Part With it, Start Again

8 more days and another chapter of my life comes to an end.

I was in a foul mood today for a number of reasons: due to lack of AC the school was hot and sweaty and my sunburn from this weekend forced me to don sleeves and jeans, I have to shell out a couple hundred bucks for hitting someone’s left blinker with the tailgate of the truck (not too much damage and quite honestly I’m not a bad driver, it’s just that they were parked right in front of the driveway in my blind spot, total accident but I’m taking the responsibility, thus paying out of my own pocket. Two paychecks worth at most, hopefully) and the orchestra teacher wanted me to stay after school for two hours for woodwind ensemble for Thursday’s concert. Normally I’d be fine with this but seeing as I was already in a crappy mood and suppressing a headache staying in the sweaty building was the last thing I wanted to do. I spent most of the day being paranoid and bitter for almost no discernible reason. Little things set me off. I walked to gym behind this group of girls who chattered incessantly on about what seemed to me like petty, shallow things. There was talk of (and unfortunately I’m directly paraphrasing this) “a boy who was, like, so hot but he’s an asshole but I’d totally date him anyway because he’s just so good looking.” and “Oh my god I need a friggin spray tan I look like shit and I feel so fucking fat!” and “My teacher gave me an A instead of an A+ she’s such a bitch.”

I don’t want to pass judgement on these people. What they’re doing is engaging in typical high school banter. I’ve always felt isolated from the other people in my class because I can’t seem to involve myself in their conversations because I can’t conjure anything to say. I am submissive and shy around people, I know. I won’t speak up until I’m asked to, and it’s difficult for me to express what I want to people my age. I come off as an eccentric when I speak, I know this. I can hear it in my own voice, and I’ve determined that from all these years of observing the social cliques. This isn’t new to me. This social order was established around third grade and it has stuck. All these years. It blows my mind.

I’ve always tried to pinpoint the exact cause of this social diaspora. We were all fairly unified in the earlier years of preschool. Everyone got along, more or less. You had your closer friends from the neighborhood but there weren’t any true cliques yet. I was always a bit marked from the beginning due to my interest in tomboyish activities and action/adventure stories rather than barbies and princess movies. This aside, I was also a sort of teacher’s pet. I actually enjoyed learning and let my teachers know it. I bet this pissed some kids off. Middle school was really the breaking-off point as far as the subdivision of groups. I found my way among some of the eccentrics and nerds, though I seem to remember myself as more of a loner than anything else. I had some issues then with perfectionism. People may have seen me as arrogant or angsty based on my classroom behavior. Now I find myself in a different niche entirely, but I still carry those loner tendencies. I don’t exactly sync up perfectly with any group in particular. I’ll talk to anyone because I’m just generally interested in people. The problem is that many don’t bother talking to me, which leaves me wondering if there’s either something wrong with me or perhaps they don’t even realize that I’d be happy to talk to them regardless of circumstance. 

So I stood there pretty much all day wishing to be alone with my book. When I get the chance, I actually kind of hide within the pages of whatever I’m reading. Reading allows one to be left alone, directing all consciousness at conjuring that lovely imaginary world that I take such solace in sometimes. 

I was somewhere around 12 years of age. It was a summer camp, the big Saturday Overnight Camp Out at a nature preserve whose name I can’t remember for the life of me. Our campsite was nestled in the woods a few yards away from this immense clearing, a wide open field of tall grass with a few huge trees scattered here and there. During the day we collected wood for the bonfire and had (of all things) spaghetti for dinner, boiled in a huge pot over the fire to the point where it was this congealed, sticky mass of pasta by the time we got to serving it. The kids played boxball at the pavilion on the hill and I sat reading out of a ghost story book until it got dark. Then came the night hike. A seasoned forester with a beard took us out into the field and through the trails, the sky a deep navy and dotted with stars. He made calls to the owls, strange inhaled shrieks, and lo and behold one answered back somewhere from the dark canopies overhead. Sure enough a few of the girls became frightened and started waving their lanterns and glow sticks and squealing. The forester tried calling again but this time there was no answer. I remember walking back to camp along the edge of the field, surrounded by the swaying silhouettes of trees, and wondering how many pairs of animal eyes were glancing down on me at any given moment. 

Natural beauty. 

