2006-10-20 12:29 a.m.
An Introduction to the Devil's Rose
I'm feeling verbose right now, I guess.
Separation is an interesting situation to find yourself in. I'm in the process of separating myself now.
What am I separating myself from? Everything. My family, mainly. I'm extremely close with them all. From formulating boy-chasing plots with my mom to spending every other Friday night watching movies with my dad; from telling everything to my sister, to covering for my brother when he was engaging in questionable activities; essentially every moment of my life has involved one of my numerous relations. And even when it didn't, I considered my three best friends to be sisters as well because we shared everything.
...It's easy to define yourself in terms of others. Even I think that a person is defined by those who love them most, as well as by certain influential experiences. Mainly by those who love them, however.
In light of this, I chose to attend a university far away from my home. An Angelena by birth, I'm now a Santa Crucera, living it up and raising hell at the University of California, Santa Cruz, alongside many other students who I'm sometimes proud and sometimes ashamed to call my peers.
Even here, though, I'm realizing how unique I really am. I'm not straight edge; that's one thing that needs to be made clear. Although I listen to AFI and Tiger Army, who are questionably punk at best, and know about the straight edge philosophy, it's not a label I've chosen to adapt. Rather, I've chosen not to poison myself. Anyone can choose this...the straight edge kids certainly didn't invent the idea. While it's a label worthy of respect and one that the labelled choose to adopt, I revolt against any ready-made mass label that could be pasted onto me.
I'm more than just the sum of my parts. And even if I were the sum of my parts, no label could even hope to encompass that - not even one I selected myself.
So, rather than proclaim myself to be straight edge, I merely decline the all-too-available offers to go smoking or drinking with my fellow students, not exactly a difficult decision. It drives many of my classmates up the wall, though, wondering how I can *possibly* resist. They all have a running bet on who will end up being the first to smoke me out.
I'll be the rose in heaven's garden long before I'll consent to ingest/inhale any potentially poisonous substance into my body more than those contaminants so prevalent in the environment already. That's one of the troubles of attending a major research university and living in the residential college with a particular focus on the environment: you learn just how many toxic substances you introduce to your system merely by living.
Who knew just showering could potentially give you cancer?
I didn't, until the other day. But Sandra Steingraber, the author of Living Downstream, one of our core texts, did.
I seem to have digressed from my original point.
What was my original point, anyway?
Oh, yes. Me.
I was talking about how I'm discovering how unique I am. It seems, in my classes, I frequently find points other than those the professor was attempting to make. I don't fit in with my classmates by any means, but I enjoy their company. I've begun to realize that it is far more fun to go it alone, to strike out and do something totally unexpected, than to follow a path that others have already taken.
I like being weird. I like when people look at me strangely. I like dancing in the rain and going for long walks in the forest at midnight. I'm not afraid of many of the things the other young women around me are: rape's not a worry, but not doing something meaningful is. Unlike my classmates who go to each other when they are stressed, I climb a redwood and don't come down until my mind has settled. And I enjoy it all.
I'm a complete and total nerd in most ways, yet I don't fit in with the nerds, either. Nor do I want to. As I've stated, it's more fun to not fit in.
When there are no expectations on who you are supposed to be, then you're free to be you.
So why am I defining me as the rose of the devil's garden?
I've always loved roses. Since I was ten, everyday when I would walk home from school I would pick a flower and bring it home. Roses were my favorite, and in Los Angeles, the climate is right for them to be around for much of the year.
I've always had a fascination for things people consider to be the work of the devil. Witchcraft was a particular interest. I'm not pagan in any way, but the interest has stuck with me. That and the reverence for nature. Which brings us back to roses and gardens.
Finally, and I realize this is extremely trite, I love the song "Rose of the Devil's Garden" (see previous entry). I think it's beautiful. Sad, yes, but in many ways I feel that it fits the way that I grew up.
Life was never peachy, really. I frequently contemplated suicide and often cried myself to sleep. I must have slept through the majority of my childhood and adolescence in an attempt to escape. Which is what it is - I don't regret that, really, because it's an important part of who I am. One which I won't reveal any further in this diary, however.
I've had other DiaryLand diaries. All have ended up locked and defunct. I want to try to keep this one open without sacrificing honesty. To do that, however, I have to hide any and all clearly identifying details of who I am. I'm sure you understand. It's all a matter of security.
Back to the point. All things taken together - my love of roses and hellraising, my fascination with witchcraft which so many people consider to be the work of the devil and the reverence for nature inherent in it (thereby effectively disproving any connection with the devil, haha), and my favorite Tiger Army song and the reflection I feel that it has on my life - it's easy to see how I came to select the user name Devil's Rose, and how this diary came to be called Rose in the Devil's Garden.
Welcome to my life. It may never make sense to you - after all, it's MY life and I don't even understand it, really - but maybe you'll find bits and pieces of wisdom scattered throughout it that somehow apply to your own.
Don't hold your breath, though. I'm only eighteen, after all.
--"Rose"
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