Been a While

It's been a while since I last posted a blog. I've been pretty busy with getting back to school in the states, adjusting to the apartment, moving two of the cats here, dealing with a whole bunch of shenanigans which I will get to in a minute, and just living my life, basically. I mean to come back to blogging, but it's hard when you feel like you don't really have anything constructive to say. It's been an incredibly rough 2010, and I put on a brave face but mostly I am becoming increasingly aware that everything is not okay, and for all I know right now things may never be okay again. But I'm hanging on to the hope that things will get better soon.

So as anyone who has read this knows, my rabbit Buns died at the beginning of January. He was the best rabbit ever, but not only that he was a good friend too. I relate better to animals than to people, because animals just listen. They don't give you their advice or choose sides. Buns was like that in many ways, I could just talk to him and stroke his long golden-red ears and he would just sit quietly twitching his nose and staring up at me. The thing I miss the most about him, I think, is that whenever my mom and I would argue and raise our voices Buns would stamp his feet as if to say "enough!" I realize that he was probably very sensitive to loud noises and shouting, but I like to think that he was the voice of reason in an unreasonable environment. The voice of reason is gone now. In a lot of ways it just feels like everything is falling apart.

We went to Disney World as a family a few days after Buns died. It was my mom, me, my aunt, my other aunt and my uncle, her two daughters, their husbands, their total of five children, and my mom's friend Naveen and his wife. Naveen was the cause of the drama at my birthday (the reason why I wish I could forget that I even have a birthday), and he managed to cause drama at Disney too. There was a huge fight in the Magic Kingdom between my mom and my aunt, causing my other aunt to come outside brandishing her cane at the two of them. It was really very funny, but on a deeper level it was disturbing. My mom is willing to be cruel and violent (she pushed my aunt, her older sister, in the Magic Kingdom of all places) to the people she proportedly loves over this person whom she has known for all of four years. I don't want to spend time with Naveen, and I particularly don't want to spend time with my mother and Naveen because I will always lose when it comes to him.

My Pastor retired on Valentine's Day. It was one of the most pathetically sad days of my life. Pastor could barely get the sermon out without crying, and I was practically sobbing in the back of the church. I got some really good pictures with him but no picture can capture what he truly means to me. As far as I am concerned, Pastor is the person who saved me from myself when I was a lost 15 year old girl, struggling with a whole slew of issues that no person, much less a 15 year old, should have to deal with. He sat and talked with me once a week for a year before I was ready to be Baptised and confirmed, but sitting and talking with me and listening to me and giving me his undivided attention was exactly what I needed then. He never felt sorry for me, and in truth I never told him half of the things that were on my mind, but he gave me a new life, which is something I can never thank him enough for. And now he is out of my religious life and I am so afraid that he is going to be out of my life for good, in that I no longer live in my hometown and I can barely keep in touch with my best friends.

We sold my car, Rhonda, the girl of my dreams on Saturday. She's such a beauty that car, and I love her with every ounce of my being, but I have a new car now that is reliable and won't blow the radiator for no reason. We sold her to a father and son, the father wants to fix her up so that the son can use her to drive to college next year. Nothing would make me happier than to know that someone is driving her and loving her, but I will miss my first car, just like I miss my first rabbit and my first Pastor.

So it's been a pretty rough 2010 so far. I'm hoping things start to look up soon, but I'm not terribly optimistic. Well I take that back, I am optimistic that things will start to improve, I just know that things can always get worse, and knowing that just makes this shitty year that much shittier.

So happy March everyone, I hope your year has been better than mine thus far. May we all see vast improvements in the outlook of our 2010's.

A Week and Five Days!!

Finally some good weather! It took freakin long enough for it to get here, but it's here and it is glorious, but it is going away on Sunday so I'm hanging on to it with every fiber of my being.

We're going to... you guessed it... PTOWN! this weekend! I'm so excited. I love nowhere else on this Earth the way that I love Provincetown. I'm sure there will be pictures after the weekend.

