The Devil's Rose's blog

2006-11-22 10:39 p.m.

"Move Along"

Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking
When you fall everyone stands.
Another day and you've had your fill of sinking
With the life held in your
Hands - are shaking, cold.
These hands are meant to hold.

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong:
Move along, move along like I know you do.
And even when your hope is gone,
Move along, move along just to make it through.
Move along.
Move along.

So a day when you've lost yourself completely
Could be a night when your life ends.
Such a heart that will lead you to deceiving
All the pain held in your
Hands - are shaking, cold.
Your hands are mine to hold.

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong,
Move along, move along like I know you do.
And even when your hope is gone,
Move along, move along just to make it through.
Move along.
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
When everything is wrong, we move along.
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
When everything is wrong, we move along.
Along, along, along...

When all you got to keep is strong,
Move along, move along like I know you do.
And even when your hope is gone,
Move along, move along just to make it through.

Yesterday afternoon, one of my friends here at the University stopped by my room. I don't remember how the conversation started, but I remember inviting him in, so he wouldn't have to stand at my window the entire time we chatted. He came in, and somehow conversation turned to my tango partner, who this friend of mine really thinks I should date (along with everyone else who knows either of us, but that's a different issue entirely).

Somewhere along in the conversation, I made a confession that I didn't even know I needed to confess until I just said it.

"Look, my life is fucked up. And my life being fucked up causes things that shouldn't be fucked up to be fucked up just because I'm fucked up. And I'm not talking about him, except as the thing that shouldn't be fucked up but that is getting fucked up because I'm fucked up."

I know, I said "fucked up" a lot. But that's because there are no other words for the particular phenomena to which I refer in the English language that can convey just how, well, fucked up my life is.

Naturally, he wanted me to elaborate further.

I don't talk about my problems. Ever. Not even with the best friends. At least, not until long after the problems have passed, and then only in the vaguest of terms possible. But, somethin inside me needed to get out, and get out it did.

See, my issue with the tango partner is not that I don't like him. He's cute. He's smart. He's totally courteous and respectful to me. He's shy, but he's slowly overcoming his shyness toward me. He gives hugs the way I like them. My issues aren't with him.

They're with me.

And my friend wasn't quite getting it. He kept talking about fear, and finally I burst out that it wasn't fear, it was experience.

He looked pretty startled. Being Super Virgin, what kind of experience could I have?

So I hurried to explain that it wasn't sexual experience with men...or women, for that matter. It was just the experiences that I had growing up.

Thus, this amigo of mine became the fourth person to know the true reason why I'm not going home this weekend, and the only one of the four to really know details. He's also the only one who has seen me cry.

We were listening to "On the Arrow" while I explained...very haltingly. He wanted to know what I meant by experiences growing up.

"I'm not going home this Thanksgiving for a reason," was what I said. He just waited for me to continue. I explained that, to me, it's pointless to make a trip home just to have an all out brawl with the family and cry myself to sleep. And then I stopped. And I thought for a moment, and the tears started to well up again as I explained that I feel guilty for not being home. Because it's always been my job to defend my siblings.

I told my friend how every year, my elder sister makes an attempt to have normal holidays. Every year, something on the list is forgotten. Every year, Mom blames my sister. Every year, that's how the fight starts. And then my brother steps in, yelling at Mom to leave her alone. But she just rounds on him. So he leaves. He doesn't come home until late, and then he's either drunk or high on God knows what. But then Mom starts yelling at my sister about how she creates problems between her and my brother and I. I usually step in before this, but some years I'm in the shower or cooking or something when it's just starting. When I step in, my mom rounds on me. I intentionally keep her focus, but I'd have it even if I didn't try to. I'm the child she can't control and can't predict. I'm the one she can't wrap her head around. My brother gets angry and leaves. My sister just takes it. I fight back, but I don't leave. And I don't hate her either, although sometimes I think it would be easier if I could just bring myself to hate her and wish awful things on her for what she's put us through.

But I know it's not Mom's fault that she's screwed up. Her mother abused her. Her mother was in turn abused. Mom's just repeating the cycle of psychological abuse on her children. And believe me when I say that's what it is.

My brother has no coping mechanisms of his own. He deliberately seeks out mental oblivion as a way to escape the life we've grown up into. When he gets upset, I worry that he's going to rupture a blood vessel or something...it's terrifying.

