Rock Star Hour

Longwinded jollynessness

Nothing like narrating your life to validate, make sense of your own experience.

Lately, I just haven't felt like doing that. Lately I've been for the most part comfortable with my past, barring a couple mistakes that still sting a little when I think about them. I'm pretty damned happy in the present, and when I think about the future, I don't really know, but it looks pretty good.

Maybe the whole narrating thing isn't completely wrong. I just know that I used to do it a lot. I also know doing so helped me out in a lot of ways, and maybe that's why for now I can't do it. It did as much as it could for me, analyzing all the old stuff, and maybe there's just not enough new stuff, and maybe it's harder to see the new stuff if you're so focused on the old stuff.

Point is I guess that although I don't feel like saying much, there's something to be said for how awesome it is when other people say things for you. 'Cause I pretty much feel like this right here.

Thanks, Belle,

Signed,

The friend of a friend who checks out your blog occasionally.

Labels: Blogs, Mistakes, Relationships

Just because

I just had a really nice conversation with my mom.

I've been feeling so horrible lately. My body is aching, and I'm sniffling. I've been sick for a week now. I couldn't even go home for Thanksgiving, which was what I'd been looking forward to more than most things lately.

I wanted to go home for Thanksgiving, because time with my family is very special to me right now. My family has always meant a lot to me. My mom and grandma, my sisters, and more recently my dad, have been my heroes. They have been the strength I've drawn on; they have been examples for me, and inspire me more than I can describe about how to handle the trials that life gives you, how to heal from so much pain the world can deploy, expose, and dig up from your soul.

I bought this card not too long ago. There's a picture of a dove on it flying high in the top left corner, flying high in an atmospheric sky over the world, and it reads:

When
it seems everything
is falling down
around us,
something strong and certain
within us
is preparing
to spread
its wings
and
soar.

I've seen you meet challenge and setback
with wings of your spirit outspread,
Transforming your pain
into power,
courageously moving ahead ...

So as you continue your journey,
remember what I know is true --
You'll once again rise on the wings of your soul
more graceful, more joyful,
more You.

I never gave the card to anyone. I carry it around sometimes, blank, no address, no signature. I first lost it in a bag, then in a stack of papers, then I found it again.

I always say I hate greeting cards. Once, I had this long, drawn-out conversation with an ex-boyfriend of mine. We were just talking shit about cards, and how cliche they are, and how they just seem to represent mass-marketed holidays. He downed them from a graphic designer's perspective, and I did from a writer's. We both thought we were too clever for them. Maybe we still do.

But this one day, not long ago, my mom had surgery, and some days later I found myself pacing around Kroger in this trance-like teary state, reading cards.

I wanted to find something for my grandmother. I wanted to thank her so much for being so strong and for being there for me and everyone. We had long talks at the hospital.

Then when I reread it and was going to send it to her, I decided it was all wrong. I thought I should really give it to my mother.

But then that didn't really seem right, either; and all the sudden it became clear to me that I needed those words, cliche or not, more than anyone.

I kept the card. I don't know whom I'll give it to, if anyone, or if it's dated. Right now, it's mine.

Sometimes I feel so broken.

I've been broken so many times. Broken-hearted. Spirit-broken. Head too broken for words -- that's how I've felt much of the time. Especially lately.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer I can't even tell you the day. All I know is that it happened. And I know it has been more than enough to change my perspective on so many things.

Through my mother's illness, I have learned so much in a short time. Shit. Just over a year ago I had my horrible accident. I thought I lost so much. I had no idea how much there is still to lose.

But unlike before, I'm not going to shrivel down and talk about what happened, and forget about so many things that are important, like people, and goals, and love, and experience.

I've still made mistakes. Lots of mistakes. I'm still broken and confused, and sometimes self-loathing.

But I can't be anything but strong. I can't do anything but work hard. My old crutches, the alcohol and everything else is all tapped out.

So this is what it's like to be a grown up. To be pushing thirty, to wake up and realize you've been going to college for like 10 years. To still not have health insurance and be staring down into the future, no longer taking your parents' concern and advice with a grain of salt. I've got to take better care of myself. I want to do so much more. I want to do it for my mom and for my dad and for my sisters and for me.

I asked my mom today if I disappointed her. She said no, and recounted some times when she also found out she could still make mistakes and disappointed herself.

But things are looking up. Because I know my mom will get better. I know she will get better and I know I will get better. Because that's just what we do.

Labels: Cancer, Mistakes, Thanksgiving

Hi. Long time no talk.

I've been having a panic attack for what seems like the last two hours, so this may not be the best time to write. But what else can I do with all this anxious energy?

I haven't written on this thing in so long. I haven't written anything for myself, even, in what seems just as long.

I have not written a complete song in two years.

But I've been busy. The busy part has been spent making mistakes, and then picking up the pieces of past mes, and trying to break patterns in both thought and action.

Sometimes all this is easier than others.

I thought I learned several years ago that things never get easier, that they never stop changing, that bad things can continue to happen, that people constantly come and go ... I thought I knew a lot. I even thought I was an idealist.

But what I have learned since is that "knowing" things doesn't get you very far between where you are and where you want to be.

