Brief rant
I don’t consider myself weak-willed. I don’t think I’m a pushover, I don’t think I’m an easy sell or a wishy-washy personality. I have a love of compromise, and I value harmony.
But there comes a time when a girl just has to stand her ground and say, “Look, buddy. This is my career, and my education we’re talking about. I need us to do what’s right for me, whether you feel like it or not.”
Of course, nothing is that easy. I can state my viewpoint and give a list of reasons why I stand by it, and still be overridden by someone who thinks that they have the greater insight into the music that wants to be made.
But, sure. That’s fine. I’ll just sit here, miserable and hurt, and not just a little angry, while you call my primary teacher directly to discuss a two-page piece that we could easily present five days from now. Go right ahead, override me, make me feel small and stupid and unskilled.
Thank you, but no thank you for being an inconsiderate, falsely concerned, uncommunicative ass. I really appreciate your efforts to ruin my day.
The end.
Standing in the sunlight, laughing
Why is it always so bittersweet to remember things? I can’t watch old home videos without being miserable, because I’m happy there and I’m happy remembering… but I’m sad thinking that time’s passed. My grandpa’s not here anymore, but he’s there, and laughing; my cousins are all living with their parents in those movies, not off in different cities, some, different states, living their own lives… not that that’s a bad thing. My parents are younger, healthier.
As for me? In those old movies, I have big choices to make, still. I can save the hard decisions and the bad decisions for another day, because in those movies I’m content to live in my small bubble: one that consists of bickering and playing with my baby sister and romps in the backyard with my favorite yellow dog. It’s a perfect thirty minutes of childhood, preserved for anyone who wants to watch.
That’s why it hurts to remember. I can sit here and remember happiness felt this past summertime and just want to cry. Sunlight and green things, and iced coffee with lots of chocolate and extra ice; movies and pool nights, the Happening and farm work and guide rail. I had decisions to make, then, too– but they were a little more complicated than an eight-year-old me sitting on the floor unwrapping birthday presents in the living room.
I wonder, if I had decided to press the issue with him, if I’d be this miserable now. If I’d chosen potential over years of friendship… If I had said, “I think I’m in love with you,” when I thought I did, would we still be fighting? And, fighting over what, exactly– that I lost my temper? that I was sad and tired and stressed? that I was stretched thin to brittle, and closed to shattering?
Is that what this is about? That I was rude? That I’m a terrible friend? I thought you knew me better than that.
And what about all of that “I hate it when my friends change themselves” crap I heard for almost a year? What happens when you change? What then? Do I get to sit here and hate it, like you did? Or am I expected to just roll with it and accept that when I need you, you can’t be there for me like I need you to be, because you’re changing– into someone who has friends who are less serious than I am, more fun, with less to do and less at stake… I’m sorry I’m not spontaneous and fun anymore. I have to focus. I have to. I’m sorry.
This is why it hurts to remember. It’s one thing to remember the man you knew in the summertime, but in the cold winter daylight when things aren’t as perfect, you have to face the boy he decided he was, and any frost that comes along.
Half of a confession (one’s enough for tonight, anyway)
My room is a disaster zone. Half-wrapped gifts are strewn everywhere, flashcards half-studied lie piled on my desk and all of my books and notes for every class I’ve taken this semester are piled on my bed, waiting for me to organize them and decide what I can throw out, what I can use to study from, and what I need to bring home for the break.
I have some Christmas music playing, but it doesn’t help the pressure go away. I have cinnamon coffee freshly brewed on my desk, and that does help. But it also serves as a reminder that I have four days left to prove that I can be a smart, dedicated, and productive person. I feel like this semester has pressed me into a corner, and while cowering in that corner, afraid of the work and the knowledge and failure, I’ve forgotten that I really am someone who loves to learn. I absorb new knowledge. I LIKE IT.
I didn’t like anything about this semester except the German language and diction classes, the excitement Dr. Laitz brought to written theory class, and the door Frau Balsam opened for me (helped me open myself?) into the world of German lied. Those things, and my illegal Christmas lights.
