get comfortable, this is a long one.
i must begin by mentioning that i have become a bit obsessed with blogging.all of my old(not old like that, and you know it)east coast girlfriends (and i think MAH counts as a girlfriend) have blogs now, and it is a nice way to keep in touch with them, considering that i am otherwise horrible about keeping in touch. i know quite well that i am known as the girl who never calls/email back, so you can all come out from behind your fans and stop whispering. but blogging somehow seems to be doing the trick. so far i have commented on two out of four of my friends sites, and that's half way to correspondance as i see it. to put an even better spin on it, i have talked in person to the two people who's blogs i have not yet commented on in the last month (well, i will be talking to one of them in person tonight, anyway, close enough), so that's still better than my average for the last few years. but anyway, i like this thing. it makes me feel closer to people who, frankly, i have been missing lately. good stuff. and in fact, the thing i wanted to talk about tonight comes from a posting on someone else's blog. (i may not always comment, but i am often there lurking in cyberspace). MAH (short for Mister Artsy Hotpants) wrote his first blog about my oldest and dearest (bumpy spots and long distances included) friend Le Synge Bleu (what does that mean, by the way? I gave up French after highschool). Synge and I have seen each other through some pretty horrible times, and though we have certainly had our good and our bad moments, she is one of my favorite people on the planet, now and forever. MAH was waxing similarly poetic about this wonderful lady, and in doing so he noted her amazing sense of self. I agree totally (though, I have to add, because she would, don't look behind the curtain), and I must say that she is one person who has always had a very distinct and memorable presence, a real sense of being who she is, almost shamelessly so(another nod to another post). and i think this is especially true since she moved to new york, a venture she had been planning for far too long and which she boldly achieved at the end of last summer. i have been especially bad about keeping in touch with her since she moved there, but i have heard, through (often unreturned) emails and phone messsages, of her many adventures and dramas there(including lawful protests,unlawful arrest, and a strange attraction to sick men). and this holiday season, mere hours after i was successfully popped the question, we met in new york, for the first time in over a year, for celebratory cocktails. and i immediatly remembered why she is one of my favorite people. she is just so very alive and so aware. synge know her own strengths and she knows her own weaknesses. she is tremendously intelligent and curious and giving and loving and attentive. synge never holds back her emotions. at least not anymore, and for that i am so very proud of her. she has learned to stand up for herself, to be proud of, or at least not ashamed of, who she is, and it is with this revelation that i come to my rather buried point. i do not know who i am. i am really not sure at all lately. and i wonder if this has something to do with my parents. last summer, another close friend of mine, who has known me since i was a child told me that she worried that since my mom died i have been coasting, and, essentially,that she feared i was not living up to my own abilites. she told me that i was too smart and talented to be working in a box office, and she's right, monkeys could do my job(totally stoned people seem okay at it), and that is frustrating. her comments really got to me, probably because i know they're true, but i don't know what to do about it. everyone has told me how strong i am and how they would fall apart if their parents died. and i have even convinced myself that i'm that strong from time to time. but the truth is i haven't really faced it. Kristoise once assigned us all Springsteen songs, and mine was- very appropriatly- Born to Run. i've just been packing my grief away into boxes and trying not to look at it, either running away from it (two years in europe anyone?) or pretending that i'm dealing with it while trying not to with all my might. it's ironic too, that i used to chastise Synge for the same practice. well she took my advice, stopped hiding from her past, and now she's better than ever. but i didn't take my own advice. and i just feel so goddamned lost. i feel like i am trying to be a million people, for a million different reasons, but i don't know exactly who 'me' is. i feel like i spend so much time trying to impress people, trying to please people, trying to be loved, and really i'm not very good at it. not to say that no one loves me, i'm actually pretty lucky to have so many wonderful friends in my life, but i am just not good at meeting new people. my fiancee (i'll bow to pressure and use the 'f' word)J is so good at it, he's a true extrovert. he can talk to anyone, make friends anywhere. he loves people and people are drawn to him. not that i'm a total shrinking violet, i'm just very particular in who i open up to. i'm like those flowers that are called four o'clocks because they just open up and bloom fully at 4pm. i need just the right conditions to show myself fully (liquor helps). and i think that's because i'm so unsure of myself. it takes a lot for me to feel safe with people, i'm afraid they will reject me, afraid they will leave me, because my parents loved me, and they left me. i just wish i could be more brave, more confident. i am drawn to people who are. i've been thinking about it, and maybe i'm looking for excuses, but i feel like when my mom died, my confidence went with her. when she was here i felt so strong, so sure, because she told me i was amazing. she was so sure of me and so proud of me that i couldn't help but be proud of myself. and then my number one cheerleader went away, before i had learned fully how to be that for myself. and after that, since then, i have been sort of hiding out inside myself, very cautious to make friends, very cautious to show anyone who i am. J's friends all love me now, but they didn't know what to make of me at first. J always said that i should just show them the person that i showed to him and they would be sure to love me too. he said they didn't know what to make of me because i never acted like my true self around them. i have been in chicago for over five years and i really only have a few good friends to show for it. i am afraid that losing my parents, and especially losing my dad right as i was starting to recover from the shock of losing my mom, has thrown me into some sort of permanant adolescence, self-doubting and unformed.
