Reading. I enjoy it. I use my spare time to read (which is any time after work that I’m not sleeping). No obligations other than an agreement I made with my body to start to take care of it, so two or so days a week we go to the gym for a couple of hours where I cuss while I sweat out all of the salty ramen I’d just eaten.
Solitude. I enjoy it. A lot of people consider wanting time alone as a social faux-pas. You’re supposed to want to be around people. I revel in any opportunity to be alone and to do as I want. Solitude is hard to come by because by definition it’s accompanied with a sense of enjoyment. You have to ENJOY being alone, and every moment isn’t always easy to enjoy. So you take it as it comes. Nobody has the liberty of deciding when and where they’ll enjoy things. Sometimes I enjoy being in a room full of people talking. Other times it makes my eyes twitch and my bones jump and my fists clench to the point of slight tremors. I like to be able to spend time with my thoughts. It can be dangerous, though. I feel like Senor Bonaparte when people interrupt my thoughts. I want to pull out my sword and demand silence and howl how DARE they interrupt my train of thought.
Sometimes I feel like there is a time and a place for everything. Hypocrisy is impossible to avoid. It can’t be done. I love talking to people and helping them solve their problems. I enjoy seeing happiness in others as a result of some small piece of advice I tried to give, or as a result of lending my bleeding ears for their voices to fill.
The only thing I have to answer to is myself. And God of course but that goes without saying.
So sick of people hating other people for stupid reasons. For saying that somebody is ugly and they can’t even help it. I’m guilty of it. But one thing I’m not guilty of is holding back on pointing out an ugly kid. How different is it, pointing out that a little kid doesn’t have much going, when we do it without reservation toward an adult who is in the same boat? They’re no different. An ugly kid has just as much control over how ugly they are as an ugly adult has. None. I’m not even sure if this is making any sense. I hold back writing anything down for months because as soon as I start any form of entry or putting thoughts from air on to paper it makes me emotional. Reading Ray Bradbury makes me extremely emotional. Especially his essays. My dad gave me one of his books and my eyes welled up.
I don’t write anymore because it makes me sad. Because all I have to say are sad things. I don’t even like telling stories to my family anymore because I always take toooo long. And it’s not like they’re ever ones I’ve made up. It’s always stuff I’ve seen or that has happened to me. What the hell point is there in telling a story if you can’t picture it? If you can’t feel it for yourself? If I want you to hear a shit clipped story I’ll point you in the direction of some awful magazine that only touches the surface of stories that are so disgustingly fake that they give you momentary satisfaction like stupid cake bites. So you eat 10 of them and then feel like shit after. You know why? Because you can’t feel how good they are from the first one you eat. We’re always moving too fast. Nobody slows down to realize how good things are when they happen. Nobody wants extra details because why? You need to get back to your TV show? Or your game that when it’s over will leave you bereft and an hour-short of something else you could’ve been doing? You need to hear more about gossip that nobody cares about and it’s not even your business? There’s nothing I hate more than someone who purposefully victimizes themselves, and that’s not what I’m trying to do. It’s been happening to me since grade school. And I’m aware that I’m very guilty of telling “long” stories, or taking too long to make sure I include certain tidbits and random facts that SEEM like they bring nothing to the story, but when I’m done, that fat kid that I mentioned staring at me wide-eyed actually DOES factor in to the story because his being there made it that much worse, or that much more hilarious.
I have this cycle. I vent, and then I justify. Vent. Explain. Bitch. Justify. And I point it out every time because I don’t want people thinking I have this false sense of entitlement. I don’t. I realize the nonsense that comes out, and make sure to back it up by sharing with you (again, with the facts) WHAT happened that made me feel THIS way that caused THAT reaction which lead to THIS vent-fest. More like puke fest. Word vomit.
And so much has gone on that I feel like I need to short-hand everything that’s happened recently to bring me to where I am. Mom’s sick. Still. Deteriorating. Same as before but worse. Wears diapers. Forgets who we are. Remembers. Thinks she’s on the Titanic that’s on the TV. Tries to get off the train on TV and falls out of bed. Remembers how we still live in Norway, only we don’t. On. And ON. And on. And the ever stoic Dad’s legs are trembling under the pressure of being a full time caregiver. It’s so easy to say “I never thought life would be this way” but seriously, I never thought life would be this way. EH.Ver. Because up until this point, it hasn’t been. But then ReNon was diagnosed with a brain tumor- the bottle of wine that christened the Titanic. And Mom was diagnosed with heart failure. And then Aunt Betty died. Then Mom had surgery and didn’t wake up for a week. But to be honest, I didn’t expect the surgery to go as well as it did, so optimism has the upper hand on that one. She’s been sick for 10+ years. It started before I was in highschool. Before I started Prozac 10 years ago.
But it’s all coming to a head, and we’re about to move. Talk about freaky right? I know I say I’ll post more later, but I won’t promise when that will be.
Love always,
Syd.
