Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Meteoric.
You've always been two people to me.
The person you are, and the person you pretend to be.
I've kept one of you here, safe in my heart.
I can smile at smiles, even now.
Even when I curse and cry at you
Even when I let you fade away into the depths of time
I can remember you, fondly.
It is like I have kept my friend with me, eternally
And that is enough, enough for me
Enough that I can still smile at what used to be.
for forgotten friends.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
my demons.
Now Playing: Fire & Rain by James Taylor (I've seen fire and I've seen rain, I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I could see you again)
I have had depression for about six years now. In retrospect, I've always been a pretty anxious person, but it has escalated into full-blown anxiety in the last year or so. These are my demons.
I knew I was depressed pretty quickly, once it set in in a big way; it's just like you know you've got a flu even before you start hurling or before your thermometer tells you that you should technically be on fire. It's really hard to explain depression; it's like...you forget how to be happy. The things that used to make you happy don't have any effect on you and you try, you try so hard, to have an appropriate reaction but it just seems really fake and performed and doesn't fill you with that warm glow. And the tiniest, pettiest, most trivial things can send you down the rabbit hole of despair and hopelessness and worthlessness.
Depression isn't like a cold, though; you can't catch it, it isn't caused by anything, and you can't cure it by 'manning up' or popping a few pills. Depression is more like cancer; it never fully goes away, it just goes into remission. Depression is something that is on and off, for most people; there are times when you can be happy and sad like a normal person, but it's always lurking in the background. It's something I have to recognise and accept in myself, and learn how to manage it. I have been suicidal before. I have seriously considered taking my life before. It's scary.
There are so many misconceptions and misunderstandings about depression; that it's just a mood thing, it's just weak people unable to cope with the normal trials and traumas of life. But just like how cancer is caused by cells mutating and multiplying, and diseases are caused by germs attacking your body, mental illnesses is an actual physiological thing; it is caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but basically our moods and how we process and react to things are controlled by a careful balance of chemicals called neurotransmitters that impact how we process and store data; the effects of caffeine or alcohol or recreational drugs is a result of increasing or decreasing the level of chemicals in the brain. Mental illnesses does that for you; there is significant evidence and research to show that people with mental illnesses have different levels of neurotransmitters than people without mental illnesses. Antidepressants work by attempting to fix the neurotransmitters back to normal levels. It's all science and chemicals.
The hardest part about having depression is that nobody takes you seriously. Unlike breaking your leg or being punched in the face depression doesn't have physical symptoms, usually; it's all up in your brain. People can't see that your neurotransmitters are fucked up, so they simply don't believe it. That's the hardest part. People tell you to snap out of it, to grow out of it - but they'd never ask you to snap out of having a broken leg. Having a mental illness isn't about being weak or pathetic or unable to cope. Having a mental illness is being sick; it needs care and treatment and empathy just like any other kind of sickness.
My anxiety is a little more complicated. I don't know what makes other people upset. To me, people seem to behave irrationally and unpredictably, and so I'm always afraid of people, or of upsetting them. I find it really hard to talk to strangers, and I find loud, crowded places extremely stressful and upsetting. I can't deal with language barriers and sometimes I can't maintain eye contact. I get upset easily and I can't control my reactions to certain things, and my relationships are defined by uncontrollable insecurity and paranoia. I get panic attacks and I have lots of phobias; most obvious is my fear of needles.
When I was younger I don't think my family really understood mental illnesses or recognised that I had them; I don't blame them, because people in general know so little about mental illnesses and even less on how to cope with them; also, mental illnesses are highly taboo and unspoken topics in Asian cultures. I have had to deal with my demons on my own, for a long time; but I think now that I am better able to articulate my needs and problems and they are becoming more informed about these things they are becoming more accepting and supportive, which I am unbelievably thankful for. My only advice when someone tells you that they have a mental illness is to keep an open mind. It is incredibly difficult to admit to people that you have a mental illness; I have never met anyone who lied or bragged about having a mental illness. Even if someone isn't 'clinically' depressed or doesn't actually have an anxiety 'disorder', the fact that they think they do means that they are obviously troubled and definitely need support.
