Katie

I originally wrote this on my myspace (which is stupid to use the word "my" like that back to back) but it so accurately expresses my displeasure with the Wizard of Oz that I thought i'd post it here as well.

No Place Like Home...Ha!

So, the other night as i'm drifting off to sleep, I hear wizard of oz on my sister's tv so i call out to her to tell me the channel it's on so that i may watch too. I turn it on and begin watching somewhere towards the end. The movie is all well and good, a little cheesier and lower budget than I remember, especially the part where the witch gets splashed with water and looks all pissed like someone through their drink in her face, then after a minute she starts to melt...whatever. So, finally we get to the part where the Wizard of Oz is supposed to help her get home and that doesn't pan out, good fairy floats down in her chewing gum bubble and tells Dorothy, you can go home once you've learned your lesson. Now, what is that lesson you may ask, something empowering, insightful, or moving? Perhaps it's a lesson about helping others find the good in themselves, or realizing their own power and ability, like the lion who just wanted courage but finds that he had courage within him all along, or the scarecrow who clearly has some sort of mental capacity as he plots how to get out of the sticky situation in the witches castle, and finally the tin man who is obviously showing care and concern for other people by trying to help dorothy escape so of course he has a heart. The Wizard's explanations are terrible, rather than emphasizing each of these things, that they already had what they thought they were missing, he merely hands them plastic toys and a stupid piece of paper saying, "here kiddies, you don't have to believe in yourself or analyze your behavior to understand the good in you, just make sure you have some material object that says it's there, and that will make it true." Finally, my biggest qualm with this horrendous story masquerading as some great cinematic masterpiece is Dorothy's lesson... NEVER LEAVE HOME. I believe her words are something along the lines of, "I went looking for something outside of myself when I should have realized it was in my backyard all along." It'd be better if I had the actual quote but let me put it this way, "Stupid dorothy, ignore your dreams of what lies over the rainbow, ignore any sort of aspirations, goals, or drive, just be content with the mediocre life you have on some god forsaken farm in Kansas, stick around and raise babies and never venture outside your front door step because if you do, there'll be a wicked witch waiting to beat you back into submission and re-realize, "there's no place like home, i'll never leave home, ever." God i'm disgusted! Perhaps I haven't conveyed the meaning of all of this adequately but perhaps when my head is thinking clearly I can put this into a more coherent format, but until then, go watch it for yourself and see what I mean.

God i'm trying so hard to not let this hurt, to let it wash over me the way i can't seem to let other thing go either. God just stop thinking about it and twisting it around in your head where you know you'll just make it far worse than what's actually been said. I hate everything that place represents, i hate the magic hold it has that i can't ever touch, or compete with, i can't talk about or breathe about because it has nothing to do with me. I hate it so much that i can feel it poison all the good things you do so all i can see is the filth that covers everything now. I'm trying so hard to not let it hurt, the way it's quick and it's dirty, and it's all what you want. You're giving me all the right words that i want, sometimes at least, but i'm giving you everything else in my world. I know that you're giving a lot of yourself, but when anger and hurt kick in it all gets skewed to a one eyed view of how things go down in our merry go round. You don't even notice when things go so wrong, when i start to shut down and then i'm withdrawn. I'm crying my soul into this chasm between us because i'm begging you please just stop what is hurting me, and all it will take is for you to just notice, but you just see the tears and hand me a tissue and all i can do is wish that you would dig just a little bit deeper and find the dark painful truth, all twisted inside. My troubles are spilling out of this dam because i can't hold them back and stay safe on dry land, there's no such thing as stable ground, wherever i stand it's just a matter of time before my own insecurity wrenches me free and i'm tossed out to drown in my self made sea. It's remarkable to me how people know just how and where to strike at you best that will leave you all crumpled and clutching your chest, just a pile of bruises that nobody sees and just a waste of time all this typing my mind. You won't get inside and this anger will die, but nothing ever disappears completely, i'll be left with these thoughts and forget me knots, and the worst fear of all is that you won't miss me at all. You can't say you're not missing me now, because believe me you're missing the what, why, and how. You're missing the green, the black, blue, and red, the point and the meaning behind every word said. I'm throwing up softballs, and casting out bait, and you refuse to hit back or bite down on my thoughts so i'll just keep on planting these forget me knots.

This weekend was great fun, however I ended up sitting alone in a room for a long period of time and found I had emailed myself this...

