Plexyglass Ceiling

I hate societal double-standards. I hate that boys can date younger but girls can't. I hate that if a man is promiscuous it's a source of pride, yet if a girl is, it's shameful. I hate that no matter what happens in the world, their will always be elitist men.

I hate many of the expectations of woman. Whether we realize it or not, they exist. I hate that we are supposed to be feminine and mysterious and sexy and all the other things we have to be. What about just being ourselves? Even if I'm not sure who that is yet, it is what I want to be.

And within all these standards, I hate the socially acceptable forms of communication. The way no one believes a male-female friendship can be strictly platonic. The way if I say the wrong thing, some one will interpret to mean that I do or do not "like" them. I hate that guys can say provocative stuff without it evolving a conversation, yet if the girl chimes in the conversation is suddenly lead in a direction or she is shunned. Sometimes I just want to say what's on my mind and not have anyone read into it. Guys can go up to a girl and say "Dayum girl you look fly", and though personally I laugh at them, it's acceptable; but a girl can't say such things. Not that I would indulge it, but if I want to complement some guys ass, I should have the right to do that without some societal judgement.

I'm just so frustrated beyond belief with social barriers that will never be broken and with my efforts at sorting myself out as a I sort out my dealings with others.

Tangent time (and not the geometric kind): It's just like I am me. I am not what girls are supposed to be, and I like that; who wants to be a clone of all the other Barbie's, ya know? I am also rather conservative when it comes to values. Yet at the same time, I'm a teenager to here. It's not like I live on Pluto. I have the desire to party, to have fun, to just let go sometimes; though the need for drugs and alcohol I don't quite understand, the liberalism and freedom of it all looks like fun sometimes. I just wish my peers understood that instead of assuming I'm a narc just because I'm not hittin' the giggle weed every other weekend.

Breakaway

I really have nothing of real interest to report. No profound philosophy or intricate concentrations on human emotion or the functions of life. Just sitting here, in the chaotic juxtaposition of girls that make up my digital media class, bored out of my mind because it is that last day and we therefore have nothing going on, listen to the No Doubt being blasted from behind me. I really should be working on other things. Chemistry and English and Math and all the other things that beckon; but I don't want to. Far to much in my life is like that, all the things I should be doing but don't. It's like my life is divided in half: the things that others expect of me and that which I expect of myself. Mostly my mom; she expects me to be meek, and sutdious, and her personal assistant. But I am not those things. I am loud, and could care less about school or sacrificing in the service of others.

Very cliche, but Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson is now playing and I think that's all I want in life. I am so tired of living for others, living for some pipe dream at my mom's acceptance. I'm sick of constantly hold myself back, of giving up on things that I want that my mom wouldn't approve, of wasting my youth away trying to be someone that I'm not. Today I become a senior in high school, and yet with the restriction of my life I may as well be a kindergardener. Watching all these seniors graduate and go off to their lives makes me so jealous. I can't wait to be free. To paint my nails black, and right on my arms, and dress myself, and dye my hair whatever color I want, and I all the other things I can't do here.

It's kind of like my car ride to school this morning. I overslept (yeah, going to bed a 4 a.m. was not the best idea apparently, haha) and missed the bus and my mom had to drive me. It was 30 minutes of lecturing me on my incompetance, and what a burden I am on my family, and how sick of me my mom is, ansd how horrible I looked, and how I'm never going to be aloud to get a license if I can't even wake up on time; but eventually, we got to school, I got out of the car, and my mom left, and I was okay and happy and free to go on me.

So I suppose this is just an 18 year long car ride; eventually we will reach our destiny, I will get out of the car, and I will be free. But for now, I'm sick of these spinning wheels feeling like they never progress. I am ready to stand on my own to feet.

The Deadliest of Sin

You know what the hugest factor in the presence of each of the seven deadly sins is? Lack of temperance. I was thinking about this on the bus the other day- how lack of self control is the binding factor in all of the most deadly vices. And I must say, if I am on to something, if this really is the case, then my internal self must be none other than a metaphorical portal to hell.

By textbook definition and scholarly opinion, my biggest vice in life would be that I have no self control; it leads to sloth, anger, lust, gluttony, greed, and even pride. Just think about it. (An inability to control ones thoughts, restrain their distractions creates sloth; lack of control over emotion leads to outbursts of anger, inhibition of desire paves a path of lust, gluttony is found in the absence of temperance in all forms, incompetent management of material desire creates greed, and a relinquishment of egotistical control is often the cause of pride.)

If you think about in this sense, then those anarchistic religious extremists may actually have a point. If we live in a society where not only each of the individual sins are encouraged, but where a materialistic nature and need to fulfill ourselves with that which we do not have are thrust toward our feeble minds from all directions and by all outlets of media, are we not simply creating a nation of disrepair- a land in which our portrayal of daily life in hopes of furthering merchandising creates a breeding ground for the deadliest of sin?