Two weeks from today I'll be in London, and I will have been there for two days! It's so surreal... I can hardly believe that just a few months ago studying abroad was a fleeting thought and now all of a sudden it's here and it's real and my suitcases are empty and glaring at me from across the room (they're saying "Rachel, you really can't put off packing us much longer..."). I'm going to miss everyone from home so much, and all of my college friends. A lot of my friends are seniors this year and I'm missing one whole half of their senior year. I'm missing four months of my little kitten's young life. I'm missing my one year anniversary with Hillary, apartment hunting and quality time.

I'm not too concerned about missing our one year because Hill knows that I love her and that every moment we have together is a gift, months and years don't matter, rather the most important aspect is the amount of love and happiness that fills those months and years. I'll miss her sleep breathing and setting the alarm clock fifteen minutes later and pulling her in to my arms for just a little bit longer. I'll miss playing with her hair on car rides while she drives. I'll miss climbing mountains with her and visiting my nieces and nephew with her and going out to dinner and holding hands under the table and going to the movies and putting my arm around her and letting her head rest on my shoulder. I'll probably even miss arguing with her over trivial things, things I only pick fights about because I know in the end she will still love me, if I thought for a minute she would stop loving me I would never argue about anything. She's a one of a kind kinda girl, and this is a one of a kind kinda love.

I'll miss all my friends from home, but I always miss them anyways. Kate and Natasha are so wrapped up in school and their new lives that I hardly ever see them anyway. I feel kind of like they don't appreciate the fact that I'm going to be 3,000 miles away for nearly four months and that they won't see me or likely talk to me for that amount of time. But I supposed, at this stage in our lives, I'm really only of use to them when they're home from school (if I'm home from school at the same time). I'll send them a postcard or two, but they won't understand that I miss them and that I love them, because they don't miss me and I'd venture to say that they don't love me anymore. It's all growing up though, I s'pose.

Molly and Rob and Jaime are all different stories. Rob and Jaime work all the time, and it's difficult to coordinate hanging out with them. I do feel, though, that they miss me when I'm not around and that they love me and that they appreciate the distance and length of time I will be away. Molly is the one person out of all of my friends from home who I am sure will miss me and appreciates that I will be gone for a long time and that I will be virtually unreachable a great deal of the time. If I retain a relationship with any of these people, I believe Molly will be the one with whom I still have a strong relationship in the coming years, even when I move to MA.

I'll miss my family, even though I don't see them as often as I would like, at least I know that if I need anything they are a phone call away for the most part. I visited my grandmother on Nantucket last Friday, and even though my grandmother remembers me as a 13 year old, she does recognize me (although she is shocked that I am as tall as I am, since the last time she remembers seeing me I was in rollerblades and overalls, speeding around the parking lot in her retirement community), but it's incredibly depressing to have a member of your family with Alzheimers. I needed to see her, though, because the last time I saw her was Thanksgiving two years ago, and if she were to die while I was in London I would never forgive myself for not seeing her in two years.

My mother will be the one who misses me the most, I am sure. She likes to pretend that she is okay without me, and she is, but I know she misses me and my crazy antics and she will find it strange that I don't call her in the afternoons when I know she is headed home just so we can shoot the breeze for a few minutes. She'll have difficulty not driving to my school on Saturday afternoons to pick me up and take me out to dinner or to take the T in the Boston with me to go to a museum. She'll worry about me constantly until my feet are planted safely on the ground on December 20th at Logan. It makes me feel good to know that she cares, but at the same time I worry that I am the cause of her suddenly more grey hair.

I'll try to blog often while I'm in Europe, and I'll try to have significantly more pictures than I usually do. This is the chance of a lifetime, I'm so glad to have this wonderful opportunity and I can't wait to share my experiences with everyone!

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.

The Weekend From Hell

This was truly the worst weekend of my life and the worst birthday of my entire life. Worse than my ninth birthday, which was a terrible one because my father had died the November before my birthday and he had promised me he would make it to my ninth birthday. But I'm not bitter.

So I was home Friday afternoon when my mother and Naveen came home from work. I had been having a pretty horrible day, mainly because I was just down in the dumps and really would have rather been left alone. So I was carrying my dog downstairs, because Naveen is afraid of dogs and Puppy would have jumped all over him, so I had my arms full and I didn't really say hello to anyone, just because I didn't really care too much.

