Or, "how a character I created became my own best inspiration to keep fighting".
The end is near... sorta. I made myself do an outline, even though I hate outlines, and I now know exactly how Scarlett Ember is ending and exactly what I have to do to finish it. And, because I've made this awesome progress, I figure I might as well let myself write about why that project is important to me and why, four years after I originally created her, Scarlett Evans is still the coolest character I've ever written.
Like a lot of the brainpests that have been around for a while, Scarlett originated on an RP site. For a few years, long-post message-board roleplays were the main writing I did (I'm not sure why I walked away from that cold but that is a thing that happened). There are several characters with those origins that I need to use in things eventually, because a lot of them meant things to me, but Scarlett... well. Scarlett was created midway through my senior year of highschool on a site based loosely off of a concept album by a band I wasn't even sure I liked at the time. But it was still a post-apoc site, and I had a ridiculous weakness for those, and then I looked at the canon list (in normal-speak, ideas of characters who had connections to other characters) and saw a face I already wanted to use and I was absolutely done for. (My recurrent Florence Welch situation is a subject for another day -- trust me, that's a post in and of itself.) And not only did the character have a good face, but her setup was awesome and thus one of the best things that ever happened to me was born.
Initially, Scarlett was an ideal version of myself. I'd created characters who were vaguely based off myself before - one in particular, a sixteen-year-old terror child, still stands out - but Scarlett was more who I wanted to be. Scarlett was twenty-seven, the leader of one of the main groups, a certified badass, and prone to wearing pretty dresses and stilettos while still being totally awesome. Scarlett was also deeply insecure, in love with someone who refused to see her, and just a little too impulsive for her own good. But thing was, even with the established flaws, people loved her. Even with the fact that she was prone to doing things that weren't exactly Good Ideas, Scarlett was the most beloved character on the site (at least in 'verse, the OOC antics on that site were legendary and again there's too much material there for this post). And that gave me strength. Most of Scarlett's most amazing moments in that world - and I have them saved on my laptop somewhere because they were that good - were written during my depressive spiral. Even when I was an absolute wreck, I had that outlet. More than any other character I ever wrote during my RP era, Scarlett was cathartic. She was everything I aspired to be, and yet most of that was attainable, and I clung hard.
By the end of the first year, Scarlett had claimed her own little corner of my brain. This was mainly because of her fashion sense - especially in her earlier incarnations, she liked glitter a lot. To this day, when I need to buy a dress for an event, one of the first thoughts that runs through my mind is "what would Scarlett wear for this thing?". I normally proceed to buy the exact opposite, because see above comment about glitter, but it's still a fun mental process. And by the time she died on the site, I was pretty sure she was the most important thing I was ever going to create.
This was before the concept of parallel girls had occurred to me, before I really had anything to cling to. I read a lot of books, but none of the girls in them were like me. I was, for starters, a hell of a lot tinier (lead girls in YA futuristics are always petite for some reason and it annoys me). I was pretty sure I'd never get one person to fall in love with me, let alone two at roughly the same time! And maybe most importantly, I didn't want to stay alive solely on my own venom. This was where Scarlett saved me. Scarlett, 5'8" (yes, the same height as me, shuddup) and comfortable wearing heels and honestly screw anyone who had a problem with that because she had better things to worry about. Scarlett, who spent the better part of a decade pining after the same person and eventually got him because turned out the problem was he was a little overwhelmed by her. Scarlett, who was so full of love for everyone - maybe to varying extents, but still so much more love than hate. I couldn't find an existent role model I wanted, so I created my own.
The funny thing is that almost exactly four years after her original creation, even though she's finally decided to behave herself in a totally different original project, Scarlett hasn't changed much. She's calmed down a little bit over the years, but that's about it. She's still vibrant, vocal, full of love, and prone to wearing too many sequins. Personality-wise, she's still everything I want to be, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I'm not as cool as her, and I probably never will be, but that's okay. I've seen a lot of people who write say something to the effect of "if this story impacts one person, it'll all be worth it". Well, mission accomplished.
Song of the day - "Summertime", My Chemical Romance.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
On Bad Timing
Or, "I hate Valentine's Day for REASONS".
I was on promo setup at work this past week. For those of you who have never worked retail (or perhaps know this nightmare by a different name), promo setup is a seasonal ritual that involves a lot of charts and a lot of product that isn't on any of the charts. It also involves the entire department being passive-aggressive, someone inevitably bribing us with food, and (at least the now-three times I've been on it) my fear of heights being a huge problem (I do not trust the little stepladders at work one bit). On the bright side, this time I did not get myself sent home early because I nearly passed out. (That was how I got out of the Halloween exercise this past year. I could not stand upright and consuming a decent quantity of sugar did not help and eventually I need to figure out why that keeps happening to me but the key word there is eventually.) Not so bright side, I've been in some variation of flashback mode for the last forty-eight hours and... needless to say, that sucks.