I know it is difficult to be friends with someone with demons like mine; but only if you forget or trivialize their problems. We accept that people with diabetes need to test their blood every day and might suddenly faint and need sugar. We accept that people with epilepsy might not be able to drive and might have a fit at any random moment. What we don't accept is that people with mental illnesses can lash out or be unable to behave appropriately. Everyone is capable and deserving of love regardless of their physical or mental incapacitations. Just because someone is sensitive and struggles with demons doesn't mean they don't love you, or care about you, or would do anything for you. All friends sometimes feel burdened or heavy or unloved or uncared for, and it is easy to blame mental illnesses. But nobody ever said friendship was easy. It's when friendship gets tough you realize who your true friends are.
I just lost my dearest friend because he couldn't deal with my having demons. I tried so hard to tell him that I cannot help but be upset and irrational and I try my hardest to manage it, but there are some things that are simply out of my control. I tried my hardest to tell him that I always loved him and cared for him, but he didn't believe me. I tried to tell him that I am going to feel insecure and paranoid unless we communicate openly, but we didn't. In the end we were very different people and perhaps we are better off not being friends. But it hurts beyond belief that he left to punish me for being sick. I am such a mess right now; every day it takes so much effort to get out of bed, do my work, smile and face the day. If it were not for my family and friends I could not do it. I miss him, of course, and I regret that we have parted ways. But I can get over that; this is not the first or last time someone has flitted in and out of my life. What hurts the most is not his absence, but the reason for it. I trusted him with everything; he told me to always be honest with him, about how I was feeling, and that he'd always be there for me. He told me to be myself, that I didn't have to pretend to smile with him, that I didn't have to be insecure or paranoid, because he wouldn't leave. I told him about my demons, I was open about when I was upset and why, I was open about what I needed for our friendship to work. In the times I had better control over myself I told him how much I cared about him, and would do anything for him; and that whenever I treated him badly I did not mean it, I could not help it, and that I was sorry. I told him that if I was doing anything to hurt him all he had to do was tell me, and we could work it out. I did the best I could do and in return he said that I wasn't a good enough friend for him because I'm sick. Who am I supposed to trust now, when my best friend has abandoned me because of my demons?
I have had depression for about six years now. In retrospect, I've always been a pretty anxious person, but it has escalated into full-blown anxiety in the last year or so. These are my demons.
I knew I was depressed pretty quickly, once it set in in a big way; it's just like you know you've got a flu even before you start hurling or before your thermometer tells you that you should technically be on fire. It's really hard to explain depression; it's like...you forget how to be happy. The things that used to make you happy don't have any effect on you and you try, you try so hard, to have an appropriate reaction but it just seems really fake and performed and doesn't fill you with that warm glow. And the tiniest, pettiest, most trivial things can send you down the rabbit hole of despair and hopelessness and worthlessness.
Depression isn't like a cold, though; you can't catch it, it isn't caused by anything, and you can't cure it by 'manning up' or popping a few pills. Depression is more like cancer; it never fully goes away, it just goes into remission. Depression is something that is on and off, for most people; there are times when you can be happy and sad like a normal person, but it's always lurking in the background. It's something I have to recognise and accept in myself, and learn how to manage it. I have been suicidal before. I have seriously considered taking my life before. It's scary.
There are so many misconceptions and misunderstandings about depression; that it's just a mood thing, it's just weak people unable to cope with the normal trials and traumas of life. But just like how cancer is caused by cells mutating and multiplying, and diseases are caused by germs attacking your body, mental illnesses is an actual physiological thing; it is caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but basically our moods and how we process and react to things are controlled by a careful balance of chemicals called neurotransmitters that impact how we process and store data; the effects of caffeine or alcohol or recreational drugs is a result of increasing or decreasing the level of chemicals in the brain. Mental illnesses does that for you; there is significant evidence and research to show that people with mental illnesses have different levels of neurotransmitters than people without mental illnesses. Antidepressants work by attempting to fix the neurotransmitters back to normal levels. It's all science and chemicals.
