Thursday post

Improvements... today is better than yesterday. Mom is talking to me again reluctantly which is better than nothing [she came into my room this AM before work while I was sleeping and gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me she loves me.. that's actually her way of saying I'm sorry, because I don't think I've ever heard her really apologize to me before].

My friend is still cold shouldering me on the MySpace and hasn't written back to my message asking her wtf was going on. Whatever it is I'm sure she's got her own drama going on and it's probably best I don't stick my neck out if she's looking for someone to use as a punching bag. I'm bruised enough as it is, so screw that.

I'm so past thinking that any women are rational. I don't have many chick friends and this is precisely why. They're moody and generally rather often psycho. If I am mad at you, you'll know it. I think that's called respect. When you respect someone and their friendship, you have enough balls to tell them when there is an issue and you hash it out. Maybe I'm just naive but I thought that was supposed to be a key thing in friendship - honesty. Whatev. The chick that proves to me that not all chicks are insane: Sarah. Her bullshit tolerance is as low as mine and I love that.

My other friend who lectured me on my liberalism wrote me back and said she's sorry for getting on my back and she feels very out of touch with me, and she just misses our close friendship. ::shrug:: I felt like her and I losing touch was a logical progression. She moved away, she had a kid; we're in two different places in life. When we do chat, we enjoy the conversations and i don't think either one of us feels that we'll have another one in days or even weeks. We catch up with each other every so often, and honestly, that is okay with me. We're both different than we were as kids, and understandable distance has crept in. I'm all right with that, I think.

Today I realized after much fantasizing in class, that I have a crush on the boy who sits near me in math. I got his e-mail address and am figuring after classes are over I may even have the balls to email him and admit my ridiculous crush. He's 24, used to be military (what is it with me and military guys? soo hot), is all into anime and sci fi and stuff like that (which thanks to Niles, I actually find quite endearing now), and has a great sense of humor. He'd probably admit to being nerdy, but apparently I <3>

This friend from church [who I thought was gay til he talked about his exgf the other week, hah] left me a message on MySpace telling me he missed me on Wednesday night when I ditched Starbucks night. Sometimes I feel like I don't matter at all to anyone [I know, I'm so emo, right? *kicks self*] and that I'm just kinda *there*, but for him to tell me they all missed me and people were asking where I was.. it felt really good. I guess I am not invisible. I needed that encouragement.

Tomorrow is a Math Day. My teacher started in on imaginary numbers today and made me want to throw myself off a cliff, so I figure I better work my ass off tomorrow to try to get this stuff. I'm sure imaginary numbers will be of utmost importance in my day to day life.. ::eyeroll:: I intend to make cookies and reward myself for finishing my homework with watching the Veronica Mars episode I DL'd. Yay me.

In other news, I am in love with OK Go. Thanks to CJ's recommendations, I have been listening to the song "Return" almost all day. Score. To add more randomness: Thanks to the ever awesome Niles, I spent the last 2.5 hours or so watching "Dead Like Me" and am totally in love with the show. It's hilarious, sarcastic, random, and it doesn't take itself too seriously, despite the fact it's about grim reapers. Again, score.

I'm so lame, I'm making myself sleepy with the content of my journal - Laters!

entry from yesterday, Wednesday

1. My mom for some unknown cause is not speaking to me. She went up to bed at like 7:30 and Dad told me I should go say goodnight so I was all "you awake?" and she *ignored* me - she totally wasn't sleeping because I heard her talking to my brother's girlfriend a couple minutes later.

2. My "best friend" removed me from her MySpace preferred list for her blogs and she won't tell me what I said or did to piss her off. All I'm guilty of is being someone that loves her dearly. drama, drama.

3. My dad cornered me in the kitchen and started a religion discussion with me (one sided of course). In the three seconds he allowed me to get a word in, I said that I don't think hell is a physical place where people are burning for eternity, but that it is a place where God cannot be, where you are completely seperated from God. My dad basically said that there is no scripture that says that, and I can't be a Christian and believe that, because without the threat of "consequences", there would be no need for redemption through Jesus. He said he'd show me verses that talk about the flames of hell and said there is nothing that can dispute the word of God on the subject. So, apparently, I am not really a Christian, and he is worried about me now - fantastic, eh?

4. My other "friend" (I have lots of "Friends" these days) sent me a ranting message on MySpace telling me she is concerned for me and my "liberalism". apparently, she doesn't know me anymore. Oh, and I'm racist, too. She accused me of having something against her now-husband back when they were dating because he's Mexican. The only thing I had against him was that he was doing drugs and after he knocked her up, he ended up moving them down to Kentucky to be near HIS family rather than letting her stay near hers. With the difficult pregnancy and delivery she had, she needed the support, not the psycho drama of his family. Whatever.


Add inability to sleep, insane loneliness, wretched amounts of confusing math homework (I literally spent all afternoon on today), joblessness and upcoming bills I can't pay coming due, and my period completely kicking my ass right now - to all that and you have a pretty accurate description of the shittiness that is my life.

