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she had a suitcase full of noble intentions she had a map and a straight face hell bent on reinvention ~ani difranco I am so tired. all of my thoughts are dominated by that- I am so tired. I'm currently obsessing over ani's new album. (did you expect any less of me?) ...it's truly incredible, and I alternate between aspiring to be like her and knowing I'll never come close. I have a story, that's true, but she has truths. And I think I must have truths in there somewhere, there must be lessons that came from my story... but I don't know what they are and I don't know how to find them. I don't think I'll ever be a writer, I think I'll always be a storyteller. And storytelling is ancient, it's older than writing, and not inherently better or worse but just different. But when I read, I tend to forget the storytellers and remember the writers. And don't ask me to define the difference, I really don't think that I can. But I think that writers are the people who write stories and storytellers are the people who find stories. And writers are the people who write pages that stay in your head, passages that have very little to do with the story but were written because they had some other truth that had to be told, and the story is there only to lead you to that truth. and I really can't define what a truth is, but I know it when I see it... which is maybe the definition of a truth, something that you never really thought of before, but the minute you see it you know it's true. ...the chosen family... I'm the mother... Judy calls me mamr and I find it adorable, although the original nickname was supposed to be marmie, like in Little Women. She's the ten year old, alice is the teenager, and melchelle's the 3-year-old. We've decided that these rules really only apply when doing family activities such as grocery shopping and making dinner and during these times it is illegal to mention the fact that the mother is sleeping with the three year old, because that just doesn't work. Our family revolves around dinner... I do the shopping and budgeting (and most of the financing) alice does the cooking, judy cleans up, melchelle stays out of the way and does odd little errands. And the simple act of cooking a meal and sitting down and eating it around a table makes the four of us unbelievably happy. I read "she's come undone" years ago, and don't remember all of it... except I remember that she ends up living in a house with people that she loved, and that's what their family was, a small group of people who loved each other and decided to live together... and when I read it, I was extremely jealous. And I thought about it for days, how that's what I wanted, a family like that, and how the chances of me ever getting one were slim to none. and somehow, magically, I have one now. and it amazes me. I don't understand how this happened or how I got so lucky, but it did, and I am. I somehow have this group of friends that I don't have to hide anything from. They don't know everything, because everything is huge and I can't tell it all at once... but they will, and they even seem to want to. and when I got sick they did my laundry and cleaned my room for me. and when my mom was drunk, on my birthday, and asking me obnoxious questions, she was looking at my photo album and asking, "are these kids nice? I want them to be nice, I want them to be nice to you..." (those really weren't the obnoxious questions, by the way, I don't really want to get into that right now, maybe later...) ...and what I wanted to say, when she asked me that, was, "they're not only nice to me, they're nicer to me than you are." ...but I couldn't, because it would've made her cry. either that or she would've gotten really angry. and I haven't really fought with my mother in a couple months, and I'd like to think that when I'm not living at home we can get along. will drive someone to do now multiply that times me and multiply that times you now imagine what it would take to try to make this all happen again and just when you think you're gonna cry multiply that times ten assuming I manage to pass all my classes, despite spending this week at home, I'm going to graduate in 6 months. six months. My life after that just stops. I don't know where I'll be or what I'll be doing. And sometimes that seems very liberating, and sometimes it's terrifying. And I worry that I'm going to waste it, I worry that I'm going to do the easy thing, whatever that is. and I want to travel, I want to experience things, and what I'm actually going to do is get a job, any job, really, and a slum apartment, and live for a while. And I'm trying to tell myself that's an experience too. I'm not sure I believe it. My whole life has been in hyperdrive for several years now. I'm used to being years ahead of everybody else, I'm used to thinking that I'm doing this for a reason... I never really figured out what that reason was, and I'm starting to think it was never there. I don't know why I did this. I'm 18 years old, I'm going to be done with college in six months. My parents wanted me to go to grad school next year, the very thought of which makes me want to curl up in a ball under the covers and go to sleep. Grad school is a serious decision. It's not like getting a liberal arts bachelor's degree, nobody's ever going to really care what I majored in. Getting a master's pretty much says "I'm sure enough that this is what I want to do with my life that I'm willing to spend $40,000 to get a degree that says this is what I want to do with my life." and I'm no where near that level of commitment. I wouldn't even know where to start. And I think I've finally talked myself into believing that that's okay, that I'm not supposed to know what I want to do with my life, I'm 18 years old. But the age thing never really swayed me much. In the back of my mind I've always felt that if I'm operating at a certain level in one part of my life I should be able to operate there throughout my entire life. And that would make me about 22 now, or at least 21... and I think maybe you're supposed to know what you want to do with your life by then. Maybe the trick is to stop thinking "what I want to do with my life" and start thinking "what I want to do this year." ...my life seems like a really long time, sometimes, and sometimes I think "whatif..." and it seems very very short... and I can't seem to do what makes me happy now and plan for something that'll make me happy in the future. somehow the two are contradictory. My dream would be to live in a house with a lot of kids... I want a lot of kids... and be able to do something to make money... like writing, or designing web pages, or growing vegetables. I'm not terribly picky at this point. That's what I know I want, i want a house. with kids and animals. and I want my friends there. Judy and andy get the library with a canopy bed and melchelle and I get the room with the gigantic wooden sleigh bed and a window in the ceiling so we can look up at the stars (and alice and bob can have whatever room they want :-). And I'll claim the little nook under the stairs for my office, and it'll have my computer, and we would be the happiest family. and if it would make us happy, why does it feel so unrealistic? faster than a roulette wheel this is not who i meant to be this is not how i meant to feel ~me |