This Is My Life

I just remembered why I can't stay here, especially in the state I've been in with my hormones out of balance due to the new treatment I'm on.

I will not be reachable at 363-7578 after the next two hours and I'm not sure were anybody will be able to get in touch with me. I know where I'm going but I don't have a phone number or anything like that. Email me, Facebook me, LiveJournal me, whatever you need to do if you want to hang out just don't call.

I just have to get out of here. The apathy and anger are destroying me.

My mother reads this journal. I care about that, and sometimes I'll admit that I sensor myself accordingly. I'd normally either not talk about this, not be quite as fervent about it, or glaze over it. If I really felt the need to talk about it, I'd probably say "Mom, you should stop reading now."

Mom, you should probably stop reading now, but I can't stop you.

Too often my friends need to complain about the family that hurt them. Hurts them. Not just in the past, but presently, even though my friends have all grown up, moved away, got married, have lives of their own. Still, somehow, something their mother says, their father does, it hurts them badly. Many dread seeing the people they call their "loved ones" because they know that one is going to nag them about their weight while the other snidely insinuates that they could have picked a better mate.

Fuck 'em.

I don't understand the attachment. If you can't stand the people in your life, regardless of blood ties, or them bringing you up, drop them like you would a match that's burned down to your fingers. Drop them, and grind their memories into the dirt.

I'm not talking about dropping your family just because it took them 4 extra months to get you a birthday present, which they gave to you on the same day they gave your wife her early birthday present. I'm talking about the kind of family that makes you constantly feel 2 inches tall; the kind of family member who seems to get joy out of causing you misery.

Drop them. Stop complaining about them. Stop wishing they would tell you just once "I love you." Stop having anything to do with them. Just walk away.

They're not family if they don't care about you. They're not even friends. If they don't bring any kind of joy into your life, and the thought of being around them makes your flesh crawl, why do you care what happens when you decide to make your life better by cutting them out of it?

They're not worth your mental anguish or time. Walk away. I would, if that's how it was for me. I have, in some ways. Not with my parents. No. They do upset me from time to time, but in little silly ways that I can get bitter over, that don't really matter. Siblings, however, are a different story.

So I've just walked away. I'm done. I don't care, even if I should. Family only matters so far.

This is my entry for Topic 2 of LJ Idol, a writing contest which I have recently joined that plumbs the depths of your soul and spits you out a better writer, if you're lucky.

I was gone over the weekend. The high points:

Maria's birthday was Sunday! Send her good wishes!

My sister Cora's graduation party was nice, and I'm very proud of her!

My father and I don't see eye to eye, but unlike how it would have been years ago, we still parted happy to have seen each other for the weekend.

I saw my birthday present, which will someday be a nice apron for me.

The dogs went to puppy daycare, and were, in the words of their primary watcher, "absolutely fantastic!"

Despite some minor incidents (my father's side of the family definitely doesn't like my purple hair), things were nice, and it was great to be able to be there for my sister. Five and a half hours is a long drive, but it's not so bad when you're going somewhere to have a good time.

Still, as is always the case, the ride home seemed much faster than the ride there. Could be because we were heading home in daylight hours rather than evening, but there's always something nice about getting back home after a weekend away.

1. Have you ever had an addiction?
~Never anything too serious. Just a caffeine addiction. I know, sounds silly, but I firmly believe that many people are addicted to caffeine and that it will some day be shown that this leads to early heart attacks and death. When caffeine becomes outlawed for its narcotic-like effect (the "perk" you get) and the negative effects on the body (the "death" thing) there will be a great uprising and thousands will die. They will be called the Starbuck Wars for years to come. Who will win? Nobody yet knows, the future is cloudy - probably because I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

2. Are you afraid of the dark?
~Hmm. No? I don't mind the dark, but I tend to have a very very vivid imagination of what could be in the dark. I dread opening my eyes at night because my mind has pictured someone standing over me, or someone just walking into my room with some kind of weapon. Strangely enough the thought of zombies at night don't scare me so much - they'd have to get in the house and even though I'm a very heavy sleeper most of the time, I'd like to think that someone battering their way into the house would wake me up and if not me then Maria, who would then wake me.

3. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?
~Whatever kind I'm currently eating as long as it's not nasty.

4. Have you ever been to the circus?
~Lots of times. When I got older I started to feel bad for some of the animals. Still, the non-animal acts are usually fun.

5. What do you think of North Korea testing nuclear weapons?
~They want to test? Fine. No problem with that. I think we need to start making sure we have interceptor missles prepped and ready to shoot down anything that might be fired at us. The moment that North Korea fires ON somebody? Yeah, there's unfortunately going to be a lot of loss of life. In North Korea.

Five Things About Me

1. I love playing first person shooter games like Halo, Star Wars Battlefront, Doom III, etc. The problem comes in with the fact that I absolutely suck at them. They're a lot of fun when you're NOT the worst player around. I don't have time to practice at it because I'm working either on the job, around the house, or whatever. I'm a very casual gamer who aspires to be so much more.

2. I don't know how to tell a good story. A good story is supposed to have a beginning, middle, and ending. My stories usually have a beginning, middle, and a fizzle. They just kind of peter out with me saying something like "and I thought it was funny..." while everyone around me looks confused.

3. Before getting me through the American adoption program my parents were going to adopt a young black child. It stuns me to think that my father, who once said that Sherrill (the town I'm from) was getting "weird" because he saw a black man walking down the street*, was going to adopt a black child. Okay, so this one isn't about me, but it's something from my life.

4. I get VERY easily distracted. One of the reasons my room was never clean as a kid was because I would quite often pick up a book from my room and start reading my favorite parts from it. This comes through now when I'm cleaning - books, computer, movies, all these things get in the way. I just tend to be very very moment oriented instead of broad-spectrum.

5. If I could choose only one thing to spend my money on for the rest of my life, assuming that I'd be fed and have a roof over my head, I would choose books. I love books - they can take you places, open your eyes to new ideas, and just about every silly cliche you've ever heard about books is true.

What would you choose?

*My dad's not a bad guy, I swear - he's just from a very secluded town and a very secluded life.