I could go on, but I'm pretty sure that's plenty for one entry.

vindicated

where is the line
between
playing the victim
and
being the victim?

if the point in
playing the victim
is to obtain
sympathy
and
be rescued,

and there is
no sympathy
no pity
no comfort
in sight,

isn't the likely
conclusion
that you
are not
p l a y i n g
the victim,

you
a r e
the victim?

well, I am not
vindicated.

I will never claim
there is not
blood
on my hands

that I
have never
used my words
as darts

vindication
does not lie
in the knowledge
I resorted to
sharp
steeled
weapons
only when I was
nearly drowning
in a pool of my own blood

self preservation
is no excuse
but apologies are
unnecessary
immaterial
and useless
now
and the words
stick in my mouth
like rotten molasses

yes,
there is a victim here
and you can recognize that
by the scarlet
footprints
across the pavement
where I picked myself
up off the ground
and walked away
[after all,
when you are
your own savior,
the calvary
always
arrives]

why don't you
do the same
and we'll call it even?

weirdness

I just talked to my ex, Porter, [by all accounts, my first love, and the second hardest person for me to get over.. two guesses who the first is?] for the first time in probably six months. He has some social issues I think, definitely depressive problems, and is in the Army (a West Point graduate, stationed in Korea and recently moved to a station in Oklahoma. Anyway, we hashed shit up like always seems to happen, and he basically told me that our mutual friends - the group we grew up with - are "dead to him". I asked him if it's because they stopped caring or because he did. He seemed to agree when I suggested their being "dead to him" is a result of their stopping caring about him and his feeling abandoned. I asked him if I am dead to him, and he basically said he doesn't know. After a long silence, he said he is just feeling lost, and has been for years, and he doesn't know if I ever really knew him, if he ever let me in, or if every time I thought I was seeing him, I was just seeing a mask of his. He said happiness and unhappiness are both irrelevent, especially past happiness, so trying to analyze whether what we had was actually real is not worth it. I told him that when I think of loving him, I revert back to a time where I felt safer than I do now, and this was a portion of our conversation I thought I would post.

Porter: you weren't any more unhappy then than you are now
mistygardens84: I felt safer then, to be honest with you
Porter: I think uncertainty haunted your dreams like it did all of us
mistygardens84: what do you mean?
Porter: adolescent uncertainty about the future
Porter: whether or not you can cut it in the real world
mistygardens84: I'm as uncertain now as I was then
mistygardens84: and frankly, less sure I can cut it
Porter: but you care less now
Porter: we are the people we were all afraid to grow up to be
mistygardens84: back then, I truly thought something would come of my life by 22.
Porter: and it's not so bad
mistygardens84: I don't know if you get that
Porter: hey, me too
mistygardens84: I had hope. Real, true hope. and every insane life event that happens, that dies a little bit.. I lower the bar on "my dreams"
Porter: we're all raised to think we're going to be rock star scientist astronauts
Porter: we're the smartest little kids ever
mistygardens84: so we convince ourselves it doesn't fucking matter
Porter: and by the time we're 20 we're working blockbuster
Porter: and for 90% of people, that's how it goes
Porter: it's giving up that sense that you're the protagonist
Porter: that you're someone even mildly important in the scheme of things
mistygardens84: *nod*
Porter: accept and love your anonymity
Porter: embrace the mediocrity - it's life
mistygardens84: I know I don't matter but I know that there are people in my life who have mattered a lot to me. you're one of them, by the way, whether you EVER wanted to be or not.
mistygardens84: and I may never be a doctor or a lawyer or someone special, but I guess I hope someday I can be someone that matters to somebody else.
Porter: the people you'll end up mattering the most to are people you never knew you mattered to at all
Porter: before you can matter to anyone else you have to matter to yourself
Porter: otherwise what's the point?
Porter: the only value you have is the value you assign yourself


....Thoughts?

It's about the deepest convo we've had since two nights before my wedding, when we talked about life and love and he held me like he never wanted to let go (and I wished he would kiss me one last time... but I pushed him away). It's really never been the same since. I hold on still to him and want him in my life, but what he wants is to forget his entire past, forget when he was his happiest (I think because it reminds him how entirely unhappy he is now), and start over fresh in two years when he's done in the military. I almost want to just let him, but God still places him on my heart so often (like the urge to pray for him, out of nowhere) that I know he's not meant to be someone I let out of my life without a fight.

I told Porter at age fifteen that I was someone he wouldn't be able to get rid of, so just forget about it. He asked why I cared, and I told him that everyone deserves someone to care without condition and to just be there to help put the pieces together and I promised him I would always be that girl for him. Back then, the gratitude (yet bewilderment at why I'd choose to be there for HIM) I saw in his eyes was enough to reassure me that it was worth promising forever friendship. Porter is the type who refuses to need anybody these days, but should he ever come around, I do intend to be here.

::shrug::

clarifications.

I guess I just wanted to clarify why I feel the world hates Christians.