They make me happy now, when I force myself to reflect. They’ll make me happy for the next four days, until I can get the hell out of here and prepare myself for the semester to come in the comfort of my own home for a month. I am looking forward to learning the rest of the rep for Lucy’s and my recital, I am looking forward to teaching again… I am looking forward to being a huge cookie monster and going crazy for Christmas. I haven’t been this thrilled to be celebrating this holiday since I was about nine. I’m not kidding, either. I think it has something to do with the fact that I can now get my parents things: real, useful things. And I can spoil my sister like I’ve always wanted to be: with random, frivolous, happy little things that have no value to the rest of the world, but are so fun and precious between the people who give and receive them. (Although, Michelle, if you’re reading this, I didn’t get you a thing…)
Oh, and I can’t stand this– this pointless rambling about stuff that’s not really pointless, no, but it’s not the heart of the matter. None of it’s why I’m writing, none of it has anything to do with the sick feeling I have, all the time. I can’t even blame it on seasonal depression, because there’s no snow (yet).
I can’t (won’t) talk about the one thing, the thing that’s really wrong with me regarding finals week. That’s not for a public blog. But I can talk about the boy thing. And it might seem a little bit stupid, a little girly. And certainly a lot unimportant, considering you’d think there could be one or two other things I could be thinking about, right?
But no. Instead I sit here wishing that, for once in my life, I could meet someone. Maybe it’s this stupid little hope I have of a sleigh ride in a quiet woods, with gentle snowfall and a knitted scarf. Maybe it’s the hazy daydream of laughing with someone, of caring for them enough to find them a thoughtful gift. Maybe it’s the hopeless romantic in me that pleads for an impromptu hockey game on a frozen pond, or a morning of making hot chocolate with Bailey’s and Christmas cookies, or a night curled up together watching tacky traditional holiday movies.
But those things happen in books. Those things happen in movies. And those things happen mostly in my mind. And they happen with someone who’s not a musician, who understands that there is more to life, and who’s typically about four or five years older than I am. Someone who wants all of me, not just the physical aspect. Someone who at least pretends to have a brain located somewhere other than the place where all boys keep theirs.
I’m not saying I want to get married and have babies. In fact, I turn a little green when I think about that. Honestly it’s too early, and I want a Career (yes, with the capital C). But (and this really is pathetic, because there are bigger worries, in reality): I’m lonely. I haven’t dated anyone in over four years. I’d trade all of the kisses since then for someone that respects women, respects what I do, and is a real person.
And that’s enough my emotional weeding for the evening. I have three finals this week and a recording session tomorrow evening (as well as class), so I should probably go and pretend I’m being productive.
This, and who I used to be
“This, and who I used to be, don’t matter much at all to me
To pin you down, to plant your feet, ‘s a far cry from my destiny”
I don’t know why that quote makes me feel better right now, but it does. If I were to guess, I’d probably say it’s because right now, I feel like a speck. I tiny speck floating in time without much meaning, without much worth. In reality, I know that’s altogether true (and yet, not true): but that’s a thought for another time.
There are a number of things I should be doing right now, but I can’t seem to think much past the fact that my Dakota bracelet is, yet again, gone from my wrist and pressing in on my heart. It wouldn’t press so hard if I had just kept track of it, made sure it was there! The empty space on my wrist wouldn’t feel quite so bare if I had paid more attention to it. I should have realized that it was likely to fall off– hadn’t it gone “missing” two days ago, and ended up on top of my sweater sitting in the chair? HOW it had gotten off or WHY my wrist is so small are questions at the very top of my miserable list of things to do tonight. I checked everywhere in my room. Frisked my coat, emptied the scarf drawer, scoured the floor and my bookshelf and under my bed and rug. Rummaged through my bag until I was sure, absolutely sure, it wasn’t there.
I just don’t understand. I had been checking it, on and off, since that moment two days ago when the bottom of my stomach lurched away and I’d noticed it gone. I’d been thrilled when I’d found that purple bracelet again.
