Don't Look Back in Anger

I can't stand this volatile relationship my mother and I have. I just plain can't stand it anymore.

As I get older I'm able to piece together and reflect on the damage she's done to me over the years (being a psychology major only makes my introspection worse).

A few weeks ago she accused me of not liking Naveen, which she does on a regular basis. I love Naveen, like a brother (or at least I did before the whole dabacle on my birthday), and so naturally I defended the fact that I do like Naveen, it's their relationship I have a problem with. I'm sorry but my 50-something year old mother should not be doing a 20-something year old man's laundry, giving him her brand new laptop, making his lunches for him, etc. etc., it's not a friendship it's her babying him, but that's a long story for another day.

On this particular occasion I guess my mother decided she needed to get a good jab in and take me down a few pegs, so she said something to the affect of "you don't like him because he is Indian (obviously I'm racist, and if that wasn't offensive enough), or maybe it's because he's a man. The only people you care about are gay people and the only things you care about are gay issues."

It's taken me some time to reflect on this, because it cut me REAL deep. If my mother bothered to get to know me, she'd know I'm not really big into gay issues. I'm more of a big picture kind of girl. I'm really into human issues. I care about everyone who takes a minute to talk to me, if I've met you there's a good chance I care about you. I don't really have any gay friends, most of my friends are straight (by choice for the most part, because gay kids in college are filled with drama, and I, clearly, get enough drama at home). My first best friend from college is a guy, he's a great guy and I love him a great deal. Almost all of my friends are girls, but that's only because my school is predominantly female. But I guess the fact of the matter is I shouldn't have to justify myself in terms of my mother's hurtful remark. She wanted to get a good jab in, and she did. I'm not sure if she can even comprehend the amount of damage she did to me by saying that.

Ever since she said that I've been wondering to myself about being gay. Do people assume that since I'm gay all I care about are gay things? I can't care about anything other than being gay? I mean, I started the GSA at my school, but I did that honestly because I firmly believe that the school is better off having a safe and welcoming outlet for GLBTQ students rather than having to deal with depressed/suicidal students who have no outlet and no way of expressing themselves. It's all about student retention. But I'm not all about being gay. I'm all about being me, and doing well in school, and getting into graduate school and figuring out what the heck I want to do with my life. I'm pretty normal and boring when you get right down to it.

But what if people think I'm just gay? What if they don't see that I'm Rachel too, and I like to play the violin and I'm happiest when I'm surrounded by my friends laughter. What if they think all I am is gay, and they don't know that when I get cut I bleed too. That's the scariest part of all of this. Does my mother think all I am is gay? That I'm nothing more than a gay kid now and I am so uninterested in the rest of the world that it might as well not even exist to me.

It makes me so sad. To think I might mean nothing. To think I might mean nothing to the woman who made me something. It helps me understand why so many GLBTQ kids kill themselves. When the people you love the most in the world make you feel worthless, what else is there?

I wonder if she'll ever know how much she hurt me, or if she'll ever care.

Just have to keep moving I s'pose. Chin up and all that good stuff. Hope everyone else is having a safe, happy and productive week. This weekend is the family reunion, wish me luck.

Wisdom

I think one of my wisdom teeth is coming in... mmm not cool. I'm not sure though, because my far back molars hurt sometimes, which I just attribute to the fact that I have two wisdom teeth (one on the top on the left and one on the bottom on the right) and they're just chilling. Le sigh, I fear this may be the real deal, so to speak.

I've been wanting to say something about the Air France jet that apparently was lost at sea between Brazil and France. Well, I was praying really hard for those poor people, as I'm sure most people were. It's such a tragedy. People who did nothing wrong, just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm a firm believer that when your number is up, your number is up. But it just doesn't seem at all fair. I guess nothing is fair, but their families didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

I hope they're all at peace and their families can find peace, it doesn't get easier when a close loved one dies but the pain does dull over time.

Peace to everybody out there, happy Thursday!

Turpentine - Brandi Carlile

Girls like Us are Impossible to Find

Puppy is sleeping in the sun. Sometimes she stretches and adjusts her position, letting out little sighs. I can't really look at her without blinding myself. The sunshine is like a halo around her.

She understands me so well. Sometimes I'll just be sitting in a chair, or laying on the grass outside, and Puppy will come along and paw at my hand, or nuzzle my face. She likes being level with me. When I am standing, she stands up, leaning with her two front feet on me, staring up into my face. When I lay on the grass or the floor she goes into fits of joy, for whatever reason. She always wants to be close to me, and it seems like she can never be close enough.