Again, this is another post about the Vulcan (who now officially gets a tag here because apparently this is something I am still majorly processing). I know, I know. I have emotionally moved on and I need to write about stuff that isn't my disastrous attempt at first love, and yet... it still affects a lot. It still explains a lot. And until I have the chance to rewire myself and make better memories involving my misguided affectionate heart, I'm going to keep writing about that dingbat and the effect he had on me.
So... timing-wise, this part of that story starts in November 2011, the month in which I made one of my top five worst decisions ever (random fact - I don't actually have a list for that other than knowing that this incident is on it) and let him back in. I actually had no control over how that happened. We ran into each other at a thing, we got put in the same spaces during that thing, we ended up talking in a hallway for over an hour, and... at some point, one of my mother's friends saw this and her little heart just melted. I know this because approximately a week later, my mother "confronted" me about it. This, if you're keeping score, is probably one of the top five weirdest things she has ever done. Apparently she was all melty over it too because she knew darn well who that boy was and how good a person he was compared to me (this turned out to be untrue but we didn't know it then) and it was so sweet that he was voluntarily talking to me!! The fact that we'd been friends in some form for a year and this was the first she was hearing of it did not matter one bit. This was my mother in flail mode, and boy was that a fun month or so for me.
Point being, I fell for him again. I fell for him because I am perpetually attention-desperate and I wanted to prove to him that I could absolutely be what I needed. And again, for a few sweet months, we were functional. Then February 2012 happened and it all went right to hell again.
I'd actually figured it out a week before I actually found out. In general, if someone posts song lyrics on Facebook, they are implying something that they themselves are sucking at finding the right words for. At some point during the first week of February, the Vulcan posted lines from "Collide" by Howie Day. If you've never heard that song, click here because despite what follows, I still think it's a beautiful song. It's just... very, very sappy. It is not a song that a single person posts lyrics from, ever. So, from that little cue alone, I figured out that the Vulcan had a girlfriend or something. This did not rest well on my vulnerable eighteen-year-old heart. I was still convinced I was in love with him, and people I was in love with were not supposed to do things like this!! But that, it turned out, was not even the worst of what happened.
Fast-forward to February 13. I remember the date very clearly, which is never a good thing considering how codawful my memory tends to be with most things. February fricking 13th. It was a Monday, too, because adding insult to injury and all that jazz. Completely normal day until I sat down with my laptop and the Vulcan and I started having one of our convos. At this point, that happened maybe once or twice a week and it would mostly be about things that happened to us. Well, this was definitely a Thing That Happened. Being the hopeless-romantic idiot that I was, I had somehow convinced myself thtat the day before fricking Valentine's Day was the perfect time to tell him that I still fancied him. And then the bomb dropped.
He. Had. A. Girlfriend.
I would learn later that the girl in question was a petite blonde pixie who may or may not have been slightly emotionally manipulative. This reveal, however, would not happen until after she broke up with him after two months. (Also turns out that getting ditched in favor of emotionally manipulative blonde pixies is something that always ends up happening to me. As of writing this, the Vulcan is the first of four people who's done that to me, and out of those, I am only on speaking terms with one.) And at the time, it didn't matter who she was. I had been two seconds from reminding him that I loved him, but that apparently meant nothing now because he was with someone else.
In hindsight, even with all the other awfulness I've survived, no betrayal has ever stung quite as much as that one.
We could've been good for each other. That was what I told myself so many times in the months that followed. And with who we were when we were eighteen, that was still an accurate statement. I do realize now that it wouldn't have lasted as a long-term thing. We were too similar in some ways and too different in others and it just wouldn't have worked. But as a short fluttery disaster of a relationship, we could've meant something. We could've saved each other. But he chose someone else, and I shut off further, and none of that mattered.
So when people ask me why I don't like Valentine's Day, it's not just because I'm 21 and single and basically everyone else I know is in love. It's because like it or not, for the rest of my life, that "holiday" will always be associated with something painful. And like it or not, I'm still not totally over it.
Song of the day - "Antebellum", Vienna Teng.
Monday, January 5, 2015
On Not Wanting To Die Anymore
Or, "I'm definitely at the tail end of this depression thing and it's so weird to think of who I'm gonna be when it actually ends".