I could probably go on forever, but basically it comes down to that we say Christ is all about love and then we fail miserably at "love thy neighbor" - due to what I feel is a great number of Christians morphing that command into "judge thy neighbor." I feel that when Christians portray that kind of attitude, they give a terrible idea to people about who God is. I think that God being really alive in someone's life would lead to them being a lover of all types of people, not just the ones they agree with. I come from a family that is very judgmental and I try so hard to not become that way [although when I was typing up my post, I was really really pissed. My mom had basically told me I should be careful to not be on the same path to hell as the gays.. I was pretty angry!]. Just the other day I was commenting to my brother's gf how much I loved Brokeback Mountain, and my mom was in the room and she and my brother made some disgusting comments about what they *didn't* want to see in the movie. I told them it was a ridiculous reason to not see what I feel was a cinematic masterpiece [though plenty, I'm sure, might disagree] and my Mom said the only ridiculous thing is gay relationships. And I find that type of attitude explains pretty well why, when I tell people I go to church and/or am a Christian, I get disgusted, disapproving, shocked looks. I asked one girl at school (from math class) why she was so surprised when I told her I'm "religious" and she told me, "You just don't seem like one of THEM." I was thinking she meant I seemed heathen or something so I asked her to clarify [because I was pretty mortified at the thought] and she told me I wasn't going around telling everyone how wrong they are all the time. I honestly think that is the majority view of Christians, at least locally in the States, and it's not without reason. Many of the gay couples I've met at my ex's church have literally been pushed out of churches and/or told that they were welcome if they were willing to "be healed" of their sinful nature. I think if people like my Mom were to meet, get to know, and really hear the testimony of the homosexuals I have, she would see that her attitudes toward "them" (and many/most Christians) are destructive and generally just against what God would want. I don't feel everyone has to accept homosexuality but to ridicule or alienate gays.. well, that's beyond generally disagreeing with the lifestyle. I dunno. That's my two (or three?) cents. I don't think the world should hate Christians; I just know that, in my experiences, when I reveal my beliefs, I am met with a prevalently negative reactions.



I don't mean to be so passionate.. it's just that lately my view of the church in general has become very cynical. I'll be at a sermon about preaching God's love, and in the same sermon, the pastor will promote their "God can make those silly, confused gays straight!" healing program. I just can't reconcile it. I know that nobody is perfect. God, I know I'm not. I realize that most people only love the people that are easy to love - and that differs for everyone. I know in my heart of hearts that I have a definite prejudice towards extremely poor, and mostly ethnic (I'll admit!), people who keep having baby after baby and getting more and more money from the government for it. And this is me being VERY honest (and hoping ya'll won't think I'm a racist): Perhaps all these years of hearing come-ons yelled from the open windows of local men of Mexican descent has made me slightly prejudged towards that particular group as well. I'd like to think I am just being careful when I take my pit bull if I'm walking two blocks East of here, and as I try not to look too long at the groups of mostly Mexican men sitting on their porches eyeing me.. I know I should not label them, and I know if I do, it's out of fear. Fear from the perceived notions I have due to actions or words said/done to me in the past. But also, I'm not stupid. I know when people are flashing gang signs. They could all be the color of smurf blue and I would be just as leery of walking alone after dark with the behavior I've seen. Plus, I know when I'm being looked at like a piece of ass. Of course it's not just that particular ethnic group that looks at me like that, but I've had experiences in this neighborhood that cause me to be leery of "them". I'm willing to admit I'm far from perfect, but I am not blind to my prejudice and I'm not tolerant of my own ignorance either. If there is an unkind attitude in me toward any group that doesn't deserve it (we'll leave out people that call themselves Christians that do things like picket abortion clinics or kill abortion doctors... kill sex offenders after looking at the sex offender website.. extremists like that I have every right to be righteously angry with because they give a very distorted view of the God that I love), well, I pray that God will help me change it.

Honestly, I am finding that I am beginning to absolutely love people that are different from me. I can't get enough of other people's stories. It was so wonderful working in the counseling center and getting to be a contact person for the campus' international students. Melissa before maybe age 19 wouldn't have cared at all, because as far as I was concerned, there's not enough room in the US for Americans, much less immigrants, thanks to that belief being practically beaten into me by my dad and *especially* my grandfather. Whoa, hilariously, something on immigration just came on Fox News, which I am forced to hear often due to my dad being half-deaf and listening to it in the next room all day. Anyway, now I want to make sure whatever school I go to has a good number of international students, and if I ever do choose to go into college counseling (rather than teaching Psychology at school), I would want to be an international student counselor or advocate. At work, I found myself paging through the Latino magazine Arturo would bring in, and reading newsletters about the Muslim organization on campus.. things I never would have done until the past year or two. I am just glad to finally see some positive change in my life and my heart. It reaffirms that God is still working and God can put people in my/others paths that have the ability to change my heart and my attitudes.

Ok, seriously, I'm done ranting now. I just have to have somewhere to vent and such. Xoxo to anyone reading!