So I did my stuff, fed the dog, changed my clothes because we were going out to a fancy dinner, and went back to the living room. Then Hillary pulled in to the driveway from her 2 hour drive to CT straight from work and I went out to greet her. I wasn't being especially friendly with her just because I was feeling not myself. So I went inside then Hillary went inside and then we went up to my room so we could change (I wanted to change my shirt for the 15,000th time) and my mother followed us up and began berating me for being "rude" to Naveen. She basically told me that the people at work are rude to him and he felt as though he didn't belong here and that he was unwelcome because of my attitude.

So I went downstairs and my mother was still yelling about it, even though I wasn't being disrespectful of Naveen I just wasn't being myself. When I got downstairs my mother put Naveen on the spot and made him basically tell me how he was feeling. So I got up and went outside for a thought. I was just sitting out there when my mother went outside and continued to bitch at me more. I told her to go to dinner without me.

Then Hillary was sent outside to retrieve me, and I told her I just wanted to sit there and to be left alone, that was all I wanted. So my mother went back outside and I could smell a fight so I told Hillary to make herself scarce. So my mom and I fought some more, and she went inside, but not before telling me that if I didn't go inside in 10 minutes, Hillary had to leave. So Hill went outside so tell me my mother was making her leave, and I said fine I'll go with you. So we went inside and started to pack up our things when my mother burst into my room and screamed at Hillary to "leave her house" and Hillary quickly escaped from my room with her things. My mother slammed the door behind her and I was trapped in my room. I tried to get passed my mother, and I eventually did but not before my mother had broken one of my fingernails in half causing me to bleed everywhere and had choked me so I had red marks all around my neck and I was gasping.

So I grabbed my asthma meds and ran outside to find Hill sobbing on the phone with her mother. We got in her car and drove to a parking lot where my best friend met us and we told her what was going on. Hillary's mom was adament that Hillary drive home immediately and leave me. So Hillary drove me home and she and Kate waited on a side street while I talked to my mother.

My mother apologized and realized what she did was incredibly wrong, too little too late but an apology is an apology. I called Hillary to try to get her to come and discuss things with my mother but she refused and promptly drove away.

At this point I was beside myself because I had no clue what I had done to deserve any of this. I met Hillary in a parking lot with Kate again and I begged her to just hear my mother out, but she refused and said that until my mother and I got help for our issues, we were threw. And she left me there, sobbing. When I needed her the most, she wasn't there for me. The most unforgiveable and devastating part of that night, my twentieth birthday, was that the person I love the most couldn't even be there when I needed her.

So I went home and curled up in a ball, on my twentieth birthday. I couldn't sleep at all that night, and then Hillary called me at four am. We talked and decided to meet at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, MA (a little over two hour drive for me) at noon. So we did, and Hillary apologized for abandoning me when I needed her most. We made amends and decided we do love each other and we are willing to do whatever it takes to be together.

So we decided to go get some lunch, and we drove back to school where we would consolidate cars and continue on from there. I guess on the way to school Hillary called her mother and told her we had patched things up and everything was okay again when Hillary's mom said that I am not allowed at their house, she is not allowed at my house and if she finds out that we are seeing each other Hillary would be kicked out of their house. Hillary was obviously devastated.

So she went home and went to a friend's house for the night. She went back today and her mother gave her the same ultimatum (backed up by her father) and she decided to leave her home, to take her things, and to move in with a friend until January when she and I are supposed to move in together.

Where I am right now:
She is adament about my mother and I getting help to resolve or come closer to resolving our issues together. What Hillary will never understand is that my mother and I love each other very much, and we have many unresolved issues (as many child parent relationships tend to be).

At this point in my life, I am living under my mother's roof. I am leaving for London in September and when I come back I will be home for a week before I move in to my own apartment, where I will be living until or beyond graduate school. I will never be living in this house again. This house is a crazy environment for me and I dislike it very much here, but I love my mother more than oxygen. This house is no longer my home, it is simple where I was raised and where I have to stay if I want to remain financially afloat for the time being. My mother and I get along much better when we aren't under the same roof.

There is a lot of history between my mother and I, we have many unresolved issues regarding my father's death and a lot of issues regarding me growing up and fleeing the nest so to speak. Hillary seems to have no compassion for the fact that my mother is having a hard time dealing with everything right now.