I wrote suicide fic today for the first time in roughly a year. Well, technically not fic - it was going to be, because a throwaway line in something I read a few days ago got my brain spinning, but then I decided it was too much angst to inflict on that side of that fandom and turned it into an original thing instead. It's actually more painful in that form, which is not something I thought would be possible but here we are. I mean, I dunno if it'll have that effect on anyone who ultimately reads the piece, but it hurt me to write it. And that, in turn, has me realizing a few things I wasn't expecting about my own journey and what's next for me.
I was diagnosed with depression at age eighteen. I probably should've been diagnosed when I was quite a few years younger - high school was not a good era for me, and in hindsight I probably developed everything by about age fifteen - but that didn't happen because of my mother. I know I make her look like a terrible person on here, and I swear she isn't, but I've been more affected by her "eccentricities" than my siblings have been. The one in play here was her deep desire to be considered acceptable by the people we know. (She's since begun to get over that, but as of when all my issues started manifesting, I was pretty sure she never would.) Keep in mind that I originated in super-religious homeschool-bubble hell. With the people I know in particular, mental illness is not something that's talked about. Ever. It's one of those "if we don't talk about it then it can't happen to any of our kids" things, on about the same level as the sexual orientation umbrella and underage pregnancy. (The umbrella is a story for another day, but as far as I know, no one who grew up in that community has gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Yet.) Honestly, I was a victim of circumstances here. I didn't know what I was feeling beyond that it sucked, and yet I knew better than to tell anyone. Weird dichotomy, but at the same time totally normal at that point.
The reason I finally did get diagnosed was the fallout of my first heartbreak. I've already written about the Vulcan, so I'm not going to do a detailed recap here, but sufficient to say, I did not know how to handle being turned down and did the bad-human thing and intentionally fed those feelings and... cut to two months after the heartbreak, me curled up in the fetal position in a bathroom during a church event of some sort, trying to figure out if there was any possible way to hurt myself and make it all stop. Even my mother couldn't ignore something on that scale. We both knew I could keep quiet (as I did for a while until I got sick of social taboos // my nonexistent verbal filter got the better of me once more). We both knew what it'd do to her reputation if I did successfully off myself. Getting help was finally the right answer.
I was in counseling for a while. My former speech coach knew someone (weird how that connection worked out, less weird considering the bridge woman probably called my issues two or three years earlier) and that was an interesting year or so of self-discovery. Didn't fix anything, but we did learn quite a bit about my fears and exactly how dysfunctional certain elements of my life were so that was fun.
More effectively, I got put on meds. I was medicated for a little under three years, and I will never fault anyone who needs that to stay alive and functional. It worked for me. It also gave me really bad headaches and upped my sex drive, which is apparently such a rare side effect that it isn't on the lists (apparently most people on antidepressants have zero physical desire; I was a hormonal nightmare and boy was that a fun convo to have with my doctor). And then there were the crying episodes. The crying episodes are why I stopped taking meds, because I had them while I was on three different things and it just got worse and I couldn't deal with it. Better to fight my demons on my own without any chemical help than to go through that again.
During this cycle, I read a lot about what I was dealing with. I made sure I was labeled with the right things. I know way more than I actually need to know about how depression works and how people get through it (or don't). I know that more likely than not, I will have several more dark periods at different points in my life, and I know how to handle them when they happen. I know how to take care of myself. But the thing about something as big as the desperate desire to just make everything stop is that after a while, it defines you. I didn't mean for that to happen, but eventually I got to the point where when I chose to tell someone why I acted the way I did, they weren't surprised. About a year ago, when I interviewed for my current job, I mentioned my mental health issues just to warn them that there would be days when I wouldn't be as consistent as usual because I was too busy trying to stay alive. It became my primary identifier - Depressed Girl. I didn't even mind.
Lately, though, things have been better. Screw it, things are a lot better. I don't want to die anymore, and I'm not sure how or why that clicked. It's not like I have anything going for me at the moment. I am completely ordinary. I have no friends in the face-to-face world (internet friends are amazing but sadly unhelpful here). I have no romantic prospects. I'm drowning in loneliness and disappointment. And yet, somewhere out there is something worth living for. I dunno what that something is yet. I know in my heart that there's someone out there who's going to love me even when I lapse again (and I'm not expecting much more than a warm body next to mine, I do not have high standards, that'd be enough I swear), but waiting sucks and knowing my luck, it's gonna be a few years. (I mean, obviously I would love to meet my Person ASAP, but with things as they are, the odds of anyone acceptable wandering into my life anytime soon are tiny.) I know I'm gonna have kids someday and I'm gonna be an excellent mother. But... I dunno, that isn't what's bringing me out of this. I'm not sure what is, but it's nice. Just needs to hurry up and define itself.