whew. that was alot. i need to sit back and soak it in now. more later....
2 comments:
first of all, yuo made me completely sob some gut wrenching deep seated sobbery, and that's probably a good thing. (i'm still kind of a shaking messy blob of mucas, so please forgive any incoherence or omission in this comment)
orphannie, you may not open up easily (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but when you do, the treasure that is revealed makes it so very worthwhile. what makes a 4:00 flower worth waiting to see bloom, is the extraordinary beauty that's revealed when it does; the same is wholeheartedly applicable to you.
you are dealing with your grief and not running from it right now- that's what this blog is about. it doesn't matter how long you've been running (take it from an emotional evasion marathon pro), what matters is that you wrote those words- that you are knocking down walls as i write this. there's no timeline for the individual grief process...you taught me that. i cling to it preciously in my own life and now i hand it back to you to remember.
i'm still trying to reclaim and find the confidence i've lost over the course of death and tragedy- i think perhaps its a lifelong process. i think you have an amazing sense of self, whether you feel like it or not. confidence level doesn't create or invalidate a sense of self, if that were true i'd be screwed. for the record, i don't feel like i have a strong sense of who i am- i feel like i'm a crazy self-destructive freakin mess of a person constantly wandering in search of myself. and then once in a while, for completely unknown reasons, i think perhaps i do know a little of who i am; it's something that comes and goes. and i know you've had similar little moments- perhaps the power lies in remembering their validity.
do you remember the story of the oak and the reed? its my favorite fable in the world.
the oak and the reed sit side by side in the swamp. a huge tempest comes along and the reed is being tossed every which way, bending to the extremes. in the midst of this torturous hell, the reed looks over at the oak, standing tall and firm and unyeilding to the pelting rain and beating winds and the reed thinks "if only i could be like the oak. the oak is strong and standing tall and firm against the forces of nature. this is true strength. i am being tossed about and bent in unimaginable directions, i am weak. surely the oak will survive this ordeal and i will not. if only i could be like the oak." the reed how no more opportunity to look toward the oak with envy as the severity of the storm increased, but the reed held that thought in its mind throughout the horrible ordeal. as the storm finally abated, the reed was shocked to find itself still intact- not without wear and tear, mind you, but it had survived what it thought to be unsurvivable. the reed turned to share this astonishing realization with the mighty oak, and was horrified to see that the oak had been split in two and had not survived the tempest. "how could this be?" the reed thought. "the oak is so much stronger than i, so much tougher. as i was being beaten and battered and bent and the oak remained tall and firm. yet it did not survive! how could this be true? i ama weak but the oak is strong, yet it is i who have survived!" the reed came to understand that true strength is not standing staunchly and firmly through the storms of life. true strength is being bent and tossed around to the point where you think you cannot survive, and then having the courage to get back up again.
you have always been and will always be someone i look up to in some ways. you do know who you are, and the core person has not been changed or diminshed in any way. you're blossoming as i write this orphannie, and the radiance shines so brightly that it spreads all the way across the country and i can see it from ny.
one more sappy comment and then i'll go sob some more: i am so honored to know you and to be your friend. even during the bumps, i've always loved you dearly and counted you as family.
okay, i really have to go, i'm getting the computer wet.
oh, and Le Synge Bleu means the blue monkey...a little shout out to to the dead but ever present.
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