Top Three Issues of Bitchery and Whineology

Well, it's that time of the night where I sit down, crack my knuckles *pop**pop**POP* "Ow!", and get my write on. I could do some work on my Macbeth essay which determines my final grade in lit...but screw that.

Sometimes, when I feel really shitty and unhappy about my Top Three Issues of Bitchery and Whineology (my family, my weight, my insecurity issues regarding everyone else in my life), I have a little trick to make myself feel better. I think about five years from now, or ten years from now, or even one year from now...and remind myself that NONE of this shit will matter then.

It sounds like a really weird strategy, but it actually works. So my dad and stepmom are fighting so much right now that I just want to whack them both with a two-by-four and then cry; so what? A year from now, I won't even remembered that happened. So I feel like a ridiculous blob who no one really likes and who will never be loved because I'm seriously disgusting to look at and embarrassing to be seen with; so what? I might be feeling like that in a year, but I'm trying to change that right now (stumbling in the attempt, but TRYING, dammit), and hopefully the crappy way I feel and look now won't matter in a year. So I have a paranoia attack and become convinced that random strangers hate me and everyone barely tolerates having me around because I'm uninteresting and really really annoying and I don't have the social life of my stepsister; so fucking what? I won't feel like that when I'm next out having fun with awesome people, and in a year I won't remember those thoughts.

Yes, I angst a lot, I KNOW, I KNOW. But the thing is, I am a screwed up person, and I fully admit to that. I like to function the best I can, and that includes using a lot of little tricks to keep me from curling up in the fetal position and pretending to be a couch cushion so I don't have to interact with the rest of humanity. For instance, if I need to remember something, I make it into an acronym. Scoop the kitty litter? Litter Is Needing Excavation = LINE. See? It works! (It's also how I got through Algebra 2 HN.)

But the point is, I try to keep things in perspective. In a way, that makes me a little sad. I'm a teenager; I shouldn't be getting comfort from the future, I should be trying to enjoy myself right now. Also, keeping perspective is somewhat of an adult habit, due to longer lifetimes...I feel too young to have to do something like that. Except I'm not too young at all; not in my head, anyways. True, there's a lot I don't know and a lot I haven't experienced, but that doesn't mean I can't be mature. Goddamn it, I've been playing therapist to my dad ever since I was 11 and therapist to my friends since kindgarten, though I only really mind the former; if listening to other people's problems hasn't forced me to grow up faster than usual, a painful divorce, doubly painful remarriage on my father's part, abandoment/trust issues because my grandma died with absolutely no warning and blew my family to pieces, having to deal with pissant kids all through school, and years of sucky friendships has done the rest. Oh, emotional abuse, you and I are good buddies, aren't we? I just wouldn't be the person I am if you hadn't been hanging around since I turned...hmm, maybe 3? How the time does fly. And my, how I can whine when I want to.

I'm eager to grow up, maybe too eager. I want to get out, get free, figure stuff out without everyone I've grown up with and changed with and learned with influencing what I think. I want to keep my old friends and make new ones, and I want to rely on myself for a change. I want to get jobs, lose them (not too many, though), find love, lose it or keep it, have kids...I can't wait to have kids. I have no idea where I'll go in life, but if I'm ever financially and emotionally stable at all, I'm going to have at least one child. I just know that I want a kid...maybe it's for the same reason as my dad. Maybe I want unconditional love. But I hope that's not the reason, or not the only reason anyway.

By the way...I know my dad loves me. I know I love him. And I know that we are two grievously fucked up people.

Two final notes before I head to bed (early, YEE!): first of all, I recommend that everyone out there buy the West Side Story Original Broadway Cast album from iTunes. Though for the actual songs I prefer the movie version for the most part (with the exception of "One Hand, One Heart"), there are some instrumental pieces that are so beautiful they make me ache. I've been listening to the adagio orchestrations of the Finale and Somewhere all night.

Seriously, Leonard Bernstein is a genius composer. There's actually a story in my family: my dad's mother, a particularly awesome lady I called Mops, was once at Tanglewood, this big music place up in the Berkshires. One day while she was there, Leonard Bernstein came around, and...well, Mops was not bad looking, let's put it that way. NO, nothing dirty, but he did lie with his head in her lap. His genius, brilliant, amazing head.

Second thing: today, after months of not reading and trying to read and struggling through solid chapters of traveling descriptions and no dialogue and Tolkien-speak and on and on and on...after 1180 pages, I have finished the Lord of the Rings. Okay, I haven't, but the goddamn Ring went into the volcano, so I'm past that point anyway. These books are actually quite incredible, anyone with a taste for epicness, heart-racing moments, beautiful poetry, and the best character ever written by any human being (Samwise Gamgee, the hobbit) should read them. However, be prepared for loads of descriptions about every bush, tree, horizon, skunk, chipmunk, rock, blade of grass, mountain, valley, river, sky, cloud, clover, flower, and dandelion fluff that our Fellowship venture across in their travels. Seriously. You think I am kidding? I am NOT. In fact, I will do a Lord of the Rings post tomorrow. But not right now. G'night, loves!