Now, it could only be in the practice room where I’d spent my time from seven to eight; or else in the street? on the floor of the dorm lobby? in front of the main desk? I wouldn’t know where to begin searching on this campus: the likelihood of it NOT being trampled or picked up and tossed by cleaning staff is really, really slim.
I asked my mother to mail me another one. If I have to staple it to my damn arm I’ll be keeping this one.
The only upside to this is, I think of Dakota constantly. I remember him how he used to be, and how he is now. I remember how he looked when I saw him with Kenny and Jon on Sunday (so much better than the time before, as always!); I think of him as I sit here now, and I think of him every time I look down to see where my bracelet is supposed to go. I think of him, and I toss out hope with my heart. And look forward to a time when he can cut my bracelet off of my wrist himself.
And here we go again
Well, back in Rochester. Nineteen days until I see the raging Cattaraugus again. Not that I saw it this time… but whatever. Not the point.
I’m taking a break from decorating my room for break. I’d say I was decorating for Christmas, but that would be a lie: a.) I wont be here for Christmas; b.) I enjoy calling it “Exzasmus” too much, in the style of my father; and c.) I don’t really feel like we celebrate Christmas here. It’s really so much more of a “holiday”– different beliefs and different feelings toward the season combine into one big muddle of sparkling lights and cranky snow-goers. But it’s still a happy time. And it’s still deserving of the little Charlie Brown tree I’m about to set up and adorn with the ornaments Michael sent me from Deutschland two years ago.
Also, after that, Paulina and I are going to celebrate the beginning of the next three weeks (of hell) by opening a few presents of our own, early. One of them starts with a B and ends with aileys, and it has caramel in it. Combine that with chocolate? Can’t wait. Seriously.
Anyway, I still have packing to do so I guess I’ll quit being so excited about beverages and finish up here. Only nineteen more days…
Finally the little meltdown
Whoa, yep. Here it comes. Here we go. Finally the little meltdown.
I lost my Single Game of Therapeutic Tetris because of this. I was on level five. For me, that’s actually serious failure.
Look, I can’t help it that I am an emotional person. See? There, I’ve said it. I’ve finally confessed. I am a blatantly emotional person. It’s not a crime. It’s how I’m made. It’s a genetic accident that has led to extremely powerful feelings when I don’t want them and mentally know I sure as hell don’t need them (interfering with my daily life).
But on the other hand, those deeply felt extremely passionate reactions are the reason I can write and mean it. They are the reason I can sing about love and have it reach someone. They are the reason I can bring life to old volumes of music that have been around for centuries. They are the reason I can love so fiercely, and with everything I have.
I care about what happens to my friends. I care when I hurt someone’s feelings. I care when I feel I am being used to get to someone else. I care when people I thought were my very best friends treat me like shit.
I care that I am so uncomfortable speaking up when I feel that I have been treated like shit. Why I am walked over so easily? Why am I constantly taken advantage of?
Is it because I like it? Is it because I want to feel needed by the people I love?
Or is it because that, somewhere along the line, I stopped caring that I treat some of my friends better than they treat me?
I think I just love too much. I love so much that I don’t think before I speak when it comes down to protecting what I feel ought to be protected. I don’t gauge the consequences when I can’t take it any more, and that’s why I can’t stand up for myself. Because it usually turns out with me looking like some know-it-all, high and mighty bitch. When really, I just read a lot, so my bitchiness is well thought out and (for the most part) grammatically correct.
I hate myself for caring. I have thought to myself, why can’t I be someone normal, who doesn’t give enough of a crap to speak her mind about something important? Why can’t I just shut up and keep my advice to myself? I get myself in trouble for being honest. For being absolutely one hundred percent honest with someone I thought I could trust… and then I try to fix it, which is almost just as bad.
What’s wrong with me?