The hardest part about having depression is that nobody takes you seriously. Unlike breaking your leg or being punched in the face depression doesn't have physical symptoms, usually; it's all up in your brain. People can't see that your neurotransmitters are fucked up, so they simply don't believe it. That's the hardest part. People tell you to snap out of it, to grow out of it - but they'd never ask you to snap out of having a broken leg. Having a mental illness isn't about being weak or pathetic or unable to cope. Having a mental illness is being sick; it needs care and treatment and empathy just like any other kind of sickness.
My anxiety is a little more complicated. I don't know what makes other people upset. To me, people seem to behave irrationally and unpredictably, and so I'm always afraid of people, or of upsetting them. I find it really hard to talk to strangers, and I find loud, crowded places extremely stressful and upsetting. I can't deal with language barriers and sometimes I can't maintain eye contact. I get upset easily and I can't control my reactions to certain things, and my relationships are defined by uncontrollable insecurity and paranoia. I get panic attacks and I have lots of phobias; most obvious is my fear of needles.
When I was younger I don't think my family really understood mental illnesses or recognised that I had them; I don't blame them, because people in general know so little about mental illnesses and even less on how to cope with them; also, mental illnesses are highly taboo and unspoken topics in Asian cultures. I have had to deal with my demons on my own, for a long time; but I think now that I am better able to articulate my needs and problems and they are becoming more informed about these things they are becoming more accepting and supportive, which I am unbelievably thankful for. My only advice when someone tells you that they have a mental illness is to keep an open mind. It is incredibly difficult to admit to people that you have a mental illness; I have never met anyone who lied or bragged about having a mental illness. Even if someone isn't 'clinically' depressed or doesn't actually have an anxiety 'disorder', the fact that they think they do means that they are obviously troubled and definitely need support.
I know it is difficult to be friends with someone with demons like mine; but only if you forget or trivialize their problems. We accept that people with diabetes need to test their blood every day and might suddenly faint and need sugar. We accept that people with epilepsy might not be able to drive and might have a fit at any random moment. What we don't accept is that people with mental illnesses can lash out or be unable to behave appropriately. Everyone is capable and deserving of love regardless of their physical or mental incapacitations. Just because someone is sensitive and struggles with demons doesn't mean they don't love you, or care about you, or would do anything for you. All friends sometimes feel burdened or heavy or unloved or uncared for, and it is easy to blame mental illnesses. But nobody ever said friendship was easy. It's when friendship gets tough you realize who your true friends are.
I just lost my dearest friend because he couldn't deal with my having demons. I tried so hard to tell him that I cannot help but be upset and irrational and I try my hardest to manage it, but there are some things that are simply out of my control. I tried my hardest to tell him that I always loved him and cared for him, but he didn't believe me. I tried to tell him that I am going to feel insecure and paranoid unless we communicate openly, but we didn't. In the end we were very different people and perhaps we are better off not being friends. But it hurts beyond belief that he left to punish me for being sick. I am such a mess right now; every day it takes so much effort to get out of bed, do my work, smile and face the day. If it were not for my family and friends I could not do it. I miss him, of course, and I regret that we have parted ways. But I can get over that; this is not the first or last time someone has flitted in and out of my life. What hurts the most is not his absence, but the reason for it. I trusted him with everything; he told me to always be honest with him, about how I was feeling, and that he'd always be there for me. He told me to be myself, that I didn't have to pretend to smile with him, that I didn't have to be insecure or paranoid, because he wouldn't leave. I told him about my demons, I was open about when I was upset and why, I was open about what I needed for our friendship to work. In the times I had better control over myself I told him how much I cared about him, and would do anything for him; and that whenever I treated him badly I did not mean it, I could not help it, and that I was sorry. I told him that if I was doing anything to hurt him all he had to do was tell me, and we could work it out. I did the best I could do and in return he said that I wasn't a good enough friend for him because I'm sick. Who am I supposed to trust now, when my best friend has abandoned me because of my demons?
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
a pretend to smile.
Now Playing: Dear John by Taylor Swift (maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame, or maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it away)
Not everyone knows about Ai Weiwei, a Chinese contemporary artist well known for tweeting pictures of himself flipping off historical monuments and not as well known for designing the birds nest for the Beijing Olympics. Not everyone really likes Ai Weiwei, either; namely the Chinese government aren't really huge fans. But despite not everyone knowing or liking Ai Weiwei, he has made an undeniable impact on the world. He dares to speak out, even though he comes from a place where speaking your mind can be one of the most dangerous things to do.