I don't want to die anymore. Six very powerful words. I'm moving forward, and I dunno what that means but it's going to be beautiful. I just need to... y'know, figure out who I am without the depressive cloud over me. Because honestly, I don't know. I don't know who I am anymore. The thing about developing something like this when you're a young kid is that when it finally stops, you don't exactly have anything to run back to. There's not that linear perfect restart point. There's nothing, and... it freaks me out. A lot. Because I have to start over, and I don't know who I want to become or how to do that, and I hate uncertainty more than anything. I wish there was a guide for doing this, getting your life back and becoming a person again, but... there isn't. I'm not that lucky. Guess I just have to wing it.
Song of the day - "The Whisperer", Sia // David Guetta.
I wrote suicide fic today for the first time in roughly a year. Well, technically not fic - it was going to be, because a throwaway line in something I read a few days ago got my brain spinning, but then I decided it was too much angst to inflict on that side of that fandom and turned it into an original thing instead. It's actually more painful in that form, which is not something I thought would be possible but here we are. I mean, I dunno if it'll have that effect on anyone who ultimately reads the piece, but it hurt me to write it. And that, in turn, has me realizing a few things I wasn't expecting about my own journey and what's next for me.
I was diagnosed with depression at age eighteen. I probably should've been diagnosed when I was quite a few years younger - high school was not a good era for me, and in hindsight I probably developed everything by about age fifteen - but that didn't happen because of my mother. I know I make her look like a terrible person on here, and I swear she isn't, but I've been more affected by her "eccentricities" than my siblings have been. The one in play here was her deep desire to be considered acceptable by the people we know. (She's since begun to get over that, but as of when all my issues started manifesting, I was pretty sure she never would.) Keep in mind that I originated in super-religious homeschool-bubble hell. With the people I know in particular, mental illness is not something that's talked about. Ever. It's one of those "if we don't talk about it then it can't happen to any of our kids" things, on about the same level as the sexual orientation umbrella and underage pregnancy. (The umbrella is a story for another day, but as far as I know, no one who grew up in that community has gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Yet.) Honestly, I was a victim of circumstances here. I didn't know what I was feeling beyond that it sucked, and yet I knew better than to tell anyone. Weird dichotomy, but at the same time totally normal at that point.
The reason I finally did get diagnosed was the fallout of my first heartbreak. I've already written about the Vulcan, so I'm not going to do a detailed recap here, but sufficient to say, I did not know how to handle being turned down and did the bad-human thing and intentionally fed those feelings and... cut to two months after the heartbreak, me curled up in the fetal position in a bathroom during a church event of some sort, trying to figure out if there was any possible way to hurt myself and make it all stop. Even my mother couldn't ignore something on that scale. We both knew I could keep quiet (as I did for a while until I got sick of social taboos // my nonexistent verbal filter got the better of me once more). We both knew what it'd do to her reputation if I did successfully off myself. Getting help was finally the right answer.
I was in counseling for a while. My former speech coach knew someone (weird how that connection worked out, less weird considering the bridge woman probably called my issues two or three years earlier) and that was an interesting year or so of self-discovery. Didn't fix anything, but we did learn quite a bit about my fears and exactly how dysfunctional certain elements of my life were so that was fun.
More effectively, I got put on meds. I was medicated for a little under three years, and I will never fault anyone who needs that to stay alive and functional. It worked for me. It also gave me really bad headaches and upped my sex drive, which is apparently such a rare side effect that it isn't on the lists (apparently most people on antidepressants have zero physical desire; I was a hormonal nightmare and boy was that a fun convo to have with my doctor). And then there were the crying episodes. The crying episodes are why I stopped taking meds, because I had them while I was on three different things and it just got worse and I couldn't deal with it. Better to fight my demons on my own without any chemical help than to go through that again.
During this cycle, I read a lot about what I was dealing with. I made sure I was labeled with the right things. I know way more than I actually need to know about how depression works and how people get through it (or don't). I know that more likely than not, I will have several more dark periods at different points in my life, and I know how to handle them when they happen. I know how to take care of myself. But the thing about something as big as the desperate desire to just make everything stop is that after a while, it defines you. I didn't mean for that to happen, but eventually I got to the point where when I chose to tell someone why I acted the way I did, they weren't surprised. About a year ago, when I interviewed for my current job, I mentioned my mental health issues just to warn them that there would be days when I wouldn't be as consistent as usual because I was too busy trying to stay alive. It became my primary identifier - Depressed Girl. I didn't even mind.