But I can’t change. I won’t change. I won’t even go back and proofread this because even if it makes no sense I refuse to give an inch on this… this entire stupid situation. It’s so petty and I’m done. I just want to go home.
If music be the food of love (sing on)
I had an audition today!
It was *just* for the Messiah sing that is apparently supposed to happen at Eastman every year, but they didn’t do it last year and now I have auditioned, and it was a blast! Granted I felt like projectile vomiting everywhere before hand, but it was so fun!
I sang my very first recit ever (and it was fun!) and I sang a little aria (also fun!) and then I left (the very best part!), but I was happy with myself, and with my singing. It’s all a balancing act, almost a power struggle between my body, that mostly knows what it should be doing, my mind, that tries to remind the body but sometimes short-circuits, and my nerves, that never cease to attempt sabotage of the worst and most mutinous kind, every time.
But I sang, and now I want to sing some more, and that’s ultimately why I’m here. So, I’m going to go practice. Because I’m happy.
Reflections on stars and the moon
I’ll preface this by saying, I don’t really know why I’ve thought about these things lately. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d probably figure that it’s part of some larger circle that needs to return and resolve. But anyway.
At some point within the past three years, I’ve realized that the boy I gave most of my innocence to wasn’t the person I thought he was. He never pretended to be someone else: no, he didn’t pretend. But I did. I saw the hurt and the sadness in him and I wanted to fix it. I saw the scars she had inflicted and the wounds he didn’t want to admit his parents had left him with. I saw a sharp mind and an experienced, worldly soul and I wanted to help him grow. I wanted him to be the man I’d always read about: the one who swoops in to sweep the strong, independent, outspoken and vibrant woman off of her feet.
Well, here I am, nearly four years older and a hell of a lot stronger. And more independent, and hopefully more vibrant; although I can’t comment for sure on the outspoken because I feel like I do an awful lot of listening these days. But I’m smarter, and I suppose that lately it’s struck me just how much stronger.
He was eighteen then; I was fifteen. I was precocious, sure, with quite a bit of educated reading under my belt and a pressure to be better, to learn about the world.
He had been cheated on and, I guess, manipulated. His parents were divorced and I’m sure he’d seen a little too much of the world.
Those aren’t excuses, for him or for me. I guess I could fall back on my old quantification: I never said I loved him; I never gave him everything; I never expected too much, especially toward the end.
But that’s not entirely right. I never said I loved him but I allowed him to manipulate me, to make me think I was less than I am. I allowed him to tell me things about myself that weren’t true. I let him steer me away from my family and my friends simply because he wasn’t that close to his and I wanted to be with him. I gave him my trust. I gave him my loyalty. I gave him my time, my being, little parts of my heart that I’m proud to say I reclaimed and then some.
Long story short, I think it’s really interesting to see how capable I really am of looking back on the only “real” relationship I’ve ever had to see the issues I’d viewed as such complexities then become clear as day, now.
Now I sit here in my room in the dorm building of a school that is leagues and leagues above and beyond what I’d even dreamed of attending four years ago. I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life, but I charged headfirst into that with the full intention of making the most of myself in the time I’ve been given here. I’m doing something I love, and am going to continue to. I am capable of doing almost anything.
And I all I can think of right now is how much has changed, how much I’ve learned in a few short years. How much I’ve grown. How much my life could have been like the song “Stars and the Moon” from “Songs for a New World.”
And it never changed
And it never grew
And I never dreamed
And I woke one day
And I looked around
And I thought, “My God…
I’ll never have the moon.”
But I’m not. That’s not me, but it could have been. But I don’t think I need someone who can give me the moon, as romantic as that might seem. I’ve grown up surrounded by strong women who take the moon for themselves, and I intend to be one of them. I’ll have the stars and the moon for myself.
Can’t think of a title right now because I don’t want to be late
I don’t know what my problem is. First I’m annoyed by workaholics who take a little too much outward pride in being workaholics. Then I’m pissed off because people who clearly have ability don’t make any effort to hone their talent. I include myself in that group sometimes.
