ever since I was little I have been coming home from long trips abroad. my aunt lives in the Caribbean, so my sister and I were shipped off every summer to spend time with our cousins. like summer camp, we would look forward to the trip and pack and write letters home. now, I choose to spend my time traveling the world, instead of making a living or being productive in any main stream sense of the word.
it’s the first time in a long time that I’m looking forward to going home. it’s not that I miss my parents or my sister at an unusual level. after all, thanks to skype and email I talk to them every week. but I’m anticipating the familiar moments when I first get home.
getting picked up at the airport. finding my bags on the baggage carousel and calling from the payphone. trying to get to the right exit door, and finally seeing the car pull up. the big fat airport hug. the occasional tear, and the rush to exit the loading zone to quiet the honking cars behind us.
the long talk on the ride home about my trip. the new jersey turnpike, the pollution, my renewed feeling of disappointment in my home state. seeing exit 131 and leaving the parkway. turning up the short cut street. almost home! the moments my heart sinks as I notice yet another new development going up in my home town.
the steep incline of the car as we pull up the driveway. seeing my dog run to me – I forgot about you! I say to myself. lugging the suitcase through the house to my room, knowing that it will stay in the corner of my room for at least a couple weeks.
the nice dinner out with my sister, her boyfriend and my parents. and the passing out of presents. the retelling of my adventures over dinner, and the updates on gossip from home over dessert.
the calling up of my friends who still live in new jersey and the get together at our local bar.
my sister pressuring me to hang out all the time, and my general malaise and desire to do nothing but catch up on sleep and missed TV.
not this time, though. I think this home coming may be a little different than the usual ones. this time I’m actually missing home. this time I won’t be needing of a rest – I’ve been doing a lot of sitting on my ass here in songyuan.
though like most of the other returns home as of late, this time too, I will be home only for a short while before my next adventure begins. this time I won’t be going too far away. I’ll be off to boston, a mere four hour drive from home. going to graduate school, and I am really looking forward to it.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
memories of knoxville
I like to travel.
I love looking back and realizing that in this lifetime, I have lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.
I lived in Knoxville for four months, working on a short term environmental campaign. I manage to become friends with a large group of laid back and fun-loving college students and posse who identified themselves as anarchists. I played soccer with a group of them every Thursday afternoon, and went to their music shows on Saturday nights.
their headquarters, so to speak, was a large victorian house at the end of its own tree-lined street. it was a communal house where residents paid the mortgage, not rent. the front yard had a large climbing a rock wall attached to a tree. i made an impression when i climbed it in a skirt, on my first visit. at the house, they threw some great parties, which consisted of singing to melodies played on homemade guitars and banjos, and sipping on a wide variety of moonshine. we played crazy games that were really intended for 10 year olds not 20 somethings. Twister, pass the orange, and my favorite: the sticker game – a crazy game where each participant is given a roll of about 30 stickers. you run around the yard slapping stickers on each other, and the one with the fewest stickers at the end of the melee wins. it’s amazing to me that I experienced this I my life.
bicycles served as the glue that held the group together. at the house they ran a bike library, and the individuals could easily be spotted around town atop their tricked out unicycles, bicycles and tricycles! it's almost a no-brainer that it was this group that brought Critical Mass to Knoxville. Critical Mass originated in San Francisco, where one day a month thousands of people take to the streets on their bicycles, blocking traffic all over the city, creating a little bit of havoc on the Friday night commute. in Knoxville, critical mass consisted of a group of about 10 people – my friends-- riding bikes together around the streets of Knoxville, bothering a car or two. I always wanted to join them, but somehow managed to miss all the opportunities to ride with them on my shiny red bike with wide handle bars and three gears that i borrowed from the bike library.