My sister, on the other hand, is implosive. She gets silent. She contemplates what would happen if she were to attempt to kill herself while Mom is raging at her. She's afraid to form any sort of relationship with anyone because she's afraid of turning out like our mom.

It was always the plan that I would get out. Because if I couldn't, no one could. I would get out, and then they would follow. Kick it at my apartment until they could get places of their own. It's why I am where I am. It's why I was running a low-grade fever all last year and averaging two hours of nights a sleep from taking too many Advanced Placement courses.

I feel guilty for leaving them alone. But at the same time I can't help but be happy that I don't have to go through that again. That I don't have to cry myself to sleep on another holiday that's supposed to be fun and supposed to be happy and supposed to be spent feeling like you're loved.

Instead, I'm only twenty dollars wealthy, so I can't feed myself this weekend. I'm telling myself that it was a choice to fast, but it wasn't. It's what circumstance has forced upon me. Instead, I'm sitting in my dorm, alone in the entire building except one or two students who will be gone on the morrow, crying myself to sleep here because this isn't how life should be.

Instead, I'm wondering how the hell I'm going to survive years of this. And wondering why the hell I confessed to him, of all people I could have picked to tell the truth to.

My best friends know my life at home is bad. They know that when I get quiet and have that certain look on my face, something nasty just went down. But they don't know how bad. I joke around about the "Family Fight Festivals" so that nobody will know how truly horrible it is to live my life. I say that I'm used to it when the reality is that nobody could ever possibly get used to it. Especially since it's an ever-worsening situation as my brother discovers more and more avenues for chemical self-destruction and my sister becomes even more withdrawn. She's already afraid to talk to librarians and store clerks! How much worse will it have to get before something finally gives?

Hopefully what gives isn't my siblings' sanity. And that's the best that I can hope for.

I'm out, true. But of all of us, I'm the one who least needed to be out. I'm the most hated child, it's true, but I'm also the most able to cope. Of my siblings, only I have found true friends. Only I have any sort of escape when I'm at home. My siblings, however, are completely screwed. Thus, my little brother develops chemical and psychological dependencies that may kill him and my older sister forgets that there are decent people in this world who won't turn psychotic on a moment's notice.

How is this fair?

My building cleared out by noon today. From then until I started this entry, I worked on my scrapbook. The destroyed sprig of flowers has been glued into it, still destroyed, to show it wilting and decaying. I think it's beautiful despite that. Beside it I wrote the lyrics to Depeche Mode's "Precious." After I did that, I went outside and picked some of the native flowers to press so I can add them this weekend. "On the Arrow" will definitely be one of them. I think it will get the red flowers. They look like blood, but they're beautiful.

I've never intentionally hurt myself. I've never engaged in cutting or other forms of self-mutilation. But as I was working on my scrapbook, I started to sob. And I wanted nothing more than to hurt myself. I resisted the urge, but discovered little half-moon imprints in my palms from where the stubs of my bitten nails had dug into my flesh. If I weren't a nailbiter...I would have a lot of explaining to do to my friends, that's for certain.

The tango partner was supposed to visit at some point. Maybe he'll drop by tomorrow. Or maybe I'll go see him. I told my guy friend that I hoped he wouldn't see me cry. Because to me, being caught crying is the ultimate sign of weakness. I hate when people see me cry. It's different when other people cry, but when I do it, I almost feel ashamed. It's certainly a waste of other people's time.

I should be stronger than that, after all that I've been through...

Now, I just need to keep moving. It's going to be a long weekend, and at this point, if I break down and sob in front of my tango partner, at least I'll have someone to hold me.

Nobody's ever held me when I've cried before. Not until yesterday. And it's not that people haven't seen me cry before, it's just that they weren't the types of people to do that, even though I've held them when they were crying.

It's such a simple gesture of human comfort...yet so few people are comfortable with it.

I just know that I only want for someone to hold me right now. Fears about hurting them inadvertently or no.

I'm really just a lost little girl once you're in my head. No matter how poised and confident I seem, I'm totally lost and terrified on the inside.

But all people ever see is the poise and confidence that comes from having to pretend that everything in my life is okay for the past thirteen years.

I'm eighteen and a half now. You do the math.

God damn it all for hurting so much,
--Rose Back | Older | Current | Next