A lot of people accuse me of being performed or attention seeking of late, but I think they are unfair accusations. I can't talk to people, I can't walk up to a complete stranger behind a counter and ask them for something, I can't tell a waiter what I want to eat or a shop assistant if I can use the fitting rooms. Even amongst my close friends I can't always tell them what I want to do, or even just look them in the eye. I had a panic attack when someone laughed too loudly. Of course everything I do is performed; it's performed because unlike you, I have to actively pull myself together and grit my teeth through everyday life. I have to force myself to do things that involve people and interacting with them; so of course it's going to come off as performed. I do my best. Forgive me for not being perfect.
As for attention seeking, well; everyone's pretty damn attention seeking. Doing anything that differentiates you from a robot makes you attention seeking.Even deliberately avoiding attention is in itself attention seeking. We all crave attention, but we have made seeking attention to be such an obnoxious thing. Women, in particular, are meant to sit quietly and agree politely and hope and pray that some man notices her blending into the wallpaper; we have glorified the wallflower because we're terrified of a woman bold and independent and individual enough to be the life of the party. Men like it when they 'find' someone who is humble and self-effacing and perfect but ignored until now; men don't like women who haven't been ignored, because they're tainted by the male gaze. There is, apparently, something desperate about a woman who puts herself in the limelight; it is because we have made women to be obscene - both 'off stage' and 'disgusting'. The girl everyone likes is someone defined by everyone liking her; if people hadn't happened to take notice she would have been a nobody. I am not like that. Whether you like it or not, whether people notice me in the crowd or not, I will always be a somebody. And we all crave attention; nobodies and somebodies, it's just whether or not we procure this attention without voicing our desire for it that matters, which is ridiculous and hypocritical.
So I am well aware that I'm quite a performed, attention seeking person. But what differentiates attention-seeking Ai Weiwei and attention-seeking Kim Kardashian is sincerity, a sense of integrity; the thing that differentiates artists and performers and activists from reality TV stars is that people like Ai Weiwei refuse to 'pretend to smile'.
I had a very close, very precious relationship with someone that broke because I couldn't pretend to smile. My pretend to smile was to like someone I didn't know; and the only recommendation is that 'everyone likes her' - with the design of pressuring me into liking her, too. I have no doubt she is someone perfectly likeable and worthy of being liked, but the idea that someone is validated as a good or decent or interesting person solely because everyone likes them is ridiculous. I knew a boy who was almost universally liked, too; it did not make him a particularly good person or friend. He was liked because he was so easy to forgive, but that did not make him very forgiving. By circumstance, I could not like this girl; liking her would be a pretend to smile, and an insult to everyone involved. We had nothing in common and far too much to drive us apart. I am perfectly sure she was not very interested in knowing or liking me, either.
I have always considered my relationships totally distinct from each other; it was why I could love a girl and her ex boyfriend equally and at the same time, and there would be no row because they were two individual relationships instead of an attempt to force three people to mutually love each other. You learn, eventually, who and what you can and can't bring up, and it's fine. I have my list of things I'd rather not talk about, too. But that isn't good enough, for some people; to prove how much you care for them, you have to pretend to smile and like someone else, too - their best mate, or their girlfriend, or whoever they consider to be of equal or greater value than you. It's messy and humiliating and inevitably doomed to fail. I will be cordial to whoever you might hold dear, but I am under no delusions that my friends' friends are automatically my friends, too. I should be able to choose who I want to associate with without risking what is precious to me.
And I have watched, too, as people pretend to smile until their falsehoods become realities. They believe whatever is convenient, and twist stories into half-true fairytales in which they are always the hero.
