The Devil's Rose's blog

2007-06-10 3:54 a.m.

^Listen to it. Now. If you didn't already. :) I've had it on repeat typing this...and I find that knowing what someone was listening to when they wrote and listening to it myself while I read their writing, makes it singularly more effective.

Besides, it's a good song. Rock out for five minutes - it's good for you.

And, for those who may be lyrically impaired:

Free
Let's go!

Everybody needs to start their own fire
Everybody needs a riot of their own
Everybody needs to be something that they are not
Everybody needs to go it alone

(Because!)
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't be what you want to be
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't see what you need to see

(Okay!)

In all the time spent hanging on to anything
And all the time spent knowing that they're wrong
And all the time wasted, stolen back, innocent
You won't get a second more so move it along

(Because!)
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't be what you want to be
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't see what you need to see

Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't be what you want to be
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't see what you need to see

Wishing and hoping and thinking it's you
That's got this all under control
Never a minute has passed you all by
When they haven't invaded your soul

It's not something you can hold
It's not something you own
It's not something you can buy or steal
You've got it when you're alone

Being free is a tragedy
When you don't know yourself
Being free is a tragedy
When you don't know who you are

Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't be what you want to be
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't see what you need to see

Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't be what you want to be
Living so free is a tragedy
When you can't see what you need to see

(Let's go!)

(Hey, hey, hey!)

Alright then,
This is the story of your life man

It's 4 AM. I'm still up. Dear GODS! I hate insomnia.

See, the truth of it is that I have a sleeping disorder. It does odd things to my cognitive processes, and the fact of the matter is that it's gotten a lot worse since I came to university, in much the same way as my best friend's ulcer got a lot worse when she went to her university. We all show the stress of separation and change in similarly different ways. If that even makes any sense.

This sleeping disorder, though, it's really done a number on me here. I'll be lucky if I get a D in my German class thanks to it. Fortunately I'm likely to get Bs in my other classes, which will average it to a safe number. But still. The point isn't what my GPA is, it's what my sleeping disorder has singularly managed to do to my grades.

Especially since I'm going to have Japanese next year at the same time. I'm thinking of being a Language Studies major, with Japanese as my primary language and either German or Spanish as my secondary language. Basically, it's a Linguistics major that requires linguistic and cultural fluency with the primary and secondary languages, which are taken in addition to more traditional Linguistics classes.

I told my mom that over the phone this evening. Said I might major in Japanese if I liked it. She went silent. Then came laughter. Then the dreaded question, "What are you going to do with that?"

I resisted the urge to reply with "Take over the world," "Live in a box," or some such non-answer. It's a valid question, but the laughter stung. But then, Mom thinks that I'm basically an idiot for not going after a safe major, like Business or Economics or Law. Even my friends' parents and my former teachers all think I should be a lawyer or high-powered corporate bitch. My best friend's mom thinks I should become a lawyer for the ACLU, because she's a Republican, I'm markedly not, and we always get into arguments about politics and what equal rights actually means. Especially when someone mentions gay marriage (I have two aunts who married but then had their license revoked because the state doesn't recognize same-sex marriage and it pissed everyone in my family off).

When I was first pondering a Sociology major, I got the same question. "What will you do with that?"

I answered with various things depending on my mood. Historian. Professor. Therapist. Teacher. Civil Service. Politics. Live in a box. Move to Europe and work a low-level job and not worry about healthcare and therefore maintain my current standard of living. Trophy wife was my favorite joke career because it utterly horrified everyone.

I could never be a trophy wife anyway - I'm not pretty enough.

Eventually, though, Librarian became the settled answer. And everyone went, "Aha! that suits her perfectly!" and for the time being I was perfectly safe. But becoming a librarian requires a master's degree, and I'm getting rather tired of school. Not that I want it to be over, per se, I like the freedom it affords me, but I'm getting to the point where if I never have to do another assignment for points and deal with instructors and TAs and all the bullshit that entails, it's fine with me. I've never had as much crap working as I have at school. And at least you get paid to take the crap work deals. What does school give you? A lousy piece of paper with some fancy writing on it. Maybe.

So I've started to veer away from a future career as a librarian. And I'm not terribly enthused about becoming a translator/interpreter. But those are viable possibilities. So when I tell my mom I'm pondering a major in Japanese, she's still seeing all her dreams of my sibs and I becoming extraordinarily wealthy and keeping her comfortable in her old age dissolving to nothing.

But my life isn't to make hers easier. That was never my destined purpose in my eyes - whether or not it was in hers - and I refuse to let it be transmogrified into that. I have to declare my major in the fall due to a fluke wherein I came into university with over a year's worth of testing credit. So I'll declare Language Studies, with Japanese as my focus language. And firmly set myself on the path to living in a box.

