 |
Journal | Friends | Calendar | User Info | Memories |
$500 a month
Agh. OK, so I've decided not to go to Chicago because it just kept being... too hard. It seems like it's best to stay at ASU for another little while. But goddamnit; part of why I needed to go so badly is because I do not want to be anywhere *NEAR* him. I mean in the same city even. My hate burns hot. And I feel like an angry kitten, that wants to hiss and spit and bite and will get so badly hurt if I do. Or maybe not - I mean, I could probably completely demoralize him if I wanted to, if I Give In To The Dark Side Of The Force And Unleash My Hate. I mean, really, I know everything there is to say. But I wouldn't, and it probably would end up being a kitten scenario anyway.
I just hate him being around. I hate being reminded of him like that. I hate seeing him existing as he always has and how silly is that, why should I be upset about it. This is silly. Maybe it's okay that he's out catching butterflies and it's fine, he's probably still crazy but he's crazy in such a way that he's fine, anyway. Ah, such a schizoid, out catching butterflies on his own in the middle of people but with no one around. Damnit, get out of my head, get out of my head, I don't want to think about you or hate you or feel anything about you, I don't want to have to remember these things, I don't want you in my territory.
OK, here's what I want to do. Here's what seems most good to me. Here's what I'm going to "manifest into my life."
I want to go to Chicago to UIC's program. I want to learn to teach science. I want to be student teaching next Spring.
I want to teach for a few years and then return for grad school. Two or three years if I'm going back for an MS. Five years (to erase my student debt) if I go back for a PhD. And then I want to go back to graduate school and study developmental biology for a little bit. I want to actually work in a lab, with actual embryos. I want to study environmental triggers of phenotypic plasticity. I want to do really interesting stuff, and I want to seriously sharpen my laboratory skills. I want to publish. I want the evodevo stuff for me, because I want to add to the Library of Alexandria a little bit, and I want to bring my particular viewpoint to the questions at hand.
And then I want to come back to inner city public schools or rural public schools, and I want to teach for the rest of my life. I want to be able to really teach my students about how science really happens in the real world, and I want for them to be able, with me, to create actual original research projects. I want my students to run a student science journal, and to be able to practice all of the different things that you can *do* in science -- art and illustration, literature, journalism, engineering, medicine, film making, *everything*, et cetera et cetera.
Maybe I shouldn't worry too much about what's five years off or ten years off. I know I want to be teaching now. The fact that I'm promising myself I'm going to go back to school for my Master's later on gives me pause, but I've said this whole time that I do want both degrees, and it doesn't really matter what order they're in.
Jane says, "You're never going to get another offer like this," and... well... I just don't think that's *true*. Call me conceited and immodest, but... well... I just think I'm pretty cool. I'm smart, and I'm fun to work with, and I'm good at what I do. I'm good at *whatever* I do. Pride goeth before, and all, but I think it's okay to look back over the past couple years and say "shit; I am multi talented." I like history and philosophy of science, I really do, but I feel like I'm not actually doing any hands on, in the lab or in the field work. I want to use a micropipette sometimes, and I want to spend a weekend in the woods cataloging, or I want to spend a day doing hard, muscle-soreness-inducing outdoor field work. And then I want to write about it. Too much of this is writing; there's not enough *doin'*. I don't wish to put it Jane like that, but I don't know how to communicate that what I want is to do some of my own scientific research. I can't do that at all through the path she's laying out. I mean, I *can* -- but doing this for another two years isn't going to help in any sense but in networking. I don't think I can bear spending two years here just for networking. OK, one year. OK, mostly one semester and some plane trips. But still.
Oddly enough, this line of thinking is making me think of The Little Mermaid, "I wanna be where the people are...wandering free, wish I could be, part of that world." I think I need to graduate. Graduation means leaving. Graduation means going on to the next thing. I know if she could, she'd just slap the MS degree on my diploma now, because I've practically done all the work for the degree, and I think that's part of why she feels I should stay and just pick up that credential. But I don't need the credential, and I've gotten out of this place what I did need -- sanctuary, education, support, money. It's time go move on. "You take the lesson with you to the next classroom, and not the teacher." I will really, really miss my faculty, my grad student buddies, my undergraduate compatriots. (I'm more than a little regretful about not TAing Science and Society because I *really* think I could add a lot to that class.) But it's time to go.