Lately, though, things have been better. Screw it, things are a lot better. I don't want to die anymore, and I'm not sure how or why that clicked. It's not like I have anything going for me at the moment. I am completely ordinary. I have no friends in the face-to-face world (internet friends are amazing but sadly unhelpful here). I have no romantic prospects. I'm drowning in loneliness and disappointment. And yet, somewhere out there is something worth living for. I dunno what that something is yet. I know in my heart that there's someone out there who's going to love me even when I lapse again (and I'm not expecting much more than a warm body next to mine, I do not have high standards, that'd be enough I swear), but waiting sucks and knowing my luck, it's gonna be a few years. (I mean, obviously I would love to meet my Person ASAP, but with things as they are, the odds of anyone acceptable wandering into my life anytime soon are tiny.) I know I'm gonna have kids someday and I'm gonna be an excellent mother. But... I dunno, that isn't what's bringing me out of this. I'm not sure what is, but it's nice. Just needs to hurry up and define itself.
I don't want to die anymore. Six very powerful words. I'm moving forward, and I dunno what that means but it's going to be beautiful. I just need to... y'know, figure out who I am without the depressive cloud over me. Because honestly, I don't know. I don't know who I am anymore. The thing about developing something like this when you're a young kid is that when it finally stops, you don't exactly have anything to run back to. There's not that linear perfect restart point. There's nothing, and... it freaks me out. A lot. Because I have to start over, and I don't know who I want to become or how to do that, and I hate uncertainty more than anything. I wish there was a guide for doing this, getting your life back and becoming a person again, but... there isn't. I'm not that lucky. Guess I just have to wing it.
Song of the day - "The Whisperer", Sia // David Guetta.
Friday, December 19, 2014
On Not Being Enough
Or, "all of my fears are completely justifiable and I hate it".
I have a grand total of four conscious fears - heights (I am too tall for that problem and yet--), small spaces (mostly elevators but someone nearly accidentally shut me into a dark supply closet at work a few months ago and that's the most traumatic thing that's happened to me all year), getting hit by a car in the parking lot at work (very specific I know but I swear to god, that parking lot is the convergence of every bad driver in the Tri-State and I do not want to die there), aaaand never being good enough for anyone. There's a pattern here, I swear. Heights - the defining moment was on a vacation to Washington D.C. the summer I turned fifteen, in the Washington Monument because I swear that thing was designed to help people consciously realise their fears. Small spaces - series of things, the closet incident at work being the most recent (I'm not that tiny and unnoticeable, and the other person did apologize, but still). Getting hit by a car in the parking lot at work - people around here can't fricking drive, I have seen less idiots in locations that are supposedly hell in that regard (Chicago suburbs, totally overrated as far as asshole drivers), and yet for some reason it is just that one particular parking lot where I've nearly gotten hit on multiple occasions. Never being good enough for anyone... well, that's a bit more complicated.
I'm pretty sure the origin of this fear is that my dad comes from a long line of perfectionists. As far as we know, this is a genetic defect, which means I'm safe because being adopted does have a few perks, but... yeah. Not only that, but even the family members who don't have that personality flaw are musically gifted. And, to top that off, my dad has a comparatively tame version of what I've come to refer to as Military Personality Type. (My mom and I didn't know this was the tame version until I was about 14, but that is another post.) Military Personality Type is... well, if you don't know someone who has it, I can't really explain it to you but I swear it's a thing. And sufficient to say, that combination of personality traits was not exactly the best thing for a young kid to grow up around. I mean, my dad's a decent person. I learned my driving habits and my full repertoire of profanity from him (often at the same time), and he genuinely tries. Just... not a good pressurey situation. But, as with everything else in my life, it got worse when I turned 14.
Switching homeschool groups based on location is probably the weirdest thing my mother has ever done, and that includes the time when I was nine and what was supposed to be a ten-minute drive home turned into an hour-and-a-half detour because Mom made one wrong turn, didn't know she'd made a wrong turn, and by the time we did figure this out, we were a county north of where we'd started. For those of you who don't know, Hamilton County is pretty big, so this was an accomplishment. This led to my parents getting cell phones for Christmas that year, and a few years later we got a GPS with my dad's airline miles (which is another story, srsly), and... yeah. Rambling. Sufficient to say, this one little decision five years later had about the same fallout - one little mistake leading to a bunch of weird, unexpected, and generally awful consequences. Except that this time, not for the person who made said decision.
The amount of elitists one runs into in homeschool circles is amazing. I did speech comp for three years - trust me on this, you will never find a higher concentration of pretentious teenagers who are going to get hit hard by the normal world in a couple of years and deserve every bit of that. But speech comp, at least, mostly involved people who could learn from their mistakes. The local co-op we were involved in? Not so much. I still know all of the girls of my era, and I at least keep tabs on the boys via Facebook (it's amusing okay?), and they have all just intensified from where they were in high school. More often than not, this is not a compliment.