And they faithfully attended all the protests and news conferences that I organized calling for climate change legislation. (that was the whole reason I was there, after all.) The group also had some pretty radical events of their own like radical cheerleading practice, anti- prison group rallies and a drum group circles complete with masks. I went to one of the drum group practices which was nothing more than a whole lot of people banging on all sorts of things. My instrument of choice was a metal pipe. surprisingly, all the noise was ordered chaos. it almost sounded like music.
we'd go to swanky art shows the first Friday night of each month, and drink the galleries’ wine and eat their hors d’oeuvres. sometimes, some people from the group would have art in these gallery showings. one of whom was my very talented best friend. she was a manic-depressive 5’10’’ red headed artist. she shaved the right side of her head, but didn’t shave her armpits. one of her painting collections was called “picking” and involved a series of paintings portraying people picking gross things like wedgies, scabs, noses, you name it. she had a Chinese style scroll hundred feet long that unrolled to reveal kudzu eating all of civilization. while I was there in Knoxville, I baked brownies for her 20h birthday. I hugged her the day got an abortion. I wonder how she is these days.
during my time in Knoxville, I felt really unstable. I felt that the world was out to get me. I remember crying a lot. I worried everyday about my job – should I quit? why am I torturing myself? I reacted to common things in ways that did not reflect my usual behavior. To put it bluntly, I acted like a crazy person.
I lived with my coworker. we spent far too much time in the same quarters, and naturally there was some friction. but this was the first time i experienced so much friction with another person. i'm usually laid back and can get along with everyone. but in Tennessee, i saw the one person i spent everyday with as her an evil bitch, with a sugary coating. she'd smile and offer to make dinner one minute, and would be plotting her next move to break my spirit the next minute. she once said that she had a special ability to say the one thing that could break people. she said she once made her macho southern 6’ 2’’ father cry.
I had a crush on a guy, that somehow turned seriously obsessive—it was an intense, scary attraction. I loved him and hated him at an absurdly intense level, after knowing him for only a few weeks. looking back on it, it’s a little hard to stomach the truth that that psychotic person was me. I hope psychotic is a bit of an overstatement, but I don’t know.
I felt as though we had known each other in another life. not only had I known him, but I felt as though he had cheated on me in another life. I always felt jealous when I was around him. I couldn’t concentrate when he was in the same building. we ended up rolling around on my “bed” ( which consisted of a musty mattress lying on my bedroom floor) for a while one night. I said no to sex. and he left and that was it.
I remember jumping on his trampoline, doing backflips. pretending I didn’t care about him. pretending I didn’t care about how he felt about me. at the same time I was sad that his best friend was moving away, leaving him on his own. I hated myself for liking him.
I wonder now if it was the company I kept that encouraged these feelings. I wonder if I had been surrounded by “normal,” boring people if I ever would have felt crazy at all. it’s as if by osmosis I sucked up all these crazy feelings.
I love looking back and realizing that in this lifetime, I have lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.
I lived in Knoxville for four months, working on a short term environmental campaign. I manage to become friends with a large group of laid back and fun-loving college students and posse who identified themselves as anarchists. I played soccer with a group of them every Thursday afternoon, and went to their music shows on Saturday nights.
their headquarters, so to speak, was a large victorian house at the end of its own tree-lined street. it was a communal house where residents paid the mortgage, not rent. the front yard had a large climbing a rock wall attached to a tree. i made an impression when i climbed it in a skirt, on my first visit. at the house, they threw some great parties, which consisted of singing to melodies played on homemade guitars and banjos, and sipping on a wide variety of moonshine. we played crazy games that were really intended for 10 year olds not 20 somethings. Twister, pass the orange, and my favorite: the sticker game – a crazy game where each participant is given a roll of about 30 stickers. you run around the yard slapping stickers on each other, and the one with the fewest stickers at the end of the melee wins. it’s amazing to me that I experienced this I my life.
bicycles served as the glue that held the group together. at the house they ran a bike library, and the individuals could easily be spotted around town atop their tricked out unicycles, bicycles and tricycles! it's almost a no-brainer that it was this group that brought Critical Mass to Knoxville. Critical Mass originated in San Francisco, where one day a month thousands of people take to the streets on their bicycles, blocking traffic all over the city, creating a little bit of havoc on the Friday night commute. in Knoxville, critical mass consisted of a group of about 10 people – my friends-- riding bikes together around the streets of Knoxville, bothering a car or two. I always wanted to join them, but somehow managed to miss all the opportunities to ride with them on my shiny red bike with wide handle bars and three gears that i borrowed from the bike library.