Play

I'm so spinning and frazzled. It's the exhaustion and the stress, and the demon of things I have to do breathing down my neck. The only peace I find, it seems, are in my feeble attempts at intelligent writing, and the spastic happy moments of outer ignorance to it all (usually with my darling Marc <3).

This whole boy-girl thing. It really sucks. It's all just one big giant game. It's about luck, and strategy, and whether or not the cards are drawn in your favor. If you're winning, then it's great, the best game ever; but if you aren't then you hate it, it's so stupid and juvenile and you are determined to win, cheat, or just go cry in the corner.

Nothing can ever just be straight forward. It's all this flirting, and smooth moves, and timing, and it's just such crap. Why must there be all this restraint and lingo. Why is it that so-and-so is "talking" to you but "hooking up" with this person over here and "hanging out" with this other person over here? Why is it all so goddamn complicated? What happened to boy and girl meet, they like each other, boy returns girl's glass slipper, they ride off into a carriage in the sunset? Ok, well that's milking it a bit; but is just simplifying things really so much to ask of society? Why can't we just tell people that we like them and whether they like us back or not, we deal with it and move on.

It'd be so much easier than all this damn drama. I know our society is afraid of "awkward" and "embarassment" (both things which might ensue in the reality of confessing ones affections) but seriously people, get over it! In case you hadn't noticed, life is messy. It is full of awkward moments and elephants in rooms and nerdfighters such as myself, but if you don't suck it up and deal with it, it just perpetuates these infectious headgames (and I seriously doubt that those are good for anyone).

Now if it were just the whole "circuling around eachother" thing, then maybe I can deal; but it's more than that. There's this whole other sect, that's all about toying with people-playing there emotions like a paddle ball. If we didn't have all these societal norms and expectations to follow, then we would millions of hearts might be spared some detriment. I could say to this person that I really like them, and yet confess to another my desire for plutonia (yes, I did just invent the context of that word).

It all just like a big game and it seems to me like no one ever has a winning streak for long and yet, they just keep playing (reminds me of Vegas, haha). All this falsery and mixed signals and double motives and so very much left up to inferences which are often misguided; clearly communication is a huge lacking factor. And though I very much believe in staying chill and taking it easy, I don't know...sometimes I just wish people would think before they act and that they would take life just a little bit more seriously.

Island of Hope

So a friend of mine and I were talking the other day in a group and we were being all girly with the 20 questions and whatnot, and it came up that I'd never been kissed (I know, my life is a bad Drew Barrymore movie; pathetic, eh?) and she said to me "That's really good" and I sort of sat there like, "WTF? Are you kidding me, how is that good exactly?" She then went on to say something along the lines of, it's good because my heart has been safe and I haven't had to deal with the pain of boys because they're all stupid. Cliche as I am, I then proceeded to whip out the timeless classic "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" at which point she responded with "Yes, but once you've loved, it's harder to do so again because your so scared of getting hurt."

My last few days have basically been musing on this concept. As Mr. M would say, it has been part of my recent "education". It has led me to somewhat of an epiphany. I complain about it far too much, but a year and a half ago, I got my heartbroken. It was not even a big deal, and yet I fell for him, hardcore, and clearly I didn't mean anything in return once the dust settled. Anyway, this was just the most recent and detrimental in a lifetime of rejection by men. I realize now that the reason that loosing him has hurt me so much, the reason it took me far more time to get over than I should've, is that in loosing him, it felt like that was it, like that was my one chance at love, at feeling that great sense of euphoria and hope, and it was over. Things hurt so bad because I lost hope, which slowly caused me to lose confidence, and even my sense of self in the downward spiral of the last 6 months or so. (A stupid stoner ruined my recent life, pathetic eh? Especially since it is due to another stupid stoner that my entire life has been fucked up to this point. I seem to have a Kryptonite in them. lol)

What I realize now as I find myself moving on and searching for a new relationship, even having found a guy whom I really like, is that it may be the case that I self-sabotage. I've learned that in time all the boys I like loose interest; things get screwed up. Whether it is my fault or not, my sense of paternal abandonment issues lead me to constantly blame myself. While I am on the one hand filled with elation at the prospect of this new person, I at the same time restrain myself, knowing that I will eventually just mess it up before getting to the good part, so what's the point of getting my hopes up, you know? And unfortunately I know, thanks to years of my mothers attempts to therapize my man issues out of my system, that this will ultimately result in me settling for someone I don't really love or someone who is not good enough me (in all statistical odds, someone like my father), simply because I crave their acceptance and affections. (*sigh* My life really is a crappy Drew Barrymore movie, haha).