Goddamnit. It is an outright lie to say that I don't love being here at this school, that I don't love this faculty, that I don't absolutely love the stuff I'm doing here. I do want to spend another two years here. This is great.
But I would still have two more years of school after that to start teaching at a high school or middle school, and that really is where I want to be. I want to be working with kids.
And I want to be with my Thomas.
OK. Well, the decision doesn't have to be made even now. I have time.
Little Sister said every time I remember one of those terrible things Brent said, I should write it down here. Good idea, little sister.
"I worked hard on that body of yours."
"If you smoke again, you will have two options. You can leave, or I can give you a tracheostomy."
"I'm smarter than you, you need to just trust that and trust me. Whenever we do something the way you want to do it, it always turns out wrong."
"You don't have a personality of your own, you just take on the personality of people around you. You should let me decide who you're going to be, since you can't decide on your own."
God, what a dick. I'm so angry now. I want to confront him, to yell at him, to say 'do you see how badly you treated me?' I know that won't do me any good, and I couldn't even pretend it would be ultimately beneficial for him. But I'm so angry. I didn't want to be hurt like this. I didn't want this kind of baggage to carry around with me.
I've been reading though my old LJ, which I archived. It's an interesting read, and also really painful at times, and sometimes just cringe-worthy -- I didn't realize how much younger 20 is than 27, I guess. I'm finally able to stand myself somewhere around the beginning of 2004.
I just read a post I made October 13, 2004. I wish I'd left him then. He's asked me sooooooo many times "Why? Why did it end? What did I do?" You did stuff I should have left you for four years ago, sweetheart. *shudders*
I desperately wish I could make last night not have happened. I need my feeling of security and safety back. I need Brent to not have said some of the things he said to me. I need to not be afraid that we're about to have United states authorities come down on us. I need to know what's real, if what we did was right, or if we are really sick and depraved people who need to be put in a psych ward. I need to know if Brent is right, if he really does know, if he really is as smart as he seems to be, or if it's all a sham and I should get him locked up and get him some help. I am existing in this limbo and I do not know how to know within myself which is true. I always look to other people for help to tell me what I should do and how I should be, but right now everyone just says "get to work" and the sky is falling on me. I am so scared. I am so hurt. I am so angry at myself for both going along and not quite going along, for just being there for the ride. I am so angry at her for exploding and not trusting. I am so angry at him for pushing that hard instead of just realizing that he is not allowed to know what is true and he should accept that and be grateful for the time she's in our lives, or he should break it o
with her and move on. I am so angry at myself and so distraught that I can't just choose him over the rest of the world, that I can't just /know/ that he's right, I know I could live in a world where he is right, but I'm not sure that that world holds anything for me but this, over and over, every year, every fall, always just looking for other girls to have and never trying to build a life for himself, never trying to improve himself, always just thinking that he's perfect and it's everyone else who is awed. How can I stay? How can I leave him? Is any of this Violet's fault? She's been abused every where she's gone, why did he think that she could break out of the painmold she's in? Is all of this Violet's fault? Should we never have met her? Should I try and repair my relationship with her? Why am I in a relationship where I am only valued when he's in a good mood, and tossed aside like so much debris when he's in a bad mood? I have never, ever said to him, "Why can't you just be happy with me?" but he has mentioned it over and over, like a knife each time, when I know I can't say that, when I know I can't ask for that, I know that's what he can't give me. I am so scared, so scared, so scared that I will
find out that I can't quite achieve the world he wants me to live in and so I have to fall back to the old world and take him out in the process... I am so scared that I can't take this, I am so scared that after all this, after all this work and e
ffort and mental anguish and development, after all the lessons and all the truth, that I will have to decide for the sake of self preservation that it was all lies. I just don't want to live in this soap opera drama day in and day out.
'Cause you're my friend, and I want to snuggle with you, and flirt and wiggle my butt at you, and go to movies with you and go out to eat and laugh. But I also want to leave you gasping for breath when I'm violating your body, and I want to arch my back and lose myself when I have you sheathed firmly inside me. That sort of intense, vulnerable physical intimacy is something that I absolutely do not want to share with any of my friends. So there's that; that's less confusing.