And they faithfully attended all the protests and news conferences that I organized calling for climate change legislation. (that was the whole reason I was there, after all.) The group also had some pretty radical events of their own like radical cheerleading practice, anti- prison group rallies and a drum group circles complete with masks. I went to one of the drum group practices which was nothing more than a whole lot of people banging on all sorts of things. My instrument of choice was a metal pipe. surprisingly, all the noise was ordered chaos. it almost sounded like music.
we'd go to swanky art shows the first Friday night of each month, and drink the galleries’ wine and eat their hors d’oeuvres. sometimes, some people from the group would have art in these gallery showings. one of whom was my very talented best friend. she was a manic-depressive 5’10’’ red headed artist. she shaved the right side of her head, but didn’t shave her armpits. one of her painting collections was called “picking” and involved a series of paintings portraying people picking gross things like wedgies, scabs, noses, you name it. she had a Chinese style scroll hundred feet long that unrolled to reveal kudzu eating all of civilization. while I was there in Knoxville, I baked brownies for her 20h birthday. I hugged her the day got an abortion. I wonder how she is these days.
during my time in Knoxville, I felt really unstable. I felt that the world was out to get me. I remember crying a lot. I worried everyday about my job – should I quit? why am I torturing myself? I reacted to common things in ways that did not reflect my usual behavior. To put it bluntly, I acted like a crazy person.
I lived with my coworker. we spent far too much time in the same quarters, and naturally there was some friction. but this was the first time i experienced so much friction with another person. i'm usually laid back and can get along with everyone. but in Tennessee, i saw the one person i spent everyday with as her an evil bitch, with a sugary coating. she'd smile and offer to make dinner one minute, and would be plotting her next move to break my spirit the next minute. she once said that she had a special ability to say the one thing that could break people. she said she once made her macho southern 6’ 2’’ father cry.
I had a crush on a guy, that somehow turned seriously obsessive—it was an intense, scary attraction. I loved him and hated him at an absurdly intense level, after knowing him for only a few weeks. looking back on it, it’s a little hard to stomach the truth that that psychotic person was me. I hope psychotic is a bit of an overstatement, but I don’t know.
I felt as though we had known each other in another life. not only had I known him, but I felt as though he had cheated on me in another life. I always felt jealous when I was around him. I couldn’t concentrate when he was in the same building. we ended up rolling around on my “bed” ( which consisted of a musty mattress lying on my bedroom floor) for a while one night. I said no to sex. and he left and that was it.
I remember jumping on his trampoline, doing backflips. pretending I didn’t care about him. pretending I didn’t care about how he felt about me. at the same time I was sad that his best friend was moving away, leaving him on his own. I hated myself for liking him.
I wonder now if it was the company I kept that encouraged these feelings. I wonder if I had been surrounded by “normal,” boring people if I ever would have felt crazy at all. it’s as if by osmosis I sucked up all these crazy feelings.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
ahh.. it's good to be back
it's been a long time since i wrote a post. i've been seriously distracted by life -- which is probably a good sign. i moved to yet another new city .. in this one you don't need air conditioning, thankfully! (Dean Martin says he left his heart here and you're supposed to wear a flower in your hair if you come here) For the past couple months, I've also been busy studying for a silly exam that i finally took yesterday. So, i feel liberated, finally! woohoo!