You know what it's like to be completely alone in a room full of people, to feel like no one could ever understand what's going on in your head. You know what it's like to feel so completely neglected by the one person that seems to consume your every thought. I thought it would be different this time, but maybe i'm just being dramatic, i'm overreacting and he's acting like a child. Alcohol always does it, and i'm just not in the mood, to lay down the reserve and swallow it back. I'm not up for drinking what the kids are all sinking so i'll just sit here writing alone in a room that isn't even mine, alone in a city where i can't find my way out. It's a lot harder to think with the music that's pounding through the speakers trying to reach them out in the living room playing their card game and killing their brains. God damn i hate the taste of every cursed drink, I can't get past the burn and the knowledge that it's drowning inhibition and pulling me down from my moral ground. I can't escape the fact that i'm just a good girl, the kind that can't throw sorrow and stress to the wind all for the sake of blending in. It's funny you see, these people are all good fun and sometimes bright, but it's like a different group comes out at night. I'm not really sure what else to say, and i'm worried that this is it for today... so good night i'm signing off just to sit all alone.

It's starting to kick in, the pill that i took, I'm dreary and dizzy and my eyelids are drooping. My heart is still sad from the show that I watched and it's a little bit sorry to get that caught up, but whenever it's emotion I jump in head first. I'm terrified of love while falling so fast and all i can do is keep running from a past. It's all so permanent the way it sticks with you. There are ointments and creams to get rid of the scars, but where are the pills to mend broken hearts. Where are the escapes from the fears that you feel, the way it keeps hurting must make it real, the way you keep thinking of the ugliness inside, the place where you're evil. I don't know how ready i am to walk away from those thoughts, to let it all go and stop feeling bad. To feel bad is to feel, at least I know that it's real, happiness is so ephemeral and lighter than air, what knowledge do we have that it's actually there. Who has time for good feelings, and smiling faces, I'm so used to tears and solitary embraces. They say it takes more muscle to frown than to smile, but secretly I think it's all just a lie. Happiness is foreign and I feel my body reject it, it's fighting to come up while i fight to swallow it down. I'm just a little dizzy from all of this dreaming, the happy ending and boy next door are just fairy tales I know, but what if this time it's actually working? I don't live in the land of castles and bad apples, and I don't want a nameless, faceless prince. What I do want is bliss and the real happy ending. I've seen enough damage to know where this leads but I kept coming back with inexplicable need. You'd think it was closure that I kept searching after but that's nowhere near what I want from this life. What's closed won't be opened and what's dead won't revive, so what I want from this love is to just stay alive. It's not always rose colored glasses I use, to look at my life and the things that I choose, more often than not, my eyes flash to green, and more times than i'd like, I hate what I'm seeing. I'm a dreamer who probably no longer believes in anything the mind or heart can conceive. Neither can be trusted, they both tell their lies, one is a fool and the other is naive, one makes you cry, while the other one bleeds. Despite all my meandering about frowning and fears, i'm happy and smiling, with a side dish of tears.

Quiet the mind and set it to still, maybe if I’m lucky things finally will just fall into place and I can just think, it’s hard to focus on what isn’t real, what’s not right in front of me or somewhere inside of me, it’s just a game that’s going round and round, you know the kind we played as children in the school yard, but this has taken me far off the path, the place where I wanted my thoughts to just go, the place where you live and are completely mine, the place where I can touch you and breathe you and make you do all the things I long for and love, the place where I suspend what’s real and what’s not. It’s hard to stop spinning like a little girl, with arms all stretched out and my pony tail swinging, what’s that I hear, the door open and close, it’s mom calling up to drop my whole world for a second’s attention but I’ll stay wrapped in my chaos and my silly girl spinning. I’ve been here before, where I’m fated to fall, the ground keeps getting closer to my face and I’m waiting for balance to give up in the race, it’s all gonna crash but what do I care, for I’ve been here before and it’s nothing I can’t take. The broken heart and shattered pieces I’m sick of that plot line, it’s time for new release, a break in the monotony of life’s twisted pattern, let’s break from the circle and show what we’re made of. Maybe it will be something real and substantial or maybe we’re just made of memories and dreams, nothing to grasp or hold in our arms, just hold me in your mind and cradle my charms. I’ll never live up to the memory of her, never live up to my mom’s little girl. I’ll never be perfect or tiny or quiet, I’ll never stay still in this one woman riot. It’s a riot you see, this game that we play, it’s all in the subtext of the things we don’t say. There’s push and pull, a little stop and go but it’s not quite right each time the lights go out. Slow down, mind is racing, can’t grab just one thought, but this swirling and thinking is all that I’ve got. I’m not all that social, I simply don’t care, it’s too much to take, to be so emotional. I’ll play by myself, I did as a child, it’s always just me when you leave me like this. Abandoned, alone, solitary confinement, I’ll do just fine if I keep lying to myself. What happens when everything collides into one, my family, my boyfriend, my party of one. I won’t swallow this crap that society feeds us, and I won’t throw it up so I’ll just stop eating. I stop for a second and my heart beats in unison to the cursor on the screen that’s bidding me continue, I want what is in you. I’m used to the rumors, the neighborhood’s buzzing, what’s she done now and who is she fucking. Peeking over fences and out of curtain clad windows, their boring lives made purposeful by spying on this sinner girl. Give me the A and brand my wrist, I’ll play to the part. The seed has been planted in the mind of my mother, don’t come out and ask me just keep on harassing and dropping your hints, I get what you’re saying but I won’t keep on playing it’s time to draw the line in the sand, this little girl is cutting the cord.