But she is my mother and I love her and I will stand by her to the death.

I can find another girlfriend, I can find someone else to provide with love and affection and happiness, but I can never find another mother. She is mine and she is all I have in this world.

I will not be told what to do and I will not be handed ultimatums or bullied into making decisions. That may work for Hillary's mother but it does not work for me and it does not work on me. I am my own woman, and so is my mother.

And so I am here, heartbroken, because the whole world is seemingly against me and I did nothing to deserve the treatment I received this weekend. I really truly wish that I could curl up in a ball and just be left alone and never have to face any of this mess that I did nothing to deserve.

Perhaps I'm not cut out for this. I suppose only time will tell. But until time tells, I am here, and I am devastated and alone and lost. If there is ever a time I needed to get down on my knees and pray for an answer, it is now.

I am far more realistic than Hillary's mother in that I know that bad things happen, and sometimes for no reason, but that life always goes on and forgiveness makes the heart so much healthier than to harp away and continue to be angry. I'm not angry anymore.

Prayer Request

Two years ago if you had asked me how I felt about outsourcing I would have told you exactly what was in my head: it sucks, it shouldn't happen, and American jobs should stay in the hands of Americans. I, like most Americans, felt anger and betrayal when I thought of the American coporations eliminating hard-earned American jobs and handing them to foreign coporations and individuals who would do the job for less. I felt the fear when I thought on the direction of our country, of the future of my family, whether I would be able to go to college, if I should even bother.

Thankfully, my mother's job was never eliminated and it likely never will be. Many of her friends, however, found themselves jobless, replaced by a new coporation headquartered in India. The new company shipped many of their offshore employees onshore, to work side by side with the company that has employed my mother for the last... nearing thirty five years now. No one was pleased, and many of the people my mother has worked with for years showed their true colours when young people with a different complexion, a different accent, and a different background, walked through the revolving doors of their office building. Some searched for different employment, others ignored the newcomers, and others were truly ugly and hateful human beings, welcoming these young people to this strange new country with dirty looks, sneers, inordinate workloads and never a helping hand.

When my mother found Naveen and Sara, I was just getting ready to leave for college. They would come over to the house and cook with my mother, they taught her how to cook Indian food (and how to cook it well!), they watched movies with her, gave her books to read. They went shopping with her, asked her to bring them to their apartments when it was too rainy to take the bus, went for walks with her by the river in the spring and summer, held her arm when she needed help going up a curb, laughed at her jokes, talked to her when she was lonely. They were always there for her, even though America had been so cruel to them, so unwelcoming. Naveen's mother and father call my mother his "auntie," and she has a place beside his family at his wedding in India (as soon as they decide who his bride is... a story for another day). Sara's boyfriend (also a story for another day) in Texas sent my mother a coupon for a huge turkey over Thanksgiving, and emailed my mother, Naveen and I his gratitude for taking care of Sara when he couldn't be here for her. Sara and Naveen are like siblings to me. They are far from home and they don't have any family here to hug them when they are scared, to tell them jokes, to reassure them when work has been unbearable.

My view on outsourcing changed drastically as I got to know Sara and Naveen. They are people too, just here trying to do their jobs. They were sent here by their employers, and if they had refused they would have been without employment. They don't want to raise their families in India, they want to stay here and live and work and just live. They love this country, despite all of the trials her people put them through.

We took Naveen with us to Washington over Thanksgiving. I sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with him, looking out over the reflecting pool, the WWII Memorial, and the Capital Building, and told him about a country ripped in two not too long ago by a disagreement over the value of a man. I told him about a nation that would send its babies off the war, to kill more babies in a country no one had ever even heard of, as I ran my fingers over the names of the friends of my parents on the Vietnam Wall. We stood in front of the White House and discussed the irony of the homeless people not 1,000 feet away from the most powerful man in the free world. I told him of the millions of people who died in a war much too recent, for no reason other than their faiths, their backgrounds, the people they loved. He had never even heard of the Holocaust, he didn't know that slaves were used in this country based solely on the colour of their skin, he didn't know about our Revolutionary War. He knew nothing about our country, or about the history of Western Civilization at all, but he is learning, and he is eager to learn.

