How to be a more original self

I am always a lot more articulate and "smart" in my head. When I give myself the opportunity to write things down, as you can see from previous posts, they don't always go well together. I have focused more on the lives of the people around me for so long that I don't really stop to think that often about my own opinions or wants. I started nursing school years ago because my mother was on my back to "get an education and a real job", and my dad picked up that idea and ran with it. SO that's what I did. I studied my ass off and made the grades I needed to make, but didn't finish, obviously. Now I don't know if I actually enjoyed any part of the school while I was in it because I was so worried about living up to someone else's expectation of me. Granted: they are my parents, so they do weigh a little more heavily than say a cousin, but still. I don't think it's something I wanted to do. Now, I'm a management major. It's almost like the liberal arts of business degrees. You learn a little bit about a whole lot of things. I'm not looking to quit school, and I'm fine with what life experience I've had so far, but it all just seems at this moment to not be leading anywhere. I'm filled with a lot of anxiety about finding work after I graduate. I can't go back to waiting tables because I was left with a back injury after a car accident. So honestly, there is nothing to fall back on. And if I fall forward, what then? You do not make a career out of answering the phones in a doctor's office. So I'm trying to figure out what makes me happy. What are the things I like to do, not because they are the things that I always do with other people or have to do, but actually like? I have no idea.

I've always had a need to feed my interests by the knowledge of the people around me. When I am around painters, I paint more often. When someone brings up a book they read, I go buy it. I stopped playing video games years and years and many, many years ago, so that's not really my thing. And the last time I watched television religiously Buffy was still spitting out a new episode every week. I'm maybe the only person in the world who doesn't live in NYC that gets bored with NYC.I don't have a fallback plan because that would mean I have a goal in mind in the first place. You probably think all I need is some guidance, but the problem is pretty much that that's all I've had, no interests were really encouraged. I told my mom I wanted to go to art school, she said she wasn't going to pay for it. I get accepted to a sound engineering school, again... not going to pay for it. So I take one year off to take a break, and one year turns into three, and again, I start school because I was told to. Then everything with my family goes all haywire and I find myself in the middle of becoming the caregiver in one way or another for every person in my daily life. It's not just me saying that, they all know it too. So now that that seems to be changing, I don't know what makes me, me. I don't know what my goals are, because they have always been someone elses' goals for me.

Forgot or stepped away

I cannot possibly even begin to relate what I have gone through this year. It wasn't that my father died, well of course it is. But that I took care of him and found myself helpless in the face of his disease, I feel like I have been gutted from the inside out. My poor father was not a perfect man, but to his credit he never stopped trying to do the right thing in any situation. I grew up idealizing him and making him into this giant god figure. I wanted nothing in this world but to make him happy and proud of me when I was a child. He would come in and out of my life during certain points but always making an effort to be there for the big events, to take me to our families annual christmas party, to sometimes make it to my birthdays, to pick me up for a weekend and go fishing, he was my father and I love and miss him very much right now. I do not know what else to say, I started writing a blog because I find that I type faster than write so this is a less intensive journal. There are things even here that I want to say but can not. I want to tell each person I have written about how I feel, but can not. And now I've lost someone so close to me that I don't know how to bounce back, how to move on... etc. cliche' you can come up with. If I had to summarize what the last 12 months have been to me it is all summed as such with the loss I have experienced of the people I have cared for and about.
I suppose it started back in October with the passing of my grandmother, I began to distance myself from friends because I didn't want to burden them with my grief knowing that what free time I used to have for them had been sucked away to school and studying for quite some time. In December I experienced the loss of a close friend/sometimes lover over something extraordinarily stupid on both our parts, and finding my father ill I had to place all of those emotions on the backburner to focus on his illness and holding onto what hope we had left at the time. Now I see this for lack of a better term, "acquaintance" with someone I thought was new until recently, and it is almost second nature now and a hard urge to fight, that I want to go to this person and ask for support. I now consider almost every friend we had in common old hat again wish I could think of something better to say. You have no idea how much it meant to me to see a text from someone while my father was ill. Nor how much it means to me that other people never bothered. Or even worse... made it clear they didn't care about me after years of knowing them. I regret the time I wasted trying to hold onto friendships that had parted ways long before we truly did. I've never been much for a storyteller, it's also 2 in the morning. I guess what I am trying to say is I'm going to start updating the blog more often.

in so many words.

Because I have no one to speak to about some of the events that have happened over the last twp months, and maybe because I took my contacts out a minute to ago and it's a pain in the butt to stare 6 inches away from the screen and still not know what i am typing. This is going to be very poorly composed.

Mostly I guess I write these blogs because I feel if I said what I meant to those these are mostly firected to, I wouldn't have the courage to completely explain myself. I'm not going to say anythign that is going to get anyone into trouble, and if after reviewing this tomorrow I need to edit a few things then I will.