I understand what she wants. She doesn't have to bark at me, or whimper. She doesn't speak any verbal language. But she doesn't just exist either.

She just came and laid her head in my lap and looked up at me with her big brown eyes.

Why can't people exist like this? Why is it so easy to know how an animal is feeling, and yet so impossible to tell what a person is feeling? Is it really impossible, or do we just set up blinders for other people? Or do we just not care?

Everything is right with the world when she's with me.

I had a coffee date with my best friend today. The one who I got into a fight with almost exactly a week ago that ended with her breaking up our 13 year long friendship.

We decided that we really can't live without each other, and that we have a lot of work to do, but that we need each other. Life is ridiculously lonely without each other, even if we can't see each other every day. Knowing the other person is just a phone call away makes all the difference.

Much like with Puppy, everything is right with the world when Kate is with me.

I hope we outgrow this weird limbo our relationship had found itself in as of late. We're not the best friends we have been since the first grade, but we're not the friends who call each other a couple times a year to check in and say 'hey.' We need to figure out what we both want and need out of this relationship, and then things will be alright. I just want the transition from "best friends forever" to "hey, what have you been up to in the last year?" to be smoother than it has been.

I know we can't be the same girls who shared every secret, who when one got in trouble the other was right there with her, who were basically inseparable from the age of 7 on, but we can still be friends. They don't call us Kratechel for nothing.

This growing up thing is really, really hard.

Nine days until life goes back to normal.

Mighty Mouse

I'm really tired, but I can't stop thinking about the poor wee baby mouse. My friend decided that his name should be Mighty Mouse, and I think it's fitting.

I'm very worried about him. But once he dies, there will be no more worry, right? He'll go to heaven, where all the baby mice, and the doggies, and the dads and the cousins and the strangers go. And he'll have his own place in the palm of God's hand, where he can bury his little whiskered head and soak up all the body heat he ever dreamed of. All the fleas will melt away. He'll never go hungry or thirsty again.

And some day, hopefully, I'll get there and meet him, and tell him how sorry I am that I couldn't save him. All I want to do is save the poor baby and I'm so powerless. I hate being powerless more than anything else in this world.

And Mighty Mouse can share a seat on my daddy's lap with Kashi, and Ducky, and Candy, and Johnny Pig, and Rex, and all the animals that went before him and all the animals that are bound to follow him.

I hope God knows how much I want to save this little baby, and how confused I am as to why I had to find him, and why he couldn't just live to be an old mouse with lots of little mice babies of his own.

It's just not fair. Babies, human or otherwise, shouldn't die. I don't understand why God would create life only to take it back.

And I don't want the God works in mysterious ways bullshit. I just want to understand.

On an equally heart wrenching note for me, I talked to my best friend tonight.

I think I mentioned that we "broke up" and she made me cry. A lot. And my madre is looking for blood. According to her I am selfish, and dominating, and only care about myself, and haven't been a good friend to her in the past five years. These are things she said in anger. And at the time that she was saying them, I said "we're just angry right and saying things we don't mean." But she assured me that she meant the things she said. And that she no longer wanted to be friends. After hanging up with me and leaving me heartbroken, beyond repair I believe, she called our two other best friends to tell them the situation and to basically get their approval.

She called me tonight to apologize and to see if we could work on things. I wasn't really angry until tonight. I was beyond angry. Beyond completely pissed off. Past the point of no return.

I called her back and ripped her a new one.

How dare she end our friendship of thirteen years, and then so casually call back and ask for things to be better. How dare she. How dare she rip my heart out of my chest, put it up to my nose, and tear it into little shreds right in front of my eyes. How dare she drag our other friends into the equation when it was completely unnecessary.

And I said these things to her. And I hurt her the way she hurt me. I told her I'm leaving town after this summer, and never looking back. I'll come back for holidays and visits, but I'm no longer living in CT two weeks from now. I heard the fear in her voice.

I told her the friends I've made in the past year have been better friends to me than she has been in the past five years. I heart her heart break.

I told her that she isn't my best friend anymore, and she probably never will be again. I heard her heart rip apart. The little part of me that died the other night died inside of her tonight.

I feel bad because the whole "you hurt me so now I'll hurt you" thing is so not me, and so unbecoming, and it doesn't feel good. But I hope she knows now. I hope she knows how much she hurt me. She hurt me worse than any ex girlfriend, than any fight with my mother, than anything I've been through in the recent past. It was like someone killed the one constant in my life.

No one can revive the best friend that I lost. That person is dead. Maybe we can start again, but it won't be the same.

I just want everything to go back to normal so badly. So badly. But it never will.

Growing up is too hard.