If he is going to live in this country, and raise a family here, he needs to know about the United States and at least the important events in our history.

Sara went back to India over the summer and was transfered to work in Texas so she could live with her boyfriend.

We just found out last night that Naveen's visa will not be renewed, and he has a week to leave the country.

I held my mother in the kitchen while she wept, while she repeated "I'm loosing all three of you" over and over, sobbing. It's hard to not be steaming mad when you have to hold your mother in your arms because you're afraid she'll topple over from a broken heart. It's hard to not want someone to pay, it's hard to not want to be able to make everything right, so so badly. To be able to tell her that he can stay, that he can be her adopted son, as he has become, that he will still be here when I go back, that his life will be all right and nothing will be scary anymore.

But I can't tell her that. INS isn't renewing visas these days because of the outcry against outsourcing, from people like the person I was two years ago. Naveen is a hard worker, who deserves a chance to make his life better, just like my ancestors got when they left the slums of Dublin and the pastures of Poland and boarded ships bound for a strange land they had heard whispers of, promises of a better future for their babies and themselves. He is a hard worker, and a good man, and he deserves to be able to stay in this country, if only for as long as he is needed on shore. His employers are fighting to keep him on shore, because there is work only he can do.

I'm praying he stays on shore, if only for a little while longer, just long enough for them to figure out what we can do to keep him here indefinitely. I love Naveen because my mother loves him like a son, and anyone who my mother loves like a son or a daughter is a brother or a sister to me. The colour of his skin doesn't matter, his accent doesn't matter, his birth doesn't matter. He is my brother, he is my friend. We share this world, we share this country, we share this state, we share this woman who loves us and cares about us. I will do anything and everything to make sure he stays here, and lives a long and happy life in this country.

Sometimes the people of this country infuriate me. If you can see where I am coming from, and I hope you can, please pray that Naveen's visa is extended and he isn't put on the next flight to India from JFK. And if that can't happen, please pray that I can figure out how to heal my mother's breaking heart.

Secret Santa

Tonight was secret santa with my friends from home! It was a lot of fun, we made way too much food (and also consumed way too much), opened presents, ate more food, and then sat around and did nothing (which is what we do best). I had my friend Jaime and I got her a Wall-E thingy that you build which she loved, and some cello music (because I know Jaime and Sarah through orchestra in high school and I played in the orchestra with Natasha in middle school and Kate and I played in the same orchestra together from basically birth until high school graduation). Kate had me and she got me a nerf crossbow (to add to my collection mwahaha) and play-dough, because she knows that when I am taking final exams I would much rather just be playing with playdough, and she loves me dearly and I love her for it.

Natasha and Rob had to point out the fact that people from Connecticut have an accent (WHICH WE TOTALLY DO NOT! you can't fool me), at which point in time I dropped a delicious cookie that Molly made right out of my mouth in shock and horror. Hilarity ensued.

My doctor is concerned that I have high blood pressure. But honestly, maybe my blood pressure is a little higher than usual because it's now been six days since I've been home and I am already ready to go back, finals were stressful as all hell this semester, and only two minutes before we pulled into the doctor's office parking lot she and I were having a rather stress inducing conversation about Hillary coming to CT to spend some time with me over the break. I wanted to be like "sir ma'am sir ma'am, I lead a stressful life. Get back to me in a week when I have seen the mouse and I am all in my happy place." So that's that, I have to go back when I get back from Sunny Florida and get my bloodpressure taken. I'm nineteen, I'm active, I'm always doing something (except when I'm home), I eat healthy, I exercise every day. And I'm nine fucking teen. Gosh maybe something is wrong with me. I don't feel like I am super stressed out all the time, but maybe I am, and I just don't want to admit it to myself. Well whatever, it is what it is. I've felt myself slowly developing a Type A personality over the years. I just need to chill.