I'm cool with that, though. At least I'll have enjoyed my undergrad career in college. And if all else fails, I can always become a teacher or something.

I never wanted to hit this point. Since I was eleven or twelve I've wanted to act. Be onstage. Be another person and get paid for it. Whether or not that other person was exciting or boring or happy or miserable didn't matter - at least then they wouldn't be me, with all the attendant bullshit that entails. I never wanted to go to college, never wanted to play the school game in high school. But I played anyway. I could never let myself let my family down.

Neither of my parents graduated high school? Fine. I graduated, with honors. The only National Merit Scholar in the school. The kid who tutored the valedictorian. The kid who other kids were suprised wasn't the valedictorian. I could have been. I didn't care enough, though. The girls who were valedictorian and salutatorian are commonly believed to have cheated themselves into that position by those os us who were paying attention in high school. Whatever. I figure if someone wants something badly enough to cheat for it, I'll let them have it. Karma and the irony gods will get them later without any help from me.

Neither of my parents, nor my sister, went to a major university? Fine. I got into the University of California system without even thinking about it. Thanks to my 'with honors' status. I could have gone to a 'better' school but I didn't want to deal with more kids like the aforementioned valedictorian and salutatorian. It wasn't worth it to my mental health. I wanted to have fun, not study all the damn time. I wanted friends, not competitors. So I came to Santa Cruz. I don't regret it, not really. Sometimes I do. The attitude is *so* laidback that it's nauseating at times. At least when I slack I'm doing something productive like working on my scrapbook or knitting or rocking out - they're just killing their brain cells.

My parents' college stints consisted of incompleted artsy majors? Fine. I'll get a major with potential practical applications, and then spend the rest of my life fleeing such practicality.

I won't let myself be a tool anymore. I've lost what little personal identity I've ever had thanks to the weight of their expectations. And it takes a goddamned punk rock band to wake me up.

Pathetic, no?

I saw Powerman 5000 perform over my Spring Break two and a half months ago in Hollywood. I spent $200 to go home and see my friends and family, and my mom spent $15 to take me to see a band I'd never heard of before. My sibs had, but I don't get decent radio in Santa Cruz, and I usually only find out about music through either radio or recommendation.

If you ever get the chance, go see them. It's quite the experience. And when I saw them, the singer was sick - I can't even imagine what they'd be like in top form.

Rocking out that night, I forgot where I was. There was just me, and the best amplification system I've yet encountered blasting the bass through my blood as the drums took over for my heartbeat as the pulse I moved to. There's no feeling like that in the world.

It was then that I finally understood my little brother's rock star ambitions. I wish I'd gotten it earlier. Between the two of us, he's the one my parents lament over the most. He drinks, does drugs, sleeps around, skips school, and his only aspiration in life is to become a bass player in a metal band and rock out until he dies. He's only 17. They wonder where they went wrong. Despite my distaste for his hobbies, being straightedge and something of a chronic academic overachiever, I wonder where he went right.

After all, we grew up with the same childhood, more or less. That being extremely fucked up. I have very few memories of my childhood, having repressed most of it. I don't even want to know what I can't bring myself to face. I remember my brother being born, even though I wasn't quite 2 when it happened. I remember being 4-ish and hiding in my sister's room as the walls shook and my parents screamed at one another. I remember having to see a shrink when I was six because of my parents' divorce, and I remember lying to the shrink because my mom hadn't left the room and so I said what I thought she wanted me to. Even then I knew what people wanted and/or expected of me and complied because it was easier than following my own wishes and desires. In the end, it was the fact that my brother's and my stories didn't match up that led the shrink to realize that things weren't right. He stuck to the truth, despite mom not leaving during his shrink sessions either. I remember my parents fighting viciously on my sixth birthday, until my dad walked out. Their divorce began shortly thereafter. Nearly killed my mother, it did. She stopped eating and sleeping and did nothing but cry - even though, or perhaps because, she had brought it on herself. She basically abandoned my sibs and I in the middle of it. My older sister is the woman I relate to as most people relate to their mothers. She was 13 when she became responsible for my brother and I. I was just barely 6. He wasn't even 5 yet.

And aside from school memories, those are all the memories I have from my childhood. Then again, I suppose those are representative memories of what it was like. Parents fighting, little brother crying, hiding with my sister, lying to shrinks to please my mother...