ok, my friends seem to think that i have a random and uncanny knack for meeting European men.. especially while on the bus. well, they seem to be on to something, because guess what happened to me tonight! yes, you guessed it. i met a European man. this time it was after taking the subway, while waiting for the bus. he asked if i'd prefer to walk with him than wait and take the bus, and of course i did.
it was quite a fantastic walk. we talked about all sorts of stuff. at one point he realized that he recognized me from the neighborhood- said he had seen me riding my bike before. said that i was "sparkle-ingly simplistic." he seemed fascinated for some reason. (!) imagine that. an intriguingly complex guy interested in my simplicity.
is this a case of opposites attracting? well, who knows. i don't think of myself as simple, or of being well endowed in simplicity. maybe he can see something in me that i don't even notice, myself. kind of like needing a proof-reader for something you wrote and have been editing forever -- a new set of eyes can see things much more easily that you may have overlooked time and time again.
ok, my friends seem to think that i have a random and uncanny knack for meeting European men.. especially while on the bus. well, they seem to be on to something, because guess what happened to me tonight! yes, you guessed it. i met a European man. this time it was after taking the subway, while waiting for the bus. he asked if i'd prefer to walk with him than wait and take the bus, and of course i did.
it was quite a fantastic walk. we talked about all sorts of stuff. at one point he realized that he recognized me from the neighborhood- said he had seen me riding my bike before. said that i was "sparkle-ingly simplistic." he seemed fascinated for some reason. (!) imagine that. an intriguingly complex guy interested in my simplicity.
is this a case of opposites attracting? well, who knows. i don't think of myself as simple, or of being well endowed in simplicity. maybe he can see something in me that i don't even notice, myself. kind of like needing a proof-reader for something you wrote and have been editing forever -- a new set of eyes can see things much more easily that you may have overlooked time and time again.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
lessons learned?
well, hello world.
it's been a long while since my last post. at least six months! since then i've moved to two new cities, and i'm about to move again. i've met a few men. "had relations" with one, fell in and out of love real quickly and violently with another, and fell into a really cute crush with a third.
it's been a long while since my last post. at least six months! since then i've moved to two new cities, and i'm about to move again. i've met a few men. "had relations" with one, fell in and out of love real quickly and violently with another, and fell into a really cute crush with a third.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
fate?
i'm in a new city, with not too many friends. on a rainy saturday night with nobody to keep you company except shrek and his new girlfriend, it is easy to feel lonely.
i escaped the duldrums of my non-airconditioned house to all the wonders a cineplex holds in store. i was melting in the akwardness of being alone in the long line for tickets, swarmed by mobs of clingy, loud and are they old enough to be doing that?! couples. i stood there, by myself, in the evening mist, dreading the moment when I'd have to ask for one ticket from the acned pre-teen who's too young to see R rated movies himself, but old enough to ask you for your ID; a pre-teen who couldn't care less that you're all dressed up and all by yourself, but who somehow you've built up to be so intimidating that you second-guess your ability to speak when that fate-altering moment would come at the window. So, I found refuge at the automated credit-card ticket machine across the hall.
something about the timing, and maybe all the teen spirit in the air lead me to change my decision about which movie i would go see. Instead of cheerign myself up, as i had intended, and going to watch an upbeat comedy about, according to the blurb on Leno, a hairy man who gets his chest waxed, I somehow managed to push the button for a sappy Reese Witherspoon romantic chick flick, which proceeded only to darken my spirits.
is fate real, or is it something hollywood uses to swindle us into buying more $9 movie tickets?
i personally think it's similar to religion in that we humans may be making it up to make ourselves feel better. Reality bites, right? so why not make up some shiznit and live in a world of illusions-- illusions sure are prettier than the real world! that said, i don't mind tricking myself every now and then into believing in fantasies, if it makes me feel happier, even for a little while.
take for instance, star wars. i know that universe doesn't exist, but it makes the movie so much more enjoyable if i allow myself to be fooled for the length of the film.