So the madre and I talked about Hillary coming to visit when we get back from Florida. Well, basically the conversation went something like this:
Car silence
Me: "So... do you want to hear about my life, or are you happy with things the way they are?"
Madre: "What do you mean?"
Me: "I mean, do you want to hear about my 'romantic life'?"
Madre: "I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."
Me: "Oh. I figured if you wanted to know, you'd ask. So do you want me to tell you about the girl I'm seeing?"
Madre: "Well I assumed it was your friend Alycia"
At which point I would have spit anything out if I had been eating or drinking, but luckily I was not so it just came out in a series of cackles and wheezes
Me: "Oh my gosh no, I'm dating Hillary."
Madre: "Oh... so what do I call her? What's the politically correct term?"
Me: "Girlfriend is fine. She wants to come down when we get back from Disney, is that alright? And she wants me to go spend some time with her up in Massachusetts."
Madre: "Oh that's fine, she can come here and you can go there. I guess.. I don't know I'm just confused. Where will you two sleep? I had to sleep in a separate room from your father whenever he spent the night at my house or I spent the night at his parents' house."
Me: "That's up to you, but ma, honestly, I'm not planning on marrying her. I'm nineteen."
Madre: "Ohhhh... right."

It was kind of an hilarious conversation for me, but at the same time nerve wracking because she and I don't talk about things like that. And it was good for the two of us to just talk, freely. And now she knows, and I am very relieved, and I am also very happy that I'll be getting to spend some time with Hill when I get back from Disney. The madre still thinks this is a phase and that "no one would want to date a nineteen year old boy" (which I completely agree with, but that's besides the point), but she is okay with it. And she promised me that she will be there if and when I get a broken heart, no matter who breaks my heart. And I LOVE HER SO MUCH for that.

This is turning out to be a fabulous Christmas!

Bette Davis

I met my lacrosse coach today, and he's actually a really nice guy. We had a table at the "club fair" aka mosey through if you want, and be rude to the people who are whoring their clubs to you, but it was actually fun. We got a few girls interested in it, and there are more coming. It should be a successful season. We play this Friday at 2 pm, and I am SO EXCITED! I haven't played since June, so I'll probably be pretty bad, but I'm super excited because there are boys playing too, which means we can hit each other and stuff. I AM SO EXCITED! I knock people around in girls lax, but if a ref sees me it's trouble. The boys, per usual, get to have all the fun.

I also went to instrumental tonight, and played my violin for the first time in four months. My wrist is killing me right now but otherwise it feels wonderful to be making music again. I tore a ligament in my left wrist last year and it acts up every now and then, particularly when I play my instruments. The violin isn't very conducive to having your wrist resting in a natural position.

The visit with the madre went very well. We went to the macaroni grill, and I didn't eat for a day afterwards because I was still full (the woman knows how to feed me). We also discussed my getting another tattoo.

She was with me when I got my first tattoo, and completely supported it. I have a treble-clef on my mid-upper back in the centre, as a memorial to my music teacher who died during my senior year in high school. It seemed inappropriate that I got a memorial tattoo to my music teacher (who I love dearly and who changed my life) but not to my father. I think it was a lot easier to come up with a meaningful tattoo idea for George, but it's difficult to find the perfect one for Daddy.

So I discussed it with the madre, and she thinks it's brilliant. She suggested a hummingbird, a butterfly, and a rainbow. So I'm going to try to incorporate those things together? Somehow? I don't really like the idea of a hummingbird or a butterfly cause those things are too girly, but Daddy was fond of hummingbirds.

She suggested a rainbow because my father's best friend was gay and died of AIDS (something she neglected to tell me until Sunday), and, her exact words "Daddy was sympathetic towards gay people." I think a rainbow tattoo is brilliant, but I'm not sure it's what I want. I would love and will at some point in time get a rainbow tattoo, but right now I am focusing on getting something to memorialise my father for me, and nothing else. I looked for some ideas online and I found one where there is the Earth surrounded by a rainbow going out, kind of like sun rays, which I think is really cool. I was thinking that, for my father, I could get a standard peace sign in the middle with a rainbow going out (effectively killing two birds with one stone, which is what I kind of wanted to avoid). I want people to see my new tattoo and know I got it for my father, and I am afraid that if I get a rainbow tattoo they won't think that. But I don't want to get a heart with "Daddy" in it. It has to be meaningful. I'm still playing with the idea, but I go home for Molly's NINETEEN BIRTHDAY! on September 21, which is when I was planning on getting the tattoo. But these things can't be rushed.

