"tears clean your soul"

All this week and last week... pretty much all month I had a feeling, like a malignant intense thrumming in between my shoulder blades. It created a buzzing in my mind, like static that I couldn't think through, reason through. I just couldn't. It sat there until yesterday when suddenly all these thoughts broke through a barrier carefully constructed. All these thoughts I'd felt but could never really see came tumbling into my psyche and suddenly, the thrumming transformed into a tar-like weight and I could feel that I wasn't strong enough to hold it up. It needed out, badly. I woke up early and I automatically went to take my two finals, just two but it was enough to create a dam between my thoughts and my focus. It just enough that I got through both of them unscathed. I molded my self into this unrecognizable day schedule that felt alien.

I was not myself.

I'd prided myself in the idea that I knew my way around my mind. I knew the ins and outs. A few psychology classes helped me, literature helped me see myself transparently enough that I knew my flaws when I saw them. To know what I felt and why and how to help myself. It was barely enough. I prided myself in being a 'forward' and 'present' facing person, never letting the past drag me down. I was wrong as well. I prided myself in being strong enough to handle emotional crises... my version of 'strong enough' was 'think through them without crying.' How mistaken I was, to think all this...

Eventually, as the month proceeded and this buzzing just would not go away, improve or anything. I did what was decent temporary patch-up - I buried myself in something that was comforting, distracting enough to not think. Games.

When I realized the day, I looked at my mother and felt everything crushing me to dust under its heel. I felt my shoulders stoop under the pressure of my mind opening and the dam I'd constructed splinter easily. It all came out in the process of two to three hours and when it was done and I was standing before my mom... it was all I could think about. My mom.

It would all be easier if I didn't exist. It would all be better if I wasn't such a burden to my mother. I've fucked up so many times she doesn't deserve a daughter like me, she deserves someone like my sister, someone that brings hope to the table. I should just run away, I should just die, just end it and die. Why does she love me so much, why does she have such faith me, why does she think I have so much potential when I fuck up, why why why.

You pay for everything, you support me, you love me, I don't deserve anything you give me. Please just stop believing in me, I can't stand to be a disappointment to you. I've disappointed you so many times, I can't handle this GUILT.

I screwed up at Leyden, failing when I had the potential to shine. I remember your face when I brought C's and D's home, I remember feeling the punch of failure but even the sharper, burning sting of letting you down. How could I have done that, how? Again at Triton, scrapping by with the bare minimum, bringing mediocrity to the table, seeing your face again as I screw up over and over and you giving me chance after chance. I remember, I remember. It broke me down.

Telling me your heart broke twice, once when my aunt called telling you that my dad died and again when I called from that police station in Franklin Park after I'd been arrested. Seeing your face when I walked out of the room, face red from crying, shame like I'd never felt before just... burning. It was better from then, I got better, but that buzzing just stayed.

I blocked it out, I did what I had to do at Northeastern but it all felt removed. I wasn't really there. Repression does wonders until it begins to break you down a little bit. Taking everything you've learned and swallowing it whole until you're back where you started. Back at doing what I want and not what I should be doing. Every once in a while a "It would be better if I died" snuck through. It scared me, terrified me, it really did, to the point that I hid it away again. I refused to believe I thought it until it came clearly, again a few more times. I didn't know what to do. The goal vanished and none of it was important anymore. I saw your face and it all came back... imminent with this semester's scrape-by caused by my slow breakdown.

It was all guilt and shame, the two most god-awful emotions that could ever live inside a human being. It poured out some, that Tuesday after finals, after I finished helping you. Ever since I realized the effort, the love that was all poured into me and how easily I shrugged it off. I started crying but I brushed it off, saying I was just not happy with this semester. It was true, but it wasn't it. I cried for a little more, wishing for the bravery to just tell her how I felt, wishing for the right words to just tell her. They never came that day but I was a little more at ease. I went out for hot cocoa with Kim, just for an hour. I put up the charade of being okay, joking about my red eyes and puffy face saying that I just got emo with my mom. Close enough.

Today was entirely different. I felt the imminent break coming and I was terrified. All those thoughts were fleeting through my head through the day, as I wrote my paper while I sat next to my mom. I finally went to my room where I prepared myself to write again but instead I began to cry again.

It wasn't the slow tears but the real crying. The kind where everything pours out. I told Carlos, who was there, who realized I wasn't alright. My mom came to my room, barely ten minutes later and she asked me what was wrong.

"I'm scared. I don't think I'm a good daughter. I've failed you so many times." All that was just pouring out. I told her I was ashamed, I was guilty. I failed her so many times, it was all just crushing me and I couldn't take it. Like Carlos, she told me everyone messes up, everyone fails a few times as I realized how badly I'd broken myself. She held my hand and just talked to me, telling me that I was better than she hoped I would be. That this little breakdown was me, looking back and opening my eyes and seeing clearly for once. That this was me learning from all my mistakes. That this guilt was me and shame was me, ready to start again. As I cried, she told me of her own mistakes. Of how long it took her to realize them. I listened because I already knew them... but not like this.

"You did give me headaches," she said, smiling at me. "You will make mistakes. I've waited for the day you realize this for so long. Don't forget that I do this out of love."

Of course.

