when things go wrong
I’m a little tired of life. I’m tired of stressing out about everything, I’m tired of trying so hard, but I’ve barely started, i know I’ve barely started. i don’t know if i can handle a life full of worrying about bills, that’s why i wanted to make sure i would be doing something i loved and get paid a lot to do it, i know that sounds selfish, but i grew up in a working class family and know what it looks like to have nothing. in my anthropology class we’re reading an ethnographie about the working class, I’ve been reading it and thinking, “holy crap! i know exactly what they’re talking about… that’s my life written down” a little bit of the book is out dated because this was written in the 70’s but, holy shit… i always thought that i was middle class, not so, i am from a working class. the working poor…. i feel so out of place at my school, we’re studying this because they believe that Mills Women should have a look at the less privileged classes, and i just have to say that yea we weren’t privileged, but at least we know the value of a fucking dollar!
i went back to my home town and stayed with my boyfriends parents for a few days (i was reading the ethnograpie up there, so it made things a little worse) and i seriously ended up crying the first night i was there because of their hospitality, and how they just take me in at a moments notice. they think it’s amazing when i clean up after myself (they raised 2 boys) and i think its amazing that they took me into their hearts so fast.. i wish i could do more. my boyfriend really doesn’t recognize how lucky he is sometimes, mostly he bitches that he doesn’t get along with his family or that he didn’t have enough anything while growing up… i wish he had seen how i grew up. i never felt deprived, but then, i knew exactly how hard my family had to work to keep afloat, i couldn’t want anything that would bring disappointment…. David, well he was given pretty much everything he asked for, maybe not the highest quality, but he got it, and yet he still felt wanting….he felt unloved… but that is so not the case. his family loves each other a lot, i can see it plain as day, but i guess it takes an outsider…
being in my hometown brings back a flood of memories, but not many that my mind dwell on when I’m actually there are all that great. P*ville gives me a lot of bad memories and i just can’t stay there for more than a few days with out getting depressed, even if i spend my time with those who love me, i can’t stay there… too much was lost of me there… i may be in the ghetto here, but at least i haven’t lost anything. i guess i should clarify what i mean by “things lost” things is innocence, i think you can get the rest from there… right now i HAVE to listen to the music that i lost myself in when i lived up there so i can escape from the memories… on the 2 hour drive back down today i had my music up on full blast and let myself disappear into it, screaming at the top of my lungs so i could finally breathe easy. nobody really realizes how tight my chest gets, how withdrawn from the world i get when i head up there, i try to disappear into myself. i miss the beauty of the landscape, but unfortunately the beauty of the area is marred by the black shapes that haunt my memories. yes of course i have good memories there… but recent years have proven to me how much of those wonderful memories have been coloured by the shadows of my past, and as depressing as that is i have to live with the fact that everything i do now is going to be coloured by the few incidents that made me the way i am. people who haven’t lived through the experiences i have cannot comprehend what I’m saying…i can only give examples of good things to try and help you see the bleakness of the feelings. i am trying to become my own person and forget the bad things of the past so i can move on, but unfortunately hat means i have to leave behind many of my friends who cannot grow with me, or accept the ways in which I’ve grown. I’m like a tree growing over barbed wire, I’m covering the scar and the barbs until they become a part of me, and then nothing…it will disappear from all sight and it will truly be a part of the person that is SYDNEY, but not resented because the sore has healed and i can accept it. for now though, the wound is still fresh because someone moved the barbed wire to get a better look at the damage. these are thing i wish my friends could understand, hell these are things i wish my boyfriend could understand, but again, you only know it if you’ve lived through it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~Later~~~~~~~
i just picked up one of the girls in my dorm from the airport, as i was driving around the .8 mile loop again and again waiting for baggage claim to get her her luggage, i watched the people coming and going. i watched mothers hug their daughters goodbye, i watched elderly sisters kiss eachother good bye (for the last time?) i watched young couples be reunited, college kids returning from spring break, i watched kids wait for their father, one, two three laps later i finally see him pick them up with a very young blonde wife, the kids look horrified… i watched friends, lovers, siblings, coworkers say hello and goodbye, i watched little peices of their stories and wonderred, what would they seeof my life, would they see a college kid picking up another college kid, a young woman picking up some friend or sister, or would they just not pay attention to the nondescript honda that accidently parked in the handicap zone to pick up a girl at baggage claim.
more to come…..
Jeff Mayhem said,
March 30, 2009 at 6:17 am
I love you sis…..
theretiredpsychonaut said,
March 30, 2009 at 11:50 am
It sounds like you’re having a rough time. Hang in there, you know that nothing last forever – and this goes for bad things, too.
Devon said,
March 30, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Syd, you parked in the handicap zone? You are a whole entirely different class of awesome if you can have the cojones to picked up a friend in handicap parking.
You have always been one of those kinds of people that I’ve looked at and thought, “She’s a nice girl, she deserves a lot of good things in the times to come.”
As it is evident, good things never come when you need ‘em the most. 2009 has been a really shit year for a lot of us, especially at the beginning of it. There’s all these sayings about, “what we do and the courses of actions we take in our paths define who we are” and other philosophies that say that in order to be something, you just do it.
In my opinion, yeah what you do determines who you are, but there’s so many damned possibilities and unseen forces behind the actions that people take. A man gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something he’s dreamed of since he can remember, but despite his innermost desires, he declines that very same opportunity and accepts that he can not have it. Why would a man do that, one could ask? Unless specifically told what the reason was by the man, no one could really truly know why he did that. Maybe he did it for himself, maybe he did it for someone else? For whatever reason he did it, he did it because he ultimately decided that it was how it was to be, through his own mind.
You are who you make yourself out to be. You can try looking at yourself through other’s eyes, and through the eyes of those who truly understand you, but there’s only one person in the entire world that will understand you, and that is yourself. That concept is so mind boggling because there’s actually people who do NOT understand themselves.
I don’t even understand myself sometimes, why I do the things I do. I look back at the actions I’ve taken in the past and thought, “….That doesn’t seem like something I’d do.”
But in all reality, it was exactly like something I’d do, because that was just how I am… I don’t follow a straight line from point A to point B. Sometimes I stray off the path.
Life is harsh, but the will of a human being is stronger. Why else have we lived on this planet for so long? Why else have we established ourselves as the most technologically advanced race? Because. We. Can.
You’re an awesome person, Syd. I know it sounds half-assed because we weren’t the closest of people, but if I was to point out people who were badass and didn’t do anything to piss me off in anyway or just make me sour, you’d be one of those people.
Keep your spirits up, lass. Yo brutha Jeff and his brutha frum nutha mutha Devon got yo back.
constelation said,
March 31, 2009 at 2:30 am
i know too loverly. I know how lost and heavy you feel. Growing apart is just part of life. We have grown apart but I like to think that our friendship is as strong as ever, just in different ways. you are strong, probably the strongest person i know. Life is rough, life sucks, but I know you will get through it and i know you will achieve your dreams.