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11.25.04 - 5:06 p.m.
make up your mind, thanks i don't much recognize myself anymore. a self who gives up without trying, a self who withdraws and hides, as much to protect herself from facing what she's afraid she can't handle as to protect the world from this indifferent, shamed, passive the hellwithit persona that i've become. i don't like that this self today...creepy doubleganger of the worst traits of my sister-brother-father-mother combined: powerless, waiting for a savoir to rescue them, self-berating, capitulator, stuck to the stuckness of familiar comfortable patterns, because she's too scared to try anything new.
just because i emphasize the worst parts of my family does not mean i've ignored the best: a kicking fighting spirit exists inside every one of my family members as well. when i've hopped on planes, busses, and trains with very little money, pragmaticism, or certitude about the future awaiting me, i feel like i'm embodying my parents at their most fearless and proud. is this a phase? if so, when am i gonna let the phase end, snap out of it, pull myself up, keep going, keep keeping on as i've done so many times for myself an a million times more for others. i don't like this me that i become...and i hate facing the guilt and shame that my hindsight brings when i KNOW i can do so much better. when's the last time i've made a list of things in my life that ARE going for me... that's what bothers me - i've buried my internal phoneix cheerleader type ... and for what... frankly, i don't believe any longer in the excuses i've raised for myself. tired, broke, unintelligent, unexperienced, lonely, ugly, fat, foolish, impulsive, indecisive, poor decision maker, short-sighted... they are not pathological viruses, or terminal diseases... i can fix any one of these traits that i indulge in and i let hold me back... i used to even feel like i was my own best inspiration, and yet i don't even allow myself to get inspired. where am i going with this list? i don't know. at this very moment, i'm spending thanksgiving at my own apartment... the FIRST time i have not gone to my parent's home for thanksgiving since, ever? saying no took all of 4 minutes and 20 seconds...no fight, because i got my father on the phone, who said, sure stay...we'll see you in december. i didn't even need to launch into excuses or white lies... i'm 30. i'm tired of traveling 5 hours each way to bring myself to the home of my birth...sometimes the trips good, when i return to my hometown i remember my awe that i've gotten so far away, and that i've done what so many of my parents' and family friends thought impossible: i left, i've stayed out of trouble, i've proposed a career plan with a chartable future... at times i've gone home just because i know my presence gives my parents hope - they've done something right - not just degrees and at notable institutions, or that i'm self-sufficient and independent, but that i've also not abandoned them... this thanksgiving would have been especially important to go home and serve as my mother's comfort...since thanksgiving USED to mean traveling to either aunt audrey's house or aunt hazel's house for a huge fun night of hilarity, culture, reminders that i DO come from a people i'm proud of... but aunt audrey died in october 2003, aunt hazel died in november 2004, and returning to my hometowm would be returning to my mother and the painful reality that she's among the last one standing... and while we've become so much closer in the last two years, and i've spoken my opinions vocally, and she's listened more respectfully, i don't feel like opening up to her or anyone... i don't feel like showing them the hopeless me that i feel now... it's not hopeless, i haven't felt like putting on a brave face or showing them a plan in such a long time... i don't have awards to show, i don't have anything but me this time...i have me, but if to me i don't feel like i'm enough, how can i show that me to them... i'm not making any sense. i just know i've got to change... i'm bored of bottoming out. i'm bored of lowering my bar to expect nothing... i'm just bored of me right now... snap out of this, okay!?!?!? i decided to stay in town to have time to myself. to clean out my closets; to do laundry; to go to the gym; to remember who i am, and once remember to HOLD ON to that person. i don't feel all much like me and i don't feel like taking my tired carcass of myself to show other people... i've been hiding who i am - spirited, risktaker, forceful, rainmaker - for so many weeks... i won't even let others take a chance on me, because i've felt too dispirited to take a chance on myself. and even moments when i AM myself, like the most recent conference that happened last weekend, and i raised a point in Q&A that resulted in some 5+ people coming up after me saying, good question, who are you smarty pants, what's your diss about, as in 'whoa keep your eyes on that student circling, watch out world'... afterwards i felt so panicked that i drew attention to that self that makes unique, the self i KNOW that has a brilliant future if i'd only show her work to the world... i panicked at public recognition of my own stellar possibilities... rather than accept a personal invite to go out for drinks with the VIP crowd of invited speakers, i fled... because i felt so damn hollow. the energy i summoned to even speak up and display a glimpse of the 'watch out world me' felt fleeting at best; that fleetingness of the energy to try scared me. you see going out for drinks would have comfirmed, circling's a tough competer with integrity... and the invitation would have been a ticket to compete, to soar, to be me... what's the problem: somewhere deep inside this semester, i've lost the desire to compete, the desire to try, the desire to knock on intimidating doors and say, 'let me in, i'm worthy'. i KNOW i AM worthy. i KNOW i AM worthy. i KNOW my own worth. i KNOW my own value..
i repeat: what's the problem then?
I don't feel like persuading or convincing anyone else of my worth. ...fair enough, let the hobnobbers stroke their narcissistic network... that take it or leave it attitude would be fine, if at least i'd actively cultivated my worth to my self alone.
i've f*cked up further: i won't tap into the heart [courage, interest, desire, passion, COMMON SENSE!] to even show... my own worth to myself...that's what zoning out's all about, that's what buying b-rated romantic comedies and isolating from others...and squandering precious time numbing my eyes out on formulaic hollywood scripts with millionaire actresses ten years my junior's all about [these b-movies are of the meangirls -highschool hell - and cinderella story variety] so odd that i'm caught up in revisiting a scripted past that wasn't even my own, nostalgic and fixated on white middle class adolescent-to-pre 21 year old female fantasies of people i'd never meet, of lives i'd never have... i couldn't go back to that, i have my own destiny to have when i say when... so why won't i say 'when'? or frustratingly worse: why won't i even say anything ? dammit circling say something. do something. be something. move something. care to make something happen. or for starters, just friggin' CARE... what's the point? some point's better than no points. aren't you sick of being a no pointer. no brainer. no gainer no loser. of being nothing?
MUSIC: watching far too many movies, including nymin and pr&me
READING: nothing
FEELING:distant from myself
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