Rantings

I sit here, wondering why life can't become more simple than it is. And why, finding a special someone, can't be more simple. Why can't it just be: I like someone and I just go up to him and tell him. Why does there have to be games played and hints thrown and glances catched. Because the fear of rejection can be greater than the growing like of the boy. But why are we taught to go with our fears, or to be scared at all. When did that change begin to happen, because as a child I climbed trees without a second thought and jumped out of them without fear of breaking a bone or hurting myself. When did I become aware that things like that could hurt me, and when did fear begin to creep in. Maybe it happens when we learn that santa clause isn't real. or the tooth fairy, or the easter bunny. and why isn't it alright to believe in mythical or magical creatures. or that a man can travel the world in one night, because the rules of time do not apply to him. It is so magical to believe in something like that. But the age of innocence was lost, and somehow it can not be returned. how, then, can we prevent it from ever being lost. But then we find other things to place our hopes in, without fears. We find something that is unbelievable and throw ourselves into it. Sometimes its love, sometimes it mythology, or human nature. I don't know. Maybe I'm guilty of believing in love, but then it was shattered, just like Santa Clause was. Now I find myself without that inconcievable belief in something. It was a harsh reality to find that the Disney movies had gotten it all wrong about love and relationships. The girl shouldn't wait for her prince because the prince may never come. She needs to find her own way out of the dungeon. And there is no happily ever after. What happens, Cinderella, when you don't have the fairy god mother anymore? and you don't provide an heir to the throne? There is always a prince in all the stories. Can't they just fall in love with someone simple? Instead of a prince? I just want someone real, who doesnt have a country to run. But that phase of silly blind belief in the overcoming power of love that can break curses and charms is over. Again, I wish I could go back to it, and throw myself into its belief, but that glass was shattered and no matter how you glue it back together, the cracks still exist.

What went wrong

I often reflect on the turn that my life has taken by actions that were decided by others. I entered High School a totally normal young lady. I feel that I am leaving it extremly changed in so many ways that I did not anticipate. It is never normal or healthy for a little girl to witness her parents fighting. I tried to shield my younger sister from it often times because I had been subjected to it when I was her age. As a young girl, I would lie away at night and hear my parents arguing, loudly. They must have assumed that we were asleep because they never fought in front of us. We is refering to myself and my older sister of 3 years. I don't remember what the arguments were about except that my father would always walk away and my mother would yell at him not to walk away while she was talking to him. That she was talking. He would passively ignore her. I think that I attribute this to my avoidance of conflict. The sound of arguing makes me uncomfortable and scared, frankly. Unsafe. My father was always there for me. I looked up to him when I was younger, but I was the second child. Softly pushed aside in favor of my older sister. I love her dearly, and I don't resent her for being first. I simply got used to being second. I understood and complied with my treatment. This isn't to say that I was flat out ignored, but I learned my place, which was not in the spot light. She was talk with at night, and it was a common practice that I would be ignore for bedtime "tuck in". That was the way it was. And then my younger sister came along, and she got more attention than I did. She is the sensitive one. She needs to have the special attention. Again, I got used to it.
But my parents: their fighting got worse. We never really went on vacation as a family, and my father was often busy with his biking. I don't much remember my mother in my early years. I think because she was like a ghost. Quiet in the background, helping us along, having snacks for us after school. She was not a major actor in her own life, I think. After the divorce, things changed. My mother, my father, my life. Everything is different. Everything and Everyone. My mother has found her voice and my father has changed personalities. I sleep in a bed that is not my own and eat other people's food. I have to smile and pretend that this new life, this new world that I have entered is perciesly what I asked for. Because watching my father dote on another woman is exactly what I want to see. Hearing him speak to her in ways that I did not know he could to someone that is not my mother is just what I love to hear. And then he tries to be my best friend. He can not see what he has done to my life, to my personality. I am scared to death of comitment. What if my special someone leaves me like my father left my mother? But my mother!! Her strength has become a brilliant and beautiful thing. She has found her strength that was always there but lay dormant inside of her. It has come alive in ways that are just beginning to unfold. I admire her more and more each day. I wish I had noticed her in my childhood. I am only starting to appreciate her and I am really saddened over our loss of time. I am going to run away for a while. I need to find my own voice. I need to seperate myself from the strangling oppression that I feel around my father. I need to break out of this shell that has been created by my parents. They have instilled in me virtues that are important, but consciously and invertantly. But starting this summer, I plan on writing about the things I AM doing, not what I WISH to do.