thus, i must confess i need to believe, not necessarily in fate, but in love. in the idea that i will one day find my prince charming who will be my second half. who will 'complete me.' driving home teary-eyed in the rain, i couldn't help but feel incomplete.
i might not necessarily have a perfect fit out there, but i do think i might need a little support.. a little ying for my yang; a little cream for my coffee; a little icing for my cake... (i apologize for the over-used, and imprecise analogies).
what about you? do you believe in love? in fate?
i escaped the duldrums of my non-airconditioned house to all the wonders a cineplex holds in store. i was melting in the akwardness of being alone in the long line for tickets, swarmed by mobs of clingy, loud and are they old enough to be doing that?! couples. i stood there, by myself, in the evening mist, dreading the moment when I'd have to ask for one ticket from the acned pre-teen who's too young to see R rated movies himself, but old enough to ask you for your ID; a pre-teen who couldn't care less that you're all dressed up and all by yourself, but who somehow you've built up to be so intimidating that you second-guess your ability to speak when that fate-altering moment would come at the window. So, I found refuge at the automated credit-card ticket machine across the hall.
something about the timing, and maybe all the teen spirit in the air lead me to change my decision about which movie i would go see. Instead of cheerign myself up, as i had intended, and going to watch an upbeat comedy about, according to the blurb on Leno, a hairy man who gets his chest waxed, I somehow managed to push the button for a sappy Reese Witherspoon romantic chick flick, which proceeded only to darken my spirits.
is fate real, or is it something hollywood uses to swindle us into buying more $9 movie tickets?
i personally think it's similar to religion in that we humans may be making it up to make ourselves feel better. Reality bites, right? so why not make up some shiznit and live in a world of illusions-- illusions sure are prettier than the real world! that said, i don't mind tricking myself every now and then into believing in fantasies, if it makes me feel happier, even for a little while.
take for instance, star wars. i know that universe doesn't exist, but it makes the movie so much more enjoyable if i allow myself to be fooled for the length of the film.
thus, i must confess i need to believe, not necessarily in fate, but in love. in the idea that i will one day find my prince charming who will be my second half. who will 'complete me.' driving home teary-eyed in the rain, i couldn't help but feel incomplete.
i might not necessarily have a perfect fit out there, but i do think i might need a little support.. a little ying for my yang; a little cream for my coffee; a little icing for my cake... (i apologize for the over-used, and imprecise analogies).
what about you? do you believe in love? in fate?
Friday, September 02, 2005
old friend
mmm.... the joys of getting an unexpected call at 9:30pm from an old friend. a year after our paths parted, he was off to join the marines, and I was off to college. i hadn't heard from him since that heartbreaking letter he sent me detailing the hell he was going through during boot camp.
this past may, in the midst of sending out thank-you letters for graduation presents, i came upon joe's address, hidden away at the bottom of my box of Monet blank cards. I don't remember what i wrote, but i must have left him my cell number, because just as i was feeling lonely on this, my second friday night in a new city, i got a call from joe!!
he's stationed in california-- 3,000 miles was a small hurdle to jump after a few years of unanswered letters.
(i'm still debating if i prefer telephone calls.... letters are so much more romantic... not in the lovey-dovey sense, just in the old fashioned candle-lit sense. its got an enjoyably slow anticipation-building pace. plus, there's something about seeing someone's thoughts written down... seeing how they cross their T's or dot their smiley faces. plus, you can tuck a letter away in a drawer and refind years later to see that the brown hue to the edge of the pages only adds to its matured value.)
his experience in the past few years has been so different to my own. we share the fact that we're the same age and from the same country, but not too much else.
i'm one of those anti-war, bra-burning, hippie-wannabes, born just one little generation too late. listening to his war stories (literally), I felt like Jenny in Forrest Gump.
but at the same time, we were both crunchy hippies at one time, and that's how we met... in the woods of Maine.