I suppose the biggest news is that I have an interview next week, even if it's not an ideal job, it's something. I think this one interview is enough to keep my parents off my back for a while however it won't fill my bank account unless I get the job. I'm getting kind of bored with just sitting around the house all day or waiting on other people so I think i'm ready to start working, especially since school will be starting for other people or they'll be starting work. I also need to start thinking about the GRE's again. I have to sign up, prepare, then take the stupid test so I can begin applying to Grad schools for next year. It's strange how my perspective on grad school has changed. I had thought about going close to home so I could just live at home while going to school, but now that seems like less of an appealing option. I don't want to go too far though for a number of reasons, most of all, it's just scary. I really want to feel capable of living on my own, paying my own bills, and being an adult, but I just don't think i'm ready for that.

Last night at dinner, my sister mentioned something about because John (her boyfriend) has all these allergies, she won't feed her kids certain foods until they're old enough to tell her they're having a reaction. I was a little surprised by this statement because every time I ask her if they're going to get married, she sort of dodges the subject or puts it off until some day. In my experience, that's always meant I don't really like the person or I have a lot of trouble seeing myself with him so I try to avoid talk of serious things. I guess my sister isn't on that same wavelength. Even though my oldest brother is married with a kid, I still don't like the idea of my siblings getting married and starting their own families. I don't like the idea of being replaced on the list of most important family members. A little lesson that I stumbled upon in therapy... i'm selfish and hate change when it inconveniences me in any way. I hate things that mess with my small but stable world or anything that screws with my sacred traditions of family interactions.

In other news, it's really difficult trying to have a healthy, "normal" relationship considering it's something i've never experienced before. I hate constantly second guessing myself and wondering if i'm being too needy, too emotional, too affectionate, too distant and so on. It's quite the double edged sword... I try really hard to be the kind of girl who doesn't constantly have to be with her boyfriend, the girl who will let him enjoy the company of his friends without interrupting but then I have to balance that with not ignoring him. I hate feeling inadequate and like there are so many things I have to do to ensure the other person's happiness. I'd like to feel important enough that the other person wants to ensure my happiness.

I'm finally trying to break away from the company of ex-boyfriends, especially after getting yelled at by one of them. I detest when someone doesn't talk to you for a while, then gives you a small window of time they're free to do something and then gets angry when that doesn't work with your schedule, like it's your fault. I'm sick of feeling obligated to these boys, isn't that the reason we broke up? Maybe that's why it's so hard for me to handle friendships, I get exhausted and stretched too thin because I feel like it's entirely too demanding to have people in your life, all of whom want something different from you. Despite that, I had my first girl sleepover since elementary school. It was a little strange for me considering I have no idea what to do with another girl, what to talk about, how to entertain them (I haven't had to deal with that in over 8 years). It was nice to have a female to talk to... one that isn't related to me.

I just found out that a friend from high school was recently married and for some reason I feel incredibly weird about it. Another acquaintance is already engaged and I can't help but think how strange it is. People our age shouldn't be getting married... it's too sudden, especially when I feel like we're all still kids, or at least still high schoolers. It seems a trend of our generation to wait for marriage until at least mid to late twenties but all around me are wedding bells. I remember when I was in middle school I had this entire plan for my life that included marriage at age 22, my first child at 25 and my second child at 28. Now that i'm about to turn 22, that plan couldn't seem more absurd. What's the point in getting married so young, you're barely out of college, not even out of your parents' home and just jumping into starting your own family. I guess it's hard for me to imaging a "married" couple showing up to a party and hanging out with their peers. As much as I despise the entire idea, maybe i'm a little jealous that their lives are already beginning, that they have a plan, there's some kind of action, and most of all, there's stability and security. I look forward to having all of those things but I can't forsee them for myself any time soon, especially since I have yet to have a single, sustainable, healthy relationship with anyone thus far.