And most recently, most prominently, I get so very irritated with the pious few who can’t seem to keep their obsession with God in their pants.
Let me rephrase. Is it really necessary to put Bible verses as your facebook status? Because let me just say, as someone who’s pretty impartial most days, you’re not going to inspire me to start up Bible-reading or hardcore prayer just because you’re John 3:16ing away in the social media. Seriously.
Is it really that important that you dress conservatively or treat everyone else with a heightened sense of “I’m better than you because I have a religion that is the right religion and you can be better than everyone else too if you give up your sinner’s lifestyle and join me”? Is it really that mandatory to wear blingy cross jewelry or carry your Bible around?
I thought the whole point of having a relationship with God was to use his love to love others (and okay, repent your sins and go to Heaven and all that jazz). But if the current mentality is “be obnoxious about your faith and see how many people like it and join in,” I hesitate to ask how many new followers you end up with.
Personally, it’s not appealing to be part of it… Christianity seems way too much like a clique, an exclusive group that you can only be part of if you’re willing to piss all of the nonbelievers off. I don’t want to join in, I don’t want to hear what you have to say because you are, quite simply, annoying as hell (if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase).
And maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just close-minded and a bitch. Maybe I just can’t accept that this religion IS actually better than all the rest. Maybe I can’t just face facts: that you have to discriminate and be an obnoxious witness in order to have a successful relationship with God.
Or maybe, there needs to be an adjustment. Because I’m pretty sure that I’m a very open-minded person and although I admit to the bitchiness a great deal of the time, it takes a lot to really piss me off. And this cliquey Christian nonsense? Yeah. It pisses me off.
Urge
My room is a disaster zone. This head cold I’ve been hanging out with for almost a week now is showing no inclination to leave. I haven’t made a great deal of progress learning new music, although things are starting to improve. And I haven’t done laundry in almost two weeks.
I’m lazy. But slowly growing more motivated. It’s one of those things that comes and goes for me, and I’m worried that I’ll be so excited about POTENTIALLY being capable of making real steps toward improvement that I’ll just spend all of my energy and end up pathetic and back where I started. I’m determined that that won’t be that case, though. Honestly it might come down to sheer willpower… which I have in abundance some days and seriously lack on others.
I go home in nine days, though, so hopefully that will act as a spur, of sorts. Speaking of, I should probably stop wordpressing and start to pick up the haphazard piles of clothing and books that are strewn all over my floor…
Typing this with my eyes closed….
I am so tired right now. My eyes are bleary, my head is fogged, I’m a little disoriented and I’m a smidgeon loopy. Not from drinking, though. I’ve never been too tired to drink before, so tonight was really interesting. As this four o’ clock am hits, I’ll have been working/thinking/active for eighteen hours straight. What the hell?
Tonight we had Boo Blast: the Eastman Halloween party. It was at the Radisson (a new location for us) and around 300 people were expected to attend. It was nice, but exhausting. (I was Little Dead Riding Hood, for anyone who may have wondered.)
I also lost my Dakota bracelet there. My bag was partially open for some of the time, and I think it might have gotten knocked over and some of my things tipped out. But then again, I’m really freaking tired, so maybe even though I looked in every pocket of that bag, and all around my room, that it fell out somewhere unusual, or maybe I found it and placed it somewhere I forget about now.
I’m even too tired to feel like shit for it, even though I will (and do, mentally). I’m such an irresponsible ass.
ANYWAY I should go before the seriously atrocious grammar and punctuation (whatever) get the better of me. Guten Wochenende…….
Forecast
I took a nap today.
That’s new territory for me this semester. Generally I’m not tired enough to let myself nap, and generally the “chilling out” time I give myself is enough to recharge. Also, I tend to feel like shit after I wake up from naps… so I try not to take them. But today I was really tired and already lounging around in my room, and it was kind of an accident.
I woke up and I felt, to my great surprise, pretty good. I made myself dinner and made some German flashcards and IPAed some new things (all while watching The Mentalist, but don’t judge). I then skyped with my favorite Marine since he heads out to combat training tomorrow, which is where he’ll be at for a month.