I've had to for the last several weeks had to deal with some pretty extraordinary circumstances, none of which have been my own making and in review for the most part I do not see my supposed fault in what has been a very trying time for my family.

I have had quite a burden placed on my shoulders because of the actions of those people I am related to. Even if I speak of the anonymously I am afraid they wouold still find some objection to this admission. Yet another thiing I do not need. . I will sum it up with the analogy of being in a war zone.

And for their sake I do worry for them quite much.

For myuself I am relinqusihed to the fact that I am a beast of burden and a trained dog. I have lost my independence to care for my nephew while his parents have found it possib;e for themselves to move on with their lives, have jobs, boyfriends/girlfriends and all the while maintaining what appears to be a normal life. Even my own mother has found it possib;le to take time for herslf to lie a "normal" life.

I would love to go to school fill time, have my own apartment, work more, DATE! I cannpt count how many times I have refused a cup of coffee just because I knew I couldn't devout myself evough time to simply get to know someone because of my responsibility to my nephew. And here are his parents. divorced they may be. living a normal life. rarely has my nephew in the last month spent the night with eather or them. and they are his PARENTS!

It's not like I expect anything to change. and he is a great child, I am happy to have him. but I really do wish .... I don't even know. i wnat all those things that his parents have, I want the things I want. I don't want to have to worry about getting him from day care every day, getting him to and from football practice, making sure he does his homeworl , axhwsulinf my life around his schedule and his parents schedule. You know the last time I actually went out? August of last year. YEAH.

And now something I can talk about, because ti's in so much no one elses business and therefore no one can get anfry at me for voicing my opinion. My stepfather died. well, ex. anyway. and now it's getting late and I guess i will have to conitnue this tomorrow.

Ode to the nice girl

I came across this on a friends myspace page, its not as articulate as I'd prefer it to be, but it is at this moment, a summary of something I feel, and glad to know I'm normal thinking this way.