I do not strive to be known to everyone, or liked by everyone. The only people I know who have achieved this are aggressively vapid, and posess no talents either than the ability to pretend to smile. You can claim that all these well liked people are intelligent and outspoken; but only on conventional matters. They only speak loudly because they're singing with the choir. I only want friends who will speak for the silenced, and be unafraid of dissent and defiance; these perfectly likeable, perfectly intelligent, perfectly opinionated people quickly lose their virtues at the face of something remotely controversial. These are not the kind of people I admire, and not this is not the kind of person I aspire to be. I have my faults, but at least people will know and remember me as a person of integrity and sincerity. These perfectly flawless people have flaws, and it is stupid to think that they are immune to human failings. I think the most unforgivable flaw is to be so quick and unrepetant when you pretend to smile.
I know you do not think of me as a particularly honest person, and I know you consider my demons to be great flaws in my character rather than illnesses that I struggle with, every day, with or without your company. But I only lied when I felt obligated to pretend to smile. In all other things I was honest to you, even when it hurt, and even when I knew it would hurt you. I thought someone like you might be deprived of someone to tell it like it is, so I did. I risked everything to be a good friend to you, and when you forced me to pretend to smile I did my best. I know you are not really listening, now; I know your great talent for believing whatever is convenient will make me seem an even greater liar than you thought before. But I don't live for you, anymore. I live for myself. And I know in my heart that I was always as honest and as sincere as I could possibly be, with you. If you don't believe me, then consider why I believed everything you said, why I believed you did everything in good faith, why I took your word for it when you promised me all those promises you broke. I believed you because I was being honest, and when you're honest with someone you cannot help but believe, or hope, that they are being honest, too. But I was not the liar; you were. Your honesty was nothing more than a thin veil to hide your cruelty; when you were being kind, or generous, you were also lying. And now you have broken me like a promise, and I realized too late that just because everyone forgives you doesn't mean that you are worthy of forgiving. You broke me like a promise, but I was honest to you to the very end. I don't need you to hear it or believe it. I am assured in my heart of my own integrity, and that is enough.
For my friends I have forced myself to smile through tears, to bite my tongue and hold my breath; always with the threat that if I did not pretend to smile for them, they would leave. But I cannot, I cannot pretend to smile; and even if I did you would see right through me, because for all my performed attention seeking I am too real and too open and too vulnerable to convincingly lie. And it will always be a lie; I don't see why people get so angry about that. I can't change who I am, all I could do is lie, but then you get angry because the painful lies are not convenient truths. And so I will not pretend to smile, anymore. The only thing that sets me apart from everyone else isn't excessive beauty or excessive wealth or excessive talent. People only become Ai Weiweis and avoid becoming Kim Kardashians by refusing to pretend to smile.
Not everyone knows about Ai Weiwei, a Chinese contemporary artist well known for tweeting pictures of himself flipping off historical monuments and not as well known for designing the birds nest for the Beijing Olympics. Not everyone really likes Ai Weiwei, either; namely the Chinese government aren't really huge fans. But despite not everyone knowing or liking Ai Weiwei, he has made an undeniable impact on the world. He dares to speak out, even though he comes from a place where speaking your mind can be one of the most dangerous things to do.
A lot of people accuse me of being performed or attention seeking of late, but I think they are unfair accusations. I can't talk to people, I can't walk up to a complete stranger behind a counter and ask them for something, I can't tell a waiter what I want to eat or a shop assistant if I can use the fitting rooms. Even amongst my close friends I can't always tell them what I want to do, or even just look them in the eye. I had a panic attack when someone laughed too loudly. Of course everything I do is performed; it's performed because unlike you, I have to actively pull myself together and grit my teeth through everyday life. I have to force myself to do things that involve people and interacting with them; so of course it's going to come off as performed. I do my best. Forgive me for not being perfect.
As for attention seeking, well; everyone's pretty damn attention seeking. Doing anything that differentiates you from a robot makes you attention seeking.Even deliberately avoiding attention is in itself attention seeking. We all crave attention, but we have made seeking attention to be such an obnoxious thing. Women, in particular, are meant to sit quietly and agree politely and hope and pray that some man notices her blending into the wallpaper; we have glorified the wallflower because we're terrified of a woman bold and independent and individual enough to be the life of the party. Men like it when they 'find' someone who is humble and self-effacing and perfect but ignored until now; men don't like women who haven't been ignored, because they're tainted by the male gaze. There is, apparently, something desperate about a woman who puts herself in the limelight; it is because we have made women to be obscene - both 'off stage' and 'disgusting'. The girl everyone likes is someone defined by everyone liking her; if people hadn't happened to take notice she would have been a nobody. I am not like that. Whether you like it or not, whether people notice me in the crowd or not, I will always be a somebody. And we all crave attention; nobodies and somebodies, it's just whether or not we procure this attention without voicing our desire for it that matters, which is ridiculous and hypocritical.