( to be continued...)
this past may, in the midst of sending out thank-you letters for graduation presents, i came upon joe's address, hidden away at the bottom of my box of Monet blank cards. I don't remember what i wrote, but i must have left him my cell number, because just as i was feeling lonely on this, my second friday night in a new city, i got a call from joe!!
he's stationed in california-- 3,000 miles was a small hurdle to jump after a few years of unanswered letters.
(i'm still debating if i prefer telephone calls.... letters are so much more romantic... not in the lovey-dovey sense, just in the old fashioned candle-lit sense. its got an enjoyably slow anticipation-building pace. plus, there's something about seeing someone's thoughts written down... seeing how they cross their T's or dot their smiley faces. plus, you can tuck a letter away in a drawer and refind years later to see that the brown hue to the edge of the pages only adds to its matured value.)
his experience in the past few years has been so different to my own. we share the fact that we're the same age and from the same country, but not too much else.
i'm one of those anti-war, bra-burning, hippie-wannabes, born just one little generation too late. listening to his war stories (literally), I felt like Jenny in Forrest Gump.
but at the same time, we were both crunchy hippies at one time, and that's how we met... in the woods of Maine.
( to be continued...)
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
love and life in neverland
readers discretion is advised... the following entry may include foul language, depressing and most likely irrational and incoherent thoughts, and improper grammar usage... read on at your own risk. but if you do read on, please comment to your heart's content! :)
oh if it were like the times of the turn of the 19th century, where love blossomed in long distance letters; when infatuation and sexual tension were so painfully obvious, but yet never revealed through speech or act (at least not for a few years). such anguish and heartache suffered by throngs of love birds all because of a lack of courage to speak one's heart. perhaps it is due to a lack of courage, to which we can most relate today, or perhaps due to society's expectations of women, and the wealth strings attached to marriage.
i have just finished watching a movie version of Jane Austen's Mansfeld Park. (I can't wait to read the novel.) It was a perfect match for my melancholic mood. Was the young heroine Fannie Price foolish to turn down a wealthy man in hopes that the object of her affection might one day return her, until then, unrequited love? It would be easy to think that if one is pure / pure of heart, then true love will prevail.
But really, what is love? i suppose it is thanks to our human biological instinct to reproduce that we're so obsessed with finding it. to love is to live? is its worth overestimated? is love overrated?
i think i'm going through my second existential crisis. the first came while in the painfully beautiful and tragic city of lights. the questions i asked myself then also revolved around love. a young man confessed his disillusionments to me one evening while walking along the river seine. i was deeply affected by what he, at the time, considered to be truths or newfound revelations to his images of love.
another young man believed that physical, crazy-about-you love lasts only 4? years. (i've forgotten how long exactly.) after that, the theory goes, the couple is simply dedicated to each other and can't afford to separate. it evolves into a mutual appreciation and admiration, into a platonic kind of love.
i am too young to allow myself to buy into this wretchedly depressing theory. if it is true, then the idea of true love really is a sham. then hollywood just makes us all into dellusional idiots who'll pay $10 to go to the cinema, salivating at the chance to see the impossibilities life can never provide, played out on the big screen. oh what a great story, we all think as we leave the theater. we all like to think we relate to the main character, but if this theory is true, we only imagine that these fairy tale endings can one day happen to us.
all i know is that life is too short to force it. staying with someone about whom you're not passionate is, in my humble opinion, not worth the heartaches and the inevitable stress waiting for you at the end of the relationship rainbow. why falsify emotions based on staged promises and words and actions? shakespeare got it wrong. life is not a stage and we are not merely all players. acting has its consequences, and should be avoided at all costs, espeically in the game of love.