Ode to the Nice Girls This rant was written because a nice girl finally snapped.
I've read the tribute to the nice guys; this is my response.
This is my tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are overlooked, who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. This is for the girls who don't give it up on the first date, who don't want to play mind games, who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they've heard a thousand times. This is for the girls who understand that they aren't perfect and that the guys they're interested in aren't either, for the girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow they are able to keep alive that hope that maybe... maybe this time he'll have understood. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don't deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from "there are plenty of fish in the sea," to "time heals all wounds." This is to honor those girls who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that they deserve better, who are seeking to find it.
This is for the girls who have never been in love, but know that it's an experience that they don't want to miss out on. For the girls who have sought a night with friends and been greeted by a night of catcalling, rude comments and explicit invitations that they'd rather not have experienced. This is for the girls who have spent their weekends sitting on the sidelines of a beer pong tournament or a case race, or playing Florence Nightingale for a vomiting guy friend or a comatose crush, who have received a drunk phone call just before dawn from someone who doesn't care enough to invite them over but is still willing to pass out in their bed. This is for the girls who have left sad song lyrics in their away messages, who have tried to make someone understand through a subliminally appealing profile, who have time and time again dropped their male friend hint after hint after hint only to watch him chase after the first blonde girl in a skirt. This is for the girls who have been told that they're too good or too smart or too pretty, who have been given compliments as a way of breaking off a relationship, who have ever been told they are only wanted as a friend.
This one's for the girls who you can take home to mom, but won't because it's easier to sleep with a whore than foster a relationship; this is for the girls who have been led on by words and kisses and touches, all of which were either only true for the moment, or never real to begin with. This is for the girls who have allowed a guy into their head and heart and bed, only to discover that he's just not ready, he's just not over her, he's just not looking to be tied down; this is for the girls who believe the excuses because it's easier to believe that it's not that they don't want you, it's that they don't want anyone. This is for the girls who have had their hearts broken and their hopes dashed by someone too cavalier to have cared in the first place; this is for the nights spent dissecting every word and syllable and inflection in his speech, for the nights when you've returned home alone, for the nights when you've seen from across the room him leaning a little too close, or standing a little too near, or talking a little too softly for the girl he's with to be a random hookup. This is for the girls who have endured party after party in his presence, finally having realized that it wasn't that he didn't want a relationship: it was that he didn't want you. I honor you for the night his dog died or his grandmother died or his little brother crashed his car and you held him, thinking that if you only comforted him just right, or said the right words, or rubbed his back in the right way then perhaps he'd realize what it was that he already had. This is for the night you realized that it would never happen, and the sunrise you saw the next morning after failing to sleep.
This is for the "I really like you, so let's still be friends" comment after you read more into a situation than he ever intended; this is for never realizing that when you choose friends, you seldom choose those which make you cry yourself to sleep. This is for the hugs you've received from your female friends, for the nights they've reassured you that you are beautiful and intelligent and amazing and loyal and truly worthy of a great guy; this is for the despair you all felt as you sat in the aftermath of your tears, knowing that that night the only companionship you'd have was with a pillow and your teddy bear. This is for the girls who have been used and abused, who have endured what he was giving because at least he was giving something; this is for the stupidity of the nights we've believed that something was better than nothing, though his something was nothing we'd have ever wanted. This is for the girls who have been satisified with too little and who have learned never to expect anything more: for the girls who don't think that they deserve more, because they've been conditioned for so long to accept the scraps thrown to them by guys.
This is what I don't understand. Men sit and question and whine that girls are only attracted to the mean guys, the guys who berate them and belittle them and don't appreciate them and don't want them; who use them for sex and think of little else than where their next conquest will be made. Men complain that they never meet nice girls, girls who are genuinely interested and compelling, who are intelligent and sweet and smart and beautiful; men despair that no good women want to share in their lives, that girls play mindgames, that girls love to keep them hanging. Yet, men, I ask you: were you to meet one of these genuinely interested, thrillingly compelling, interesting and intelligent and sweet and beautiful and smart girls, were you to give her your number and wait for her to call... and if you were to receive a call from her the next day and she, in her truthful, loyal, intelligent and straightforward nice girl fashion, were to tell you that she finds you intriguing and attractive and interesting and worth her time and perhaps material from which she could fashion a boyfriend, would you or would you not immediately call your friends to tell them of the "stalker chick" you'd met the night prior, who called you and wore her heart on her sleeve and told the truth? And would you, or would you not, refuse to make plans with her, speak with her, see her again, and once again return to the bar or club or party scene and search once more for this "nice girl" who you just cannot seem to find? Because therein lies the truth, guys: we nice girls are everywhere. But you're not looking for a nice girl. You're not looking for someone genuinely interested in your intermural basketball game, or your anatomy midterm grade, or that argument you keep having with your father; you're looking for a quick fix, a night when you can pretend to have a connection with another human being which is just as disposable as the condom you were using during it.
So don't say you're on the lookout for nice girls, guys, when you pass us up on every step you take. Sometimes we go undercover; sometimes we go in disguise: sometimes when that girl in the low cut shirt or the too tight miniskirt won't answer your catcalls, sometimes you're looking at a nice girl in whore's clothing - - we might say we like the attention, we might blush and giggle and turn back to our friends, but we're all thinking the same thing: "This isn't me. Tomorrow morning, I'll be wearing a teeshirt and flannel shorts, I'll have slept alone and I'll be making my hungover best friend breakfast. See through the disguise. See me." You never do. Why? Because you only see the exterior, you only see the slutty girl who welcomes those advances. You don't want the nice girl.. so don't say you're looking for a relationship: relationships take time and energy and intent, three things we're willing to extend - - but in return, we're looking for compassion and loyalty and trust, three things you never seem willing to express. Maybe nice guys finish last, but in the race they're running they're chasing after the whores and the sluts and the easy-targets... the nice girls are waiting at the finish line with water and towels and a congradulatory hug (and yes, if she's a nice girl and she likes you, the sweatiness probably won't matter), hoping against hope that maybe you'll realize that they're the ones that you want at the end of that silly race.
So maybe it won't last forever. Maybe some of those guys in that race will turn in their running shoes and make their way to the concession stand where we're waiting; however, until that happens, we still have each other, that silly race to watch, and all the chocolate we can eat (because what's a concession stand at a race without some chocolate?)

two places

I've been posting here lately: joliecornay.livejournal.com, i may come back and use this one, or not. just thought I'd let you know

Hell lies not in torture. Hell lies in an empty heart.

Well, for sounding like a broken record... yes, finally another cliche, at least i'm not repeating the old mistakes. I don't know why certain things(persons to be honest) have made such an effect be it somewhat subtle on me, (sometimes it's not that unobservable), and who I think I need to be. I'm right now studying for a test I have thursday, and all i can think about isn't the test. I don't know how to describe it, maybe i need to take a road trip and get out of this town.

groucho

Well as I was saying early, here I find myself again looking at another 4 months of devoting myself to a course of study that means absolutely nothing to me except for the fact that I need my gpa to stay where it currently is. The last three weeks for every single night I have woken up early in the morning because I have had nightmares, none of them are recurring, but for a fact every single night I havne't gotten a decent nights sleep. i am having issues with work being that my manager has found something she dislikes about me and refuses to give me a clue as to what it is. I am leaving the store, but will transfer (with hope) to the one closer to my house as I have far too much to add "job searching" to the list of things I need (must) do. I have to go into the doctor to discuss yet another course of action in february, as well as the spanish town mardi gras parade that roles on the 2nd. I haven't had a chance to paint in the new house yet, I have barely unpacked and arranged my own room. The house is okay, it's smaller, but that also means it doesn't take 2 hours to clean. I am finding all of my free time taken up by some task I didn't have planned for that day. Tomorrow is another story. busy bee here, signing off.