THOSE WHO SUFFER LOVE
I'm doing it slowly.
And even though it feels like I'm just pulling out the strictly material, I know it's all brewing underneath. And frankly, I'm not going to underestimate all the material. I'm just not going to, because I know what it's worth. I know that hair and makeup and things and clothes are representations of myself to myself more than representations of myself to anyone else, so I'm not afraid.
I'm going to live in Oakland for a month this summer.
Big renovations need to happen, and I know I need to be responsible for most of them, though I'll need the help of others. I think I can handle it.
I have one reservation though, and it comes towards school. Here's the thing, right- I just... Don't care. I just don't. And I know I don't, and I'm not really trying very hard to start.
You know, in the real world, no one sits around pretending to care about everything- They just care about what they care about.
It's just babysitting.
I just care about what I care about, and I care about it and love it with every single thing I have, and it's all I am. I don't really have time to pretend I don't know the rest is irrelevent. I don't have time to pretend that I don't know that it won't ruin my life, and it won't determine who I am and it won't make me any less than my peers. I've lived my whole life simply on who I am- I can't really expect to get into school or get jobs or get money or get friends any other way.
I don't know how to play games any differently than the way I know how to play them, and waiting every single day or every single week to just be over til it hits June, 2008- What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
You expect me to just wait?
I'm not dead.
And I'm not stupid.
I'll wait for what I want, but I'll fight my way through it. I don't know how to just sit around and pretend to think any of it's worthwhile. I can't really sit around and spend time with people who I don't care about and who don't care about me. What's that, you know?
I don't understand any of it. I don't understand why we aren't just allowed to go, to just do what we need to do, and be happy with it.
I don't know how to do anything but what I know how to do. I don't know how to be anyone but who I am.
I'm only worried about the immediate repurcussions of what I think I'm going to have to do. I wanted the first year living away college freshman thing so badly. I wanted to go away and have that excitement at first.
But I think I'd be living here a year longer than all my friends, "making up for lost time" in getting all the general ed done in some community college.
Maybe CCA would accept me. I have a beautiful portfolio- I will have one- and they accept GED's. I want to go there so badly. It's the only place I'm interested in, dangerous as I know that is.
I just know it's right.
I just know.
And even though it breaks my heart to think of leaving this city, I know that there is a second best. Nothing will ever beat Los Angeles. I'll move back. Everything I am is here. If there was something here, I'd take it in a second, but there just isn't. It would probably be better for me to get out for awhile anyway, you know?
But, like I said.
All this change- And I know it like I know anything else- I know it's there. I just have to find exactly the way to get there.
Despite everything I say, I still remember all the romance of places like New York. I want to go everywhere, I think, and I'd start places I dislike and don't understand first. Everything east of here confuses me, but I want to know it, face pressed to glass.
The other day I told my religion teacher that I was afraid of the elderly because everyone I've known in my entire life has spent almost all of it dying. It's not what I actually meant to say. I think it wasn't quite what I meant, but it was almost there, which is probably just as frightening.
My head's all over the place lately. I fall into such deep holes...