i think the real source of my angst is not a newfound disbelief in love, but in the impending reality that awaits me. i am most likely scared of the real world into which i must plunge in a measely 2 weeks. i cannot figure out what to do with myself. i woke up from a nightmare this morning and could not fall asleep again because the thought that i'd never get into law school would not escape my skull. what a silly thought to worry over. who gives if i don't go to law school? i don't even want to be a lawyer. i simply feel lost, which is a frightening thought considering i haven't even left the comforts of my home, family, and old friends. i am that tragic middle class ivy league snot nose brat who has so much going for him/her that it becomes overwhelming.
i feel like i am suffering from a delusional case of underacheivement; that no matter what i've done in the past was not good enough. but what does that even mean, good enough? good enough according to whom, to what standard?
it's simply another example of the classic coming of age story bullshit. i've come home from college to realize that my friends have moved on (some more violently than others); that my family has lives of their own (imagine that!); that these people are not as perfect, flawless and devoted to my own peace of mind and happiness as i've always believed, probably a result of that terribly narrow perspective childhood and even more so adolescence leaves upon us all; that my own pathetic future will be all that i have to look forward to.
i suppose it is natural to worry about the realities of love in a situation such as this. one thinks that love will conquer all; if i am in love with the perfect person, than nothing can be unbearable, etc. or is this precisely the myth "they" want us to believe.
before mansfeld park, i watch garden state on television. here the young kids with major problems of their own find a way to overcome them by loving each other. well, that sure is nice. but is it real? or is it simply another societal lie that is perpetually handed down to the younger generations? why is the divorce rate so high if marriage is what we're all 'supposed' to do... that which is natural... give me a break.
the most comforting thing about life, however, is that we can easily run away from all these natural (i hope!) and depressing thoughts by thinking about something else, by finding one of the many disctractions modern society has given us. for instance, reading AIM profiles for hours on end, spider solitaire, friends' photos posted online (is my hair really that terrible? at least i look better than her. oh my god! no she didn't dance up on my boyfriend! etc, etc), cable tv's endless array of mindnumbing entertainment, mastrubation, or the equally indulgent equivalent of chocolate, going to the gym or for a run, yoga, drugs, sports, religion. oh so many choices! is this what life is really all about? choosing among the various distractions life presents us to hide from our ridiculous emotions? maybe i should just go on birth control to even my hormones out. that way, i won't have to feel bad ever again! muwahahaha!
yes, this maybe my cynicism speaking, but i find that in order to find true art within, it's better to embrace the dark side of our emotions. this blog entry may be a great example! i'm writing my thoughts out for the whole internet public to read, criticize, and most probably reject as misspelled crazy-talk, simply because if i didn't get them out of my head, i'd be in trouble. destructive art is the best kind i can produce. and it sure beats destructive behavior, in my opinion. that's not to say that this blog entry is artful in anyway, but hey, fuck it. it's written and i'm going to bed.
oh if it were like the times of the turn of the 19th century, where love blossomed in long distance letters; when infatuation and sexual tension were so painfully obvious, but yet never revealed through speech or act (at least not for a few years). such anguish and heartache suffered by throngs of love birds all because of a lack of courage to speak one's heart. perhaps it is due to a lack of courage, to which we can most relate today, or perhaps due to society's expectations of women, and the wealth strings attached to marriage.
i have just finished watching a movie version of Jane Austen's Mansfeld Park. (I can't wait to read the novel.) It was a perfect match for my melancholic mood. Was the young heroine Fannie Price foolish to turn down a wealthy man in hopes that the object of her affection might one day return her, until then, unrequited love? It would be easy to think that if one is pure / pure of heart, then true love will prevail.
