out the second-story window multiple times growing up because I’d been ordered to write a sentence 100s of times. Typically the sentence was, “I will not call names” or “I will not hit my sisters”, but the neighborhood I climbed out the window into had a registered sex-offender (probable pedophile) living around the corner, & I was 12. I imagine that it’s partly me – as well as Desert Storm & Afghanistan – that have made Daddy battle-worn. But to this day he can still be charmed if you love him – & Beth loves him, gives him attention, asks his opinion & truly desires to be enlightened by his answer, & that is part of why I love their love. He in turn protects her w/ ferocity.

My biological sisters both have SOs I won’t go into, & Meagan is obviously married, but in the interest of fairness since I don’t know much about Russell Mozingo I won’t unbalance the conversation by talking about Jeramy Cantrell & Steven Durdaller. Needless to say I simply adore all the men my sisters have chosen & I hope Caitlin & Shannon are extremely kind to Jeramy & Steven. We Phelan girls can be imperious like our father & injured like our mother, & I desire that none of the 3 of us will show these faces to our husbands/boyfriends so often that we lose the light they see in us. I don’t want any of us to lose the light the others see in us.

Which brings me full-circle to why I feel like writing about family today. Mine has expanded to include the 2 Wards, 3 if you count their brother Jonathan, as well as a Mozingo or 2. I’m excited for Kristin & Katie. My dad is a great father who will love the ever-loving shit out of these girls & I wish I could stand in the garage cheerleading, telling them to love him back for everything that hurts & everything that helps them. I see so much in Beth that I admire & adore, just like w/ my own mom, & I look forward to Caitlin & Shannon really embracing her as time goes on. James does not have kids our age, so if & when he & Momma marry it will not be as much an issue who is “included”. Yet as every holiday starts to include a bigger family (Meagan Mozingo is makin’ a baby in her belly as I type) & every passing year makes my parents a better husband & wife to other people (fingers crossed), I look forward to a certain harmony taking over.

The harmony which I hope for is not only to benefit that melting pot down in Texas which I call my family. It’s a harmony that allows me to enjoy coming home. I have lots of people I could call family. I moved to Colorado just to chase around Chris & Mallory Redmon, because they have no idea how dearly I love & need them. The harmony I hope for is selfish but I’ve felt it before. Years ago dating Clinton Aase meant feeling like his dad wanted me to sing along when the guitar got played, & his mom wanted me to sit around while dinner was being served & – maybe not even talk to her – just give her my respect & appreciation.  Now, I want to bring home Justin Newman & have him feel a part of my family the way I easily feel a part of his. His mother doesn’t hate me for taking her only boy, only child away. Barbara Doerter kinda likes me, which I find amazing assuming Justin tells her how awful I can be. & Robert Newman is sweet & talks slow & just wants me to keep loving Justin to the best of my ability, which makes me adore him too.

Whatever I’m doing the rest of my life, I can’t balance a three-ponged barbell w/o a good example. I don’t look much further than the people who raised me, because I didn’t grow up w/ anyone else. We were military. I had just Caitlin & Shannon, Mom & Dad for always. & from the time that I was 10, I’ve known only a total of 3 people on an intimate basis for several years. 1 is Justin, 1 is Aaron Moore w/ whom I struggle to keep in perfect touch, & 1 is Cain Shannon w/ whom I struggle to keep in constant contact. I don’t ask Aaron & Cain to bear my burdens w/ me now like I did growing up. I do ask Mom & Dad to, & I do ask Justin to, & the only burden I want Caitlin & Shannon to bear w/ me is the 1 of making this family feel like a family.

I don’t like imagining what it would be like to bring home my SO 1 day & have everything go to pieces. But if the situation isn’t homeostatic – if we’re all in an internal state of chaos because it’s Christmas & there are so many of us who have been through so much negativity together – then turmoil will undoubtedly ensue. Turmoil that I go through in Texas I always bring back to Colorado w/ me, & I take it to work too – I take it into doctors’ offices & can barely explain why I’m not paying attention to their patients & why I didn’t bring anything to cheer the medical assistants on as they treat people day in & day out. I don’t know if I’m the only 1 who does this – but I figure if I can take strife 650+ miles home, then the rest of us can take it a few miles for a few days. & it’s unhealthy to be unhappy.

I’m nuts about my family. I also dislike everybody a little bit every once in a while, which is important to say because it’s true. But I don’t dislike anybody any amount more than I dislike fighting. So if I could issue a formal call to arms, next time we all report for military duty, let’s drop our weapons. I love you guys. I think you all have something to offer 1 another if you’re willing to do it.

Sincerely,

-M

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21 July 2013

The Atlantic & Pacific are the very same far away.

By andpantomime

I’m lying down listening to a John K Samson album that Lando gave me over a year ago, & I’m struggling struggling struggling to collect my thoughts. They’re sorta like the flashes of light you see in the corner of your eye when there are car headlights pointing in your window for a split second. They appear very briefly & move very quickly & the temptation to look at them is irresistible, but the ability to gain anything out of the looking is almost nonexistent. So I guess what I should ask myself is, what do I wanna think about?