I’ve noticed that people sometimes approach me with questions along the lines of “Why don’t you wear a bit more makeup?” or “Why do you go so light on the makeup?” I really was never inclined towards these things in the first place (see tomboy childhood) but I find it rather disheartening that we can’t appreciate what’s already there: be it a person’s eyes or their facial structure, etc etc. I understand that makeup brings out these features and I’m not against it. I like makeup. It’s fun, it makes me feel pretty, it boosts self esteem…but it’s rather sad to me when a woman feels like she can’t leave the house without applying some mascara or foundation. I am guilty of this in a way. Given my Irish genes, I’m prone to having flushed-looking features and a reddish nose, which I cover with foundation. It’s become a compulsive habit of mine. I find that in public, however, I tend to gravitate towards people who don’t go all-out in the makeup department. Just this other day I saw this girl with the most fantastic brown eyes, very little makeup, and her face just stuck out as something natural and beautiful. It’s a happy little reminder of what human beings are underneath, that we’re capable of looking beautiful even without makeup. Now it’s hard for me to really explain it, and I’m certainly not saying that people who wear makeup aren’t beautiful (quite the opposite, actually) but I think we’d happier if we appreciated both forms of beauty for what they are and that is: human.

You see, it just doesn’t give me the satisfaction anymore. It’s useless. I’m practically graduated already. I echo the sentiments of every restless high school senior: I’m done, let me go already. I’m so eager to just dive into summer. I had my first taste of it this weekend- a mix of watermelon, sunburn and 90 degree heat- and now that’s all I want. No more of the mundane, the fluorescent scrutiny of the hallway. No more routine. I want so desperately to be free of it all. 

What’s it like to have people throw themselves at you? What’s it like to be stared at, noticed, praised for just existing? What’s it like to be beautiful to the public eye, talented and comfortable in your own skin? What’s it like to be stable? To wake up every day and know for sure that you won’t end up on The Ledge and contemplate The Jump, even if you wake up fine and happy that morning just to have it slip away and replaced by this heavy fog that collects in the base of your head, pressure building and ears ringing until you want to scream but never, ever can? What’s it like to think back on memories without feeling shame or regret, to have someone to whisper to or confide in without them picking you apart or dumping their own emotional loads on you- crushing, painful, searing- simply because Oh Sure, you’re alright, you can bear it, you don’t share my problems, you can handle it. What’s it like to have your words not fall on deaf ears? What’s it like to actually participate in life, rather than standing off to the side, a spectator with no voice? What does it feel like to enjoy being kissed, rather than feeling sickened and ashamed and terrified and weak because you can’t bring yourself to say No and something happens that you can’t see because you’ve shut your eyes tight and there’s a quick sloppy pressure and soon enough you’re running away and wiping your mouth, confused and upset? What’s it like to be truly Me, instead of that warped projection of myself that people seem to prefer? What’s it like? 

The room was packed and sweaty and I was surrounded by familiar faces. Still my hands and underarms felt slick with anxiety. The presentations were engaging enough to hold my attention for most of the day, though in between the speakers I was left to flounder around in my own mental rift. I realized how little of an impact I’ve left on these people, how I kind of float along the borders of their lives like a speck of dust. I do this thing where I stand on the outside of our little group and just silently observe what’s going on around me. I can’t always bring myself to contribute to the enthusiastic small talk, especially on days like this. I kind of wish I’d done more in the ways of socializing now that I reflect back on my time in high school, but it doesn’t come so easily to me as it does to most people. For example, I observe that some people are so comfortable with their friends that they embrace in the halls or rest their head on each other’s shoulders. I see these as touching little acts of friendship, warmth and love, but I’ve never been able to really exchange such gestures with anyone I know. I can’t tell if it’s just me or not. Someone rested their head on my shoulder today and I felt this electric little pang of surprise and border-line anxiety, an unsureness of how to react. I find that I seem to react better on intuition or after I’ve had time to think. It’s difficult to express what I’m really thinking on a spur-of-the-moment whim, which explains why I take such solace in my writing. Through writing, I can reorganize time and space and emotional context and make the moment mine. It’s empowering in a way. Enough of that. I’ll be blunt. Today I did feel very lonely, in an existential sort of way. I look back on all the opportunities I’ve missed and I wonder if it’s Me or Them I should blame and I reach the conclusion quickly: I blame no one. It’s really up to me to make meaning out of my life, regardless of the clubs I never joined and the friends I never made. I’m content just floating here sometimes because I have my mind set on something better, something more meaningful than yearbook photos and superficial smiles. I just wish people would understand that. 