So I am well aware that I'm quite a performed, attention seeking person. But what differentiates attention-seeking Ai Weiwei and attention-seeking Kim Kardashian is sincerity, a sense of integrity; the thing that differentiates artists and performers and activists from reality TV stars is that people like Ai Weiwei refuse to 'pretend to smile'.
I had a very close, very precious relationship with someone that broke because I couldn't pretend to smile. My pretend to smile was to like someone I didn't know; and the only recommendation is that 'everyone likes her' - with the design of pressuring me into liking her, too. I have no doubt she is someone perfectly likeable and worthy of being liked, but the idea that someone is validated as a good or decent or interesting person solely because everyone likes them is ridiculous. I knew a boy who was almost universally liked, too; it did not make him a particularly good person or friend. He was liked because he was so easy to forgive, but that did not make him very forgiving. By circumstance, I could not like this girl; liking her would be a pretend to smile, and an insult to everyone involved. We had nothing in common and far too much to drive us apart. I am perfectly sure she was not very interested in knowing or liking me, either.
I have always considered my relationships totally distinct from each other; it was why I could love a girl and her ex boyfriend equally and at the same time, and there would be no row because they were two individual relationships instead of an attempt to force three people to mutually love each other. You learn, eventually, who and what you can and can't bring up, and it's fine. I have my list of things I'd rather not talk about, too. But that isn't good enough, for some people; to prove how much you care for them, you have to pretend to smile and like someone else, too - their best mate, or their girlfriend, or whoever they consider to be of equal or greater value than you. It's messy and humiliating and inevitably doomed to fail. I will be cordial to whoever you might hold dear, but I am under no delusions that my friends' friends are automatically my friends, too. I should be able to choose who I want to associate with without risking what is precious to me.
And I have watched, too, as people pretend to smile until their falsehoods become realities. They believe whatever is convenient, and twist stories into half-true fairytales in which they are always the hero.
I do not strive to be known to everyone, or liked by everyone. The only people I know who have achieved this are aggressively vapid, and posess no talents either than the ability to pretend to smile. You can claim that all these well liked people are intelligent and outspoken; but only on conventional matters. They only speak loudly because they're singing with the choir. I only want friends who will speak for the silenced, and be unafraid of dissent and defiance; these perfectly likeable, perfectly intelligent, perfectly opinionated people quickly lose their virtues at the face of something remotely controversial. These are not the kind of people I admire, and not this is not the kind of person I aspire to be. I have my faults, but at least people will know and remember me as a person of integrity and sincerity. These perfectly flawless people have flaws, and it is stupid to think that they are immune to human failings. I think the most unforgivable flaw is to be so quick and unrepetant when you pretend to smile.
I know you do not think of me as a particularly honest person, and I know you consider my demons to be great flaws in my character rather than illnesses that I struggle with, every day, with or without your company. But I only lied when I felt obligated to pretend to smile. In all other things I was honest to you, even when it hurt, and even when I knew it would hurt you. I thought someone like you might be deprived of someone to tell it like it is, so I did. I risked everything to be a good friend to you, and when you forced me to pretend to smile I did my best. I know you are not really listening, now; I know your great talent for believing whatever is convenient will make me seem an even greater liar than you thought before. But I don't live for you, anymore. I live for myself. And I know in my heart that I was always as honest and as sincere as I could possibly be, with you. If you don't believe me, then consider why I believed everything you said, why I believed you did everything in good faith, why I took your word for it when you promised me all those promises you broke. I believed you because I was being honest, and when you're honest with someone you cannot help but believe, or hope, that they are being honest, too. But I was not the liar; you were. Your honesty was nothing more than a thin veil to hide your cruelty; when you were being kind, or generous, you were also lying. And now you have broken me like a promise, and I realized too late that just because everyone forgives you doesn't mean that you are worthy of forgiving. You broke me like a promise, but I was honest to you to the very end. I don't need you to hear it or believe it. I am assured in my heart of my own integrity, and that is enough.