So here I am, starting over like so many other times, while knowing this will not be the last, and pushing the envelope, trying to develop a new sense of self, a positive one, trying to not only dream, but to act, and trying to make decisions.

I am finding out how many decisions there really are.

I guess maybe I should start over, and let you know what is new, to catch you up, for whatever reason:

I have been to jail.

I've totaled two vehicles in my life.

I've made countless mistakes, and learned from some.

I've been in a fight.

I've been a camp counselor for now six out of the last seven years.

I've been the editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper.

I've been in love.

I've been in lust.

I've said things I didn't mean.

I've meant things I shouldn't have said.

I've hated myself. And a lot of other people. And the world, sometimes, and acted accordingly.

I've had dreams I wished were real.

I've had realities come at me and feel as if they were nightmares while they were happening.

But I've found that situations repeat themselves and can be presented as tests for your so-called new and improved self.

I have found that wisdom neither comes from experience nor age.

I have found that I prefer to believe that the body's natural state is one of calm, and a form of happiness, when not interjected with nonsensically emotional thoughts manifested from personal systems shaped by separate realities.

I have come to a place where I can set goals and surprise myself at accomplishing even the smaller ones.

I have come to appreciate, when I remember, that the differences between individuals are often as vast as those between nations.

I have come to recognize the past while consciously shooting for a present that I can own, and when I say I, I mean me, and the me I mean is the purest form of me, the one I like to believe is strong and good.

I read today in Les Mis, which is wonderful -- and I agree with Victor Hugo, or at least the narrator on this, completely -- that within every human being is an animal, and not just one animal but all animals ... because the last few years have shown me that within me is a turtle, a lamb, a rabbit, a wolf, a lion, a sheep, a black widow spider, a bluebird, and many more I have yet to discover.

This thought is distressing sometimes. Because these animals within humans all comprise an orchestra of virtues and faults; and all virtues have faults, and all faults have virtues. It bothers me as much in one vein as it motivates me in another. It gives me hope in still another. And at times this realization, whether in a moment of release or even in contemplation, is enough to chill my bones and palpitate my heart.

And doing "what is right" is such a broad yet narrow way of thinking, isn't it?

I've made mistakes that others would be proud to make, and have told me so.

And some of the good things I've done, the ones I am acknowledged for, amount to almost nothing in my own eyes when scrutinized underneath my microscopic system of values.

So I guess that's everything, without saying much, all the issues I've been thinking about while not really. All that a few good books, good deeds, mistakes, and a little therapy have taught me so far.

But I will say that all in all, I'm working my way toward a form of happiness I've never quite felt before -- the kind that you can get to no matter what your circumstances ... a kind of comfort I would love to feel for any length of time in my own skin, hopefully, forever ... the kind that allows you to love and give and receive, and be good to others no matter what is going on at the moment ... the kind that would just feel peaceful.

That's what I want very, very much. And that's all I'd like for the present and future. So that's all I feel like writing. I'm gonna get back to finding something to laugh at, or somethin' .... cause that's all I need. That's all anybody needs.

Labels: Books, Camp, Jail, Les Miserables, Mistakes, Music, Regret, Therapy

Well, It's Thanksgiving ...

and I am all alone. I feel lower than I've possibly ever felt. It's not even New Year's yet and I can think of at least a dozen ways I fucked up this year. There was a time where I could at least conceal how fucked up I am from at least a few people who mattered, family members for example, and even maybe some old friends. But now it's official. I'm a fuck up. Not even a triumphant one, as I felt when I came home from Seattle. Just a fucked up fuck up. And the worst part of all is knowing that everything is all my fault. Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

Labels: Depression, Mistakes, Thanksgiving

Nervous Stomach

I'm going through something really horrible right now. I wish I could write about it. It's the only thing that could possibly help at this point, but I'm not at liberty to do so.

I did learn something about human nature though. Something I only had a grasp of before.

And now I feel sick to my stomach, and have to get up early in the morning for a very important meeting.

I haven't been sleeping much. Something horrible happened, and I keep reliving it in my head. It makes me cry at the most random times. And shake.

And I can't even think about how it makes me feel because, more importantly, I need to be thinking about what is going to happen next.

My head hurts on the side where I sleep. It makes me toss and turn even more.

I know this is cryptic. It isn't meant to say anything specific. Specifics are off limits right now.

But I'm frightened. And scared. If those are two different things. I don't know.

And I've never felt so alone than right now. Just me and this feeling. And not being able to talk about much.

And not being able to articulate the things I could.

And there's something about character to be said here too. I read once that a person's true character comes out in the darkest moments of a person's life. How they handle it.

But I don't know because, sometimes a good person can do something out of character. You read about it all the time in the papers.

And sometimes a moment can define a person, on paper, or in someone else's memory, or by threatening his or her reputation.

One moment. Five minutes. Or ten or twenty. One action.

And I'm wondering now, if instead of being contradictory to the person on the outside, if that person within is the one trying to creep out.

Or if when it comes down to it we are merely animals. With rational thoughts that can come and go like rain.

Labels: Anxiety, Insomnia, Mistakes