I guess the entire point there was that I took a nap today, so I’m not really sleepy… but since writing that sentence originally I’ve changed my mind a little. It is almost two o’clock after all… Nap or no nap it’s likely I’ll have issues dragging myself out of bed tomorrow morning. Or, this morning. Whatever.
That said, I’m going to go put away the laptop, open my window a crack (it’s stuffy in here) and curl up in bed. Only three classes tomorrow, though, so that will make life a little more cheerful, and maybe I’ll grab myself a Java’s sandwich after Diction. Happy possibilities, even though it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.
Anyway, I’m done rambling… gute Nacht!
Short angry paragraph that changes absolutely nothing, and a happy birthday wish
It’s not fair. It’s not fair that someone so full of life and promise should be reduced to lying on a hospital bed generating bedsores and infections with a traumatic brain injury at nineteen. It’s not fair that a mother should have to yearn and hope and pray and grieve for her child all at the same time– isn’t just plain grief enough? Isn’t it horrible and wrenching and downright heartbreaking enough without the hope? Without the constant pull that maybe, maybe someday her baby will be back the way he was? Or even maybe say “Mom, I love you” one more time. It just isn’t right. It isn’t fair.
Every day I think about you and your family, and mentally send the best positivity, strength, peace, and luck your way. Every day. You deserve to get better. You have so much to live for and in order to do that you need to heal. I know that takes time and patience but honestly you’re a strong guy and your family needs you. You’ve come a long way and we all support you. We all love you and miss you so fucking much. I wish I could go visit you with everyone else today. Happy birthday, Dakota.
Guten Abend, mein Knab…
Today was decent. I felt the need to get myself organized, so to provide myself with that extra boost (that I most definitely was not getting on my own), I signed up for a coaching with the wonderful Berri. She and I talked about my preoccupation with “other things” (like, credit-bearing homework) but it was nice to hear someone who’s not a peer tell me flat-out that I am here to sing, and that’s what’s most important. It’s different from hearing friends say it over and over, and it’s different than telling it to yourself. It’s fact, coming out of Berri’s mouth, and from anyone else you respect and trust.
It’s about getting myself organized, which I did, and planning out rep absorption logically (currently in process). Speaking of which, Paulina just referred me to another sassy Italian piece, so I’m going to IMSLP that shit before I lose my groove. Guten Abend…
You can while away the hours (like me)
Apparently the only useful skill I have right now is procrastination. I don’t want to unpack all of my clothes because I don’t have music on. I don’t want to turn music on because I don’t know what I want to listen to. I don’t want to listen to anything that’ll make me think of home for too long, because I miss it.
I called Grandma tonight, and that was good. Mom spent an extra three hours with me in Rochester helping me solve my phone dilemma. What more could I have wanted?
I still have my Deutsch to do and I am skyping with Kenneth in less than an hour. Ironically my German homework is a Familienstammbaum. Kühl. Not.
Anyway I guess I’d better get working on it. I’ve only been to Facebook and Twitter twenty times in the past twenty-six minutes….
Tear down the house
I decided to go with a new theme tonight because
a.) I can’t sleep– I have too much on my mind, AND I’m going home tomorrow, so I’m really excited
b.) It’s time for a little change, and
c.) I’ve been neglecting this outlet for too long.
I know, it’s been busy, and blah blah freakin’ blah. So what? So I don’t have five or ten or fifteen minutes– or thirty seconds– to write? Seriously, it helped my mental and emotional health SO MUCH this summer when I was journaling on paper. To think it wouldn’t help to write my thoughts on my blog is just silly.
So here I am again, with a new theme and a little pizzazz and even less sleep.
I felt guilty not blogging on my birthday (the 30th), but to be honest I was a little emotional during the day, and that night was an absolute wreck. Definitely did not feel like writing after that. I felt like shit, in almost every way possible.