So what does this have to do with my insecurities, you ask? Very simple - because nothing will ruin a teenage girl like primarily being around other teenage girls who are all very good at something she is not good at. In this case, unsurprisingly, that thing was music. I cannot play an instrument. Several rounds of piano lessons were attempted over the years, and I tried clarinet for about a year until orthodontia killswitched that idea. The other girls of my era either played multiple instruments or just did one but were exceptionally good at it to compensate. Presumably, I could've compensated for this if my singing voice was good, but that also did not happen. I am very solidly an alto. For those of you who are not musically inclined, religious music is not written for altos. Choir music is definitely not written for altos. Take, say, "Carol Of The Bells" - let's use that example because I've had that on the brain lately (mainly because of a TV ep I watched a few weeks ago that used it interestingly, but that is not a story I am posting here) and because it's a fairly simple four-part song. (Also, because it's a yearly ritual in the community choir I was in.) The sopranos and the tenors get the interesting parts, as per usual. The basses do what they always do, for better or for worse. The altos... are just there. Completely normal. And what were the rest of the girls of my era? Second sopranos. Aka, y'know, the most obnoxious group in any choir. Just... trust me.
And here's the thing - nobody ever told me I wasn't good enough. They didn't need to. It was implied in ways more damaging than words could ever be.
It was implied in all of the activities I was "accidentally" left out of in high school.
It was implied in my mother's constant insecurities about the fact that I wasn't boy-crazy (the fact that she knew darn well what boys I knew and still thought it was weird I wasn't flinging myself at anyone remains one of the great mysteries of my teenage years).
It was implied in all the condescending comments whenever I said that I didn't want to get married or have kids (this has changed but the scars remain).
It was implied in all of the people who told me I'd prolly get married young as cosmic payback for everything (yet here I am, no nearer to that fate than I was five years ago when they thought it was so cute).
It's been implied in all of the times my mother has had to be "creative" when talking with her friends about what everyone's adult children are up to, because "she quit college and works in a shop and is supposedly working on several novels" just doesn't sound acceptable.
No one ever had to tell me I was good enough. I just knew. And at this point, it's in my blood.
I haven't had a lot of genuine friendships and I dunno how to change that. I've never been in functional reciprocated love. But someday these will change. Someday I will be good enough. And someday, someday I will stick it to everyone who ever made me think I wasn't. It's going to be a journey, but so help me, I will get there. I have to. It's either that or death, and I'm not at the cute age to be a tragedy.
I have a grand total of four conscious fears - heights (I am too tall for that problem and yet--), small spaces (mostly elevators but someone nearly accidentally shut me into a dark supply closet at work a few months ago and that's the most traumatic thing that's happened to me all year), getting hit by a car in the parking lot at work (very specific I know but I swear to god, that parking lot is the convergence of every bad driver in the Tri-State and I do not want to die there), aaaand never being good enough for anyone. There's a pattern here, I swear. Heights - the defining moment was on a vacation to Washington D.C. the summer I turned fifteen, in the Washington Monument because I swear that thing was designed to help people consciously realise their fears. Small spaces - series of things, the closet incident at work being the most recent (I'm not that tiny and unnoticeable, and the other person did apologize, but still). Getting hit by a car in the parking lot at work - people around here can't fricking drive, I have seen less idiots in locations that are supposedly hell in that regard (Chicago suburbs, totally overrated as far as asshole drivers), and yet for some reason it is just that one particular parking lot where I've nearly gotten hit on multiple occasions. Never being good enough for anyone... well, that's a bit more complicated.
I'm pretty sure the origin of this fear is that my dad comes from a long line of perfectionists. As far as we know, this is a genetic defect, which means I'm safe because being adopted does have a few perks, but... yeah. Not only that, but even the family members who don't have that personality flaw are musically gifted. And, to top that off, my dad has a comparatively tame version of what I've come to refer to as Military Personality Type. (My mom and I didn't know this was the tame version until I was about 14, but that is another post.) Military Personality Type is... well, if you don't know someone who has it, I can't really explain it to you but I swear it's a thing. And sufficient to say, that combination of personality traits was not exactly the best thing for a young kid to grow up around. I mean, my dad's a decent person. I learned my driving habits and my full repertoire of profanity from him (often at the same time), and he genuinely tries. Just... not a good pressurey situation. But, as with everything else in my life, it got worse when I turned 14.
