Thanksgiving

I'm happy. It feels amazing to say that.

I'm thankful. For happiness. For my family. For friends who let me drool blood on them and check on me when I'm drugged and silly. For romance. For writing. For you, dear reader. For love. For everything.

Wisdom Teeth

I promised myself I'd blog once more before the surgery.

Honestly, my secret is that I'm not scared of the knife or the needle. I'm unnerved by the recovery, yes, but it seems manageable. My fear is born mainly of the lack of consciousness.

How precious and intricate our thoughts are, perfectly balanced chemicals in perfect ratios to give us all that we think and do. Everything I'm thinking now, everything that lets me write this to you, is so tiny and perfect, a billion tiny reactions in my mind. So what happens when that gets messed with?

I'm scared of turning off those synapses. I'm scared of being completely gone. I'm scared of realizing that turning my mind off means it's utterly off, and there's nothing I'll remember, aside from a gaping black where I should be alive. I'm scared I'll never come back from that gaping oblivion. I'm scared my thoughts won't line up again. On the smallest level, I'm scared I won't be exactly the same person, though realistically knowing every moment we live changes those thoughts and reactions, and we're never perfectly the same person we were moments ago.

Ridiculous, that all sounds ridiculous, and I know I'm wrong, and I'm sure I'll be fine. Fear is a rather irrational creature.

Playing Dress-Up

Some days, I am tempted. Some days, it seems so close.

I daydream in cloudy fantasies of romance. Saturday night. Maybe I'll straighten my hair. I smile to myself, listening to what everyone would say. How pretty. I have earrings that look real enough, at first glance anyway.
I take note of what others wear. Remember those shoes, you can get shoes like that, I tell myself. I dress, mentally searching for clothing I've bought and never worn, the uncomfortably tight skinny jeans in the bottom left drawer, with the Forever21 hand-me-down top at the back of the closet, a mix of popular style and magazines, until I'm convinced I could pass for someone else, everybody else. I pull out clothing from all nooks into the center of my bedroom, where I hold it out as though adorning an unseen mannequin.
I picture myself in my fantasy. I fit in perfectly. People will come to talk to me and find I'm perfectly interesting as well, and ask me about music or sports. How much we have in common. Rehearsing these conversations in my mind, I'm tempted now to fill my itunes from the 21st century and learn how sports are played.

Alas, how startling reality returns. I reprimand myself silently. With a sigh, I pull the frizz back from my shiny, pockmarked face, and lose whatever figure I had in a torn, discolored sweatshirt. I force myself as though this is my punishment.

Happiness

Here's something new, still staying away from the angsty whining.


I feel full of music, or happiness, or something. I can't hold it all in my heart. There's little cracks, stretched seams, where the feeling is leaking out. It drips out of my heart, down into my arms, and I fling them out, letting the excess fling off my fingertips into the world. It's fun, I suppose. I dance with it, I sing with it, I drive other people crazy. I keep it full of music and colors and people, it flows fast, insatiably greedy though bottomless to share.

I suppose I'm terrified of it.

Later, I turn on Edith Piaf. La Vie en Rose. I sit with my chin at the windowsill and mouth words I don't understand. The glowing remnants of the sunset are somewhat promising, and the whole world seems exciting.

Hamburger Dress

Let's interrupt my normal whiny rambling for something completely different.

I knit a dress that looks like a hamburger! And I love my blog and my readers, so I give you pictures, you're welcome.

Anyway, this is it all spread out, before I sewed it up the back. It's cool, right? Lettuce and cheese and meat and all, and the tomatoes cool too.

This is it finished. I'm really proud. Leave comments!









Lots of love,
         Reagan

Faulty Teenage Logic

He was always attracted to her, but it never bothered me. He dumped me with the promise that we'd be together again. I guess he never really meant it, or maybe he forgot he ever said it, because he forgot about me rather quickly. It wasn't until a few months later I realized we'd never get back together. At the same time, I realized he was flirting with my best friend.

I wasn't so much hurt by the fact that she was my friend as I was by the realization that he was over me. I was foolish, romantic, and he was my first kiss. I never understood the unwritten "bros before hoes" and "chicks before dicks" rules, but I used them anyway. He and I were over, but I wasn't over that. I guess I was so desperate to stop him from being with anyone else, that I played the only card I had, the only expected reaction. So I told her she couldn't be with him.
"Why?" she asked.
"He's my ex."
"So?"
"Well, you're my friend."
"So? We really like each other, and we make each other happy."
"That's not how it works," I snarled. I was stubborn. I was so set in the idea that she was breaking the rules, that she was terrible, that she was breaking girl code and ruining our friendship, that she was the only thing standing between me and him, so I decided nobody could be happy.

I lashed out at both of them, how selfish she was, how scheming he was. I hurt. I forced her to promise me she'd forget about him. Then, pitying myself, I stopped talking to them both. But I was haunted by what she said. "We make each other happy." And how fleeting is happiness? How hard is it to find someone you could talk to? If he couldn't talk to me anymore, maybe he could talk to her. At the very least, maybe they were just happy together. Resigned, I called him.
"Listen, "I sighed, "I've thought a lot about it, and if you want to date her, you can."
"She didn't tell you? We've been dating for a week, I asked her out last monday."
"And she said yes?"
"Well, yeah."
I hung up.

I called her later, but I didn't have the heart to be angry.
"Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," I said. I wasn't.
"Are you ok with it?"
"Yeah." Not a bit.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
"Don't worry about it."

I felt betrayed and helpless. But it wasn't really ever in my control to begin with, it was always their choice. Falling asleep that night, I genuinely wished that they'd be happy together. A week later, she called me. They'd gone to the mall, and evidently, it hadn't gone well.
"I don't get it," she cried, "We just didn't click."
I sighed, and pulled back my hair with one hand, then let it fall absentmindedly around my face. For the next hour, I consoled her over our now shared ex. The phone beeped angrily with a call on hold.
He called me after she did, looking for the same comfort, and I gave it.

I'm not anything more than her now. Just an ex. Just a friend. We'd both been kissed. Written songs about. I wasn't anything special to him anymore. But I don't really regret it. A chance to be happy, even in high school, even for two weeks, is still a chance to be happy. I'm not defending or advocating anything, but if I played it over again, the only thing I'd change would be to wish them well sooner.

What People Have Tried to Teach Me

In political campaigns geared towards attacking an opponent, claims and accusations are made. However, when these claims are made, no matter how ridiculous they may be, the stupidest thing to do is to refute them. If a politician wastes time refuting and defending themselves against one claim, they lose. Instead, what they must do is redirect focus completely so the campaigns don't revolve around one issue.
This seems to me spineless, for if someone accuses you of something, the instinct is to defend yourself, to explain, instead of letting your spirit break. But to fix it, to move on, I don't think you can.

People have tried to teach me that the same is true in real life. When someone hurts you, and accuses you, you cannot refute each claim. To end it, you have to stand there, and let them shoot at you without any intention of removing the bullets, without losing your own temper. I suppose the idea is that if you just let them, they'll run out of ammo and you'll forget about the bullets. Sometimes, that's not the reality. Sometimes, it just keeps hurting, carrying around all those scars with you. I'm just not sure what you're supposed to really do.

If I could yell back, I'd gouge out every bullet and throw it back. I'd defend myself. But I can't bring myself to. Because eventually, carrying around all that lead makes you realize you must be a bad person. And nothing you say can convince anyone otherwise, and the bullets never go away.


This is what people have tried to teach me. I'm scared I've learned it.