So what I now I'm prepared to rebuttal with to this friends argument, is that just because one has not loved, does not mean they are not afraid to love. In my opinion, it is far better to have had the true experiences of a relationship and then suffer the pain of loss at it's close, then to never have even got to enjoy it and ultimately face the same rejection.

I don't know; I seem to be pathetically girly lately. I'm just ready for someone to believe in me, even if it is just a compensation for a lack of belief in myself. I just wish that in this sea of sadness I could find an island of hope-someone who will say yes.

The Inconstance of Mortality

My life is a combination of fate and coincidence.
The blessings of Serendipity in conjunction with my own efforts.
All my life’s journey, leading me to where I am.
My actions and reactions as they define my future.
All those that I love and those who have loved me in return.
My life, in this moment, and as in an eternal self;
But nothing lasts forever.

Domestic Violence

She wipes her blood up of the floor,
Wringing out her mop,
Sopping up her dignity.
Her tears flow into the stream of cleaning solution,
Her fists clenched,
She shakes in anger.

She didn’t even do anything wrong.
He came home in a foul mood,
Longing for someone to beat down,
And he used her as his punching bag…again.

He told her not to fight back, not to scream.
“Just take it like a woman,” he says.
She hates herself for following his orders.

The blood coagulates, and the bruises form.
“It really wasn’t that bad,” she tells herself.

She walks into the next room to kiss her sleeping children.
“I love you my darlings,” she coos into innocent dreamful ears.
She vows to protect them,
Tells herself that by staying she gives them a better life;
But it’s a lie.

Staying is the dagger with which she slits their wrists.
She thinks she is keeping them safe,
But doesn’t realize the true danger they are in.

They will cry themselves to sleep, and blame themselves for the fights,
And,
Sooner or later,
They will beat or be beaten.
The will perpetuate the pattern of abuse.
The cycle continues.

Clarity

Sitting on the roadside as I often do,
The breeze creates a forced flit of my hair
As the raindrops fall.

Time passes and I remain solitary in the fog,
Waywardly waiting by the roadside,
Impatient to catch my bus to nowhere.

A gaggle of giggling girls passes;
Their beautiful leader guiding them along.
They hang on her every perfect word.

Many days later I walk past the roadside with my friends;
I see the goddess sitting beside the road, looking damp,
Waiting for her bus to nowhere.

As my friends depart and I sit next to this girl,
There is a moment of clarity within the rainy fog:
In life and in suffering, I am never alone.

Romance

Romance is a blue-eyed baby; naïve to the ways of the world. The daughter of Hope and Serendipity she is akin with Lust, Friendship, and Delight. She is foreign to Hatred and to True Love. She witnesses the world through new-born eyes, with which, everything is vividly vibrant. The ways of the world are magic in her mind and even the bitterest fruits taste sweet to her. Her smile lights up the sky, and she is almost always smiling. She is considered the most beautiful baby to all but Heartache and Resentment. Romance is idolized by many and loved by all because of her beauty and because she always follows her heart.

Memorium

Funerals are an odd thing. I'd never been to one before today; and, though this technically was not one, I will consider this my first, for the atmosphere was close enough.

That girl, the one you see there, looking so strong and beautiful. Yeah, her, on the left; she just lost her mother. But could you ever tell? No, you wouldn't know. You really wouldn't.

The room, was masked in a thick fog. A shadowy cloud of darkness was all the bound the various individuals of the room together.

The people seemed scattered in thoughts, motives, and intentions. Some where there to "make an appearance". Some were there out of obligation. Some were there to ease their conscience. A handful were there to support the grieving family. And believe it or not, a few even there, out of love and reverence to the departed.

The speeches were given. Interruptions of foolish schoolgirls, noisy airplanes, and a few inconsiderate cell phones prevailed. Many looked around the room and fiddled in boredom. Others cried and hugged. I sat and maintain reverent composure among this foreign display of the human condition, manners, and instinctive coping mechanisms.

The strangest part of the whole affair was sitting in this very solid and corporeal building, with such a very abstract problem being presented like a rising hurricane, and watching the guiding procession use religion as their shelter of choice.

I've never understood priests. Or organized religion for that matter. But that is beside the point.

The point was the Catholicism. The talking about God and his glory, about Jesus and his suffering, and even providing the Eucharist at the commencement of someone's life. Doesn't that seem a bit morbid?

A memorial is not a time for ramblings of the glory of some God, or the commentary of some mumbling priest on what he thinks we need to hear. Oh no. A memorial is a time to celebrate a life, and to commemorate and experience the sadness of that lost life in a communal setting. A one-time group therapy session for those within the sphere of influence of the dearly departed.

God has enough about him. He needs to be a little less selfish. Let things be about someone else for a change. After all, he took this persons life, the least he can do is give those she leave behind a little one-on-one time with her precious memory without butting in via some crackpot old clergyman.