Someone take me out of this madness, please. Please take me away from all the lights and noise, take me away from the airbrushed people that pop in and out of my life, taking little bits and pieces of me with every sale they make. Is this really it? That all the power and drive in this world comes from buying and selling? Tell me I’m not the only one who feels threatened by this culture we’ve built. I’m so sick of screens, so sick of people knocking me down a peg to push their own interests. This is what it’s like to be an American: Grow up in a green, sheltered suburb until some cruel hand thrusts its way through the white picket fences and grabs you and you wake up in this terrifying purgatory between Innocence and Choice. All the while you’re told over and over that there is something wrong with you. Buy this, they tell you, take this pill, it’ll make you better. You’re ill. It’s not normal to look/think/feel this way. We can fix it, we can fix it. And we follow like sheep. So everyone keeps running in these little concentric circles of obsession that our technology’s culture draws for them. Greed is celebrated. Talent and good looks are fetishized. Obsession fuels desire which in turn stokes the great inner pain inside us all. Tell me, please oh god tell me, that I’m not the only one who feels this. This emptiness, this feeling of having lost some infinite thing, this blank-faced terror at having to confront loneliness and desire throughout the rest of my impending adult life. And to have no one, absolutely no one to speak of it with because it’s as impossible to extract people from the dredges of desire as it is to pull their attention from the screen. Simple words and trite little clichés, pictures and TV shows, that easily-digested media we’re spoon-fed on a regular basis, that’s what people want. Not the serious art that forces one to think outside of their own inner world, outside of that 1x1 box of Me and My Needs and Wants and Desires. Do you know why? Because that form of art doesn’t present itself in the literal, straight-forward, good-bad, black-and-white sort of way that we Americans are used to. Our culture perpetuates the Literal and Outer over the Implicit and Inner. It’s the basis of marketing. I’m not trying to sound like a radical anarchist pointing an angry finger at capitalism here. I also do not intend to sound like a whiny, over privileged adolescent. This is what I see from my vantage point, my own little niche in the middle-class. Every day I am faced with these things and I’m starting to feel almost personally accosted by otherwise non-threatening items like magazine covers and smart phones. Our society functions and thrives on our own individual insecurities and latent fantasies, quite well in fact. Next time you watch a commercial, any commercial at all, pay attention to how it makes you feel. More often than not it’ll place something over your head, the Object of Desire, be it a new car or a certain look or product. It’ll set up some sort of fantasy scenario that promises happiness and fulfillment with the acquisition of said product. You don’t have it. You want it. Desire. But what I’ve been thinking about as of late is how utterly terrible it feels to be constantly afflicted with desire. And it can’t be good, not in this degree, not at all. 

No one can have me. No one, I say to myself as I charge up the asphalt of some hill on the edge of town. It’s so simple, yet so complex. I am a fool for trying, I know. I discussed the death of the novel with a man I’ve only known from a book jacket. His words stung me, bringing me back to the brink of my own Sisyphean struggle. A paradoxical quest to turn millions of heads away from the screen and back towards each other. How foolish, how old fashioned, how idealistic. And still. I lost myself in a movie today. There were explosions and smooth characters who knew exactly what they were and where they were going. Characters clean-cut and smooth, not human at all, not just in the physical sense. This was fine. I escaped and fantasized, my own mind drawn in by the sugary entertainment. That’s what it is. Sometimes I think that the world is salvageable. Now is one of those times. 

We took Mom out to the beach for Mother’s Day, walked around, saw some interesting things. I did a lot in the way of activities this weekend. I made sure to exercise, I’ve been on a regular schedule and so far I’ve kept up. I really love just moving, doing things, feeling my body get stronger. I see it taking effect in my arms and legs and shoulders specifically. When I go out in the sun I can see the little shadowy divots in between my muscles, outlining my calves and biceps. I’m thinking of trying out yoga this week for flexibility, which is my least strongest suite. I also met up with some old friends and just hung around with them, laughed a lot. My last exam is Tuesday and then school is a downward slope to graduation. I’ve been overcome by this strange sense of optimism and confidence, the polar opposite of what I felt earlier in the week. I think that was because I’d been fixating on other people’s achievements rather than what I will do in the future. It’s so breathtakingly exciting to think of what wonderful things I’ll have the opportunity to do and see. I’m going to meet new people, learn all sorts of wonderful things, find new inspiration, travel places. I’m going to fall in love over and over again with life. Now I’m not going to be all head-in-the-clouds idealist over this; I know that I’ve only had a little taste of the pain and sadness life can offer. People are going to pass on, accidents and sickness and hurt are bound to happen. Life deals bad hands all the time. But I don’t want to sit around and wait for these things to happen and overtake me. I want to believe in love and hope and beauty. I can see it everywhere around me and for this I am infinitely grateful. Now all that’s left is to convince myself that it is OK to see things this way. I am often stung by cynicism and media and comments people make about how terrible the world is. It is by no means perfect. Existence hurts. Things seem irreparably broken and unfair and terrifying at times. I sometimes worry that my optimism and idealism and sensitivity is a flaw and that I’d be far better suited for the world if I were cold and calculating. But then I feel this inner warmth, this rush, this excitement for things as they are and what the could be, and that drives me to create and explore. I want to pursue this path, and this is how I want my life to be.