Oh, wait, have some more confusing. I really do feel closest to you when we're being sexual, and part of that maybe is how much I communicate through touch, and how much I am able to gauge how I am loved by how a person touches me or wants me. Maybe some equating sex with love going on? But what if all you and I really have is sex?
Sometimes I feel so different from you. I feel torn in all directions all the time, I'm never sure how I really feel about anything, I lack the kind of abiding conviction you seem to have sometimes. I felt very different from you last night explaining how hot the idea of being shackled to the bottom of a pool, running out of air, was to me. Not sure I'll ever be able to explain how important the moment of surrender during fear has been to me; when there's nothing you can do about anything but think, and because that's the only effect on your experience you can have, you learn to still your thoughts, to summon peace, to master your emotions and your fear.
What if I'm too different? What if you decide you can't love me? What if you just dismiss me?
Ahh, okay, right back to that fear again. Hey, the only thing I can effect in this particular situation is how I think about it. And here's what I think: The only way I can lose *big* in this is to not let you see me. Before I move to Chicago, I have to be sure that I'm truly exposing who I am to you and not trying to hide it or make it some sort of pretty facade. I do not want to come out there and have you figure out too late that you don't really like all of me. I'd much rather find that out now if it's true, and let this relationship fade.
And the magical part of that is, you might like who I am. Hell, you might /love/ me. That would be pretty fun.
So here's me being me at you just as hard as I can. I will not let up. I am going to act and react exactly as I am, and I am going to trust myself that the person who I am, and who I want to be, is more important to me than being liked by you -- as fabulous and wonderful as you are. Yup. That's what I'm gonna do.
I miss, really really miss, my family.
I dreamed last night that I was back with Brent and Dee. For awhile we just sat talking, knee to knee on the floor. Was it Dee or Moon? I don't know. But it was the three of us, and there was love. We talked about how we'd been apart and had gotten back together.
Later on I had an armbinder on, something very soft that bound my elbows up behind my back. I woke up a little and found out my arms had fallen asleep. I went back to sleep and was with Brent, just... he was happy, and he was smiling, and it felt good.
I miss having my family. I miss the life we'd built. I miss my cats and my bedroom and my books and I miss seeing him and loving him.
What did I do? Is this what I want? Why did I sleep for fifteen hours yesterday? Could it be good again?
Except no, no... every bit of good had to get squeezed through so much shit, all the time. He was miserable, no matter how good things were. If he weren't, if he could experience life as being something good... but that's not the Brent.
I just miss it. I miss what I had for seven years. I feel so adrift now. I am so lonely. I need someone who knows me, who really really knows me. Nobody fits the description but him. And actually, right now, he's not gonna do that so well... because everything that comes out of his mouth will be hurtful or will be trying to get me to stay.
It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts. I grieve. I want it back. It won't come back. I have to be the strong one here, I think.
I love that boy, I mean I really love that boy.
The Sunshine Boy-- I just can't describe how much I love him when he's /full/ like that, when he's playful and cheerful and active. It's an up-mood, an up-cycle, and it's how he was when I was there over Christmas, and while it's definitely not necessary for him to be in that mood all the time, it's like watching a brightly shining fairy skitter about when he is. It's awesome, it's beautiful, and I want to watch it fly.
I've so rarely met people who inspire that in me the way I know I inspire that feeling in others. People love to watch me, love to see me be happy, love to be on the receiving end of my warmth and glow. I'm pleased to be in love with someone who gives it back, who glows for me to enjoy.
I really can't quit capture it. It's a shame. But I sit here and just revel in how beautiful he is, how totally full of light, full to the brim and overflowing. How lovely to love one so lovely.
There was sunshine enough
to begin with.
At least, it always seemed like enough,
and my chlorophyll soaked it up when it shone
Bouncing electrons into more useful configurations.
I thought there had been enough light,
and that my slow pace of growing was
of steadiness born.
Settled into my right place.
Having not seen your eyes flash,
and having not yet caused you to smile,
and having never held your face in my hands,
it is easy to see how this mistake was made.
There was sunshine,
enough to keep my little tree alive each growing season,
but now, outside my box, under full light,
I wonder how keeping alive was ever enough.