Switching homeschool groups based on location is probably the weirdest thing my mother has ever done, and that includes the time when I was nine and what was supposed to be a ten-minute drive home turned into an hour-and-a-half detour because Mom made one wrong turn, didn't know she'd made a wrong turn, and by the time we did figure this out, we were a county north of where we'd started. For those of you who don't know, Hamilton County is pretty big, so this was an accomplishment. This led to my parents getting cell phones for Christmas that year, and a few years later we got a GPS with my dad's airline miles (which is another story, srsly), and... yeah. Rambling. Sufficient to say, this one little decision five years later had about the same fallout - one little mistake leading to a bunch of weird, unexpected, and generally awful consequences. Except that this time, not for the person who made said decision.
The amount of elitists one runs into in homeschool circles is amazing. I did speech comp for three years - trust me on this, you will never find a higher concentration of pretentious teenagers who are going to get hit hard by the normal world in a couple of years and deserve every bit of that. But speech comp, at least, mostly involved people who could learn from their mistakes. The local co-op we were involved in? Not so much. I still know all of the girls of my era, and I at least keep tabs on the boys via Facebook (it's amusing okay?), and they have all just intensified from where they were in high school. More often than not, this is not a compliment.
So what does this have to do with my insecurities, you ask? Very simple - because nothing will ruin a teenage girl like primarily being around other teenage girls who are all very good at something she is not good at. In this case, unsurprisingly, that thing was music. I cannot play an instrument. Several rounds of piano lessons were attempted over the years, and I tried clarinet for about a year until orthodontia killswitched that idea. The other girls of my era either played multiple instruments or just did one but were exceptionally good at it to compensate. Presumably, I could've compensated for this if my singing voice was good, but that also did not happen. I am very solidly an alto. For those of you who are not musically inclined, religious music is not written for altos. Choir music is definitely not written for altos. Take, say, "Carol Of The Bells" - let's use that example because I've had that on the brain lately (mainly because of a TV ep I watched a few weeks ago that used it interestingly, but that is not a story I am posting here) and because it's a fairly simple four-part song. (Also, because it's a yearly ritual in the community choir I was in.) The sopranos and the tenors get the interesting parts, as per usual. The basses do what they always do, for better or for worse. The altos... are just there. Completely normal. And what were the rest of the girls of my era? Second sopranos. Aka, y'know, the most obnoxious group in any choir. Just... trust me.
And here's the thing - nobody ever told me I wasn't good enough. They didn't need to. It was implied in ways more damaging than words could ever be.
It was implied in all of the activities I was "accidentally" left out of in high school.
It was implied in my mother's constant insecurities about the fact that I wasn't boy-crazy (the fact that she knew darn well what boys I knew and still thought it was weird I wasn't flinging myself at anyone remains one of the great mysteries of my teenage years).
It was implied in all the condescending comments whenever I said that I didn't want to get married or have kids (this has changed but the scars remain).
It was implied in all of the people who told me I'd prolly get married young as cosmic payback for everything (yet here I am, no nearer to that fate than I was five years ago when they thought it was so cute).
It's been implied in all of the times my mother has had to be "creative" when talking with her friends about what everyone's adult children are up to, because "she quit college and works in a shop and is supposedly working on several novels" just doesn't sound acceptable.
No one ever had to tell me I was good enough. I just knew. And at this point, it's in my blood.
I haven't had a lot of genuine friendships and I dunno how to change that. I've never been in functional reciprocated love. But someday these will change. Someday I will be good enough. And someday, someday I will stick it to everyone who ever made me think I wasn't. It's going to be a journey, but so help me, I will get there. I have to. It's either that or death, and I'm not at the cute age to be a tragedy.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
On What I Want To Do In 2015
Or, "I know two week can still change a lot but screw this, I have FEELINGS".
Last week I did my masterpost of how 2014 was... maybe not great for me, but more good than bad and a lot of steps forward. And here, for the first time ever, I'm doing another post I said I'd do - my list of goals and projects for 2015. I hate to use the term "New Year's Resolutions" because the moment you apply that term is the moment the universe starts doing everything in its power to make sure you don't get stuff done, but... this is definitely in that vein. It's a mix of things that I need to get off my tail and work for and things that, although my behavior will help, are not mine to control. And, hopefully, I'll be able to look back at this in a year and see how far I've come.
• I want to continue disconnecting from people I don't need. I know way too many people who are condescending, have superiority complexes, and generally have no sense of how to be a decent human (before you ask, this isn't aimed at anyone specific, but if you know me and you're feeling guilt right here, it's a sign). I need to not know those people anymore. They're not worth my time. I'm clearly not worth theirs. Time for me to cut my losses and move forward.