I'm watching All About Eve and LOLing at Bette Davis, she's such a loon. She's too serious about everything in such a not-at-all serious kind of way. I'm pretty envious of the ability to be serious/but not at the same time, everyone either thinks I'm completely insane and always running in circles like a deranged person or I'm overly serious. There has to be an even medium, but I don't think there is with me.

I've got so much going through my head right now that it's craziness. And I should be reading Phillis Wheatley, and although I think her poetry is astonishing, I have had no time to myself at all today. This is my first free moment. God.

I see myself going crazy and or never sleeping and or both in the very near future. Perhaps tonight? We'll see.

The Harvey Milk movie looks fabulous, can't wait to see it.

I need to read, but I'd rather be running around outside in the puddles. Gahh!!

For What It's Worth

The madre is coming for a visit today (a four hour drive total, bless her heart) and we're going to go out to late lunch and have a good time.

But I had to degay my room, which means I had to hide the rainbow flag, the poster of the girls sucking face, and loose the key chain that says "my parents told me I could be anything, so I became a lesbian."

When I am home, I have to act not gay. I don't act straight (I never really acted straight except when I was trying desperately to convince myself and everyone around me that I was straight, but that subsided sometime between the eighth grade and sophomore year) around anyone. I never talk about my crushes around my mom, or tell her how hurt I am when I am treated differently (something happened that I may or may not talk about in a coming post) or tell her what it's like to be me, really. Being me is great, I love who I am and how far I have come. I love life and everything about it, and I'm a lot healthier and happier than I've ever been as a result of my out-ness.

I just wish I could tell her. It hurts so much to feel like I'm hiding a huge part of who I am from her, from the person I used to be the closest to in the whole world. Ever since my father died it has been the madre and I, just the two of us putting our lives back together. I want so badly for her to know that I'm gay, and for her to not care at all. I'm not just gay, just like I'm not just a Christian, a college student, from the East Coast, the child of a single mother, the child of immigrants and Native Americans, of explorers and farmers. I'm just me, and I'm worth everything in the world, just like you. I want to be worth as much to the world as I know I am to me.

And I Pointed My Dreams North

Packing sucks.

My room started out the summer looking rather like a storage closet, with everything I know piled up all over the place. Getting from the door to the bed or the closet quickly became impossible. I basically lived out of laundry hampers all summer, and never really gave a second thought to having to move back to school.

And here it is, the Friday before I go back, and piled all around me are boxes of clothes, sweatshirts for the Massachusetts winter, baskets filled with God only knows what, pens and pencils, computer stuff, instruments, a cat and a dog.

I wish they could come with me. Kitty has placed herself in the box for my desktop, and scrunched herself down so she is just peering over the edge and watching me type. She knows I'm going again, and she knows I'm probably going for a long time. It's hard to leave your best friends behind. Like most things in life, I wish they could comprehend how very much I love them.

Puppy is laying with her paws under her chin and looking up at me with her big brown eyes. She looks pretty pathetic, I'll admit. If I could find room for them in one of the bins and hide them away in my dorm, I so would. But they are happy here, where they are room to roam around, and all the treats and love an animal could ever dream of. They certainly aren't lacking for anything.

But it will be hard for them when I'm not here to go swimming on warm afternoons with Puppy, or lay in the sun with Kitty on my chest, or hold them both close when there is a storm. The three of us get along pretty swell. They grew up together in many ways. They're always growing up with me, and I was there to watch them grow up.

The madre and I will be happy to part ways for a while. She has her life and I have mine. When they intersect for too long a period of time, we tend to argue a lot. There are so many things about me that she doesn't know, and as I get older the things she doesn't know build and build, until eventually I feel as though we're strangers here. Strangers sharing a house, sharing a family, sharing a town and a little life we created. And yet, she is the person who understands me the best in the world. The silence between us isn't defeaning, it's a silence of understanding. We both know each other, but at the same time we understand that there are things about the other person that don't need to be discussed. The mystery in our relationship is good and healthy, for the time being.

I'm sure somewhere in her heart and in her mind she knows. She watched me grow up, she watched me struggle when being a tomboy wasn't okay anymore. She was there for every boyfriend, every failed relationship.