I've never been able to please her. If it wasn't one thing it was another.
"Your grades!" - that one stopped rapidly. If there was one thing I could always do, it was dig myself out of any academic hole.
"You really need to lose ten pounds." "Stop eating so much, it's disgusting!" - I've always been overweight. Even when, during my senior year of high school, I was finding myself having to decide between sleeping, eating, and showering whenever I had spare time because there just wasn't enough time in my life to do everything I was required to do. Even when that decision almost always landed in favor of showering or sleeping (in that order), and led to me eating maybe a sandwich a day if I was lucky. Even then I somehow managed to gain ten pounds. But nobody has ever made me feel as horrible about my weight as my mother. Not even the kids who called me "big, fat, juicy one" could quite come close.
"SHUT UP!" "Why are you always so loud?!" - yes, I'm a loud person. But in a house full of people who can't speak rationally to each other, sometimes its necessary to get your needs met.
"Who the hell are *they*?" "Why do you waste your time with people like that?" - she's always hated my friends. Until she realized they were here to stay and her typical tactics to run people off wouldn't work. Then all of a sudden she *loved* my friends and had never thought a bad thing about them and I was delusional. Oh, and she became prone to calling them at all hours of the night and day looking for me, even when I'd only been gone five minutes.
"It's all your fault!" - I get this one about my brother. Somehow, because I'm his older sister, it's my fault that he's a twisted little kid. Not a bad kid, just not a kid most parents would envision themselves having. Apparently, her being the mother absolves her of all guilt in this department because she would have raised perfect little children.

But I'm learning not to care about this. I have amazing friends, and I'm slowly replacing my family with them. But that doesn't change the fact that I have all this poison in my heart and my mind and my perceptions of everything from all the poison I grew up surrounded by.

It would be so much easier if I could just hate these people. At least then I'd be able to convince myself that because I hated them, it would be perfectly fine to not give a shit what happened to them, and then maybe I wouldn't try to goddamn hard to please everyone.

I'm not being what I want to be. I'm not living my life for me. I'm living it for everyone else and their dog, and it's driving me crazy. I'm not an emotionally healthy or stable individual. I'm actually quite fucked up. I fear I will always be quite fucked up.

But so what if I am, right?! Isn't that what we're supposed to think? "To hell with everyone else!"? It's not that simple. It's never been that simple.

No matter how hard I've ever tried to escape it, "Too long control of me destiny's not been in me own hands" to quote Captain Barbossa because I'm still on my pirate kick.

I wish taking back control were as simple as saying I'm not going to buy into this shit anymore. Unfortunately, it's not.

So what should I do? There's no 12-step program to get you to take control of your identity. No self-help book can help you find the self you're trying to help. Maybe the reason I feel like "I can't tell where I stop and they begin" about my friends is because there is no "I". Maybe I'm just a conglomeration of other people's identities. Maybe that's what makes me so random.

I feel like my hold on reality, like my grasp of everything that I've ever held to be real and true, is slipping. I feel like I'm dissolving.

Who am I? Am I the student who goes by the name ----? Am I the devils rose, the crowning achievement in the garden of misery? Am I the queen of the random tradition? Am I crazy? Am I Napoleon Bonaparte? (Just kidding about that last one.)

I've always been a talented actress, able to play any role life forces on me. I've always had more to hide than the average person, though. My only dream for myself in life has been to act - I don't even want fame, I just want to be able to pay the bills by being someone who isn't me.

I look in the mirror, and I don't like who I am. And I'd give anything to change that I into someone else.

Maybe a nervous breakdown is the way to go. Everytime I mention unhappiness, everyone jumps to ascertain that, yes, indeed, this girl will get her degree *before* she has a meltdown. Oh, and "you will be working during this meltdown, right?"

[sarcasm]"Of course, momsy. Wouldn't dream of doing anything else.[/sarcasm]

So I vow to myself here and now. Yes, I'll work during my yearlong hiatus from life when I have a meltdown. I'll work at acting. Stage-acting, not screen, I'm not nearly pretty or thin enough to do that, and since I'm not after fame it's fine by me.

I'll use that meltdown to afford me the time to figure my head out as best I can. To live free - and not as a tragedy. To rock out and frolic and be happy. Because I've had precious little enough of that in my lifetime.

Take all you can - give nothing back.
When I saw the first pirate movie and heard that motto, it seemed straightforward. My friends and I have since warped it though, to mean any of a number of things. So I propose yet another meaning to the list we've compiled. "Do what you want - never apologize for wanting it."

It's 5:10 AM. Maybe now I'll be able to sleep...unlikely...but in any event, I'm going to sign off before this entry grows to even more epic proportions than it already has. Back | Older | Current | Next