For my friends I have forced myself to smile through tears, to bite my tongue and hold my breath; always with the threat that if I did not pretend to smile for them, they would leave. But I cannot, I cannot pretend to smile; and even if I did you would see right through me, because for all my performed attention seeking I am too real and too open and too vulnerable to convincingly lie. And it will always be a lie; I don't see why people get so angry about that. I can't change who I am, all I could do is lie, but then you get angry because the painful lies are not convenient truths. And so I will not pretend to smile, anymore. The only thing that sets me apart from everyone else isn't excessive beauty or excessive wealth or excessive talent. People only become Ai Weiweis and avoid becoming Kim Kardashians by refusing to pretend to smile.
Sunday, September 08, 2013
I think you can regret some of the things you did when you were young and stupid, but I don't think you can regret actually being young and stupid. Some of the most intense, exhilarating, amazing moments will happen when you're young and stupid and don't know any better; and you will never quite be able to bring yourself to repeat those moments because the hangover/heartbreak/depression/bankruptcy that follows them is what jolts you out of being young and stupid. You're only brave enough to do things when you're ignorant of the consequences, and I think everyone needs those moments. Eventually you will stop deathwishing that guy or puking at the smell of that drink, but you will remember the reckless things and destructive people who made you happy.
Saturday, September 07, 2013
Friday, September 06, 2013
Thursday, September 05, 2013
I had to leave my English class to cry. Just for a moment, it all got too much, and so I stood outside in the unseasonably warm almost-September night on the balcony of the old Art building and cried. Two hours later we were no longer friends.
I can't talk when I'm upset; our fights were always defined by long, uncomfortable silences. It freaks people out, because I'm one of those people who has the reputation of one with the inability to shut up, and they think I'm deliberately making them uncomfortable. A lot of people assume that smart people do everything deliberately, but I'm the most reckless and impulsive person I know. Conversely, I mean it when I say I can not talk, rather than I will not talk. I knew something had changed when I was upset and you forced me to talk. Maybe that's when we stopped being friends. But, seeing as I'm not entirely sure when this all started, I guess it makes sense that I'll never know when it actually ended. Does it matter? All that matters is that it ended, and now I am broken.
But not broken enough to not come back into class, sit down, and argue with my classmates. I wanted to sit there in miserable mopey silence, in the full knowledge that 'miserable mopey silence' translates into 'shit tutorial participation marks', but I couldn't. Somebody said something so wonderfully interesting that I had to have my say. Somebody asked me a question and I couldn't help but answer it, honestly, and therefore controversially, and then I couldn't help but get caught up in the whirlwind of discussion. A discussion that was interrupted by you being a dick one last time, but it almost made me forget. It almost numbed everything, blocked everything out. Somewhere in the tearstains I found this incredible focus, and I knew that I was doing the right thing, I was being the right person, and anyone who didn't agree with me on this account had to be left behind. I have no issue with squabbles and conflict; I am not a peaceful sort of person, and neither are you. But I'm on the right path, I'm doing the right thing, and I'll get to the right place, someday. And you weren't there, in that room, where I spoke loudly and proudly even though my voice quavered with tears. That is who I am. I've never been as strong as you said I was, or brave - but what I lacked in bravery I made up for in bravado. My fearlessness is that I do things even though I'm terrified, because I have to; my fearlessness isn't that I'm not afraid, but that I'll do anything in spite of my fear. Maybe you won't be there anymore, to listen to me, to talk to me, to give me advice and to stand with me when they leave me all alone to fend for myself, but I was alone and abandoned then, and I was doing what I do best, at my best, so I know I'll do just fine. I told you once that maybe happiness isn't my lot in life at the moment; definitely having a friend to stand by me isn't my lot in life at the moment. Maybe my lot in life is that my voice will always quaver with tears, but that's okay. Because my lot in life is also to have a voice that is loud and proud, no matter what. And I'm very okay with that.
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