This morning @ work we had a team-building exercise. Since there was a mass exodus from the office, Courtney’s goal is to get us working as a team as quickly as possible. So Kati, Courtney, Chelsea, John, Brad, & I all wrote down 3 facts about ourselves as well as 2 goals we have for our life. My facts were: I do not wear blue jeans, only colorful pants. I play bass, guitar, & marimba, & I sing. Almost all of my favorite literature is postmodern. My goals were: I want to do mission work in Iraq. I want to teach film in Spokane, Washington @ a community college.

Everybody @ work kind of thinks of me as a do-gooder. I think of myself as a do-gooder. Sometimes I wonder if I’m only motivated by the affirmations that I am an overall positive person.

I’ve kinda always craved fame but not fortune, but there are some nights when I think, “Urgh, I just want enough money that when I am not working I can spend it freely.” So the options here are either work nonstop so I can never go spending money, or make a lotta money & spend wisely. I choose make a lotta money & spend wisely.

But back to this do-gooder thing.

I’ve been to a National Conference for Roadshows, & just from the meet-n’-greet I did not get the impression that aggressive, successful business people in this business are as soft as I am. They do have a hard edge, but I’m also willing to call everything that they do in their offices “tough love”. Because ultimately I’ve also never met a person in this business that I didn’t like for @ least 1 or 2 reasons. & ultimately I haven’t had very many chances to meet that many face-to-face, but networking is always a positive experience.

Megan Phelan, all your work psychojabberbabblejargontalk is very boring for your audience. Back to the point.

I think I’m motivated only by my need for approval, and so there are 2 things for which work allows me to lobby for approval.

1 thing is the positivity – I don’t remember which Dean Koontz book it was, but it was probably Odd Thomas where I first read the phrase “indefatigable optimist.” Either that, or Life Expectancy. & I’ve been waiting every day of my life since then for somebody to say that to me, describing me. My manager does a great job of pointing out how positive I am & I’m addicted to the affirmation.

The other thing that I know motivates me is being called a hard-worker. I think of myself as a hard-worker, but only compared to most people. Compared to most people in this business, I fear that I might not be, but compared to most people on the planet I’m an asskicker. & I need people to tell me that’s true.

See, I don’t think I’m worth a lot by a few measures. I’m not naturally gifted or talented in the things I’d like best to be good @, like songs & music & scripts & movies. So I choose sales & marketing. I can sing but I can’t play instruments well (so I even exaggerate when telling people facts about myself @ work), and voices fade. I am not skinny so I don’t think I’m beautiful & if I were beautiful, beauty fades.

Now what do I really like to do? Is communicate thoughts. I used to think that the words used were of utmost importance, but that is now only true in print & I see that because communicating w/ the masses is about how you say it, not what you say. So w/ all that said, do I think I’m settling? No. I think I’m enabling myself, by working hard, to have the other things I desire: that freedom to write scripts & communicate thoughts.

I wanna run this business in Boulder until I’m 30. I wanna go to California until I’m 40 & write TV shows. I wanna go to North Carolina until I’m 44 & get a doctorate in film. I wanna go to Spokane or Seattle, Washington until I’m 54 & teach media studies. I wanna go to the Union Theological Seminary in New York until I’m 55 & get ordained as a presbyterian minister. I wanna go to Pueblo West, Colorado until I’m 65 & preach in prisons.
The only thing that’s missing is making music…but I am listening to John K Samson right now, & just hearing it makes me happy.

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24 March 2013

I’m a little lonely.

By andpantomime

I’m a little while from leaving. I need to pack my life – the house I’ve lived in for two years. I need to pick a place to live in Colorado. I need to plan a cruise I bought so long ago.
I need to learn how not to miss the rain. I need to learn how to get excited about the sun.
I need to remember that every time I pick up and start a new life, I do well.
In Colorado will be Mallory, Chris, Ben, and Caitlin, as well as Courtney’s business. I will not be without family, because these people are my family. I may be without friends, but only insofar as it will take me a few weeks to meet people.
This will be the first time in three years that I will not have an endless supply of men hitting on me. But back home, and endless supply of men will surely be disappointed in me.
I’m going to miss my roommates. I’m going to miss Robert and Darian. I hope they love the house I’ve built on love even without me in it, and when Robert leaves I hope Jordan loves it.
I hope I find a renaissance in myself as a consumer of media. More movies, more books, more comics. I want to write more. I want to live alone but likely the need to have a roommate will prevent that.
I’m kind of in love with danger but I’ve also grown so comfortable here. I have grown comfortable with college. Get up, go to class, put forth little effort, make a B, learn and learn and learn only based on what makes me feel good and what feeds my ego.
May is soon. June is soon. I don’t deserve another Texas summer, but do I have the balls to get up and go? Will I have the money? As of right now I have nothing in savings. I spent everything on a car and now that car guzzles gas which keeps me kind of in debt.
Will I lose weight in Colorado? Will I finally change? Will working full-time AND being good at my job mean that I can make ends meet or will having a higher rent to pay make me break even just the same as I always have done?
Do. I need. A U-Haul?
Whom will it depress when I start bringing home boxes and boarding up my lovely things. Probably just me. Should I have boys in my room amidst the cardboard that says preeminently, “Don’t get attached to her, she will not get attached to you.”
Out of everyone that I’ve met this year, will I still talk to any of them? Particularly the boys. Have I made an impact on anyone? Have I made an impact on anyone?
Will anyone love me once I get to Colorado?

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