I'm at one of those crossroad times of my life. I'm starting to feel all the fallbacks of being young. I never thought I'd want to grow up, but fall can't come soon enough, and winter is just as welcome. I started senior year feeling too old to still be here. It's the classic teenage syndrome; we're all trying to grow up too fast. Adults criticize us for it, but I figure if we're all doing it, it can't be all wrong. My boyfriend broke up with me after he left for college. I guess that's adding a lot of fuel to my fire. My mom is hesitant for me to get my driver's license. I understand my curfew, but I don't understand my curfew. A year before I go away to college, I better be able to take care of myself. But if I'm able to take care of myself, why do I have so many people I have to answer to? Again, I get it, but I don't. I'm having a hard time being happy right now. I'll never write somebody off for being dramatic about a breakup. It is quite a fair reason to be upset. One good thing about not being happy is everything is at least a little exciting and different for a while. For example, I've been talking to myself a little more often, and I haven't really done that in a while. I'm even saying all these words as I type them while I listen to some sad music and it's making me feel a little better. We should all learn to be comforted by our own voices because they won't go away, and they are pretty powerful. They remind us that we can create something outside of ourselves, sound, and we can make somebody hear us, which isn't as good as making somebody listen but it's better than not being heard at all. I've also had to be a little more conscious lately because I'm trying to keep some things off of my mind, and I can't do it without putting in some effort. Things I used to dread are now little blessings, like having a lot of homework so that I can distract myself as long as possible. I also get to look at things from a different point of view. The point of view of somebody who is heartbroken turns out to be very different from the point of view of somebody who is really happy and in love, go figure. So nothing is really old anymore, everything is kind of new. Everything evokes different thoughts and feelings than before. I don't like looking at happy couples anymore. You'd be surprised how many there are on TV; I thought that sitcoms focused a little more on the arguments in marriages and relationships. As it turns out, there's a whole lot of happy in there! I hope I can remember that when I start wanting to see happy couples on TV again! They're all over town too, and all around the school.
So I guess the reason people make art when they're sad is because they're seeing everything in a new light, and all of a sudden there are a million things to say and nothing to do but say them.
I'm supposed to be figuring out where I'm going to apply to college now; I don't really know what to do with that. It seems like a big game to me, and I can't really take it seriously. In my Psych class the other day, Mr. McManus had a fake homework quiz in which he gave the directions, "On pages 25, there was a diagram. Try to replicate that diagram on your paper to the best of your ability." The point was, of course, that no one knew it, and after we all talked about how we felt about it. That's how I feel when confronted with this college thing. Are you really asking me to apply to a bunch of futures and then pick one? And do it all over the computer? Right here in my little swivel chair where I'm writing this blog post? It's hard to take it seriously. Something's telling me there's nothing more worthwhile to me right now than listening to jazz and browsing the internet.
I'm not just a thing with tasks, I'm a person, and I know what's best for me, and getting everything done exactly when I'm told to is not always the most important thing. I'm not giving up; I'm still motivated. I'm just trying to relax and make life a little easier. I feel alright right now.
Hello, my dear young friend,
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely blog post, and what bravery on your part to put this out, and how honored I am, knowing I am one one the people for whom the post is s intended.
You have a lot of going on, a lot of change. Change from all directions. Lots of conversations in your head. Breakups, applications, curfews, and it can all be all seen from multiple angles - curfew is good and bad, and you've evolved to the point that you see that. The hammer inside the velvet, the velvet around the hammer.
In 1985 I had a breakup with the love of my life. We'd lived together at college. She was a grad student, I came home with my BA, she went to bed with another grad student. Oh my god, did everything hurt for a long long long time.
I was really a mess. Home from college, no friends around, back under the parental thumb, love of my life boffing some idiot, trying to find musicians. I screwed up everything I did for months and months. I ended up working for my dad's company, and it really sucked.
So, one night I'm driving home from some completely lonely night out with friends/acquaintances/rum and cola. Driving down this unlighted road to my parents house, through the woods. And this raccoon pops out on the road and looks at me. My lights catch his eyes, and they glow a strange strange blue green color - I'd never seen anything like it. After a moment he scampered off the road.
I thought about the raccoon's eyes for days. It meant something, but I didn't know what. Then it hit me. If I hadn't been driving in the dark, I never would have known about the eyes of raccoons.
It takes darkness to see some things. It takes very specific circumstances to see/learn certain things.
I still cried over the lost love of my life. But it was different, because within the pain of that, I felt a deeper love. How much love I had in me! And how much strength I had to be in such pain and still be able to stand up and go to work. And driving my dad, with him to work - he told me about the loss of HIS love of his life (it wasn't my mom), and we were close for the first time ever I think. And we finally had a relationship.
Within all of what was wrong was many things that were good. But it took me being where I was, in both a physical and spiritual sense, to see all this, to understand all this.
Life, I think, only gets more complex. You will be called upon to make decisions, hard decisions, to exist in the netherworld of late teenagerness, to strive for freedom whilst under the boot of the parents. The tensions of all these things! And you, Ilana stuck in a liminal state!
Life, in all of its movements and positions, is, for us, to be enjoyed as one feels better listening to sad music, or the taste of the sugar within vinegar. To feel the hug of love that is the curfew, to see the possibilities coalesce and fall with the decision of a major, to experience those cheesy ass love songs that you hate become love songs that are written out on the fabric of your heart. And then you get better, and then they become cheesy ass love songs again.
I think you know all this. But maybe it won't hurt to know someone older knows it too, and understands a bit of where you are.
This is the most adult of all songs regarding love and loss, I think. If you cannot understand the words (he sings very clearly) they should be looked up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koraNwOw_DQ
I maybe post this on facebook, this song. The world needs to hear it.
Good night. See you tomorrow.
Warm regards,
Luke