But really, what is love? i suppose it is thanks to our human biological instinct to reproduce that we're so obsessed with finding it. to love is to live? is its worth overestimated? is love overrated?
i think i'm going through my second existential crisis. the first came while in the painfully beautiful and tragic city of lights. the questions i asked myself then also revolved around love. a young man confessed his disillusionments to me one evening while walking along the river seine. i was deeply affected by what he, at the time, considered to be truths or newfound revelations to his images of love.
another young man believed that physical, crazy-about-you love lasts only 4? years. (i've forgotten how long exactly.) after that, the theory goes, the couple is simply dedicated to each other and can't afford to separate. it evolves into a mutual appreciation and admiration, into a platonic kind of love.
i am too young to allow myself to buy into this wretchedly depressing theory. if it is true, then the idea of true love really is a sham. then hollywood just makes us all into dellusional idiots who'll pay $10 to go to the cinema, salivating at the chance to see the impossibilities life can never provide, played out on the big screen. oh what a great story, we all think as we leave the theater. we all like to think we relate to the main character, but if this theory is true, we only imagine that these fairy tale endings can one day happen to us.
all i know is that life is too short to force it. staying with someone about whom you're not passionate is, in my humble opinion, not worth the heartaches and the inevitable stress waiting for you at the end of the relationship rainbow. why falsify emotions based on staged promises and words and actions? shakespeare got it wrong. life is not a stage and we are not merely all players. acting has its consequences, and should be avoided at all costs, espeically in the game of love.
i think the real source of my angst is not a newfound disbelief in love, but in the impending reality that awaits me. i am most likely scared of the real world into which i must plunge in a measely 2 weeks. i cannot figure out what to do with myself. i woke up from a nightmare this morning and could not fall asleep again because the thought that i'd never get into law school would not escape my skull. what a silly thought to worry over. who gives if i don't go to law school? i don't even want to be a lawyer. i simply feel lost, which is a frightening thought considering i haven't even left the comforts of my home, family, and old friends. i am that tragic middle class ivy league snot nose brat who has so much going for him/her that it becomes overwhelming.
i feel like i am suffering from a delusional case of underacheivement; that no matter what i've done in the past was not good enough. but what does that even mean, good enough? good enough according to whom, to what standard?
it's simply another example of the classic coming of age story bullshit. i've come home from college to realize that my friends have moved on (some more violently than others); that my family has lives of their own (imagine that!); that these people are not as perfect, flawless and devoted to my own peace of mind and happiness as i've always believed, probably a result of that terribly narrow perspective childhood and even more so adolescence leaves upon us all; that my own pathetic future will be all that i have to look forward to.
i suppose it is natural to worry about the realities of love in a situation such as this. one thinks that love will conquer all; if i am in love with the perfect person, than nothing can be unbearable, etc. or is this precisely the myth "they" want us to believe.
before mansfeld park, i watch garden state on television. here the young kids with major problems of their own find a way to overcome them by loving each other. well, that sure is nice. but is it real? or is it simply another societal lie that is perpetually handed down to the younger generations? why is the divorce rate so high if marriage is what we're all 'supposed' to do... that which is natural... give me a break.
the most comforting thing about life, however, is that we can easily run away from all these natural (i hope!) and depressing thoughts by thinking about something else, by finding one of the many disctractions modern society has given us. for instance, reading AIM profiles for hours on end, spider solitaire, friends' photos posted online (is my hair really that terrible? at least i look better than her. oh my god! no she didn't dance up on my boyfriend! etc, etc), cable tv's endless array of mindnumbing entertainment, mastrubation, or the equally indulgent equivalent of chocolate, going to the gym or for a run, yoga, drugs, sports, religion. oh so many choices! is this what life is really all about? choosing among the various distractions life presents us to hide from our ridiculous emotions? maybe i should just go on birth control to even my hormones out. that way, i won't have to feel bad ever again! muwahahaha!
yes, this maybe my cynicism speaking, but i find that in order to find true art within, it's better to embrace the dark side of our emotions. this blog entry may be a great example! i'm writing my thoughts out for the whole internet public to read, criticize, and most probably reject as misspelled crazy-talk, simply because if i didn't get them out of my head, i'd be in trouble. destructive art is the best kind i can produce. and it sure beats destructive behavior, in my opinion. that's not to say that this blog entry is artful in anyway, but hey, fuck it. it's written and i'm going to bed.
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