• I want to continue finding media that helps me in unexpected ways. I have a way clearer sense of what I'm into and how to actually use TV as a coping mech (assuming I don't get sucked into fandom babysitting again, srsly, I know one of my main ones runs young but I had to explain promo bait to way too many people last week!!). The goal now is to maintain a healthy disconnect, use things for my purposes, and... not get pulled into any more online drama than I have to. (And maybe at some point write a "Things Done In Genre TV" essay that I can link the adorable fourteen-year-olds to because I am not doing that again.)
• I want to continue exploring the concept of parallel girls and, hopefully, latch onto one who's older than me and functional. That'd be a start, yeah? And maybe if said latching also involves relationship troubles as a base? There are a lot of new things coming out in 2015. Totally plausible.
• I want to get writing stuff done. The way my systems work, I'm not sure if finishing one of the books is a totally realistic plan, but a girl can hope. (It'll probably be Scarlett. I need to get that done so I can write about her here, because one of the formative influences in my life is a fictional character I created and it's pretty darn awesome.) And new short pieces. A lot of them. That'd be a nice step.
• I want to continue structuring my life so I can work around my issues. I am dealing with them, but it's a process and I need in-between mechs. The usual stuff doesn't work for my depressive episodes anymore and I need to find a way through that. Dunno what yet, but that's part of the fun.
• I want to continue writing songs and exploring that creative process more.
• I want to find somewhere I belong. Step one is to find a church that doesn't make me want to end myself. Step two... I'll figure out what that is when I get to it.
• I want to meet people who are actually good for me. I dunno how to actually do that but I'm sure it can be done.
• I want to check off firsts. And yes, that means exactly what you think it means. (Not that I'd rush into anything, but y'know, if the situation were to occur...)
• I want to get to a point where I don't have to remind myself every damn day that I am strong and brave and I can get through things.
• I want to continue becoming someone worth being.
Song of the day - "Yellow Flicker Beat", Lorde.
Last week I did my masterpost of how 2014 was... maybe not great for me, but more good than bad and a lot of steps forward. And here, for the first time ever, I'm doing another post I said I'd do - my list of goals and projects for 2015. I hate to use the term "New Year's Resolutions" because the moment you apply that term is the moment the universe starts doing everything in its power to make sure you don't get stuff done, but... this is definitely in that vein. It's a mix of things that I need to get off my tail and work for and things that, although my behavior will help, are not mine to control. And, hopefully, I'll be able to look back at this in a year and see how far I've come.
• I want to continue disconnecting from people I don't need. I know way too many people who are condescending, have superiority complexes, and generally have no sense of how to be a decent human (before you ask, this isn't aimed at anyone specific, but if you know me and you're feeling guilt right here, it's a sign). I need to not know those people anymore. They're not worth my time. I'm clearly not worth theirs. Time for me to cut my losses and move forward.
• I want to continue finding media that helps me in unexpected ways. I have a way clearer sense of what I'm into and how to actually use TV as a coping mech (assuming I don't get sucked into fandom babysitting again, srsly, I know one of my main ones runs young but I had to explain promo bait to way too many people last week!!). The goal now is to maintain a healthy disconnect, use things for my purposes, and... not get pulled into any more online drama than I have to. (And maybe at some point write a "Things Done In Genre TV" essay that I can link the adorable fourteen-year-olds to because I am not doing that again.)
• I want to continue exploring the concept of parallel girls and, hopefully, latch onto one who's older than me and functional. That'd be a start, yeah? And maybe if said latching also involves relationship troubles as a base? There are a lot of new things coming out in 2015. Totally plausible.
• I want to get writing stuff done. The way my systems work, I'm not sure if finishing one of the books is a totally realistic plan, but a girl can hope. (It'll probably be Scarlett. I need to get that done so I can write about her here, because one of the formative influences in my life is a fictional character I created and it's pretty darn awesome.) And new short pieces. A lot of them. That'd be a nice step.
• I want to continue structuring my life so I can work around my issues. I am dealing with them, but it's a process and I need in-between mechs. The usual stuff doesn't work for my depressive episodes anymore and I need to find a way through that. Dunno what yet, but that's part of the fun.
• I want to continue writing songs and exploring that creative process more.
• I want to find somewhere I belong. Step one is to find a church that doesn't make me want to end myself. Step two... I'll figure out what that is when I get to it.
• I want to meet people who are actually good for me. I dunno how to actually do that but I'm sure it can be done.
• I want to check off firsts. And yes, that means exactly what you think it means. (Not that I'd rush into anything, but y'know, if the situation were to occur...)
• I want to get to a point where I don't have to remind myself every damn day that I am strong and brave and I can get through things.
• I want to continue becoming someone worth being.
Song of the day - "Yellow Flicker Beat", Lorde.
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