The guilt, she said, was going to go away. It was all going to feel better now. She said tears clean you. She said this was the best day of my life because I would be different. Better. God, I never realized how I have one of the best people on this earth to be my mother. She was right. I'd repressed the guilt so much, it had become a physical feeling between my shoulder blades and as cried into her shoulder it seemed to just ... disappear as if it was never there. It wasn't the end, I had other chances. It didn't seem that big anymore. I feel a lot better. It's not over, I know it. There more things I want to tell her but it will do for now.

I do feel it.

mergh.

I'm such a crappy blogger.

I found that hardest thing about writing papers is getting started. The second hardest is not wandering to FaceBook. It just crossed my mind that I'm better of deleting a few apps. Maybe FarmVille. Vampire wars... probably. Know what? I'll delete that shit right now. I don't need fifty billion apps to take up my time when I could be writing my papers/playing Assassin's Creed II.

Which is also turning into the most amazing game I've ever played.

Enough rambling. Time to clean up my FB of these stinky apps.

LIVE BY THE CREED

neglected

Many things happen in the course of a month.

I've been neglecting this blog, partly because I've taken refuge in the land of Mafia Wars and those silly Flash games that are just so addicting its a little scary. Not only have I been neglecting this... I'm afraid my schoolwork has also suffered a bit.

I'm afraid I'm burning out.

birthday

The time grows closer and closer.

Every time I think about, I have a minor freak-out attack. It's the prospect of turning 20 that freaks me out a little bit. It marks another decade, you know? 20 years alive... and the way people perceive you is different. When I say I'm 19, its like, 'Oh you're nineteen, not too young not to old, just right, still a teen, no real responsibilities, still somewhat innocent.' However, when I'd say '20' it's like, 'Oh, you're a serious adult with things think about, people to know, you have sex and you know men and you pay bills, you're out in the real world.' Now the whole perception thing doesn't really bother me (well, a little bit because I am still a woman and young = good) but... really. I'm scared but at the same time I'm excited.

Then I get to think about what I'm going to have access to. I'm not a little girl anymore so I know what to expect about the opposite sex. I know about relationships, having been witness to several that flourish and several that wither, and... well, to say the least I'm sort of inexperienced.

So maybe its that I talk to Chris that I'm worrying about this... well, he knows I'm only 19. Haha, only 19.

I haven't been playing as much as I'd like to... my schedule is pretty horrendous and it leaves me pretty exhausted by the end of those Tuesdays and Thursdays... nonetheless I am sort of enjoying myself in my classes, trying not to think about Libretti's grading or the fact that our 'diagnostic' paper is due in ten days. We have the options of doing a psychoanalytic or new critic reading of one of poems we've done in class... it sounds fairly easy but I've heard things about his grading... I'm like, nervous.

I should have taken a class with Hoberg instead.

Of Everything by ~Sui-Generis-XIX on deviantART

breaks

I hate how things are just ridiculously overpriced at this school.. and I imagine at most schools. What gives a state-funded school the right price a pizza slice at $2.50 and a sub/wrap at $4.49?

But I was so hungry. And I actually had money. Maybe I should just leave all my cash at home and starve to death? It's an option but maybe I should just bring more than an apple and water to hold me through the entire day. 

I'm on my four hour break right now and I'm tempted to go buy some coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker. 

Not much to report... except we got our first assignment for Practical Criticism, with Dr. Libretti, and I'm a little nervous. We can pick to analyze a piece (I always feel weird calling something a 'piece' because my next impulse is to say 'of ass' which says much about what I store in my mind) so... a WORK to analyze in either the New Criticism or Psychoanalytic readings. I think everyone in this institution that is an English major is pretty close to being a pro at reading in the NC perspective, so I committed myself to reading in the Psychoanalytic way. It's a challenge because, one, guidelines are shot to hell with this. Author's intents? Author's latent desires? Uh, yeah, which ones? 

Apart from that, I'm going to start that one early so maybe I can talk to Libretti in his office and get a handle on what he wants from our papers. My papers. A little nervous about 20th Century Fiction as I just skimmed over Heart of Darkness and I haven't even read half of the Hemingway  we were supposed to read. What concerns me is the tests. Damn it. 

Tuesday was a good day, actually, I had fun in class. Dr. Scherman is funny as hell and he still manages to illustrate his point very effectively. However, on the way home I actually ran into Cheri! Yay! 

I haven't seen her face-to-face in a while so this was a nice change. I was starving by that point so we decided to go to Odie's first... then Gene and Jude's because it's cheaper and closer. WE got there at a bus that was running the air so it was freezing in there. After eating and buying milk, Mom drove gave Cheri a lift home and we continued on our merry way. 

Couples and love...?

So... I'm not much for relationships right now. My time is being sucked up by school and my own lazyness... when I'm not playing some kind of game. Damn things. 

Anyway, a while back I met a guy. Chris... a really nice southern gentleman in the Navy... and as embarrassing as it is, we met via PS3. I was really just wandering around the mall in PSH when we started talking. Then he messaged me and we talked while I played and then we were emailing. 

Now, we're calling each other. Or rather, he's calling me since he's the Boss and I can't really call him whenever I want to. He's also twenty-five and aboard the USS Enterprise (not Star Trek, Cheri) which is the oldest Air Craft carrier... and stuff. 

So, I just felt like sharing this. 

He's a maybe.