But I suppose it’s time to talk about that a little bit. So I did six extra or so too many birthday shots. My normal limit is four– five if I’m feeling crazy. Blame it on peer pressure and one– I repeat, ONE– night of reckless decision-making. That’s all it takes for me to learn a lesson, I promise. I’m not stupid or careless. But I was missing my family and excited to be with my friends, and I’ll confess to having a natural inclination toward vodka.
So I was a little reckless. Not one of my friends took care of me until I was back in my room– and even then, I barely remember getting there. It was actually repulsive. I ended up with a boy in my room that I didn’t want there and a choice to have sex or not have sex. I say that bluntly because that was the decision. I can honestly admit that I was so drunk I don’t remember how I phrased things or how loud I was– but I can clearly recall telling this boy before we had even left the party that I was Not Having Sex With Him. Period, no question. It’s highly probably that other people heard me telling him this. I wanted there to Be No Question.
Well, when he found his way into my bedroom, he told me he’d thought I was kidding.
I tried to explain that I was waiting for love. I tried to explain that I had not had the greatest experiences before with boys in general and that type of pressure. I tried to explain that all I wanted to do now was cuddle and sleep off the vodka.
After spending I-don’t-even-know-how-long trying to explain, I gave up and left him in my room, and, frustrated with myself and with the evening (and with the fact that there was a boy in my room who was demanding sex and wouldn’t leave), I went over to Katie and John’s. They returned with me as amused reinforcements, but I was really upset, simply because I HAVE been pressured in that way before, and it’s humiliating and degrading. And unacceptable, whether you’re drunk or sober or scared or experienced. No means no, and should always mean no. Every time.
Finally with a little peer pressure, the boy left and I retired to my room with Katie. There I basically wept away the early hours of the morning after my nineteenth birthday. I couldn’t help myself: everything is more emotional when you’re drunk, anyway. And in all seriousness, if I wasn’t stronger than the boy I’d had in my room, I might have been raped. Like I said, it only takes one experience for me to learn. My previous experience led me to refuse this boy at any cost, even my pride. This most recent awful night taught me how dangerous birthday shots can be… and all joking aside, it taught me to know just how much I can trust my friends to get me out of certain situations. To get me home safely without making bad decisions: not one bit. To keep me safe once I am home and support me in my own choices: rather a lot. It’s interesting, anyway.
But so. Yeah. That was my horrendous October 1st. I was extremely sick when I woke up, and for most of the day. I guess it might look like the average weekend of your every day college student to some? Maybe. But for me, it just wasn’t a good fit. I like to share a bottle of wine with friends, and a couple of beers at a party are just fine. And normally, shots are my favorite when it comes to drinking. But this was too much, and it led to really unpleasant things. I disappointed myself.
But it could have been so, so much worse. I could have had drunken unprotected sex with a boy I barely know (and a really short, kind of scrawny one at that). Bad decision. I could have compromised myself in a way that I vowed I wouldn’t, not yet.
And I closed a certain circle, in a way… I took back what had been taken from me. I knew what I wanted– or rather, didn’t want– and I didn’t let guilt or obligation or shock or even flattery rampage over that. The fact that I was flat-out wasted and able to maintain the willpower not to have meaningless drunk sex has to stand for something, I figure. And it might make me a prude or a tease but it’s my body. I’d said from the very beginning that I didn’t want it– I was honest. And that’s all you can ask for. Although I respect everyone and tend to feel bad if I hurt people, I’m sure this boy feels nothing but a bruised ego, and I can’t be sorry for that. Also, Katie informed me later that day that he’d said he “forgave me.” Then I made the decision to forget about him completely and allow him to go fuck himself if he chose. That clinched my original choice not to give a damn or to feel bad.
This past year, I’ve discovered that it is vital to love and respect yourself. The decisions I make are mine, for my own reasons, and I answer to no one but myself and my maker– whether that be God or the Creator, or some Great Spirit that’s the best and the brightest. I can’t help but be satisfied that the person I’ve become has enough strength to know her mind and her heart even while seriously inebriated. That might seem a little strange, but since I never plan on being that drunk again, that means that I’m stronger than even I realize. And that’s reassuring, considering life is only going to get harder as the years go on.