In the few days since my parents have been gone, I've tasted a sort of blissful freedom I never knew existed. I've been able to stay out as late as possible without having to call home or worry about consequences, I've been able to stay out and have someone stay with me and it's all been better than I could have imagined. I'm dreading Saturday night when I pick my parents up from the airport and return to my life of chores, searching for a job, curfew, and boredom.

From what I remember and took part in, Spencer's party was thoroughly enjoyable (minus the feeling sick part). I enjoyed listening to Billy Attack but think they sounded better in practice, perhaps because of my intoxication or theirs. It's been over a year since I have actually had the opportunity to drink at a party which is why certain events occurred as they did. I feel so in control and restricted all the time that eventually, you just can't live up to that kind of perfection so with little danger and consequence, I gave myself permission to drink at Spencer's party. I'm pretty sure i'm the biggest lightweight ever, and was sufficiently drunk after half a cup of the mysterious "Palmolive" but I've never really mastered the art of taking it slow, so 2 or 3 cups and a twisted smirnoff later I was completely wrecked. It's a bit of a shame because I don't like being that person, the person who gets memories of the night before recounted to them, or the person who has to be handled like a child and picked off the floor to lay in bed. It could have been worse, and in the end I was able to rejoin the party. My brother and sister were fairly shocked/amazed when I recounted the evening for them. They of all people know the extent to which their sister is a square in the social context of things and for once, I didn't have to be the responsible one, and it felt good.

I'm currently hiding out in my room after an ugly and heated argument with my parents. I'm not exactly sure how it happened or what brought it up, I believe it was some joking and undercutting remark my Dad made about me paying rent at home. I told him if I wanted to pay rent I would get an apartment. I started bringing up the unfair double standard I have been stuck in where my siblings are free to come and go as they please, have visitors of the oppositte sex stay the night and so forth while I am forced to abide by "courtesy hours" and constantly bombarded with phone calls inquiring after my whereabouts and ETA for coming home. It is entirely unfair that me, the child who has shown them nothing but respect my entire life, has never acted in the typical nature of teens, never partied, stayed out and so forth, the one person in this family that has been there for my parents in every respect, has fulfilled all of their hopes and goals for me... it is me that must deal with the restrictions. My mom was on my side, trying to rationally state my opinions while I sat there flustered and smacking my hand on the table to enforce each of my points. Of course, in usual father fashion, my father would have none of it, not from me and not from my mother. The argument took a turn for the ugly when he said I had certain freedoms and responsibilities, that I didn't have many things asked of me (in my opinion, complete bullshit) and that if I thought otherwise it showed me to be spoiled. I lost it at that point considering I do everything for my parents and put up with constant phone calls each day requesting me to do errands and tasks. My dad said I was free to get an apartment and do what I want but until then he expected respect. When it got to be too much, I screamed, "FINE, I'LL GET A JOB AND MOVE OUT!!" and now he's here to talk....

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you're crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, with the most convenient definitions. But what we found out, is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.

I hate when a movie comes on tv that you own and it would make more sense to just put on the DVD rather than watch it on tv with the voiced over bad words and commercial breaks but you're too lazy so you sit through the bleeps and product advertisements.

It's a little sad watching a movie about kids who have these unsatisfying home lives all the while sitting here feeling the same way and then realizing that these are high school students and i'm 21 living at home. Last night was another classic example of why I should no longer be living here. My father has already instituted a midnight curfew which he also seems to think applies to the weekends, and I told him where I would be and that i would come home after the movie. What do I find on my phone at 11:30? A message from him telling me to come home and five extra minutes of how he had to clean out the cat box and to bring in his suit jacket from my car and where to hang it. There's also the fact that for the past two days he's been using my car and when i got it back yesterday i found he hadn't taken the time to fill up my tank and left me close to empty. I'm so god damn fed up with being the perfect child and getting nothing in return. You would think that my 21 years of perfect behavior would have built me some kind of trust and leeway with my parents. Instead, it has imprisoned me in a world where my parents treat me like a child. I've had it and it's only causing me to rebel, to want to break free of their uncalled for tyranny. My sister has been acting as the devil on my shoulder goading me into misbehaving and I have to tell you, it's starting to look more and more attractive. Last night, as I stood surrounded by a group of my peers watching them make further plans for the evening I felt incredibly jealous. How is it all of them have parents who allow them to stay out as long as they want, go where they want while I have a Dad calling me at 11:30. I want that life but i'm not sure if I have the courage to push my parents away to that point. Instead i'll just whine and bitch about it to people who can't do anything to help me.