I remember driving in the car with her after I had recently broken up with some little boy. I think it was the seventh grade. I said to her "Mom, I don't think I can date one boy," and I tried desperately to articulate how I was feeling at the time. I always felt lost and confused, like all the girls were dating boys so I should do the same. No one ever even told me that how I was feeling was normal and okay, maybe it wasn't normal and okay. I had no idea that feeling the way I did was just the beginnings of trying to figure out who I was.

Being a kid is so hard. If everyone was just born a girl, or born a boy, and that was that everything would be so much simpler. But people aren't born that way. There is no ideal girl or ideal boy, and there never was. We're all different, whether it is due to nature or nurturing. Why can't people just accept us as we are?

Why couldn't someone just tell me it was okay? Why did I have to abandon who I was and who I would always be, and pretend to be someone I never was and never will be? Does society make us do this? Or do we put that pressure on ourselves?

I'm a firm believer that, at the end of the day, you and you alone are the only person in the entire world who matters. If you don't love yourself, no one can love you. How can we be expected to love ourselves if from every direction we are being told we are fundamentally wrong, we are being told that there is something wrong with us that we have no control over?

This is what I'm thinking about while I'm packing my clothes, my possessions, my memories, into boxes to be packed away in my car and hauled up to school.

It's hard to leave the ones you love behind, whether it's your dog or your cat, your mom, your friends, or the you you left behind so long ago. Some day we'll get there.

Eeeek... A MOUSE!

Not just any mouse, but the one and only MICKEY MOUSE! That's right, I'm hanging with the mouse man himself in his very own Floridian paradise, Walt Disney World.

I love Disney World, I've been coming here ever since I was 4 years old, and over the past, eight or nine years we've been coming multiple times a year. I can't even tell you how many times I've been here, I've lost count.

This is, however, the first time I've been here for Gay Days in Disney.

Actually, that's incorrect. I was here in fifth grade for Gay Days. I had a terrible sunburn (story of my very Irish life) and all I wanted to do was sit around the pool and be awesome, so I didn't really enjoy the festivities.

That's not to say I enjoyed the festivities this year, either. I did appreciate this blissful time of year more than I did when I was 10, in any event. Because we are here from June 7-14, we were only here for the last weekend. Right now Gay Days are officially over, unfortunately. But I have interesting stories.

Well really only one interesting story. My mother and I were on the bus going back to our resort from Epcot after Illuminations and a fun filled day of travel (waking up at 4:30 in the morning for a flight is no fun... but when the destination is Disney it's totally worth it). If you've ever been to Disney you know they absolutely pack the buses as full as they possibly can. It just so happens that, among the people in the jam packed bus was a group of lesbians.

Now, understand, I've been working with my mother on her gaydar skills ever since our trip to P-Town several weeks ago. She picked up on these lovely ladies right away. I was just a little intimidated of these women. One was missing a tooth, and they all looked like they went to the gym regularly. When I looked at them I imagined bar fights or wrestling matches.

So my mother, who is friendly but not very friendly at all toward strangers, strikes up a conversation with these fine women.

The girls are looking for their stop, but they can't find it. "We haven't even started drinking yet!" one of them announced. (She's my hero).

My mother asked if they were looking to go to Downtown Disney. They weren't, but then they decided that they would. She told them to go to the last bus stop and get off there and wait for a Downtown Disney bus to come by. The girls asked what we were up to. My mom said "Well I want wine but my daughter here wants beer so we're going to go up to the store and buy some beer."

"They have beer here!" one of them said, and it was decided they would all get beer at the store then go back to the bus stop and wait for the Downtown Disney bus. They were incredibly friendly and nice and I do hope they had a wonderful time at Downtown Disney. I was so exhausted as soon as I sat down on the bed I passed out, having only taken a few sips of my beer.

When we were alone later (actually it was the next morning and we were swimming around the quiet pool) I said to my mother "They were some ruther scury lookin women on the bus last night."

To which my mother responds "Oh they weren't so bad. They're people too, ya know."

Trust me, I know. I would have been intimidated by them no matter what they're orientation. The fact that they could probably tell that I am a young queerling only made me more intimidated.

Anyway I'm having a grand time down here in the Florida and will get back to posting probably on Sunday unless something amazingly extraordinary happens.

Peace out girl scout