Little post-departmental spewing of miserable words
Why is it SO HARD for me to fail? It’s worse when no one else can see it but my teacher: that means no one else noticed how much I really have to offer, and how much more I still needed to give.
“Die Nacht” is so important to me. Not only is it a favorite of my teachers’, it’s a favorite of mine. The story is beautiful, the setting is beautiful. It just needed so much more than I gave it today. Part of it was nerves, part of it was energy. I had been so revved up all day long for this performance: it needed to be worthy of being second-to-last on the program. It needed to be clear enough to understand, it’s message had to be there.
I had shown my professor my dress and warmed up before the recital. She thought I was going to nail it. Then I sat through six or seven other performances before going to the green room. I think that might have been my problem. I didn’t nail it. I sang it with expression but with half of my voice, it feels like now. With only half of my love. I guess it makes me feel better that my teacher said my accompanist was underplaying it and undersupporting me as well. That makes it less all my fault. But it’s still a step back for me, it feels.
These performances only come once a semester, if that, and I disappointed myself and my teacher in this one. Also, I guess I was just looking forward to rounding out the week I go home with a great performance, and that didn’t happen. Not by my standards. And my standards aren’t very high: it’s usually, if I sing well, I’m on a post-performance thrill for the rest of the evening. Now, I just feel a sense of dread and disappointment, much like the one I’ve been carrying with me since Saturday morning. Maybe I thought, if I do this well, it will take away the parts of myself I currently don’t like. Maybe it will fix me, If I can sing how I know I can sing, in front of my department.
But I couldn’t. If I had done that in an audition, and undersung it by so much, it would have been a mess and I wouldn’t have gotten hired or cast. I wanted to leave a favorable impression on the voice staff; I wouldn’t be surprised if not a one of them gave me a second thought besides “Her outfit looked good” (which, it did). It’s good that I’m not doing the opera this year because there is so much more I need to work on.
It is just so hard to fail at something I worked so hard for. And for it to turn out mediocre? When I’ve previously sung it so, so well? I just wish I could grab time, grab it hard and twist its arm and make it take me back. Make it give me a second chance to do it again. I wish that so much, and I know it’s only because I care so deeply and so ferociously about what I’m doing.
And that makes it worse. Because I do care so much, and I rarely get a chance to perform, and I love it when it goes how it should.
I can do better. And that’s the end of it.
It goes on and on, on and on, on and on (etc.)
So the earth keeps spinning and life keeps changing and here I am blogging about it.
My birthday is next week. The semester’s already nearly five weeks in and I’ve been to the gym every day for nearly twenty days this months. I’m loving German, enjoying but sucking at theory, and getting the help where I need it so I can understand the beautiful things that are going to shape me into a musician worth knowing. I’m trying to look for time where I normally wouldn’t, and also learning how to balance the mental health time that’s so very necessary to keeping a busy mind sane and efficient.
On a greater scale, my family’s nearly all grown up and a few branches have started families of their own. Life has taken my cousins all over the country; deaths have brought them all to one place again. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I would have ever gotten the chance to meet some of these people otherwise. When I asked my grandmother to show me, finally, my great-great-grandmother’s autobiography, I discovered some piece of where I come from, some part of the family legacy that I and my sister and my cousins will build upon.
I’m living on my own (minus a few bills that I would otherwise have to pay on my own, but what the hell, that money is all being sucked into this thing I like to call “tuition,” anyway). I’m creating plans, choosing things for myself, making my own coffee… I’ve made my own coffee for years but it’s different when the coffee pot you use is something you bought with your own money, and the coffee you make is again something you purchased yourself. I’m almost a real person. That’s what it feels like to me, right now.
But life will go on, and we’ll have to see if my being almost a real person changes as it does.
ten thousand words